Two Districts, One Nation

Published on by D. G. Hart

Maggie Jordan, one of the characters in Newsroom, says in one episode during Season Two that “The country is divided into people who like sex and people who are utterly creeped out by it. I’m one of the sex people.” As creepy as that description might be for those celebrity pastors who write books about how enjoyable sex is (read TKNY), the statement seems pretty accurate. Chances are most Americans agree about economic matters. Differences might emerge about tax rates but hardly anyone (except Pope Francis) is questioning consumerism and the benefits of buying. Most Americans agree on foreign policy. They might question a foreign war here or there. But a hegemonic United States is desirable across the aisle as is applause for American soldiers. No one disagrees about English as the nation’s language. No one questions the Constitution, though interpretations vary. No one seriously objects to the NFL.

But on sex we differ. In fact, the most contested aspects of political life surround either giving more freedom to sex (and reducing its consequences) or trying to put restraints on it. Make the left grant unlimited access to guns the way they seem to think about sex and make the right apply its logic about guns to sex and you might have a united country.

By the way, America’s sexual exceptionalism is not the most flattering aspect of national history. Until the 1960s pretty much every important thinker recognized that restraint in sexual matters was important. Whether Aristotle was telling Greeks not to imitate animals (who do enjoy unrestrained access to sex and its consequences), or Romans were advocating restraint of the baser passions, or Christians were arguing for chastity, pretty much all the major civilizational food groups disapproved of easy access to sex. Not so post sexual-revolution America.

Aren’t we great pretty good?

But here’s the solution. Why don’t we create two districts in the United States, one where people who like sex live and one where people who are creeped out about live. Let’s let (easier for me now that I’m in the Great Pretty Good Lakes region the sexy people have the Northeast and the West Coast, and we’ll give them Illinois and Minnesota for those afraid of hurricanes and tsunamis. The rest of the country will live and move and have their being in the unsexy district. In the latter, states will be free to pass laws against abortion, adultery, same-sex marriage, and pornography (which doesn’t include HBO). Both districts will still participate in the federal government. But the national government will recognize this fundamental divide in American character and respect the boundaries of the Sexy and Unsexy Districts.

Of course, the pro-unionists in the nation won’t hear of this because such a proposal the sort of thing that the South proposed with the creation of the Confederacy. And if you make an idol out of national union — please don’t weigh in on Northern Ireland or Israel, then — then I understand this proposal makes no sense. There goes the meaning of Abraham Lincoln. EEE GADS!

But if you are a federalist, then this idea should have some appeal. At the basis of federalism was the idea of granting real power to local authorities while participating in certain common endeavors for the good of the larger whole. This is what Protestants even tried to achieve with the — wait for it — Federal Council of Churches; a federation that granted powers to the member denominations while finding ways to cooperate on common projects, like transforming the United States into a Christian nation. Federalism is a great way to allow for serious differences in a country. If you only have nationalism, then winner takes all. DOUBLE EEE GADS!!

The real defect in this proposal is that the unsexy Americans who live in the Northeast and the West Coast (and Lake Wobegone) will have to move to unsexy territories. But that’s a heck of a lot better than becoming a refugee — think Syria. The same goes for the sexy people who live in South Carolina and Utah. They will have to relocate. But they will be able to keep their portfolio, won’t need to learn a new language, and can use the same currency. The also won’t have to convert to metric or Celsius.

The advantage in such a scheme is that over the course of a generation or two, we might actually see which is a better way to organize a society. Maybe sexy America will prove itself better in the long run, but where they will get new generations to replace the old is anyone’s guess. And maybe unsexy America will prove itself incapable of anything culturally or financially interesting. But the history of the human race until 1965 suggests otherwise. If unsexy America could produce H. L. Mencken, how bad can being creeped out by sex be?

