The Crowhill Journal

P&C drink and review Pigweed’s coconut-flavored Robust Porter, then discuss Ted Cruz’s nightmare political scenario.

On his amazing “Verdict” podcast, Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles discuss what might happen if Bernie gets the presidency and the Democrats take over the House and the Senate.

Will Democrats end the filibuster? Pack the Supreme Court? Will they make Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. states, thus immediately adding four Democratic senators? Will they eliminate the electoral college? Have open borders? Raise taxes? Will AOC be head of the EPA?

The boys evaluate the possibilities, then discuss how likely it seems.

P&C drink and review “Death by King Cake” from Oscar Blues, then discuss whether Trump is the most dangerous president ever.

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Oliver Stone, Adam Schiff and other delusional luminaries love to claim that Donald Trump is the most dangerous president in history.

Their reasons? Withdrawing from the Paris accord and the Iran deal. Increasing the power of the presidency. Cheating on elections. And, of course, Russia, Russia, Russia, etc.

The real reason they’re mad at Trump is that he’s attacking the media and exposing them — and the left in general — for who they are.

P&C review the charges against Trump and comment.

Let’s say you give some wise advice to an attractive and somewhat naive young woman. Her parents have passed, and she is so very happy to get that sort of advice. She feels the need for a steady hand to help her through life, so she wants you to be … like an uncle. A fatherly sort of figure who can dispassionately guide her through difficult choices.

The trouble is, you’re not her uncle. If you were, there would be some amount of safety. Not complete safety, but some amount, because we have an instinct not to get involved with close relations. That’s why, as a general rule, brothers and sisters are usually not going at it, and why the most dangerous character in a young girl’s life can be her stepfather.

There’s something in our brains that dials back sexual attraction towards someone who is a close blood relative.

The problem with this is that the modern mind has been trained to push back. If there’s an exception, the foolish person thinks, the rule can be discarded.

But the Pharaohs married their sisters! And I know a brother and sister who ….

Right. Nothing is 100 percent. Men tend to be attracted to certain things and repulsed by other things, but there’s always a minority who go the other way.

Wise living is a matter of playing the odds. The Proverbs are not laws of the universe. They’re guidelines.

You might spend your life socking away money in your 401(k) only to die before you retire, but contributing to your 401(k) is the right thing to do. And realizing that you have no business being “like an uncle” to an attractive young woman is also the right thing to do. And explaining that to her might be one of the best lessons she ever gets in life.

The voices had a little conversation in my head the other day. (In order to understand this post, you need to realize that the voices are my inner representations of people or ideas. When I say the atheist said this, or so and so said that, it’s just a form of play acting.)

I was listening to Handel’s Messiah (I believe it was “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”) and the atheist/skeptic chimed in with a criticism of the idea of sacrifice.

“It’s barbaric and primitive to think that God would require an animal, or worse, a human sacrifice before he could forgive sin.”

The fundamentalist was about to break in with a defense, but I had only recently listened to a Jordan Peterson lecture that was still ringing in my ears, so Dr. Peterson replied.

“Why do you assume that it’s God that requires this? If mankind has a collective sense of justice and reciprocity, it’s likely that we would project this onto God as a representation of our inner demons. Some people, you know, can’t bear to be forgiven without making amends.”

“Exactly,” the atheist replies. “All this ‘sacrifice for sin’ stuff is a sick, primitive attitude that we can safely do away with.”

“What makes you think those same dark themes aren’t still around?” Dr. Peterson replies. “Have washing machines and cell phones changed the human psyche that deeply? I don’t think so. In fact, I can guarantee you, from decades of clinical practice, that there’s a dark undercurrent to human psychology that would scare you half to death if you got the barest glimpse of it.”

“Then it’s something we need to grow out of,” the atheist replies, “just like tribalism and sexual taboos and such.”

“That’s a lot harder than you think,” Dr. Peterson replied. “And it’s curious to me that you think it’s better to believe that this darkness is in man rather than in God. If there was some blood-thirsty, vindictive God out there who required sacrifices, at least we could reject him and move on — like the Klingons, who killed their God [Sorry, the Star Trek voice blended with Peterson’s voice there for a moment]. But if the problem is in man, then we can’t be rid of it that easily.”

At this point, the liberal Christian joined the conversation.

“Maybe God condescended to our weakness and expressed himself in those terms because he knew it was the only way for us to heal. Let’s accept atheist’s premise that a just God wouldn’t really require such things, but he accommodated us in the hope that we would eventually grow out of it.”

“Grow out of that and other things,” the atheist said with some snark.

“Neither of you are getting the saddest aspect of this story,” the prophet chimed in. “It is man’s dark psychology — not God’s justice — that requires sacrifice, but God’s condescension is not simply His decision to go along with some foolishness for a while. He participated in it. What do you think it means that Christ took on the sins of the world? That’s not only our sinful actions and thoughts, but our deep dysfunction as well. He looked down on a dreadfully sick humanity and said, ‘this is what they need to be healed,’ so He sent His Son to die for our sins. All of them.”

Fundamentalist can’t take this. “Scripture is quite clear on this point. ‘Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness for sin.’ I like your idea that ‘taking on the sins of the world’ has a deeper psychological meaning than we might have suspected, but you can’t get around the idea of substitutionary atonement.”

“If you read the Bible your way then you can’t,” Dr. Peterson admitted. “But that way of reading the Bible is not holding up very well in the modern world.”

“Let me hear more about this,” Dr. Peterson says to the prophet, pulling him aside for a private talk. “What you’re saying might help to harmonize Jung and the Bible and still have room for belief in God.”

P&C relish Celebrator Dopplebock, one of the most amazing beers on the planet, then discuss Sir Roger Scruton and his view of conservatism.

Sir Roger recently died of cancer, and Pigweed and Crowhill have only just learned about the man. He was a barrister, musician, philosopher, wine critic, he spoke several languages, and he hunted foxes! Quite the man.

Scruton thought “the role of a conservative thinker is to assure people that their prejudices are true,” which sounds awful to modern ears, but it’s clearly right. We have to rely on our prejudices.

Conservatives believe in the wisdom of long-standing organizations that emerged organically. Laws and rules are discovered over time as we work our way through things. Hence the respect for tradition and precedent.

Life would be unlivable if we treated every situation from first principles rather than being guided by the wisdom of our ancestors.

Another Scruton principle is that a functioning, open society only works when people feel they have enough in common that the government will work for the benefit of everyone. This is in contrast, of course, to “diversity is our strength,” which is nonsense.