What follows was supposed to be a comment. Then I read again the beginning of that last paragraph I wrote.
@Julie
AOC makes me want to cry, I find her behavior pitiful, She is so obsessed with identity politics she cannot stop to marvel that anyone would so generously devote his life to serving others. Instead, she tries to arouse envy. Father Damien was a white male. So, he is automatically hateable? Apparently.
Ephesians 6 tells us how to stand against Satanic forces. How? It tells us about who we stand with, not about the things we stand against. We stand in the certainty of God’s truth, the righteousness of God, His gospel of peace, our faith in Him, the knowledge He brings salvation, and the wisdom He has bestowed upon us with His word.
Confronted with the armor of God, Satan flees, and AOC is just another blind soul who needs our prayers. She doesn’t know what she cannot see. We can only pray that she will see, realize her shame and repent.
Meanwhile, as you did, we can repeat the truth about Father Damien. When people like AOC condemn such as Father Damien, they remind us of why a statue like the one that memorializes Father Damien stands in the capitol. Once upon a time, Christians did not hide from the victims of disease or poverty or crime. The Christians who proceeded us risked much to care for the less fortunate, even those who were sick with dreaded diseases. AOC just frivolously spends other people’s money. When we compare her life to Father Damien’s, instead of a bright and shining life on hill, all we see is the wispy, dark and inky blackness of a dank swamp, for she behaves like a swamp creature.
I find consolation in the one and only friend who will never leave me,
that is, our Divine Saviour in the Holy Eucharist…
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the most tender of friends with souls
who seek to please Him.
His goodness knows how to proportion itself to the smallest of His creatures
as to the greatest of them.
Be not afraid then in your solitary conversations, to tell Him of your miseries,
your fears, your worries, of those who are dear to you, of your projects,
and of your hopes. Do so with confidence and with an open heart.”
St. Damien of Molokai (1840 – 1889)
(Father Damien shortly before his death in 1889)
I don’t know…
can you hear the rising anger in my voice????
If not—I can speak louder.
I want to scream at the top of my lungs…“YOU ARROGANT IDIOT!!!”
But calling someone an…
View original post 836 more words
Citizen Tom 
A post a while back on Slatestarcodex (who has reopened his site since the promised doxxing by the NYTimes has not been forthcoming, likely due to the backlash of thousands…thank you thousands) entitled “toxoplasmosis” addressed this phenomenon, though not AOC specifically.
The problem is the negative incentive gradient that rewards outrageously controversial political stands/statements even while destroying the credibility of the people making the assertions.
Examples are legion, but AOC pretty much epitomizes this principle.
Last video clip I saw, after making a statement about Latinos being black she looked like she was wearing makeup five shades too dark (the contrast with her old image was striking and obvious).
She’s the epitome of everything wrong with perverse incentives.
I’m kind of curious why she kept the name Cortez. A known murderer of indigenous peoples. So she is a de facto supporter of genocide. And why hasn’t she started a #givebackmanhattan! campaign? Obviously the existence of Manhattan itself is a white supremacist war crime of vast proportion.
The above needs to be a platform to keep her busy so the grownups can talk while she sits at the infant table and stops being a distraction.
@Liz
OUCH!
Generally, Liberal Democrats attack Conservatives for not meeting their own standards. That works when Liberal Democrats avoid having any standards. They just redistribute the wealth. Identity politics, however, implies certain unachievable standards.
When I was stationed in Hawaii, I remember Father Damien was beloved. The Catholic High School that my son went to was named after the sainted priest.
Without getting too much into the silly idolatry of it all, I believe Father Damien would find this whole outrage fest amusing at best.
What would Father Damian think about the underlying issues? Don’t know, but would do you think he favor policies that allow contagions to spread, or would he want to slow spread and save as many lives as possible? Would he be in favor of eliminating health insurance in the middle of a pademic or would he favor expanding health care and making it free for those who get ill and cannot afford it? Would Father Damien believe we should separate families of refugees at our border, put them into breeding environments for the pathogen and then deport them back into into the suffering they were trying to escape only to spread more suffering?
