Andrew Torba / Gab (Gab.com / Gab.ai) / Dissenter (dissenter.com) - An incompetent captain sinking millions of other people's dollars.

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I’m pretty sure Mark didn’t read the whole thing. You can link to other sites, you just can’t use your Twitter account to shill for your account on some other website, which is what Gab’s Twitter account did a lot.
No, Mark, Elon doesn't mention Gab because Gab sucks and the only people who still use it are old people like you who still believe Torba's free speech bullshit.
Mark’s probably the kind of guy who thought Elon Musk buying Twitter meant it’d be some hellscape where you could just spam racial slurs every day. All Musk has done is try to set things up so Twitter could be an asset to communicate and connect the world, and clean up and undo the effects of the inmates running the asylum, and firing those who used the site to push agendas and cause harm to their enemies.

The Gab crowd just wants to talk about how the Jews run everything and how the FBI needs to be abolished because they help their hated archenemy in the government.

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"Elon might step down from Twitter? I gotta make this about me!"

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Denying the Holocaust and simping for the Nazis to own the libs.

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Denying the Holocaust and simping for the Nazis to own the libs.

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Seems like a decent argument, not that fascism would ever work in America.
But definitely more coherent than the average MIGA drain da swamp, two more weeks babble.

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I bet Peterstein would be absolutely fuming at this one... "You EVIL RAT"
 
Happy New Year!



Gab.com’s 2022 Accomplishments And 2023 Plans​

DECEMBER 22, 2022
First of all I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a heartfelt thank you for your continued support of the important work we are doing here at Gab to defend the freedom of speech and build the Parallel Economy. We had an incredible year in 2022 and we accomplished so much together as a community. Please pray that God will continue to bless our community, team, and work in 2023 and beyond.

Let’s recap some of our most exciting accomplishments and milestones from this year and outline our plans for 2023.​


As of December 15th, 2022, we have over 85.8 million monthly visits from 20.12 million unique visitors in the past 30 days.​




According to Wolfram Alpha as of October, 2022, Gab has more traffic – in terms of hits per day – than all other alt-tech microblogging platforms combined, despite not having access to app stores, cloud hosting providers, and other services that many in the space still depend on to operate. Other alt-tech platforms rely on Big Tech cloud infrastructure and app stores in order to operate and distribute their products. Therefore, they are beholden to Big Tech’s censorship while Gab is not.

Some of these other platforms even use Big Tech’s systems to automatically censor content, thus defeating the purpose of claiming to be a free speech alternative to Big Tech. Gab’s exposure to Big Tech censorship is a less significant problem for Gab than for other alt-tech companies, as Gab has already been banned from Big Tech infrastructure and rebuilt our own resilient infrastructure that we cannot be removed from. This gives us the unique opportunity in the marketplace to provide a true free speech platform, which, judging by Gab’s advantage in user traffic over that of alt-tech competitors, we believe the market wants.

We believe Gab is the only social network in the world that allows First Amendment protected free speech online with the resilient infrastructure required to maintain that mission free from outside influence, but you don’t have take our word for it.

A Pew Research report dated October 6th, 2022 about Gab and competitors BitChute, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram, and Truth Social said “[j]ust one site – Gab – does not appear to moderate content in the same way other sites do. While it does take steps to remove spam and follow legal requirements… researchers did not find examples of the site [Gab] removing posts or accounts due to misinformation or offensive or harassing content.

After the work we completed in 2022 we now have our own servers, our own payment processor and our own in-house technology tools. These resources allow us to operate free from outside influence and pressure to censor First Amendment-protected speech which is prevalent elsewhere on the Internet–including on other alt-tech sites.

This year we shipped several major services to help propel the Parallel Economy on Gab.​

Gab is home to the Parallel Economy, a digital economy and community of like-minded businesses, families, organizations, and people who share a broad common set of fundamental Biblical and Western values. You can buy, sell, trade, market, advertise, engage with customers, process payments, grow and even start a business in the Parallel Economy using Gab’s various products and services. The concept of the Parallel Economy is simple: stop giving money to people who hate you and start supporting businesses, organizations, and people who share your values.

