Carl Wells Books

Here are a few more phrases, short and long, humorous and serious, which have entertained me, and have often instructed me, over the years. We are ready for the number just after 34.

35/”The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

A neighbor flew a flag flying which said that; it may have been my first introduction to the phrase. What makes this so funny is, of course, that morale is not likely to improve as long as the beatings go on. It sometimes seems to me that our beloved scumbag “elite” has exactly this attitude toward us peons: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” We just can’t seem to get our attitudes right enough for them to feel able in good conscience to discontinue the beatings. So the beatings are going to continue for a while. We need to learn to deal with it. When morale improves, maybe they will let up on us. Although I doubt it.

36/”A thing worth doing is a thing worth overdoing.”

This is one of the mottoes of the Bagthorpe family created by author Helen Cresswell. They were dysfunctional but active. Probably most of us get in this mode now and then (and in some cases often). Something might be worth doing, but we insist on overdoing. Working for the proper balance is not something that comes easily to us, as a race. The phrase has a sort of jaunty recklessness which appeals to me.

37/”A million here, a million there; pretty soon you’re into real money.”

Everett Dirksen, a senator from Illinois, is often credited with saying this–although there is controversy on whether he really did say it. If he said it, it would have happened sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. For the sake of argument, assume he said it. The point was that government spenders can rack up spending very quickly. Much less than a million dollars is already into “real money” for most of us, but government officials spending Other People’s Money (the only kind they are good at spending) recklessly spend money very quickly. I am old enough to remember that this phrase definitely had the word million in it, originally. Nowadays the value of our money has been so debased by the printing of money not backed by gold or silver, that some people think the phrase is “A billion here, a billion there; pretty soon you’re into real money.” Nope. The original was definitely million.

38/”The way to do a thing is to do it.”

This was a phrase written by the great evangelistic English Anglican bishop, J. C. Ryle. I borrowed the phrase for the title of one of my books of essays (dedicated to Ryle). I think it says so much that is sensible about how the world is put together. If we want to do something, the way to do it is to do it. Our tendency is to form three committees, and to come up with majority and minority reports to be studied for at least six years. I am not recommending that we neglect to plan the right way to do something. But I also think we tend to let ourselves get sidetracked. The way to become godly is to become godly. The way to save money is to save money. The way to encourage another person is to encourage another person. And on and on. We learn by doing. We may not do the thing we want to do as well as we could, right at the start, but by doing we begin to get the thing done. Okay, one more example. Two parents realize that it is wise to homeschool their children. The way to do it is to do it. Yes, they will make mistakes. But by doing it, they begin to learn. If they think about it until they have the perfect plan, three more years will have passed and their children are still in the humanist seminaries being brainwashed.

39/”Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God.”

This is a line from the hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” written at the age of 22 by Robert Robinson, in England, in the year 1758. Words and music are a perfect blend. The phrase above says a great deal that is true about how we become Christians. We were wandering from God, and He sought us. It is all grace. Yes, of course we have human responsibility. But it turns out that nobody is wise enough or good enough to choose God. Do all Christians agree with this, or understand it? Of course not. How do we put together human responsibility with God being the one who moves us to salvation? None of us understand it, but it remains true. And, as eternity unfolds, no matter how exalted our characters become, we are all going to understand every day that it was the grace of God that brought us to heaven, not our own merit. We will all be humbled, and humility will be a wise feeling and a wise atmosphere in which to live. We ain’t there yet, but I think we will be. In this song a 22-year old young sprout nailed an eternal truth, and did it most tunefully. This is one of many countless versions of the song, here sung by All Sons & Daughters.

40/”Every now and then the old blind sow finds an acorn.”

I first remember hearing this from my father. It is a good phrase to use when we finally do something right, something unexpectedly successful. Such events may not happen often, but we should always remember the old blind sow and emulate her persistence in still trying.

41/”Everything was just generally real good.”

This can still bring a chuckle in our family. My father originated this phrase. I don’t remember the details exactly, but here is an approximation of what happened. We were all supposed to give a highlight of the past year. My father, when his turn came, was unable to come up with something specific, so he said, “Everything was just generally real good.” This was typical of his tendency to avoid specifics. We had the same trouble in getting him to pick a favorite food. Finally, after some hemming and hawing, he picked shrimp as his favorite food. It took a lot to get it out of him.

42/”I just put my thumb on zero and let ‘er rip.”

My Aged Parent, my mother, coined this one at the ripe old age of 101. What happened was that the electricity was out for quite a few hours. One day stretched into another, the weather was hot, the lack of lighting inconvenient, and all of us had a chance to recognize how dependent we are on electricity for leading normal enjoyable lives. My mother began to become frustrated with how long it was taking the electric company to get power restored. So she called them. Amazingly, she got through, and actually talked to someone. When I heard that she had successfully reached the power company, I was surprised, and asked her how she was able to get through to talk to someone. In a truculent tone she replied, “I just put my thumb on zero and let ‘er rip.” It worked. Somehow she got through and made her case. We weren’t without electricity much longer after her call. I doubt if the electric company will let this problem happen again.

43/”This is not going to end well.”

I love the restrained, calm way, that this phrase foresees disaster. In our current era, the phrase often fits the circumstances when our elite chooses some policy which can be seen to be leading inevitably to disaster. Printing money out of thin air? “This is not going to end well.” But examples can be multiplied by the dozen. At the worst, we have the entertainment of seeing what is coming, and calmly saying that we understand that this is not going to end well.

I hope to continue with part VI next week.

We are ready for number 26, in a series of phrases that I have found entertaining over the years.

26/”An action would lie.”

This is a roundabout way of saying, “We can sue you, make it stick, and earn some serious money from you.” I love the way the word sue is not mentioned. It is an action. If a lawyer ever tells you, in warning you about something you’ve done, that “An action would lie,” you may soon be entering a world of misery. Abandon hope.

27/”You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down.”

This is from a song by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “I Won’t Back Down,” which came out in 1989. It was and is a very popular song. The last time I looked, it had 32 million plus viewings on YouTube. I think this phrase captures the kind of attitude we are going to need if we hope to defend and extend Christian civilization. (Did I just type “extend Christian civilization”? Sorry, I forgot to take my meds this morning.) The cancel culture which hates God and hates truth and hates responsibility, wants anyone who tells the truth to shut up and go away. Sadly, that seems to be mostly what we do: apologize, shut up, and go away. Leaving the field to the barbarians. I think we need to develop the willingness to fight for the truth, no matter what it costs us. Believe it or not, I think that when we stand for the truth and accept the consequences, we will start to win. Quite possibly we are in the very early church; lots of good things may be coming. A backbone, if we can develop one, will help us bring those good things into existence. Here is a link to the song.

Sadly, Tom Petty died in 2017 from an accidental overdose of drugs. It is a reminder that we need to pick our battles. He would have done well to back down from the drugs.

28/”Hindsight is 20/20.”

This is usually intended as a sophisticated criticism of hindsight. “Yes,” the critics are saying, “hindsight understands everything now, with the benefit of being able to look back and see how everything unfolded. But it’s too late now.” However, my own take on hindsight is completely different. I admire hindsight. I think hindsight is wonderful. The thing is, we don’t take advantage of hindsight. We don’t learn from our mistakes. Here is one example. After World War I and the idiotic U.S. involvement in that war, hindsight told us, “That was very foolish.” And it was. We should have known better than to do what we did, but we didn’t know better. But we didn’t listen to hindsight. We didn’t learn from our error. We repeated the same error the next time. We keep on trying to run the world, when we can’t even run our own country with biblical wisdom. Hindsight is not trying to be a jerk and make fun of us, he is just trying to help us learn so that the next time we can do better. Hindsight is 20/20. Hurray for hindsight!

