on biblical brutality

After having made it through most of the Christian bible’s Old Testament, perusing now Isaiah, I see what many people with whom I’ve spoken say about the beauty and kindness contained within said book’s pages. There are fantastic passages that seem to tell the reader to be merciful and good. I also see, however, how someone reading this ancient text could soon become radicalized and filled with righteous hatred.

Psalms 137:8-9 (Good News Bible, Today’s English Version) for example says: “Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy is the man who pays you back for what you have done to us - who takes your babies and smashes them against a rock.” The Old Testament abounds with such language, with pleasure gained from the suffering of innocent victims, with pleas to Yahweh that the reader might rejoice when the children’s children’s children of this foe or that enemy are punished for his misdeeds. Taken out of context, of course, such words would horrify any modern, rational, sane-minded individual. 

Why, though, are such hateful and despicable passages still in the text? Why have they not been excised? Why does the Christian bible still contain parts that call for finding joy in the suffering of others, kids and other innocents alike? Anybody who recites the Nicene creed must believe in the Old Testament, including that: “Intelligent people talk sense, but stupid people need to be punished” (Proverbs 10:13). Punished by whom, though, and when? By an armed teenager, today, or by a bloodthirst god thousands of years ago? Keeping such destructive and terrifying language in one’s holy book encourages weak-minded and easily excitable individuals, who seek guidance from Bronze-age belief systems such as the Christian bible, to harm others. The bible has been changed before, for purposes political and power-related. Why not change it again and take out all the hate-mongering and schadenfreude? While it’s not a perfect system, anyone looking for a different and more peaceful path might turn, for example, to Buddhism, a code that contains within itself far fewer calls to abject violence against persons who cannot defend themselves.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

haiku 29 Sep 2017

The weather turns cool
Soon mornings will come later
At least it’s not hot

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

haiku 25 Sep 2017

Saudi gasoline
Funds violence and terror;
Don’t buy that bullshit

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

haiku 22 Sep 2017

Chasing one dragon
Forgetting that there are two
Leads to confusion

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan    

on honoring logically

In one model of the universe, a person is continuously and perpetually judged by That Which Cannot Be Named on the level of respect shown not to other humans who are powerful but to those who are powerless. Society gives judges and police officers, for example, the power to take away a person’s liberty and life, respectively. Food service workers and small children, on the other hand, enjoy no such or similar rights and privileges.

Mocking or ridiculing a judge or police officer will have immediate, negative, and possibly deadly temporal consequences to one’s liberty and life, whereas doing the same to a fast-food cashier or stray orphan will likely not. Within the framework of this dichotomy, one enforced by a threat of bodily harm that is approved by society at large, the former expect to be respected but the latter do not. Fry-cooks and babies generally don’t go hunting for someone they perceive as having wronged them; judges and police officers do.

Armed with the knowledge that it is vastly more beneficial for one’s karma to shower great respect on helpless kids and little respect on mighty officials, a person can choose to drastically reduce the level of respect shown to the powerful and drastically increase the compassion, love, and patience shown to the powerless. Consequently, it is acceptable to completely ignore police officers (unless forced to do otherwise), to educate oneself about exactly when and when not it is recommended to speak to them, and to find legal ways to hold them to task (without mercy) when they operate outside of their rights or violate their sworn oath.

In short, treat those whom society gives the least power as if they were a cherished friend, beloved parent, or favorite sibling. The rewards outweigh the risks.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

haiku 18 Sep 2017

In open markets
Rest mankind’s only future;
Free trade brings true wealth

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

a standard response

Whilst waging war bodily against the false but deeply entrenched Baltimorean idea that pedestrians do not enjoy the right-of-way while crossing a road using a crosswalk, I have had this standard response hurled frequently my way:

“Get the fuck out of the road, dumbass.”

Regardless of his apparent social or economic class, these tend to be the first words from a driver’s lips when forced (by nothing but my raised hand) to abide by the laws of the state of Maryland and bring his gasoline-powered steel battering-ram to a halt using slight pressure applied to a hinged pedal by one of his feet so as to avoid running headlong into a foot-mobile fellow citizen who is seeking to gain lawfully the other side of a roadway. To protect myself in the event of someone violently violating my pedestrian rights in a premeditated fashion, I have taken to using my cellphone to capture video of oncoming vehicles while negotiating a crosswalk, which seems to have the desired effect of forcing drivers to stop. Otherwise, few people operating automobiles appear to find anything wrong with driving in such a manner as to barely miss hitting me as they race toward the next group of cars stopped at the next red light.

Among the worst offenders are Baltimore city police officers, who as a whole don’t seem to mind breaking state law §21-502, which is but one among many of the laws they swore a sacred oath to uphold.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan