No, he wasn’t and they aren’t

Note: This post was a “sticky” feature for 24 hours. Scroll down for a video of the Norwegian Foreign Minister being caught lying about his contacts with Hamas, an investigative report about a university-funded MSA library in Montreal containing “extremist” literature, and last night’s news feed.

No, he wasn’t and they aren’t

by Takuan Seiyo

“Fort Hood soldier ‘shot dead neighbors after wife fled to their house then dragged her back home and killed her then himself’” read one of the similar headlines on Feb. 24, 2015. The stories were mostly standard boilerplate too, asserting — here, again, in the Daily Mail’s version — that “Police in Killeen, Texas remain unsure why Atase Giffa killed his neighbors Sunday before killing his wife Dawn, 28.”

I think I know why, and it calls for lifting the other deception that obscures the why for the culturally-ignorant, the innocent, and the politically corrupt. This deception always originates in the Government-Media combine: here, for instance, evinced in the Associated Press packaged content:

“Fort Hood officials issued a statement Tuesday saying Atase Giffa was from Clarkston, Georgia and enlisted in 2009 as an automated logistics specialist. His wife, Dawn Giffa, was from Kingston, Ontario.”

But no, Giffa was not from Clarkston, Georgia. The name, the face of Atase Giffa bear the imprint of East Africa, most likely Ethiopia. The eyes are the sad, shocked, resentment-filled eyes of a refugee who has not only traveled thousands of miles to get to the United States, but several centuries as well.

And found out that traversing geographical distance is easy, but time-traveling to 21st century Western society is pretty much impossible — even if you are not a Muslim, in which case your coordinates on the time axis have to whoosh 1400 years forward in a matter of a year or two. Quite like another recent Fort Hood soldier, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who could not traverse this space-time continuum, with lethal consequences for 13 Americans, and nearly so for another 32.

Moreover, just as Giffa is not from Clarkston, Georgia, Hasan is not from Arlington, Virginia, even though he was born there. The descendants of Martha Washington and Mary Custis and her husband, Robert E. Lee, are from Arlington. Hasan is on the space axis from 20th century Near Middle East and on the time axis from 7th century Saudi Arabia. It’s only the unalloyed Loonism and corruption of America’s ruling elite that, by importing his Palestinian parents, planted Hasan in Fort Hood on that fateful November 2009 day.

It gets worse. Arlington, where Hasan is not from, and Clarkston, where Giffa is not from, are not in Virginia and Georgia either but in that howling-mad vortex of quantum decoherence: an alternative reality multiverse conjured by mad Loons with the power to destroy.

Per the latest census — and this kind of data is always on the lowball side — 23% of Arlington residents are foreign-born and in 29% of households a language other than English is spoken at home. Arlington — via government, media, even corporate blurbs (e.g. Amazon) — proudly flaunts its public school children who “hail from 126 countries” and speak 98 languages.

That’s no way to run a country, or even a county. But even that pales in comparison to the quantum entanglement phenomenon that calls itself Clarkston, Georgia but is really Clarkston’s weird doppelganger situated on the dwarf star Uber Loonis 183/X.

“How would you like to walk out of your front door and share life, food, and stories with people from Colombia, Burma, Nepal, Iraq, Ethiopia and Sudan?” — asks just one of the “Christian” outfits feeding on America’s social capital and future prospects. “That is exactly what happens every day for people that come to serve with Global Frontier Missions in the Clarkston area of Atlanta, GA.”

Just so we understand that God is the CEO of this enterprise, GFM’s web page exhorts, “Stay engaged with what God is doing among the unreached.”

And “Friends of Refugees” — a Clarkston, GA outfit that has on its board a professor of theology at the “Christian” Indiana Wesleyan University, and a pastor of something that calls itself “Cell-ebration” — coos:

“During [the 1990′s], the population of Clarkston grew 34% as refugee families from over 150 different ethnic groups found a supportive urban environment for development and growth. Since this process began, some 60,000 refugees have begun their journeys as New Americans in this area. With so many ethnic groups represented within and around the city, Clarkston has been called ‘the most diverse square mile in America’ by the New York Times Magazine.”

Some other “Christian” lunacy calling itself Southeastern Synod ELCA “celebrates” some more in “The Ellis Island of the South”: Refugee Resettlement in Clarkston, GA. And they cite more self-appointed real-estate agents for Jesus that collaborate in this enterprise: Lutheran Services of Georgia that “partnered with the Clarkston Community Center and other local organizations for the Martin Lutheran King, Jr. Day of Service” and, if you poke some more, All Saints Lutheran Church and the Episcopal Church Of The Messiah.

This is just a tiny slice of a galloping tragicomedy in which glutton Leviathan on a quest to expand the ranks of its dependent serfs, the secular Left, and the seriously-believing “Christians” collaborate to disembowel and eviscerate the country of their ancestors and future descendants, while singing mad paeans to compassion, American values, Jesus, and what not.

A lone watchdog. Ann Corcoran’s “Refugee Resettlement Watch” tries, but can’t keep up with this avalanche. Corcoran wrote about Clarkston, its slide from a normal white suburb to a refugee-town of decay, poverty and suicide here.

Another excellent watchdog, Vdare.com, is bigger, more influential, and focuses on the entire Immigration racket rather than just its “refugee” scheme. Unfortunately, Vdare.com and the few otherwise laudable anti-immigration, anti-population replacement institutions travel with monomaniacal antisemites, ranging from Kevin McDonald & Disciples to Paul Fromm and worse. Therefore, while diagnosing the disease correctly, because of pandering to Jew hatred they misidentify its etiology and downplay the Muslim dimension of the pathology.

America’s tragedy is not its few Jews, influential though they are, their majority damaging and pathetic in supporting what’s worst not just for their country but for their own survival. The tragedy is not in the Left, either. The Left will always be there, always has been, like antimatter.

America’s tragedy are its “Christians”: its Bushes, its Huckabees, its Jimmy “Baptist Deacon” Carters, its Lyndon “Disciple of Christ” Johnsons, its “progressive” theologians, its Koran-teaching seminaries, its Jesus-the-Multiculti-Socialist peddlers who have no understanding either of the Bible or the Koran, either 1st century Jerusalem or 21st century Mogadishu. Until some sort of Second Reformation cleans up and resets this moldy mess, there won’t be an effective counterweight to the Nouveau Marxist juggernaut.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

P.S. I have written before about the many cases of Third World immigrants, Muslim and not so, unable to adjust and exploding in a hail of bullets or machete swings against the lunatic Western society that transplanted them from their native soil.

