Building a reputation as a moral and trustworthy person is the work of a lifetime. It can be destroyed in a second. It isn’t a trivial thing to build or to maintain. Free societies fight off philosophies of hatred, recognizing them as merely the projection of their own inner demons on others. So it’s only natural to seek shortcuts. To be a good person takes work. To identify someone else as bad, however, is not so difficult, so long as one doesn’t have to be true. To identify evil in others, one needs to know something of the kind in oneself. That’s why it is so hard to be good — we all have an inclination, on occasion, to ignore our better angels. Instead of confronting that side of ourselves, with all the resolution that takes, it seems a much better deal to project the evil outwards. It’s certainly much easier than the hard work of self-improvement. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Israel Abides by Rules of War Its Enemies Would Never Dream Of) But what can serve as the target for this downloading of evil? It has to be credible to ourselves most of all. To have and keep a good reputation, it has to be credible to others. So, let’s suppose that one is in politics, what a wag has called the second oldest profession. Power can easily translate to money if one is willing to overlook morality and illegality. The more power, the bigger the opportunities. People who play high-stakes games are willing to pay a lot of money to have access to power. All must be plausible. One can’t just take a pile of cash. But one can accede to having a family member appointed to a very high-paying, very low-responsibility position by the one seeking favorable treatment. It looks on the surface to be employment, not a bribe. But now imagine that the arrangement is in a foreign country, and it attracts the attention of s serious and uncorruptible investigator there. He smells a rat and starts to gather evidence. The arrangement of the politician and his son is in danger. The access to power will be cut off and so will the flow of money to the politician and his son. Worse, it might discredit the politician as criminally corrupt. He would lose not only this lucrative arrangement but any possibility of any other such arrangement in the future. Because this man has always sought the easy way out, he has accustomed himself to projecting his own unexamined failures onto others. He knows how to do this effectively, as he’s already succeeded projecting opprobrium onto — let’s say — a superb legal scholar of Supreme Court caliber. So now, he thinks big and projects his own corruption onto the foreign investigator, threatens that foreign government with gigantic loss of funding, and gets the investigator fired. Just saying. Lying takes over as a way of life. One lie requires another to support it, and that lie needs another. Eventually, one does not have enough energy to keep the all the lies up. And when one lie collapses, the whole structure of lies starts to totter, and the politician is left, still lying to himself, exposed before the millions who had been suckered into believing him. It’s a cruel punishment, but condign. To this point, we have only imagined, theoretically of course, the dynamics of one person seeking a shortcut to being esteemed. But what if we have a general societal movement seeking to achieve moral superiority — along with the esteem and trust that people willingly grant to integrity — on the cheap? Instead of devoted work, they simply search for a target on whom to project their own faults. But since this is a societal movement, the target on which it projects must be a large group target. That’s what it needs to forward the cause of the group seeking easy esteem and the opportunities it brings. In a society afflicted with this projective disorder, the crucial question is no longer: Has the group made genuine achievements or does it have a culture that supports achievement? Instead, the question is: Are you a member of the group that off-loads its every failure as being caused by another group? Just as the forward path of the politician required the investigator-fall-guy to be condemned as corrupt, so too the group seeking to forward itself on the cheap must find another group or groups on which to dump its own unexamined faults. Admittedly, this is asking a lot, but can one imagine such a societal movement taking hold in our country? What deep harm that would do! For the success of a self-governing country depends on people doing a good job in governing themselves, and this attitude that we have imagined would pull out that entire enterprise from the roots. Free societies succeed because they don’t introduce unnecessary or irrelevant priorities. They leave their self-governing people to use their local knowledge, their knowledge of their own selves, to bring their all to the work of doing good and doing well. Their people appreciate and collaborate with each other, thereby building a society of unparalleled strength, resilience, and adaptability. Free societies engage the fullest dedication of their citizens and waste little creative energy in forcing people to do things. Free societies fight off philosophies of hatred, recognizing them as merely the projection of their own inner demons on others. The oldest of those philosophies, antisemitism, has for centuries been the sure sign of a society’s moral corruption. (READ MORE: Welcome to Venezuela, America) Who could imagine that America would ever tolerate that? And if it suddenly awoke from moral slumber to find this malignancy in its body politic, it would swiftly take every action to eliminate it and consign it to the hell from which it emerged and where it belongs. The post Becoming a Moral Person Takes Work appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

