This week's post, 'Justicialismo', is especially on-point.
Warren notes that Peronism, which destroyed Argentina, is not simply an Argentine phenomenon. It is a perverse approach to existence that has taken hold in many lands (including ours). It's difficult to disagree with his reasoning.
Moral, intellectual, and material squalour is their chief legacy to a country which was once among the world’s most prosperous and most free. The spiritual equivalent has now migrated to Rome.
This, at least, is the impression I have formed from afar. “Justicialism,” so far as one can read, embodies every sort of rhetorical populism, across the political spectrum, but with a heavy and perfectly consistent bias towards centralized power. It stands for “social justice” — an absolutely imaginary and therefore unattainable ideal. It is on the side of labour and of management, it is Catholic and anti-Catholic, racist and anti-racist, isolationist and aggressive, leftist and rightist and dogmatically nationalist with all the contradictions nationalism entails. Yet it is not unique.
Socialism is leftwing Fascism; Fascism is rightwing Socialism. Other than that, they are the same. They vie for the same voters, and politicians may move comfortably back and forth between their symmetrical (i.e. identical) extremes. The principle underlying both is that the government should control everything, for the government’s idea of the common good. Whether the government technically owns everything is neither here nor there. Indeed, Socialism/Fascism works better, for the government, if private actors can be made to take the blame and the losses for all of the government’s goon-show mistakes. Any “excess” income on which they fall in their government-assigned monopolist stations can then be impounded.
Warren does not counsel despair, rather a creative approach to battling the disease--live like Christians.
How to resist? Not by “proposing alternatives,” which can only be
implemented from the top down, through participation in the established
political order. That has been tried, repeatedly, and has anyone noticed
it has repeatedly failed?
Rather, I think, one resists by creative personal non-cooperation: rendering justice not “socially” to the abstract mass, but individually to your neighbours. With love.
That was from the beginning the “political” genius of Christianity, which undermined dirigiste authority simply by ducking under its radar sweeps; emerging when, under its manifest contradictions, it finally and totally collapsed. Casualties — martyrdoms — must sometimes be taken, but to the ends of Heaven they are all good. Live a free Christian life, in defiance of the modernists, but without telling them.
Spread it by example.
So, OS's legions of readers ask--what does this have to do with The Donald in Nashville?
A lot, actually.
OS reserved tickets for the rally, but life intervened, and he had to offer his spots to others. It was for the best, as the lines for the 6:30 pm rally began to form before dawn outside Nashville's Municipal Auditorium. Thousands stood in blustery winds in 35 degree temps all day for the opportunity to enter for the rally, and cheer for Their President.
OS is not in good enough shape for that--getting there, but not yet--and Mrs. OS does not deserve a sick husband. But he watched the RSBN feed of the cheerful crowds, and then the breathless coverage by local CBS affiliate WTVF of the group of a hundred or so angry protestors, manipulated to appear much larger than reality. The constant attempt to paint Trump's Deplorables as an angry rabble just do not pass the laugh test. These folks are, in their own quiet cheerful way, following Warren's advice--living their lives caring for one another, staying as far below the radar as possible, and when given the opportunity, cheering their lungs out for a President who declares he has their back.
The Donald's visit to Andrew Jackson's grave was a Big Deal, as Jackson has become the target of much vitriol from Duh' Left. By publicly embracing Jackson, while acknowledging he had some genuine shortcomings (which are undeniable), he signaled that he does not believe that we must be perfect in order to be effective and good; that Jackson did much that makes our life possible today, and he was willing to be wrong at times to make this happen. Just like The Donald. He endorsed Jackson (aka Old Hickory) as a model to emulate, in the good ways, and also an example to avoid in the bad. Of course, the local leftist press was Not Happy, attempting to blunt the effect of the event before it occurred. The thousands waiting in the cold were the best response, as always, to the warm/insured/comfortable/arrogant Great and Good Who Know Better Than All Those Little People.
