What is Privilege? Does The White Man have it?

The short answer is that the White Man doesn't have privilege, but homeless illegals and Jussie Smollett do. The long answer follows a definition.

Privilege is defined as "a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group." But the modern use of that term implies something more: privilege implies being a member of a group that gets special treatment because of who they are, not because of what they have accomplished.

For an example, we begin with the special immunity granted to homeless illegal immigrants by the Sanctuary City movement, exemplified by Denver's odd move to decriminalize public defecation.  The problem was not so much that homeless aliens without official permission to reside in the US were relieving themselves on public sidewalks, but that when they were arrested and convicted of such behaviour, they risked automatic repatriation under the US federal government's new policy of expelling criminal aliens. By reducing the offence from a misdemeanour to an infraction, the Democrats who control Denver's city government were able to make an end-run around this policy, and keep their Sanctuary City status at the expense of clean streets and sidewalks. In Denver, homeless illegals have privilege.

How about Jussie Smollett? In the early morning hours of January 29, 2019, Chicago Police received a report from Jussie that he had been assaulted on the sidewalk of his upscale Chicago neighborhood. Now, here is were Jussie's privilege kicked in. Chicago police receive hundreds of reports of assault every day, the vast majority of them far more serious than what Jussie reported. But Jussie was a celebrity, even claiming that he was identified by, and targeted for, his celebrity. So instead of sending him off to have his superficial wounds checked out at the hospital and filing his report in the bottom drawer, the Chicago Police force went into high gear. They notified the FBI. They began the exhaustive process of viewing footage from every surveillance camera that may have caught the alleged incident on tape. They began a publicity campaign to keep the public appraised of any progress in the case. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were invested in tracking down the attackers and bringing them to justice. In the end, Jussie turned out to have fabricated the whole thing, paying a couple of his buddies to act out the attack. Again, privilege kicked in. For weeks into the investigation, Jussie continued to keep up his story and demand justice. Democrats around the country, including several Presidential candidates, circled the wagons to defend him and share in his outrage. It was only when the Chicago Chief of Police read a scathing statement accusing Jussie of choreographing a hateful fraud that was a discredit to everything he should have stood for that the house of cards finally began to wobble and sway. Jussie was protected at every stage by his privilege, and that privilege means that although he's committed any number of crimes, up to and including federal Mail Fraud in the process of mailing himself white powder, he may well never end up seeing the inside of a prison cell for it. At far greater levels and to a far greater extent than your average Joe Homeless in Denver caught with his pants down, Jussie Smollett has privilege.

But privilege extends much farther than even that. Look at Ted Kennedy, whose father started out with a small degree of privilege as the son of a rising Boston politician, forced his way into Harvard despite failing grades in high school, and leveraged his way into a political dynasty so powerful that not even Ted's obvious culpability in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne could cost him his Senate seat. Joseph Kennedy himself was not above murder to consolidate his political power; an underage prostitute whom he hired to accuse a competitor of rape died under mysterious circumstances just as she was about to come clean with her story. As a result, the competitor was ruined, and Joe got an even bigger corner on the movie industry. Through an endless succession of such dirty deals, Joe was able to enlarge his empire to the point that he could coerce an editor to put his son Jack on the cover of Time Magazine, helping to ensure his success in the upcoming election. The Kennedy brothers had privilege.

But the White Man does not have privilege. I was turned down by the elite university to which I applied, even though I was far more qualified academically then either Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. or Thomas Watson Jr.--the least-qualified-ever president of IBM--neither of whom could have even gotten into college without privilege. I don't have a father who gets invited to the White House. I can't call upon the vast resources of a metropolitan police force to investigate a minor complaint, or expect to escape prison if my complaint turns out to be a hoax. I can't even expect to get away with relieving myself against one of the signs at the St. Louis Transit Station stating for all to see that public urination is a crime. Unlike homeless illegals, sons of politically powerful people, and self-important TV stars, I don't have privilege.

The Travesty of Justice that is the Miller Kidnaping Case

I've been posting regular updates on the Miller Kidnapping legal saga here, but I thought this link  to an interview of Philip Zodhiates right before his imprisonment (part one, start at 9:15 or so) and (part two, start at about 1:00) deserves a post of its own.

