Don't Just Don't Do It

I want the Republicans to sweep the Congress this next election.  We need to convince the 30% of moderates, independents, Libertarians, and the few remaining patriotic Democrats to vote Republican.  There are some things we conservatives need to stop doing so we don’t drive people away.  Don’t make threats against anyone or any private or public organization.  We have to win the people in the middle and we don’t do that by making threats of violence.

Don’t use profanity to disparage our opponents.  We have to win the people in the middle and we don’t do that by using profanity to describe our political opponents.  No one ever said that I voted for this guy because his supporters called people bad names and swore a lot.

Don’t ridicule people because of who they are, ridicule their policies.  People in the political center won’t come to the Right side of politics because we made fun of a senile old man or a cackling woman.  They will vote for Republicans if we can point out specific policies of the left and their effect on the lives of the average person.  2022 is our election to lose, don’t do things that will needlessly cause people to vote for Democrats; that’s the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Assumption

Today is the feast of Saint Mary the Virgin, also called the Assumption of Mary.  So what is the feast of Saint Mary and what is the Assumption of Mary and isn’t that a Roman Catholic thing and why do we as Anglicans even care?  The feast of Saint Mary is like all the other feasts of a saint.  All baptized Christians are saints in that we have been set aside as God’s people.  Some of us are better at that than others.  So some saints are set aside by the church for the rest of us to look at and learn from. 

Some of the saints started out as bad people and repented and lived holy lives.  Some saints started out as good people and repented and lived really holy lives.  And most saints started out as just regular folks, living their regular lives until they received a special calling from God and then they did something spectacularly awesome with their lives.  Arguably Saint Mary is the finest example of that.

The prayer book has a canticle called the Magnificat.  It’s called the Magnificat because in Latin Magnificat is the first word in this selection of the Bible.  Magnificat means Magnifies.  As in my soul doth magnify the Lord.

Let’s take a closer look at the Magnificat and see what it says.

MY soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Let’s break that down a bit.  MY soul doth magnify the Lord.  I praise God with all my very being, even as far and deep as my soul itself.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.  I am so happy, so glad, so pleased about the existence of God, my Savior that my soul rejoices.

For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.  God recognizes that I am just a poor young girl, I have no riches, no great lands, or education, or power, but God has still noticed tiny, little me out of all the billions of women all through time He could have called, He selected me.

For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.  I am so privileged, so greatly rewarded by God, that all people in the future will say that this thing we are doing together is a great blessing.

The Roman Catholics are very great on calling Mary Blessed.  She is often referred to as the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Tomorrow is the Assumption of Mary.  Roman Catholic theology says Mary did not die, rather, she was assumed into heaven without death as a reward for her unprecedented service to the Lord.  The Roman Catholic Church says the Assumption is dogma and has since 1950, but it was taught for centuries prior to that.  Roman doctrine is that Christians are expected to believe the assumption occurred in order to get into heaven.

What about other Christians?  How do they view Mary?  The Protestant churches often don’t talk much about Mary.  Most Protestant churches say they are a Bible believing church, and the Bible is their sole authority.  Yet in the Bible it says “all generations shall call me blessed?  Yet most Protestants seldom speak of Mary at all, and rarely call her blessed.  As for the Assumption, while scripture implies it in some places, it’s not specifically and clearly mentioned.  So many Protestant churches either don’t believe the Assumption happened or they don’t particularly care if it happened or not.  So it’s something they don’t teach about much.

In the Eastern Orthodox Churches, their tradition says that Mary did die peacefully in her sleep and then was raised up to heaven.  This happened in a manner similar to that of Jesus who after a short stay on Earth after his resurrection went up into heaven.  There is evidence of these stories almost back to the First Century, but they don’t claim these stories are in scripture.

In the Anglican Churches you should call Mary blessed, because we believe in the Bible.  But the Bible does not directly reference the Assumption of Mary.  However it does leave it open and some phrases in the Bible do imply the Assumption will happen, so it may be true.  You may believe in the Assumption but you don’t have to believe it because using the Bible alone you can’t prove it.  And the Bible contains everything necessary for salvation. 

The Church has held the Assumption of Mary as a tradition for a very long time so for Anglicans the Assumption is a pious devotion.  Something we believe that is not firmly rooted in scripture, but has been a tradition of the church for centuries.

Peace Not Mostly Peaceful

The Republican Party is the party of law and order.  The party that stands against de-fund the police.  We are the party that stands for immutable principles of right and wrong.

Recently the FBI raided President Trumps home in Florida.  I think this is an outrage and that the FBI, and other Federal agencies, particularly the IRS get used for political purposes under Democrat administrations.  This is unacceptable behavior for Federal law enforcement agencies.

The correct response was shown at Mar-a-Lago during the raid.  The local Trump supporters showed up waved TRUMP flags and demonstrated peacefully that they supported President Trump.  This is what we need to do, not threaten or participate in violence.

It is never proper to urge the murder of anyone.  It is never appropriate to call for the death of law enforcement officers or our political opponents.  Those things are common in Third World countries. 

In the United States, in the Republican Party and conservative movement we look for a peaceful resolution of our differences with our fellow Americans.  We look to use the law and the courts and the ballot box to correct the problems with Federal law enforcement.  Threatening violence and even worse, actual violence that is unlawful is not acceptable.  Attacking the FBI, the IRS, or leftists only serves to enhance their political agenda.  Don’t violate our conservative principles by taking the law into your own hands, that’s the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Tax Agents

I have read various stories about the new bill that will spend $17 billion dollars to hire 87,000 IRS agents.  Some say they are new agents, and others say they are simply replacing people who are expected to retire over the next ten years.  Some reports say they will all be armed and other reports say only a few of them will be armed positions.

This begs the question that is most important and not addressed by either of these concerns.  Why do we need to spend $17 billion over the next ten years to collect taxes?  Why is our tax code so complicated that we need to hire 87,000 people to administer that code?  How come we can’t have a much simpler tax code that can be understood by the average person?  Why do we have taxes and deductions that favor some businesses and penalize other businesses?  Shouldn’t the taxes we collect be charged only for the purpose of raising enough money to provide the minimum necessary services the people need? 

When we argue over the specific number of IRS agents and if they need to be armed or not we are missing the real point about our tax system.  We should not have to hire lawyers, accountants, and tax preparers to manage our personal and business taxes.  Taxes should be simple and the number of people needed to manage and oversee them should be few; that’s the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.

Ukraine Escalation

Some Russian apologists are claiming that if Ukraine attacked a Russia airbase in Ukraine it’s an escalation in the war.  Ukraine firing on Crimea is not an escalation.  In World War II the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the US then bombed Tokyo.  That’s not an escalation, attacking the enemy is what you do in a war, and you attack the enemy until they give up.

Crimea is part of Ukraine and has been since the 1950s.  Russia thinks it is okay for them to bomb and rocket anywhere in Ukraine but that Ukraine can’t fire on the Russians anyplace except with in few kilometers of the front lines.  Imagine if in World War Two we said “The Germans have captured France so we can’t actually drop bombs on Germany we can only fight the Germans in France; because attacking Germany would be an escalation.”  That’s absurd.

Russia is trying to bring international pressure on Ukraine to prevent Ukraine from attacking legitimate targets.  Ukraine has a right to attack the Russian military targets anywhere in the world.  If they could sink a Russian submarine in the Pacific Ocean then they should do so, it would not be an escalation, it would be war, a war of conquest that the Russians started; that’s the view from the Hysterical Right Wing.