God Does Not Use a Computer

If you can’t step outside the whole debate, you can’t possibly understand any part of it.

I know how David Gewirtz feels. He makes it pretty clear he’s not part of any of the computer religions. He’s just a power user who wants to use his computers to get things done. The computers and the operating systems are just tools. Without actually saying it in so many words, he understands the computer technology field reflects the wider world of human politics. Most of us have things to do and just want a reasonable opportunity to proceed without undue harassment. It will never happen.

What makes this worthy of comment is the vast layer of putrid propaganda which hides the truth. I’ve noted often here the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) world is not fundamentally different from the standard commercial software industry in terms of morals and character. Only the methods are different.

I read Gewirtz’s original post on the issue and some of the comments. Some of it is predictable minor gripes about nit-picking differences between the two systems, and I’m sure he admits that. When I consider the comment on both articles, the first thing I notice is how many ignore what he’s trying to say, and react to some perceived blasphemy against their demigods. Then there are a bunch who are using his article as a forum for disputing which religion is superior, never mind what the article was actually about.

The real issue no one wants to confront is FOSS promoters are capable of lying, same as any Microsoft advertising slimeball. We have a lot of people warning you about the snake oil from MS, and they get kudos. What happens when someone reveals there is a Linux brand of snake oil? “Jihad” might be putting it mildly. You aren’t permitted to discuss your negative experience with Linux unless you are a recognized high mullah.

Credible threats of physical harm? This is the part of FOSS I hate. I hate it most because this points out everything wrong with FOSS as a means of delivering the product: Too few give a darn about what the user experiences. I didn’t have time to read all the comments; there were too many. In my brief scanning, I didn’t see too many folks offering to help, especially with the same level of “free” that is supposed to characterize the software development process.

Having the opportunity to use lots of different operating systems, and not possessed of a zealot’s devotion to any of them, I can tell you Linux is more secure, but it doesn’t work as well over the broad range of activities most computer users engage. That’s because the FOSS agenda is excellence for what the developers want to do, and user experience has never been a priority. Indeed, as I’ve often noted, too many FOSS developers are hostile to users. The opportunity to develop whatever you really want, and with all your personal prejudices of how you want it work, tends to appeal to the “boastful pride of life” be-your-own-god instinct in fallen man. And the product will not find wide adoption outside the relatively small community which embraces this as the norm.

So you have essentially two options with your computer. You can deal with those who worship Mammon, or those who worship themselves. So rare are those who operate from a genuine concern for the users, so negligible their impact, you can ignore them as a factor. Until we see the kind of sacrificial love which drove Christ to carry His Cross — just a tiny shred of compassion — there won’t be any good choices in software, just some which suck less for the job at hand.

Gutting It In

Men, one of the worst things we can do is allow the gut to sag as we age. It’s not a matter of mere appearance, but causes health problems.

The stomach muscles are designed to contain the organs, holding them in place with proper internal pressure so they work right. When those muscles relax too much, stuff gets out of place, and things break. As we age, anything stomach related becomes some of the hardest exercises we do. I’m sure we all have our favorites, but I want to introduce to you the Olympic Sit-up — that’s what a high school coach called it.

You’ll need some room, so you can’t do this in the hallway of a mobile home. We will be engaging the entire abdominal muscle collection, including the sides. Rest supine on the floor, legs straight and arms extended out to the side. As you lift your back from the floor, at the same time lift one leg. Reach for the toes with the opposite hand; just touch them. Drop back and switch sides. Repeat as many times as possible.

The idea is to twist your torso just a bit as you curl it up. One shoulder will rotate forward across the midriff, the other dropping back a bit. You’ll be pulling across the middle and down one side each time. Most people have trouble keeping a balance when first trying this. The gluteal muscles should be bearing the weight, and you may need to adjust how high you lift one end or the other, and which moves first, etc. It’s a balancing act.

This permits toning the entire abdominal support system. If you need to tone your back to match, just flop over and do the swimmer, where you simultaneously lift feet and chest off the floor. Stretch your hands up over head. For just the instant you are up, you’ll look like the rocker on a rocking chair, balanced on your stomach.

It’s not as if women can’t benefit from this, but they are built differently. Failure to keep the stomach capable of pulling is a bigger threat to men.

Weight Lifting without Weights

There are several terms for it, but I prefer to call it isotonics.

The key to keeping your weight where you want it is burning calories with the largest part of your body’s muscle mass. Typically, lifting weights does this best, but to get the most from it, folks have taken the time to study ways to maximize the benefits. We have developed particular body movements which engage more or fewer muscle groups, depending on the purpose. There are particular motions, along with proper form, and even a measure of mental concentration to make sure we kick the muscles the adapt to various needs.

It has been found weight machines are convenient, but free weights are by far the superior means, because they engage a lot of need for fine motor control, which encourages a broader base of development. But what if your arthritis makes weights hurt too much? Or other types of injuries to the joints and muscles? How about you simply don’t have access to free weights?

What follows assumes you have had some experience with weightlifting and already know something about proper focus, form and such. No amount of writing can replace learning from your buddies, so if you haven’t done this before, it’s going to be exceptionally difficult to benefit from this post. That’s because this method requires you to be your own coach. You are in total control, and the amount of work you do is a function of your body awareness.

One more caveat: You surely should realize you will not get quite the same balance as with free weights. Your muscles will be working against each other, and only the resistance available between them is all you have. Then again, you have full control over the intensity and resistance, and can back off without having to change anything more than the flicker of decision in your head.

Isotonics is toning with movements in isolation of any external resistance. It’s the same basic movements you might use in free weights and on machines, but without anything other than your own body parts. It can be so intense you’ll need days off between sessions. Since the whole scheme is full of interlocking resistance against muscle groups, you’ll do it all at once or not at all, and you can’t divide between pushes and pulls. Each exercise motion is no less than two exercises.

Start with the imaginary bench press. It must be done in conjunction with an imaginary rowing exercise. I recommend you try to do this in front of a mirror so you can observe your own motions and concentrate better. You get to do this standing up straight (as with almost the movements). Extend your arms, noting your hand positioning; I recommend shoulder width. It won’t matter if you close your fingers, except to help you visualize and imagine you are working that bar. Think of all the smaller motions — when you pull, you rotate your shoulders back; pushing rotates them forward. Set the tension in your muscles and slowly pull back as in rowing, until you can’t go any farther. Then in your mind switch over to the bench and push it away to full extension. Ideally, you concentrate on the working of the muscles and move slower than necessary. Repeat as needed.

At first, you’ll probably find this whole thing so odd, I often recommend folks start with low tension and perform 12 or more repetitions. Do one set for now. Then do overhead press/pull downs, then upright row/bar dips. Wait thirty seconds or so between exercises. Add some curls/arm extensions. If you are really ambitious, you can do very heavy midriff exercises the same way, simply by bending at the middle with proper form, then straightening back up. All this is under as much tension as you can bear. I recommend you not do neck exercises unless you take great care to reduce tension to a minimum. Most folks end up pulling neck muscles too easily.

After a couple of weeks doing this no more often than every other day, add a few shoulder exercises: Without bending your elbows, do flys (that’s how they spell it) back and forth, overhead, and to the front. Try adding a reverse grip on the curls, or put your arms overhead and drop the hands behind for your curls/extensions. Because we aren’t handling any heavy weights, build your grip by various combinations of hand squeezing and finger extensions, twisting the wrist, etc. You can add for the legs if you don’t have any other heavy work out for them. Add other exercises which mimic activities which need greater strength.

I note this is effective enough I am still able, with my arthritis, to swing that double-bit ax at all sorts of angles, ambidextrously, and maintain my reputation as a heavy hitter.

