Principalities and Powers.

Ephesians 6:12 King James Version

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

At work, last night, I found myself having a conversation with a conservative co-worker. He'd stopped by to begin the yearly tradition of giving me shit by counting down the days until Christmas, and instead we ended up having a serious conversation. Now, this dude is Pentecostal, he's active in his church, and in 2016 (Ironically, after voting for Bernie Sanders in Michigan's primary) he ended up voting for Trump. He's your basic Christian dude bro in all respects. Now, we generally agree regarding our view of Christmas...that it's not about Christ, but about commercialism and greed, things that Jesus was very against. We spoke about this...as it seems like we do most years...mutually lamenting something we actually agree on.

Because it was my Monday last night and I was feeling punchy, I pushed ahead: "Christmas? Dude I honestly feel like Christianity isn't even about Christ anymore." Surprisingly, he was like "Yep. I hear you, bro." Again, I pushed ahead: I told him "Sometimes I feel like I'm counting down the days until some of these Evangelicals start worshiping Donald Trump." Again...and very much to my utter shock, he agreed with me. "Yep." He continued "It bothers me." We both further agreed that we had each gotten a bad spiritual vibe from our national situation, and from the way things were going with the Trump Supporters. He specifically said that even some Pastors he knew who'd been to Seminary and who should have the knowledge to do better...just weren't. He did say that he felt that his faith hadn't been shaken...but he'd seen others lose theirs. I also told him, that given my status as an Agnostic Theist...it sort of bothers me that I still "get" a lot of the same stuff, spiritual vibes and whatnot, that I used to.

In truth, these last few years, in watching much of American Conservative Christianity fall head over heels for Trump, I have genuinely felt like I'm watching somebody I've known for a long time make a grievous mistake. I know from having done this (and from having been that guy) that there's no talking them out of it. These people are going to have to learn the hard way.

And now these bigotry-obsessed fools are kicking Christian Pastors who preach the truth out of their events?

I should add, my co-worker is the third person I've spoken to in recent days who's confirmed (per Christian terminology regarding such things) some variation of this bad vibe I've been feeling.

After all the stuff I saw last night and this morning, I think I know why.

I have, as I've increasingly written about in recent articles, long been feeling that for at least some of these people...and certainly most of the ones that are left...it never was about anything that they said it was about. It was always really all about the bigotry, and the hate. Funny thing is but I can remember when being a conservative didn't automatically mean you were a bigot.

Of course, and as Rick points out here, if they were to actually set the precedent of gutting the 14th Amendment by Executive Order (something that's automatically Unconstitutional, and would probably end up destroying the country in the long term if enacted) it's not like the next President, and the next one after that, and so on...wouldn't continue to revise our founding document by executive fiat. Do that long enough, or enough times, and we don't have a nation anymore. It's really that simple, all these amendments were put in for a reason, and there's a legit process that makes it very hard to change the Constitution FOR A DAMN REASON. This absolutely cannot be replaced by executive orders.

Of course, we're already looking at probably (at least) 50 years of court cases, lawsuits, legal problems, expensive settlements, etc. just from where we're at right now in the Trump Presidency and its endless carnival-barker cruelty and stupid shit, but I digress.

So what's having to reform and likely redo our entire Constitution when this is over? Eh? (Aside from the fact that most people who aren't on either of the hard ends of our political spectrum dread such a prospect...again, for a reason.)

I suppose these dumb asses figure that if they burn enough shit down, maybe they'll get away with it?

Take this far enough, and it becomes "Why not just let Trump be king?"

Of course, Trump could ask Louis XVI how that worked out...oh, wait.

I wonder, when the next one is King Chuck or Queen Nancy, will These Fucking People be so enthusiastic about that? I mean, I'm pretty sure I know some people who'd think Crown Prince Beto has a nice ring to it, but let's get real, this is America and we need to keep it that way.

You know, there's a solution to all this stupidity, and I think a lot of people are finally getting it. I saw on Twitter that ten states now have surpassed their entire 2014 early voting totals.

We've a week to go, so I think more will come. I keep hearing from friends in Texas that they've seen impressive turnout in early voting, so there's that, too. We can only hope the streak holds, because this may be our last chance.

People need to see through all this frenetic stupid last-minute bullshit, and just plain show up and vote. I don't give a damn if you don't like the choices, I don't give a damn if you think it isn't important. It is...that's the whole damn point of Democracy.

They care...why don't you? Even if all they want to do is break shit, the traitorous moron brigade shows up. Why can't you?

It needs to be said. Screw Trump, alright?

Trump is the symptom, it's the broken and divided nature of America...and the fact that conservatives hate and fear other Americans more than (for example) the Russians...that's the damn problem.

If you don't show up, this time, you're letting Boris here determine your future. You know, the guy who's openly lamenting the fact that Trump didn't cause a civil war and is hoping he'll at least be a Herbert Hoover and drag us into Depression.

But remember, the last time America's economy caught a cold it screwed up the rest of the world, too. The only reason Russia wasn't affected that much is because Russia's economy is shit. They're the biggest country in the world and they have an economy that ranks somewhere between that of Portugal and that of Spain in terms of all the usual metrics.

We owe it to ourselves to show up, and take our country's future back into our own hands.

End of Days.

Let us never forget that the deep things that are American are the soul and the spirit. The Statue of Liberty is not tired, and not because it is made of bronze. It is because no matter what happens, here the individual is dignified because he is created in the image of his God. Let us not forget it. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, Speech to the B'Nai B'rith

I have a confession to make. As I've said before, I used to be a conservative. I used to be a Republican. I spent much of my life as a Christian, for awhile there I was a borderline Fundamentalist. In spite of that, I was never one of these fucking people.

