The Christiban

I have been literally sitting here for hours, trying to think of a clever, insightful way to start this post. And you know what? I can’t. I haven’t got the heart for it. I am just too sick and tired of the antics of the Christiban.

You know, the Christian Taliban. Which is what the modern conservative movement has clearly become. In the name of their extremist Christian beliefs, they have stripped women of the right to make their own healthcare choices. (Oh yeah, they REALLY believe in small government and individual liberty. F#%^#! hypocrites.) And it’s clear they’re not going to stop there.

From the things they’ve been saying and doing, they’re also coming after gay marriage. And interracial marriage. Contraceptives, too. And they’ll be coming for minority religions eventually. Like ours.

And they’re going to try their level best to use their gerrymandering and SCOTUS advantages to subvert election law and effectively enshrine minority rule across the land. So they’ll have the “legal” power to do all this. Make no mistake. They are undemocratic. UnAmerican. And they must be stopped.

So I didn’t celebrate Independence Day today. There’s not so much of it to celebrate.

Resist the Christiban. Now. Before it’s too late.

The Wake of Magellan

Hello there, Gentle Reader, today I am going to talk to you about Savatage’s song, “The Wake of Magellan.” Well, not really, but what I have to say today starts with that song.

I have been listening to a lot of 80s and 90s music lately, and came upon this old classic metal piece by one of the 80’s and 90’s most memorable metal bands (today, many of the band’s former members are in the Trans Siberian Orchestra). It is named “The Wake of Magellan,” and is about a sailor in the days of tall wooden ships, who is contemplating leaving the horrifying world he lives in and just sailing off into the ocean, leaving the world of humans behind, even if it means his death.

One of the lyrics in it really resonated with me: “Don’t hear the sound of tyrants / Surrounded by the silence.” This describes my own approach to life in this world. My life growing up was rough. I’ve never had a place in the human world, and have frequently been told, often violently, that I don’t belong in it. As a young man, I decided to agree with the people who kept telling me this, and left the human world as far behind as I could. In the decades since, I have lived on its margins, having as little to do with it as possible.

There’s another lyric in that song that really stood out to me when I recently revisited this song: “As I contemplate this stand / What I do / Is who I am.” And that is a true statement. That is a very, very true statement. In fact, it’s a downright Odinic statement.

I have always looked with suspicion on people who form their identities around labels that just happen to apply to them. Like people who are all about (and so very proud of) being white, or American, or Fundamentalist, or what have you. These things require no effort, understanding, or sacrifice. If they were food, they would be candy: all sugar, no nutrients. They are nothing more than cheap, effortless ways to feel pride.

That is truly pathetic. What kind of a loser gets their entire sense of pride and identity out of an accident of birth, something that he or she did nothing at all to earn? This is not what Odin teaches. Odin values people who DO things. Warriors, conquerors, heroes, leaders, poets, adventurers, they are all people who are defined by what they DO, not by some meaningless accident of birth. Odin values ACCOMPLISHMENT, and the kinds of people who get their identities from actually DOING things. And that is as it should be. It is only accomplishment that deserves respect. I have lived my life on this principle.

As that song also says, when you’re out on the ocean, you “Don’t see the storms are forming.”

I @&^%$! hate the human world. ESPECIALLY its politics. So I have lived like Odin does, wandering outside that world, only coming back to it once in a while. I have wanted this blog to mostly be about spiritual matters. With some exceptions, I have tried not to get too caught up in current political matters. They are not concerns of my world.

However, the dumpster fire that is currently the modern world, particularly America, has become too big to ignore. And what I do is who I am. Even if the people of the world are not my people, I cannot ignore them while things are like this. So this old sailor is heading back to shore, and the sound of tyrants.

There is little I can do, practically speaking. I am poor, and mostly caught up in a struggle to survive, which is not easy to do living outside the human world. But I do have a platform here, and some kind of audience, however small. And there are voices in the heathen world saying and doing some truly awful things right now. So I have a duty to take a stand. Maybe my voice can reach one or two young ones before they are taken in by alt right Folkie bullshit.

Wake up people. We no longer have to worry about the American government turning into an authoritarian regime because it ALREADY IS ONE. “President” Trump brought in the military to teargas and shoot at peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, American citizens who were exercising their First Amendment rights, just so he could cross the street to have a photo op in front of a church.

THIS IS WHAT AUTHORITARIANISM LOOKS LIKE, PEOPLE!

Trump and his nine-times-damned group of supporters and enablers are traitors. They care nothing for the people, for the Constitution, for the law, for basic human decency, or for anything else. I don’t give a damn about the rigged Senate “trial.” Anyone with half a brain knows Trumpy sold this country out to the Russians in the last election. We heard the tapes ourselves. With my own ears, I heard him invite the Russians to use hackers to alter the course of the 2016 election, just like everyone else did. He betrayed this country to a foreign hostile power, and the damn Republicans stood by and did nothing.

With my own ears I heard him try to pretend the coronavirus now ravaging our world was a Democratic hoax, and use that as an excuse to refuse to take the steps that could have prevented this plague from spreading like wildfire across this country. More than 100,000 Americans have since died preventable, pointless deaths. That’s more than 33 September 11ths, FFS!  And the Republicans provided cover for him, helping him shirk his duties to the American people, all so they could try to jolly the stock market into staying high so they could win the next election and keep their cushy jobs. Trump betrayed the country, and tens of thousands of Americans died as a result. Their blood is on his hands, and no two ways about it.

I have watched him push policies that crush poor people, especially non-white poor people, making their lives unbearable, policies that militarize police, encourage racist police policies, and make the police completely immune from accountability. I watched him, and his Republican cronies, worsen the conditions that led to George Floyd’s death. And when, as is completely predictable for any group of people pushed beyond all limits of endurance, social unrest followed, his response is to go for Kent State mk. II.

And here we are, people. The “President” is speaking of American streets as a battleground, sending troops to illegally attack innocent civilians exercising their Constitutional rights and is threatening to do worse. He is trying to cut unemployment benefits and prevent financial support for anyone who isn’t rich in order to force poor people back into dangerous work places, where thousands more WILL die from the coronavirus, so he can goose the economy and win reelection. He is trying to keep in place the racist laws and policies that killed George Floyd and so many others, ensuring that there will be so many more. Hel, he’s trying to make them worse! And they only have the political power to do this because of decades of truly un-American shenanigans such as gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression. They cannot win democratic elections, so they have subverted the democratic process. The Republicans have actually lost every election for a LONG time now. They only keep getting into power by profoundly un-American and anti-democratic political tricks.

We are in a battle for America. Trump and his supporters are traitors. Traitors to America, and traitors to the human race. They obey no law. If they are not stopped, NOW, this country will become fully, openly a tin pot dictatorship, with the last remnants of the democracy this country once was swept aside.

I used to hate the Democratic and Republican parties equally. I used to see them as equally criminal. I still see the Democrats as criminal, but they are still criminal in the ordinary, pedestrian way that politicians have always been criminal. The Republicans, however, have slid into outright cartoonish super-villainy.

I $%^#! hate the Democrats. They’re a bunch of corporate shills and liars who don’t believe in the things they say, by and large. They use people to get elected, and then forget about their promises to any but the rich. But I am still getting out there in November and voting a straight Democratic ticket. It’s become a matter of survival. Look around you. This is what a country looks like just before collapse.

I am $%%@ angry. And if you’re not, then you’ve either had your head shoved firmly up your ass for some time now, or you’re one of the people I’m angry at. Trump is a traitor. His enablers in Congress are traitors. And if, after all of this, you still support him, then you’re a traitor too. And in that case, don’t bother writing to me with your arguments, outrage, or vitriol. I will just delete your comments and ban you.

I do not hear the words of traitors.

And because this world is effed up enough that this still needs saying:

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

More Attempts to Be the Popes of Heathenry from the Wild Hunt Crowd

I keep saying that I am done with the assorted bigots and idiots at the Wild Hunt but, every time I do, they keep pulling me back in. It appears I now must speak up about the latest round of fascist douchebaggery coming from there, sparked by an article by Wild Hunt author Karl E.H. Seigfried. For maximum clarity, I will address the points he raises in order as he brings them up.

1. The bigoted stupidity starts off early, with the claim that heathenry is inherently racist at its roots by saying “Indeed, the arrival in the United States of Else Christensen’s overtly racist Odinism predates the founding of national universalist Heathen organizations by nearly twenty years.” Here are the things wrong with this statement:

A. Heathenry is not and never has been defined by the long-discredited Folkish vs. Universalist debate. There are three primary divisions: Folkish, Universalist, and Tribalist. Only the Folkish who want to spread the misinformation that all heathenry is Folkish, continue to push the narrative, along with SJW religious bigots who want the same thing as a way of discrediting the rest of heathenry.

B. Organizations in a religion do not define the religion. The roots of the religion are not found in which group decided to make a public organization before another group did.

C. In point of fact, the history of modern heathenry mostly lies with independent discoverers from the 70s through the 90s, and small organizations made by the same. And we have always been mostly Tribalist, rejecting the errors of both folkies and universalists.

Seigfried is either completely ignorant of heathen history, or is deliberately distorting it in order to advance long-discredited bullshit in order to justify his bigoted approach to our religion, his insistence that only the approach used by his branch has validity.

2. Seigfried then goes on to advance the mind-boggling childish argument that because he has “repeatedly heard members and leaders of signatory groups insist that ‘folkish doesn’t mean racist,’” this means that the majority of heathenry’s non-racist elements are not serious about rejecting racism, and that our words mean nothing.

Think about that for a moment. Because the real heathens haven’t managed to purge every racist who wants to hijack our ways, because we haven’t “cleaned up” the religion so much that Seigfried never hears anybody misusing it, we are not sincere in our opposition to those forces? Replace the word “heathen” there with “Muslim” and then tell me how that sounds. He is using the exact same argument against heathens as the Fox News Brigade uses against Muslims when they claim all Muslims are terrorists because they haven’t stopped the minority of those who are.

Well, Seigfried, it’s bigotry when used against Muslims, and it’s bigotry when used against us.

3. “If we are going to make declarations, we should declare that ‘folkish does mean racist.’”

Finally. A point we can agree on. Yes, Folkish does mean racist, as I have been saying for years. As I have gone amongst the Folkish, physically, to say. Let me tell you something, Seigfried. I was fighting fascists before you were a gleam in your daddy’s eye. I have, as a result, had more credible death threats than you’ve had stiff drinks. Don’t *%#^$! Tell me I am not sincere enough for you, and so I am really a fascist myself. What have you actually accomplished? What risks have you run? Because let me tell you something, kid, publishing &*&#$# little articles on the Wild Hunt isn’t actually DOING anything. It isn’t risking anything.

4. “If Heathenry isn’t a religion for white people, our religious communities should naturally reflect the diversity of the United States”

It is natural for people to have interests in one area and not others. It is natural for people to prefer some things and not others. Why do you assume that all ethnic groups must be interested in these ways? What you are proposing is that we go out and “try to get more dark skinned people” in our group. You obviously care nothing for the religion itself, the quality of insight its adherents hold, their level of dedication, you just want to fill ethnic quotas for social engineering purposes. You care nothing for the religion itself, our gods, our spirits, anything.

Like when you say: “We should diversify Heathen presence at wider Pagan and interfaith events. We should refuse to be part of or attend all-white panel discussions on Heathen issues.”

Insight, devotion, and connection to the gods come from anywhere. If they are in the form of an all-white panel, I will listen to them. Again: you care nothing for our religion. You are just trying to use us for your social engineering crusade.

I have held sumbel with black people, and with latinos. I have welcomed and acknowledged them as my religious kin. And, when none were present, still done so with white people. I did not run away and refuse to play until some dark skinned people gave the white skinned ones permission to speak to the public.

Real diversity comes from being open and accepting of all who come our way, regardless of ethnicity. Improving the quality of discourse in our religion comes from such open acceptance. It comes from letting worth reveal itself. Not from trying to change which group is the one being discriminated against. You merely seek to repeat the mistakes of the past in a whole new manner. You perpetuate the wrong-headed thinking that has plagued human society as long as there have been humans, by insisting that the keys to insight, wisdom, and devotion are found in particular skin colors, and not others.

5. “We should end the emphasis on Valhalla and fixation on warriors and weapons”

Spoken like an over-privileged, middle class jackass. You do realize that warriors on the police force and in the armed forces keep you safe enough to have your privileged ignorance, yes?

You know nothing of warriors, warrior culture, or Odin.

The problem  isn’t that the Folkish, terrorists, and incels who hide under the heathen banner are being made worse by being a part of warrior culture, it’s that they aren’t a part of one, but are playing at being part of one because they think it makes them look “kewl.” So they enact distorted ideas of rituals and ideas they got mostly from TV and movies. In point of fact, an actual warrior culture teaches discipline, judgment, responsibility, and fighting to protect the weak and innocent. Since my training I have not needed to fight, in general. I have been able to resolve things without fighting, which I was able to do because of my training. I have been able to step in on domestic violence situation, on crimes in progress, and on gang fights using only words and a little headology. It was my training as a warrior, and living by a warrior’s code, that gave me the desire to protect others and the courage to take the risks needed to do so with words and head games.

We need a REAL warrior’s culture in heathenry now more than ever.

6. “We should support the reform of gun law”

Another point we can agree on. As any REAL warrior knows, carrying a weapon is a privilege, something that requires special training, maturity, and the right attitude, and that if you cannot demonstrate these things you have no business with a weapon.

You’re a hypocrite, Seigfried. You use the same straw men, ad hominems, etc. that you complain of other heathens doing to Islam and Christianity.

And the same goes for the rest of you SJW and “Antifa” involved in this. Look at your behavior. You are trying to dox anyone who does not share your insane, rabid vision of the world. You are accusing a trans man, one of the greatest defenders of trans rights in Northern Tradition, Raven Kaldera, of trans phobia because he used a $$&&^! term you don’t like, one that was accepted in his generation. You’re even lying about me, accusing me of supporting hammerskins, when I am on record as having nothing but contempt for and opposition to them. You have no honor. You have no respect. You lie, attack, endanger anyone who does not subscribe to your insanely black and white world view. You are completely intolerant of those with different world views than your own. You act like children. You are alienating not just us, but any reasonable heathens out there, and harming the REAL struggle against fascism.

You people have not taken care while fighting monsters, and you have stared too long into the Abyss.

Anti-fascist my ass. You people are fascists. Just a different flavor of fascist. Which makes you also a bunch of hypocrites. And you have no interest in social justice, just in virtue signalling.

I, meanwhile, stand where I have always stood: with a finger on my right hand raised to the Folkies, and one on my left raised to you losers. I am getting so sick of all your proto-Borg nonsense.

It is a belief of many heathens that a person’s worth can be measured by the kind of enemies they have made. I have always been proud to count the Folkies as my enemies. And you know what? I’m damn proud to have you fascist “Antifa” SJW bastards as my enemies as well.

Hail Odin.

Wayland Skallagrimsson

P.S. For those of you too coarse-witted to understand the term “proto-Borg,” I’ll shortly be doing another post to explain it.

I am a Gatekeeper

I have been hearing a new word in polytheistic circles lately, and it’s a word I am really starting to dislike. OK, it’s not really a new word, but it is a word being used in a new way: “Gatekeeper.” To be more precise, it is “Gatekeeper” used as a pejorative.

This word represents a new and pernicious effort of the uber-Universalist types. Universalists have always believed that everyone has the right to declare themselves a member of our tradition, no matter who they are. Lately, however, it seems they are not content with having their own views, but must also attack everyone who does not believe exactly like they do.

Which brings us to the whole “Gatekeeper” thing. It is the term they are using to attack anyone who tries to hold standards for entry into our traditions. If, for instance, a level-headed Tribalist happens to mention that no, you cannot worship Marvel Thor and Marvel Odin and call yourself a heathen, or you cannot believe that the gods are really alien astronauts and call yourself a heathen, then the uber-Universalists start screaming “Gatekeeper!” like it meant “Nazi.”

Good grief. Uber-universalists to the left of me, Folkies to the right… I feel like I’m up to my armpits in fascists these days.

Well, I am proud to call myself a Gatekeeper. Our religion, like any religion, needs standards. You want to be a member? You have to earn the right. That includes a fair bit of learning. Too lazy or self-important to do it? Try the Unitarians. They take anyone.

Words Fail Me

OK, I have to admit, I don’t know what to say. I’ve been grappling with saying something ever since Charlottesville. I saw the signs in the crowds, and on people’s shirt: there were plenty of hammerskins joined up with the Nazis and the other alt-right jackasses. Disappointing, yes, but not surprising. Still, it left me with so much I wanted to say.

But I don’t know how to say any of it. It’s too big to address in just a few words, and I have no idea how to start. And just thinking about it gives me anger-induced migraines. I’ve sat on this post for months, hoping the right words would come.

Well, they haven’t. So now I am just going to write what words I have, and let them be enough.

Some years ago I wrote a piece about the culture wars, and in it I talked about the inevitable end of the conservative movement in America. (Please keep in mind, I mean the conservative movement, which is a specific group of people with an agenda, not conservatism, which is a somewhat abstract set of beliefs.)

Do I recant those words now that I have seen the rise to power of the very worst elements of the old conservative movement? Do I believe its end is not so inevitable now that it has given a public voice to the Nazis, the alt right, the Kluxers, and the hammerskins? Do I believe I was wrong now that I see that we have an openly racist president who daily betrays the very values this country was founded on, while aiding and abetting election interference by a hostile foreign power?

No.

Look at what we have here. The Republican party, the organizational face of the conservative movement, reeks of desperation. They support Nazis, child molesters, advocates of domestic terrorism, racists, Dominionists, and basically anybody who will help enact their agenda. They ignore Russian interference in the election, allowing it to happen again, essentially ceding political power to foreign adversaries. In short, they are acting like people who see their inevitable doom approaching, and desperately make deals with any devil they can in order to forestall the inevitable.

They pass blatant tax scams designed to defraud the poor and middle classes, and make the rich richer. They try to strip voting rights from as many (non-Christian, non-white, non-male, non-straight) people as possible. They attack the press, veterans, families whose children sacrificed all for this country, and anyone who so much as questions them. They act like looters grabbing everything they can from a store before burning it to the ground and heading off into the night.

All the forces that I spoke of in that old article are still at work. Their demographic is very old, and very unpopular. They are few in number, and dying off quickly. The only reason they even hold any power at all is because of some very un-American practices like gerrymandering, voter suppression, court shenanigans, and Russian assistance. We, the people of the Other Tribes, are growing vigorously. The Republican circular firing squad and the extreme unpopularity of their positions keep them from recruiting new talent. The math is inevitable: within a decade or two, they will be so few and we will be so many that they will be unable to win any significant elections, no matter how badly gerrymandered the districts.

They know this. As I said in that old post, because they sense their end, they will try to do as much damage as possible before they go. And that is exactly what we are witnessing now. They based their philosophy, their very lives, around hatred of all this is not like them. Now that they see Not-Them becoming dominant, they have to try to destroy as much as possible. This is their nature.

If we can weather the storm, the threat they represent will pass. (Only to be replaced by another, I’m sure.) However, this is no time for battening the hatches and hunkering down. The forces that have completed their takeover of the conservative movement are dangerous in so many ways. They have divorced themselves from reality. They base everything they think and do on virtue signaling and faith. They reject not just science, but reason and facts, too, as if reality were solely a matter of opinion. Because of this, they cannot be reasoned with. They are immune to facts, common sense, and even their own self interest. They stay buried in their echo chambers and construct an elaborate fantasy world. Well, they’re trying to impose that twisted fantasy on everyone now, and there is no compromise with that kind of madness. We all have to do what we can to resist them.

Let me add a whistle of appreciation for the hammerskins fighting shoulder to shoulder with the other regressive forces here. You may hate many of the same things they do. You may be as petty and violent and unreasonable as they are. But at the end of the day, even if they find a way to win, and establish dominance over all of the people you both hate, what do you think happens next? They may tolerate you now, but at the end of the day, you aren’t Christian. Once they’re done using you useful tools, they will destroy you as well. Way to go, quislings.

There was so much more I wanted to say. I do not have the words. Good luck to you. It’s a ways yet, until dawn.

Some Pagans Are Getting Fooled Again

Before bringing the conversation around to a truly unsettling trend in both the heathen and larger pagan communities, allow me a brief reminiscence of my days in college, to set the context for it.

Although I was a science major, I had a keen interest in politics, and got onto the student senate. In those days, at that university, the student senate was responsible for distributing $1 million to student activity groups each year. Each group would make a proposal, come before us, and get operating money. We were mostly a rubber stamp process, and served only to weed out misuses of funds.

When I served, the rest of the senate was composed of liberal Democrats. I, of course, am a radical moderate, meaning that I subscribe to no –ism or –ology, but make up my own mind about issues on a case by case basis. When the Conservative Interests of America group came before us (yes, the CIA), they barely got their pitch out before a senator made a motion to deny them funding, and was seconded. When I asked why, I was told outright that the other senators saw this as their opportunity to shut down Republican-oriented programs on campus, and advance their own political agendas. They spoke as if it was obvious that I should see these young Republicans as the “bad guys.”

Now, I didn’t think much of the CIA group. I found their hawkishness of foreign policy and disregard of collateral casualties repugnant. I found their supply side economics theories as ridiculous as Laffer’s napkin drawing. I thought their opposition to basic assistance to the poor that their business-oriented Randian fantasies had created was hypocritical. I also knew many of them personally, and thought they were mostly %&*@#$!-bags. Yet still, I stood up to defend them. I filibustered for hours, until I had annoyed my fellow senators into giving the CIA its funds.

Why? Well, it was my job to disburse the funds impartially and fairly, for one thing. But there was a larger principle involved. America is founded on certain fundamental ideals that are supposed to be so important that they trump everything else. One is freedom of speech. Everybody, no matter how dumbass or repellant, has the right to speak his or her mind, and advance his or her ideas. Another core American ideal is that we are a melting pot of different cultures and ideas. The American ideal is that of many different tribes, each pulling together in some ways and in different directions in others, working out the answers between them. Because we are different, we have different beliefs. To make the melting pot work, we have developed standards of public, civilized behavior that draw boundaries for conflicts between different tribes.

What my fellow senators did that day was profoundly un-American. You know what else is? The emergence of the new violent extremists on the left. The kind of people you can find all too often these days over at Gods and Radicals. The kind that are increasingly trying to take over modern paganism, and turn it into an extremist political instrument.

I wrote recently about the call for McCarthy-esque witch hunts from some of the Gods and Radicals crowd, to eliminate “wrong-thinking” pagan elements, such as heathenry. I considered that to be the end of the matter, as I had said all I had to say on the subject. Then I saw more of that crowd writing about a whole new batch of truly disturbing things, and now feel I must speak again.

I am not providing a specific link, as I have no wish to start a flame war, and my point isn’t the specific words of one person or another. Anyone paying even minimal attention lately knows the kinds of writings I am talking about. People advocating going to Trump rallies and trying to shut them down. Trying to use violence against Trump rally-goers in an attempt to intimidate them into staying home. People claiming that this is the truly Pagan thing to do, and that it is a form of sacred warriorship.

Bull$&!^. It’s fascism, pure and simple. It is profoundly un-American. Parts of it border on terrorism.

It is also astonishingly hypocritical. These people love to present themselves as freedom fighters, anarchists, and rebels, standing up to the obviously fascist Trump. Yet they use repressive, fascistic techniques to accomplish their aims.

These people are not rebels. They are not freedom fighters. There is nothing sacred about what they do. All they are is closet aristocrats. They do not actually value freedom, as they are proud of denying it to those who do not think as they do. They just want to be the ones who are in charge.

There’s an old song by The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” It contains the lyrics:

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that’s all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain’t changed
Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again

You know what? These closet aristocrats, these phony freedom fighters, are exactly who The Who were warning us about.

Don’t get me wrong. I am passionately anti-Trump. The man is clearly a racist, crypto-fascist demagogue with an IQ even smaller than his hands. He is a dangerous, petty halfwit who could easy take America down the road Germany went in the 30s, were he to ever get power.

You know how I’m going to deal with that? I am going to vote against him. Like an American. Like a true lover of freedom. I will let him have his rallies. It is his right to.

To the new extremist pagan left, I would say that you have stared too long into the Abyss, and you have not taken care when fighting monsters.

I would also say that you seem to be a load of halfwits. You are doing more damage to the causes you claim to honor than Trump ever could. He was the one with the violent, fascistic rallies. He was the one encouraging un-American violence and suppression of political enemies. He was well on the way to discrediting himself in the larger electorate’s eyes. He was well on the way to showing what he really was, and making a sharp distinction between his toxic politics and the politics of those who oppose him.

Then you Bozos go and change the narrative. You snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. You make it clear that violence and fascistic jackasses come from the left, too, and make Trump seem less of an extremist problem relative to them. You even let HIM take the moral high ground, and publish speeches denouncing the un-American violence of your crowd.

Way to go, losers.

I am a man of Odin. I hear my god calling me to stand by my ideals, and not compromise them in order to score a cheap hit. Paganism is not politics, and it is most certainly not your brand of extremist, bumbling, grandstanding, un-American idiocy.

The Culture War: One Heathen’s Perspective

I have a habit of starting my day slowly, by reading the news with a couple cups of coffee. An op-ed piece I just read about the culture war has got me thinking this morning. I think the piece is a great example of the failure of both of the dominant sides in the culture war, as well as the media, to understand the actual issues at stake, and the actual processes at work. I think that modern heathenry actually has a lot to say on the matter too, so I am going to lay out my thoughts here. After all, I’ll never become Most Hated Person in Modern Heathenry unless I talk about politics.

The opinion piece I read was by a social-conservative Republican, admonishing his fellow social conservatives to admit that they have lost the culture war, and that this is the real reason behind their string of electoral losses. The author believes this has happened because modern culture has become coarse, no longer values the family, and glorifies sex and violence. To this list other conservative pundits usually add the idea that most of America has come to depend on government handouts.

The flip side of this argument, which I have also seen a lot of recently in op-ed pieces, is that the social conservatives have lost the culture wars because America has come to endorse the social-liberal Democratic vision, which is supposedly based on inclusiveness and includes the notion that the government can improve society through legislation and massive social programs.

Actually, they’re both wrong.

Oh, the social conservatives have indeed lost the culture war, although it will take some time yet to make this obvious to everyone. Just not for the reasons that either they or the liberals think. To explain why they lost, let me offer a heathen perspective on the culture war. It has been presented to us as a battle of liberal versus conservative for so long that many people have forgotten that they are actually but two sides of many. To the heathen mind, however, there is little enough difference between social conservatives and social liberals. Both seem to be little more than different flavors of tyranny. To the heathen mind, the battle between social conservatives and liberals seems to be almost irrelevant. Many of us recognize that both are our enemies, politically speaking.

The heathen ideal has always been that of a society made strong because it is formed of powerful individuals. Observe the typical heathen heroes: powerful fighters and adventurers with great personal destinies. Observe the nature of interpersonal interactions through much of heathen history: every person is held to be personally responsible for their own actions. Disputes are resolved, as much as possible, between individuals, privately. While the individual was expected to have a regard for the social bond, and to have a sense of responsibility to others, the ideal of heathenry has always been individual liberty. The heathen mind is naturally prone to valuing freedom, I believe.

We well recognize the hazard that social conservatives present to us. They believe in a totalitarian form of social engineering that forces all individuals to conform to their particular interpretation of conservative Christian values. We remember their attempts in the nineties to unconstitutionally strip neo-pagan groups of their tax-exempt status under the grounds that they weren’t real religions. We remember the government supporting Christian churches financially, under Bush, while heathen Kindreds who applied for the same grants were categorically denied. We are aware that the military has forbidden the use of heathen religious symbols on military graves. We have grown familiar with all the dog whistles and code words that the social conservatives use, how “family values” usually means “hang the freaks” and that if these people had their way, they would outlaw our very existence at best and actually arrest or kill us at worst.

For many decades the social conservative tyrant has cloaked his speech, and made a pass at hiding his intentions. He passes laws that harm families, and the poor, and uses doublespeak to make it seem as if he is doing something noble and idealistic. He gives power to the wealthy, to big corporations, and made it easy for them to indulge any kind of discriminatory behavior that they want. He has set up an Old Boy’s Network that keeps people like him in powerful positions in society, while people like us are marginalized.

I remember a time after the Ice Storm of ’98, in Maine, where the massive power outages made a lot of refugees from devastated rural communities flock to the cities. I was one of them. I managed to find a room in a flop house, run by a nice old Christian lady and her family. One day, while I was out at work, she decided to use her master key to go into my room, ostensibly for some cleaning or something. She saw my heathen altar. She was waiting for me when I got back home. She let me know that she and her family were good salt of the earth Christian types, and that “your kind isn’t welcome here.” She admitted that I could theoretically try to fight the eviction, but that as we both well knew, those laws were meaningless, and written in such a way as to be unenforceable in almost all circumstances. She was right. So there I was, out on the street in the middle of the disaster.

Don’t get me wrong. This kind of thing is rare for heathens, and even more so for me. I’m white. I’m male. I have it pretty easy in this society. But I’m also not stupid. I can look around, and see plenty of others worse off than me, for much the same reasons. I see the raw deal that non-white people get in this country. Yeah, it’s better than it used to be in some ways. But it’s still bad. The same hatred of The Other Tribes that put me out on the street works against them, on a much larger scale, and all the time. I see the same is true for homosexuals, bisexuals, and the transgendered. FFS, the same is still true for women as well.

Because that’s the true core message of the social conservative movement: Destroy the Outsider! For generations they have whipped their people into a frenzy of fear and hatred with this cry in its many forms. And guess what? They’ve been reaping what they’ve sown. Because I’m not the only one who has seen that snarling hatred, both out in the open and hidden behind a false smile. I’m not the only one who has realized that there are a great many other subcultures and small groups out there who are also considered foes by the social conservative. For generations the social conservative has grown complacent in his power. He has become indolent and weak. We, on the other hand, have been growing strong. Our communities have been growing. Where once a heathen might go decades without meeting another heathen, today we have whole communities, children raised from birth in heathenry who now have children of their own. We have come to hate tyranny, and to value above all things the right to do with our own lives as we please.

And we have come to recognize our fraternity with others in the same position. I recognize that I have more in common with a poor Hispanic immigrant, or a drag queen, or an atheist, than I do with those social conservatives. And I have started to vote like it. Like a lot of other heathens have. Like a lot of other minorities have. We were never one group, you see, until the social conservatives made us one group. And THAT is why they have lost the culture war. They defined themselves as the enemies of all that is not like them. They gave us a group identity, and a common foe. Oh, they try to pass it off now as the ridiculous claim that American culture has collapsed, or that Americans have become economically dependent on government handouts, but that’s just a load of BS. Anything to avoid facing reality, or taking any responsibility for their own decisions. No, the truth is that they are simply going the way of all tyrants. They achieved social dominance through a ruthless program of eliminating all competition, they got lazy and blind, and their more vigorous oppressed foes have now become too strong for them. Nothing more complex than that.

The social conservatives are doomed. Every year that passes sees their numbers get fewer, as old age claims more of them. Every year that passes sees us Other Tribes grow in number. They have no real message other than hate, and they will disappear in a few decades more, though they will undoubtedly try to do as much damage as possible before passing away. However, this does NOT mean that their enemies, the liberals, should start declaring victory.

You see, the division between social conservative and social liberal is pretty irrelevant to many of us in this new social alliance. Many of us consider the differences to be little more than window dressing. To US, the most significant part of the culture war is the struggle between those who think that people should be controlled like dogs and those who value individual liberty. In watching the Republican Party, the most public face of social conservatism, go down in flames, we understand that the culture war is far from over. All we have accomplished is a victory over the first of our biggest foes. And to do it, we had to ally with another enemy. But many of us see that the liberal agenda is every bit as tyrannical as the conservative one. It is based in unwarranted government interference in almost every area of personal life. It places FAR too much power into the hands of a central authority. Where the core message of the conservatives was Destroy the Outsider, the core message of the liberals is Take Advantage of the Outsider. Not really an improvement. We still lose our freedom with them. We still are subject to the prejudices of the common culture with them.

Who knows if this new alliance of the Other Tribes will last? Beyond having some common enemies, there is little that binds us. However, the important point that liberals, conservatives, and the profit-driven media all miss is that the newly awakened political power is an ideology that is foreign to all three of them. It has beliefs that are conservative in some respects, liberal in others. It has many passionately held beliefs that are neither liberal nor conservative. One of its distinctive features is a David complex. You see, unlike conservatives or liberals, we do not much believe in rigid ideologies. We see them as prone to corruption. We do not have a vision for government or society that goes much beyond “people should be pretty much left to do as they wish.” We are therefore prone to seeing government as a tool, something that can change its form depending on the needs of the moment. Many of us in the Other Tribes have been voting together, lately. We have often voted Democrat. But don’t get cocky, Democrats. Let me use Godzilla as an example. You see, we see ourselves as Davids, tiny mortals living in a world of giant monsters. So we do what we can to get by. For too long the Godzilla that the social conservative movement has been has torn around flattening our cities and irradiating us with its Atomic Bad Breath. So when we saw a moment of weakness we allied with King Gidorah to take him down. But King Gidorah is also a giant monster. And now that Godzilla’s sinking beneath the waves, he’ll be our next biggest danger. The social conservatives have indeed lost the culture war, but the war continues.

Don’t let your guard down.