The Election Crisis of 2020 And What People on Both Sides Should Do About It

 On November 4th, people in the US still had not gotten decisive confirmation as the confirmed electoral votes for the election contest between Democrat candidate Joe Biden and Republican incumbent Donald Trump.

The reason for this is accusations of fraud, that Biden was given a bunch of votes via ballot box stuffing and other similar illegal acts that artificially gave him more votes than he received, and even benefited from actions that disenfranchised those that voted for Trump in good faith.

As a result of this, the fate of the electoral votes is now in limbo until we see if the claims of fraud have any legal substance or not via recounts and legal proceedings, much like how there was a similar question of legal concern settled in the 2000 elections over similar accusations of electoral foul play.

This all said, below is my advice to both sides. I wanted Trump to win, but if Biden is the legitimate winner after the legal issues are settled, then I will accept that result.

Anyway, here are my pieces of advice:

1. ABSTAIN FROM ANY VIOLENCE OR OTHER CRIMINAL ACTIONS. Republicans, I don't care how mad you may be, do not do anything illegal to retaliate against the other side, let the courts handle this, do NOT take matters into your own hands. Democrats, the same goes for you. I don't care how much you hate Republicans, this is a time when both sides need to come together, drop their prejudices, and mutually agree to accept whatever the truth is after the courts hash this out. If that is not done, the US quits being a representative democracy and becomes a third-world country.

2. STAY CALM. Both sides need to chill. This matter is being referred to the proper authority to settle the legal disputes, namely the courts. If you are not involved in those, you are just a spectator, nothing more. Wait until they come back with any concrete evidence and decisions. Until then, relax.

3. BE CIVIL. This is a trying time. Republicans feel they are being cheated, Democrats feel they are getting singled out as a target of accusations they believe cannot be proven. Thankfully, the matter is being adjudicated as mentioned in my second point. Both sides need to find something to take their minds off this if they are not part of the legal process, otherwise, all you can legally and realistically do is spin your wheels until this is decided.

4. ACCEPT THE RESULTS WHEN THEY COME IN. Once we have a legal answer to whether fraud actually occurred, be prepared to accept the answers, whatever they are. If there was some substance to that accusation, then take it maturely and be grateful the political process is not being sullied with lies and whoever got elected was elected in good faith. If "your guy" loses as a result of this question being answered, that's how things work. Once any lies are dealt with, only the truth will remain, and whether Trump has another four years or Biden takes the job, the truth will tell us for sure what happens. When that time comes, choke down your bile if you don't like the answer.

The world will continue to revolve around the sun no matter who is the true winner. and people have been screaming the US will die if the wrong man takes office since George Washington left office. The world continued despite all the hyperbole. Therefore, if the "wrong man" becomes President, you have a chance every four years to express your displeasure. And if legal issues result, we have courts to handle them.

That in mind, whoever you voted for, and I say this with no sarcasm, may the best man, whoever they might be, win. And whoever loses, I hope they do so with dignity and are shown the same by a gracious winner.

Some notes on my adventures maintaining the Wikia Branch of All The Tropes

 This is something of a followup to my last post.

First off, by my own admission on the Drunkard's Walk Forums, I'm not planning to ask for my mop and bucket on the Miraheze Branch back before Christmas at least. I pulled rank, made an ass of myself, and pissed off a lot of people. My cause may have been just, but the way I went about it was more emotional and reasoned and I broke the rules in doing so, so I elected to accept blame for that and am going to stick to maintaining the Wikia fork for now since it's kinda been playing second fiddle to the main branch for a long time.

It's on that subject I'm releasing a few notes concerning how that has gone:

1. First off, I decided I was going to swing a huge ax and cut a ton of stupid crap like half-rotted pages with poor markup, spam, shitposts, and other garbage. That has been a success so far.

2. Second, I have attempted to modernize the look and feel and provide features comparable to our Miraheze branch, insofar as I could. Even though the UCP update Wikia plans is not effective yet, I already managed to get most of the essentials ready in some form already.

3. Once the UCP update to Wikia allows the use of modern Lua templates and more updated MW core internals, I plan to redo all templates to take full advantage of that.

4. I had to deal with some absolute sicko who was obsessed with spamming their adultery fetish and who could not resist typing with one hand. They also spammed blatant porn images everywhere. In the process of fending this pervert off, I discovered they were a blight on a few other wikis and made a point to get every sockpuppet of theirs killed from orbit. Hopefully, they learned they stuck their hand in the wrong beehive.

5. Once the UCP is done, a full page import of all content from Miraheze circa the beginning of October and all missing images from the same are planned for import. Both branches can then rightfully be said to be on equal footing in terms of base content.

6. I have no clue what will work and break after UCP, so it's up in the air how much I have to fix. I hope it's not too much. Doesn't appear it will break anything valuable so far, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

The Eyes of Argus: Or Why I Took a Moral Stand Against Allowing An Article On Netflix's "Cuties" On All The Tropes

 One of my loves is the study of history, and George Washington, keenly aware of the responsibility he held as the first American President, remarked in regards to that responsibility that "the eyes of Argus are upon me", referring to the Grecian myth of a being with a hundred eyes.

It was being aware of this prompted me to make a decision around September 11, 2020, to preemptively prevent the page "Cuties" from being created on All The Tropes. It was argued this was poorly considered, I should have asked for a vote on this, my fears were overblown, the substance of my fears was not a legal concern, and so on.

I shall address those points and why I took the actions I did.

1. I won't lie, this was a decision made with a fair bit of moral indignation, but in my defense, if you AREN'T morally repulsed by child pornography, you are someone I don't want near the children in my family or anyone else's for that matter. That said, emotions aside, it was a safety measure against anyone posting images or linking clips of the movie with any of the scenes of child sexualization in any area where it appeared to be deliberately endorsed, at least until the legal issue of whether it would be banned in the US (which ATT is aimed at due to primarily being written in American English), one I felt could not admit delay.

2. As to whether I should have put this to a vote, fine, maybe I should have if only to adhere to the policy I myself agreed to since day one on collegial consensus for potentially controversial decisions so as to avoid accusations of knee-jerk power abuse. At the same time, feeling that the legal status of such a thing was too dangerous to ignore and I sure as hell did not want to look like I'd encourage people to trope a movie, that, if later declared illegal, would provide proof people watched child pornography and provided commentary on and proved they watched it. In this case, I sought to provide cover for not only myself legally but to prevent anyone else from getting put on a watchlist later.

3. When it comes to drawn images and cartoons, there is no question, at least under US law, there is no prohibition of those, no matter how vile they may be, so long as they do not resemble real children. Lolicon and shotacon are beyond vile morally, but are thus inarguably legal to discuss under US law because no real children are harmed by clearly fictional drawings or models, and describing that for the purposes of critiquing any artistic, political, or literary merit passes the obscenity test on those grounds. Real children being sexualized, even if they don't get naked, is still considered child pornography thanks to the legal decision known as the Dost Test, and given the descriptions I read of the content on IMDB (I went out of my way to avoid watching it just to be safe), I decided I would not legally risk anyone commenting on something said descriptions admitted straight up would qualify as child pornography. 

Did I jump the gun? Possibly. Was I willing to risk being wrong? Given the evidence, I was of the contention it was better to ask forgiveness than permission and be safe than sorry.

4. In an earlier time than when I made the decision to push the panic button, I'd be comforted by the common carrier provisions of Section 230 of the US communications law provisions that insulate carriers of content from legal liability, but given how that has become a political hot potato and still is at this point, I was quite leery of giving it's removal a test case, if only by proxy, especially if the Netflix movie in question was banned in the US and our coverage of it had evidence US citizens watched the banned content. While the United States has no allowance of ex post facto laws, the servers of the wiki service we use are in other countries where that is not the case, and I'm not crazy enough to risk letting that ride under the "free speech" excuse.

Now, I want it said under any other circumstance, I am a fierce advocate of all speech being free insofar as it is not inherently criminal, like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. I ran the Miraheze branch of the All The Tropes site under the proviso that so long as I had an ironclad legal justification for something being considered media we could talk about, I would defend the right of people to do that, no matter how morally vile and sickening it might be. However, that always came, at least for me, with the knowledge I had so much legal land to run across before I hit the waters of illegality, and if something was approaching the water's edge, erring on the side of caution was always the smarter decision.

I'm not going to belabor the circumstances of the fallout from this, the Kiwi Farms I left awhile back caught wind of what happened recently and have a pretty good summarized breakdown of what happened.