29/”I’m a millionaire.”

The origin of this phrase goes back a couple of decades. My mother had a handyman working for her. His name was, well, just call him X. One time when my name was mentioned, X said something like, “Oh that Carl. He’s a millionaire.” This story was of course soon reported to me by my family. What makes this so entertaining is that Carl is not close to being a millionaire. Neither then nor in the decades that have ensued, have I come close to being a millionaire. A thousandaire, sure. A millionaire? Not close. So ever since when I have encountered an expense of any sort more than expected or more than ideal, I just tell my family, “Oh, don’t worry about it; I’m a millionaire. I can afford it.”

30/”I try to be cynical, but it’s impossible to keep up.”

I suppose there will be alternate explanations of where this phrase comes from, but I heard of it as having been said by Lily Tomlin. It does seem to be impossible to keep up, these days. Something more ridiculous than previously offered to us, seems always to come around. For just one example, who could have guessed that the Center for Disease Control would be telling renters nationwide that they need not pay their rent? Wait, what? It’s impossible to keep up.

31/”I’m gonna drink my whiskey till it trickles down my chin.”

I think, without being sure, that this phrase originates somewhere on the album “Penrod” performed by Tim Dawe. The book Penrod by Booth Tarkington has always been a favorite of mine, so when I saw the Tim Dawe album featuring that title and featuring pictures from the book, I had to have it. Or possibly someone bought it for me, knowing my love of the book. I can’t remember. Somewhere on that album–I think–Tim Dawe sings that, “I’m gonna drink my whiskey till it trickles down my chin.” Somehow that phrase has always stuck in my mind. It gives us a picture of someone who has given up. I’m not advocating giving up, or saying that I plan to give up. But I can understand someone giving up, and drinking his whiskey till it trickles down his chin. I hope it doesn’t happen to me, but I understand that it might. And it occurs to me suddenly that the phrase would make a great book title.

32/”You don’t suffer fools gladly.”

This was told to me by someone who didn’t like me very much. But I immediately recognized the truth of the statement. That was decades ago. I haven’t changed much. If I am slightly more mellow, it is only slightly. I still don’t have a high opinion of fools, or much patience with them.

33/”Why pray when you can worry?”

I strongly doubt if he would claim to have originated this phrase, but I remember hearing it from the great Christian thinker R. J. Rushdoony. He was speaking sarcastically about our tendency to allow ourselves to keep worrying, when we could turn things over to God in prayer. I think the phrase not only entertains me, it also pricks my conscience when I am tempted to keep on worrying. It is a practical way of reminding me to pray. Saying that “God is in control” can be an excuse for not thinking and not acting, but it need not be. We can say “God is in control,” pray, and think and act as biblical wisdom indicates we should. That should help limit our amount of worry.

34/”We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”

This is a phrase which originated either in the Soviet Union or in one of its satellites. The pretending was going on both ways. The workers didn’t work very well, but pretended to work. The rulers in turn paid the workers very poorly–but of course with the pretense that the workers were better off than in the capitalist hell holes. It seems to me this phrase can be revised slightly and used in a lot of situations in our modern life. For example, when it comes to education, we might hear it said that “We pretend to learn and they pretend to teach us.” Woke sensibility has nothing to do with really learning anything. The students are pretending to learn and the teachers are pretending to teach. Admittedly, often the students don’t know they are pretending to learn, and the teachers don’t know they are pretending to teach. Which means the self-deception is going deeper than in Soviet times, when both sides knew, at least after some decades, that they were pretending.

Hopefully there will be a part V next week.

Some of these phrases are just a few words, others complete sentences. We are ready for #16.

16/”Happy as a clam.”

Why clams should be happier than the rest of us is not quite clear. But it is encouraging to know that one species is having a good time. I am happy for them–as happy as a clam.

17/”If you’re taking flak, that means you’re over the target.”

I suspect this is a phrase we will hear a lot in succeeding days. The reason is that the cancel culture has become so virulent. Anyone who speaks up defending Christian civilization is in danger of being called all kinds of names, in some cases fired from his job. Of course those delivering the flak will contend that the flak is well-deserved, because the people over the target are so evil in their morality. Each person will have to decide which side is closer to being correct. Of course it is easiest to keep silent, and not get flak. But is that honorable?

18/”It’s a good day to die.”

This bespeaks a willingness to meet one’s fate bravely. It’s origin may be among Native American people, but there is controversy on that point. Many times there are bad consequences for our actions–whether those actions were wise or the reverse. To meet the consequences without whining seems to me to be something admirable.

19/”Cruel but fair.”

Decades ago, I first heard this in connection with a Monty Python skit concerning the Piranha brothers, Doug and Dinsdale. Of Dinsdale, it was said that “he was a cruel man, but fair.” That immediately struck me as very funny, because someone who is fair would not be cruel. So I have borrowed the above variation of the phrase for my own use ever since.

20/”Throw nature out the door, and it will come back in through the window.”

We all have a human nature. We can pretend that we don’t–which is the throwing nature out the door part–but that is not the end of the story. The human nature will find a way back in, even if it is through the window rather than the door.

21/”Deeply shallow.”

What makes this funny is that shallow by definition cannot be deep. But at the same time people can be so profoundly shallow that calling them deeply shallow makes perfect sense–as well as being a humorous way to indicate their shallowness. We all know people that seem to think entirely in cliches. On the national scene, people like George W. Bush and Barack Obama come to mind. And, not to discriminate against the females, Hillary Clinton. Such people are indeed deeply shallow. Countless others may come to your mind, as they do to mine, but three examples are enough. Ordinary everyday people can be deeply shallow, also–which is why we keep elevating people like George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton to lead us. They speak for us, and represent us very well.

22/”Truth is a stern master.”

Truth is a stern master, because truth does not permit mixing in lies. We often prefer a little truth, mixed with comfortable lies. But truth won’t let us off. No lies permitted. Truth is stern, uncompromising. Here is an example of how stern truth always is. The truth is that the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was a foolish and wicked thing. Americans who died there, died for nothing good. This is a very stern truth, too painful for most Americans to accept. Try to picture your emotions if a loved one has fought and died in Afghanistan. The stern truth is too much. It is vastly easier to persuade oneself that the dying in Afghanistan was for a good cause, and not in vain. That is a lie. Truth is a stern master, and won’t permit the lie to stand. We actually know the origin of this phrase. It was created on the morning of July 26, 2021, by me, while I was on a morning run/walk. So far it has not caught on, world wide, but whether it catches on or not I think it makes good common sense.

23/”I can’t be wrong all the time, Steve.”

This is a line from the play “A Day in the Park.” I saw the play decades ago, because my younger sister was one of the performers. The person who spoke that line said it several times, to Steve. The person speaking was not prospering, was a bit flaky, and his ideas were nutty. Two or three times he told his friend Steve of his various theories, and of course he was wrong every time. But as I remember how things turned out, near the end of the play the flake proposed a final idea to Steve–and this time, to the surprise of the audience and probably to Steve, this idea was really sound. It was a nice switch. To me it also seems encouraging. We can be mostly nutty and mostly wrong. But every now and then we can be right. We should not give up. Maybe we too cannot be wrong all the time.

24/”Better the devil that you know than the devil you don’t know.”

This seems to me to be very wise. If we have to fight devils, let them be devils we know and sort of understand and sort of know how to fight, rather than devils we don’t know and don’t understand. For me the most obvious application of this truth is our situation in regard to these two devils: liberal humanism, and Islam. Liberal humanism is the devil I know. We are all living under its horrific rule, and have been for many years. I hate liberal humanism. But better liberal humanism ruling us than Islam ruling us. Islam is the devil we don’t know. One need only do a little reading to understand how evil is Islam. I know I will be much better off with the devil I know, liberal humanism, than the devil I don’t know, Islam. I understand liberal humanism at least to some extent and have some idea how to fight against it without being killed immediately. I don’t feel that same confidence in regard to facing Islam.

