Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up among us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide. ~Abraham Lincoln, January 27th, 1838.
Seriously, bro?
How in the fuck did the Republican Party go from Abraham Lincoln to...Donald Trump?
Or Matt Schlapp, for that matter?
(Note that the picture is from Hong Kong.)
When Abraham Lincoln gave his Lyceum speech in 1838, I truly believe that he spoke prophetically and on some level, that he saw what was to be. I think he knew, and I think such was the only thing that gave him the strength to do what needed to be done, even though he may just as well have known that he would die of it.
What does Matt Schlapp see, of what future does he speak?
People like Matt Schlapp talk a good game about a certain part of, or interpretation or view of America, Oh yes, they do. But they discount the millions of people who...all for some arbitrary characteristic or reason...never get to truly partake of that vision of America mainly because people like Matt Schlapp won't fucking let them in the door unless they're "the help" there in some servile capacity with no chance of ever being anything more.
"Conservatives" or at least those who have come to claim that label, deny the very humanity of others, much less that they are American. It doesn't matter what they do, who they are, how much of America's or conservatism's interpretations or views they take into themselves nor how much they reject their own culture or religion or ways. No, it doesn't matter, not really.
I knew this guy once, a young, tough Air Force Security Policeman. This kid was fearless. He was fiercely Fundamentalist Christian, fiercely conservative, though often without being a dick about it...which was quite a feat at the time. He was passionately Republican, as much as one could be in 1994 and the era of the Contract With America and the Gingrich Revolution and still be in uniform, anyway.
I'd like to note that 1994 was the first year this 20 year old Airman got to vote, because he became a US Citizen, which he'd already been working on doing for several years to my knowledge. He voted straight-ticket Republican, and was very proud of that and confided in several of his bros that he had done so. We called this kid "Hawaii" but that was simply where his family had moved to, he was born in Tonga.
He wore his dress uniform when he was sworn in as a US citizen. He would go on to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq and retire from the United States Air Force in 2014.
That matters, and let me tell you why.
1994 was the days of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" being gradually implemented, it went into full effect that December and some conservatives like me shrugged and did our duty anyway because it was our job and we took to heart the words of people like Barry Goldwater, who said you didn't have to be straight to shoot straight.
Others were determined to resist LGBT rights by any means necessary.
LGBT rights was the Civil Rights struggle of MY time, in much the same way as Black Lives Matter and Trans rights define the younger generations today and even influence the thinking of people like this old white dude.
But ya know, I know people, people like the dude I just told you about. I didn't know he was gay until 2003, he came out to me at my friend Ron's wedding and introduced me to his partner and that was cool. I didn't judge, I simply didn't see it as my business or my place...though I'll admit to being a little surprised considering everything else I knew about him, especially his politics.
He wasn't somebody I talked to a lot, but we traveled in a lot of the same circles. He was on my list for awhile when I first got on Facebook, and even after he wasn't we were still in a lot of the same groups and shit. I'll get to that in a minute.
On the day that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed and open service for gay people came into effect my Mom and I were driving up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and we were listening to NPR, which of course was all abuzz with the news of the day and we talked about stuff like LGBT rights.
Fun fact: A couple days after this, this dude that I was talking about earlier married his longtime partner, the same one he'd introduced me to all the way back in 2003. The partner was a moderately conservative white guy, a former Airman himself, who'd gotten out and gone to college, among other things...and had a pretty damned good job. Just as they had been when I met them, these guys were gay Republicans who occasionally joked that it was harder to come out as R than it was to come out as G-A-Y.
Anyway, a week or so after the wedding pictures were posted in the Facebook group, there was an incident and a couple more pictures were posted, of this dude's car with "FUCK YOU FUCKIN FAGGOTS" spray-painted across the back window.
There were, naturally, a couple of angry rants to follow.
The moral of the story is this. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter who you actually are, or how hard you fight for your rights or this country or simply to exist as a human being, some people will hate you anyway. No matter what you do they won't accept you and they'll keep moving the goalposts and "debating" in bad faith so they can't, whether it's the outright hate of a Fred Phelps or the Great-White-Father racism of somebody like John Wayne or some stupid Sea Lion on Facebook or Twitter. Their only goal is to time-waste the struggle for equality and freedom long enough that everybody gives up and goes the fuck home.
Fuck those damn people.
Fuck people like Matt Schlapp who would gladly turn the Culture War into another Cold War-but between Americans this time-and then amp it up into a shooting war because if California or New York City falls to Black Lives Matter than eventually Black people will expect full equality everywhere like some racist version of the old Cold War domino theory...or something. They'd rather hear the wail of air raid sirens in the night and the scream of jet engines overhead than hear people shouting "No Justice, No Peace."
And if you think they take help from foreign bad actors NOW...I 100% guarantee you somebody like Matt Schlapp would never see the irony of a Sukhoi Su-30Mk2 "Flanker" with the roundel of his version of America on the wings, nor of Red-Blooded Conservative American White Boys having to learn Russian so they could read the manuals during training.
And they'd take it, because they hate their own fellow Americans, their own fellow Citizens, more than they ever really hated Soviet Marxists or actual fucking KGB agents like Vladimir Putin.
In fact, I'd argue that the Soviet Communists were never anything more than a cut-out, a political stand in for the Kabuki play bullshit they had to say because if they openly articulated that much hatred for their fellow Americans or said they wanted to bomb or invade Chicago instead of Hanoi or Pyongyang, somebody might notice and do something.
Don't take my word for it, look it up for yourself.
Throughout the Segregation era and the Civil Rights struggles, these fucking people constantly conflated Blackness with Communism and their own evil and racism with Capitalism, Righteousness and the Natural Order Of Things.
Again, don't take my word for it. You can find it in their own words.
Same with Jewishness, Liberalism, etc. Everything these fucking people didn't or don't like is ever and always "Communism."
These fucking people want to party like it's 1959, forever.
But it's 2020. We gotta cut this shit out yo, and for our own damned good.
Because if we don't this bullshit is going to destroy us.
Part Four.
Part Five.
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