Better Dead Than Red (Don't Tread On Me, Three.)

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

...

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

...

Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

~Isaiah 1:13-17 (KJV)

I saw this last night.

Trump, ranting about Communism like it's 1986.

Except it's 2026 and Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989.

More to the point, in what nominally Communist countries remain, there's lots of churches, mosques, temples, etc. The government might not trust religion, but they tolerate it because, among other things, that is the price of participation in our modern world...and it's funny how there's plenty of people in the governments of places like China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam who could well be described as Commies on the streets and Capitalist in the sheets. I mean, if you want to be serious about it, there's Evangelicals in the People's Republic of China who are just as much of fanatics about supporting the Communist Party as Evangelicals in the USA are about supporting Republicans (And for the same reasons.) 

No, that doesn't make much sense, but that's the state of the world these days.

Then you throw in that half the (American) Republican Party is on the payroll of KGB Agent Vladimir Putin, yet slouching rapidly towards something far more like Radical Islam than Soviet Communism.

Think about that one for a second.

It quite makes one want to start rooting for the Chinese at this point. And if we got our ass handed to us by the Iranians, yes, the Chinese would certainly fuck us over in a conventional war. 

Sorry, but maybe we need to lose a few, at this point, so we can figure out where we fucked up and get our priorities straight. Take the "Nationalists" and religious nuts down a peg or six while we're at it. Maybe idiots like Pete Keg-Breath would get a little smarter if some Chinese Evangelical wearing a T-shirt with the five-star flag on it.

Yeah, that's what Republicans, of all people, have come to.

They're basically the bad guys in a Tom Clancy novel at this point.

“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

(What the fuck is the difference between Soviet Communism and Christian Nationalism except their choice of excuse for oppression? I'll wait.)

Reagan Wept.

Let's get real, the only country on this Earth that is still Communist in the classic 1950's sense that Trump is trying to evoke here is North Korea and Trump literally said he was in love with Kim Jong Un. 

How the same people who keep pushing Trump to do antigay shit didn't notice that one, I have no idea.

Which is really weird because normally these assholes think about gay stuff more than actual gay people do!

I saw this last night too.

Jesse Watters ranting about distrusting bisexual women, and bringing up the recent Supergirl move for some reason.

I don't know if Supergirl is bisexual, I don't particularly care, I lost interest in that franchise years ago and I'm fine with it if she is.

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."

Bisexuality isn't an issue for me. I support LGBT people and their rights.

And I learned that as a conservative kid in the 1980's too.

Like why the fuck wouldn't I??

Jesus ain't an excuse. Love Thy Neighbor. America ain't an excuse "We The People" means ALL of us!

I've served with and worked with and hell, worked for gay people and that was even in my earliest working days.

I've written about that in particular.

As I did about the gay troops that I served with, who were a damn sight better than some of the straight ones, better than me, for sure.

 My partner is bisexual and we manage just fine. Honestly, we joke on occasion that she needs to find herself a wife. Or that she needs a staff, like a cat. My partner isn't great with a lot of "feminine" things, like cleaning, and she works a lot, and that's perfectly fine. I write about our stuff, on occasion.

A hell of a lot of people these days don't fit These Fucking People's claimed patriarchal ideal, or want to, or even have the capability to do so, or to try in a convincing manner.

As if these Gatekeeping ass-clowns would let them?

Not that they themselves really believe even 10% of it, half the MAGA dudes I know don't even work or have any serious interest in supporting a family (or in paying child support if they previously had one) or, indeed, in doing anything other than sitting on the couch smoking weed all day while everyone in the house lives off Mama's SSI check. Or, as my partner has put it concerning a certain member of her family, Make Asshole Get A job.

These guys want all the Power of the Patriarchy but none of the responsibility, none of the work that earns them that right.

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 then they'll try to blame women for that, too.

These fucking people aren't conservative and they don't wanna be.

They want political power, and the "right" to hector others and be mean to them and feel righteous for doing it. That's all any of this crap is. I can't even talk the way that these people talk.

And if I could, I wouldn't want to. Come on.

These fucking people want to bother other people with their allegedly "Conservative" and so-called "Religious" bullshit...but they're all perfectly fine with Trump's granddaughter turning the White House into a goddamned Thirst Trap.