On the debate stage, there could not be a starker contrast between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The former is frail, incoherent, and frequently confused, while the latter is strong, almost bombastic, and pragmatic to a fault. However, thanks to the changes wrought by Trump and his campaign team to the GOP’s platform — if such it can still be called after its evisceration — the policy positions of the Democratic and Republican parties are harder to distinguish. If the Republican Party truly wishes to capitalize on Trump’s successes over the past eight years, it would do well to look to Catholic voters for direction. Catholic voters have largely abandoned the Democratic Party which once so heavily relied on them. Once predominantly staunch Democrats, American Catholics have been leaving the Democratic Party over the past several decades — at first in drips and drops, but in droves over the past decade in particular. A recent poll commissioned by CatholicVote has confirmed that Catholics have ditched the Dems. Among American Catholics in five swing states — Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — Trump was the favorite for President over Biden, by a staggering margin of nearly 20 points. (READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: The Pernicious Persecution of Traditional Catholics) Despite the implicit proclamations of Trump’s newly-emaciated Republican platform, immigration and inflation are not the issues which have driven so many voters, including Catholics, out of the Democratic Party and into the arms of the GOP. These are, at present, hot-button issues, and necessary to address, particularly given the damage done over the past four years by Biden and his regime. But they remain, in short, the bare necessities. Abortion and the Catholic Vote One of the chief factors that has driven Catholics out of the Democratic Party is that of abortion. Since the end of the 20th century, the Democrats have become increasingly, exponentially extreme on the issue, jettisoning Bill Clinton’s fabled mantra of “safe, legal, and rare.” Even restoring the provisions of Roe v. Wade — gutted, remember, by Catholics! — isn’t enough for Democrats today, who clamor for abortion on demand, funded by the federal government, through all nine months of pregnancy — and possibly even after birth, as Trump himself has reminded voters. Abortion is condemned by the Catholic Church as an incontrovertible evil: it is the brutal ending of the life of an innocent child. While Catholic thinkers and leaders — from Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas to Popes John Paul II and Francis — may differ on such matters as the death penalty — that is, the justified execution of the most heinous of criminals — there is no room for differing in the Church on abortion. Another issue which has driven Catholics away from the Democratic Party is the LGBT agenda. While some dissidents — such as Jesuit James Martin — have tried to soften the Church’s rhetoric on sexual sin to such an extent that it is little more than a polite whisper, the Church has long held that homosexual acts and relationships are inherently disordered and gravely evil, rejecting both the moral and physical order designed by God. The Democratic Party’s LGBT obsession extends far beyond homosexual unions, though. The rapid, practically-orchestrated embrace of transgenderism has proven a bridge too far for many of even the most liberal Catholics. It has often been quipped that the Republican Party establishment is just the Democratic Party following the speed limit. The novel degeneracies heralded by Democrats today as new rights or civic necessities are picked up by Republicans ten or fifteen years down the road, when the Democrats have moved on to newer and more depraved sins. Catholic author and staunch conservative Evelyn Waugh, disgusted with the ineffectiveness and capitulation of the Tories he had once backed, swore off ever voting again, notoriously saying, “The Conservative Party have never put the clock back a single second.” Although Waugh was English, the principle he articulated holds true in America, too. While Trump’s recognition of the importance of economic concerns and the like is wholesome, the removing of a commitment to pro-life and pro-family principles from the GOP’s platform risks reducing Americans to little more than economic units. Furthermore, it risks alienating those who vote with their consciences. The vision articulated by Trump’s platform is certainly a pragmatic one, but only in the short term. He addresses only the bare necessities, the most common pressing issues of the day. But the day will, inevitably, end. Where will the Republican party find itself when night falls? The American nation is built on the family. As the Irish Dominican Fr. Vincent McNabb once so adroitly noted, the family is the basic unit of any society. While enabling families to grow and flourish financially is to be lauded, it is not to come at the expense of abandoning the most vulnerable of Americans — the unborn — and allowing the American family to crumble. (READ MORE: The Bogeyman: The Leftists’ Hatred of the Catholic Church) Catholic voters have largely abandoned the Democratic Party which once so heavily relied on them because its principles were those of national suicide. If the Republican Party wishes to keep the Catholic voters it has worked so hard to earn over the years, it needs a vision that will last through the night; it needs to espouse an eternal moral code, protecting the family and the unborn, instead of just short-term political strategies. The post GOP: Don’t Ignore the Valuable Catholic Vote appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — Most of the questions asked by political animals during President Joe Biden’s press conference at NATO Thursday night were variations of the same thought: What are you still doing here after you fumbled and stumbled through the June 27 debate? And, really, the left-leaning press corps was sending a message loud and clear: You shouldn’t still be here. The best version of that query came from Marek Walkuski of Polish Public Radio, who told Biden, “Many people in Poland and across Europe are worried that the former president may win the election. And there’s a lot of concern that Donald Trump may weaken NATO, stop supporting Ukraine, or push Ukraine to give up territories to Russia.” (READ MORE from Debra J. Saunders: Debate Over Isis Bride’s Citizenship Not About Trump) Then the Polish reporter asked the president, “Do you think that Europe will be left on its own if Donald Trump wins the election, and what’s your advice to European leaders to prepare for possible U.S. disengagement?” Given Trump’s many disparaging comments about NATO, Biden was delighted with the question — asked at a NATO conference, no less. (Not an accident.) Social media know-it-alls attacked Walkuski for asking a planted question — as if a man from a country that has been invaded by the Nazis and the Soviets needs prompting. And really, while Biden seemed to take the question as an opportunity to frame himself as the indispensable man, he didn’t seem to give much thought to Eastern Europeans who rightly or wrongly fear that Putin would see a Trump victory as a green light for his evil ambitions. Earth to Biden: That question wasn’t helpful. While Biden’s remarks showcased his fluency on international hot spots — and showed, yes, the 81-year-old is capable of having a good moment — his bad night on June 27 cannot be unseen. Also, Biden didn’t help himself leading with a malapropism — he referred to Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump” after he mis-introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin.” By the end of the hour, Biden changed few if any minds about whether he should stay in the presidential race. D.C. Democrats still see him as a gift to the Trump campaign. And, really, the left-leaning press corps was sending a message loud and clear: You shouldn’t still be here. Biden’s decision to flex his foreign-policy chops at this time, when Americans are concerned about meat and potato issues — especially their inflation-ravaged pocketbooks — shows a willful blindness to public discontent. The CPI is 20 percent higher than it was in February 2020 — about double what it should be, according to CNN. (READ MORE: Ex-FBI Deputy Director Has History of Misleading Statements) According to the numbers-crunching FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s approval rating is 37.3 percent. Biden’s response Thursday night: “How accurate does anybody think the polls are these days?” He doesn’t even know he is living in a bubble. Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post NATO Reporters Want Biden Out appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In these incredibly harrowing times, I try to relax by watching movies late at night. Unfortunately, too many are horror films of one kind or another: Serial killers who torture their victims and stage their murders, or visions of our world destroyed by a nuclear or climate apocalypse, still peopled by a few, desperate survivors. In order to find Hitler’s special trove, the Monument Men had to descend 800 meters or (2,624 feet) below ground in the Alt Aussee Salt Mine in Austria. Little relaxation there. But even less relaxation exists in the many Holocaust-era films, set in Germany, France, Holland, Poland, Scandinavia, and Russia, on and on, they just keep on coming. I wonder if this is a way of sidestepping the reality of an Islamist invasion of the West and of the Muslim world in general. (READ MORE from Phyllis Chesler: The Only Chance for Peace in Israel) When one thinks about the Holocaust or about World War Two, one can barely grasp the number of  war-related deaths which are estimated to be one hundred million combatants, civilians, and those afflicted by war. Back then, not even the most avowed pacifists blocked traffic or shut campuses down on behalf of saving the “innocent” civilians of Europe or Japan. Somewhat bitterly, I note that today, only Israel is required to “save” Gazan civilians, feed them, make sure they have power — even as the Israelis themselves are engaged in a fierce and existential fight for their own survival. But, I digress. When contemplating the Holocaust, one thinks about lives lost, not about stolen or looted art work, or about the purposeful destruction of museums, churches, and synagogues. I am doing so now — because I have viewed a most remarkable documentary. Yesterday, on my go-to platform, ChaiFlicks, I watched a 2006 documentary titled The Rape of Europa, (based on Lynn H. Nicholas’s  1995 book on the subject), about Hitler’s systematic, industrial-level plunder of Europe’s art work. You’ve probably seen the 2014 film The Monument Men. Well — this documentary is about the real American soldiers, all there in black-and-white footage, who were commissioned to find, save, and restore the art work that Hitler systematically and strategically plundered. I had no idea how extensive this Nazi theft was. The GIs called them the “Venus fixers” but they came to be known as the Monument Men. They were American soldiers who were also art experts, (Deane Keller, Robert Posey, Lincoln Kirstein, James Rorimer, who would go on to run the Metropolitan Museum of Art), and they braved death daily in order to recover Hitler’s stolen Old Masters, (Botticelli, Boucher, Breughel, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, Van Eyck, Vermeer), ancient frescoes, church and monastery tiles and paintings, revered statues, and the moderns: Cezanne, Gauguin, Klimt, Monet, Matisse, Renoir, Van Gogh, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec. One must ask: Are lives more precious than culture? Does saving works of genius matter as much, perhaps even more than saving lives? Hitler and his inner circle, followed by individual Nazi soldiers, plundered everything of value in sight.  