Men Of Sodom (Don't Tread On Me, Seven.)

When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”

“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”

He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”

He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”

Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

~Genesis 18:16-33

I saw this yesterday, just a picture of a black lady on the DC metro, probably on her way to work or something, surrounded by a bunch of "Patriot Front" thugs.

My bro Jack asked for a caption to the picture and the first thing I thought of was where Abraham pleads for Sodom in the Book of Genesis.

This morning when I got home from work (late because our latest new person didn't want to show up today, and probably ain't gonna last anyway) I commented on somebody's post about HOA stupidity.

Since then, I've been getting swarmed by idiot "Conservatives," mostly various dudes of a certain type although there was a Karen or two thrown in, trying to defend the nexus of Bullshit that is Homeowners' Associations or vote me out of Christianity. That ain't up to you dipshits.

Sorry, but if you try and tell me what to do on my own property you're going to get ejected from it, quite possibly at gunpoint if you won't leave otherwise. I've had too many bad experiences with (mostly religious and/or right-wing with a side of mental illness) freaks to fuck around.

Right-wingers love them some arbitrary and unaccountable Power, no matter how petty, now don't they?? 

These fucking people missed the point of the story of Sodom in the Bible. 

Or they wanna be in the butt-rape mob.

So, I guess it shouldn't surprise ANYBODY that these fucking people don't know the motherfucking US Declaration Of Independence when they hear it??

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50

I can remember when I had to learn the Declaration of Independence in *Christian* school, and why it was necessary.

Funny how "Conservatives" don't care about any of that when they think they own this era's version of George III, isn't it??

And by the way, every damn one of these profiles appears to either not actually be an American, or if they are, they're selling some bullshit.

Note: None of these people are actually conservative.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

No, not even by the standards that I was taught including by the hardcore Republicans of like 40 years ago. But then, my late uncle (who served 8 years as an Infantry officer in the Army in the late 1960's and early 1970's) had his life saved by a Black man in Vietnam, so despite him being a somewhat-upper-class Good Old Boy from Georgia and about as Republican as they got in the 1980's and 1990's, I was taught way the hell better than what this crap is today. His platoon suffered 14 casualties (KIA and WIA) in Vietnam and he never got over that, drank and smoked himself to death over the rest of his life for it, too. 

Dude hated religion and war and as I've said before if he had a God it was probably Ronald Reagan, his main Sunday ritual was drinking beer and watching basketball or football. He tried like hell to talk me out of enlisting. 

When that failed, he got a bottle of the good stuff, poured us each a glass and then spent the rest of the evening (Successfully) impressing upon me the seriousness of what I was doing, by telling me the stories that weren't the same ones from his time in Germany that he'd always told before.

Dude was there for the Tet Offensive, and saw some real hairy shit. Yeah, I'd probably have had PTSD and been a (worse) alcoholic too if I'd been in his position.

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

These fucking people aren't like that. They lack the moral courage of people like my uncle or the moxie of past Republican Presidents like Ronald Reagan or (and I'll be generous here, bite me) either Bush, or even of failed candidates like Barry Goldwater.

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! ~Ronald Reagan

They're mostly petty drama queens and power-seekers who'd be just as happy among the Men of Sodom trooping to Lot's house as they would in a church congregation, because they're there in either place for the same fucking reason, which is power over another. Like the Bull Queers in The Shawshank Redemption, yo, That's all they want or understand.

And, in their minds, whatever God thinks about that be damned.

I'm serious.

Nothing is real or serious to these people, deep down they're all far more Atheistic than any Richard Dawkins devotee from 2008. If it's not right in front of them or something they can see and touch and (understand their frame of "understanding" is very limited) they refuse to "Believe" in it. It's a Bioshock level social and spiritual suicide-pact. Everything is all some kind of allegedly-ideologically-based game, or cover for a scam or some such horseshit, and invariably they betray whatever values they claim because if they ever had standards before, they sure don't now. It's all just bullshit words and chasing the dopamine hit of being "right" arguing with some version of whatever that only exists in their own heads. I call this shit "Atheism Minus One" for a purpose.

I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck. ~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

Except that what they're really not being Atheistic about is purely secular Republican political power.

Or, more properly, a certain ideal of Fascism that they've used that shit to camouflage for a minute.

(Without really understanding what that is, either. They just know it's the "Great Work" of modern "Republicanism.")

I identify myself as an Agnostic Christian because, while I Believe, I don't claim to understand the nature of God and how it all works...but I've figured out that secular liberalism ain't doing shit about this problem and I need more to lean on than that, anyway.

One thing I do know is Donald Trump ain't God.

It's a weirdly puritanical, intersectionally hateful cult, and the insidious thing is it's actually worse than and will outlast MAGA. When Trump is gone and JD fails to gin up enough-whatever because he sucks so bad even they don't like him, they'll bide their time until the next big thing comes up, if it ever does. 

And if it doesn't, they'll direct their energies into Football Hooliganism or some shit like a lot of EU far-right idiots have forever...because having a "team" and a reason to bother people or punch somebody in the face is all they really give a shit about. They'll get their civil disorder and excuse to hurt people any way they can.

These kind of "Republicans" spent the majority of my life in the political wilderness or in the woods as militia nuts for a fucking reason.

None of these people are imaginative enough to see that somebody else might actually think differently, or have reasons for doing so, and they lack the sense of shame to understand when they've been successfully told off, yet at the same time all have the same vast, yawning sense of inferiority. They've never thought about any of this shit, or wanted to.

Like, goddamn, I've been enough places and seen enough things even in the context of having been a conservative Republican that I had to stop and think about this shit here and there whether I wanted to or not. I know more about this than they do. 

I had to. I got my butt whupped if I didn't want to learn anything!

Think about that, for a second. That's a hell of a difference from now, ain't it?

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

I mean, for fuck's sake even as a dumb 20-year-old my partner freaking got that we both had strong convictions, and at that point our arguments were mostly on the same side of the fence but I was a more secular conservative and she was a religious one. Funny enough, our variable have flipped around a bit, but we still argue more about how to get there than about what the end-goal is.

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

So Don't Tread On Me with this bullshit.

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Republicans are selling their soul to win elections. Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. The government won't work without it. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them. ~Barry Goldwater

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