So Perhaps We Should Not Be Too Hard Upon - Should At the Very Least Be Somewhat Understanding (If Never Acceptant) of the Underlying Motivations of - Those Numerous Republican Party Lawmakers and Cabinet Appointees of Donald J Trump - Ultimately Unwilling to "Stand Back and Stand Aside" (to Quote (Yet Completely Repurpose) Those Now Infamous Words) From Supporting His Demagoguery Two Weeks Ago...And Yet Simultaneously Declare (In No Half-Pie, Uncertain Terms) - As Indeed (THEN) Vice-President Mike Pence Himself EFFECTIVELY & Admirably Did In the Capitol Building (and Federal Legislative Halls of the U S of A) - That It Is A Better Thing By Far To Die, If Circumstances So Require(d)/Demand(ed) It - In Behalf of the Eternal Cause of Liberty and Everlasting Principles of Truth, Than To Cowardly "Stand Back and Stand Aside" (To Again Repurpose Selfsame Words) and Let the Forces of Oppression and Injustice, of Tyranny and Despotism, Bear Undue Sway Over the Land

Lest we so happen to prove ourselves the ecclesiastical actors depicted in Jesus' own classic and beloved Parable of the Good Samaritan - the rabbi and the Levite - who were in all likelihood steered away from 'doing the right thing' by the man beaten by robbers on the Road to Jericho, stripped naked and left to die...

...due to one thing and one thing only: the all-too-human survival instinct...

'Disclaimer'/Acknowledgment: An insight I had after the insurrection upon America's capital two weeks ago, one I was 'gratified' to see was also one which the late great Dr Martin Luther King Junior also shared...

...as revealed in his sermonette upon the selfsame in the lovely little tome Strength to Love.

And please also refer to related (January 19th) blogposts upon this selfsame subject upon my original blogsite:

http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)

Yes, 'Then to side with truth is noble When we share her wretched crust...Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong': 'Ere [Truth's] cause bring fame and profit, And 'tis prosperous to be just, Then it is the brave man chooses, While the coward stands aside'

Due credit to the great hymnist, James Russell Lowell, whose 'Once to Every Man and Nation' has long been a special source of personal inspiration, as it evidently also was to one of my lifetime mentors, Dr Martin Luther King, Junior...

...and whose 'immortal' lyrics are every bit as relevant today as they were in the fraught Dark Ages about which he doubtlessly wrote.

Returning To An All But (100%) Certain (Ill) Fate Might Seem Naivete and Gullibility and Credulity In The Extreme...Or Perhaps, In The Case of Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny - As With Dr Martin Luther King Almost 52-Some Years Ago (and, 'Incidentally', His Own Master 2 Millennia Ago) - It's 'Foolhardy Courage' and Unashamed 'Guts': Qualities Too Seldom Seen (But Oh So Desperately Needed) In Today's World

Accordingly please refer to my related blogpost - the second of three (dated January the 19th) - upon my original blogsite, that is:

http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)

America Set For A Major Bust-Up On 'Inauguration Day', January 20th, 2021? All Bets Are Off, As It Indeed Appears That Way...But What Irony For/If Such A Doubling Down, Reactionary 'Blow-Back' (To) Effectively Coincide/s With The Birthday and Public Holiday of Martin Luther King, Junior...

Yes, what a shameful 'tribute' to the legacy of the man Americans now - ?disingenuously? - constantly champion as the Inaugurator of the post-Civil Rights Era of Desegregation...

by and from insurrectionists who are by-and-large white supremacists and the like...

Will All The Adults On The Premises Please Stand Up, And 'To Attention' - Yes, That Includes YOU, Ben Carson! - Your Presence and Moreover Action Is Required IMMEDIATELY (If Not Yesterday): Yes, You ALL Know PRECISELY What You Have/Need To Do!

Yes, 'ARTICLE 25' Of America's Venerable Constitution NEEDS TO BE INVOKED - Without A Moment's Delay

But and if it isn't, then I understand that impeachment - for which the present occupant of the White House has proven himself abundantly, even superlatively qualified - should be invoked...as indeed is presently being verily proposed...

...my understanding being that though the process needs be begun now, it can be continued after a president no longer occupies the Oval Office...

...and if *successfully 'enacted', will permanently debar the one so impeached from any further designs upon 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue... 

