They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.

Hello and welcome everybody! And yes, the reason for the C.S. Lewis quote in the post title will become apparent. Lewis may have been off-base with his Liar-Lunatic-Lord trilemma, but that doesn't mean he wasn't right on the money when it comes to other stuff.

I know you guys are going to get tired of me linking to that Mac Davis song over and over again, but Lordy, it's just so perfect for Rayford, especially in the beginning of this chapter. Yeah, I honestly wonder if anybody in the Slacktiverse has put Rayford through the Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test. Because good God...

Though I've kind of noticed that we haven't had as many appearances of Jerry Jenkins's surrogate character aka Buck Williams. I wonder if Tim LaHaye was really breathing down his neck for this book; hence why we haven't seen much of Buck. Of course, I'm also wondering what the heck Rayford's second wife, Amanda, is doing during all this, because she shows up at the beginning and pretty much disappears, save for a mention at the end. Given that no one is having sex anymore, why can't Rayford live together with Irene and Amanda? Heck, why not have a dormitory-style living facility for everyone since, like I said, no more sex? But the nuclear family must endure, even in situations where it doesn't really make sense.

Okay, I've done enough blathering. I think I'll copy and paste the opening paragraph, just so you can see how hard it is for Rayford to be humble when he's perfect in every way.
I thought you knew by now that I'm a believer in "Misery Loves Company" or in other words, spreading the pain around.

IN HIS PAST, Rayford would have said he couldn’t believe his luck. But this was more than fortune; this assignment proved he was continually blessed by God. His leadership skills had been tapped and his muscles stretched by the decades he’d spent leading a development team in Indonesia. And now it became his charge not only to rebuild and develop Egypt but to lead the spiritual effort as well.

Egads! Rayford is so horribly smug that the only person who could successfully play him in any film adaptation, would be Martin Shkreli. Because other actors might be like, "Y'know Rayford is really coming across and unsympathetic and horrible in this scene," and try to soften his actions, so as to make him more relatable to the audience. But if Shkreli was playing him, he'd just be playing himself with a few more mentions of God and Jesus in his lines.

Though like I said, that's one of the perks of the movie adaptations. They're not good movies by any means, but film and book are two different mediums, which forces them to make changes that make the movies more bearable than the books. Brad Johnson, who played Rayford in the Kirk Cameron version, is just doing basic workman acting 101, but like Fred said , even though Johnson isn't helped at all by the script or the director, he does manage to make Rayford seem a lot more sympathetic than the book version.

Though I'm sure Ellanjay would be appalled by the accusation that Rayford is a Mary Sue. They'll be like, "But he feels a stirring in his loins for a woman who :gasp: isn't his wife?" Yeah, but said stirring never actually causes him any actual trouble, never costs him his job or his marriage or his standing in the community. Because everyone just seems to tacitly accept that it was Hattie's fault for being all female and alive. But I'm sure the fact that Rayford can't play the banjo to save his life, qualifies as a flaw, even though it never comes into play at any point in the story.

One last quibble before I finally move on. What exactly was Rayford doing in Indonesia that would make him more muscular? I thought he was just developing some kind of poorly explained technology, but there are words associated with IT types and muscular isn't one of them. I'm sorry, IT folk. Don't mean to pick on you. You provide a valuable service, which is much more than I can say about Ellanjay. It's just that there's a reason you don't see many IT types in People Magazine's Beautiful People or Sexiest Man Alive issues.

Though I suppose maybe Rayford is working in construction, but I have a hard time believing that he'd be the type who'd insist on not using power tools or bulldozers or any kind of earth-moving equipment. Y'know how he feels about exerting himself.

Rayford has decided not to take Chloe and Buck or Raymie and Kenny feeling that the COT ministry needs them. So who's going with him? Well, we've got Useless Bruce, Token Jew, Chaim, and Saintly Irene. Though Bruce's Nameless Wife is also coming along and Lord, you can't help but stare in appalled horror at the sheer amount of laziness in that Ellanjay can't be bothered to even give her a name, though they probably could have just called her whatever woman's name sprung to mind in the first five seconds. Me, because I'm that kind of person, I would have named her Junia or Jael. But all they say about Nameless is that she had a gift for organization, whatever that means.

Rayford talks to Abdullah before he goes. There's really nothing that interesting about the conversation, because while Abdullah may have beaten his wife, even he has enough judgement to recognize Rayford's inherent superiority to all living things. He is the sun around which the LB-verse revolves around. In fact, the LB-verse did not exist until Rayford willed it into being. He uses his powers over time and space to convince everyone that the world is 6000 years old rather than 40 years old (the age he was in the first book). I know I'm being a little extreme, but can anyone deny the inherent rightness of these statements?

I'm going to ignore much of the conversation between Abdullah and Rayford, because really who wants to see it, but I will post this last bit:

“Dangerous, eh?” Rayford said. “Surely the Lord doesn’t expect a man your age to pose as a member of TOL.”

“Captain Steele,” Abdullah said solemnly, laughter dancing in his eyes, “I recall the days when a comment like that to a person of ethnicity was punishable as a hate crime.”

Yeah...I'm really tugging at my shirt collar right now, because...well, I can name some victims of Hate Crimes off of the top of my head and here's a hint: none of them were victimized and horribly murdered because they wouldn't go to nightclubs and have fun, drinking and listening to that rock and/or roll music. Trigger Warnings for those who need them!

Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think James Byrd, Jr., Matthew Shepherd , or Brandon Teena were killed for refusing to drink or groove to Rock and Roll. But maybe I'm wrong. I mean, we already know of Christians martyred every day by eeeevil secular progressives, who insist that they provide goods and services to paying customers who find love in their own locker room. The horror!

Anyway, we get a brief interlude where Rayford and co. arrive in Egypt and see what all has happened.

As soon as they had landed in Al Jizah, it became clear the area was wounded. Since the Feast of Tabernacles in Israel several days before, no rain had fallen in the entire nation of Egypt. Worse, it was obvious that God had shut off even the underground springs— deadly to a desert climate. Rivers had stopped flowing, and rapidly evaporating water lay stagnant everywhere. Citizens filled containers as fast as they could, trying to collect the last of the good water.

Back up, I'm a bit confused. Things have gone all Mad Max after just a few days? Because I know all the stuff mentioned would become one helluva problem really quick, but that quickly? Egypt may have its problems, but they probably do have bottled jugs of water and other beverages to drink. I can see things getting rough, where water is so limited, it is used strictly for eating and drinking, no bathing or showering. And of course, Rayford and Co. probably would sanctimoniously look down on them for being all smelly. But people aren't rock-stupid and generally, we have a strong will to live. So in the wake of something like this, we'd get to work. Every last drop would be carefully rationed and heck, we'd probably come up with some way of filtrating urine or bad water back into clean. There are many low-tech filters that aren't too difficult to build. Heck, the SODIS system is easy as nachos to utilize. As a blogger I follow sums it up:

Take a clear water bottle with a tight cap, fill it with unsafe water, set it—on a sheet of metal for extra strength—in the direct sun for eight hours or so, and most of the nasties should be done for. Essentially, the UV rays give a deadly dose of cancer to all the little cryptos and giardias and such (it’d be like making a person stand in the sun for ten years straight, equivalently)

Some studies have contested the usefulness of the SODIS system, but in a crisis situation, drinking some clean water is probably better than drinking unclean water.

Though I do feel a need to point out that the borders seen on maps of the world, are primarily formed by politics or rivers or mountains. Since they're not, as Ellanjay and those of their ilk believe, massive electrical fences or alligator-filled moats, you'd think the Egyptians would, I don't know, decide to leave and go to one of the many neighboring countries that still have water. Though now that I've said all this, I'm hearing uncomfortable echoes regarding the Syrian Refugee Crisis. Though at least in that old parable of the Good Samaritan, the people who walked by and refused to help the poor guy, weren't the reason he'd been beaten and left for dead on the Jericho road in the first place.

And dang it! I swore I wouldn't get into politics, but there seems to be no way around it. I'll just ask one politically-charged question and move on. Readers of my blog, feel free to chime in. Here's the question: is there any asinine idea on the Right that can't be traced directly or indirectly to White Supremacism?

But we'll get to the poor Egyptians soon enough. I'm trying to figure out what's worse: being stuck with no water or being stuck with Rayford and Co.

Our interlude is with Kenny, who still wants badly to get into Kat's pants. Kat talks about how she told a ten-year-old girl the story of Jonah and then led the girl to Christ. Right...I'm wondering if Kat told her the whole story of Jonah or if her version ended with him being vomited up by the large fish. Because the last chapter of that book, chapter four, which I am going to post in its entirety, because yes, I'm that kind of person, might hit a little too close to home for the RTCs.

4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. 2 So he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”

4 Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

5 So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. 6 And the Lord God prepared a plant[a] and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant. 7 But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. 8 And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

9 Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”

10 But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”

Though for all the lazy people reading my blog, I'll provide a link to the animated song version of the moral of Jonah's book. Plus, like I said, I do like to point out Christian Art that Doesn't Suck.

And because again, I'm that kind of person, I'll post the interlude about Rayford's adventures in Egypt so you all may suffer with me. Though if you think what you're getting this week is bad, it gets even more stupid and idiotic next week. That's the beauty of this series: no matter how many times you're like, "Okay, I don't know if anything could be worse than that scene," it always gets worse. It's hard to think of how anything could be worse than the scene in Nicolae where he mansplains about abortion, but we know Ellanjay are up to the challenge.

A neighbor man about Rayford’s age wandered over to the Al Jizah construction site one afternoon. “You the ones the Lord sent?” he said.

“That would be us, sir.”

“Can you do anything about getting Him to turn the water back on?”

“That’s why we’re here, but as you can imagine, the leadership of this nation is going to have to get in line.”

“I hope you’re not expecting a warm welcome in Cairo. Those young men who talked the other leaders out of going to the feast are dead, slain by lightning in the very presence of their colleagues.”

Rayford stretched. “The Lord’s justice is swift, friend. He clearly made an example of those two, as His Word warned. When their ends came, there could have been no question why. And I believe we’ll be seen as the messengers we are. We’re praying the whole ordeal will give us a hearing among the young people here, show them there’s no trifling with God.”

“Well, know that every other believer is praying the same thing. Why must we suffer for the actions of a few?”

I'll assume the bit "Rayford stretched" was originally "Rayford masturbated feverishly thinking of all those sinful sinners burning in hell for all eternity. That'll show him, he thought as he climaxed. Teach them for poking holes in my logic by pointing out the flaws of Pascal's Wager or the Lunatic-Liar-Lord Trilemma.

...

Egads, I've written Left Behind porn. God help me and anyone who reads this. Though I just assume whenever some horrible Act of God happens, the Tribbles either masturbate like crazy or hate-fuck. Because given the Christian Right's screwed up views of sex, I have a hard time believing that they can see it as an act of love, something apart from their constant power struggles, ego-strokes, and general love of violence.

And yes, the Lord's justice surely will give a hearing among the young people here. I'm sure if they weren't busy dying slowly and horribly from dehydration, they'd immediately say The Prayer and be like, "Shit, baptize me now."

Though because I'm anal-retentive to a scary degree, I went digging through RubyTea's blog where in the second book of the Shitstain Trilogy, she talked about the effects Los Angeles drying up in the blink of an eye, would have. I'm going to copy and paste, even though RubyTea was talking about one city and Egypt is a country made up of :goes to look it up: some 92 million people. Though to split hairs, it's probably considerably less given that all the heathens were tossed into Hell when TurboJesus came back. I wonder if Ellanjay would count Coptic Christians among the RTCS? Just curious...

Anyway, as RubyTea put it:

Everyone is so curious about the long-term effects of the dessication of Los Angeles, but Jerry Jenkins has left it as a cliffhanger.

So you know what?

Frak THAT noise.

I’m going to let you guys in on the total revelation of the effects of the dessication, in the first chapter of Silenced.

I’m not going to do the whole book, mind you. (I think I’m nearly overdosed on one Paul Stepola *gag*) But I am going to tell The Rest of the Story of the “miracle” of drying up a vibrant city filled with innocent people.

First of all, the death counts of Atheistopia and God are out the window. Jenkins informs us that thousands die.

Thousands.

That this is not surprising makes it no less horrifying.

And remember, according to the dictates of a LaJenkinsian RTC God, those thousands go straight to Hell.

