Put Not Your Faith in Your Understanding of God

Heard a good homily recently... The first reading from Acts, Paul asked some believers how they were baptized and they said it was a baptism of repentance and so Paul baptized them and they received the Holy Spirit. 

Then in the gospel, the apostles assure Jesus that “now we understand! We believe you came from God.” And Jesus retorted, “do you really understand? The hour is coming when you will scatter and leave me alone.” 

Fr T: 

“Sometimes a priest will be found, years later, to have baptized inaccurately or heretically, such as saying ‘We baptize you...’ instead of “I baptize you...” This makes something of a mess because then all the people who were baptized under this were not really baptized and will have to be baptized properly. I imagine someone saying, ‘Oh, what does it matter? God can provide the grace to overcome that limitation since it’s not the baby’s fault that the priest said the wrong words.’  And that’s right, it’s not the baby’s fault. But it does matter because the power comes from humbly doing what God tells us, not from our own understanding. 

In the gospel the apostles put their faith in their understanding of God rather than in the person of God (Jesus). A faith based on our own understanding can't last us our whole lives and will crumble when God does something wildly unexpected (such as allowing the crucifixion of his Son). People often rely on their understanding of who God is rather than relying on God himself.” 

Amigo de Frodo (Bishop Flores) has a similar take:

“Do you believe now?” As in “Really?”

Human criteria, even favorable to the Lord, do not reach the reality of faith because they are not based on obedience to God himself. They will “leave him alone” because his mission does not fit within their human judgements.

You Can't Go Home Again

By accident I happened across an old video taken of Columbus back in 1986. Interesting to see how much has changed since then. It got me thinking how “you can’t go home again”.

Back in my misspent 20s, I regularly visited a fairyland, a place seemingly beyond the ravages of time or space. It was a bar called “Chubby’s Country Palace” in a small town 38 miles east of Columbus called “Heath”. I was into country music and this was real country, 100-proof. The huge bar had line-dancing of course but also featured entertainers at one time or another like George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette. The house band was Tiny Wellman who, notwithstanding his nickname, weighed upwards of 290 lbs and did a fantastic late Elvis impersonation. The owner was named Chubby (he was chubby). Here is a tribute from a drummer who occasionally played in bands there: 

“Chubby was a real life Boss Hogg from the series, The Dukes of Hazzard... commanding and sociable at the same time. We played there several times and I met a lot of interesting people... the dental assistant who tried to turn me into a football fan, the shoemaker, the girl with the club foot... and during our last visit, we were told Chubby had 'taken an unexpected sabbatical with a non-family member' so we never saw him again. Because it was the early 90s, I don't have 200 pictures of the venue (and neither does the internet)...”

It’s weird but the place felt like magic. The mix of a live band, line-dancing, and plenty of alcohol never got old. Brent had names for some of the regular patrons, one in particular was “Commander Sue” who sat in a high bar chair and looked and acted rather commanding. 

One of my regrets in the early ‘90s was falling out of the routine of going there. Via the magic of the Internet I can see what happened to the bar and I’m kind of relieved that it went out of business in ’95. It turns out I didn’t miss too much.  That I can't go home again is perhaps reassuring in that it banishes FOMO. The line-dance fad was beginning to fade by then and country music had too much money in it so became much more like pop music and lost some of its hardcore audience (including me - to paraphrase Ronald Reagan about the Democrat party, “I didn’t leave country music, country music left me”). Chubby’s Country Palace is now the Licking County office for Disabilities. Not too much line-dancing or drinking in there now. 

Around 1990 I’d thought that in country music there was a stability, a tradition that one could rest one’s hat on both metaphorically and literally. It felt like home, and I pictured myself going to a country bar like Chubby’s every Saturday for decades. Turned out, maybe three years. 

And not just the venue but even the music died. Unbeknownst to me at the time, country music has whipsawed for decades. In the late 1960s and through the ‘70s “country rock” was popular. In the ‘80s it went through a pop stage. Turns out I had lucked into the sweet spot: the neotraditionalist movement was already in full force: 

“During the mid-1980s, a group of new artists began to emerge who rejected the more polished country-pop sound that had been prominent on radio and the charts, in favor of more, traditional, ‘back-to-basics’ production. Many of the artists during the latter half of the 1980s drew on traditional honky-tonk, bluegrass, folk and western swing.”

By the late ‘90s, it was all pop again and I was listening to it out of force of habit, simply because it was labeled “country music”, and I’d listen just like I'd vote for a politician just because he was labeled “Republican”.

The Total State

Reading the most fascinating book by Auron Macintyre called “The Total State”. Also re-watched the old movie “Secretariat” last night. And the two actually have something in common, at least in my ruminations. That being the inherent mystery of the human and animal. 

For some reason I never get tired of reading about this giant American political discovery of the 21st century: that the Constitution has failed. (Or we have failed the Constitution, that discussion is to be addressed later in his book.)  Macintyre, like me, thought that the framers set up a system, something like a tool or machine that protects our rights. It was not required to be maintained other than via arduously-acquired amendments to the constitution. He and I completely ignored the human angle. Which is the only angle that matters. 

Similarly, there’s a tendency sometimes to see horses as machines, as simply tools that if you look at their statistics and breeding closely enough you’ll be able to discern their finish in races. You reduce them, in other words, and miss the intangibles. Horse-racing teaches that animals, like humans, have something in them that can’t be measured or charted.  One of the greatest breeders had a choice to get Secretariat and chose the other foal. 

The Constitution, and what the framers gave us, was not a system that worked like levers but simply provided a temporary “cheat sheet” that provided human factions. The point of the legislative, executive and judicial was to create a good mix of wealthy oligarchs, farmers, and common folk, all contesting politically. The “magic” wasn’t in the three branches of government but the three power centers that in the 18th century could produce outcomes that were wise due to the power being decentralized. But along our history we changed greatly, primarily in making almost all the three branches of government elected by the people. In the beginning senators were not elected by the people, and there were no presidential primaries. 

This introduction of mass democracy coupled with a mass media charged with forming opinion meant that “the people” are the only power center were the only power center and that, ironically, a very small power base of media elites could sway the 51% to win most elections. 

My tendency to reduce horse betting to a “system” is similar to how I viewed what the framers did as a “system” when in both cases you can’t avoid the human or animal component. But to acquire knowledge or control requires a hands-on approach. There is no political system that can work without great effort by the people, and betting horses “from afar” is usually self-defeating. You can’t farm out your role in politics. 

One could also say the government underestimated the population and thought their system, their levers, produced reliable results. Years of CIA experience destabilizing unfriendly governments was turned to America but it didn’t go as smoothly as anticipated. In any other place, or just a few years earlier in the U.S., a January 6th Fed-sponsored riot would’ve put an end to Trump and his movement. It’s possible to simply give Americans credit to have seen through it but it’s also plainly the fruit of the government consistently sabotaging its own reputation with lies and scams. To name two: the lengthy investigations that eventually admitted that Trump wasn't a Russian agent, and allowing George Floyd protestors to run wild during the covid lockdown because protesting was more important than the virus I guess. This and other things so undermined trust that even the government’s magnum opus, the Jan 6 orchestration, didn’t end MAGA. 

It’s analogous to Vietnam War. During the '60s our government slowly and over years brought up the heat, thinking as the war increased in intensity it would demoralize the North Vietnamese. Instead it mostly demoralized Americans. If we had brought the full fire power of, say, 1970 in the year 1964 perhaps the outcome would’ve been different. Similarly if the government had created a January 6 incident in 2017 perhaps it would’ve been effective. Instead there was the slow ratcheting up, first trying to go after Trump's administration figures, then to impeach Trump,  and then expand it to his followers. 

Regardless, it’s pretty surreal that Trump survived the “insurrection” given the unreal propaganda effort of mainstream media coupled with lengthy televised hearings via the January 6th committee.  In the end, the typical levers that should cripple a movement didn’t work this time because Trump supporters aren’t programmable robots. We're certainly not Secretariats, but we're not stupid. 

Who is Garret Archer?

One of the mysteries in our post-journalistic age is trying to separate fact from fiction when the parties who know the most either hide the info or lie about it. This is pretty much an impossible environment for those brave souls who took on Dominion and now face huge lawsuits. Despite the seemingly simple job of counting votes, an election system is a very complex multi-object combination of hardware, software, ballots and interfaces. 

