Friday, December 31, 2021

Never Back Down? (Slouching Towards Idiocracy II.)

America's freedom does not belong to just one nation. We're custodians of freedom for the world. In Philadelphia, two centuries ago, James Allen wrote in his diary that ``If we fail, liberty no longer continues an inhabitant of this globe.´´ Well, we didn't fail. And still, we must not fail. For freedom is not the property of one generation; it's the obligation of this and every generation. It's our duty to protect it and expand it and pass it undiminished to those still unborn. ~Ronald Reagan

"We are House Republicans, and we will never back down." ~Kevin McCarthy

"Yes Sir, Mr. Trump Sur, May I have another, Sir?"

"Please Teabag Me Again, Sir, I enjoy it."

~ALSO Kevin McCarthy.

"Kevin, Polish my boots...."

*McCarthy grabs a rag*

"No...with your tongue."

~Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia.)

I'm sorry, but according to what I was taught, if you "Never back down" that means never, and it means everybody who wants to do or wants you to do something that's against your principles. Either you believe in something or you don't. It's just that simple. Never give in, in matters great or small, large or petty, excepting as demanded by honor or good sense. If somebody on your side expects you to be their bitch or just roll over...or to have loyalty to them over even your own beliefs...they're not really on your side.

If your moral construct only allows you to be brave or steadfast in the face of one or two limited sets of circumstances, it's not courage or a moral construct. If you're expected to rabidly fight against anything that the Democrats do, but to roll over for Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene or the ravening mob, what you're doing is not, by definition, leadership.  You're at best an ideological Commissar, at worst a pawn...and most likely your ideology and the people manipulating you are all shit.

I mean, if The Party is all...doesn't that sound vaguely Communist in the most Soviet sense possible...and certainly Orwellian?

And aren't these the people who've spent the last year calling anything they don't like, or that doesn't benefit their rich donors or that falls outside of their narrow ideological track "Communism?"

Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989, but these people are going full-on Red Scare in the face of nothing more than a changing world...or even in facing what has already been.

All these people have even got is cowardice, fear of the mob, and obstructionism.

And the worst part is, the world...and their base, and the people who support them...is changing anyway and they're the ones who are going to lose no matter what. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene and the rest of the MAGA mutant parade already has the knives out for Kevin McCarthy.

And all the shitty obstruction in the world won't be enough, not for people who whack off to the idea of throwing people they don't like out of helicopters. 

Not that Mr. "I LOVE BEING AN AMERICAN" in the snipped image appears to even know which side of the road Americans (and people in the Americas generally) drive on. Whoever drew this is a foreigner...and more importantly, a goddamned moron.

Yes, the Republican Base is being egged on by particularly stupid foreign fascists...likely some British far-right Brexit nut in this case. Think about that for a second. All this banging on about "Communism" is nothing more than trying to set up some kind of circumstances in which These Fucking People can simply kill whoever they do not like, and kill them with words that have been stripped of all meaning, that have become magic words that mean whatever they want them to mean. 

Denounce someone as a "Communist" for expressing an opinion you don't like and the State comes along and takes them away and pitches them out of a helicopter into the ocean. Does that sound like freedom to you, really? Does that even sound like America?

Sounds like Chile under Pinochet to me.

You know, the guy who was so bad that when it was all over and he was dead, the Chilean Army wouldn't allow him to be buried on its property or in any of its cemeteries.

Like, in the end nobody ends up wanting this shit, but you can't tell these fuckers that.

Somehow, they always think they're going to kill their way into power, or popularity.

And again, somehow they never think the same could happen to them. Never mind that no amount of craven, simpering submission is enough for these fucking people...and then they want these fuckers to turn around and be some kind of rabid attack dogs against their enemies?

Human beings simply don't work that way. If you're a coward, it'll show when it counts.

Thus the problem with most current Republican office-holders. If Lauren and Marge ever get the kind of revolution they think they want...the first people they're going to put up against the wall are the other people on their own team...for not being shitty enough.

Can't count how many times I've heard MAGA's call Kevin McCarthy a "RINO" or a closet liberal or this or that or the other goddamned thing, at least since MTG started trying to shank him.

And even worse people are gravitating to the Republican Party as a result of all this bullshit, people who think a gun and telling the world "Fuck you" are the answer to every problem, but also that making fun of crocs and a stupid sweatshirt is a "Vicious attack." There's not much worse to give a thin-skinned, weak-willed egotistical narcissist than a gun, except power.  

Dude doesn't have the guts to just say "Fuck the President" in a real fight he's going to piss himself, drop his weapon and run away...only to get dragged from a spider hole while crying later, and then to wonder why he's been shot or is in prison.