We launched Gab Marketplace this year, which is a feature within Gab Social where users can buy and sell goods and services from one another. The Marketplace is great for small business owners and entrepreneurs who are just getting their business started. It is also a great resource for users who have things around the house that they want to get rid of. The Gab community uses the Marketplace in a wide variety of ways including for job postings, classifieds and direct commerce.

We also launched Gab Voice this year. Gab Voice is our video conferencing and live streaming platform. GabPRO subscribers can create Gab Voice rooms that are private or public. They can host video calls and audio-only calls, and also share their screen with other viewers. Think of it as Zoom, in the web browser, with a live streaming component.

Finally, we launched GabPay this year. GabPay is our in-house payment processor. We built GabPay after Gab was banned from payment processors like Paypal, Stripe, Square and many more. GabPay is a Paypal and Stripe alternative that is powering the parallel economy on Gab. We not only use GabPay to process our own transactions, but also are onboarding other businesses to provide payment processing to them as well. GabPay operates as a peer-to-peer payment processing platform, with a similar experience to Paypal. As part of our operational plan for 2023 we plan to integrate GabPay into all of Gab’s services for things like tipping, e-commerce, and monetization of content for Gab users.

What a year. Here is what we have planned for 2023.​

In 2023 we will invest heavily in application and network security, and increase redundancy across our hardware and software stacks. While we currently operate out of multiple data centers, we intend to at least triple the number of locations over the next 1-2 years, and build out our own “edge” network services, such as a content delivery network (CDN) to improve performance. We will continue to purchase new servers and storage devices, to furnish the new facilities, upgrade existing facilities, and accommodate our increased growth. With this, we will improve and expand our existing systems and procedures around data storage and backups, infrastructure monitoring, and fault tolerance.

Gab Cloud: The Backbone of The Parallel Economy​


Part of what makes Gab unique is that we own and operate our own infrastructure, the Gab Cloud. This allows us to remain true to our mission of defending free speech online for all people by not having to answer to third-party providers who do not share our values. The image above is high level overview our plans to expand the Gab Cloud as part of the growth and infrastructure expansion plan for 2023 and 2024.

We will also continue and improve upon our successful bug bounty program, working with outside teams to identify and mitigate potential logic or security issues before they could be discovered or used to disrupt the platform by those with nefarious intent. Currently we operate a number of satellite services as separate websites, such as GabTV, Trends, GabPay and our Shop.

Work has already begun on a new and unified frontend for Gab, which will eventually bring all of these various services together under one umbrella. This new interface is a major development project, the most ambitious and complex mission we’ve embarked on. We can’t wait to share more with you about this exciting project in the New Year.


Let’s look at some of the other giants we conquered in 2022.​


We received a letter from Congress.​



We responded to Congress with a public letter.​


We also wrote a public response to FBI Director Christopher Wray.​


We made it clear that Gab is the one and only Home of Free Speech on Timcast.



We were given free advertising on the Rachel Maddow show.​




We were given millions of dollars in free advertising from the Josh Shapiro campaign.​


We published a best-selling book that sold tens of thousands of copies and made it to Amazon’s best-seller list.​



We added reactions to posts.​


We added content discovery and sorting across all feeds.​


We added the ability to attach up to 8 images/videos to each post as well as the ability to direct message images and video.​



We added a new feature called “context” to posts.​



We added a new quick and easy way to access your Shortcuts (you can shortcut any profile or group for quick access.)​



We added a new way to explore and discover videos, memes, polls, and other content across Gab.​


We added the ability to easily search all of your statuses and delete them.​


We released the first Parallel Economy Shopping Catalog.​



We helped an Amish farmer.​


We built the leading pro-privacy alt-tech advertising platform that is not dependent in any way on Big Tech for businesses of all sizes to reach an audience on Gab and Gab TV.​



Thank you for an incredible year.​


Merry Christmas!​

 
Rule Brittania!




The Gab Files: UK Government Demands Gab Ban A User For “Stirring Up Hatred”​

DECEMBER 29, 2022
Gab is going to begin publishing the purely censorship-based inbound requests that we receive from governments. These are the cases where for the most part European bodies like the Met and Europol send us transparently political takedown requests with no law enforcement purpose. Essentially they’re trying to silence a person that they’ve already thrown in prison or are about to. If they don’t want us to talk about these frivolous requests, they can stop sending them to us.
Welcome to the Gab Files.

Today we received one such request from the UK government.
They cited Public Order Act 1986 which says the following:
(1)A person who publishes or distributes written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting is guilty of an offence if—(a) he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred(b) having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby

They didn’t tell us who the person is who allegedly broke this dystopian nonsense law, they didn’t tell us whether the content which they convicted him of was found on our site, and they didn’t specify which posts, if any, actually violated UK law.
They simply told us that they imprisoned someone for expressing wrongthink online, that person had a Gab account and the UK government expected us to unperson this person from the Internet at their behest when no violation of our TOS was found.
Gab is an American company which operates its business in accordance with U.S. law. Gab has no business or operations in the United Kingdom of any kind, nor does it inquire as to, or log, the residence or criminal records of its users or readers.
Gab’s policy is to not remove material unless it violates Gab’s terms of service which was drafted in accordance with US law, in particular the First Amendment.
“Hate speech” or “offensive speech” as such is not illegal here and in fact benefits from unambiguous constitutional protection backed by a half-century of precedent.
Our response to the UK is the same as it is to Germany, France, China, and every other country who tries to remove lawful content from the American Internet: get bent.
Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus Christ is King of kings
 



Our 2023 Vision For Gab and The Parallel Economy​

JANUARY 1, 2023
I’m bored with national politics.

I’m done wasting my time, energy, and focus on a rigged system led by blackmailed degenerates who supposedly represent us. I’m done caring what the spineless godless cowards and grifters on both the political left and the right have to say because at the end of the day they are all liberals in one form or another whether they realize it or not. I look back at all the time I invested in national politics over the past few years and can’t help but come to the conclusion that there are far better uses of my energy.
It’s time to accept the reality that America is already starting to balkanize and that the wicked American Regime will inevitably fall under the righteous judgement of God. There are no political solutions to spiritual problems and America is undoubtably a spiritually dead nation.
Our love of God is what made the United States united from its founding. We removed God from the equation over the past several decades and now predictably there is nothing left to hold us all together. The only thing Republicans and Democrats in Congress seem to agree on is sending more of our money to Israel and Ukraine. Count me out. Rome is burning and it’s time for us to start organizing, preparing, and building anew instead of pontificating about national politics in the corrupt and fundamentally broken system that is liberal democracy.
Republicans need to recognize the stark reality that winning in 2024 is a pipe dream. With Democratic control secured in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan the fix is in and electoral victory is impossible at the Presidential level. I don’t care if it’s Trump or DeSantis, winning electorally without these states isn’t possible and it might not happen ever again. We didn’t fix what happened in 2020 and they did it again in 2022. Do you really believe they won’t do the same thing again in 2024? Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. I won’t be fooled again.

Go And Build​

We believe that building the Parallel Economy is the most important thing we can be doing instead of being distracted with the donor class dog and pony show that is national politics. We will be building the infrastructure needed for communication, commerce, education, networking, and information. This infrastructure will be built, owned, used by, and controlled by God-fearing Christians.
To be clear you can still post about national politics on Gab. Obviously nothing is changing with our free speech policy. I’m talking about myself personally and professionally here. National politics isn’t going to be a big focus of mine or of the Gab team. I will be focused on building real solutions, raising my children outside of the beast system, and worshipping Jesus Christ. I hope I can encourage you to do the same.

Our Responsibility To Be Good Stewards of the Blessings From God​

God has blessed Gab with tremendous influence, reach, and a growing community of the greatest people on the internet. I no longer have any desire to use that influence and reach to prop up politicians who continually fail to cross the Rubicon or accomplish much of anything outside of fundraising on the outrage of good and decent people in this country and sending our money to foreign countries.
Instead I want to use the platform and reach that God has blessed us with to glorify Him by empowering others to speak freely and engage in commerce with businesses and people who share their values.
I want to inspire young men and women to get married and make babies. I want to encourage Christians to take dominion of their local communities and rise to positions of power across media, education, entertainment, and business. I want to focus on becoming a better Christian, a better leader, a better husband, and a better father while helping others to do the same. Finally I want to continue building the tools and infrastructure at Gab to make all of this possible at scale for tens of millions of people.

