Tagged: politics

Thuck-Y-Dideez

I first heard of Thucydides in college. This would have been 2001-ish. We weren’t studying him, but the professor needed to make a point and used the classic “Athens-open, Sparta-closed” historian to do so. Along the way, the professor interlaced a story about how a student came to him complaining about the reading and pronounced thoo-sih-di-deez: Thuck-Y-Dideez.

Funny stuff.

I do not know what the Thucydides Trap is, but I want to post an informed guess before I google it. What did Xi mean when he used the phrase?

Before I reveal my surmise, I want to add here that a chinaman using a western anecdote is real evidence that America and the West are already winning the war with China. And rightly so, since we’re obviously the more relevant civilization.

Okay. That said. What is the “Thucydides Trap” that we hope to avoid?

War.

(Wish me luck in my AI-ing for confirmation/information.)

Did You Know the Victorian Era had a Fad Called “Table Turning”?

It’s true. I first read about it in the Gateway to the Great Books volume on Natural Science.

The renowned physicists of the era actually referenced, with tremendous disdain, the nonsense on their way to explaining how the physical world follows seemingly iron law.

But don’t take my word for it. Just search it up. Victorian era table-turning.

(You’re tired. It’s late. What does this have to do with anything, you ask? Well, it just should be counted as proof positive that there are no bounds to our ability to try to fool each other and to be fooled by each other. There are no extraterrestrial life forms, folks—only terrestrial suckers.)

On Complicity

I’m still stuck on this notion of “complicity” included in the crazy man’s manifesto.

For today, I want to use a phrase from Ezra 7:25 to focus the discussion. We read, “‘And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God which is in your hand,..’” (Italics mine.)

This is a phrase from a decree by a ruler. We would be right to call it a form of delegation. “The ruler is delegating his power to Ezra,” we might say. But there is a limit to the power. Ezra doesn’t receive all power from the ruler. What is the limit? The limit is apparently whatever is meant by “the wisdom of your god”, but not just some ethereal or spiritual or emotional (and therefore hopey-changey concept) but a concept that is contained by something that can be placed in Ezra’s hand.

I don’t mean to play read my mind; we’re talking about some concrete way of describing “the written law”. You can hold it in your hand. The ruler has delegated his power to Ezra, but limited Ezra to a written record of the “wisdom of [Ezra’s] your god”.

Back to complicity.

Do our laws suggest that watching a crime is the same as committing the crime?

Surely not.

I can imagine that there may be a law on the books (in our hands) which a bystander can be found guilty of breaking by not helping a victim, but even that law (if in existence) will not mean that the bystander committed the same crime as the attacker.

In short, the crazy man (and I want to be clear: ALL crazy men) are fundamentally unlawful in their thinking and understanding of the law, life, and the passing scene.

You are not complicit in another’s crimes, not according to the law of the land, not according to your standing before the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—as limited by the Wisdom of Him found in the Bible.

Because Every Christian Should Be Able to Do Likewise Without Blinking

The crazy man said, “Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed… is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”

Biblical Christianity says: Nope. You answer to your creator for you and no one else.

The crazy man said, “Yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” and then discussed rule of law vs rule of personality, and concluded that the Law should always be followed.

Biblical Christianity says: Yup. The Law should always be followed. I’m not sure where he thinks his reasoning is different. (This is sarcasm as we all know he actually meant to argue that the Law enforced by men who don’t follow the law themselves does not count.) To be sure, Biblical Christianity has always believed that murder is wrong.

Can We Be Serious About the AI Pic Trump Posted?

If we’re serious and methodically particular in this ridiculous much-ado-about-nothing, faux outrage, the following is the claim:

“I think the POTUS is crazy because, for unnamed reasons, he posted a picture which was a montage of cultural (as opposed to Biblical) Christianity imagery, to include a figure in a white robe with a red sash that, for some reason, for many people calls to mind the son of God—Jesus of Nazareth, post-resurrection—but instead of the usual artistic rendering of what famed boxer Muhammed Ali called “blonde-haired, blue-eyed” Jesus’s face, the image Trump posted had Trump’s face.”

Shorter: “I think the POTUS is crazy because he posted a political cartoon where he is depicted as the hero.”

In other words, the entire idea that “Trump posted a picture of himself as Jesus” is absolutely non-sensical.

There are no pictures of Jesus!!

The Astronaut is just as Wrong as the Politician

Deuteronomy 6:5 says “You shall love Yahweh (the LORD) your god…”

In Mark 12:30 after Jesus is asked a question, he says, “You shall love the lord your god…”

Talerico and Glover, to the undulating praise of their respective bases, both drop the specificity of the commands. Why? Do they not know their bible?

Obviously Talerico is out for destruction and will misuse and abuse any words from any writer as he goes about accomplishing his quest. Despite his claims to the contrary, the Bible books and their authors are not sacred or special to Talerico.

Glover is a different story.

For my part, I imagine that he feels some sense of “people are actually listening to me!” and for some reason, this translates to “…so I better not push them away!” (as it does to so many pastors who have 15-min of fame).

But (according to the library that we call “the Bible”) the blood of Jesus matters, which means the time he spent on earth matters, which means the other people alive with him mattered, which means the previous people who lived matter, which means that Moses’ words matter in their totality.

Moses was preaching Yahweh, not god. It would have been confusing (it still is confusing) if Moses told a bunch of prone-to-idolatry people, “Love god”. The response to this exhortation, back then and today, should always be, “Which god?”

For his part, Jesus was talking to a scribe, which we can reasonably presume means literate man, and Jesus includes the full phrase from Moses, “the lord your god.”