25/”A one-trick pony.”

A one-trick pony is a pony which can do only one trick. If the pony can count to three with his hooves, great. That’s his one trick. That’s all he can do. Don’t ask him to lie down, beg, or recite poetry. Just be glad he can do the one trick. This phrase vastly entertains me because I know myself to be a one-trick pony. I do only one thing. I write books. I don’t have any other tricks. I have no marketable skills, I don’t have a wife or children, I am not attractive physically, I don’t earn much money, I’m not a good businessman, I am not a good athlete, I am not respected or admired or loved by other people, I am not a leader. While it is true that the dictionary says to be called a one-trick pony can be an insult, I don’t really mind being a one-trick pony. I am just glad that I have the one trick! I was over 60 years old before I learned that trick well enough to publish books at my own expense! So I sympathize completely with any pony that is able to learn only one trick. It is also true that people don’t appreciate my one trick. A pony that can count to three? Wonderful. A person who writes books that nobody reads? Not so wonderful. If people even know about my one trick, it does not impress them. That is fine with me, although of course it disappoints me to some extent. I wish they appreciated my trick, and that they would read–or at least buy–a few of my books. But it really is fine with me that they don’t. I am just really glad that I learned that one trick! It took me a lifetime to learn, so I am grateful to have learned it at all.

I hope to continue with part IV next week.

I am discussing phrases that have entertained me over the years. We are ready for number 7.

7/”It is what it is.”

This is a fairly new phrase, I think. It is also controversial. Rat, the wonderful anti-hero of the comic strip “Pearls Before Swine,” despises this phrase and considers it meaningless. He ranted against it in one “Pearls” strip.

https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/07/04

Who am I to disagree the gifted and thoughtful Rat? Well, I just have to take my chances. It hadn’t occurred to me that the phrase was considered meaningless. To me it has always seemed that the meaning was clear. To me the phrase seems to be saying, “Reality really does exist. We won’t pretend otherwise.” When we come upon a hard fact, instead of fibbing to ourselves, we have the option to admit the hard fact exists. Such honesty is admirable, especially in an era when lying is so prominent. So I have always thought that “It is what it is” represents a commitment to truth.

8/”Who could have guessed?”

The answer to that being, in many cases, almost anyone with a lick of common sense. This phrase is another one which resonates in our dishonest age. Here are two examples of how the phrase can be used.

A/The welfare state encourages people not to work, and destroys millions of lives as a result. “Who could have guessed?” Anyone who knew human nature could predict what would happen, so the question is satirical.

B/The U.S. involves itself in an open-ended war in Afghanistan trying to create a liberal humanist “democracy” which doesn’t fit well with the country’s Muslim consensus. Result: death and disaster for all concerned, as well as enormous financial loss. “Who could have guessed?” Reality-based (or even semi-based) people knew from the start, of course, that it was a doomed project.

This is a phrase which comes in handy time after time, because the people around us, especially the “elite” Powers That Be, are committed to living in a fantasy world. Bless their hearts, they get to run the country and destroy Christian civilization, so surely they won’t begrudge us occasionally saying, “Who could have guessed?”

Another version of the same idea is the shorter, but just as entertaining, “Who knew?” Again, everyone knew or could have known.

9/”You’ll thank me later.”

This is often uttered by the obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk in the hit TV show “Monk,” which ran for eight seasons and is readily available as a DVD set. It is quite an enjoyable show.

Of course, no one ever thanks Monk later, because what he is requesting is invariably unreasonable. It seems to me that this phrase can be effectively and humorously used by all of us, as we try to persuade people that our requests are sensible. Which sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t.

10/”Don’t get your panties in a wad.”

This phrase encourages us not to get overly upset by the situation at hand. We’ve all experienced the discomfort of having our underwear (male version for males, and female version for females, hopefully) bunch up. We should not give in and let the wad continue; we can straighten out our underwear.

The use of the female version of underwear, in the phrase, instead of the male version, can be seen as an insult to the female race. Thus this phrase is probably completely incorrect politically, and I am a mean person for allowing myself to be entertained by the phrase. I plead guilty as charged. But admit it, it wouldn’t be as funny using the male version in the phrase.

11/”Thou art the man!”

We know the origin of this sentence. It comes from the Bible. It is from 2 Samuel 12:7. What happened was, King David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. The prophet Nathan found out about this (perhaps was told by God), and God sent Nathan to David. Nathan told David a parable in which a rich man slaughtered a poor man’s beloved ewe. David was very angry with the behavior of the rich man and said that he deserved to die.

Nathan told him, “Thou art the man!” In short, David was the equivalent of the rich man in the parable. It was the powerful and rich King David who had seduced Uriah’s wife. Then, to top things off, David had also had Uriah murdered. David finally recognized his sin at this late date, but only after Nathan’s presentation to him. The whole sordid story is covered in two chapters of the Bible, 2 Samuel 11-12.

It is fascinating how the intelligent David was so blind to his own iniquity. He was furiously angry with the fictional rich man, but had not drawn the connection to his own behavior. Nathan had to tell him straight out, “Thou art the man!”

This is a warning to us. We are often blind to our own wrongdoing. How many times will God have to tell us, “Thou art the man!” before we learn to avoid the comment by refusing to sin?

13/”It’s better than a poke in the eye with a hot stick.”

I learned this phrase from my father. I’m sure he made no claim to have created it. It expresses a common sense response to a situation which is far from ideal, but not too bad on the whole. It is an encouragement to look on the bright side, to be grateful for the blessings we receive.

I often use this phrase when evaluating the results of the professional golfers I follow. Very often they will win relatively small amounts of money in golf tournaments. One might win $8,000.00, when a few shots’ better play would have allowed him to win serious money in the range of $30,000.00 to $50,000.00. In such a situation, it behooves us to recognize that winning $8K is not exactly a terrible thing for four days’ work. “It’s better than a poke in the eye with a hot stick.” By a wide margin.

In fact, much of what we experience is life is better than a poke in the eye with a hot stick.

13/”The Fuhrer remains calm and confident.”

I owe this entertaining phrase to my brother. Approximately 40 years ago he was reading about Germany at the end of World War II. Things were going really badly in the war, and the end was near. But the German radio propaganda remained consistently upbeat. One thing they told the masses was, “The Fuhrer remains calm and confident.”

A few weeks or days later the calm and confident Fuhrer blew his own brains out in order to avoid being captured by the Soviet Union.

My brother told me about his discovery of that delicious phrase, and I have treasured it ever since.

The potential applications are endless, in our life both personal and public.

14/”See you later, alligator; after while, crocodile.”

I don’t know if Bill Haley and the Comets created this phrase, but they made it famous in 1956. Here is the song:

Our family has never lost track of this phrase. When leaving, we might just say, “Alligator.” Or perhaps, feeling adventurous, “Crocodile.”

15/”A tie is like kicking your sister.”

This is a play on the more famous phrase, “A tie is like kissing your sister.” The idea being that a tie is not very satisfactory. Kissing one’s sister is not as satisfactory as kissing a female who is not one’s sister. The phrase was created by a football coach who didn’t like the idea of a game ending in a tie. Winning was what was really enjoyable.

Somehow I was inspired to create a variation on the famous phrase. It just came to me one day, many decades ago. I suppose in a way it reflects my own favorable attitude toward ties. A tie may not be complete success, but it isn’t all that bad either–it’s better than a poke in the eye with a hot stick–when compared with a loss.

