Reverence

Posted on August 18, 2022September 5, 2022 by CQ

A young man in a Marine Corps uniform, a young lady in a white dress, a mariachi band in suits and sombreros, horns, family and friends dressed to celebrate an occasion, a milestone. They have aspired to and maintained the moments in culture that are special and prepare for them enthusiastically and treat those moments with reverence. This day is special, it holds reverence in their eyes, and they treat it accordingly. Guests arrived from near and far, and initially I was put off by the cars parked up and down my street and in front of my house, but when I saw how pristine and dignified they looked; I was touched and humbled. Though this moment was happening in their humble backyard, peeking over the fence from another neighbor’s house we could see the property was decorated as though in Southern France. Everyone was in a suit or a dress, haircuts and hairdos, hushed voices in the eighty-four degree sun.

In opposite fashion, we born and bred Americans have become complacent and lazy in our approach to almost all aspects of American culture. I have been witness to church baptisms with family members in washed out blue jeans and a polo shirt, kids in baseball jerseys and ball caps. The sanctity of an infant child being welcomed to the family of God had no significance.

Sophisticated Americans?

More like sloppy Americans. I remember a time when no self-respecting woman would appear in public like these pictures of Ms Spears. Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco joked about this in one of his comedy routines, noting that at the airport, people looked like they had, “. . . just rolled out of bed and to the airport gate.” All around us, I see a world where almost nothing is formal or treated with reverence. The only events we seem to treat with reverence are celebrity award shows, which is a marker of what we value in American culture.

In a time when men have lost all sense of style, I was chastised by an older woman at church that I could, “dress more comfortably”. Instead of a jacket and button up shirt, should I be like the congregant who wears his favorite plaid flannel shirt and cargo shorts? What is the problem with attending worship dressed like a gentleman? I am uncomfortable when I am NOT in this attire. To add to the frustration, our new pastor was chided for wearing a very regal robe because, “It’s summer out, aren’t you hot?” My wife was questioned about her shoes, “You still wear heels? I don’t see how you do it”.

Meanwhile, the acolyte (lighting the candles) is in crocs, cut off shorts and a baseball cap. Where’s the robe? I find it disrespectful, but I don’t say a word lest be labelled judgmental. “Come to Jesus as you are.”

My son has an eye for style but lost his personal taste for gentleman’s clothing because he showed up at school dances being the ONLY one in shoes. He wasn’t even in a suit, just shoes, jeans and a slim fitting blazer. His peer group arrived in their favorite t-shirts, and he was disappointed to be one of only a few appropriately dressed. And this angered me because I often hear adults and especially parents complain about this very issue. Disappointed because girls don’t wear dresses and the boys look sloppy.

Who’s in charge? It is amazing how many of my neighbors or other parents give their children everything they want but wield NO control or even influence in these or other matters. They complain of lack of respect for adults while I remember the days when we all feared adults. What the parents dictated was the law and violations of this were met with swift and exact discipline.

A male congregant at church complimented my son’s style:

Him: Your son is such a gentleman, he’s mature, and he dresses ‘up’ for church. How do you manage this?

Me: I don’t. He picks his stuff out.

Him: I can’t get _____ or _____ to dress like that at all.

Me: (I look him up and down, I’ve never seen him more than washed out blue jeans and his favorite polo shirt) Well, do you dress up?

Him: Nahh, I put on so much weight I can’t. (sighs)

Me: There you go . . . Sons imitate their fathers. If there is something you want out of him, you have to model it. But, even then, if his peers aren’t doing it, your influence will be limited.

Him: Can you try to say something to him (older son) for me?

Me: (to myself) Who’s in charge?

I often hear complaints that there’s no more respect for anyone or anything; The abuse of the elderly, the snatching of innocence from children, the striking down of our institutions. I immediately want to ask, “what do YOU respect? What behaviors are you teaching/modeling?”

