Don't Tread On Me (Independence Day 2026, Three.)

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

...

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on a race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength of the world. That is the American way. ~Ronald Reagan

...

[As the four newly-revealed Cylons aboard Galactica struggle to deal with the information, the call to action stations sounds]

Lieutenant Felix Gaeta: [over the loudspeaker] ...Inbound Cylon fleet! I repeat: action stations, action stations. Set Condition One throughout the ship. This is not a drill.

Tory Foster: Oh gods... what're we going to do?

Saul Tigh: The ship is under attack. We do our jobs. Report to your stations!

Chief Galen Tyrol: Report to stations?

Saul Tigh: My name is Saul Tigh. I am an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that's the man I want to be. And if I die today, that's the man I'll be. ~From Battlestar Galactica (2003) S3.E20 "Crossroads, Part 2."

I've been saying for awhile now I think all this MAGA shit is going to collapse in some kind of nationwide Fyre-Festival or Woodstock 99 type debacle. Actually, the saying didn't originate with me but rather with by bro and fellow veteran Gary the Media Warrior.

I...well, I think we're just about there on this 250th anniversary of the United States, I guess it's a good thing that it looks like it's gonna be far less bloody and dramatic than I've thought for a long time...unless you're a climate scientist in which case it'll be fascinating. Or, as my partner said the other day when I texted her during our big thunderstorm "Must be nice, It's hotter than Satan's asshole down here." She only lives about 2 1/2 hours south of me.

I think whatever spell Trump had over so many people was broken, and in part by sheer Republican incompetence and malice. Had things stayed the same as they were say from 2017-2021, Trump would probably be popular or at least about the same, polling-wise as he was in the first half of his term last time. Merely that level of incompetence might seem downright heroic right now.

NO, at the end of the day I think what sunk this shit was the marriage of the 1990's Religious Right goons with MAGA via Project 2025 (Solely because they were among the last still cheering for Trump, at that) the Epstein files, all this xenophobic shit, a totally unnecessary war and a vast level of weaponized incompetence.

And in about that order, too. Turns out people actually don't like what current Republicans want to do. Nobody but them wants to live that way.

But as we've seen in the last few days, apparently the shit gets worse.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

The heart and soul of the Party apparently is, at the end of the day, a mid-aughts-era online comment section where some joyless troll, a basement-dwelling fat guy who doesn't have a job highjacks a discussion about something (damn near anything) else by ranting about murdering everybody that's not at least 7/8 Caucasian or some such bullshit, combined with a level of illiteracy that thinks fast food, gas stations, overwork and Whiteness constitute "Culture."

Fuck that.

They're melting down because they couldn't make the rest of us hate like they do.

And as shallow as it is, I think part of it is all these hardcore White Supremacists are...well, most of 'em look like their family tree is one of them old-school TV aerials like we had at my Mom's house in 1987.

Look, I am the person that I am, I'm over 50 years old, and I'm not gonna turn into a hateful asshole for some dumb motherfucker like you. that thinks gas station sushi is high culture.

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.

This...shouldn't even be that hard to figure out.

We're pretty much Babylon out of Revelation 18, but with idiots.

And I think it's going to end very badly and very fast, and not very well for guys like Peter Pan Theil.

Like I said yesterday, let them hide in their bunkers. It won't be anything a JDAM or two wouldn't take care of. Hell maybe just use a couple small ones, like a GBU-38 which is basically a guidance kit on a regular Mark 82 500-pound bomb. Use those to bury the entrances and take out whatever SATCOM they have to communicate with each other. Then we let them run out of food or they and the people they're entombed with kill each other when they get bored or out of spite.

I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck. ~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

I don't doubt that these fucking people would go full Bioshock if left to their own devices.

I think someday soon it's gonna come out just how fucked up all this shit is.

But we don't have to live with it, anymore than our Founders did 250 years ago.

That's the whole damn idea of this country.

And they know and we know, it could come down to a fight, again.

I've written several times about the battle of Gettysburg and there's a reason for that.

"...In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, with a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me. As He died to make men Holy, let us die to make men Free, while God is marching on." That's from the Battle Hymn of the Republic, set to the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" about famous abolitionist militant John Brown. 

The entire damned point of America is increasing freedom, ordered liberty, and that any person with the will to do something can get a reasonable shot at accomplishing it. We are not what we are born...but what we have it in ourselves to be.

That's the whole point of America and that's why these weirdos want to burn it all down.

I believe they will fail, but what we do after that? That's on us, and we can't keep allowing this crap.

You either believe in freedom or you don't. 

Being a better class of slave don't make you free, conservatives, remember that.

Missing the point out of sheer weaponized incompetence is not an excuse.

Don't tread on me with that horseshit.

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It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for the country in return. ~Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr.

Two

You men gather round. I've been talking with, Pvt. Bucklin, he's told me about your problem. There's nothing I can do today. We'll be moving out in a few minutes, we'll be moving all day. I've been ordered to take you men with me. I'm told that, uh, that if you don't come, I can shoot you. Well, you know I won't do that. Maybe somebody else will, but I won't, so, that's that. Uh here's the, uh, situation. The whole Reb army is up that road a ways, waiting for us, so this is no time for an argument like this, I tell ya. We could surely use you fellas, we're now well below half strength. Whether you fight, or not, that's...that's up to you. Whether you come along is, is...well, you're comin'.

You know who we are and what we're doing here, but if you want to fight along side us, there's some things I want you to know. This regiment was formed last summer in Maine. There were a thousand of us then. There are less than three hundred of us now. All of us volunteered to fight for the Union, just as you did. Some came mainly because we were bored at home, thought this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to. Many of us came because it was the right thing to do. All of us have seen men die. This is a different kind of army. If you look back through history, you will see men fighting for pay, for women, for some other kind of loot. They fight for land, power, because a king leads them or, or just because they like killing. But we are here for something new. This has not happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free.

America should be free ground - all of it. Not divided by a line between slave state and free, all the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here, we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here, you can be something. Here, is the place to build a home. But it's not the land. There's always more land. It's the idea that we all have value - you and me. What we're fighting for, in the end, we're fighting for each other. Sorry, I, uh, didn't mean to preach. You, uh, you go ahead. You talk for awhile. Uh, if you, uh, if you choose to join us, you want your muskets back, you can have 'em. Nothing more will be said by anybody anywhere. If you, uh, choose not to join us, well you can come along under guard, and when this is all over I will do what I can to see you get a fair treatment. But for now, we're moving out. Gentlemen, I think if we lose this fight, we lose the war. So if you choose to join us, I'll be personally very grateful. ~Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, from the film Gettysburg.

No Respect (Independence Day 2026, Two.)

So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel. 

And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word. 

Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 

Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. 

Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”

So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”

Now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first, for you are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it.”

So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made.

And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord; and he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two cords of seed. And he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood, and said, “Fill four water-pots with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.” Then he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time; and he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar; and he also filled the trench with water.

And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.”

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”

And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let one of them escape!” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon and executed them there. 

~2 Kings 18:20-40

...

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan

I saw this garbage when I got up this morning.

Doug Wilson saying it's Okay that Mormons vote because they vote conservative, but in his idea of an ideal "Christian Republic" such would not be the case because only Calvinist freaks like him should be able to vote.

Never mind that's not even what a Republic is nor is it conservative.

This guy is a preacher about like I'm a fucking Chrome-plated Toaster. This creeper is just another politician, and not a very good one at that. He's a "preacher" because he knows he could never get elected or even appointed the real way.

His bullshit "Beliefs" and the way he talks to or about women would never stand up to public scrutiny, not even with MAGA. I've written about what I found out about this asshole before. Beating your wife with a belt after watching weird BDSM porn and drinking liquor to the point of idiocy ain't what I was taught. I've heard of this dude using language about women that I never heard in the wild until I was an adult serving in the Air Force. But at the same time, it's a safe bet this creep didn't learn to talk that way in the Navy. Language like that would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap if I'd ever used it as a kid.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

It's likewise a hard and fast rule with us that if I ever called my partner a "Cunt" first she'd throat punch me and then she'd break up with me. 

And I'd deserve it.

It's a respect issue.

But Doug Wilson talks that way all the time. He doesn't believe in Jesus, he's trying to use Calvinistic fake-Christianity to get "authority" to force women to be sexual slaves to him and abusive men like him. 

He's trying to bring back the Cult Of Baal by hanging a fake sign that says "Jesus" on his fertility demon.

This ain't right.

Just like it ain't right (I mean first off it ain't right that it's there, like I said) that a couple of idiot MAGA CHUDs basically bragged to some reporter about taking a dip in the baptismal pool in Trump's bullshit revival tent. Another thing that would've got somebody beat up and thrown out when I was learning this stuff!

Ya know, another couple of those things my Grandpa taught me were not done in the better places.

But what else would you expect from people who pretty much put a clown suit on and then go out in public and call that some kind of political loyalty??

These Fucking People neither respect others nor even their own damn selves. They don't care that Trump has bottomless contempt for them and pretty much hates them because they hate themselves, deep down.

These Fucking People's ideas of "Conservatism" and "Christianity" bear about as much relation to either in reality as the religion of the cultists in Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom would.

In order to actually function, our system requires that people have some degree of belief in truth, intelligence, bounded self-interest and self-respect. You have to have self-respect to have genuine respect for others. If you are going to say to anybody "You can't do that" first you have to be able to say "I can't do that" and mean it. If you want respect you have to be respectable.

Respect is earned by every action, every day. Unlike Doug Wilson I actually learned that in the military.

And the sycophancy that Trump inspires ain't that. Simpering devotion to Power ain't that.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And Truth is the only floor most of us will ever have to stand on to push back against Power.

The worst part is, these motherfuckers think they're gonna try to force everybody else to be hateful and miserable bastards like them. No, fuck that. I was taught better than this and I'll die with a rifle in my hand first if I have to. No is a complete sentence. And that goes double for the Doug Wilson types of the world, fuck you, get lost, I'm already a Christian. Don't tread on me with this horseshit!

Not for any particular ideal, but simply because that's not me. That's not the Jesus I was taught to believe in, and again, that shit is not right. This is not ideology, you're either a person or you ain't. You either have beliefs and personal morality or you don't.

In a country with 250 years of alleged faith and history these things should not have to be said, let alone explained in detail.

Remember that, this Independence Day.

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Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

One

[As the four newly-revealed Cylons aboard Galactica struggle to deal with the information, the call to action stations sounds]

Lieutenant Felix Gaeta: [over the loudspeaker] ...Inbound Cylon fleet! I repeat: action stations, action stations. Set Condition One throughout the ship. This is not a drill.

Tory Foster: Oh gods... what're we going to do?

Saul Tigh: The ship is under attack. We do our jobs. Report to your stations!

Chief Galen Tyrol: Report to stations?

Saul Tigh: My name is Saul Tigh. I am an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that's the man I want to be. And if I die today, that's the man I'll be. ~From Battlestar Galactica (2003) S3.E20 "Crossroads, Part 2."

American Babylon (Independence Day 2026, One.)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! 

~Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus.

...

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! ~Ronald Reagan

...

We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

...

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

So, Mercedes Schlapp is trying to say that Trump turned the reflecting pool into a green algae swamp to "Honor the heroes who made us free." 

Bitch, I'm a veteran.

#1 I don't WANT to be your hero. There's a very, very small number of people I care about trying to be heroic for, 'cause if there's anything I've learned in the last year it's that a hell of a lot of people (and certainly most "White" people of a certain imagined level of privilege) are just perverse ungrateful shitheads with no values, for absolutely no good reason. But there's still a decent number, at least a plurality, of good people out there and they're the ones I'm willing to fight and die for.

You ain't on that list.

I can't save the world. I figured that out.

But I've managed to help a few people, and got a girlfriend for better and worse.

And you'd have to want to be Saved.

#2 The reflecting pool and every other damn thing was fine before Trump broke it in some half-ass personal vanity project or Republican ideological/moneymaking scam. But I repeat myself. 

#3 The difference between me and you is, I'm brave enough to stand up and say this sucks and it is not right.

