More Heinlein

The Jesus Taliban have been getting on my nerves again, these fuckers are seriously bent on destroying America.

With that, I bring you some thoughts by Robert Anson Heinlein.... these bits are taken from the postscript to "Revolt in 2100" copyright by him in 1953 (!!!). I sincerely hope that his estate will forgive me for not contacting them prior to posting here.

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As for the second notion, the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.
Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country - Sunday closing laws here and there, birth control legislation in spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva's Zion, Smith's Nauvoo, a few others. The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance exists from expedient compromise; the minorities constitute a majority of opposition against each other.
Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country? Perhaps not - but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday's efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears, Roebuck. Throw in a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-"furriners" in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the results might be something quite frightening - particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington.
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Impossible? Remember the Klan in the 'Twenties - and how far it got without even a dynamic leader. Remember Karl Marx and how close that unscientific piece of nonsense called Das Kapital has come to smothering out all freedom of thought on half a planet, without - mind you - the emotional advantage of calling it a religion. The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.
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What he said back then remains true today and we must be on guard lest we fall victim to their depredations. Make no mistake, if the Jesus Taliban get their evil hands on the levers of power in totality, terror and death will follow and The United States of America will vanish from the face of the earth.

Vox-Fucking-Who?

Website I randomly became aware of more than a year ago, Vox Popoli. And I quote:

"Featuring Vox Day, Internet Superintelligence, AWCA, WFM"

Wow. This is too good to pass up..... arrogance is bliss, eh? The guy is interesting to read but, upon investigation, his self-proclaimed status is less than all that. I'll go with something like "Internet Interestingintelligence" but can't go much beyond that.

I'm no slouch meself, put the blast to the Stanford-Binet tests as a child, numbers on the far side of genius and then rattled the US military when I took their tests near the end of the fun and games in Southeast Asia.

The Internet is an interesting place but, all things considered, I'll take Fred Reed over Vox Day.......

Been a while, back again

From Robert Anson Heinlein's character, Lazarus Long:

The most preposterous notion that H. Sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all of history.

And again:

History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

Just a thought.....