Layman Joe

In the past, reputation was a function of action. In Socialmedialand, reputation is a function of appearance. In the past, to be known as caring for the poor you had to sacrifice your time and care for the poor. Today, the same reputation is obtained by writing words, sharing pictures, saying phrases, planting yard signs.

@cyberpeterg @Sachinettiyil @michaeljknowles Correction: I should have said, “procedure” or another term. Intentionally killing the patient is not a treatment.

@cyberpeterg @Sachinettiyil @michaeljknowles Nonsense. Being truthful is accurately describing the treatment offered. The priest was asked if he wanted the hospital to kill him instead of treat his malady. It is deceptive to call the intentional killing of a patient, “medical assistance” or “assistance in dying.”

A 79-year-old Catholic priest, Fr. Larry Holland, who is recovering from a hip fracture at Vancouver General Hospital in Canada, said he was offered Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) twice by hospital staff, even though he made clear he is a Catholic priest and morally opposed to euthanasia. Image: BC Catholic

@Sachinettiyil @michaeljknowles Catholics should not use the deceptive language of secular medicine. The priest was asked if he wanted hospital staff to kill him instead of heal him.

This is a lie, and a very obvious one. The Catholic Church has never claimed its authority comes “from Scripture”. The Catholic Church’s authority comes directly from Jesus Christ, Who bestowed that authority on the Apostles, with St. Peter as their head—long before the New Testament Scriptures were even written.

The crisis at the core of mainstream education is not the overuse of technology, shallow content, or even left-wing indoctrination (though all of those are serious problems). The crisis is fundamentally teleological: what is the purpose of education? If you walk into almost any public school classroom in America, I can guarantee students will say they’re there to get a job. What jobs? We have no idea what jobs will even look like in ten years. Education was never meant to be about jobs. Wackos like John Dewey tried to reframe it that way, but for thousands of years, every generation understood education primarily as moral formation, the cultivation of wisdom, virtue, and self-discipline. Education is about growing one’s capacity to love others and to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Until we recover the right teleology, trying to fix any of the other problems will be like trying to patch up a gunshot wound with a Band-Aid.

@yargward @ChivalryGuild It’s from the Bible, Sirach 44:3-4. catholic.org/bible/book.php…

@LaymanJoe1334 @ChivalryGuild Who wrote this

The Cult of Progress turns the aged into fools. Things aren't supposed to change so much over the course of a few decades—and render the experiences of the older generations comedically removed from the experiences of the youth. The consolation of grey hair should be the opportunity to give good counsel, but capital-P Progress takes this consolation, rather viciously.

@MrCasey62 It’s incredibly suspicious that when people see you, you always look like yourself.

Correct. When Mary appears she looks like herself. This isn’t hard.

@CatholicSat Those seem to be oppositional. Food waste is a sign of food abundance. Where food is scarce it is not wasted. Where food is abundant it is both shared and wasted because the it is easily obtained.

The Pope’s Prayer intention for the month of May is for an end to food waste and that everyone has access to food. “Awaken in us a new awareness that we learn to thank you for every food, to consume simply, to share with joy, and to care for the fruits of the earth as a gift from you, destined for all, not just a few.”

@theProject223 @BrandiKruse Forced labor.

@BrandiKruse What does a socialist do when they run out of other people’s money?

INSANE. Seattle's Socialist Mayor responds to exodus of wealth from Washington state by saying "BYE" ... then laughing. We're doomed.

Sometimes, after a half cup of coffee in the morning I feel focused and alert. My mind is clear, my thought are quick. Do people who get enough sleep feel like this all the time?

I had this realization recently. Purgatory is such a beautiful reality. God desires us perfected. He does not desire to call us perfect in our flaws, that would be lying. He does not desire to cover our flaws, hiding them. God wants us perfected, purified so we can stand in His presence as the creature He created us to be. Healed of our woundedness, cleansed of our sin, purified, refine, whole. What would I look like? How great must God’s love for me be?

St. Francis de Sales reminds us: purgation is not just for the next life. It begins here and now. First, let God free you from sin. Then, let Him free you from yourself. Only then can you love Him without reserve. ❤️‍🔥

Most of us only think of purgation as something after death. But St. Francis de Sales shows that there are two purgations in this life. The first delivers us from sin. The second delivers us from self. Together, they prepare us for perfect love. 🧵

@FeserEdward What is the state of his house? What is the state of his nation? What is the state of his empire? Does it matter if he speaks as a king if his kingdom is in shambles?

Gravitas, genuine wit, magnanimity, intelligence, reverence for the rule of law, Christian faith that is confident without being performative. The king is like a voice from a lost world.

Destroying a person’s reputation is a sin. Is it a sin to destroy a person’s reputation if it is based on words and posts instead of actions? Is it just for a person to obtain a virtuous reputation based on posts instead of actions?

In the past, reputation was a function of action. In Socialmedialand, reputation is a function of appearance. In the past, to be known as caring for the poor you had to sacrifice your time and care for the poor. Today, the same reputation is obtained by writing words, sharing pictures, saying phrases, planting yard signs.

@TaraAnnThieke This is downstream from loss of virtue among the public. Being good is no longer a function of active virtue. Instead, appearing politically orthodox has become synonymous with being good. Signal more valuable than substance. For the left moreso than the right.

"Empathy" is one of the trump cards people who have become encouraging of political violence bestow upon themselves. People who are good are "empathetic," empathy is the Ace in the deck, and so even one's violence becomes good.

We're in an era where people who don't see violence as a solution to political problems are called "extremists" by people who do.

@FeserEdward One side, rioted nationwide, murdered multiple people, assassinated Charlie Kirk, paid for racial unrest, shot Trump, attempted to assassinate him 4 times, waged lawfare. The other side, had a few people who fought with cops and walked through the Capitol building in protest.

There’s no doubt that far-left rhetoric is extreme and dangerous. The attempts to assassinate the president and the riots of 2020 are vivid examples of where it can lead. But it is also true that the Epstein/pedophile theme is a thing now only because MAGA influencers whipped people into a frenzy about it for years. What the Democrats are now cynically exploiting is a weapon created by right-wingers and which has now boomeranged on them. (I’m not suggesting that Gerald Posner would deny this, by the way, but just using his post as a springboard to make a different point.) Moreover, the Capitol riot of January 2021 was also a product of overheated rhetoric. The court packing proposals pushed by some Democrats are lawless, but Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results was also lawless. The lawfare the Democrats pursued against Trump was wrong, but so is the lawfare Trump has engaged in as payback against his enemies. Both right-wingers (such as Charlie Kirk and Steve Scalise) and left-wingers (such as Gabby Giffords, Paul and Nancy Pelosi, and three Minnesota legislators in 2025) have been the targets of assassinations or attempted assassinations. Left-wing political violence goes back at least to the 1960s, and right-wing political violence back at least to Timothy McVeigh. These are facts, and dismissing them as “both-sidesism” is just partisan cope. People can argue about who started it and which side is worse. But what matters is that extremism, lawlessness, and violence do exist on both sides. Those who use the excesses of their political opponents as an excuse to downplay or rationalize the excesses of their own side are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They contribute to the death spiral of our polity. Saving it requires resisting these demagogues, and insisting on leadership committed to halting and reversing this cycle of extremism rather than pushing it further.

@SteveSkojec I would like to be wrong in this prediction. Democrats, liberals, continue to try and summon the monster.

Well, if that's the play, there's no reason for Trump not to cross the Rubicon with his army, right? Is this how we're playing the game? Because I don't think ol' Hakeem here is ready for what "maximum warfare" looks like in real terms.