From my very first blog post after the 2016 presidential election and continuing to this day, I have spoken repeatedly of the “revelation” that tRUMP, America’s Caligula, has been for me. But the revelation should not be, must not be confined to me. He should serve as a revelation to all of us. The fact that so many have lacked discernment of his revelation is a mystery still to be revealed—though the New Testament’s Book of Revelation can go a long way toward shedding light into this dark corner of American culture.
 
Willful ignorance has played a large role in the blindness of so many millions of Americans. But after his coup, attempted through mindless, likely sociopathic thugs, terrorists, and insurgents charging the U.S. Capital building, only the most willfully blind, deaf, and unfeeling can fail to discern his revelation—a revelation of “the signs of the times.”
 
Some of tRUMP's “insaniacs,” have likened their sociopathic leader to Jesus. This is beyond disgusting and pornographic. It is blasphemous. It is the taking of the name of God in vain to a degree that would possibly enjoin the death penalty upon them if they were living in the Biblical times they claim to love so much. Having said all of that, there is one way in which we can liken the two men, one God, the other a demon from hell.
 
I have quoted the following often, including in my latest Mad State and Blog posts. Jesus is speaking to leading Pharisees and Sadducees.
 
“He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, ‘It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring,’ O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”[1]
 
Jesus then follows this up with, “there shall no sign be given unto it [this generation], but the sign of the prophet Jonas.”[2] Now, Jesus used this “sign of the prophet Jonas” on more than one occasion and to illustrate more than one point. For example, earlier in his ministry, Jesus had used this “sign” as a lesson concerning his death.
 
“For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”[3]
 
This usage of the “sign” does not fit the context in Matthew 16. In another context, Luke records Jesus’ use of Jonah as a “sign.
 
“For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation.”[4]
 
Here, Jesus himself is a “sign” to Judah as Jonah was a “sign” to Nineveh. But the sign had nothing to do with big fish swallowing little men or God lying dead for three days. So, what sort of sign” was Jonah to Nineveh? As every reader of the Bible knows, Yahweh commanded Jonah to “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”[5] After his fishy detour, Jonah finally arrived in the city and delivered his ominous message.
 
“Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”[6]
 
Jonah, then, with his Assyrian ministry and message, was a “sign” that if Assyria did not immediately mend its ways, it was subject to utter destruction. A half-millennium later, Jesus served the same role in the life of Judah. He was a sign, as John the Baptist had been before him, that the time for repentance had come. A broom was prepared. Absent Judah’s repentance, God would use the broom to sweep Judah away into the dust bin of history. The only way to survive was to repent.
 
This, in a kind of anti-hero manner, is the sort of revelation or “sign” that America’s mad would-be dictator represents. He signifies all that is wrong with America: materialism, hedonism, arrogance, self-centeredness, self-righteousness, shamelessness, contempt for others, rage, corruption, deceit... on and on it goes. His dark and fictitious and seditious visions of election fraud and the attendant insurrection he instigated, and that his hordes attempted and will continue to attempt, are all “signs.” “Signs” that America as it has devolved cannot endure. “Signs” that the day of repentance is nearly past. “Signs” that it is either “repent or perish.”
 
One can hope and pray that America will learn from and follow the Assyrians’ example.
 
“So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, ‘Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?[7]
 
When “God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way… God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”[8]
 
Observing the “signs of the times” that tRUMP is flashing in neon red, America can still repent. One can hope and pray that it is not too late.  But, as of right now, the “signs” that America discerns “the signs of the times” that tRUMP represents are depressingly absent. From senators and congressmen and women to the basest of the mad insurrectionists, far, far too many remain under the spell cast by the latest of Satan’s spawn, who spews “great things and blasphemies” out of his perverted mouth.[9]
 
“A responsible government—and let’s be frank here, a responsible political party—would be acting in concert to stamp out this threat using every tool necessary and making the transition to a stable successor government as smooth as possible.
 
“Instead what we have is the Republican party doing everything in its power to avoid addressing the threat, making the succession to the Biden administration as challenging as possible, and desperately trying to protect Donald Trump from consequences under the insane rubric of ‘national unity.’
 
“And it’s not just a few ‘bad apples.’ Jake Tapper reports that even the minority of House members who didn’t actively support the coup want to act ‘as if it didn’t happen,’ with scant exceptions….
 
“For months Republicans told the country that they were just ‘humoring’ the president. That there was nothing to worry about. That was a lie, a wish that they were hoping to get away with, since they were too timorous to tackle the threat that was bubbling up before our eyes.
 
“They are running the same play again, right now: Asking that America turn the page, hope for the best, and run out the clock of the Trump presidency. And pray that nothing else bad happens.”
 
“If we haven’t learned what a terrible ‘strategy’ this is by now, then we never will.
 
“The attacks on our country that Donald Trump has agitated for are ongoing.”[10]
 
Yes, one fears that “the day of grace [is] passed with them, both temporally and spiritually”[11] and that our deliverance is little more than that of a thirsty and starving man’s false night-time dream of life-sustaining liquid and nourishment. The post-truth world of delusion is alive and well in the land of the unfree—for it is only truth that will set you free.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!


[1] Matthew 16.2-3

[2] Verse 4

[3] Matthew 12.40

[4] Luke 11.30

[5] Jonah 1.2

[6] Jonah 3.5

[7] Jonah 3.5-9

[8] Jonah 3.10

[9] See Revelation 13.5
[10] “The Attack on Democracy Is Not Over. It’s Still Happening. Right Now,” Tim Miller, thebulwark.com
[11] Mormon 2.15

“‘There’s just something not right about this election.’ That’s what my relatives say. They’re life-long Republicans, the kind of people who cry and pray over school shootings. They voted for Trump, twice.
 
“They won’t admit it.
 