Tell me if you can relate to this: as a teen, even when out patrolling our neighborhood with friends, if we were passing a church/house of worship, our loud talk would pause because one of our group would announce, “Hey respect the church, respect God.” And as filled with beer as we were, but should not have been, our voices would hush a bit until we were clear of whichever sanctuary we were passing before the foul mouths resumed. Last Sunday, several times service was tainted by outside noise from roaring obnoxiously loud motorcycles, car stereos blasting loud and vulgar music, and cackling passers-by. A lack of reverence or at least respect.

As a kid in the back seat of my father’s car, when ambulances or fire trucks or police cars fought to get through traffic with sirens on, everyone on the road would get out the way. Today, I witnessed yet again motorists barely yield their positions in the lane to a rushing ambulance despite there being room to pull over. No reverence for the mission of this emergency vehicle, desperately working to get a suffering or dying person to medical assistance.

These pieces when assembled point to the loss of reverence for country, for culture, for humanity. Absolutely nothing is worthy of respect or effort on anyone’s part. Burn the flag. Ridicule holidays. Cursing at the world in music. Young ladies in the supermarket in see-through leggings or pajamas–the women of my day would not be caught dead in such dishevelment! Young men with their pants sagging sloppily. But these same people want the world to be a ‘better place’. Burning down Police Stations–irreverence. Raiding the Capitol! Is nothing sacred?

Cellphone conversations in speaker mode or even shouting into cellphones regardless of the setting, sometimes with vulgarity. These public displays are not humility, these are arrogance and irreverence, like the infamous millennial ‘f*** you flip flops’. The standards you flaunt today will be the standards your cry for tomorrow.

In the bible, it is written, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

It is my opinion that that young man in a Marine Corps uniform and the young lady in a blindingly white dress, along with the Mariachi band and the guests, are those meek souls Matthew 5:5 describe. They were holding a moment in reverence, and I believe that their effort to show reverence for the moment will inherit them the earth.

How You helped put Brittney Griner in jail

Posted on August 9, 2022August 23, 2022 by CQ

“You cannot turn someone against their country—they have to want to believe whatever propaganda you tell them.” — Yuri Bezemenov, former Soviet KGB agent.

All of you demanding Britney Griner’s release were active in her imprisonment. What’s funny is, and also shows your ignorance of what we’re dealing with, is the idea that she is retrievable. We are funding and supplying Ukraine in their war for survival against Russia—Why would the Russian Communists let her go? I find demands “. . . for her immediate release!” hysterical. What are YOU going to do? Protest? Go on over to Russia and see how THEY treat protesters. Back in the eighties Ronald Reagan told you that the Russians at the center of the Soviet Bloc were an evil empire—did you miss that speech?

For as long as I have been alive, the growth of domestic anti-US sentiment has simmered. While I was being born in 1965, the country was arguing about a war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement was in full swing, women were becoming more politically vocal, and the scourge of hallucinogenic drugs was destroying minds. A beloved president had been assassinated and a man who took slings and arrows for his oppressed people was also assassinated. Then there were a host of other political/economic/cultural items being argued over and considered.

Hating American institutions became en vogue and tearing down norms of culture became a badge of honor. In the ultimate show of displeasure with their nation and using a bargaining tactic of overstating their bargaining position, many Americans began to seek or at least seem to seek alliance with America’s enemies. Usually, it involved sympathy with a communist, socialist, or Marxist nation. Among those were the adversarial Soviet Union and the then nascent China. Sometimes it would be friendly but inconsequential countries such as Denmark or more recently, Venezuela. These ideas were romanticized by those who were (and still are) angry with their home country.

As accusations of the American economy being manipulated for the “rich” went unrefuted, Capitalism and the United States became the scapegoat for people’s struggles. Socially, gains in racial, ethnic, religious, gender or sexual orientation were argued as either too far too fast or not far enough and too slow, and so a seeking out of something out there, somewhere, that may be better than here [America] drove large segments of the American population to look at competitor nations and even adversaries as possibly being the solution.

Especially those of you who look at communism/socialism/marxism fondly.

This trend was reflected in popular music, and in 1981 Prince penned a song on his “Controversy” album titled “Ronnie [Reagan] talk to Russia” (see track 2 left). This song begged that Ronald Reagan talk to and compromise with the Soviet Union. Many left leaning Americans of the day were of the mind that Ronald Reagan, Conservatives, and the so-called ‘military industrial complex’ was the source of nuclear war tensions. Every Republican president since has been painted as an evil warmonger, and whichever nation presented a leader who countered an American president, especially if Republican, had the sometimes-overt admiration of the segment of disgruntled Americans. Remember the invitation of Iran’s Ahmadinejad to speak at Colombia University? The black community harbors a secret love for Cuba and the now deceased Fidel Castro. More recently, the American leftist movement, Citgo, and Joseph P. Kennedy embraced Hugo Chavez. Do you remember the press almost laughing at our own President, George W. Bush, when a Muslim reporter threw a shoe at him?

General George S. Patton warned in 1944 Russia was going to be a problem. Russia and China supported North Korea’s invasion of South Korea, and then North Vietnam’s invasion of South Vietnam. But you hated your own country so much that you rationalized our growing enemy. Remember that bum Jane Fonda?

President Kennedy admitted after his summit with the Russian President that had been outplayed by Premier Nikita Kruschev after extending an olive branch of diplomacy.

“I never met a man like this,” Kennedy remarked to another reporter, Hugh Sidey of Time magazine. “[I] talked about how a nuclear exchange would kill 70 million people in 10 minutes, and he just looked at me as if to say, ‘So what?’”

Not more than six years ago Barack Obama sat with Vladimir Putin and said when he looked him in the eye “I saw a good man”.

Because all of their “America is oppressive” arguments don’t reconcile with the worldwide immigration to the United States they reached even further out to discover someplace better than America, hoping to point to some socialist nation and say, “See! They have it right! They’re just as good . . . America isn’t so great!

So, of course Brittney Griner travelled to communist Russia! You have told everyone you can that the real enemy is America/Republicans/Conservatives/the Police/the Military/Capitalism/The CIA/FBI/Banks/Corporations/Donald Trump! Never mind that the CIA has described the former Russian bear as now descended to a ‘crime-state’ under the leadership of former KGB officer Vladimir Putin.

Ignore everything that General Patton said about Russia, Reagan said about the Soviet Union, it was false, “Britney go on over, the Russians are not the enemy. All the weapons we made and billions we spent during the cold war to counter those Soviet maniacs was our fault, Britney go on over. Ignore the Cuban missile crisis Britney, that was America’s fault”.

“Ignore that two Russian GRU officers travelled to England to poison communist dissident Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium, having no regard for the obvious hazards to British citizens. The CIA, FBI, and our government is worse—so go play Britney! All of the proxy wars the Soviet Union supported against the US were okay and justified—GO ON OVER TO OUR ENEMY BRITNEY AND PLAY BASKETBALL!”

And not only did she go, but she arrogantly flaunted her ‘homosexuality’ in the faces of a nation and men who are clear that they are not tolerant of that lifestyle. The Russians aren’t going to be kind and gentle like the American justice system. Especially if you go there ‘ugly American’ fashion, “I’m a basketball player from America, I do what I want. These people love me, and they pay me”.

She and others of her political stripe arrogantly refused the national anthem of America; but now demand America must come save her…

Like many of you, she was either ignorant that Russia is our enemy, or hopeful she could leverage that against her own country.

RUSSIA IS THE ENEMY! WHAT PART OF THAT ARE YOU PEOPLE NOT GETTING?

You progressives helped put Britney Griner in jail. And now she probably sits in the Lubyanka, the prison where the communists lock up spies and execute enemies of the State. She’s there because of you, and your hidden love for socialism and no-so-hidden hatred for 50% of your country that politically disagrees with you.