And I’m sure we can all imagine who most of these thousands would be.

First, the sick and injured. Those who depend immediately on water and water-based medications to survive the next few minutes.

Next, the very young and the very old, the weak, the infirm, and most of all, the poor. The people least likely to have the ability to buy their way out of the city.

So again, when you think about the situation in Egypt, think that but on a larger scale. In fact, maybe I was off-base in wondering if it would really turn into Mad Max that quickly. It probably would because, well, the longest anyone has ever lasted without water is six days. In fact, again, I will repeat: why the hell would anyone stay in Egypt, given what's going on? Like I keep saying, in a situation like this, when your options are "Stay and Die" or "Undertake a Dangerous Journey and Possibly Survive," yeah, they'll go with the second option. People generally want to stay alive and dang it! Am I going to keep hearing uncomfortable echoes of the Syrian Refugee Crisis during my snarks?!

I'll post a Facebook response someone wrote about Trump, Jr.'s shitty Skittles metaphor and move on.

Eli Bosnick
18 hrs ·
"If I gave you a bowl of skittles and three of them were poison would you still eat them?"
"Are the other skittles human lives?"
"What?"
"Like. Is there a good chance. A really good chance. I would be saving someone from a war zone and probably their life if I ate a skittle?"
"Well sure. But the point-"
"I would eat the skittles."
"Ok-well the point is-"
"I would GORGE myself on skittles. I would eat every single fucking skittle I could find. I would STUFF myself with skittles. And when I found the poison skittle and died I would make sure to leave behind a legacy of children and of friends who also ate skittle after skittle until there were no skittles to be eaten. And each person who found the poison skittle we would weep for. We would weep for their loss, for their sacrifice, and for the fact that they did not let themselves succumb to fear but made the world a better place by eating skittles.
Because your REAL question...the one you hid behind a shitty little inaccurate, insensitive, dehumanizing racist little candy metaphor is, IS MY LIFE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF MEN, WOMEN, AND TERRIFIED CHILDREN...
... and what kind of monster would think the answer to that question... is yes?"

Though of course, they're not even going to try to answer Nameless Neighbor Man's question. Sometimes in works of fiction, they do leave some questions unanswered. Like in the epic Y: the Last Man while we are eventually told the reason for Yorick's immunity to the plague and while the series offers up several causes for said plague, they never explicitly say what caused said plague. Or for those of you who are fans of the DCAU (and who isn't?) the episode "A Better World" from Justice League has said league meeting up with the Justice Lords, another version of themselves from an alternate reality. In this reality, Lex Luthor killed Flash and Superman lost it and killed Lex and now said League rules the world, brutally subjugating anyone who stands in their way.

Anyway, my incredibly belabored point is in that episode, there's an exchange between League!Batman and Lord!Batman:

Lord Batman: Think about it - a world where there's no crimes. No victims. No pain.

Batman: And no choice! Who elected you, anyway?

Lord Batman: Who elected you? The problem with democracy is, it doesn't keep you very safe.

Batman: It has other virtues. But you seem to have forgotten that.

Lord Batman: I didn't forget! I just chose peace and security instead.

Batman: You grabbed power!

Lord Batman: And with that power, we've made a world where no eight-year-old boy will ever lose his parents...because of some punk with a gun!

Batman: [pauses, then drops his Batarang] You win.

The people involved with the series freely admit that they had Batman respond that way, because they Lord!Batman was seriously making some good points. You can disagree with the methods of the Justice Lords, but...yeah, I wonder if I'll ever stop using the "Strawman Always Has A Point" tag.

But in both of the examples I've mentioned, the creators could get away with leaving some questions unanswered, because a) their works were damn good and b) sometimes it's good to leave a few mysteries that the readers can debate over.

But Nameless Neighbor Man's question is a fundamental one woven into the fabric of the LB-verse. He's basically saying, "Okay, why should I worship a God who gleefully kills people horribly, so he can torture them for all eternity and hurt them even more?" Yeah, I'm going to post this clip again. Even though I already posted it last week, it bears being reposted. Because if I were to talk to Ellanjay about this, talk about how a dictator is depriving his subjects of food and water and people are dying in droves, they would be horrified and be like, "Depose the a-hole!" But since God is horribly killing people, that magically makes it okay. So yeah, Nameless Neighbor Man is totally the old guy in the clip going, "There are always men like you."

