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A brief note from Epictetus, on facing hard times:

 I want to talk a little more about walled cities. Sun Tzu says,


I call this the "Don't attack Minas Tirith" rule.

On the off chance that anyone doesn't know what that refers to, let me explain.

In the Lord of the Rings, Minas Tirith is the capital city of the human kingdom of Gondor. It's a beautiful, ancient city, and it's the supreme symbol of resistance to the Dark Lord, Sauron. For that reason, Sauron wants to destroy it. The only trouble is that Minas Tirith is also a nearly impregnable fortress. It's carved out of a mountainside and defended by seven rings of walls. Nevertheless, Sauron decides, as his opening move in the War of the Ring, to launch an enormous frontal assault on Minas Tirith. Of course, the defenders are able to hold out just long enough for reinforcements to arrived, and in the end Sauron's armies are caught between a cavalry force arriving from the west and an army of defenders arriving from the south and destroyed.

Gandalf and Aragorn, the leaders of the good guys, have clearly read Sun Tzu; Sauron has not. In Catholic moral theology, sin and evil are said to make you stupid, and maybe that's what Tolkien was thinking. Either way, let's talk about what this means for us.

First, why does Sauron want Minas Tirith? His armies are made up of orcs and trolls, who live in caves; Nazgul, who are dead; and allies from the East and South, who have their own homelands. It's not clear that any of them would need or want to live in the city of Minas Tirith in the first place. The appeal of Minas Tirith is entirely symbolic. To its defenders, it symbolizes hope and resistance; to Sauron, his past failures. So what it comes down to is: Sauron wants it because everyone else wants it. 

Second, if he does want Minas Tirith, what does he gain from attacking it head on? His armies greatly outnumber those of his foes. He could have left a small force to keep the Gondormen bottled up in their city while the rest of his armies conquered the rest of the country. At that point all he would have to do is wait. Eventually the defenders would give up Minas Tirith voluntarily.

Now I'd like to suggest that this example can be applied to almost any situation.

Let's say you want a romantic partner. Well, who do you want?

"This girl, who looks like my favorite movie actress, is the only one who will do."

Are you sure? 

"Yes. Out of all four billion women in the world, she is the only one for me; without her, I will die. Therefore I mean to ply her with entreaties, gifts and favors, in the hope that she will maybe some day finally take an interest in me. Maybe when she breaks up with that jerk she's always dating. Or maybe if she's drunk."

A lot of young men take this approach to dating. Of course, this approach always fails. Most guys eventually figure out that this isn't the way. Apparently, though, some never do, and there is a whole internet subculture of young men who call themselves "incels," for "involuntarily celibate." A lot of them then spend their time lashing out at women, modern culture, and everything in between-- anything to avoid taking responsibility for their own failures. 

The problem, of course, is that they opened by attacking Minas Tirith. 

If you decide that one, and only one, girl (or guy) is the one for you, you are setting yourself up for failure. And this is doubly, triply, quintuply true if the Only One For You just happens to be the type that everyone else wants, too. 

If you really want a partner, then, there are two things to do.

First, be clear to yourself about what you actually want. Do you really want someone who looks like the women in the movies, or is that just what you've been told to want? I think for a lot of people it's the latter. Certainly that's true in my case. I've been with a lot of different types of women and I've found that the skinny, featureless ones simply do not appeal to me in any way. While I'm not a fan of the Rubenesque, I'll take Boticelli's Venus over Emaciated Hollywood Starlet any day of the week. 

So clarifying what you want is extremely important-- as we keep saying.

But what if it turns out you do like the conventionally attractive? What if your ideal of feminine beauty is Scarlet Johannsen, and you quite simply can't get turned on by anything else? Is all lost?

Of course not.

The thing is, at the end of the day, every country has its capital city, even if it's not as heavily defended as Minas Tirith. Whatever person you do want to be with, whatever they look like, is Minas Tirith for you. 

And the easiest way to take the capital city is still to get the defenders to surrender it voluntarily. Instead of pursuing the object of your affection, get her (or him) to pursue you.

How do you do that?

By working on yourself. If a young man came to me for dating advice, I'd recommend the following:

1. Take up some form of spiritual practice. I don't care what, but make sure it appeals to you and that it has a strong practical component. If you're going to become a Buddhist, meditate every day; if a Catholic, say your prayers; if a Hindu, do your puja (or whatever). 

2. Learn a craft or art. Again, it doesn't matter what. Become a painter, a brewer, or a mushroom forager, as long as it's something you care about. 

3. Take up some kind of physical exercise. This one will also be different for everyone, depending on body type. I love martial arts, like running, and hate weight lifting. You might be the opposite. 

To the extent that you can, get involved with others who share your interests, whether offline (preferable) or online (okay). That shouldn't be the focus, though; the focus is to build up yourself.

4. To the extent that it's necessary, learn basic grooming, social, and financial skills. We can't all be fashion models, but we can all comb our hair and wear a shirt that fits. We can't all be master wits or players, but we can all learn the basics of reading body language. We can't all be millionaires, but we can all manage our money well enough that we're not living paycheck to paycheck.

For a year, just do these things, without pursuing any romantic partner. I promise that at the end of that time, you will have your choice of women. The gates of the city will be opened to you.

(Would this advice work for a young woman? I don't know, having never been one. I suspect so, though, as if I were single, I'd happily date a woman that followed it!)

So that's just one area of life. But Sun Tzu's advice is applicable to many others as well.

The last time I submitted a piece of fiction to a professional market it came back with a polite rejection. Later I found out that, during the brief window in which the editors were accepting submissions, they received 8,000 stories.

It's hard to think of a better example of besieging a walled city than that. Even if you're better than 99% of the competition, you've still got 80 competing stories, and they've only got room for 4. At that point, it's luck of the draw. 

On the other hand, the most recent piece of fiction I wrote was greatly loved by its audience. Every year at Christmas, I write my stepson a little chapter book about his cats and their adventures. He loves them, I love writing them, and the annual reading of the Cat Book has become a family tradition. John Adams wrote that an aristocrat is anyone who can command two votes-- his own and one other. By the same token, an author is anyone whose stories are read by two people-- himself, and one other. 

Eventually I'll get around to publishing fiction in "professional" markets, but when I do, they're going to come to me. 

To pick a more brutal example, people who get into fistfights without much training or experience typically pick the wrong targets. Fighters on TV shows hit their opponents in the face with a big right hook, and their opponents dutifully respond by getting "knocked out" and falling to the ground.

In a real fight, this is the equivalent of the frontal assault on Minas Tirith. If you're much bigger, stronger, and faster than your opponent, it might work-- though that raises the question of what you're doing in a fight that unfair. A kick to the groin might be much less glamorous than a right hook to the jaw, but it works much better, I promise.

(Best of all, of course, is to be the kind of person who has sufficient training that would-be assailants leave you alone in the first place.)

Well, this post has gone on at some length, and I think I've made my point. See you tomorrow, everybody!

A new administration takes power in America today. The astrological conditions for the event are almost comically terrible; JMG posted his analysis a few weeks back and later today or tomorrow I'm going to post my own writeup over at Vox Caelorum. Astral conditions are as bad as they've ever been in my lifetime, and a clairvoyant friend who is old enough to remember 1968 says that they are worse than she's ever seen them.

Sounds like a good day to discuss the spiritual warfare, with the aid of our old friends Sun Tzu and Eliphas Levi.

Sun Tzu tells us:


The territory on which our war is being fought is the soul. We will understand what that means better if we remember that "soul" is the English translation of the Latin word "anima" and the Greek word "psyche." Anima is the root of "animate," meaning "that which moves." "Psyche," of course, is identical to "mind," and consists of all of the contents of our minds. And so we could define "soul" as "the total contents of our minds and our actions."

Let's turn to Levi for a moment:

And now the nature of the conflict clearly presents itself:

Part of our souls lie under the dominion of the Enemy.

Which parts?

For the specific purpose of this discussion, the Enemy is the demonic power which is driving people in the United States and around the world into a frenzy of rage over political issues. It first manifested itself in the deranged reaction to the election of Donald Trump and the successful Brexit referendum by members of the liberal classes in the United States and the United Kingdom. But it is active on the political Right as well, and has now exploded into full force among certain Trump supporters in their reaction to his electoral defeat.

Expect it to continue to evolve and mutate and to take many forms in the years ahead. It will change its story and its appearance, but you can always tell that it's there. Watch for the following signs: Excess emotion, especially rage; willing indulgence in fantasies of violence, which then become acts of violence; a complete lack of reflective thought. If you are sensitive to these things, you can feel its presence in a tightening in your various energy centers, as though someone were squeezing your throat or punching you in the solar plexus. You can see it in others in the glazed looks in their eyes and the incoherent justifications they give for violent actions.

Our goal, let us remember, is to live in peace. This doesn't necessarily mean an absence of physical violence. It means the subordination of all of our actions and all the contents of our minds to our spirits, our wills, and our gods. 

Let's turn back to Sun Tzu, then, with this in mind.

Our goal is to "take the enemy's country intact," not to "shatter and destroy it." What does that mean in the war for our souls?

Two things come to mind.

First, we want to be live in such a way that peace, as I've defined it, comes naturally. If we're spending time straining and struggling within ourselves, we're both suffering and wasting a ton of energy. The classic example of this, of course, is the devout and scrupulous Catholic who is trying to avoid "sexual sin" by a constant internal struggle. The result is a person who feels blocked up, constipated, and irritable, and is unable to get very much done because of all the energy they're spending trying not to think about masturbating. Even if they "win," they've done so at great cost, and have certainly "shattered and destroyed" much of the country of their own souls.

"What you resist you strengthen." Don't fight the demons and the passions by resisting them. Instead, as I've suggested before, simply do other things with your time. Things which matter and have meaning to you. Above all else, pray, meditate, and engage in spiritual practice. If you feel "tempted," don't fight against it-- use the energy to do something good with your time. 

Now let's turn to Levi, because I want to add another piece that we haven't discussed before:
Our souls are not isolated units, and don't exist in a vacuum. They are more like whirlpools of astral substance. You can define the boundary between the whirlpool and the river, but both are made of the same water. It's not enough to act in isolation and pursue personal fulfillment. We have to do some work to purify the waters around us.

And how do we do that?

Let me allow another one of the great ancient masters of magic to answer that.


Today, and every day, pray for your enemies. If, like me, you're not a fan of Joe Biden or his party, today is a good day to pray for them. Don't pray that Biden will become a Republican, a Populist, a Socialist or whatever you wish he was; just pray that he will be blessed by God and guided in the presidency. If you're Christian, a candle for the guardian angel of the United States, and the Virgin Mary as patron saint of America under her title of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception would be appropriate, and doubly so since Biden is at least nominally Catholic. If pagan, an offering to Jupiter would accomplish the same thing. 

And while you're out in the world, spend your time blessing people. This is especially easy to do when you're driving, for two reasons: 1. you will encounter a lot of people and 2. most of them will make you angry. Use the energy of the guy that just cut you off to send a blessing his way, and honestly mean it. A simple "May you be blessed," is enough, if you can say it and mean it.

Finally, in addition to prayers, this is a good time to make offerings. (Actually, there's never a bad time.) If you follow the planetary deities, you can synchronize your offerings with the days of the week; Chris Warnock has details here. But you can always pick a cause you care about, invoke your God, and make a donation in their name. In this way you will increase the amount of good in the world. It will return to you, but you must do it without expectation of reward. Do good and allow yourself to love the Good for its own sake.

In these ways, we can begin to reconquer our own souls, and the Soul of the World around us.

One last note from Chapter 2 of The Art of War.  Sun Tzu concludes:

This might sound simple and obvious, but it is a call back to a theme that I want to keep repeating through all of these posts. What is your goal? When you undertake any particular thing, why are you doing it, and what do you hope to achieve?

This is especially the case when we enter into any kind of conflict, whether it's a political debate, an argument with a salesperson or a dispute with our spouse. Very often, interpersonal conflict is not honest and arguments between two people are not actually about what they are supposedly about. They are, instead, social games. 

In Games People Play, Eric Berne described a social game as:


Berne then describes, as a typical example, a game called "If It Weren't For You." You've probably seen this game before. Maybe you've even played it yourself, without realizing it. (I have.) 

In "If It Weren't For You," one member of a partnership (whether a marital relationship or not) discovers that there are many things they could have done in their lives if only the other member of the partnership hadn't held them back. Of course, the person does not actually want to do these things, because they are too afraid to. By playing If It Weren't For You, they're able to both not do the things that scare them and, often enough, to guilt trip the other party into doing things for them. "If it weren't for you," she tells him, "I'd have left this crummy town years ago!" And he feels terrible about this, and so buys her the new dress that she wants. "If it weren't for this job, I'd have fulfilled my childhood dream of traveling around Canada!" he tells himself. But he'd never go to Canada; he's too afraid of moose. By Playing If IT Weren't For You, he gets what he wants and he gets sympathy from others when he complains about it over drinks at night.  