“They remain strategically silent because they know it might cost them access to their grand kids. It’s not about difference of opinion or shared values anymore. We simply don’t know if we can trust their judgment in the world that’s coming, or the one that might already be here.
 
“If you want a dose of reality, consider that while 61 percent of Americans accept the election results, 72 percent of Republicans don’t.”[1]
 
There is much to think on and talk about in this brief quote. For example, according to Pew Research, American Mormons are around 75% Republican. From a personal standpoint, this means that 150 Mormons with whom I share a pew from Sunday to Sunday (at least in non-pandemic times) are Republicans. Now, I have comfortably shared a pew with Republicans my entire life. I tried not to think about it too much, and certainly tried not to put a face on the statistics. I am sorry to say, however, that those days are past. You see, the stakes are higher than they once were. Data suggests that I share a pew with 125 Mormons who voted for tRUMP. Furthermore, data suggests that I share a pew with 135 Mormons who believe tRUMP’s lies about voter fraud and a stolen election, and perhaps a slightly smaller number who believe COVID is overhyped and thus refuse to practice responsible social distancing and mask wearing.
 
So, as I read Jessica Wildfire’s piece, I kept coming back to these two sentences in which she muses: “It’s not about difference of opinion or shared values anymore. We simply don’t know if we can trust their judgment in the world that’s coming, or the one that might already be here.”
 
My children are grown and have their own children. My parent children will have to make some hard decisions about their children and whom they will trust in influencing their children. I will have no say in such decisions. This is as it should be. But, for myself, decisions about whom I will trust to influence my spirit are simple. Unlike Wildfire, I am not uncertain.
 
Jesus once scolded his religious leaders as follows,
 
“When it is evening, ye say, ‘It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring,’ O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”[2]
 
The “signs” indicating what type of man tRUMP was and is have been as clear as a summer cloudless sky. The “signs” of what kind of leader he is have been clearer than a full moon on a clear night. The “signs” that the words that come from his mouth are nothing but lies have been as clear as Satan is evil. The “signs” of the reality of the pandemic are as clear as COVID’s nearly 400,000 corpses that have now begun their disintegration and moldering into dust. The “signs” that the 2020 American election was absent any significant fraud are as clear as tRUMP’s hair and skin are orange.
 
Yet, 7 in 10 of those with whom I am to share a pew, could not discern such simple and obvious “signs.” How am I supposed to trust the spiritual discernment of the 7 in 10 who could not or would not discern such obvious and temporal “signs”? What do such untrustworthy witnesses possibly have to say or teach me about the far more difficult questions about God, about his character, and about the character that he asks us to adopt?
 
No, I am unlikely to ever trust them again. If I listen with even half an ear to what they have to say, it will be some kind of miracle.
 
Make no mistake about it. These untrustworthy witnesses are responsible for their undiscerning choices. But, they have gotten precious little help from those they consider spiritual leaders: bishops, stake presidents, apostles, and prophets. Indications are that these shepherds are in some cases slightly more discerning than the sheep. But, these shepherds have been largely silent and absent, leaving the sheep to fend for themselves as ravenous wolves attacked the flock. No tax exempt statis is worth the slaughter that their muteness has allowed to take place among the sheep.
 
As we have noted before, the Book of Mormon contains in the man, Amalickiah,” a near perfect “type” of America’s tRUMP. In its description of Nephite response to Amalickiah, we have a near perfect “type” of the American right’s response to tRUMP: “they were led away by Amalickiah to dissensions.” However, at this stage the type breaks down, for we are informed that the Nephites were lead away by Amalickiah “notwithstanding the preaching of Helaman and his brethren, yea, notwithstanding their exceedingly great care over the church, for they were high priests over the church.”
 
It is certain that this latter will not be written concerning America’s “Christian” leaders. They have been at the point of the spear, leading the charge in support of America’s mad Caligula. Sadly, it is doubtful that what the Book of Mormon reports concerning the “great care” of “Helaman and his brethren” will be written of current LDS church leaders. And while the next line of the sacred text will surely be written concerning today’s church—“And there were many in the church who believed in the flattering words of [tRUMP]’—I suspect that the one following will not: “therefore they dissented even from the church.”
 
Am I suggesting that there will not be any great dissent from the Church on the part of tRUMP’s followers? I am. Why do I suggest that they will desist from dissent? Because they and their delusions will go unchallenged. Those who have ridden the tRUMP train will go right on, comfortable in their blasphemous delusions, because their leaders will continue to stand mute in the face of tRUMP’s blasphemy, just as they have from the start. They will not call their members to repentance—if they do decide to attempt it, it will be done in such delicate and diluted ways as to make it possible for the delusional to remain comfortably delusional. For this reason, “the affairs of the people” will continue to be “exceedingly precarious and dangerous.” [3]
 
Having deemed the sheep to be untrustworthy, I’ll have to decide how much more trustworthy I deem the mute and absentee shepherds to be.
 

[1] “Donald Trump Isn’t Going Anywhere Anytime Soon,” Jessica Wildfire, medium.com
[2] Matthew 16.2-3
[3] See Alma 46.6-7

​You may consider today’s blog post a sort of manifesto. A sort of going out, rather than coming out party.
 
The last straw.
 
As any visitor of this site knows, I was never a tRUMP fan. Right from the start I was utterly disgusted by the man and all those who jumped on the insane and immoral tRUMP train. He was then, and is still today, America’s version of the mad Caligula. Who knew there were so many other psychotic little boots lurking in America’s underbelly only waiting for a Fuhrer to give them permission to slither out of the dark into the light of day?
 
So, I am not coming late to the never-tRUMP party. I am an original.
 
Even so, the madness that has followed the 2020 US election has risen to whole new levels of mass psychotic breakage. Every day sees fresh insults to all things rational. Every day sees fresh attacks on all things good and true. But, this week’s “presidential pardons” represent a new low.
 
