The Muse of Hate: Temple of Apollo

(Editor’s Note: Lord Scorpius, the Muse of the Hate, is traveling with his divine companions to the Florida Gulf Coast to witness the Great Labor Day Pilgrimage.

In the year 2011, we find ourselves living in the final days of Happy Motoring America. The artificial world that has been constructed here in North Florida since the mid-twentieth century will soon evolve into something new and unfamiliar.

Lord Scorpius has brought along the nymph Caroline and the Atheist for this beach adventure in the Sunshine State. We have traveled here to witness history in the making.

Caution: You are about to enter the literary zone!)

Lord Scorpius: The traffic definitely looks thinner than usual this year. Have you noticed?

Atheist: Yes, I have.

Every year the swarm of automobiles pours out of Atlanta and travels down this road to the Florida beaches for Labor Day. It is a curse and a blessing for the people who live along this great imperial highway.

The Atlanta people spend a ton of money en route to Destin and Panama City for their annual frolic at the end of the summer. The merchants who live along this highway depend up the commerce.

At the same time, it must be an annoyance for these people who live in the cities to put up with the traffic jams and the drunk idiots on the highway. I bet the cops make a lot of money during this time of the year.

Lord Scorpius: Now that we are in the Obama Depression, there are significantly fewer of them passing through this year.

My theory is that gasoline is more expensive, unemployment is higher, there is greater anxiety about the economy, people are more in debt than they were a few years ago … it is forcing everyone to cutback in small ways.

I think more of them are staying put in Atlanta this year because they are trying to save money, cut corners, and dig themselves out of debt peonage to the banks. They are cutting out the Labor Day beach trip.

It makes me wonder if all those people will be driving to North Florida from as far away as Ohio and Missouri next year. I’m sure some of them will come, but I predict their numbers will dwindle even more significantly, especially as we move further into the Obama Depression.

How many times can they swipe their credit card to pay the power bill and to fill up for gas at BP?

Atheist: I’m sure this decline in tourism will hit Florida like a sledgehammer just in time for the 2012 elections. It will force more of the “austerity measures” on African-Americans who will keep lashing out in their predictable way.

It was bad enough last year when Barack Hussein Obama sat idly by while the Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 ruined the tourism industry last season. They were expecting a big rebound this year after Obama plunged into the sea to prove it was safe to swim here.

Lord Scorpius: Florida is now one of the biggest states in America.

It makes you wonder what will happen to all the people who live here in the decades ahead. Central Florida and South Florida were a backwater until the twentieth century. Panama City Beach and its spawn were creatures of the automobile.

It was the air conditioner, the refrigerator, and the automobile that made Florida into what it is today. Can you imagine what it would be like to live in Florida in a cartoon house without access to cheap gasoline or electricity?

Atheist: It would be horrifying.

By far the most miserable time of the year in Florida and Alabama and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast are the times when the hurricanes and tropical storms blow through and disrupt our access to gasoline and electricity.

Everyone basically has to sweat it out. If you live in one of the older homes that was built in the nineteenth century, it really isn’t so bad because of the large windows and tall ceilings, but it is insufferable if you live in a cartoon house or a poorly designed cartoon apartment that was designed central heating and cooling.

Atheist: The economy of Florida is more sensitive to disruptions that occur elsewhere in America. Nevada is another example of this.

If the price of gasoline and jet fuel rises, fewer people are able to fly or motor into the Sunshine State. As Americans go deeper into debt, they have to cut out non-essentials like vacations and patronizing the franchise restaurants.

As more households rediscover frugality and start saving to rebuild their capital, there will be fewer people traveling to this state, and those who do travel here will be spending less money than before, simply because they don’t have it anymore.

Lord Scorpius: What do you suppose would happen if the dollar lost its status as the world’s reserve currency?

What would happen if the U.S. government went so deep into debt that paying interest on the debt consumed ever greater portions of the federal budget?

What would happen to Florida if there was an oil shock? What about the Baby Boomers? They are all retiring soon. It means they will all simultaneously embark on liquidating their financial portfolios.

What happens to all these black people and illegal aliens who are so dependent upon the welfare state when we can’t afford it anymore?

Atheist: The people who live here in Florida live in a very unusual world.

They live in the cartoon houses in these sprawling suburbs. The economy of the state is heavily dependent upon tourism and construction of ever more suburbs.

It is the electricity and the gasoline that makes this world possible. The unsustainable welfare state keeps the illegal aliens and the black people bought off and pacified. Everyone works for the U.S. dollar and invests their money in all these banks.

Only God knows what these banks are doing with their deposits. Something incredibly risky and wasteful, I am sure. We saw that in 2008 with Wachovia.

Lord Scorpius: To my knowledge, no one in Florida has ever had to worry about the Pirates of the Caribbean. The Navy and Coast Guard keeps the Third World at bay here.

Most of the time.

Atheist: You’re right.

Occasionally, the Haitians launch an invasion of Florida. After the Haitian Earthquake, Obama gave a bunch of them asylum in Florida.

Lord Scorpius: Do you think Haiti will “adapt” to the end of cheap food? The end of Western charity?

I find it highly unlikely. It is much more likely that Haiti will make a beeline for Florida when “shit gets real.” When the famine strikes there. It will be a major indicator.

The Gulf of Mexico will become a nest of pirates and barbarians. Do you remember what happened when the Goths and the Vandals took to the sea?

Atheist: Yes, the Goths became a plague.

What about the Barbary Corsairs? They were terrible. Commerce and trade is one way to make a living. Stealing and aggression is the older way of doing things.

The Welsh know the story of how there came to be a Scotland and England in Britannia.

Lord Scorpius: Very true.

Florida has a massive exposed coastline. If it were not for the Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy, it would be an inviting target for Third World barbarians. The drug smugglers from Latin America have already carved out a home for themselves in the Miami area.

I can easily see barbarians washing up on shore here to pillage and sack these cities. I can see barbarian pirates sacking and burning Margaritaville or taking it over all together.

The Pacific Coast will get the worst of it though.

Atheist: What would Florida look like in a Great Depression with diversity and multiculturalism?

I can imagine the blacks, the Cubans, the Puerto Ricans, the Haitians and so forth falling back on a gang economy of pillaging White people in a zero sum world.

If you can’t buy what you want, you can use force to steal it from someone else.

Lord Scorpius: That is what we have been seeing with these “flash mobs.” It is organized violence and organized theft. This is the familiar precursor of a barbarian economy.

Atheist: Most of the stuff on sale in Florida and other states comes from these factories scattered around the “globalized” world. The junk in the Wal-Mart comes from China and places like that.

Rome was “globalized” before the Dark Ages. It went from globalization to primitive subsistence agriculture in less than a century.

Lord Scorpius: Are we going to buy all this crap from China and friends when we are broke?

Atheist: Unlikely.

The flash mobs will sack the Wal-Marts and steal everything in there. That will be the end of Wal-Mart and the other big box stores.

You saw what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It was difficult to restore order in just one city. Imagine what would happen if you had to deal with dozens if not hundreds of “crises” like that breaking out simultaneously.

Lord Scorpius: Obama couldn’t plug a hole in the bottom of the sea for months. I’m not even sure he would stop the flash mobs. He doesn’t even acknowledge their existnece.

Atheist: Yeah, Eric Holder would probably side with them. He would attack the Jacksonville Police Department for “racism” or something like that.

Lord Scorpius: It is obvious that White people will be thrown back on their own resources.

There won’t be any of this “White Nationalism” silliness anymore. Are your anonymous pen pals in cyberspace going to save your ass from the barbarian mobs? Somehow I doubt it.

I wouldn’t count on Harold Covington’s imaginary friends coming to your rescue.

Atheist: It will be a New World.

Lord Scorpius: Yes, White Christians in Florida will find themselves living in the Tribulations. “The troops” will be back home from overseas by then.

Atheist: Well, I don’t believe in the Tribulations.

Lord Scorpius: Yeah, I know.

But all these people do. How do you suppose they will react when shit hits the fan? It will seem like the End of Days.

Atheist: That’s reasonable.

They will conclude that God is punishing America for its wickedness. For all the sin and immoral living here in Florida and across Middle America.

Lord Scorpius: Florida isn’t the only state that will have this problem.

It will just have more difficulty adjusting to the post-capitalist world. The race war will be raging across all of Dixie by then.

Atheist: Do you think White people will fight back?

