Love Outlasts Death (American Judgment Day II, Five.)

[Caprica-Cavil and Galactica-Cavil are in an airlock, about to be executed]

Caprica-Cavil: Is there a Resurrection Ship within range?

Galactica-Cavil: Yes, brother. But first we're gonna die in a vacuum.

Caprica-Cavil: There's a 170 foot long launch tube in front of us. We might die of our injuries before we get to the vacuum.

Galactica-Cavil: I don't like you.

Caprica-Cavil: I understand that.

Galactica-Cavil: Do you really believe it was a mistake to attack the humans?

Caprica-Cavil: Rather intensely, yes.

Galactica-Cavil: You know that when we download amongst the others your strange ideas will be shouted down.

Caprica-Cavil: Ideas always seem strange until you try them on, brother. We had a temper-tantrum in the form of a cataclysm because we wanted them to treasure us, the Ones, more than humanity. More than their own history and blood.

Galactica-Cavil: We didn't want to be loved. We wanted to be treated fairly.

Caprica-Cavil: We wanted to be held to a bosom. To be petted and perfumed and told we were the princes of the universe.

Galactica-Cavil: Yes, well if the humans were gone-

Caprica-Cavil: Our parents would mourn them. They'd love them more anyway.

Galactica-Cavil: I'm going to see to it that you get boxed. And then I'm going to prepare to wipe out humanity once and for all.

Caprica-Cavil: The anticipation is very unpleasant.

Galactica-Cavil: Yes.

[Caprica-Cavil offers his hand, Galactica-Cavil looks at it and accepts it. Galactica-Cavil closes his eyes while Caprica-Cavil keeps looking. They are then airlocked.]

~From Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

...

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

...

Cassian Andor: What? To steal from the Empire, what do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands, and an Imperial toolkit. They’re so proud of themselves, they don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it…

Luthen Rael: Can’t imagine what?

Andor: That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear.

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1, E2 "That would be me."

I saw this in the small hours of the morning, a bunch of half-dressed women dancing for the "men" at Mar-a-Lago.

And, apparently, if you're not some kind of rich Christian Nationalist motherfucker, These same damned debased Fucking People want to take your kids and place them with "proper" parents.

Of course, they seem to "lose" a certain percentage of the kids to sex-trafficking networks pretty much every time somebody tries this kind of shit. Yes, that appears to be on purpose because these fucking people are criminals and monsters.

I'm a just say this right now; Over My Dead Body, and I'm 1000% sure my Partner would say the same thing, and say it with rifle in hand.

As I've said before, she's a mid-conservative, anti-Trump, she busts her ass and has a professional job (which is also why she's 3 hours away because that's where she found a job in her field, which obviously beats the shit out of working at Walmart.

And guess what?? Even with SNAP (which is currently paused) she still needs my help quite often, and I gladly give it, because that's what friends, lovers, partners etc. are supposed to do. And I know she needs me to back her up and tell her we'll get through this.

People should not have to regard their own government as a threat. The conservative in me says the State should be constrained so as to not have that kind of power.

More to the point, people ought to govern themselves and their own behaviors and impulses, such is the freaking basis of things like civilization and democracy.

It's on that basis alone that JD Vance and Erika Kirk being all over each other in front of a crowd pisses me the fuck off. Why does dude have a wife then?? As an ego trip?? Does dude's Word mean nothing??

Like, to me, why would you even want to have sex with somebody if you don't at least like them, or more preferably love them?? Let alone why would you get married to somebody you don't care for?? If you don't love somebody, if love is not transcendent and is subject exclusively to ego or ideology...what's the damned point??

(And by the way, I've always been this way.)

More than that...Being a parent (or hell, dating somebody who has kids) is a huge responsibility, and takes it to another level because suddenly you're a stakeholder in the Future whether you asked to be or not. Yo, this ain't my first rodeo that way. That other person in your life is not an ornament or a toy nor is anybody they bring with them be it kids or other family members or even pets.

Love Outlasts Death.

Seized by God, they cry for succor in the dark of the light. Mists of dreams dribble on the nascent echo and love no more. Jump! Counting down. All functions nominal. All functions optimal. Counting down. The center holds. The falcon hears the falconer. Infrastructure, check. Wetware, check. Everyone hang on to the life bar, please. Apotheosis was the beginning before the beginning. Devices on alert. Observe the procedures of a general alert. The base and the pinnacle. The flower inside the fruit that is both its parent and its child. Decadent as ancestors. The portal and that which passes. Nuclear devices activated, and the machine keeps pushing time through the cogs, like paste into strings into paste again, and only the machine keeps using time to make time to make time. And when the machine stops, time was an illusion that we created free will. Twelve battles, three stars, and yet we are countless as the bodies in which we dwell, are both parent and infinite children in perfect copies. No degradation. The makers of the makers fall before the child. Accessing defense system. Handshake, handshake. Second level clear. Accepting scan. Love outlasts death. Their ships fail. Skittering like skipped stones. Meaningless in the absence of time. What never was is never again. Progress reports arriving. The farms of Aerolon are burning. The beaches of Canceron are burning. The plains of Leonis are burning. The jungles of Scorpia are burning. The pastures of Tauron are burning. The harbors of Picon are burning. The cities of Caprica are burning. The oceans of Aquaria are burning. The courthouses of Libran are burning. The forests of Virgon are burning. The Colonies of Man lie trampled at our feet. 

~The Hybrid, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, narration of the Cylon attack on the Colonies.

Just for the record, over time the 2003 reimagined Battlestar Galactica series gradually makes the point that Colonial society was pretty debauched and the Cylons were not entirely unjustified in destroying so much of it.

Spirituality and the tensions of atheism vs. belief, monotheism vs. polytheism and of love vs. vengeance are consistent themes of the series in its various incarnations...culturally in the backdrop of post-9/11 and the Global War on Terror...but I digress.

Perhaps more to the point, if Love does not outlast Death...what's the point of anything??

Isn't that even, in a sense, the core message of Christianity??

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. ~John 3:16

I don't even know why I should have to say this about or to any grown-ass adult person.

Let alone anybody who's a Christian or says they are!

More to the point this has been a conservative point of view. Or at least it's what I was taught that was.

Other people do not exist simply for your aggrandizement or entertainment, they exist and should be treated like...people.

Why is this hard??

Cuz I sure wasn't taught that it was!

I mean, I get that we're in the middle of a Biblical-level Plague of Narcissists, but come the fuck on!

But seriously, America needs to stop blowing the goddamn narcissist, he doesn't even appreciate it anyway.

How the hell is any of this shit acceptable in any way??

Why are a bunch of supposedly-Christian Republicans partying it up like debauched Roman patricians and senators getting so drunk and overfed that they get sick??

'Cause this ain't what I was taught.

While SNAP is on pause and the only reasons things aren't worse for my partner is my help and the fact that she shot a deer with her crossbow last night??

I'm afraid to even think about what this is like for people who don't have our resources (small as they might be) or skills or shared commitment to each other.

And I used to be a conservative Christian Republican, I'm a veteran, I've contributed to this country and this situation in ways good and bad myself and gone on record saying exactly that.

People are already suffering, and rich Republicans think it's some kind of big flex that they be seen partying it up with a bunch of dancing girls and shit?? 

Somehow I don't think that'll work out the way they think it will or be the big flex that they think it is.

And if you want to make this stop?? Yes, it's probably going to come down to a fight sooner or later.

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

So get after it.

Stand up and fight.

Because guess what??

Even if you don't, they are gonna come after you, so you might as well do something about it.

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

Four

I don't preach a social Gospel I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread. ~Archbishop Desmond Tutu.