This week America’s Caligula has carried out the latest and greatest mafioso crime spree of his four-year reign of terror in the form of a mass jail break he has organized and carried out—a crime spree that will go down as one of, if not the greatest and most corrupt act of organized crime in American history. All of this is saying too little. I am being too temperate.
 
So, we come to the manifesto aspect of today’s post.
 
Every legislator, judge, or attorney who remains cowardly silent in the face of this latest avalanche of putrid corruption and profane lawlessness forfeits every right to draft criminal justice legislation, pass judgement upon any matter of criminal law, or prosecute any individual of any crime. Being accomplices to the destruction of the republic and co-workers in the creation of chaos, they will lose all authority. Until such time as they stand up against such gross wickedness—gross wickedness that is against all that is good and upright and law abiding—I will not acknowledge their authority or acquiesce in their having any legitimate role in my life. I will not, under any circumstances, pledge allegiance to their defiled flag.
 
Furthermore, every Protestant minister, pastor, or priest; every Catholic priest, bishop, cardinal, or pope; every Mormon bishop, president, apostle, or prophet who remains obsequiously quiet in the face of this vile affront to God, angels, and every individual who has ever witnessed for truth; yea, those  shepherds, who thereby abandon their flocks to ravenous wolves, will forfeited every right to lecture, sermonize, preach, proclaim, or otherwise admonish any one of their abandoned sheep about any moral matter. They too will be named as accomplices in Caligula’s defilement of American society. But, far worse, they will also be judged as accomplices in his blasphemy against the God of Heaven and every righteous principle He has ever revealed. All appeals such wicked and blind watchmen make to my allegiance will go unheeded, rebuffed with utter faith and conviction that I am in the right to reject them as legitimate messengers of a just God.
 
This is another moment of testing for all who would claim to lead in either secular or sacred spaces. Over the past four years, I have watched with growing alarm and contempt as too many secular and religious leaders have failed one test after another. Let’s hope they are up to this latest, but, likely, not last test.

   introduction

“Let them eat cake.”
 
Whether Marie-Antoinette ever really said such a thing or not, the saying does capture the contempt that the French ruling aristocratic class had for its less advantaged fellow citizens.
 
 But today’s American aristocratic ruling class sneers a far more grotesque and wicked variation on the theme: “Let them eat bullets.”
 
What do I mean? Well, let’s see.
 
 

   defending the indefensible…

After months and months of squabbling over whether and how to offer even a few measly crumbs to Americans financially suffering as a result of the purposefully uncontrolled pandemic, the U.S Senate, controlled by the pro-death Republican party, and the House, controlled by the corporate Democratic party, recently passed a veto-proof $740 billion annual “defense” spending bill—and this is only the portion of spending that will be accounted for (if we are lucky); there will be much more under-the-table defense spending. Keep in mind, now, that the aristocrats of these two plutocratic parties can agree on nothing—not even democracy itself. Yet they find concord when it comes to committing murder and mayhem in every corner of the planet—rather like the Herodians, Romans, and Jews, who could agree on nothing but the need to murder Jesus.
 
Yes, this nation’s ruling plutocracy can agree to commit 740 billion dollars to indefensible military “defense” spending even though the nation possesses not one damn enemy on any one of its four utterly secure borders. This warmongering nation can agree to spend 740 billion dollars on military “defense” when its instruments of war are already so numerous and powerful that it could destroy three quarters of them and still possess more military hardware than any other country on the planet. This murderous nation can agree to spend 740 billion dollars on military “defense” when it spends more in “defense” spending than the next ten countries combined.
 
But, it isn’t like we weren’t warned. Satan warned God that he would “buy up armies and navies and reign with blood and horror on the earth.” I am not sure that even in his wildest dreams Satan could have ever imagined that he would have as agreeable a companion or as faithful a disciple in his planned rebellion against the God of heaven as the United States of America has proven itself to be.
 
Yes, it is satanic. It is positively obscene. Pornography of the worst kind.
 
 

   while refusing to defend the defenseless

But it isn’t simply America’s ruling class’ willing commitment to Satan’s militant plan that is so obscene and pornographic. While these “patriotic” spend-thrifters shell out “defense” dollars like a drunken corporate CEO tipping his latest long-legged high-end“ escort,” they have, for months, refused to spend a single penny in defense of millions of individual Americans who are, under the threat of pandemic, suffering under the worry and actuality of having too little food and losing safe shelter.
 
Every single study, both private and public—including those conducted by federal, state, and local governments—report the same tragic conclusions. People are going hungry and being evicted from their homes. Their children are going hungry and suffering homelessness. And it will get worse unless congress acts… now and “bigly.”
 
“Although various federal and state moratoriums on [mortgage and rent payments], as well as on evictions and foreclosures, were enacted, such protections will eventually end. And the moratoriums don’t negate renters’ or homeowners’ obligations to settle accounts with their bankers and landlords somewhere down the line (which for many Americans may, in the end, prove an impossibility)...”[1]
 
“Analysts say nearly 12 million people are thousands of dollars behind on rent. Between 30 million and 40 million renters are at risk of losing their homes when an already flimsy moratorium on evictions set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expires at the end of the year…”[2]
 
“Despite a nationwide moratorium ordered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a few remaining state and local restrictions, evictions are ticking up across the United States. If Congress does not approve emergency rental and other assistance before the end of the year, today’s trickle of displaced tenants will become a flood that would be unprecedented for its size and speed….
 
“‘The eviction crisis we are facing right now is historic,’ says Diane Yentel, head of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a social-policy organization in Washington. ‘If government doesn’t intervene, we’re looking at the very real possibility of tens of millions of people losing their homes this winter during this height of the coronavirus spread.’” [3]
 
“Just before the coronavirus struck, 35 million Americans, 11 million of them children, experienced food insecurity, the lowest figure in two decades. This year, those numbers are projected to reach 54 million and 18 million respectively. In 2018, 4% of American adults reported that at least some members of their family did not have enough to eat; by July 2020, that figure had hit 11%...
 