By "These fucking people" I mean these conspiracy-minded chuckleheads pitching the idea that this migrant "caravan" is some kind of Jewish conspiracy to "Replace white people." Now, if the last such group is any guide, most of those people will settle in Mexico or become disillusioned and go home and a very small percentage of them will actually reach our southern border, where they will lawfully turn themselves in and ask for asylum. Out of the last group I think maybe 230 people actually did so.

Not much of a "Replacement" then, is it? It's sure as hell not an "Invasion." It's sure as hell no damned good reason to shoot up a synagogue.

There's something else at work here. I mean, aside from base racism, that is.

.There is, and always has been, among certain conservatives, a tendency towards belief in conspiracy theories, toward intellectual curiosity, toward magical thinking. I suppose when you start out believing in something like Creationism or that just about anybody can acquire Spiritual Gifts Magical Powers if they pray the right words toward the right interpretation of Jesus in the right kind of church, are part of the right "in- group" or something something Gazpacho.

If you don't think manipulative shitheads the world over, starting with the Russians, are ready to exploit this kind of mule-headed willful stupidity on the part of the American Idiot, you have another thing coming. As evidenced by the statements of their Orange God, Trump, these fucking people have been convinced that the rest of the world, all those Godless heathens, non-Americans, people not of our Tribe are somehow taking advantage of "Us." Note that "Us" does not include 75% of Americans.

As somebody who paid attention in the 1990's I'm here to tell you we can all thank Newt Gingrich for that aspect of our current mess.

But who is "Us?" I mean, who do these people think they are? I submit to you that These Fucking People are the absolute last ones who know who the fuck they are.

I'm divorced. My ex-wife and her family were basically poor Northern Michigan white trash, almost all Christian Fundamentalist or Pentecostal nuts, with most having at best a high-school education, overwhelmingly poor or at best lower-middle-class, all of them dependent on Food Stamps, with elderly family members mostly having nothing but Social Security to fall back on. Now, that's not a value judgment it's simply a statement of fact. These people were cooks and grocery store stockers and retail workers for the most part. At one time or another half my ex-wife's family and most of her church worked at Wal-Mart.

I'm not kidding when I say the highest-status job of any person that I regularly interacted with at the time was that one of my Wal-Mart Co-workers was also a member of the Michigan Army National Guard. (Oh, and by the way that dude was intent on getting out of his small hometown as well.) Others, professional people, might make appearances from time to time. Your kid's teacher, the cop that pulled you over, etc.

Most of these fucking people resent those people. You can damned well imagine what they think of the government, can't you?

Some of those people got an education and got out, the rest of the family doesn't really talk to them as much now.

I was a Christian, being an actual tithe-paying member of a Baptist church at the time. I was a conservative, for fuck's sake I was still an NRA member when I got sucked into this mess.

But I'd grown up reading, I'd traveled, I'd even been around the world a bit and I'd dealt with people from other cultures, other countries, other races and other religions. So some of those people looked at me as if I'd been born on the Moon.

Hell I still get that here, but not as much.

I can't say I ever encountered much racism, in point of fact a lot of my ex-wife's friends were dating and/or had kids by Jamaican men, and in fact one of the members of her little church clique was Jamaican (although she was a Canadian citizen and married to one of the church's "Praise and Worship" people, who was also my immediate supervisor at Wal-Mart.)

But you know what? To these people a person that was a Jew or a Muslim or some other non-Christian or even a different kind of Christian might as well have been from another planet. My ex-wife was literally never able to relate to my Mom in even the smallest possible way, because my Mom was (and is) bisexual and had given up on conservatism and religion years before.

An awful lot of her family members and friends could barely relate to me, because I knew history and theology and the world outside of their little rural bubble, I cared about science, I paid attention to politics beyond reflexively voting Republican, I watched CNN and actually read the Detroit Free Press...a habit largely limited to the elderly in the circles I was moving into.

Of course they could relate to the Jamaicans, who were here primarily for purposes of corporate profit (which these people understand) and because most Jamaicans are Christians. Even the few who weren't...Rastas mostly...could and did still talk Bible and shared many of the values of the lower-class Northern Michigan people.

By which I mean things like homophobia and toxic masculinity, but I digress.

Personally, I had nothing against gay people...and I'd been taught that way. But back in 2000, Homophobia was one of those new words that was just entering our lexicon, at least where I was at. It was an educated word, a liberal word that some of those people would look at you funny if you used it. Toxic masculinity? If you'd have used those words 20 years ago these people would've laughed at you.

Of course, the world had already begun to change, I was aware of it, had for the most part embraced that myself, and resolved to roll with it even if I didn't necessarily agree with everything. I'd find a way.

But my ex-wife's people? Aside from the obvious presence of more Black folks, the odd open bi or gay person here and there, a few factory closings and the fact that most of the people who joined the military or went to college never came back...not much in 2000 had changed from how things were in 1950...and that goes double for people who are poor and simply cannot afford to keep up with our modern world. In point of fact, the world changing was evidence that we were "Living in the End Times" although this kind of thinking had taken a hit (briefly) when Y2K and all that crap did not come to pass.

