The Red Beast (Don't Tread On Me, Eight.)

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 caused 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.

Like I said in my post yesterday, I caught a right-wing idiot-swarm off of simply commenting on a thread that if some dude wanted to fly a Pride flag in their own yard they should be able to, and that an HOA giving them a violation but not giving some people flying an idiotic Christian Nationalist flag a violation was, in fact, discriminatory.

This seems fairly obvious.

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

These fucking people came out the woodwork all day and well into the night, defending "Christianity" (put in quotes here for a reason) HOA's, petty power trips in general and of course (unprompted) Trump. As if these things somehow go together or it's only natural that they should. By that logic, Christ Himself should have bowed down and made offerings to Caesar!

Halfway through my night at work, after the last few dipshit responses, I made a disturbing conclusion as a result of this thread and a few other things today.

I think at least half of the "Conservatives" and "Evangelicals" out there would line up and take the Mark of the Beast if Power simply, baldly told them that they had to. No reason given, just "Do it because we said so" or "It's not the Mark Of The Beast when we do it." (Yes, yes it is.)

Wrap it in grievance and hate, and "Owning The Libs" and point out that the leftists, liberals, mid-conservatives and Never-Trumpers are fighting against it and refusing to do it, and I think that percentage goes up, call it two thirds.

Just to use the Left Behind series for an example, call the slogan "Guns, Nicolae Carpathia and The White Race."

Watch and see how fast people come up with T-shirts with that slogan on them.

John of Patmos never quite reckoned with the possibility that the Beast of Revelation might be far-Right after a couple generations of teaching morons Conservatism-as-Christianity. I mean, I think that means the Elect and the Saints under the Altar might be a bigger and much more diverse group, in the end, than the End Times people of the 1990's had thought.

And Hell might end up rather...pasty. 

I feel sorry for the damn Devil.

There's something the fuck wrong with these people.

If the Beast is Blue, that's bad! Do not serve it!

But if the Beast is Red, they must serve it!

Look, even as regards my understanding of political partisanship, isn't that kind of insane, you know, theologically?? So you think you have to go to Hell if you're a Republican, yet this is somehow "Godliness??"

I'm confused. If you think your political faction can do no wrong to that point, I'd wager the Bible is not, in fact, your Holy Book.

And that needs to be said. We need to face this shit.

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

Among other things, it doesn't even fucking matter to them how buffoonish, idiotic, or poorly done something happens to be, they'll try and say it's Awesome just 'cause their "side" did it. I think "Orwellian" doesn't even begin to cover that.

This shit has turned into a Cult.

And the worse it looks, the more sick of it most people get, the more a bunch of these cultists are going to double down on this bullshit. Some people have made this fucking Trump thing their whole fucking identity and religion.

As if believing in an Eternity of Peace and Blessedness with *Checks Notes* Donald Trump wouldn't be its own special form of hell and punishment?!?!?

I used to be a conservative Christian and a Republican and none of this shit even computes for me anymore. I can't even talk the way these people talk.

And if I could, I wouldn't want to.

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.

These Fucking People are doing everything the End Times Prophecy Movement tried to tell me the "Left" would do, and then some. They're not even hiding it, in fact they're being pretty blatant about it. What the fuck do you think all the AI shit and Data Centers are for??

And a lot of these idiots can't or won't see it because somebody with ascribed "Authority" and either a loud voice or a singsong cult-preacher cadence told them the opposite, and they simply don't care enough to look for themselves until the Truth basically literally bites them in the ass. 

These will be the people demanding to speak to the Manager at The Judgment.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. ~Carl Sagan.

I guess I was just taught to read the Bible my own damn self, "Study" to show thyself approved" and all that. A lot of these people yesterday couldn't even imagine anybody would look at all these texts they don't read, and come to a different conclusion than the one their political movement told them to make.

Just sayin' if you've actually read the Lord's Word, hating the gays should not be more important than loving your neighbor. In fact, if you go by what Jesus said, LGBT people should pretty much be irrelevant to your religion unless you got gay people in your church or something.

My Partner is bisexual (and she's a Christian) the Kiddo is a lesbian. Hell, my MOM is bisexual leaning very heavily towards women. A lot of my friends are gay. No particular reason for it, luck of the draw for me going all the way back to when I was in the Air Force during the implementation of DADT. More to the point I was never taught hate or homophobia was some sort of a virtue to begin with! 

Loretta Smith: I'm Loretta Smith. You killed my son. You're a handsome fellow.

Donald Groves: Thanks.

Loretta Smith: You broke God's law: Love thy neighbor. I wanna hate you but I can't. I feel pity, tears, but no hate. I didn't realize that until this moment. You are my neighbor and I love you. And I forgive you with all my heart. That's all.

~From the HBO series "Oz" Season 1, Episode 7 "Plan B."

And if they don't like my opinions on religion, well, they sure aren't going to like my ideas of politics, like that conservatism (for example) should come with actual standards.

I mean, historically, it should be the Leftists and Liberals chasing after novelty and the outrage of the moment while fucking around with dumb shit.

But no, that's the "Conservatives" now.  Somebody who was actually conservative told us we couldn't do something stupid like overturn the Constitution by decree, so now we gotta turn the whole damn world upside-down to try and find a way around that. How old are you fuckers? 13??

And they'd rather sit there and be miserable and beef with anybody that thinks differently than them than actually go out and do the work of life. That's wrong too.

This crap is ridiculous.

MAGA was bad enough, but I'd argue MAGA in any recognizable form is pretty much dead and that the Antichrist-ism that this shit is turning into is a fully consummated and rather bad marriage between the worst impulses of both far-right and far-left.

And they let Peter Theil watch through exactly 666 cameras.

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

If you're telling somebody they're not a Christian because they think a Homeowner's Association shouldn't have any right to tell people what flags to fly or not to fly, freedom ain't what you believe in and as far as I'm concerned your dipshit Hall Monitor ass can just fuck off.

And if you don't, you will be made to.

"Mind Your Own Business" used to be a conservative thing.

That spell it out for ya?? Or do I have to use smaller words??

Don't Tread On Me with this bullshit.

Слава Україна!

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

Seven

We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. ~George Orwell, 1984

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