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.
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/)
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...
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].
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!
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.
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...
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?
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.
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...
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.
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...
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]."
To Be Continued...sometime-or-other...
To Be Continued...
No, to paraphrase what Margaret Thatcher once so memorably and powerfully proclaimed...
These peoples ain't for buying.
Accused seemingly relentlessly of everything from (participating in) genocide through to religious tyranny to attempting to set up another theocracy in the image and likeness of ancient Israel...
I must protest, especially on the first - by far the most significant and libellous - count...
for my understanding is that their supposed ill-treatment of America's indigenous/native population has been highly exaggerated, if not oftentimes fabricated fullstop...
And their views on religious liberty were pretty well impeccable, though admittedly and regrettably they, like so many of their (post-Reformation) Protestants, were so often not willing to extend the selfsame religious and even civil liberties to others (of differing Christian denominations as well as non-Christian religions in general) that they were so zealous in championing for themselves...
Yet as one far-seeing much-published Christian author has well stated, those newly emerging from great and deep spiritual darkness do not all at once see/perceive everything in the bright light of the midday sun...
And as (in paraphrase) said another, the Pilgrim father Roger Williams, of the new colony of Rhode Island, also quoted in Ellen Gould White's seminal, epochal & classic The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan (known as Cosmic Conflict), expressed things so very thoughtfully and farsightedly:
We vow before our God to accept and follow all the additional light our gracious God may well see fit to shed upon our path(way) in times to come...
...for it simply cannot be that having lately emerged from such midnight darkness [as above referred to] that all additional duties and obligations, rights and privileges pertaining to our high estate as Christians can yet have been fully revealed to us...
And New Zealand media certainly weren't alone, with the following headline from the November 19th (British) Guardian, no less:
'Sweaty Rudy Giuliani suffers hair malfunction in latest bizarre press conference.'
Need I say/add more?
Which is the best construction I can put upon the presentation - at the head of the hourly news bulletin - of an item midday today (and at 1 p.m.) upon RNZ National, dealing with an interview Yours Truly had listened to after the 7 a.m. News with host Jim Mora and regularly 'appearing' opinion pollster **Em(m)anuel Kalifatelis/Kalifitavis (of Research New Zealand)...
To wit, Radio New Zealand highlighted only one of *three opinion polls recently conducted by Research NZ, the one showing that most NZers would support moving from the present three-year to a four-year term of national government...
...all too conveniently failing to include that another of their latest polls shows kiwis opposing in no uncertain terms the much-touted and endlessly promoted lowering of the voting age from 18 downwards...
...and, wonder of wonders, even youth themselves (the 18-30-year age demographic or the like) majorly opposed doing so (by a margin of 70:28%, apparently)...
Yes, the news always looks a whole lot better and in sync with one's own political preferences when we only mention the bits we like and oh so conveniently sidestep and even positively ignore those we don't...
But, folks, last I heard that's called stacking the deck in one's own favour and/or giving viewers/readers/listeners only half the story...
...though perhaps I'm a little wet behind the ears, naive or gullible, and perhaps that's really what ***said media actually want their devotees to hear...
...i.e. only those so-called 'facts' that just so conveniently happen to suit their agenda...
-and yet they'd have us believe that only the likes of Donald J Trump major in 'fake news'...
*Please forgive me for presently forgetting what the other of those polls was about/over.
**Depending upon which of the various items posted under said gentleman's name express the correct spelling!
***Unlike Newstalk ZB, incidentally, which upon their 5 p.m. news bulletin included both these polls.
Coz, sure as heck, had the National Party made a bottom-line, bedrock promise to pretty well end child poverty before one election, and after the following one was still finding its feet thereabouts...
...well, anyone even half familiar with the kiwi political scene knows there'd be all hell to pay by this particular point in time, and the media, political commentators and assorted punditry alike would've not only taken them severely to task (by this point), but would be veritably screaming from the rafters all about broken promises and the like, we'd hear no end of it in fact...
Or was I the only person in God's Own to **hear then Opposition leader Jacinda Ardern declare in no uncertain terms that 'under her watch' not only would great strides be taken in dealing to this scourge of our society, but poverty would be ultimately eradicated/eliminated altogether?
*A lecturer in politics and public policy at Auckland University, appearing this morning on Newshub Nation with fellow commentators and host Simon Shepherd.
**In what to this punter and pleb, anyhow, was a fairly memorable pre-election (2017) television debate and tete-a-tete between her and then Prime Minister Bill English.
Read D J Trump and Presidential Election 2020...the UK Brexit referendum result and those who rallied incessantly in sheer defiance thereof, seeking it be annulled and voided...
...and countless third-world regimes, be they tyrannies, oligarchies or 'mere' petty dictatorships...
Or, in this particular instance, China's CCP and its ongoing attempts to bully lil 'ole Hong Kong - and Taiwan for that matter - into submission...
...and to threaten and intimidate any and all who dare to speak out in the defence of these noble small peoples...
To Be Continued (in the near foreseeable)...
-including a reference to blind Wellington bus-rider George Taggart, a gentleman with the courage of his convictions and the staunch determination to take a very real personal stand allied to his unwillingness to simply be fobbed off by an uncaring bureaucratic 'machine' (as in its human personnel)...
But whose particular version is completely a-okay, and if neither side is 100% squeaky-clean, what are we to make of that, and moreover ultimately do about it?
If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? (As the 'sweet psalmist of Israel' asks in Psalm 11:3 [King James Bible].)
As events transpired overnight to tip things increasingly in Joe Biden's favour, how refreshing to hear from an atypically unpartisan Republican standard-bearer, in this case former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, trying to bring some measure of agreement between the two warring camps by suggesting that all the advance/absentee etcetera ballots be counted, whether in Democratic-tending Arizona or in Trump-leaning Pennsylvania, as well as the likes of Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina etcetera...
Like Biden in *a very real sense - living with a child with a serious congenital condition - perhaps has made him a more reasonable, understanding sort of a person, the kind we and especially America increasingly need in these days of such searing heat rather than elucidating light...
*Though Joe Biden's situation, almost identical with that of an American relative Gale Burkholder who lost his own wife and child in a car accident in the later 1960s, is quite dissimilar in its specifics from Mr Santorum's, it's the tenor of traumatic grief that seems to resonate similarly in both instances...
Overnight a powerful earthquake, with potential tsunami implications - centred in the Aegean Sea - rocks Turkey. Does anyone in their right mind consider this a mere coincidence, just another arbitrary 'freak of nature'? Surely that's not how your average Middle Easterner, anyhow, would, in their heart of hearts, so regard it.
It hardly occurred in a void, rather it follows some highly inflammatory, bordering on genocidal language, in not just Turkey but now apparently throughout the Muslim world - seen especially in the huge protest marches in Pakistan and Bangladesh - against France and its leadership, who have gone out on a courageous limb and denounced in no uncertain terms the Islamist Fascists now vying for supremacy in the Gallic nation.
Which country has now forthrightly declared it is no longer prepared to bear with a long-time 'softly, softly' approach to the existence of terrorists in its midst, wreaking 'merry havoc' with *the innocent on every side, a nation no longer resiling from its longstanding commitment to freedom of speech and expression, but, in the wake of the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and republishing of those 'inflammatory' cartoons, laying down the gauntlet to those who have used the liberties which are every Frenchman and woman's very birthright to challenge these very values under the disguise of supposed religious intolerance and persecution.
Yet what we are seeing not only in South Asia and Turkey in particular but in France itself are sympathizers with such intolerant - Islamist, note, not Muslim - fascists: yes, let's, like France's President Macron, who's at long last recovered his mojo, as folk might put it here down under, call it for what it actually is - under the protection of France's long-established and deeply-cherished **liberties, seeking to subvert and overturn those selfsame liberties by disingenuously conflating them with the very intolerance that is their own especial trademark!
I'm afraid that sticking your finger up and in the face of Western Europe's proud (post-Protestant Reformation) heritage of civil and religious liberty is one that - ultimately, eventually - even the Almighty will one day soon(er than many think or realize) call time on, declaring verily
Enough is Enough! It's all over, folks, and I'm returning to claim My own...
*/********But sadly, it is the innocent who tend to suffer, not the despotic leaders such as Turkey's Erdogan. Yet does that mean that God actually approves such innocents suffering unjustly? Hardly; He has ***denounced as an abomination that very thing throughout His (Older Testament) word, including especially in the 'Torah' (****first five books of Moses) and in the Book of Proverbs in particular.
Rather, as the American university-based 'defender of the faith' (once delivered unto the saints) - whose name I've somehow forgotten - well put it - ******by sheer coincidence this very day, after I'd long since begun, and even almost completed, this very blogpost - in the oft-noted and (*******quite understandably) denounced Older Testamental genocides wherein entire peoples, including every last man, woman and child, were declared due for complete and utter extermination (by God to His people), these peoples' children did indeed perish through no special fault of their own, as a result of (unavoidably) sharing in the consequences accruing to their parents, who had by such time (often long since) surpassed the moral boundaries God has set for human beings, indulging in child sacrifice among other abominations...
**One of its revolutionary triad of 'liberty, equality, fraternity'.
***In scriptures such as Exodus 23:7 and Proverbs 6:17 in particular.
****For those like myself who cannot believe it wasn't Israel's *****great deliverer (Moses) who penned the timeless classic of the well-known Book of Job (about which I've long been preparing 'a layman's guide', if it ever gets written).
*****But of course it was Yahweh/the LORD Almighty Who through Moses - and angelic agencies - really, truly delivered the Israelites from their Egyptian captors/oppressors/slavemasters, an event of historical moment ever after known as 'the Exodus'.
******But to 'true believers' nothing, no, nothing is sheer, mere 'coincidence'; sovereign divine Providence overrules all. Which of course doesn't mean that accidents don't happen, or - even more importantly - that it is ever somehow God's rather perverse will for the innocent to suffer and/or die.
Entire volumes/tomes have been written on this very subject, but suffice to say the general consensus of Christian authors upon the same seem in unanimity in agreeing that what God is oftentimes (throughout sacred scripture) declared as causing...is rather, just as often, something He happens to allow...and, again, suffice to say that here is a world, nay, a universe, of difference between the two...
*******From an initial, if ultimately superficial, secular human perspective.
********Which is why I heartily concur with (New Zealand's) Family First spokesperson Bob McCoskrey's summation of his own opposition (anyhow) to the recent (almost exactly) 2:1 approval of euthanasia ('assisted dying') in our general election-concurrent referendum. The problem with euthanasia is the same as that with capital punishment, you simply cannot ensure that even one innocent person will not suffer as a consequence. And for myself as for Bob, one mistake is too many.
Affliction will not rise up the second time...
No indeed, but mercifully for them (and everyone else) they'll be put out of existence altogether.
Yes, better to remain silent and be thought a fool, as the wise man Solomon once put it, than to open your mouth and remove all (shade of) doubt...
but hey, if all else fails on the domestic front, why not take things globally and open up another major regional war, and as an in/direct consequence contribute therewith to the big W111 to boot?
And apologies, for a start, as I scribbled the following thoughts a little while prior to the last American presidential debate three days ago, but time rapidly ran out, and naturally I didn't want to miss a moment - though admittedly I did end up missing the first two-three minutes (thankfully, only of introductories and preliminaries, evidently, as the moderator was still speaking and giving debate guidelines when I tuned in).
