September 19, 2018

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

Brett Kavanaugh, Feminism, and Modern Witchcraft

Friends,

Three-hundred and twenty-six years ago several towns in Massachusetts were beset by what some historians and observers have termed a form of mass hysteria: the 1692 Salem Witch Trials remain seared in our public consciousness, and, even more, have occupied a prominent place in our literature and popular culture. Some 200 people—mostly but not all women—were accused of necromancy and black magic, and nineteen were found guilty and hanged.

Those trials, so engraved in the popular imagination, are illustrative of what occurs when corrupted religious sentiment, faulty ethical and moral thinking, and the power of suggestion on a mass scale have free rein in society. 

We only need recall a few more recent examples—the infamous McMartin (in California) and Edenton (in North Carolina) day care “child abuse” cases of a few years back, when the constant coaxing and continued suggestion by so-called professional “child counselors” convinced not only some children—some as young as five or six—but also their gullible parents that their offspring had been, for instance, taken up in spaceships where they were sexually abused by day school faculty. And those accusations, firmly asserted as true by those same “counselors” at the time, made it to the courts where, initially, guilty verdicts were handed down…only to discover years later, after dozens of lives had been destroyed and ruined…that the tales of abuse and the accusations were fabrications, made up—largely due to the insinuations of counselors who wanted the charges to be true.

A present mass hysteria, mainly coming from the politically-driven Democrats and frenzied #MeToo movement feminists but also including some Republicans (e.,g. Senator Jeff Flake), is evidently in full force in the current imbroglio over the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

For the Left, the feminists, and the increasingly radicalized Democratic leadership the present bitter, unleashed, and no-holds-barred opposition to the nomination is one more example of the growing extremism and lunacy of the Left in America. And, yes, too many Republicans—most of its leadership—are scared to death of the “R” word (“racist”) and, in this case, the “S” word (“sexist”).

This present situation did not just occur; its deeper and more profound roots stretch back into our history and society, and it can be traced linearly back to the early feminist movement in America, to women’s rights proponents, and to suffragettes in the nineteenth century—to zealots like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucrecia Mott—whose own religious and ethical formation owes much to the same intellectual framework that had produced the favorable environment for the Salem trials 150 years earlier: except that this time it was the fanatical “witches,” many possessed of equal religious fervor, who led the campaign for radical action.

It was the same ideological inheritance and social fanaticism from which issued other “reformist” movements,  including Abolitionism—movements that sprung as bastard but entirely logical offspring of those seventeenth century Puritans, as both historian Paul Conkin (in Puritans & Pragmatists) and Perry Miller (The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century) have thoroughly documented in their impressive studies.

And in the twentieth century the virtual triumph of the so-called “women’s movement” gained almost irrepressible power, as influential and governing members of the opposite sex, brow-beaten and progressively convinced that the “god of equality”—the imperative to “make everyone equal,” supposedly contained in the Declaration of Independence and then proclaimed by that secular saint Abe Lincoln as a “new Founding” of the American republic—simply caved and gave way to the demands of the “movement.”

The present #MeToo movement has been viewed in various ways: most visibly it has gained substantial momentum since the election of that gate-crasher iconoclast Donald Trump who is seen by feminists as highly unsympathetic and contrary to their cause—that is, a type of man who cannot be manipulated or controlled by their siren song of “male supremacy” and of their having suffered from historic “male oppression.”

But, of course, President Trump is just the latest and most significant target and symbol that must be exposed, crushed, and expelled from any authority.

What is unfortunately lost and forgotten in the present hysteria is the undoubted fact that there are genuine cases of abuse committed against women, and, indeed, the Harvey Weinstein scandals serve as a poignant example. But there have always been such serial abusers in our midst, yet the frenzy surrounding the current situation betrays something missed by many observers and sorely lacking in the present discussion…and it demeans real instances of abuse.

Ironically, it has been the very progressivist demands—and the successes—by the movement for the destruction of our inherited Christian standards of ethics and morality, the repeal of laws on the books, and the end of the kind of moral instruction once provided to our children which have assisted tremendously in creating the fetid stew that we now find ourselves in.

How is it possible to educate a thirteen year old suffering through the public schools if that young man (or young women) is brow-beaten with an inflexible and ironclad normative view that traditional manliness is bad, that old-fashioned moral standards are passe’—that sex is fine if it “feels good” and your partner agrees—or that transgenderism, same sex marriage, and “gender fluidity” are perfectly acceptable (and you’d better not be caught criticizing or making fun of such folks, lest you be suspended from school and shunned by society).

Of course—of course, sexual dalliances have always existed, as long as men and women have existed…but the difference between the past and present is that then we knew we were going against the moral law (even when we did), but now we are told there is no law, other than something elusively called “consent.”

I am put in mind of the English poet, the late Sir John Betjeman and his prophetic poem, “The Planster’s Vision,” written many decades ago (Collected Poems, 1958), but accurately predicting what we behold before and around us, and which threatens to drown us in its putrefaction:

I have a Vision of The Future, chum,
The worker's flats in fields of soya beans
Tower up like silver pencils, score on score:
And Surging Millions hear the Challenge come
From microphones in communal canteens
"No Right! No wrong! All's perfect, evermore."

In reality, it is not some egalitarian Utopia we strive for and approach in the United States circa 2018—not some afterbirth of that “holy city on a hill” of Puritan dreams which were but nightmares that have infected our politics, our culture, and have rotted our educational system at its core. But, rather, that vision was and is one of fanaticism, and it is a secularist fanaticism that fuels the feminist and #MeToo movement (and scares the Hell out of pusillanimous politicians), and which is in direct rebellion not only against 2,000 years of Western and Christian civilization, but against both the Natural Law—the laws of nature, itself—and the wise teachings of traditional Christianity and Divine Positive Law.

What is feminism and, in fact, virtually every “reform movement” which posits across-the-board equality, an abnormal and unnatural condition for humanity, as its objective? What are such examples of mass hysteria other than radical attempts to violate and undo those God-given laws, and blur and destroy those differences ingrained in and between each of us?

Recall the teaching of St. Paul in numerous books of the New Testament:

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. [Colossians 3: 18-20]

Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they refuse to believe the word, they will be won over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see your pure and reverent demeanor. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment such as braided hair or gold jewelry or fine clothes, but from the inner disposition of your heart, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in God’s sight. Husbands, in the same way, treat your wives with consideration as a delicate vessel, and with honor as fellow heirs of the gracious gift of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. [I Peter 3: 1-4, 7]

And, lastly, most tellingly, from the First Book of Corinthians:

As in all the congregations of the saints, women are to be silent in the churches. They are not permitted to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.  If they wish to inquire about something, they are to ask their own husbands at home; for it is dishonorable for a woman to speak in the church. [I Corinthian 14: 33-35]

It is not my point to enter into Biblical exegesis here, nor to advocate that the solution to our contemporary malady is to lock women away or imprison them necessarily in what the older German Lutherans called “kinder, kuche, und kirche”—“children, kitchen, and church”: a return to complete and subservient roles of domesticity. I don’t believe that is the essential message of St. Paul. 

But what both nature demands and what the Church and our civilization have wisely understood is this: women and men are not only physiologically different, but functionally so, as well.  And there is a definite psychological differentiation between the sexes which exists in the entirety of our human species. That differentiation does not signify that men are “better” than women, but rather that there is a special difference in historic roles and duties, all of which are estimable and honorable. This is not only completely natural, but affirmed and held up and glorified by historic Christianity.

Indeed, in the history of Christendom it has been the Blessed Virgin, that unique example of spotless purity and holiness, of obedience to the Will of God and of incredible power both symbolically and actually, who, because of the Incarnation and as Mother of Our Lord, must serve as our model and the model for women.

