How is the aftermath of “demonic” altar desecrations in Pearl River and the current dilemma of the ruling leftist elite in Louisiana’s historically largest city the same?
Allegedly, on Sep. 30, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church in Pearl River Travis Clark had a rendezvous with a pair of dominatrices based out of Washington and Georgia. At the church near midnight, they chose to play sex games on the church altar – and recorded it. But so did a parishioner curious about lights on in the house of worship at that time with such matters viewable from outside.
The parishioner called the police and all hell broke loose.
The Pearl River incident so disgusted the Very Rev. Archbishop Gregory Aymond that, in following canon law, besides suspending Clark, he subsequently had the altar burned and reconsecrated a new one, calling the act “demonic.”
Sad, but the event turned pathetic when one of the Pearl River dominatrices complained about perceived public persecution. The Atlantan, Melissa Cheng, kvetched publicly that she has suffered physically and mentally for being “vilified.”
“My privacy gets violated and I get in trouble. Maybe people shouldn’t snoop in windows and then complain about what they see, especially at night. Ridiculous,” she complained, while denying the fact that churches are considered public spaces, that it’s diocesan property, and her activity was visible enough that a cell phone could shoot recognizable footage through a window.
Her violin recital, albeit with pop psychological notes, continues.
“I’m so shaken up, I keep having nightmares and panic attacks and literally can’t work on anything. I feel overwhelmed with anxiety from this ordeal. In order for me to come out of this in a strong, empowered, and healthy way I must take a hiatus from work, and social media, as my life has been overtaken by the publicity of this scenario, which I could have never in my wildest dreams fathomed to be my reality, yet here I am.”
Then comes the heavy artillery.
“The trauma and mental & physical stress of the situation has caused my chronic preexisting health condition, P.O.T.S. Syndrome [sic] to flare up again, when previously in recovery up until this present moment. Without time away to rest and recover away from the public eye, my chronic illness will leave me bed ridden [again] and unable to perform simple daily tasks.”
POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) is a form of orthostatic intolerance that is associated with the presence of excessive tachycardia and many other symptoms upon standing, which might rule out vigorous activity like domination. It’s not a disease, but among other things extends from other conditions relevant to her sideline, such as mononucleosis, Epstein Barr Virus, and hepatitis C. And, POTS is not caused by anxiety.
Here, writ large, we have a kinky illustration of the central delusion behind modern liberalism. Simply, the left refuses to accept that there are consequences to its incomprehensible behavior.
With Cheng, who made a social media post the day before the Pearl River ménage à trois gloating about how she intended to “defile a house of God,” she expects, in a smug and condescending manner, to behave that way without the possibility of ever paying a price of any kind for doing what she wants, regardless of what other people want or think. She thinks her actions have to be accepted, even applauded, without her experiencing failure or approbation in any way, such consequences in her eyes not only unfathomable but also illegitimate.
In Louisiana, we find the most recent and trenchant political example in the form of Democrat New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell. She consistently has used her authority to keep more stringent prohibitions on personal and economic activity related to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic than even Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, who hasn’t been shy exactly about locking down the state. And, in the earliest days of the virus spreading with New Orleans as one of the epicenters, the times did call for strictness.
But that time passed months ago, yet Cantrell has kept, needlessly, too tight of a grip on activity. Few, if any, metropolitan central cities in the country have felt a greater negative impact on its economy because of the reaction to the virus, because of the New Orleans economy’s heavy dependence on the retail service sector and its concentration in lower-paying jobs. Along with Edwards’ decrees, her harder-line attitude contributed the most to making Louisiana’s economy the worst of the 50 states in the pandemic era (not that it was doing all that great since the election of Edwards).
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This has translated into a burgeoning fiscal crisis in New Orleans. Cantrell claims the city will fall $150 million short – out of a $1.145 billion anticipated haul – because of the pandemic. She says the state to this point has kicked back only $60 million from the federal CARES Act, and $49 million in other reductions leaves the city still short $41 million.
Her solution? Straight out of the Democrat playbook: drive the country deeper into debt and/or ultimately raising taxes by the federal government printing more money to distribute to state and local governments. In other words, making the people and their descendants pay for it.
More precisely, pay for her mistakes and those like Edwards who unnecessarily disrupted economic activity, and in the nonpecuniary arena trampled on people’s lives and livelihoods. Without her excessively draconian restrictions, such an economic retrenchment and hit to the city’s bottom line needn’t have happened. When she relayed her sob story to the Louisiana House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee, that’s exactly what some members told her.
But that’s not been her agenda, to protect the vulnerable while interfering minimally in everybody else’s lives, throughout the pandemic. She was more interested in the politics of her increasing command and control, cut from the same cloth as liberalism’s base totalitarianism that supports the expansion of “emergency” to convey powers to the left to achieve its statist, collectivist goals. By way of example, she’s more interested in pursuing the idiocy of fossil fuel divestment than in the people’s welfare, and making climate change or anything else an “emergency” is the way to grab the power to get there.
And, of course, this behavior predates the pandemic, and her. Cantrell and her ilk who have run the city for decades have disregarded the needs of the people through their penchant for overregulating and overtaxing business (with one of the nation’s highest sales taxes and, especially for industrial property, one of the highest commercial property taxes among each state’s largest city) that stunts economic growth. These depressive policies cause chronic revenue problems for government.
However, she nor the political left want to pay for the consequences of pursuing an anti-growth agenda heavy on trendiness and liberal fantasies. So, she sticks her hand out, too busy being woke to wake up to reality.
Actions have consequences, and the only people dumber than her for not changing their behavior to avoid such lousy results are voters who put people like her in office.
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