And a few more facts about the status quo of America’s Christianity:

Takuan Seiyo is a European-born American writer living in exile in Japan. For links to his previous essays, see the Takuan Seiyo Archives.

58 thoughts on “No, he wasn’t and they aren’t

  1. A very incisive article T.S. part of it put me in mind of something Paul Kersey –
    “When whites check out of an area, so does civilization” you could extrapolate from that – when enough Muslims move into an area, uncivilization moves in with them.

    • Yes, but my burning question is: Why every civilization and at its peak of maturity invites savages to destroy self and to then try to rebuild it again. Does everything, like stars, start with infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, decline then death. Are there things greater than us and we have no control over them?

      Today there are no systems in the world more rotten than so-called democracies and the leaders of the free world.

      The only freedom they have is to produce millions of porno magazines, cheap novels, degrading movies/ films, and ruining elementary childhood in the name of teaching them “sexual education”

      Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. And,

      . . . but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
      Oh, yes this is not a preaching pulpit, but morals, conscience, are relevant at any -time and space – man-related areas. No one needs conscience more than politicians who lead us to perdition.

      Just look around and see what they are promoting: jihadi darkness.

      When the west cast Judeo-Christianity tenets ( thou shalt love your neighbor as yourself) I like to repeat that phrase every day( does not say love jihadis more than your native people), the West started to look for something pitch dark and they got it: It is called :

      JIHADI ISLAMI

      Greed, porn, risque movies, and absolute freedom in exercising every known and created vices no wonder we inevitably invite the powers of obscurantism, represented by islam.

      I don’t know how can we have peace without some noble teachings? I think I have the freedom to say that in my mind there is a connection between Enlightened Faith and Judeo-Christianity and our suvival, or fateful beheading.

      Today our rulers obey muslims blindly and they are only 2- 18 % in different totalitarian democracies. And they are busy installing muslims in sensitive areas. What will prevent our rulers from giving our enemies in our midst lethal weapons, as they are doing now in Middle East and to Israel’s enemies, in 20 years. We have not seen such romantic love between bearded creatures and “democracies since Adam and Eve.

      Is this a sign of a pending apocalypse?

      • Murad–

        You forgot all the sports teams, given more stardom than the old stars were. Who gives a fig what team won what series when? And I mean the current load of sports mega-stars and their expensive stadia, their bloated recompense, and the willingness of the sheep to be diverted by their games.

        We have poisoned, noxious “food products” and we have “games”. Bread and circuses for the madding crowds…

        • Same over here, Dymphna. It’s called Football (Soccer) and is nothing more than a tripping up competition played by some of the finest thespians on the face of the planet whilst drawing astronomical salaries.
          However one has to be philosophical about such things as, I understand, was Phineas T. Barnum – that celebrated hoaxer and showman – who once famously said “Nobody ever lost money by underestimating public taste!”
          How astute of him, and still they kept filling his tents 🙂

          • Or manipulating words that the general public had little understanding of – such as signs displaying a hand pointing to the words ‘To the Egress’ – so as to facilitate a quick turnaround of paying customers at his sideshows.

            One very cluey operator.

      • “Yes, but my burning question is: Why every civilization and at its peak of maturity invites savages to destroy self and to then try to rebuild it again. Does everything, like stars, start with infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, decline then death. Are there things greater than us and we have no control over them?”

        I can answer only your first question. It seems to me that what has happened in the West since the 1970’s is that the prosperous, democratic and stable societies began to believe: we’ve got it so good we can afford to share our prosperity with our less fortunate Third World denizens. In the belief that the Third World was less prosperous only because the West had exploited it.

        Up until the early 1970’s there was largely just foreign aid and free tertiary education opportunities under schemes like “Colombo Plan”. The odious Australia-hating, West-hating, Jew-hating Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Matathir Muhammed, became a medical doctor courtesy of Australia’s taxpayers magnanimity whilst the bright children of lower middle class and working class Australians were deprived of access to a tertiary education system that their taxes were funding because universities charged steep tuition fees.

        Armed with his Australian-paid for tertiary education the egregious ingrate doctor at least went back to Malaysia to commence a political career trading on his high educational status.

        A great many Colombo Plan students however just illegally overstayed and passed back the message throughout South East Asia that Australia was a “soft touch” immigration-wise: once one gained legal entry as a student, the law enforcement was so lax that one could just simply stay, as long as one didn’t pay taxes or take overseas holidays – drivers’ licences, bank accounts and property purchase presented no problems – and then wait for an amnesty. I know this because in the early 80’s I met a whole cohort of Malaysian Chinese former university students who’d done just that. BTW The Malaysian and Hong Kong Chinese legal immigrants are probably the most productive, well-assimilated, welfare-averse and law abiding non-European immigrant cohort that Australia has. There are high rates of intermarriage with “white” Australians. Some of the Malaysian Chinese are duly grateful to have the opportunity to not live their lives under the – constitutionally entrenched – racism perpetuated against them by the lazy, corrupt and domineering Muslim Malays.

        Not content with doling out foreign aid and free tertiary education, the kindly Western progressives went one big step further and decided they should open their borders to mass immigration from the Third World. The “economic benefit to the host rationale” only developed as a response to public concern over loss of social and cultural cohesion.

        For those who couldn’t qualify as legal immigrants there were devices such as sham marriages – the going rate for entering into a sham marriage with a Hong Kong Chinese woman in the early 1980’s was $10,000 – modest apartments (and houses in gentrifying suburbs) of Sydney then cost less than $50,000 – many young Australians did it to get a deposit for a home. The going rate for a woman sham-marrying a HK man was $25,000.

        A salutary tale concerning Western naivety and generosity: in the late 1970’s an older friend of mine, Philip, had through a university student flatmate Keith, been persuaded by Grace, a Social Work student from Hong Kong, to enter gratis into a sham marriage with him so that she could gain citizenship and in due course divorce Philip and marry her medical student boyfriend from Hong Kong, Albert. Between 1975 and 1991 tertiary education in Australia was tuition free. Philip advised me in 1981, when I learned of his actions (his girlfriend Claire had confided to me that they couldn’t marry because Philip was still married!), that he did it because, having drunk the libtard Kool Aid and parroting the pervasive progressive “compassionate” line of the era: “I don’t believe in borders”. I responded simply that borders believed in him and that he had been naive and foolish. Needless to say Grace and Albert had nothing more to do with Philip once Grace had obtained her citizenship and divorce. Albert and Grace both came from wealthy families; Philip did not. His parents rented for whole of their lives.