A final anecdote: Nashville/Davidson county is ringed by a road known as Old Hickory Boulevard--which creates no end of confusion for newcomers, but that's another tale. OS treated Mrs. OS to Thai food at one of their favorite haunts on the western leg of OHB. OS noticed another couple at a nearby table--assumption of husband and wife here--and the lovely lady was dressed in layers with a Trump-Pence shirt visible. OS asked--did you attend the rally? Both answered 'Yes! Why didn't you go? We had such fun!' Chattered on a bit, and then OS posed the question, as the wife was a beautiful black lady, and the adoring husband a white guy, both in their early 30's: It's obvious that it may be a bit of a surprise to see a black lady dressed up like you are. She laughed, and husband chimed in--'It gets better'! Lady beams--'I am an immigrant from Kenya on the path toward citizenship, and I love Donald Trump!' OS sez--you are a legal immigrant, then? 'Yes!' she replies, and beams again. OS recounts that his family and circle of friends are replete with legal immigrants, shakes her hand, and blurts out: 'Welcome to America, ma'am!'
The Peronistas of America simply are wrong, dead wrong, about the culture and nation they attempt to manage, by hook or crook. There is great hope out there, embodied in those folks waiting on the sidewalk, in that couple at the table.
Andy Jackson, Old Hickory, warts and all, would be happy to see this day.
Rather, I think, one resists by creative personal non-cooperation: rendering justice not “socially” to the abstract mass, but individually to your neighbours. With love.
That was from the beginning the “political” genius of Christianity, which undermined dirigiste authority simply by ducking under its radar sweeps; emerging when, under its manifest contradictions, it finally and totally collapsed. Casualties — martyrdoms — must sometimes be taken, but to the ends of Heaven they are all good. Live a free Christian life, in defiance of the modernists, but without telling them.
Spread it by example.
So, OS's legions of readers ask--what does this have to do with The Donald in Nashville?
A lot, actually.
OS reserved tickets for the rally, but life intervened, and he had to offer his spots to others. It was for the best, as the lines for the 6:30 pm rally began to form before dawn outside Nashville's Municipal Auditorium. Thousands stood in blustery winds in 35 degree temps all day for the opportunity to enter for the rally, and cheer for Their President.
OS is not in good enough shape for that--getting there, but not yet--and Mrs. OS does not deserve a sick husband. But he watched the RSBN feed of the cheerful crowds, and then the breathless coverage by local CBS affiliate WTVF of the group of a hundred or so angry protestors, manipulated to appear much larger than reality. The constant attempt to paint Trump's Deplorables as an angry rabble just do not pass the laugh test. These folks are, in their own quiet cheerful way, following Warren's advice--living their lives caring for one another, staying as far below the radar as possible, and when given the opportunity, cheering their lungs out for a President who declares he has their back.
The Donald's visit to Andrew Jackson's grave was a Big Deal, as Jackson has become the target of much vitriol from Duh' Left. By publicly embracing Jackson, while acknowledging he had some genuine shortcomings (which are undeniable), he signaled that he does not believe that we must be perfect in order to be effective and good; that Jackson did much that makes our life possible today, and he was willing to be wrong at times to make this happen. Just like The Donald. He endorsed Jackson (aka Old Hickory) as a model to emulate, in the good ways, and also an example to avoid in the bad. Of course, the local leftist press was Not Happy, attempting to blunt the effect of the event before it occurred. The thousands waiting in the cold were the best response, as always, to the warm/insured/comfortable/arrogant Great and Good Who Know Better Than All Those Little People.
A final anecdote: Nashville/Davidson county is ringed by a road known as Old Hickory Boulevard--which creates no end of confusion for newcomers, but that's another tale. OS treated Mrs. OS to Thai food at one of their favorite haunts on the western leg of OHB. OS noticed another couple at a nearby table--assumption of husband and wife here--and the lovely lady was dressed in layers with a Trump-Pence shirt visible. OS asked--did you attend the rally? Both answered 'Yes! Why didn't you go? We had such fun!' Chattered on a bit, and then OS posed the question, as the wife was a beautiful black lady, and the adoring husband a white guy, both in their early 30's: It's obvious that it may be a bit of a surprise to see a black lady dressed up like you are. She laughed, and husband chimed in--'It gets better'! Lady beams--'I am an immigrant from Kenya on the path toward citizenship, and I love Donald Trump!' OS sez--you are a legal immigrant, then? 'Yes!' she replies, and beams again. OS recounts that his family and circle of friends are replete with legal immigrants, shakes her hand, and blurts out: 'Welcome to America, ma'am!'
The Peronistas of America simply are wrong, dead wrong, about the culture and nation they attempt to manage, by hook or crook. There is great hope out there, embodied in those folks waiting on the sidewalk, in that couple at the table.
Andy Jackson, Old Hickory, warts and all, would be happy to see this day.