*And/or being removed c/o the aforesaid Article 25 of the US Constitution will [do so].

The Hour Is Now Indeed Late...And It Is HIGH TIME For All The REAL MEN - And For That Matter, Women (In The Room) - To Separate Themselves From The Boys and Girls...While There's Still Time For Them To Do So...

Of what precisely do I talk? Of dealing to the great one atop Capitol Hill, before it's forever too late...and so, yes, there remains a duty, however unpleasant and problematic it may well not only appear but actually be, for the Vice-President to undertake...

But then, as the old song says, 'He' never promised us a rose-garden...did he.

Incredibly or ironically for yours truly, yesterday, January 7th (NZ time) - the day Americans will remember for long to come, the day when their democracy came closer to subversion than since the British tea-party of 1812 (or so) and/or the depths of the Civil War in the early 1860s - was generally January the 6th, US time...

the birthday of my long since deceased Grandma, Elvera Burkholder; my mother's mother was indeed born upon this day back in 1900, living almost till her 95th birth-anniversary...

I almost forgot to mention - the very reason in fact I've included reference to 'Elvera': simply thus: her name is the Spanish for the truth. And thus and so, January 6th is now etched for time and memorial as

A day of truth and righteousness, indeed, for the United States of America, one that will go down for the history books if America yet emerges successfully and essentially unscathed from its grasp/tentacles...

Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood, For the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah, Offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever 'Twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble When we share her wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, And 'tis prosperous to be just;

Then it is the brave man chooses, While the coward stands aside,

Till the multitude make virtue Of the faith they had denied.

Thus the incisive James Russell Lowell waxes lyrically and unforgettably in the first two stanzas of his timeless hymn 'Once to Every Man and Nation'.

As I cannot help myself from adding, 

Nuff Said!

A 'VILE' Specimen Of Humanity (Again, No Guesstimating Whom I'm Referring to) 'Of Fierce and Dark(some) Countenance': Could THIS Be the Long-Prophesied Biblical ANTICHRIST? Maybe - Indeed, I'm Positively Certain - NOT; But One Could Hardly Blame Anyone For So Believing

A One-Time Republican Party 'Grandee' - 1964 Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater, No Less - Once SALIENTLY Predicted That The Then Christian Coalition/One-Time Moral Majority/Religious Right (Of Today) Would Be the Death-Knell of the American Republican Party: Well, He's Quite Right (AS FAR AS HE WENT): But Quite Frankly, They Had NOTHING On Donald J Trump, A One Man Wrecking Ball Who's Gonna Be Responsible For Driving the GOP Down DEEP BELOW Ye Proverbial Gutter...AND THEN SOME!

Postscript: Actually, though, I'm probably putting things the wrong way around. I.e. if we think Donald J Trump is bad, well, in view of biblical prophecy vis-a-vis the very final days of (present-day) human history, quite frankly 'we ain't seen nothing yet'!

Completely (self-)contradictory? I'm afraid so. But then they say that life is much more complicated than we sometimes imagine, and the truth is indeed oftentimes far, far stranger than fiction! 

Or perhaps both things are true simultaneously, and *Trump himself will be the agent provocateur in the not too distant future, who, through pressure from American Protestants in particular, will authorize/ enact/provide the presidential imprimatur to the long-prophesied national Sunday laws which will in turn, ultimately, allow mobs **'of violent and angry ****men' to, at the very last - on a certain well-specified day and time - wreak death and destruction upon any who steadfastly refuse to conform to such a state edict that directly and explicitly contradicts divine law.

*Though it's equally conceivable that say a genuinely evangelical president such as for instance Mike Pence - provided over the next 13 days he keeps his powder dry so to speak and doesn't effectively blot his copybook with voters (of whatever stripe) - is the one who will authorize all the immediately foregoing...

**Said mini-phrase probably (subconsciously) borrowed from that seminal work ***of Andrew Lloyd Webber/Timothy Rice, 'Jesus Christ Superstar': the songs of which - both tunes and lyrics - are powerful and 'unreal', notwithstanding the equally strong and consistent and at times none-too-subtle unbiblical and even anti-biblical and Christ-dishonouring undercurrent throughout said rock opera and its medley of classical hits... 

