‘National Guard Deployments Aren’t a Long-Term Solution to Big City Crime’

 

Jeff Sadow makes some important observations at the end of one of his recent essays:

‘The larger question about the deployment is its duration. Sure, it can reduce crime, but unless it goes on indefinitely, its benefits will have to be reaped another way that can be implemented while using the Guard as a bridge to achieving that end state. And this is policy action that really must emanate from the local level. Policy made by Landry and/or the Legislature . . . only can go so far.

‘State policy-makers also can address ancillary environmental conditions that can discourage crime, such as reduced government control of economic relations that would encourage opportunity and policies to improve educational attainment, such as greater choice and more rigor in schooling. But as with public safety policy, it will take a similar commitment by local officials to bring about a permanent reduction in crime.

‘Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem forthcoming from a number of such officials. Until that changes – and perhaps this change starts at the voting booth – the benefits of guard deployment for crime reduction will last only as long as the deployment’ (‘Guard Deployment Must Fit Larger Commitment,’ thehayride.com).

The reduction in crime resulting from National Guard deployments won’t last much longer than the deployments themselves.  Larger societal changes will be necessary.  Mr Sadow mentions improving opportunities for education and economic advancement, but these oft-touted tools of the post-Christian Enlightenment will fail if there is no religious change in the city-dwellers themselves.  That is the main ‘environmental condition that can discourage crime’ and get cities on a better path.

Fallen, sinful mankind generally doesn’t want to work too hard to get the money and possessions he desires.  He will most often take the path of least resistance.  Hence the proliferation of crime.  But when the Grace of God touches the souls of fallen men, they will undertake many difficulties for the sake of drawing near to God and serving their neighbors.  St Moses the Black is an excellent example of this.  He was a notorious criminal but with God’s help he changed completely:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/10/garlington-national-guard-deployments-arent-a-long-term-solution-to-big-city-crime/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘Septuagint-Vulgate Redux’

 

My thanks to Jeff for his gracious response to my essay on the Septuagint.

I am not so much interested in the Orthodox-Roman Catholic polemics in this discussion but rather on which version of the Scriptures – Vulgate or Septuagint – gives the most accurate rendering.

We will give a couple of examples.

The first seems to be a small thing:

‘In Acts 7:14 St. Stephen relates the story of the Israelite nation and refers to 75 people who traveled from Canaan to Egypt in the emigration of Jacob's family. This is not what Genesis 46 states in our [Hebrew/Masoretic-based] Bibles, where it catalogues 70 sojourners [Gen. 46:27]. But the LXX [Septuagint] lists 75 people, confirming St. Stephen's account, with the differences accounted for by the grand- and great-grandchildren of Joseph (Gen 46:20-22)’ (Joel Kalvesmaki).

The Vulgate retains the error mentioned, stating 70 in Genesis 46 and 75 in Acts 7 (verse look-up in the Douay-Rheims Bible available here), omitting some of Joseph’s descendants in Gen. 46:20.

The second involves a weightier subject, an OT prophecy of Christ:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/10/garlington-septuagint-vulgate-redux/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Remembrances for November – 2026

 

Dear friends, if you have time, please pray for these members of the Southern family on the day they reposed.  Many thanks.

But one may ask:  ‘What good does it do to pray for the departed?’  An answer is offered here:  https://orthochristian.com/130608.html

Along with prayers and hymns for the departed:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6je5axPodI

4^th – Gabriel Manigault, an influential architect in South Carolina.

https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/manigault-gabriel/

Examples of his designs may be viewed at these sites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Manigault

http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/charleston/S10817710069/

5^th – Carrie Tuggle.  ‘Mrs. Tuggle was a person of unique strengths. She excelled in the areas of education, social work, and religion.’

http://www.awhf.org/tuggle.html

9^th – Colonel Jose Benavides, a major figure in Texas’s economic and political circles in the 19^th hudredyear, he was undefeated in 100 battles during the War.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/the-merchant-prince-of-the-rio-grande-who-chose-the-confederate-cause/

9^th – Pierre Laffite, the gentlemanly, rascally pirate of Barataria Bay, Louisiana.  He and his brother Jean are well-known for their role in the Battle of New Orleans and other acts of mischief.  Quintessential lovable rogues.  New Orleans’s Grace King gives details of their life:

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/America/United_States/Louisiana/New_Orleans/_Texts/KINPAP/10*.html

10^th – Lott Carey, Colin Teague:  Both were slaves in Virginia who purchased their freedom and then became missionaries in West Africa.

https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/lott-carey-11630295.html

https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/taylor/taylor.html

https://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/t-u-v/teague-colin-collin-teage-c-1780-1839/

