The Anti-Americans.

The Cylon War is long over, yet we must not forget the reasons why so many sacrificed so much in the cause of freedom. The cost of wearing the uniform can be high ... [after looking at crowd] but sometimes it's too high. You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question, why? Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done. Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore. ~William Adama, Battlestar Galactica (2003) Miniseries.

I was out and about today, running errands, the usual for a Tuesday morning and the end of my weekend.. 

On one corner in town there's a handmade sign, on a sandwich board in somebody's front yard. "Without firing a shot, we gave up our freedom." 

Right next to it there's a Trump/Pence 2020 sign.

No context, no nothing, just we're not free and "Keep America Great." Wow, what a combination. I'm not quite sure whoever this fucking person is, that he's saying what he thinks he's saying.

For one thing, whatever this loss of freedom was, it happened under Donald Trump and he did precisely dick about it. So yeah, let's vote for him again!

Whoever put that sign up is apparently older, and likely owns their house.

Of course if I absolutely had to guess I'd say the sandwich-board sign is a reference to mask mandates, social distancing, etc. etc. because after all, it's an awful thing that conservatives should be required to give a fuck about anybody else, at any time, for any reason. Except the virus doesn't give a shit about your politics and will kill you just as soon as it will anybody else if you don't take certain precautions. There's no special "MAGA" Section of COVID-19.

I want you to sit back and think about the confluence of longstanding problems in this country that would enable a grown-ass adult, let alone an old person, to even have these sort of views. This isn't an angry reactionary young person shoveling this shit. It's an older person who if they didn't know before, should have learned somewhere along the way.

And Trump has not only half-assed the virus response, he's actively and with malice aforethought done things to make the virus worse, politicizing mask-wearing for example.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in practical terms isn't it kind of hard to be free when you're, ya know, dead? 

I mean, sure, you might have denied somebody something-or-other or whatever or stood for some principle. You know, against certain human enemies or ideologies I can even see the merit in that. Sometimes you have to make a stand, even if you'll die, because God or history or whatever will judge you if you don't. But Coronavirus doesn't care, and this history is going to be written by the humans who did what they had to do to stay alive. Science doesn't really give a fuck about your ideology either. Yes, that's what the actual problem is here.

And this person's idea of freedom requires people being able to just die of a perfectly well avoidable, preventable contagion that while we don't have a vaccine for it yet, we know how to reduce or stop the spread of the damned thing, if you just pay a little bit of attention to the science and take a few seconds out of your day to put a mask on when you go in somewhere and give a shit about your fellow human beings.

But the truth is, that's too much work for some people. They'll burn vast amounts of mental energy making up excuses and lies and waste everybody's time with this shit, when the truth is it would just be faster and a whole hell of a lot easier to just put a damn mask on.

Conservatives...as they are now, anyway, stopped giving a fuck about science when Evolution went from religious heresy to scientific fact. Never mind that they made complete asses of themselves in the Scopes Monkey Trial and got their ass waxed in the court of public opinion. (Historical Note: They won the case.) They stopped paying attention to science when Homosexuality was de-listed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, when the medical profession decided to do their jobs and treat AIDS instead of just letting it run rampant because "it was killing the right people" and they stopped giving a fuck about laws in 1973 when Roe V. Wade was decided, or 1989 when a Supreme Court that included two of their favorite conservative jurists, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, decided that flag burning was protected speech, never mind that Kennedy and Scalia were in the majority on that decision. Or when the same court, including the same two justices, decided in favor of both marriage equality and Obamacare.

And when a majority of Americans first decided to protect themselves from the virus, and then objected to the brutal, videotaped killing of a Black man and millions of people of all creeds and colors marched in the streets and all their hoarding of guns and political power and loading Federal law enforcement agencies with tin-pot wannabe fascists was insufficient to suppress public opinion and perpetuate their systemic racism with no criticism, that's when they stopped giving a fuck about America.

