When the fuck do we say "Enough?"

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. ~Malcolm X.

Well, now we know, don't we?

As of yesterday, thanks to the posts being leaked from a secret Facebook group composed of Customs and Border Protection officers, we KNOW that this agency has an abusive, racist culture, don't we?

Thanks to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joaquin Castro, Rashida Tliab and several other Democratic lawmakers, we know the conditions inside the facilities this agency is running. People being abused, forced to drink out of toilets, officers blatantly disrespecting authority...whether civilian or within their own agency, apparently...and breaking the law.

We know that we have Abu Ghraib right here in America.

Now what in the fuck are we going to do about it?

Because we're going to have to do something.

Because the next time it could be any one of us.

Does anybody reading this really think that these officers, or that the Trump Supporters who seem to always support this kind of bullshit, wouldn't gladly do this kind of shit to other Americans if they thought they could get away with it?

Trust me, the time is going to come when these fucking people are not going to respect any authority that isn't pointing more guns than they have right at their heads.

And the situation will get away from Trump, if it hasn't already.
(I'm of the opinion that it has, I think even Trump has lost control of this mess, and it will get worse.)

If you have any doubts, allow me to show you...

"...They called her a foreigner."

Rashida Tliab was born in Detroit, about two and a half years after *I* was born there. It doesn't matter where her parents came from. She was born here. Per the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution that makes her an American. This was one of the things that was a direct result of the US Civil War. This was over 150 years ago and Texas was on the losing side.

By racist loser logic, if Rashida Tliab isn't an American, I'm not, and likely you're not either.

Rashida Tliab is an American citizen, born in Detroit, a Muslim woman whose right to believe in and practice her religion is specifically protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. She is a duly elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives sent to Congress by 84% of the people in her district.
And These Fucking People want to call her a foreigner? FUCK that shit.

If you can't take a hard stand against that...against people who'd deny literally any of us who isn't the right kind of white person our basic rights...then fuck you. It's as simple as that.

'Cause trust me, I'm the wrong kind of white person. Why? Because I see their piece of shit fake "god" for exactly what he is. I reject their god, and I name that bullshit as exactly that right here. These people apparently figured out that Jesus was born and lived not too far from where Rashida's parents came from, and that He died in that same city.

Jesus is a foreigner too, and that apparently was enough to send Him packing as well.

So, If they don't like Rashida...what do you think they're going to make of me, a former conservative who likely has better conservative credentials than anybody in that crowd who can tell them exactly why they're wrong from a legal, moral and, indeed, politically, religiously, and socially conservative perspective?

I did in fact leave both Christianity and eventually conservatism itself exactly because this kind of mob mentality was becoming too much of a thing, and eventually it got easier to fight against it from the outside than from within. When the harder you fight, the more bottomless the well of nuts becomes, sooner or later it just becomes more efficient to switch parties...or religions.

Because sometimes what you started out following morphs into something else and you just get left behind.

Remember what I said about Trump being these people's god? Let me tell you what that means...and to be honest we've been seeing this already, all along.

It means that people will project their desires onto him, and that he will cease to be a real person or an active force in their lives.

After awhile, just what Trump says won't be good enough. After awhile they'll need a different set of spiritual anal beads to bring about that endorphin rush climax that people used to get from "Speaking In Tongues" and rolling around on the floor.

I'm serious, check out this idiot, asking for God's blessing on Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Christian-persecuting Kim Jong Un.

Isn't a Christian saying "God Bless Kim Jong Un" about like a Jew saying "G-d Bless Adolf Hitler?"

I'm going to remind you yet again, that the North was once the part of Korea that was the most Christianized. Southern Korea was primarily Buddhist. That changed because of the Communists, that changed because of the Kim family. Christians fled to South Korea...or they got murdered.

And yet there are still Christians in North Korea, often in hiding from the government in a literal police state.

And they are still persecuted if they are caught, beaten and raped and shot, and their children cut apart and fed to dogs. One person in a family being caught in possession of a Bible will get the whole family thrown into prison.

But yeah "God bless Kim."

Let me tell you how this is going to end, because there are too many people out there like Matt Lewis here, who want to have their cake and eat it too, who want to in effect try to say that two things are true when only one of them objectively can be. If we're not damned careful, here, if we don't have a majority of people stand up and say that this shit is wrong...including the goddamned media talking heads and the politicians...then we're going to end up with two Americas, and one of them will be a right-wing Christianized version of North Korea....likely with somebody far worse than Trump at its head.

And trust me, they won't think any of us are Americans.

And as a compounded oxymoron that will stand for all time, at that point "Conservative Values" will be whatever the State says they are.

And at that point, be prepared for a long war that will technically never end.

We can stop this now.

But it's going to take at least most of us. Find a way, shut the country down, make such a racket about this bullshit that these fuckers don't get any rest until the last person has been removed from every one of these fucked up CBP facilities and until every agent who needs to has faced consequences. Keep the pressure on. Hard. Find a goddamned way.

And we can't keep playing this "Both Sides" game for money or votes or whatever.

It's time to take a stand. Not on election day, Now.

I don't even think this country is going to make it until election day. If we wait until election day we'll have our elections in the Blue and Purple and somewhere-in-between states...and they'll be having theirs in their right-wing version of North Korea.

And if that happens, I have no illusions about how this will turn out.

California and the rest of the West Coast and much of the East Coast and places like Colorado, Illinois, Michigan or Wisconsin will probably manage OK and be able to string something together. Things will be hard, but relatively livable. I'd expect Texas to make Bosnia look like a walk in the park by comparison, but demographic shifts will likely mean the assholes can't hold it. Florida will be a bloody firestorm until it floods or the fresh water runs out, then nothing. Georgia, some combination of the two, but then destabilized by hordes of Florida refugees.

In all these cases, deferred action or equivocation now might make you Both-siders, conflict-averse older Democrats, Never-Trump Republicans, rationalizing non-voters and Unicorn hunters feel good now but it'll be awfully damned hard on the locals later.

Places like Indiana, Iowa, and Kansas will mostly fall to depopulation because of economic devastation. You think they're having problems now? Try shipping crops to global markets through war zones.

And how do you think Americans will react to their own internal refugees, especially when there's a non-zero chance that a lot of them will be conservatives?

Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming? Those places will be the assholes' power base...likely a nuclear power. And what about the people who live there that aren't assholes?

What about the people who don't have the money to get out, or the car to do it in?

Safe bet Utah will go their own way, and likely take Arizona and maybe Idaho with them...all the states with the biggest populations of Mormons. And what's that gonna do for women's rights when the religion with the capability to buy the most power claims polygamy as a religious right?

The only thing holding this country together for as long as its been here has been our Constitutional system and rule of law, which one third of our population and basically half of our political system spit on daily now, even as Republicans and Trump seek to divide even more. I never thought I'd see the day when so many Americans wanted to destroy America.

It's not that the center cannot hold, it's that there is no center.

Guys like Matt Lewis ate it.

Don't be that guy.

We need to stop this mess, and we need to find a way, and fast.

Because this right here is where you have to choose between peace and freedom. We no longer get to have both.

And you can't have peace with people who don't think you have a right to even exist. If we don't do something, it'll be Americans in cages under abusive conditions next. Oh yes, it will.

That's what this goddamned mob has wanted all along. That's what the kids in the cages and the migrants being abused are for...to try to terrify others into compliance.

Don't be that guy, either.

Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression. ~Malcolm X.

Be this guy. Know what happened to him. If you're not prepared to die for your freedom, take that word right out of your vocabulary.

Because that's what this is coming to.

That is the future that Republicans wanted.