You Gotta Want To Be Saved (Babylon, Four.)

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

...

In Oz, the guards lock the cages and walk away, and the predators rise, take control and make the rules. But in Em City, the guards are with us 24 hours a day. There's no privacy. Everybody sees what everybody's doing. Eyes everywhere. McManus' eyes. See, in Em City, retribution gives way to redemption. Timmy boy believes he can save every one of us, from each other, from ourselves, from the system that dumped us in here. Only thing he don't get is, you gotta want to be saved. ~Augustus Hill, From the HBO series Oz, S1.E1 "The Routine."

...

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

I saw this last night.

Erika Kirk, telling people to "Make church on Sunday special" so they can "Prepare for battle" the rest of the week.

No.

I did the church thing for most of my life.

You're not going to war, you're there to worship God. By definition, the Sabbath is not about you.

But then, I guess if you're taking religious advice from Erika, Patron Saint of the Leather Hot Pants, you probably deserve what you're gonna get at this point.

And if that sounds mean, too bad. I used to be a Republican back when they had standards. 

I got out when they dropped those standards below what I deemed to be an acceptable level.

If you don't like it, that's a you problem.

These fucking people aren't seriously conservatives by any measurable standard and they aren't  Christians in any real doctrinal, faith-based or historical context either, they're zero sum conflict-driven narcissistic shitheads who can't even get up in the morning unless they have somebody to be shitty to and fight with, it'd be pathetic if this bullshit wasn't turning out to be so dangerous and toxic to our national life.

I mean, seriously, even when these nuts pick the right side of some issue, like what few of them are that way on the Epstein thing they're all like "Pick Me! Pick Me!" about it. I mean, come on.

I'll admit I've been pleasantly surprised by MTG, and by Thomas Massie keeping his nose to the grindstone on the issue of the Epstein Files, but Nancy Mace is just going to ham it up and be...Nancy Mace, apparently.

Did right, this one time. Would you like a cookie, Nancy??

Ya know, if Leftism suddenly became popular again, she'd be touting herself as being to the Left of AOC and Bernie Sanders in about a week, kinda like how that Lindy Li chick switched sides in the blink of an eye this time last year.

I'm so tired of these fucking people.

I mean tired of all of them, alleged-Left or alleged-Right, because the truth is this crap isn't a partisan issue it's a political class issue across the board and these motherfuckers have turned into an addled, inbred, narcissistic nobility that's addicted to bullshit and oblivious to even the slightest bit of normal-people morality. 

It's getting old with me, fast.

And I'm here to tell you, these fucking people's bullshit and their small-dick energy is getting even worse.

They don't wanna be Saved, yo. 

They wanna ride the bomb all the way down like Slim Pickens in Doctor Strangelove, a whoopin' and a hollerin' and waving their cowboy hat the whole way down if that's what it takes to get that last drop of narcissistic fuel out of the situation.

Okay, MTG might be trying to set it up so she has a future. Lauren Blowbert or Nancy Mace, probably not so much.

And then there's this dude.

Andrew Tate has gone so far 'round the bend he's advocating for "Alpha Males" to do gay stuff with other men in their "Inner Circles" to *Checks Notes* "Fight the LGBT Agenda."

Not gonna lie, old straight guy that I am, I'm confused.

Such a thing would never occur to me, I've never had an issue with LGBT folks (as I've noted, my partner is bisexual) and (granted more by accident than design) I've been faithful to her through the 20 years we've known each other.

And for all that, it's the people like Andrew Tate and his followers that try to call me "Gay" for loving my partner and treating her with respect.

Because for these motherfuckers it's Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

Anything but respect the consent of consenting adults and leave those who cannot consent alone.

Anything but doing the right thing, even for a moment.

Anything but America.

Sin is their Addiction.

They'd rather do that than do almost anything the right way.

And these fucking people are the ones who can't or won't stop telling everybody else how "Christian" they are??

I mean, what the actual fuck??

They don't care if they wreck Christianity for basically everybody else or even turn the whole world away from Jesus...because the truth is these narcissists think they're the only ones who are going to Heaven anyway.

They think Heaven isn't Heaven if everybody...or even anybody else...gets to go.

Their attitude about America is basically the same. America isn't America if Black folks or LGBT people get a slice, however small.

Their politics and their religion (not that they see any difference between the two) reflects, indeed is, their narcissism.

And if you want these fucking people even to stop bothering us with this shit, it's going to come down to a fight.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

And please, if you want to do something special...do what you want to do, not what Erika Kirk thinks you should do.

God endowed you with a mind, and you're supposed to use that shit.

But like the man said, you gotta wanna be Saved.

That's the whole point of what freedom is, not this Babylonian narcissistic nonsense.

So get after it.

Слава Україна!
I don't have to tell you, drugs ain't the only things to get addicted to. Some people mainline their work, some people... snort ESPN. Some people needle-pop gambling. There are those that shoot up junk foods, fine wines, Cohibas, baby. Some people get hooked on love. And like any fiend on the street, you always need another bump. Just one more bump, man! Just one more bump! ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E5 "The Straight Life." ...

[Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

Three

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