I could go on and on about guessing, but I tend to think Fr. Damien could care less about a stupid statute, and he would care more about helping the least of these. He probably could care less about building monuments to him and would care more about just practicing the love of Christ that was his life’s work, but did not belong to him or you, it belonged to Christ.
@tsalmon
Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I doubt the good father had much use for the foolishness of your loaded questions.
I will just observe that he made decisions for himself. That included taking the risk of getting leprosy.. A free society is one that allows for self determination. That is not what Liberal Democrats support.
Yes, Father Damien was an amazing person, and his response to the tyranny of human suffering was sacrificial and heroic. There are different types of freedom though. Even a slave is free to love. Even a king can be trapped in his own selfishness. Anyway, I don’t know a society that consigns lepers to brutal conditions in a leper colony isolated on an island is really all that free, do you?
@tsalmon
Lepers lose their freedom when they are involuntarily quarantined. So, is it not strange how certain politicians are so eager to quarantine our entire society? Like my loaded question?😜
Is the solution to make people “free” by enslaving them into doing what some dictator says is the right thing to do? That is Socialism in a nutshell, and Socialism is what you are advocating.
Father Damien was a good role model, but few want to imitate him. Was he too perfect? Jesus was such, not Damien, but few men are willing to sacrifice so much as Damien did. Therefore, we are amazed, and we wonder what him him do what he did. That statue is for our benefit, not his.
Still, Damien was only human. So, I did not intend to set him up as some kind of final arbiter of all things. If you want to debate issues unrelated to this post, that is okay, but please try to argue your position based upon the merits of your position.
“That statue is for our benefit, not his.“
Fr. Damien did what he did in the name of God’s love.
So what are the “issues of this post”? How mad you want people to get because you think an idol to Father Damien has been besmirched? And the outraged side wants us to be mad at the side who wants to prevent sickness and death from a contagious disease? And you think Father Damien would also be outraged by that? You think these questions are loaded because you had not thought about the obvious answers. Have you considered that your outrage comes from sacralizing a statute, and yet you totally miss the irony that Father Damien’s travails and the suffering of those he served might have been substantialLy lessoned had he had the full support of the Hawaiian government? And you think Father Damien would have turned that help away? It’s laughable!
@tsalmon
Curious. You suggest we should use whatever we think Father Damien might believe as our arbiter of right and wrong, and he is my idol? I just think with respect to lepers Father Damien followed the explicit example of Jesus. Instead of rejecting lepers, sinners in a metaphorical sense, Damien offered whatever grace he had to give. Jesus wants us to love each other and offer whatever grace we have to give. We love in response to the fact we are loved.
Anyway, consider this earlier comment.
I think that covers the lack of support from the Hawaiian government.
Government is a type of system. Systems don’t have any grace to offer. Systems are things that just do what they do. We can improve a system, or we can make abusive use of a system, but we cannot get love or grace out of a system.
Politicians operate government “systems” (bureaucracies) in order to gain votes. Quarantined people, like lepers, often lack influence. That’s why they are the victims of political systems, and it takes the personal generosity of someone like Father Damien to mitigate such abuse. This is why I think charity should for the most part be private, not doled out by government bureaucracies. Unfortunately, when our government has to quarantine sick people, we don’t have much choice except to use government charity, but that doesn’t work well. Given the condition of the human heart, until the Second Coming charity will always problematic, especially when we pass it through the hands of sneaky politicians.
I could go on and on about guessing, but I tend to think Fr. Damien could care less about a stupid statute, and he would care more about helping the least of these.
If he cared about his own statue would he be worth making the statue?
The fact he was a selfless person who demonstrates the best of humanity,
vilified as a platform agenda is kinda the whole point.
@Liz
Well put!
No disagreement with that Liz. Which sort of makes whole outrage feat even more superfluous.
BTW, how was the trip?
It was awesome!!