As a result of the above, I now have no legal, moral, or ethical stake in the Miraheze branch of All The Tropes, by my own request. I continue to run our Wikia branch, being its sole founder, and I will continue to deny any potential coverage of that Netflix Movie there until it's legal status is defined by a court of law one way or the other. However, whatever happens to the Miraheze branch until the dust is settled legally is no longer my concern or under my authority to worry about, and that suits me fine.

This is not the first time I have surrendered power over ATT in some way or taken a moral and legal stand that may cost me respect and friends in certain circles, and it likely will not be the last time it happens. I'm the one who wanted since day one to make sure my conscience and rap sheet would always remain clean, and I don't apologize for the motives that led to the decisions I described above and would likely do them again with little change if I got a chance to go back in time. 

Despite some heated words and frankly unsettling conflict this caused with my former fellow mods on ATT, I bear them no ill will, they want to run the legal and moral risks I was convinced were worth such drastic actions that I took to prevent them. I do not, and I elected to hand over any powers I had and leave because it was the only honorable way to prevent further conflict and leave with my honor, dignity, and integrity intact.

I shall merely pray their confidence is justified and the legal status of that film is settled one way or another before I ever consider asking to return to the Miraheze branch, should that still be available in the future

Why I facepalm at sectarian squabbles within Christianity

 I write this because I have some friends who disagree on doctrine, theology, and so forth concerning Christianity. Some are Protestant, some are Catholic, some don't identify as anything in particular, but you can't swing a Bible without hitting half a dozen different Christians who all have a different perspective on the contents of the book in question.

Fine, fair enough, we all have our own minds, expecting uniformity of opinion without mutual consensus is just not happening. However, where I facepalm to the point my hand has permanently creased my face are the types who are all "my way is the only way to properly honor God".

Now, looking through the Bible, it seems there were many ways to glorify God, all of them praised by the Man Himself as valid. A craftsman was given approval by God for making the articles for the Tabernacle mentioned in the Books of the Law. God was immortalized in song and poetry by David, who, his faults aside, God was pleased with. David even at one point went full hippie and started cutting a rug in the streets, dancing his tail off, just to show his joy of being blessed by the Lord, and God was pleased by this, Some healed the sick, some preached, some merely gave shelter and food to the destitute, they too were praised by God for their actions, which he said honored Him.

My point is that, so long as whatever you do squares with God's Word on being pleasing in his eyes (and all the above are but a few examples of things he was pleased with), then there is NO wrong way to honor God, so long as whatever is done will bring glory to Him.

Now, I understand Catholics and Protestants differ sharply on many aspects of the faith, the role of the Church, what sacraments and practices are needed, and so on. Me, at the end of the day, and I will die being willing to explain it to God if need be, believe a devout Christian, either Protestant or Catholic, so long as their actions are done to glorify God, both will enter unto the Kingdom of Heaven.

The process, role, ritual, sacrament, procedure, protocol, or whatever else you want to call it is immaterial. What matters is the intent of your heart.

One can donate to all sorts of charity, do all sorts of things for the poor and sick, and otherwise be uplifted in the eyes of Men, but if it's done for your own glory and not for God, it is WORTHLESS in His eyes.

Ergo, it doesn't matter what denomination of Christian you may be, if you don't worship regardless of your denomination (or lack thereof) in order that your actions bring glory to God, it will be worth nothing at the time of the judgment of what we did to honor HIM, not ourselves.

So with that in mind, I just want to reiterate I do not slag off on any Christian sect. I'm a non-denominational Protestant, but the devout Catholic, the Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, or whatever other labels your flavor of Christianity is called, none of them are viewed, as far as I'm aware, as any less valid as those who honor God as any other believer, so long as all that they do is in HIS name.

In closing, if you want to argue about the fine print, fine, so be it, we're human and that's fine by me, I'm happy to engage a good debate like anyone else. But regardless who is RIGHT about the fine print of honoring God, I remain assured, based on the reading of His Word, that no act or deed on our part has any meaning to God so long as our hearts do not reflect our intention to devote whatever we say or do to His Glory.

Approaching the latter end of 2020, my take on the still ongoing USA riots

 It's been a while since I've written anything, and the still ongoing riots are still tearing up various cities where useless, incompetent, and often outright corrupt political figures are simping for the lawless.

Given how long they've been going on and how they now exist to simply give people an excuse to keep burning, looting, and in some cases even murdering (I could care less about BLM's alleged legitimate stances, they don't care about the lives of blacks from where I'm sitting, all they do is burn, loot, and murder while cynically claiming black lives matter)

That said, it's quite obvious any legitimate, moderate, civil, and most of all actually honestly interested in seeking civil redress individuals are NOT part of BLM and their joined at the hip lunatic brethren in ANTIFA. Not at this point, assuming they did exist originally. All that's left are the dregs of society, scum who want an excuse to be savages, and worst of all, the politicians and other people in the law, commerce, and the media who want to use the first two for their own twisted gain.

At this point, it should be obvious, even to the most deluded of the third group mentioned above, that they created a monster. Worse, social media has proven these animals are shameless attention whores so long as they can shut down any lawful dissent against their arson, their assaults, their thefts, and their murders. Otherwise, they keep parading civil disorder and felonies against the law-abiding and law enforcement as if they want to be praised for breaking laws, destroying people's livelihoods, and proving they are no better than rabid dogs.

That said, I want these criminals and agitators dealt with by the very law they show such contempt. Aside from legally ironclad and proven in court of law cases of self-defense, I do not want their lawlessness met with lawlessness, no matter how frustrated they may make others. I hold everyone who has taken part in an unlawful assembly in utter contempt, but I want to see them punished for it in the courts they spit at and apprehended by the police they consider pond scum.

And I can only hope this lawlessness eventually comes to an end. It's mostly concentrated in a few states now and those have proven disturbingly friendly to these lawless agitators, but it's still a disgrace to a civil society that they are still able to menace people, and even though I don't live near most of these places, the damage they do to innocents still galls me because I consider myself a proud patriot of the United States, and those who show the laws of my native soil contempt show the country I love, warts and all, contempt. And I consider that an insult to me and every other US citizen who wishes to live peacefully.

And as a devout believer in God, I can only pray those who evade the justice of Men for their crimes have to answer before the ultimate judge as to why they defied the law, as that court cannot be evaded and has no appeal.

In the meantime, I'm simply going to continue praying for the safety of friends and family in harm's way, and also pray that danger passes them by.

The upcoming RPG Maker MZ, or RPG Maker MV Ace, my thoughts

I've been following the news of late that RPG Maker MZ will release this summer, and while I'm mostly happy, as I had a few projects in RPG Maker MV I backburnered due to issues with it I hope MZ will address, the news so far is generally good, here are the highlights.

1. Codebase is still Javascript, but apparently, they rewrote the backend code quite a bit. Given JS could drool on good computers due to bad optimization, hopefully, this will ameliorate that.

2. Ships with a crapload of resources and are generally compatible with MV stuff out of the box. I can live with that.

3. Includes a lot of features to make it easier on noobs and lots of shortcuts for things like pathfinding for cutscenes, Good stuff here.

4. LAYERS. As in XP style stuff so you don't have to do complicated hacks to do things like being able to walk under bridges. Definitely a good thing.

5. Now added Active Time Battle as a default battle engine. Good deal.

6. Effeskeer powered particle-based animations. Apparently, this should fix slowdowns with loading animation spritesheets quite a bit, and given MV could have slow loading at the best of times, a definite improvement. Also means animations will look a lot better, which is another good thing.


What I'm mostly hoping for is that the kneecapped limits on map and database sizes are a thing of the past. MV was optimized for mobile devices, meaning smaller maps and hard database caps. Neither could be circumvented without super unstable hacks that were hard to use. If this is fixed, I will celebrate for sure.

The fall of the CHAZ/CHOP and how it reminds me of the American Civil War

For those not aware of American history, about a dozen or so Southern states decided to try breaking away from the United States in 1860 to form the Confederacy, basically their own version of the US, simply because they weren't going to accept living under the legit US because they felt they weren't going to get their way anymore. Their temper tantrum written with the blood of over half a million souls on both sides was an illegal attempt to start their own nation that imploded as soon as the gloves were completely off known as the American Civil War.

History repeated on a smaller yet no less pathetic scale in Seattle,Washington last month with what they called the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone/Capital Hill Occupied Protest (either way, it was a clear attempt at separating themselves from all lawful authority) which they tried to turn into a mini nation-state, complete with its own economy, laws, and even a standing militia, just like the Confederacy.

However, in fairness to the Confederacy, they had people who actually had run actual governments and militaries in their ranks. the CHAZ/CHOP was run by a bunch of anarchist/Marxist types who guzzled soy lattes and couldn't live without their Macbooks and wi-fi access and a bunch of disaffected black hoods who saw a chance to steal things and wave guns around.

