God damn it, white people. (Presumed Part One.)

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.  “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’

~Matthew 4:5-7

There's this guy I used to know.

Army veteran, guitar player, Preacher's Kid from North Carolina, philosophy nerd, white dude-bro type before that was really thought of the way it is now. He was the kind of person whose family, place of birth and station in life give him like three options, so he takes the one that's not on the list and gets out and never goes back. The kind of guy who rejected Christianity not from some philosophical point but because he's seen up close and personal that all the kinds of it he's familiar with are nothing but crap. Yet at the same time, he wasn't quite an Atheist either. He was...again from life experience...the kind of guy that would today probably be a Bernie Bro or at least considered "far left" WELL before that was "cool."

I knew this dude in college, by the time I met him he very much was the bearded long-haired hippie type, drove an older Toyota, and had a Bob Marley sticker on his guitar case. He worked the front desk in the Residence Hall of the community college at which we were both dorm students. He'd literally ended up in the area because of a girl, and stayed because he'd taken up snowboarding in an area that had four ski resorts in easy reach. He'd also become fairly well known as a local singer, and played regularly in several downtown bars and grills throughout the year, a profitable side-job in a tourist town that turned full-time every summer. We had an Evangelical ex-partner in common and he also knew my ex wife, if not in quite the same way. We were around the same age. Both of us were past the mid-point of our 20's in an environment that made us the old guys.

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds. 
~Bob Marley, Redemption Song.

I worked in the cafeteria, and meals were for whatever reason a benefit of his job, so we saw a lot of each other that way, too. We also were part of the same loose confederation of tabletop gaming groups.

Because he was a predictable, ubiquitous presence and we had extremely-differing political views but also a lot of similar reference points in life, he was a common person for me to argue and otherwise verbally fence with. We also both smoked, and preferred to do so outside, although in his case he'd make an exception if there was a Hookah involved.

Our various debates and discussions became fairly well known and by a month or so into the school year, other younger students that smoked were joining us, because we were interesting, I guess.

It was the fall of 2001. 9/11 was immediate history, and a fresh wound, the war in Afghanistan, not quite begun, was very much a certainty in the offing. Despite our differences, neither of us was really against it, and for the same reasons. We both knew from the news and stuff something of what the Taliban were. We knew something had to change, that life under the Taliban was a horror for the people of Afghanistan. We also knew something of the history, and why it was a perilous situation for the United States to get involved in, but we .knew it had to be done

There were, oddly enough, other things we agreed on, for similar but differing reasons.

One Tuesday night, after the three hour history class...a class on the Crusades taught by a pipe-smoking retired Navy Corpsman and fairly idiosyncratic conservative with Southern roots, a doctoral student in history and eventual Never-Trump Republican who'd started the class off with Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail...the two of us plus the instructor and a couple of the younger students all congregated by the lower main back doors of the admin and class room building for a smoke.

We got to talking about the Patriot Act, then working its way through Congress, something all of us, despite differing perspectives, had concerns about.

The instructor and I both maintained that it would never work out, at least not according to plan, and eventually would get tossed out by the courts because people would have concerns about their rights.

At that point my friend said something that I found fairly offensive at the time, but it stuck with me for some reason and never quite clicked until this evening.

"Listen, y'all, a lot of Americans don't give a damn about their rights. They give a damn about their barbecue and Chick-fil-A and their riding lawn mowers, the money in they pockets and whatever dog-and-pony show they go and see on Sunday mornin.' Not that most of 'em really believe it. Keep the beer and the junk food comin' and the TV on and they'll sign away all the stuff guys like us would take up arms for, because they do not give a damn. You want to see these people riot in the streets and go out and wanna fight the whole damn world, tell 'em College football done been canceled." With that, he blew smoke into the cold Northern Michigan night, stubbed out his cigarette in the ash can, and walked away.

Me and Bill, the instructor, grumbled a bit about it, but it was late and we all wanted to go home, I walked back to the Dorm with Persephone, this chubby girl I had kind of an interest in at the time.

I really hate to say this, all these years later.

But Matthew, wherever you are, you were right.

All  dese governments and dis this and that, these people that say they're here to help, why them say you cannot smoke the herb? Herb... herb is a plant, you know? And when me check it, me can't find no reason. All them say is, 'it make you rebel'. Against what? ~Bob Marley.

What in the hell are we even doing here, white people. Seriously, what in the hell are we even doing to ourselves. If you wouldn't take a gun and shoot yourself just because some rich man said to, why would you play with fire with this virus crap just because Donald Trump told you it wasn't real, it's no less deadly and far more insidious and long lasting of pain than a bullet in the head and lights out.

We're killing ourselves, and being told to have a good time doing it, for rich people's profits.

It's foolishness and you know it.

Twilight's Last Gleaming, Part Three.