Kicking your sister may not be ideal, but it has its charms, especially if one is frustrated with one’s sister.

Unfortunately, “A tie is like kicking your sister” has never caught on worldwide, but it is not too late for the world to make amends and begin using it often. Just remember that you heard it here first, so that I can have my quarter hour of fame.

That concludes part II of phrases which have entertained me. I hope there will be a part III next week.

Today I begin a series on phrases that have entertained me over the years. Most are full sentences, but some are just a few words.

When I first came up with the idea, I wrote down a small number of phrases. But as the weeks have unfolded, many more phrases gradually came to mind. By now I have a large handful, with more still being added now and then.

The phrases are in no particular order, but I will save my most favorite phrase for the last one of all. The phrases are numbered for my enjoyment. I will discuss each phrase, and explain why I find it entertaining. This of course runs the risk of taking a pitchfork to a souffle. But I’m willing to take that risk. At the worst it will allow me to fill up a several part series with enough words to ease my conscience that I have given the American reading masses enough written product for the day.

1/”Death is nature’s way of telling us to slow down.”

I have heard this for many decades, but it never loses its entertainment value for me. Who first came up with the sentence is uncertain, but possibly it is a Dutch proverb.

What makes this so funny is the contrast between slowing down and the finality of death. Yes, when you have died, you have truly learned to slow down. Nature may be inarticulate in verbally telling us to slow down, but nature is not thereby stymied. Nature finds a way to tell us what she needs to tell us about slowing down. The way she tells us is death. Now will you slow down? Probably.

2/”Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you.”

It is possible that the origin of this phrase is in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson–in a somewhat different form. The baseball pitcher Preacher Roe also said something similar.

We’ve all heard that you win some, and you lose some. That’s quite true about life. but the phrase under consideration adds a different and hilarious spin to that idea. If the bear gets you, that is more than just a defeat. That is complete disaster. If you doubt me, go grizzly bear hunting with just an optimistic attitude and a hickory switch. If you find a grizzly, you have to kill him or he will kill you. If you’re having an exceptionally good day, you’ll only be maimed for life. So the optimistic “Sometimes you get the bear” is not balanced by a minor defeat; it is balanced by the bear getting you and that is horrific. To me that is very funny.

3/”Democrat, Democrat, sittin’ on a fence, tryin’ to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.”

I know approximately when I first heard this. It must have been sometime in the 1950s. It was spoken to me by my father. It was a phrase he remembered from his boyhood. Since he was born in 1920, he must have first heard the phrase either sometime in the 1920s or 1930s.

I have tried to find this phrase on the Internet, but so far have not succeeded. It may have had wide currency at one time (or not!) but it seems to be forgotten by now.

What makes this phrase so remarkable is that it fit the Democratic Party perfectly well in the 1920s or 1930s, and it fits the Democratic Party perfectly well in the 2010s and 2020s. The Democratic Party continues to try to make a dollar out of fifteen cents. They will go on trying until the world comes to an end or the party comes to an end, whichever comes first. (At least they should be commended for their consistency.) What they really succeed in doing, of course, is to make a dollar buy about fifteen cents’ worth of goods.

It is only fair to note that by now they have convinced almost everyone, including those in the national Republican Party, that a dollar really can be made out of fifteen cents.

4/”Is this a great country, or what?!”

This is a relatively new phrase, added to our national conversation only in the last 20 or 30 years. I think the phrase can actually be used two ways. It can be an enthusiastic way of expressing admiration for how the U.S. is organized. But it can also be used ironically. Something ridiculous is going on, so one says “Is this a great country, or what?!”

I suppose it is possible that the phrase was only created for irony, and is only used in an ironic sense. That is probably the most likely explanation. But I have my doubts. I would not be surprised to find that someone has used the phrase in a straightforward way, commending the greatness of the U.S. For myself, I use the phrase in an ironic sense when I use it, which I do often.

5/”The operation was a success, but the patient died.”

I can remember the (possible) first time I heard this phrase. It was used by my Uncle Ed, to describe what had happened when Grandma Wells took all 26 points in a game of hearts. That meant 26 points were added to everyone’s score except Grandma’s. Excellent for her, except that that meant that one or more of her opponents went over 100, ending the game with Grandma still not a winner because someone else had a lower overall point total than she did. So my Uncle Ed said, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.”

Unfortunately we did not have the option in our card game, for Grandma to subtract 26 points from her score. In later years we added that sensible option. So, looking back, I think Grandma got cheated, and if we had been playing by reasonable rules, her successful operation would have been successful only, with no failure at all.

There seem to be lots of times in this world when the operation is a success, but the patient dies. Let’s list just two examples arising out of our wars.

In the Civil War, the North defeated the seceding South. For the North and supposedly for the country as a whole, the operation was a success. But the patient died. The republic died, replaced by the empire. 625,000 to 700,000 people died, also. Quite a successful operation, with the minor caveat that the patient, as well as hundreds of thousands of people, died.

In World War I, the U.S. intervened in 1917 and helped the Allies prevail. The operation was a success. But European Christian civilization was dead, its execution aided by the untimely intervention of the U.S. (We also lost 116,000 dead peons from our army, but who cares about them?) The patient died. We–the world as a whole and the U.S.–have never recovered from World War I. But our operation was a wonderful success, and Woodrow Wilson is still a hero to many for getting us into the war. That the patient died? Why sweat the small details?

6/”I’d rather owe you than try to beat you out of it.”

I first heard this from one of my father’s friends. He liked to put a humorous twist on things, and this was one of his best phrases. I am not claiming that the phrase was original with him. But he used it, and it was funny then and it is funny now.

The humor comes in because owing someone and not paying them what you owe them, is just the same as beating someone out of the money you owe them. So to claim that you are only owing someone rather than trying to beat them out of what you owe, is ridiculous. It still makes me chuckle. I use the phrase often, when I have a financial debt to my family members. I would rather owe them than try to beat them out of it.

Well, that is part I on phrases that I find entertaining. I hope to continue with part II next week.

The United States is having some real problems, and those problems are likely to get worse before they get better. Our elite Deep State leaders are enemies of God, of truth, of freedom, of civilization, and our Christian/conservative/pagan masses are prepared to sleep through the immediate future and keep on sleeping for as long as it takes to not change the situation. “This is not going to end well,” is the phrase that comes to mind.

But, wild-eyed optimist that I am, I want to point out that we still have some great economic blessings in the U.S. Lots and lots of things we like and use are still incredibly cheap in the U.S. and A., and we need to be aware of how great a thing that is. After naming some very cheap things I will name some things which are in the middle range of expense, and then some things that are still very costly.

Before we start listing almost free things, I want to quote from a blog post I made on Nov. 10, 2016. Here is Theodore Dalrymple in Cuba.

“And old people in particular are inclined to murmur jabon (soap) as you pass, in the hope that you might have some of this rare and precious commodity to give away. When the first old lady came up to me and said jabon, I thought she was mad; but she was only the
the first of many.” (p. 182)

This was a quote from Our Culture, What’s Left of It, by Theodore Dalrymple, the gifted English essayist. The essay in which this anecdote appears was originally published in 2002.

Did you get that? People in Cuba were having a hard time getting soap, and thus would approach Mr. Dalrymple on the street and murmur the word soap! Hoping the foreign person would be able to help them out.

That warns us of what socialism can lead to. We aren’t there yet, thank heaven.

Soap is one of the things that is almost free in the U.S. Go into any Dollar Tree, and you can get three bars of excellent soap for $1.00 plus tax. (Full disclosure: I own Dollar Tree stock. Buy at Dollar Tree, and you will help make me even more wealthy than I already am.)