Their economy was also a pathetic parody of the Confederacy, which at the best of times was pretty inferior to the legit US but at least the Confederates somehow managed to make the best of their shoestring resources to conduct a four-plus year insurrection. The CHAZ/CHOP fools couldn't go a week without begging for handouts and proved so inept at making a basic garden it was beyond laughable.

Their militia/police were also a depraved joke compared to the Confederacy, which had actual experts in charge of both for the most part. By contrast, the CHAZ/CHOP was run by a bunch of cowardly hoods who felt brave enough to murder more black people in a week than they claim the average police force kills in a month shooting guns at everything, destroyed the evidence, and are now in hiding like the criminal trash they are. Contrast to the Confederates, who largely owned what they did and had the brass to actually face uniformed combatants on the field of battle and managed to do well for far longer than anyone expected. Meanwhile, as soon as the traitorous Seattle government finally decided to shut down the insurrection they abetted, the police had the CHAZ/CHOP dismantled in under an hour as a functional rebellion.

Now, the Confederacy was far larger and was established for a goal completely opposite of the CHAZ/CHOP, namely the right to guarantee black bondage to chattel slavery as a goal for the Confederacy whereas the CHAZ/CHOP was an attempt to guarantee black people could act above the laws that bind all US citizens if they felt they didn't want them to apply, but the common denominator here is that both were unlawful rebellions against legitimate authority. However, in defense of the Confederacy, while they fought to defend a terrible practice, at least it was one that was legal at the time, while the CHAZ/CHOP was established for illegal purposes to defend a cause with no legitimacy to begin with.

However, the saddest part of all is that in the end, the Confederacy comes off as less contemptible still, because at least they fully accepted their actions had consequences and decided to accept that going into their little rebellion, while the scum who set up the CHAZ/CHOP who share in the constitutional violations and bloodshed their rebellion caused are either hiding like the murderous cowards they are or are trying to throw other parties under the metaphorical bus to avoid facing the music for their crimes.

Even the ending of both conflicts is similar, with both being unwilling to fully accept defeat in some corners, but at least the Confederates can be excused to some extent, as the reconciliation President Lincoln had planned got cut short and Reconstruction after was a bitter pill for them. By contrast, the scum involved in the former CHAZ/CHOP is either in hiding because they are unwilling to accept prison and possibly the death penalty for sedition and murder or are trying to abuse the same legal system they defiled to avoid a penalty for their involvement.

In the end, neither rebellion was or ever has been justified, no matter the scale or circumstances, though at least I just hope those on both sides of the American Civil War have finally found eternal peace. As for the CHAZ/CHOP victims, I mourn those who were victims of that lawlessness too, but I have no sympathy for the criminals who started it.

In honor of my father on the day for honoring fathers

It's on this day for honoring fathers I have to confess I feel mixed emotions. The truth is, I don't truly know my father, and after what he did to my mother, I don't want to know him and neither does she.

And I won't mince words as to why. I was born of my mother being raped.

However, in that my mother chose not to curse me for the sins of my father and decided I should be allowed to be brought into this world anyway. I couldn't be more grateful, as I eventually met the man who I now call Father with pride, and while we may not share blood, I don't need a drop between us to consider him my true Father.

Granted, it wasn't an easy road to that end. My mother had been married twice before. Her first husband I share nothing by a name with, one of the few things I got from that worthless whoremonger deadbeat that I'm proud of. Her second husband was not much of an improvement and after being twice burned, she was quite reluctant to get married again, despairing of finding an honorable man to be worthy of her.

However, she met my father, John Edward Vaughan, and they've been married since 1997. They've had a long and faithful marriage to this very day, to the joy of them both, as he left his first wife after she was caught committing adultery, and both are very proud that their spouse has proven to not have the slightest doubt to grant the other they might forsake them for another.

As for me, back when they first married, while I was finally sure my mother had found a worthy husband, I confess I wasn't so sure about whether we'd be compatible as a father and son. His interests and mine diverged wildly, and in our early years was a teething process where I found we often drove each other up the wall.

That said, I also found some surprising things too. While not the most sensitive of people, he could be empathic to my concerns as I grew older when I needed him most. While admittedly not an intellectual, his insight into human nature far surpassed my own. And most surprisingly, when I found myself consumed by weaknesses of a spiritual nature, God invested him with the strength to hold me up morally when I wasn't sure what to do.

As a result of his example and not wanting to squander my mother's bringing me into this world despite my birth father's sins, I made several resolutions. I would never countenance harm to a woman or children. I would honor his respect for me as he returned it. And finally, if I couldn't have a father by blood I could know and be proud of, then I would drop the "step" from the man who proved even more worthy than I deserved and honor him like I had been born his own son.

And in retrospect, I'm glad I have. I'm not keen on having children myself, nor am I interested in marriage, but I'm grateful my mother found a good man to be a father to her children, me especially. All I can do in return even if I remain single and childless is to not disrespect the miracle of someone I can proudly call my Father because that man and my Heavenly Father are owed that from me, and both deserve my loyalty for all they have done to bless me.

Daniel's Shadow: A Persona 4 inspired Fanfic (with some Christianity lessons included)

I've recently been playing Persona 4 Golden, and I always wondered what it would be like to face my Shadow, the side of myself I'm ashamed of I would like to pretend doesn't exist.

Since I'm more than well aware of my flaws, hope Persona fans enjoy this. Also, for those who have ever felt I don't live up to my Christian ideals, I'm going to address those concerns, so for you Christians in the audience (and those who think I'm doing a bad LARP as one), this also is something of a Bible recap of things where I admit what I haven't always lived up to, and I hope this fictionalized account of my own flaws serves to help you all face your own failings and avoid making my mistakes.

Here goes:


As Daniel slowly felt himself regain consciousness, he realized the floor felt cold and unfamiliar as his eyes slowly adjusted to the almost supernaturally bright light.

As the feeling reentered his body and he stood up, he realized he was no longer in his own home, but instead something that looked like it was right out of some cliche JRPG, complete with a massive demonic throne, eerie supernatural lights that seemed glaring despite no apparent source, and a rolling mist that made his search for the door impossible.

"Enjoy the decor? You always had a flair for the dramatic."

As Daniel whirled around, he saw a figure that looked just like himself sitting on the throne, except they were wearing armor fit for a classic fantasy hero, which clashed horribly with the skull and horn motif of the throne. As the figure got up, a chill went through his spine as he realized the armored figure indeed wore his own face, and the piercing gaze of contempt from the yellow eyes of his apparent clone regarded him mockingly as he demanded:

"What is this?!"

The figure laughed drily.

"Spare me the faux ignorance, Daniel. You've always loved dramatic confrontations of good versus evil since your childhood. You always wanted to be some great hero slaying demons and saving the world because you've always thought it was cool. Even your Christian faith is nothing more than an extension of that black and white view of reality."

Daniel was stunned to hear what sounded so much like himself with creepy monotone reverb in their condescending voice, and sure enough, the room he was in he recognized, it was like a mishmash of every final confrontation with every supreme evil in all of JRPG history.

As this occurred to him, the figure approached, produced a sword from behind his back, and tossed the blade at Daniel's feet, voice still dripping with contempt as it continued on:

"Oh, don't even bother denying it. You have professed to hate violence, but you are thrilled at the idea of being one to use a blade and spell to destroy all that is evil in video games. You've told others you love your enemies, but if you got a chance to slay them and rationalize it as a moral act, you'd be the first to do so if it meant you'd be innocent of committing murder in the eyes of God. And let's not forget, you profess humility, yet you'd love the attention for being one that is recognized for doing great deeds."

With that, the figure gestured at the blade as if Daniel should pick it up, and as Daniel hesitated, the figure continued speaking:

"This is a scene right out of your fantasies. You are facing someone who is trying to destroy your spirit by breaking your will, and you'd love to show the world it will remain unbroken. Despite the sin of pride, you'd burst with more than you could ever handle if you were victorious over me. You're vain, you're pretentious, and a fool who believes he can enter a viper's den without ever becoming tainted by the venom."

As the figure finished, Daniel moved to grasp the blade, and his doppelganger laughed as demanded,

"That's right, Daniel, accept it. You're no moral paragon, you're nowhere near what Jesus wants you to be. You may be innocent of the crimes of those who believe false witness about you, but your true crime is even greater. You put on a facade of morality to hide that deep inside, you're a coward. Despite all that talk you've made of bravery before men and how God is your only judge, the judgment of men haunts you."