Again, you control the tension, the repetitions, the number of sets, the rest time between, etc. It’s all in your head, but the results are an excellent tone to the muscles. Keep the tension as high as you can bear, keeping in mind the number of repetitions you need: 6-8 for size and power, 10-20 for endurance and injury prevention.

Go for the burn, baby!

Fitness Tips: Power Walking

Making the most of what you have physically can only contribute to your mental and spiritual strength.

So long as fitness is not your god, the Real God can always make good use of it. As always, for a Christian Mystic, fitness is not an end in itself, but a tool to enhance what really matters. As a matter of God’s Laws, it is your duty to develop all your assets as much as opportunity permits.

Right now, I am still on hold. My future mission is just over the horizon from my conscious mind, but my spirit warns me it’s almost on top of me. Until that moment arrives when I engage it directly, I’m doing what is possible. I have a lot of time for fitness activities. In my case, the emphasis is on recovering and keeping so much as is possible of my previous athletic level of development. Over the next few posts, I’m going to describe some ideas I use, and they will be skewed toward older folks with arthritis.

There comes a point when running is simply not possible, or is most unwise. I am there. The knee and hip joints might be capable, but not without serious complaint, and most likely making things worse as the cartilage degrades slowly. To replace some of what running does for the body, a movie hero of yesteryear (Steve Reeves) developed what he called Power Walking.

Let’s talk about weight. The only point here is a percentage of your own body weight. We will be walking vigorously with weights, and the upper useful limit is 20% of your body weight. If your fitness level is poor to begin with, you’ll be somewhere below that. We will need equal weights for hands and feet to start. Check the second hand shops and garage sales, or if you have a shop and materials you can make your own.

In my case, I weigh 230 pounds (104kg) so I would shoot for no more than 50 pounds (22kg) of added weight. Nice theory, but in reality I can’t easily obtain such things. From garage sales, I managed to get some 5 pound (2.2kg) strap weights. For now, I put one each on my ankles and wrists, and two on a belt and harness I kept from my old military days. You could use various types of purpose- made weight belts. I’ll eventually use a backpack. You can use ordinary dumbbells for the hands, and any number of creative methods for adding weight to attach to your ankles. Anything less than 2 pounds (1kg) is pointless. Even at my weight, anything over 10 pounds (4.5kg) on each limb is too much.

So with a body weight, say, 175 pounds (80kg) and up, start where you believe you should with weights on your limbs between 2 and 10 pounds, the add any additional weights to a belt. For less body weight, you might want to stop around 5 pounds for limb weights.

From wherever you start in terms of weight, work your way up after you have achieved a good base time limit. For most folks, that initial target is at least 15 minutes, and 20 is better. Work with the low weights up to a half-hour, then start adding weights incrementally, until you hit the upper weight limit. Then stretch the time out to as long as you like. If it hurts, back off. Stop advancing when your body clearly refuses to go farther. Distance really isn’t the point here.

Strive to walk with as long of a stride as possible. The proper motion is keeping your arm swing straight back and forth, which is not natural. The reason has to do with balancing the motion with your legs. Again, keep as long of a stride as your body permits, because it is the hand motion which determines your pace. This is why we start light, so we can give the hands and arms training in leading the way.

There are a hundred other details we could hammer out, such as padding under strap weights, etc., but I’m going to assume you are fairly intelligent and creative about most minor difficulties. You can work this into your current routine where you like, but I recommend you not do it daily, all the more so as you get older. On the odd days take a regular walk at whatever pace you can manage. The idea of Power Walking is to somewhat approximate the workout of jogging or running, but with a lot less pounding. I wouldn’t try to bump up the weight or time more frequently than every three weeks.

Once you’ve been at it a few weeks, the next time you’ll really need to hustle some distance, you’ll notice it’s far easier than previously.