These idiots are no damned different than the Soviet Proles who tolerated the excesses of the sons and daughters of Communist Party elites in Moscow in the 1980's...except perhaps in that they want to do so rather than they have to.

Yes, you heard that right.

And let me tell you why, or at least what the excuse they tell themselves is:

And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama

A Black Man said "Yes We Can" so the whole goddamn Republican thing just had to become "No We Can't."

And that shit has eaten these fucking people's brains.

It was a small meal. Snack Size.

Republicans think all the rest of us should have to live like Soviet peasants but under an allegedly "Christian" and "Right-Wing" regime, because they got their feelings hurt. No. No is a complete sentence. Fuck all that!

And take it from this former Republican, there's always been some Republicans that were like that. Just, well, before about 2008 everybody else told these fucking people to sit down and shut the fuck up, except for (well, just like now) there was always some class of grifters and televangelists and performative "Anti-Communists" that appealed specifically to those idiots. Why? Because if you told them what they wanted to hear they'd throw money at you.

Didn't matter if what you said had one damn thing to do with reality or not.

These fucking people taking over Conservatism and the Republican Party was a pretty long process that, in reality, started with Newt Gingrich in the 1980's and 1990's. But even Newt doesn't really fit in anymore, naturally.

Here's the thing, when the Wall came down, I was just a conservative kid in Northern Michigan. I've written about this before. In early November of 1989 I was just a 15 year old kid who was a couple weeks from getting his driver's license. On that particular day, November 10th, I'd had a counseling appointment in Alpena that I'd gotten out of school a little bit early to go to, we had gone to the grocery store and the mall, and my Mom let me drive home. It was pretty well past dark by the time we'd gotten home.

We'd just got Cable, thus catching us up culturally to things like CNN, MTV, rap music videos, sports channels and the very beginnings of the 24-hour cycle we all take for granted today. After unloading the groceries and warming up the Pizza my Mom had got us from Dominos, we sat down in the living room and turned on the TV, which happened to be set to CNN. We watched, transfixed, as people partied it up and streamed through checkpoints while armed guards stared blankly, slack-jawed, with their AK-47's slung over their shoulders, and the common people, everyday Germans from either side, took sledgehammers to the Berlin Wall.

The common person was right there live on international news, doing what all the bombers and jet fighters and guns and tanks in the whole Western world up to that point had not been able to accomplish.

Take that "Great Man" theory and jam it up your ass. 

Hans the Baker and Ingrid the Delivery Girl and millions of other people just like them took down Communism, Ronald Reagan just helped a little.

The world was changing, had changed, nothing would ever be the same again. Whole worlds of possibility had opened up within the span of hours, a whole separate world of evil and repression, gone in less than one day.

Think about that. Think about the fact that people like Donald Trump would rather that had not happened, they still want people worried about Communists under the bed...only now they want to target our fellow Americans, up to and including other Republicans.

I liked it better the other way, when there were whole new worlds of possibility springing into existence in the time it took to go to town or do your homework.

By the time I served, if there were air raid sirens going off it meant there was an Operational Readiness Inspection, and that was really a thing to fear.

And the worst part of these assholes kicking over the table on all that, really, was that it was all over *Checks Notes* screwing for political advantage. 

What's even the damn point of that when half the fucking people allegedly on the other team really aren't on the other team. But there's a bunch of nuts out there who think everybody who isn't a fire-breathing Republican Partisan is some kind of Communist.

But those idiots show up to vote, every goddamn time, and they throw endless money at MAGA grifters and Republican candidates and drive way too much of the attention/outrage economy...and honestly that shit has eaten the brains of a lot of what's left of the Republicans, and driven all too many of the rest into cowering compliance.

Republican Capitalism is basically doing all the shit they said the Communists would do when I was a kid, and nobody turned themselves into wannabe Stalinist proles (with a side of Idiocracy) faster than hardcore Republican voters.

Meanwhile a dozen or so Democrats want to declare "war" on the people that We The People are nominating to stop this bullshit. I'm not a primary voter, I'll vote for the Democrats no matter who they put up because Fuck Republicans, never again.

This cannot last, leadership requires courage. America is already falling apart like the Fyre Festival or Woodstock 99 at the end, like a goddamn high school beer party when the host kid finds out the parents are gonna be back from vacation a couple days early or some shit. Like my friend the Media Warrior says, though, Trump makes a lot of idiots that peaked in High School feel like jocks and prom queens again or some such bullshit.

Except these people are supposed to be adults, citizens, and use their heads for more than a hat rack.

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

To be a free person requires a measure of intelligence and belief in Truth.

Truth is the only thing that gives most people a floor to stand on to push back against Power.

And the Truth is that Communism fell in 1989 and I watched it fall live on CNN.

And before anybody starts screaming "Better Dead Than Red" you better consider which color they've been using for which party on the maps since the 2000 election.

Yeah, that said, it actually fits. Better Dead Than Red. Fuck Trump.

We'll take that back right along with "Don't Tread On Me."

Слава Україна!

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

Two

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press.

The Resurrection (Don't Tread On Me, Two.)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. ~1st Amendment, United States Constitution/Bill Of Rights.

...

Quit your worship charades.
I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—
meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more!
Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!
You’ve worn me out!
I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion,
while you go right on sinning.
When you put on your next prayer-performance,
I’ll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray,

I’ll not be listening.
And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing
people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.
Go home and wash up.
Clean up your act.
Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings
so I don’t have to look at them any longer.
Say no to wrong.
Learn to do good.
Work for justice.
Help the down-and-out.
Stand up for the homeless.
Go to bat for the defenseless. ~Isaiah 1:13-17

...

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

...

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

I saw this last night.

Apparently, Republicans want to try to convince people that the Founders really wanted a "Christian" nation despite the fact that they specifically said, repeatedly, that they did not.

Again, not legends, facts. We know what they wanted or did not want because they said so. This isn't mythology, you can read the history!

But they only want a "Christian" Nation if "Jesus" looks suspiciously like *Checks Notes* Richard fucking Millhouse Nixon. Call him the Jesus Of Yorba Linda. Fuck that noise. Nixon epitomizes the meme of the Republican miserable bastard that is what they all really worship. I'm a bit surprised Trump hasn't usurped that particular image, but here we are.

Republican Jesus stands revealed, I guess?? Funny, it's still the same guy.

The Resurrection is at hand!

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goes before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. ~Matthew 28:1-7

It gets worse, apparently. 

Trump doesn't like that the Conservative Christians oppose abortion. I could have told you that was gonna happen because Eugenicists are by definition NOT Pro-Life, not that they are in any modern sense of the term or in any way reliably Pro-Choice either.

I used to be a Republican, none of this shit is what I was taught.

Pro-Life is supposed to mean exactly that, and it's not supposed to be just pro-Birth and then you're on your own, either. I'm personally pro-Choice but still think Abortion is wrong. I also recognize that it's not up to me...and this is always how I've felt.

Is there anything about Trump that suggests he's pro-Life (as in pro-anyone's life??) in any way? 

Also Richard Nixon was not ganked by the Deep State somehow, he resigned because of Watergate and because public opinion turned against him to the point where even his own party decided they wanted him gone, and he was staring down the possibility of Impeachment. A whole bunch of his goons went to prison. This is how the Trump thing is probably going to end up, except These Fucking People won't quit, they'll be thrown out. 

My money's on no equivalent to January 6th this time either because his own goddamned movement is falling apart already.

It's not even a question that nobody idolized Richard Nixon in 1973. I have seen actual comics and jokes and shit making fun of Nixon from the 1960's and 1970's that my Grandma saved. (And I happen to reasonably well be able to extrapolate since my Grandpa usually voted Democratic, that my Grandma often voted Republican.)

Day's gonna come, probably soon, where everybody was always against all this bullshit if you ask them.

Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18

No one will cry for Trump, either, and he seems to know it.

So he's trying to pretend it doesn't matter, he acted the same way about the idea of going to Heaven. His cult simply reframed that as Not Important as a result.

So what are "Centrist" Democrats doing about all this??

Trying to "Declare War" against Democratic Socialists and Progressives because a bunch of them won in the primaries this last week rather than the Trump Doormat Caucus winning.

Just sayin' people are tired of all this fucking garbage. I'll vote for anybody what says they'll do something about this mess: I want the bullshit, the eliminationist rhetoric against disabled people, the misogynistic and racist crap and the perversions to stop, I want I want Christian Nationalism treated as the terrorist movement that it is, I want the Epstein class held accountable and I want big money out of politics and term limits for everything down to Lindsey Graham's golf caddy. IDGAF.

And if you're just in Congress to do insider trading, suck up campaign donations and take up space you don't need to be there and you should be able to be subject to a vote of No Confidence, recalled and replaced right the fuck now.

Love him or hate him, Zohran Mamdani is getting a fuck ton of shit done in New York City.

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. ~Ronald Reagan

And he seems to see that as what he's there for.

I mean for fuck's sake even Curtis Silwa, Mamdani's Republican opponent, said "This guy gets it."

It was the "Centrists" who ran the hardest against him, and that's (among other things) why I'm really starting to think that a lot of these Blue State political monocultures are, in fact, generating Democrats for Federal office that are no damned better than Republicans.

This is why I've been identifying myself as a conservative Democrat for awhile now. But since I don't idolize Bipartisanship, I have a spine and I believe in supporting Humanity...I still very regularly land well to the Left of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries on all type of issues. Think about that.

There are actual monsters among us, and a lot of these "Liberals" would rather play for second...against the monsters than stand up.

Think real hard about that, too. There's something wrong with these fucking people.

And I've seen some of these fucking people in action, I heard the stories my partner and the kiddo told me about their relatives, and so on. As the walls close in and public opinion continues to sink and the shit hits the fan, the one thing we can reliably count on is that the Trump Dick Riders (Again, crediting the kid for that one!) will get weirder and weirder and the cult-like devotion will somehow increase.

I'll never understand it, but then I've hated Trump since I was a kid and I've always known he was a bad man.

But Chuck Schumer thinks the Mayor of NYC is the fucking problem??

At this point, when all this is over, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries need to be in the dock too, right along with whatever's left of Trump's gang...but for incompetence.

And These Fucking People have the balls to wonder why "Don't Tread On Me" is fast becoming a Leftist thing?

While I'm at it, I'd like to take a moment and wonder how many EU and US politicians (among others, globally) are gonna run for the hills if something happens to Vladimir Putin who seems to be in genuine political trouble and facing the possibility of revolts over the recent Ukrainian bombing of Moscow and the likely loss of Crimea in the next few weeks. I've commented extensively on the assorted "What The FUCK!?!?" from people in Moscow over long lines at the gas pump and shit like that.

Did they not know that there was a war on and that, in war, the enemy gets to shoot back and gets a vote in what happens??

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press.

I mean, Ukrainians have been asking "Oh my God what the fuck?!?!" for over four years now! It's just that they also controlled their fear and fought back, effectively.

And somehow none of these power-worshiping dick-bags, either certain privileged EU citizens and politicians, Republicans or residents of Moscow and other major Russian cities could be bothered to notice.

But now Muscovites are lined up at the gas station and they're pissed.

Oh Well.

No Sympathy.

FAFO.

Vlad, meet Karen (or in Russian, I think that would be Katya?) you two have fun.

None of this bullshit is going to stop until people step up and make it stop.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

Remember that, because it's going to be on the test.

Soon.

Слава Україна!

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

One

[The Mandalorian brings together the entire Mandalorian covert after Carson Teva makes a surprise visit and asks him to help Greef Karga's situation on Nevarro when the New Republic won't lift a finger]

Mando: Now, many of you don't know Greef Karga. And those that do fought against him when you rescued me from his ambush many cycles ago on the streets of Nevarro. Since then, he's had a change of heart and has risked his life to save mine as well as the Foundling in my charge. [Grogu coos] I stand before you to petition an intervention. To help rescue Nevarro before it's too late. I am in no position to ask any more of you. However... However, the enemy that decimated this very covert were Imperials, not Greef Karga's bounty hunters. Greef Karga is now a High Magistrate and has offered me a tract of land on his independent world. Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome. So our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight.

Armorer: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Mando: It's up to them now.