You know, it's worth noting that there were great swamps not far from Ancient Babylon, the modern marshes of southern Iraq are what is left of that. 

In Oz, the guards lock the cages and walk away, and the predators rise, take control and make the rules. But in Em City, the guards are with us 24 hours a day. There's no privacy. Everybody sees what everybody's doing. Eyes everywhere. McManus' eyes. See, in Em City, retribution gives way to redemption. Timmy boy believes he can save every one of us, from each other, from ourselves, from the system that dumped us in here. Only thing he don't get is, you gotta wanna be saved. ~Augustus Hill, From the HBO series Oz, S1.E1 "The Routine."

But perhaps more to the point if there's anything we've learned in the last few days it's that there's a too-big percentage of Republicans that not only don't give a shit about anyone's freedom...they're opposed to the entire concept because of some kind of made-up self-important ideological, racial or religious horseshit.

And that's where all this mythologizing garbage comes in.

They have to do it to try and say that Trump is "god" because if they don't do that, they have to admit that he's simply a two-bit greedy thug who sees America and everything about it as his personal piggy-bank to loot or smash as he damn well sees fit in order to try and prove some bullshit idea of "Authority" that only exists in his own bloated, orange-painted head. But nobody, not even his own family loves or respects him. 

The American system constrains Law and use of Force, so all this dude has is an unnatural ability to inspire cultic devotion, thankfully only in a certain type of person.

The problem is, he has a cult, and when all this crap finally falls all the way down...that'll still be 20% of the country just like it was for Bush 43 at the end of October in 2008 when he crashed the US economy so bad it took the rest of the world's economics with it.

And the Truth is, out of the diminishing number of those Republicans that are left (and you have to be a 1000% Trump Ass-kisser at this point to remain in good standing) These Fucking People would all rather watch the world burn than admit they've tried like hell to trade America and the world we live in for a pat on the head from a useless narcissistic shit-bag bully like Trump and to be enablers for the Epstein class and literal worship of demons.

'Cause the real problem is most of them are vain little narcissists too.

I guess "Me, Me, Me" is even how they could square that. I couldn't do it, and the whole idea drove me into Old Testament-grade FURY.

And like my buddy says Trump makes these fucking people feel like high school football players and prom queens again. I don't know, I played football one fall semester and found it boring.

I can't even talk the way these people talk, as a result of all this shit.

And I've seen what the redneck CHUDs do, it disgusts me.

When you could live decent for a year off the sheer scrap-metal value of the 20 dead cars and one motor home in your yard, leeching off your cousin who needs a place to stay because your town is where she found a job...that's a deliberate choice and a special kind of laziness.

What disgusts me even more is the people who should know better that keep going along because they think they will profit from this mess.

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.

And that's exactly why as bad shit continues to come out and things keep going sideways (and they will) it will eventually come down to everyone at least says they were against all of this bullshit all along.

Don't tread on me with that bullshit.

They knew what they were doing.

These fucking people will eventually betray Trump and throw him overboard, if he doesn't do it to them first.

I can remember when most Republicans weren't this, or at least had to pretend to be something else.

31 years ago when I took this picture at the KI Sawyer AFB farewell airshow, having gotten lucky enough to have most of the daytime hours off that day, I don't know if the world was necessarily any better but it was at least less fucking stupid.

And yes, it's things like that, which remind me that people like Mercedes Schlapp or Troy Nehls don't give a shit about people like me or anything that our service accomplished.

Which, when I see some idiot Republican literally talking smack about the Statue of Liberty, I wonder just what the fuck I was even doing.

And as we run up to Independence Day and America's 250th anniversary, with an apparent Fyre-festival like collapse waiting in the wings just behind it, all I can do is fight to make sure that when that happens, decent people step up and build something that works instead of allowing the next generation of this garbage to perpetuate itself the second We The People go back to sleep.

America As Babylon is going to fall, soon.

What comes after that is on us.

Enough Is Enough.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

Last Post

Charlie White-knife: Do you know what "fiduciary responsibility" means?

Cooper Howard: "Fiduciary responsibility?" No. I have no fucking idea. I play a cowboy for a living.