Notice that the Justice Department was able to get the courts to suppress affidavits both damning to Janet Jenkins and supporting of Philip Zodhiates; to keep his trial from being held where the alleged conspiracy actually occurred (where he was much more likely to get a fair trial); to have the trial held where an impartial jury would be harder to find; and made sure that even then, no one approaching the status of the defendant's peer was allowed to serve on the jury. It was a travesty of justice from beginning to end, with Janet Jenkins even using civil discovery to feed incriminating information to the prosecutor.

This is not about a child being taken away from her parents. This is not about conspiring to violate a federal law (no evidence was raised in the trials that any of the defendants were aware of the law they were sentenced under). This is about an abused girl trying to escape her abuser, and the goverment, guided by the LGBTQ agenda, sparing no expense at preventing it, and punishing to the utmost all who helped her escape.

Isabella is already 16, the age at which a child in many states can finally choose which parent to live with. In a little over a year, she will be old enough to nullify any custody order, no matter how austere. But under today's suppression of adulthood responsibility, she will not be totally free of the Vermont court's decisions until she graduates from college or turns 26. So there's little chance of her coming out of hiding any time in the near future. May God protect her, and her longsuffering mother, in the meanwhile.

UPDATE MARCH 8, 2019
Philip's appeal was turned down by the Supreme Court. He will spend the next couple years in prison.

Another Lexical Obituary

Living in America as I do, I'm constantly struck by news reports of "migrants" wanting to come here to live. Back in my elementary days, I was taught that a migrant is one who temporarily leaves his native land for seasonal employment, like the migrant workers who lived in Mexico but traveled north with the harvest for about half the year, hand-picking vegetable crops for which meechanical harvesters hadn't yet been invented, as the cotton harvesters which replaced the slaves and sharecroppers in the cotton fields of the American South. A migrant lives part of his year as native, and part as a foreigner. He is thus distinguished from a nomad, who lives always on the move within the bounds of his own territory.

I was also taught two other words: Emigrant, one who was leaving his native land to live somewhere else, and Immigrant, one arriving in a new country to make it his home. The two words were of course used of the same people, just from opposite perspectives. Neither was ever used of a migrant. And of course both were in contrast to Native, which referred to a person living in the land of his ancestors--one who had neither emigrated nor immigrated.

There was another word I wasn't taught in school, but picked up from conversation, that was used in reference to a person whose present situation wasn't well described by any of the other five words: Expatriate. This was someone not living in his native land, but with no intentions of becoming a citizen, or of leaving descendants, in the land where he dwelt. He was there long-term enough not to qualify as a migrant, but still not permanently. He may not have owned a dwelling back in his native land, but no matter how long he was absent, his loyalties and affections remained with it, rather than with the land of his current residence, which at any rate was often likely to change every few years.

One of these six words has never been all that common--and is frequently misspelled as Ex-patriot--but two of them have gone from common to almost extinct in the course of a single generation.
Emigrant and Immigrant have now been almost totally replaced by Migrant, the original meaning of which has been sacrificed to force it to swallow the combined meanings of both other words. The word Native has also been suppressed, mostly narrowing its application--at least in the States--to those with autochthonous tribal ancestry.

Another word which has suffered greatly in connotation and change of meaning is Colonist, which originally referred to a group of expatriates who functioned as immigrants, planting a piece of their own culture on foreign soil, which they never intended to leave. Unlike true immigrants, who abandoned their former loyalties to join another culture, they brought theirs with them. Colonialism in that sense has almost gone extinct, so the word has become attached to other meanings loosely attached to the original one. Colonialsim lives on only in a cultural sense, when immigrants adapt somewhat to the local laws, but retain their original lifestyle, language, and culture. Mennonites are a good example of this, and they do in fact still refer to their settlements as Colonies.

