The Behemoth Prism program, under which the Federal NSA snoops on essentially all the phone calls and web activity of all Americans, is operated for the ostensible purpose of protecting us from Moslem terrorist plots developing on American soil. We do indeed need to counter the threat of terrorism within our borders. But there would be no such terrorism in the first place – or, at least, very little – if there were no Moslems in North America. What it amounts to, then, is that our governors are keeping track of everything Americans say electronically *so that* they can keep welcoming Moslems to this country with open arms – and keep alive the threat of Moslem terrorism. The program is needed so that the program can be kept needful.
Would the Prism program exist if there were no Moslems in North America, or therefore any Moslem terrorism? Of course. It’s just that in that case our overseers would be forced to trot out some other rationale for its existence; war with EastAsia, perhaps, rather than with NearEastAsia.
The reality is that all our conversations are tracked because they can be, and because knowledge is power, and because comprehensive knowledge is total power. And any power other than the power of the Beast is an essential threat to his very existence, as evidence of valid and alluring alternatives to his proposals, that might therefore sap his battlements. A totalizing power – which is to say, any power not constrained by an inward apprehension of the Limit imposed by Justice under Heaven – must by its nature destroy all other powers. So Leviathan, the servant of Moloch, must seek out and annihilate all other authority where, when or whatsoever.
This website, then, exists because it is allowed to exist. For the time being, at least, it either serves the interest of Leviathan, or is immaterial to his designs.
I prefer to think it is the latter. It is hard to see how it could be otherwise. I hope further that the reason we here are not factors material to the project of Leviathan is that we represent a salient in human affairs orthogonal thereto, that might – like hobbits – be too odd and humble to warrant his notice, yet spell his bane. God send it may be so, and grant us courage in the hour of darkness at the end of all things.
Some eagles would be good, too.
The Orthosphere 
Reblogged this on oogenhand and commented:
Apparently the Beast is a jealous Beast, and thou shalt not have other beast before It….:D
A very lucid, un-hysterical account of the real situation.
When all the mass media are monitored, and real Christians are more fully excluded, it will forcibly return Christianity to an earlier – and perhaps more valid – phase of inter-individual oral communications.
I doubt that one can be “immaterial” to Leviathan. One either serves the beast or is somewhere on its “to do” list. Sauron would have gotten round to conquering the Shire sooner or later because his ambition, like that of Leviathan, was boundless. His capabilities were finite, which is why he had to conquer his enemies one by one; but his ambition was infinite. This meant, not only that he aspired to control absolutely everyone, but also everyone absolutely. Because Leviathan is the same, you are on its to do list.
Folks like us are, however, pretty far down the list since we’re peaceable and very nearly powerless. Nevertheless, we would be wise to adopt a more cryptic discourse in which there was an esoteric and exoteric meaning. I suppose this is already happening, just as it did in the USSR. When the Eye passes over, all it sees is a group of old gents discussing theology, literature, or the finer points of woodworking.
“What the State Fears Most—Revelations of the Truth about the State”
“In reality, however, these persons’ only “crime” is to tell the truth to the public about what the U.S. government is doing. By telling the truth about especially important matters, they endanger only the state, by exposing its lies and its hidden crimes for the world to see.”
http://blog.independent.org/2013/06/10/what-the-state-fears-most-revelations-of-thetruth-about-the-state/
“Frankly, the talking points keep mentioning “terrorists”, but we forget that DHS has already identified who they believe are terrorists…. Christians, Conservatives, limited government and States Rights advocates, Pro Life advocates, Veterans…. this is an administration that has alliances with the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR.”
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/06/when-did-the-government-become-a-jealous-girlfriend-for-me-january-197//#more
See also John 8:32 and Luke 12:3
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On a related note, the tyranny of private enterprise is not to be shamed by state efforts:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2008231/How-youve-EVER-said-internet-seen-employers-government-approves-Social-Intelligence-Corp.html
Something came down in the courts just recently that sounded like it made this kind of snooping illegal, even for an employer to ask permission to violate privacy laws. The relinquishment of privacy on an “informed” individual basis of consent is in contrast to wholesale cryptic data sweeping, but how does a company gain the legal or technical ability to peek behind online pseudonyms in the first place?
Hannon
how does a company gain the legal or technical ability to peek behind online pseudonyms in the first place?
If you do a little bit of poking around the internet, I think you’ll find that it’s less impressive a claim than it sounds – your “pseudonyms” have to be linked to your real name by email address or some other shared account. If you register on a site as “spanky mcgiggles” with email address canadianhoser@yahoo.com, you’ll be ok.
It’s all bad news, and we should all be well past the point of doubting that they (capital T “They”) have malicious intentions, but I don’t think their algorithm will be linking up our sort of pseudonyms until we have Skynet-like AI.
Now I feel so much better.
I’m trying my best!
My assumption was that the trace goes by IP address.
… and the IP address is what is voluntarily surrendered to the potential employer.
or is immaterial to his designs.
They don’t perceive us as much of a threat. Maybe they are right about that, but these people _can_ make mistakes.
Exactly – that’s the kind of optimism I like to see. Pride (which they’ve got in spades) *often* leads to stupid mistakes and oversights.
“God send it may be so, and grant us courage in the hour of darkness at the end of all things.
Some eagles would be good, too.”
That ending rocks, Kristor.
If only it were original! But, if all I ever did was gesture toward Tolkien, that would be to do very well.
The eagles are the closest Tolkien ever gets to a deus ex machina. In lesser hands, such a device would be incredible, and really rather pathetic. In his, one sees the deep coherent logic of the eagles in respect to the moral economy of Middle Earth. The wind lords always come out of nowhere, and the blows they strike are completely dispositive, transforming the whole situation; yet they are not more artificial, but less, than any other aspect of the books. In a strange way, I always found the eagles the most wild, and fearsome, and thus the most solid, concrete, and ultimately reassuring bit of the whole saga. The eldila in the Space Trilogy impress me the same way.
There’s some blogger out there who has a lengthy, tedious discussion of the question of why the eagles didn’t simply fly Frodo to Mount Doom so he could drop in the One Ring. (This is really true.) He expressly rejects the answer, “Because that would be literarily wrong, turning the eagles into a mere mechanical plot device.” He insists on having a practical answer in terms of the necessities of Tolkien’s world. Some people do indeed have a tin ear.
Not that one couldn’t _give_ an answer in terms of the practicalities of Tolkien’s world. But that isn’t really the point.
Lengthy? But it’s obvious. If Gwaihir had flown toward Mordor with the Ring aboard, the Eye would have spotted him right away, and the Ringwraiths would have been on him within a half hour or so. Then it would have been all over. It would have been even more dangerous than if Aragorn or Elrond had tried to take the Ring to Mt. Doom. It had to be the hobbits.
Besides, one has the impression that the eagles had plenty to deal with, that we never heard about. There were many fronts in that war.
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