Different Kind of Prepper

I’m a prepper, he’s a prepper, she’s a prepper, we’re all preppers! Wouldn’t you like to be a prepper, too? (Hat tip to the old Dr. Pepper commercial.)

Survivalists and preppers are getting the word out. Lots of good advice if you are so inclined. I’ve done a few things, but nothing on the scale of most who take these things seriously. I’m not focused inwardly, but outward. I got stuff I knew I could use to help others, to be ready to rebuild what comes apart when things go crazy. I won’t pretend I can store enough edibles to help very many, not even really as much as I would expect to need for myself. Just enough to keep things going for a couple of weeks, at best.

That’s because, unless someone drops a nuke on Tinker AFB just a few miles from here, the supply of food locally will be safe. Maybe nothing like our current variety, but enough in quantity and quality to sustain life. The biggest threat is disruption of the supply chain for folks out on the far end, not for those of us who participate more near the first few links. Good thing, too, because we are poor. We couldn’t afford to actually stock up like the survivalists describe.

We’re living just about the official poverty line as a result of choices I felt obliged to make. You could call it a vow of relative poverty. Doing what it would take for me to have a lot more money, while possible, would also be a serious violation of my religion and my calling from God. That implies nothing about you and your sense of imperatives.

I’m prepping according to what I grasp as imperatives God has for me. That’s why the focus is on other people and their probable needs. That is, from what is surely the likely needs of others, I have prepared for those things I know how to handle. First comes blood kin, then anyone who intends to be treated like kin. If my choices end up starving me to death, or some other unexpected end, that’s alright with me. I’m not all the interested in staying in this world in the first place.

But while I’m here, I’m prepping to help my neighbors.

A Step Too Far

Violence is not inherently evil; it is seldom righteous.

Over the years, I’ve learned there are a lot things I can and should absorb for the glory of God. When I look into the mirror of my soul, the greatest scars are not the things done to me. I’ve made peace with those events. These days, it really takes a lot to offend me. Perhaps somewhat more tender are things I’ve done to myself, but I can live with those, too. Far more disturbing and painful are the injuries I’ve caused others. Those scars on my soul are still quite tender. If we cannot be made the feel the pains of others, particularly those we have caused, we are something less than human.

There are things for which I am quite willing to die a hideous death. I’m altogether willing to pay the price to prevent or minimize human suffering. It’s not always that simple, because a certain amount of human suffering is simply part of this life. In the broadest sense, there is nothing I can do about most of it. Over the same years I’ve made peace with injuries done to me, I’ve also made peace with my limitations. There is a divine logic which determines the things we can change, and the things we simply must watch and feel our own sorrow.

So with the same logic by which there are some things for which I’ll die, there are other things where I am honestly willing to see others die. I suppose, in the final analysis, most of us have those certain few lines we simply will not cross without taking someone down with us. Yet again, over those same years, I’ve found certain fundamental commitments I simply cannot ignore, regardless of any logic. Such are those rare possibilities out there in the world where failure to fight is sin.

It has nothing to do with any reasonable chance of success. It’s the carved-in-stone necessity of trying. They aren’t likely to be precisely the same in any two of us. There’s always the high probability we cannot even know precisely what would set us in motion under every imaginable context. Chances are we will encounter some places where, after passing through, we realize we should have fought, regardless of the outcome, and that still having survived without fighting is somehow shameful.

As I read news accounts every day, some of them call out to a part of me: What would I have done? Asking that question can help us define the shape of that bedrock of character inside us all. For example, were I employed by Haliburton or one of it’s subsidiaries, and someone attempted to force me to participate in certain obscene private festivities revealed in the news, I’d be willing to kill as many as it takes to stop those efforts to force me. It won’t matter that I’d likely be killed myself, or at least thrown into prison on trumped up charges so as to cover up their filthy corporate culture. I’d have to fight with every means at my disposal. So long as I have the choice to dodge it, I have no interest in what people do to themselves, or agree to do to each other.

There are lot of things which do not alarm me in the least. I’ve seen some truly awful things humans can do — it was part of my job in composing Military Police command alerts. I found it repulsive a pregnant gal was smoking crack, but my convictions say it’s her right destroy her own child. I find abortion an abomination before the Lord, but I find His Word says I can’t choose for the mother except in a certain narrow context currently improbable on this earth. What’s the difference between her aborting that child and simply bathing it in toxic chemicals in the womb? On the other hand, try doing some things to a child for whom I am blood kin, and I won’t hesitate to snuff your candle. And afterward I won’t have so much as a tinge of regret, except to note you didn’t really have to be such a fool.

Or if someone can be manipulated into any number of degrading things, I say it’s their own fault for lacking character. That would be most of the human race. I’d condemn the manipulators, maybe even hope to take some action against them, but in the end, there’s really little we can do to end it. The case is stronger if the victim has no expectation of developing resistance — children and the disabled — but each case can be quite different. There are no hard and fast rules. So I do devote a little of my time to keeping a certain amount of physical fitness and even some martial arts practice.

Sometimes all I have left is praying for God’s justice. Yet, there remains a slender selection of events for which I’m quite willing to help people meet their Maker.

Close Encounters: Be the Third Kind

For the Christian Mystic, it’s never about himself.

What follows presumes you are acquainted with my numerous rants about Christian Mysticism. It’s always about the Truth, and our mission is to manifest the Truth, drawing all the attention in that direction. Awareness of typical human behavior helps us deflect attention away from ourselves to the Truth. For people who seek to embrace Christian Mysticism, coming from another mental orientation, you will need to consider how this calls for some radical changes which are seldom self-evident.

In the coming months, world events will tend to throw many of us into social encounters with strangers. It matters little whether we expect these encounters to be the start of long-term associations or fleeting one-time exposure. You must never forget you are an alien to them, and so it should be. Not in arrogance, though you cannot avoid them thinking that of you at times, but in a simple and quiet rejection of the mental prisons which hold them, even as you seek to operate from empathy. Truth creates the opportunities, often without warning, so we need to spend time reorienting ourselves repeatedly until we shed the old habits and remain focused on the Truth.

We are not the Truth Police. Truth needs no defense by us, only manifestation. We are not responsible when people choose to live outside Truth, and it’s hardly our job to shepherd them into Truth except in a few rare circumstances. Even when a social encounter puts us into leadership or command, the mechanism is not to lecture on proper thinking and attitudes, but simply executing the duties of leadership truthfully. What does it take to get the job done?

Modern liberal political and social philosophy is in substance a feminine point of view. In that sense, when you are meeting liberals or progressives, the encounter will take a certain predictable course regardless whether the person is male or female. If there is any ambiguity in gender, you can bet they are progressive, primarily because they cannot separate the notion of “equality” from “interchangeable.” Unless the conversation is structured and limited by some externally imposed necessity, it will quickly drift into an unfocused laundry list of orthodoxies. That is, liberals generally feel compelled to preach, or at least to poll your opinions on things which are connected only by their presence on the liberal political and social agenda. They are most often expressed in terms of bogus social science studies or simply some presumed morality.

Modern social and political conservatives will seldom leave any question as to their gender, because the underlying philosophy is very masculine in a traditional Western sense. It is highly rational, and will seem at first logically consistent. However, the whole application of this conservative agenda quickly deteriorates logically as they begin talking about how we are in some crisis or another. It matters not what sensible philosophy they espouse, because no part of it will be enacted due to the ever present threats of the day.

Together these two groups will form the bulk of any gathering into which you are thrust. They share the illusion the world can be fixed if only people would listen. In any random setting, people always seek fellow travelers to whom they gravitate for comfort. Sadly, you can bet the initial grouping will always be by apparent racial types. They’ll touch base with their “homies” first. Within each racial group there will be subdivisions over politics. Given sufficient time without attention being consumed by something else, political issues will become paramount, on one scale or another. Yet again, racial identity is often the whole of their politics. The fundamental unifying thread in social behavior is insecurity.

