Gunslinger Jesus (Civis Americanus Sum V.)

Malcolm X: [about the disciples of Christ] What color were they?

Chaplain Gill: Well, I don't think we know that for certain.

Malcolm X: But they were Hebrews, were they not?

Chaplain Gill: That's right.

Malcolm X: As was Jesus. Jesus was also a Hebrew.

Chaplain Gill: Why don't you just ask your question.

Malcolm X: What color were the original Hebrews?

Chaplain Gill: I have told you that we don't know that for certain.

Malcolm X: Then you can't believe for certain that Jesus was white.

Chaplain Gill: Just... Just a moment. Just a moment. God is white. [pointing to a painting of a white Jesus hanging on the wall] Isn't it obvious?

Malcolm X: Well, that [nodding to the painting] is obvious, but we don't know if it's obvious that God is white. The honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that Jesus did not have blond hair and blue eyes. The honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that the images of Jesus that are on prison walls and churches throughout the world are not historically correct because history teaches us that Jesus was born in a region where the people had color. There's proof in the very Bible you ask us to read, in Revelations, first chapter, verse fourteen and fifteen, that Jesus had hair like wool and feet the color of brass.

Chaplain Gill: Now just... just what are you saying?

Malcolm X: I'm not saying anything; I'm proving to you that Jesus was not, and I might quote one of my Indian brothers, he was not a pale-face.

Chaplain Gill: [pensively] Uh-huh.

Malcom X: Amen.

Chaplain Gill: Isn't that interesting.

~From the biographical film Malcolm X.

I saw this a little bit ago.

Some Republican creep, regarding the school shooting in Tennessee yesterday "We're not going to fix it."

He then goes on to say that his daughter is homeschooled.

Isn't that interesting?

Motherfucker acknowledges that homeschooling isn't an option for everybody, but he shrugs as if to indicate that if you lack the income or the time to be able to homeschool your kids...he thinks that your kids do not deserve to have safety.

Listen, motherfucker, people have a right not to get shot. I don't give a damn. 

You either believe in civilization or you don't.

Of course, this motherfucker would say that he believes in civilization for himself.

And like I wrote about yesterday, you got all type of these motherfuckers trying to blame irreligion or left-wing politics or schoolhouse doors or transgender people, as if there somehow wouldn't be shootings if everybody was just the right kind of white conservative dude or some bullshit.

Look at the goddamn stats, and you'll see just who does a majority of the shootings. (Narrator Voice: It's White Right-Wing Christian Men.)

I'm a gun owner, I'm a United States Air Force veteran. I have two eyes in my damn head and I'm literate. I've been shooting since I was a kid. Hell, I'm a former Republican and I was an NRA member until they got Charlton Heston, of all people, to start in on the dog-whistle racism.

And I'm here to tell you the causative factor in every last one of these fucking shootings is easy access to firearms on the part of people who shouldn't have been trusted with any object more lethal than a toothbrush. And until we face that fact, and start to do something the fuck about it, this problem is going to continue. 

It really is just that goddamned simple.

I'm also here to tell you that with at least half of this gun bullshit there's three consistent causative factors: Creepy religiosity, racism and right-wing politics.

These fucking people, quite often, are obsessed with the idea that Black people or Communists (but in their minds, I repeat myself) or some other hate flavor-of-the-week are going to try and kick down their doors, kill them and take their stuff.

So, in these fucking people's minds the only option...right out the gate...is fascism, subjugation, violence. It's a hell of a way to think...and to be quite the fuck honest it doesn't take actual humans and what they do or how they work into account very much. I swear these motherfuckers think only other people get PTSD, get shot, go to jail or have mental issues. They think their ideal world is being some kind of Christian Libertarian Taliban.

Never mind that we just fought a war against the Taliban for 20 years and ended up with a lot more of them having that awkward conversation with God about just how they came to be in His presence prematurely than there were of us.

Seems like a hell of a way to live, but then I like civilization, flush toilets, human rights, the internet and my pets not being part of any backup meal plan.

And I'm here to tell you, I worked with one hell of a lot of young kids at the casino down through the years who were mad as hell at their parents for not teaching them much of anything, whether or not homeschooling was involved.