But then 9/11 happened, and even though most of these people couldn't find New York City (much less Afghanistan) with a GPS locator, a map and a pathfinder platoon, that was a sign of the End Times. Right after 9/11 two things happened, I observed that the churches in my ex-wife's hometown all became very aggressive in their evangelism and I started seeing Fox News on the TV a lot more, and CNN at least a little bit less. Conservatism has never looked back, and those fucking people (and thus the rest of us too) were set to get dragged down this path of Crazy until, well, here we are.

So you see, the problems of "today" have been with us for quite a while, maybe not as bad, but they've always been there. It's not that some people got "Left behind" by our global economy and modern world, it's that they were never included in the first place. Call it poor schools, or intellectual incuriosity, or just laziness in not making people keep up, but here we are.

Russians? Well...they're white, they say they're Christians and they hate gay people, so that's good enough for most of these white trash motherfuckers.

For all of their claimed "Nativism" most of the people that these people hate are just as native to the United States of America as they are.

By the way, I should add that their view of the Jamaicans has considerably darkened and become resentful with time, not that these fucking people want to do the jobs the Jamaicans are doing. They don't want anybody else to do those jobs either. If the comments section is to be believed, a majority of the women who get with the Jamaicans these days are (or are at least seen as being) "Liberals" and such...even if they're not, really.

But then these days, to those fucking people, "Liberal" is just code for "Not racist enough" or for "Somebody who isn't a destructive shithead."

I can remember when Trent Lott got ran out of Congress for speaking favorably of Strom Thurmond, mostly by Republicans, and I was still a Republican at the time and I agreed with that course of action.

Now? Somebody who Retweets hashtags like "Burn the Jews" or "Bring Back Slavery" has thousands of followers on Twitter, the support of the President, and no incentive to stop acting like a goddamned moron. Oh, and against this crap, the rest of us have absolutely no recourse whatever, simply because any attempt at advocating for decent behavior or imposing some level of standards, or even trying to make people understand what the Constitution, the Law, and basic humanity say about such things is derided as being "Politically Correct."

Ya know, in some ways 1988, 2000, or 2002 or even 2008 were barbaric and savage times compared to today...but I'd gladly take that over this Anything Goes crap today, where if you're a conservative  then the basic humanity of other people and any pretense of obedience to our own Constitution, human decency, or the law is suddenly up for debate. How is any of this conservative?

You know, Conservatism, "Things as they are" and all that, never mind that when I was growing up in the 1970's and 1980's racism was not cool, and things like Anti-Semitism simply were beyond the pale, and free trade, international engagement, Medicare, Social Security and even Roe Vs. Wade were basically recognized as part of the social fabric.

Not to mention, one of my deaf ferrets could probably provide a better definition of the word Conservative than most of these people can, and ferrets can't read.

It's not just that conservatives have let conservatism and the Republican Party become bitter, hollow caricatures of their former selves. It's that the rest of us have let them. It's that the most ardent far-Left hater of all things right-wing couldn't come up with a better two-dimensional caricature of Republicans than the one they've made of themselves...and Republicans are fast doing the same to America if we don't step up and do something about it and vote the bastards out.

I'm an American, I used to be a conservative, and what I want to know is when the hell did conspiracy theories, hate and murder become "Truth" and when did caring about other people, doing what is objectively the right thing, and treating people decently become crazy ideas?

When the fuck did some half-baked idea of a second American Civil War and all the millions of deaths, vast financial losses and the possibility of fratricidal nuclear attacks on ourselves that such might entail become preferable to getting along with your own neighbors, conservatives?

I don't know, but I know there's one way to start reversing this, and that's to vote the bastards Republicans out.

Otherwise they'll bring about their own End of Days, and as it happens they'll wonder why the lights are going out and the money has stopped rolling...and why there's no Jesus.

Cultservatism.

2 Timothy 4:3 King James Version 

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.

So the FBI and other law enforcement agencies caught the #MAGA-Bomber this week.

Wednesday morning, as I usually do, I ran some errands and then went to the pet store to see what they got in their critter delivery and I spent an hour or so playing with baby ferrets, only to come home and have this be the very first thing I saw. It would be far from the last like it, and as a result much of this week has been marked by irritability and lack of sleep.

It's to the point where I damned near flew off the handle at a co-worker for talking stupid as a result of said irritability, and a fucked up night didn't help. The angry and over-stressed overall climate of things in America right now is about the only part of conservative economics or fiscal or social policy that actually does trickle down. The personal nihilism that results is poisoning our civilization.

I think it says a lot about the state of this country that the conservatives are acting the way they've been acting and trying to blame problems that they cause on nearly everybody except for themselves, and the journalists started this thing off by simply adapting to the problem and keeping on keeping on. It's like every last one of these ridiculous Republican motherfuckers have decided that if Trump is gonna Trump, they're going to to try to be Trump too. The only problem with that, is that nobody else really gets to be Trump except for Trump...and even Trump is not what the Trump-worshipers are making him out to be. I'm not kidding, an odd turn of events led me to read a thread on Charlie Kirk's Twitter feed.

I found out this week that Charlie Kirk, despite presenting himself as some big political dude with some kind of high-dollar national operation...lives at home with his parents. I commented to that effect. Back in the day, if you were a 24-year-old dude who still lived with yo mama, you were considered a joke, at least among the conservatives that I knew or associated with or was aware of.

Kirk, and the people who post on his shit, speak about Trump as if the Orange One is Jesus. I'm not kidding, you can look this shit up for yourself.

It's not just them, though, it's the run-of-the-mill Trump Supporters saying that they don't care what he says, they'll support it. Trumpism has crossed the Rubicon from being a political movement to a cult, as far as I'm concerned. I feel confident that if Trump told these goddamned morons to bow down and worship him, they'd not only do it, but they'd attack anybody who was there that didn't go along. It will absolutely be the people who are closest to this dude, who follow him the most assiduously, who will be the first victims of his most debased whims. It'll come to that, trust me.

Do you really think if Trump told these fools to pick one of their own as a human sacrifice to prove loyalty, that these motherfuckers wouldn't be fighting among themselves to be the first to literally die for Trump? I'm not sure it'll get that far...but you can see it from here.

I'm serious.

I'm warning you now. This dude looks like he should be holding up a sign that says "I believe in Jesus" but no. He's holding up a sign that says he believes in Trump.

Where this ends is in people strapping bombs to themselves. #MAGA has not, as someone said, become the new INRI. It is instead becoming the "Allah Akbar" of what basically amounts to a perverse kind of anti-Islam (and anti-Christianity for that matter as well.)

And Trumpism is a jealous god, much like what Tom Clancy once said of Marxism-Leninism in the second chapter of the Hunt For Red October. Were Tom still with us, I doubt he'd recognize what has become of conservatism.

Hell, I doubt it would have him, considering that it has exiled most NeoConservatives and any traditional conservatives that are left to the Outer Darkness, and sealed this particular dread ritual with a posthumous excommunication of John McCain.

Trumpism has its own code of personal conduct.

Note that modesty, moral probity, sexual restraint or even keeping one's goddamned hands to themselves is simply not part of the program.

I'm a guy, so I can't say for sure, but I would imagine that a lot of women these days are basically being made to feel like they're on the menu, rather than being treated as human beings.

Trumpism has its own shrines, some of which are even mobile, being that they're vehicles.

This was the van owned by Caesar Sayoc, the guy who mailed all those pipe bombs to people, though evidently these pictures were taken before he became so infamously known.

So does that mean that Trumpism has its own priests, as well?

And if so, does that mean that its priests are terrorists?

Certainly, there will be people who will name this nut as a martyr.

Bet on it.

Bet on the fact that they don't care if you're a Republican.

I follow Rick Wilson, who is a lifelong Republican, on Twitter. Some of the crap that these fucking people fill his inbox with is just plain ridiculous. I gather that alt-right Nazis have harassed his family members and threatened him and them with murder. They've done the same to David French, and to a variety of other anti-Trump conservatives. Where that leaves a person like me, who left conservatism and Republicanism in 2008 over Birtherism and Sarah Palin, I'll leave to your imagination. What These Fucking People think of somebody like me, old and disabled and the kind of gun owner that doesn't buy into their fake-macho bullshit and the kind of guy who'd rather keep his job than punch some moron in the face, I'm a go ahead and let you fill in the blanks.

I strongly suggest that it ends up with me dying in a firefight, not for ideological reasons but because I have a good number small furry animals that starving goons and their wannabe-warlords will likely want to eat after they've wrecked the country and the financial and food-distribution systems that depend on having a functioning government and all the various compacts that result from civilization.

Oh, and the company that makes the foods that I feed my dog and ferrets is Canadian (this was a choice I made on purpose) but has their American factory located in Kentucky. If this crap screws up distribution systems more than it already has (and it has driven prices up in so doing) this greatly affects my animals, too.

The truth is that, unchecked, this story ends with these fucking idiots roasting each other over blazing bonfires of burning #MAGA hats because there's nothing to eat and anything else to burn to cook it has been used up.

The time to take a stand against the fall of night is now, and we have an election coming up. You do the math. If we can't work up the interest, or the self-preservation, to stop this Trump-cult nonsense and the destructive fanaticism that it entails, this cartoon evil shit, it's going to end us and we're going to deserve it. You can either stand up, or let the vast, yawning Abyss that's where Donald Trump's soul is supposed to be swallow America, if not the world.

Please, look at this snipped headline, read it, and consider what it means. Caesar Sayoc's family lawyer says that Caesar found a "Father" in Trump. Trump's own kids didn't even find a father in Trump.  These people's idealized version of Trump has no basis in reality. But that's OK with them, they get to shout "CNN Sucks" and "Lock Her Up" and get glory from other feeble-minded people for doing it.

I'm not sure what's so great about that, but it seems to cause some people to love Donald Trump more than they love their own families. In point of fact, the bomber had been kicked out by his parents and was actually living in his van.

If that doesn't tell you how, even according to its own [claimed] basis and the talk it's talked, how far gone American conservatism is...I don't know what will.

These people have gleefully set on fire every single thing they've ever said they believed, except for racism, for Donald Trump.

We can do something about this now, vote the bastards out, get rid of the enablers, and start restraining this garbage...or we can all expect that the Tree Of Life Congregation Synagogue and the shooting of the two African Americans in a Kentucky Kroger grocery store will become even more of a daily fact of life. Evidently, the Kentucky gunman tried to get into a church before he went and shot those two people.

Right-wing terrorism is now a daily fact of life in America, while our government sucks up to Saudi Arabia....you know, the country that Osama Bin Laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers were from.

And these Republicans are the people who spent 15 years telling anybody who would listen that Islam was the threat?

If what has become of American conservatism has a problem with Fundamentalist Islam, it's a matter of professional jealousy, rather than oil or theology or whatever.

Well, that and the fact that Islam on a scriptural level as the very basis of its theology does not permit personality cults, or the equating of a man with God.

Sooner or later they're going to hit that sticking point as well. Care to place any bets on who the Chinese and the Russians and so many of our traditional rivals will side with? They all have large Muslim populations to placate and economic and military interests that run counter to our own.

If you notice, from Gaddafi to Saddam to Erdogan (who thinks he's a reincarnation of Ataturk...Islam does not allow belief in reincarnation, either) Middle Eastern or North African dictators are mostly secular.

Because Islam does not allow the worship of men.

Christianity, or at least the American kind, has...or perhaps had would be a better term...no such issue.

The past tense is there for a reason.

When was the last time you seriously heard a conservative talk about Jesus?

Vote them out, and do it now, before the planet is stuck with this crap for a thousand years because they took down the Cross and put up a Trump hotel at the end of the Via Dolorosa.

Hell is empty, all the devils are here.

James 2:19 King James Version (KJV)

19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

You know what I'm getting tired of?

I'm getting tired of these assorted conservatives, fascists, Nazis, Republicans, and various and assorted other sacks of shit telling me how religious they are.

I mean, come on. Seriously. We have an administration that's actively trying to persecute LGBT people Because Jesus and...wait? What? What horse-fuckery is this?

A bunch of naked Nazis under a blanket that's made to look like a Swastika flag. Like, that doesn't even look a little gay, it's more like a lot gay...and don't these motherfuckers supposedly hate gay people?

Sorry, but I can remember when a picture like this getting out would mean those dudes stood a good chance of getting beat up, or even killed. I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying that's how it was...and yet that's the kind of world these fuckers want to go back to? Hello? Is this thing even on?

You'll note that the man with the tiny gun appears to be Gavin McInnes, who as I've noted elsewhere stuck a microphone up his own ass because something something argle bargle Hillary Clinton.

This is the guy who founded the "Proud Boys" an organization that has evidently gotten very close to the Republican Party in recent days.

I've heard...I have not seen it but I have heard and Googled the evidence of it...that Gavin McInnes apparently made a live video of spreading his ass cheeks and sticking a dildo up his own ass.

I wonder what Mike Pence has to say about that...

I'm sorry, but if this is what modern Republicanism has come to count me out. Do whatever you want behind closed doors, but nobody needs to see that. I'm a middle aged man with a church background and a former conservative Republican and by the standards I was taught if you're getting caught in bed with a bunch of naked dudes and you're sticking stuff up your own ass on video, those are things ya'll should not even be claiming to be.

Granted, I'm so old I can remember when conservatives hated Nazis, too, but I digress.

Apparently, these fucking fools are even making up "Degrees" now, so that they can give each other glory for assaulting other people, breaking the law, and getting arrested.

Seriously, how in the hell does any of this strike anybody as conservative?

Again, I'm so old that I remember when a guy I used to know who kept getting in trouble for things like assault and drug possession and was asked to leave the church I was going to at the time...and it was a conservative Evangelical church though both apolitical and on the decent end of the spectrum. Conservatism as I remember it attached strict requirements to the use of force. Of course, that was also before the NRA went full Turner Diaries, but I digress, again.

I'd really like to know how Republicans like Carlos Curbelo (who publicized this event to his fellows on the Right) justify using a street gang apparently composed of violent [apparently closeted] homosexuals to terrorize members of the opposition party with traditional conservative beliefs like the dignity of every person, individual freedom, opposition to tyranny and rule of law...let alone modern conservative beliefs that gay people are somehow...bad.

Yes, indeed, I'd really like to know the answer to that.

Indeed, it often seems to me that what it really boils down to is that gay people, along with Black folks, other People of Color, non-Christians, and now apparently also women are "Bad" because they don't vote Republican as much, or maybe even at all.

Republican logic seems to be: You can vote for whoever you want to as long as it's us, fuck you I've got mine, FUCK YOU, YOU'RE NOT A REPUBLICAN!

(...Note that "Republican" appears to be becoming a smaller and less inclusive group by the day...)

There's no way to reason with that, you punch it in the face until it stops talking and cries like a little girl...except, oh wait, you don't need to even punch these cowardly shits in the face for them to start crying. All you have to do is not kiss their ass. Again, how in the hell does anybody find this crap inspiring, or even worth voting for?

So, let me get this straight, "Proud Boys" can basically be raging perverts according to what I was taught were conservative standards, and Fundamentalist Christians like Pat Robertson can say things like we shouldn't let the fact that Saudi Arabia murders its own people (in a manner proscribed by Islam no less) get in the way of selling them a bunch of weapons, but a bus full of Black senior citizens on their way to do a normal thing like voting is wrong and those people have to find another ride to the polls?

As I understand it, they got their chance to go and vote, but it took a lot of extra work and a lot more time...but that's what happens if you want to actually exercise your rights in America these days.

Are you tired of this garbage yet? Let me tell you, I sure am.

Nazis and racists and stupid morons get to have a Bacchanalia of doing whatever they want, and the rest of us get, at minimum, embarrassment, frustration, stress and inconvenience...for basically years on end at this point?

 Unless of course you're transgender, in which case the Trump administration wants to try to legally define you out of existence while instituting "Genetic testing."

Have you non-voters, protest voters and Third Party voters realized what's even going on here? This is literal, outright Nazi shit that these motherfuckers are talking about here!

If you don't think Black folks, or gay people, or Jews, or Latinos, or Muslims or whatever...up to and including you yourself...could be the next one to end up with a target on your back, you're wrong.

It never stops with these fucking people, ever. There is not even any such thing as conservative enough, or white enough. These are people who think that he who builds the highest mound of skulls can see the farthest.