“The SNAP increases… now under discussion in Congress would add less than one dollar to a four-person family’s maximum daily benefit.”[4]
 
“In what is traditionally a season of celebration, less than half of US households with children feel ‘very confident’ about having enough money to afford the food needed over the next month, according to the US Census Bureau’s latest pandemic survey. A staggering 5.6m households struggled to put enough food on the table in the past week.
 
“Overall food insecurity has doubled since last year due to record unemployment and underemployment rates. For families with children, hunger is three times higher than in 2019, according to analysis by Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, director of the non-partisan Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University….
 
“Hunger is not new in America. Even before the pandemic, 35 million people relied on food banks every year, according to Feeding America. But the pandemic has been catastrophic – despite initial lauded federal interventions such as the stimulus cheques and enhanced unemployment benefit. As many as 54 million people could experience hunger this year, including a quarter of all children.”[5]
 
This is only a miniscule sampling of the true and godly witness we can bring against America’s wickedly guilty ruling elite.
 
Congressional and Senatorial purveyors of murder and misers of charity, along with their anti-Christ followers, will often dress up their persecution and hatred of their vulnerable fellow citizens in the garb of anti-socialistic dogma[6] and “fiscal responsibility.” But, even if such dress were not obscenely see-through, exposing their naked selfishness, the lie of their fake expressions of virtue are revealed through their immoral and active labors to “buy up armies and navies and reign with blood and horror on the earth.” They can’t declare themselves virtuous anti-socialists by refusing to care for the vulnerable, and, at the same time, spend hundreds of billions of dollars on military procurements that are unnecessary for national defense and serve only to murder vulnerable, defenseless non-American peoples the globe over.
 
If they wish me, for one, to buy the faux virtue of their anti-socialism and fiscal conservatism, they will need to strip off their harlot’s little black dress of violent and murderous deeds. If they can find nearly a trillion dollars to defend a nation with few viable enemies, they can find a few hundreds of billions of dollars to defend their own nation’s vulnerable citizens. Otherwise, they become butchers, cannibals slaughtering and devouring not only of the world’s innocent, but their own. Such deviants are only worthy to be damned to hell.
 
 

   bullets for bread

In my series of homilies on the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,”[7] I argue that, rather than representing a single, one-off individual or era, each horse and its rider represents a pattern of human attitudes and behavior that has been repeated many times by many individuals and nations over every age of world history.
 
To be brief, this pattern[8] demonstrates how individual and national desires to “conquer” or dominate other individuals and nations (first horse, white, and rider) leads to the breach of peace and the propagation of war and killing/murder (second horse, red, and rider). The absence of peace that is the result of unholy desires for dominance, and the attending war and killing/murder leads to economic disruptions—disruptions that disproportionately impact vulnerable populations (third horse, black, and rider). The absence of peace, the propagation of war and violent death, and the consequent economic disruptions they bring lead to the spiraling out of control of violent death and the damning of the souls of both perpetrator and victim of the predictable chaos (fourth horse, pale, and rider).
 
For the purposes of this Mad State post, we limit our comments to the third seal’s horse, black, and its rider. Here the rider measures out wheat and barely (the latter an inferior grain for making bread) at severely inflated prices. The cost for these basic necessities is so high that survival, especially for the poor, is most uncertain if not unlikely. The reason food prices are inflated is to be found in the nature of war, especially in the ancient world. Attacking forces maraud and destroy crops. Food producers and distributors leave farms and business for the safety of secluded areas. Opposing troops trample crops to the ground as they wage battles. Innocent, non-combatant civilians suffer.
 
All of this familiar to ancient populations. It is familiar today in many parts of the world. More often than not, it is humans themselves that cause famine and hunger rather than too conveniently blamed climatic factors. In addition to the proceeding factors leading to economic disruption brought on by war, one other should be mentioned. Defending forces must be provisioned and fed. Such provisioning and feeding draws additional resources away from the general population.
 
This latter cause of vulnerable populations going uncared for by their own government is at work in today’s America. Even if America’s wrong Right cared a lick about and wanted to assist the nation’s most vulnerable citizens—which it does not for the fake dogmatic reasons mentioned above—it is unable to do so because of the resources it so unwisely and wastefully devotes to defending the most naturally secure nation in the world history—a “defense” that, it turns out, is nothing but institutionalized murder and violent mayhem the globe over.
 
 

   conclusion and execration

But, just as Satan warned us about his intention to buy up armies and navies to reign with blood and horror on the earth, the Revelator warned us about the consequences of the sort of unremitting warmongering in which America has engaged itself over the past seventy years. Not only is the nation’s militarism guilty of murder and mayhem the globe over, but the political leaders who fund the satanic enterprise commit violence against its own citizens as they waste resources that might have been used to care for their own citizens on murderous pursuits.
 
Given the fact that America’s political class have been warned, both by the power-hungry Satan and the inspired Revelator, one questions whether there is any retribution upon them that could be sufficiently harsh in either its character or duration.
 
Make no mistake about it, that day and that retribution will come.
 
Until that day, I will hope and pray that the faithless government officials who, in lieu of defending the vulnerable poor whom they despise, persecute, and abandon, fill the already stuffed oversized wallets and feed the insatiable appetite of America’s military industrial complex choke on the metallic bullets they produce. I will pray that Mary’s insight into the meaning of the babe that grew in her womb will finally and happily come to pass.
 
“He hath shewed strength with his arm;
   he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats,
   and exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things;
   and the rich he hath sent empty away.”[9]
 
Yes, Lord, let America’s political leaders eat and choke on the bullets they needlessly produce to starve their own people.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.


[1] “54 Million Americans Are Projected to Be Food Insecure by End of Year,” Ramon Menon, truthout.org

[2] “The Senate’s Latest COVID Stimulus Won’t Solve the Hunger and Housing Crisis,” Mike Ludwig, truthout.org

[3] "'Am I going to be evicted?' Answer now may hinge on Congress," Belsie and Roll, csmonnitor.com

[4] “54 Million Americans Are Projected to Be Food Insecure by End of Year,” Ramon Menon, truthout.org

[5] “‘No end in sight': hunger surges in America amid a spiraling pandemic,” Lakhani and Singh, theguardian.com
 
[6] They can also dress it up by appeal to the “founding fathers” and their constitution. This, of course, is not so nakedly false, as the founders’ constitution was meant, above all else to safeguard the wealth of a few white men and keep wealth from being too widely distributed. So much for their “inspiration.”

[7] The reader can find these in the homily archive located at the bottom of the “Homily” page of this site.

[8] Found in Revelation 6.1-8

[9] Luke 1.51-53

It is almost impossible to find language strong enough to describe and condemn the GOP’s lunatic response to tRUMP’s loss in the most secure election in US history. Here is a recent GOP response to the righteous rejection of their deadly, vile, obscene, wicked, ungodly, and blasphemous candidate, the most powerful and dangerous anti-Christ since the 20th century’s Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
 

“I sent out an SOS because, frankly, I need help in sorting out this atmospheric craziness that is going on. The Arizona Republican Party posted several inflammatory tweets early Tuesday morning amid President Donald Trump’s corrupt efforts to subvert the 2020 election results. The party’s official, official Twitter account retweeted a report from a pro-Trump ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer declaring, quote, ‘I’m willing to give my life for this fight.’  He is. The GOP account responded: ‘Are you?’ asking all of the people who read this official site.
 
“About an hour later, the party posted a clip from the action movie RAMBO in which the titular character threatens to shoot another character in the face with an arrow. The state’s GOP account quoted Rambo’s line in the clip, quote, ‘This is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something.’ In other words, are you people willing to risk your life to change these election results? Something is going on collectively in the psychology of apparently millions of people in this country. What is it? What’s happening to us?”[1]
 
​
We will offer Amlici and Amalickiah, of Book of Mormon fame, as parallels to what we are seeing “in the psychology of apparently millions of people in this country.” But before doing so, we should just take a moment to answer Mr. Moyer’s question, “Something is going on collectively in the psychology of apparently millions of people in this country. What is it? What’s happening to us?”
 
Mass psychosis.
 
That’s what’s happening to us. Psychosis is, by definition, “losing touch with reality.” The illness is often brought on by trauma. Psychosis at such a mass level is not easily treated. There is no medication for it. So, I have no expectation that this mass psychosis will be healed any time soon. Indeed, this psychosis is so powerful that it is more akin to demon possession than illness. Unfortunately, I lack the faith and power to cast out evil spirits. I suspect Joe Biden, for all his hope to reverse our national psychosis, lacks the power as well. But we are in desperate need of an exorcist. Otherwise, we may find ourselves suffering the same insults from America’s massive psychotic infatuation with tRUMP that the Nephites suffered as a result of their mass psychotic infatuation with Amlici and Amalickiah.
 
So, first to Amlici. Amlici is described as “a very cunning man,” “a wise man as to the wisdom of the world.” He “had, by his cunning, drawn away much people after him; even so much that they began to be very powerful; and they began to endeavor to establish Amlici to be a king over the people.”[2] When the “voice of the people came against Amlici, he “did stir up those who were in his favor to anger against those who were not in his favor.” Amlici “commanded them that they should take up arms against their brethren; and this he did that he might subject them to him.”[3] Unable to check this coup, Nephite society endured a deadly and destructive civil war that only ended with Amlici’s death.
 
Amalickiah, who arose a little more than a dozen years after Amlici, is described in terms very similar to those of Amlici. He was “a large and a strong man” who was “a man of cunning device and a man of many flattering words.”[4] “By his fraud, [he] gained the hearts of the people” and “led away the hearts of many people to do wickedly.” Tragically, the deceived included “many in the church who believe in the flattering words of Amalickiah.”[5]
 
His followers are described as growing “proud, being lifted up in their hearts.” Many of them were “lower judges [politicians] of the land, and they were seeking for power.”[6] Like Amlici, Amalickiah and his followers sought to overthrow the will of the people and establish a monarchy with Amalickiah as king. When this failed by peaceful means, they resorted to violent means “to destroy the foundation of liberty.”[7] This rebellion result in war that lasted some twenty years.
 
Thus, editorializes the Book of Mormon chronicler, “we also see the great wickedness one very wicked man can cause to take place among the children of men.”[8]
 
This was true of Amalickiah. It was true of Amlici. And it is true of America’s Caligula, so named because of his madness. One hopes and prays that we will not have to work our way out of our mass psychosis or “great wickedness” by the same violent means as the Nephites. But the sort of GOP messaging as that found at the beginning of this Mad State does not portent a happy future. One hopes that an even better parallel between Nephite and American societies is not to be found later in the Book of Mormon.
 
But behold this my joy was vain, for their sorrowing was not unto repentance  because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin… and I saw that the day of grace was passed with them….”[9]


[1] “Bill Moyers discusses what Trump will do next as Biden’s victory drives him barking mad,” rawstory.com
[2] Alma 2.1-2
[3] Alma 2.7-10
[4] Alma 46.4, 10
[5] See Alma 47.30; 46.7, 10
[6] See Alma 45.24 and 46.4
[7] Alma 46.10
[8] Alma 46.9
[9] Mormon 2.13, 15

​“Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls; and this shall be your lamentation in the day of visitation, and of judgment, and of indignation: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and my soul is not saved!” (DC 56.16).
 
It is no longer enough to quote such passages and then let listeners and readers figure out what they mean and how they are to be applied to modern life. Modern day examples must be brought to bear. In the case of the American cankered capitalistic system and the cankered souls of its practitioners, sorcerers of dark magic all, examples are far from difficult to find. They are everywhere and all the time.
 
Here is but one snapshot in time.
 
“As the coronavirus pandemic devastated small businesses and plunged millions of Americans into poverty this summer and fall, executives at some of the country’s largest corporations sounded surprisingly upbeat…. 
 
“‘These are times when the strong can get stronger,’ Nike chief John Donahoe told analysts in September….
 
“With few exceptions, big businesses are having a very different year from most of the country. Between April and September, one of the most tumultuous economic stretches in modern history, 45 of the 50 most valuable publicly traded U.S. companies turned a profit…
 
“Despite their success, at least 27 of the 50 largest firms held layoffs this year, collectively cutting more than 100,000 workers…
 
“The data reveals a split screen inside many big companies this year. On one side, corporate leaders are touting their success and casting themselves as leaders on the road to economic recovery. On the other, many of their firms have put Americans out of work and used their profits to increase the wealth of shareholders….
 
“Companies sent thousands of employees packing while sending billions of dollars to shareholders. Walmart, whose CEO spent the past year championing the idea that businesses “should not just serve shareholders,” nonetheless distributed more than $10 billion to its investors during the pandemic while laying off 1,200 corporate office employees.”
 
“Wo unto these rich men” is much too light a condemnation. Even better,
 
Let “their torments shall be as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever.” Let them “be chained down to an everlasting destruction, according to the power and captivity of Satan, he having subjected them according to his will” (Alma 12.17)—“you can have anything in this world for money.”

Well, it’s official.

COVID lying and ignoring tRUMP and his moronic hordes of mask-defying COVID terrorists are now killing more people per day than the nineteen 9/11 terrorists--today, the number of murders committed by these treasonous souls of poisonous falsehoods was 3,055...


19 9/11 terrorists killed 2,977

To date, the obscene tRUMP and his false, fake, fraudulent, and traitorous Americans have killed 291,024 Americans, making him and his maskless mass murderers 98 times more lethal than the 9/11 terrorists were with their box cutters & airplanes.

So, you tell me, who are the most lethal terrorist to ever terrorize America? Which group is the greatest threat to America? It’s not even close: tRUMP and his seditious hordes of barbarians.

In light of this, I continue to pray the Psalms against this phalanx of wickedness. Here is today's Psalm of execration

“For the sin of their mouth   
and the words of their lips  
let them even be taken in their pride:   
and for cursing and lying which they speak. 
Consume them in wrath,   
consume them, that they may not be... 
And at evening let them return;   
and let them make a noise like a dog,    
and go round about the city. 
Let them wander up and down for meat,   
and grudge if they be not satisfied” (59.12-15).​

​Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

At first, there was just a story or two. Then, out of America’s heartless heartland, the accounts multiplied until they numbered dozens. COVID-deniers dying of COVID were spending their final hours and minutes raging at the health care professionals who risked their own lives to try and save them in spite of the Deniers’ willful ignorance and abuse. Rather than expressing regret about their ignorance or expressing love and appreciation for anyone—family and caregivers alike—these Deniers spent their final breaths ragingly denying: “I can’t have COVID. COVID does not exists!”
 
I record these horrifying, ignorant, abusive, and stubborn refusals to engage even in a final death-bed repentance as just one among many testaments to America’s widespread Mad State of Rebellion. I offer these dying Deniers as all too apt analogies from American secular society of events that drew from Mormon this tragic and mournful lament—no matter how many or how often these dying Deniers might have claimed Jesus as their personal Savior, they never knew him and were never ever Christians.
 
“Their sorrowing was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin. And they did not come unto Jesus with broken hearts and contrite spirits, but they did curse God, and wish to die. Nevertheless they would struggle… for their lives.”[1]
 
Mormon had, earlier, beheld his peoples’ lamentation and allowed himself a glimmer of hope for them. Perhaps their sorrow would lead them to repentance. Soon, however, he realized that “this my joy was vain.” Then, said he,
 
“My sorrow did return unto me again, and I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually; for I saw thousands of them hewn down in open rebellion against their God, and heaped up as dung upon the face of the land.”[2]
 
They didn’t have refrigerated trucks in which they could pack corpses back then.
 
I will offer a prediction.
 
We, you and I, will yet one up Mormon when it comes to cause for lamentation. Our culture and society will put his suicidal culture and society to shame when it comes to shamefulness and self-immolation. Millions upon millions of red-state Americans—acolytes of tRUMP, America’s monstrous Caligula, a true anti-Christ—will congregate in make believe worlds such as Parler, NewsMax, OANN, or the greatest of them all FOX, a.k.a. theWOLF. There, these demon-possessed hordes will continue to engorge themselves upon the flattery and cunning of today’s wicked American Amalickiahs. There, these future denizens of hell will continue to writhe serpentine-like in a mist of darkness, and live out their lives in a world of delusion and lies and spite and hate. There, they will raise their voices of rage and blasphemy against everything that is rational and good and true and holy. There, they will curse God and, finally, die. Whether they will die of COVID, some other calamity, or at each other’s hands as they, turning cannibal, tear at each other’s throat to drink their enemy’s blood, I cannot say.
 
But I do know that we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Our recent past is likely only prologue to a more wicked and disastrous future. Unfortunately, we will all experience what these deniers of truth refuse to acknowledge: When one suffers, all suffer together.[3]
 
So let it be, So let it be written.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.  


[1] Mormon 2.13-14. Emphasis added
[2] Mormon 2.15
[3] See 1 Corinthians 12.26

It is dismaying and alarming to watch Joe Biden flippantly dismiss America’s Hitler as some sort of embarrassing joke. It is unbelievable that such a seemingly intelligent man is still, after four years, ignorant about what we are dealing with in tRUMP. Joe, like so many others, continues, it seems, to wait for tRUMP to come to his senses. 
 