So in what specifically does my said 'beef' with selfsame 'Max' consist?
Well, immediately following - if memory serves me aright, not always a 'done deal', I'll readily admit! - a report upon the very latest permutations of the approval/confirmation process around President Trump's latest Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, 'Max' expounded upon how the final presidential debate (shortly thereafter to be held/aired live around the globe) would consist of *six essential 'talking points'...
Well, after 'Max' duly cited what was then the overnight (NZtime) breaking news from the U S of A of the (seemingly unstoppable) confirmation of said Supreme Court nominee Barrett the following Monday (presumably U S time, i.e. tomorrow 'kiwi' time) - said development indeed constituting, I have little doubt (nor apparently do many/most commentators thereabouts), one of the most momentous (religio-political-cultural) and defining moments in modern American history, especially vis-a-vis their seemingly endless 'culture wars'...
Max mentioned what was indeed a much-discussed 'talking point' in itself over the expected confirmation, i.e whether - as Joe Biden's Vice-Presidential candidate Camilla Harris had herself been pointedly asked by the moderator of the Pence vs Harris 'Veep' debate a couple weeks earlier, and had conspicuously declined to say - Biden (and Harris) would themselves (if elected), subsequent to and as a (politically partisan) response to the now seemingly inevitable confirmation of Barrett upon the US Supreme Court, stack the deck, i.e. appoint a whole lot more justices to counterbalance the now (putative) 6:3 conservative: liberal ratio/majority upon the Nation's Highest Bench...
Then Max mentioned that Democratic Party nominee Biden is also now facing new allegations of his own, regarding an "unproven/unsubstantiated" email allegedly proving he acted corruptly in regards to his son Hunter (which might well ring a bell or several for those folk familiar with a major news item from a couple years ago, relating to Hunter's involvement in the Ukraine during Biden's Vice-Presidency under Barack Obama)...
Max then made the rather unbelievable remark: "But this doesn't yet seem to be adversely affecting Biden's presidential bid/gambit, as his (reasonably substantial) poll lead over Trump hasn't yet taken a tumble and is holding up"...
But how could it possibly do so (i.e. negatively affect JB's and DJT's respective poll numbers/ratings) when patently anti-Trump and anti-Republican social media giants Facebook and Twitter have thus far banned the aforementioned seriously damaging Biden allegations from even seeing 'webtime'?
But then Max put his personal biases readily on display for one and all to see (and be duly appalled) when he then attempted to move seamlessly from an account of a **new greatly restrictive abortion law in Poland to the totally unrelated matter of the (apparent) conviction/imprisonment of members of Italy's formerly 'insurgent' Golden Dawn Movement.
And in what contentious way did he do so?
By simply inserting this rather pejorative 'filler'/linking paraphrase: "And now for some better/brighter news."
Not a big deal or a 'biggie', I hear you intone... -except that journalism was never (meant to be) about one's own subjective interpretation of news events, but simply a proper reportage thereof...
...for readers and viewers to make up their own minds (and hearts)...
*If recollection serves me correctly, (four/five of these being) Covid-19, racism/civil unrest, climate change, the economy/unemployment, issues/questions of (personal) character -if not in that particular order...
**Which is seemingly pretty much the very conservative approach once so adhered to in many jurisdictions, including America and New Zealand, that abortion should remain illegal except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the life of the woman.
***A perfectly justifiable and appropriate phrase, mind you, for insertion/inclusion in my seventh blogsite,
'Always Look On the Bright Side of Life...We Don't Know How Lucky We Are'
accessible c/o http://goodygoodydaggdrops.com/
(in memory of the comedic greats, The Goodies' Timothy Brooke-Taylor and Fred Dagg/John Clarke).
Before the Debate:
Some thoughts prior to the *second ('proper') presidential debate...
(Vis-a-vis Decisive Events Even Now Taking Place in the United States of America.)
But this much let me put 'on the record' for now...
Joe Biden is certainly not 'out of the woods' as yet, he still has some serious answering to do about the 'alleged' corruption (as per supposedly 'questionable' emails recently discovered vis-a-vis his own dealings with his son Hunter Biden and Ukrainian officials etcetera)...
And the 'fact' that these have thus far failed to dent his huge opinion poll lead over Presidential Trump are neither here nor there, really...
How the heck could they have done so, the anti-Trump social media brigade have it in for 'im (i.e. Trump), and have demonstrably failed to report these newfound and incredibly damaging allegations to the American people!
*Third if one counts/includes the twin town hall meetings simultaneously hosted last week in which each of the two major party candidates appeared in separate(d) venues.
After the Debate:
Hard to say precisely who won the debate, but certainly the two candidates again determined its course - by refusing to exercise proper self-discipline and, for instance, giving Covid-19 the lion's share of their discussion/s; utilizing the extra minutes (or parts thereof) allotted each one for certain specified purposes only to relitigate earlier controversies and insert irrelevant but salacious details requiring further repartee and rejoinder by the other in the time remaining; and by thus effectively refusing to follow the letter of the law laid down by the moderator, though argument could well be made that they - oftentimes - followed the spirit thereof.
However, I feel Joe Biden, despite less than adequate responses in some of the more important areas - his healthcare plans (in relation to ongoing attempts to roll back Obamacare); the employment prospects of oil industry workers across the USA, not to mention those laid off through the coronavirus; and especially his own track record vis-a-vis the 'lock 'em up' mentality towards petty drug crime and the like which characterized the 1980s and 1990s in America, and the resultant incarceration of multitudes of consequently 'criminal' black Americans...