You can’t trust anybody it seems. CISA, an organization touted and trusted by National Review writer Jim Geraghty, assured us the 2020 election was secure and legit but is also a front for censoring speech on the internet (as asserted by Taibbi’s “TwitterFiles”). Not a source of comfort. 

I want to trust Prof David Clements, who recently put out a documentary on our "voting irregularities". It's here. I'm surprised it's still on YouTube. 

 

One of the more interesting pro-machine fellows on the ‘net is the “AZ Data guru” guy. He’s kind of fascinating because he appears to act in good faith and seems to know a lot. Garrett Archer is his name. He’s says that most of the complaints come down to Maricopa not giving up the routers. 

Some of his biography. 

Garrett was the Senior Elections Analyst at the Arizona Secretary of State where he played a pivotal role in analyzing and disseminating election results and early voting data to the media. He developed a large following on social media during the 2018 General Election.

Senior Analyst / Arizona Secretary of State

Sep 2016 - Apr 2019 · 2 yrs 8 mos

Sep 2016 - Apr 2019 · 2 yrs 8 mos

Worked for Rep. David Schweikert (R) early in career. 

Ken Bennett was the AZ Sec of State in early 2000s, followed by weak Michele Reagan who hired Archer.

“Remember how Garrett Archer worked for Katie Hobbs in the AZ SoS office until 2019? And that during that time, he coordinated with David Becker to bring the ERIC voter data laundering program into Arizona? Then right after that (in 2020), Sandler Foundation gave a ton of money…" 

**

Hailey Khoshaba likes to hang around with Left Wing media reporters such as : Garrett Archer with ABC15, Brahm Resnik with 12 news, Jeremy Duda with Axios and formerly Arizona Mirror (known antifa associates)...

And that BPro worked with Garrett Archer on the AVID Project, which was a precursor to the ERIC system, for centralization of voter registrations and records at the SoS’s offices.

And that most of Dominion’s machines have compatibility with ERIC (and Knowink) built into them.

And that the ERIC system is the most egregious violation of illegal voter data laundering and state voter roll compromise in American history.

(Which is why 8 states have already dropped the ERIC system this year.)

**

2014: A top aide to Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne named in a complaint alleging campaign finance violations is leaving his post, a spokeswoman for Horne confirmed Friday to The Arizona Republic.

Garrett Archer, Horne's state and federal relations policy analyst, is named in the complaint alleging Horne and his executive staff worked on the attorney general's re-election campaign while on state time.

Beattie's affidavit and its accompanying exhibits, including e-mails, calendars and metadata such as time-stamps on cellphone photos, paint a portrait of an attorney general and executive staff openly and rampantly working on his re-election efforts from the Capitol, with no regard to state laws banning politicking on state time.

**

2016: The GOP primary here will be bruising. Pinal County Sheriff Babeu and Arizona Speaker of the House David Gowan are two of the big political names in the race. Both, however, have slightly tarnished reputations: Babeu weathered a scandal involving an illegal immigrant who said he was Babeu’s lover, while Gowan was the subject of an Arizona Capitol Times investigation that revealed he used a state vehicle, and a state driver, for a road trip of some 5,000 miles. 

The race is complicated by another prominent politician in the mix, former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, and Tea Party favorite Gary Kiehne, who some consider the dark horse in the race. A rancher who lent his own campaign nearly $1 million, Kiehne fits the Trump narrative of a self-made political outsider who plays by his own rules. 

Says Archer, who is working with Babeu in the race: “It’s definitely going to be a fight.”

Supporting Paul Babeu, who was credibly accused of misusing his office to threaten his boyfriend and who misused funds in Pinal, was interesting choice, all of which was known by 2016.  [Babeu won the primary, the Democrat challenger won the election.]

So either all of AZ politics is corrupt or Archer just finds the corrupt ones (Babeu, Horne, Hobbs). 

The bottom line is the AZ Data Guru is not an uninterested, detached party. He’s ethically challenged and his heavy involvement in the AZ voting system means he will naturally defend his “work”.  He’s also heavily political and in the RINO sense but he’s equal opportunity in his help to Katie Hobbs. 

All in all, a lot to discredit. But it's the nature of our cryptic voting system that you can't have someone who knows a lot without knowing too much, if you know what I mean. Some say that you don't get to be in the know unless you're already blackmailed.