But America’s Hitler is a full fledged lunatic. A sociopath. A cheat. I would say, “liar,” but he is so delusional as to believe that every word of shit that spews from his mouth is truth.  He is as sick and twisted and perverted a madman as the world has ever seen. He has no senses to come to. He has no conscience to be appealed to. There is no reality in his world of delusions. He cannot control himself, even if he possessed the smallest sliver of a soul that wished to. There is no doubt that if we were living in the time of Jesus, we would most certainly declare him possessed of a legion of evil spirits.
 
Worse, Joe, along with his inner circle continue to live under the delusion that tRUMP’s cult followers possess a sliver of decency to which they can appeal. But this is madness. tRUMP channels the sociopathic sickness of one-third of the American electorate. This third, like the third that followed Lucifer over the cliff, is impervious to old fashioned ideas such as truth or reality or decency or consciences or self-control. They have, in fact,  willfully and willingly delivered their agency to the false prophet from the bottomless pit. Like their demonic leader, they are agents of chaos.
 
We will all be dragged to the bottom of the pit of hell, if we do not wake up from our secular slumber and understand that there are devils, millions of them that have been let loose on America. They have taken the American Caligula as their leader, and only a good old fashioned exorcism will rid the nation of this legion of evil spirits.

With local congregations slowing trickling back to church for abbreviated, socially distanced, masked sacrament services, I find the decision on whether to return with them a simple one. With roughly half the ward being COVID-deniers (and they will be first to sign up), I cannot have confidence that they conduct their daily lives in a socially responsible manner. They represent, then, a danger to my physical being. So, thanks, but no thanks. I’ll not be back until there’s a vaccine.
 
With the availability of a vaccine, I will face a much more difficult decision. Do I go back to church and risk a different kind of infection?
 
Half the ward members are COVID-deniers. As such, they have shown themselves incapable of discerning even the most rudimentary truth from the clearest and grossest of errors—errors stemming, as they do, from the lying and murderous occupant of America’s White Outhouse and the false prophets that propagate his sputum.
 
Jesus complained, “O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”[1] Today, I live among a people who cannot even discern the “face of the sky.” If they cannot discern a truth so clearly obvious, how can I sit and listen to them speak of much less obvious truths and errors? How do I avoid the possible infection they represent?
 
Do they not represent a clear and present danger to my spiritual being?
 
In the end, I will likely go back. Jesus, God Himself, after all, climbed into a human body and walked on this rat-infested planet without fear of spiritual contagion. He did so in hopes of rescuing individuals from the prince of darkness while, at the same time, laying the ground for the undermining and ultimate destruction of that dark prince’s principalities, powers, might, dominions, and spiritual wickedness in high places.[2]
 
I cannot do less than try to follow his example. But, unlike, Jesus, I am a mere man, vulnerable to infection. So, my attendance will be cautious. I will mingle with those who have shown themselves trustworthy lovers of truth. As for the others, I will practice proper spiritual distancing. And I’ll wear a damned mask; one that will filter out the killing droplets of falsehood that flow from the undiscerning lips of TRUTH-deniers.


[1] Matthew 16.3
[2] See Ephesians 6.12

Today’s Mad Sate of Our Rebellion is, likely, politically incorrect. I blame it on the Bible
 
Here, is a picture of current U.S. Attorney General, Bill Barr.

​Maybe you like this one better?

I don’t know what you see, but I’ll tell you what I see.
 
“His eyes bug out on account of his beefiness;
  his physique boggles the mind.”[1]
 
Or, if you prefer, as the KJV has it,
 
“Their eyes stand out with fatness:
  They have more than heart could wish.”
 
I’m not joking, here. Not trying to be funny or clever—O.K., maybe I have a tongue in cheek.
 
Neither am I poking fun.
 
No, I am deadly serious.
 
I wrote recently that, these days, I cant see the ugly image of the twisted Tucker Carlson without thinking of the spoiled, privileged, and arrogant young men who surrounded Judah’s King Rehobaom and counseled the king to increase oppression in Israel rather than alleviate it. Peas in a pod, are they, Tucker and these whining, sniveling, entitled whelps.
 
“And the young men that were grown up with him spake unto him, saying, ‘Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us;’ thus shalt thou say unto them, ‘My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins. And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.’”[2]
 
Real patriots, this bunch.
 
Well, in a similar vein, as I recently considered a news piece about the corrupt and despicable Mr. Barr, with its accompanying picture of the arrogant SOB, the verse quoted above from the 73rd Psalm popped into my head.
 
In the end, however, it isn’t so much Barr’s physique that is repulsive as it is his heart. For the Psalm isn’t about the physical girth of the ungodly. Rather, it is about the narrowness of soul that the ungodly possess with such hubris.
 
“Even in death, they experience no suffering,
  but die with stomachs full.
They do not experience the hardships of common people,
  nor are they struck as others are struck.
This is why they wear their self-conceit as a neckless;
  envelope themselves in a garment of cruelty.
Their eyes bug out on account of their beefiness;
  their physique boggles the mind.
They are disdainful and promote wanton oppression.
  Their rhetoric is ever so soaring.
They claim divine license;
  their assertions are found the world over.
This is why peoples keep turning to them;
  why, as overflowing water, they flow to them.
They say, ‘How could God know?
  How could ʿElyôn possess any awareness?’
In summary: these are the impious;
  ever secure, always increasing in wealth.”[3]
 
There may be better descriptions of the ungodly somewhere—in scripture or otherwise—but this is a pretty good one. It is as good a description as I have found of Barr and of his fellow conspirator, tRUMP, and of all those who hold appointed offices within this most defiled and defiling of administrations.
 
The Psalmist lamented the comforts and succusses of such scoundrels. Lamented, that is, until God educated him about the very real and final dispositions of such ungodly scoundrels.
 
