A Cautionary Tale

 

In song.

Cheers,

LSP

Down With The Eagle Up With The Cross

 

Go right ahead, give your vote to State Central Control outta Washington. Sure, give your voice and vote to secular, GloboHomo, statist, usurious, center State, deep fake tyranny. Go right ahead, but don't be surprised by people who resist and attack you, on account of liberty. England, you may have noticed, is disarmed. We aren't. Word to the wise.

2A,

LSP

Inflation And The Fall Of Rome

 

Why did the Western Roman Empire fall? Moral degeneracy, decline of martial spirit in it's ruling quondam officer class, barbarous invasion, declining birthrates? Perhaps all that and more, not least financial.

From the 3rd century A.D. until the 5th, Rome was plagued by inflation, brought on by: A massive increase in military and bureaucratic spending, increasingly worthless issues of fiat currency, crushing taxation, attempted price controls, and the disappearance of middle class landowners, the Decurion class. The latter were essentially taxed into oblivion and walked away from their land, which was swallowed up by an increasingly wealthy few.

Sound familiar? Check out Joseph Peden's compelling and clear must read Mises Institute address. It's not long and here's his conclusion:

By justice he meant a just system of taxation. Salvian tells us, and I don’t think he’s exaggerating, that one of the reasons why the Roman state collapsed in the 5th century was that the Roman people, the mass of the population, had but one wish after being captured by the barbarians: to never again fall under the rule of the Roman bureaucracy.

In other words, the Roman state was the enemy; the barbarians were the liberators. And this undoubtedly was due to the inflation of the 3rd century. While the state had solved the monetary problem for its own constituents, it had failed to solve it for the masses. Rome continued to use an oppressive system of taxation in order to fill the coffers of the ruling bureaucrats and soldiers. Thank you. [applause]

History may not repeat but it does appear to rhyme, don't you think?

Ave,

LSP

PS. "Barbarians were the liberators" -- see the swift collapse of the Eastern Empire to the Moslem war bands. The Koranic tax was less burdensome than the Imperial one. Saying that, let's have Constantinople back.

Rest in Peace

 

Have you been to a country cemetery in Texas? I'm sure some of you have and I like them, right out there in the fields, complete with old shade trees under a big sky. Saying that, it can seem a little odd officiating at the graveside in such a place wearing Anglican Choir dress; Old England meets the frontier, sort of thing. But I wasn't taking the service, a young pastor was, and he did a good job, for which I thanked him.

Say a prayer for the repose of the soul of Marian W, who passed away in her early 80s and was an innocent, humble, faithful soul. She was a FORTRAN coder by profession, which I always found remarkable, and a diligent pianist. You could tell, on meeting her, that she was on the right side of God and heaven. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.

God Bless,

LSP

Shameless Jacobite?!?

 

Just for Kix,

LSP

PS. Off topic, but can any of you find a Margaret Sanger/Havelock Ellis/Aleister Crowley smoking gun? They were, I'm pretty sure, all in Bloomsbury/London at the same time, along with Crowley, who was then young, rich and fit.

Are We Against This?

 

Cheers,

LSP

PS. Teufelslied.

Brigitte?!?

 

You've been busy watching Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi getting attacked by delta-minus semi-moron shrieking Democrats, so you may have missed this important news item. Viz. Influential Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin has accused Brigitte Macron of being a "Transgender Monkey." That's right, a transgender monkey.

Whoa. According to Politico, which is a smug, condescending, passive pugnacious agitprop tool of the NWO masquerading as a news service, two real French women were found guilty of libel last year after claiming Beloved Brigitte was a man. They've been fined over 8000 Euros. Message to market, transphobes, don't you dare tell the world that Brigitte's a man pretending to be a woman.

In the meanwhile, Aleksandr Dugin walks free, though his daughter was killed in an assassination attempt in 2022. If you're interested in Dugin's Fourth Political Theory, which posits an alternative to Liberal Capitalism, Communism and Fascism, here's a synopsis. Question. Is Dugin Berdyaev's successor? Possibly. But back to business. Is Brigitte really a transgender monkey?

My dear readers, all six of you, the camera doesn't lie. But as always:

Your Call,

LSP

Out to Lunch in Dallas

 

One of the many things you can do in Dallas is go out to eat, something I hardly ever do, but today was an exception. I took Ma LSP and Sister #2 to a bistro in Knox Henderson, Toulouse. What a lot of fun, and the food was good to boot, in that French kind of way.

