The Smirk Seen around the World, Part 1: Mobilization of the Narrative.

As everyone knows by now, the events of that fateful day after this year’s March for Life in Washington D.C. between a group of Indigenous activist and the Covington Catholic school boys exposed a deluge of pathologies and pent up aggression that lies beneath the surface of the Cathedral media-culture industry machine. In this multi-part essay, I shall comment upon various issues surrounding the event, such as the media response, identity issues, and importantly the immediate response by people whom should have known better, and whom should have exercised prudence and better judgement in the face of an obviously ideologically-driven media storm of biblical proportions. I am of course referring to the various Catholic institutions, and their continual failure in trying to fight the, frankly, demonic presences that drive current affairs in the modern world.

A Quick Refresher

To begin with, there have been various charges against the Covington Catholic all-male student body that have one by one been proven false. An excellent video presentation on the immediate reaction to the highly edited video clip can be found here[1], by 1791. The blue check-mark media simply assumed that these MAGA hat-clad high school kids were a bunch of white, upper class entitled racists harassing a wise tribal elder. The unedited video shows the opposite reality, one where Black Israelites were calling these kids “Fa**ots”, “Incest kids”, “future school shooters”, and specifically targeting the few African American students in the group for being “race traitors”, and essentially racially/ideologically policing these students.

The indigenous group walked right into the group and started chanting and banging drums in their faces, one even saying “go back to Europe”. The group of protesters were led by Nathan Phillips, a man with a history of making racial grievances public and could potentially be stretching the truth when it comes to his actual military service in Vietnam[2]. This all does not matter to the woke chattering classes, it does not even matter to them that the same group of activists led by Phillips tried to storm D.C.’s national Shrine and disrupt and ongoing Mass service[3]. The protesters condemned the Catholic church for various crimes related to the doctrine of discovery, and that the Covington group of boys be expelled and even denied university applications once they graduate.

What followed was a mighty digital hurricane of journalists, Hollywood celebrities, Academics and so-called functionary class bedbugs all tweeting in unison their outrage and hatred for these smirking social conservative students before the facts. You had calls for doxing[4], death threats, bomb threats against the school[5], and calls for these students to be denied meaningful employment for the rest of their lives, including one by Tentacle Hentai connoisseur and suspected child-porn watcher Kurt Eichenwald[6]. Mr. “I HAVE A PHD!” Reza Aslan even wished that someone punched the main focal point of the event, the Covington student Nick (enter) Sandmann for Smirking at Nathan Phillips and has doubled down on his hatred of the MAGA teens, including wishing violence upon Dinesh D’Souza for calling him out[7]. One of the first female Muslim-American politicians, IIhan Omar (whom recently got into some heat for tweets that were labelled anti-Semitic) deleted tweets that straight up lied about the Covington boys, accusing them of comments justifying rape, a lie spawned from a playboy magazine journalist that allegedly heard them but then retracted the statement, also defending the Black Israelites by accusing the boys of attacking them, when in actuality the exact opposite was the case[8].

During an interview with NBC, Mr. (enter) Sandmann stated that outright lies are being told about the incident and about his fellow students. Instead of them being cast as the villains, the racist teens disrespecting an elder, they in fact were the ones targeted. Sandmann said that they all were chanting along as soon as the activists entered their space, not meaning to directly engage them because they thought it was a cultural demonstration, they simply were waiting for the buses to come pick them up after the March for Life. Sandmann further states that he made a judgement call by standing there with his hands in his pockets and not further provoking Phillips, fearing that the situation could escalate knowing the nature of young, High-T boys (citing the history of passionate school spirit at Covington). He states that they were merely demonstrating the school chant when things got louder and more hostile and did not in fact mock indigenous peoples, say “build the wall” or other racial slurs, despite what Phillips alleges in media interviews. Sandmann, knowing throwing out an apology will do more harm than good with the left-media, says he does not apologize for what happened but wishes he could talk one on one with Nathan Phillips to air out grievances, and that he has a deep respect for indigenous peoples[9]. There is even evidence that the boys formed a group to protect a Bishop being harassed by the Black Israelites who were hurling insults and slurs[10].

