THE LOST SOUL AND THE CROWNED CHRIST

by Andy Nowicki

The alienated soul, of whom I have felt compelled to write of much lately, is one who recognizes the contemporary modern liberal Zeitgeist for the trussed-up sham that it is, yet at the same time can’t seem to will himself to believe in anything beyond this monstrous Moloch which looms so ubiquitously in his midst and bestrides him like a Colossus everywhere he goes.

That he despises this dreadful buggering beast is a given; he’ll be God-damned if he’ll ever be bullied into “loving Big Brother,” like that pussy Winston Smith in 1984 (or so he thinks to himself, bucking his spirit up temporarily with sheer self-generated buoyant bravado).

THE WEAPONIZATION OF TRADITIONALISM

by Duns Scotus

Back in 1983 at a meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, US President Ronald Reagan made his famous “Empire of Evil” speech. Considering its content and its audience, it was a clever and effective speech, and it hit the Russians harder than they realized at the time. In fact it sucker punched them.

The reason for its unexpected impact is that during the long-running stand-off between Russia and the West, dating back to “The Great Game” of the 19th-century, when Britain had played the main Occidental role, Russia had been perpetually playing “catch up.” This was, of course, in the natural state of things, as sea powers tend to be more mercurial and innovative than land powers.

As the West industrialized, so Russia had to industrialize; as the West moved into East Asia, so Russia had to make similar efforts; as the West developed (organically) a materialistic, democratic, scientific ethos, so Russia had to (ideologically) impose one. Western advances in weapons and technology were also matched, so that by the 1960s and 70s, Russia started to feel that maybe there was the chance of the roles being reversed and the West forced into the catch up position.

TOTALITARIAN PANSIES

by Andy Nowicki

In his hilarious, horrifying, and profoundly insightful short book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis assumes the persona of a mid-level administrative demon in Hell instructing his cousin, a guardian Devil on Earth, in the myriad ways to steer his client down the slick and well-trod road to damnation. At one point, the infernal bureaucrat narrator exults at just how cleverly demonic propagandists have trained the foolish humans to be on guard against the very type of wrongdoing that is least likely to happen in a given era’s Zeitgeist:

"The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic… Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants, we make Liberalism the prime bogey."

Currently, a fashionable outcry has arisen in chic circles against the sadly ubiquitous phenomenon known as “bullying.” While many people are, no doubt, sincerely opposed to wanton acts of cruelty and humiliation by the strong and well-placed against the weak and vulnerable, one must nevertheless be aware that taking a political stand against bullying is, at best, a bland, empty gesture, much like opposing drunk-driving, homelessness, child abuse, or pollution; worse, it is quite often a brazenly fraudulent stance, since bullies as such are in reality not the true target of most contemporary “anti-bullying” campaigns. Instead, certain political interest groups have hit upon the idea of characterizing their opponents as ipso facto “bullies,” simply because they have the temerity to oppose what is so obviously right and true (gay marriage, legalized abortion, or some other ideological hobbyhorse), which can only be a result of hateful and repugnant motives, the same kind of mean senior football jock to steal a puny ninth-grader’s lunch money and shove him in his locker.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

by Andy Nowicki

In the aftermath of George W. Bush appointee Judge Vaughn Walker's utterly predictable decree to overturn Proposition 8 in California, conservative judicial scholars are preparing to take the fight to the Supreme level.

They are no doubt combing over the wording in the 138-page decision with magnifying glass in hand, underlining and circling words and phrases, selecting where they think Walker's argument is most vulnerable to legal critique.

Meantime, as this showdown looms, most of politically-engaged Red State America continues to do what it does best: fret, fulminate angrily, write dour letters to newspapers about the impending end of marriage, and solemnly hold up homemade magic marker-scrawled signs at Tea Party rallies.

As a paleocon duly opposed to state-sanctioned homosexual so-called "marriage," I find all of this Sturm und Drang tiresome, headache-inducing, and, well ... totally gay.