...rectified this 'shortfall' (so to speak) by his consistently statesmanlike reaction to Trump per se: effectively treating him with the obvious disdain and contempt his childish approach to interpersonal relations ever warrants by regally dismissing it with a giggle and a smirk, whilst pursuing the moral high ground of a dignified direct tete-a-tete with the 'average voter', appealing to her/his native intelligence and innate decency, ultimately judging the two candidates upon their clear and obvious track record and character/ moral rectitude...
simply trusting Americans to thereby know which one of the two was indeed truly worthy of their trust. A rhetorical plea to them - and implicit faith in their good sense and decency - to come to the only sensible conclusion possible: i.e. that the rascal and buffoon must go, and go asap, and the true gentleman and leader be installed...
A real pity, then, that Joe Biden himself doesn't pass the 'smell test', which even a cursory glance at his track record will readily show...
Henare thus succinctly stated a view I have long held, as much vis-a-vis any 'minor' political party as the Green Party as such, simply because once they're drawn into the ambit of the 'major' parties via a coalition and/or other special governing arrangement they're the very first to suffer any subsequent fallout from disillusioned voters once the Government of the Day loses its status of flavour of the month...
...voters for some reason or other seemingly reserving their harshest criticism and retribution for those parties (and individuals) seen as propping up a particular government...
Which for the Greens obviously works in the interests of their major partner, Labour, since they ever serve as a convenient 'fall guy' for unpopular Government decisions, the 'good guy:bad guy' sort of arrangement so easy for sports-obsessed kiwis to be taken in by, an effective poisoned chalice.
So yes, such an arrangement is most definitely in the interests of the Labour Party, and hence they might *under normal circumstances promote such, as the insightful and ever so reasonable Newstalk ZB host Miles Davis asked (of such a political scenario) the other night: "Is Labour [just] using the Greens as extra currency [for future contingencies], to blame if things go pear-shaped?"
And hence the sound wisdom behind those such as (former Green MPs) Sue Bradford and Catherine Delahunty, both of whom have been interviewed in this regards in the days and weeks immediately following the election, in their cautioning and advising the Greens (and Green Party members) in resisting the natural urge to eagerly grasp for what that denizen of MMP politics, the Right Honourable Winston Peters, deemed the (alluring but deceptive) 'baubles of office'...
...baubles he himself, it cannot be denied and ought not be forgotten, has in practice not been all that 'un-enamoured' of!
And of course the major parties themselves are not exactly uneducated in the practice of using such minor players in the Machiavellian art of thus deflecting criticism of themselves before the voters by attempting to pin any blame accruing to their particular administrations onto these small stumbling stones in the successful prosecution of their political designs...
...as if to say, 'There [we might well have come] but for the [obstruction] of these [minor irritants]...
Some such as the ever-opinionated and outspoken, never shy to declare the emperor (or Empress) of kiwiville has no kit, Mike Hoskings, have argued both ways...suggesting that the very and indeed one and only reason any party like the Greens is - or at least ought to be - in politics in the first instance is that of actually achieving tangible, concrete, legislative results...
...so that everything is measured in terms of their actually being 'in the tent' throwing their weight around (like NZ First is no stranger to) or advancing their agenda (somehow-or-other), in actual 'rungs on the board' as it were...
...though some might rightly suggest the Green Party's ever softly-softly, tread carefully and create no (or few) ripples approach to governance has hardly served its own interests well, and that for a very long time...indeed, i've always felt they've been taken for a ride by the likes of Helen Clark & Co over the years, such politicoes well knowing the Greens simply had nowhere else to go...
...or, to use less flattering words, 'played for suckers' by their supposed political bedfellows...
And so, though I've never been a Green Party voter, or even supporter - except over the Clark Government's approach to Corngate and ending the moratorium on genetically-modified/engineered organisms - I've ever felt some degree of sympathy on their behalf for ever having their self-respect undermined on an ongoing and regular basis...
...yet others would - and do - rightly claim they are the authors of their own misfortune by refusing point blank to ever go into coalition (discussions/conversations even) with the National Party...
...otherwise they could have ever upended Winston and NZ First on a regular basis over many election cycles, making themselves the coalition makers or breakers...
Yes, they've been honourable and noble - to a veritable fault - yet gained nothing thereby; ever acted the idealist and the dreamer (of better things), but with their heads held firmly in the clouds have signally failed to achieve practical results 'on the ground', for which their own supporters would surely argue New Zealanders themselves have been the losers...
Yet there is an answer to such dilemmas, and that is, to adopt Tau Henare's catchy phrase, worthy of the language of the Good Book itself (about the Messianic Age to Come wherein the Christ will indeed one day soon
rule/reign in the midst of His enemies)
for the Greens to rule from the cross-benches, thus achieving 'the best of both worlds': i.e. being able to effectively and authentically distance themselves from the ongoing faults, failings and other foibles - not to mention outright outrageous disasters and devastations small and great wrought - of the major party they're naturally aligned to, and so protect their voter base, but moreover even extend this base by managing to successfully 'prosecute' the particular principles and policies/measures they heartily believe in, effectively putting these up for general cross-parliamentary debate by and voting on of all other parties in the chamber (of Parliament)...
...and occasionally, if only occasionally - but progressively, by-and-by - getting some of these accepted by and embraced/supported by others in Parliament, thus getting increasing community 'buy-in' for their agenda...which, in the longer run if not in the shorter term, might well help increase voter buy-in also...
So no, Mr Hosking et al, for the Green Party to achieve power at all costs, to sell their soul for the baubles of office, thus gaining and exercising tangible political power whilst in the process selling out their essential agenda and principles, and likewise merely achieving a few minor rungs on the ladder of real legislative change, is most definitely not in the Greens' interests, long-term or otherwise...
...that is, if being in the political game is really about tangible change and progression of a positive agenda, and not just about the cynical manipulation of the levers of power by small self-interested cliques and elites, something it would seem other political 'players' know all too much about...