38 thoughts on “Two Districts, One Nation”

  1. Allowing your argument for the sake of argument, what it really means is that the progressives have successfully deconstructed American society and the only thing they’ve not quite finished with is sex. Americans used to differ quit a bit on all those things you say we don’t [anymore]. The progressives were very crafty in totally gutting the American republic leaving just the thinnest veneer — general elections — while completely replacing it with a totalitarian fascist state (but with a big smiley face). The American population though was all to happy buy into the great deceit, since the they were, from the time of the First Great [although not really even that] Pretty Good Awakening, primed for just that kind of thing by the Presbyterians who not just debased the worship of God, but counterfeited it wholesale with the substitution of Watt’s counterfeit psalms for the real ones, Christ provided.

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  2. I’m thinking of building a house on the border with my bedroom on one side and my kids’ on the other.

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  4. Gosh, that Aaron Sorkin fellow is talented. His dialogues are always so thought-provoking.

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  9. CW, would those of us who are elderly males and have to take nitrates for chest pain be welcome on your reservation?

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  15. Careful CW! The last time you got a bit exuberant about something on oldlife the place went to pieces. But I agree…great post!

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  16. The most immediate question is this: How will unsexy America consisting of those who are creeped out about sex maintain its population?

    We should note that where there is agreement, it favors corporations and financial institutions. Despite the fact that our level consumerism is contributing significantly to the destruction of the environment and despite how our use of the military not only adds significantly to our deficit and debt problems, it is inviting more and more interventions which will eventually lead to the use of WMDs and despite the fact that Americans approach the paying of taxes in the same way the Greeks have been, what we favor first benefits the wealthy. And since it is the wealthy who own and manage our main media outlets as well as other institutions such as higher education and even some churches, is it any surprise that the big divisions that exist in this country revolve around personal differences? Don’t forget that gun control is another dividing line.

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  18. “The country is divided into people who like sex and people who are utterly creeped out by it. I’m one of the sex people.”

    A clever but fatuous lede, as is what follows. There are the people who are masters of their sexuality, and those who are mastered by it.

    The destruction of the American family isn’t funny, nor is the widespread personal unhappiness that the emptiness of the Sexual Revolution hath wrought. The irony, of course, is that the elite chattering class Dr. Hart seems so desperately wanting to join are often as Puritan as he [I reckon] is, sexually abstemious, and usually from and leading two-parent families.

    As Dennis Prager asks these pseudo-sophisticates, Why don’t you preach what you practice?

    Revolutions are seldom spontaneous mass upheaval of the downtrodden, provoked beyond endurance by their miserable condition, and the sexual revolution was certainly no exception in this respect. The revolution had its intellectual progenitors, as shallow, personally twisted, and dishonest a parade of people as one could ever wish to encounter.

    They were all utopians, lacking understanding of the realities of human nature; they all thought that sexual relations could be brought to the pitch of perfection either by divesting them of moral judgment that traditionally attached to them; all believed that human unhappiness was solely the product of laws, customs, and taboos.

    They were not the kind of people to take seriously Edmund Burke’s lapidary warning that “it is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free”: on the contrary, just as appetites often grow with the feeding, so the demands of the revolutionaries escalated whenever the last demand was met.

    When the expected happiness failed to emerge, the analysis of the problem and the proposed solution were always the same: more license, less self-control. By 1994, John Money, perhaps the most influential academic sexologist of the last third of the twentieth century, was still able to write in all seriousness that we live in an anti-sexual and taboo-ridden society. Get rid of the remaining taboos, he implied, and human unhappiness will take care of itself…”–Theodore Dalrymple, Our Culture, What’s Left of It [Ivan R. Dee, 2005] as quoted

    http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/07/29/the-sexual-revolution-what-really-happened/

    Once again the useful idiot for those who despise everything you hold sacred, man. They don’t respect you for stuff like this–any more than Mencken would have respected Machen if he’d have fed Bryan to wolves like himself. Pilate is not a moral exemplar.

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  19. DG-

    Most Americans agree on foreign policy. They might question a foreign war here or there. But a hegemonic United States is desirable across the aisle as is applause for American soldiers. […] No one seriously objects to the NFL.

    Thanks to the fact the Pentagon has been paying NFL teams millions of dollars to honor troops and veterans before games? (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-pentagon-pays-the-nfl-millions-to-honor-veterans-at-games-2015-5)

    No one disagrees about English as the nation’s language

    Been to Miami or New Jersey lately? I’ll grant they aren’t making national claims. But English isn’t at all necessary to get by any more. The public schools and TV get the children preferring English, though.

    But the state language of Illinois is “American.” Or was, 1923-1969.

    In 1923, Representative Washington J. McCormick of Montana had failed to pass a bill in the United States Congress declaring “American” to be the official language of the United States.

    Following the bill’s failure, Senator Frank Ryan introduced a similar bill to the Illinois General Assembly.

    The bill passed with the support of Irish and Jewish politicians in Chicago, who, by rejecting the term “English”, wanted to show their opposition to British policies in Ireland and Palestine, respectively.

    (“Languages of Illinois,” Wikipedia)

    There is a lot of insight regarding the Yugoslavia that is America in that little story.

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  20. Federalism? But Americka is a (Political Big Lie #1) Democracy.

    Andrew, what of the free will debasement of the gospel?
    And if you don’t have the gospel, can you have gospel worship?
    Could the arminians and the anabaptists have beaten those bad bad presbyterians to the punch?

    –any more than Mencken would have respected Machen if he’d have fed Bryan to wolves like himself.

    TVD, Mencken would have made mincemeat of a pompous ass like Bryan without Machen’s help.
    For all his talk of ecumenical charity, Bryan buddy is a papist in the ditch throwing stones at the anabaptists in the ditch on the other side of the road all the while calling them P&R. For somebody who went to even a modern P&R seminary, this is still incompetentence. And Bryan thinks it’s question begging.

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  21. Bob S
    Posted August 5, 2015 at 1:16 am | Permalink
    Federalism? But Americka is a (Political Big Lie #1) Democracy.

    “–any more than Mencken would have respected Machen if he’d have fed Bryan to wolves like himself.”

    TVD, Mencken would have made mincemeat of a pompous ass like Bryan without Machen’s help.

    That was a private aside to Darryl, Bob. Good you picked it up but Darryl knows exactly what I’m talking about, as do the more more erudite readers of this blog. Even the ones who’ve only seen that lying move Inherit the Wind.

    I don’t mean to insult you here, Bob, but my whole historical point directed toward Dr. Calvinism: A History [and Mencken Club member]. Exactly relevant to what you wrote.

    Mencken would have made mincemeat of a pompous ass like Bryan without Machen’s help

    Mencken did make mincemeat of him. Evil bastard.

    What would have taken guts would have been to defend William Jennings Bryan, the great man that he was. William Jennings Bryan is why I admire your religion, Bob.

    If Darryl G. Hart is throwing his lot in with HL Mencken, that’s too easy, too cheap, too weak, D. That’s surrendering to the culture, surrendering to Jon Stewart. If you let Terry Gray go the your [his!] church’s gallows over evolution, so much the worse for you, Elder Hart.

    Sins are not just what we have done, but what we have failed to do, against our conscience.

    As a young man, Bryan had been open-minded about the origins of man. But over the years he became convinced that Darwin’s theory was responsible for much that was wrong with the modern world. “The Darwinian theory represents man as reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate,” Bryan said, “Evolution is the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak.” He believed that the Bible countered this merciless law with “the law of love.”

    Bryan was progressive in politics and a conservative in religion. According to biographer Lawrence Levine, “Bryan always mixed religion and politics. He couldn’t conceive of one without the other because religion to him was the basis of politics. Without religion there could be no desire to change in a positive way. Why should anyone want to do that?”

    Love MEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, says Darryl G. Hart. I love William Jennings Bryan, Darryl. Mockerists HL Mencken, snotty Jon Stewart, not so much. I think you’ve chosen the wrong heroes. We all want to be like Christ but sometimes we need to set more achievable goals. I think yours suck.

    Mockery is the lowest achievement, the lowest debasement of the human mind. Animals don’t mock, only humans.

    INRI

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  22. I don’t mean to insult you here, Bob,

    Why stop now, TVD? You’re on a roll.

    Yeah, I thought you were talking about OL’s other good buddy. My bad.

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  23. Don’t mean to insult you atall, Bob. You’re a good guy and you hit the vein here. Glad you returned us to seriousness. William Jennings Bryan was a good man although defeated by his own egotism; HL Mencken was an evil bastard, unredeemed even by his cleverness and slickness.

    Which would you guess is in heaven? Which was Elect, the philosopher or the Pharisee?

    Darryl? Haven’t you made your choice?

    Bob S
    Posted August 5, 2015 at 1:16 am | Permalink
    Federalism? But Americka is a (Political Big Lie #1) Democracy.

    “–any more than Mencken would have respected Machen if he’d have fed Bryan to wolves like himself.”

    TVD, Mencken would have made mincemeat of a pompous ass like Bryan without Machen’s help

    That was a private aside to Darryl, Bob. Good you picked it up but Darryl knows exactly what I’m talking about, as do the more more erudite readers of this blog. Even the ones who’ve only seen that lying movie “Inherit the Wind.”

    I don’t mean to insult you here, Bob, but my whole historical point here is directed toward Dr. Calvinism: A History [and Mencken Club member]. Exactly relevant to what you wrote.

    Mencken would have made mincemeat of a pompous ass like Bryan without Machen’s help

    Mencken did make mincemeat of him. Evil bastard.

    What would have taken guts would have been to defend William Jennings Bryan, the great man that he was. William Jennings Bryan is why I admire your religion, Bob.

    If Darryl G. Hart is throwing his lot in with HL Mencken, that’s too easy, too cheap, too weak, D. That’s surrendering to the culture, surrendering to Jon Stewart. If you let Terry Gray go the your [his!] church’s gallows over evolution, so much the worse for you, Elder Hart.

    Sins are not just what we have done, but what we have failed to do, against our conscience.

    As a young man, Bryan had been open-minded about the origins of man. But over the years he became convinced that Darwin’s theory was responsible for much that was wrong with the modern world. “The Darwinian theory represents man as reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate,” Bryan said, “Evolution is the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak.” He believed that the Bible countered this merciless law with “the law of love.”

    Bryan was progressive in politics and a conservative in religion. According to biographer Lawrence Levine, “Bryan always mixed religion and politics. He couldn’t conceive of one without the other because religion to him was the basis of politics. Without religion there could be no desire to change in a positive way. Why should anyone want to do that?”

    Love MEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, says Darryl G. Hart. I love William Jennings Bryan, Darryl. Mockerists HL Mencken, snotty Jon Stewart, not so much. I think you’ve chosen the wrong heroes. We all want to be like Christ but sometimes we need to set more achievable goals. I think yours suck.

    Mockery is the lowest achievement, the lowest debasement of the human mind. Animals don’t mock, only humans.

    INRI

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  24. Curt, what I said:

    “Maybe sexy America will prove itself better in the long run, but where they will get new generations to replace the old is anyone’s guess.”

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  25. vd, t, is this the Bryan you love, the one who believed in a literal Adam and thought Darwinism was unproven? That one?

    Evolution is not truth; it is merely a hypothesis – it is millions of guesses strung together. It had not been proven in the days of Darwin – he expressed astonishment that with two or three million species it had been impossible to trace any species to any other species – it had not been proven in the days of Huxley, and it has not been proven up to today. It is less than four years ago that Professor Bateson came all the way from London to Canada to tell the American scientists that every effort to trace one species to another had failed – every one. He said he still had faith in evolution but had doubts about the origin of species. But of what value is evolution if it cannot explain the origin of species? While many scientists accept evolution as if it were a fact, they all admit, when questioned, that no explanation has been found as to how one species developed into another.