The incapacity of—the fear by—the so-called “conservative movement” to manfully meet head on the outrageous demands and unhinged assaults of feminism have much to do, certainly, with the triumphant and largely unopposed advance of cultural Marxism in our culture. That present-day triumph began its march through our institutions decades ago—a slow but constant march which never veered from its objectives and its utilization of race and gender as the Hydra-headed Trojan Horse in subverting our civilization.

On several occasions I have quoted the Southern post-War Between the States critic Robert Lewis Dabney’s superb characterization from 130 years ago of the kind of weak-kneed and cowardly “conservative” opposition to feminism, and it is even more applicable today:

"It may be inferred again that the present movement for women's rights, will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent, Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is to-day one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will to-morrow be forced upon its timidity, and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it he salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious, for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always—when about to enter a protest—very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its "bark is worse than its bite," and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent rôle of resistance. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it "in wind," and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women's suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position." [Secular Discussion, vol. IV, pp. 491-493]

I don’t know if Dabney believed in witches or not. But like most traditional Christians, whether Calvinist or Catholic or Orthodox, he understood the concept and historic reality of a society where Christianity was in retreat. And he understood that ideology abhors a vacuum, and that evil quickly enters when good departs.

T. S. Eliot’s much quoted aphorism never ceases currency: “If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God), you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.”

I am certain that neither Eliot nor Dabney would have accused the fanatics involved in smearing Judge Kavanaugh of anything approaching demonic possession. But there is indeed a lesser state, a condition where the Good and Ethical have been driven out…and there is only room for ideology, for Evil, and for its dominance and its frenetic ravaging of the souls who exhibit it. 

As I saw on air the attorney for Judge Kavanaugh’s feminist accuser, Debra Katz, the first thing I noticed were her eyes. Forgive me here if I make a personal observation: they were beady and striking, fierce and gleaming, seeming to hide behind them a ferocious passion and uncontrolled anger. There, it seemed to me, was an apt  metaphor of the #MeToo movement, a movement that G. K. Chesterton would have correctly identified as trafficking in lunacy, cut off from rationality and nature, and, most critically, in rebellion against the Creator Himself. 

The witches of Salem have indeed returned, but this time they are very real and they are calling the shots and dominating our culture. Will they be opposed courageously by what remains of the guardians of our traditional civilization? 

I pass to two essays here, one by Pat Buchanan and another on the feminist accuser:

The Late Hit on Judge Kavanaugh

http://buchanan.org/blog/the-late-hit-on-judge-kavanaugh-130100

By Patrick J. Buchanan  Tuesday - September 18, 2018

Upon the memory and truthfulness of Christine Blasey Ford hangs the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, his reputation and possibly his career on the nation’s second-highest court.  And much more. If Kavanaugh is voted down or forced to withdraw, the Republican Party and conservative movement could lose their last best hope for recapturing the high court for constitutionalism.

No new nominee could be vetted and approved in six weeks. And the November election could bring in a Democratic Senate, an insuperable obstacle to the elevation of a new strict constructionist like Kavanaugh.

The stakes are thus historic and huge.

And what is Professor Ford’s case against Judge Kavanaugh?  When she was 15 in the summer of ’82, she went to a beer party with four boys in Montgomery County, Maryland, in a home where the parents were away. She says she was dragged into a bedroom by Brett Kavanaugh, a 17-year-old at Georgetown Prep, who jumped her, groped her, tried to tear off her clothes and cupped her mouth with his hand to stop her screams. Only when Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge, laughing “maniacally,” piled on and they all tumbled off the bed, did she escape and lock herself in a bathroom as the “stumbling drunks” went downstairs. She fled the house and told no one of the alleged rape attempt.

Not until 30 years later in 2012 did Ford, now a clinical psychologist in California, relate, in a couples therapy session with her husband, what happened. She says she named Kavanaugh as her assailant, but the therapist’s notes of the session make no mention of Kavanaugh. During the assault, says Ford, she was traumatized. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me.”

