I've been reading three books back and forth...not really reading though, but drifting from one to another as my focus wanders away.

Still at the Old Testament ( The Jewish Bible Study -JSB).

There is some great explanation here. One way the rabbis explained the contradictions and redundancies in the Bible is via omnisignificance...that every word in the Bible contains meaning directly from God. This meaning is more often hidden than not, and the rabbis used the consonants in the words to decipher the "real" meaning. Old Hebrew didn't have vowels.

Of course this leads to some of the more insane dietary and purity laws. AFAIAC, this is insane. Humans are dumb enough as is. If God wants us to know the law, he needs to make it clear. Some people need a burning tree growing out of their forehead, they are that dumb.

We can have free will without having to crack PURPLE and ENIGMA

Proverbs 1
22
How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
How long will mockers delight in mockery
and fools hate knowledge?
23
Repent at my rebuke!
Then I will pour out my thoughts to you,
I will make known to you my teachings.
24
But since you refuse to listen when I call
and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand,
25
since you disregard all my advice
and do not accept my rebuke,
26
I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you;
I will mock when calamity overtakes you—
27
when calamity overtakes you like a storm,
when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind,
when distress and trouble overwhelm you.
28
“Then they will call to me but I will not answer;
they will look for me but will not find me,
29
since they hated knowledge
and did not choose to fear the Lord.
30
Since they would not accept my advice
and spurned my rebuke,
31
they will eat the fruit of their ways
and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.

Which takes me to another point; I never understood the point of blasphemy as a central sin. God is not a whiny, ultrasensitive bitch that has to punish anyone that drops a hint of criticism. God is NOT Obama, the wishcasting of that fool and his cultists notwithstanding.

However, on reading the purity laws ( and about all the different times that God had to smite the Old Jews to keep them in line), it is clear to me that the purpose of these laws were hygienic in nature. Considering how stupidly stubborn people can be, the safety of society required the force of Leviathan in the nature of a wrathful God. I'm going to come back to the point about focusing on society downpage

I'll add in the note that God had a special relationship with the Israelites, to the point of saving them from the Gyppos, which reinforces the duty to obey God. The JSB notes the centrality of the Exodus in Jewish religious thought.

First, you make God so powerful that people aren't allowed to question him, then you use God to keep people clean.

...because God SAID SO! Now shut up and wash your ass!

Paul Johnson's Enemies of Society.

Having read and enjoyed Intellectuals, A History of the American People, and A History of the Jews (a re-reading of this last is what set me off on my historical/religious reading), I have found that Johnson's writing in history suits my own viewpoints and thinking methods.

Enemies of Society is about the way that the Left despises and works against Western society. I haven't gotten that far yet. Johnson spends the first third of the book explaining why the West has been so successful yet. I'm still in this part of the book.

What really sticks in my mind is a point makes about a push in politics towards a focus on the individual versus society ("the tribe", or the "people"). Strangely enough, the drive towards a respect for the individual starts in the slave-owning Greeks, and the slave-owning Romans. Synthesizing Johnson's views on Judaism from A History of the Jews, and the development of critical thinking in Jewish thought trying to "crack" the Bible, he contends that greater freedom for individuals combined with critical thinking skills advances a society economically and technologically. This integrates with Greco-Roman based political and technological advances and drives a more successful West over time. Critical thinking has additional roots in some of the Greek philosophers (don't remember which were which, atm).

I'll skip the digression into "breeding" smarter Jews through history through societal selection of the smarter and/or more studious people in the rabbinical system

So you have this struggle between human impulses...the basic impulse of humans is to put the needs of society ahead of the individual. Society's needs are protected by "priest" classes, whose knowledge is based on "what has worked before" (magical thinking). When individual effort to find out "What works best?" through critical thinking is made, it affects the interests of the "priest" class, whoever they are at any given time.

Although I haven't gotten that far, from reading Johnson's other work, as well as other writers, I am fairly certain that one of Johnson's main points is that the Left wants to establish a new society with themselves as the "priests" ;>

Thus the Left is going to be hostile to the results of critical thinking, regardless of success or not...in fact, the success of the West though using critical thinking and technology is a direct rebuke to the magical thinking of Leftism.

Which leads us to the third book, The United States Army Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual(2007).

I really just started reading this book, and I am taking it really slowly. My mind digresses to related points regarding the politics surrounding the wars, and I get angry and lose focus.

One point that sticks in my craw, despite losing the goddamn war in Vietnam, the military ignored development of counter-insurgency doctrine. This is an example of how a "priest" class, the military burrocracy, refuses to consider "What works best?" when it's own interests are threatened.

However, there are a couple of points I wanted to highlight from my limited reading:

• The definition of an insurgency

An insurgency is the organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control of a region.

Sound familiar in terms of the Deep State, or of Leftist street violence?

achieving victory for an insurgent may depend less on defeating an armed opponent and more on a group’s ability to garner support for its political interests (often ideologically based) and to generate enough violence to achieve political consequences.
(from the 2014 version)

• Insurgents use all available tools to achieve victory

• Long term success against insurgency relies on the people taking charge of their own affairs, and their consent to form of government determines who wins. I am going to press past the Utopian objection to this...if YOU don't consent, but your neighbors do, you may be in trouble down the line.

Conclusions

• First, I believe in g!d. I don't know what his true message is. I believe he gave me eyes, ears, and a brain to find out for myself
• Second, human nature tends to stable governments and to the "truth" as delivered by priests
• Third, a society that tolerates free will and critical thinking will advance farther and faster than a society that relies on it's priests.
• Fourth, American society is at a point of "stability", with a Narrative issued by a "priest" class. This is not the America of the Constitution, based on the protection of free will.
• Fifth, there are two insurgencies going on in this country; one to install a globalist/leftist society, the other to restore Constitutional rule of law. Both seek to control the Narrative. The globalist/leftists WERE winning; the last year or so, their victories have been in doubt.
• Sixth, it is up to YOU...not to WE...to give consent or resistance.
• This did not start out to be an informationwar post; these were just things that were stuck in my mind, and came together as I wrote.

Last thought

Since they would not accept my advice
and spurned my rebuke,
they will eat the fruit of their ways
and be filled with the fruit of their schemes

I would be happy for a nice smiting of the wicked. Despite my blasphemy, I am 95% sure I wouldn't get it myself.

How can you smite women...and children?
It's easy, ya just don't lead em as much