The grip on the blade in Daniel's hand tightened as he fought to keep his composure, and his counterpart just kept talking:

"Getting through to you now, Daniel? Your morality is a joke. You are a vain, self-centered liar who puts up a show to the world that you want to rise above your sins when you haven't moved past them an inch. You proclaim to be free of lust and greed, but your lusty greed to be recognized for such is even greater than if you were actually guilty of true degeneracy. All you are a shallow, hollow hypocrite, Daniel Cullen. You may know the Word of God, but when it comes time to face true judgment, you live in fear that very Word will condemn you in the world after the world of Men, and you can't face that."

The figure paused, then added with as much snide as possible,

"Just like you can't accept you're me, and I'm not a great evil to slay, I'm what you are in the mirror!"

Daniel froze, his face a miasma of conflict and desperate urge to deny what he was hearing as the armored one wearing his own face stepped forward, sword at the ready, proclaiming triumphantly:

"THAT'S RIGHT. I AM YOUR SHADOW, THE TRUE SELF!"

Some legal analysis of the DOJ recommendations for changing how Section 230 works.

One of the last things I kept tabs on before leaving the Kiwi Farms in disgust over how I got shit on by certain parties there for things I dare any of them to say as formal accusations in a court of law was how the US Department of Justice is seriously considering tweaking, weakening, or, at worst, abolishing the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

Now, despite how cruelly I was lied about and abused there, what was done to me does not approach libel as far as I'm concerned, at least nothing I'd bother a courtroom over. I have the truth on my side, none of my accusers will ever dare back up with they say without the shield of an internet username, and given how the political winds are blowing, I predict the Farms will be shuttering its doors in a few months anyway, so let them take my public activity out of context and spread all sorts of garbage with maybe a tiny grain of truth and over 99.99% insulting invective. I'm a big boy, I can handle that.

Regardless, I bring that up because while I find the idea of anything they say being used against me as retarded, the recommendation the DOJ is proposing would be the death knell of a site like the Farms. If even a casual implementation of those reforms goes through, Null might as well shut down things ASAP before he's up to eyeballs in legal issues. Now, I actually am not pleased with this. Being able to talk shit about people and their public activities should be perfectly legal, even if that discussion is insulting and filled with falsehoods, distortions, and more cherrypicking than an orchard, and I still defend the right of those who have done so to me to keep going, even if I'm of the opinion they can take a long walk off a short pier and I wouldn't weep for them.

However, here's what the DOJ is proposing and why it would be suicide for any social media site or forum to allow such unfettered speech if they implement this in the most casual manner possible.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-issues-recommendations-section-230-reform

(original in italics, my comments in bold, emphasized original text in bolded italics. I am a layman, so I want it known upfront I have no legal training, this is just my understanding of how it reads based on my layman perspective of law from a US based perspective.)

Justice Department Issues Recommendations for Section 230 Reform

Reforms Strike Balance of Protecting Citizens While Preserving Online Innovation and Free Speech

The Department of Justice released today a set of reform proposals to update the outdated immunity for online platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.  Responding to bipartisan concerns about the scope of 230 immunity, the department identified a set of concrete reform proposals to provide stronger incentives for online platforms to address illicit material on their services while continuing to foster innovation and free speech.  The department’s findings are available here. 

“When it comes to issues of public safety, the government is the one who must act on behalf of society at large.  Law enforcement cannot delegate our obligations to protect the safety of the American people purely to the judgment of profit-seeking private firms.  We must shape the incentives for companies to create a safer environment, which is what Section 230 was originally intended to do,” said Attorney General William P. Barr.  “Taken together, these reforms will ensure that Section 230 immunity incentivizes online platforms to be responsible actors.  These reforms are targeted at platforms to make certain they are appropriately addressing illegal and exploitive content while continuing to preserve a vibrant, open, and competitive internet.  These twin objectives of giving online platforms the freedom to grow and innovate while encouraging them to moderate content responsibly were the core objectives of Section 230 at the outset.  The Department’s proposal aims to realize these objectives more fully and clearly in order for Section 230 to better serve the interests of the American people.”

So far, so good in overview. This means, in simple English, they want online fora like forums, microblogs like Twitter, and places like Facebook to continue to block speech that is obviously in violation of federal law like that inciting crime while still encouraging lawful public expression.

On the face of it, I can concur with the overall sentiment expressed thus far.

The department's review of Section 230 over the last ten months arose in the context of its broader review of market-leading online platforms and their practices, which were announced in July 2019.  The department held a large public workshop and expert roundtable in February 2020, as well as dozens of listening sessions with industry, thought leaders, and policy makers, to gain a better understanding of the uses and problems surrounding Section 230.

Section 230 was originally enacted to protect developing technology by providing that online platforms were not liable for the third-party content on their services or for their removal of such content in certain circumstances.  This immunity was meant to nurture emerging internet businesses and to overrule a judicial precedent that rendered online platforms liable for all third-party content on their services if they restricted some harmful content. 

However, the combination of 25 years of drastic technological changes and an expansive statutory interpretation left online platforms unaccountable for a variety of harms flowing from content on their platforms and with virtually unfettered discretion to censor third-party content with little transparency or accountability.  Following the completion of its review, the Department of Justice determined that Section 230 is ripe for reform and identified and developed four categories of wide-ranging recommendations.

Let's be real here. There has been a naked and unapologetic movement on many major social media platforms and some of the more well-known forums to hew to certain narratives and bend, warp, and twist their terms of service to expel those who have not said anything unlawful, merely something that goes against whatever political or social axe the owners of said platforms wish to grind.

Now, Section 230 protected these platforms so long as they declared upfront what opinions were acceptable in advance and banned for certain content without prejudice, and did not attempt to curate or otherwise act as a publisher, approving only certain content fit for public consumption while shutting out dissenting yet lawful discussion. It would be outright discriminatory to deny service on such platforms due to their reach and lack of suitable alternatives based on political stance, race, or creed, but places like Twitter have made it clear conservatives are to not offend the other side or they will find any excuse to hide their posts, get them banned, or the case of President Trump, outright censor his posts or declare him a liar and link to his political opposition just to make it clear they want to be publishers of propaganda, not neutral content carriers who allow all speech so long as it is lawful as their terms of service used to defend for the longest time until it became politically and socially inconvenient to certain parties.

The DOJ now wants to punish such blatant prejudice and wants carriers who want to act like publishers to assume legal responsibility publishers would face, which means they sacrifice immunity from responsibility Section 230 formerly granted them.

Incentivizing Online Platforms to Address Illicit Content

The first category of recommendations is aimed at incentivizing platforms to address the growing amount of illicit content online, while preserving the core of Section 230’s immunity for defamation claims.  These reforms include a carve-out for bad actors who purposefully facilitate or solicit content that violates federal criminal law or are willfully blind to criminal content on their own services.  Additionally, the department recommends a case-specific carve out where a platform has actual knowledge that content violated federal criminal law and does not act on it within a reasonable time, or where a platform was provided with a court judgment that the content is unlawful, and does not take appropriate action.

Now, this is basically saying "any social forum that lets criminal speech fester while punishing lawful speech should be punished in turn"

Generally, I find this sensible enough. Twitter has been notorious for allowing tons of BLM/ANTIFA types to openly encourage rioting, looting, and otherwise incite all types of criminal activity while trying to punish people for posting information that gives the lie to their claims of white supremacists being guilty of the crimes they committed by shadowbanning it or censoring accounts that dare not support the groups I just mentioned.

Even someone having an opinion like "I hope the military is called out to fill the rioters full of lead to restore order" is a perfectly lawful statement. It's an opinion that the state should mobilize its forces to put down domestic insurrection with the force of arms, positions defended all the way by George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion and which Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln emulated in later federal administrations.

Unlawful speech would be saying X places need to be burned down and their contents stolen from their lawful owners.

However, Twitter has punished the former opinion but let the latter fester, even though the latter is a clear case of unlawful speech under federal statute.

Promoting Open Discourse and Greater Transparency

A second category of proposed reforms is intended to clarify the text and revive the original purpose of the statute in order to promote free and open discourse online and encourage greater transparency between platforms and users.  One of these recommended reforms is to provide a statutory definition of “good faith” to clarify its original purpose.  The new statutory definition would limit immunity for content moderation decisions to those done in accordance with plain and particular terms of service and consistent with public representations.  These measures would encourage platforms to be more transparent and accountable to their users.

This is where any public-facing forum should cringe. Lack of transparency is a definite problem, but this is using a shotgun to swat a fly, as while it would combat places like Twitter or Facebook openly favoring certain political stances while punishing expressions of others through deceptive and biased abuse of their own terms of service in a discriminatory manner, this would mean any public forum would be at risk of having their owners made completely liable for the content of their individual posters unless the forum was an invite-only closed garden with no public-facing component.

This is something even a basic tightening of enforcement would spell the death of many types of forums and social networks unless they provided constant transparency on all their inner workings, otherwise, this puts them under threat of being accused of being publishers and not merely neutral content carriers.

While I agree Twitter and Facebook need to be more transparent, this can and will affect all public fora, and that has some frightening implications for any forum that has publicly viewable content.

Clarifying Federal Government Enforcement Capabilities

The third category of recommendations would increase the ability of the government to protect citizens from unlawful conduct, by making it clear that Section 230 does not apply to civil enforcement actions brought by the federal government. 

This basically says the federal government cannot be hamstrung by Section 230 if they deem fit. Generally sensible on the face of it, but the scope of this is very vague and outside of something like them imposing censorship of unlawful topics by their own initiative using civil enforcement methods, this concerns me as a stepping stone to a full-on censorship bureau of differing opinions unless this is given meticulous elaboration as to it's scope, effects, and limitations as a supplement to criminal prosecution.

Promoting Competition

A fourth category of reform is to make clear that federal antitrust claims are not, and were never intended to be, covered by Section 230 immunity.  Over time, the avenues for engaging in both online commerce and speech have concentrated in the hands of a few key players.  It makes little sense to enable large online platforms (particularly dominant ones) to invoke Section 230 immunity in antitrust cases, where liability is based on harm to competition, not on third-party speech.

This is basically saying the big names in social media and forums cannot stifle competition while hiding behind Section 230 to claim neutrality so long as they work to muscle out competition.

This isn't too objectionable really, but the scope is left rather disturbingly open-ended on this topic.

Some of these topics are covered in more detail here:

https://www.justice.gov/ag/department-justice-s-review-section-230-communications-decency-act-1996?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Specifically, the following parts:

1. Incentivizing Online Platforms to Address Illicit Content
The first category of potential reforms is aimed at incentivizing platforms to address the growing amount of illicit content online, while preserving the core of Section 230’s immunity for defamation. 

a. Bad Samaritan Carve-Out.  First, the Department proposes denying Section 230 immunity to truly bad actors.  The title of Section 230’s immunity provision—“Protection for ‘Good Samaritan’ Blocking and Screening of Offensive Material”—makes clear that Section 230 immunity is meant to incentivize and protect responsible online platforms.  It therefore makes little sense to immunize from civil liability an online platform that purposefully facilitates or solicits third-party content or activity that would violate federal criminal law. 

b. Carve-Outs for Child Abuse, Terrorism, and Cyber-Stalking. Second, the Department proposes exempting from immunity specific categories of claims that address particularly egregious content, including (1) child exploitation and sexual abuse, (2) terrorism, and (3) cyber-stalking.  These targeted carve-outs would halt the over-expansion of Section 230 immunity and enable victims to seek civil redress in causes of action far afield from the original purpose of the statute.

c. Case-Specific Carve-outs for Actual Knowledge or Court Judgments.  Third, the Department supports reforms to make clear that Section 230 immunity does not apply in a specific case where a platform had actual knowledge or notice that the third party content at issue violated federal criminal law or where the platform was provided with a court judgment that content is unlawful in any respect.

Section 1B is the scary one. The first two topics are unobjectionable, but how does one define cyberstalking exactly? Is it merely gaining access to information that is not publically available like medical records and financial stuff like credit card numbers and posting it so as to facilitate harm to someone, or can someone get busted for reposting public Facebook profiles and addresses/phone numbers gleaned from Whitepages.com?

The preventing of posting financials and medical records I'm down with, but the latter, while a dick move, is not and should not be criminal unless it is done with the clear intention to facilitate a crime like assault or murder. Otherwise, it's printing out the phonebook and posting it on a forum, and if we are going to make that criminal, phone companies are accessories to some heinous offenses.

My own records are available via public gleanings with a modest amount of effort. I've been doxed before, nothing that was exposed by it is something anyone could get by breaking laws, it was easily publicly sourced. The people who did it were doing so as part of a campaign to facilitate my getting upset and insult me, but that's not a crime. None of the information has been used to threaten my life or those related to me, so no crime was committed. Sure, I had some fools try to post that garbage to raise a personal army against me by manchildren with a grudge, but the threats were nothing more than internet edgelord crap any judge would laugh out of a courtroom under current law.

If they posted my bank account information, then that would be a crime, but that hasn't happened and my address and phone number do not constitute a criminal offense absent proven threats to harm my life and safety alongside that information with clear intent to act on that desire.

Basically, that cyberstalking part has the potential for chilling some nasty yet completely legal speech, and even if I admit it would please me to no end to see certain people who did such to me hamstrung with legal consequences, I'm not spiteful to want it to happen because it's a slippery slope that scares me with the implications long-term. 


Here is the other important section:

4. Promoting Open Discourse and Greater Transparency
A fourth category of potential reforms is intended to clarify the text and original purpose of the statute in order to promote free and open discourse online and encourage greater transparency between platforms and users.

a. Replace Vague Terminology in (c)(2).  First, the Department supports replacing the vague catch-all “otherwise objectionable” language in Section 230(c)(2) with “unlawful” and “promotes terrorism.”  This reform would focus the broad blanket immunity for content moderation decisions on the core objective of Section 230—to reduce online content harmful to children—while limiting a platform's ability to remove content arbitrarily or in ways inconsistent with its terms or service simply by deeming it “objectionable.” 

b. Provide Definition of Good Faith.  Second, the Department proposes adding a statutory definition of “good faith,” which would limit immunity for content moderation decisions to those done in accordance with plain and particular terms of service and accompanied by a reasonable explanation, unless such notice would impede law enforcement or risk imminent harm to others.  Clarifying the meaning of "good faith" should encourage platforms to be more transparent and accountable to their users, rather than hide behind blanket Section 230 protections.

c. Explicitly Overrule Stratton Oakmont to Avoid Moderator’s Dilemma.  Third, the Department proposes clarifying that a platform’s removal of content pursuant to Section 230(c)(2) or consistent with its terms of service does not, on its own, render the platform a publisher or speaker for all other content on its service.

4a is generally fine. Basically, if it's not against actual law, it should remain up. 

So if I think illegal aliens (and I do) should be deported, that is not an unlawful opinion and no one should silence me for saying so. If I argued vigilantes should take the work of ICE into their own hands, then that would be illegal and not lawful for me to post because I would be encouraging a disruption of lawful authority by inciting others towards acting outside the law.

4a would protect the former and punish the latter, which is fair enough to me.

4b is also fine for the most part, but the definition of good faith needs some very well detailed fine print or we'd be no better off than we started and just shifting goalposts.

4c. Is just saying "if the speech is something no one is allowed to say, and all are penalized equally with clear reasoning, let it ride."

For example, let's say a forum has a hard "no-politics" rule outside one clearly designated area. Any politics outside that area is removed with prejudice, no matter the slant or bias.

That's pretty reasonable, so long as such is not implemented ex post facto or rules are changed without due notice or reverted on a whim to bother by the book.


Now, in conclusion, this is just suggestions by the DOD, none of this is actual law yet to my knowledge, but it's clear many politicians on both sides of the aisle are considering such changes, and while I'm not entirely opposed to some reforms, I have grave reservations as noted above how this could become a slippery slope we'll all regret later unless handled with the greatest care and respect for lawful expression.

Having Left The Kiwi Farms: Addendum

Since I decided to leave there for good, I want to tie up a few loose ends here and now that my last post did not address.

1. Just because I left in disgust over how shabbily I was regarded by gutter trash who made it clear they would continue to harass me with no provocation, that does not mean I'm suddenly going to switch sides and join the legions of angry morons trying to take the place down, nor am I going to be a bitter ex-member who curses it as evil incarnate since I was spurned (or rather self-expelled) from paradise.

Hopefully, this just means I can close the book on this part of my life. I know nothing about the place, so I'm not in possession on any dirt about anyone there, I'm not going to start a crusade against them, mostly because I've been trying to get away from drama, cutting myself off from there can only help in that regard, and while there are some people there I have had the intense displeasure of crossing paths with, I just want to ignore them from now on. Despite a few of those cowards sending me insulting crap via anon accounts to troll me here (in direct violation of their own rules on not starting things offsite, but they went anon so I can't pin down who if I wanted to), it goes in one ear and out the other, as they are welcome to their pit, I'm just not jumping down in to join them anymore and refusing any invitation to return.


2. In total fairness, while I spent most of my time commenting on threads as opposed to doxing or going out of my way to antagonize people, I was a member there, and thus by definition, I share some guilt in contributing to it by my passive participation. I don't deny it, would be a fool to claim otherwise, but it ends now and forever. I'm going to accept responsibility for every post I made there, no matter what, anything to tie to the GethN7 account or my former account Cynical (which I used prior to my current one) is all mine, insofar as the original words were not edited by anyone else without my knowledge. Just making it clear I fully own up to anything posted as stated, just in case anyone wants to call me on it later.


3. If you were not someone who treated me like dirt, I can be reached at multiple venues should you wish to continue our association. Otherwise, if you were someone who treated me with contempt, just stay away from me, we have nothing to discuss unless you want to apologize for your actions.

Farewell to Kiwi Farms for good this time

I've made a post or two here before about having left there for awhile, but this time I have crossed the Rubicon and requested a permaban. I've already deleted my passwords and whether the permaban is granted or not, I don't care, I'm leaving and not returning this time.

Thing is, I don't hate the guy who runs the place, or at least he's not the focus of my anger. My anger is directed at the people there who harassed, hazed, defamed, doxed, and otherwise made my life there a living hell. Yes, I'm well aware "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen", so I'm taking that advice and getting out.

I thought I could handle it for the longest time. I really did, and looking back, it wasn't so bad for awhile. However, as the site changed, as people came and went, and as cliques formed and prejudices hardened, certain people became the "cool kids", and the rest were bleeding meat for the dogs to savage. That was me as the latter.

I don't hide things by nature. It doesn't come easily to me, hence why I used the same username everywhere and even write under my real name on ChristCenteredGamer. I have absolutely nothing to hide in a legal sense, I admit I don't have the most moral past (read the earlier entries on this blog if you want a good sample of that), and I'm probably not half as decent a human being as I want to be regarded as.

At the same time, I have standards. I am not cruel enough to viciously distort the truth about something to troll them, at least I'm not very good at it because I like whatever I give someone grief over to be based on some measure of fact I could take into a court of law and argue with a decent chance of success. Outright lying about people is not my forte either, I'm not all that great at that and am too morally repulsed by doing so to properly learn how. Being vicious for the sake of riling people is also not my specialty, and I'd rather be shot than grow comfortable with such a vile act.

In short, I'm a "moralfag". I'm a wimp. I'm too much of bleeding heart to put up with that crap. I admit without shame it was probably the worst mistake of my life to get the slightest bit involved with the Kiwi Farms, but what's done is done, and if asked if I was a member, I will tell the truth, as much as I might live to regret it.

Thanks to being a member there, I have been subjected to far more crap than I ever expected to put up with, had some petty former moderator named "zedkissed60" there dox me and my family out of sheer spite, had my every action cast into the worst possible light and people who will never have the spine and guts to ever speak to me face to face call me a horrible human being based on little more than a distorted version of my actual actions and their own preconceptions.

And I refuse to deal with it for another second. I'd rather leave on my own terms and be banned on my own request (and if the latter isn't honored it makes no difference), but at the very least I left because I chose to. The site in question is a sinking ship that I doubt will last till the end of this year as the owner has admitted they want to start a family and move onto other things, and I wish Joshua "Null" Moon the best with that, I cannot hate a man who has shown me far more regard than I probably deserve, but I cannot stomach the company he keeps. And while there are many people there who deserve my respect and honor, there are some who would kick me while I down and live stream it on Facebook so the world could laugh at my pain, and those people I refuse to put up with for another second.

This all said, my past, insofar as I have revealed it and public records can be mined for information, is an open book. I cannot control what conclusions people infer from what they find, and I'm not going to try with those who assume the worst just to be vicious to me.

As for the facts, I have committed no crimes, I have confessed to nothing on the internet I would be ashamed to explain to my friends and family, and if the Kiwi Farms wants to do something as utterly spiteful as making a "lolcow" thread on me, well, so be it, I'm in the public eye as a journalist now, not like I didn't expect this might happen, but that thread will have to exist without my input, and I'm not defending my good name to those who've already decided I must be scum because to assume such is funnier in their eyes. Besides, my name is "Daniel", Hebrew for "God is my Judge", and that's the only one I fear, not the opinion of men.

That said, for the decent people there who know what I really am and always treated me with respect, you know where to find me elsewhere. As to those who have wished me nothing but contempt, you can quit hazing me on the Farms. You can quit leaving me comments on this blog (which is moderated) to troll. You can crow about your victory over me leaving your fetid hovel as much as you like, your scorn is my glory.

That said, I have no intention to join any successor to the Kiwi Farms. I don't deny being a member of the Farms, but I disavow anything to do with it's more vile nature and want nothing more to do with it in any form. They spat on every other community for being vile pits of perdition, and since I despise hypocrisy, I now do the same to them.

I will not harass it's members. I will not dox anyone from there. I will not nurse stupid grudges like has been done to me, and I would hope and pray they have the maturity to leave me in peace if I leave them in peace. If they cannot do so or are unwilling to do so, then all I can do is what Jesus did as he was crucified and Stephen did as he was stoned and leave this in God's hands.

From now on, I hope what time has been freed from no longer associating with the Farms can be spent towards other things, and while I will not pretend this chapter in my life never happened, it deserves no glory as far as I'm concerned either.

The American Revolutionary War: Or When Both Sides Did Some Dumb Things

One of my loves is reading history, and I've been binging on history books for quite a while now. While doing so, I've been rereading a few books on the American Revolution, and to be honest, both sides did some really dumb things, and since some of them are kinda hilarious, I thought I'd share some of the more galaxy brained things both sides did.

1. The only reason the war started was, quite simply, the British (King George especially) were too arrogant to not kill the golden goose. Up until the end of the Seven Years War, since the turn of the century (meaning from 1700-1763), the British had ruled their American colonies with a pretty light hand, to the point it had become "normal". Afterward, they started clamping down and demanding strict enforcement of tax laws they had otherwise been content to let off easy for several generations as well as dreaming up new ones that could only make their American subjects angrier. Then, they had the temerity to wonder why they were considered the bad guys after all this.

Had they acknowledged any of this, and acted with appropriate finesse, the United States might still be a British possession.

2. The Americans weren't much smarter in some ways. Their attempt to get Canada to rebel and attempt to invade them was a pipe dream at best. Sure, Canada was formerly French, but the British had done a good job of convincing them their new masters were far better than their former ones, and Americans thinking Canadians were gonna switch sides were just too stupid to read the room and blinded by their own bias.

3. The overall British strategy was dense. They thought they had to crush the rebel armies to win. What they needed to do, and failed miserably at doing, was break their spirit. Further, it was going to be easier to break the Britsh than it was the Americans because the longer things dragged out, the more pain it would deal with the British financially and morally, which it did. The American side was far more realistic in realizing all they had to do was outlast the other side.

4. Back to American stupidity, albeit not something they could have known without the benefit of hindsight, was that most of their officers who were ex-British Army in high places like Charles Lee and Horatio Gates were worse than useless. They might have had former military experience, but both were vainglorious, egotistical, and borderline traitors with how they spent more time trying to screw over their boss George Washington than they did showing battlefield competence. Both dropped the ball at several crucial intervals, and both ended their careers in disgrace as a result of this.

5. Turning back to British stupidity, they had this deluded notion that all they had to do was win battles and their loyal subjects would flock to plug any holes in holding these areas. While admittedly not entirely dense in some loyalist intensive places like New York, this idea cost them dearly elsewhere as they had a poor idea of just how many Americans still wanted to be loyal elsewhere. Cornwallis had his forces in the Carolinas nigh obliterated because of this delusion.

There are some other moments of idiocy worth covering, but these I consider some of the dimmest bulbs of an event where both sides were a bit dense, just the American side let fewer neurons spark out than the British in the long run.

A House Divided Cannot Stand: Or When Jesus Was Accused of Being His Own Enemy Because Of "Reasons"

These days, it seems some people, namely those who riot, loot, and commit crimes in places where the police are punished for daring to remind them such acts are illegal, think bad is good and good is bad.

They claim they are justified in doing so because they are angry at being mistreated, but I don't see how rioting, looting and making a mockery of the law fix any of their problems. To date, they have yet to explain how abolishing the rule of law is going to fix society beyond some asinine logic that the police is a cure worse than the disease, so if we get rid of them, then we'll be better off.

When you ask how they can guarantee this, their answer boils down to (assuming they bother to be civil about it) "trust me on this". As we've seen, in areas where they basically got their way like that laughable hippie commune in Seattle Washington they call the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (or CHAZ), this is clearly not working, given the first person to establish anything resembling order, there is someone who basically went unironic African warlord over a place that literally cannot sustain a basic garden.