Paz Vizsla: I do. I was there on Nevarro that night. I fought against Greef Karga and his hunters. I saw my brothers and sisters fall at the hands of the Imperial butchers that hunted us in the sewers. I saw many die to save the life of [gestures to Grogu] this one, tiny Foundling. And now we are asked to sacrifice yet again. The question we should be asking ourselves is, "Why? Why should we lay our lives down yet again?" Because we are Mandalorians! I have had my disagreements with this man, but he risked his life to save my son. And Bo-Katan Kryze did not give up on my child's life even when the rest of us did. These two are asking us to take up arms in the name of a brighter future, and I for one will take up arms to fight by their side. [Mandalorians agree] This is the Way!

Mandalorians: This is the Way.

Armorer: This is the Way.

~From The Mandalorian S3.E5 "The Pirate."

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. ~Gautama Buddha

Liars (Don't Tread On Me, One.)

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

...

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

...

A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies. ~Proverbs 14:5

I saw this yesterday. According to Joel Webbon, lying is good, actually.

Especially if it hurts LGBT people or works toward the goal of seizing their churches or imprisoning their Pastors. (None of which is legal or possible in the United States of America even as it currently exists.)

Fuck you, dude.

It's Pride Month for fuck's sake!

My partner is bisexual, she's Christian, and she has a right to be both of those things...and not only as in Constitutionally in the United States, but as a free person standing before God. That's how God created her. She'd be doing it wrong if she wasn't, ya know, herself.

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."

Kid's a lesbian and agnostic-atheist, but she's expressed an interest in learning and has been to church, leave her the fuck alone too. You ask me she's a much better person than Joel Webbon.

I'm sick and tired of These Fucking People. 

Like I don't give a damn, get over it and shut the fuck up before people get sick of what's coming out your mouth and make you stop this shit. 

Nobody cares about any of this stuff anymore but you. 

And more to the point even from a Christian viewpoint your obsession with the acts, beliefs or orientations of Other People is unseemly. Mind your own goddamned business.

The rest of us were here first as were the ancestors who taught us and just because you think you know better does not give you any kind of a "right" to impose your will on the majority.

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

That's not only how democracy works...that's been American culture since before America was America and that's how things like the Revolution and the Founding even happened. If you don't like it, too bad. Your side lost the argument War.

Oh, wait, these motherfuckers don't like the United Kingdom, either...except maybe for some racist ultra-"Conservative" Ulster Loyalist assholes that basically riot every summer. Oh, wait, those people aren't even the majority in their own land!

Maybe try getting your own country? 

I hear Antarctica is nice this time of year.

These fucking people's idea of America sucks, not least because they keep trying to destroy this country as it currently exists for the rest of us.

If Jabba The Congressman is upset cuz he thinks somebody else is "destroying America" I think it's cuz he's afraid that somebody else will steal his bit.

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 can't even talk how these people talk anymore.

And if we're being honest, when push comes to shove when it comes to their own lives...none of these assholes really believe in any of this bullshit either! The vast majority of women that I've personally known who have had abortions are *Checks Notes* Evangelical "Conservatives" just like Kat Cammack.

She absolutely has the right to freedom of choice or she should, she certainly has the right to preserve her own life, or she should, with no questions asked. You know who the person is that complicated that?? HER.

Think about it, Kat.

The thing is, really in These Fucking People's ideal world, about anything would be legal...but you'd have to listen to a goddamned screed from these fuckin' freaks about how much of a miserable Sinner you were before you did basically anything! They don't really want to change the world...they just want to make it suck because it's an article of Faith with these kind of people that the world we live in is automatically somehow Bad and Fallen.

Not that they really believe in Original Sin or Jesus or anything else, they just want to blow their own narcissism and control and immiserate and manipulate other people.

And of course, if you're a Billionaire...There Is No Sin. Have Fun.

Not only that but they approach perversion and Sin with the same pious devotion their parents and grandparents had for tight-assed Calvinism in the 1960s and 1970's and their parents or they had for weird Pentecostal BS in the 1990's or early 00's.

Mind you, there's plenty of Liberals that are fine with continually enabling this shit. James Carville got mad because a bunch of Progressives won in D primaries on Tuesday. Guess what? People been sick of Republican Lite for a minute, James.

It's not 1992 or even 1996 anymore, and at the end of the day the Democratic Party of that era was still just as hated by the Right and I say that as a 1990's Republican Air Force veteran. The same far-right assholes who are in power now were raggedy-ass militia nuts back then and they hated people like me. More than one incompetently-fused truck bomb found on the fence-line of a military base in the 1990's never made the news. Just sayin.'

Anybody else tired of this crap yet, or is it just me??

That's the whole damn thing, yo, people are tired of this bullshit.

And modern Republicans are nothing but liars who wanna sell out everything America has ever stood for...while trying like fuck to exempt themselves from all the consequences. They believe in nothing so fervently that they won't lie about it. 

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

Reagan Wept.

If they really believed they were so right or so righteous, why would any of that crap be necessary??

And what's worse is they can't even come up with a plausible lie or be bothered to have a goal that makes any sense or even does anything, apparently even the FBI has been (badly) mobilized to cover for Trump's turning the Reflecting Pool into a Pit Of Green Slime. 

Think about that, for a second.

And then don't have the balls to wonder why "Don't Tread On Me" is creeping into Democratic discourse.

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

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

Pick one.

Слава Україна!

Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

~Isaiah 1:13-17 (KJV)

Last Post

[The Mandalorian brings together the entire Mandalorian covert after Carson Teva makes a surprise visit and asks him to help Greef Karga's situation on Nevarro when the New Republic won't lift a finger]

Mando: Now, many of you don't know Greef Karga. And those that do fought against him when you rescued me from his ambush many cycles ago on the streets of Nevarro. Since then, he's had a change of heart and has risked his life to save mine as well as the Foundling in my charge. [Grogu coos] I stand before you to petition an intervention. To help rescue Nevarro before it's too late. I am in no position to ask any more of you. However... However, the enemy that decimated this very covert were Imperials, not Greef Karga's bounty hunters. Greef Karga is now a High Magistrate and has offered me a tract of land on his independent world. Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome. So our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight.

Armorer: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Mando: It's up to them now.

Paz Vizsla: I do. I was there on Nevarro that night. I fought against Greef Karga and his hunters. I saw my brothers and sisters fall at the hands of the Imperial butchers that hunted us in the sewers. I saw many die to save the life of [gestures to Grogu] this one, tiny Foundling. And now we are asked to sacrifice yet again. The question we should be asking ourselves is, "Why? Why should we lay our lives down yet again?" Because we are Mandalorians! I have had my disagreements with this man, but he risked his life to save my son. And Bo-Katan Kryze did not give up on my child's life even when the rest of us did. These two are asking us to take up arms in the name of a brighter future, and I for one will take up arms to fight by their side. [Mandalorians agree] This is the Way!

Mandalorians: This is the Way.

Armorer: This is the Way.

~From The Mandalorian S3.E5 "The Pirate."

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

Don't Tread On Me (Not Legends, Not Myths, Facts. Ten.)

Red Army General : I carried out my orders. I sent in all of my boys. But the Germans engulfed us. They have artillery, aircraft, tanks. And me, what did I have?!

Khrushchev: A sacred duty to resist! I have to report to the Boss. [puts a pistol on the table] Perhaps you'd prefer to avoid the red tape.

[Khrushchev walks out of the room to address political officers. There is a gunshot, then he begins.]

Krushchev: My name... is Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. I've come to takes things in hand here. This city... is not Kursk, nor is it Kiev, nor Minsk. This city... is Stalingrad. Stalin-grad! The city bears the name of the Boss. It's more than a city, it's a symbol. If the Germans capture this city, the entire country will collapse. Now, I want our boys to raise their heads. I want them to act like they have BALLS! I want them to stop SHITTING THEIR PANTS! [briefly pauses] That's your job. As political officers, I'm counting on you. [stops at one] You, what's your suggestion?

Officer #1: Shoot all the other generals who have retreated. And their chiefs of staff, too.

[Khruschev looks at another.]

Officer #2: [terrified, stuttering] M-make s-some examples. D-d-d-d-d-de-port the families of the d-d-deserters...

Khrushchev: [bored] Yes, yes, that's all been done.

