The Believers (Opioids Of The Masses, Two.)

Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them?

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

I'm confused.

A year ago, in spite of COVID-19 and what even then looked like an impending election loss for Republicans in the middle of multiple incompetently-handled crises, it was all "America First" and "MAGA" and this, that and the other goddamned thing.

Now, according to these fucking people, America sucks and nobody can do anything right. 

All these fucking idiots have done lately is bitch about the US Olympic team, even though we're far ahead of our nearest competitor (the Chinese) at this point. As if that even matters. Ya know, for a majority of us, life hasn't really changed all that much, except maybe a little bit for the better. I'm a former conservative, I like not having to worry about what my government is doing.

I'm tired of this bullshit. Either you care about your country or you don't. If you only "like" your country when your side holds political leadership it's not your country that you care for, it's your mostly-imagined "side" in some cultural or political dispute, and yes, these fucking people very much would like to make everything political. Thus, to maximize the diminishing returns generated by a mostly aging, shrinking voter base that's still being ravaged by COVID-19 when most of the rest of us went and got vaccinated.

Yep, the Republican politicians, and the "Conservative" influencers and the selfish rich people, they're all starting to regret convincing their fanatical followers not to get vaccinated because something something Gazpacho "Own the Libs" bullshit, or whatever it was. People are dying, their people.

They've done lied themselves into the position of being up shit creek without a paddle because their stupid, fanatical followers who believed all their cult bullshit will just assume that they're in on whatever imagined conspiracy theory. Even admitting that they've been lying probably wouldn't fix the situation simply because they programmed these people to not believe anything they don't "like" or that doesn't tickle their ears, and to double down infinitely when their bullshit gets challenged.

On a more personal note, I've gotten tired of arguing with this garbage, shouting into this bottomless moral abyss. It's gotten old. I've been dealing with and writing about this crap for going on five years now. In the immediate post-Trump period I dealt with months of exhaustion because I'd basically been spending much of it only getting four hours of sleep most days. Last month, I hit a wall and fell into a serious depression. I'm coming out of it, but it's still a struggle. The way work is going, with our business in continual decline, hasn't helped. 

I'm thinking about and actively planning to move...and looking for a job. At my Mom's insistence I surrendered the ferrets...I can always start over with just a couple when things stabilize again. The truth is, it's all I can do to keep myself going right now. adjust your expectations here accordingly. 

I'm going to start another blog page, and likely put a lot of effort into discussing other things, ferrets, gaming, photography, travel, hell, maybe even the fact that I've started studying Buddhism. And I think I'm going to set up a Patreon so I can make some extra money with all this stuff.

But in the long term I feel like this page has mostly served its purpose.

And what good has it all done? Seriously?

Literally what the fuck good does it do to argue with people who believe Communism is still a thing? Communism fell in 1989 (although I'll also accept 1991 as a valid answer, also, Merry Christmas.) 

I saw it fall when I was just a fifteen-year-old kid, live on CNN as ordinary people knocked it down. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the then-nascent 24-hour news cycle I was there, while also eating a pizza in the living room.

Not only that, Commies under the bed and all (Let's party like it's 1952!) but Communism in America is somehow real and a threat (despite the fact that Communism hasn't been a force in US politics since the 1930's and that was the Communists own fault.) 

All this while ignoring the fact that people like Victor Orban and Vladimir Putin were literally raised in and trained by Communism on an ideological level and in Putin's case he was a legit member of the KGB, the "Sword and shield of the Party" where one had to be a Communist's Communist to even get in the door...and in Russia they say that there are no former KGB men. (And people like Tucker Carlson are just fine with this, really. I'm serious.)

What they are saying is that their ideological boner for authoritarianism by any means necessary trumps (pun intended) all actual beliefs or other ideologies. These people would embrace Albanian-style bunker-Communism, or Falun Gong, or belief in Rajneesh, or auras and crystals and New Age woo woo if that shit got them the power and control they wanted.

These idiots are the ideological descendants of the fools who thought everybody, including Eisenhower, was a Communist in the 1950's. Except now it's "Everybody but who we're in business with or have an ideological man-crush on." 

Their grasp of reality is about as limp as most of their dicks.

Fuck all that silly bullshit. What is it even good for?

Was it any good for the refugees we turned away? The soldiers, both American and Kurdish, who got left behind? The kids who got kept in cages? What about the people who got beaten or run over or shot because of all the violence Trump and his wannabe Nazis fomented? What about guys like Ahmaud Arbery or George Floyd? What about the impending collapse of Afghanistan? 

What about the hundreds of thousands of people who died alone with tubes jammed down their throats because they couldn't breathe anymore, or who said goodbye to their family only via social media and technology, with a nurse holding up an iPad as they gasped out their last words...if they could even do that much, or be aware of their own end?

What about all those who denied the very virus that was ravaging their bodies, or who regretted only at the end that they listened to Donald Trump or Tucker Carlson instead of Dr. Fauci or Governor Gretchen Whitmer?

Did any of this shit do those people any damned good whatever?!

What are we, even, that we have done this to ourselves?

I'm asking you.

What have we become.

What is it that we, as a people, believe in that's even worth saving at this point? What the fuck are we even doing here?

We need to answer this question, because it seems like just over a third of us would be perfectly well fucking fine with prostrating themselves before an orange would-be Antichrist.

A problem, this is, and it's not going away just because you might want to ignore it.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. You cannot outsource doing your part in the world to anyone else.

It's as simple, and yes, also just as complicated as that. It seems a trite oversimplification to say "Do better" and yet we must.

That's all I've ever said here.

Peace.

Part One.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.  The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same.  And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan