Foolish Man (American Revelation XVII, Nine.)

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

If any man have an ear, let him hear.

He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he speaks as a dragon.

And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

And deceive them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13, King James Bible.

...

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

I saw this last night.

Trump came right out and said he's going after the vote and he wants to end democracy, that he doesn't want Americans to "Have" to vote anymore. As if Citizenship is some kind of an imposition on the Body Politic. And then the son of a bitch came right out and said that he isn't a Christian, while patronizing Christians and talking to them like they were his property, his little pets or some shit.

Fuck Trump, that motherfucker doesn't deserve to lead shit and he should be in prison, if not dead. In most countries in this world...especially the kind Trump wants to emulate...if you try to overthrow the government you get hanged or shot or even worse, by those already in power.

The Vote is the entire goddamned point of America. If we don't have the Vote, we don't have a country. Without the franchise, there is literally no basis for the United States of America and we will not last. We don't have a common culture, language, religion or anything of the sort. America is an idea, all we have, all we Are, is what we want to be. More to the point, nothing else binds us together except the conviction that we have the right to choose our own fates.

The problem with that is some of us want to be slaves to weird assholes like Donald Trump.

When this country was founded it was a revolutionary project of an unprecedented scale simply for not being beholden to a King and because even some of the population had the right to determine their own fate by voting for their leaders.

And make no mistake about it, the reason Trump is getting away with this bullshit is because in the last week, suddenly Republicans are losing to Democrats again, and the Democrats are now led by Kamala Harris, with the endorsement of both Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

I mean, I'd have voted for a rotten ham sandwich on moldy bread over Trump, but in the last six days I've seen Kamala grow an entire nationwide campaign operation. Hell, to be honest, she'd made the campaign her own and effectively had most of the work done in the first two days or so and not only was I impressed, but I was literally wondering aloud "MY God, who the fuck even does that??"

Meanwhile I saw in the paper yesterday morning that Trump has blown a seven point lead in my state!

For fuck's sake I've been randomly laughing my ass off about Angry Cat Lady memes and [JD Vance] Couch-fucker jokes for the last few days, as well as about how the Harris campaign is highlighting just how goddamned weird MAGA Republicans are.

So yeah, I'm all in for Kamala, and if you don't like it, fuck you.

And what the fuck are the so-called "Christians" doing??

They're being mean to Kamala Harris, while doing and saying more weird stupid shit and following after Trump despite his open contempt for them and their religion, and then they have the nerve to talk stupid about how "Evil" everybody else is. 

Like I keep saying, it's literally anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

It's no wonder these motherfuckers think they can have America without the vote, they've been trying to have Christianity without its own basis for a pretty damned long time, too. Jesus said that the basis of Christianity is twofold; Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy might...and Love Thy Neighbor as thyself.

And it's the latter that Christ placed more emphasis on, saying that all the other laws of the Prophets hang from this one.

And it's clearly not working, because American Christianity has largely morphed into the Cult Of Trump, which is not only clearly hell-bound for that alone, but it seems to be imbued with the Spirit of Antichrist and an obvious test run for the Beast of Revelations.

And because somebody implied...didn't even say, simply implied "I hate [Racial Expletive Deleted]'s" all the sudden it's Not The Mark Of The Beast when it's cosplaying as Right-Wing. Except that yes it is and you're still going to hell.

I mean, what the hell is the difference between Christ-less Christianity and the type of Radical Islam that commits mass murder, does drugs and stomps all over the beliefs of that faith and of mainstream Muslims??

And not only do they not care, that they're shitting all over the Lord's Word and (if you actually believe in it) they're going to face the judgment...they're fine with it as long as they think they're gonna take somebody else down with them!

The reason these fucking people wallow in such soul-crushing atavistic fear all the time is (I think) they know they done fucked up, and they know sooner or later, in this life or the next there's going to be consequences. Either their fellow humans will stop tolerating it, or one way or another the Gods will do the same. But, these assholes think if they can spin up a good enough line of bullshit, they might be able to get out of it somehow, or blame somebody else or something.

Mostly because America has been letting rich white men and shitty little white dude-bros get away with too much, for too long. Guys, if you're Christian, you should know that the Bible explicitly states that neither the Father nor Jesus Christ gives a shit about whatever worldly social status you think you have.

And why should they??

There's going to be a lot of Fuck Around and Find Out going on here, both in this world and the next.

When these assholes lose...and if the Democrats can keep even half of this energy level going for the next four months, they've got this...the Republicans are going to try and start a civil war.

Which they're also going to lose.

Why??

Because these fucking people don't even seem to understand the basis for...well, pretty much anything. I mean how much of a dumb motherfucker do you have to be to not understand that the Vote is the entire basis of the first major modern nation to be a Democracy??

Therefore whosoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

And every one that hears these sayings of mine, and does them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. ~Matthew 7:24-27

I mean who the fuck takes 250 years of the Rock of a broadly functioning liberal democratic government (in fact the prototype for most such modern systems) and replaces that with the shifting sand of Donald Trump and the ennui and vicissitudes of a goddamned mob??

These fucking people act like America wasn't America before Donald Trump slimed his way down that golden escalator, and I'm goddamned tired of this shit!

I get that a lot of people are dumb motherfuckers, but come on!

This is America.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And it's time to get with the program and stand up and be counted on one side or the other.

Pay attention to what I say, because it's going to be on the test.

But the thing with choices, with belief in gods and this and that...is that sooner or later we all have to live with the consequences of our actions and be judged by something greater than ourselves.

When I say the words "American Revelation" this is what I'm talking about. One way or another there WILL be a judgment.

You might be able to bullshit Man, but you can't bullshit God, or the gods, or History or the Universe or whatever the fuck you want to call it. Somebody somewhere knows what you done, and always will.

If there is such a thing as the Creator of the Infinite Universe, it's generally a good idea to assume that He's been around for a long time and has seen it all, and He's probably smarter than you are.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen.

And time's coming where we're all going to have to ante up and kick in.

Слава Україна!

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.  The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same.  And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan

Eight

When I was sixteen I won a great victory. I felt in that moment that I should live to be a hundred, now I know I shall not see thirty. None of us know our end really, or what hand will guide us there. A King may move a man, a father may claim a son. That man can also move himself. And only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that how so ever you are played, or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone. Even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say "but I was told by others to do thusly" or that "virtue was not convenient at the time." This will not suffice. Remember that. ~The Leper King, from the film Kingdom Of Heaven.