~Augustus Hill, From the HBO series Oz S1.E1 "The Routine."
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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
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“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.”
― The Hunt for Red October
Apparently, some freak got arrested at Trump's "Great American State Fair" for exposing himself to circus performers and beating his meat in public.
I wish I could say I was surprised.
The perversion from (mostly) white "Conservative" men that I hear about and have personally seen shocks me. I knew it was bad before, you can't be on social media and not see it. But, in the last year since I've been with my partner it seems like either I've become more aware or that shit has gotten a lot worse.
Possibly both.
But even in spite of that, I look at shit like some CHUD using AI to *Checks Notes* fantasize about his daughter and something in my brain just wants to reach for my shotgun. The kiddo is 14 and I'm a thousand times over incapable of ever thinking about her like that. She's a freaking kid AND she's GAY.
I cannot even imagine the thought process for that, and it's not even difficult not to be a fucking pervert.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. ~2 Timothy 4:3
When I met my partner she was 20 (young, yes, but still a consenting adult and I did not initially have intentions towards her. For one thing, when we met I had a girlfriend and she was dating my best friend.) and in spite of a ten year age difference we freaking liked each other, both "that way" and as people, we had a hell of a lot in common and we've struck sparks off each other ever since. We worked together and she pretty much was automatically in my circle, as I've said before.
We knew each other for a bit over a year before she became my roommate, because of issues with her family and shit, and since she'd been to my house (as part of the gaming group) many times, she straight up asked me if I wouldn't mind having a roommate and I was like sure, why not.
Anyway living with a 21-year-old young lady that I, neither unkindly nor without an actual basis joked about her being a Werewolf was...interesting. Not least 'cause she was at that "Going to the club" phase of life and I'd gotten that out of my system a decade before while still in the military.
Also, fun fact, like my ex-girlfriend, the roommate also had a conservative church background, the rule-follower type. Pay attention, that'll matter a bit later, LOL.
So, anyway, after she'd been staying at my place for a month or so, and I'd already told her if she ever needed a ride or a designated driver to call me at any time, one night she did. It was the weekend, we usually had one weekend night off in common. But, I remember very clearly we both had that particular weekend off. It was some time after midnight.
Note: The main club in Mount Pleasant is often referred to as the "Meat Market."
Anyway, I'm sleeping, my cell phone rings, waking me up, and it's her. Her voice sounded small and sheepish "Hey, I'm at the Meat Market and I'm too drunk to drive home, can you come get me?"
So anyway it's basically just off the next main street from the one our apartments were on. I get dressed, get in the truck, and go pick her up.
She'd clearly overdone it and was drunk to the point where she got sick...in my nice then new-to-me 2000 Chevy S-10 Extended Cab, which like several vehicles I'd had before it was kept fully G.I. Clean.
But it was the middle of the night and I was really worried about her and I was like "Fuck it, we'll deal with it in the morning." To make matters worse she fell getting out of the truck and needed to be helped up. So anyway, I got her in our apartment and on the couch and then ended up sitting up with her most of the night. We fell asleep on opposite ends of my big poofy couch, possibly in mid-conversation.
Woke up, it was light, she was not only still sleeping but snoring. I was hungry, so I got up and made a shitload of bacon, eggs and toast. Drunk hangover food. I know this game.
Whether it was all the noise I was making or the smell of food, Princess wakes up about the time I'm finishing up, making myself a plate and throwing bits of bacon to my Schnauzer.
"Hungry?" She was like "Food!" And after going in the bathroom for a minute, she proceeded to come back to the kitchen/dining room and eat me out of house and home. I let her.
While gathering up the cleaning supplies. (I'm sure you see where this is going.)
As soon as she was done I was like "You're on, Sweetheart!" as I gestured to the pile of car and house cleaning stuff and handed her a rag and a roll of paper towel. She glared at me but was like "OK?"
I went outside and smoked a cigarette, then a few more, while watching her clean the truck. By about halfway through, the glare was constant, nuclear-powered and (I was reasonably sure) boring holes in the back of my skull from several megatons worth of sheer radioactivity.
"I cannot fucking believe you made me do that!"
"Action/Consequence."
"Fuck You!"
I swear between putting away the cleaning supplies and a general fit of pique she managed to slam every door in the house at least twice.
We ended up back on the couch, somehow arguing turned to wrestling which turned to dry-humping and falling asleep in a tangle on the couch.
Mind you, even with her inhibitions clearly reduced and both of our emotions amped up, we didn't quite hook up...because of that mutual Christian background. Found a loophole, bitch.
But there was still no way we were going to go from Zero to getting busy quite that fast.
Anyway, we woke up a few hours later...kind of belatedly realizing what had just happened...and she had to go back to the club and get her car. We did, but then she decided she wanted to go in since they were just opening. I said NO! Didn't we just...? And she pouted and whined and generally talked me into going in there with her.
We didn't leave until sometime after midnight, but decently before close, drove home, shared a fairly chaste kiss and then each went to bed...in our own beds.
As one does, when one is raised with a certain expectation of discretion and propriety concerning such matters, especially after some opportunistic illicit fooling around.
Other than this post about this and a thread of those kind of stories on Threads back in the spring (which I had to get permission to write) Neither of us told anybody about that until in January (The guys at work would have never let us live it down) when I had to go down there for that little rescue operation. We told the Kiddo because she's a perceptive little shit and caught our personal in-joke about that situation after my partner slipped on some ice getting out of the car...and kid went full landshark about getting an answer. The kiddo freaking laughed her ass off at us when we told her, never having imagined her mother being so...innocent.
But we had it, because our history might be kind of screwed up, but the kid still wanted to know and we felt like she deserved an answer.
And a truthful one.
Because like I say about other things, you either believe in stuff or you don't, and if you do believe it your conduct should actually reflect that belief.
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So if you wonder why I look at These Fucking People's claims of conservatism, patriotism, religiosity, etc. And think "Bullshit!" Things like this story are why.
These fucking people are all about the flesh-pots and the meat markets and don't even want to pretend to bother with the protective and provisional aspects of Patriarchy let alone the proprietary or the social aspects of actual conservatism...which they seem to care about only if such things can be weaponized against somebody else. They don't believe in let alone follow the conduct or social memes of conservatism, be it religious, social, or whatever.
But here's the thing, you don't get Saved by making other people have to "act Christian." You have to have a relationship with God and follow His ways your own self.
Also, Because even after I'd been out of that stuff for several years, it was only *Natural* to conduct myself along those lines with someone of a similar bent. That's the part that these people who go around screaming "No! It HAS to be THIS WAY!" never fail to miss. If a belief is taught, if one is persuaded to follow it, it might persist. If something is imposed? As soon as you're gone, the other person will revert to acting however they did before.
The only time these assholes want to do anything of the sort is when they can use it to ham others or do wrongs.
And that doesn't work.
Because you either believe in things, or you don't.
Yes, it really is that simple.
And that's why I can say Don't Tread On Me with this bullshit.
Or on those that I care about.
Слава Україна!
From daydreams on the road there was no waking. He plodded on. He could remember everything of her save her scent. Seated in a theatre with her beside him leaning forward listening to the music. Gold scrollwork and sconces and the tall columnar folds of the drapes at either side of the stage. She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress. Freeze this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.
~From Cormac McCarthy's The Road (Book.)
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.