The Christian Mystic aims first internally to understand and embrace the flaws we all carry. Only then can there be any possible progress in overcoming their limitations. While there will always be certain elements in our world for which we have no good response, we could characterize our number one problem as insecurity. The single greatest factor in defeating insecurity is to stop caring about this world in the first place. That is, the only reason we don’t commit suicide and escape immediately is because there is a duty to Truth here. The less we find ourselves wed to this plane of existence, the more free we are to face the very real threats here.

When we walk in the door of any place holding strangers, most of the time they already have established some level of social equilibrium. You will always make adjustments based on the the obligations of the context, such as why you are there in the first place. However, there are a few practical points you’ll likely want to observe.

1. Never talk about yourself. If necessary, discuss what you need, want, or seek. Try to keep it in simple or concrete terms. Never compare notes over what you like or dislike; never spill your guts on anything. It’s not about you. Let them chatter as much as they like, and even ask intelligent questions with as much ambivalence as you know how to offer. Always be aware questions can give away far more than many answers.

2. Avoid betraying your emotions overtly. Total aplomb is your goal. When the time is right, perhaps use as much drama, comic effect, etc., as is natural to your personality and character, but carefully scripted to keep attention away from yourself.

3. Prepare yourself mentally to deflect impertinent questions. Answer all questions by focusing on the Truth, not on yourself. Decide up front what is impertinent to the context. Learn how to answer questions with questions. Probing you is typically with the motive of judging you and placing you in some category you’ll have to escape. Avoid being pigeon-holed. You are an alien, totally outside all their standard categories. In the simple rules of ordinary civility, a standard response is, “Why would you want to know that?” If it doesn’t shut off the question, it at least allows you to establish their motives. It also puts you into the position of stating you don’t care about the issue, or as firmly as necessary that you aren’t going to answer.

4. You do intend to make friends, but you first have to knock down the false barriers. The real thing takes time; we aren’t interested in shallow acquaintanceship. Make yourself aware of their little worlds, but don’t enter them. Make them enter yours. Know before you start your actual friends will be few, if any, because most of the world is unable to escape the prison.

5. Respect their rejection. Presume it until they make it plain they want the Truth. When your habit of dodging questions about yourself by redirecting attention to the Truth doesn’t result in either anger or loss of interest, it’s time to share more Truth. Keep it short and answer only what they ask, because almost no one is ready for the whole thing at once.

6. Offer the Truth in small portions. Truth is caught, not taught. By it’s nature Truth can only be known contextually. It is absorbed, not reasoned. Each of us who carry Truth do so only in our own limited portions. We are not the Truth; it’s not about us.

Addenda: Ordinary people will engage in PR, spin, efforts to control their public image. Don’t do that. You can’t prevent others from forming their opinions of you, but you don’t have to help them by making it easy to dismiss you through premature or inaccurate pigeon-holing. You will not share yourself until someone earns the right. Again, it’s not about trading information back and forth, but let them lie all they want about themselves because you know better than to trust them in the first place. You don’t trust yourself, and your self-concept may have no meaning nor bearing on how they treat you. Let them be wrong about you, as well.

Bottom Line Morality

I like to think I’m operating under fewer delusions than most folks do. I’m going to write an imaginary letter to the psychopaths who rule the world:

I’ve already made peace with my mortality. I estimate there is a high probability I won’t die under peaceful and pleasant circumstances. It was some time ago I surrendered the notion I might give my life for some noble cause. By no means am I suicidal, but I’ll be content simply leaving this plane of existence as soon as powers far above me are ready for me to get out of the way. I consider this life in many ways a prison sentence.

