Attacking Earth

Brigade XO wrote:It is possible to see a benifit of the Alignment launching an Oyster Bay type attack on the Sol System.

That would (probably) seriously damage a significant part of the mothballed Reserve Fleet, would gut the Sol orbital infrastructure and might include dropping former RMN and RHN equipment where it would be discovered to point the finger there.

If nothing else, it would be a God Given opportunity for the Mandarins to claim all the propaganda they have been pumping out about Manticore is both true and the League must take heroic and desperate measures (funded by the Members of course) to defeat Manticore and Haven.

That level of hysteria could place the SLN in the position of having to accept terrible losses to attempt to defeat and crush both Manticore and Haven, leading to further problems within the League and hastening the fall. Even though we (as the readers) would expect the GA to keep destroying SLN attacks, the cost of doing so can also seriously damage both Haven and Manticore and further change the political and military mix in the Honorverse

From the MA's perspective, the problem is that such an attack could have negative consequences to their plans. What happens if the League unites in the aftermath of such an attack? They could end up with 1)A strong united League that ends up defeating the GA and becomes unstoppable or 2)The GA destroys every bit of industry in the League after their hand has been forced by such attack. Either way the long term success of the MA would be in jeopardy.

What happens if the League version of the Pierre coup happens? Suddenly the purge that follows takes their agents right along with everyone else and might inadvertently end up saving the league from a threat they don't recognize.


From the League's perspective, if the Mandarins can "prove" that the propaganda they have been feeding their people is right it still leaves them with a problem when it comes to what to do about it.


And lastly from the GA perspective, such an attack would force their hand to go for total war or just surrender at that point. If the MA destroys any chance of the League fracturing into at least nominaly friendly smaller successor states.

darrell wrote:back to the original topic. I can see one circumstance for the GA to directly attack earth.

IF kingsfords commerce raiding stratagy is successful and they capture several manty freighters and crew.

Then IF they bring the freighters and crew back to earth to be held.

Remember the SEM policy on protecting manticoran merchants anywhere against anyone?

The GA would come into earth, blow the c**p out of any SLN units, then leave with the freighters and crew.

Notice those two big if's though. I don't expect it to happen, but it could.

Either way though, strengthening the League's resolve to rescue a few hundred or a few thousand merchant crew would be a hard call. It's one think to send a few ships to a protectorate to get your people back it is a whole other thing to send them to earth to do the same.

kzt wrote:They are doing commerce raiding, not ship collecting. They are going to be blowing freighters into very small pieces at long range, preferably in large numbers. They will pop out of stealth, unload a pod or two of DDMs and bolt. The typical anti-missile and countermeasures capabilities of the typical freighter is nothing, so it's going to get blown up. The freighter crew can choose to bail out of or get all blown up too.

And notice way back when that the RMN was pretty impressed with the stealth system on SLN light vessels.

Only if they are stupid. Although that is a possibility, the commerce raiding strategy did not come from kingsford, so it is possible that someone with some smarts came up with the plan.

Remember the peep commerce raiding operation in silesia? They used 2 ships so they can capture both the ship and the crew.

There is at least three reasons to capture rather than destroy manty shipping.

1. You can sell both the ship and the cargo, which can be sold to help pay for the war (or for kickbacks to the officers.)

2. A SL shipping company now has a new ship that it can use to take up some of the slack in shipping that removing manty ships lost.

3. Thank of the black eye that the SL will get when it comes out that the "brave" SLN is blowing away unarmed merchant ships.

darrell wrote:3. Thank of the black eye that the SL will get when it comes out that the "brave" SLN is blowing away unarmed merchant ships.

They DO NOT CARE. They are in an existential fight. It still beats blowing up towns full of civilians, which the SLN is perfectly willing to do.

And the problem with the others is that the SL is a LONG way from anywhere that Manticore merchants are still operating. They can't take the time to do this.

Brigade XO wrote:That level of hysteria could place the SLN in the position of having to accept terrible losses to attempt to defeat and crush both Manticore and Haven, leading to further problems within the League and hastening the fall. Even though we (as the readers) would expect the GA to keep destroying SLN attacks, the cost of doing so can also seriously damage both Haven and Manticore and further change the political and military mix in the Honorverse

The only cost to destroying SLN fleets is the missiles used in the process. They took casualties at Second Manticore because they allowed Filareta into missile range in an effort to force her surrender. Now that they know that's not practical they'll keep the range open.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:That level of hysteria could place the SLN in the position of having to accept terrible losses to attempt to defeat and crush both Manticore and Haven, leading to further problems within the League and hastening the fall. Even though we (as the readers) would expect the GA to keep destroying SLN attacks, the cost of doing so can also seriously damage both Haven and Manticore and further change the political and military mix in the Honorverse

The only cost to destroying SLN fleets is the missiles used in the process. They took casualties at Second Manticore because they allowed Filareta into missile range in an effort to force her surrender. Now that they know that's not practical they'll keep the range open.

But the SLN has the ships and the systems to absorb the losses if they choose to. Because there are hundreds of shell and core systems the only way for the GA to win in the long term is to break the League into small manageable pieces. If they have to go and smash the league's industry in to little tiny pieces and occupy its systems(with naval forces) they might win in the short term, but in the long term they will become the most hated entity in the galaxy and with prolong the hatred could simmer for a long time during which the GA has to maintain essentially total war footing and step on any system that looks like it is trying to build up its industry.

Yes, but not just Earth. The GA weapons mean you can attack the 30 top worlds, and take them. After that the rest of the League will fall into place. Roll in hit the heaviest of ship military concentrations. Within a year the war will be over and the rest of the League will sue for peace and surrender. Given numbers 6 for the Andermani, 6+3 for Manticore and Grayson plus Mesa and Henkes trail, and 15 one of which is Beowulf, maybe 1 is Roscoe's fleet, that can be done with a Dispatch boat, for the Peeps. The rest of the League will just fall apart. 50 million max will die likely a lot less than that. 3 million and the trillions of the League and all of the GA will be safest. The MAlignment will be hunted by the forces in the dark. Silesia and the Cluster will be protected and manned by locals with the secondary SD and dreadnought fleets, older Battlecruisers and the like. Manticore home is protected by Honor and the system pods. A pair of SD a pair of older BC and a couple hundred MK23 pods can take over the gate defense, could give the SD a pair of Keyhole II each.

All forces then converge on their targets and capture them. Most will surrender after a brief demonstration. The few pigheaded will have their ships removed from their fleets then surrender. One simultaneous strike to capture a million Admirals.

The E wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:This is very true.

Why hasn't the MAlign just gone out to Darius and improved humans into a new species? The Mfecane worlds have nearly succeeded in that goal without the benefit of bio-engineering or a drive to force uplift on all of humanity whether wanted or not.

It is that drive to prove Beowulf wrong by forcing all of humanity to subscribe to their view of bio-engineering that makes the MAlign "evil." If they just went off by themselves nobody would care.

Yes, that's the only serious flaw in the Alignment's plans and general outlook. The Detweilers have elevated a temper tantrum over the way Beowulf treated them to a religion, and along the way have picked up a bit of a messianic streak. If it wasn't for their desire to see Beowulf brought to its knees, they'd be much more successful.

Vince wrote:To which I would add to what makes the Alignment evil this: The Alignment is unwilling to experiment on themselves and their own children, first. Instead they have created whole races (lines) of disposable people in the holy name of genetic improvement of the species, so that those untouchables will do all the suffering while they reap all the rewards.

The Alignment and its viewpoints would be much more sympathetic if they experimented directly on themselves and their own children and lived with the results (both the very few good results and the overwhelming number of bad results), not creating whole races (lines) of people that are seen only as pieces of an experiment that if it produces an undesirable outcome can be conveniently swept into a garbage bin. But they are too cowardly, selfish, inhumane and fanatical in their worship in the cult of Detweiler to evenly think about that possibility, let alone consider or implement it.

As examples, consider 1) what the Alignment did to Francesca and Herlander Simões, even though he was willing to live with the consequences. And 2) what the Alignment said to its members that were chosen to be pulled off Mesa to Darius when Houdini was preparing to be activated:

Cauldron of Ghosts, Chapter 26 wrote:“As you’ve probably already guessed, Houdini has just gone from alert status to active status. The first division is already being taken off-planet. Unfortunately, we’re evacuating a lot more people in a shorter span of time than we’d foreseen. That means we’re forced to use avenues of exfiltration that we hadn’t planned on originally. Many of us—including all five of you in this room—will be evacuated via Manpower shipping.”
One of the task force directors, Stefka Juarez, made a face. It had been an involuntary reaction and the expression left her face within two seconds, but Marinescu spotted it and gaze her a hard gaze. “Is there a problem, Ms. Juarez?”
She didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. “It’s a little late in the day, don’t you think, to discover you have qualms about Manpower’s activities. You’re in the inner layers of the onion and have been since you were a teenager. You’ve known for years—and if you had any disagreements you certainly kept them quiet—that the Alignment’s long-term goals required the development of genetic slavery. And still do—and will, for several more generations.”
She stopped and gave all of them that cold gaze. “The same goes for the rest of you. So if it turns out—which it has—that you have to be exfiltrated by ships from the slave trade, deal with it. You may have been able to keep your hands clean in your scientific work, but others of us—me, for one—have not enjoyed that luxury. You’ll forgive me if I don’t have any sympathy for your current plight. Which, as plights go, isn’t much.”
She stopped to look at each one of them in turn, for a second or two. “Do any of you have anything you want to say?”
All of them were silent. Charteris and Gail Weiss shook their heads.

Italics, boldface and underlined text is MY emphasis, NOT the authors'. (The original text has no italics in the portion quoted here.)

Vince, this is one of the most informed posts I've read in a while. Kudos! Many of the females in my discussion group would hug you. LOL

Over a year ago, in discussions amongst my friends, Saoirse (Romanian by way of Ireland) stated that the MA bears the earmarks of a cult. Everyone went silent - as it was sinking in. She's correct you know.


We need to clear up a few matters. There's a disconnect regarding the MA. They are intellectually criminal. They know what they are doing is wrong. Although that is only one of the reasons that they hide. Beowulf and its practices are laid out before mankinds eyes. They don't have to hide in the "dark shadows" like a cult. Like the cult that is the MA.

Yes, they are a cult! The writing is on the wall - and on the tongue, and the proof is in the pudding. They do cult-like stuff. If it walks and talks like a cult, quacks like a cult, hides like a cult, and cold heartedly kills like a cult, it's a problem! Consider the sacrifices. They sacrifice babies, children. Entire lines! The slaves are the biggest guinea pigs, offspring of MA research. And the MA still needs these slaves - for further observation and research! The MA knows that its research is morally corrupt. They certainly know that they're playing Russian roulette with the human race. That is why they don't play it on their own lines beyond a certain point. A point (the same ideology, mind you, as Beowulf assumes.) Yet what Detweiler does, is step his head inside the Netherworld and waits by the door, then orders all of these risky experiments on these subjugated lines to proceed further out on this genetic limb. The A lines, (rear of the line in risk, front of the line in beneficiary)

The Netherworld in their genetic research is the point past the line on the gene sequence deemed unsafe to perform research. Oh how I tried to get the forum to be more "tolerant, accepting, forgiving and mannered" because you all missed some thrilling and quite interesting discussions amongst varied medical professionals ranging form surgeons to pediatricians. I have over a dozen friends in Romania who are all in the medical field.

They represent graduates from several of the top medical schools in the world. Oxford, Cambridge, UBC. And two who attended our very own prestigious Duke, where I met (and dated) my first Romanian beauty (body and soul).

The practices regarding the MA and their genetic tampering prompted intellectual discussions that were off the scale - off my scale of understanding anyways. I was constantly having to ask them to slow down for the little layman in me. This forum truly missed a profoundly important and informative series of discussions. (Some of which took place by Skype tying in as many as 23 people at one point across the continent.

The MA are being bred, like animals. Cross breeding within existing lines and existing gene sequences. What's interesting is some of the catch phrases that my discussion group would come up with for my layman's (and lack of the Ro language), benefit. "Pivot point" is the point on the gene sequence which is "beyond" which Beowulf has decided is safe. Now this is where their discussion got really technical and mouth watering. And I'm sure I won't do it any justice. This is why I wish those long hours of discussion were hardcopied for posterity in a thread.

At any rate, this pivot point is considered the Netherworld of research. There are many Demons lurking on the other side. Detweiler sticks his toes inside and awaits by the door as he drives his lines on, in trial and error research, each line taking more risk and only after centuries, passing what's deemed "good" and "safe" upstream. My friends say that many in the forum seem to be ignorant of the atrocities of genetic research at the "microscopic" level. It is like the chicken that we eat in the supermarkets, yet are completely ignorant of the horrible conditions that produced the chicken in the package. Also, what I gathered, is that these meddling procedures may not bear erroneous fruit until decades or centuries long after they have been introduced into humanity. (Which is why Detweiler keeps he and his outside of immediate introduction and experimentation) Genetic tampering is not just akin to speeding up the "intrinsically safe" slow process of evolution but it does it along an unnatural, unclear, risky and deviant line of sight.

A couple of my friends also delved into some the microscopic failures that would certainly be a given. They stated that even amongst the "successful" lines there would be "problems." Problems that Detweiler might would overlook as "minor" yet would be wreaking havoc within the line. And these lines would be hesitant to complain in a society where "faulty" offspring are euthanized. Simple things like subtle yet incorrectly formed nasal passages, for example, "inbetween" evolutionary stages that impede breathing under certain conditions that may not be detected until too late in the stage - which wreaks all forms of havoc on the emotional and physical living conditions of their lives - simply as a measured point in discussion.

Weird Harold wrote:This is very true.

Why hasn't the MAlign just gone out to Darius and improved humans into a new species? The Mfecane worlds have nearly succeeded in that goal without the benefit of bio-engineering or a drive to force uplift on all of humanity whether wanted or not.

It is that drive to prove Beowulf wrong by forcing all of humanity to subscribe to their view of bio-engineering that makes the MAlign "evil." If they just went off by themselves nobody would care.

I respectfully disagree Harold. That may have been a significant cause on their expressway to becoming evil. But it is not what makes them evil. Their cultist practices are. "We'll experiment on a bunch of human guinea pigs for the betterment of mankind, reaping the benefits from their suffering." ALL of the lines, up to and including the A lines are slaves! Don't you all see that? They are slaves to Detweiler's megalamaniacal underpinnings. And slaves are wrong. If your basic [human] will has been augmented for preselection of lifestyles, that is morally wrong!

I can't believe, that certain forumites who I have intimate knowledge of their disbelief in religious tolerance - and many of the reasons they point to are the religious atrocities associated with - are OTOH insensitive, tolerant and totally oblivious to the fact that the MA are much worse than any of Earth's cult leaders and religious fanatics!

Your thoughts that MA experiments carried out in seclusion being optimum and would lead to acceptance is in error. Mankind will never, can never accept the MAs form of genetic tampering BECAUSE... THERE WILL NEVER BE A GUARANTEE THAT THEY WILL REMAIN SECLUDED THUS SEGREGATED FROM HUMANKIND! There is no "Checkpoint Charlie" of a fence that can be emplaced around MA space. Why is this so important? Glad you asked.

Let's begin here...

The E wrote:And what's with all this fear of the nonhuman? It's a large galaxy out there, there's enough room for everyone.

That is a rather naive, irresponsible and misguided stance. First off, the disconnect is what is pinned up on the Billboard itself. Call a spade a spade unless it isn't. And, ushering in a new age of humanity ISN'T what the MA are doing. They are ushering in a new age of nonhuman - "We are ushering in a new age of biological species!"

Mankind should still care even if the MA went off in some virgin corner of the galaxy. They are not going to stay in their corner of the galaxy. They have stated themselves of their plans to infiltrate society - that can't be done unless there is mingling of the species! Unless you think that the MA are controlling the who and the what of their plans to marry and have coitus interruptus? Humanity at large, has a right to remain satisfied with being "human." Upgrades in the form of Beowulfan code is totally different from an entirely new species.

Trying to equate this with the same prejudices of Earth today regarding the intermingling of the races is absurd. In that, there is no inherent danger to mankind. Humanity at large, has a right to keep its genetic lines clean of the point beyond "certain human" affects. Would you want a son or daughter or grand daughter or niece to be born with some absurd deviation in normal human evolutionary development that may seem monstrous to you and the society in which you live simply because of errant inhuman DNA?

The Mfecane Worlds have many problems of their own, even inside of Beowulf's moral fence. Imagine these "problems" and the suffering humans and families and mothers and parents and siblings are enduring on the other side of that fence - at the unseen, unpublished miscroscopic level that led to a few defections. It reminds me of Jurassic Park, when Jeff Goldblum the scientist, was initially so interested in the accomplishments of reproducing dinosaurs - but ran into a brick wall of moral conscience when he learned of the "methods of uncertainty" used to produce them. At the miscroscopic level (and I'm not just referencing samples on a test tube) the MA are involved in some horrendous practices.

wiki wrote:Mfecane Worlds:

They did succeed in producing a genetic variant that was at the edge of human physical performance, but at a price: the colonists on both worlds suffered not only from a high child mortality rate but also a high mortality rate in general and a lack of resources common to most high-gravity planets.

You know, I'd sure like to hear what the author's personal take is, regarding whether he personally sympathizes with the MAlign. Or whether he too sees them as the MAlignant tumoooooors they are? (Just being honest.)

I suppose the upcoming novels due out (in the Honorverse version of soon) can be expected - at least hoped, to lend enlightenment in that area. Yet the quantum entanglement I caused by just suggesting it, means it won't happen.

Has anyone heard of his stance? Has anyone so questioned him?

Well we only get so many questions to ask the Honorverse God at these Honor Cons, because you only get so much time. So what questions have ye asked of him if not that one? We should take time to consider the questions we shall pose to him, thus failing to waste his time, and squander our own opportunity.

"OH SHUT UP CTHIA!"

Yea, yea, yea, sometimes laughter is the best medicine. But then, I really would find his stance regarding MAlign ideology quite interesting.

David classes the MA with the Nazis or commies. People who are so caught up in their intellectual craziness that fail to notice how their little golden path to the future has turned into a highway paved with dead bodies.

cthia wrote:MUCH BETTER! Checks&Balances. Conscience. Scientific responsibility.

The E wrote:Beowulf would have you believe that their interpretation of these things is the only valid one. Why do you trust them?

Beowulf is not claiming that their interpretation is the only valid one. Beowulf is asserting that its methods are a safe one. Beyond a certain point on the gene sequence is deemed unsafe - too many "variables" of "ifs" and "buts" and "maybes" and "perhaps" and "gotchas."

The E wrote:Essentially, you're making the same supremely fallacious argument that people have been making against atheism: "If you do not follow the Bible or the Church, you are acting immoral by definition".

No E. If there is a GOD, then by his definition, if you are not following his teachings then you are acting spiritually suicidal. As you will not make it into the Kingdom of Heaven. It isn't immorality that is put up on exhibit, but eternal damnation. Huge difference.

And it isn't quite the same by a longshot. All else being equal, atheism only has cause to destroy individuals. Irresponsible gene tampering has cause to destroy humankind - with or without anybody's, or anybody else's consent - outside of the MA.

cthia wrote:Then let them be wrong, because erring on the side of caution is infinitely preferable than erring on the side of mishap.

The E wrote:So humanity is incapable of learning from past mistakes and must always have a firm guiding hand, is that what you're saying?

No. That is what the MA is saying by their actions. Because they have refused to learn from past mistakes. Beowulf certainly has learned from past mistakes to not cross "Pandora's Bridge."

cthia wrote:What if Beowulf is wrong, you ask? What if they are right, again, and the MAlign creates another plague even more devastating than before, and because they were the only ones working on it for centuries and the only ones with access to the research and because they were so arrogant and naive that nothing would go wrong, all conspires to make it impossible to correct, this time?

The E wrote:Is it not better then to allow this research to happen in the open?

No. It is better NOT to allow the research at all. How many Final War atrocities does it take before the lesson sticks? One more, making two? Three? Four? And since whatever genetic modifications unleashed on humanity by the MA will sooner or later impact the galaxy at large, it isn't as benign as an atheistic tumor.

cthia wrote:Because of the memories and atrocities and the possibilities of this happening again - Earth's Final Wars. While the memory of it was fresh - sane people saw the need to bury that particular Pandora's box. People keep rediscovering Pandora's box because everyone is as curious as Pandora where they shouldn't be and the MAlign wants to reopen the box and risk punishing mankind all over again - this time possibly killing "Hope" for good. Don't you see that they're playing in the same dangerous waters again and are giving the same reasons why they should be allowed to play in those waters, reasons that were most likely given before the Final War atrocities proved the original perpetrators to be all too human and fundamentally in error? Almost succeeding in self-extermination once is enough for most people.