 These are people who have discarded every single thing they ever claimed to believe, who are engaging in mind-boggling levels of perversion, and theft...and they want you to believe Latinos coming here to try to get asylum...and supposed "Middle Eastern" people (and again, what's wrong with being from the Middle East?) are more of a threat than their deceptions, destruction, lies, perversions and thefts.

I was taught that America was big, had a responsibility to the rest of the world as a shining city on a hill, and was better than this. I'm tired of being told by bigoted small people that America is small and only has room for people like them.

These are people who treat the Romans Chapter One and the Seven Deadly Sins as a fucking to-do list, who daily spit on the Constitution, the Ten Commandments and the Word of God and who have nothing but contempt for you, if you voted for them...or for me because I didn't. That's their defining principle "Fuck you, I've got mine." That's their only defining principle and so far as I can tell the only one they've ever had.

But it's not just that they've got theirs, they want yours, too. It doesn't matter if you don't have anything. These ravenous wolves don't care, they'll take the shirt off your back if that's all you got.

And the Bible has plenty to say about how and where people like that end up.

It's not about the money, it's about the fact that these people would rather kill and steal than live, and would rather hate than eat.

It's about the fact that many of the people who speak the loudest about loving America, and God and the Flag believe in none of the above except insofar as how can they use these things as a club with which to beat others.

I'm a middle-aged former conservative Christian white dude with a Protestant church background who's been there and done that and actually did a lot of the things these people claim to idolize, and I still have experienced this in my own life. All I had to do for them to hate me was get divorced, and then call bullshit on their Prosperity Gospel. Why the fuck do you think I'm not a Christian or a conservative anymore?

These people will try and make an Atheist of you, and then tell you you're going to hell for not believing.

If that's what they had in store for me, what do you think they have in mind for people who aren't or never were or who for one reason or another couldn't be part of their shitty little club? These people don't even like each other, and often in my experience try incessantly to take advantage even of one another.

Think about that the next time one of these motherfuckers tells you they believe in God.

Think, if they would treat one of their own, as I was at the time, in such a way that I joked they thought Jesus was a club they thought they could beat me with, well what the fuck do you think they have in mind for brown women and children?

Vote the bastards out, while we still can. As far as I'm concerned, vote them out and kick their followers asses in the streets so they know not to do it again.

If we don't end this by the ballot, the chance increases that it will end by the bullet and that's not going to be good for anybody. If they won't learn the word "No" we have to teach them that word, or this will never be over until we are all dead...because that's basically what these idiots believe in whether they dress it up with talk of Jesus and the Rapture or not.

Vote them out, because in America we have a Constitution and it says God doesn't get a vote. We are free to practice our beliefs, but not to force them on others. If these people weren't afraid of your vote they wouldn't be trying to take it away.

It needs to be said and I'm a keep saying it, show the fuck up and vote. Get rid of these assholes while we still can.

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.
~William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I, Scene II.

Idolatry.

The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thought-crime. ~1984, George Orwell.

Hold on, back the truck up, Piers. Just a damn minute.

Let me get this straight.

Dude here is carrying his kid...and somehow that's "Emasculation?" Listen here, bitch, one of these things is not like the other one.

He's the guy that plays James Bond...and you're...not.

In fact, what you're mostly known for being is a fat slob of a Trump Supporter who says a lot of dumb shit. What I most remember you for is the fact that during a debate on gun control, Jesse Ventura wiped the floor with your stupid ass live on CNN.

Personally, what I'd like to know is how, in a matter of just a few years, did this motherfucker go from vaguely liberal-ish drooling anti-gun moron who worked for CNN to...Trump Supporting moron.

Well, I suppose you could say that the constant here is "Moron." The fact that he threw in a slur against Native American kids just kind of seals the deal.

For reasons that should be glaringly obvious, Twitter was not kind. I thought it was particularly funny that a majority of the negative responses came not from women, but from men who spoke about things like carrying their kids in baby-slings (or whatever) to various events and stuff. I just happened to think that the responses from women were much more hilariously brutal.

As well they should be. I'm kind of getting the vibe that a lot of women are done with these misogynistic Trump-Supporting idiots and their bullshit. Even a lot of guys I know are sick of this shit. Hell, I showed the Piers Morgan tweet to a co-worker, because I wanted a second opinion, and he laughed at it. Dude is a Democrat, but kind of on the toxic masculinity Bernie-bro end of the spectrum. He still takes care of his kid, though.

It wasn't just people actually in the conversation that were dogging Piers out, though. It was people like Brianna Wu, one of the many women who is running for Congress right now. She also has a history with these fucking people, being one of those who was hounded by the gamer-gate mob...a mob that was in many ways led by a homosexual, Milo Yiannopoulos.

We know what these fucking people would like to do to women. We can now surmise what they have in mind for men, also.

One has to wonder just what these people's idea of acceptable conduct for a man even is.

Look, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that Mike Cernovich isn't exactly a good example of anything, but his idea of exposing himself to women and demanding that they get him off or he's going to masturbate...doesn't exactly sound like a very good dating policy. It sounds like a surefire way to end up on a sex-offender registry.

I'm not sure if people like Cernovich, or Gavin McInnes (who once stuck a microphone up his own ass because Hillary Clinton something something gazpacho) realize quite where their idea of grunting, fighting-in-the-streets hyper-masculinity is likely to get people...but you don't have to have watched all six seasons of Oz to guess that it quite likely ends in Sing Sing, with these Proud Boy idiots taking it up the butt from far less privileged dudes who are actual no-shit gang members rather than cowards who attack peaceful, unarmed protesters.