Here the story grows vague. She does not remember who drove her to the party. She does not say how much she drank. She does not remember whose house it was. She does not recall who, if anyone, drove her home. She does not recall what day it was. She did not tell her parents, Ford says, as she did not want them to know she had been drinking. She did not tell any friend or family member of this traumatic event that has so adversely affected her life.

Said Kavanaugh in response, “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”

Mark Judge says it never happened.

Given the seriousness of the charges, Ford must be heard out. But she also needs to be cross-examined and have her story and character probed as Kavanaugh’s has been by FBI investigators as an attorney for the Ken Starr impeachment investigation of Bill Clinton, a White House aide to George Bush, a U.S. appellate judge and a Supreme Court nominee.

During the many investigations of Kavanaugh’s background, nothing was unearthed to suggest something like this was in character. Some 65 women who grew up in the Chevy Chase and Bethesda area and knew Kavanaugh in his high school days have come out and have spoken highly of his treatment of girls and women.

Moreover, the way in which all of this arose, at five minutes to midnight in the long confirmation process, suggests that this is political hardball, if not dirt ball.

When Ford, a Democrat, sent a letter detailing her accusations against Kavanaugh to her California congresswoman, Anna Eshoo, Ford insisted that her name not be revealed as the accuser. She seemingly sought to damage or destroy the judge’s career behind a cloak of anonymity. Eshoo sent the letter on to Sen. Diane Feinstein, who held it for two months. Excising Ford’s name, Feinstein then sent it to the FBI, who sent it to the White House, who sent it on to the Senate to be included in the background material on the judge. Thus, Ford’s explosive charge, along with her name, did not surface until this weekend.

What is being done here stinks. It is a transparently late hit, a kill shot to assassinate a nominee who, before the weekend, was all but certain to be confirmed and whose elevation to the Supreme Court is a result of victories in free elections by President Trump and the Republican Party.

Palpable here is the desperation of the Left to derail Kavanaugh, lest his elevation to the high court imperil their agenda and the social revolution that the Warren Court and its progeny have been able to impose upon the nation.

If Kavanaugh is elevated, the judicial dictatorship of decades past, going back to the salad days of Earl Warren, William Brennan, Hugo Black and “Wild Bill” Douglas, will have reached its end. A new era will have begun.

That is what is at stake.

The Republican Senate should continue with its calendar to confirm Kavanaugh before Oct. 1, while giving Ford some way to be heard, and then Kavanaugh the right to refute. Then let the senators decide.

 ==============================

Writer of Confidential Kavanaugh Letter Speaks Out – She’s a Far-Left Activist!

 https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/09/developing-writer-of-confidential-kavanaugh-letter-speaks-out-shes-a-far-left-activist/?omhide=true&utm_source=TGP+Communications&utm_campaign=98667e30a6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_09_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b3f16dae4d-98667e30a6-18710873

by Cristina Laila September 16, 2018 

Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are working overtime to delay Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

On Thursday, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) referred a mysterious letter about Kavanaugh to the FBI.

Feinstein said in a statement Thursday to the feds that she “received information from an individual concerning the nomination.”

Feinstein released a statement via The Intercept:

 “I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.”

It turns out the woman who sent the letter to Democrat lawmakers is a far-left activist.

Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor and far left activist, wrote a letter to a Democrat lawmaker earlier this summer claiming she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh while they were in high school in Maryland over three decades ago.

Via the Washington Post:

Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.

While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.

“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”

Ford said she was able to escape when Kavanaugh’s friend and classmate at Georgetown Preparatory School, Mark Judge, jumped on top of them, sending all three tumbling. She said she ran from the room, briefly locked herself in a bathroom and then fled the house.

Independent journalist Mike Cernovich says Christine Blasey is a far-left activist who spent all weekend deleting her social media accounts.

The Dems are so dirty they had to go back over three decades to Kavanaugh’s high school days to dig up ‘dirt’ using a left-wing activist. Kavanaugh categorically denied the allegations on Thursday in a statement.

The White House also released a statement.

“Senator Schumer promised to ‘oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have,’ and it appears he is delivering with this 11th hour attempt to delay the confirmation.”