From: punditster@gmail.com   
      
   On 2/9/2026 2:53 PM, Noah Sombrero wrote:   
   > On Mon, 9 Feb 2026 12:37:17 -0800, Dude  wrote:   
   >   
   >> 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.   
   >   
   > Moral indignation does not need religion.  It only needs a conscience.   
   > No conscience, you think protesting bad shit is a wasted life.  The   
   > rest of us think that life counted for something.   
   >   
   Morality is a religion.   
      
   That's the point. Otherwise, it's just nihilistic posturing without a   
   higher cause. The whole point of protesting is based on moral outrage.   
    >   
   >>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>>>> 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   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)