After this bit, the Millennium Force meets and I still earnestly long for a nickname I can give them. Like I keep saying, words have meaning and you shouldn't give yourself an awesome, action-packed name if you never actually do anything worthy of it.

Anyway, Creepy Raymie (and I'm wondering if I should now dub him "Creepy Racist Raymie") talks about finding another natural to infiltrate the TOL.

Raymie nodded, but— no surprise— Zaki jumped in. “Qasim’s already done it, and he has a report for us.”

“Zaki, we’ve been over this,” Raymie said. “He’s probably already given us away.”

“No, and he’s prepared to debrief us. Trust me; there’s stuff you’re going to want to hear.”

Yeah, maybe I should be a little more choosy about my League of Awesome members but I'm really considering adding Qasim to the League. Because they just keep shitting on the guy even though he hasn't done or said anything worthy of such treatment. In fact, like I said, I keep trying to think of reasons for Raymie's scorn that aren't racist or xenophobic as heck.

“Zaki, if we’re going to do this, be this force, we don’t want a lot of people knowing about it. I’m not afraid of the young people of the Other Light, because they can’t hurt us. But they can sure hurt a lot of other people, so we have to stay under the radar.”

“Fine, but can I bring him in?”

Yeah, my head just created a new dent in the wall. Because how exactly can TOL hurt a lot of other people? How would that even work? Are we talking physical hurt or psychological? If it's physical, well, I'm still suffering hemorrhages trying to figure out how this "Death at 100 years old" works. If we're talking psychological, I could point out that the TOL, which acknowledges the joys of the flesh, probably have a healthier mindset, rather than spending all eternity hating and despising themselves for the joys of the flesh, but said urges don't go away; they just sublimate them and they manifest themselves in much more disturbing ways.

Raymie magnanimously decides that there could be no harm in letting Qasim come in and talk about what he's seen. And I'm like, seriously, Qasim?! Just stop. Stop trying to win the favor of a bunch of shitstains, shake the dust from your sandals, and move on. It makes me cringe, watching the scene where he's talking to them, trying so hard to make them like him. It's one of the sickest messages delivered to victims of Bullying: that they should reshape themselves and make themselves less repulsive, so the Bully will leave them alone. Yeah, someone should act a little more confidant or a fat kid could probably stand to exercise a little more, but they should want to do that for their own benefit, not just so some a-hole won't abuse them. Bullying is wrong, no matter what reason given.

Yeah, I know, I've been getting on so many hobbyhorses lately. I apologize. In my defense, read this exchange between Creepy Raymie and Qasim, see if after reading it, you're still opposed to the idea of Qasim just saying "Screw you," and leaving, after giving everyone the finger. And of course, the RTCs would be more offended by someone giving the finger than they would by the emotional cruelty associated with bullying.

“Before you start,” Raymie said, “I need to be clear. You realize you’re not part of this group and you don’t work under our auspices.”

“Granted. But it’s in your best interest to know what the competition is up to, wouldn’t you say? And they’re up to a lot. Those so-called nightclubs of theirs, at least the one in Paris, are so underground hardly anybody even knows about them.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Kenny said. “No matter what they’re doing in there, they’re breaking every law on the books, and if they flaunted it, they’d be in deep trouble.”

“Rumors say they have these dances and orgies and do a bunch of drugs, but unless they were just putting on a show for me, none of that was going on. They just meet there and talk and scheme and plan.”

Like I keep saying, no matter how horrified they act, the TOL still sounds suspiciously like the Swing Kids rebellion of Nazi Germany. And for the record, the Swing Kids experienced actual suffering for daring to like that Negro Music. And by suffering, I mean, Nazi concentration camps suffering rather than, "The cashier wished me a 'Happy Holidays'" suffering.

Though okay, I'm trying to work all this out. Because even John Lithgow in Footloose would be like, "Now aren't you guys going a little too far with all this?" Because they say they're breaking laws, but I'm trying to figure out what the text of these laws are. Because humans are champions when it comes to scouring for loopholes, so pretty much every time we pass a law, we have to strictly define what we're against. Like if they're opposed to dancing, how would they define it? Is Ballet still on the table, but Hip-Hop isn't? And what if some guy leapt into the air, shouting, "We won!" Would the RTCs be like, "Hey you were moving in a vaguely rhythmic yet joyful manner. That's dancing and that's against the law!"

