From: punditster@gmail.com   
      
   On 2/9/2026 10:15 AM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
   > On Mon, 9 Feb 2026 09:43:13 -0800, Dude  wrote:   
   >   
   >> On 2/9/2026 5:59 AM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
   >>> On Mon, 9 Feb 2026 12:36:19 +0000, Julian    
   >>> wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>> There’s something very religious about nihilism. For proof, look to the   
   >>>> new capital of American nihilism, Minneapolis. A callousness toward   
   >>>> death and danger has fallen over the city. Of the many disturbing videos   
   >>>> to come out of Minnesota’s anti-ICE protests, one of the stranger   
   >>>> examples shows a white man walking up to a line of heavily armed   
   >>>> law-enforcement officers, shouting: “Shoot us in the fucking face! Shoot   
   >>>> me in the fucking head!”   
   >>>>   
   >>>> What possesses someone to do that?   
   >>>   
   >>> You do not understand.  You do not understand his moral outrage.   
   >>>   
   >>>> I understand being against Donald   
   >>>> Trump and Stephen Miller’s blitzkrieg deportation policy. And it’s not   
   >>>> irrational, in the viral age, to protest theatrically. But this is   
   >>>> psychotic. It is the death drive in overdrive. Suicidality is spread   
   >>>> across these demonstrations, just as it was during 2020’s George Floyd   
   >>>> riots.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> The fervor of this behavior is religious, but the end goal is simply   
   >>>> destruction. This is Christian nihilism.   
   >>>   
   >>> And here you show how a person can completely misunderstand the   
   >>> situation.  If that is what they wish to do.  If their politics   
   >>> requires them to have no understanding.   
   >>>   
   >> We studied theories of Christian nihilism in Bible School:   
   >>   
   >> The one name to remember is Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, 1743–1819.   
   >>   
   >> Apparently, he introduced the term "nihilism" into philosophy. He was   
   >> critical of the Enlightenment for reducing knowledge to nothingness.   
   >>   
   >> Jacobi coined the term to argue that all rational philosophy leads to a   
   >> total lack of meaning, urging a return to faith.   
   >>   
   >> The death of that ICU nurse and that lady named Good was meaningless in   
   >> the final analysis. It was suicide.   
   >   
   > So say those who understand nothing.   
   >   
   It's a perfect example of self-destruction: lives given up for a   
   religious cause. Wasted lives now with a cult following, into nothingness.   
   >   
   >>   
   >>>> Say this screaming protester really were to be shot. What would his   
   >>>> death bring about? It wouldn’t stop any Venezuelan or Somali immigrant   
   >>> >from being detained. I suspect someone might argue that his taking a   
   >>>> bullet would call attention to what ICE is doing in Minnesota. But ICE –   
   >>>> whatever else it is doing – isn’t opening fire at random on large   
   >>>> crowds, so the protester would be asking ICE to start doing the very   
   >>>> thing he supposedly wants it to stop doing. This man’s death would bring   
   >>>> about no practical, material gains for anyone.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> It seems some spiritual motive is compelling him to beg for destruction.   
   >>>> Is he looking to be martyred? If he were to be killed, it wouldn’t have   
   >>>> been for committing any specific crime. As an innocent man, then, his   
   >>>> murder would be analogous to the death of a scapegoat – or to   
   Christ’s.   
   >>>> And presumably he’d be spiritually rewarded for taking on the wrath of a   
   >>>> wicked society, or something.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> His cry for the grave is like a twisted wish to fulfill Christ’s promise   
   >>>> that “whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.” But   
   the   
   >>>> Christian God would never ask someone to throw their life away like   
   >>>> this. A saint isn’t supposed to ask to be martyred. The rioter must be   
   >>>> serving some other Christian-esque divinity, one who promises redemption   
   >>>> via revolution. What he and the many, many ideology-obsessed Americans   
   >>>> have done is adopt the self-sacrificing form of Christianity, but empty   
   >>>> it of its contents.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Violence serves a central role in Christianity: the hinge of history,   
   >>>> the Crucifixion, is bloody. Christ endures the Cross to purify mankind,   
   >>>> because he knows we crave purity. Revolutionary leaders have stolen this   
   >>>> idea, given it a godless twist and sold it to their followers to   
   >>>> encourage them to sacrifice themselves for whatever cause demands it.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Examples of this abound. Frantz Fanon: “At the level of individuals,   
   >>>> violence is a cleansing force.” Mao Zedong: “Revolutionary war is an   
   >>>> antitoxin that not only eliminates the enemy’s poison but also purges us   
   >>>> of our own filth.” Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: “We will glorify war   
   – the   
   >>>> world’s only hygiene.” The upshot is obvious: lay yourself (and   
   others)   
   >>>> on the altar of revolution, and in exchange you get some abstract   
   >>>> purifying shower.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> At least in the case of Christianity the bargain is clear. Dying for the   
   >>>> church earns you a nice mansion in the afterlife. Today’s bloodthirsty   
   >>>> rioters expect no such reward. When they undergo their deadly purifying   
   >>>> action, they expect to be made into nothing.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> This revolution-as-salvation fantasy has a strong grip on the   
   >>>> imagination – certainly among the American elite, which remains   
   >>>> permanently nostalgic for the political violence of the 1960s. Proof of   
   >>>> this came last year in the glossy form of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One   
   >>>> Battle After Another. Approaching three hours in runtime, this bulky   
   >>>> film is about the supposed virtue of the French 75, a group of   
   >>>> revolutionaries reminiscent of various 1960s terrorist cells such as the   
   >>>> Weather Underground.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Anderson’s villain is the loathsome Colonel Lockjaw, who leads a cruel   
   >>>> anti-immigration campaign in the American streets. The French 75 resists   
   >>>> him, which is all good and well in the context of the film as Lockjaw is   
   >>>> in fact a monster. But the version of revolutionary politics presented   
   >>>> here is no doubt idealized.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Naturally, the critical class ate it up. The movie won four Golden   
   >>>> Globes – Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress and   
   >>>> Best Comedy/Musical – and has been nominated for 13 Oscars, including   
   >>>> Best Picture.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> I hold the minority position that this movie’s pro-rebellion politics is   
   >>>> in fact ironic and that Anderson is mocking revolutionaries and   
   >>>> anti-revolutionaries alike. But that’s an article for another day, and   
   >>>> in any case, if I’m right then most people did not pick up on the irony.   
   >>>> Most critics have interpreted it as another glorious film about   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)