BelisariusBurke

Catholic traditionalist conservative, dialogue with principled people of different ideologies, lover of history, RC social teaching, subsidiarity, Western Civ.

[BelisariusBurke @Belisarius1990]

@mtracey Umm that's the Midwest every year, except we get below 0. Wyoming can also vary from -40 in winter to 100 in summer

[The Culturist @the_culturist_]

In 1867, Dostoevsky stood before this painting in Basel's Kunstmuseum: Hans Holbein's "Dead Christ."

The painting depicts Christ's emaciated, decaying body so convincingly that it rattled Dostoevsky. He stood paralyzed before it until his wife dragged him away, and later wrote it into his novel "The Idiot."

In the novel, a replica hangs in the home of the nihilist Rogozhin. When the protagonist Prince Myshkin sees it, he despairs:

"That picture! Why, a man's faith might be ruined by looking at that picture!"

Dostoevsky's intent was to show how different characters respond to the picture. Though it shakes him, the prince (a naive optimist and the titular "holy fool") is able to see through the depressing image and identify something worthy of worship. Rogozhin and others, however, see nothing but a merciless world, and it only hardens them more.

The novel also contains the famous phrase, "beauty will save the world," spoken indirectly by Prince Myshkin. This is not some hopeful platitude, but a challenge to all readers.

Beauty will save the world, but this hinges on our capacity to see it even through plunging darkness. The spectator can observe beauty through the light or darkness of his own mind, and that is his choice to make.

Dostoevsky later wrote that Hell is the suffering of being unable to love — to paraphrase his contemporary, Leo Tolstoy, "it is not beauty that makes us see love, but love that makes us see beauty."

This is the challenge that Dostoevsky saw in Holbein's art and that he drew out in each of his great novels. The challenge is to confront one's Christian convictions with everything that seeks to tear them down, and yet to emerge the other side with an even stronger assertion of love and faith.

[BelisariusBurke @Belisarius1990]

@TrumpDailyPolls 👍

[Gritty is the Way @Gritty20202]

@DisavowTrump20 @TheBushCenter It’s time, zombie Hitler.

RETWEET if you think the corpse of Hitler should endorse Kamala Harris for President!

[The Middle-earth Mixer @MiddleearthMixr]

@TheDemocrats If this picture of the young Captain of Gondor absolutely ripping a heater gets more likes then Walz got absolutely destroyed

[JD Vance @JDVance]

Yesterday, Donald J. Trump nearly lost his life. An armed gunman waited for him in the bushes. He brought a go-pro camera to record it. A secret service agent spotted the barrel of a gun through a fence and shot at the gunman. The gunman fled. He was caught. And now we slowly learn about him and his motive.

President Trump is my running mate, and my friend, but he is more importantly a father and grandfather to people who love him very much. I want him to have many more years with his family. (And selfishly, I'd like many more with my own.)

I admire the president for calling for peace and calm. The rhetoric is out of control. It nearly got Steve Scalise and many others killed a few years ago. It nearly got Donald Trump killed twice. But I want to say something about yesterday's news, and how it illuminates the difference between vigorous debate and violent rhetoric.

Here is what we know so far: Kamala Harris has said that "Democracy is on the line" in her race against President Trump. The gunman agreed, and used the exact same phrase. He had a Kamala Harris bumper sticker on his truck. He was obsessed with Ukraine's "fight for Democracy" and absorbed many unhinged views about the Russia-Ukraine war. HIs name is Ryan Routh, and he donated 19 times to Democrat causes and zero to Republican ones.

How do you think the Democrats and their media allies would respond if a 19-time Republican donor tried to kill a Democratic official? It's a question that answers itself. For years, Kamala Harris's campaign surrogates have said things like "Trump has to be eliminated." And how have their media allies responded to the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump in as many months?

NBC News called the attempted assassination a "golf club incident." The LA Times told us "Trump Targeted at Golf Club." The USA Today's top of the fold headline is "Hope in America," and they published a preposterous letter to the editor arguing that Trump "brings these assassination attempts on himself." CNN's Dana Bash--who just yesterday bizarrely accused me of inciting a bomb threat--said today that Harris campaign rhetoric didn't motivate Routh even though he echoed their rhetoric explicitly.

PBS's weekend show perfectly illustrates the double standard of Kamala Harris's media friends. After spending 30 seconds on the second assassination attempt on President Trump, they then focused on the real danger: me and President Trump, who are, according to them, personally responsible for bomb threats against Springfield. Of course, I repeatedly condemend those threats. And reports today suggest they came from a foreign country, not--as the media suggested--a deranged Trump fan.

The double standard is breathtaking. Donald Trump and I are, by their account, directly responsible for bomb threats from foreign countries. Why? Because we had the audacity to repeat what residents told us about the problems in their town. Meanwhile, Harris allies call for Trump to be eliminated as the media publishes arguments that he deserved to be shot.

This seems like a double standard. But at a deep level, it is entirely consistent.

