Reagan Wept (American Reformation II, Ten.)

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

...

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

I saw this last night.

Dr. Annie Andrews, campaigning in South Carolina. But, at the same time it was the signs behind her that caught my attention. Democrats are currently using *Checks Notes* Republican arguments about cutting costs of living and reducing taxes, and in point of fact they can legitimately do so at this point.

Meanwhile, what have Republicans got? Total outrage that the other team might win, and zero self-reflection on how things got that way, and that about covers it. I mean, I get that Darlene Graham is just a vapid mean-girl bitch appointed to fill a spot on the basis of her name (and that's what Republicans think of us) but come on. I was taught if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything...by Republicans.

Oh, wait, these are the fucking people who've given up every damn thing they ever said they believed for *Checks Notes Again* Donald Trump.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Pardon me if I don't give a fuck what Republicans think about anything anymore.

Apparently, Republicans have reached the "Please Clap" stage, even in Texas.

"I will not trash talk. I will not be a divider in chief or an agitator in chief. I won't be out there blowharding, talking a big game without backing it up. I think the next president needs to be a lot quieter but send a signal that we're prepared to act in the national security interests of this country — to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world."

[Silence, Mournful Coyote Howl in the night, Silence.]

"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

Can I just say it? Fuck These Motherfuckers. 

I'm sick of this crap, get these fucking people the fuck out of there. Republicans stand for not one damn thing other than that they ought to be in office and have the ability to fuck with your life for no reason, and the only thing they give anybody but themselves [As in Republican political types and their wealthy benefactors] is racism and religion as/and excuses.

Note I say this as a former Republican. We weren't always this.

Abdul El-Sayed at least seems to have a nice, apparently normal family and he has a cat.

I'm an animal guy, my partner is a vet tech. We can get behind that.

The only pet Trump ever had, by comparison, was Lindsey Graham.

Maybe I'm just tired of this shit, and I fully recognize that just getting back to any recognizable form of "Things As They Are/Were" is going to be a long climb, let alone fixing anything. 

I get that Liberals, Leftists and Progressives are gonna be a little bit deflated by that, but functionally we've got to get the lights back on in a number of Federal agencies, find ways to hire back or recall a lot of lost staff, and so on once this is over, before we can even get started. For fuck's sake the FBI and the Military have been gutted, and then there's the fact that we have to basically reconstitute USAID entirely and we're pretty much gonna need USAID for large chunks of the **USA** before we can go back to helping people in Africa and shit.

Not to mention we're gonna need a whole-ass American Reformation just to start to clean up the American Church from what Right-Wing horseshit has done to it. And don't tell me these assholes won't try and fight some bullshit ass War Of Religion to try and stop it, too.

Cuz they will.

Wrecking shit seems to have been the entire point of everything for Republicans.

“The Good of the People was a laudable enough goal, but in denying a man’s soul, an enduring part of his being, Marxism stripped away the foundation of human dignity and individual value. It also cast aside the objective measure of justice and ethics which, he decided, was the principal legacy of religion to civilized life.”
― Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October

When is enough going to be enough with tolerating These Fucking People? We've finally reached the point where Liberals are pretty much using recognizable Republican talking points, and Republicans are openly mad as hell that Other People (including their own disaffected base) Exist and get a vote.

Reagan Wept.

You either believe in freedom or you don't, America.

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From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root....If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly....Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated. ~Ronald Reagan

Nine

The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan