~Molly Ivins
Yesterday, I saw this.
A fairly transparent attempt by a sitting U.S. Senator to fear-monger about the increasing number of Latino people in Texas.
Like, literally what the fuck?
Senator, it doesn't goddamned well matter what ethnicity your constituents are. It's your job to represent all of them.
But ya know, in the course of doing a bit of research over the past couple of days...it's absolutely mind-blowing to me how dismissive of other people...any other people...most "Conservatives" have become. I'll largely except #NeverTrump conservatives from that, because, to their credit, most of those people are just as appalled by all this racist shit as I am.
But John Cornyn can hardly be identified as a racist bomb-thrower like Steve King.
Or can he? Does it even matter anymore?
"It's up to the parents to do things rightfully and legally."
I'm curious. Where does all that "Rightful" and "Legal" stuff go when Democrats are the ones in power?
No, I'm serious. Don't look away, don't move the goal-posts. Answer. The. Fucking. Question.
These fucking people only care about what's legal or right when they think they get to determine what that is.
And these people want to have a government that hurts people they don't like.
Hell, they think that's what government is for.
I live in Michigan. I'm specifically from Northern Michigan, and I've spent significant time in the Upper Peninsula of the state as well. I'm here to tell you that when Bill Clinton got elected in 1992...
If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal. ~Molly Ivins, on Bill Clinton
Well...within a year or so, there were armed anti-government groups all over the place in my state. Multiple people that I knew were in them. A guy I know once told me, somehow forgetting who he was talking to, that "The Lord wanted him to join" the Michigan Militia. He seemed to forget that the Bible tells Christians in the book of Romans that they are to obey government authorities, that Christ said to render unto Caesar that which is his, and unto God that which is His also. He seemed to forget what I was doing, and what my plans were, at the time. If he ever got his whack-off fantasy shoot-out with the government there was an excellent chance that I'd be one of the people shooting back at him, and I was a conservative, a Republican...
As regards loyalty to my country and its ideals as defined in our founding documents, and as regards stuff like racism, sexism, and any other form of prejudice I drew a line in the sand right about that same time in my life.
A line that puts me firmly on the opposite side from these motherfuckers not only socially but politically as well...and my views have actually not changed that much except on a few social issues like health care and marriage equality. Just sayin.'
These days, that basically makes me a socialist, and I've moved from where I was in 1993 on only a few issues, gun control, health care and marriage equality.
I've always believed people should take care of each other and that the government should be responsible to all of its people.
I'd like to point out AGAIN, that when that line was drawn I was a REPUBLICAN. A lot of my heroes were Republicans. What we are seeing now is, at least, not what was in power at that time on my (then) side of the fence.
(I also would like to point out that a bit over a year after that conversation took place, Mid-term elections swept Republicans into Congress and Newt Gingrich into being the Speaker of the House and that began to change...)
Instead of fear-mongering about the number of Latino residents, or caging Latino kids at the border in horrific conditions, what Republicans SHOULD be doing is trying to help those people, reaching out to them and maybe try and give them a reason to vote Republican eventually.
Most Latino people are Catholics, and decent numbers of them are in fact conservative. But, they're generally smart enough not to support people that hate them. (Unlike poor white folks, but I digress.)
So, they've spent 50 years basically alienating everybody BUT racist white idiots and the rich fools that those racist white idiots will unfailingly vote for.
Now they're on to dehumanizing the rest of us, and actively tormenting those they think they can get away with doing it to, in every way possible whether it's abusing kids or getting in the way of a vote on a climate change bill.
If you cannot find it within yourself to vote against this crap, no matter who the other party puts up, you're setting yourself up to be the next one in the cage because trust me, these fucking people don't give a good goddamn if you're a Christian or a conservative or white or whatever the fuck.
Eventually it'll get down to you have to be the proper KIND of white far-rightist Christian...and THEN the line will become who is willing to abandon Christ and worship Trump as God and it'll be the Christians in the cages without soap or even decent food and water.
Oregon's climate-change bill is a Cap-and-Trade scheme, and Cap-and-Trade is, fundamentally, a very capitalistic and market-friendly effort to address global warming, that was originally formulated by George H.W. Bush administration lawyers, if I recall correctly.
But then, popular conspiracy theory target Agenda 21 was signed off on by the Bush administration as well.
See, It's never been about conservatism, Christianity, or any of the other things they've ever said it was about. All relatively decent people like George H.W. Bush or John McCain or Ronald Reagan...or James Comey or Robert Mueller for that matter...or even racist assholes like Jeff Sessions who STILL wouldn't go against the Constitution...ever were was a means to an end, Camouflage for murderous racists and sociopathic rich fucks It was always about power, and about making sure that they have it and you don't.
It's about hurting people as an expression of power.
It's about the fact that people like Laura Ingraham don't think the descendants of slaves should get reparations because she doesn't think slavery was wrong in the first place.
It's about turning every mechanic of life into nothing more than a self-reinforcing ego trip for the right kind of white, allegedly "Christian" politically/socially "Conservative" male scumbag.
Even sex is not for enjoyment or procreation, but who gets to have sex and what kind of sex becomes about power, not what God or nature or the universe intended it for.
This will trickle down to every single aspect of life.
I'll never forget finding out that in Saudi Arabia something as simple as drinking a Coke out of the can (and thus displaying that American brand) or smoking Marlboro cigarettes rather than the lesser quality Arab or Turkish brands could get you harassed by the police.
Who would then get back in their American or Canadian built GMC trucks with their American-made guns and answer the next call on their Motorola radio because it was their power to have "Western" stuff...but they'd harass you for doing it.
While I'm at it, over there the Muttawa don't particularly have to obey the laws, either. The situation is so bad that Saudis openly joke about it and the various clerical councils in the country have repeatedly issued Fatwas to try to get the fucking police to obey the fucking laws.
Allah Akbar, motherfucker.
This is the future that conservatives want, for America.
And even "Race" is nothing more than the sorting point that's popular RIGHT NOW.
When that goes out of style or we're down to just the right kind of white people they'll simply find something else in the service of their shitty agenda.
It's not about anything else but power, and who they can fool into giving it to them and how they can keep it.
If you cannot find it within yourself to vote against that shit, whether you "like" the other party's candidate or not, fuck you.
It's not about policy or party, it's about do you wanna live in a country that puts kids in cages or not? We are and always have been a diverse and multicultural society. Do you want that to stay the way it is, or do you want nuts like this Q-Troll to determine what our culture is?
Do you wanna live in a country where one political party thinks it has some kind of a divine right to hold up progress by any means necessary, or not?
It's a yes or no answer. There can be no other way.
We cannot live with people who simply don't think the rest of us have a right to exist.
The future is up to all of us, not just them.
But if you don't vote, you give them an advantage that they don't deserve.
And if you can't be bothered to get off your ass and vote to potentially save your own freedom, or your own skin, well...fuck you.
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