Danilov: Give them hope!

[Kruschev walks over and looks at the officer standing in the front, who motions with his eyes toward Danilov.]

Danilov: Here the men's only choice is between German bullets and ours. But there's another way, the way of courage, the way of love of the Motherland. We must publish the army newspaper again. We must tell magnificent stories, stories that extol sacrifice, bravery. We must give them hope, pride, a desire to fight. We must make them believe in the victory. Yes, we need to make examples; but examples to follow. What we need... are heroes.

Khrushchev: [looks around, wryly] Do you know any heroes around here?

Danilov: Yes, Comrade. I know one.

~From the film Enemy At The Gates.

...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I saw this yesterday.

Apparently, Republicans believe there's some kind of dastardly "Antifa" or "Communist" or "Leftist" plot ongoing to *Checks Notes* clean the pool?? The fact that these guys think you have to brew up pool cleaner in a lab (as opposed to buying it at Walmart?) that looks oddly enough like the corner of a decent level of chemical closet...and either don't know the difference themselves or don't think anybody else will...is just hilarious to me. But let's say there was...

Why not? These idiots won't clean it up. It's like they all decided if "The Boss" wants a nasty, unsanitary mess, that's exactly what they're going to have, for no reason other than that. And nobody really seems to give a shit about anything other than keeping their place in the Magical City, no matter how gross it gets. See also: Republicans.

Sorry, but Trump is turning our nation's capital into a shithole, and I think he's doing it deliberately at this point. I mean, sure, it's incompetence, but it's weaponized incompetence. And they'd rather arrest people than fix it.

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 mean, damn, what's next??

Oh, right.

Giving some idiot trainee massage therapist a whole bunch of money because she harassed a couple of Muslim women in the grocery store. Deus Hoc Vult, motherfuckers! Or something. If this is "God's" will, I think even I'm comfortable saying there ain't no such thing. Or it ain't worth following if it does exist.

Come on, seriously. Have you fucking Republicans looked at yourselves in the mirror, lately? I'd say "It's Got Electrolytes" but that would be insulting to Idiocracy.

I mean, sure, the people in that movie were dumb as hell, but they were nowhere near this intentionally malevolent. Or stupid, for that matter.

I don't give a fuck what the circumstances are, or if somebody loses their job or every other damn thing. People should not be allowed to do this type of bullshit and get money for it. There shouldn't need to be laws about it either. People should not tolerate this crap. Bring back the ass whuppin.

Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

~Isaiah 1:13-17 (KJV)

When is enough going to be enough with this shit??

And I'm sorry, but a lot of the blame here does fall on the media and political classes, and on a population that (at least on the Right) has literally become too dumb and intellectually incurious to bother with calling out this shit and holding these people to account until it gets way too damned bad.

It's like all these Russians that are screaming "OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK?!?!" Now that the Ukrainians are bombing Moscow...they haven't cared a whit that Russia has been bombing Kyiv since February of 2022. 

The Empire was cool when you thought it didn't affect you. I see how it is. 

Well, it does. And it was always going to.

Shit like this is exactly why conservatives and Christians of my generation were distrustful of the Power of the State and sought to limit such.

And it was countries like Russia or as it was then, the Soviet Union, where the State ran your life...that we knew were the bad guys, too.

Now Republicans are pretty much like "YES! Run my life Mr. Trump!" And they want to mythologize the man because the Truth fucking sucks.

It's fucking stupid.

And now Republicans and former Republicans including guys like Tea Party Joe Walsh are talking about and on the Republican side at least, seem afraid of, a Democratic equivalent to the Tea Party movement rising up.

Well, guess what??

Don't Tread On Me, Motherfuckers.

I may not agree with a lot of these people, from what I'm seeing so far.

But at least they don't want most other people to die so that we can be replaced with AI and robots and shit. There ain't no Democrats talking shit about doing things that hurt my partner or my kid.

Not legends, not myths, facts. Acting in your own interests. Giving a shit about the people you love. This isn't hard.

The Right's whole M.O. is literally anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

Maybe us taking back the goddamn Gadsden Flag will be what it takes to shut down this garbage. Fuck, I don't know, anything is better than this shit.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

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

Nine

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