Broad is the road that leads to destruction.

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in there at:

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it. ~Matthew 7:13-14

I had to go to the grocery store today. That, in and of itself is pretty boring, but after I left the store I happened to see an SUV driving down the highway that had "DEFY THE GOVERNMENT" written on the back window, all caps, in large letters. When I passed it by I looked over and saw that the driver was a fairly milquetoast looking old guy, basically exactly the kind of person you'd think would be taking the COVID-19 crisis and social distancing seriously if only for the sake of his own life.

I guess not. I quite wonder if there's anybody who cares for him, more than he cares for his own life.

I spent much of my life as a conservative Republican, and it fills me with anger and shame to see that in the midst of a global crisis there are three basic responses to this fact.

#1 Self-pitying denial, as evidenced by Donald Trump today. It's his wife's birthday and he's spending it rage-tweeting about the media and his ratings on the Internet. What a sad life to live, eh? With all the money Trump supposedly has, you'd think he could buy something that would keep him happy for a few minutes. Also, the "Fox News Babe" approach of "People are dying, but I can't get my nails done."

#2 The "Kill 'em all/What can we get out of this" approach. See also The Federalist, the Georgia and Texas state governments and of course, Trump, again. Sure, 50,000 Americans are dead, but there must be some way they can make money off of this, right? Seriously if that's your approach to mass death you need to find some way to go outside and rethink your life.

#3 The Magical Woo Woo theory. See Also the conspiracy theorists and the Evangelical "COVID-19 vaccination is the Mark of the Beast" crowd. While I was at the grocery store, I was texting back and forth with my Evangelical ex-partner who seems determined to believe that we are literally living through the Biblical End Times despite any evidence other than this being the first global crisis of our lifetimes that we couldn't shoot our way out of. She seems to have hit on some idea that she's going to be some kind of a big deal in the End Times because she's part of some internet chat group that thinks it's going to "help" people by debating if their "needs" are valid and deciding what kind of chump change or prayer or sympathy to dole out and ya know, I'm just not buying it. I'll stick with getting online and doing my Unemployment stuff in the morning like I'm scheduled for.

When I got home, there was a firestorm of argument on Twitter over the fact that Land O' Lakes has apparently changed their packaging by removing the picture of the Native American woman from the label. I don't buy that brand anyway, but seriously, who knew that butter labels were such a big deal to people? Oh, and because I was bored and have no sense of mental self-preservation I looked at some of the profiles of people responding to this garbage. The vast majority of them were white, Christian Trump Supporters who'll stop buying butter because the company changed the packaging, but when you bring up actual issues confronting actual Native people their eyes just glaze over and they ignore you, or they get mad and don't want to talk about it, because when they are confronted with the fact that buying a brand of butter with a person of color on the label isn't the same as supporting human rights for those people, it's either a) confront their own blinkered selfishness or b) get mad.

Hardly anybody seemed to acknowledge the actual Native person who posted about the subject to bring up something that was important to them, which given the tenor of a lot of the other comments, was probably a good thing, to be honest. I'm sure the last thing this lady would have wanted to deal with was some Karen crying about "But, but, but...they changed the package!"

God, are people really this fucking dumb?!

Never mind, don't answer that.

If there's one thing my friends, especially my younger more web-crawling friends have taught me, it's that there are certain questions that I really do not want to ask, simply because I don't want to know what the answer is.

But still...really?

It is my profound regret to inform you that not only is the answer "Yes, they fucking are that motherfucking dumb" but that it actually somehow manages to get worse from there.

Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator, may be dead or may have suffered severe brain damage, and the general consensus of people is that his younger sister Kim Yo Jong will likely replace him. The general consensus also is that she's as bad as he is or worse...likely worse because she showed at the Olympics that she at least has enough social grace to charm people like Mike Pence, which is frankly an asset that the North Koreans have not had before.

What's the internet's response? Dude bros, many of them the obvious, performative right-wing kind, all  talking about how much they'd like to tap that. Worse, one of these guys turned her into a

cute Anime character, as if this woman is anything but (very likely) a murderous psychopath. Actually, the thing that scares me is, if she is found to be a killer like the rest of her family, is that going to make the Waifu Pillow crowd like her more? I know enough Anime nerds to know that I don't really want to know the answer to my own question.

And not only do these fools turn to idolizing the woman whose finger might soon be on the launch button for a bunch of nuclear weapons pointed at United States Forces Korea and the South Korean people, but likely lots of these same fools turn around and demonize the women whose job it might soon be to save their own lives if they get sick!

We're in the middle of a major medical crisis here, and people are throwing hate at doctors and especially nurses and public health specialists, because they don't like social distancing and argle bargle something something Gazpacho is closed?!

First off, as far as I'm concerned if you're a grown ass adult and not inventive enough to find a way to get what you want or something like it, or strong-willed enough to delay gratification until such time as this crisis is over, you're the one with the problem and I'm all out of sympathy for you. It's that easy. Convenience is a really stupid thing to worship.

Second, If you're a social person and you haven't figured out a way to communicate with people by now, you're not a very smart one, and everybody is probably better off for the lack of your presence and whatever dumb-shit opinions you may want to share. With a little creativity and effort, well basically the only thing I'd normally be doing that I'm not doing now is going to work. I might just go and find a job in an essential business in a few months if my work hasn't opened back up, but right now it doesn't serve me to do that, and I can read a balance sheet as well as the next guy.

Third, it's not the nurse's or the public health expert's or even the governors (or for that matter, technically) the President's fault or that of some other country that this crisis happened and everything is shut down. Yeah, Trump has fucked a lot of shit up and made the crisis a lot worse, and you can argue about what might be better or worse if he'd acted a couple months or a couple weeks earlier or what the Chinese government or the World Health Organization did all day, but at the end of the day, it's a virus. It is a natural occurrence for which we, at this time, happened to not be well prepared on a global scale.

If you're going to be mad, be mad at the virus. Shit happens, as we used to say back in my day. The idea is to be prepared when it happens. Pretending the problem doesn't exist won't make it go away.

And blaming it on Obama (especially by means of using numerology, which the Bible considers to be sorcery and thus forbidden on pain of death) sure won't do a single damn thing to help anybody, especially if you can't do basic math because you are a fucking dumb ass. I mean, come on, among other things. Come on, Obama has been out of office and a private citizen since January of 2017. Unless you're a racist and you hate him because he's Black, there's no reason to bring him up as regards the current crisis which is going on in 2020 over three years after he left office. This crisis is the responsibility of the current President and government officials to deal with. It's just that simple.

And it's your responsibility, and mine, because we're here in this time and God or some magical woo woo is not going to save us, and there's no volcano god to throw virgins into the lake of lava to appease.

I was raised conservative. I was taught there was a right way and a wrong way to do things, a right thing and a wrong thing to believe. Broad is the road that leads to destruction. Narrow is the gate that leads to salvation.

It's to everybody's detriment that the people who used to preach that stuff forgot it, and now adorn their cars with loud demands that you defy the state government that's trying to keep you alive.

I really do hope that the Bible and all the other holy books are correct, if only because I want these fucking people to face consequences for their shit. What they are doing is wrong, and if you can't see that you're a danger to yourself and others.

I can't put it any more simply than that.