Then again, expecting consistent logic is probably too much to ask of a bunch of people who think anarcho-communism really can work when they are still leeching off the benefits of a capitalist society to run their phone and laptops.


It's on that note I'd like to bring up another moment of similar galaxy brain logic the Bible had when a bunch of Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons with the help of the Devil.

Yes, really. Apparently, Jesus was undermining the Devil in tormenting humanity by casting out his minions.

Jesus, like anyone else, facepalmed and explained how stupid that sounds like as follows.

From Mark, Chapter 3, Verse 23-29:

23 So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27 In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. 28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”


Now, I find this a pretty sensible argument. Abraham Lincoln made a similar argument shortly before the American Civil War referencing this same logic in regards to how the nation could not permanently endure as a half slave and half free.


What prompted Jesus explaining their logic fail was this asinine logic:

30 He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.”

As Jesus explained, this makes no sense. If one casts out evil in the name of evil, how can evil perpetuate itself?

Personally, I don't have a good rebuttal to that, because there isn't one. As applied to the real world, how does ending the rule of law ensure society will be one where no crime is committed? How can one make sure the law is just when someone defies it's very meaning? How can man live in a world where money does not determine one's survival while still using all of thee advantages purchased with it to sustain themselves?

The takeaway is simple: A house divided cannot stand. Evil cannot do good against itself, because that defeats the point. An ideal society where the law is thrown out the window cannot work because laws are what holds a society together. Even Communism has the rule that "to each according to his ability, and to each according to their need", and if this rule is not enforced, communism is not viable.

So next time someone accuses you of doing evil to do good or something just as foolish, remember you were not the first one who encountered such illogic, nor will you be the last, and if Christians and the world at large are to be better than such illogic, we must keep in mind that the house of our morals and laws cannot be divided against itself or we as people and the world at large will fall.

More of my favorite Girls Frontline designs

I'd like to cover some more of favorite character designs from Girls Frontline


1. TEC-9

TEC-9 is based off the infamous semi-automatic associated with crime in the 1990's United States (and can be used in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas), I like how her character design is basically a female version of The Punisher, who is the epitome of edgy 1990's in design himself.



2. P226

The SIG Sauer P226 was a pistol favored by the US Navy Seals as opposed to more standard Beretta M9 used by most of the US forces, at least until it was retired in 2015. Her character model features both a reinforced life vest/sailor skirt and she carries a seal plushie in reference to this. Aside from the fact the model of SIG she carries is not the same as the SEAL variant, I otherwise dig the naval references in her design.


3. Jericho

The Jericho is an Israeli derivative of the CZ-75 pistol, only it has a different barrel and heavier frame. It's still in use by the IWI and is available for export in all steel and polymer finish. Her design reflects her Israeli origins with the Star of David head ribbon and she has a classy "lady of war" style to her uniform, and that walking stick (which she uses apparently for looking classy/emergency club) just tends to lend to her "woman who could kick your ass" look. Cowboy Bebop fans will recognize her gun as the one favored by series protagonist Spike Spiegel.



4. Grizzly MK V

The LAR Grizzly Win Mag MK V is essentially the big brother of the M1911 in terms of the overall design, and while capable of .45 Winchester Magnum, it can use the heavy-duty .50 AE round as well. Her overall character design is basically "1980's cop movie protagonist", which is appropriate, as the gun design was conceived during the same era. The Grizzly part of the name gets more focus with her alternate kid skin, which has her wear cute bear ears. The cop references continue through the same with Kid Grizzly being a fan of donuts.

While the world burns, here's my concerns

Thankfully, riots are nowhere near my immediate family, though some of my friends and extended family are not so fortunate and I pray God shields them every day. And, even if that is not an immediate problem in my own vicinity, I must admit I still have other worries.

I live with my mother and help take care of a disabled father. While we've been fortunate to have no disruption in his home health care and we are all doing well at the moment, watching people elsewhere turn into riotous animals who believe it's alright to kill, steal, and destroy fills me with anger. However, unless they personally try to attack those I care for, in which case I will defend them via whatever means are at my disposal, their handling I believe is the best fit for the courts and the currently embattled police and auxiliary military forces deployed to assist them, whom I pray are able to suppress this civil unrest.

I also am dismayed that the people who are rioting are doing so while we are still reeling from economic downturns and a plague. Their actions are doing no one any favors and I hope a new wave of disease does not follow on the heels of their lawlessness.

Most of all, I pray for my country in general. Whatever thin pretense of wanting justice for a policeman showing ill regard for a detained criminal that resulted in death either directly or indirectly is now beside the point. What is has become is utter anarchy as those who want an excuse to wreak havoc are making civil disorder mushroom across the United States.

It's in these times, I pray for peace to return and that men may sleep peaceably in their beds, and hopefully Goerge Orwell's words about how that is possible since rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf becoming far less pressing than it does now.

The Minneapolis Riots: We could have avoided this.

Maybe I'm just horribly optimistic, but I was hoping humanity was smarter than the psychos burning things and looting what isn't nailed down right now.

Fine, I get it, they are mad a black guy was killed by cops who stepped over the line. It's understandable to be mad about that. However, the cops can be punished, the family compensated, and the authorities issue an apology for their servants doing something so heinous.

At least, that's how things would work in a sane world.

Since we live in clown world, there are lunatics (quite a few of them WHITE, I might add) being lawless thugs and attacking anything and everything. Worse, they have the usual Hollywood smoothbrains trying to virtue signal by supplying bail money to these criminals, and even some lunatic political types (Democrats, of course) are white knighting for these miserable brigands.

This is insane.

We are still reeling from a global plague. The economy is slumped. These things cannot be fixed by a bunch of crazy mobs torching business and stealing things.

But sanity has fallen on deaf ears, and after checking the social media toilet known as Twitter, it seems some of these rioters are trying to polish their own turd image and are basically shaking down the same idiots virtue signaling for more free stuff under the guise of "you don't want to be racist". In reality, it's just an extension of these feral scum using any excuse to steal and extort what they can't earn and get away with lawlessness.

I'm sorry about what triggered this, George Floyd's death was tragic, but what is happening now does his memory no favors. If anything, while one man was poorly served by the police, if the police decided to cruelly handle these rioters, it would be exactly what they deserve.

The Sad Story of Saul: Or Why One Should Not Let Evil Destroy You Part 8

As David just barely missed a chance to backstab the Philistines behind their own lines, Saul and his forces were going to face to face those very battle lines from the front end.

Both of their stories have different endings, let's cover David's side first.

David had had to travel from his home base in Ziklag to the Philistine camp before Achish got told no on letting David fight with the regulars and sent David back home, apologizing for David having wasted time for nothing. On the way back, David's reputation as an effective mercenary came back to haunt him again.

Some Amalekites who were really mad Dave made a habit introducing them to the business end of a blade decided to wait until Ziklag was minus it's defender before launching a massive raid, burning the place, and ganking all families of the mercs to sell for ransom.

However, during the course of the raid, one of them had to leave behind a slave who was too weak to move, and after David provided them some food and promised not to turn the guy back over to the Amalekites, spilled his guts about where to find them. After a quick consult with God via Abiathur about his chances of taking them down (and God was all "go for it"), Dave hunted them down and turned them all into red smears on the edge of his blade.

He then discovered a ton of plunder from others the Amalekites had raided and decided to be magnanimous and turn it over to the Israelites. Since this was around the time Saul was confirmed to have finally died in battle and David had been consistently gaining support  for his off the books raids on bandits and other thugs while falsely LARPing as a Philistine blade for hire, this proved to be the springboard to at least half of Israel asking him to lead them since Saul died, his son Johnathan was dead too, and they had more confidence in him than they did any of Saul's notional hereditary successors.

Note: David still had deal with some Saul loyalists afterwards, but that is beyond the scope of this particular Bible Study.



Now let's cut back to Saul's story.


As we saw last time, Saul had plenty of reasons to let his heart sink to his testicular region in fear, but he had no choice but to squelch his fear. While God had rejected him as king, he was still legally obligated to do his job. And sure, he was prone to depression and his morals were terrible at best, but to his sole remaining credit, even he realized he had to be the military commander in chief, so when the Philistines marshaled their armies, he decided he was going to try to tilt the battle in his favor by meeting them at Mount Gilboa.

This was not a bad choice. Israelites were used to fighting on mountains and hills, and given the Israelites had much less formal military training on the whole, this made it easier for them to use terrain to balance out the fact most Philistines were used to fighting on open terrain in set piece battle.

Unfortunately, it  was still a crushing tactical defeat. Not only did the Philistines rout the Israelites, most of them were killed, and the few survivors included Abner, who continued to support Saul's family even after their patriarch died.