It is not Biblical Christianity to read scripture and assume that because of the new and singular demonstration of Yahweh’s all-powerful status in the resurrection of his son Jesus the competition for “who is god” is over in the lives of us mortals.

Does Grover not know this? I don’t know. What I do know is it is obviously distasteful to push people away. And yet, the core and empowering belief and living hope of Christianity is the resurrected Christ Jesus (son of Yahweh). However, the fact that there is a specific and easily namable hope and belief of a religion does not prevent their from being many, many anti-Christ’s who disagree and don’t care about the belief.

The question for you is, “If you don’t quote scripture accurately, what are you even quoting?”

Quote it accurately, I say. Because, in a world of confusion and sin, using accurate quotations indirectly (indirect because you’re honoring the precise words of another instead of thinking their words don’t matter—as if all we care about is some ethereal, abstract concept) it indirectly conveys to the audience that you matter. And if you matter, they matter.

Life isn’t a simulation. Life isn’t a game. And more life is the goal. And as Paul wrote, “…if you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord (Yahweh/trinity talk) and believe in your heart that god (Yahweh) raised him from the dead you will be saved (Romans 10:9),” is the only way to get eternal life.

Words Are Not the Issue

When Jesus resurrected, many things changed. One such change is this: Words stopped being the issue.

Turn with me to Matthew 21:15 and notice how the adults are described as indignant about what essentially mindless children are uttering or repeating.

Have you ever heard a child say a bad word in innocence?

The other day, before I knew what happened, five year old A- started running through the consonants matched to “-ucky”.

“Bucky”

“Ducky”

“Mucky”

“Sucky”

“Tucky”

Wait for it…

“Fucky”

Now when this happened, redeemed by the blood sinner that I am, I did not worry that my child just communicated with darkness or the nether realms or evil spirits. I did not worry that her soul somehow switched from innocent to ruined. No. And why not?

Because Christians do not believe that words actually matter. Is this stance of us Christian’s supernatural? I think so. But I am not certain. It seems to me that anyone can understand my point, and yet very few do.

We live in a world where all sides seem to want to dictate specific phrasing and word use. The examples are too numerous to state.

The point is: you’re all wrong.

You’re all like the adults in Matthew who were indignant that some children joined in the shouting as Jesus road into town. Get some self control, I say! It isn’t the words, like, it isn’t the actual English (or any language) utterance that matters. It is the meaning and understanding that matters.

A quantifiable moron saying, “Make America Great Again” or “Black Lives Matter” does not somehow raise their intelligence or wisdom level as a result of joining a chorus. Give me a break!

The Word (And Idea) “Incompatible” Is Impotent. Please Stop Using It.

The single most important political issue of our day is removing Islam from the USA and the West in general (if not removing it from the face of the earth, vis-a-vis all the gods and religions that currently make up the “myth” section of libraries and bookstores, Zeus, Ares etc).

I freely confess that it is difficult to tell how things are going. Once the algorithm knows what you’re interested in, the entire world seems to revolve around that content. But I have been paying close attention to Islam’s spread since 2015ish and recently even the major players have been echoing the above position of mine.

The trending strategy, which I believe is totally uncoordinated, seems to be, “We use the word ‘incompatible’ because it is neutral.”

That is a powerless strategy. Don’t get me wrong, any strategy that works is fine by me. But there is something to be said for truly stating the case.

The case against Islam: Islam is stupid.

Many other religions, not all, are likewise stupid. But the obvious difference in their adherent’s twin categories of (1) assimilation and (2) non-calls for jihad make these other religions relatively harmless.

Just the same, the problem is not that Islam is incompatible with the West or the USA. The problem is, at face value, Islam is stupid. The god of the Bible, not Yahweh, not Jesus, not the Holy Spirit, did not show up to anyone in a cave and issue a new law that canceled the current law.

How do I know? Because it’s a stupid idea!

Did the Israelite god have a grand plan to send his son as a man-god to die? And if so, is that good news? Yes and yes.

How do I know? Because it is a brilliant idea!

Do you see how you feel right now? Even when I write it, I find this description of “Christianity is brilliant” to be repulsive. For some reason, to admit that something we want to believe (I can have eternal life in the best sense of the word “life”) is something brilliant just doesn’t land. As if there is something inherently stupid about “life” and something inherently bad about “brilliant” ideas.

And yet, to be clear: to admit biblical Christianity (originalist/orthodox/not-Talirico-progressive-style) is brilliant does not mean it was invented. Brilliant just means brilliant. And stupid means stupid.

And Islam is stupid. America, on the other hand, is on the leading edge of the most brilliant civilization mankind has developed to date. And brilliant civilizations do not welcome stupid ideas, especially one as stupid as Islam.

I’m Getting Hot This Winter

The power company sent a letter informing me of my newfound power to save money.

Oh joy! Tell me more!

The method?

When I need to see, turn off the lights.

When I need to cook, turn off the stove, turn off the oven.

When I need to do laundry, turn off the washer and dryer.

When I need to shower, turn off the water.

Get it? Isn’t it brilliant? I bet they had their monkeys working ‘round the clock to develop that one.

What next? Restaurants saving me money, putting the power in my hands by charging less between 9:01 and 9:02, both AM and PM? What a deal!

Gas stations down the road from each other now give dramatic discounts immediately after you fill up at the competition, ‘Just bring your receipt!’? Count me in!

Trash companies now let me save by skipping my house for five years straight and then it’s only a fraction of the cost for one big pickup? Let’s go!

I have no idea how much “energy” should cost. Or food. Or fuel. Or trash removal. But I do know that I know best, and with pinpoint accuracy, absolute certainty, and perfect timing, exactly what I need, why I need it, and when I need it—not you.