Waxing Cold (Kingdom Of Heaven, Three.)

 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso reads, let him understand:)

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

Behold, I have told you before.

Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:1-27

So Charlie Kirk got assassinated today in Utah.

I wish I could say I give a shit.

But the truth is, I don't.

I don't know if I like that, but that is what is true.

In fact, my only thoughts at all are "Who's next?" and "When does this crap start to spill over into a general armed conflict?"

Because that's what's coming.

Why?? Because These Fucking People, these "Conservatives" cannot wait to shoot or stab somebody in church. They literally seem to think they're gonna shoot or stab their way into the Kingdom Of Heaven.

And they treat that shit like it's a game, a joke, some camgirl flashing her boobs on a cheap porn website or something.

But it's worse than that, there's people out there, accelerationists and hardcore white supremacists and other sociopaths who'd just as soon kill These Fucking People along with all the rest of us.

I've known that for over 30 years, everybody saw that shit live on the news during COVID-19. I wrote extensively about it at the time.

This is the world that people like Charlie Kirk, Charlton Heston an the goddamn NRA fucking spent the last generation and billions of dollars creating, fully enabled by the Republican Party and too much of American Evangelical Christianity.

And note I say that as former Republican, as a gun guy and as a veteran.

These fucking people are going to cause America to fall apart like the Soviet Union and the East Bloc did...but there will be places that are basically an American version of the Yugoslav Wars.

Note I saw shit in Bosnia I still can't scrub out of my brain.

That doesn't seem to bother America's wannabe Serbs, though. Those Fucking People just aren't thinking.

But in the end, a lot of them will end up dead, same as all the rest of us.

You know what's worse??

It's all deception, on the level of Biblical-grade Evil...and too often it's obviously and transparently that, but pointing that shit out does no good when These Fucking People want to be deceived!

Worse, all too often they don't actually care what happens to them because of it...so long as they get to see somebody else suffer first. I mean, that's been the promise of MAGA all along, get to have your boot on somebody else's throat for a minute before you die a horrible death!

It sucks when anybody gets shot, even an asshole like Charlie Kirk, but it only gets worse when you need an accounting firm to keep track of all the bodies.

Last I checked, Dead is still just Dead, and there is no relative status in Death.

Can't tell some fucking people anything, though.

And honestly, I'll save my sympathy for the people who have to suffer from this bullshit rather than those who inflict it.

And Charlie Kirk was definitely one of the latter.

 

If we want to stop this shit, it's going to come down to a fight, a fight that I worry will look more and more like The Walking Dead (but without the Zombies) every day, a general melee where guess what? America doesn't end up 50 little countries, but more like atomizes into like 500...most of them weird little fiefdoms whose armies have only IED's, rifles and technical trucks, maybe a few machine guns on the high end, until those get hoovered up by bigger states. 

That's likely a long and bloody process that'll kill millions more people.

And the people responsible for this shit don't care.

They're just looking to profit from cruelty and mass death.

They don't care if it's Charlie Kirk or Carlos the farm laborer.

I said what I said, a lot of crocodile tears will be shed, but at the end of the day nobody on his own side gives a fuck about Charlie Kirk.

I don't either, not out of cruelty but because I'm tired of this shit...which guys like Kirk enabled, in his particular case, right up to the end.

You either believe in freedom or you don't. You either believe in civilization or you don't.

It really is that simple.

Matthew chapter 24 says "The love of many shall wax cold." I hate to tell you, but I think that ship's done sailed, we're already waxed.

Prepare yourself.

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We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

Two

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.

The Believers (Kingdom Of Heaven, Two.)

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

...

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. ~Hunter S. Thompson

...

We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

Last week, Trump posted a fake AI image of himself as Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse Now, basically trying to "Declare War" on Chicago.

Meanwhile, Paula White is literally trying to say that Trump is God.

Because Anything but Love Thy Neighbor and Anything but America has now apparently morphed into Anything but Jesus Is Lord, too.

Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that they've found themselves a secular "Savior" that they like better than Jesus.

Yeah, I have a church background, you wanna know how that's gonna work out according to what the Lord's Word says?? 