        Cut to 1993: Philip, due to serious injury, is impoverished, struggling to pay his rent and raise his son as a single parent. Claire has long gone. Albert and Grace by then lived in a waterfront mansion on Middle Harbour as Albert owned a thriving medical centre, not a sole practice but a multi-practitioner centre in Chatswood – the epicentre of Sydney’s Hong Kong Chinese community. I suggested to Philip that he write to Grace and Albert setting out his dire circumstances and ask them for some small financial assistance, without any hint of blackmail or even reminding them of what he had done for them out of the (misguided) goodness of his heart. His letter went unanswered as did his two telephone calls to Albert’s medical centre. They changed their domestic telephone number to an unlisted one.

        Philip was too disappointed and depressed to accept my offer to confront them on his behalf. Outraged at their ingratitude, I considered acting unilaterally with the authorities, but didn’t only because it would land Philip in trouble that he didn’t need to say the least. I asked him did he still not believe in borders? He shortly thereafter ended all contact with me.

        I live in hope that Grace and Albert (who was party to the conspiracy from the outset) will somehow be prosecuted, jailed, stripped of their citizenship and then deported after serving their time. It won’t happen. I am quite sure there are hundreds if not thousands of similar scenarios from around 1980 in Australia, Canada, the USA and Britain as Hong Kong’s future sovereignty looked uncertain.

        The above anecdote can be seen as an allegory for the consequences of the naive foolishness of kind, generous, Westerners vis-a-vis those wishing to gain entry into Western countries. There is and will be no appreciation or respect: just smug contempt for useful idiots.

        In the same vein I could also tell the tale of a gullible New Zealand woman who married a slightly younger Muslim “Palestinian” she’d met traveling in Israel – she, who’d drunk the Kool Aid of “Palestinianism”, thought it was a genuine love match – who promptly divorced her as soon as he gained New Zealand citizenship. As she was an infidel he had no intention of having children with her, which had been part of her motivation. He left for Australia (having gained entry through the special but well abused backdoor – three years as a New Zealand citizen and one can migrate to Australia as of right) and then imported his betrothed fellow villager from Israel, married her and sired four “Australian” citizens. I shudder to think what this exercise in immigration fraud, in fact if not in law, has cost the Australian taxpayer financially and will cost for decades to come. I doubt any of his, now adult, four progeny are taxpayers as he certainly wasn’t.

          • Hmm, Nemesis,
            Re. Barnum and the use of words…

            – Religion of Peace?
            – Multiculturism?
            – Radicalisation?
            – Racism?
            – Enrichment?
            – Islamophobia?
            – Victimisation?
            – Assimilation?
            – Deprivation?
            – Exclusion/Inclusion?

            …and anything else the globalising enablers of our ethnic cleansing can think of in order to confuse and distract the Sheeples and the Chatterati until it is too late?
            Rgds, S III

          • The 21st Century will become known as the age of deceit and betrayal. Words can mean so many things to many people, but to use them deceitfully for an agenda to undermine Western culture is a crime for which there are no adequate words available in which to describe such a collective act of lethal disloyalty.

  2. Takuan, I am of the opinion that we are well and truly past any hope of ‘reforming’ through basic Christian examples without civil violence in some measure occurring.

    The rot is so entrenched in the system that even individual common sense is afraid to show its advocacy.

    Another fine article from a very deep thinker!

  3. A fine, if depressing article, Takuan. As one who was raised Christian, though not a believer, it does seem to me that the charities you criticise are following the teachings of their founder, as surely as Islamist Muslims are theirs; their intentions are good- and bearing in mind that their clients are already in the US, are they to be blamed?

    • Mark

      These so-called charities importing Muslims and Africans aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their hearts but for money and a lot of it from the government. Nor do they care they are ruining the communities these people are dumped into. There is no place for them in our society. They are ignorant and very costly to support here(since most are illiterate with non-existent hygiene habits) and come from cultures whose values are antithetical to Western Civ.

      They’ll never be Americans.

      The U.S. works for 1st world peoples, not 3rd world. The latter remain 3rd world. Los Angeles is living proof of that after allowing millions of campesinos to set up shop here. They’ve become a permanent wards of the state and a dangerous underclass for the most part, kept placated through massive injections of welfare, government jobs and intensive policing.

      Somalis and Muzzies are far worse for obvious reasons.

      And if those churches importing are doing Jesus’s work then why have they abandoned their brothers and sisters in the ME?

      • Anon

        I must disagree in part. There are Christians who do play their role in this refugee travesty purely out of sincerity and kindness stemming from their religious beliefs. You are otherwise entirely correct. And your final question is a pertinent one.

        Remember in the movie “Gran Torino” when Clint Eastwood asks the personable Hmong girl: “How the hell did you ‘Hill people’ [from Laos and Cambodia] end up in Michigan where there’s snow on the ground five months a year?”

        “The Lutherans” she answers. Her answer was accurate: the Hmong and now the Somalis are found in Minnesota and neighbouring states due to genuinely Christian motives to help the less fortunate. Of course, helping poor Minnesotans would be a better, if less PR attracting, idea.

        A friend of mine spent a year as an exchange student with a family in Morehead, Minnesota – the twin city of Fargo, North Dakota – in the late 1970’s. She was shocked at how hard the working class breadwinning father of her host family had to work (outside in freezing weather before 7 am) to make ends meet – two jobs – and how modestly the family lived, having imagined that all (White) Americans lived something just a little below the lifestyle depicted in “Dallas” or “Dynasty”.

        • Takuan above mentions Ann Corcoran’s ‘Refugee Resettlement Watch’. One of the most unsettling things Ann has ferreted out is the funding arrangements of so-called refugee resettlement charities. Most of funding, in the order of 97%, comes from the taxpayer, via the State Department. Only a tiny amount comes from parishioners.

          Even worse are the salaries – the head honcho of the Lutheran outfit receives in excess of $200,000, but this looks modest compared to the $400,000 plus of the Baptist guy, who lives in that posh suburb Barack Obama had a hissy fit over a while back. There’s money to be made in selling out your countrymen.

          • thank you for this information. I am a great admirer of Ann Corcoran’s work. She is truly indefatigable. Better reporting than the big non-profits who study this issue. She made me a true believer re the evils of Big Farm, esp. factory meats…

            …many of those refugees end up on welfare or working at meat packing plants owned by the rich and well-connected. Those folks are our modern-day robber barons.

    • Christ was no socialist Mark, but if that is what you believe maybe you could share some of your convictions as to why you would believe such a thing?
      All charities have now become influenced under socialism, even the Red Cross has been compromised. The commies did a grand job of undermining our institutions, even to the point where common sense is now rejected as being distracting from the cause. Such thinking blinds subscribers to not think of their own self -preservation, even when it is starkly obvious to the charity worker that the folks they are helping have no love or respect for the country that has given them succour from whatever or even for what those naïve charity workers do for them.

