This is How You Lose an Election and Love Your Country – Hershel Walker Edition

Hershel Walker’s concession speech in his loss to Raphael Warnock for the GA Senate seat.

Donald Trump and Doug Mastriano could learn something from Hershel Walker. This is the best thing I have heard from Walker. This is how you love your country.

“I want you to believe in America, and continue to believe in the Constitution, and I especially want you to believe in our elected officials and pray for them.”

Amazing.

Matt Walsh Owns Himself

Isn’t this what is called a self-own?

Well, Matt, who will decide who is competent and informed? Judging by your tweets, I don’t think you are informed so, sorry, no vote for you.

Conservative gadfly Walsh is accused of racism because his suggestion has been used before for racist intent. Literacy and competency tests were used beginning after the Civil War to exclude blacks from voting. Whites judged the answers to ridiculous questions (see some examples here) with the transparent purpose to keep blacks from voting. Walsh deserves all the ridicule he gets.

 

V.P. Pence’s Visit to First Baptist Church in Dallas: How Not to Do Church During a Pandemic

Buzzfeed News is reporting this morning what I wanted to report last week but couldn’t verify: Prior to V.P. Mike Pence’s visit to First Baptist Church in Dallas on Sunday, there was an outbreak of COVID-19 among the church’s orchestra and choir. I had heard this from two twitter accounts but could not get primary source verification, so I didn’t run with it.

Buzzfeed reporters were able to get that confirmation and went with the story today. The video of the event shows that the choir was singing and the orchestra was playing without masks. The congregation was close together and the only real precautions were taken by Pence. You don’t need to watch the whole video to see what I mean:

 

Texas is experiencing a scary surge in cases and V. P. Pence should have shown leadership by canceling his appearance and urging Robert Jeffress to hold an online event. Just last week, in neighboring Arkansas, fellow evangelical Governor Asa Hutchinson told the public that the churches who are not experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks are the ones using masks and social distancing. He identified by name nine churches on a naughty list of churches which had not been following guidelines and thus experiencing more cases of COVID-19.

Jeffress’ church was a clinic in how not to do things. Singing and playing wind instruments are effective ways of spreading a virus. The congregation was not spaced properly and it appears not all were wearing masks. Given that some of the orchestra members have been infected (although none of those members were there), it is possible that some of the orchestra members playing that Sunday had been exposed in prior rehearsals.

While it appears that most church leaders are trying to take COVID-19 seriously, I don’t see how it helps to have so-called leaders disregard best practices. I have been tracking church outbreaks for just over a month and it is starting to get a little hard to keep up with. I count 48 churches as of this writing. As the pandemic enlarges in the U.S., it may be difficult to keep a complate count.

In any case, having church as normal can be a super spreading event and leaders need to heed best practices while still caring for their flocks.

Is There a Pro-Life Call to Death?

My title question is odd. I know it. However, it occurred to me as I considered two offerings from ostensibly pro-life sources. One is an interview with Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick; the other a truly stunning article in First Things by editor R.R. Reno.

Let me start with Reno’s ode to death. Reno quarrels with N.Y. Governor Andrew Cuomo for his zeal to — of all things — save a life. Reno complains:

At the press conference on Friday announcing the New York shutdown, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “I want to be able to say to the people of New York—I did everything we could do. And if everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.”

This statement reflects a disastrous sentimentalism. Everything for the sake of physical life? What about justice, beauty, and honor? There are many things more precious than life. And yet we have been whipped into such a frenzy in New York that most family members will forgo visiting sick parents. Clergy won’t visit the sick or console those who mourn. The Eucharist itself is now subordinated to the false god of “saving lives.”

“The false god of ‘saving lives”? Where am I? I thought I was reading First Things.

As it turns out, I was reading First Things which then turned into Worst Things. Reno follows up with gems like:

There is a demonic side to the sentimentalism of saving lives at any cost.

In our simple-minded picture of things, we imagine a powerful fear of death arises because of the brutal deeds of cruel dictators and bloodthirsty executioners. But in truth, Satan prefers sentimental humanists.

Just so, the mass shutdown of society to fight the spread of COVID-19 creates a perverse, even demonic atmosphere.

