Category Archives: Brat Lies Matter

2021-07-04 · 7:52 pm

National Anthem: Star Spangled Banner – Meaning of “hireling and slave”

This is put up again because misunderstanding of the National Anthem is reported almost daily until today. Fake news continues. Let’s do some analysis.

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

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The lyrics were written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key about the Battle of Baltimore fought against the Brits’ Royal Navy in 1812. The Brits just wouldn’t let it go, and had to engage again, and so lost again, almost thirty years after the end of the Revolutionary War. The Royal Navy would enlist mercenaries, the “hirelings” mentioned in the third verse, and enslave Prisoners of War to fight for them as well, the “slaves” mentioned in the third verse.

Why do I insist on this having nothing whatsoever even remotely to do with black African slaves when Key himself was a slave owner who lived long before the American Civil War? Because of the purpose of the song and what it is describing, that is, a particular night of battle in the harbor of Baltimore against the Royal Navy in which hirelings and slaves were employed in the battle by the Royal Navy, surely other Brits or POW American military.

Even if a tiny percentage of these hirelings and slaves happened to be black Africans, possibly most recently from the United States, the mentions of those hirelings and slaves wouldn’t refer to any previous status of slavery, but only to the slavery imposed by the Royal Navy on any POWs. To win this battle in Baltimore, there would be no interest in going to, say, Mississippi, and killing hirelings and slaves. To hold that to be the meaning of the words is simply ridiculous.

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Filed under Brat Lies Matter, Military, Patriotism, Politics

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2017-04-21 · 11:05 am

UPDATE: NC vehicle checkpoints: imigrants, tweets, wrongheadedness

imigration dui license registration checkpoint

UPDATE: At the request of both the Latino and Anglo communities, whether Catholic or non-Catholic, I went to have a chat with the heads of the various branches of Law Enforcement. All said that sobriety checks are now extremely rare since there are so very many hurdles and logistic difficulties to overcome. In my recollection, two of the three checkpoints I went through were sobriety checks. Anyway, there certainly are plenty of licence and registration checks which can easily result in drug busts or whatever. All said that up to this point, no local law enforcement in the State of NC has been deputized as also being agents for ICE, Homeland, or whatever. That said, if there is a criminal conviction because of a stop, that info will be passed along. If ICE or Homeland happens to be nearby, that’s convenient. That said, a “normal” DWI/DUI is not a criminal offense, but, of course, it can be depending on any aggravating circumstances. That said, there are relatively very few ICE agents in North Carolina. Since this is all about criminals and convicted criminals, the whole drama about Twitter recounted below is exaggerated and wrongheaded. Let it be said: no one in the Latino community wants murderers and drug dealers and rapists around. The Latino community wants murderers and drug dealers and rapists to be deported. Period.

=============== Original article ===============

A bunch of us priests got together the other night for an awesome Easter Week meal of rib eyes and salad. These priests were from a number of states. Some of the conversation centered on checkpoint dramas. While news sources deny it vociferously, here’s what’s been going on:

The police, sheriffs, ICE, DHS, whatever, sets up a checkpoint. They can overlap, so that the stop is a “sobriety check” or a “licence and registration” check or whatever. The primary players can be local law enforcement, but there can be Feds waiting in the wings, much more numerous, to haul away the undocumented and immediately deport them depending on the situation. This fact of a checkpoint with location is immediately tweeted out to the undocumented among themselves. But local law enforcement and the Feds are on that twitter feed as well. So… Either the location of the checkpoint is immediately moved, or multiple checkpoints are set up on roads used to avoid the original checkpoint. In my parish in the mountains these checkpoints are impossible to avoid as there are only a couple of roads that lead anywhere. I’ve been through three checkpoints already.

Undocumented immigrants do themselves no favors by participating in an upcoming protest on May 1 in Charlotte where demands will be made, such as decriminalizing theft and prostitution, crimes in educational facilities, and driving under the influence. Organizers are racists, of course, in that they claim that this is what black and brown skinned people do: they steal, flaunt sex for money, smash our young students in the schools, and endanger the roads by driving under the influence, so much so that this is such a way of life that they say it is racist to punish such things as anything serious. Because it’s about those who are black as well, even primarily, I’m guessing this is a racist Delinquents Lives Matter event. How cynical of them. They are using the difficulties of the undocumented for their own selfish ends of these individuals wanting to commit more crime with impunity. That’s like a crime against humanity, a hate crime. Such racism.