Almost anybody can get a job at the minimum wage ($7.25 per hour in much of the U.S., including my beloved country of Indiana). So for about one seventh of an hour’s work, an ordinary person can buy enough bars of soap to keep him clean for weeks or months. In Cuba, it wasn’t that way at all. Soap was incredibly difficult to get. I don’t know if the situation has improved there, is the same, or worse.

Here are some things that are almost free in the U.S. All toiletry items are almost free. Soap is not the only one. Toothpaste, shampoo, razors, shaving lotion, skin lotion, deodorant, and on and on, can all be purchased for $1.00 plus tax. One seventh of an hour’s work buys a large supply of any one of the items mentioned, and of many others. Dish detergent for $1.00. Laundry detergent for $1.00–enough laundry detergent to run 32 loads of wash.

Pens and paper are almost free. Recently I saw 12 pens for a dollar, at Dollar Tree. These were good Bic Round Stic pens with black ink. If I had the talent, I could write four or five best sellers in longhand, for under $10.00 total in cost of pen and paper. Then I could type them up, using the electricity on my computer–about which see the next paragraph below.

Electricity is not free, of course. The electric bill can still be significant for most of us. But when we put the cost of electricity in perspective, it turns out to be almost free. I totaled up the amount I paid for electricity in the year 2020. It turns out that I was paying about $2.49 a day for electricity. For one hour’s work at minimum wage, I can have almost three full days of electricity. I can have hot running water, keep my refrigerator running, have lights on whenever I want them, watch DVDs on my television, have the Internet come into my home, and type up my masterpieces mentioned above, for a mere pittance. Louis XIV would be envious of me.

Heat and air conditioning are almost free. I have natural gas heat and natural gas air conditioning. I keep the winter heat low compared to most people, but in the summer I keep the air conditioning cooler than most people do. Despite the latter fact, my natural gas bill is about 85 cents a day on the average.

Grocery prices rise and will continue to do so, because our merry band of pranksters at the Federal Reserve, encouraged by their Deep State fellow parasites, insist on printing money out of thin air. (We let them, of course.) Even so, food is almost free. My current weekly cost for groceries is $28.07–up from $26.47 in 2020. So I am spending about $4.01 per day to eat. I am in no danger of wasting away. I am about 35 pounds over my best running weight. What? Okay, sure, suddenly you care about details? So, yes, it is much closer to 47 pounds over, rather than 35 over. Are you happy now?

Learning is almost free. You can buy plenty of books for mostly low cost, or can borrow them for free at the library. Inter-library loan allows you to get even difficult to find books. Nothing is stopping anyone in the United States from being a profoundly educated scholar on any topic you can name. The books are almost free; all we have to apply is the time and determination to add to our knowledge via reading.

Entertainment is almost free. The library has lots of DVDs, and can obtain others via inter-library loan.

So summarizing, lots of things are almost free in the U.S. By working a little bit, we can earn enough money to pay for stuff we need and want. It wouldn’t be good for us to have everything given to us. It is wonderful that we can work and earn the stuff we buy.

I’ll briefly list a few things that are in the middle range of cost. They are not by any means almost free, but they are also not horribly expensive. Clothing, travel, dining out, water and sewer and trash pickup, big item appliances such as refrigerator, stove, furnace, washer, dryer, are all in the middle range of expense. Even in some of these cases, they can veer over into the almost free category. Order judiciously when you dine out, and the cost can be minuscule. Clothing can be almost free for many of us; I would put clothing in the almost free category in my own case. Water and sewer might also be in the almost free category, if one is careful in his use of water. Unfortunately in my town, expensive trash pickup is forced upon us by law. We can’t be trusted to arrange for our own trash pickup, apparently. Such small tyrannies are an indication that the U.S. is in trouble morally. We acquiesce in small tyrannies, and pretty soon bigger ones come.

There are some things we pay for which are in the very expensive range.

Housing is very expensive. It takes planning and saving to be able to afford a home. Or renting can take a significant bite out of your paycheck.

Vehicles are expensive. The degree of expense can be horrific. Buying relatively inexpensive used cars is one way to limit the vehicle expense.

Medical care and medical insurance are very expensive. The cost ratchets up the more the U.S. government gets involved. Who could have guessed?

Taxes are very expensive. This can vary per person. My own property taxes are not onerous. Other people, with more expensive housing in more expensive areas, pay enormous property taxes. But when I say taxes are very expensive, I am thinking of the sum total of all types of taxes. All of us pay a lot in taxes.

Official education is expensive. Schools and colleges cost a lot. Learning (see nine paragraphs above) need not be expensive, but official education is expensive. We pay for it whether we use it or not. I hate public schools, public universities. I believe they are profoundly outside the responsibility of limited government, and should not exist. But I have to pay for these monstrosities anyway. So do you.

The defense budget is expensive. If we posit a population of about 330,000,000, and see what the cost is for each person, of our defense budget, we find that the cost is enormous. The current defense budget is 715 billion dollars. That works out to a cost of $2,166.00 per person. So for a family of two parents with three children, your share of the defense budget is $10,830.00. Completely reasonable. We are bordered on the north by the raving maniac warmongering Canadians, and on the south by the military colossus Mexico. On the east we have just one tiny ocean protecting us from Europe, and on the west we have another tiny ocean protecting us from China. No wonder each person has to pay $2,166.00 to defend the U.S. from invasion. What’s that? We are being invaded “peacefully” from the south, and the U.S. does not do anything to stop it? Maybe we need to spend more for our defense budget! Thanks for the helpful information; we’ll increase the defense budget next year.

Warfare is expensive. We don’t protect our own borders from invasion, but we go off to Iran and Afghanistan to fight wars which end up costing enormous sums. See my blog post “Afghanistan exit” for July 29, 2021 for information on what that can mean in dollars.

So there we have a sort of summary of our financial situation. Some things are enormously expensive, and for the most part they are things in which the U.S. government is involved. Remove government involvement, and costs would plunge dramatically. No silly war in Afghanistan, for example, would mean zero cost of paying for a silly war in Afghanistan.

Some of the things in the expensive category can be managed by saving and planning. Housing and vehicle expense can be huge, but the expenditure of intelligence and humble self-control can keep expenses restrained. Instead of buying a $30,000.00 new vehicle, one could buy two used vehicles for $3,000.00 to $5,000.00 each. Instead of insisting on living in housing above one’s income, one could settle for less expensive housing and then upgrade it by gradual renovation.

The optimistic point made at the beginning still holds. Many, many things in the U.S. are still almost free. We can buy pens, and soap, for a pittance. And we can buy many other things for almost nothing. I am grateful that this is true.

Allow me to introduce you to Joe Six-Pack Christian. Joe was one of the 120 brethren gathered shortly after the death of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:15). Peter spoke at that meeting (Acts 1:15-26), and Joe was one of the 120 to whom he spoke.

Joe was also the world’s first dispensationalist. Joe got in on the ground floor. He was the first one to realize that Jesus Christ was coming back soon, in visible power. He was the first to realize that Christians were going to be raptured out of the earth, prior to Christ’s visible return. Joe was on the theological cutting edge. He understood that the things he was predicting were going to happen very soon, probably within his lifetime.

I wonder what Joe would say now, about all that. About 2,020 years have passed, and the things Joe was predicting have not yet happened.

Let’s do some math, keeping to round numbers for my benefit, since I’m not really very good in math. There were about 7,794,000,000 people in the world in 2020. About 2,382,000,000 people self-identified as Christians. That is about 30% of the world population claiming to be Christian.

So, in the approximately 2,020 years since a tiny band of 120 people gathered to hear Peter speak about their situation, the church has grown to be a fairly large group totaling 2,382,000,000. Over 2,020 years, that is an average increase of 1,179,000 per year.