    Darwin suggested two laws, sexual selection and natural selection. Sexual selection has been laughed out of the classroom and natural selection is being abandoned, and no new explanation is satisfactory even to scientists. Some of the more rash advocates of evolution are wont to say that evolution is as firmly established as the law of gravitation or the Copernican theory. The absurdity of such a claim is apparent when we remember that any one can prove the law of gravitation by throwing a weight into the air and that any one can prove the roundness of the earth by going around it, while no one can prove evolution to be true in any way whatever.

    Chemistry is an insurmountable obstacle in the path of evolution. It is one of the greatest of the sciences; it separates the atoms, isolates them and walks about them, so to speak. If there were in nature a progressive force, an eternal urge, chemistry would find it. But it is not there. All of the ninety-two original elements are separate and distinct; they combine in fixed and permanent proportions. Water is H2O, as it has been from the beginning. It was here before life appeared and has never changed; neither can it be shown that anything else has materially changed. There is no more reason to believe that man descended from some inferior animal than there is to believe that a stately mansion has descended from a small cottage. Resemblances are not proof – they simply put us on inquiry. As one fact, such as the absence of the accused from the scene of the murder, outweighs all the resemblances that a thousand witnesses could swear to, so the inability of science to trace any one of the millions of species to another species outweighs all the resemblances upon which evolutionists rely to establish man’s blood relationship with the brutes.

    But while the wisest scientists cannot prove a pushing power, such as evolution is supposed to be, there is a lifting power that any child can understand. ‘The plant lifts the mineral up into a higher world, and the animal lifts the plant up into a world still higher. So, it has been reasoned by analogy, man rises, not by a power within him, but only when drawn upward by a higher power. There is a spiritual gravitation that draws all souls toward Heaven, just as surely as there is a physical force that draws all matter on the surface of the earth toward the earth’s center. Christ is our drawing power; he said. “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me,” and His promise is being fulfilled daily all over the world. . . .

    The evolutionist does not undertake to tell us how protozoa, moved by Interior and resident forces, sent life up through all the various species, and cannot prove that there was actually any such compelling power at all. And yet the school children are asked to accept their guesses and build a philosophy of life upon them. If it were not so serious a matter, one might be tempted to speculate upon the various degrees of relationship that, according to evolutionists exist between man and other forms of life. It might require some very nice calculation to determine at what degree of relationship the killing of a relative ceases to be murder and the eating of one’s kin ceases to be cannibalism. . . .

    Our first indictment against evolution is that it disputes the truth of the Bible account of man’s creation and shakes faith in the Bible as the word of God. This indictment we prove by comparing the processes described. as evolutionary with the text of Genesis. It not only contradicts the Mosaic record as to the beginning of human life, but it disputes the Bible doctrine of reproduction according to kind – the greatest scientific principle known.

    Our second indictment is that the evolutionary hypothesis, carried to its logical conclusion, disputes every vital truth of the Bible. Its tendency, natural, if not inevitable, is to lead those who really accept it, first to agnosticism and then to atheism. Evolutionists attack the truth of the Bible, not openly at first, but by using weasel-words like “poetical,” “symbolical” and “allegorical” to suck the meaning out of the inspired record of man’s creation.

    Plus, on your theology Bryan and Mencken are in heaven. Practice what you teach.

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  26. Tom Van Dyke :”There are the people who are masters of their sexuality, and those who are mastered by it. The destruction of the American family isn’t funny, nor is the widespread personal unhappiness that the emptiness of the Sexual Revolution hath wrought.”

    My Dear Wormwood, …He (the Enemy) made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it’s better style. To get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return-that is what really gladdens our Father’s heart…You see the idea? Keep his mind off the plain antithesis between True and False. Nice shadowy expressions-“It was a phase”-“I’ve been through all that”-and don’t forget the blessed word “Adolescent”, Your affectionate uncle, SCREWTAPE

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  27. CW,
    You need to do some reading. Not everyone on the Left likes chairman mao. In fact, it seems like Capitalists would like Lenin and Mao before Leftists like myself would.