However, Saul and his son Johnathan were not so fortunate. Johnathan had already been slain here, Saul was near death himself and asked his armor bearer to finish him off so the Philistines won't do the job, but the man refuses to off his own king.

And so Saul ends his own life by falling on his own sword literally.



Now, that said, let's compare and contrast a few things. Both Saul and David were anointed to do as God commanded. Neither was perfect, but they proved themselves as able military commanders.

However, Saul proved to be prone to violent mood swings, impulsive, irrational, and a total hypocrite to his oath to his official duties, often wasting the resources of the state for personal reasons. David proved far more capable of keeping his emotions in check, was far more thoughtful, rational, and most of all, put the benefit of others over his own interest, sometimes even at the direct detriment of his own.

But most important, both were directly handed their mandates by God. Saul broke faith with God, David did not.Even more tellingly, David was never fully aware he was supposed to be the next king, despite everyone from Saul on down coming to that conclusion, and not only did he refuse to shortcut his way to that by killing Saul (either in self defense or assassin style), he made a point of keeping his word to never harm Saul or his family by his own hand, even at the direct risk of his own life, because like the man or not, God had made him king, and until he died, David would respect that.

It's easy to see why God ultimately considered David the superior choice for king over Saul. 1 Chronicles points out Saul's biggest failing was his refusal to do as God commanded. David was far from perfect in that regard, but unlike Saul, when God called him out in his own reign, David was the king who bowed before the King of Kings.

Saul rose and then fell because he ultimately could not do that when he stumbled, and we need to keep in mind no matter how high we rise, we still fall if we do not kneel before all that God says that we should do.

The Sad Story of Saul: Or Why One Should Not Let Evil Destroy You Part 7

When we last left Saul, he had twice been snuck up on Metal Gear Solid style by David, just so the latter could prove he could've killed Saul at any moment and chose not to. Both times, Saul backed off for awhile.

However, David knew his luck could not be infinite. In fact, so long as he remained for any considerable length of time in Israel's borders, he was in Saul's dead sights and one day, Saul was going to have his head on a spike.

So he once again tried to set up shop in the land of the Philistines.

Now, he had tried this before and it failed, and he was even doing so before Achish, the same guy he once had to play madman in front of to keep his head attached to his neck. This time, though, it was common knowledge David had a price on his head Saul would pay for and whatever military reputation David had as an Israeli hero was chicken feed at his point, so when David asked Achish for room and board in return for his groupies serving as a Philistine mercenary force, they gave Dave and his friends a city called Ziklag to call their own.

Of course, this came with a price: They wanted David to turn his blade on his own people, and David found an ingenious way to cheat on this deal while still appearing to follow it:


[8] Then David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. (They had been living in that land for a long time, from the approach to Shur as far as the land of Egypt.)  [9] When David would attack a district, he would leave neither man nor woman alive. He would take sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels, and clothing and would then go back to Achish.  [10] When Achish would ask, "Where did you raid today?" David would say, "The Negev of Judah" or "The Negev of Jeharmeel" or "The Negev of the Kenites."  [11] Neither man nor woman would David leave alive so as to bring them back to Gath. He was thinking, "This way they can't tell on us, saying, 'This is what David did.'" Such was his practice the entire time that he lived in the country of the Philistines.  [12] So Achish trusted David, thinking to himself, "He is really hated among his own people in Israel! From now on he will be my servant." 
(I Samuel 27:8-12 [NETfree])


Now, one might wonder why Achish fell for this ruse, but it was pretty easy to explain:


1. In terms of plunder, practically every force was pretty similar to the Israelites that he attacked in terms of material goods, so David had little reason to worry he might have his ruse uncovered by the Philistines rifling through the loot he brought back and finding non-Israeli specific goods.

2. The term "Negev" means "desert", so as long as David killed non-Israeli forces relatively near the locations he mentioned, no one would look too deeply into seeing if he was lying, since traversing deserts was arduous work and if the goods he brought back were a bit sandy, no one would find that odd.

3. David accurately believed "dead men tell no tales", and it was a commonly known practice of Israelite forces to kill everyone to the last man anyway, so his not bringing back prisoners was not seen as unusual.

4. All the people David went after were basically desert raiders, the kind of scum that was headaches to Israeli and Philistine alike. No one was likely to care if they died either way.


Unfortunately, the ruse was nearly broken when Achish tried to sign up David's forces for regular military service with the Phlistine army. David was likely happy he did this, he could backstab them behind their own lines. However, the other Philistine commanders weren't stupid, and they gave Achish a hard no, saying he could use them to do proxy raids, but they weren't fighting shoulder to shoulder with Philistine regulars.

Dave put on a good show of acting disappointed out of apparent loyalty for Achish's benefit, and he basically got the best of both worlds: he could keep the ruse going and he got removed from any situation where it might get discovered.




We now cut back to Saul, who, since Samuel died, was getting a bit desperate. The Philistines were gearing up for another major offensive against the Israelites, God made a point to ignore Saul's calls, and Saul had no way of getting a heads up from anyone affiliated with God on whether his forces would win.

So Saul, in his desperation, did the unthinkable.

Early in Saul's career, he had made a point to put to the sword mediums, sorcerers, and anyone else who might worship idols or commune with the dead, generally out of loyalty to God. Despite later getting on God's bad side, he still kept up this practice. Now, though, God had left Saul so starved for news he was about to turn to those very people he once slew to stay on God's good side.

There was a witch a place called Endor who was reputed to be good at getting dead people on the horn, and Saul figured he'd have her call up Samuel because while Samuel had been the one to break Saul ego over his knee, he was still providing primo intel to the Israelites on God's intentions until his death, and Saul decided he'd, in some literal sense, dig up Samuel's corpse for another heads up session.

However, this time it was Saul whose reputation preceded him in a bad way. The witch of Endor quickly realized who Saul was and was about to cut and run, figuring she was the target of a sting to flush her out and get her killed, but after Saul convinced her he was going to let her live because God was stiff-arming him that badly and Saul really needed some divine update on what to do, the witch did her thing.



Now, an important note before I go on. I've read numerous bible translations, and they all leave vague if the witch of Endor actually did anything for real, God let it happen, or if Saul got an evil demonic parody of what he asked for, it's one of those parts of the Bible where they leave it up in the air what happened, so I'm just going to cite how it's described in the text below as opposed to giving pithy commentary and let the reader be the judge:


[13] The king said to her, "Don't be afraid! What have you seen?" The woman replied to Saul, "I have seen one like a god coming up from the ground!"  [14] He said to her, "What about his appearance?" She said, "An old man is coming up! He is wrapped in a robe!"Then Saul realized it was Samuel, and he bowed his face toward the ground and kneeled down.  [15] Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?" Saul replied, "I am terribly troubled! The Philistines are fighting against me and God has turned away from me. He does not answer me - not by the prophets nor by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what I should do."  [16] Samuel said, "Why are you asking me, now that the LORD has turned away from you and has become your enemy?  [17] The LORD has done exactly as I prophesied! The LORD has torn the kingdom from your hand and has given it to your neighbor David!  [18] Since you did not obey the LORD and did not carry out his fierce anger against the Amalekites, the LORD has done this thing to you today. [19] The LORD will hand you and Israel over to the Philistines! Tomorrow both you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also hand the army of Israel over to the Philistines!"  [20] Saul quickly fell full length on the ground and was very afraid because of Samuel's words. He was completely drained of energy, not having eaten anything all that day and night.
(I Samuel 28:13-20 [NETfree])


Regardless of whether this was real or if Saul had been duped by smoke and mirrors or a demonic parody of the real deal, it doesn't really matter, Saul was left even more terrified than he was before.



I'll cover the finale of Saul's fall and disgrace unto death in the last part, but this contains a few important lessons on why Saul fell so hard.


First off, he had been anointed by God to do as GOD wanted, and he lost God's favor by cheating on that, so why he thought doubling and tripling down on defying God's will was a good idea boggles the imagination. Second, he had sunk to the point of doing the very things he had slain others for doing as crimes before the Lord out of fear and desperation.

Granted, God had already rejected Saul and left him in the lurch as King, but Saul, being too proud to legally abdicate his throne and too arrogant to accept this, kept trying to do the job without his key backer, and he declined into a paranoid shell of himself who had resorted to becoming little better than what he was anointed to oppose evil had corroded him like acid and ate away at his integrity and decency.

It will only get worse from here, and this story will end on a sad note for Saul, but the lesson here as to how it was getting to that point I won't belabor, except to say the mistakes Saul made are ones no one should ever repeat.