It ends with a lot of people having a spectacularly warm afterlife and wondering what the fuck happened.

I'm not saying that to be mean, I'm saying that because it's what I read.

You either believe in this stuff or you don't, and this is the fruit of too much Convenience Christianity.

But this isn't Christianity, not even the cafeteria convenience kind. 

It's narcissism dressed up as religion.

This is how you go to Hell, and look like a fool while you're doing it.

Meanwhile, while America jerks off and does stupid racist shit, Russia attacked Poland yesterday.

This is how These Fucking People attempt to drag a lot of innocent people off to Hell with them.

Should note that Poland is one of the most Catholic...and thus most Christianized...countries in the world.

Yet in this, American "Conservatives" will end up firmly on the side of Vladimir Putin.

And not on the side of our Christian, mostly small-c conservative Polish allies...who are actually cool as fuck and fun to drink with and shit. I know this from when I was an Airman.

And that's wrong and it sucks.

But whoever Putin attacks, and whoever Trump shit-talks, MAGA's hate.

Which would also be true if Russia had attacked America. Doesn't matter if it's Red State America or Blue State America where the bombs or the drones hit.

The goalposts are infinitely moveable. 

You think These Fucking People wouldn't throw Texas under the bus??

Oh hell yes they would.

Yeah, I said what I said.

All that matters to these fucking people is having someone to Hate, the Power of rich white men, and some masturbatory fantasy of War as State policy.

Worse, these same assholes will call that shit Christianity too, and they'll do it with a straight face.

[after Burke is revealed as the one who set the face-huggers loose on Ripley and Newt]

Hudson: [aiming his rifle at Burke] I say we grease this rat fuck-son-of-a-bitch right now!

Hicks: It just doesn't make any goddamn sense.

Ripley: He figured he could get the alien past the quarantine if one of us was... impregnated - whatever you call it - and frozen for the way home. Nobody would know about the embryos we're carrying. Me and Newt.

Hicks: Wait a minute. We would all know.

Ripley: Yes, the only way he could do it is if he sabotaged certain freezers on the way home. Namely, yours. Then he could jettison the bodies and make up any story he would like to.

Hudson: Fuck! He's dead! [aims his rifle at Burke again] You're dogmeat, pal!

Burke: This is so nuts. I mean listen... listen to what you're saying. It's all paranoid delusion. It's really sad. It's pathetic.

Ripley: You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over a goddamn percentage.

~From the film Aliens.

And the thing about it, is that there's absolutely fucking people out there who are worse than that and Trump keeps either deliberately, negligently or both, stroking them off too.

Whether it's various sorts of accelerationists, corporate greed-heads, racist supremacists or religious fanatics (and it doesn't really matter what religion or form of supremacism it is, just so it's destructive, at least to the average person)

While all these rich MAGA's are partying it up like First Class passengers on the Titanic...like the guy in the top hat literally asking for a brandy as the ship sinks.

Yes these fucking people are that short-sighted.

Stop and think about that for a second.

And note that they'll call that short-sighted stupidity "Christianity" as well.

Call it too much instant gratification for too long, people got too comfortable, and there's always just plain old nihilism.

None of those by themselves, or (increasingly) even all together suffice to explain all this crap.

These clowns are trying to burn everything down all at once, for their own profit, while partying it up.

(Including the land they're standing on.)

They quite literally think the Accelerationist religious fanatics and Accelerationist white supremacists aren't gonna try to burn them down, too.

But the truth is, I think a lot of this mess is just the debased ennui of people who've had it way too good for way too long and they can't even imagine that anything could ever be any other way.

But it actually is even worse.

These fucking people think they have a right to live high off the hog while hurting other people for no reason.

And I'm here to tell you that all the Holy Books, not just the Bible, have a hell of a lot to say about what will happen to such people in Eternity...and very often, in this life as well.

Nobody...and I mean NOBODY...acts more like the Bible and all the other Holy Books are crap and they *Know* there is no God than rich American alleged-Evangelical Christians do.

And then it ends up falling to regular people to defend even basic principles and common humanity, because of course we're the ones getting most fucked over by this shit.