Of course no one claims that during the first year after Christ’s death, that 1,179,000 people became committed Christians. No, the 1,179,000 represents only the average number of Christians added to the church over 2,020 years. It is a large number, but it did not happen in a steady, year by year manner. There has been large growth, but it took a lot of time for momentum to build.

Let’s look on the dark side, however. How many of the 2.382 billion people really are truly regenerated Christians? Most of us would agree that the church is fully of unconverted people. A few years ago I asked a large handful of people–people whom I had reason to hope were Christians–what percentage of the American church they believed to be truly regenerated, truly converted. Their answers averaged out to about 30%. My own guess had been 40%, so you can see I was a wild-eyed optimist, but my guess was not entered into the math. 30% converted out of professing Christians is a dismal percentage, but I suspect it is very close to being correct. All we have to do is to go into Christians churches in the U.S. and we soon realize that many professing Christians are clueless, and have never truly been converted. Grim. But reality exists, and we have to deal with it.

So now how many Christians are there in the world? 30% of 2,382,000,000 works out to be 714,600,000 people. So that is well over 700 million people. That is not a patch on 2.382 billion, but it is still a large number. Over 2,020 years, that works out to an average increase of 353,760 people per year. Not close to 1,179,000,000 Christians added per year as we came up with when we ran the math on professing Christians, but not a number to be sneezed at, either.

I wonder what Joe would say to all this math. What would he say now about his prediction that Christians were going to be raptured out of this difficult world, and that Jesus Christ was coming back, probably within Joe’s lifetime, in visible power? Joe has been in heaven perhaps as long as 2,000 years, and his prediction has still not come true.

Joe lacked perspective. What we need to consider is, what if we too are in the early church? Joe did not understand that the year 2021 would come around, and people would still be living in an ongoing world history. What would Joe say if he could see us now? I think that Joe, being an honest person if confused, would readily admit he had been wrong. I am sure that in heaven, Joe long ago realized that somehow he got it wrong, and faced up to his wrongness in a straightforward manner.

Joe didn’t know it at the time, but he was in the early church. The church existed long before Joe lived, of course, if we go back to repentant Adam and Eve, or to Abraham. But let’s just agree for the sake of argument that the church possessing the full knowledge of Jesus Christ began only after our Savior lived and died.

What if we too are in the early church? What if you and I, perhaps with Joe as our companion, visit the earth in the year 32021–30,000 years from now? If time and history are still going, we will at that point have to admit that we too, with Joe, were in the early church. Joe was in the slightly earlier church that we were, but another 30,000 years will have passed since you and I flourished.

Rapturing believers out of a difficult world? This is not how God acts. Look at world history. There have been two specific instances of God taking living people to be with Him and not putting them back on the earth–Enoch (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11). Both incidents took place in Old Testament times. Granted, there may have been other instances in which God has taken living people to heaven and kept them there, and if so we simply don’t know about those instances. But such incidents must have been few, if they have happened.

If we agree that Paul was taken to heaven for a period of time when he first became an apostle, we know that he was returned to the earth to live out his allotted time.

God doesn’t give the people of His church a ride to heaven out of the dangers of this world. Yes, He may indeed work supernatural interventions to protect and rescue individuals out of difficult situations. I suspect that has happened to many of us, and I could list at least three incidents (three or thirty-three?) in my own life that make me think He might indeed have acted to keep me alive or uncrippled. But that is quite different from Him rapturing tens of millions of people off the earth. That ain’t going to happen. God does not work like that.

What He does is build His church slowly over time. Actually, I’m joking. There is nothing slow about adding an average of 353,760 true believers to His church for 2,020 years! From a band of 120 probably worried people, to 714,600,000 Christians, in only slightly over 2,000 years! (Come to think of it, we are probably just about as worried as the original 120 may have been!)

Our temptation is always to lack perspective. Joe Six-Pack Christian lacked perspective, when he broached his unbiblical dispensational theology in the first years after Christ’s death. But we too often fall into the same temptation to which Joe fell.

And by no means is it only dispensational believers who lack perspective. I think all of us, whatever our theological orientation, quickly lose perspective. Joe was in the early church. We too, I would guess, are in the early church. Possibly we are in the very early church. 30,000 years from now Christians may look back on us and wonder if we had running water. (Well, some of us did, in the U.S., at least, but some other parts of the world were still struggling to get clean water.)

If there are 714,600,000 true Christians in the world, why is the world such a difficult place? Why are so many wretched things happening?

We are in the early church in terms of time. We are also in the early church in terms of the quality of our theological insight and in terms of our practical behavior. When we want to do God’s will, our theological insight will improve along with our behavior (John 7:17).

We seem not to have come very far in 2,020 years. But our numbers have grown dramatically. We may have many thousands of years to work on the quality of our behavior. Any one of us can take a personal step forward in faithful behavior, without waiting for the herd to follow. If we do, that will help in our small corner of the world, even if the help seems minuscule.

God is not going to rapture us out of our problems. We caused the problems by our pietist, antinomian (disobedient), dispensational, amillennial ways of thinking and acting. He expects us to solve our problems–with His constant help, of course. His zeal assures that His kingdom will increase as the centuries unfold (Isaiah 9:7). He intends to use our heartfelt obedience as part of the means by which He builds His kingdom on earth. He will do the heavy lifting, but we have our part to play as well, as we seek to obey Him in love.

Raptured out of our problems? Smaptured! We, like Joe Six-Pack Christian, are in the early church. Joe, if he could speak to us from his place in heaven, would tell us to get to work building God’s kingdom on earth.

Get to work doing what? Well, for a start, educate our children at our own expense, tithe, show up at church on time every week, vote to protect our neighbor’s property, pay our bills on time and pay back our bankruptcies, show love to a child in a difficult home situation. We could go on and on. The ways we can help God build His kingdom are countless. This is not rocket science. We all know enough solid theology to make a start. The way to do a thing is to do it, as Bishop Ryle taught us.

Last week in my blog post entitled “Afghanistan exit” I tried to show how the American war in Afghanistan was foolish and unproductive, costing many lives (foreign and domestic) and costing much treasure for no gain, and really, no possible gain.

This week I want to step back several paces and try to examine why we as a nation do the things that we do in our foreign policy.

We choose to do the things that we do in our foreign policy, because we lack understanding of how the world is put together. Along with our lack of understanding, we have an enormous hubris–a pride that we are the best, bravest, most highly principled people in the world. We stand taller and see further, as Madeleine Albright assured us.

Except that we don’t. We are just people, and our behavior is often horrific. A nation which shrugs at the murder of 61,000,000 unborn children in slightly over a generation does not stand taller and see further.

Briefly consider our interventions in WW I, WW II, and Vietnam. We were always certain that our interventions were on the side of the angels. But they really weren’t. If we had stayed out of World War I, there might not have been a World War II.

Consider, just for an example, our humongous fear of communism. Why fear communism? It defeats itself. Instead of understanding that, we got our panties in a wad and tried to fight communism with interventions, and with foreign aid (communistic in principle!). We weakened ourselves. We were fighting fire with fire. We did not understand how the world is put together.

The world is put together in such a manner that minding one’s own business and leaving other people alone is very good for peace and prosperity. I think God put the world together in such a manner. But assume that the God of the Bible does not exist. Still, the universe is put together in such a manner, whether God exists or not.

The Bible tells us that as far as it depends on us, we are to be at peace with all men. (Romans 12:18)

Evil exists, and so do evil men, and the communists are always evil. Look at how they treat people, for proof. So how do we overcome them? “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

Who is most to blame, the Democrats or the Republicans? This is an easy question to answer. Our foreign policy has been consistently ecumenical. Of course there were minor differences of opinion now and then, but everyone has been in basic agreement. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, mainstream conservatives, neoconservatives, all have been in agreement that we need to try to manipulate how other countries behave. Our secular elite has been in broad agreement on foreign policy issues.