***Rice and Webber were evidently preeminently responsible for the musical component thereof, at least.

****No doubt mainly the male of the species, but 'human beings' will then be hardly a fit epithet for such, as they will be humanity transformed into demons.

A Once 'Grand Old Party' Sacrificed Upon the (Sacrilegious) Altar of One Man's Gargantuan Ego: NO GUESSING WHO I'M REFERRING TO, EH

TO BE CONTINUED... 

You [Mike Pence] Are Indeed One of A Noble Line of Indianan REPUBLICANS Who Have Served Your Party and Nation Well...In The Second-Highest Office of the Land

 Perhaps I'm (understandably) somewhat biased, having met and been deeply impressed by a couple of relatives (on my mother's side) from the 'Hoosier State' back in 2008 - as the lead-up to the pivotal presidential election of the USA's first ever black American president was then being eagerly watched by a waiting world...

...folk who were salt of the earth, true dinkum (Brethren) Christians...

Anyhow, though some/many may well disagree - especially those not happening to share my Christian faith - I count those folk as including not only Mike Pence but George Herbert Bush's Veep, Dan Quayle, and Bob Dole's own Vice-Presidential Nominee, David Kemp..

the latter, anyhow, being - to my way of thinking (and living) - a sterling example of compassionate conservatism as George W Bush regrettably proved not to be...

TO BE CONTINUED...

You Have - ALREADY, Whatever Yet Comes To Pass/Transpires - Passed The Test, Mr Vice-President, I'm (Unexpectedly) Impressed: You Have Indeed, Verily Shown Your True Quality, and Have Kept Your Solemn, Sacred Oath of Office (To the American People and US Constitution) Indeed

How so - i.e. how can I be so sure of your fidelity to principle when the rubber finally met the road earlier today? Since the Houses of Congress are still awaiting recall again, very shortly, later this evening (U S time) to indeed certify the decision of the Electoral College state-by-state and nationally? And hence, since said certification, prevented from occurring earlier today (NZ time) and now awaiting said recall to finally occur later today, could well see you then reverse course and not move to doing what you to all appearance were attempting to do earlier today when 'unforeseen circumstances' intervened to prevent you?

For that very reason: the fact that at that time,when all hell was breaking loose all around you, you steadfastly determined to follow through, come hell or high water, upon your solemnly undertaken oath of office (to ever uphold the U S Constitution throughout your sojourn in the Oval Office)...

...whilst a mob of 'wild and angry men' (as the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar might have expressed it) were virtually baying for your blood, or if not blood, seeking to enter the premises of the House to stop you fulfilling your constitutional duty before the American people...

Yes, this particular punter sees your oath (of undying fealty and allegiance) as 'already fulfilled', as Aragorn in the Philippa Boyens/Fran Walsh/Peter Jacksonesque cinematic interpretation of J R R Tolkien's classic 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy declared to the 'Undying King Under the Mountain' after he and his kind came to the rescue when the White City of Gondor was being mercilessly besieged by Sauron's orc legions and the Corsairs et al... 

You can now leave the White House - whatever is yet to transpire - with a (semblance of a) clear conscience; you may have lost your/the greatest (!!!) earthly benefactor, but as the Lord Jesus so solemnly declared:

What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, yet loses his own soul?

No, in that coming life/world, the last will indeed be first, and the (supposed) first will (themselves) be last...

i.e. shut out of God's eternal kingdom - left out 'in the [utter] outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth',

a day in which the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men - alongside every bondman and every free man,

will hid[e] themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains...

...saying to the mountains and rocks,

Fall on us, and hide us from the face of [H]im that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb...

For the great [D]ay of [H]is wrath [has] come; and who shall be able to stand?    

And Now the 'Good News': AT LONG LAST YOU DO HAVE A VERY REAL CHOICE...AS SAMWISE GAMGEE MIGHT HAVE PUT MATTERS, TO SHOW YOUR QUALITY, MR VICE-PRESIDENT...By Simply Saying A(n Ever Respectful) Polite But Firm and Unyielding "NO!" To Your Earthly Boss...Counting/Esteeming, As That Great Man of God, Moses, Once Did, 'The Reproach of Christ More Precious Than the Riches of [This World], Choosing To Suffer With God's People Rather Than Enjoy the Passing Pleasures of Sin'...However Misunderstood - Like Your LORD and Saviour - By Fellow Human Beings...