*However this election (result and background) is far from normal, and since it is now apparent that a sizable number of National Party voters crossed over to prevent the Green Party exercising any let alone a major role in Labour's governance, Labour itself is only too well aware of this situation, and hence realizes such cross-over voters would readily feel betrayed if too many concessions let alone levers of power were given the Greens, and so feels unable to offer such this time around...
...though even the small favours which look set to be dished out may ultimately prove too high a price for the Green Party to pay for their formal support of a Labour Government...
But anyhow Labour now can govern on its lonesome, and so has no absolute need of such political cannon fodder, which otherwise could prove only too useful for getting out of any (periodic) jam...
This will take the form of a number of bullet-points, to get my ideas 'on the rung' before they become hopelessly outdated...
*Quite apart from my (conservatively assessed) electorate seat (number) predictions upon the election's eve, which were so close to most opinion poll results as to be rather lame and to my mind tiresomely predictable, what I did in particular get way off/out - probably like most other observers, however, truth be told - was my very strong sense/conviction that however (1)incredibly well the Labour Party in particular did in the bigger cities (and somewhat lesser so in the larger provincial towns and small cities), they'd be absolutely wiped out in the rural districts, to the extent that National and Act would garner 60 and 15/20 % respectively and Labour and the Greens but 20% between them, Labour's share but 15% ...
But as we all now well know, my predictions - like those of the commentariat generally - were way off the mark, even 'missing' the extent of Labour's landslide victory altogether, though truth be told many earlier assessments held strongly to this very possibility (if not likelihood)...
*As to thy other 'raw data' aspects of the result, I'll leave that for the time being, except to note 'how [verily] the mighty have fallen', from 'the Right Honourable' (2)Winston Peters through to (one-time Earthquake Recovery Minister) Gerry Brownlee through to longstanding Nelson M.P. (and ofttimes Conservation/Environment Minister) Nick Smith...
*The graciousness of (some) such longstanding MPs going personally to their winning opponents' victory parties, whilst
*In the minutes preceding the Prime Minister's 'Acceptance Speech' we also witnessed the extremely ungracious speech of Labour's (3)deputy leader Kelvin Davis...
...itself exceeded, were that possible, in overbearingness (and sheer insufferability) anyhow, by Tova O'Brien's all too typical determination to make the messenger become the message, the journo with bad attitude in spades, and only too willing to display the same, however hilariously ridiculous...
...whilst her Newshub Nation colleague Paddy Gower gave us side-splitting hysterics as per usual with his ape-like physical antics and prowess as the countdown went quite literally down-to-the-very-wire in the Maori electorate of Waiariki, and ultimately (naturally, pending specials) was won by the Maori Party.
*But due kudos - with knobs on - to the outstandingly and relentlessly positive Chloe Swarbruck, who wrested the highly contested and contestable seat of Auckland Central with the sort of door-to-door campaigning that would've made Yours Truly proud back during his own run in 2008...
(1) Yet - and admittedly I've hardly had the time or leisure to thus far dissect the myriad details of electoral results at large - why, when Labour was handily winning rural electorates of such a blue hue as Rangitata, they only gained 48-49% of votes overall, is utterly beyond me...as it seemed to me, prior to the election admittedly, that were they to be thrashed in ruraldom, garnering only 15-20% of the votes there (as outlined above), yet with their 40 percent-some in provincial New Zealand, and their 60%-some in the larger cities, they'd easily gain 50% plus...
...so, when on election night they bested National so convincingly in rural NZ, it seemed to me they ought to be obtaining 55-60% of votes overall, so something's awry somewhere surely...
(2) No sooner was the ouster of Peters and his (longstanding phoenix-from-the-ashes) party officially confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt than the vultures immediately started circling, sensing blood aplenty in his particular vicinity, and thus and so we had the unholy and unedifying scenario not even a day on of shadowy journalistic paparazzi stalking him and his partner as they tried in vain to elude their erstwhile pursuers; generous recompense no doubt for someone who - love 'im or loathe 'im - has unquestionably given more personal service (at least quantitatively-speaking), baubles of office notwithstanding, to NZ Inc over a lifetime political career than any other politician over the past half-century...
(3) Someone whose removal (for this and other reasons) was vigorously and vociferously opposed on Sunday's Newshub Nation by former (NZ First/Mauri/National) M.P. and now professional political commentator Tau Henare, Henare urging Labour's Maori caucus to rebel if Davis' removal was actioned.
Postscript:
It seems to me anyway, someone incidentally 'for the record' who's twice voted their way (and twice been strongly tempted to), that New Zealand First made two fundamental errors going into this election: failing to highlight the unpopular policies they effectively blocked; and likewise failing to highlight their many and various successful 'runs on the board'...
...instead as it so transpired flailing about in last-minute, last-ditch efforts to distance themselves from and severely criticize the Government that they more than any other party played such a significant role in shaping, whether ultimately for good or ill...
... a thing that was simply too far a stretch for your average voter to fall for and not see through...
They'd have stood a far greater chance of at least crossing the MMP threshold and returning to Parliament, where, like the Green Party, - if not an actual part (and parcel) of the new Labour Government - they could at least and indeed have 'rule[d] from the cross-benches' (since their centrist philosophy has ever been far more appealing to the average kiwi than that of the Greens)...
Yes, they could and should have highlighted the 'stuff' Labour promoted/wished to achieve, which they prevented, such as
*Repealing the Three Strikes and You're Out' law;
*the Capital Gains Tax
etcetera (I simply can't remember any others at present, but I know there are aplenty)...whilst
highlighting all the policy successes they helped bring about,
whatever those were (and indeed there were a number, but I'm afraid my memory has failed again, and I must go and attend to the rest of my life, and ipso pronto!)
To Be Continued (somewhere awhile down the line)...
Apparently, only for the moment, i.e. until after our general election is done and dusted, over and out...
So here's hoping...-and congratulations Christopher Finlayson and Helen Clark, for your written/verbal representations thereabouts, whatever our differing political/ideological perspectives on all manner of issues, at last we see eye-to-eye upon this one wee matter...
and our Western cultural/literary heritage is actually really no itsy-bitsy thing, no indeed...
Yet I know which of these two I'd like to be backing, or rather have backing me, on Judgment Day...
(Three) Necessary Disclaimers:
Firstly, yes I well realize Aotearoa-New Zealand is certainly not alone in this, that verily there are much bigger fish in the global ocean presently undergoing some very deep frying, sizzling and charcoaling...
Secondly, I've personally ever loathed and detested New Zealand's traditional religion, its longstanding household god rugby...
Thirdly, I've ever disliked and found quite cringeworthy and almost vulgar the associated verb (and all its like) so commonly employed in describing the procreative act...
Yet, all those caveats notwithstanding...
What a typical bureaucratic shemozzle...i.e. the inexplicable, unaccountable - unless for innate, underlying (anti-certain off-the-wall (in particular) parties) political biases - omission of party lists and names from voter packs (apparently across the country)...
...alongside various other such glaring omissions emerging out of the woodwork over recent days and weeks as nationwide radio networks (RNZ National in particular) have been reporting...
To Be Continued (before I run myself right ragged and further down, down, down...)
Though this isn't written to re-litigate the euthanasia debate, happening to listen in for a few minutes this morning (to RNZ National's weekly 'Media Watch') to a conversation upon such referenda between reporter Hayden Vennall and Auckland University politics lecturer Lara Greaves...
I couldn't help myself from - far from even reading between the lines as such - hearing a less than tacit, a veritable explicit admission by said political expert...
...that the actual wording of the question (for the 'end of life choice' referendum) - doubtless as for any and every other such referendum - is all-important...(i.e. in determining peoples' responses)...
Which wouldn't raise an eyebrow - even Judith's, I assume/presume - except for this (fact): the pro-Smacking Ban folk (who'd succeeded a little while previously in seeing Sue Bradford's infamous repeal of Section 91 of the Crimes Act enacted into law - otherwise known as the anti-smacking law of 2007/2008), whether before, during and/or after the debate upon that well-remembered referendum back in P.M. John Key's early years, stressed the selfsame point.
Which was why selfsame 'experts' were subsequently able to explain away the resounding defeat for Ms Bradford's (Labour Government-endorsed) smacking ban (already passed into law in the dying days of the Helen Clark-led Government)...i.e. as a badly-worded question, which, and oh how very, incredibly - if predictably and typically - condescending and patronizing of them, they claimed had confused the voters thereupon, that the voters had misunderstood that question...
...the clear and obvious implication being, if they really had understood it aright, they'd have voted accordingly, i.e. against the (referendum) proposition to overturn the legislation banning smacking. A triple negative being hard to digest/comprehend at the best of times, I'm suggesting selfsame experts really, truly believed the voters would actually maintain the recently-legislated ban on smacking. Clear as mud?
Or so they self-delusionally tried to convince themselves...
Anyhow, the new National Government never carried out/put into legal effect the clear (87%:13%) referendum edict (of the voters), leaving intact the (smacking ban) status quo (which, to be fair, they themselves had taken over the line under (now, Sir) John Key's (pre-Prime Ministership) very fleet-footed, conciliatory, and (political masterstroke) leadership when the then 'anti-smacking bill' was struggling to get over the line).
Just as Nelson M.P. (Dr) Nick Smith et al rather endlessly banged on about in parliamentary select committee debates late last and early this year on the same (i.e. end-of-life) referendum question, pointing out the vast difference between calling the upcoming-and-now-present referendum on ending one's life by every conceivable euphemism imaginable...anything and everything, in other words, except calling it what it most patently is: assisting people to commit suicide.
Another case of conveniently 'screwing the scrum' when(ever) it so happens to suit your particular (side of the) argument? You tell me, but, as I often say about this, that and especially the other (particular matter under discussion),
*/**If it looks like a ............, if it sounds like a ............, and if it talks like a ............, hey, folks, -no, it ain't rocket science- it usually is ............
*You fill in the missing word; though admittedly I simply can't recall it this mo, I believe there are any number of alternative possibilities which would well suffice...
**Alternatively, you might also find my similarly-(en)titled 42-pager in the run-up to the 2016 American Presidential Election - posted on my original blogsite, i.e.
http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
on August 22nd, 2016 -
worth a read/looking at, and not just for this reason...
It's entitled
Yes, They Really Suppose They've Got Us All Fooled: or, If It Looks Like A Set-Up, & It Walks Like a Set-Up, & It Talks Like a Set-Up...Hey Folks - "Wise Up" (& Fast!) - Perhaps It Really Is A Con Job - or, alternatively: The 2016 American Presidential Election A Real Jack-Up? Why, Yes Indeed, And In More Ways Than Might Appear; From Its Very Inception, Moreover; And With Bill Clinton Himself Holding the Trump Card
Though, in all too typical contradiction to *what I've just written, that particular goal will never be possible of accomplishment without the good and gracious interposition and intervention of One Whose purposes of goodness towards His human creation will continue forever...
*For, as those familiar with Imagine well recollect, Lennon (fervently) expresses his desire/wish to achieve world peace and harmony without the Good Lord...
...a 'dream' which I respectfully suggest is simply not possible of fulfilment and so will ultimately fail...
The selfsame reason, in fact, I've come to regard Ronald Reagan as a great President...despite every likelihood and prediction by (left-of-centre) scaremongers and the like - and I certainly was doubtless one (if a then silent member) of this populous 'club' - he didn't start World War 111...
despite having every conceivable pretext and excuse for so doing...
