Jesus offered a warning about trying to be noticed by people. When you attempt to fulfill moral obligations solely for how it looks to others, you have failed. Their notice is the whole of your blessing; God will not pay attention to such things. Jesus’ message is the source of our saying, “Don’t blow your own horn.”
So we have a raft of nifty slogans to encourage people to “be genuine” or “sincere” and it still serves that empty purpose. People who live those slogans don’t use them. When you are being your true self, you don’t have to tell anyone. Maybe they don’t notice you at all, but a dry soul can smell the water of sincerity from miles away. When you are genuinely giving to God, He’s the only one who has to notice. Whether He shows it to anyone else is His business.
People who feel compelled to live in the spotlight are not actually alive. They are fictitious in themselves, actors and fakes. You see it in government officials who make the most ridiculous pronouncements with a straight face. These are not normal humans. You see them at all levels.
I once had a complaint with the bus monitors when my son was attending school at AFCENT HQ. The allied military powers divided up the various bureaucratic responsibilities in the mixed school system. The Brits had the bus system. My son was roughed up by a kid twice his size and much older, right in front of a bus monitor who saw no need to intervene. The injuries did require medical intervention. As you might expect, the British bureaucracy resisted all efforts, refusing to even discuss accountability. You might reasonably ask what the bus monitors were for — apparently only to satisfy regulations and bureaucratic necessities, not to actually protect any kids from the misbehavior of others. They stated bluntly that they took their responsibilities seriously and denied any possibility of failure. I made it police matter to take it out of their hands, filing a report with the local Dutch authorities. The Dutch police acted on my complaint and the offending bully was forced to change his ways.
That was hardly the only time I experienced such Orwellian use of language. Orwell’s book described a world where the government created a propaganda “reality” that stood in some alternate universe. You realized you weren’t privileged to live in that other universe, but there was nothing you could do. The system was utterly closed unless you were lucky enough to find some voice they actually respected. Yours meant nothing. If you dared to avail yourself of that leverage, your punishment was typically worse than putting up with the original abuse. You had to decide it was worth persecution on some principle or another.
I was able to find champions often enough. Could I persuade you to believe it was because I didn’t abuse the alternative routing? That it was because I exhibited some effort toward being sincere and not working the system for some personal advantage? I won’t pretend I never lied, never faked it. Somehow I was able to convince a few folks that I wasn’t gaming the system.
You might take my word for it here as they did there. It’s unlikely anyone would investigate by interviewing all the folks involved some twenty-five years ago. It’s not worth that much effort against what I’m seeking to gain here. I’m not trying to build a reputation for myself, only for what I write. What I write is most certainly aimed often enough at destroying whatever reputation some liars may have gotten. Seriously: Who doesn’t see Nancy Pelosi and others lying through their teeth about Snowden? He uncovers spying and they have the gall to say he’s a spy? The only way it could be true is if Snowden were a PsyOp himself, in which case he would be Pelosi’s PsyOp (she makes herself part owner of the story), another lie.
Jesus referred to His government officials as mostly actors, using the term often translated into English as “hypocrite.” Near as we can tell, passing from His native Aramaic through Greek writings, it was meant to carry the connotation of acting as something they were not, claiming something with a straight face that could not possibly be so. I’m not claiming to be Jesus, much as I might strive at bringing Him to life in my own person, but I do claim my government is no better than His. My government hardly hesitates to abuse people with worse tortures than primitive crucifixion. At least Rome didn’t deny her brutality, though one particularly murderous emperor liked to brag about the sword in his hands being idle. Everyone figured he was being sarcastic. When the US blows a trumpet, you can guarantee it’s the ugliest lie possible, and you damn sure better echo it with all sincerity.
Our officials are mixed: some are cold and psychopathic in their brutality; others enjoy it with a lust that you can’t imagine. The notion there might be any significant number of decent people in the federal government is simply Orwellian nonsense. The US Empire makes the Romans look like a Sunday School class. If anything breathes life into John’s apocalyptic “Beat,” it’s the US government. Most all governments are bad enough, but it’s hard be less noble than the US government. If you can find a safe haven in almost any other jurisdiction on earth, take it.
I suspect the US assassins will eventually get you if they really want to, since our government officials take nothing so seriously as themselves. It’s hard to speak evil of US federal government without the risk of minimizing the severity, since we are unlikely to ever know the real truth of just how evil those folks can be. God knows.