The reaction to this interview was simply tragicomic in its hysteria. The blue check crowd simply cannot stand even a whiff of the opposition stating their case. Sandmann has been subject to a number of accusations and pathologizing, the usual assortment of defending his whiteness and white supremacist views. More adamantly are the celebrities and media activists, desperately clinging for relevancy and media attention (like failed actress-turned-lib-activist Alyssa Milano[11]) pouring scorn on the boys being pro-life. They are desperately trying to tether together the usual litany of intersections between racism, hating women, and being pro-life, such as (the manosphere, anti-feminist’s caricature of a feminist) Jessica Valenti tweeting out that white male entitlement is linked to racism and the control over women’s bodies.

Take this Valenti tweet storm into consideration, as well as a tweet by some activist film producer highlighting one of the only pictures from the March for Life that only displays young white men in it[12]. The age old woke-left media tactic of smearing all who do not fall into ideological lock-step with the current cathedral-approved crop of ideas is now visiting the doors of the Church and Catholic education. Anyone that has been to a March for Life or has seen a variety of photos and videos without an ax to grind, can see the crowds are made up of men, women and children of all ages, races and demographics. In fact, one could argue religious women form the backbone of pro-life organizing and activism. As expected, we shall not witness any legitimate honesty or journalistic curiosity from the enemies of the Church and of social conservatism in general. After all, the Covington smirk has released a whole deluge of deeply held political-neuroses by the blue check-mark set, especially hysterical resentment aimed at Christianity.

The deep irony of the whole event is that among those immediate hair-trigger denunciations, and the clamoring for social approval from the cathedral media machine that wishes to denigrate religiosity, were the Left-Catholics. For a long time, those who mostly dwell within the old northern enclaves of working class, Catholic labor union Democrat voting blocks (and as we know now, the Democrats no longer care about the unionized working classes[13]), and the various Left-Cath Ivy League types all thought they could escape the secular sin of racism. They believed in earnest that if they towed the line for other issues, they could hide among the various groups that comprise the American Left-wing.

To be frank, the left-wing establishment and their favored progressive-stack identity groups view the Catholic left as a joke, a convenient tool of subversion. The left is not only fully secularized, but large chucks actively cast scorn on religion, and Christianity in particular. This is no longer the ’80s were there was lip-service paid to new-ageism and self-help. There is not a metaphysical bone in the body of the far left in the 21^st century (apart from a few marginal groups). So Left-Caths find themselves bewildered because try as they might to ward off accusations of Catholic racism by their friends and colleagues, and counter-signal against the Trads, the establishment Left simply does not care. In fact, the Left-Caths assumed that if they are not vocal about it, and if they frame it within left-wing discourses (such as choice-feminism), they can have their little space of impotent pro-life activism[14] that goes nowhere apart from a big march every year. Some have even implicitly abandoned this in their support of Democrat establishmentarians.

What is Biblical Patriarchy?

This brings us to the countless takes that totally misrepresent basic Christian theology and the Christian worldview, such as this gem of so-called insight into the “patriarchal, authoritarianism” of the Catholic Church[15]. To be fair, Christ is a Monarch[16] after all, a king above all kings, but not a king of this world. The many takes attacking the church in the wake of the Covington Smirk is a result of the distinct reality-tunnels one who is a progressive urbanite lives in, as opposed to say, a person of faith in a small community.

It seems that the divide between people of faith, and people of the worldly is a lacuna that is nearly impossible to cross; the view of the faithful is that authority and hierarchy is natural, for it is Godly, for Christ reigns upon heaven and earth. But is not worldly authority, it is divine authority that drives the Church forward as a bulwark against the transience of mortal-political affairs[17]. Patriarchy in the Christian sense, is meant to denote the codes of chivalry, the obligation men of the strong have towards those that are more vulnerable and meeker. Authoritarianism is not simply a rule of the rich and powerful over the weak, but a divine order placed upon mankind by God, and within order all things flourish within their own capacity. The king and the aristocracy have a divine mandate to rule with their citizens in mind, and to protect their bests interests.

