A good meatspace friend of mine has started a blog called Castle Saint John. I highly recommend you guys check it out. It’s definitely still in the early stages but I am confident that ‘thebaron73’ will turn out to make a valuable contribution to the reactionary blogosphere. I am especially looking forward to reactionary works on masculinity that dont necessarily result from an attempt to baptise PUA techniques and insights, however valuable those might be.
Recently, Coronation Street star Michael Le Vell (whom I had not previously heard of) was accused, and subsequently cleared, of several charges of child sexual abuse, including rape and indecent assault. According to the accuser, who could not be named, Mr Le Vell raped her several times over nine years, starting when she was six. I did not follow the case while it was in progress (in fact, I hadn’t heard of it till it was over), but I’ve reviewed several news reports now and consider myself reasonably well-informed on the basic facts.
After hearing claims that Mr Le Vell had raped her ‘while she clutched a teddy bear’ and ‘held another teddy bear over her mouth’, and that he had told her during the rape that he was ‘going to get the evil out’ and that if she told anyone about it ‘you’ll die and the evil will come over you’, the jury decided that the accuser’s testimony was inconsistent. Additionally, it appears that there were no other witnesses, there was no DNA evidence, and the victim had not sustained any injuries (unusual in a child rape). In short, in the jury’s opinion, and mine, the alleged rape did not take place.
That wasn’t the first concern on the minds of Twitter feminists, however:
A Twitter user named @RadicalRosa, who has since been suspended, claimed that men rape women ‘every day in an abstract sense’ and therefore that Le Vell should go to jail whether he in fact raped his accuser or not. She was the most dramatic (probably why she was suspended), but the Feminist Twitter Brigade in general was quite active. Here are some highlights:
As you can see, a whole hashtag, ‘#ibelieveher’, was created for this idiocy.
I’m not really sure what I am supposed to say to this, to be honest. I would have been against feminism in any time; I agree with Queen Victoria (hat tip to Anarcho-Papist) that ‘a good whipping’ would probably do some good. But modern feminism is simply absurd, in a way previous ‘waves’ were not; at least, they didn’t show it as clearly.
Rejecting the presumption of innocence. This is Trayvon Martin all over again. It is becoming increasingly clear that in a progressive utopia, the outcome of court cases would be decided based on group identity, not evidence, and the goal would not be to protect the innocent or punish the guilty, but to ‘stick it to the man’. This kind of mob justice is truly a frightening prospect. And if we are not already at the point where it will be enforced, we will be soon.
Needless to say, I do not ‘#believeher’.
Dear Reader,
This blog has been inactive for almost a month. I have some excuse, as I was in Europe for two weeks of that. I have no good excuse for not posting in the last two weeks, though, and that is a situation I intend to rectify, starting today and continuing, I think, with a later post comparing Islam and Protestantism.
Today, however, I’d like to talk about Pope Francis. After his Angelus yesterday, the Holy Father had this to say:
Vorrei rivolgere un saluto ai musulmani del mondo intero, nostri fratelli, che da poco hanno celebrato la conclusione del mese di Ramadan, dedicato in modo particolare al digiuno, alla preghiera e all’elemosina. Come ho scritto nel mio Messaggio per questa circostanza, auguro che cristiani e musulmani si impegnino per promuovere il reciproco rispetto, specialmente attraverso l’educazione delle nuove generazioni.
Interestingly, I was not able to find this document in English, so I have taken the liberty of translating the text myself. Hopefully my Italian is up to snuff, as I am reasonably confident that it is.
I would like to send a greeting to the Muslims of the whole world, our brothers, who recently celebrated the conclusion of the month of Ramadan, dedicated particularly to fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. As I wrote in my Message for the Present Circumstance, I hope that Christians and Muslims commit to promoting mutual respect, especially through the education of new generations. (Emphasis mine)
This is a deeply disturbing statement, but sadly unsurprising coming from Pope Francis. This is the same Pope who said that ‘because of our common roots’ ‘a true Christian cannot be anti-Semitic’.
There is simply no excuse for the head of the world’s largest Christian Church to be addressing followers of any religion that denies the Triune God and Our Lord Jesus Christ as ‘brothers’, but to do it to followers of the religion currently leading the pack as the foremost persecutors of Christians should be unimaginable.
If I receive the Holy Eucharist from a bishop who is out of communion with my own, I place myself in communion with him and break communion with my bishop. It seems to me obvious that likewise, if Pope Francis wishes to be the ‘brother’ of the world’s Moslems he must surrender any claim to the brotherhood of the world’s Christians.
The Ummah is the premier existential enemy of Christendom, at least if we exclude those domains that claim to be non-religious. All over the Arab world, we have seen in recent years a resurgence of Islam as a political ideology, even more than before, and the result has been the death of countless Christians.
The Pope of Alexandria may have to appease Moslems to keep his flock from being burned alive; the Pope of Rome has no such excuse.
If the Mahometans are Pope Francis’s brothers, then with respect, he is not mine.
| Dear reader,
This is my first attempt to post by email at the Avenging Red Hand. Somebody needs to poke me to get me to keep reading Locke before I leave for Europe. It’s a slog, but he needs to be refuted. On another note, I’m in Indiana, waiting to depart for Europe on Tuesday. Today I attended the Divine Liturgy at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity in Carmel. I did not know before I went that today is the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council. Blessed feast to all. Fr. Nabil gave a good sermon, mourning the schism but emphasizing the need to cling fast to the Faith in all its details. I wonder how the Copts and Ethiopians at my home parish felt. I don’t have all that much of substance for you today, I fear, except my well wishes on this feast and the assurance that I am still progressing, even if slowly, on the great work of refuting Locke that I have set before myself. Keep the Faith, everyone, and God Bless. –The Avenging Red Hand Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPad |
Yes, I’m still here. I’ve been reading, though less quickly than I’d like, Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. I’m about half done and will begin the work of their systematic refutation when finished.
Other than that, this is what I’m reading at the moment:
St. Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite, by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos:
A little off my usual political topics, but quite interesting so far. I’ve been perplexed by the essence-energies distinction since I first heard of it and my parish priest recommended this book to me. As of yet it has only been a hagiography of St Gregory and his theology has not been discussed but I’m only a chapter or two into it.
The Outline of Sanity, by G.K. Chesterton
Actually, I just resumed this one, after far too long without making any progress in it. There are a lot of good ideas in here. It doesn’t really line up with much of anything ‘neoreactionary’, but as I’m a paleoreactionary that doesn’t bother me overly much. I think reactionaries could use a bit of Chesterton’s back-to-the-land traditionalism; sometimes on the neoreactionary side of things I think reactionaries get a bit dry and technocratic.
Yes, my reading list is shorter than last time. For next time I hope to add I’ll Take My Stand, which has been sitting on my shelf for a while now.
This post has been short, but that was the intent. I just want to keep this thing alive, as it were, until I finish the Treatises and can get down to the real work.
Today we see the power of evil. The might of evil is revealed. We know that the resurrection is coming. We know that Christ will defeat death. We know that Christ will defeat evil and hatred and sin and will grant remission of sins and life eternal. But today – this one day – is filled with evil. This day is filled with darkness. Our church calendar has many red-lettered days. We commemorate many very gruesome events. The early Christian martyrs – and even in recent times – not only died and were not only killed for the Faith, they were tortured and put to a much painful and gruesome death. But there is only one day in the church year that is filled with darkness and is all black and all night.
But in the might and power of the evil which reigns over this day, is revealed its…
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…but you should watch it.