      Such is the hate for everything western and the infidel. You cannot combat hate through acts of compassion that any Israeli working in a hospital in Israel that treats Palestinians can tell you about, you must destroy it!

      • Actually, that Jesus was a socialist is a conviction not only of Mark but of the entire Progressive Christian movement going back to 1880s New England in the United States, and much earlier elsewhere. I’ve devoted some space to analyzing “Jerusalem,” for instance, written by William Blake in 1804 and as universal token of Englishness as there is — yet it’s nothing but gnostic Loonism of the socialist bent. More here: http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/100955/sec_id/100955

        Moreover, yes, Jesus was a socialist and a pacifist. He was a Jewish radical if ever there was one. And that was the age in which to be a Jewish radical and a pacifist. Now, it isn’t.

        I realize that this presents some theological conundrums that no Christian denomination is at present able to deal with. But deal with it must, or else Christianity will justify the contempt that Nietzsche, Hitler, Evola, “vibrant” Muslims in the West and others have had for it.

        • Takuan, have you read The Works of Josephus, as translated by William Whiston or Jesus the Man, by Barbara Thiering?

          I have no doubt that Christ was a radical for his time. Why else would the Romans have put Him to death on the say so of the Sanhedrin unless they could see a direct threat to their occupation of Judea?

          After all it is politics that dictates not religion.

          And His teachings may lay bare his pacifism, but they also lay bare His belief that this world was nothing more than a test bed for the individual soul and that He was in direct competition with an unseen force for the soul’s eternal salvation.

          He was no socialist, He didn’t preach that the state owned everything, but what belonged to Caesar as the Roman occupier of Judea, and in tangible assets only belonged to Caesar, though Caesar did not own the individual’s soul, and to Him, that was all that mattered.

          The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book that should be read by anyone who has a longing to follow up on what occurred in Europe two thousand years ago after a great man had been executed by the Roman State for daring to preach that everyone was created equal under God and for which no state religion at the time was prepared to accept.

          Jesus was a great Man.

          • Nemesis,

            We are just taping our own verbal stickers onto Jesus. Whether it’s strictly correct to call him a socialist is not the point. The point is that he preached a message that can be expressed as “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.”

            Nor is it relevant whether it’s strictly correct to call his message “pacifist.” The point is that he saw that a violent revolt against Rome was national suicide, just as Jeremiah had seen six centuries earlier relative to violent resistance against Assyria. For their pains, the one was crucified and the other beaten up within an inch of his life and thrown into a well. And the people whom they had tried to save ignored the advice, took up arms and perished, as did their nations: Israel in 700 -720 BC and Judea in 70 -135 AD.

            What’s relevant is that, first, we mistake the enormous baggage that we, corrupt, stupid humans have loaded onto Jesus –a baggage that he might not necessarily recognize and accept. And second, stupid that we are we cannot conceive of any reality but the linear one.

            What makes anyone assume that if Jesus was a “socialist” and “pacifist” in 1st century Jerusalem he would be so in 21st century Melbourne? How can all those idiots ask themselves “What would Jesus do” and conclude that he would do more of the same?

            Why do we continue believing in linear “progress” when the Orient has made brilliant arguments for circularity, repeatedly, for 3500 years now? Why Bollywood, chop sui, manga and anime but no things of deep value that we could learn from them?

            You understand how deep a subject it is; I can’t but hint at some coordinates. But ask yourself, why a person as smart and valuable as Ann Barnhardt would post an entry named There Is No Salvation Outside The Catholic Church http://www.barnhardt.biz/2015/02/06/there-is-no-salvation-outside-the-catholic-church-extra-ecclesiam-nulla-salus/? Are we going to do the 30-year-war thing again?

            Whence comes the absolute certitude that peppers her writings with quotes like “The Church teaches infallibly that Dyophysitism is TRUE and everything else, including Miaphysitism is false, and thus heretical. Period. Full stop. End of story.”?

            As you read the Gospels, do you feel that Jesus was much bothered whether it’s Dyophysitism or Miaphysitism?

            And why would anyhing I have written on the subject bring you to assert that Jesus was a great Man? Could any of it be interpreted as though I don’t think so, or that I do not believe in his divine dimension?

            We don’t think much about these things, yet the false underlying premises are deeply embedded in our psyche and drive our societies to self-extinction…

          • Thank you for the reply Takuan.

            Jesus was a great Man, because that is what he was, a man on a mission who came from a long line of ‘connected’ people educated by the Essenes whose ancient knowledge was imparted onto the special few.

            Was he the Son of God as God is understood in this time? No, I do not believe that, but his words, if indeed they have been faithfully recorded as his words, displays a knowledge and an understanding of what Man in this world is that we of the 21st Century have yet to comprehend let alone fully understand.

            That is why I consider him a great Man.

            And as you say, we tend to project our own ideals onto a person who made an impact on a society and culture that lived so long ago it is impossible to personally know him or what he would do in circumstances we often find ourselves in.

        • The originals of the Gospels were written by Jews, for Jews, and probably in Hebrew (see Shem Tov Matthew, which in its earliest form has an intrinsic 1st century Hebrew style).

          Personally, I suspect that ‘Jesus’ is a political construct based upon ‘Mithra’ but feminized (Mithra was ‘male only’)

          http://www.viewzone.com/mithras.html

          The Hebrew Yahushua preached a ‘back to Torah’ message, but Paul, removed from its Old Testament context, and somewhat mistranslated forms the basis of the ‘church’. (ekklesia = ‘called out assembly’ – an impromptu political meeting of those citizens with a vote in the Athens period).

          • MC, yes one can trace the ‘origins’ of the Church back to one man – Paul.

            It was the First Council of Nicea in 325 in which the ‘Gospels’ as we know them were chosen while others were deemed unworthy or not worthy enough, depending on one’s view, to be included into the New Testament.

            As with all religions, those who start them off get the biggest say in what ‘their’ religion will be.

            I believe we can both appreciate that without the basis of Judaism there would be no Christianity today as we know it.

          • MC: Belated apology! I credited Takuan, rather than your good self, with the link to the post on Mithraism. I’ve saved it, as a reference since the subject is interesting, and to spring on any Christian fundamentalists I find and don’t like! (There are some I do).

    • Mark says —

      “it does seem to me that the charities you criticise are following the teachings of their founder, as surely as Islamist Muslims are theirs; their intentions are good- and bearing in mind that their clients are already in the US, are they to be blamed?”