When we enter into any conflict, then, let us first make sure we're clear about what we want, and what it would be like if we were to get it. Let our object be victory, not lengthy campaigns; honest desires, not social games.

Let's look at The Art of War, Chapter 2.

Sun Tzu tells us:



Sun Tzu is certainly right that countries do not benefit from prolonged warfare. But it is worth noting that one side will invariably have the ability to prolong a war beyond that of their opponent, and that is the side that is going to win. This is why the North Vietnamese won the Vietnam War despite superior American firepower, and why the Taliban will ultimately win in Afghanistan.

How can we apply Sun Tzu's points both to (1) our personal goals and to (2) the spiritual warfare that we have been discussing?

I'd like to suggest the following for consideration.

(1) If you want to accomplish anything at all, persistence is critical. If you want to write a novel, the novel is your goal, and an unwritten novel is your enemy. (How many half-finished novels do you have stored on your computers, writers? I know I've got at least a half dozen.) The Enemy will use every device to outlast you, to damp your ardor and exhaust your strength. But every day that you outlast him, you weaken him and strengthen yourself.

On the other hand, when it comes time to publish your book, haste-- though not stupid haste-- is preferably to a long delay. A Christmas recipe book will not sell very well if its release is delayed until February.

Perhaps we should break our goals down into two types: Those that resemble training, and those that resemble combat. In those that resemble training, discipline, patience, and persistence are key. The head of the tai chi lineage that I've been training in for a number of years recently accepted me as an instructor. I was able to get to that point thanks to daily practice over the course of seven years. When I started, I was terrible, and I couldn't make it through a form without hurting myself. On the other hand, when I start teaching public classes, swiftness is preferably to delay. Hemming and hawing won't bring in any students! 

(2) Applying these thoughts to the spiritual war, how can we make use of them?

One way to think of the ongoing crisis is as a build up of energy in the Lower Astral Plane. This happens from time to time. It dissipates when the pressures in the Lower Astral are discharged into the Physical Plane. Unfortunately, that discharge is never pretty; it takes the form of war, death, natural disaster, conflict, plague and so on. We're clearly in the middle of that phase right now.

Outlast the enemy. Demons may be smart, but Patience is a virtue, not a passion. When you find yourself pulled into the conflict, give the enemy nothing. Pray. Do a banishing ritual. Go outside. Work on something truly important to you-- something that expresses the highest part of yourself, not the lowest. Do it every time. And do it quickly. Don't linger over your anger; do something else right now. If whatever triggered it is actually important, you can come back to it later, when you are calm; chances are it isn't, though.

Remember that your psyche is your territory; the Enemy is an invader. Outlast him, and give him nothing that will feed him, and he will be forced to retreat in dismay.

In the comments, we've been discussing Sun Tzu's ideas in light of political and astral conditions here in the US. Chapter 1 of the Art of War closes with some more advice on the use of deception in warfare. I want to share some of these, and suggest a way of applying them to our present situation.

All warfare is based on deception.

Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

Let us assume that we are in a war-- a spiritual war. The enemy is a plague of demons. You can take this as a metaphor, if you prefer. In that case, the "demons" are metaphors for toxic memes, collective insanity, political cults and the madness of crowds. It works either way. What do they want? Demons are characterized by intense emotion, particularly wrath and hate, intense desire, and an absence of reflection.

When people abandon their reasoning faculties and lash out at one another like animals, they are possessed by demons. (Again, this can be a metaphor, if you like.) This is the demons' goal; it feeds them. Mob violence, dehumanization, fear and paranoia, terrorism and conflict all feed them. What they want is to feed; when you give in to them, they feed on you. That's what they want, and that's how they win.

What do we want? Many things, but they can be boiled down to: "To live in peace." To live in peace doesn't refer to Pacifism. I am a martial artist and not a Pacifist. It refers, rather, but rather to a state of consciousness in which our spirits, rather than our passions, are in control of our faculties, and the same can be said for the people that we spend our time around. We don't need to worry about flying into a frenzy of rage or terror, and we also don't need to worry about people being provoked into rage and terror by images they see in the glass screens that are gates to Hell. 