However, there is one other group contributing mightily to our ecumenical consensus. That is the American Christian church. None of our foolish interventions could have happened if the church had not approved. But approve we did. We went along, not reluctantly, but cheerfully and waving flags.

Did a few people speak up in protest, among the secular elite, and among the Christian millions? Of course. But they were few in number, and never gained much traction. They still don’t have traction.

Here is one example of how disastrous our interventions have been.

As disastrous as Afghanistan has been in terms of American lives lost and crippled, Vietnam was far worse. American lives lost in Afghanistan have been about 6,200. We lost almost eight times that many in Vietnam: 47,424. (That leaves aside the crippled, the U.S. treasure spent for no gain, the foreign lives lost.) We lost the war.

Then what do we find in 2021? We have been subsidizing Vietnam to the tune of $1.8 billion over the last 20 years. That is on average about $90,000,000.00 per year. That is only 1,800 American people earning $50,000.00 a year, giving their entire wages to Vietnam, year after year for 20 years. To a communist country. We supposedly fought to keep Vietnam from becoming communist. Yet we take the earnings of our people to subsidize the country we didn’t want to become communist. This, I submit, makes no sense. But it is quite consistent with U.S. foreign policy taken as a whole. We simply do not understand how the world is put together, nor do we understand what is good and what is evil.

If we try to think that U.S. interventions in foreign countries are only big name marquee events, a book like Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA soon sets us straight. John Prados gives us almost 700 pages (counting footnotes) describing the constant foreign interventions carried out by the CIA. With your money and mine, in our name. Doing what very often was despicable things. (Safe for Democracy was only $6.69, shipping included, at AbeBooks this morning.)

We did not understand how the world was put together. We thought it was put together with force and violence and trickery. But God wanted us to act with honesty, and to leave other people alone.

As despicable as our elite has been–and they are getting worse by the minute–they could not have done the evil they have done without the ready, cheerful acquiescence of the American church.

Can the way we conduct foreign policy change for the better? No, probably not. Our elite is committed to manipulation and violence. Our Christianity is pietist, antinomian, dispensational, amillennial, and flag-waving idolatry of the United States. We Christians can’t change, because we think we are doing quite well living and thinking the way we do. Therefore we can’t and won’t encourage our civil government to change.

So we Christians will keep on telling foolish young soldiers, “Thank you for your service,” and we will keep on supporting whatever the U.S. does abroad, because we assume it must be good for the simple reason that we are doing it.

But could we Christians–theoretically–change to a more biblical brand of thinking? I think we could, and I think eventually we will. I think God does not want us to continue the way we have been going, and that He will wake us up. He may have to do it the hard way, bringing much pain upon us in the process of waking us up. (Don’t blame God; we were the ones who refused to think His thoughts after Him.)

We will not change until we have to, but “have to” can be a powerful persuader. A bankrupt and broken up United States may be what it takes for us to begin to try to think biblical thoughts.

I think someday we Christians will wake up to our folly. This likely will not happen until we have undergone disaster, and after preachers become willing to tell us painful truths. It will probably take a combination of the two things. Right now we are unready and unwilling. But history has a long sweep. Good can and does happen because the God of the Bible is in control.

“There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,/On the throne of David and over his kingdom,/To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness/From then on and forevermore./The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.” (Isaiah 9:7)

On our own, we don’t care enough about peace, justice, and righteousness to accomplish much. God’s zeal is only what assures that change for the better can happen. He will not let us get away forever with our foolish idolatry. He may have to use a two by four to get our attention. But isn’t it better that we have the two by four, than for us to go on smiling while thousands of people are murdered and crippled simply because we refuse to think and act in a biblical manner?

The U.S. is not completely out of Afghanistan, of course. We are never completely out of anywhere. (Unless we count out of our minds.) But we have begun to exit Afghanistan in a somewhat serious fashion, and supposedly we are going to be gone by the end of August. (August 2021, or August 3021?) The link below is to an article by Kathy Gannon of the Associated Press, entitled “US troops exit quietly from Afghanistan base,” dated July 6, 2021.

https://apnews.com/article/bagram-afghanistan-airfield-us-troops-f3614828364f567593251aaaa167e623

I read the article a day later, although the version I saw did not contain everything available in the link. The article details how the U.S. troops slipped away in the night, and waited about two hours before they notified the new Afghan commander. Which led to the base being invaded by looters.

“Before the Afghan army could take control of the airfield about an hour’s drive from the Afghan capital Kabul, it was invaded by a small army of looters, who ransacked barrack after barrack and rummaged through giant storage tents before being evicted, according to Afghan military officials.”

Ms. Gannon later tells us,

“The big ticket items left behind include thousands of civilian vehicles and hundreds of armored vehicles.”

Believe it or not, I’m not here to bash the Biden administration for their judgment (or lack thereof) in the way they exited the base. The method of exit seems demented, but would a Trump administration have done any better? Who knows?

The thing is, Donald Trump had four years to get out of Afghanistan. He didn’t do it. That was #2,678 of the thirty trillion missed opportunities he had to do something which would begin to throw a spanner in the works of the Deep State.

The article by Ms. Gannon appeared over two weeks ago. I have kept a weather eye out to see if there were repudiations of the claim that we left the base in the manner Ms. Gannon describes. There doesn’t seem to be any push-back. I expect her report is pretty accurate.

And no one cares. I don’t think Americans care much about Afghanistan one way or the other. I care, because I think the method of leaving was wrongheaded, but I am a grumpy, judgmental old man, and the idea of leaving a military base to be invaded by looters is just exactly the kind of thing that I think is both silly and wicked. “Boomer,” I can hear people say, rolling their eyes. Exactly.

Part of what it means to be an American these days is that we can’t be bothered with trifles. A looted army base because we neglected to notify our allies in a timely manner? So what? It’s not worth even talking about.

What I mostly want to do here is recount some of the costs of the Afghanistan venture. These statistics are taken from an article by Isabel Debre, entitled “Counting the costs of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan,” with a publishing date of May 1, 2021. For the sake of argument, let’s assume her statistics are in the ball park of being correct.

We lost about 2,400 U.S. troops killed, with another 20,600 wounded. Another 3,800 U.S. private security contractors lost their lives. Afghan civilian dead are over 47,100. Afghan troops (our allies) killed were about 66,000 or more.

I think our minds have a hard time processing big numbers. If we try to break down the numbers a bit, it might help us have a sense of the cost in lives.

Adding our dead troops and our dead contractors, that is 6,200 people. Let’s say you attend a church of 100 people. Picture the devastation if all 100 people lost their lives in your church. Now divide 6,200 by 100. That is 62 American churches of 100 people–all of them completely wiped out.

Do the math on 20,600 wounded, 100 at a time. That is 206 churches with 100 people, every person of which was wounded. Some of them very grievously wounded, no doubt.

This completely leaves aside the 113,000 Afghan dead, civilians and soldiers. They’re only foreigners; who gives a rat’s posterior? Certainly not Americans.

Now let’s consider the money spent. Ms. Debre posits a cost to the U.S. of $2.26 trillion. Or, written another way, $2,260,000,000,000.00.

Again, big numbers cause our eyes to glaze over. We can’t really picture the cost. Let’s break the numbers down a bit.

