Committee of One

Calling all defenders of the Second Amendment: You are alone. Not in the sense there aren’t millions who wave their guns and declare their loyalty. But for all the noise, when the day comes armed agents of the state arrive to confiscate, most gunners will surrender their armory. I’ve seen similar things on other levels too often to think otherwise.

If you have joined anything which functions as a militia, prepare to be betrayed — very early in the game. When crisis arrives, people you thought you really knew will become utterly foreign. They aren’t your enemy now, but they simply don’t know themselves. Most people wear a good mask, and can afford to keep it there because nothing happens to really challenge it. But when the troops come marching in, and a few folks get beaten or shot, things change. Suddenly Brave Heart was just a movie.

The oppressors are counting on this, of course. It’s part of emergency enforcement training. They know there will probably be a token resistance, then most of that will evaporate. It’s not as if they won’t have casualties, but precious few men and women will continue to resist long. Part of the failure of self honesty is the failure to really know what you have to have, and have to do, to keep going.

Consider: How have folks responded recently? Katrina saw mercenaries having little trouble disarming the survivors. As far as we know, no one raised effective resistance to the illegal gun confiscation. Recently, folks in King, NC went along with a gun ban which had no good purpose. Check the history. Every time the locals just go along with it. If they were serious about their rights, there would already be a large number of officials and policemen dead.

The mere fact oppressive thugs in government pay are still alive and in office, or still wearing that badge, is all the proof we need there will be no effective armed resistance.

In the end, if you remain armed and opposed to tyranny, you will pretty much have only yourself. That is, until men have proven to themselves just where their priorities lie. Get past that first flush of danger, then form your units. Chances are, you won’t find many on your side. That means whatever plans you have now will probably be forgotten very quickly. Furthermore, you’ll be under immense pressure to surrender, with an incredible array of lies and enticements offered to coax you. Don’t forget all your family and friends will be used against you.

I’m not trying to tell anyone to submit, nor recommending resistance. I’m just wanting to chop away the false imagery attached to this Underground Patriot or Liberty Movement, or whatever you prefer to call it. Whether you resist or submit, things are going to be very, very ugly all too soon. Don’t lock in any plans, but prepare your heart by making sure you know just what it is you can and cannot tolerate. Commit yourself to something which really matters, because your own hide isn’t really worth much even now. That’s already been established, like it or not. But if something truly bigger than yourself grips you now, perhaps you’ll find the resolve to act in that day.

Chances are, you’ll be alone most of the way.

Self-Enforcing Deception: Dispensationalism

When you examine the history of Dispensationalism as a theological notion, you will notice the single greatest source here in the US was the Scofield Reference Bible. It would be too easy to throw out a hundred links here on why it’s all a big lie, because people who know a lot more than I do have covered this very well. I’m not addressing that here. The point is it was Zionist money which funded Scofield and the publication of his reference Bible. The reasons are simple enough: The Zionists had big plans and wanted to ensure the services of a huge bully who wouldn’t dare to question what it was protecting. That would be the United States.

We can easily see the set-up. Even Jewish scholars will tell you Israel falsely portrays itself as a victim so as to get away with unconscionable behavior. The arrogance is beyond words, assuming without bothering to even consciously admit, that all humanity is supposed to be slaves of Israel. The world’s patience is wearing thin, and only America (and those in our shadow) is blind to the abuse, even when America is being abused itself. We should hardly be surprised when some nation or group of nations eventually strike back.

But because of the history of Dispensational thought, many Americans have long been expecting some global attack against Israel. They’ll be downright excited to be living in the End Times, since this will be the unmistakable signal of it. They’ll be looking for some vast divine miracle to protect Israel from this onslaught, but naturally quite willing to help God out by counter-attacking these enemies of Israel. Oh, to be in the Army of God defending His land under His miracle hand! Meanwhile, no one wants to discuss how this will be a self-fulfilling “prophecy”.

I have no secret knowledge, no divine revelations, so I can’t say how things will turn out. However, I strongly suspect it will crash and burn for the US and Israel. Should the US last that long, it will easily be enough to finally destroy us. I’m pretty sure Israel will activate those nuclear weapons she refuses to admit having, and it won’t be enough. That is, while it may be a tactical win, it will most likely turn the rest of humanity against her. Somehow, I really doubt they can be used without casting the bad effects over a wide swath of other nations. Not that Israel would give a handful of stolen sand for the rest of the world, but she doesn’t have enough to prevent what would surely follow when they are all used up.

And again, it’s possible things will turn out somewhat short of such a disaster, though I remain convince the US will not remain intact much longer regardless. But, if any part of this turns out the worse of Israel, I have to wonder how many Dispensationalists will realize they’ve been had? I keep waiting for some new pack of lying heresy to start hitting the Christian bookstores, selling like hotcakes, which will offer some new self-fulfilling prophecy regarding the aftermath.

GW Theory and Racism

I avoid TV and I hate movies. But sometimes there is something actually worth watching. I highly recommend to you The Global Warming Swindles. It’s just over an hour long, so you’ll need to budget the time for it. I found it quite worthwhile.

It works out like this: At its very core, the Global Warming religion is utterly racist, determined to prevent places like Africa from developing their own resources. It was never good science, and is now simply blatant lies. What most greenies may not realize is this guarantees developed nations can come in and suck up those resources while the natives continue to suffer and die at early ages.

Politics: More Than a Mere Spoiler

Anyone who has read here much knows I am utterly cynical about politics here in the US. I doubt it has ever really been a matter of who actually had voter support, but has always been manipulation and bullying. You see it in unions and union-busting, you see it almost every local election, and you saw it most clearly in Ron Paul’s run as a Republican. Review the alternate news reports from the last presidential primaries, and you’ll understand it was pure thuggery in the Republican Party. It continues today, as the Republicans try to hijack the Tea Party movement.

If you accept the understanding truth can’t possibly win, and change your goals to fit reality, you might consider doing things a little differently. Nothing man can do will ever put this world right. The best we can hope for is revealing the truth. Most of us will have nothing to do with politics because we have a calling in another direction; we don’t have time. But if you sense God moving you, prepare your heart to seek truth on His terms, not on anyone else’s terms. Our goal is consistent in making sure God’s viewpoint comes across. It’s bad enough this nation rejects the biblical mandate of the Covenant of Noah. We can’t even keep the nation honest about adhering to the US Constitution we do have. Yet we continue to have this massive deception about that, as if somehow things are just fine. The most important thing we can do at this point is to remove that false covering, to expose the wholesale corruption.

This is not about being spoilers, who seem to be saying, “If I can’t have it my way, I’ll destroy the game.” No, don’t even play the game. When people start slinging accusations of “sore loser,” don’t respond. You aren’t a sore loser if you refuse to play games. Nor should you be silly enough to be a true believer in anything on this earth. This is not about religion, nor about worldly-wise campaign strategy, which is what got us here in the first place. This is about the truth this world can never attain. Don’t even pretend you have a vested interest in fixing things. The only thing we can hope for is clarity and revealing the facts. Then, when it all comes crashing down, no one has an excuse for pretending they didn’t know.

If you can find a way, get involved. Sure, give money to folks like Debra Medina in Texas. Check out the videos of her talking at YouTube. She’s got one of the few honest approaches to what’s required by the US Constitution. And if Ron Paul runs again, go ahead and get involved if you can, at whatever level you can.

But let your involvement be a commitment to truth, not simply winning at all costs. When things start heading toward “smart campaigning,” put it back on track. Don’t hesitate to report very bluntly and honestly your best understanding of what the campaign claims, what the candidate is trying to support, what they are calling for. Go radical in presenting the truth; don’t dither and hem-haw around. You know what the Constitution says. If it so happens we can return to genuine constitutional government, so much the better. If not, everyone should know we are rejecting it, exchanging it for toilet paper.

This will surely destroy the mainstream partisans’ plans, and you will be targeted for all sorts of nastiness. Were you aware some of Ron Paul’s delegates at the convention were physically assaulted? At least one was killed, but that was hushed up quickly, blamed on some other cause of death. You should expect worse, because I assure you, the Republican leadership are true ogres, monsters without a conscience. And if you happen to promote something similar among Democrats, just keep in mind the union thugs. All they want is power and wealth, and truth is a joke to both sides.

You’ll be treated like a spoiler, but you’ll know you are aimed at something far higher.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Maybe you recall the lyrics to the song with the same title as the one above. The words were taken from the passage in Ecclesiastes which says on this earth, there is a time and place for just about everything people do. When it comes to sharing the truth of God, there is a time to persist and a time to walk away. God alone can tell you what He has in mind.

In one case, I’m shaking the dust off my feet. A part of what makes it appropriate at this time is the connection to Jesus telling that to His disciples. They were going to their own nation, their own people, and the obligations are different from when you go to strangers and foreigners. You expect a right to a limited hearing with family. Strangers owe you no such courtesy.

I’ve had my say with some family. They have rejected my message. I’m shaking the dust off. Not that I would quit praying for them, but on the level of human activity, there is nothing more I can do. By the same token, I won’t engage them in any discussion about anything else, simply because this thing remains the elephant standing on the splinters of the coffee table. Until this issue is resolved, there is nothing to talk about.

It’s not the same as being dismissed politely, or even laughed off. No, it was a vitriolic response, altogether inappropriate. Others involved simply goaded things to a higher pitch. I’ll be shedding their dust, too. This is not pouting, playing at some whipped puppy. I’m proud of my efforts, having done the best I could do. But no one should have to put up with me who doesn’t wish it.

Here and there among strangers, I am sure I’ll find a receptive ear, and there I will pour out the best I have to offer.

Unpopular Facts: Hard to Win a Hearing

Chances are, the folks you know don’t want to hear about it. They regard it as personal obsessions, not provable facts. Funny how people understand the basics of civility when they see themselves as the victims. They want you to keep your wild notions to yourself, but are all too willing to help evil crush the truth.

It’s too easy to find evidence. It’s certainly easy to find on the Internet. The US government is run by sociopaths. The rest of human media output tends to cover up for them, but for now, the Internet is reliably open and exposes their evil. You’ll get plenty of faux “alternative news sources” — say, Rush Limbaugh, for example — who pooh-pooh reports of torture as simply waterboarding, loud stereo music and other relatively harmless pressures. No, it’s outright murder, but only after days, weeks, even months of very brutal abuse. It’s stuffing rags down the throat and into the larynx itself so they can’t be heard to cry out as their are jolted with electric shocks which sear the flesh, cut, burned, abraded, anally raped, and beaten. Death comes as a sweet relief. No, not just our out-sourced torture in foreign countries, but our US personnel are doing these things.

Often, they are done to people the officers know for a fact are innocent of any harm to the US. It doesn’t matter, though, because their mission is to torture, not to get facts. Further, the entire three branches of the US government know these things. Yes, your congressmen know this stuff, or could if they cared. Yes, your neighbors, associates and family could know this stuff, too.

So you try to tell them. It won’t matter much if your approach is cool and rational, or prophetic and forceful, or purely artistic. If they are closed, they are closed. The vast majority are closed, because being open means letting go of their comforts, it means having to think about the moral demands upon them if they accept the facts.

Perhaps you know the US government is currently your greatest threat, and is the greatest threat to all the world right now. There is nothing noble about stomping everyone in sight to demand they conform to whatever whims cross the minds of rulers, vested or hidden. It’s a terrible knowledge, and you feel powerless. You know the entire system is fixed, and good people will never be allowed to take any official government office, except a few token statesmen everyone ignores. Even those who know are being constantly targeted for manipulation by people telling half-truths. Many who appear to be “equal time” are simply the other face of the same Beast.

But if you shut up, you are no better than the rest of them.

Oppression for Your Convenience

Goal-oriented leadership is a sin.

When you find yourself in charge of an activity which involves several other humans, you should understand: From God’s point of view, the working of relations is more important than what you accomplish. That so-called “Purpose Driven” stuff is altogether a carnal concept, fully contrary to the revelation of God. Even the very fundamental nature of the Covenant of Noah is not about what governments get done, but how they go about it. It’s the process.

We have a ton of folks who have learned to mouth the words, “not product, but process.” Meanwhile, they invariably measure success on the product. You’ll tell them about the process and they’ll still be thinking results. That’s what we do in Western Civilization. It’s why we have the concept “efficiency.” It masquerades as reducing unnecessary costs, but that’s a lie to cover the rapacious malfeasance of government officials. The first and biggest sin is trying to reduce humans to uniform procedure and uniform results. Satan loves that, because it can be called “fairness” or “equality” and sold as a good thing.

Frankly, most of humanity goes along with this nonsense. Genuine uniqueness is so rare as to be remarkable. Our entire global economy stands or falls on getting folks to all want the same things, and that requires stamping out individuality in favor of “the community.” Convenience and comfort are not commodities. So when someone tries to convince you outbursts of individuality — harmlessly doing things your own way — are intruding upon others, they are almost certainly lying. There is such a thing as externalizing costs unfairly, but it’s often hidden by selling it as a public benefit. Fluoridated water, anyone? It was originally an industrial waste product, for which the responsible parties simply paid some accredited shill to sell as somehow beneficial to human health. Today, we have millions of idiot parents paying extra to pour toxic fluoridated water into their children, which is sold as “baby water.” People in the main are stupid that way.

We are so used to this, no one even thinks about it. We see this in both business and government. What is good for the profit or convenient for the bureaucrat is de facto good for you. Shut up and get in line. And we do it. And we expect it to apply in every situation.

So when we find ourselves in charge, we assume the whole point is the objective. Wrong. God says the whole point is the people involved. The entire point behind the Law Covenants is the process, the way people interact, not at all about outcomes. Stop leading to a goal, even if everyone demands it. Start leading by example and by cooperation. Coax, negotiate, contain injury, etc. As long as the only thing harmed is the results, there is no real harm. The greatest danger is the threat to the process. You will always have dead weight, so get used to it. At any given point in time, all of us fill that role. The most important thing leaders will ever focus on is keeping peace and stability by way of freedom and voluntary cooperation.

Evaluate every challenge in terms of injury only. We have a lot of trash in our heads culturally about what constitutes injury. Let’s take a warning here: What will replace “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military will be mandatory “never shut up about it.” Oh, yes; we will celebrate our uniqueness by forcing it down everyone’s throats! That is, what isn’t illegal becomes mandatory participation. What ever happened to, “mind your own business” when it comes to human sexuality? Civility — the structure by which we fulfill Noah’s Covenant — includes the idea not every detail of your life is worthy of attention. If you are thuggish enough to brag about your skirt-chasing escapades, you deserve the hear queers describing their disgusting practices, too. Why don’t we all just shut up about it and live in peace? We measure injury on all the wrong levels.

Under God’s revelation, the state is an unmitigated evil. It cannot avoid leading to oppression, because the state reduces all people to things, resources to be managed. The necessity of personal involvement is thereby forbidden, a direct affront to God Almighty.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

It’s like escaping an abusive relationship. Something about it keeps calling you back, but every time you go, some new bruise, some new heartbreak, and you walk away, vowing not to do it again. It’s not good for you, always deceptive, never really delivering on the promises, but still making big ones.

Maybe I’m free this time. I hope so.

No more alternative operating systems. From now on, whatever came with it, or whatever it was made for, is what I’ll run on it. For the most part, no more Linux or BSD. Windows is okay. Mac is okay if you can afford it; I can’t, but that’s not to say I have any strange attraction or repulsion for it. If I get a Mac, I’ll run it as a Mac. No big deal. If it’s designed for Windows, that’s what it will get. I’m tired of the game, the hobby, chasing my tail and getting bitten by someone else. Actually, I can’t trust any of them, but at least I know what comes on the machine is more likely to work than something else.

I was once part of the Crusade to break the chains of Redmond’s Borg. It mattered then. It doesn’t now. It’s not about being a better system, or freedom or whatever else you want to call it. Neither is better. I can find plenty of morally repugnant things with all of them, so nobody gets to wear white any more. Having seen the wider array of what is possible, I know I can work with pretty much anything. Even if it’s just DOS. Whatever gets the job done, that’s good enough. Don’t make the mistake of seeing this as going over to the other side; I’m not a fan of any OS.

Thanks for the good times and the education, but you demand too much for too little in return, Linux and BSD. I’m leaving you because I’m leaving the whole computer hobby thing behind.

Computers: What Happens After You Catch Your Own Tail?

I’ve been chasing my own tail for some time over computer issues. Sure, there’s a part of me that likes trying new things. I’m still planning to put NetBSD on my old laptop, and spend some time learning to use it. But for the main system I use every day, the desktop system which stands ready and waiting for me to just move the mouse and go to work, I really don’t enjoy changes.

I also don’t enjoy watching my wife struggle with her computer. When her system kept giving her trouble, I traded her my Dell tower. I had built that system she was using, and knew what it could do. The Dell wasn’t going to work with Linux, and any BSD was dubious. Hers was certainly not going to work with Win7 as it was. So she got the Dell with Vista, and likes it so far. I got the older box, which includes an onboard video chipset from nVidia. It was not a good one. Now Linux and BSD both don’t like it, and even with the fully accelerated driver from nVidia, it didn’t work properly. Under Win7 it kept entering race condition. You couldn’t detect any processes doing anything unusual, but it took forever for anything to repaint on the screen. But I figured I could still get it to work okay with my digital LCD.

No dice. I tried FreeBSD — no GUI at all. Tried CentOS (GUI refused to center onto the screen, stretched off screen on right side), then Ubuntu (refused to recognize the SATA DVD-RW from which it was running), then openSUSE 11.3 pre-release (unable to bring the display on center, but displaced far off to the left). Finally, I decided I needed a real video card, and was not going to use anything from nVidia. I found some Radeons locally at retail, and grabbed the least expensive one. It was a Diamond Radeon HD4350.