They first looted all that they could from Jewish art dealers, then from Jewish communities and individual Jewish families, (this included china, silverware, jewelry, invaluable Judaica including Torahs, Torah ornaments, candlesticks, Jewish memorabilia, and furniture). Only then, did the Nazis begin their massive and systematic looting of Western culture. Hitler also “purged” i.e. destroyed, what he viewed as “degenerate” art; this included works by Matisse, Van Gogh, and Picasso. I learned, for the first time, about a French hero named Rose Valland, described as “not so tall, her hair in a bun, little glasses, really above suspicion.” She worked at the Jeu de Paume, where Hitler had temporarily stored his stolen French treasures. “No one knew that she spoke German … no one suspected this little gray mouse creeping around the building. Nobody knew that every night when she went home with her remarkable memory, she kept a secret diary of what French paintings, owned publicly or privately, were taken by whom, sent where.”  She managed to stay on, despite the “constant danger of deportation or execution.” Based on her notes, these priceless works could be searched for, found, and even restored to their owners or to their heirs. Hitler also ravaged Russia. He stole all that he could from the famed Hermitage Museum, “violated” and destroyed Pushkin’s and Tolstoy’s homes;  looted and blew up palaces and churches that were precious to the Russian people. Nicolai Gubenko, a former Soviet Minister of Culture, described this as “an outrage committed on the memory, on the ashes, of all that is holy in our country.” Given the high body count, (“20 to 30 millions soldiers and civilians dead”), the Russians remained reluctant to return the artwork that, in turn, the Red Army subsequently seized from Germany. (READ MORE: Immigration of Cultures Hostile to the West Must End) But here’s what made me gasp. In order to find Hitler’s special trove, the Monument Men had to descend 800 meters or (2,624 feet) below ground in the Alt Aussee Salt Mine in Austria. If you watch this footage you will see the allied soldiers traversing Hitler’s underground tunnel and for a bizarre moment or two you will think that you’re beneath the earth in contemporary Gaza. Hamas/Iran’s labyrinth of weaponized underground tunnels in Gaza are only 50 meters below ground or 164 feet deep. However, in terms of height and width, Hitler’s tunnels alarmingly resemble those in Gaza which are not as deep but which are 350-450 miles long. What kind of lizard-people construct, work, live, operate, and hide in such living graves, far below the earth? Remember, like a rat, Saddam Hussein was found cowering in a hole about ten feet deep. I’m sure there is a long military history of tunnels, including those of the Viet Cong, who hid anywhere from six to fifty feet below the earth. Once, when he was eighteen years-old, Hitler auditioned for Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts and was rejected. The documentary gently reminds us that Hitler was a failed artist who may have harbored a lifelong grudge towards his superiors, both Jews, politicos, and the artists with whose work he could never compete. Was his the revenge of the less talented? Hitler actually planned a Fuehrer Museum in Linz, Austria, his hometown. According to American historian, Jonathan Petropolous, in an on-camera interview, Hitler planned an “opera house, a symphony hall, a great library, and a mausoleum with his tomb. At the center of the Linz complex, is gonna be the greatest museum … in the entire world.” When Hitler knew he had lost the war, he had explosives planted at the mouth of the salt mine, in boxes labelled “precious marble.” If he could not own the art work — he wanted it destroyed. He was a “spoiler” of monumental proportions. At least the Nazis coveted great art. I fear that their current incarnations — the Taliban, the Iranian Mullahs and their military proxies, (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis), and ISIS do not. The Taliban simply blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan, destroyed all proof that Afghanistan was once a Buddhist country. Down with history, let memory cease. ISIS destroyed or looted countless churches, monasteries, non-Salafist mosques and tombs, as well as the prophet Jonah’s Tomb and the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. They did not spare Assyrian-era statues that were 3,000 years old. This documentary allows us to meet another hero, the real Maria Altmann, played by Helen Mirren in the film, “The Woman in Gold.” After a torturous legal battle, and sixty, perhaps seventy years after the war, a panel of Austrian judges unexpectedly awarded Altmann and her family five paintings by Gustav Klimt, including the portrait of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer. Ronald Lauder bought the painting of Adele for $135 million. The work now hangs near my home, in the Neue Gallery in Manhattan. I have visited it more than once and it never fails to impress, even stun, the worshipper with its golden radiance. The post Hitler Absolutely Plundered Europe appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.