We Worship God, Not “Liberal Democracy”​

As John Adams once said: our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Our government, culture, technology, media, and education system is currently being run by usurers, degenerates, liars, crooks, swindlers, sheisters, and predators who reject and hate Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Until that changes, nothing else will. Change starts at home and in particular with the man in the mirror.
A society run by these wicked people is doomed to failure. A national political system rigged to “elect” these people into power is not a system worth defending. Democracy is not our god and liberalism is a cancer on the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. Both of them can and will crumble into ash for all I care. America was founded as a Constitutional Republic, not a “Liberal Democracy.”
There are few things I hate more in this world than liberalism. “Liber” means “free” as in the word liberate. The ideology of liberalism “frees” society and the individual from God and in return enslaves them to Satan and sin. Liberalism is unequivocally the single most destructive ideology in history and enabled one of the largest genocides ever with the murder of tens of millions of God’s precious children in the womb. Liberalism destroyed a millennium of Western society, culture, and homogeneity in about a century.
Lest we forget the wise words of Dr. E. Michael Jones: sexual liberation—which is a byproduct of liberalism—is political control. I pray everyday that God continues His righteous judgement on the failed ideology of liberal democracy and that one day very soon it will be thrown into the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Trust The Plan, God’s Plan​

We must accept the reality that we can’t control what the people “in power” are doing. We must accept the hard truth that we can’t even vote them out. All hope is not lost though. We worship the God who has total and complete power over everything. He has blessed us with the ability to influence and build our own families, churches, and local communities.
So that is what must do. We must build and be patient. Being patient doesn’t mean passivity. It means waiting on the Lord by placing our trust in Him while at the same time taking action to defend and preserve our families, faith, and way of life. Rome may be burning, but the fire is not out yet. When it is we will be prepared with our stable families, technology, communities, and the infrastructure needed to rebuild Western nations for the glory of God. Those who put their faith in themselves, in national politics, in politicians, or in anything other than Jesus Christ will be doomed to disappointment and failure.
As I wrote in our best-selling book Christian Nationalism:
We can and must reclaim and maintain our townships, school boards, and counties. Then our state legislatures. Then the entire nation. In order to do so we must exit the beast system completely and build our own parallel Christian society, lying in wait for their system to collapse which is when the Godly infrastructure we have built will fill the vacuum. We must support, start, and grow Christian-owned businesses. We must stop using the technology tools of the enemy and start building and using our own.
Christian Nationalism
pg. 54
Christian Nationalism isn’t about trying to reclaim or takeover the existing political system. We don’t want to preserve or control the failed and dying political framework that is liberal democracy. We want to reclaim our families, local communities, churches, and most importantly: our own minds. Trying to reclaim the existing political system is like trying to become the captain on the Titanic as it is sinking. America has hit several icebergs. They are taking down the ship whether we like it or not.
Christian Nationalists must build our own ark and sail to better waters. That’s what we are doing here at Gab: building a digital ark and empowering tens of millions of people to build arks for their families, local communities, businesses, and churches.
In many ways we are no different than the first century Christians. It feels like God is hitting the reset button on Christendom and we are being tasked with rebuilding the great Cathedrals which have been all but overtaken by the Synagogue of Satan. We will likely never see the completion of these new Cathedrals in our lifetimes, but by the Grace of God our kin will if we start laying the foundation today.

How To Fight Back​

The Globalists can subvert and control the entire American political system, but they can’t stop you from starting a family and being fruitful as God commands. They can’t stop you from being happy despite their control and chaos. They can’t stop you from worshipping Christ. They can’t stop you from getting healthy and eliminating sin and vice from your life.
You want to fight back? This is how: focus on what you can control. You can control how you raise your children. You can control the content you consume. You can control what you eat and what you do with your time. You can control how and where you spend your money. Focus on these things and stop being so concerned and absorbed in things beyond your control, like national politics.