X.org can’t use it. I mean, I could get a pitiful 2D display, but no support for any LCD of any kind, except at 720×576. I never heard of that before, but it was worthless, less than half the numbers native to my monitor. So I gave up, and put Win7 back on it. Works perfectly well.

I don’t like Windows of any flavor. I like Linux and BSD, but I don’t have any choice with this hardware. And I don’t have any more money to spend on computers and parts. So I’m now a Windows user.

*sigh*

Mystical Non-Career

I use the term “Christian Mysticism” to put a label on my commitment. It’s not what I am; only God really knows what I am, and He’s not telling. You can know only what part I play in your world, and I can only know what really drives me. What I do may not make sense to anyone, not even me. So it’s not being, nor doing, but commitment.

You can’t build a career on that, in the mainstream sense of things.

I’m not impressed by what Western Civilization has delivered. It’s no better than the ones in the past, but most people inside it believe it is inherently superior only because they measure their culture by its own standards. Yeah, that’s really logical (sarcasm alert). The first human self-conscious effort to build a culture was the Tower of Babel. God was not amused, because it excluded Him. But it’s not petty sand-castle stomping; it really was in the best interests of humans. What’s good for the Creator is good for His Creation — by definition. Having humans build a frame of reference excluding Him was not in their best interest.

We have no idea how long it lasted, because people tended to live a really long time back then. Only one king is mentioned — Nimrod — but we know from ANE literature analysis he was merely a symbol of the royal dynasty at that time. When we next see something rise up to call itself “Babylon,” much of what that nation inherited can be traced back to the self-conscious culture building of the first Babylonians. They were deeply aware of their ancient legacy and literature, and sought to preserve it across several imperial conquests. They never got over that original dream of building something — the Tower was just a symbol — which did not depend on God.

We pass through several other cultures, not least the Egyptian, until we get to the Hellenist culture and see the same thing, after a fashion. There was a self-conscious pursuit of pure thought, of defining the real and ideal, and seeking to make the former follow the latter. Early Greek scholars were fully aware of the ANE culture, and rejected it. The pinnacle was Aristotle, and we’ve talked enough about him. The point here is he self-consciously worked to build a better culture, and it was a rejection of the only one God Himself built.

Western Civilization is an amalgam. It is largely the result of the Roman Church to tame the very powerful German culture. By that time, the Church had taken a wrong turn, having self-consciously embraced Aristotle in the guise of Thomas Aquinas (we call it “Thomism”). They had already departed from what God had built, so it was no surprise they felt they could inject what they understood as Christian imperatives into that German culture and make it acceptable to God. The result — so far — is modern Western Civilization. Despite all the talk of “Post-Modernism” it’s really not all that different, since it assumes the same epistemology too often. That is, Po-Mo is simply rewriting the Enlightenment Period, not rebuilding from scratch.

I’m calling for a radical rejection of Western Civilization. The idea behind the term “radical” is the Latin word for “root” — getting back to the root of things. It means realizing what we have is so messed up, we can’t fix it. Let’s scrap it and start over. While I certainly root for that idea, I don’t seriously expect very many people to embrace it. In fact, my whole mission here on this blog — the reason I bother at all — is presenting a truth I know few will swallow. I don’t take myself that seriously, so why should I expect others to do so? I would love for people to find the joys of what I have found, but I know it’s not for everyone.

Indeed, what little traffic this blog gets is mostly on the Linux-related posts, followed closely by any computer help stuff of any kind. Those are a hobby, but most of the folks coming here for that stuff are quite serious about their computer hobby, and a few may have a career in it. For me, it’s just part of my general wish I could help others. Even if you reject my advice, or reject my contention, I have raised the issue and made you think. That in itself is a good thing. You don’t build a career on good things but on making money. I’m not making money. I do get paid a pension, but that just means I don’t have to struggle to face doing what it takes to convince people to give me money.

It’s not as if I have never lived in bad times, and had to do without money. Trust me on that. Instead, when it happens again — it surely will — I am confident it is already covered by a higher power. Not in the sense God is my banker, but in the sense if I starve to death doing what I feel certain makes Him happy, I accept those terms. And anything in between. When the US government goes broke and can’t pay my Veterans’ pension any more, it won’t matter. It will simply mean an adjustment in the means of the calling.

I don’t have a career, I have a calling.