Again, I suggest to our Latino friends that they ought best to dissociate themselves from such an even and let the Brat Lives Matter crowd embarrass themselves. Otherwise, you will paint yourselves as being out of control criminals who have a licence to kill.

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2016-10-29 · 12:10 pm

Ricky

 

You’ll remember that Ricky, in his short tour from 2010 to 2011, got shot twice, an axe in the face once, and blown up six times by IEDs, with the last one giving him traumatic brain injury. His brain was injured in such a way that no pain medication of whatever kind touches the pain. If they give him too much of one type he stops breathing and it doesn’t help anyway. If they give him the other kind, even dozens of times the max, it still doesn’t touch the pain. In this way he lays down his life every single day, every moment of every day, for all of us. Put it this way: If you help one Afghani, you help us all. Thanks, Ricky.

Just to say, although when he came down to visit my neighbors at the hermitage he had his best day in his best week in all these years, he’s now paying the price for having way over-exerted himself. Seizures, maxed out headaches, dizziness, way overtired… And on top of that, and I feel guilty about this, he took a tumble while giving me some pointers on how to shoot. Many tumbles actually. He didn’t seem to mind, and I remembered my own tumbles when I was on crutches and didn’t want others to mind. It’s just that he actually broke a finger on one of those tumbles and didn’t say a word until they were back in South Dakota. He didn’t want anyone to be concerned… Please, remember him in prayer. He does his battle every second of every day for you and I. Hail Mary…

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2016-09-22 · 9:30 am

Brat Lies Matter, but we need school lessons on dealing with police

adoration

Brat Lies Matter in the USA because we have free speech. On that level it doesn’t matter if everything said is a lie, “It’s a book!” or some such lie aimed at inflaming violence, injury and death, though it does matter if the continuous lies directly incite violence, in which case people may well be going to prison, and rightly so.

Of course, to be perfectly correct about the matter: Error has no rights at all. But anyway:

Have you noticed that it’s not about black and white? The police officer is black and the police chief is black and protesters are both black and white. This is about anarchy and hatred of society, really about self-hatred. Now there’s a state of emergency and the National Guard has taken to the streets. A friend said that just outside of Charlotte, all day yesterday, the sky was filled with Black Hawks at the ready.

Anyway, I mean, here’s the deal: maybe the guy was mentally deficient or otherwise disabled, but he exited his car at a police stop and pulled a gun. At that point any claimed disability, whether a lie or the truth, doesn’t matter at all. People have a right to self-defense, and black police officers are people too. It’s all sad.

But let’s be clear: Brat Lies Matter hates black police officers because they are black. And now one civilian is at the edge of death and twenty some police officers are injured.

If I were head of schools in Charlotte I would require immediate and mandatory classes on how to interact with police, regardless of racial heritage:

  • At a traffic stop, pull fully off the road, turn any music off, do not unbuckle your seat belt, don’t rummage around in the center console, under your seat or in the glove compartment, roll down the window 50%, keep both hands on the wheel, be polite with the officer when he approaches your vehicle, follow his instructions no matter what.
  • If the officer says to exit the vehicle and get on the ground, and you’re parked over a mud puddle, you’re going to get wet. Get over it. Deal with any treatment issues later. Now is not the time to use threats and foul language. Don’t jerk away. Don’t argue. Just comply.
  • Don’t hit the police officer. Really.
  • Don’t pull a gun on the police officer. Really.
  • Don’t run into traffic.
  • Don’t ram the police cruiser.

As part of these school lessons, everyone will be required to be respectfully present and participate if possible…

  • In singing the National Anthem while saluting or with hand over one’s heart
  • In reciting the Pledge of Allegiance

If it’s a Catholic School, I would have the students take a knee in chapel and recite before the Most Blessed Sacrament the Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that is, the full version, with no politically incorrect bits taken out.

Last night, the parish of Saint Thomas Aquinas, near ground zero of the Charlotte riots, had an all night session of adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. And that’s exactly the right thing to do. Good for them. We’re not going to change anything for the better without Jesus, Divine Son of the Immaculate Conception.

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