Jihad (Bad Faith, Two.)

 [The Mandalorian brings together the entire Mandalorian covert after Carson Teva makes a surprise visit and asks him to help Greef Karga's situation on Nevarro when the New Republic won't lift a finger]

Mando: Now, many of you don't know Greef Karga. And those that do fought against him when you rescued me from his ambush many cycles ago on the streets of Nevarro. Since then, he's had a change of heart and has risked his life to save mine as well as the Foundling in my charge. [Grogu coos] I stand before you to petition an intervention. To help rescue Nevarro before it's too late. I am in no position to ask any more of you. However... However, the enemy that decimated this very covert were Imperials, not Greef Karga's bounty hunters. Greef Karga is now a High Magistrate and has offered me a tract of land on his independent world. Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome. So our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight.

Armorer: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Mando: It's up to them now.

Paz Vizsla: I do. I was there on Nevarro that night. I fought against Greef Karga and his hunters. I saw my brothers and sisters fall at the hands of the Imperial butchers that hunted us in the sewers. I saw many die to save the life of [gestures to Grogu] this one, tiny Foundling. And now we are asked to sacrifice yet again. The question we should be asking ourselves is, "Why? Why should we lay our lives down yet again?" Because we are Mandalorians! I have had my disagreements with this man, but he risked his life to save my son. And Bo-Katan Kryze did not give up on my child's life even when the rest of us did. These two are asking us to take up arms in the name of a brighter future, and I for one will take up arms to fight by their side. [Mandalorians agree] This is the Way!

Mandalorians: This is the Way.

Armorer: This is the Way.

I have a confession to make.

I'm tired of all these "Christian Nationalists" and these MAGA "Christians" who've never once had to deal with so much as a minor inconvenience because of their alleged faith or their political beliefs claiming how "persecuted" and put-upon they are...mostly because society acknowledges that other people exist, or something. 

Fuck these motherfuckers, I'm tired of this bullshit.

The rest of the world has better things to do than sit around and feed your narcissism, and I'm not sorry for pointing it out, fuck you.

Like, do you fuckers even understand what "Taking up arms" even means??

I'm a veteran. Being in a profession of arms isn't all macho shit and shooting people. It's discipline and endless, rote training, sweating in the sun, then after-action reviews of the training so you know what to do better next time. It's having to give a shit and do shit right the first time, or you might not get to come back, It's all that, plus all the same type of shit you'd have to deal with in most other jobs.

But ya know, I'm going to guess these fucking people don't think "taking up arms" involves classroom training on the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and Federal and International Law concerning the conduct of combatants in the battlespace or on things like counterinsurgency, terrorism and war crimes.

Or that I learned this kind of stuff 30 years ago, as a young conservative Republican Air Force recruit and then as an Airman in tech school, long before words like "Woke" in its current usage, were even thought of in those terms.

And it needs to be said, that the actual art of War has changed dramatically over the intervening 30 years or so.

Shit, it's changed in the last five years, the last five months, even.

Like, nowadays, the enemy can waste your ass without putting themselves at risk even a little...it's not just a matter of missiles and various other stand-off munitions anymore. Oh, hell no. 

It's that the launch platform itself is very likely a drone, that could be controlled by an operator sitting in an air-conditioned control station at Battle Creek Air National Guard Base, Naval Air Station Sigonella, RAF Waddington or at some dusty FOB in the middle of the Iraqi desert...and they aren't even anywhere near you, but you're still hiding from their Hellfires. Imagine that, if you can...or even want to.

We've all had front-row seats to how this has changed war...if you've even close to been following the war in Ukraine, that is. Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 drones were the star of the conflict, initially, earning a place in the annals of war every bit as legendary as that of the F-4 Phantom II during Vietnam. 

But then, the Russians caught up, mostly by using Iranian Shahed precision-guided munitions drones, and now a hell of a lot of the war basically consists of these two armies lobbing drones and long-range fires at each other with armor and infantry trying to duke it out while keeping a low profile from those ever-present eyes-in-the-sky.

With not much more than Javelin missiles at first, the Ukrainians basically ate Ivan's lunch right in front of him and there wasn't shit that old Vlad's Red Army 2.0 could even do about it. Then they got HIMARS, now...the Ukrainians have at least small amounts of damned near all the same shit we have already...or they're about to be fielding it and if they stole Putin's lunch money with a goddamn Javelin missile launcher and a shipment of M4 Carbines, I really wanna see what the Ukrainians can do with a few F-16 Fighting Falcons. But the truth is, more than half the shit we're sending over there is completely outdated...and I'm talking all type of shit that was state-of-the-goddamned-art back when I served. 

Like you wouldn't even think of fighting a major war without JSTARS aircraft letting you know where everything was on the ground for endless klicks around, now those aircraft are being retired because they're completely outdated, replaced by drones, ground radar, satellites and various vehicle-onboard systems that do the same thing, but cheaper and smaller. You don't need a big aircraft with its own crew and this and that, when the gunner in your track can just look at a tablet Bluetooth-ed into the vehicle's onboard system and get the same information without having to call some Air Force aircraft on the radio and wait for the controllers to hunt up your exact coordinates and tactical situation.

War, like everything else these days, is change.

You don't have to like it, it's simply a fact.

And I'm disinclined to think the same fucking people whose entire bit is fear and hatred of change and whose whole idea of how a "society" should function is that it should be centered on them rather than using all of its people, tools and talents as they are available and needed no matter who may possess them. 

There's nothing "special" about being a White, Conservative Christian male as far as something basic like firing a weapon is concerned. A Black dude who's a Muslim can do it just as well as a Pacific Islander who's a Fundamentalist Christian but also happens to be a gay guy can, maybe they can even do it a little better depending on how they respond to proper training, what if it's the white redneck who's gotta bust ass to keep up, and what if it's a tough, scrappy Jewish woman who's leading the training?? 

Blood and Soil and religion and skin color are shitty things to base your life on, and out there in the dark and dangerous corners of the world that shit can get you killed, by people who are doing the same shit...but at least they're doing it in their own countries, very often the same ways they've been doing it since before America was even America.

So why the fuck do we even think we're special? (Or, in the thought processes of both far-right and far-left it seems, meriting particular scorn?)

The thing about exceptionalism, in either a positive or negative sense, is you have to actually be exceptional, otherwise it's just narcissim.

Likewise, White "Conservative" Christians don't have any special insight into Government, any religion or any sense of the human condition outside of their own, or anything the fuck else...and there's a reason the Founders of this country decided to separate all that shit out per the Constitution, while I'm at it.

Because they knew Creationists, fanatics, political arsonists and religious nuts don't look to the future, much less plan on building a future we can all live in, or defending that vision from all enemies, foreign and domestic...and they knew from their own politics that Power and Wealth do not make people leaders by themselves, much less make anybody righteous or even trustworthy.

And that's why We, The People, are specifically enumerated in the Constitution as the source of Power, those who govern America do so only with our consent. That's why we get a place, and religion doesn't. 

America was founded on Democracy, not Christianity.

And don't you dare forget that.

Tell me, for real...what's even the difference between this Christian Nationalist shit, and the Jihads of Radical Islam??

I'll wait.

Слава Україна!

Then Jesus spoke to the multitude, and to his disciples,

Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,

And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,

And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.

But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. ~Matthew 23:1-15

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"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press