Is it just me, here, or are we drowning in Stupid Male Insecurity?

Whether it's Incels, losers like Gavin McInnes and Piers Morgan, or whatever, it seems like we're stuck with a lot of people who can't "successfully perform the sexual act...not to their own satisfaction, anyway, so I'm gonna guess that their partners are none too happy either. I know Piers Morgan has been divorced at least once, so I'm guessing that might have something to do with it.

...And then of course there's shitbirds like Trump, who one way or another have to pay for it, and whose entire existence is a shadow-play of trying to hide their own fears and male inadequacies, whether real or imagined.

I suppose, that Trump has managed to make Stormy Daniels look like she has some dignity, so there's that. Yet another unintended consequence in a presidency that's full of them.

Margaret Atwood, the Handmaid's Tale author, said once that "Men worry that women will laugh at them. Women worry that men will kill them."

Listen, guys, I don't know how to tell you this without being an asshole, so I'm a just say it: If you keep acting like this, you damned well deserve to get laughed at. You damned well deserve to have your various avatars of political stupidity voted out of office and you damned well deserve to have them be replaced by the ladies, who will not give a fuck about the various dick-anxieties that are what's really driving a lot of this stupid shit. If ya'll don't want the first question on a gun license form to be "Do you feel secure about the size of your penis" My suggestion is that it's probably time to cut out the stupid shit before ya'll ruin things for guys like me, who managed not to catch this particular societal herpes of authoritarian male stupidity, or at least managed to grow out of it.

I fully well realize that a lot of Western culture is driven by entirely dick-obsessed Greek mythology and philosophy, yet at the same time we have this obsession with thinking of prisoners looking at shadows in a cave, and viewing ourselves as the shadows...Plato of course being the basis for much of Roman Stoic philosophy as well...thus leading to a disdain for the physical world, particularly on the part of the religious, and to a love of ideas over people....but all too often, especially with outright cults like this Trump bullshit...it all comes back to that ancient obsession with the dick.

Listen up, my fellow white straight men, it's the 21st goddamned century, not the Bronze Age.

Most of the time nobody cares about your dick.

We'd best straighten out our bullshit and our petty insecurities and obsessions and cut out this drama-queen bullshit. We'd best cut out this strutting wannabe-authoritarianism and acting like it's some big bad thing that the rest of the world is talking back to us BEFORE the rest of the world smacks us in our collective mouths and tells us to sit down and shut the fuck up.

You want respect? Respect is earned, by every action, every day. Do you really think this kind of crap is respectable conduct? Hello? Is this thing on?

There are people in this country, right here, right now, who do not have food to eat or a roof over their heads and you want to act like it's the worst thing in the world that our society determined long before any of us were born that a woman should have the capability to say "No" to you?

FUCK YOU!

You weren't promised respect, or power, or that women will have sex with you, or anything like that. Hell, if you actually read the Bible you'd know we're not promised that we'll get up tomorrow morning.

I was taught "You want something, you go out and you earn it."

But all I see right now is a bunch of entitled crybabies who think the world owes them everything, and I ain't talking about the liberals, I'm talking about what has become of too many conservative white men.

I used to be one of ya'll, but I was taught better than this.

The idol of the 21st century isn't the Golden Calf of Exodus, or even the Golden Bull of Wall Street, it's not Mecca or the Vatican or the Wailing Wall or some giant Buddha statue. No, the idol of the 21st century is nothing more than a giant gold-plated dick, with a bunch of idiots who want to show it to the world like it's some kind of a new thing and not something that we, each of us men, all have and should be in control of rather than being controlled by.

If this crap is what has become of conservatism I'll say it again, that I want no part of it. If you want to be a man, and have the conduct of a man, you shouldn't either.

The whole damned point of Plato, and of Christianity and of every decent philosophy or religion ever dreamed up by men (and women) sitting around a fire looking at shadows is that sinful Man is meant to rise above and have power over his urges, not to be controlled by them.

Transhumanism, from the people who don't like trans people (or humans in general.)

Brother Cavil: In all of your travels, have you ever seen a star go Supernova?
Ellen: No
~No Exit, Battlestar Galactica, Season 4.5

Sometimes, you can only put up with so much stupid shit in one day before you have to say something about it. I've been going to write something for a week, and between crazy work scheduling and general exhaustion, I just haven't had the energy.

I'm old, and I'm human.

But today started off badly, relatively quickly, at work. I ended up working in the hotel, which sucks and I don't do it that often. My friend CJ enlightened me to the fact that there's evidently some kind of alternate-universe Anime thing called the Omegaverse where men can get pregnant.

What? Seriously? Call me old fashioned, but I thought the impregnating was the man's job?

Call me crazy, but isn't this something conservatives have been making a big deal about since basically forever?

Aren't these also the people who get performatively offended by the concept of actual transgender people, rather than internet-fantasy trans people?

Just sayin' that's kinda messed up.

Maybe it's just me, but I think whoever made this up needs to go out and interact with some real people and possibly try and find a girlfriend.

What is it with these Anime nerds, alt-Right Nazis and assorted other people who spend most of their lives sitting behind a computer, anyway? I was a computer nerd, I was a gamer, I've attempted to be a writer...and I even started out as a conservative and I didn't catch the right-wing racist/misogynist nihilistic nonsensical bullshit bug, somehow...

I don't get this shit.

They can't understand basic things like that biology didn't just arbitrarily happen that way, but that human biology as we know it evolved painstakingly over millions of years and has stayed the way it is for the written span of our history because it works?

