Brujo Feo's Sendero

I'm a Libertarian. I support gun rights and gay rights; I support reproductive rights and recreational pharmaceutical rights. I support your right to privacy and your right to your own wallet. I'm against the draft, and taxes, and compulsory state "education." If you're not for liberty, what difference should it make to me which particular stripe of totalitarian you are? --Brujo Feo

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Location: Ventura, CA, United States

Monday, May 30, 2011

Gott Mit Uns

Really? I haven't made a post here in over three and a half years?

Well, OK...here's one:

One of my sisters just sent me the following, attributed to Jay Leno. (No, I don't know if the attribution is correct, and I don't give a damn.)

"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of swine flu and terrorist attacks... Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

This, as it made the internet rounds, was followed by this anonymous editorializing:

"For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us...go ahead and delete this. For the rest of us...pass this on. A Small Prayer!" (Out of consideration for the tender flesh of your esophageal sphincters, I've omitted the treacle of the prayer itself.)

I took a deep breath. And I replied:

Thanks for reminding us, -------: yes! This would be an absolutely wonderful time to do exactly that.

Of course, it might have been better to do so before September 11, 2001, when Mohammed Atta and his buds pledged their allegiance to "god" in the best way they knew how.

And who wants to pray to a god that causes "hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, swine flu and terrorist attacks"?

What, these are "teaching moments"? One might as well pray to Pol Pot or some other psychopathic spoiled brat.

Recently the paper had an AP story by Allen G. Breed, with a sad picture of a destroyed house, with "GOD BLESS JOPLIN!" written on a remaining wall. I have to ask how that's working out for the dead, the injured, the homeless and the bereaved.

Not that I'm recommending prayer, of course...we know that prayers are not answered, because if they were, there would be legitimate double-blind, peer-reviewed studies confirming at least a statistical correlation, whereas what we actually have is a series of clearly fraudulent reports of imaginary statistics. If there were legitimate results, then the reporters wouldn't have to invent them, would they? Wouldn't they just report on the facts of real results? See this article, and many other reputable sources. While, by itself, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," it's a pretty damned good clue when everyone is looking high and low for the merest scintilla of evidence, and coming up dry.

But of course, I could be wrong--let's put prayer to the test. Show me just one example in the entire world of an amputated human limb regenerated by prayer, and I will immediately renounce my error.

Most Americans don't know that the Pledge of Allegiance (itself suspect idolatry, and without question historically racist, but that's another rant for another day) didn't contain the words "under God." The addition was instigated, beginning about 1951, by jihadist racist organizations like the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Knights of Columbus, who saw the opportunity presented by the sale to the American public of the "Communist menace" by the opportunist (and raging alcoholic, but I guess that's a bit ad hominem) Joe McCarthy, among others. See this Wiki page.

At about the same time, the same people worked to make "In God We Trust" the official motto of the U.S.; until then, it had been the wonderfully inclusive E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One). They succeeded in 1956, and the motto appeared (again, few know this, education in history rarely being promoted by racist jihadists) on all paper money for the first time in 1957. (To be fair--the new motto had appeared on coins since 1864.) See this Wiki page. How did the Republic ever survive? Especially since before then we know that God had been working for the Nazis. And we know this because the Germans were big on wearing belt buckles that said Gott mit uns ("God is with us"), while they were doing the work that God had asked them to do, which often consisted of stuffing Jews and faggots and gypsies and other inferior sub-humans into large ovens.

So yes, Mr. Leno--today would be a wonderful day to restore the original pledge: "I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

We can discuss the transience of the worthiness of nations (especially those like ours, oligarchies with a long tradition of hegemoniacal foreign military adventurism and genocide) for our respect, and the whole issue of worshiping inanimate objects, another day.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should all be happy in God's America. You know, the one that Damon Fowler lives in. This place.