Yes, Vice-President Pence, you have one and only one chance, a single opportunity left, one you will doubtless never have again, to show your true quality to one and all - not only to Mr Trump - a golden opportunity moreover, if admittedly simultaneously somewhat of a poisoned chalice...

An opportunity to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, a skerrick of a suspicion even, that you are not just one more political partisan among too many to number, but rather a truly principled politician - clear and obvious oxymoron notwithstanding. For as that great hymn writer James Russell Lowell so eloquently expresses matters,

Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide,

...

And the choice goes by forever, 'Twixt that darkness and that light.

Or as another famous wag so aptly expressed matters, I came to the forking of the road, and I chose the road less travelled, and that has made all the difference...

Show your bipartisan quality, Mr Vice-President...

the choice will not come again...

...but you can save yourself being an historical footnote in an infamous chapter in American history.

First the Bad News (Vis-a-Vis American Vice-President Mike Pence's Unenviable 'Choice' Tomorrow in Washington D.C.): Yes, Trump Will Come After Pence Hook, Line and Sinker - Sinking Any Future Presidential Hopes The Latter May Well Have -- Unless He Fulfils His Master's Will TO THE LETTER...But Then That is Arguably What Comes Of Selling Your Soul to the Devil, And At Some Point You Have to Decide, As A Self-Respecting, Committed Christian, TO Whom Your First Loyalty Devolves: Whether To An Earthly Potentate ('Caesar') Or To Your Heavenly LORD: And the Blood of (Innumerable) Christian Martyrs Down Through the Centuries, Even Millennia, Testifies That For Truly Committed Followers of the LORD Jesus Christ It's a Slam Dunk Affair, Not Even One Worthy of a Second Thought...

Yes, although 'everybody knows' that Trump would neither accept let alone understand the fact that Veep Pence has only one conceivable option available to him tomorrow, i.e. to duly certify the duly certified result of the recent presidential election in a joint session of America's Houses of Congress, with himself presiding as Head of the Senate, (more usually as such in a deadlock-breaking capacity)...

...it's more than likely that Mike Pence, having long since sold his soul to the devil, as the ever incisive and perceptive Newstalk ZB talkback host Tim Roxborough */**so adeptly portrayed matters this afternoon, will ever after be a victim of his own fatal and fateful compromise, unable like the hapless biblical Samson to ever after buy it back... 

*Roxborough conceded to his American 'correspondent' whilst communicating vis-a-vis today's fraught Georgian senatorial run-off elections this afternoon, that it appears likely that Pence will indeed be constrained to act in a constitutional manner, thereby placing his own seal of approval, his imprimatur as it were upon the already duly decided presidential election result, but that in so doing he will inevitably raise the ire, the hackles of his extremely thin-skinned boss...

...but having already sold his soul to the devil [way back when] Roxborough added he therefore simply didn't have much time for Pence...

**Actually most of the expressions and ideas expressed herein were pretty well my own, not Roxborough's, though his own thoughts certainly served to spur mine along...

Once Again, Whether One Subscribes To His Political Agenda Or Otherwise - And Though Socialism In Much of the Present-Day World Is Essentially Bankrupt - Nevertheless Like the Majority of (Typically and Generally Conservative/Right-of-Centre) Americans in Opinion Polling Back in 2015 and 2016 Where He Consistently Topped Trump Et Al As the Most Trustworthy, Integrity-Filled Presidential Candidate Then On Offer - (Personal Namesake, So To Speak) Bernie Sanders Is Once Again RIGHT ON THE MONEY Vis-a-Vis The Present Occupant of the Oval Office:

What Donald J Trump is now well-known to have shamefully and shamelessly indulged in the other day...in his hour-long recorded phone conversation with Georgia's Secretary of State Kippenberger...is way worse than anything any previous American president,*much less Richard Milhaus Nixon, is ever known to have attempted...

Yes, doubtless the most impeachable offence in the history of the Union, and overshadowing by a country mile anything and everything previously known as occurring under any of his predecessors' tenures...

*As (either) Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein Watergate fame himself has publicly declared.

