on trucks, ravens, and NOTW

Recently, while going somewhere atop my velocipede, I was passed by a pickup-truck driven by a solitary individual. Affixed to the back of this vehicle were two stickers, one reading “Ravens – Relentless,” the other, “NOTW.” While it will not shock this website's regular readers that I am once again writing about the idiocy of the loose affiliation of non-earth-bound, religiously-fanatical individuals who see themselves as being Not Of This World (NOTW), the dichotomy of the aforementioned stickers was, at the time, quite striking.

For starters, Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary from 1961 defines relentless as: “Mercilessly harsh, stern.” If anything is to be gleaned from the teachings of Yeshua (also known as Iesu, or Jesus), it is that one should – always, and without fail – be compassionate toward others, and that one should honor and love others as one would honor and love oneself. The teachings of this wise man focus, perhaps more than on anything else, on becoming a merciful and generous person whose only wish is to serve the lowly, to assist the meek, and to aid the disenfranchised. According to the Christian bible, the only time that this Yeshua acted in a truly harsh or stern fashion was when he drove – by whipping them with chains – money-lenders from temple in a brazen (yet obviously unsuccessful) attempt to rid faith of finance.

Next, the compassionate individual cares for the Earth and for Nature; he wishes to shelter and to promote the growing and the teeming things, no matter their size, shape, or color; the last thing that the true believer in the message of Yeshua would do would be to burn crude oil in an unnecessarily large (and lifted, or modified to ride higher and with inferior aerodynamics) truck by driving himself around the countryside in his two-ton vehicle at high speeds, to mow through clouds of insects, crushing them against the front of his car, or to live in such as way as to make any form of driving a (supposed) necessity. The last thing he would do would be to allow himself to become so engrossed in a foreign-born game that he would go out and purchase a sticker for his car instead of using that money to support efforts aimed at environmental conservation and the preservation of the myriad species.

And, finally, the true believer in Yeshua's message would not to spend his time watching, discussing, thinking on, or musing about the intricate details of such a decidedly earth-bound and petty thing as American football – the true believer would spend his time discussing, thinking on, and musing about how best to give to the poor, to help the needy, to uplift the downtrodden, and to live in such a way as to cause as little negative impact as possible to the health of this, our only planet.

To attempt to love Yeshua, football, and pickup-trucks at the same time is akin to trying to walk while sitting and standing; please, dear friends, remember the lessons of humility and mercy, and cast aside the creeping doubt of relentless and unbridled passion.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on slavery as punishment

  The thirteenth amendment to the US Constitution reads, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

  By any measure, this amendment does not abolish slavery - it makes slavery into an acceptable, official form of punishment. If my memory serves me correctly, however, few if any convicted criminals have been sentenced recently to slavery or indentured servitude. The use of slavery as a punitive measure would be more useful in some situations, less in others. A petty thief is fairly likely to renounce his life of crime after a few hard seasons under the lash, while a corporate officer convicted of fraud and embezzlement, a white man accustomed to the finest treatment his ill-won gains could bring him, such a man might just emerge from his grueling months toiling in the hot summer sun a humble and reformed person. Similarly, a man-slaughtering cuckold is unlikely to find redemption in tall swaying fields of sugarcane (a modern industry in which slavery is still widespread today), while the bankers who were allowed to profit enormously from the sale of fraudulent mortgage-backed securities would truly understand the meaning of labor if put to task making self-guided V2 rockets in the caves of central Germany.

  Perhaps is is because so many Americans have enslaved themselves willingly to the whore-gods of small-scale capital gain and conspicuous materialism that slavery is not used more frequently as a punitive measure: the slave is already under the yoke, so allowing her to max out her credit cards and providing her with no better outlet at which to express her abounding creativity and endless potential – in her pursuit of food, shelter, and clothing, the Three Fundamental Components of Safety – no better outlet than some menial, repetitive job, her self-imposed and self-maintained slavery ensures that the fruits of her hard labor are not afforded to her but to the very few persons who sit atop America's pyramid-scheme of capitalism. The slave will be in debt until the day she dies, always struggling to make the minimal payment for things she did not truly need, and could not truly afford.

  I abhor slavery. I do not think any person should ever be put (or put themselves) in chains, but as long as our Constitution states that slavery can be utilized as a way to punish criminals, we should consider using it to bring the false princes of capitalism down a peg or two. The humble are not just the backbone of civil society, they are its savior.

  Until next time, I remain, your most humble and loyal servant, &c.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp