Conscience, Heroic Virtue, and Civil Disobedience in the Resistance to Evil

"A period of tension ensued, for the Danish population in general and its Jewish citizens in particular. Danish policy sought to ensure its independence and neutrality by placating the neighboring Nazi regime. After Denmark was occupied by Germany following Operation Weserübung on April 9, 1940, the situation became increasingly precarious.

In 1943, the situation came to a head when Werner Best, the German plenipotentiary in Denmark ordered the arrest and deportation of all Danish Jews, scheduled to commence on October 1, which coincided with Rosh Hashanah. However, the Jewish community was given advance warning, and only 202 were arrested initially. As it turned out, 7,550 fled to Sweden, ferried across the Øresund strait. 500 Jews were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. In the course of their incarceration, Danish authorities often interceded on their behalf, as they did for other Danes in German custody, sending food.

Of the 500 Jews who were deported, approximately 50 died during deportation. Danes rescued the rest and they returned to Denmark in what was regarded as a patriotic duty against the Nazi occupation. Many of non-Jewish Danes protected their Jewish neighbors' property and homes while they were gone."

Lidegaard, Bo. Guarding Denmark’s Jewish Heritage, The New York Times, 26 February 2015


"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

What is not mentioned in the videos below, and what is all too easily overlooked, is the protection and welcome and aid that Denmark's Jews received in Sweden, where they remained safely until the end of the war.

What is particularly troubling is when some look back, and in retrospect diminish what others may have done as not enough, as not pure enough, as not motivated in the right way.   To these we say, wait until you are faced with the same trial with the same stakes, and then come back and tell us how much better you have done.

Those who would enslave us wish us to believe that all men are created evil, and that there is nothing of fairness or justice in anyone's hearts.  They wish us to forget, to forget the actions of the Danish people, of the friends and family of Sophie Scholl in Munich, and of all the other actions of those who performed individual and organized acts of heroic virtue, most often unremarked and in quiet, in the face of ruthless, dehumanizing evil.

So therefore, they would have us think, we may all live and act as heartless swine, as they do.  After all, it's only human.   It is not.  It is the antithesis of the truly human.

We must not be silent in the face of such injustice, for anyone.

"It is always the soul that dies first, even if it's departure goes unnoticed. And it always carries the body along with it... Man is nourished by the invisible, man is nourished by that which is beyond the personal. He dies from preferring the opposite."

Jacques Lusseyran, Poetry at Buchenwald

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Repentance and Forgiveness the Wellspring of Joy

Into the ancient holy land
Behold, the son of God is come to man.

Hoc est enim corpus meam.

In Innocence fall all heroes and their creeds;
An age is done, an age from here proceeds.

Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei,
Novi et aeterni testamenti.

What consuming pagan fires could not do—
A covenant of love, and Word made flesh, in You.

Qui pro nobis et pro multis effundetor;
In remissionem peccatorum.

Sleep swells His breast, though heavy pressed,
By Golgotha, and Adam's sin,
And the hopes of he who signs his name herein.

Jesse

What a wonderful condescension and extravagance we have from God.   For although we were made and formed in His image, He has thereafter sanctified that image, and thereby redeemed us from our failures in His Incarnation.

Greater love hath no man, than to lay down his life for his friends.

Stocks drifted today for the most part, particularly in the afternoon when most traders have already left for their holidays.

Gold and silver have rebounded nicely from the recent shenanigans practiced in the markets around the FOMC meeting and Non-Farm payrolls.  Again, I urge you to look at all the instances of this on the gold chart.

President Trump signed the Tax Reform and Jobs Act today, and then left for the holidays at his home in Florida.

Matt Taibbi had some rather pointed observations and disclosures to make about Bob Corker and his penchant for trading stocks as a Senator, presumably on privileged information, with multi-million dollar success. Of course he is not alone in this, as I have pointed out many times in the past.  Hillary's remarkable success as a novice cattle trader comes to mind.

The corruption that has become widely tolerated throughout the various upper strata of our society is shocking in its boldness.  And even more shocking is its general acceptability, and too often downright fashionability,  among our elite in business and government, and their courtiers and partisans in the various professions.  And it provides a corrosive example and temptation to the public.

That such gaming the system is widely tolerated and accepted does not make it right.  The breaking of oaths is a serious transgression, and there will be an accounting for it, if not in this world then the next. 

And sadly it is the partisanship, and the willing gullibility of simple souls given over to the wiles of a skillful persuasion to anger, and willfulness, and hatred, that permits the unscrupulous to prosper.   I have seen otherwise honorable and sincere people do and say some shocking things in service to dark powers in the past few years.