We can further split hairs regarding music. But given how nebulously defined the RTCs' laws are... I'm having uncomfortable echoes of the Taliban which was so oppressive regarding nearly every aspect of their citizens' lives, especially their female ones, that they eventually banned paper bags. But the Taliban oppressed people and committed horrible human rights abuses in the name of Allah which makes it wrong, but the RTCs are doing it in the name of TurboJesus which makes it okay.

Of course, I find myself wondering, "Okay, how do you know orgies are taking place? Couldn't that large group of people be a book club or maybe they're getting together for a wedding or a funeral or something?"

I have a similar response to Anti-Trans Bathroom Bills: How the hell do you intend to enforce any of those rules? Because stationing armed guards outside of every public restroom in the state, who will ask everyone who comes by, "Are you packing a penis?" would cost of buttload of money, in addition to all the lawsuits that would immediately be filed. Plus people can and do lie. Hell, under those circumstances, I would lie and I'm a cisgender female. Just have this crazy idea I'm under no obligation to tell a complete stranger about my genitals.

I'm assuming advocates of said laws would probably be totally in favor of a visual check, but the instant that law was proposed, never mind passed...is there an amount greater than a buttload? Because that's how many lawsuits would be proposed. 4th Amendment bans unreasonable searches and seizures and having your pants pulled down because you needed to pee, probably qualifies.

But I suppose they need to blame somebody for the horrific consequences of poorly-planned Conservative politics. Besides, those lucky transgender people...not only do they get to use the other bathroom, they're also statistically more likely to commit suicide and be the victim of a hate crime, in addition to having to constantly deal with intrusive questions and explain their life choices to everyone. Lucky bastards have it so good.

They have some line in there where they talk about how Raymie is worried that Qasim will come across as completely amateurish to the TOL. Yeah...that's what Raymie is concerned about.

But for those of you horrified by the TOL's love of music, mind-altering substances, dancing, and sex, the true horror awaits you towards the end of the chapter, when we find out what else the TOL is up to.

“Come on,” Bahira said. “That goes without saying. They’re in the minuscule minority, what they’re doing violates the law of almighty God, and they know it! Some of their people have died, and while they revere Satan—”

“They like to say Lucifer; they say Satan is a pejorative label the believers gave to a poor guy who got a raw deal.”

“Regardless, while they revere him, he’s powerless and can’t even be planting these ideas in their heads. These people are totally making this stuff up as they go along, and it’s entirely in the flesh. They’ve been seduced by the world and by their own pride. They can’t even blame it on the devil!”

I know, I know, I've been so preachy and dull this week, but I feel a need to point out that Hedonists, in general, are responsible for very few hate crimes. Hedonists tend to be like, "Yeah, you guys spend all your time praying and repenting. I'm going to go have some real fun." Maybe an astute reader can prove me wrong, but I can't think of any instances where Hedonists took over a country and oppressed the poor religious people, sticking guns to the heads of RTCs and being like, "Okay, you will either have and enjoy intercourse for reasons other than procreation or else you die." I'm not saying there isn't a downside to a life of excessive pleasure-seeking--there are--but there are downsides to any form of excess including being so Pharisee-like in your hatred and condemnation of anyone who doesn't do like you. Again, most dictators tend to have an ideology that they believe above all else, believe that it's more valuable than the lives of others, and correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds like it describes the RTCs more than the TOLjugend.

Because it's the old thing with fundamentalists of any stripe: for some reason, they can't just live how they see fit and shut up about it. As long as other people are out there, sinfully flashing their ankles and enjoying sinful entertainment, they just can't seem to be holy. Say what you will about the Amish, but whatever faults you may have with their beliefs, they're generally content to keep to themselves and live their lives. They're not lobbying the government to make everyone have to wear a cape dress or use a horse and buggy.

And dammit, I told myself I was going to stay away from politics, but somehow they keep coming up. Sorry guys. Until next week.