Sunday/Blood and Soil

Government is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.--Bastiat

Kessel was traded.
A very good dinner at the Duquesne Club with Kapil and Chris. He is joining the Mercy staff as the Vice-Chair of Medicine.
Kristy Borza, the PGC tennis pro, was married yesterday and Chris went to the reception at the Foundry.

Teachers' salaries have come up again in the national debate over the presidency. But the political fact is that education is largely a local issue paid for by local property taxes. A president has precisely nothing to do with that. So, what exactly does a presidential candidate taking a stand on teachers' salaries mean?

Philosophy from the Kleptocracy:

The liberal ideology that has underpinned Western democracy for decades is “obsolete,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the Financial Times published Friday. Speaking to the FT on the eve of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, during which world leaders will discuss trade, security and other matters, Putin said “the liberal idea” had “outlived its purpose” and “come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.”
This is not nuts, this is the current belief of most young people as well as the multiple Presidential candidates. Individual liberty is increasingly sacrificed to the ignorance of the collective. The American Revolution looks more and more like a miracle every minute.

It is, however, an iron law: The more government does to influence the flow of money, the more money will be spent to influence elections.--Will
The oft-heard cry where politicians denounce money's influence in elections acts as if the politician is somehow not involved.

One of history’s most famous warhorses was Comanche. The Bay gelding was the mount of Captain Myles Keogh of the ill-fated 7th Cavalry and a survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Though badly wounded, he recovered from his injuries and became a mascot  to the cavalry. He received a military funeral when he died many years later. Comanche was stuffed and still resides in a glass case at the University of Kansas. His story was told in a Disney movie and in a Johnny Horton song.

Stuffed.

Today is Thomas Sowell's birthday. He is 89.

                                  Blood and Soil

The epistle from Paul today opens with this:

"For freedom Christ set us free;
so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery."

And ends with this:

"But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law."

This fits well with the gospel, one of the most disturbing writings in Christianity, I think.

The gospel opens with Christ being turned away from a Samaritan village and the apostles hoping Christ will rain retaliatory fire on them. Christ ignores them and as they move on three men offer their allegiance to Him, each with a condition.
To the first He says, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head."

The second wants to bury his father first. To him He says,  "Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

The third want to say goodbye to his family first. To him He says, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God."

Is this as scary as it sounds? No, it's worse. 

To the first man, Christ is describing Himself--on two completely separate planes. First, He is on the road to Calvary; that is His physical essence. He is not a Galilean, or a son or a leader or teacher. He is a being whose definition will not be complete until He is sacrificed. He has no home because He is a process. Second, He actually is not of this world; He has no home here.

The second and third responses sound especially harsh, especially to people who have already been reassured they can pull a cow out of a ditch on the Sabbath. But His point is always that there is a gulf between the material and the spiritual. Blood and Soil are not adequate points of allegiance. The spiritual world and the material world do not overlap except in one instance: Him.