The Nuremberg Chronicles, 1493.

What’s my reaction to the Defense Department’s decision to permit women in combat?

I was surprised at how little it roused me. Not because I’ve changed my complementarian views, you understand. It’s just that in the climate we’ve entered into – in light of all the other outrages I see around me – this is neither surprising or especially notable. I’m reminded of a guy I used to know – a self-proclaimed heathen – who used to say (I’m pretty sure he was quoting someone), “I feel so much better now that I’ve given up all hope.”

I’ve achieved the serenity of realizing that the American experiment is over and (with sadness) accepting that fact. The people who look at what is not and say, “Why not?” (insufferable busybodies all) have won the upper hand, and they’re not likely to give it up.

Can we argue back, make our case? I doubt it. I could point out, among other things, that although this probably only means a few of the beefier feminists in the armed forces getting the chance to get their legs blown off in the short run, it will not end with that. Those who believe in absolute equality won’t be satisfied until 50% of the military is female, even if they have to lower the physical standards radically in order to achieve that. Not today. Not tomorrow. But eventually. And what happens if we have a national emergency and reinstate the draft? How can the egalitarians justify a draft for males and not for females? No, your daughters – even the small, gentle ones who get sick at the sight of blood – will have to be drafted on the same basis as men. Eventually.

We can’t make our case anymore, because cases don’t get made anymore. Anywhere. In any area of life. I’ve had the experience more and more frequently with the years (I expect you’ve had the same) that when you try to make a point in an argument with someone, their response is not, “You’re wrong and here’s why,” but “Why do you hate me?”

It’s all about feelings in the world now. A vast, bottomless sea of raging emotions, where every soul battles to dominate all the others by appealing to the unassailable superiority of its own feelings over everybody else’s feelings. Our world is ruled by passions; we have become like the dumb beasts that know only what they feel. The ancient Stoics, without the benefit of Jewish or Christian Scriptures, realized that the happy life is the life not ruled by passion.

I expect a lot of blood will flow before we learn that lesson over again.

“The Pinch of Poverty” by Thomas B. Kennington (1856-1916)

Like many of my generation, I grew up with parents who had stories about the Great Depression. My mother, in particular, had experienced genuine want, cold, and hunger.

There was one thing she said again and again. “We often had to wear patched clothes. But they were always clean. My mother made sure of that.”

Mom was harkening back to a social phenomenon that began in the 18th and 19th Centuries, largely (but not entirely) motivated by Christian pietism – the ideal of the Honest Poor.

Nowadays we’re so accustomed to being told that the poor are naturally virtuous that we don’t see how shocking that ideal was in its time. Jesus Christ, of course, had said “Blessed are the poor…” but the full quote is “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” a rather different thing. The disciples were expressing more conventional wisdom when they responded to Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler (Matthew 19). “It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,” He said, and His disciples “were greatly astonished,” asking, “Who then can be saved?”

The disciples were expressing what most people have believed throughout history – that wealth and virtue went hand in hand. Everyone understood that poor people sometimes had to steal to survive, but if a rich man – who could presumably afford to be honest – didn’t have an easy road to heaven, what chance did regular joes like they have? Continue reading Poor but honest thoughts →

It was a late summer afternoon in Minneapolis. The year was 1980. Business had been quiet at the Hiawatha Motel (not its real name). I was working the afternoon shift. Motel clerking was a good job for a student. The money wasn’t great, but it was only a short distance from my apartment, and I could sit at the desk and just read a book with a clear conscience. I’d have to do my end-of-shift report in a few minutes.

The door buzzer went off and a young man came in. He wore jeans and a tee-shirt, and a short jacket. I couldn’t see his eyes well because he was wearing a blue bucket hat pulled down, but the rest of his face was long. Kind of horsey.

He stepped up to the counter, pulled a semi-automatic pistol (about a .38, I thought), and said, “Open the door.”

This was where I nearly got myself killed. I thought he said, “Open the drawer,” meaning the cash drawer under the counter. I realized later, when it was all over, that he could have easily thought I was going for a gun, and plugged me right there. But when I pulled the drawer open, he repeated himself. “Open the door!” Then I heard his friend rattling the knob of the office door to my left.

I opened the door for him and stepped back, my hands up. Both young men came in, and the guy with the gun said, “We want money and drugs. Give us all you got.”

“There’s no drugs here,” I said. “The money’s there.” I pointed to the open cash drawer.

The sidekick went for the money, while the gunman repeated, “Where’s the drugs?”

“There’s no drugs here.”

At that point someone else stepped into the office. It was my relief, the guy on the next shift. Another student, somewhat younger than me. He raised his hands too, and the gunman gestured us back into the unoccupied manager’s apartment behind the office.

“Get down on your faces,” he said. We did, side by side on the carpet. The gunman told his sidekick to find something to tie us up with.

While waiting, the gunman said, “We just want money and drugs. Nobody needs to get hurt.”

I told him there weren’t any drugs, but otherwise didn’t argue.

His friend came back after a minute with a couple power cords from electrical devices. They tied our hands, and the guy with the gun held it to each of our heads in turn, asking one last time for drugs. I said once again that there weren’t any drugs there. “Let’s kill ‘em,” said the sidekick.

“Nah,” said the gunman. “They’ll be good. You guys’ll be good, won’t you?”

We said we’d be good.

They twisted my high school class ring off my finger, and took my relief guy’s watch. “You stay here for half an hour,” the gunman said. “We’ll be watching. If you get up before half an hour we’ll kill you.”

Then they left.

We lay there not saying much for a few minutes.

“I think we can get up now,” I said. “Can you help me get untied?”

“I’ve got some friends coming in a few minutes,” the relief guy said. “They’ll untie us.”

I got up and looked around in the office. The relief guy stayed where he was. I struggled with my bonds, but couldn’t get loose. Shortly the relief guy’s friends did show up, and they untied us and I called the police. And the owner.

After that, cops, and telling the story. Finally I went home. Didn’t sleep well. I was pretty shaken for a few weeks. Felt like a target. I loaded up my replica Civil War Navy Colt and wore it under a sport coat for a couple weeks when I went to work. I’m pretty sure that was illegal, but the wisdom of the saying, “Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six” had taken on new meaning for me.

And never – never – for one split second did I waver in my support for the right of the people to keep and bear arms.