Charlie White-knife: Okay. So, the US Government has outsourced the survival of the human race to Vault-Tec. Vault-Tec is a private corporation that has a fiduciary responsibility to make money for its investors. And how does it make money? By selling Vaults.

Cooper Howard: That's called "capitalism," Charlie.

Charlie White-knife: But they can't sell Vaults if these peace negotiations go through. So, Vault-Tec has a fiduciary responsibility to make sure that it don't work out.

Cooper Howard: [scoffs] Yeah? How are they gonna do that?

Charlie White-knife: I don't know. But...do you remember that movie we did with Johnny Morton? You were the Sheriff, and I was some generic Indian?

Cooper Howard: Hey come on, don't say that. Tall-hand Mudlake could talk to horses. You played him with grace and dignity. It was a great role for you!

Charlie White-knife: Morton played a rancher who owned half of Missouri. And what happens when the cattle ranchers have more power than the Sheriff?

Cooper Howard: The whole town burns down.

Charlie White-knife: The whole town burns down. Right. Vault-Tec is a trillion-dollar company that owns half of everything, and after ten years of war the US Government is broker than a joke. The cattle ranchers are in charge, Coop. Unless the People do something about it.

Cooper Howard: I guess everything's a conspiracy, right? Come on man, you sound like you're in a cult.

Charlie White-knife: And you're sitting here defending a system that's ready to set the world on fire, Cooper. Maybe you're the one in the cult. 

~Fallout (TV Series) Episode 1.06 "The Trap."

Blood Is All One Color (Don't Tread On Me, Six.)

“'When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

~Leviticus 19:33-34, New International Version.

...

When I kill a man, it's because he's standing in the way of my constitutional rights, what God has given me. The Sicilians understand that. The rest of these fucks will cut a man for a fucking cigarette, for a pair of sneakers, they are animals. ~Vern Schillinger, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and Otherwise.

...

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on a race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength of the world. That is the American way. ~Ronald Reagan

...

Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!
Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!
Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru
Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā
Ā, upane! ka upane!
Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra!

~Ka Mate, Maori Haka (main body)

(Translation)

'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
This is the hairy man
Who caused the sun to shine again for me
Up the ladder, up the ladder!
Rise! The Sun shines.

~Ka Mate, from a previous post "War Dance."

Yesterday in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the 14th Amendment and Birthright Citizenship.

The decision should have been 9-0.

Instead, Clarence Thomas wrote a 91-page dissent effectively arguing that once Black people were made citizens somebody should have pulled the ladder up behind him.

Sam Alito wrote a 30 page dissent laced with racist conspiracy theories. Alito is Italian, his people weren't considered "White" until well within my own lifetime. Seriously, White-on-White racism used to be a thing. My grandma owned a book of Polish jokes until the fucking day she died.

In These Fucking People's world, the definition of "American" is so narrow as to exclude basically anybody but themselves or their homies. That's not how Rights even work.

Crude as it may be, the Oz quote makes the point, and I used that shit for a reason. Look up the character, I fucking dare you. I'm a conservative, Democrat, yes...but I was taught and will always believe Rights are given by God, not Man.

Because if it was up to Man...especially these "men?" A few short weeks from now we'd be down to the last American...and that would be Trump. That kind of shit is what cults fucking do. I cannot even tell you how many times in dealing with people that've gotten fucked over in church communities, or as an Admin on that ex-Pentecostal forum, that in their previous situation the only person in the church they were sure was going to Heaven was the Pastor.

So much for "Saved by Grace" eh?

I've been an American my whole life. I swore an oath on the Bible to the Constitution when I was 19 years old and served my country, alongside people of all races, and many cultures. I swore no oath to "Whiteness" or to anyone's racism, and I say that as somebody who was a Republican at the time and who has said many things about other people and groups that would be deemed slurs or wrong in this day and age, MAGA or no MAGA. Am I sorry for that? Maybe, depends on the context. Sometimes shit's gotta be said, and what follows is such:

These people don't want God's grace or a world of laws and rights and people having recourse against the State or their fellow man. They don't want to be citizens, they want to trade freedom for slavery and call that "ideology." They want a pat on the head and privileges, like they're goddamned children. and to be guilt-tripped and manipulated and told what to do. They want to conceptually eliminate freedom so they know who they can be mean to and who's ass they have to kiss or who they have to backstab to get ahead Fuck that.

The reaction of assorted right-wing "Influencers" and other weirdos to this decision was even worse.

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.

We need to take our country back from these motherfuckers.

I did not sweat through two deployments to Khobar and PSAB in Saudi Arabia to see a third of my country utterly prostrate itself before a more Orange, sans mustache version of Saddam Hussein. Fuck that shit!

Except it's actually worse.

I've seen people argue that nobody should be allowed to even visit America, least of all pregnant women. I've seen these freaks say that visitors (again, especially women) should be sterilized. There's a substantial part of "Republicans" out there that....well honestly, I don't even think North Korea is this fucking paranoid or xenophobic. Christ, the motherfucking Nazis didn't go that fucking far! This is the kind of shit that makes the whole rest of the world band together and put you down like a rabid dog, America.

I mean, this is where "Anything but Love Thy Neighbor" logically ends up.

And These Fucking People all say they believe in Jesus.

“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

Yeah, right.

These Ass-clown idiots think what color they were when they came out of their mama makes them gods.

Sorry, but I've been a Christian my whole life. Jesus wasn't White.

The Word says in Isaiah that He would not even be remarkable in appearance:

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. ~Isaiah 53:1-5

Jesus most likely basically looked like an Arab in today's terms, and Aramaic (the progenitor language to Arabic) was among those He would have spoken, along with Greek, Hebrew because of his vocation as a Rabbi and the education that came with it, and a little Latin. Both Greek and Latin being necessary for dealing with the Romans, the real rulers of ancient Israel in His time, and for the most part deployed Romans and transplanted Greeks were the only "White" people in that region.

And the locals, Egyptians, Israelites and Syrians, who had become Hellenized or Romanized were looked at by their neighbors about how like Black Republicans get looked at today, except things were a little more stabby.

As a carpenter, Jesus would have been a rough man, not unfamiliar with alcohol or physicality including physical violence as His driving the money-changers from the Temple suggests, both strong of arm and back, and very likely creative with His invective and prone to peppering his work with imprecations and spoken blessings and curses.

The faith of Jesus was not the faith in Empire or Hierarchy but promised liberation from it. 

How's them Imperial Ambitions working out for Vladimir Putin? And if Russia is so great why, 35 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, does Moscow still look like a typical dirty Soviet city like Tom Clancy described Moscow or Tallinn in the Cardinal Of The Kremlin and The Hunt For Red October?

I've met people from the former Soviet states, including Russia. They all basically at one time or another said the same thing: Authoritarianism does not encourage one to pick up the garbage.

And yet even the average person from Moscow thinks they're a Boyar when dealing with people from rural parts of Russia.

Empire hands you a place in the world and then makes you fight your own neighbors to keep that shit. Seems like a hell of a way to live, eh?

I was taught all are equal in His sight. It wasn't even a question.

Salvation is a free gift, not a reward for submission. I was taught this, too, by conservatives.

In the same way, if you are born in America, our Constitution and culture and traditions all say you're an American. You don't have to do anything, or believe a certain way.

But if you accept and believe that, these assholes don't get to control you, and that's their real problem.

And again Power and control always come down to flesh-pots and meat-markets and a complicated ranking system for no greater purpose than who can do what to whom, usually in the most base and lustful ways possible.

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! ~Ronald Reagan

For as much as These Fucking People claim to hate Communism...they sure wanna live like low-grade apparatchiks in a walled-off Communist "Worker's Paradise" lording their little bit of petty power over the factory workers that live down the hall in their shabby apartment block.

Their real "god" is political power, "God" is little more than a golden idol they can fit in their pocket and play like a card to get their way or get out of having to argue.

Which is weird, given that so much of what we know of Jesus from the Word is Him, literally arguing with the religious leaders of His day...of which He was clearly not one, but he knew what they knew (and more, naturally) and had the same education and ascribed spiritual powers by society and thus a little political power, only lacking the same rank that they had achieved.