Mussels Mariniere for me, some kind of trout for my sister and onion soup for Ma LSP. Delicious, good service, pleasant trad bistro ambiance, and reasonably priced. What a pleasant change; go to Toulouse if you're in Dallas and want that kind of thing.

Mussels, trout and soup over, we strolled 100 yards to yet another bistro, the place is swarming with them. This one's called The Knox and might be a step up from Toulouse, with its open, airy interior, higher prices and most attentive staff. Not as boheme as Toulouse, if you know I mean.

Whatever, the place was pleasingly empty and we ordered coffee, sorbet and something called "Limoncello" for Ma LSP. Limoncello is a lemony liqueur, and it's Italian though evidently adopted by the French. Sister #2 remarked, "Limoncello is considered 'naff." I thought about this, "As in Essex, common? Yet here we are." Ha, ha. So that was fun, check out The Knox, if you're in the mood for yet more bistro style fun.

Then we strolled over yonder to Cole, made a left turn and ambled over to Sid Mashburn, which makes suits, bespoke and to measure. I was taken with a M2M, dark blue, 2 button, high twist, lightweight suit. English cloth, classic fit, and reasonably priced. + they have a gang of tailors in house to make the wretched suit measure or, if you want, make the beast from scratch. 

I'll revisit that place and you might want to go too, if you're in the business of suits and all of that. If you do, ask for Roger, he's good and a friend of BW, sister #3. So there you have it, a fun day out with family in the Metrosprawl. Great Result.

Commanche Moon,

LSP

The Stoutest Man

 

I found this stirring last night and I do today.

Cheers,

LSP

Cheers!

 

We're celebrating, here in Dallas. Why? Why not. Let's see what tomorrow brings, maybe a trip to Highland Park Village, the Biretta Gallery and Cafe Pacifico.

CP's bar area used to be like some kind of club, let the reader understand, and I've  always liked it for that. "I say, let's have another bottle of champagne as opposed to socialist nonsense." Bar staff looks you straight in the eye, "But of course, Sir." 

Heh. Word to the wise, don't get into fights with the locals, you might have to return to this place. Just a minor caveat, my dear friends.

Cheers,

LSP

Who Is This Bouffant Fool?

Look at his bouffy hairdo, pricey specs and degenerate, saggy visage. Who is this persyn? It's Thierry Breton, former French European Commissioner. And what does Rainbow Thierry say? "We did it in Romania, and we will do it in Germany if necessary."

What an arrogant, smug, pugnacious, people-denying, bouffant, pricey spectacles, not fit for purpose EU Commissar. Thierry's net worth is at a respectable socialist 23MN$. No wonder he can afford that fabulous hairstyle and fancy specs, eh? So very rules based garden Europa order. Good work, Brexiteers, you're well off out of it.

Rubicon,

LSP

Baptism Of Christ - A Short Sunday Sermon

 

Today we celebrate the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan, an epiphany in which God reveals himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Ghost, as a Trinity of divine persons. All well and good, more than that, a miraculous revelation of divine truth. But why, we have to ask, did Christ allow himself to be baptized by John?

After all, John's baptism was a matter of repentance; the Jews went down into the Jordan confessing their sins and arose, cleansed in the living waters of the river to a new life of righteousness. Death and rebirth, aptly summed up in the water itself, water which kills and gives life.

Excellent, but why did Jesus, who knew no sin, get baptized by John; he had nothing to repent of. The Baptizer says as much, "I should be baptized by you," to which our Lord replies, "So be it for now, to fulfill all righteousness."

To fulfill all righteousness, that being obedience to the Father's will. And what was the Father asking of Jewry? To be baptized, and Christ, representing the people as King of the Jews must be baptized too. But perhaps "represent" is too weak a word.  

Jesus, the Word made Flesh, though sinless, assumes fallen human nature and it's this which he takes down into the depths of the Jordon. To death, if you like, only to rise up again from the waters, Spirit anointed. He does the very same thing at the Cross and Resurrection. His baptism, then, is a prefigurement of his redemptive action. Benedict XVI puts it well:

"Jesus loaded the burden of mankind's guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross."

And, we can add, the Resurrection. Right there on the Jordan, a place pf Exodus, God reveals his redemptive work in Christ, who in loving obedience to the Father will offer sinful humanity sinlessly upon the Cross as a perfect, atoning sacrifice. 

All this, unveiled and prefigured at the outset of Jesus' public ministry, at the beginning of the road which will take him to Calvary and from there to resurrection, to new life in the power of that same Spirit which descended upon him in the waters of the Jordan.

That same Spirit who rests upon us who believe and are baptized in the name of the God who revealed himself to us in the Jordan as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Amen,

LSP