How does this all relate to the so-called Migrant Caravan that is so much in the American news these days? Well, they certainly aren't migrants, in the classical sense of the word: they don't intend to return to live in their Central American homes on a seasonal basis. American immigration laws (ironically, the term will probably live on for centuries in statute after it is abandoned in speech) have made that process increasingly difficult to impossible. By leaving behind their homes and national loyalties, they are true emigrants; they want to come here to settle. But are their intentions in settling in America those of immigrants, expatriates, or colonists?

More on the Untimely Demise of the Life Sentence

Although it's not listed in the heading of this blog, one of the things I've written about is the erosion of any connection between crime and punishment: specifically, the demise of the death penalty, rapidly followed by the elimination of the life sentence. Today we shall look at one of my predictions, and see how it's played out.

In this 2012 post I wrote: "I venture to predict that no American criminal, sentenced after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on execution in 1976, will ever again serve over 30 years in prison for any heinous crime--and, for those committed to mental institutions for murder, I predict an even shorter timeframe. "

Enter the case of Patrick Lizotte, who shot his High School teacher in cold blood one March day of 1982, and was almost immediately taken into police custody for murder.

Patrick was sentenced to the incongruous "Two Consecutive Life Terms Without Possibility of Parole." I'm sorry, but such a ridiculous sentence brings to mind the medieval sentence of being hanged, drawn and quartered, and burned at the stake. What possible effect can a second consecutive life sentence have on anyone but Jesus?

Ironically, Patrick's prison term (delayed, of course, by the slow-grinding Wheels of Justice until 1986) did actually reach the 30 year mark after I wrote the above--but came to an abrupt end only months later after extensive legal proceedings that began with the Nevada Assembly Bill 267 of 2015, which “revises provisions concerning the sentencing and parole of persons convicted as an adult for a crime committed when the person was less than 18 years of age.” He is now on parole.

Thus, it was as I predicted: "The idea that a person still represents a threat to society as an eighty year old man, based on something he did as a teen, may not endure that long." Or in this case, only a fifty year old man. Had Patrick held off on committing the murder until his senior year--after he turned 18--he would probably still be in prison. But not for another thirty years.

Does χιλια ετη mean a thousand years?

As promised in my last post, here is a critique of Peter Hoover's view of the Millennium. In an email broadcast on August 12, he wrote briefly of his fling with premillenialism, and subsequent revocation:

I dropped all popular theories, all names that would identify me to this school of thought or another, and I chose to cling to Jesus' Gospel and the Scriptures themselves. Nothing more. Nothing less. With only this in mind, these became my conclusions. My passion. My goal:
 1. Building on the right foundation, Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11). "No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." Whatever we build on, whatever we use, whatever we teach must come from Jesus. Everything else is unsafe and will not stand in the end. If Jesus and his apostles did not teach it, if Jesus' example does not match with what we are promoting, we are in the wrong. Plain and simple.
 2. Choosing the Narrow Way (Matthew 7:13-14). The broad way, the way of the crowd, the popular way is dangerous. The narrow way, the way of Jesus, is the only right and safe one. How shall we find it? From Jesus and his apostles alone. Not from any modern organisation or religious group. Not, particularly, from any church. The real Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that truly follows him on the narrow way, is the fellowship of all who listen carefully, who follow, and obey. Why is it narrow? Because few choose it. It is the Way of the Cross.
 3. Following the Context and Flow of Scripture (2 Timothy 2:15). Using the Scriptures responsibly includes its context and how they were presented to us, one after the next. That is how we need to use all information anywhere. To use the Scriptures in a game of "fast and loose," pulling out bits and pieces here and there, while cobbling them together again through all kinds of ingenious ways, is not only dangerous. It is dishonest. It takes serious study (like they did in Beraoea) and the help of the Holy Spirit. It is not safe for us to use the Scriptures unless the Lord Jesus has already freed us from human prejudice and a pre-established agenda.
 4. Not Adding, not subtracting from prophetic Scriptures (Revelation 22:18-19). "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll."
How seriously have we taken these sobering words at the end of John's Revelation? I am amazed. Of all Scriptures used by Christians, anywhere, none of them have been tampered, twisted and added onto more than this one itself. An absolutely massive world-wide movement, involving millions upon millions of people, entire political parties and shocking wars have revolved around what is read "between the lines" of Revelation 20:1-10.
 But, seriously, have you ever carefully read this chapter yourself? Stunning in its simplicity!
 There is not one word, not even the minutest suggestion of any "restoration of Israel," or of any flesh and blood Jews, or of any earthly nation governed by Christ, in this passage.
Neither is there any suggestion in the entire Scriptures of any "pre-tribulation rapture," or of any restoration of animal sacrifices that glorify God, or of a return to the laws of Moses.
 In fact, the "thousand years" is one of the most poorly translated pieces of the entire New Testament in our North European languages. The Greek word (check it out in Strongs, or wherever you wish) is the word "chilioi," not singular, but plural. In other words, it already includes "thousands of years," instead of just one clearly defined millennium. But even the word "thousands" is not totally accurate.
 "Chilioi" is not the word that Greek speakers would use to describe "thousands." Instead they use the word, "chiliades." Chilioi, as used by the Apostle John is a vague term, used basically for a "long long time." An age.
And this brings us right back into the rest of all the teachings of Christ, the simple Gospel that tells us nothing more than to be ready at all times for the day of judgement. Not adding. Not subtracting, is a key to understanding Bible prophecy. If the Lord wanted us to know more, he would have told us more. And in the meantime, while we are still waiting, I rest every night in total peace. The Lord is in control. Not me. And this is why I refuse to latch onto any "ism" or humanly constructed line of thought: premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism, etc. Who needs it if we have the Gospel of Jesus in our hearts and hands? 