Reno is not happy that the Governor is taking extreme measures to limit the spread of the virus. Apparently, saving lives at the cost of temporary restrictions on social gatherings and corporate worship is too high a price for Reno. In Reno’s view, putting others ahead of self is no longer noble altruism but rather demonic sentimentality.

There is a lot wrong with this article, including some faulty history. In it, Reno says Americans during the Spanish Flu epidemic took no social distancing measures as we are doing now.

Their reaction was vastly different from ours. They continued to worship, go to musical performances, clash on football fields, and gather with friends.

To the contrary, it is well documented that the leaders in St. Louis shut down schools, theaters, and other establishments to keep the flu from spreading. Leaders in other cities, such as Philadelphia, did not, and the population of that city suffered more deaths and disease as a result. People lived in St. Louis because of those decisions. We should learn from their experience.

Reno ends with his version of “Don’t Fear the Reaper:”

Fear of death and causing death is pervasive—stoked by a materialistic view of survival at any price and unchecked by Christian leaders who in all likelihood secretly accept the materialist assumptions of our age.

While I understand that we are not to fear death, I am stunned that Reno says the fear of “causing death” is “stoked” by materialism. I absolutely should avoid causing the death of another. If I should not fear causing another’s death, then there is no basis for a pro-life movement at all. I can’t believe Reno actually thought this through.

On this very point, now consider the Lt. Gov. of Texas Dan Patrick

It sure seems like he’s saying that granny and granddad are expendable if the economy would be better off by putting their lives at risk. The tweet below says it well.

If demonic materialism is making an appearance in 2020, it is in the suggestion that the old and physically vulnerable are expendable. If the economy suffers too much, the weak have to die. According to Reno, we can’t worry about “causing death;” in fact, it is demonic to worry about it.

Remember when conservatives falsely claimed that Obama wanted to kill grandma via death panels? There were no death panels in the Affordable Care Act, but conservatives used the threat of the government deciding to ration care to the young and away from grandparents to bash ACA. Now, conservative are embracing the idea.

These assertions are moments of clarity and require us to reassert the fundamental dignity of all people, even those who are old, weak, and without stock portfolio.

After I wrote this, I came across this tweet from the indefatigable Hunter Crowder.

Perhaps, my readers can help him. I have been around these parts awhile and I can’t think of any articles like that.

Richard Willmer: View from the UK Parliament Protests

UK reader Richard Willmer took the streets last week to protest the suspension of Parliament by prime minister Boris Johnson. In response to my request, he consented to provide a brief word from the street. Thanks to Richard and I wish good things to the defenders of democracy and immigrants.

Defending democracy; defending immigrants

Last week, the UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, asked the Queen to prorogue (i.e, suspend) the UK Parliament for five weeks.  In accordance with convention, the Queen ‘did as she was told’ and agreed to the suspension.  Many are very unhappy about this, seeing it at an attack on our constitutional order, and thus democracy itself.  Small-scale public protest got underway immediately, and the first big gathering of protestors took place last Saturday, August 31st.

The last time I attended a large protest rally was in February 2003, in the run-up to the military adventure in Iraq.  Last week, it was time for me to get back on the street.

The protest was a peculiarly British affair, with lots of people saying “excuse me” to each other as they sought to find their spot in the crowd, and the chanting was all rather gentle in its way.  But the main message from the speakers was clear: democracy is not something that is handed to us ‘on a plate’ by those with power; rather it is something for which ordinary folk must strive and, if necessary, engage in civil disobedience and direct action.  One speaker had voted Leave in EU referendum in 2016, but deplored what he saw as the undemocratic manner in which the Government was seeking to carry it out, and the impact that leaving without a deal could have on those who have come from other European countries to live and work in (and contribute to) the UK.  Another speaker was the daughter of an immigrant from Franco’s Spain.  She told us that her mother had warned her that, if fascism came to England, it would be served with tea and cake and honeyed words, and paternalistic assurances that the removal of our freedoms would be good for us, while those around us who did not ‘fit the bill’ would quietly disappear.

Many political perspectives and agendas were represented; some press reports understandably questioned the coherence of the ‘message’.  But, from what I could see, there was certainly one thing that united us all: a desire to defend the rights, and the personal honour, of immigrants, be they from Europe or elsewhere.

At the end of the rally, we were told to “look out for each other”; it reminded me that if one is concerned for one’s own freedom, one should work to defend the freedom of others.

Richard Willmer