Because these fucking people think they are entitled to something that no one has ever had, freedom from criticism or opposition. Even the Caesars got assassinated. Et tu, Brute? Even Medieval kings like Guy of Lusignan were defeated in wars, driven from power, and mocked before the Saracen hordes and their own soldiers who stood on the walls, even if their fellow kings and nobles might just appoint them the satrap of some island or whatever as soon as the ransom was paid to Saladin, they still lost.

People remember Julius Caesar because he built up Rome and set it on the path to empire. People don't remember King Guy because he enabled bad actors and got the Crusaders into a war they couldn't win and then most of those knights turned out not to be worth a damn, because it was never about any of the things they said it was, and sooner or later that always comes out in the wash.

Conservatives might not remember the specifics, but deep down in their bones they know the feeling, they get the vibe, same as everybody else...and they know their time is running out.

Now, even as they themselves have torched every last one of their vaunted values, and even as they stop believing in America, or democracy, or voting, or well...much of anything except Donald Trump...and start trying to brand whole cities and eventually entire regions and states as "Anarchist" for no god-damned good reason...they want to pick the next Supreme Court justice and have influence over our laws for a generation.

Even as they're already setting it up so they can break this country apart and use the power of the State to destroy the State if they win in November.

Even as they've got to know that every single bad precedent they've set in the last five years or so can, and ultimately will, be deployed against them, win or lose.

As if, at this point, anything they do under our current system will not simply be undone by the next administration and with damned good reason, because the judiciary is not supposed to be one party's shadow-government.

Because if you want to lead in such a way that changes that you make stick, you have to at least be able to convince people that you believe what they're saying. You have to show some degree of righteousness. I'd say Republicans up to Reagan and Daddy Bush at least understood that on some level. Now? For a very long time they were simply saying the same things because it had always worked before. Maybe Bush the Younger believed in that stuff too, but the truth is most of those around him didn't.

Republicans don't believe in anything, all they want to do is hurt people. At lease as long as there's been a Southern Strategy, there have been some of them that were always that way.

As if they are not threatening the same...that they'll undo changes and just go right back to being unreasonable shitheads...if they eventually get back into power, with malice aforethought and their only reason being desire for power over everybody else, because to them, the only purpose of government is perpetuating their power.

They know their god will fall, because the unforgiving eye of history is already upon him, and them. They've gotten themselves into a mess they can't just politicize or shoot their way out of, and they know even packing the courts only perpetuates their rear-guard action against cultural and social change for so long. They know our system grants us a political change (or not) every four years and they couldn't figure out a way or get their guy popular enough to change that.

It's only a matter of time before these fucking people decide that America is the problem, that its Constitution, public opinion and even often-grudging but still-present march toward equality IS the problem.

It's only a matter of time before they decide they'd rather peer at Blue States or Purple States through binoculars across minefields and No-Man's-Lands from watchtowers over tall fences than regard the rest of us, or even their own who have any degree of common sense, humanity or moderation, as fellow citizens. And if you don't think their next steps will be ethnic cleansing and wars against the rest of us, you haven't been paying attention.

They don't have enough public support for a Nazi America, not if they want the whole thing. America's culture wars and political divides will end up with a two-state solution.

But we can deny them the power of the Presidency and the power of the State in November, and make them have to own up to and work for this vicious, silly bullshit they're pushing, and they can pay the price for this crap in blood just like everybody else if that's what they want. If there's to be an American Stalingrad, maybe they should ask their buddy Vlad how the first one turned out for the Nazis.

My guess is, if they have to pay a price for this bullshit, there's gonna be a lot fewer of them willing to pay it than they think.

Therefore, we have to make sure they lose.

It's really that simple, vote them out, and then be prepared to fight them off.

But know that we have to love our freedom more than they love their desire to take it away. The rest of us have to stand up and stop these assholes. If you're unwilling to do that, fuck you.

I can't put it any simpler than that.