Gab’s Focus for 2023​

Our content theme at Gab in 2023 is going to be focused on producing, promoting, and elevating people and businesses who provide resources and information on: Homesteading, Homeschooling, and Homemaking. We are working towards building a digital Christian nation that operates in parallel to the corrupt American kingdom and its wicked culture. That kingdom is not ours. It will fall. It’s time to start acting like it and building for the glory of God’s Kingdom. We hope you’ll join us.
I know I am not alone in this type of thinking because I’ve made many posts on this topic in recent months and these concepts are resonating with people who are disillusioned, disgusted, and demoralized with the state of things.
I’m here to tell you that a Parallel Christian Society is not only possible, it’s happening right now on Gab and in small communities across the nation. Do not despair. God is judging our nation, but we must remain His faithful and obedient children who keep the faith and trust Him even when times get tough. The time to repent and follow Jesus Christ is right now. Take the leap of faith and go all in.
To Him be the glory and honor and power forever amen.
Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus Christ is King of kings
 
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It's been a week, hasn't it?





Damar Hamlin and Pursuing the Truth in The Empire of Lies​

JANUARY 5, 2023
by Pastor Andrew Isker
On Monday night, in the nationally televised game between the Bengals and the visiting Buffalo Bills, Bills safety Damar Hamlin was hit as he tackled Bengals receiver Tee Higgins. After the play, Hamlin popped up, adjusted his helmet, then suddenly collapsed backwards to the ground. First responders applied a defibrillator to Hamlin and then performed CPR for 9 minutes, as players from both teams gathered to pray for him. His heartbeat was restored and he was transported to a nearby hospital.
The violence of the hit was unremarkable for an NFL game. There are dozens of plays a game at least as brutal as the Hamlin-Higgins tackle, in hundreds of games a year. Never in 103 years has an NFL player suffered cardiac arrest after taking a shoulder pad to the chest. Immediately, before a single physician had even examined Hamlin, the memo went out: the only possible explanation for this is commotio cordis, an extremely rare condition caused by a blow to the chest within a precise, 20-millisecond window. Out of the millions of people who play contact sports every year, there are only about 10-20 incidences of this freak event, almost all of them in children under the age of 18. Never has this happened to the grown men in the NFL, either in a game or on the practice field. And, apparently, commotio cordis responds well to defibrillation, which was unsuccessful in Hamlin’s case.

It appears very likely that something else was the cause of Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, and there is a hundred-billion-dollar-plus elephant standing right on the 50-yard line. The NFL is very proud of its role in the propaganda push to inject every American with mRNA gene therapy. They boast of the high injection rates of players (and their requirement of all other staff to be injected), and happily demonized holdouts like high-profile quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rodgers. In the case of the former, his (now-fired) head coach publicly vilified him and brought Fauci-clones in to regularly harangue him. In the case of the latter, who had been one of the media’s most-beloved stars, he became public enemy number one in the sport. Rodgers’ interviews on Rogan, where he persuasively demonstrated clear thinking and sharp logic on the forbidden subject of the mRNA injections only inflamed the wrath of every midwitted, neck-bearded sportswriter and fan who collectively foamed at the mouth over Cousins’ and Rodgers’ blasphemy of “The Science.”
What was the fear of Rodgers’ and Cousins’ (and millions of Americans) over the mRNA injections? That the potential for serious short-term and long-term health problems on a product rushed into production in less than a year was far too high, much less for someone who was at almost no risk of death or serious illness from the Covid-19 bioweapon. For anyone with no co-morbidities, such as elite athletes, it made absolutely no sense to take an experimental medical treatment with unknown efficacy and unknown side effects for a disease that poses almost no threat. It was very simple, very obvious logic. And time has only vindicated all those who refused. And the terrifying Hamlin incident just might be vindication before tens of millions that cannot be ignored.