Even Feminists scholars are coming to realize that the hermeneutics of suspicion placed upon Christian doctrine regarding biblical patriarchy is inaccurate due to what the term means[18]. God commands men to rule because they are capable of ruling, and women to rule within their own mandate, both men and women are creatures of Duty. It is through the mutual roles of men and women coming together in divine commune that both fulfill their duties and obligations to Christ. Both men and women must obey and cherish one another, and despite the unfortunate abuses regarding Christian men seeking harmful domination over women, the doctrine of mutual duty and respect still stands. In the Catholic and Orthodox worlds of faith, this is amplified in the veneration of Mother Mary[19].

Religious Education Among the Ruins

I understand by today’s standards of hyper-progressive discourses (discourses that in themselves I would argue are mutilations of their original academic ideas, but more on that later), this seems like a justification for patriarchy in the modern sense of domination, abuse, the cultural favoritism towards men, the erasure of the female experience, etc. Especially when it involves a group of Catholic school boys. But hopefully some nuance can be given by lay-Christians, and that ordinary people of faith can arm themselves with knowledge of what Church doctrines implies. This is important because Catholic/Christian education itself is also being attacked. Behold as one random smear-piece by A typical blue-check blogosphere rag interviews five anonymous graduates of Catholic schools, all of them negative, and deliberately interviewed to bash Catholic school systems[20]. They all link the smirking and supposed entitlement and privilege on display (again, the facts don’t really matter in the face of a literally picture-perfect narrative) to the supposed isolation, sexism, and lack of pluralism in vocational private Catholic schools. One of them even says it is no suprising that these students are MAGA-clad, because if you “Don’t believe in their teachings, you are a heretic”.

The obvious observation is that this article relies on anecdotal accounts from jaded leftist grads, needless scorn heaped upon Catholic education, nothing more than simply red meat for the secular far-left. Behind this is another striking admission that people simply do not view things with the same eyes. Many readers here (including myself) whom have gone through a Catholic school system, and who are traditionalist in their approach to Church teachings, often find that Catholic and broader Christian school systems are not even close to being traditionalist in their approach to Christian pedagogy[21],[22]. Going through the Ontario Catholic school system, there was almost a downgrading of the more vivid social teachings of the Church, a very multi-cultural student body (including students of other religions) and in general very basic and not all together forceful religion classes, including world religions classes. Younger teachers often simply didn’t care about the Catholic part of Catholic education, and a good deal of students were often apathetic about religion or voiced some edgy teen rebellion against it.

This is another anecdotal experience, but students that are serious in their faith often find little value in going to an exclusively religious school if there is not an emphasis placed on the fundamentals. Covington Catholic school seems different in this regard. It is a school that places emphasis on Tradition, as evidenced by their attendance at the March for Life every year. The school even recites a modified version of the Pledge of Allegiance every morning to include with justice and liberty for all, born and unborn to the absolute horror[23] of a New York Times verified correspondent, thinking this is some insidious reality, a sinister condemnation of a Catholic school daring to follow Church social teachings. Follow they did, and they paid the price for it, and believe me, there is a price all traditional men and women of faith pay for being unabashed in their beliefs while living in the modern world.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUwAgR_qLqw

[2] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/21/nathan-phillips-vietnam-veteran-status-question/

[3] https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/nathan-phillips-rally-attempted-to-disrupt-mass-at-dcs-national-shrine-91038

[4] https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/21/kathy-griffin-doxxed-twitter-ban/

[5] https://www.rt.com/usa/449464-covington-students-trump-threats/

[6] https://www.thewrap.com/national-review-pulls-article-saying-covington-students-might-as-well-have-just-spit-on-the-cross/

[7] https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272639/reza-aslan-calls-violence-against-falsely-accused-robert-spencer

[8] https://nypost.com/2019/01/23/us-rep-ilhan-omar-deletes-tweets-slamming-maga-teens/

[9] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/young-man-d-c-march-video-denounces-outright-lies-about-n960801

[10] https://twitter.com/BishopStika/status/1088181426967797768

[11] https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/1087419460942589952

[12] https://twitter.com/DGComedy/status/1086360315598495744