Everything's A Miracle!

 I come home from work one evening some years ago. It's a Monday in February, it's cold, the sky's gray and the trees are bare, and I've had a trying day at the office. As I put my key in the side door, I can see my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter waiting for me on the landing through the window.

It wasn't unusual for her to come to the door to greet me. On this day, though, she's really excited about something. She's jumping up and down in place! I open the door and she can't wait to tell me the news.

"Daddy! Daddy! Red bird! Fence! Fly away!"

She grabs me by the hand and escorts me to her bedroom window. There on the fence enclosing our humble backyard, in the middle of a dreary Michigan winter, a cardinal landed. Then it flew away.

Everything's a miracle. Sometimes you just have to look at the world through a child's eyes to remind yourself of it.

Let's Make Gaza Dresden Again!

The "Good War" mythology surrounding World War II has done much to sanitize and mainstream state terrorism. At least, when the "right" state terrorists--e.g., the U.S. and Israel--perpetrate it. 

It stands to reason former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin invoked Dresden when he urged the IDF to flatten Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7th attacks on The Only Democracy In The Middle East (TM). Ideas have consequences. The ends do in fact justify the means--so long as the proper parties inflict those means on the proper improper parties.

No, the ends don't justify the means in my (deontological) book . But what do I know? I'm a benighted Medieval obscurantist. The utilitarians rule the roost.

Deontology be damned, we're all operationalists now. Does it "work"? That's all that matters.

The Amish are a Hate Group!

In-group preference is perfectly acceptable when exercised by Israelis, Saudis, Japanese, Chinese, Singaporeans, and Zimbabweans, among others. It's self-preservation when they do it. It's only racist-Nazi-xenophobic when practiced by a Euro-Christian, or Euro-Post-Christian, tribe.

There exists a clan of White Supremacists who have fallen through the social-justice cracks nonetheless. Let's take a look at them.

Blood? Check. Soil? Check. Family? Check. Tradition? Check. Christianity? Check. Community? Check. Ethnic purity? Check. Separatism? Check.

Separatism puts it mildly. We're talking total border control! Not enforced by mere ICE agents, but rather by notoriously Spartan living standards. These serve only to cement their racial and religious superiority! Throw in homeschooling, rabid anti-vaxxism, midwifery, traditional farming, raw milk-trafficking, and opposition to the permanent U.S. regime to Americanize the globe via humanitarian bombing.

But wait. There's more.

Their Scriptures are written in German! That's right! German! The language of Schicklgruber himself!

See? I told you the Amish are a hate group.