Let's assume all of these things, and then one thing more. Let's assume that even though they can't reason or reflect, the demons are smart. They are older than we are, and they got here ahead of us. They're smart enough to know strategic thinking, and to apply it against us. 

If so, they are already making use of all of the foregoing points of advice from Sun Tzu. 

If that is the case, how does that modify your response to the situation? 

"Hold out baits to entice the enemy." Has anyone-- or rather, anything-- ever done that to you, on the television news or social media? "If he is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him." This goes back to the discussion of Seneca's De Irae. Anger is a poor general, and will always lead you badly. "Give him no rest." Does your phone give you a chance to rest? Does the 24-hour news cycle?

Right now the enemy is superior in strength. We would do well to evade him. 

We'll return to Sun Tzu tomorrow. Today I want to check in with our old friend, 19th century occultist Eliphas Levi. 

In Chapter 6 of Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, Levi discusses the nature of the Astral Light. The Astral Light is his term for the total collection of shared images, feelings, and impulses which act upon us as individuals and as a society. Whether or not the Astral Light "really exists" is totally immaterial to what follows. 

Levi writes:


Does that remind you of anyone?

If you've been watching the news for the last.... ever, it should.

But now I'm talking about other people. 

I've noticed that, when I let my mind think about the news, or about politics, it does the following. First, it conjures up an image of someone on the Other Side. When I was younger and liberal, this was a conservative; now that I'm older and conservative, it's a liberal. Then it sets the image into motion; like an idiotic puppet, it repeats whatever the Other Side's propaganda line of the day is.

Freedom! 9/11! 'Murica! You're with us or with the terrorists! God, guns, and guts! Terrorists, terrorists everywhere!

Racist! Sexist! White privilege! Anything I don't like is Hitler! Russians, Russians everywhere!

I then respond by becoming angrier and angrier. Sometimes-- not always, but often enough-- may God forgive me-- I find a real-life person who reminds me just a little too much of the image in my mind, and I lash out at them. I'm always thinking that telling people how dumb they are will convert them to my cause. Somehow, it keeps never working.

This, of course, is precisely what Levi is talking about. The cartoon caricature of the Other Side is an image, reflected in the Astral Light. There are many, many such reflections, and when our minds are left to their own devices, they are led about by them like a dog on a leash. 


The Astral Light-- the ideas and images that we live with-- the memes that compose our culture from moment to moment, if you like-- are always present. So what can we do to free ourself of its domination?

Levi is clear:

Meditation, prayer, and spiritual practice are the only methods I know for achieving this. At times like these, when the Astral Light is filled with maddening reflections driving the most ordinary people to violence, spiritual practice is especially important. Pick a God, any God-- just pick God, or the Devil will surely pick you. 



Over at her blog, my friend Violet has some very good suggestions in this regard.

Sun Tzu's 5th constant factor is Method and Disicipline:


As always, we have to remember that most of us aren't fighting a war or applying this guide to warfighting. Method and Discipline are, of course, critical to any undertaking. To consider a few examples:

If your goal is to get a job, then you will need to set aside time every day to research job opportunities, call companies, and send out resumes. You will do best-- I think most of us know this-- if you treat your job search as a job in itself, and show up to your computer at 8:00, dressed for work. 

If your goal is attainment in any sort of art, or craft, or for that matter any sport or skill of any other kind, you will need to set aside time to practice every day. We talked about writing a few posts back. For some reason, writers or would-be writers would bend over backwards in order to find excuses not to write. You've heard of writer's block. Have you ever heard of baker's block, runner's block, boxer's block or hunter's block? It's a good thing there's no construction worker's block, or no work would ever get done. If legislator's block exists, I've never heard of it; more's the pity. In any case, the point is this: If you want to attain anything, you have to work for it. 

The reverse is also true. Whatever you are will be the sum total of whatever you do with your time. Nothing more, and nothing less.

 Let's move on with some more Sun Tzu.

Our next two conditions to take into account are Heaven and Earth.


We can say that Heaven refers to Time, Earth to Space. Or we can say that Heaven means Conditions, Earth, Locations. 

If we take these things into account, we can help achieve our goals-- military or otherwise. July is a bad time to apply for a ski resort in the northern Hemisphere, but a good time for a beach vacation; November is a fine time to release a Christmas album, but a bad time to invade Russia. And everyone who has ever been in a romantic relationship knows that there are good times and bad times for any sort of conversation. If what you want is an affordable home to rent or buy, the Midwest is a good place to look; Manhattan is not. Social media is a good place to market products such as online classes, but a very bad place to resolve political disputes. 