Between now and my eventual release, I do have something which drives me. Let’s not pretend I can put it into words; just know it’s there. I call it my sanity. It’s probably the only thing in this life which has value to me, and that’s only because I believe it’s anchored somewhere outside this life. My grip on it may be limited, but the thing itself is hardly fragile.

It tells me there is nothing I can do to stop your plans, nor hinder them, nor even offer any symbolic resistance anyone would remember. I can’t save myself, much less anyone else. All I can do is try to hold onto that sanity, even in the final moments, whatever shape those moments might take. There are some things I won’t voluntarily do, and quite a few things I’ll always try to do, simply because it’s what my sanity demands, not because I expect those imperatives to make any real difference in the final outcome of things.

What’s left is whole lot of things I might be willing to do which you’ll find useful. It’s rather like calling a truce. No part of my sanity requires truculence over things I can’t control. The current trend toward unpleasant circumstances for most of the world is just background noise. Whether I enjoy it is not the question; it’s there and it won’t go away. About the only thing I hope I can do is demonstrate my brand of sanity so folks notice it. There’s always a chance they’ll want something similar for themselves, and I am utterly certain nothing else is worth wanting. If you tolerate me doing that, I’ll tolerate your use of me in return.

I realize that will limit my usefulness, so unless you can find a place for me in your machinery, where my peculiarities don’t gum up the works, I suppose it’s best I just stay out of the way.

My Dream Job

This is more about me than you might want to know, but if I don’t post it somewhere, it isn’t likely to happen.

I dream of being a personal assistant. For several years I served as a part time personal assistant for an aging business tycoon. Not wealthy; he was a tycoon in the sense of how I treated him. What he paid me had no bearing on my service. It was nothing more than the means to making sure I had the resources to keep on serving. He didn’t buy my loyalty. He took advantage of my natural instinct for loyalty. He was honest with me, and he got it back with interest. He respected the limits with which I had to live for the sake of my own sanity. In return, even when I didn’t like his choices, I respected them and genuinely tried to make things happen. I was able to offer a wealth of patience for his personal foibles because I was painfully aware of my own. When he changed his mind fifteen times regarding a particular matter, I acted on whatever he said he wanted at the time.

The skills he found useful: a clean driving record and attentive chauffeuring; conscientious maintenance of this cars and other equipment; a sharp eye for details inspecting all the real estate and facilities he managed; keeping gold-digging family members out of his stuff; personal security, safety and health watch; chasing all sorts of information, particularly on the Net, researching the best deals; a great deal of effort to modify his computer and his office so he could use it as he wished; a broad acquaintance with the Liberal Arts so as not to bore him when he felt like chatting; regular reports on whatever world affairs interested him. I assembled kit furniture expertly, moved large items at his whim, dug up a sewer line to save him some money, cooked when no one else would or could, fixed countless little things around his home, kept track of his agendas and when I failed at something, he was the first to know. More than anything else, I was his friend.

It had nothing to do with his worthiness, and everything to do with his trust.

I’d love to do it again. I’d love to serve someone who traveled more, needed more of my time. I know how the train systems in Europe work, and I can get by in several languages. I’m quite willing to endure a significant level of deprivation when that’s what the mission requires. I’ve never forgotten how to sleep on the ground, eat what was available, and move at a moment’s notice on little sleep. I have physical limits, but I’m not one to whine. The worst thing you could do is keep me in the dark about my job, but I have no curiosity at all about things which are none of my business. I’ll take care of the time-consuming details of things while you devote your attention to what matters most. My greatest strength is my ability to report honestly whatever it is you want to know, and not try to sell you something I might want you to believe. I don’t take myself that seriously.

I won’t suck up to you like a slave, because you don’t need that. Nonetheless, I will tend to sacrifice my comfort for yours because I am simply not all that hung up on this world in the first place. I have no worldly ambitions except to make you look good. There isn’t much I fear. I’d be frugal with your money, and accept only what you willingly offered. My loyalty to you here is based on my loyalty to my God up There. I’ll be on loan from Him. He’s the only one who will outrank you in my mind, and is the only one to whom I’ll snitch on you, since He’ll know everything anyway.