Of course, these appear to be the same fucking idiots that can't understand that First Nations kids need to go to school too, but I digress.

You want to know why I'm not only no longer a conservative, but so against this soup sandwich we're stuck dealing with? These assholes can't be bothered to pay attention to basic human biology in biology class, but they think Native American kids going to school is somehow genocide against them. They can't be bothered to treat women as human beings who have and should have the agency to say "Yes" or "No" to their dating interests or romantic or sexual advances of their own free will BUT they sure want to have that sex that they can't be bothered to learn about or understand past the basic ideas that it "feels good" or gets women pregnant and that this happens because of biology, not because of God or male entitlement or something something gazpacho.

Things work the way they do for a fucking reason. Society changes, for a fucking reason. Cause equals effect, and no it's not always what you want. That's why conservatism, as it once was, demanded that people act judiciously and make efforts to avoid unintended consequences.

In other words, you used to have to know stuff, to be a conservative. You used to have to plan ahead further than the length or your dick or so you wouldn't run out of whack-off lube. Also, I'm honestly grateful that I managed to exit conservatism before Anime body pillows, angry entitled male virginity and knowing what a Waifu was were line-level requirements, just sayin.'

You used to have to at least sound like you could function in the real world, treat people with respect, and could be trusted to not sexually assault any woman who wasn't wearing a Burqa and escorted by armed male relatives, but I digress, again.

Brother Cavil: No? Well I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the universe, other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be a part of the moment. And do you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum! With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air!

Ellen: The five of us designed you to be as human as possible...

~No Exit, Battlestar Galactica, Season 4.5

What is it, to be human? Countless books have been written, philosophies and political movements and religions and what have you all founded to try to answer that question or to apply existing answers to day-to-day human existence. Wars have been fought over this stuff, wars have been fought over things as simple as the status of one group of humans relative to another.

The above photo is a case in point:

Like, seriously, what the fuck? Do these fucking morons expect some percentage of Black kids from this well-off community to end up being high school drop-out 'hood rats or old gray-haired homeless men pushing shopping carts or tough young gangstas on the corner selling weed just to appease stupid white sensibilities? 

If I was a young African American dude, I'd be all like fuck that shit, I got a life to live.

Fuck you, white people, and fuck your entitlement, and I say that as a fucking white person. The kid in the picture is wearing a sweater-vest, a nice white shirt and a goddamned tie to school. I never went to school...or even college...looking like that in my life. In point of fact, I've only ever worn a tie as part of a uniform or when I otherwise had to.

Dude looks like Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and ya'll gonna investigate his school? That kid looks like the only G's he's ever seen in his life are the G's of scholarship money racking up as he gets the grades that demand such and takes an active part in planning his own future.

Ya know, just like the motivated white kids might.

Just sayin' the side that understands concepts of basic humanity usually eventually wins out. Greed and racism and general shittiness sooner or later become uneconomical simply because those nations that survive best are the ones that use their populations...as they are, not as somebody might wish them to be...efficiently. Colonialism and empire only came about, in modern terms, because they could be done relatively cheaply and because the benefits for the common man in the home country outweighed the costs and the risks. We barely ever had it, in international terms. Most of American colonialism and imperialism has been the kind we inflict on each other.

There was an older model, that worked better, and that the United States has haphazardly tried to emulate. Rome: Rome didn't just conquer or economically dominate. The Romans assimilated the gods of conquered peoples and provided them the benefits of civilization, thus making said people want to be Romans. In turn, for much of our history people have come here from all over the world, wanting to be Americans, to sign on to the idea and the ideal of being an American and go through all the stuff one might have to, and work here, to be a citizen. It's kind of like a Carthaginian or a Numidian or a Syrian or a Sub-Saharan African would serve as an auxiliary soldier, an archer or a cavalryman, for 26 years to get their Roman citizenship and pass it on to their descendants.

Being considered and treated as a human being is an inalienable human right, and being an American, just like being a Roman was...is a matter of ideal, of acceptance of some cultural norms (While preserving some of one's own, it's a balance) and of pride in and service (in whatever capacity) to one's nation.

Here's the thing though, as I've written before, I think a decent number of these people actually do know what America is all about, they just want no part of it.

For fuck's sake, Donald Trump said today that he thought Devin Nunes (who's never served in the military) should get the Congressional Medal of Honor.

That's somebody who doesn't know what heroism is, military or otherwise. That's a political party that simply doesn't understand the concept. They picked the motherfucker, knowing his history of being anti-military and anti-most-of-the-rest-of-their-claimed-values. They asked for this well-deserved public mocking.

The character of an organization, be it civilian or military or whatever, flows from the top down. Therefore, if you as a Republican reading this feel offended by that or think it's too broad of a brush, too damned bad, fuck you.

It's not just that they don't want to be American or mock the majority of our values. I'm not even sure they want to be human, but it's not just that. They don't want YOU to be human either. It's the ultimate in crab-bucket mentality. I guess. "If I can't be human and be happy, neither can you." Here's the thing, with people that don't want to be human. Our history generally recognizes people like that as monsters of the worst kind.

Brother Cavil: I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can't even express these things properly because I have to - I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid limiting spoken language! But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws! And feel the wind of a supernova flowing over me! I'm a machine! And I can know much more! I can experience so much more. But I'm trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way! ~No Exit, Battlestar Galactica, Season 4.5

As regards Richard Spencer's religious "beliefs" I've written extensively and quite invectively about that subject elsewhere.

You might want to choose which side you're on, carefully, conservative white people.

All too often these days, you're picking the wrong one.