Q-Servatism.

When the earliest settlers poured into a wild continent there was no one to ask them where they came from. The only question was: Were they sturdy enough to make the journey, were they strong enough to clear the land, were they enduring enough to make a home for freedom, and were they brave enough to die for liberty if it became necessary to do so? And so it has been through all the great and testing moments of American history. Our history this year we see in Vietnam. Men there are dying; men named Fernandez and Zajac and Zelinko and Mariano and McCormick. Neither the enemy who killed them nor the people whose independence they have fought to save ever asked them where they or their parents came from. They were all Americans. It was for free men and for America that they gave their all, they gave their lives and selves. By eliminating that same question as a test for immigration the Congress proves ourselves worthy of those men and worthy of our own traditions as a nation. ~Lyndon B. Johnson.

So, Kamala Harris has been the Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee for all of two days now.

And the Birtherism crap has already started.

Not just started, but made it all the way up to an article in a formerly-respectable publication like Newsweek. Both the author and his so-called editor tried, in their writing, hell in the article itself to say that it wasn't racism. Then, the author proceeded to use so many dog-whistles that my old Schnauzer started howling, and so many weasel-words in trying to ferret around a claim that Kamala Harris somehow wasn't a valid American that my ferrets complained about it and they can't read.

Weirdly, the same guy had no issues with Ted Cruz running for President and had legal opinions to show for it. Ted Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, in Canada.

Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California.

So to this goddamn moron, citizenship depends on your partisanship?

Or are these fucking idiots saying they don't think California is part of the United States?

Fuck that.

I'm going to tell you the same fucking thing I've been telling people since I first saw this garbage pop up in 2007. If you leave the definition of "Who is an American" up to the drooling internet-idiot mob, then no one will be.

Except maybe Donald Trump, if he's lucky.

I'll add that bit now, 13 years later.

Make citizenship a partisan issue, and I guarantee you, it won't be long at all and there won't be an America, but rather something along the lines of 50+ small countries, quite a few of whom...mostly the blue and purple states...would likely band together in short order. Probably around 20 of the states, though, would basically be Right-wing Transnistria.

And you can safely throw in a bloody ethnic conflict in Texas as a thing that will predictably happen.

And that, of course, is precisely what the fucking right-wing nuts want.

There is no excuse for this shit, and there never was.

But before that, they have to break even the idea of basic government services, because they hate and fear the ideas of absentee or mail in voting...and of course voting in general.

Perhaps we should all just smoke up a bunch of dope and select the President by Magic 8-ball?

Maybe see who can pull the sword out of the rock?

Oh, don't worry, it gets worse.

There's a running theory that after this year's election there will literally be a Q-Anon caucus in Congress.

But, ya know, before they destroy even the basic idea of government service, the mail, social security and all type of other stuff we all depend on for things like medication and paying our bills, they have to destroy even the least bit of respect for truth. Doesn't matter that Grandma died because her time-sensitive medication that she ordered for just-in-time delivery two months ago is sitting on the floor in a postal service distribution center in Miami, we gotta disrupt mail-in voting so Trump gets reelected, don't ya know?

Motherfuckers.

Seriously does it even fucking matter to these people that they're killing one hell of a lot of their own voters, and seriously disrupting basic services for a lot of the rest of the ones who are still alive?

162,000 Americans have died, many of them older people.

The disabled, senior citizens, and veterans...including people that I know personally...are not getting their medications, and all type of other stuff they need that comes in the mail. If I didn't have insurance through my work and the ability to get all my shit filled locally, I'd be one of them.

I just had to help my Mom and her partner...over the phone...figure out how to get some things they'd normally get by regular mail sent to their E-mail instead. My Mom had to dig her laptop out from under a pile of fabrics in her sewing room and make sure it still worked, and called me this morning to ask me what kind of printer she should get because some of this shit still needs to be printed out as executable documents. (I told her just get a cheap one.) I should point out here that my Mom is retired and on a fixed income, even $35 for a cheap printer at Walmart is a bite she doesn't need.

And she's luckier than a lot of people especially in her own age group or older, who don't have any tech skills at all or anybody they can call for help with that, who are stuck arguing with the bank or the D.M.V. or their health insurance or the V.A. over the phone after long waits because they don't know the first thing about E-mail.

And don't tell me it doesn't happen, I remember what it was like dealing with my Grandparents regarding technology. My Grandpa kinda caught on and got to where he could do basic stuff on his own, but we're talking about a guy who was a reserve Naval Aviator for 25 years. It took some work, but he could do computers.

My Grandma never caught on to technology, past the TV and the VCR, and Cable.

My aunt ordered all my grandparents' medication online, set up all my Grandpa's V.A. stuff, and had to get her name on their checking account and power of attorney and specific authorizations to do a lot of this stuff. I should point out that my Grandpa passed away nine years ago, my Grandma seven years ago, and it's only gotten worse tech-wise and having to get your shit in the mail-wise since.

In many cases there is no alternative, or the infrastructure for anything else simply no longer exists.

