It's Got What Plants Crave (Left Behind Is A Lie II, Sixteen.)

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ~2nd Corinthians 14:16

This morning, I saw this bullshit.

Somebody from the "Catholic League" trying to tell Mayor Pete and Chasten how to refer to one another.

Seriously?!?!

Both Pete and Chasten are Christians, they're married, they're both the kind of guys who would've been Log Cabin Republicans 20 years ago.

But the "Catholic League" and people like Bill Donohue, they don't really care about any of that, do they? 

They don't really care about belief in Christ, or even conservatism.

What these fucking people want...what all their bullshit about "Nature and Nature's God" is even for...is trying to force submission. They don't give a damn about anything else.

They just want to tell you what you are, and have you accept this horse shit.

Anything to make an ever-smaller slice of the white right-wing male population feel like they're at the head of the line, I guess?

First it was "Don't Say Gay" now it's "Don't Say Black" Next it'll be "Don't say Woman."

Look, if we can't define ourselves, and have the knowledge to know who we are and relate to the world around us...all those other rights really don't mean much, do they?

How many of these white people would know they were "White People" and think they were so special if they weren't treated as some kind of a default setting by so much of America?

That goes on long enough, they don't know anything, and they really don't want to.

As if the world, as it is now, was fully formed last Tuesday because some White dude said "Let there be stuff" and everything else is some kind of a plot against White Conservative Men.

And if that doesn't work...they'll just hand the entire concept of public education over to charter schools and religious nuts who'll leave kids with an education that's insufficient to get a job at MacDonald's and a mentality that'll have them thinking Jesus will give them free money when they get fired for not being able to do their jobs or follow basic rules.

But at least the comfortable and the powerful won't have their "right" to "rule" questioned, in places like Arkansas or Florida, anyway. 

Meanwhile, it will fall ever more on families, the internet, and later on colleges, the military, the workforce and other assorted institutions that should be able to expect certain standards from people right out the gate to have to provide basic fucking knowledge.

You know how many younger dudes I met at my old job, over the course of 18 years who resented the fuck out of their families and their parents because "Nobody taught them anything?"

You know how many people I've met in this life, whose first couple years as an adult were hell on wheels because nobody told them X, Y, Z?

Way the fuck too many.

You know how many people end up distrustful, nihilistic conspiracy theorists who are afraid of every damn thing, get hella mad about video game content...because that's the only thing that's raised them or that they know anything about...and who only feel safe with a weapon in reach? Why? Because literally everything they thought they were taught up to a certain point was basically complete bullshit, and they were never encouraged to pay attention in school or figure shit out for themselves because Jesus, or some shit?

One of the reasons I was so well-acquainted with the whole gamergate scandal is I heard that shit, each and every goddamned day at the time, via Call Of Duty and my [lesbian] roommate's PS4 speakers.

And trust me, if I had a dollar for every time some dude-bro came at me with some dumb take on mythology or Western Civilization right out of the God of War games...I could at least buy lunch, probably on a daily basis, for awhile.

But hey, it's got what plants crave, right?

And then...once these people find out that the Left Behind series books were all bullshit, that Kratos did not slay each of the Gods in single combat, and that a hell of a lot of the Cleric spells in D&D are basically just Biblical miracles with the serials scratched off...they end up basically Atheists, but the kind of Atheists that think guys like Bill Maher and Joe Rogan know All Things Worth Knowing. 

These fucking people end up being the ones who get their historical knowledge from movies like Gladiator and stuff like The History Channel *Cough* Ancient Aliens *Cough* and who don't know the basic mechanics of human sexuality past their own overwhelming need to have an orgasm. 

Probably, a lot more of these guys (and there's girls like that too, but it's mostly guys) would have voted for Trump...if they had the slightest idea of the mechanics of civic participation.

(And even if they don't like Trump or somebody like him, people end up not having the first idea what to do about the situation...or thinking their vote doesn't matter.)

Like, a lot. It's actually pretty disgusting.

It's seriously reached the point where conspiracy theories and willful ignorance have pretty much created an own-goal for the "Conservative" movement.

Except for, that every single goddamned time you run this crap, dudes get the idea that the only way to be anything in life is to be an absolute bastard, think everything is a conspiracy and trust no one and nothing.

But also to believe in conspiracy theories and horoscopes and all type of medical woo woo stuff, as if it's better to live like a Dark Ages peasant than in some kind of a modern society because that's what they've been told "Righteousness" even is and to live in fear of gods they don't even really even believe in...except maybe as tribal totems around which to dance and shout "Unga Bunga."

And again, Elon Musk wants to put computer chips in these people's heads. It's not the Mark Of The Beast when We do it!

Christianity without Christ, Gnosis without actual knowledge...that's pretty much the goal.

Idiocratic Theocracy.

Like, if you're too stupid to understand the doctrines and mechanics of Christian salvation in order to accept them, what's even the damned point?

But ya know, I suppose the fucking people who are fascinated with European nobility, Medieval Catholicism, and the modern Re-Sovietization of Russia are just fine with all that crap. Modern Republicans long to bow before a "little intellectual elite" even if it's in Moscow, and a philosopher-king, even if it's Vladimir Putin.

And they see Idiocracy and mass selfishness as things that'll help them get there.

I still say the "Traditionalist" Catholics are going to be in for a nasty surprise when they get shanked in the back by the Russian Orthodox.

Actually, they're fine with all that, even if they die...because people like Putin are who they could get. They don't really care about anything other than telling other people what to do, or the ideal of imagining that they might be able to, someday.

Or that somebody, somewhere, connected to them down the line might.

And nobody ends up with anything to live for other than the hope that they might have their boot on somebody's throat before they die.

These assholes view everybody as a slave, they just want to be a better class of slave than the other slaves. But this is America...and you don't have to be that way. Our entire country and system are ultimately based on the ideal of being free of all that kind of shit.

Reagan Wept.

Without knowledge, without truth, without the ability for each of us to define ourselves and be what we want to be...out in the open, not behind closed doors...there is no such thing as freedom. And without a civilization that all contribute to...well, it's hard to be free, or to enjoy it, when you constantly have to worry about picking up a weapon and fighting off the next group of bandits that comes along.

Remember that.

Fifteen

Слава Україна!

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

Also this

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.