12^th – Synaxis of the 12 Southerners of I’ll Take My Stand.  In celebration of the original publication of this noteworthy book on Nov. 12^th, 1930, we remember and pray for the contributors to it:  Donald Davidson, John Gould Fletcher, Henry Blue Kline, Lyle H. Lanier, Stark Young, Allen Tate, Andrew Nelson Lytle, Herman Clarence Nixon, Frank Lawrence Owsley, John Crowe Ransom, John Donald Wade, and Robert Penn Warren.  The opening Statement of Principles from the book may be read here:

https://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/White/anthology/agrarian.html

14^th – Booker T. Washington, a prominent leader in the postbellum South.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/booker-washingtons-bucket/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1073/booker-taliaferro-washington

15^th – Ambrose D. Mann, a colorful character who worked in the Confederacy’s diplomatic corps.

http://www.chab-belgium.com/pdf/english/Mann.pdf

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/74906039/ambrose-dudley-mann

15^th – Roy Clark, a talented musician and comedian, perhaps best known for his work on the TV show Hee Haw.

https://countrymusichalloffame.org/artist/roy-clark/

20^th – John Lejeune, a Cajun fellow who had a big impact on the uS Marine Corps.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/the-greatest-of-all-leathernecks/

22^nd – Mary Boykin Chesnut, a valuable author and historian of the South.

https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/chesnut/bio.html

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8574/mary-boykin-chesnut

23^rd – Louisa McCord and Marion Montgomery, a couple of very versatile and talented writers.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/a-lady-champion-of-free-trade/

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9685397/louisa-susanna-mccord

https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/marion-montgomery-1925-2011

24^th – John William Corrington, another notable recent Southern author, hailing from NW Louisiana, one who unapologetically loved his Southern roots.

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/john-william-corrington-and-southern-conservatism/

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/the-better-men/

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/are-southerners-different/

30^th – Gen Patrick Cleburne, Irish-born, he loved his new home at the South and fought valiantly for her during the war.  He died in 1864 at the Battle of Franklin.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/patrick-r-cleburne

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4430/patrick_ronayne-cleburne

Also, to celebrate some of the saints of November from the South’s Christian inheritance of various lands, visit these web pages:

https://southernorthodox.org/orthodox-saints-for-dixie-november/

https://confiterijournal.blogspot.com/2019/12/happy-feast-for-saints-of-november.html

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘Why the Receding Support for Republicans in Federal Elections?’

 

Some folks seem genuinely surprised that voters, even in reliably conservative/Republican States like Ohio and Texas, are leaning towards the Democrats in this year’s elections for the federal government.  The reasons for that aren’t a profound mystery, but to find them we have to go back to the 2024 presidential election.

In that election, folks were surveying the nightmarish years of the Biden presidency – harsh covid measures, rampant inflation, DEI reverse racism, the federal apparatus turned against parents who attended school board meetings, pro-life advocates, and traditional Christians.  Donald Trump was campaigning on a turn away from them and other destructive policies.  And enough voters were persuaded that he offered a better path forward than Kamala Harris that he won the election.  It wasn’t a landslide, but there were narrow victories in a lot of States.  That closeness was further borne out by the small Republican margins in the federal House and Senate.

Trump’s second term got off to a good start, with promises to conduct his administration with class and competence and the signing of numerous beneficial executive orders on everything from ending support for transgenders in women’s sports to winding down a lot of the green energy sham.  But then came the obstacles.

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2026/10/garlington-why-the-receding-support-for-republicans-in-federal-elections/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘The Head of the South’

 

From Jamestown till the sundering of Seventy-Six,

The head of the Southern people wore a monarch’s crown,

James the First to George the Third,

With the Puritan interregnum

An unnatural interruption

Of the patriarchal order.

In the new dispensation after independence,

Still was there a head on Dixie’s body,

An agrarian aristoi of country gentlemen,

Led by a trio of Johns –

Taylor of Caroline, Randolph of Roanoke,

And the mighty Calhoun of South Carolina –

And the finest of them all, the chivalric Lee.

Upon the death of the General

Came the times of calamity,

Without a head to lead and guide the South.

After the decay of the old planter class,

A dozen brothers led for a time.

Then Strom Thurmond tried but was denied.

Today we have only scattered voices

Raised in protest of an aberrant order,

While our old traditions are banished from the land,

Exiled further by far than Alfred the King was in Athelney.

Yet in that blessèd man is all our hope,

The first king of all the English folk,

Who saved them from an alien foe

And raised up the prostrate Church.

The headless South a head once more has found in him,

Crowned with the garland of God’s Grace,

Fairest of the line of English kings.

Beseech him, brothers and sisters,

Beseech him on bended knee

To be our father, our patriarch,

This day and all succeeding ones,

To restore wholeness and vitality

To a family shattered and weak.

The twilight of death is nigh upon us,

And soon total darkness,

If the Light of that deified head we reject.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!