Most of us would consider $50,000.00 to be a decent year’s wages for one person. If you took the entire year’s wages of one person, $50,000.00, and applied it to the money we have spent in Afghanistan, how many people would have to give up their salary to pay for the war? Not, remember, pay their income tax on $50,000.00, but rather pay their entire salary toward the war effort. How many people would have to give up their entire salary to pay for the war? 8,000? 30,000?

Well, the number is a little higher than either figure. It would take 45,200,000 people paying their entire salary of $50,000.00 a year, to pay for the war. That is 45 million, 200 thousand people, paying their entire salary for one year. Even spread out over 20 years, that is a lot of people spending a lot of money–well over 2,000,000 people a year paying their entire salary for one year of $50,000.00. If my math is wrong, let me know and I will correct it. But I think it is correct.

Just think of how many transgender bathrooms we could have built with that much money!

The 6,200 dead U.S. citizens could have been living and working at jobs that provided something other people wanted. Instead, they are, well, dead.

The $2.26 trillion could have been spent on transgender bathrooms. Or, alternatively, left in the pockets of people who work for a living.

Now let’s ask ourselves if all this blood and treasure was worth the cost. What have we gained in Afghanistan? What good have we done the Afghan people? What good have we done ourselves? How long will we be gone before the Taliban takes over completely?

Even if we had succeeded completely in conquering Afghanistan, and had destroyed the Taliban and had forced them to leave or surrender, what would we have gained? Are we really that sure that “our democracy” is so wonderful that the Afghans should want to be exactly like us?

Actually, countless people really do seem to be sure that the Afghans should want to be like us. I confess I am not one of them. I think we should just leave the Afghans alone. To paraphrase William Faulkner’s Uncle Willy, the Afghans can go to hell and leave us to come on at our own gait.

Does that mean I support the Taliban and their Islamic morality? Of course not. The Afghans need Jesus Christ. Americans as churches and as individuals can be supporting people who are trying to take the gospel to Afghanistan. In short, rather than telling the Afghans to go to hell, we can be telling them about the way to heaven, and paying money voluntarily out of our pockets to get that message to them. To me that seems to be a lot better than pretending “our democracy” is something above reproach, and better than spending blood and treasure–ours and that of the Afghans–to force that fantasy on them.

We are–supposedly–leaving Afghanistan. Afghanistan is known as the graveyard of empires. The Soviet Union chewed Afghanistan and had to spit it out. Then a few years later the Soviet Union ceased to exist, in 1991. The U.S. chewed for 20 years and finally had to admit the gristle wouldn’t go down. If our defeat there is a large factor in the U.S. empire finally collapsing, then at least one good thing will have come of our defeat: the end of the hog on ice American empire.

In 1967 Norman Mailer published Why Are We in Vietnam? A Novel. I have not read the book, and don’t plan to do so. What I remember about the book is that according to reliable sources the only time the word Vietnam was mentioned was very near the end, and very briefly.

This was not unfair on Mailer’s part. What he was trying to do was to show, through the events taking place in the novel, that the attitudes held by Americans led to us being in a war on the other side of the world from the U.S. I think that was a clever title.

I am not here to defend a novel I have never read. I am not a big fan of Mailer as a thinker, so if I read the book I might even dislike it thoroughly.

The reason I bring all this up is because my post today reminds me a little bit of what Mailer did. Inspired by Mailer, I thought about titling this post, “Why are we in Afghanistan?”. Because my post has nothing to do with Afghanistan directly, but it has a good deal to do with the attitudes we have which make us the people that we are.

I bailed out on the tricky title, and settled on the more straightforward “An incident for our times.” Consider “Why are we in Afghanistan?” as the unofficial subtitle.

With that long introduction, I will briefly discuss the incident in question.

It happened in a big city, which shall remain nameless. The main characters will remain nameless as well. They are real people, but I don’t think anything is added by naming the people. The important thing is the incident itself, which is to my mind indicative as to why we are the people we are.

What happened was an unmarried teacher at a Roman Catholic school became pregnant. After some to-ing and fro-ing with the leadership, she was eventually fired.

Instead of accepting this as a consequence of her behavior, and moving on with her life, she sued the local archdiocese.

I don’t want to get into the weeds of the lawsuit. The details no doubt are important. But to me the most fascinating aspect of all this is the woman’s attitude–the anti-Christian fantasy world in which she lives.

Her lawsuit stated that she was ‘”in a committed relationship”‘ with her boyfriend and had been living with him since 2019. I would contend that a committed relationship is marriage. Not very committed, in these days of easy divorce, but still more committed than simply living with someone without benefit of clergy.

The newspaper article features a picture of the woman holding her illegitimate child and smiling broadly. Here are her comments. I have exorcised her name.

‘”It’s been such a beautiful transition having him in our lives,” [Ms. X] said. “He’s a really good baby. He’s super chill and obviously super cute. Just a total blessing.”‘

Here are a few takeaways I got from all of this.

1/Many of our people are no longer capable of shame. I don’t think Ms. X is in any way unusual. I think she speaks for a very high percentage of our population. It does not even occur to her that she has anything of which to be ashamed. From my experience of modern people, including of supposedly Christian people, she speaks for a very large number of us. This woman voluntarily put her name and behavior out there for all the world to see, by her lawsuit and by her appearance in a feature article in a huge metropolitan newspaper. I think for many of us, shame is no longer an option.

2/Once we become smarter than God, our behavior begins to reflect that pretty quickly. Ms. X became smarter than God, on the topic of sexual morality.

3/Mushy cliches are always acceptable; they reflect how we think. She was in a ‘”committed relationship.”‘ In her interactions with the school, telling them about her pregnancy, ‘”I just tried to do the right thing.”‘ That the right thing might have been not to engage in premarital sex with her boyfriend, and not to live with him in an unmarried state, clearly is a bridge too far for her thinking.

4/Countless men are jerks. Ladies, get involved with principled Christian men only. The God of the Bible wants you both to remain chaste until you are married. He has your best interests at heart, believe it or not. The bozo who impregnated this woman is representative of a very high percentage of our American manhood. The bozo’s name, by the way, does not appear in the article. He is laying low, hoping he can go on with his immoral lifestyle without negative consequences. Oh wait, I forgot: no doubt he too is in a ‘”a committed relationship.”‘ Not committed enough to remove his son’s illegitimate status by marrying the child’s mother, of course.

5/Don’t trust Christian schools any further than you can throw them with one hand tied behind your back. I used to have a lot more optimism that Christian schools would make a vast difference for good in our country. Circumstances have begun to indicate that I was far too optimistic. Call it naivete on my part. Don’t even trust homeschooling. What? That leads to the next point.

6/There is no escaping the personal responsibility each parent has to be a strong, obedient, highly principled Christian. We can’t farm out our responsibilities to public schools. We can’t farm out our responsibilities to private schools, even when those schools are Christian. And we can’t automatically assume that our children will flourish even when we homeschool them. If we are not godly, our children too will learn not to be godly even if we are homeschooling them. If we claim to be Christian, but think and act like pagans, then our children too will learn to think and act like pagans. This is very hard for us to accept. We want goodness to happen automatically, especially with our own children. Like Ms. X, we see ourselves as doing the right thing. But that is not how God has put together the universe. We really need to live in obedience to God and His Christ, from the heart. If we refuse to do that, there are going to be bad consequences for us, and for our children. Too hard? Tough. Reality exists. And, on the positive side, God really does reward those who seek Him with diligence and humility. That is my theory, anyway, and I think the Bible backs me up on that point.

7/Now we know why we are in Afghanistan. We as an American people just wanted to do what we wanted to do. We are like the rudderless Israelites as described in the final sentence of the book of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25; see also Judges 17:6) The foolish woman with her illegitimate child is an example of how we Americans think and live. She is in no way unusual, except perhaps that she is slightly–slightly only–more public in her foolishness.