All for a payoff whose risk isn't necessary or needed. The limit of what Beowulf has set is enough for mankind. There is no impossible barriers that mankind is in need of breaching or profound limitations that need overcoming that justifies the risk!

Because Beowulf are operating with a conscience and has a sense of limit. They also have mankind's survival and best interest at heart, whereas the MAlign simply has the advancement of their own plans at heart. The MAlign follows technology too closely and doesn't want to leave the necessary car links between it and the automobile of science it follows up ahead. They literally don't know when to "pump the brakes." Therefore, a metered hand has to play Genetic Ed. and sit in the driver's ed. seat and pump away in place of the idiot sitting at the wheel.

The E wrote:Hasn't stopped anyone from getting into cars, last I checked.

Oh don't be silly. You're above that.

It hasn't stopped them from needlessly dying from a simple math concept of allowing one car link per 10 mph either. MA experimentation, just like idiots on the highway, potentially affect all of humanity.

The E wrote:The existence of the various forms of accepted genies proves that it is possible to make alterations to the genome, some going very far indeed, that are almost entirely beneficial.

Of course it is possible to make alterations to the genome E. Beowulf isn't arguing that. They are arguing that these genomes need to be "safely" engineered on the safe side of the genome. Honor and all of the other genies have been produced on the "safe" side of the genome fence.

The E wrote:How much further could humanity go, how many different avenues could we explore, if we weren't bound by the Beowulfan ideal of what a human is?

How many more medical breakthroughs could we have if we were allowed to operate and perform any kind of experiments on humans (that we wouldn't advise to any of our family and friends by the way), with complete emotional detachment to the horrors of trial and error - with absolutely no remorse or scientific accountability beyond the essential "I told you so" Nobel Peace Prize sought after by Detweiler.

cthia wrote:Are you kidding me? This is about mankind's willingness to survive. To not want to needlessly risk itself trying to squeeze too much out of the genengineering scheme. The galaxy is not screaming out loud in protest "what could happen." It is screaming, 'Look what has already happened!' This is truly the lesson of "too much of a good thing" threatening to become genengineered permanently on a Billboard.

The E wrote:"Willingness to survive", that's a good one. It would be more accurate to talk about humanity's fear of the unknown. To talk about the same fears and prejudices that are at the core of issues like racism or sexism.

And no, after 1000 years, I would imagine that the final war is not on people's minds that much.

By people, you mean the MA. Beowulf surely remembers.


Fear is not at the core of racism and sexism. Ignorance is. Ignorance, and other adjectives, is also at the core of the MA's experiments. FEAR is at the core of Beowulf's code.

There should be fear of the unknown. Fear on the side of caution.

cthia wrote:What if Beowulf is wrong, you ask? What if they are right, again? And the MAlign creates another plague even more devastating than before. And because they were the only ones working on it for centuries and the only ones with access to the research and was so arrogant that nothing would go wrong, all conspired to make it impossible to correct, this time? All for a payoff whose risk isn't necessary or needed. The limit of what Beowulf has set is enough for mankind. There is no impossible barriers that mankind is in need of breaching or profound limitations that need overcoming that justifies the risk!

The E wrote:And there are no Mountains in need of climbing, and yet thousands of people do so every year.

Out of curiosity and recreation. Not need.

E wrote:Because Beowulf are operating with a conscience and has a sense of limit. They also have mankind's survival and best interest at heart, whereas the MAlign simply has the advancement of their own plans at heart. The MAlign follows technology too closely and doesn't want to leave the necessary car links between it and the automobile of science it follows up ahead. They literally don't know when to "pump the brakes." Therefore, a metered hand has to play Genetic Ed. and sit in the driver's seat and pump away in place of the idiot sitting at the wheel.

cthia wrote:You actually believe as does the MAlign, don't you? Well, at least your naive belief serves to give cause to pause to the suspension of disbelief that a terrible mind could become so much of a fundamentally MisAligned waste.

The E wrote:To see an american conservative express a deeply held belief that what a distant, unaccountable government does is best for everyone is incredibly hilarious.

If you think that I'm a conservative, you should fire your research assistant pronto.

Not best for everyone E., but in the best interest of mankind.

To hear someone who is religiously intolerant give his stamp of approval for a cult is insane.

Now, calling me a conservative while you are the one afraid to invest in "faith" is what is hilarious.

.