But once again, One wielding supreme authority over this little earthly orb - whilst 'employing' the efforts of President Reagan and Pope John Paul the Second in an historic pact and secret alliance which put paid in near record time to the Eastern Bloc - and ultimately the Soviet Union, the U(nited) S(oviet) S(ocialist) R(epublics) itself/themselves - had, I again respectfully suggest, the very last word on the matter...
Praise the LORD! ('Coz if He hadn't, folk, we wouldn't even be here discussing the matter, would we.)
As my *600th blogpost (upon my main, original two blogsites), I couldn't resist posting this scripture, all the more coming upon the heels of a debate in the U S of A - nicknamed 'interruptus horribilis' by some wag - wherein one particular participant therein,
has **elsewhere been 'equated' with a number of other scriptures, if not ***this one in particular, scriptures all (of which) delineate in somewhat clear and distinct, stark and anything but glowing - rather glowering - colours,
a personage - the biblical Antichrist - who is therein described (and by such words and terms) as
a vile person
to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom
but he shall come in peaceably,
and obtain the kingdom by flatteries
a king of fierce countenance
understanding dark sentences
And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand
and he shall magnify himself in his heart
a little horn...[having] eyes like the eyes of a man,
and a mouth speaking great things
that horn that had eyes,
and a mouth that spake very great things,
whose look was more stout than his fellows
****Etcetera etcetera etcetera...
Though I happen, as someone with a fairly thorough knowledge of such scriptures, to believe these refer far more aptly and precisely, to another class of personage altogether,
I'll admit they do contain a number of notable and unmistakable resonances with and to a certain individual whose advent into political life and world affairs seems to indicate our world may well never be the same again...
yet - praise the LORD - as I say elsewhere (awhile ago) both upon this very blogsite and upon my original one,
http://nuffsaid: consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
the truly Great One will ultimately have the last laugh...
*****at the last trump (sic)...the trump (sic) of God
*520th upon this, my second blogsite.
**By Benjamin Corey (elsewhere referred to upon this blogsite, and others of mine).
***I.e my blogpost title.
****Assorted scriptures from the King James Bible.
*****Specific, Second Advent-related scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, (King James Version): i.e. 1 Corinthians 15: 52 and 1 Thessalonians 4: 16.
What, moreover, has greatly intrigued and even fascinated me ever since re-stumbling upon said verses over recent years (i.e. since Donald J Trump's own 'advent' to the White House, and indeed since his name was really 'out there' following his announcement of standing for the Republican Party's presidential nomination back in 2014, 2015 or whenever) was that said King James Bible is the one and only Bible version employing that particular verbal form of 'trumpet', and indeed (in 1 Corinthians 15:52, anyhow) also employs that selfsame alternate term 'trumpet' therein, only serving to strengthen said word and concept association further - to my own understanding, anyhow...
What, you're telling me (yep, I'm speaking pejoratively and in the shoes of an onlooker acting as devil's advocate regarding Yours Truly) that I'm in the ranks of the loony-tunes, of the conspiracy theorists and other associated 'nutters'? Well, once again - to repeat myself - no, and yes...
To take two examples/instances taken randomly from this afternoon's RNZ National News bulletins, the latter repeated often throughout the day...
On the 4 p.m. News we were told about a major protest *today/overnight in London over the Covid-19 (lockdown) measures, in which protestors believed/claimed the whole thing was a (global) hoax being used surreptitiously for clandestine purposes, as in to control the (world) population...
Okay, I happen to - completely - disagree in terms of it being any sort of a hoax, let alone a conspiracy as such, but what I most definitely/certainly do believe...
apart from what I specify in intricate detail upon my fifth blogsite,
http://IRYMN.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/),
in two or three blogposts posted three to four or so months ago...
is that the entire pandemic has set in motion such legal and other precedents which are not only being presently milked rather shamelessly and shamefully by various governments around the world, but moreover that even if not at present being at all evil or underhand are nevertheless putting in place 'stuff' (for want of a word to order) that future far less scrupulous political administrations 'here, there and everywhere' (i.e. worldwide) may well, and indeed will - at some unspecified date/time 'down the line' in the 'unforeseeable' (i.e. future) - choose/deign to use as an all too convenient pretext for furthering far less benevolent and far more nefarious purposes/agendas...
One reason, in fact, that this very day I've - despite ever and only really subscribing to the tenets of one particular political party (in God's Own/Godzone), i.e. (what was once known as) the Social Credit Political League, these days simply known as 'Social Credit' - that is, alongside its onetime contemporaneous, and virtually **identical party - minus Socred's social conservatism - the Values Party) - and I still intend to support Social Credit by ticking the box of the local electorate candidate...
- determined this very afternoon I'll pretty certainly be giving the Advance/Public Party combo my party vote in Aotearoa-New Zealand's upcoming general election...
-and that despite my real and rather serious reservations about and even objections to some somewhat extreme elements to their Covid-19 policy plank...
The second (news) item? On RNZ National's 8 p.m. (and Midday etc) news bulletins today we were told that 'There are repercussions for [disobeying] the [covid-19] laws [vis-a-vis] German sailors 'deliberately flouting' these (i.e. in New Zealand's own territorial waters, I presume)...
Really? Then what are the repercussions for the New Zealand Government apparently likewise flouting the law (of the land, you know, the sort they spend every waking moment writing and rewriting) according to New Zealand's Supreme (or Appeals) Court('s fairly landmark decision) recently?
Hey, I'm only asking, please don't start stoning me for being disloyal to our globally-feted leader...
Or is it, as Eric Blair's (i.e. George Orwell's) brilliant oft-repeated refrain in his classic 20th-century fable Animal Farm expressed it so very aptly...reworking this, you understand, for the NZ context...