      Surely you know by now that the road to hell is paved with “good” intentions? These self-serving “charities” have contracts from our State Department to settle 3rd world primitive peoples in the U.S. These incoming folk are loosened from their clans and tribes and set adrift in a fast-moving, corrupt 1st world environment and expected to cope. They get about six months’ worth of support from the professional church bureaucrats whose main intent is to preserve their organization, not to help their ‘clients’.

      Oops, I think they call these poor folks “consumers” now. “Clients” is so very 20th century, as is “Negro”…it can be darn hard to stay au courant regarding the correct titles in the professional helping industry.

      Mark, you’re a person of integrity (imho) and I admire your spirit (for sure).

      But you are so steadfast in your not-knowing or refusal-to-understand that I have wondered from time to time if you’re not a troll, some version of an MI5 sock puppet. I wonder about this because I am sure you’re not stupid…

      That’s not an insult since I don’t mind if you are some version of that spookiness – everyone has to make a living – but I’ve noticed over time that the earnest and sincere responses you get from your interlocutors on this forum don’t seem to make a dent in your understanding, or lack thereof. It is as though you live behind a clear, impenetrable wall: NOTHING gets in, nothing changes your mind and yet here you stay, putting forth your socialist point of view…

      Why? You appear to believe in socialism as a viable economic system and you see it as above all FAIR toward those who must live under it. You believe this even as Europe is shrinking and dying under the thumb of socialism (it’s Communism-lite). We are fighting Obama’s concerted efforts to impose this system on us because we see the inherent unfairness of it as demonstrated in straitjacketed Europe.

      Do you honestly think the generations coming behind you, what few there will be of your fellow ethnic northern Europeans, will live on the kinds of generous pensions that you and your cohorts now enjoy? From where will the funds for those future pensions arise?

      Do you really believe the immigrants who are taking the places of all the children your cohort didn’t have will put the same values on work and initiative that previous generations of Britons, up to and including yours, have done? Yes, the Slav immigrants will, but the “Asian” clans and tribes have no interest in living as you do. They don’t value the age-old Anglo rules of lawful regard for the individual. Instead they want to continue what they know: the clans’ rules of concentric values for men (women don’t count).

      Quite simply, the closest circle has the most value and due loyalty. The further out another’s ‘circle’ is from one’s own, the less *intrinsic* value it has and the less loyalty it is owed. The West’s sacred shrine to the self (a product of Greek, Jewish and Christian morality) is being dismantled faster and faster. That’s why those girls (and probably boys) who were groomed and pimped out for years were all non-Asian, i.e., girls of no value to the clans/tribes of the pimpers and groomers who made their living feeding off the flesh of British children.

      And the higher up you go in socialist political circles, right up into their nomenklatura regions, the more frequently you will run into customers avid for what the groomers have to sell. Those kids were used by many of the higher-ups in politics, education, legal and judicial leaders,etc. And don’t forget the Church – not just the Roman church but the state church systems all over Europe.

      Socialism is difficult to reform because its adherents are so high-minded and utterly sure they are right. I love to listen (in limited doses) to the Left in this country – never a whiff of doubt that theirs is the One True Way and that anyone who thinks differently is not only wrong but Evil.

      As we are overrun by immigrants from the lower continent, enterprising groups – Hispanic, Russian, Albanian, etc. – will vie for control of all that flesh. It is no coincidence that Obama permitted, even gave precedence to, immigrant children. They’re so much more valuable.

      Now, with our military bases closing, those barracks will get used by immigrants. Hidden out of sight from objecting Americans.

        • Thank you all, for your thoughtful replies. Taking your points roughly in order:-

          I must confess my ignorance of the symbiotic relationship between the US Government and the Christian charities; I’d assumed that the latter were picking up the pieces once refugees, genuine or otherwise, had been accepted, rather than being enablers of the whole process.

          Nemesis, Takuan has covered my thoughts on Jesus and “socialism”; Jesus did tell us to “render unto Caesar”, but also to be good and charitable to one another; the parable of the Good Samaritan (a sect despised by Jews) is a perfect example.

          Takuan, the stuff on Mithraism is fascinating, and I urge all to follow the link and read the whole article, long as it is. I knew only a part; one point not covered is that the persistence of bullfighting in Spain likely has its origin in the cult.

          Dymphna, I’ve never been called an “MI5 sock puppet” before! Although, believe it or not, in the ’80s I had a job interview for the spooks; I was asked, among other things, whether I was homosexual. I said no, but if I were, I’d be open about it, so not a potential blackmail victim. Please be assured I didn’t get the job!

          The “socialism” thing shouldn’t be a bone of contention. I’ll assume that most GoVers have the sophistication to realise that this term, and “liberalism”, are not automatically pejorative this side of the Pond.

          I recall Readers’ Digest, decades ago, describing communism as “socialism with a gun to make you take it”. Of course the reverse is true; if the people consent to allow capitalists to create wealth (with reasonable rules on safety, living wage etc), but the government, through relatively high taxes, to provide a generous safety net, this is not necessarily a bad thing- provided that the society concerned is able to produce goods and services that people want. Sweden was a perfect example, before they sabotaged their own system by being over-generous with immigration.

          Which brings us full circle. A few days ago I heard a BBC radio documentary wherein the reporter managed to sneak into an Australian-sponsored refugee compound in Papua New Guinea. The occupants, living under poor conditions, were resented, and had been attacked, by the locals. Now the Australians may argue, perfectly correctly, that under UN guidelines genuine refugees, as opposed to economic migrants, should stop in the first safe country; since these people (Syrians, Iraqis etc) had staged through Indonesia, they clearly weren’t following the “rules”.

          We face a similar situation in Europe with desperate people in leaky boats crossing the Med, possibly including IS operatives, and without the option of our dumping them on an intermediate island (ask the Maltese). Yes, I know all the arguments for preventing these people from, potentially, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, especially as one of the geese!

          But- who’s going to be the first to sink a boatload of me

          • Aaargh! Premature posting. …a boatload of men women and children? I don’t have the answer, but nor, I suspect, do all of you, unless you’re prepared to be very callous indeed.

            Finally, with particular respect to the situation on the US’ southern border, is it not the case that second- and third-generation Latinos are rarely dependent on welfare, understand English, and have been known to vote Republican?

          • I think you’ve mixed up your ethnicities on the West Coast and on the “southern border”. Ask the Texans who have to support their Mexican residents. Or California municipalities facing bankruptcy.

            Those behaviors you describe: “rarely dependent on welfare, understand English, and have been known to vote Republican” belong to Chinese-American immigrant families. I would call them “Asian” since it’s not just the Chinese but it would appear that Brits use the word as a euphemism for Pakistanis, et al. Chinese/Asian college students are regularly discriminated against in California colleges because their numbers of high-functioning young people swamp the indigenes. Ah well…we did the same to the indigenes we replaced, i.e., the Indians. IOW, karma is a [redacted] difficult entity.

            Mexican gangs are a real success story, though, if one equates money and power with success. They have the cruelty and sadism necessary to drive blacks out of territory they formerly held, e.g., Compton Caiifornia, a historically black city where Mexicans have moved in and are strong-arming blacks to move out because “we don’t want to live near blacks”.*

            If only blacks could organize better, or strategize even, rather than fragmenting over who’s gonna be In Charge, they’d have a chance against an enemy from a chaotically corrupt state who have never, ever known what it is to live under the rule of law. Blacks, driven by grievance rather than reality, are letting Mexican criminals push them out of the narcotics business and out of their town. It may end up a blessing in disguise if blacks finally have to face the real world and attempt to get along without the crutch of sullen grievance to prop them up. Or maybe they’ll disappear under the heel of the Mexicans, Russians, Albanians, and -yes, Pakistanis & Afghani criminal gangs – because they never understood how protected they were before these immigrants came to take over their turf. And never learned effective, long-term and principled behavior.

            Your notion that large numbers of 3rd generation Mexican-Americans move up is so distant from reality that it’s hard to speak coherently across such a gap. How about 3rd generation Pakistanis in London? Would you be concerned if a large group of angry-looking Pakistani males were walking toward you and a friend in public? Would you feel safe?

            As long as we have the menace of multi-cultural mindsets emanating from those who live far from the scenes I describe – well-intentioned Leftists who mean well but understand nothing beyond their slogans – we are forced to live in a world increasingly dangerous and lawless.

            *UPDATE: Hispanic immigrants and the generations that follow on are quite racist in their own countries of origin. Why wouldn’t they be so here. But that’s a quandry for the p.c. multi-cult crowd. They can’t call out Hispanics for racist behavior because to do so would be…racist. What most people fail to notice – I say “notice” because the information is out there – is that Hispanics are notoriously racist. Here’s an essay from almost ten years ago on La Raza:

            http://humanevents.com/2006/04/07/emexclusive-emthe-truth-about-la-raza/

            For law-abiding Americans without knowledge of the dark side of our current illegal immigration crisis, all this is unfathomable. For those who know the truth about the “La Raza” movement, these demonstrations were a prophecy fulfilled.

            It is past time for all Americans to know what is at the root of this outrageous behavior, and the extent to which the nation is at risk because of “La Raza” — The Race.

            There are many immigrant groups joined in the overall “La Raza” movement. The most prominent and mainstream organization is the National Council de La Raza — the Council of “The Race”.

            To most of the mainstream media, most members of Congress, and even many of their own members, the National Council of La Raza is no more than a Hispanic Rotary Club…

            […]

            It’s ugly and they mean business. I wouldn’t be surprised to see part of California ceded to Mexico as our sovereignty is destroyed. And Leftists with no skin in the game (i.e., they won’t lose money in the ruination) will spout slogans about Mexico’s “entitlements”…it wouldn’t be so bad but the country of Mexico cannot control what it has now. It would shrivel up and die were it not for the huge amounts of remittance money sent in by the illegals here.

          • Mark H., I don’t think the only option is one of sinking boats of economic migrants/freeloaders/Muslim operatives. Nemesis at 4:54, below, is correct that merely towing boats back is an effective solution. Word does get out.

            But, according to state-of-the-art, 21st-c. European Treason Class thinking, that option is simply never, ever to be considered. The acceptable solution, the only solution possible under the stars, is to surrender to the will of whatever third worlder chooses to do by way of pursuing entry to Europe. That’s a heck of a default position as is the Swedish one that no person in the entire world should be denied entry to Sweden.

            Mr. Brompton, below, is correct that non-peaceful methods can be used and if undesirable entrance-seekers refuse to cease and desist. The long-term consequences of uncontrolled immigration are horrific for the historic populations of Western lands and we are not obliged to forego violent methods of defense. Boats that are warned to turn back (and marked with paint) and pretend to do so can not demand that harsh follow-on methods not be used.

            All of this is fantasy, of course, as there is not so much a lack of will to stem the flow but the will affirmatively to increase it. And it’s not a political objective pursued only by Obama.

          • In a word Mark, NO.
            2nd and 3rd generation Latinos are less likely to become fluid English speakers than any other immigrant group.
            Why you might ask.
            Because their political overlords do not want to expose them to the American dream. They want to control the media they are able to understand so they can bring the message they want and get the votes they want.
            You have to be a very wiley Latino to get into the American slipstream and make a success of yourself. I happen to know a few.
            And that message is that they are an aggrieved group that needs more benefits from the central gov’t.
            This also takes place in the black community although they don’t have the language barrier to help them.

            About 30 years ago I read an article in the LA Times about a young man that was spray painting bridge underpasses. A vigilante shot him dead. His sister was interviewed by the paper and talked about her brother THROUGH A TRANSLATOR. She had graduated, according to the report, from an LA high school. This was the first clue I had about how messed up our situation was.

        • Mark please do not believe everything the BBC puts out. Those so called ‘asylum seekers’ as our collective media still refers to them today as do not live in poor conditions, unless you include air-conditioned accommodation, sport and recreation facilities, and three square a day as poor conditions.

          I personally know one of the security guards who spends his shifts at Manus Island, the location of that ‘refugee’ compound. The locals are incensed that ‘refugees’ would be better treated than they are – that is one reason for the antagonism against the inmates. Another, is the damage the inmates have done time after time to their accommodation – such is the temper of the Muslim when held captive. Then there is the spitting and rock throwing at the security guards by the inmates and the many rapes of male inmates by other inmates in the male only part of the compound which really disturbs the native population who abhor homosexuality into protest action against those they do not want there – to date at least one inmate has been killed and several hospitalized when the inmates staged a break out that was quickly brought under control by security who took to shooting many of them.

          All are Iranians we do not want in our own country who arrived without documentation and are being ‘investigated’ by immigration as to their bona fides and status. Many have now left Manus Island on a one way government paid airline ticket with some ‘spending’ money in pocket back to Iran, while many still refuse to leave. None will be settled in Australia as they are deemed way too violent.

          And the security guard whom I personally know hates them all!

          Those pretend ‘refugees’ arriving in Europe from Africa could all be towed back to where they came from by the Italian Navy. It would only take two or three tows for the would be economic refo’s to get the message. There is no political will to stop what is really an invasion of undesirables into Italy thence all stops to greater Europe and much trouble in future. Read Anon’s post below these comments to understand what is really happening here.