Those who practice spirituality or magic of any kind will know that there are esoteric dimensions to both of these. Astrological conditions and days of the week can be favorable or unfavorable for particular goals. Wednesdays, belonging to Mercury, are good for anything involving communication; Saturdays, belonging to Saturn, are good for settling debts. For Christians, the saints are traditionally evoked on their feast days, of course. Some also have days of the week or months of the year. In Western Christianity Saturday is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for example, while Wednesdays are St. Joseph's. 

In spiritual practice, "Earth" can refer both to the terrain, material or otherwise, that you wish to "occupy," or to places in which to do your work. That is: If you plan to petition St. Joseph to help you get a job at a construction firm, the terrain refers to both the company that you want to work for and to a nearby church dedicated to St. Joseph, where you might go and light a candle or make a donation to ask the saint's intercession. If you're hoping, on the other hand, to make contact with Earth spirits, a forested mountaintop or a deep cavern is your best bet-- not a skyscraper!

For any action that we undertake to further our goals, let us ask ourselves, "Is this the right time for this? Is this the right place and setting for this? If not, what might be " 

Another note on Anger from Seneca.


Among faithful Catholics, for whom the confession of sins to a priest is necessary for salvation, there is an issue known as scrupulosity. This is the process of constant self-judgment and self-recrimination which can drive a person insane if it goes too far.

Now, whether the Catholic Church, by mandating confession, sets people up for this sort of mental disorder is beside the point. If you look at manuals on how to make a good confession, scrupulosity is often addressed, and the would-be penitent reminded that they do not have to confess, as sins, those fleeting thoughts and emotions which enter their minds in response to external stimuli.

The sin is not a sudden feeling or thought. The sin is acting upon the sudden feeling or thought.

***

I've noticed that the comments have dropped off as I've pushed this particular piece of Seneca's, and I'm going to turn to something else soon. But there are at least two reasons I want to work with this one.

The first is straightforward enough. I think Seneca is right about the passions in general and anger particularly. When I was growing up, when a family member would fly off the handle and go on a screaming fit, it would be attributed to their "Italian temper." Later on in life, I heard the same things about "Irish tempers" and "Polish tempers." On a similar note, I've heard the following reasons given for drunkenness: Irish, Polish, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Korean. I conclude that people simply like making excuses for their bad behavior. (It's worth noting that in almost every case, the individuals in question were American, at least according to their passports.) I don't want to be that way. 

The second is that anger, as I've written before, our society is designed to lead us about by our passions. PR men, advertisers, and political hacks use the instincts toward rage, fear, lust and sociability to overcome our reasoning minds and lead us toward whatever behaviors they like. They use tv shows, commercials, memes, and social media tricks like "Downvotes" and "Like buttons." And we end up like cattle, led to despise certain groups and behaviors, support this or that candidate, and repeat the words of others instead of thinking our own thoughts.

Just a few minutes ago, I looked at Facebook, and I saw the following "conversation." One woman posted a lengthy account purporting to be the story of a man who received the coronavirus vaccine and had a very bad adverse reaction. Another woman commented "I am grateful to have received my vaccine this week. Trust the science." Now, "Trust the science" is not even grammatical, since "The science" is not a discrete thing, preferably a person, in which one can place trust and distrust. Moreover, I can guarantee that the woman who insisted that we "trust the science" has not spent so much as 30 seconds looking at or considering any of the scientific research around the vaccine, nor would she even be able to do so if she wanted to. And, of course, the words "Trust the science" are not her own. It's a slogan which was probably cooked up by the kinds of think-tanks whose job it is to produce easily-marketable talking points. She either heard it on TV or read it on the internet somewhere.

Of course, the first woman is just as guilty. Her part in the conversation consisted of re-posting someone else's words, verbatim, without comment. Does she have her own thoughts on them? Who knows. In both cases, you have human beings acting not even like animals, because animals at least make their own yowls, cries and growls. They're acting, instead, like robots. When you were a kid, did you ever turn two wind-up toys loose on the kitchen floor, to try to get them to "fight" each other? That's virtually all that most of us are these days. Little toys, wound up and set against each other by people with the minds of children. 

In the name of God, let's try and be better than that! "If you can control yourself, no one else can control you."