Some ****sheep are equal, but some ****sheep are {just a tad] more equal than others.
*For the meantime bear with a few of my (alternating) specifics, frankly they matter not one whit or iota.
**A thing I always found rather curious, and indeed received my answer a decade or so ago (following my own brief electoral stint in NZ's 2008 General Election) from a local 'Socred' party official seeking to ***enrol me (free of charge, as well) as a member of said party...
that the Values Party had effectively 'stolen' Social Credit's policies...which, to look at another way - disregarding valid/legitimate charges of (political) plagiarism, no doubt - was actually paying Socred the highest form of flattery...
***Something which, despite his evident generosity, I regretfully declined, seeing belonging to any merely (if necessarily) 'worldly' (as in earthly, as opposed to profane) political party to be a form of (implicit) treason to my One and Only Lord and Master Who brooks no rival for one's allegiance...
****Substituting the traditional export-earning farm animal once 23 times more populous than our people for the popular, 'iconic' kiwi...
So, yes, by all means feel free to comply with (the various edicts/orders and associated admonitions of) 'the authorities appointed by God'...
except insofar as you simply cannot in all good conscience do so, and believe in so doing you would be inevitably transgressing/breaking God's eternal, everlasting (Moral) Law of love and liberty...
Hygiene/hygienic practices - including the likes of quarantining - quite frankly could not be more biblical, it/they really couldn't (be)...
-see, for instance, Leviticus 13:1-15:33, a 'section' of (Older Testament) scripture comprising fully 1/2 % of the entire Bible...
...and also my own blogpost on the matter, on my fifth blogsite, i.e.
http://irymn.blogspot.com - 'I Realize You Might Not Happen to Agree, But This is How I See It Anyhow'...
...in March or April I believe, right at the start of the nationwide New Zealand lockdown...
Making oneself a 'martyr for the Lord' is oftentimes, I would (very respectfully) suggest, simply a convenient pretext for giving the authorities that be *'the fingers', emotionally satisfying, admittedly, but so often productive of no real much less longer-term good...
Indeed, the biblical admonition (given in a wholly different context altogether) in Romans 12:18, but a few short verses earlier (as a matter of coincidental fact), of, as far as possible - 'as much as it lies in you(r keeping)' - be(ing) [i.e.living] at peace with all men [i.e. people], is only too applicable here.
Yes, the apostles John and Peter (in two recorded incidents) in the Acts of the Apostles certainly didn't avoid declaring the absolute necessity 'under God' of rendering implicit (and explicit) obedience to God over against mere humanity - that is, when(ever) the two classes of duty happened to conflict; but of course that was never meant to serve as some sort of catch-all 'get out' (of jail free) clause much less excuse to thumb one's nose at the powers that be when(ever) it happened to suit one('s particular sensibilities, prejudices or political/ideological biases/agenda)...
No, as Jesus Himself said on one occasion (in a scripture seldom quoted): Judge righteous judgment...not according to mere appearance.
And in another two/three contexts (but again wholly relevant and apposite, as it so happens), since said authorities 'stand in Moses' seat'[i.e. of (in this case secular rather than religious) authority] **do as they say...but not as they [so often] do...
Elsewhere advising Peter to pay the requisite temple tax 'lest we ***offend them' [i.e. selfsame authorities] and otherwise 'giv[ing] to Caesar what is Caesar's'...responses which baffled his critics and enemies no end in their profound simplicity and incontrovertible wisdom...
...i.e. enjoining the duty of compliant citizenship upon all citizens within a(ny particular) jurisdiction...
*The two-fingered salute that one-time U S President George Bush (Senior) gave Australians back in the day, intending to indicate victory but unfortunately signifying something else altogether...
**As New Zealand's own (former) health minister, the local M.P. and one-time 'honourable' David Clark, might well have been accused of.
***And that's the reason - alongside sheer cowardice, I'd wager, simply not wanting to get into any unpleasant contention thereabouts - that I've 'positively' avoided this topic up till now, that I've taken so long to write and post this particular blogpost...
But it needs be stated/placed upon the record once and for all, so that when the coming Sunday Law crisis - emanating from the USA, but doubtless 'helped along' by the 'Mother Church''s earnest little helpers and undercover agents (the ancient order of) the Jesuits - comes into its own/pushes front and centre in the 'Time of Tribulation such as never was, no, nor ever will be [again]',
honest-hearted people everywhere will take due heed and may know for a certainty that the then charges of disloyalty and disaffection to the powers that be are of absolutely no validity whatsoever.
Yes indeed, as Mr Robertson mentioned it had so often been stated (by various others), 11 a.m.-12 p.m. on a Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America(n life)...
Confirming or simply validating the experience of my own (long deceased) Dad, who himself noted to his deep disgust and dismay all those many years/decades ago (before he and Mum moved to my *birth (and breeding) home country of Aotearoa-New Zealand in 1960), the **other churches in his/their own proximity/visitation were ***'segregated'.
*As in the common descriptive idiom 'born and bred', that is...
**As in the three he happened to deem acceptable, to even consider as options to attend, I'd gather, i.e. the (Roman) Catholic Church and the Baptist Church, and the Religious Society of Friends (otherwise known as the Quakers); which actually comprise a tiny number/proportion of U S churches by any standard...
It pretty well goes without (needing) saying that it was the last of these three which comprised black as well as white Americans in its 'congregation'...
***Or words to that effect.
Believe me or not, but one day soon you - and this entire world - will 'discover' this way too late...to do anything about it...
For like the hapless Frodo in Shelob the Spider's labyrinthine maze, they'll then be trapped (with)in this evil ancient order's web, and will be helpless to pry themselves loose...
And hey, as for mentioning/citing specific instances thereabouts, I really wouldn't know where to even begin...
