Trevor Morrison @TrevsDev

“We are NOT a Christian nation!” “Separation of church and state!” “Benjamin Franklin was a deist!” On this date, June 28, 1787, Benjamin Franklin delivered his famous “Prayer Speech” at the Constitutional Convention. This is the one where Franklin, amid deadlocks and frustrations in the Convention, implored the delegates to begin sessions with prayer, acknowledging human limitations and seeking divine assistance. Here is the full transcript (from James Madison’s notes and standard historical sources, with minor spelling normalizations for readability): Mr. President: The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other—our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances. In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.—Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest. I therefore beg leave to move—that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service.

Being non-judgemental is good! But so many on the left cannot even comprehend that when I talk about trans healthcare policy I am trying to get the right people the right help, because taking cross sex hormones permanently changes your body. And this requires unpacking politically incorrect subjects. A few examples: ✅ Exponentially more autistics believe they are transsexual today. Are they the same medical phenomenon? ✅ Transvestites used to be about 1 in 100 men, but today they have all disappeared into the transgender label. Where did they go? Should they have access to women’s locker rooms? ✅ Why has the number of people medically transitioning risen by over 1000 percent? ✅ Why do natal women claiming a trans identity now outnumber natal males? They barely existed 20 years ago. ✅ Do people with no interest in integrating socially or medical changes deserve unfettered access to women’s spaces where they will be perceived as men? I care deeply about trans healthcare. My position is we have to treat all of these questions seriously to safeguard actual transsexual access to legal gender changes and medical treatment. But the left is more interested in taking a position that is socially safe rather than designing public policy that helps people. Their ideas take zero consideration for women and are unsellable in red states. It’s a mindset that makes a culture war inevitable.

This government is presiding over the greatest expansion of State surveillance capacity in NZ in recent memory. Done without fanfare, or even being minimised by govt Ministers. Three Bills, two before Parliament and one that is coming, are making these changes. The first bill is the Telecommunications and Other Matters Bill. A small part of this Bill amends the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act 2013, changing only a couple of words, but the effect of those words is enormous. As a result of those changes, the government can now insist that overseas providers of end-to-end encrypted (E2E) communications provide it with an interception capability, a ‘backdoor’, into those communications. Basically, the government is legislating to force WhatsApp, Signal, Apple’s Messages, Facebook Messenger, and any other E2E messaging service to give it ‘backdoor’ interception access when required. If they don’t, the government will be able to literally ban their use by New Zealanders. When this was proposed overseas, messaging services and the tech community pushed back. For some reason, that hasn't happened here. The Free Speech Union and I opposed this, but the Select Committee has not chosen to listen to us, and the changes are going through. The only problem is that if the E2E messaging services were to provide such a backdoor, there would be no end-to-end encryption. A backdoor open to a government is open to everyone with the requisite skill to exploit it. The foreign governments backed down, but NZ is not deterred by technical impossibilities; it is made of sterner stuff than that! The second bill amends the Policing Act. It has been presented by @MarkMitchellMP, the police minister, as simply restoring to the Police some common law powers taken away by a recent Supreme Court decision. That is patently and unequivocally false. The Police Commissioner is now also saying that it gives them the operational capacity to introduce body cameras, but that is disingenuous. The wording of the Bill gives the Police powers that allow them to make an end run around the Privacy Act, the Search and Surveillance Act, and private property owners' rights, and that far exceed any common-law powers they ever had. Historically, Police surveillance has been legally permitted only for people suspected of crimes. To be fair, the Police often forget this, hence the recent Court case, as well as the Privacy Commissioner and the IPCA throwing a fit at the Police a couple of years ago over randomly photographing young people for ‘intelligence purposes’. Under the new Act, surveillance will be allowed for ‘an intelligence purpose connected with a function, or an activity, of the Police, or any other lawful purpose connected with a function, or an activity, of the Police.’ In other words, the Police can conduct surveillance of the NZ public for any reason they can come up with. There is no limit. Further, the Police will now have the authority to conduct surveillance against any private property, so long as they do it from a public space. The Police could, for example, legally set up a surveillance site in a hillside park that could easily look into private property, 24 hours a day. No warrant required; no suspicion of wrongdoing needed, even. They just need to “consider that the information will or may support the Police in performing a function, or carrying out an activity, of the Police”. And if they can’t be bothered coming up with a reason like that, they can do it under the ‘any other lawful purpose’ justification. Like, I don’t know, checking every backyard in the city for a cannabis grow. Except that if they are using the same camera they use on the Eagle helicopter, they can see more than your backyard; they can read what is written on the paper stuck to your fridge door. When the Police Minister says that the law simply gives the Police back powers they already had, it is so wrong as to be laughable. Then there is the third piece of legislation, the so-called under-16 social media ban. Which hasn’t even been introduced yet, but for which the Dept. of Internal Affairs has already been given $30 million to implement. This legislation will require every person in New Zealand to provide proof of age to every designated social media platform before accessing social media. If you are over 16, you will be permitted to continue. In fact, assuming we adopt the Australian model, the government won’t have to designate a platform; unless a platform is excluded, it will be subject to the requirement to perform an age-check. In other words, the government is going to impose a gate on your access to social media. This will include platforms you might not consider social media; so long as you use that platform to communicate with others or receive communication from them, they qualify. You will have to show your age and, almost certainly, your identity, before you can use it. If you choose not to provide that information to the social media platform, you will not be permitted to use it. The government has not provided us with any reasons why this is necessary. It has not provided any research that justifies it. There is no overwhelming evidence that it is necessary. And it is clear that, although superficially popular, when the methods necessary to implement it become known, it becomes exceptionally unpopular. Yet, the Minister for State Control, @EricaStanfordMP, is keen to proceed with this as soon as possible. That is because this is not based on evidence, but on ideology. The ideology it's based on is not just about keeping children safe, a noble concept that relies on strongly debatable and heavily contested social science. It is also about protecting them from information that politicians and activists don't like. Misinformation, disinformation, harmful information, call it what you will. Politicians can dress it up as protecting children from harm, but when it boils down to it, the UK government in recent days has come into the open with the reasons why it feels a need to take control of social media, especially for under-16s, but even for older young people. Or adults. The recent attempted beheading of a Belfast man, which saw riots following the distribution of the video on social media, particularly on this platform, prompted the UK Labour government to immediately call for controls on this platform, plus explicit calls for control of social media algorithms in order to prevent what is called misinformation from spreading. In fact, what the UK government wanted was for genuine, truthful information to be prevented from spreading, so that bad news it didn't like would not spread, and criticism of its policies and the consequent public response to their effects would not be felt. But this policy is doomed to failure. The Australian implementation has shown that it is easily circumvented, not only by using a VPN, but also by children themselves, who find simple workarounds. It also creates a privacy and information-protection nightmare for the people of any country in which it is implemented. The UK is already finding this out through its existing online safety laws and is now looking at banning VPNs and other measures that might be used to circumvent the rules. To comply with laws designed to satisfy regulators, social media platforms, or the security firms they use to ensure their customers are over the age of 16, have to store some form of data. Unfortunately, that makes them an irresistible target for hackers. Even government systems in places like Estonia and India have been targeted and breached. More recently, Discord was breached, leading to the identification of a huge amount of its users' private data. There is also the problem of what happens with the next government or the one after that. Whilst a supposedly centre-right government may say it is only concerned about the safety of children on social media, the Department of Internal Affairs has no such pretensions. It simply wants to regulate the internet, and it will do so by any means necessary. It will spend its time patiently convincing politicians, if not this government, then the next or the one after that, to allow it to become a super-regulator, imposing its view of what is acceptable on the public of New Zealand. And you'd be surprised at what the Department of Internal Affairs considers acceptable or not. I assure you, they do not align with the views of the average New Zealander. Put bluntly, the Department of Internal Affairs is a pack of wowsers. Which brings me back to the beginning. This is all being done under a @NZNationalParty-led coalition government. The biggest increase in state surveillance capacity in a generation is being undertaken by a supposedly centre-right government. That is because the National Party lacks senior politicians with a strong commitment to liberty. People like Erica Stanford and Mark Mitchell are politicians whose first impulse is to use the power of the State to ensure the safety of the people, as they see it. Whether the people like it or not. And they have been quite open about that. For Ministers such as @chrisluxonmp, Stanford, and Mitchell, an increase in the government's power over the private individual is a feature, not a bug. Keeping children and the public safe is worth trampling on the freedom and privacy rights of those same people, or invading the family in order to be a Nanny State. After all, you cannot put a price on public safety, now, can you? techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privac…

In a recent interview, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, former grand chancellor of the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and Family Life, confirmed the worst suspicions that many of us had. He admitted that the changes he made at the Institute during the Pope Francis years were designed to initiate a "very profound" reform of the idea of the natural law. Instead of absolute moral norms grounded in a keen understanding of the basic goods, he and his colleagues were proposing a moral theory rooted in historical discernment of subjective and cultural experience--not an "armchair theology" but one operating "within history and within people's lives." This, of course, is the language of trendy postmodernism, and it is dangerous indeed. Allow me to illustrate the principle with one example. Is slavery wrong? Intrinsically wrong? Wrong no matter what public opinion polls say about it, no matter what the current consensus on it might be? I imagine any decent person would say yes. But that yes is predicated upon precisely what the tradition calls the natural law and the basic goods. There are some values so fundamental that acts repugnant to them are by their very nature wicked. If you want a highly articulate presentation of this idea, go to St. John Paul II's Veritatis Splendor. If we say that this is just "armchair theologizing" and that morality is a function of ever-shifting cultural and experiential data, then why couldn't slavery be justified? One of the very smartest persons that ever lived, the philosopher Aristotle, thought it was; extremely bright and morally upright persons in our country, well into the 19th century, thought it was permissible. Who is to say whether the consensus might shift back again? Who is to say that "lived experience" might come to justify it? What any truly coherent moral program requires is the very thing that Archbishop Paglia and his colleagues were endeavoring to eliminate, namely, absolute moral norms. Ridding ourselves of these in the name of freedom or pastoral sensitivity actually renders moral discourse dysfunctional, just as relativizing the basic principle of logic would render any rational conversation impossible. The Archbishop's interview, frankly, reminded me of the discussions I had at the Synod on Synodality with some of my German colleagues. Under the rubric of the development of doctrine, they were eager to relativize or radically change the principles undergirding classical morality. If this was and is truly the game, we have ventured onto perilous seas. Link to the article below.

“Authors, please use easy words in your books” is a sentence designed in a lab to upset me. You only learn by reading things that challenge you. This idea that we should only ever be exposed to things we know already is deeply incurious and anti-intellectual.

Alex R. - Fantasy Writer @alexr_writer

3 weeks ago

English is my L2, yet I know what "scrying" means thanks to fantasy. Authors use precise words because worldbuilding demands precision. There’s no shame in not knowing a word, learning it is easy. But complaining because a book asks you to expand your vocabulary? Pure laziness.

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This is from C.S. Lewis's essay, "Delinquents in the Snow." I often wonder what he would have to say today. "According to the classical political theory of this country we surrendered our right of self-protection to the State on condition that the State would protect us. Roughly, you promised not to stab your daughter's murderer on the understanding that the State would catch him and hang him. ... At present the very uncomfortable position is this: the State protects us less because it is unwilling to protect us against criminals at home and manifestly grows less and less able to protect us against foreign enemies. At the same time it demands from us more and more. We seldom had fewer rights and liberties nor more burdens: and we get less security in return. While our obligations increase their moral ground is taken away."

This is the end-point of DEI in physical form. How does anyone look at it and not feel reduced in body and spirit to mere material? That's the whole gag. The looming blob flattens everyone into a mirror image of itself. There is no room, by design, for transcendence.

"You Christians worship a God-man." Yes. That's literally the Gospel. As a Muslim, I used to think that was the ultimate criticism. Now I think it's the most beautiful truth I've ever heard. Because Christianity doesn't teach that God stayed distant. It teaches that God came near. The One who created galaxies stepped into His own creation. Not to show off or dominate. Not to sit on a throne demanding more from us. But to suffer for us, to walk among us. To carry our grief, and bleed for us. To die for us. And to rise again. What finally changed my perspective was realizing that "Son of God" never meant God had a biological child. In the Jewish world, it meant sharing the same nature. The claim wasn't that God had a baby. The claim was that God revealed Himself. And honestly, that's where Islam lost me. Because I spent years believing God would never humble Himself enough to enter His creation. Then I realized that's exactly what makes Him glorious. Not that He stayed far away. That He came close. Close enough to touch lepers. Close enough to weep. Close enough to suffer. Close enough to die. So yes, Christians worship the God-man. Because no mere man could save us. And a god who remains forever distant cannot show us the depth of divine love. But Jesus did. Fully God, fully man and fully enough.

For any who consider a CGT simple to define, easy to implement and requiring just one or two exemptions to be made ... news.com.au/finance/money/…

I said this to the @nytimes a year ago about teenage gender transitions. It was dead on then, and it’s more true today. We help trans people by telling the truth, rejecting sloganeering and being willing to say no when benefits aren’t clear.

I literally feel like I’m losing my mind trying to talk common sense on Trans healthcare. The cohort of people identifying as “trans” has radically expanded in the last 20 years. That’s not politics, it’s an objective fact. The symptoms they are displaying are different, their goals are different. So why should their medical treatment be exactly the same as the boys that had early onset identifying as girls and shattered when you forced them to be boys. We are the same today as we were 20 years ago as we were 50 years ago as we were in 100 years ago. Same psychology, same pathology, same goals. And when I point out that we need to develop modern clinical standards to get the right people the right care I am relentlessly attacked by the progressive political project. I will be the first to admit the healthcare I got was extreme. It really worked out for me, but there was also a lot of clinical evidence I would benefit from it. That evidence just simply does not exist for these new types of transgender, and it does not help us to claim that it does. It’s not transphobic to want people to get healthcare proven to help them.

One of the craziest things about the UK rape gang scandal is that it's largely considered a 'right wing' concern. In a sane, serious country, it would be completely bipartisan. In fact, it wouldn't even be seen as a political issue, but one of basic justice and morality.

Self-censorship rarely arrives as an official ban. It arrives as professional risk.  A six-slide breakdown of how professional regulation is increasingly being used to police speech - and what that's doing to the voices we most need to hear from.  If something here sounds familiar, we want to hear from you. Your story builds the picture.  Policymakers can't fix a problem they can't see.

Sam Harris has written the best thing you’ll read today. open.substack.com/pub/samharris/…