Everybody's dependence on technology has only gotten worse as I found out filing for Unemployment in April, and lots of people who can't or won't catch on are and were getting left behind, or are dependent on tech-savvy relatives to do basic stuff for them.

And add to that, that lots of government forms aren't exactly clear, and sometimes if you screw something up online or off, the paperwork to fix it has to go through the mail.

Or they'll add the feature that lets you upload an image of the required documents or info after you've sent them out.

Now take away the reliability of the Post Office...which is the only form of mass communications that's been with a lot of old people for their whole lives, and you do the math about what's going to happen, how those people are going to feel, and for that matter what will become of stuff like their bank statements and ya know, basic health care.

All in the service of getting a worthless asshole who's failed almost his whole life reelected President.

What in the hell kind of society does that type of shit to itself?

What in the hell kind of society tries to decline to recognize its own citizens, simply because of their choice of political party or the color of their skin?

In 1957, as the leader of the majority in the United States Senate, speaking in support of legislation to guarantee the right of all men to vote, I said, "This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies. ~Lyndon B. Johnson.

What Republicans are telling us, what they are now shouting from the housetops, is that they don't want a functioning society, they don't want a unified America that is a global superpower because that's too hard, or something.

Hell, they don't want elderly voters, unless those voters are massively wealthy and will give them money, or something.

Where in the fuck do you think that leaves you, or me? Republicans in general, and Donald Trump in particular, show nothing but hatred to the vast majority of Americans...including their own idiot voters. At best, they seem to long for the good old days of Segregation and the governor being able to claim openly and in public that the only way he'd ever lose office was if he got caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.

And that's the best case scenario...which by itself is terrible for most people. The worst...which is what we're headed for if we don't all step up and stop this bullshit...is a slow-rolling collapse of our civilization and probably a civil war or three, because these fucking people don't believe in government, or the future, or anything except conspiracy theories, their own profits and a shitty ideology.

Hell, I've heard a Trump supporter say to my face that they think there's going to be a civil war, and they did not say that like it was a bad thing.

Now keep in mind I'm in one of the places that might survive kinda okay if things fall apart, so long as we can keep our current local and state governments. But lots of people that I know are dependent on Federal government programs to keep them alive or having enough money to live on or having basic health care.

What the fuck do you think the end of Social Security, either by the collapse of the Federal government or the President refusing to fund it, is going to do to people's standards of living?

'Cause I'm here to tell you that shit will kill millions of Americans, including dozens of people that I know personally. Lack of belief in science and modern medicine will kill more.

I'll manage, but I know a lot of people that won't, up to and including people that were able-bodied and working just over a month ago, who are in the position of having to apply for Social Security that is now not being properly funded.

Basically, if we don't rip control of the Federal Government away from these goddamned assholes, everybody dies. And that was the trajectory of things before the Republican Party, openly led by the Trump campaign, started to embrace Q-Anon and the conspiracy theory rabbit hole.

READ the snipped Tweet above. Adam Kinzinger isn't just some random person, he's the GOP Congressman for the district containing the southern exurbs of Chicago, the Champaign-Urbana area and Rockford, Illinois. He's also an Illinois Air National Guard KC-135R Stratotanker pilot. And apparently he's not insane.

He pops up with facts, the Trump campaign replies with more conspiracy theories.

What the fuck do you think happens to your freedom when you can be denounced by any random Alex Jones-addled dipshit on the internet, and there's a non-zero chance somebody in the government will #Hashtag Believe it because "Where we go one, we go all" or some shit, and it scratches some itch on their enlarged Amygdala or floods their addled brain chemistry with dopamine if they do so...

...And your Constitutional and human rights be damned.

Because these people's dystopian Warhammer 40K bullshit adventure time is more important to them than real life, and if Immanentizing the "Conservative" Eschaton means everybody but a few chosen ones have to die...well, these fucking people have been the bearers of Ayn Rand's "Fuck You I've Got Mine" ideology since the 1950's.

Then throw in a bunch of woo woo bullshit that they got off the internet that they accept as a greater Truth than stuff they've supposedly believed their whole lives, or even that of God himself.

What happens when they make a God of all this eschatological conspiracy-theorist fapping, or their idea of the all-powerful transcendent State?

...And you don't...or can't...or won't...worship that "God?"

What if you doctrinally or morally or theologically cannot accept the Gnosticism of the modern Right?

Because that's exactly what the fuck this will come to.

Where the fuck do you think that leaves you?

Because I guarantee you, these sons of bitches are chomping at the bit to kill some heretics and burn down our goddamned civilization so that they can live in illiterate savagery and dance around a fire shouting "Unga Bunga" and so long as the dirty heathen cannibals stay away from the guarded compounds of the rich, the Republican donor class will be Okay with that, until the money isn't worth anything anymore and their hired guards run out of food and eat them.

Vote these fucking bastards out, all of them, while words still have some fucking meaning and the goddamned lights are still on.

And then, be prepared to have to fight them off.

They want this crap. We'd best be prepared to educate them as to why that's a bad idea.

Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right. ~Lyndon B. Johnson.