And naturally the Pharisees and Sadducees saw Jesus as a threat.

Because they didn't Believe, not in their hearts.

Because Power was their real "god."

It's the same way with These Fucking People.

That's why they worship Devils and Idols of Gold.

There's a reason these idiots hate Islam, or would try to arrest a Catholic nun for simply walking to Mass.

And it's not just the racism, they hate anybody whose belief in God extends much pass uttering "Goddamn" while getting stinking drunk...which is evidently a thing among even (perhaps especially) *Checks Notes* Hardcore Calvinists today.

I'm old enough to remember when even Anti-Communist Neo-Conservative War Hawks acted better than that. Hell, I started out as a conservative. I was a kid in the 1980's In the 1980's you couldn't go more than a day or two without hearing of the brave Mujhideen fighting the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan, facing down Soviet Mi-24 Hind Gunships and T-72 Tanks with nothing more than AK-47's, improvised explosives, our FIM-92 Stinger Missiles and their own guts, grit and determination:

“The moment stretched into eternity as both men brought their weapons to bear. He saw the man's eyes. It was a young face there, immediately below the emergency light, but the eyes . . . the rage there, the hatred, nearly stopped the Colonel's heart. But Bondarenko was a soldier before all things. The Afghan's first shot missed. His did not.

The Archer felt shock, but not pain in his chest as he fell. His brain sent a message to his hands to bring the weapon to the left, but they ignored the command and dropped it. He fell in stages, first to his knees, then on his back, and at last he was staring up at a ceiling. It was finally over. Then the man stood by his side. It was not a cruel face, the Archer thought. It was the enemy, and it was an infidel, but he was a man, too, wasn't he? There was curiosity there. He wants to know who I am, the Archer told him with his last breath.

"Allah Akbar!" God is great.

Yes, I suppose He is, Bondarenko told the corpse. He knew the phrase well enough. Is that why you came? He saw that the man had a radio. It started to make noise, and the Colonel bent down to grab it.

"Are you there?" the radio asked a moment later. The question was in Pashtu, but the answer was delivered in Russian. "It is all finished here,"

~Closing moments of the battle at the Soviet laser installation, from The Cardinal Of The Kremlin, by Tom Clancy.

As I wrote many years ago now; That war, or the nightly news reports of it anyway, right along with the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa this was something that marked and shaped my childhood and my view of the world, much as knowing Muslims as a young man shaped my views well into middle age. The Kuwaitis and the Saudis were our brothers in the Gulf War and in containing Saddam after this. Iraqis and Afghan Pashtuns alike have fought beside us in our own Global War on Terror...and American Muslims have shed blood in the service of this country, including friends of mine, guys who I served with who I sometimes had to live so close to we knew about everything there was to know about each other whether we wanted to or not.

In mine and my partner's own struggles, a year ago one of the people helping keep her going was the Arab guy who owned the bodega across the street from her apartment building. I still consider it that I owe that guy, and I'd like to pay back that debt someday. Any man who does not understand this or claims not to is not a man.

I'll note, Hell I've extensively written about, that it's the right-wing Evangelical Christians who have strived to make her life harder and treat her like dirt.

That Muslim immigrant store-owner? He called my girlfriend "Habibi" (which means "Baby") and paid for her groceries more than once, and would tell her to buy MORE stuff, when she had basically no money. Islam scripturally compels Charity (Zakat) and protecting the vulnerable. Muslims don't always do that the way we would, but they do it.

We are better than this, America, or some of us are anyway. We are better than this racism and willful ignorance and we have to fight to make others be better than it too. We're better than this, and we damned well know it...or we should. We are a nation of immigrants, for fuck's sake!

And as you see these monsters gleefully discussing the heavy loads, so great that no one can bear them, that they would put on people to come here?

Imagine what they'd put on people in order to define them as "Christian" or "Republican" or any other damn thing.

At the end of the day, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

In the meantime, Don't tread on me with this bullshit.

Ronald Reagan said Blood is all one color.

Don't you dare forget that.

Because before this is over, we're going to find that out again.

Слава Україна!

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

Five

 [Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. 

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."