“Contrary to what I had thought, you subject them to delusions.
  You let them fall prey to lies.
How suddenly they become accursed;
  come to a complete end through multiple catastrophes!
They are as a dream from which one awakens.
  My Lord, upon waking up, their illusionary form is deemed hateful.”[4]
 
And so, tRUMP, and Barr, and all the rest of the accursed lot often find their way into my prayers. They and the evangelical false prophets who encircle America’s Caligula and, without a shred of divine authority, place their hands upon his head to bless… all of these had better hope that God pays no heed to this lone man’s heartfelt prayers. For I pray against them with every fiber of faith and hope that I possess. Consistent with the mind and will of God, I pray,
 
“May they, indeed, O Lord, ‘come to a complete end through multiple catastrophes!’”
 
“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
 
 
[1] Psalm 73.7 author’s translation
[2] 1 Kings 12.10-11
[3] 73.4-12, author’s translation
[4] Psalm 73.18-20; author’s translation

READ THE ENTIRE HOMILY ON THE HOMILY OR JUST SOCIETY PAGE.

Today’s homily is an admittedly longer and somewhat awkward homily. Some might rather call it a study or essay. But, as my skills, such as they are, are more inclined to homily than to dense scholarly examination, we will stick to homily. In addition, there is always a ministerial aspect to what I do. I aim to touch the human heart as well as inform the human mind; influence attitudes and behaviors more than thoughts and opinions.
 
There is much discussion from time to time about the “distribution,” or “redistribution” of wealth. Many Americans—perhaps most, I do not know—consider the notion despicable, often painting it in the darkest hues of black wickedness or the deepest reds of communism. This is, of course, impure bull-pucky. Christians, in particular, ought to know better, what with their Bible shouting the praises of just redistribution of wealth from their bedside nightstands. Unfortunately, this gospel too often gets drowned out by their pulpit thumping pastors, who often teach another idolatrous and whorish gospel by the name “prosperity.”
 
So, let’s just be clear. All governments, I repeat, ALL governments from ancient Sumer to the classical Han dynasty to Democratic Greece; from the Roman republic and then empire, to Medieval France; from Colonial America to modern America; all have redistributed financial resources. When it comes to economic affairs, this redistribution of wealth is one of the primary and most common activities in which governments engage. The question is not, then, does or will a government, any government, our government redistribute wealth? They do and will! Our government has and does and will. This is a certainty. The only question is, HOW will it redistribute wealth?
 
In looking at our own U.S. history, we can observe that redistribution of wealth policies and practices have swung wildly back and forth. Whether we were always true to our convictions and wise in our practices, from the 1930’s through 1970’s there was a “progressive” attempt—halfhearted sometimes, but present nonetheless—to maintain a level of economic equity through the modest redistribution of wealth. This was a modest redistribution of wealth from the top (wealthiest) down (to the poor).
 
I would argue that this American experiment created one of the greatest and most equitable economies in world history—falling far short, it is true, of the more perfect redistributive economic systems established by an Enoch or that found in 4th Nephi. I would argue, in addition, that such redistribution was in complete harmony with the word and desires of God. A large part of what made the U.S. progressive economy great was its focus, at least theoretical if not always practiced as strenuously as one would wish, on individuals, and raising everyone—except, alas, African Americans, who can count on nothing if not being left out in the cold. “Economy,” after all, is not about how well Wall Street’s gamblers are doing in the Stock Market/Casino. “Economy” is about people, and should be about securing every citizen in the basic human necessities of food, shelter, healthcare, education, etc.
 
Anyway, America’s great progressive experiment came to a screeching halt with the 1980 election. Since the election of the venerable Ronald Reagan there has been a concerted and highly, if shamefully successful effort to redistribute wealth in the opposite direction: from the bottom up. This was and has been attempted and accomplished, in large part, through the impressive sounding theories of “Neoliberalism,” which, with all its pseudo-science, was and is nothing more than a conservative reaction to the progressive economic attitudes and activities of the previous generation.
 
This anything-but-liberal movement, as all conservative movements do, has worked tirelessly to see that wealth is sent gushing upward like a geyser to the wealthiest Americans—in this case about the top 1-10%. While doing so, the conservative proponents of Neoliberalism have assured us—with a straight face and as if we should be grateful—that a few precious drops would trickle back down to the rest of us. Why no one has focused on and rebelled against that word, that concept, “trickle,” is one of the great mysteries of our time. One cannot live on a trickle of economic benefits any more than one can live on a trickle of water. This is not “economy,” it is highway robbery and oppression. We see it every day in the suffering and want of America’s class of serfs.
 
We can look all over the globe and back into the past and see the same battles waged over the direction that the distribution of wealth will take. One example of this struggle can be found in the Hebrew Bible’s narrative reporting on the reign of Israel’s third king, Solomon. Another can be found in the pages of the Book of Mormon and its chronicling of wicked King Noah.
 
Both kings sought to transform society. The struggles depicted in these two narratives are dramatic and informative. The kings themselves and the economic evils that they perpetrated against their own nations have much in common. The inspired texts that report the battles that raged over who and what kind of people the two nations, Judah and Nephite, would be have implications for our own day and what kind of nation we are or can be. We can hear and learn from the inspired writers, and thus avoid much suffering,  or we can close our ears, our minds, and our hearts, learn nothing from the nations’ experiences, and suffer the same fate that those corrupt and corrupted nations suffered—civil war and finally complete annihilation.
 
Now, to be clear, as I have said repeatedly in the past, I do not expect America to observe Biblical law. I do not maintain, as many do, that America is or should be a fundamentally Christian nation. I do maintain, however, that in the Bible’s ideals and customs, we find principles that are applicable to every people and every nation, Christian or not. The application and observance of these basic principles can make for a more peaceful and secure nation. The rejection of them leads to conflict, chaos and collapse.

​.....