We saw a cool museum on the way back, it was really in the middle of no where.
The opening date is August 7th, so we just missed it. It is a museum of military vehicles. The boys were crushed that it wasn’t open….it’s definitely worth a visit.
Kind of surreal to see this place on the highway with absolutely nothing around, we joked that’s where they keep the aliens. 😆
Here is the website: https://nmmv.org/about.php
@Liz
These days the easiest thing to do with a private museum is to locate it on an interstate where people on vacation are likely to see it, and that would be worth seeing.
Liz,
I love that kind of stuff. If your ever headed out that way again, there’s a really cool old car museum in a territorial prison museum in Deer Lodge, Montana.
@tsalmon, just a heads-up. AOC was not calling Father Damien racist or a supremacist, her beef is with the overall selection of statues, mostly white, mostly male, mostly both. You can read most of her instagram post in these tweets:
MW,
Yep . . . but where is the outrage in that?
@marmoewp
@tsalmon
Actually, John Gage is close enough to the truth. If Father Damien was not part of a “white supremacist culture”, what is the point of making an example of his statue? Why such a silly counter? AOC is obsessed with identity politics, and that is nothing but bigotry.
Here is the story of how the statue of Father Damien was chosen to be placed in the Capitol. https://www.hawaiicatholicherald.com/2020/08/04/the-story-of-the-statue-how-father-damiens-capitol-sculpture-came-to-be/
History is what it is. Even today most of the people of the United States are of European extraction. Throughout human history the vast majority of human societies have been led by men. The United States was one of the first modern societies to allow women the opportunity to exercise their right to an equal role in government. Still, we cannot go backwards in time and change history.
King Kamehameha is the other statue that the people of Hawaii chose to put into the Capitol. The people of Hawaii chose the people they most respected at the time. Fortunately, AOC was not around to give her opinion of their “white supremacist culture”.
I agree with some of that Tom. As a matter of simple fact we have throughout much of our history been an elite, white, male, Protestant supremacist culture. The question is, once we realize that simple fact, what do we do with the knowledge?
@tsalmon
Actually, women had important, respected roles in our society long before they got the right to vote. That is because the importance of government is overrated. Women rule families and play important roles in every community. That is where we live.
So what should we do? Focus on the future, the life to come. Love God. Love your neighbors. Help spread the Gospel.
@marmoewp
@tsalmon
BTW – The statue of King Kamehameha is much more attractive, but I suppose people will remember that one of Father Damien.
Why doesn’t she use her own boyfriend as an example of white supremacist culture?
It would be less insulting than using a truly good person….and would make the same point.
AOC is a human troll as well as a one trick pony show.
Liz,
So you’re saying that she’s kind of a female Trump, only smarter, more charismatic and more media savvy?
I can agree that Trump goads the liberals into hyperventilation episodes as a tactic (easy to do when everything pro-American is interpreted as de facto racist, xenophobic, hateful, white supremacist).
But Trump is no one trick pony show.
@Liz
@tsalmon
AOC is not going to run anything. Most Republicans don’t fear her. They are just amazed she is taken seriously by other Liberal Democrats.
AOC is manifestation of a larger problem an education system that indoctrinates children in corrupt ideologies instead teaching them to think properly and learn how to learn.
AOC is not going to run anything.
I hope you knocked on wood before saying that.
I do agree she is a symptom of an indoctrination problem.
AOC is a freshman in Congress who represents one district in NY. President Trump, God help us, is the supposed leader of the Free World. Trump tweets and retweets outrageous lies, racist tropes, conspiracies and utter nonsense by the minute, and that’s when he’s not actually saying it out loud. And yet, when a nobody, brand new Congresswoman from NYC says something provocative (although basically true) about our history of WASP male supremacy, you Trumpublicans lose your $h!t. If the world were not kind of ending as we know it, this would be amusing.
Most apocalypses are more slow moving than we are able to swallow all at once. (The Zombies don’t actually come out right away). The Great Depression was proceeded by the Roaring Twenties and the seedlings of that collapse were quietly growing long before the 1929 Market Crash or the Dust Bowl brought that decades long disaster into the grind of daily life for most Americans. But, like then, the food lines of average Americans are growing. It’s just for now it’s people waiting for hours in their cars for boxes of food rather than on foot at a soup kitchen.
I think some of you are actually praying for apocalypse, thinking that a collapse will bring about some revanchist redo of the 18th Century. It’s funny how, in the movies, it’s the idealists who always get eaten first by the Zombies and it’s the apocalypse deniers who are the ones doing the eating. This won’t turn out the way that you think it will.
I predict that without serious, quick government intervention on a massive scale, by the end of next year most Americans will be out of a job. If you’re retired, your IRAs will be gone and your pension plans will be decimated with the collapse of the stock market. If you’re lucky, you will be forced to move in with relatives or they will be forced to move in with you. Over the next several years government will take on an increasingly greater role in just trying to mitigate the world wide disaster, stave off starvation and homelessness. As crime increases, government will get increasingly repressive. China will become the dominant nation in this Brave New World.
Or we could just elect Joe Biden.
@tsalmon
Not true. You just repeat what you hear the talking heads say. Check and make sure they are being truthful.
AOC is relevant because the news media and Democrats have made her so. The statue of Father Damien has nothing to do with white supremacy. Look up the 10th Commandment. Coveting what belongs to others is what Socialism and Identity politics are all about.
“Look up the 10th Commandment. Coveting what belongs to others is what Socialism and Identity politics are all about.“
So that’s what you think Moses got out of those Commandments? During all that time wandering the desert, it was free markets and “every man for himself” libertarianism, while Moses shilled broken down used camels to his followers and rage posted papyrus racism about the Canaanites? Sure, and you’re not just making this stuff up as Trump dithers . . . .
@tsalmon
So, the best you can do is prop up a straw man and attack Trump with a vague charge. Why do you bother?
You seriously think Biden has a plan to save us all?
What’s the plan?
Have you been watching or listening to Biden in the last few months?
Yesterday he said all black people are alike.
Last week I watched as he said five lies in the first five minutes of speaking (but I’m not sure he’s even aware enough to know it)
AOC is relevant because the news media and Democrats have made her so. The statue of Father Damien has nothing to do with white supremacy. Look up the 10th Commandment. Coveting what belongs to others is what Socialism and Identity politics are all about.
Every statement from AOC is a racist and/or sexist diatribe. She doesn’t do anything else. For this the left has made her relevant.
“AOC is relevant because the news media and Democrats have made her so.”
This is interesting. I read conventional newspapers and magazines and I watch conventional TV News, but I hadn’t even heard about this until I read it here. It’s gotten little play everywhere else. This has more to do with keeping yourselves happily enraged than it has to do with any meaningful reality.
If AOC is such an important voice for Democrats I guess that’s why her boy Bernie is the Democratic nominee, right? 🙂
@tsalmon
Want to get a relative idea just how popular AOC is? Stick this in Google: “alexandria ocasio-cortez” site:nytimes.com. Here we have the search restricted to “The New York Times”. 160,000 hits Nancy Pelosi gets 23,600, and Pelosi has been around awhile. So, we are getting a lot of old Pelosi hits.
What about outside New York City?
“alexandria ocasio-cortez” site:washingtonpost.com
AOC 9,330 Pelosi 22,400
“alexandria ocasio-cortez” site:cnn.com
AOC 9,440 Pelosi 84,100
“alexandria ocasio-cortez” site:msnbc.com
AOC 2,680 Pelosi 14,500
“alexandria ocasio-cortez” site:latimes.com
AOC 5,860 Pelosi 64,500
AOC doesn’t have the clout Pelosi has, but even the LA Times, on the left coast, refers to her as AOC, and you knew the acronym. So stop pretending. If Biden wins that woman could easily end up in his cabinet.
“So, the best you can do is prop up a straw man and attack Trump with a vague charge.”
Technically, I think it would be a “straw Moses”.
“Why do you bother?“
Good question. I guess because it amuses me and serves as a diversion from real problems. Thanks for that.
It’s gotten little play everywhere else. This has more to do with keeping yourselves happily enraged than it has to do with any meaningful reality.
It has little play because it reflects very poorly on her.
Per being “happily enraged”…
I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this person before on this site.
But she is the subject.
“Last week I watched as he said five lies in the first five minutes of speaking (but I’m not sure he’s even aware enough to know it)“
And yet you support a man who bragged numerous times that he is some kind of genius because quite a while ago he passed a test designed to detect moderate level dementia. If Trump had not actually passed that test, with his diet and lifestyle, by now he would likely need to be hand fed.
All of us lose cognitive abilities when we get older, but those abilities are not why we value the wisdom of the old. My experience is that. as we get older, we just become more of what we already are. If we’ve practiced virtue, it becomes more second nature. If we’ve learned to be enlightened by constant epiphany, we will continue find that new enlightenment and benefit from our old understandings. Or, if we, like Trump, practice vice and self delusion, then corruption and lack of self awareness become our deepest nature.
Neither Trump nor Biden has dementia, thank God. It’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy, not even Trump. Perhaps it’s hypocritical of me, but I’m not amused by that illness as a joke or an ad hominem right now. Sorry.
@tsalmon
You are quoting yourself? You watched Trump tell five unspecified lies?
Last week I saw Elvis, walked on water, and invented a spacecraft capable of star travel. You want proof? Take my word for it.
Neither Trump nor Biden has dementia, thank God. It’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy, not even Trump. Perhaps it’s hypocritical of me, but I’m not amused by that illness as a joke or an ad hominem right now. Sorry.
I assure you I am neither joking (I only wish), nor using it as an ad hominem.
I truly think placing Biden in this position is abuse of the elderly.
Consider this is prepared, as Biden rarely speaks in public these days. This isn’t a surprise question after hours of hard questions and/or extemporaneous conversation after a very long day.
FWIW, Trump is also getting old. I think he is in the danger zone so…I am glad he took that test. People age differently. I had 92 year old patient once who was sharper than most 30 year olds.
My dad was 50 when I was born. He died around midnight on my 40th birthday.
I never expected him to live that long (chain smoker, heavy drinker most of his life…but otherwise he was in phenomenal shape). At about age 85 he had a stroke and I watched this really sharp, hard edged, active, important man in my life partially paralyzed with a mind very damaged. There’s nothing about the subject of dementia I find funny. But it’s important when we’re looking at a person who might hold the highest office in the land.
-Liz out
I don’t know what is going on with Biden, but he obviously doesn’t have the mental fitness we need in a president. The thing is he never really has. Long trail of gaffes. What is new is the way he garbles words.
Geez Liz? I think perhaps the world has everybody a little crazy right now. Anyway, this one cuts too close to the heart right now to argue about it. I think you’re misguided about how dementia presents, and we will just have to agree to disagree. Tony out. ❤️
Fair enough, Tony.
Hope you and yours are well.
❤ back at ya.
Julie. Tom
After reading your post, in my opinion, AOL appears to comply with two Proverbs:
The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly, But the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness Proverbs 15:2
Excerpts Gils Bible Commentary
The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright,.
..
but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness; their knowledge, as they take it to be, but it is no other than folly; this they throw out in great plenty, in a hurry, without fear or wit; they “babble” it out, as the word (t) signifies, as water out of a fountain; their hearts are full of it, and their mouths proclaim it,
The prudent keep their knowledge to themselves, but a fool’s heart blurts out folly.
Proverbs 12:23
Regards and goodwill blogging.
@Scatterwisdom
Cannot fault your choices.
And that comment should read So and not do— my thumbs are too fat for this phone of mine!
@Julie
Cellphones are just modern torture devices. Kind of like the camelhair shirts of old.
I might need to be doninng my hair shirt as extra penance 😎