In Christ There Can Be No America First

 

    The National Guard and the Marines are called out to California. Making a problem where there wasn’t a problem. Inciting the very riots they claim to control. The President speaks: “Repulse the civilian attack with smoke and tear gas. Fall on them with flames and they will crumble beneath you in the flames of hell. When I damn, I damn them whole. Witches, heretics, libtards, and communist dupes. Perfidious, treacherous, treasonous, disloyal betrayal. The proud Pope presumes to speak of me, of open borders and the forgiveness of debts? Cut and stamped out! Burnt and trampled down! All Arab camel-drivers, terrorists, and drug cartels. True Americans – Real Americans – God Fearing Americans will not march with these.”

    “But all Americans are born heretics,” says a voice.

    “Kill that voice. Shut it down.”

    “The bitter east and the ironic west,” the voice says again and laughs a little.

    “I said kill it! Dead! And who will stand between their throats and our swords? Who will stand between their heads and our batons? Between their hearts and our bullets? Bring back the gallows and the gibbet and the bright burning stake. Flogging, drawing, quartering too. The wheel, the rack for the victim in his misery, in her degradation.”

    “Defund the military. Demilitarize the police,” comes that damned voice again. “Do not deploy the National Guard against freeborn American citizens. Four dead in Oho – how many this time? How many more? Cruelty is the point.”

    “I cannot bear to see my country defeated by cheap-ass foreigners, by traitor Americans, by liberal Nazi scum. The blood and the soil are ours.”

    “This much is true: There is a will to power in the world, and it belongs to you. It is the entrenchment of power. And the enrichment of the powerful.”

    “It is law and order.”

    “It is a calculated escalation. Stop talking of law and justice when you will enforce none but your own.”

    “It is the protection of our Judeo-Christian heritage.”

    “Invariably it is the Christian nationalist that wants something for nothing. Stop talking of God and of prayer when you know neither.”

    There is a blazing rage and a halting, dropping wind that blows across the land. Even the fat-headed fools feel it. The enemy at the gates is our own, is us. We destroy ourselves if we are given the chance. In love with war (of which we can never have enough) as we are... In love with religion (of which we have very little – true religion, pure and undefiled, is this: to care for widows and orphans in their distress) as we are… There is a great noise and big smoke as the national guardsmen storm the streets. More artillery and little art. No heart.

    “Nevermind the tears!” the President says in scorn. “Make for the flash and the gash. Make with the flash and the grenade.” He is as mannerless as dog of war and no joke. Neither angel nor soldier, the yet uncrowned king of America claiming the blood royal.

    “If you cannot rule yourself,” the tired voice speaks from the dark, “how will you rule the nation? Take the crown and the holy oil. Consider nothing and take everything else – but the Church Universal knows only one realm – the realm of Christ the king – and only one law – the law of love. In Christ there is no east, no west. In Christ there can be no America first.”

    “Fewer canons! More cannons! Fire the prelate! Fire the powder! Kill that voice”

    But the voice will not be silenced. “We have lived faith and died. Now we steal away to pray.”