The stupidity of modern conservatism, Part 1.

As your body grows bigger, your mind grows flowers. It's great to learn, 'cause knowledge is power.
~School House Rock Anthem.

A few days ago, Trump spelled Devin Nunes' name wrong in a Tweet. While this was not terribly unusual, I found that the response to it sort of was.
For example:

Imagine abasing yourself before Donald Trump, only to find out that he doesn't know your fucking name. Go on, just think about that for a second. Imagine what kind of low-life, no self-respect shitty person you'd have to be to keep on supporting that guy. And then imagine, that dozens of your fellow Republicans would go on to ape Trump's misspelling of your name. What does that say about Republicans, do you think? Imagine being that guy, and finding out that all your buddies care more about not contradicting their newfound Orange God...than they do about treating you like a proper human being?

You know, the semi-literate fucking dumb ass who suddenly is trying to look like it's a natural thing for him to be quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, as if to claim that staunch abolitionist, supporter of Democracy and transcendentalist philosopher like Emerson would somehow endorse his stupid play to become king of America?

Here's a pro tip: During most of Emerson's life the primary partisan issue dividing America was slavery. During that time, about the only people that northern Abolitionists typically disliked more than white slave-owning Southerners...was the British, because especially in the minds of people like Emerson who'd lived through some of the conflicts with the British crown...the concept of Monarchy was utterly anathema.

But ya know, the level of stupidity that I kept encountering over the course of this week actually can get worse.

Here is Dr. Trump Ball Washer, *Cough* excuse me...Dr. Robert Jeffress saying that Christians don't care about Trump being a non-believing, lying adulterous scumbag because of his "pro-faith policies." You know, if you were an actual Believer, you might understand that on a deeply fundamental level there's no way that you're ever going to get an apparent Atheist like Trump to make the United States a more Christian nation. If you were an actual Christian, you might see that you and your people have to be more than a political special interest group that seeks to get stuff from the government in the most morally relativistic way possible. If you'd ever believed any of the words that came out of your own mouth, prior to 2016, you'd likely see that you're literally gambling the reputation of your faith and your present and future Christian witness...and that of all of your brothers and sisters in the faith...in exchange for getting a few right-wing treats now, most of whom can easily be undone by the next President, without Congress or the voters having any form of redress whatever until the next election.

It seems like there's a basic comprehension fail at the root of this. Perhaps a basic comprehension fail in the service of getting stuff, but a basic comprehension fail regardless.

If anybody wonders why I'm an Agnostic? People like Dr. Robert Jeffress, that's why. These are the same fucking people who preach against abortion and adultery and homosexuality while walking around with Donald Trump's balls in their mouth.

Not to be outdone, perhaps intending to make sure my week went out with a bang...my friend CJ found this shit.

White. Nationalist. Reggae.

Reggae is the most popular form of music in Jamaica, a synthesis of Jazz and Soul and R&B that is deeply linked to the Rastafari religion. While it does often contain a powerful undercurrent of 'Black' liberation, in practice it rarely comes out specifically that way. In point of fact some of the greatest Reggae Artists, like Bob Marley, are generally considered great humanitarians in a more general sense.

Fundamentally, the reason that Reggae has an audience besides Black people or Jamaicans, up to and including this nitwit on Facebook is because it speaks to the human condition and resonates with something in the souls of all people.

Let's look at this:

Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pits

But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but our self can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill di book 

~Bob Marley, Redemption Song

Is there any component to the lyrics of Redemption Song...Rastafari dialect or no...that even mentions ethnicity or race? No, there is not. Rastafari, like any decent religion, is about liberation of the soul from earthly constraints and woes, not at the expense of another, but in an effort to participate in the divine conversation and reach out and touch that which is infinite in the first place.

Perhaps more to the point, what the fuck is this stupid silly bullshit? White Nationalist Reggae? Let's change some variables here: How about Black Liberation Country, or life-affirming Swedish Death Metal? It's such a contradiction in terms that all the rational mind, even one of average intelligence, really can do is fucking laugh at it. I mean, did somebody just completely fail basic reading comprehension here, much less ability to parse basic themes or have the slightest understanding of culture, geography or history?

No, and it's just more of the same old stupid shit: "Hey, it's us, the white people. We're here to appropriate your culture and take your shit without the slightest awareness that most of it came about as a reaction to us destroying your culture and lives and sense of place in the world and shipping your ancestors across the ocean from where they were born to begin with."

As Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station often says "No more self-awareness than a dog licking its own asshole in public."

That's Whiteness for you, and keep in mind I'm a white guy quoting another white guy talking about it. I mean, seriously what the fuck is wrong with people?

I saw yesterday that apparently Russian news sites are claiming there's a second US Civil War brewing.

Ya know, given the level of stupidity I'm seeing lately I'm not the least bit sure they're wrong. I think a lot of people on the Right know they fucked up at this point. A lot of people in the middle and on the Left are legitimately angry. There seems to be a growing desire particularly on the part of conservatives in particular to try and shoot their way out of the problem. And there's a grim realization on the part of a lot of liberals and even-slightly-sane conservatives, that one way or another, the only options that exist in such a case is are shoot back, or to die.

Because of course, the "problem" as conservatives are choosing to see it, is that "Other people exist." If you really expect these dipshits to see that they fucked up and look at their own behavior you haven't been paying attention. Hell, most of the people who've even said one thing against either Trump or the current ongoing racist shit-show have been anathematized by their fellows and have even more of a target on their backs than you and I do.

Trust me, there's no better way to make these people hate you than to remind them of what the truth actually is and call bullshit on their fantasy.