There can be little doubt that the ordinary and the unsophisticated are learning from our cynical and proud elite.  And that scandalous example is their sin as well.  It would be better for them to have been thrown into the sea, with a millstone around their necks.

All the preparations for Christmas are coming to their conclusion.

Looking back on this rather difficult year, I ask forgiveness of all those to whom I have caused distress or temptation to anger, because of my actions or lack of actions.

I have asked God for His forgiveness in all things, and so I also ask for your forgiveness, and your prayers.  I am a most unworthy servant.  I charge nothing and accept nothing, for that is what my work is worth.

May you and yours walk with the Lord, in His favor and the light of the Spirit, in all that you do in the coming year.

And may the peace of the Lord, which surpasses all understanding, be with you in this blessed season.

I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas.   I will be posting somewhat during the interregnum before the new year.

Have a wonderful holiday.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - A Muse of Fire

"O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!"

William Shakespeare, Prologue, Henry V

Stocks managed to hold on to their gains today.

Gold finished higher with silver off just a bit.

Tomorrow's trade is going to be quiet, since most of the adults have already left for their holidays

The rest of the adults will be gone by noon tomorrow, and so I would not expect much unless *something happens.*

Which it rarely does.

I spent some constructive time today getting rid of a few late fallen leaves, and then winterizing the lawnmower for its storage until Spring.

And like a few other kindred souls, I was browsing the gift cards selection at the local grocery store for a few last minute presents.   Dolly waited patiently in the car, wrapped in her blanket.

Speaking of last minute items, the Congress is still busy attempting to avoid a government shutdown by kicking the matter down the road until early next year 

I am reading an excellent book titled, The Light Shines on in the Darkness.

I find it odd, but I have never watched the HBO miniseries, Band of Brothers. Doubly odd because the title is taken from one of my favorite scenes from Shakespeare in Henry V. When I am a bit down, I sometimes read the St. Crispin's day speech, or listen to this excellent performance of it.

Remember each other in your prayers. It is the highest expression of our humanity, in addition to selfless acts of charity.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Ornaments

"Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God."

Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable


"Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us!  Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison...

He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."

John Henry Newman, The Time of Antichrist

Sleepy week.

It is good to be wakeful, watchful, in those things that are most important.  Dark times are on the horizon.  And yet there is always the happiness of the hearth, and home.  And the unexpected dawn.

You know you are getting old:  you fall asleep in the recliner, and when you wake up the dog is standing on your chest, eating the Cheerios off your t-shirt.

Life is a patchwork of light, loving moments, and tender mercies.

One thing I will grant to the financiers and their politicians—  they are rarely too lazy to steal.

Have a pleasant evening.

Aktion T4 - War on the Weak, the Elderly, the Disabled, the Others

"Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness...

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.   The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism


"One of the primary characteristics of narcissists is their exaggerated sense of entitlement. It's hardly surprising then that so many politicians somehow think they 'deserve' to game the system. After all, from their self-interested perspective, isn't that what the system is for?

In their heavily self-biased opinion, if they want something, by rights it should be their's. So, nothing if not opportunistic, they take from public and private coffers alike whatever they think they can get away with. And given their grandiose sense of self, they're inclined to believe they can get away with most anything.

Exploiting their privileged position in such a manner hardly leaves them plagued with guilt. In general, guilt isn't an emotion they're prone to. How could they be if they feel entitled to the objects of their desire? In their minds their very ability to attain something must certainly mean it was merited."

Leon F. Seltzer


"Power will achieve its murderous potential. It simply waits for an excuse, an event of some sort, an assassination, a massacre in a neighboring country, an attempted coup, a famine, or a natural disaster, to justify the beginning of murder en masse."

R. J. Rummel


"There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.”

Lord Acton


“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”

William Wilberforce

The systematic murder of the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill, the infirm, alcoholics, and social misfits began on the same day that Germany invaded Poland.

The Nazi euthanasia program was modeled on the eugenics programs in the UK and the US, although those programs avoided actual murder in favor of forced sterilization of the feeble, the infirm, alcoholics, and the mentally ill. The purpose was to cleanse the peoples gene pool, also referred to as racial hygeine.

The German program of extermination was carried out not at camps by SS soldiers, but in hospitals and psychiatric asylums by doctors and nurses.

Various experiments with the most efficient means of performing these murders led to the development of the camps with their gas chambers and crematoria.