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  28. HAL: Look Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

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  29. D. G. Hart
    Posted August 5, 2015 at 6:44 am | Permalink
    vd, t, is this the Bryan you love, the one who believed in a literal Adam and thought Darwinism was unproven? That one?

    He’s far easier to love than that sneering soulless piece of work HL Mencken whom you so misguidedly and pathetically try to emulate. The one part of Inherit the Wind they got right:

    Hornbeck [Mencken]:
    What is this? Be Kind To Bigots Week?
    Why should we weep for him?
    Because he’s dead? Oh, no.
    He cried enough for himself
    during his lifetime.
    The national tear duct
    from Weeping Water, Nebraska.
    He flooded the nation
    like a one-man Mississippi.
    You know what he was,
    that Bible-beating bunko artist.
    A giant once lived in that body.

    Drummond [Clarence Darrow]:
    But Matt Brady [William Jennings Bryan] got lost because he looked
    for God too high up and too far away.

    Hornbeck:
    Why, you hypocrite! You fraud!
    The atheist who believes in God.
    You’re just as religious as he was.

    Drummond [Darrow]:
    Everything is grist for your mill, isn’t it?
    Well, go ahead, grind it up –
    Brady’s past, Cates’ future.
    My God! Don’t you understand the
    meaning of what happened here today?

    –It has no meaning.

    You have no meaning.
    You’re like a ghost
    pointing an empty sleeve,
    smirking at everything that
    people feel or want or struggle for.
    I pity you.

    —You pity me?

    Isn’t there anything?
    What touches you? What warms you?
    Every man has a dream.
    What do you dream about?
    What do you need?
    You don’t need anything, do you?
    People, love, an idea just to cling to?
    You poor slob.
    You’re all alone.
    When you go to your grave there won’t be
    anybody to pull the grass over your head.
    Nobody to mourn you,
    nobody to give a damn.
    You’re all alone.

    –You’re wrong, Henry.
    You’ll be there.
    You’re the type.

    I suppose I am, HL.

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  30. Ali
    Posted August 5, 2015 at 9:44 am | Permalink
    Tom Van Dyke :”There are the people who are masters of their sexuality, and those who are mastered by it. The destruction of the American family isn’t funny, nor is the widespread personal unhappiness that the emptiness of the Sexual Revolution hath wrought.”

    My Dear Wormwood, …He (the Enemy) made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it’s better style. To get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return-that is what really gladdens our Father’s heart…You see the idea? Keep his mind off the plain antithesis between True and False. Nice shadowy expressions-“It was a phase”-“I’ve been through all that”-and don’t forget the blessed word “Adolescent”, Your affectionate uncle, SCREWTAPE

    Very well done indeed, sir.

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  31. vd, t, you have to go to a movie script to ridicule Mencken?

    That’s some Daleiden journalism.

    And you complain when I don’t go to your approved RC websites.

    For shame, for shame.

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  32. Presbyterianism for sexy America:

    A more in-depth analysis shows that from 2012 to 2014, the membership has declined by more than 15% . This simply cannot bode well for the future of the PCUSA. Also noteworthy, the donations by members also declined from $1,848,807,540 in 2013 to $1,738,915,711 just one year later.

    It all started back in 2006, after the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA, there was a surprising change in their attitude toward human sexuality. They decided that the governing bodies, which ordain church offices, could have a new approach when considering candidates for office. “No longer would a candidate be required, according to this new guidance, to practice fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness.” In 2011, the PCUSA responded to the shifting sands saying “many talk about this era as being like a wilderness experience for the church, from which we can learn the lessons of being the vibrant people God leads from exile into life.” The full message issued by the denomination was filled with humility, graciousness and kindness. Yet, it cannot be ignored that the PCUSA is simply not upholding the authority of scripture. Scripture (1 Timothy 3:1-7 in particular) is especially clear about who can be considered an appropriate, capable and effective leader in the church.

    The OPC will have to relocate its headquarters.

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  33. Even if we knew which district Mencken would choose to live in, would he watch sexy you tubes?