Lord Scorpius: Why do you think they are stockpiling weapons in Alabama? Gun sales and ammunition sales are skyrocketing. People are terrified of the future.

Atheist: There will be a chain reaction then.

Lord Scorpius: In the zero sum world of our “post-growth” future, the Army of God will have to restore order.

Narrator: Thanks to Mercury who has been driving the Iron Chariot, Lord Scorpius and the entourage finally arrive at their isolated beachfront destination, and have spent the evening drinking fine wine and eating fresh fruit on the beach.

The Celtic nymph Caroline has become the companion of Lord Scorpius. She has blonde hair and green eyes and a slight frame with milky white skin. The gods recently conspired to bring the two together.

The playful and fiesty Caroline is endlessly fascinating and complementary to the austere and rational Lord Scorpius who chases after her.

Lord Scorpius: Caroline, you have built a mighty sand castle here on the shoreline. Don’t you know the tide will sweep it away? Have you named this castle?

Caroline: Florida.

Atheist: It’s a good name.

The sand castle will be swept away by the rising tide of world history like the tourist trap we see here in North Florida.

Caroline: *Leans her head into the shoulders of Lord Scorpius*

Lord Scorpius: Caroline is from the Kingdom of Florida.

It is a tragic thought that such chaos is about to befall the Sunshine State. I can’t imagine what tragedies will soon befall the people who live here who are not as fortunate and prepared as we are.

I recently met Caroline while wandering the shores of Florida. She stood out like that seashell you see over there playing her guitar by herself.

Atheist: Earlier today, you claimed there was something of great significance hidden on the barrier island, which is why we have traveled from Tennessee to Florida.

Lord Scorpius: How could I have forgotten? I have lost track of time. You have to see this.

Narrator: The entourage proceeds to the barrier island offshore where a great ancient building is discovered among the palm groves. Amazingly, no one seems to have ever stumbled upon it before.

Atheist: What is this place?

Lord Scorpius: My friend, you have discovered a Temple of Apollo, the god of the sun, the god of reason, and the god of prophecy.

It was only natural that it would be hidden in the sunniest state in the Sunny South. If you look into this divine pool of water, you can see the past, present, and future.

Caroline: *Awestruck*

How did you know about this place?

Lord Scorpius: Smiles.

Like Asclepius, the founder of medicine, I am a son of the divine Apollo. Do you see my right leg and foot here? It is the handiwork of Vulcan. I am Apollo’s Scorpion.

Atheist: I don’t believe in the gods.

Lord Scorpius: Do you believe in x-rays? Here take a look.

Atheist: This doesn’t prove anything.

Lord Scorpius: *Scratches face*

I wasn’t a believer myself until quite recently.

I mean … I believed and I was learning more and I had discovered the power of faith, you know, but that is not quite the same thing as the experience of salvation.

It is an overwhelming physical experience. All I can say is that you have to experience it yourself. It is like nothing else you will ever experience in life.

Lord Scorpius: After I was zapped by Vulcan, I was disoriented and stumbled outside. It felt like I was being moved.

I fell to my knees before the Sun and stretched out my arms with my palms facing upward. I was blinded by the light of Heaven. My soul was purified that afternoon and I finally came to understand my mission.

Everything that I had witnessed over the years suddenly began to make sense. I had been given the equivalent of a key to a vast storehouse of knowledge.

I’m hardly omniscient, but the patterns are more intelligible now. They are far easier to read and decipher.

My life was transformed by that experience. I don’t expect you to believe in something that you can’t grasp intuitively. I wouldn’t have believed it myself a year ago.

Just chalk me up in the “believer” category. I’m quite sure we outnumber you in this world.

Atheist: Is there any hope for Florida?

Lord Scorpius: *Looks toward the Sun*

Many years from now, when the people who live in this blessed state have learned to live their lives in accordance with the divine law, the misery will cease and order will be restored after much pain and hardship.

There is always a cost to learning a moral lesson. History is filled with tragic examples of the foolishness of mankind. The dawn follows the darkness.

Such is the nature of the world.

Narrator: Lord Scorpius and Caroline spend the rest of the evening and the night enjoying the simple pleasures of the beach. Life is too short and youth is too precious to trouble yourself over the will of the gods.