But in a lot of cases it was, almost always a toxic brew of all the seamy bullshit that's basically become a fucking meme these days thanks to MAGA. Except much of my experience with it was 10-15 years ago before most people heard of this crap. 

For most of the time that I worked at the casino I was part of an informal religious group/sometimes house church that was mostly (but not exclusively) Christian and very often after work on Friday or Saturday mornings we'd all meet up at either my buddy Jack's house or Cranker's (A restaurant that used to be in Mt. Pleasant, MI) and if we went to his house we'd pretty much eat breakfast, smoke weed and then spend the rest of the morning talking Bible and/or current events and stuff like that. It was a pretty diverse little group. Pastor Jack, for example, was Native.

Well, that and there's the times we'd watch YouTube videos of the Harold Camping End Times bullshit or the 2012 madness and just laugh our stoned asses off.

We were always accepting of new people, so we got a lot of younger folks at different times. Because of the nature of surrounding areas (the county next door is hugely puritanical Republican) we got a lot of young people who it was their first job, they'd gone to Christian schools or been homeschooled or they'd simply come from harshly religious, strictly Republican households. A hell of a lot of these kids had basically had that crap beat into them. 

Lots of these young folks were adrift in a world they'd been ill-prepared for, some more or less had to be coached into humanity.

A little money in they pocket, they own place (or having a roommate) a job, some decent food, the herb. Hell, just somebody who was willing to listen and a theological perspective other than hard ass fire and brimstone? 

Yo, we heard some real shit down through the years.

I saw more than one person in that time break down crying, like, wracked with sobs simply because somebody said "I love you" or told them that God loved them, or simply because we listened to what they had to say, or didn't give a damn what color they were or what sexual orientation they were or if they had problems or even if they weren't Christians and didn't want to be.

The leader of our little group eventually left the job, moved down to North Carolina and started a church.

It pretty much got wrecked by Trump Supporters. He wouldn't sell the building to the people who'd caused the problems, either. There's something else where his church used to be. Should add, my buddy voted for Trump in 2016. He voted for Biden in 2020, for the same reason a lot of other people did. He'd only managed to lose pretty much everything because of all this shit, including his religion.

And that makes me sad, because this is literally one of the people who I used to study the Lord's Word with, who helped shape MY theological perspective.

The whole damn point is supposed to be that God is love. If you can't start and stop with that, you're in the wrong business.

These fucking people? This bullshit? All it does is break people, man.

These fucking people pretty much make it so you can't be Christian or "Conservative" enough, and when they wreck your ass or you destroy yourself trying to keep up, they blame it on you and smugly congratulate themselves on their righteousness.

I am, and for a long time have been, tired of all the hate and the rage and the trying to force things on other people.

It's wrong, pure and simple, and I'm tired of it.

I was always big on the separation of church and state even before, Congress Shall Make No Law Regarding The Establishment Of Religion, etc. There was a reason they put that in there.

And like I said, Civis Americanus Sum. We base our country on the Constitution, not the Bible.

And I'm goddamned tired of these people claiming to be Christians or "Conservatives" and then standing up to be counted with the enemies of everything that those beliefs stand for.

I'm tired of these people and their cruel Gunslinger Jesus. If you're one of those people out there screaming "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED..." You and me, we got a problem.

Civis Americanus Sum. Rights come with responsibilities to your fellow humans. Gunslinger Jesus will only be disarmed when enough people are reminded that the Bible says Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Four words, is that so hard?

And I'm done tolerating this shit. 

The question is, why aren't you? 

Four

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When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

~Matthew 25:31-46

It was right here, in the waters around us, where the American experiment began. As the earliest settlers arrived on the shores of Boston and Salem and Plymouth, they dreamed of building a City upon a Hill. And the world watched, waiting to see if this improbable idea called America would succeed. More than half of you represent the very first member of your family to ever attend college. In the most diverse university in all of New England, I look out at a sea of faces that are African-American and Hispanic-American and Asian-American and Arab-American. I see students that have come here from over 100 different countries, believing like those first settlers that they too could find a home in this City on a Hill—that they too could find success in this unlikeliest of places. ~Barack Obama