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  34. Make that two districts, one nation, one deep state:

    America’s deep state is, not unlike Turkey’s, a hybrid creature that operates along a New York to Washington axis. Where the Turks engage in criminal activity to fund themselves, the Washington elite instead turns to banksters, lobbyists, and defense contractors, operating much more in the open and, ostensibly, legally. U.S.-style deep state includes all the obvious parties, both public and private, who benefit from the status quo: including key players in the police and intelligence agencies, the military, the treasury and justice departments, and the judiciary. It is structured to materially reward those who play along with the charade, and the glue to accomplish that ultimately comes from Wall Street. “Financial services” might well be considered the epicenter of the entire process. Even though government is needed to implement desired policies, the banksters comprise the truly essential element, capable of providing genuine rewards for compliance. As corporate interests increasingly own the media, little dissent comes from the Fourth Estate as the process plays out, while many of the proliferating Washington think tanks that provide deep state “intellectual” credibility are similarly funded by defense contractors.

    The cross fertilization that is essential to making the system work takes place through the famous revolving door whereby senior government officials enter the private sector at a high level. In some cases the door revolves a number of times, with officials leaving government before returning to an even more elevated position. Along the way, those select individuals are protected, promoted, and groomed for bigger things. And bigger things do occur that justify the considerable costs, to include bank bailouts, tax breaks, and resistance to legislation that would regulate Wall Street, political donors, and lobbyists. The senior government officials, ex-generals, and high level intelligence operatives who participate find themselves with multi-million dollar homes in which to spend their retirement years, cushioned by a tidy pile of investments.

    America’s deep state is completely corrupt: it exists to sell out the public interest, and includes both major political parties as well as government officials. Politicians like the Clintons who leave the White House “broke” and accumulate $100 million in a few years exemplify how it rewards. A bloated Pentagon churns out hundreds of unneeded flag officers who receive munificent pensions and benefits for the rest of their lives. And no one is punished, ever. Disgraced former general and CIA Director David Petraeus is now a partner at the KKR private equity firm, even though he knows nothing about financial services. More recently, former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell has become a Senior Counselor at Beacon Global Strategies. Both are being rewarded for their loyalty to the system and for providing current access to their replacements in government.

    What makes the deep state so successful? It wins no matter who is in power, by creating bipartisan-supported money pits within the system. Monetizing the completely unnecessary and hideously expensive global war on terror benefits the senior government officials, beltway industries, and financial services that feed off it. Because it is essential to keep the money flowing, the deep state persists in promoting policies that make no sense, to include the unwinnable wars currently enjoying marquee status in Iraq/Syria and Afghanistan. The deep state knows that a fearful public will buy its product and does not even have to make much of an effort to sell it.

    Protecting Christian bakers and defunding Planned Parenthood won’t fix this.

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  36. Evangelicals colleges for Americans who like sex and colleges for Americans who don’t:

    Union University has informed the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) that it will withdraw from the coalition in the wake of two member schools changing their hiring policies to include same-sex couples.

    CCCU president Shirley Hoogstra and board chairman Charles Pollard, who also serves as president of John Brown University, received a letter from Union president Dub Oliver on Monday, almost four weeks after Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) and Goshen College announced they would begin hiring non-celibate homosexual staff and faculty.

    “It grieves us to make this decision as we have been members of the CCCU since 1991,” Oliver wrote in the letter. He said Union benefited from the council’s programs, professional development, and advocacy, but “our faithfulness to the authority of Scripture takes precedence … marriage is at the heart of the Gospel.”

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  37. Pingback: What If Historical Inquiry Isn't Comforting - Old Life Theological Society

  38. Politics of sexual identity:

    [P]olitical identity today likely captures embeddedness in distinctive worldviews, sets of meanings, and ideas about the self and relationships. With regard to sex and sexuality in America, being politically liberal tends to mean valuing sexual expression as a good-in-itself, not only as a means to an end or contingent on the context (such as being in a relationship or being married). Talk of “sexual health” is also more common among them and typically takes acts of sexual expression for granted.

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