Speaking of Bowing and Scraping, That Was EXACTLY, PRECISELY What Former Republican Party Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney EFFECTIVELY DID When He Flew Into Washington D.C. For A Private Audience With Then President-Elect Trump As The Latter (Theoretically) Scouted For A Potential Secretary Of State...A Sad Taking Down Of Someone (As Trump Played Him For A Sucker) Who Had Been The Most Courageous And Given The Most Unashamed Public Rebuke Of 'The Donald' Around The Very Time DJT Was Building Quite Unassailable Momentum To Take The Republican Party's Presidential Nomination...

Yet one would have to suppose that someone of Romney's longstanding political acumen knew that this was precisely, exactly what Trump was doing/had in mind, and as my brother I believe suggested, felt it nevertheless his duty to his fellow Americans to offer himself for service whether (seen to be) taken for a fool or otherwise, and arguably that is a noble thing, being willing to be thought a fool despite intending only the very best by his fellow Americans...

...i.e. to serve them in an honourable and noble, self-sacrificing way, the diametrical opposite of the way the present incumbent has ever publicly conducted himself whether inside or outside the Oval Office...

But What Should Strike Any and Every 'True', Self-Respecting and Constitutionally Literate American - Let Alone Patriotic and Honourable Republican Party Member and Supporter (Like the Brilliant, Long-Serving Time Magazine Columnist George Wills) - As Especially Pitiful and Demeaning, Yea, Even Humiliating and Galling - Is That There Remain Trump Lackeys Aplenty, Only Too Willing To Bow and Scrape and Curtsey and Duly Submit On Bended Knee and Prostrated Obeisance To Virtually Pretty Well Anything and Everything That Donald J Trump Happens To Duly Dish Up...For American Public Consumption/Gullibility...

Just As A Leopard Isn't Exactly Known For Indulging In Ye Proverbial Nip & Tuck, i.e. Changing Its Spots, The Only Thing Ye Typical Bully Understands Is Receiving In Kind: So President Trump's As Per Usual Bully-Boy Tactics Will Get Him Nowhere Faster Than He'd Probably Like - Though What A Beautiful Coup De Grace From Scotland's First Lady, the *Ever Redoubtable Nicola Sturgeon...Duly Denying the Donald Visiting Rights to His (Notorious) Scottish Golf Course...Though To Someone With Such An Almighty Ego and Sense of Entitlement Who Never Feels That The Rules Applicable to Everyone Else Ever Apply to Him, The Fact That He - Whether As American President or Otherwise - Might Be Declined Entrance On the Grounds of Covid-19 (Like Everyone Else) Will Affect Him Pretty Much Like the Proverbial Water Off a **Duck's Back...And Will Simply Go Down As Another Personal Slight That His Super-Sensitive Ego Will Ever After Nurse and Crave Revenge Over...

Postscript (March 18th, 2021): Post 'the Ides of March'...

*Although - long since - Sturgeon's favourability ratings have plummeted for me, not only in regards to her petty disrespect publicly displayed towards British PM Boris Johnson upon his visit to her esteemed land awhile ago, immediately post-General Election 2019 if I remember aright - and also vis-a-vis her self-serving grandstanding physical gestures/gesticulations towards the defeated (UK) Liberal leader in Scotland in that selfsame election as the results were confirmed...

...and her principled but in my view wrong approach to Brexit, i.e. if and when Scotland votes for independence, then hoping to get Scotland exiting the United Kingdom as it simultaneously joins the European Union...

but moreover and way more importantly (my strongly pro-Brexit views notwithstanding) to and for me...

...her apparently despicable conduct behind the scenes towards her predecessor, the one-time First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond... 

Such conduct, however increasingly commonplace these days - throughout the Western world and especially here in God's Own and across the Ditch in the land of Oz (as those championing and would-be leaders of the Me Too Movement get into high dudgeon), is - if Salmond's accusations (vis-a-vis Sturgeon's attempts to besmirch and sully his well-earned reputation) are indeed true and correct...

...highly reprehensible and worthy of political impeachment and even imprisonment for a lengthy term.

Yes, dreams are free, as we live in an era where, as Mike Hosking agreed with Newstalk ZB's British correspondent Rob/Rod Little the other day (March 16th):

"Today you can say pretty much whatever you want/make as extreme a statement as you wish...provided you're on the right side of the [particular] equation [concerned]."