The Mustelid Liberation Front

Wednesday, September 9, 2026

Please Clap II (Oblivion, Four.)

Proctor: Sir, Mahoney says this restaurant has the best salad bar in town. [They're walking down an alley, still in their police uniforms.]

Harris: Well, it damn sure better have!

[Inside, they walk through curtains of beads and past a Bud Light neon sign.]

Harris: Proctor, I don't see a salad bar.

Proctor: [Noticing the sign "The Blue Oyster."] Look, sir, maybe they serve seafood.

Harris: [Slowly realizing he's in a gay bar] That's not funny, you idiot! [To Leatherman] What are you looking at, you PECKERHEAD?!

Leatherman: Nice uniform, makes me wish I'd worn my sailor outfit.

Harris: I'm getting out of here! Move it! Move it! [Starts to push through the crowd of gay men.]
*El Bimbo begins to play*

Harris: [Being forced to dance with Leatherman] Proctor!

Proctor: I don't think cutting in is allowed, Sir.

Proctor: [Being noticed by second Leatherman] Nice collar!

~From Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol

...

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 the Republican midterm convention in Texas can be summed up in pretty much 2 words:

"Please Clap."

Well, that and "Grindr."

Wait, is that a word??

Tim Scott evidently gave a pretty bizarre sermon/speech and what little I've seen of it is bad enough. I don't really want to see the whole thing.

I mean, Jesus, what the hell is wrong with these fucking people??

Except that, of course, it's the fact that a (The? Sorry, painfully straight guy here and I don't know shit about this stuff) Gay hookup app is literally *Checks Notes* OFF THE HOOK where there's a Republican convention.

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.

I think that tells as big of a story as how much of a goddamn mess the whole thing is. Like, maybe these idiots might find time to be competent if they weren't always trying to cover up the giant pile of pelvic bones spilling out from their closets??

Like what's even the damn point, nobody cares if anybody's gay anymore, except for a certain kind of Evangelical Republican.

You know, the kind that habitually gets the definition of "Sodomite" completely wrong.

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

And of course Trump is trying to literally buy people's votes...as if anyone but dumbass cultists trusts him anymore??

He said $5,000.

There's 245 MILLION adult citizens in this country so that works out to about $1.3 TRILLION dollars.

That we don't have.

That no one will loan us.

That Trump's biggest allies in particular simply do not have to give.

The trouble with deficit spending is you have to maintain good relations with creditors and potential creditors to keep the credit (AKA deficit spending) flowing.

And if America is done with Trump, well, I think it's safe to say most of the rest of the world is at least as sick of this bumptious wannabe-Antichrist as we are.

Not to mention it's a pretty damn safe bet he's stolen all of the Republican campaign money.

Yeah, have fun with that in a couple months here, guys.

Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house comes, at evening, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning, ~Mark 13:35

The rest of us are, and I cannot stress this enough, God-damned tired of this mess. I'm overextended, my partner is over-stressed, my Mom *Checks Notes* the retired person, is overtired...and these motherfucking Jabronis have time for an off-season political convention and Rent-boy-palooza?? Instead of fixing the country and dealing with our actual problems???

Fuck These Motherfuckers.

Either get a grip, Republicans, or get the fuck out of the way.

As for the rest of you? You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You get what you tolerate, America.

Слава Україна!

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

Three

"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, Grass Grows, Paint Dries, The Earth Spins.]
"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

Please Clap I (Oblivion, Three.)

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ~John 8:44

...

Proctor: Sir, Mahoney says this restaurant has the best salad bar in town. [They're walking down an alley, still in their police uniforms.]
Harris: Well, it damn sure better have!

[Inside, they walk through curtains of beads and past a Bud Light neon sign.]

Harris: Proctor, I don't see a salad bar.

Proctor: [Noticing the sign "The Blue Oyster."] Look, sir, maybe they serve seafood.

Harris: [Slowly realizing he's in a gay bar] That's not funny, you idiot! [To Leatherman] What are you looking at, you PECKERHEAD?!

Leatherman: Nice uniform, makes me wish I'd worn my sailor outfit.

Harris: I'm getting out of here! Move it! Move it! [Starts to push through the crowd of gay men.]
*El Bimbo begins to play*

Harris: [Being forced to dance with Leatherman] Proctor!

Proctor: I don't think cutting in is allowed, Sir.

Proctor: [Being noticed by second Leatherman] Nice collar!

~From Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol

...

[Silence, Cricket, Cricket, Chirp Chirp]
"Please clap."

~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016

...

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

So the other day Trump tried to say he was pulled from the rubble by firefighters on 9/11,

Bullshit.

I was glued to various TV's that day, and for several days after, as I went about my daily routines.

He wasn't. I know he wasn't there.

At around 9 A.M. on September 11th, I was sitting at my desk, looking out at that infamously clear blue sky, arguing with my ex-wife on Yahoo messenger. There was a knock on my door, my neighbor...a Saudi international student...stopping by to bum a cigarette. I got back to my desk and my ex was freaking out about something, demanding I turn on the TV news. I picked up my pack of Camel Blues and the remote for my TV, thumbed on the remote (my TV was set on CNN) and pulled out two cigarettes for my neighbor. I was handing them to him just as we both watched the second plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. My neighbor said something in Arabic that I didn't catch.
My ex started freaking out again. Classes were almost immediately canceled, I went to work in the cafeteria though, because faculty and students and maintenance staff still had to eat. It made for a slow day, and we had the TV's on in the cafeteria.

I've said before that afternoon my boss and I stood outside after we'd taken out the cardboard and the trash, smoking and watching a solitary contrail in that clear blue sky, just a gray-green point on a long silver-white spear...I knew it was a military aircraft (We'd already seen, on CNN, FOX and local news, videos of scores of commercial jets landed at every available airport in the country including disused Air Force Bases like KI Sawyer AFB-where I'd been stationed for most of my time-near Marquette, MI and Wurtsmith AFB, near Oscoda, MI) and, to confirm it I went and got my binoculars out of my car, (A Teal 1994 Ford Tempo) parked on the grass a few feet away...and showed him that it in point of fact was a USAF KC-135 Stratotanker. That evening my Mom stopped by to check on me...her own classes having been canceled for the day as well. I'd been rolling out pizza dough when she showed up, and just walked back into the kitchen like she was supposed to be there.

After work I spent most of the evening consoling my then-girlfriend who was also extremely upset, a conversation that also happened on Yahoo Messenger.

Never heard a damn thing about *Checks Note* Donald Trump in that whole time.

Republicans are losing their ass in Texas, and apparently losing their souls everywhere else. For all of their big talk, I've heard from people like Rick Wilson that the White House is lawyering up. They know what's about to happen. They're going to lose.

Enough so that they're floating literally the most Communist of Communist ideas in the National Review like it's a strategy.

And what do they bring in as a last ditch effort??

A bunch of guys that basically look like the clientele of the gay bar from the Police Academy movies. (And one of these guys is rather infamously, like one of the few openly gay Republicans left.)

To rally Republicans??

Bill Buckley (who called Gore Vidal a queer on live TV and they almost got into a fight) Fucking Wept.

Honestly, that's not the actions of people who care if they win or they lose.

This isn't the actions of a political party that's fighting for its life.

This is bored nihilists who want to cash out and either get away before Fuck Around turns into Find Out or they simply want to move on to something else.

And don't you forget it.

What's worse is These Fucking People have basically destroyed their own business model.

And...note I've had this conversation with my British friend...they did it because Capitalism simply wasn't racist enough and needs a continuous influx of new bodies, women, Black people, Latinos, LGBT folk, Muslims, Immigrants in general, even the Undocumented...simply to maintain itself and keep the system and its various pay-as-you-go supports like Social Security and fucking taxes going.

Republicans craved a closed economic and political system, like the Jim Crow South, perhaps, only worse. (Actually what these assholes want is feudalism.) The problem is, you cannot get that without everyone losing a fuck-ton of money and most of their standard of living.

Nobody wants that, at least not nobody whose brain hasn't been completely fried by Twitter or maybe drunk-ass hyper-Calvinist horseshit.

They couldn't get that in four years. Hell, in today's world you couldn't do it in any amount of time because modern Capitalism only cares about one color; Green.

And Republicans are shocked, forsooth, shocked I tell you! That Black Folks didn't just drop everything including successful careers and show up to pick vegetables for less money than it takes to live on because Donald Trump implied (wink wink nudge nudge) that they should.

Nobody was going to do that, either, people already got jobs and they got bills to pay that (effectively) $4K for $5K (more realistically if paid proper wages $10K) worth of work ain't going to cover.

If you don't like it, too damned bad.

Pick your own fucking Peas.

It's all visibly falling apart in real time and that is not a joke.

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."

Everybody that I know or know of except for rich Republicans is overextended, overstimulated, over-stressed and overworked. Every. Body.

And then these motherfuckers have the balls to wonder why most people don't wanna vote for them, and why, with Trump governing basically in the name of a late-aughts Yahoo News comments section full of idiotic racist comments that have nothing to do with the topic...they're losing a lot of their own fucking voters.

Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “Yes, a shadow. You see, Restless One, this life is not real. Your life, my life, they are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die, and here we remain. Trapped, caged, until we can achieve the True Death.”

Nameless One: “True Death?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”

Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that?

~from Planescape Torment

(Full disclosure; My partner, like me, used to be a Republican.)

Republicans wanted to break the system so bad that pretty much everybody would accept whatever shit-off-the-bottom-of-their-shoe deal Republicans saw fit to give us. Fuck no.

I help support my Partner (and often, my Mom) whenever I can.

People are doing what they can and protecting themselves, just like they did during COVID-19, when Republicans tried to weaponize that against everybody else.

Like, what the fuck did they think we were gonna do??

I'm so tired of this shit.

And there's two things in play now, which we're going to have to be aware of.

#1 The only thing they have to make themselves feel better is to lie about it. Which they are doing with wild abandon. This is not the actions of people who want to save themselves.

#2 (And also see #1, the two things feed off each other) If they cannot get the totalitarian control that they think they want (which they cannot do) and break everything so everybody else in the world (and yes, take that literally) has to lick their boots, These Fucking People crave the Oblivion.

#3 But also, they don't wanna actually die.

I mean that's how it usually ends up when people are allowed to buy into completely bullshit tautologies for decades.

But what the fuck do I know??

Worse, at the end of the day, this is pretty much the best they can actually get to protect them when everybody else isn't buying into their bullshit.

Bunch of far-right marchers from over in England wearing Black Pajamas and ski masks and since half of these guys are about the size of House from Police Academy (no offense to Tab Thacker's excellent character intended) the effect is that I had to do a double take 'cause I thought the shit looked like a seal colony if you just added water and some rocks or something.

The Hork Hork kind of seals, not Special Operations.

Republican Babylon is going to fall. There's a non-zero chance that it takes America...which has also become Babylon because of these shitheads...down with it and we have to start over with something new.

This is a case where the Word gets it wrong though, no one will mourn her, not even a little.

And it will fall, soon.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Truth is the only floor we have to stand on to punch back and keep our freedom.

Remember That.

Слава Україна!

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

Two

Maximus: You sent for me, Caesar?

Marcus Aurelius: Tell me again, Maximus, why are we here?

Maximus: For the glory of the empire, sire.

Marcus Aurelius: Ah, yes. Ah, yes, I remember. Do you see that map, Maximus? That is the world which I created. For 25 years, I have conquered, spilt blood, expanded the empire. Since I became Caesar, I have known four years without war, four years of peace in twenty. And for what? I brought the sword. Nothing more.

Maximus: Caesar, your life...

Marcus Aurelius: Please. Please, don't call me that. Please, come sit. Let us talk together now, very simply, as men. Maximus, talk.

Maximus: Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe that they fought and died for nothing.

Marcus Aurelius: And what would you believe?

Maximus: They fought for you and for Rome.

Marcus Aurelius: And what is Rome, Maximus?

Maximus: I've seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark, Rome is the light.

Marcus Aurelius: Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end... he wants to know there was some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher? The warrior? The tyrant...? Or will I be the emperor who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter. Maximus, let us whisper now, together, you and I. You have a son. Tell me about your home.

Maximus: My house is in the hills above Trujillo. A very simple place. Pink-stones that warm in the sun. A kitchen garden that smells of herbs in the day, jasmine in the evening. Through the gate is a giant poplar. Figs, apples, pears. The soil, Marcus- black. Black like my wife's hair. Grapes on the south slopes, olives on the north. Wild ponies play near my house. They tease my son. He wants to be one of them.

Marcus Aurelius: Remember the last time you were home?

Maximus: Two years, 264 days, and this morning.

Marcus Aurelius: I envy you, Maximus. It's a good home. Worth fighting for. There is one more duty that I ask of you before you go home.

Maximus: What would you have me do, Caesar?

Marcus Aurelius: I want you to become the protector of Rome after I die. I will empower you to one end alone: To give power back to the people of Rome, and end the corruption that has crippled it. Will you accept this great honor I have offered you?

Maximus: With all my heart, no.

Marcus Aurelius: Maximus, that is why it must be you.

Maximus: But surely a prefect, a senator, somebody who knows the city, who understands her politics?

Marcus Aurelius: But you have not been corrupted by her politics.

Maximus: And Commodus?

Marcus Aurelius: Commodus is not a moral man. You have known that since you were young. Commodus cannot rule. He must not rule. You are the son that I should have had. Commodus will accept my decision. He knows that you command the loyalty of the army.

Maximus: I need some time, sire.

Marcus Aurelius: Yes. By sunset, I hope you will have agreed. Now embrace me as my son, and bring an old man another blanket.

~From the film Gladiator.

Monday, September 7, 2026

Terminator (Oblivion, Two.)

Sarah Connor: [she and Reese have just snuck into a Cadillac] Reese. Why me? Why does it want me?

Kyle Reese: There was a nuclear war. A few years from now...all this...this whole place, everything...it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah.

Sarah: I don't understand.

Kyle: Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.

Sarah: Did you see this war?

Kyle: No. I grew up after. In the ruins... starving... hiding from H-K's.

Sarah: H-K's?

Kyle: Hunter-Killers: patrol machines built in automated factories. Most of us were rounded up, put into camps for orderly disposal. [pulls up his right sleeve, exposing a mark] This is burned in by laser scan. Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah... your unborn son. [Sarah gapes in amazement.]

~From The Terminator.

...

If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can. I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me. ~The Nameless One, from Planescape: Torment.

...

Rotta the Hutt: [sees Grogu] Who is he?

The Mandalorian: [to Grogu] Don't stare.

Rotta the Hutt: It's okay. [to Grogu] What's your name?

The Mandalorian: He doesn't talk. Who do you have to pay?

Rotta the Hutt: Can I feed him?

The Mandalorian: Sure. Who do you have to pay?

[Rotta takes some food and throws it to Grogu]

Rotta the Hutt: Lord Janu.

The Mandalorian: I don't know the name.

Rotta the Hutt: You should. He runs the syndicate on all the moons of Shakari. [throws another piece of food to Grogu] He signed me to his stable, he bankrolled my board and training.

The Mandalorian: He keeps you in a cage.

Rotta the Hutt: He treats me well. And after tomorrow night, I'll be my own man. And with the following you got me as a promoter, not only will my debt be paid, but I'll be rich by the solstice.

[Grogu squeezes through the bars of Rotta's cell, and approaches Rotta as Rotta is about to give him another piece of food]

The Mandalorian: Grogu! Heel!

[Rotta holds Grogu]

Rotta the Hutt: Don't worry. I'm not my father. You know how hard it is to be your own man when your father is Jabba the Hutt? You see them cheering for me out there? For me. It's the first time I'm not living in his shadow. That's why I fight in the pits. They feared him, but they cheer for me.

~From the Star Wars film The Mandalorian and Grogu.

I saw this last night.

Trump posted a bunch of AI slop pictures of him at the head of an army of Terminators. Or maybe he saw The Mandalorian and Grogu and thinks he wants a Droid army like the Hutts have in that movie.

I don't really give a shit which it is.

Well, then I saw this video of some old German person that lives in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. The motherfucker was literally saying if Russian troops marched through the Brandenburg Gate he'd be at a field kitchen ready to feed them. First, I was like "The fuck kind of person is not loyal to their own country?" Well, I looked on the map to see where that state was. It's in what used to be East Germany and my next thought was, well, East German Commies are gonna East German Commie.

And don't tell me that's not exactly what's going on there. Nostalgia for East Germany...which was never properly De-Nazified by the Soviets nor rehabilitated from Communism by the German government...has a weird nostalgia for the Communist days.

Fucker's loyal to Russia, it doesn't matter if Russia is currently pretending to be left-wing or right-wing, I guess??

I served in the military, on a deep level I cannot imagine not being loyal to one's own country.

But more than that, watching the video and seeing all the stuff around this guy...much of it old, I'm just thinking, well, Miserable Bastards are going to be Miserable Bastards.

It's not like we don't have whole states full of mostly pinch-faced assholes represented by know-nothing Republicans in our own country.

And back before Russia invaded Ukraine and proceeded to get the Ass Whuppin Of The Century a fuck-ton of these "Conservative" shitheads were big Putin stans, too.

Why would Germany be any fucking different??

I mean, it absolutely doesn't make any sense to me because my formative experience of all this shit was the 1980's and it was abundantly clear at that point that, whatever was going on over there, the Russians and a bunch of other people in the East Bloc countries were just about done putting up with it.

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

Now, almost two generations later, some of those same people who were there want the Jackboots back?? Sorry, but I even as a teenager I could see that Communism sucked.

Now? Capitalism itself seems to be slowly morphing into the same kind of bullshit, mostly because people who were all too glad to throw off the shackles of Communism have gotten comfortable and fat and bored and they don't want anybody else to get any of whatever they think they have.

Which mostly isn't all that much, but ya know, other people coming up or getting a slice might offend the narcissism that seems to be born of the relative affluence of some of these countries.

I'm really, really goddamn sick of this fucking bullshit. I say that as somebody that spent a few years of his life serving in the shadow of the Cold War.

Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989. Democrats are not Communists. Judging solely from actions it looks to me like it's Putin and Trump that are trying to bring that garbage back. I mean, the Russian Army literally is flying the Hammer and Sickle, the Russian government flies it outside of government buildings. Putin is/was KGB.

You cannot tell me Republicans don't know all this shit.

They just hope that you don't.

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

And I feel like Republicans Red-baiting Democrats while doing Commie shit themselves is pretty damn insulting to all the people who served, or died, in the Cold War.

Republicans used to be the people who cared about government, history, religion, doing things properly, and all type of shit. Now? I tell some CHUD something I was specifically taught, by Republicans of previous generations, as a Republican of previous generation myself to point out that they're wrong and they look at me like I'm from Mars.

And/or they wanna argue with me and try to qualify their previous stance even though they know I'm right.

I don't even try to argue with the young ones, let 'em find out the hard way. The ones my age or older should fucking know better, though.

Or at least, that's the theory.

The truth is that, as Russell Moore said in his book RE: The Southern Baptist Convention, is that a lot of these people didn't even believe in what they said about themselves, or taught, or whatever.

A lot of These Fucking People Seem like they were in some kind of a holding pattern, waiting for Trump or somebody like him to give them permission to be Bad People.

I think, looking back, that a lot of these fucking people...or those eras equivalents of them, anyway, were hoping Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan was gonna be That Guy. Neither was, despite both being, in modern terminology, problematic.

And, well, now a lot of these motherfuckers are wondering why their friends stopped being their friends, or their kids won't talk to them or whatever. Action/Consequence. This isn't that hard.

But if there's anything I've learned in the last eleven years, with particular emphasis on the last year and a half, it's that some people are just Bad People.

And one motherfucker of a lot of them don't want to be anything else.

I say on a regular basis that you either believe in freedom or you don't.

Some people, I'd say between a quarter and a third of us...don't.

And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13:16-18

There was a line from Full Metal Jacket that always stuck with me, where Private Joker says to one of the other Marines, regarding the Vietnamese, that they'd "Rather be alive than free, I guess."

Well, I'm gonna modify that and say that some people would rather have a spot in a pecking order than be free. Hierarchy matters more than freedom. They don't love Christ because His Word resonates with their soul...they look at the Bible as a bunch of excuses and rules to follow, if they bother with it at all.

And increasingly they don't.

I think it's worse than that they'd rather be alive than free, or even rather be part of a hierarchy than free.

I think they think Trump gives them a "god" that they can see.

Which tells me, really, that a hell of a lot of "religious" people were more Atheists than the most Atheistic rationalistic Atheistic non-Believer that I know.

Or worse, if they did believe in some God or demon or spirit or whatever they thought it was an angry violent narcissist they needed to appease.

Which (now) is why they can't stop (metaphorically) blowing the narcissist now. They literally seem to think if they appease this guy enough they'll go to Heaven or some shit.

Sorry, but in my opinion, going anywhere in the Afterlife with Donald Trump in it sounds like Hell.

I mean for fuck's sake they are even willing to throw the Epstein files victims under the goddamn bus for Trump, not to mention all the people for whom bringing the people in the files to justice was a big thing. And not only that, but they talk about people who really did believe in that (like MTG or Thomas Massie) like they're crazy or something.

Cassian Andor: What? To steal from the Empire, what do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands, and an Imperial toolkit. They’re so proud of themselves, they don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it…

Luthen Rael: Can’t imagine what?

Andor: That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear.

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E2 "That Would Be Me."

And mind you I burned through a lot of ink mocking both Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie over the years but now I have to respect both of them, simply for doing the human thing.

For not believing that Putin or Trump or some other shitty potentate is "god."

For not choosing Miserable Bastardy for its own sake.

Seems like a low bar, but it's where we're at, and that disgusts former Republicans like me.

But the truth is, if they can't have the Totalitarian Power that they think they want right now, they'd rather not only they but everyone else too, have the Oblivion.

However they philosophize or rationalize it, that's what this shit comes down to.

And if they really did believe all this End Times stuff, they gotta know they're picking the wrong side. I think they just don't care.

Some of these people literally wanna build Skynet, and Terminators.

I guess they didn't watch the movies and see how that worked out.

Again, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

It's going to come down to a fight.

Soon.

Слава Україна!

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

One

Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”

Nameless One: “True Death?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”

Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that?

~from Planescape Torment