Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s 40!

I've Heard That People Like Lists ... Let's Make Some Lists!

This Substack turns 40 today! Yep, it’s the 40th Wednesday Wakeup article, and I’m doing a “greatest hits” retrospective. I took a quote from each of the previous 39 weekly posts and then made five themed lists:

• Bookworms

• Lookworms

• Hot Sauce

• Mild Sauce

• Chocolate Sauce

Ground rules: Each of the 39 articles appears only once. The date of the article is in parentheses and also links to the original post. Each list’s items are in chronological order from earliest publication date of the article to most recent.

Let’s have some fun with it!

Bookworms

Might as well begin with the book that gave rise to this Substack! Here are 10 excerpts and the 10 articles in which they appeared. Some excerpts appear in more than one article, and some articles have more than one excerpt. But we’ll keep it to one per article for the sake of the list.

Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen is available at Amazon, B&N, Lulu

1. Coercive civil authority is inherently, intrinsically evil. There is no way to make virtuous any institution defined and sustained by the direct infliction and credible threat of harm. (Nov. 15, 2023)

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2. God is all-powerful and all-knowing, but not all-controlling. The urge to control is a human desire based on human psychological weakness; it is not a Divine characteristic. (Nov. 29, 2023)

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3. Good cops kill Jesus. Not bad cops. Not rogue cops. Not corrupt cops. Good cops. … If good neighborliness is to increase in the world, then good citizens from all levels of the imposed, hierarchical social order must be welcomed to bettering their values, perspectives, behaviors, and commitments. (Dec. 27, 2023)

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4. Jesus doesn’t say living this way will be easy;  He says it will be blessed. (Jan. 17, 2024)

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5. What will be, may bring hardship and sacrifice, requiring faith — and some good neighborliness — to withstand.  But for those who persevere, it is worth all the effort, even if not immediately evident. It takes courage — then and now — to realize it. (Mar. 6, 2024)

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6. For God to create the human condition and then take human form and submit to the limits of human life, there must be something beautiful and worthy about being human. (Mar. 20, 2024)

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7. It’s true that people can commit terrible sins, and so create glimpses of Hell on earth. But people can also create glimpses of Heaven on earth, through acts of love, especially mercy. [NOTE: I reprinted much more than these two sentences in the article, but this will suffice for the list] (Apr. 3, 2024)

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8. Good neighbors “insource” their ethics;  charity and friendship are the key virtues of their relationships.  Good citizens “outsource” their ethics;  compliance with the commands of rulers and enforcers is a fundamental and necessary aspect (some might call it a “civic virtue”). Good neighbors consent.  Good citizens conform. (Apr. 17, 2024)

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9. To do God’s will, involves putting aside any control-coveting tendencies and treating others as God does, always respecting the dignity of each person. For a Christian, the ends never justify the means. Evil tactics fundamentally taint any allegedly good goals. (May 15, 2024)

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10. Jesus shows courage in appealing to the scribes and Pharisees as individual persons — as neighbors — rather than as high-status citizens.  Jesus acknowledges the woman’s guilt, but He refuses to endorse the supposedly just command to inflict harm in upholding law and order. (July 31, 2024)

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Lookworms

For 3 articles, I created graphics to emphasize some of the original content. Feel free to share any or all of them on your favorite platforms (and if you’d like to link back to the original article or the main page of GoodNeighborBadCitizen.substack.com that’s even cooler)!

1. (Dec. 6, 2023):

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2. (June 12, 2024):

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3. (July 10, 2024):

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Hot Sauce

A dozen times I got a little spicy and confrontational in the “tone” of my writing.

1. Whenever I’m asked, “Whose side are you on?” the short, to-the-point answer is: “Not yours.” (Dec. 13, 2023)

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2. I’m always skeptical of claiming the origins of something deeply Christian are found in the Constantine and post-Constantine Church. (Dec. 20, 2023)

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3. Too many people worship government, too often until it’s too late. (Jan. 10, 2024)

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4. If anything, government is utopian! … People who build alternatives to the imposed, hierarchical social order and its approved institutions are taking more responsibility for their interactions than if they weakly outsourced their responsibility to official channels. (Jan. 31, 2024)

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5. Migration is a natural human right. Discriminating against people based on the imaginary lines drawn by sociopaths (more commonly known as “political borders”) inevitably interferes with voluntary interactions. (Feb. 7, 2024)

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6. This is one of the most explicitly anarchist teachings in the Gospel.  Jesus flattens the rigid, social-status hierarchy, in word and deed. (Feb. 14, 2024)

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7. And while [Julian] Assange and Wikileaks utilized leaked government material to show atrocities and other deceptions, there’s no evidence that any person’s natural human rights were violated in sourcing or amplifying the stories. (Feb. 28, 2024)

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8. The most popular, fanatical religion in the U.S. — the devotion to imposed order from monopoly-violence institutions — was in session, and some of the most fervent worshipers were “Christian” congregants and clergy. (Mar. 13, 2024)

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9. The worst reaction to Jesus isn’t to reject Him; it’s to manipulate His message to fit some other priority. To reject is to be contra-Christ, but to try to force Jesus to fit into something else is to be anti-Christ. The Anti-Christ — the Impostor, the Spy — is worse than the honest opponent. (Mar. 27, 2024)

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10. When compliance and outsourcing our thinking/beliefs/ethics seem to offer us more safety, we can fall into this animal-survival mode and even defend those who actually endanger us. But succeeding as a mere animal could mean that you’ve failed as a human being. (Apr. 24, 2024)

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11. Well-educated officials (“theology majors”) have been behind practically every major atrocity in hierarchical religions. (May 22, 2024)

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12. All governments are religions, but not all religions are governments. In the Bible, Jesus is shown modeling and teaching the good of religion without all the evil of governments. (June 19, 2024)

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Mild Sauce

Another dozen morsels that are still very flavorful, but without so many Scovilles.

1. Underlying true anarchism is the substance of natural human rights: valid claims that any person can make, pre-politically, simply by virtue of being human. (Nov. 8, 2023)

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2. Like Jesus, like Peter and the other Apostles, like any decent anarchist, we make the world a kinder place when each of us learns to be a “cheerful giver” and a thankful recipient. (Nov. 22, 2023)

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3. At its core, the development of language was decentralized and distributed — it’s practically anarchist! — and it worked! (Jan. 3, 2024)

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4. “Single” may not be a vocation like the others, but it can still be a Christ-aligned way of living. (Jan. 24, 2024)

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5. Real, active-listening encounter and dialogue offer the chance to negotiate differences and develop cognitive empathy with an efficiency and effectiveness not typically found in monologue. (Feb. 21, 2024)

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6. Indeed, to value in-person encounter is necessarily to value the person encountered. (Apr. 10, 2024)

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7. I need to stay alert and pay attention, fulfill my responsibilities and let other people fulfill their responsibilities. Patience and action. (May 1, 2024)

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8. Indeed, to be human is to be limited, but human flourishing is to push against our limits from the inside. (June 5, 2024)

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9. The Early Church took it a step further, seeing the human dignity, not only the utility, of our differences. (June 26, 2024)

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10. Those who genuinely strive to live this way, do so as individuals who are both soulfully centered and socially decentralized; a spiritual union without a mental uniformity; good neighbors, but bad citizens. (July 3, 2024)

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11. Small, private, voluntary connections are little bits of anarchy. No one forces us into them. They happen because people are putting themselves out into the big world, voluntarily, and meeting others as peers in humanity. (July 17, 2024)

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12. Much like how the blueprints are not the house, and the sheet music is not the song — so, too, the metaphor is not the real thing. The map is not the terrain. (July 24, 2024)

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Chocolate Sauce

For dessert. And, yes, it’s a list of only one item; I’m aware of how controversial this is.

1. I began outlining my thoughts for this article while preparing myself a big bowl of ice cream. Because I like to eat healthfully. (May 29, 2024)

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Your turn to give me your list … of Comments!

Let’s begin the salutation with a quote from the only article I haven’t referenced yet.

We’re all here voluntarily — yep, it’s an anarchist/voluntarist Substack! — and it’s a good exercise in Christian neighborliness for me to be open-minded and attentive about the responses. I hope everyone has gotten something out of our interactions! (May 8, 2024)

So … what do you think of this format for an article? Did you get curious and click any links to explore (or reconnect with) an older article?

Do you have a favorite list from today’s article? Favorite quote/graphic? Favorite old article that you remember (or just found today)?

Do you have any quotes you dislike?

Should I try to make graphics out of more quotes? Are those the kinds of content that would attract your attention and make it easier for folks to share my content on Substack Notes and other platforms?

Anything else on your mind as GNBC turns “40”?

I welcome your thoughts in the Comments …