EGYPT, EUROPE, DIGITAL ID, AND “CIVIL DEATH”: BEAST SYSTEM ...
Sometimes it becomes very difficult to select which articles and stories to blog about, and on rare occasions, it becomes necessary to blog about several articles all at once, because they're all related so deeply that to cover one misses the implications disclosed by another. That is the case today with the following articles, for we have firstly an article (submitted by V.T. with our gratitude) on the revival of "civil death" in the European Union, another on a uniquely talmudic bit of casuistry from an Israeli billionaire's proposal to limit free speech in order to protect it (submitted by J.M.T. with our gratitude), yet another on the Egyptian version of digital ID, which allows one's religion to be included (an article courtesy of M.D.), and finally, an article on whether or not "Zionist pastors", i.e., pastors of evangelical churches that espouse dispensationalist theology, should be registered as foreign agents (article submitted courtesy of V.T. once again); here are the articles, with my commentary to follow:
Is It Time For Zionist “Pastors” To Register As Foreign Agents?
Now you'll note one thing about all these articles: they are all swipes at freedom: at the freedom of speech, at the freedom of privacy, and at the freedom of religion, with the punishment being advocated in the European (Dis)Union of the return of "civil death", the state-sanctioned attempt to deny property, identity, and participation in society, a literal internal exile where one is condemned to a life of poverty, with (doubtless to come) more laws on the books penalizing anyone helping such individuals. In the case of Egypt, a digital ID which identifies one's religion, enabling the government - if it wishes - to persecute a particular religion, a literal "godsend" if you intend on persecuting Christians, or (in the case of "evangelozionism") to persecute those who do not accept nor follow dispensationalist "theology"), or conversely, as yet another article notes, to register people holding particular theological views as "foreign agents". One's religious views can become part of one's "social credit score", and the
punishment of "civil death" becomes the mechanism to force particular narratives and doctrines. Add to all this an Isreali billionaire who argues that we must curb free speech in order to protect it, and the calls in some quarters to have dispensationalist ministers registered as foreign agents, and the assault on free speech is nearly total.Notably, all these articles have one thing in common besides the desire to limit freedom, for the very freedom they want to limit is free speech, and therewith, please note, that the real purpose of the digital ID is revealed: it's an implicit limitation on free speech, a constant reminder to "watch what one says" or "with whom one associates" lest Big Brother take notice. Most regular readers of this website are aware that I have no regard for the dispensationalist theology, and utterly abhor it and its deeply unchristian implications. Most people are also aware that, because of the previous attitudes to dispensationalism, that I am not a Zionist. But the idea of having people who espouse these views registering as foreign agents merely because they espouse a belief system, or to advocate a return of "civil death" should send shiver through anyone's bones. We might as well register all Roman Catholics as being foreign agents of the Vatican and then declare them civilly "dead" for espousing views that agree with Catholicism. We might as well register all Russian Orthodox as foreign agents for a similar reason. Ff my memory recalls we came perillously close when the FBI was watching traditional Roman Catholics for similar, if not these precise, reasons. We might extend the principle to register all agnostics and atheists as foreign agents of the Chinese Communist Party, or of Cuba, or whatever other country in the world is still stupid and brutal enough to be officially atheistic and Marxist.
All of this is, of course, madness and insanity. Freedom of speech (and association, and religion) is freedom of speech. It is uncomfortable, it has sharp and jagged edges, because it means we are constantly hearing things that we do not agree with, or even that we might find offensive. One thing it also does is it begins to be the fertile ground for the growth of courtesy, of sensitivity, that we do not need a sermon on every occasion that comes up to be reminded of how bad Donald Trump is, or how bad Israel or Islam are, and so on. But courtesy and sensitivity die when there is no free speech, and hence we have another reason for the growing barbarism of our culture, because the surest way to fight free speech is to constantly interrupt it, to shout and scream at it, when one has no good counter-arguments.
See you on the flip side...
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