          • Thanks Nemesis; I’ll trust the BBC even less! Is your acquaintance adamant that all the would-be immigrants are Iranian? It would not be surprising if some were from Syria or Iraq, and genuine refugees.

          • Mark, without proof of each individual’s country of origin it is not possible to disprove what they offer as the country they are from.

            Suffice it to say though, there are notable differences in how one bunch of illegals treat other groups of illegals – as is the familiar routine within Islam when Muslims are placed together who are not from the same country or Islamic sect.

            And according to him, he doesn’t care which Islamic Hell hole they have come from, after two tours of duty in Afghanistan with the Australian Army prior to this security job, he has no time for any of them.

  4. On the Mark Levin Show Thursday evening, Sue Paine of WCBM revealed that she was accidentally invited to take part in a White House Conference call about Obama’s ‘Executive Amnesty’ orders. audio link

    Transcript of this segment of the Mark Levin show…scary stuff!

    Some of the information exchanged was: Immigrants should be viewed as seedlings to be planted in fertile soil to grow. The fertile soil was equated to the “receiving communities” which would be those communities the illegal aliens are now living in, but once out of the shadows, these communities become welcoming or receiving communities.

    The interest was in navigation, not assimilation, and the navigation was through the system, focused on benefits.

    …eventually the ‘seedlings’ will take over the host and the immigrants will come out of the shadows and what I got from the meetings was that they would be pushing the citizens into the shadows. They would be taking over the country, in fact one of the members of the Task Force actually said that ‘We would be developing a country WITHIN a country’…

    “Immigrants need to be made aware of the benefits they are entitled to” which led to another comment saying that this group that Obama is going to pardon or give Amnesty to, would not be interested in assimilating, they would NAVIGATE NOT ASSIMILATE.
    *****
    Presidential Memorandum — Creating Welcoming Communities and Fully Integrating Immigrants and Refugees

    Judicial Watch is investigating

  5. Mark,

    I have recommended several times learning as an antidote to stupidity and self-extinction. To Christians, I recomend the road that I myself have taken: learn history.

    Learn all possible leads we have to Jeshua Hanotzri, the actual man from Nazareth, his times, what he in all likelihood did say — in Aramaic or Hebrew, not in Greek — who wrote the Gospels and when, how Christianity morphed from a Jewish apocalyptic sect to a Hellenistic Neo-Platonian cult shaped to appeal to barbarian heathens. Then, and only then, drape your religious faith on the history.

    Once you have done that, you will understand that what fit in the reality of Rome-trampled Judea in the 1st century and that was prescient, prophetic in view of the total annihilation of Judea and its people in the 100 years that followed, cannot be applied “as is” to 21st century London or Alexandria.

    I’ve recommended a single book, Bart Ehrman’s “The New Testament” as a good way to step off the slippery ground of tautological autosuggestion and onto something that has some real anchors in historical reality, though there are 20+ more by the same author, and quite a few others by learned, thoughtful men (and a couple of women, too) with no ideological agenda other than serving the truth.

    Everything has to start from the truth — and that’s not the “truth” that religious fanatics of any persuasion hoist on their respective standards. BTW, 2/3 of the truth I am talking about is embedded in the four Gospels; you just have to put them side by side, run a computer analysis of the texts, compare the Greek style and vocabulary used, identify and understand the embedded Aramaic or where it was obviously mistranslated, etc. That’s routine content analysis for all spook agencies, and proves quite fruitful in this application also.

    • Takuan, it would be much easier to get a Harmony of the Gospels and would save much time in setting the four gospels side by side for study. Also, how can you study the gospels and miss the good news of Jesus Christ?

      • Oh dear, Whirlwinder. What part of unbelief do you fail to understand? Faith is a gift. It is a ‘surrender-and-catch’ proposition. To question another’s lack of it is to question the God in whom you profess belief.

        I admire thinking agnostics and atheists AND people of faith, but in all cases the emphasis has to be on Thinking as a faculty of Reason, and Reasonableness here means a measured response to those who don’t join them in solidarity regarding their own belief system.

        I’m sure you’ve noticed that for too many folks their reactive anger appears to flow from some allergic response to a fraught childhood memory connected to some injustice involving religion. Or perhaps their bile arises from a bitterness about being forced to attend church with no concern given to their own feelings about going. But to hang onto those experiences and to use them to build a case for one’s preferences seems disingenuous at best. Lots of kids were “forced” to go to church, to brush their teeth, to go to school, to practice the piano, etc. Free adults now, I’ll bet many of them continue to read, to brush their teeth, even to play the piano for their own entertainment, etc. But they make their stand against getting up on Sunday morning and repeating something they found boring. If it were just “no thank you” I wouldn’t care. But to have to listen to them breathing hellfire with the best of any of the preachers they despise is tiresome.

        Takuan’s approach appears reasoned to me. I’m glad it’s not my experience, but like any other adult I grant him seat and voice to share what he thinks and believes. Notice he doesn’t offer it until someone asks.

        IOW, it’s not our place to call anyone else to account. Religious faith, sexual practices, and one’s political beliefs and income used to be verboten subjects for public discussion. I’d sure like to return to those limits. The time to let it all hang out is long past.

        • Notice what I quoted from the Wretchard, below: “We are conflict-averse. We want to be left alone but by ironic consequence, we will not be.”

          “We” — means the Anglos, the Nordics, all those whose plate is being cleaned by people less conflict averse, more given to discussing religion, politics etc. at the dinner table and the public forum — and of course much worse than that when it comes to people of the Muslim faith.

          I agree with you that sex between consenting adults is nobody else’s business. But religious faith and political beliefs had better become subjects for public discussion, if we want to survive this.

          If I have a president like Johnson, Carter or Bush whose “Christian” faith is central to his project of destroying my country, it had better be my business to challenge that faith. Ditto any ‘Christian’ organization that destroys my city by flooding it with “refugees” that it can’t wait to expose to the Gospels and to our fabled customs of shying from “divisiveness” and turning the other cheek.

          Second, what basis do people like Whirlwinder here, Barnhardt etc. have to arrogate to themselves the monopoly on “faith”? I respect people in my corner of the philosophical/political spectrums who are atheists, e.g. John Derbyshire, Heather MacDonald, Fjordman (I think) too. As for me, I am a person of the Christian faith.

          That I have decided to avail myself of the best that the tools of logic, history, computer-aided textual analysis, literary analysis (e.g. prof. Luke Timothy Johnson), comparative linguistics etc. have yielded with respect to the New Testament and the history of Christianity, is another matter. But that deals only with what fallible, stupid human beings with agendas have deposited around the luminous center over the ages, including in ages when empirical knowing did not exist and the line dividing reality from myth and fantasy did not exist.