And one hell of a lot of so-called "Christians" will gladly try to kill us in the name of an oligarchy that doesn't give a shit about them, either.

Because all they really care about is being part of some bullshit hierarchy and having somebody be lower than them. Functionally, Slavery is the only thing they believe in...although some of them (Charlie Kirk for example) really get a hard-on off of "ideas" of incarceration and punishment.

But when push comes to shove they'd be the damn slaves if they had to, just to perpetuate the idea of Slavery.

And yeah, I blame religion...or at least religiosity...for that too.

Because for far too many people it's not about "He came to set the captives free."

It's about seeing how many captives they can take for themselves, and then justifying having them and treating them however poorly they desire to.

Yeah, I get it, a lot of my life experience has taught me that a lot of people are scumbags.

But the literal point of religion is you're supposed to try to rise above all that crap.

Trouble is some people just don't want to.

So now they're trying to sacralize their own Sin and call it Holiness.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

I wish I could tell you something other than "This is going to come down to a fight" but I can't.

Not if you want to survive, anyway.

But I know what happens to their False Christs.

It's their fault that they didn't pay enough attention to see that for themselves.

There's nothing wrong with being a Believer.

But you have to make sure that what you believe in is actually what's Right, too.

And that's the damn problem. So many people were so desperate for something to believe in, they accepted Trump.

I don't think God is gonna let that slide.

But it's not He who denies them the Kingdom of Heaven.

They've done that to their own damn selves, they have chosen separation from God.

That's the Point.

What's worse is they thought they were gonna get something out of it.

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27

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Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!  

Daniel Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.

Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. That’s wonderful.

Daniel Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.

Eli Sunday: All right.

Daniel Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet. I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet, and that God is a superstition.

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

One

Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them?

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

Repent! (Kingdom Of Heaven, One.)

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple,

And said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

And said unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Then said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Then the devil left him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee;

And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim:

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,

The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles;

The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.

And he said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

And they straightway left their nets, and followed him. ~Matthew 4:1-18

...

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.

I saw this yesterday.

Apparently, Trump either thinks he's going to buy his way into Heaven or he's simply aping the Prosperity Gospel preachers in grifting the "Flock" getting them to think something along those lines so he can simply steal from them.

Or he thinks one "good" deed will somehow get him in the door.

No, none of this works that way. I was taught this isn't a negotiation. We're all going to die, and what happens past that point is beyond your control no matter what religion you profess.

I'm not much of one for writing Christian apologetics, but it happens occasionally.

In this particular case, the words "Repent, for the Kingdom Of Heaven is at hand!" sprang unbidden into my mind. I have a church background, even though I'm not a Born-Again anything anymore, it happens.

The cost of Eternity in a Christian context is simple, and also plainly spelled out. It costs nothing in monetary terms or physical labor...but I'm assuming, at least for some people, it's grievously wounding to the ego.

If you can't or won't Repent and call Jesus your Lord, in the Christian context you're not going to Heaven. I mean, those are the only requirements...

Which of course, is the point. 

I mean, logic dictates there has to be a way to weed out the people who won't even do the most basic requirements, yes??  You ain't gotta be rich or white.

Like, if you're not willing to repent, if you're not sorry for your Sins, if you're not willing to accept the idea that there is a greater Power in the Universe than your Self, why the fuck even bother??

What the fuck are we even doing here, America??

About the only thing that pisses me off more about These Fucking People than their endless hubris, is of course their endless bigotry, because while I'm about the most Male and Whitest damn person possible short of one being grown in a lab as some kind of test case, somehow I'M not "White" enough for these goddamned idiotic motherfuckers and I never have been.

Or maybe I just wasn't born rich or both dumb enough to be a bigoted douchebag and willing to stay that way?? 

I mean, from getting a basic Christian education to transferring to public schools, to getting a job, then serving in the military, processing that experience and how it ended badly and dealing with addiction (a process that has remained ongoing throughout my life) then working in a completely different field for another 25 years until I got tired of that...and even in my current job, I've never been in a position where I could just *Not* learn anything.

So yeah, The Fuck if I know.

Or maybe I just think women are people and should be treated accordingly? I mean, all my life, most of the women I know either work or have done so, and they fill lots of other roles besides being simple breeding stock for people like *Checks Notes* Elon Musk, who strikes me as being somebody who would probably be completely un-fuckable if he wasn't super-rich. 

Actually, strike that, he's completely un-fuckable anyway, there's just lots of people with low standards out there.

All I know is if I got caught talking this way by assorted people in my life, I'd probably get fired from my job, get my ass kicked several times and my girlfriend would break up with me. But then, most of the people I associate with have standards.

Like...here we have Elon Musk and some other dude I've never heard of bitching about "Foreigners" in the UK. Uh, Muskie, you're a foreigner in the UK last time I checked!

And I'm here to tell you some Jamaican dude working as a dishwasher at the local Pub or some Pakistani lady stocking shelves at the local Aldi's are contributing way the fuck more to UK society than Elon Musk and his brand of Apartheid-inflected vulture capitalism does.

I mean, really, the UK wouldn't be shit now if it wasn't for all the "foreign" influences they hoovered up back when it was the British Empire and all that, yo.

It's real hard to be an Empire without cultural and social exchange both happening and going both ways. If you can't hold out the hope that the people you're ruling over will be full citizens and shit at some point you're going to lose control eventually. That's just a fact of life.

Thankfully, the average British person who isn't some kind of far-right weirdo seems to know this most of the time.

I'm tired of this nonsense, not least that somebody named "Gad Saad" (Checks Notes: NOT an Anglo name!) Thinks he's gonna threaten UK government officials with execution??

On what authority there, homie??

Surely you don't mean that of "Whiteness" cuz any "Whiteness" you think you have is pretty much instantly revocable the second somebody who can convince the mob that they have more of it says they don't like you. I mean technically the same goes for Elon Musk and I'll note that since he got crossways of Trump over the Epstein files, now he's moved on to trying to fuck with UK politics??

Yeah, when even MAGA (itself turning into the disliked racist uncle of political philosophies) doesn't like you?? 

It might be time to consider doing something else with your life??

I get that These Fucking People are stupid,don't know dick about anything and are both Godless in the literally Biblical sense of that word and are also totally high on their own supply.

I don't know if they're just that stupid or if they actually think they're going to bullshit God or buy Him off or some bullshit.

But the fact is, if that last is true then what's the difference between going to Heaven or going to Hell??

And if they're there, what's the damn difference anyway??

Who the fuck wants to spend Eternity with these goddamned morons??

Again, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

And Truth is the only thing that gives most people a floor to even stand on to push back against these motherfuckers.

And you're either willing to fight for this stuff or you're not.

So either get after it, or be prepared to put up with these assholes and their bullshit games forever, because the truth is, their idea of "Heaven" is eternally playing fuck-fuck games with your life.

Personally, I'm sick of this bullshit. I'm sick of these fucking people.

Why aren't you??

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

Last Post

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

Q-Berty, Again (American Revelation XXI, Ten.)

[In the Preox-Morlana planet of Morlana One, Deputy Inspector Syril Karn is confused his superior won't open an investigation into the murder of two Pre-Mor officers]

Chief Inspector Hyne: Tough case. Bad timing.

Syril Karn: I'm sure that in several days, with the proper resources, I can bring this case to a-

Hyne: Stop! And I don't just mean the talking. I mean stop. [closes his office door] This case appears to bear all the hallmarks of what I like to describe as regrettable misadventure.

Karn: Sir?

Hyne: Two dedicated Pre-Mor employees caught in the sad orbit of a rare calamity.

Karn: I don't understand.

Hyne: I want you to conjure a suitable accident, and let's make sure it's on the far side of the plaza. Let's get it outside the Leisure Zone.

Karn: But they were murdered!

Hyne: No, they weren't. They were killed in a fight. They were in a brothel, which we're not supposed to have. The expensive one, which they shouldn't be able to afford. Drinking Revnog, which we're not supposed to allow. Both of them supposedly on the job, which is a dismissible offense. They clearly harassed a human with dark features and chose the wrong person to annoy. I suspect they died rushing to aid someone in distress. Nothing too heroic. We don't need a parade. They died being helpful. Something sad but inspiring in a mundane sort of way. [regards Karn] You look stricken, Deputy Inspector. Are you absorbing my meaning here?

Karn: Trying to, sir.

Hyne: When I said bad timing, I wasn't referring to the fact you spent all night worrying this. I mean that I am on my way this very morning to an Imperial Regional Command review, where I'll be asked to make a report about our crime rates, and the goal of that speech, should you ever be asked to deliver it, is brevity. Minimizing the time the Empire spends thinking about Preox-Morlana benefits our superiors and, by extension, everyone here at the Pre-Mor Security Inspection team, which at the moment includes you. [dons his coat, picks up his briefcase and moves to leave] Don't put your feet on my desk in my absence, and let's have an accident report waiting when I get back.

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E1 "Kassa."

...

We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

...

Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!  

Daniel Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.

Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. That’s wonderful.

Daniel Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.

Eli Sunday: All right.

Daniel Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet. I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet, and that God is a superstition.

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

I wasn't going to write anything today, among other things it's fucking Labor Day weekend and I'm working five nights in a row.

But then last night, I saw this bullshit.

Somebody's trying to bring back the Q-Anon bullshit except now they're calling it "Q+" or something. No, Google has not caught up with whatever that means and I don't want to know bad enough to go looking for it.

Whatever it is? Apparently the "World" is supposed to just "Understand" when Trump burns it down??

Something tells me it's not going to work out like that, just sayin.'

All this conspiracy theory and racist crap is, and that the entire Trump thing as it's become is...it's a distraction, a circus act dog-and-pony show while Republicans disrespect the American people, crap all over America itself, and loot the country of everything they can before Trump dies and they have to face the goddamn consequences of this Godless bullshit.

And because Trump's health appears to be failing, this shit is ramping up into overdrive and they're literally trying to set it up so that when he goes, the whole damn country comes flying apart, because they can't win if they have to face all of us.

All that all of this crap is, all that any of this crap is...is a shield to hide Republican corruption or failing that, escape consequences.

And what with the Epstein list being out there, they know that shield is wearing thin.

And I'm here to tell you, we wouldn't be here with this shit if the Church hadn't tolerated all type of child abuse and conspiracy theory crap and Spiritualist idiocy basically forever. I (unfortunately) do happen to be aware of the books from which Jack Posobiec got his uh, "Theology." 

When I read part of one of them, I was a devout conservative (if pretty mainstream) Baptist and...to put it in the vernacular of the specific time in which I was doing this, also because the subject of the books kept coming up in the Men's Group I was helping to run at the time...it had about as much bearing on actual Christianity or sound Doctrine thereof as the ever-present bullshit TV commercials for "Miss Cleo" (a fortune-teller with a fake Jamaican accent that was kind of all over the place in the late 1990's) did.

This stuff, written back in the 1980's by a guy named Frank Peretti in a series of books loosely called "This Present Darkness" postulates a world in which every damn little thing could be or was influenced by prayer, and everybody had hordes of angels or devils around them and if you prayed hard enough could determine (for example) something as simple as if your car would start or not.

Me, as a 24 year old Baptist pretty much did a good impression of my "Glares Bumboclaatically" meme that I still use on occasion, when I saw that.

No, none of this works like that. In the real world, even as a much more religious person then, than what I am now, I knew (from experience) that short of (usually human) misconduct, real interactions with the spiritual realm (at least as far as Christianity is concerned) are...and should be...fairly rare. We do not all have little angels or little devils sitting on our shoulders. Humans have moral agency, this shit should be self-explanatory to anybody with the least bit of grounding in the Abrahamic faiths or modern science or Western culture and that list goes on.

What people like that term as "Prayer" or "Religion" is basically Sorcery in Biblical terms, trying to use spiritual powers to manipulate the Universe, and it's a Sin for a reason.

They don't believe in or want Jesus, these fucking people want to have Magic powers that they can lord over other folks and it really is that simple.