Consider Springfield. Citizens are telling us that there are problems. These include the undeniable truths of higher car accidents, unaffordable housing, evictions of residents, overcrowded hospitals, overstressed schools, and rising rates of disease. They also include the infamous pet stories--which, again, multiple people have spoken about (either on video or to me or my staff).

Kamala Harris's first strategy was to ignore these people and their concerns. Yes, she had prevented the deportation of millions of illegal aliens, and some of them made their way to Springfield. But it was a small town with no voice. Some of the local leadership even loved the cheap labor. So the suffering of thousands of American citizens went ignored.

Their next move with these stories is censorship. In Springfield, a psychopath (or a foreign government) calls in a bomb threat, so they blame that on President Trump (and me). The threat of violence is disgraceful of course, yet the media seems to relish it. They cover a bomb threat, but not the rise in murders. They cover the threat, but not the HIV uptick. They cover the threat, not the schools overwhelmed with new kids who don't speak English. They cover the threat, not rising insurance rates or the car accidents that caused them. They cover the threat, not the failures of Kamala Harris's leadership.

The purpose is not to turn down the rhetoric. If anything, covering the bomb threats gives whoever makes them exactly what he wants: attention. The purpose is distraction and shame. How dare you talk about the problems of Haitian migration in Springfield? You're endangering people, simply by discussing the problems of Kamala Harris's policies. It's a form of moral blackmail, designed not to make anyone safe but to shut everyone up.

Springfield is the most recent, but hardly the most egregious example. There was the Hunter Biden laptop story, censored by BigTech. And who can forget that anyone who didn't support Kamala Harris's Ukraine policy was drenched in the blood of Ukrainian children. That last one appears to have had some effect on Routh--the most recent would-be assassin. The message is always the same: don't you dare express an opinion on the public affairs of your nation. The message is: shut up.

This is the difference between debate--even aggressive debate--and censorship. It is one thing to attack Kamala Harris for "destroying the country" and quite another to say that President Trump should be "eliminated." It is one thing to criticize overheated rhetoric, and another to say that a former president has invited an assassination on himself. It is one thing to say that Donald J. Trump's arguments about the election of 2020 are wrong; it is another thing to attempt to remove him from the ballot over it.

It is one thing to say that pets are not, in fact being eaten, and another thing to say that anyone who disagrees is trying to murder people. Dissent, even vigorous dissent, is a great tradition of the United States. Censorship is not.

For the next 7 weeks of this campaign, I will vigorously defend your right to speak your mind. I believe you have every right to criticize me and Donald J. Trump, even if you say terrible or untrue things about us. But when I ask you to "tone down the rhetoric" it's not about being nice--our citizens have every right to be mean, even if I don't like it--or empty platitudes.

Instead, I'm asking all of us to reject censorship. Reject the idea that you can control what other people think and say. Embrace persuasion of your fellow citizens over silencing them--either through the powers of Big Tech or through moral blackmail.

I think this will make our public debate much better. But there's something else. Reject censorship and you reject political violence. Embrace censorship, and you will inevitably embrace violence on its behalf.

The reason is simple. The logic of censorship leads directly to one place, for there is only one way to permanently silence a human being: put a bullet in his brain.

[Pavlos Papadopoulos @pleonidasp]

Today's Wyoming primary showdown between Cheney and Hageman reveals more than the enduring influence of Trump. Cheney and Hageman represent rival elites offering rival accounts of what ails America.

https://t.co/LzFGZQ9MzX

[Patrick T. Brown @PTBwrites]

Going to be absolutely essential for pro-lifers to be honest about what did and didn’t resonate in Kansas and start taking the ground game seriously for future ballot initiatives such as the one coming up in MI this fall.

[Obianuju Ekeocha @obianuju]

Very serious language warning here, but if you can withstand the sting of foul language this is an excellent analogy of abortion by Bill Burr

[BelisariusBurke @Belisarius1990]

@SohrabAhmari @PatrickDeneen Any thoughts about this corporate virtue signalling @esaagar @krystalball

[BelisariusBurke @Belisarius1990]

@esaagar @krystalball

[BelisariusBurke @Belisarius1990]

The New Class War Comes For The Economy - https://t.co/vJvUipX9fW

[Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah]

Yes, I laughed at that bit too. But why is that frog smiling and wearing a dress?

[BelisariusBurke @Belisarius1990]

https://t.co/u3bbwdSd4a

[The Hill @thehill]

Romney, Hawley raise concerns over smaller checks for lower earners in stimulus package https://t.co/92shhSOk0Y

[Helen Andrews @herandrews]

Excellent column from @matthewschmitz in the new First Things: https://t.co/aC8bmBrjZg

[Secular Talk ([email protected]) @KyleKulinski]

#CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash #CNNisTrash

[BelisariusBurke @Belisarius1990]

@RakestrawJeff I do think though Gabbard should have continued on and explain how Trump supported al Qaeda with just a sentence or 2 about Yemen, which is what she was referring to.