          That one has no faith in those layers of human deposit does not mean that one has no faith in the luminous center that still manages to shine through them all.

          • You say I took the name in vain
            I don’t even know the name
            But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
            There’s a blaze of light
            In every word
            It doesn’t matter which you heard
            The holy or the broken hallelujah

            — Leonard Cohen

          • P.S. I had a nagging feeling about that and , yes, Nancy Pelosi, who received a good Catholic education, cites her religious faith constantly to justify the lunacies she endorses and, unfortunately, has the power to implement. As did Ted Kennedy and does, to this day, the lunatic Ed Brown in the UK.

            These are not poseurs, either; they have no need to be. They “believe.” Someone had better start deconstructiong the false premises of those beliefs.

    • Takuan–

      You said earlier

      We are just taping our own verbal stickers onto Jesus. Whether it’s strictly correct to call him a socialist is not the point. The point is that he preached a message that can be expressed as “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.”

      I disagree. You’re cherry-picking the Gospels. Jesus told parables about being good stewards, about planting seed in good ground. He told us how to live. Matthew 5 is the Christ Constitution and there is not a word of Marx-thought in it.

      • I am sorry, but no. You are engaging in the typical pattern of “people of faith”: confirmation bias, disconfirmation bias, my side and outcome biases, and belief overkill. In a quarter hour I was able to pull the quotes below (ESV), and there must be more.

        These quotes support my interpretation– and that’s nothing, for they support the interpretation of every Pope and every mainstream Protestant denomination within my lifetime, and of all mainstream Protestant Christianity going back to the Pilgrims — e.g. read “The Great Thanksgiving Hoax” http://mises.org/library/great-thanksgiving-hoax-1.

        Moreover, that Jesus said all those things and paid with his life for it should increase rather than diminish our admiration. From which it does not follow that we have the license to hijack the divine insight and remedy for what was ailing 1st century Rome and apply it indiscriminately in 21st century Los Angeles.

        Matthew 6:19-21 – Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

        Matthew 19:21 – Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go [and] sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come [and] follow me.

        John 3:17 – But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels [of compassion] from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

        Luke 3:10-11 – And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.

        Luke 12:33-34 – Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

        1 Timothy 6:9-11 – But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and [into] many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

        1 Timothy 6:17-19 – Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

        Acts 2:44-45 – And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all [men], as every man had need.

        • These and many other verses prove beyond a doubt the compassionate element in Christ’s teachings. The context is in hour of degraded, dying Judaism as religion: compassion is for the family/tribe only (not universal), the temple is secularized den of thievery. Jesus implied the leaving of the family thought-formation—this sacrifice more radical than giving away your money to the poor. But as you use the term, yes, a radical giving and giving up habits, this to counter radical selfishness and degrading religious form, as a requisite to following Him. These are prep teachings, not the real deal though. Requisite teachings, preliminary actions/practices are in all true religions and philosophies, then comes the meat.

          I think you will have a more difficult time finding evidence that Jesus had the slightest thought of a Caesar involved in processing or distribution of, say, the sacrificial gifts mentioned in your quoted verses. In fact, it was so important that each person who could pull it off, reawaken basic compassion in themselves and let go of greed, (how else could it be done but individually?), that He mentions numerous times the QUALITY OF MIND of the giver, something the Buddha too emphasized. This ruins the groupthink, government, socialism argument.

          Social-ism, as an ideal, is the governmental oversight of compassion. On that pesky physical plane, and I’m sure you agree, it serves as an effective cover for political aggression and expansion.

          re: Conflicts:
          Have you all noted that, for a while now problems/conflicts have been disallowed?
          You may however have “issues.” “Issues” replacing the facing of problems is a mass mental-disorderd buffering/avoidance.

    • Takuan, I’d like to know how you can be so sure of this part of your sentence:

      “with no ideological agenda other than serving the truth. ”

      Not sure that you can know that about anyone!

    • ” with no ideological agenda other than serving the truth. ”

      Takuan, I’d like to know how you can be sure of this part of your statement. I am not convinced you can really know this about anyone.

  6. The ” melting pot ” itself is being melted. I wonder who’s melting whom ??

  7. I just found out that by a strange coincidence Richard Fernandez wrote in an essay yesterday:

    “We are conflict-averse. We want to be left alone but by ironic consequence, we will not be. As a whole we have tended to confuse Christianity with passivity, and civility with letting things slide, as if the whole message of the Gospels and the entire content of tolerant civilization consisted of taking punches on the chin and begging for more.

    One of the advantages of growing up in the Third World [and behind the Iron Curtain –my addition] is that one has not yet lost the simplicity of perception that used to be common among Westerners forty or fifty years ago. This makes some immigrants from the Third World [and Eastern Europe] like men from the Greatest Generation thawed out after being frozen in ice. People born out of time who understand that culture consists of more than the absence of conviction.

    Before the Christian ideal was corrupted to its modern formulation of “forgiving everything and tolerating everything” it originally embodied the notion of not caring about anything but the truth. [snip] The former idea of Christian otherwordliness was to never fear the consequences of doing the right thing. You did the principled thing and took what came, trusting that in life there was nothing to really fear but cowardice and evil.”

    http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2015/02/28/mein-kampf-in-the-piety-stall/#ixzz3TCs3SR4Q

    • Takuan that quote from Fernandez is similar to what Fjordman wrote –
      “A peaceful society that wishes to remain existent will have to find a way to defend itself through non-peaceful means from people who are not peaceful.”

  8. great piece TS .. always amazed at your words & images,
    they kind of ‘burst’ upon you ..

  9. But no, Giffa was not from Clarkston, Georgia. The name, the face of Atase Giffa bear the imprint of East Africa, most likely Ethiopia.

    Good point. But Ethiopian values are American values, so what’s the difference? Except to hate-hate-haters.

    The eyes are the sad, shocked, resentment-filled eyes of a refugee who has not only traveled thousands of miles to get to the United States, but several centuries as well.

    Another good point, but it doesn’t go far enough. “Many millennia” is more like it. There is a lot of evolutionary distance between whites and blacks, because we’ve been evolving separately for more than 10,000 years. Literacy has had genetic effects on populations like the Europeans and Chinese. Not on Africans.

    • Considering that during those 10,000 years didn’t happen anything between to make us closer, there is no closeness time related. They are more like from another world.

    • I would think that he knows that if he does not get it right then he will be a muslim slave.

  10. Oh great eloquent and effusive Takuan, what are we doing discussing Christianity here when the barbarians are at the gates? Can we perhaps hold them back like Papa Leo? We now need more Charles Martel then Charles Hebdo, no?

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