 I wanted to give the full context of his claim regarding the meaning of  χιλια ετη, the term Revelation 20:2 uses, because he is so totally wrong about this that I can't address it without making him look really stupid. And he's not stupid, he's just way out of his league here, casting judgment on basically every Bible ever translated in English. Yes, Strongs uses the transliteration 'chilioi' for G-5507, which is its nominative singular lemma form. But not even Strong translates it as 'thousands', but 'a thousand'. This shows how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing; being able to look up a word in Strongs does not qualify one to evaluate Bible translations.

It gets worse, when he assays to read the mind of the modern Greek. I actually don't know modern Greek, but I do know that when Google or Bing attempt to translate Biblical Greek as if it were Modern Greek, the result in English is usually hilarious, but never accurate. Google, however, perfectly rendered either χίλια χρόνια (its Modern Greek translation of 'thousand years') or χίλια ἔτη (the Koine equivalent). So all the talk about how a Greek speaker would say it is nothing but ignorance strutting as erudition; at least at first blush, it's 'chilia' either way.

If Peter Hoover wants to accuse a Bible translator of mistranslating 'thousand', he need look no further than Acts 21:20, where many Bibles have the elders telling Paul that "thousands" of Jews had come to faith, when even Strongs could tell him that the number is actually that of the next order of magnitude, 'myriads'.

And how is χίλια ἔτη used elsewhere in the Bible? Well, it is only used twice elsewhere, and both times it is used proverbially to refer to a long time, like me saying in English, "Never in a thousand years would I expect such a scholar and historian as Peter Hoover to make such a blunder." But this is not proverbial language here--it's narrative, with terms like, "And when the thousand years are ended," which is pretty specific.

It's not as if John didn't know how to express large numbers: in the majority text of Revelation 9:6 he speaks of a number of horseman so large as to be inconceivable in his day, a thousand myriads (the two largest Greek numbers put together). Then in 5:11, he gives up counting the heavenly host after running clean out of big numbers: myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands. But he is able to divide 144,000 by twelve and come up with the right number; and when it comes to telling time, he is twice able to count up to one thousand, two hundred, and sixty days. It sure seems to me like John considers χίλιοι to mean 'a thousand'.

Could χιλια ετη refer to a long time, rather than exactly 12,000 months? Well, it does every other time it's used in the Bible, so I would have to answer "possibly," given that Revelation is a highly symbolic book anyway. But let's at least be honest about the evidence, and stick with what we have rather than making it up. And we are certainly not on firm ground to assume that it does, and build our theory on that.

P.S. In the interests of fair use, I should note that you can receive your own free subscription to Peter Hoover's emails by so requesting in an email to detention.river@gmail.com.