I get that a lot of White American Dipshits thirst after living in some kind of magical world, because they're bored with the banalities of modern life and this, that and the other thing. I've also known people...mostly Arabs, Black Africans and Native Americans who come from traditional cultures and also accept beliefs like Christianity, Islam or for that matter secular Americanism and they ALL #1 Have to make all that stuff fit together and #2 Live in a world infinitely more complex and (to them, anyway) sometimes dangerous than the mostly bland self-constructed big-box world of White American Evangelical Idiot Consumerism and its bullshit-ass Prosperity Gospel religion.

And I've seen enough to know that there's something to Traditional stuff and it's not something to fuck around with, where on the other hand if some dopey Pentecostal author or preacher or secular right-wing conspiracy nut predicts a bunch of things that do not come to pass, within a couple weeks everybody forgets about it and it's a normal day (at least for everybody but them. Maybe.)

The problem is that the hate all this crap has generated and continues to manufacture is going to eat this country up, soon.

And no, the world will not understand nor will the rest of us Americans who aren't like this and who will have to clean up the goddamn mess one way or the other.

Freedom and liberty require some kind of belief in Truth and engagement with the real world, as well as acting with a degree of rationality and self-interest.

Trumpian Q-Berty? Well, apparently you can believe whatever bullshit you want, or something as long as Trump is your "god." Apparently what with a bunch of people thinking that Trump was gonna die over the weekend, now some of the Q-Nuts are trying to say Trump will just "Ascend to Heaven" or some shit like that. No, bro, you're in a cult. You're being manipulated. Worse, you seem to want to be.

Slavery sucks, whether it's enforced with chains and whips or simple cultic groupthink. 

I don't give a damn.

MAGA and Q-Anon and all that shit is spiritual bondage, and apparently These Fucking People will say literally anything to stay in it.

I wasn't taught that way. My God has never asked me to burn the world for its narcissism. My religious education was mainly about making sure I picked up a "Christian" idea or two and that such things stuck.

That's why Fundamentalism and various other forms of NO, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY!!! Don't. Work. The second there's nobody standing there with a big stick or a notice of Excommunication to enforce whatever "THIS WAY!!" is, most people just wander off and do what they want.

Because the odds are, nobody really wanted to act that way in the first place, they was just crowd-followers and dumb people who got caught up in something.

Part of Freedom on a society level is keeping Fascists, Grifters and Scammers under control and away from hurting too many people like that, just sayin.' Societal standards matter.

And when it comes to the balance between collective and individual rights, all far too many of These Fucking People care about is using "Individual Rights" as a stick to beat the rights of the vast majority of the populace into a pulp.

And that's true whether it's LGBT rights, the rights of People Of Color, Women's rights or even the basic human rights of the average White Christian American Idiot. 

These people don't give a fuck, and the only "Right" they want is the "Right" to kill and steal, because they'd rather do that than live.

And since "Jesus Is Coming" has stopped working for most people...because way too many people simply don't have enough actual faith to believe in a God they can't see...now they're using Trump to point to and say "He Is Coming" then pick your pocket and bash your head in when you ain't looking. When they say "Behold, he is in the desert!" Go not forth.

Like I keep saying, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

Make your choice.

Слава Україна!

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27

Nine

[after Burke is revealed as the one who set the face-huggers loose on Ripley and Newt]

Hudson: [aiming his rifle at Burke] I say we grease this rat fuck-son-of-a-bitch right now!

Hicks: It just doesn't make any goddamn sense.

Ripley: He figured he could get the alien past the quarantine if one of us was... impregnated - whatever you call it - and frozen for the way home. Nobody would know about the embryos we're carrying. Me and Newt.

Hicks: Wait a minute. We would all know.

Ripley: Yes, the only way he could do it is if he sabotaged certain freezers on the way home. Namely, yours. Then he could jettison the bodies and make up any story he would like to.

Hudson: Fuck! He's dead! [aims his rifle at Burke again] You're dogmeat, pal!

Burke: This is so nuts. I mean listen... listen to what you're saying. It's all paranoid delusion. It's really sad. It's pathetic.

Ripley: You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over a goddamn percentage.

~From the film Aliens.