This makes sense. computerworld.com/article/416255…

Sometimes it’s still really worth being on Twitter

In Revelation 4, John describes his heavenly vision, but he does not invent new language and imagery to do so. Instead, he dips his paintbrush into the colors of the Old Testament. In fact, almost every verse of Revelation 4 echoes, reflects, or draws directly from earlier biblical texts. When John sees a throne set in heaven (Rev. 4:2), he is standing in the same place as Isaiah (Isa. 6:1), Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:26–28), Daniel (Dan. 7:9), and Micaiah (1 Kings 22:19). Like them, he is being shown the heavenly court where God reigns and from which he rules the world. Ezekiel’s vision especially serves as a template for John’s description. The radiant throne, the gleaming appearance of precious stones (Rev. 4:3; cf. Ezek. 1:26–28; Exod. 24:10), and the crystal-like expanse before the throne (Rev. 4:6; cf. Ezek. 1:22) all echo Ezekiel. Other Old Testament scenes are woven in as well. The rainbow around the throne (Rev. 4:3) recalls both Ezekiel’s vision of divine glory (Ezek. 1:28) and the post-flood sign in Genesis (Gen. 9:13). The lightning, thunder, and voices (Rev. 4:5) reflect Sinai, where God revealed himself in fire and power (Exod. 19:16). The seven lamps (Rev. 4:5) echo Zechariah’s vision (Zech. 4:2–6), symbolizing the Spirit of the Lord, whom Isaiah also describes in sevenfold fullness (Isa. 11:2). The living creatures are likewise rooted in earlier Scripture. They combine the cherubim of Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:5–10; 10:12–15) with the seraphim of Isaiah (Isa. 6:2–3). Their six wings and their unending cry, “Holy, holy, holy” (Rev. 4:8), come straight from Isaiah’s temple vision (Isa. 6:3). Finally, the worship of the one seated on the throne (Rev. 4:9–11) reflects a long tradition of heavenly praise scenes (Isa. 6:1; Dan. 7:9–10; Ps. 47:8), while the language of God’s eternal life echoes Daniel (Dan. 4:34; 12:7). So did John see in a vision what he describes in Revelation 4? Yes. And to describe that vision, in all its parts, he used words and images deeply rooted in the Bible itself. This chapter alone serves as a powerful reminder of how absolutely crucial it is to know the Old Testament if we are to read and understand Revelation.

No, Christianity does not promote or require socialism. And it is not at odds with capitalism. The idea that socialism is a biblical model requires you to ignore the difference between willing generosity and forced redistribution. When the early church in Acts shared resources, it was voluntary; it wasn't mandated by the state. Peter acknowledged private property rights and so did the ten commandments. Stealing is only wrong if private property ownership is a given. Same with coveting. All virtues require freedom, including charity. Socialism removes the freedom and kills the virtue. If the state takes your wealth and gives it to someone else, you've been taxed. You haven't been "generous" because it had nothing to do with your heart. Capitalism creates wealth — so there's something to share — and respects our individual freedom to share it. The charity that results from the wealth that's created is real charity; it's actually an act of loving one's neighbor. And it isn't just theoretical or idealistic. Free markets paired with Christian values have produced the wealthiest, freest, and most generous societies in history.

Joel Berry @JoelWBerry

3 months ago

Tucker’s latest guest: “Capitalism shouldn’t be anywhere near Christianity. Christianity is socialism at its core.” Tucker agrees

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Coming to believe ~90% of the political differences among Christians boil down to a failure to distinguish between the Biblical roles of the individual, the church, and the State. No, God did not command governments to forcibly redistribute wealth. Yes, God commanded Christians as individuals to practice charity. Individual Christians in Acts “gave willingly and not under compulsion.” Christians in Acts did not vote for the Emperor to increase the marginal tax rate and call that “generosity.”

Joel Berry @JoelWBerry

3 months ago

Tucker’s latest guest: “Capitalism shouldn’t be anywhere near Christianity. Christianity is socialism at its core.” Tucker agrees

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The thing that Westerns don’t understand is Islamists do not think the way we do. It’s a death cult. When I was taken to IDF base to see the secret October 7 footage, it opens with a father trying to save his two children from Hamas terrorists gleefully slaughtering civilians. He takes his two children to hide in a shed. Moments later, an Islamist terrorist gleefully throws in a grenade. Later, a child comes out with his eye blown out by shrapnel, soaked in his father’s blood. Weeping, he manages to grab his brother’s hand and escape. I sometimes have nightmares of that child, eye gouged out, hands slick with his father’s blood, escaping through the side yard. Later the Islamist notices he’s gone and smiles at the horror he’s inflicted. It’s the most evil thing I’ve ever seen. Westerners who have never scrambled to run in a bomb shelter from a missile think of Palestinianism like the 1964 civil rights movement. This is a false categorization. The reality is, it’s a death cult that will sacrifice themselves and their children to hurt Jews. They are not rational actors. Once you realize that, you can understand the lengths Israel has to go through just to survive. You can’t make peace with someone who is so obsessed with hurting you, they don’t care if they live or die.