Of course, the odds we will ever see a report stating “Hamlin suffered vaccination-induced myocarditis which was the underlying cause of his cardiac arrest” are lower than you personally suffering commotio cordis—almost zero. The NFL, one of the single-most important propaganda arms of the entire regime, is in a difficult position. They will have to either 1. admit their pushing of the mRNA therapy has made 95% of their players a ticking timebomb (never going to happen), 2. Their world-renowned medical staff completely missed a congenital heart defect in a million-dollar elite athlete (also highly unlikely), or 3. Tell tens of millions of moms and dads that their little boy could also have his heart stopped if he gets hit the wrong way playing this game (the option they have chosen thus far). That they would rather suffer such extremely bad PR for a game that is already facing increasing levels of scrutiny over the safety and health of players, tells you just how important the propaganda over the “vaccines” is to the Regime.
Of course, we are unlikely to ever know the truth of what caused Hamlin’s heart to stop. The one-in-many-millions odds of commotio cordis is a plausible explanation if you want what happened to Hamlin to be anything other than the medical experiment you took part in. The typical American consumer of ProductTM doesn’t care about the truth, he wants to be entertained, and he would rather be lied to while he is robbed, maimed, and dispossessed. This explains the unfettered rage provoked by discussing the possibility of the mRNA experiment and Hamlin’s cardiac arrest. The aphorism attributed to Mark Twain is as true in 2022 as when he (allegedly) first said it: “it is much easier to fool someone than it is to convince them they have been fooled.”

But for those few who do want the truth, the past few years, if not earlier, you have by necessity developed a heuristic of suspicion. This is very wise. If you know someone personally who has lied to you repeatedly, you would be foolish to completely trust any claim they make. The same logic applies to institutions that have repeatedly lied to you about nearly everything: the origins of the Covid-19 virus, the necessity and efficacy of lockdowns and masks, the danger and supposed ineffectiveness of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, the Russian collusion hoax, the “mostly peaceful” BLM riots, “the most secure election in history,” “the most appalling violence on American shores since the Civil War,” the January 6 U.S. Capitol Protest, and the “totally safe and 100% effective Covid vaccines.” All of it has been nothing but lies. Absurd lies. Lies the Soviet Union wouldn’t even dare to tell the peasant slaves it ground into dust.
In this context, we have the Hamlin cardiac arrest. It is possible that it could be what they are saying it is. Even if the odds are astronomical, it is of course still possible. But at a certain point, the odds become so low that alternative explanations become more plausible to reasonable people. On the morning of September 11, 2001, after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center, it appeared that despite the extremely low probability of something like this occurring, there had been a tragic accident. After the second plane hit, the odds of it not being intentional became so low you would have to use scientific notation and numbers that have never been named to quantify the probability. If there is a second or third cardiac instance in the NFL over the next season or two, it will be impossible for anyone to believe there is now an epidemic of commotio cordis. That is obviously not anything anyone is hoping for, but it is the only way there can be any certainty about this for all of us who live in the Empire of Lies. We are forced to assume we are lied to about everything, and you do not need to apologize for connecting the epidemic of heart issues among young, healthy 20-year-olds and a 24-year-old elite athlete’s heart-stopping on live national television. If the mRNA injections are killing people, they will not be able to cover it up forever, but after witnessing the reaction to the possibility that Hamlin’s heart-stopping might be related to the shot, many, many more young healthy people will be sacrificed at the altars of Science and Mammon before justice is done.
 
Who's ready for a sermon?



The War Against Chaos​

JANUARY 13, 2023
by J.Pilgrim
I’m typing this out while I’m racked out in the back of my SUV in a Walmart parking lot in a college town, sipping a beer. I was attempting to spend New Year’s Day camping at the homestead, but my fan belt frayed out on the drive and ripped off the top of the dipstick. I assume that the fan belt is a delayed casualty of the sub-zero cold we had a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t know for sure. I do know I’m not going to risk driving home and having the belt completely fall apart.

Life is a war. Sometimes we win our battles, sometimes we don’t. We fight against the world to keep the faith, to hold families together, to pay bills, and to keep vehicles running. Often it seems that the war of a man’s life is simply an unending fight against entropy, Chaos, and decay. Especially if one drives an older vehicle.

Trying to start a homestead is another battle against entropy. God commanded Noah to take dominion over the Earth and commanded Adam in a similar fashion. Taking dominion means imposing order on the chaos, putting things into their proper place. The first acts of the Creation were acts of imposing order. Light was created, then separated from darkness. Sky, Earth, and Water were then separated from each other.

Homesteading is about order, and it’s also about creation. Turning wild grass into gardens, turning hillsides into terraces, turning trees into houses. It’s common to think of nature as being full of life, and it is, but it’s chaotic and unproductive life. It’s the job of the homesteader to rule that land, to impose order, and set boundaries so that life can flourish in a good way.
In ancient times, the word “symbolon”, from which we get “symbol”, referred to a practice by which an agreement was written on pottery and then broken. This was done so that each party had a piece of the “symbol” and the pieces could be rejoined to show that the agreement existed. “Symbols” bring things together to show an agreement and a relationship.
In Orthodoxy, we use ikons as symbols. The ikon represents a saint or event and thus helps to link us to our history, the saints, and to God. We don’t venerate painted wood any more than a soldier saluting his flag is paying respect to colored cloth. An ikon may be imbued by God with His Grace and do something miraculous, such as stream myrrh, but it’s never the wood itself that does it.

The opposing word to “symbolon” is “diabolos”. It means to separate things. It’s where we get the word “devil”, by the way. It’s also pretty much the devil’s MO: He separates us from God, from each other, and from the natural order of things. Adam was evicted from the Garden of Eden and forced to live on cursed earth. Mankind slowly disintegrated from one couple living in harmony with each other, nature, and God to billions of people who ignore each other on the street and occasionally throw fission bombs around.

Of course, the only real antidote to Chaos is to draw close to Christ, and to be of one mind with each other, as Christ and the Father are of one mind. In a monastic setting, the monks choose to be strictly obedient to their Abbot, while married laity are supposed to be strictly obedient to each other. A marriage counselor will speak endlessly about the necessity of good communication, but that’s only a means to the end of one being fully in step with the other.

I’m wrapping this up a week later in a different Walmart. I ended up troubleshooting the fan belt issue to a failing power steering pump. That repair work led to noticing a screw embedded in a tire, so it feels like I’ve come full circle.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve developed a strong foundation of mechanical skills that allows me to handle a lot of vehicular chaos. God has blessed me with some excellent teachers, and a vehicle that’s not really that hard to work on. With practice, experience, and a lot of research, I’m pretty confident in my ability to keep our vehicles running.
If only I’d spent the same amount of effort developing a spiritual foundation. My profession has forced me to develop my mechanical skills, but I never focused on spiritual discipline in the same way. I often feel like I’m, if not spiritually adrift, then only anchored with a fishing line. I mostly rely on the people around me to keep me on the right path, but if they’re not around, my life falls into Chaos really fast.
I can learn just about everything about turning wrenches or building a homestead from the internet. There’s almost certainly a book on whatever I need to know, and there’s probably a walkthrough video on YouTube. So I spend a LOT of time and effort doing just that, and yet all that knowledge wouldn’t help me unless I went out and applied it to my vehicle with my hands. And it is to my shame that the exact same things are true about Orthodoxy. There are thousands of books to read, endless lectures to listen to, and videos to watch. But all that knowledge rattling around in my head won’t matter unless I put in the effort to apply it to my own life.

Liberalism, as Met. Jonah phrased it at last year’s Orthodox MontaNiKa conference, is “anti life.” It has not simply infected the modern world, it created it. The systematic destruction of the family, of the religion-centered social order, of the God-ordained monarchies, all of it led not to an improved order, but more and more Chaos. And in every form, Chaos leads to death.

God isn’t simply pro-life in the Abortion debate, God is pro-Human Life. A full, healthy, Eternal life, lived in full communion with not only God, but each other, and with nature. There are numerous historical saints who lived in communion with the local wildlife, and in some cases, the local wildlife lived peacefully with each other at monasteries.
It’s up to us to return to that life. We’re the ones who have to repent and return to God. And not just in some hippy-dippy (Satanic) “Jesus loves you just the way you are” way, but by taking up our crosses and applying what we know at every opportunity until that Faith truly becomes our foundation. It’s up to us to resist the modern world and all of the chaos that comes with it.

This is our war.
Let’s go win it.

J. Pilgrim is a, mostly, internet anon and actual Homesteader, carving out a future for his family in the woods.
 
Fellas, this is why you never take meth.

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Jewish conspiracies, not even once.
 
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