You get the idea. Traditional resume here.

Needed: An Honest Global Cabal

It’s a waste of emotional energy to dread global government; it’s going to happen.

Sure, it may not ever be completely in control. No government ever is. The harder they try to seize control of that last margin of resistance, the more surely they’ll fail in ruling. Most of the real global conspirators know that. If they weren’t that intelligent, their conspiracies would already have failed.

The biggest problem is not the global government itself. It’s what those brilliant psychopaths have to do in order to make it happen. What infuriates me most is the vast stupidity of everyone in persistent fantasy chasing. No, global government will not be good. All government, as we conceive of it now, is by definition evil, because it requires an evil soul to want that sort of power and control over others. The only form of government which works is the one everyone hates the most. So we have a half-dozen basic concepts, in which we imagine folks should have some say in how they are governed, when those systems we prefer cannot possibly work that way. We have sufficient historical example to prove this, but the fantasy just won’t die.

Because of this fantasy of having a voice in government, all the successful governments are forced to deceive those they govern. The more successful they are at ruling, the more expansive and insane those lies have to be. Inevitably, this makes the functioning more painful and destructive than it has to be. Sooner or later, when in the natural progression of things the ruling class get honest with us about their intentions, we throw a fit. If not, we are so utterly stupefied by the palliatives and distractions we are utterly useless. Either way, our fantasy about having a say in things creates more misery than has to be.

If we actually did have a say in things, it would be just as bad. America discovered that very quickly, and crushed the Articles of Confederation into the dust of history. If you know your history, think about it for a moment. When the people actually have power, it makes no difference whether the assumptions are democratic, republican or communist. The rabble cannot possibly think beyond their own comfort. The process of human education cannot ever be good enough to overcome that. It is not because individuals cannot be educated above that level of stupidity, it’s that aggregating them in any size group worth governing changes the equation without fail. People in groups are inherently more stupid than individuals. Groups can’t reason the way individuals can. The more diverse the members of the group, the more insane their lack of reasoning.

I would, and you should, fear democracy of any flavor more than any oligarchy or monarchy. Tyranny by the elite is the natural state of things on this plane of existence, but you can’t make the world understand that. As the technology of communication becomes more advanced, the reach of any tyranny must inevitably expand. Global government is the next step, and it will happen. The only hope you have for sanity is working on that assumption.

By resisting it, we force the elite to play more head games with us. They offer these bright shining lies as inducements for the sheer necessity of getting us to go along with it. I sincerely wish I could educate folks to this reality, but I know better than to try. All I can hope for is helping a select few by reminding them of the obvious. Since you already know it’s coming, far better for everyone concerned is that we make realistic plans to play whatever hand is dealt. It’s good to have intelligence, talent and perhaps some stuff to make yourself useful to this coming Beast, but the most important asset is attitude.

Granted, if your mission and calling in life is to stir up trouble by resistance, the least you could do is be realistic about it. Resist what really is a threat to us, and fight that. And when it comes time to suffer the consequences of your resistance, be serene and joyful, because your job is done.

At this point I presume my readers are smart enough to realize I do not counsel lying supine beneath the boot of this global cabal. You still have your own sense of calling about what really matters, just pursue that within the limits of the situation. No human government can ever possibly be good. Don’t lick the boots slavishly, because that’s just another lie. No real global ruler is going to expect you to love them unless you identify with the idiot mass. They would prefer you be realistic in choosing to find a sane role, in which you come to grips with reality and make your choices based on what you really find you must do. So whether you are a resistor or a compliant servant, or some mixture of both, you should be cynical enough to have discarded all the fantasies. This compels the rulers to be honest with you, much as they might enjoy the drama of playing at being savior of mankind.

Your choices will make a lot more sense when you see through the layers of deception about the certainty of global government.