Trouble is, first his go-to will be to murder a couple of people for daring to believe in their civil rights and expressing their freedom of speech. I don't give a damn what happens to Bo Hines, I absolutely give a damn that his combination of aggressive stupidity and narcissism will get somebody else hurt or killed...and this fucker is running for Congress, on a "Fuck Joe Biden and I have a gun" platform.

But he doesn't have the guts to actually say it.

The real problem here, though, is that there's always somebody these cowardly, cruel, evil motherfuckers feel like they can get away with hurting for no damned good reason. In point of fact it seems to me that that's increasingly the basis of their entire philosophy, not just of politics, but life in general. They have to have somebody they can have power over and hurt for no reason in order to feel good about themselves. 

And maybe it's just me but I think no one should have to put up with that type of shit in the United States Of America when we're not much more than a couple hours away from it being the year 2022. We're either a civilization or we're not. Either that civilization includes all of us, or it's not a civilization. Either all of us have rights, or none of us do.

The only thing Republicans want to "Step up" against is basic decency.

That's all.

Post I


 


Thursday, December 30, 2021

Stealing America (Slouching Towards Idiocracy I.)

 If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

My friend sent me this earlier. According to Rand Paul, voting (apparently mail-in or otherwise) in an election is somehow stealing that election...presumably from Republicans.

This is America, people voting in an election is the entire basis of our country.

It's the entire fucking point

Literally, this is what America is based on, the idea that people should have a say in how their country is run, and by and for whom. It is impossible to overstate how revolutionary of an idea the United States was when it was established. And to one degree or another, over the intervening couple of centuries, Democracy has become the basis for much of the world's expectations of government and the norm for advanced societies.

But the fact that we've always been a world leader, right from the start, in ideas if nothing else/..simply doesn't matter to those who have no ideas of their own and whose entire political and social brand is not only resisting any new ideas...but increasingly dialing things back to about 1214 or so. The idea (in Western civilization at least) that people have rights and rulers should be subject to the people actually goes much further back...to Ancient Greece...but the 12th Century or early 13th Century will do, as far as these morons are concerned. 

They don't think about what happened to people who lost power or were on the losing side of a dispute back then, either.

Most of them, simply out of fear of losing power and social standing, simply wouldn't have the guts to try and dial things back to where Christianity wasn't a factor for Power or did not exist...or maybe they realize on some level that a lot of us who actually do know Christian history would be among those who were rooting for the lions when these assholes found themselves in the Arena.

Not that history or religion or anything other than what makes them feel good right now matters to these motherfuckers, and it's getting so their ridiculous hedonism and narcissism needs constant reinforcement, too.

Republicans simply believe that life is zero-sum and anybody else having anything at all is "stealing" from them.
Or them facing any consequences for their actions...Or, well, anything else that they don't like.

Basically, they think they should be able to do whatever they want, including hurting, killing and oppressing other people and that anything that prevents them from doing that is somehow a threat to their "Freedom." As opposed to, you know, the idea that we live in a civilization and we should fucking act like it. They don't seem to get that without civilization, without checks and balances and norms and rules...they don't have their power. Not only that, they don't understand that without civilization most of them won't last a day, and are going to end up sliced into thin strips of Conservative Jerky by the starving masses, victims of the Almighty Sarlacc ravening mob that they themselves whipped up in an effort to burn civilization down because they thought that would increase their power or shareholder value or something.

But ya know Republicans are anymore nothing but a clique of mental-13-year-olds who start from the point of having an extremely juvenile worldview and, well, never fucking leave it. 

And they're being pretty explicit about their desire to burn down said civilization so that they can reestablish some sort of modern neo-feudalism among the ruins. Seriously, how else do you explain the Republican attitudes about, or response to, COVID-19?

The thing these fucking people never factor in, is that they really don't (currently or historically) crime all that well, and they're only "tough" because they have people. They all bought into Ayn Rand's vision of the capitalist Moghul not as some short fat guy in a suit but as some craggy, sexy, tough Marlboro Man cowboy type. And that's almost always, historically, bullshit. They don't realize that without civilization...they don't have layers of people to do all the bloody, dirty shit and they have to do it themselves. A hell of a lot of these people don't really realize who their followers are, either, or the physical condition of many of said people.

And you know what? The sure as fuck don't realize that Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion/125th Infantry, Or Razor G and the Homies (or even all those fake "Oath keepers" they thought were on "their" side) are likely to be both far more ruthless and tougher than they are in a "Fall of Civilization" scenario. 

People like Elon Musk will be aiming to carve out technological fiefdoms to keep the power on, and keep the people who can run it alive, because that's what their power and wealth depends on. Their vision of the world might be shitty, but at least it's survivable.

People like Rand Paul will just get beat up by their neighbor again.

And without things like modern medicine that a lot of the Antivaxxers take pride in ignoring, a whole hell of a lot more people will just plain end up dead. What they don't realize is there's no glory in that and it sure isn't any fun. These are people who imagine themselves dying in firefights with Razor G and the Homies when the world ends. They're caught up in that Hollywood-authored, NRA-maintained cult of guns and violence.

They see the word "Death" and they think "5.56mm NATO standard round" and shooting it out with their neighbors or what's left of the government. They don't imagine death as being microbial or viral. They never think that bad water or disease might just be what kills both them and their imagined enemies.

And that's the problem, among other things, massive failure of imagination.

It's like I've been saying since 2015. These "Conservatives" have no problem with being slaves, so long as they're a better class of slave than some of the other slaves. And they have no issue with being ruled by a Dictator, so long as they think that the Dictator is "their" guy. It somehow never occurs to These Fucking People that Dictatorship sucks and slavery is wrong.

At the end of the day, what these fuckers are hoping for is that America will die of disinterest or of rejection of its system by the people, like the Soviet Union ultimately did. I think they know the country as a whole won't survive that. But I think they look at the collapse of the Soviet Union and somehow see themselves as the Russian Federation rather than say, Belarus. (Which is a far more likely outcome for their side.) They think they'll end up with the biggest chunk of land and that somehow that will translate into power and wealth, and that all the wars around the edges won't end up affecting them.

As if an actual, objective look at what Putin's Russia really is wouldn't prove that it's all bullshit. They just think they'll be able to remake society in their own image...or more correctly, in their perverse self-image. The truth of these people is that hundreds of thousands of them are dying of their own petty selfishness now, facing a virus, while civilization is still standing and the means of survival is still easily obtainable right here, in their own country.

"America is not at war, the Marine Corps is at war. America is at the Mall" doesn't work as a strategy when the conflict is right here in America, the Mall is closed, and the killing fields are right outside your door.

If the world these people live in right now came crashing down, a hell of a lot of these people wouldn't last one damned day.

And a lot of them are so fixated on their self-pitying persecution fantasies that they never think "Oh, hey, it could get worse."

It's not so much that they didn't pay attention in history class, it's often that they think it'll work out better this time! They only ever see themselves as the Colonel Sanders-looking Southern Gentleman or the courted and flattered Southern Belle. They never think that they could end up being the slaves out in the field, or the house slaves, at best.

It's worse, really. They don't really care about anything, to be honest, so long as they have a higher relative status than somebody else, and some measure of wealth. They only see the profit and relative status aspects of when people could own people. They don't see...or purposefully ignore...the human factors.

The lady with the megaphone shouting at people walking by doesn't see that without all that civilization stuff she's just ignoring, without all that modern medicine she just wants to bullshit her way out of because of ego or stupidity or whatever, there's nothing to prevent her from ending up a sex slave, or a corpse.

They can't, or won't, think about any of this stuff. Well, somebody's going to have to.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen.

And citizenship requires public participation and voting. Republicans want subjects, not citizens, and they seem to forget that only one gets to be King and that person is, by definition, not you.

These Republicans, they want to steal America.

It never occurs to them that We The People are under no obligation to put up with that bullshit, or that America is a thing that people will fight for, and we just saw five years of that shit and their side lost.

They're goat-eager to make another attempt because they didn't get shot the first time.

Don't be these fucking people. Don't be stupid. Stop slouching towards Idioccracy.

And not only is that where this shit is going and it can and will get worse. One side is already there, by choice, because they figured out that if they don't know anything, they can believe whatever they want.

It never occurs to them that viruses don't have beliefs, or care about theirs. It doesn't even occur to them that the people telling them not to get vaccinated might be vaccinated and just want them to die.

And it sure never dawns on them that without a decent, competently run government, most people wouldn't survive and that includes them. They always think they're going to be the special ones.

Again, don't be these fucking people.

Last Post

The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan



Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Antivax Jesus and the Gospel of Selfishness

Come they told me
Pa rum pum pum pum
A new born king to see
Pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring
Pa rum pum pum pum
To lay before the king
Pa rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum
So to honor him
Pa rum pum pum pum
When we come. ~The Little Drummer Boy, Christian Hymn

Wut?

"Jesus was a vaccine-free, home-birthed baby."

Excuse me?

I have a *Checks Notes* extensive church background and I've never heard that before. It's not only an article of Christian faith and tradition that Jesus was born in a stable, surrounded by animals since there was no room at the inn...it's literally right there in black and white in the Holy Fucking Bible, that this is exactly what the fuck happened. The whole damn point of Jesus is the humble origins, humble life, greater spiritual purpose, Kingdom not of this world, etc. I've quoted two versions of this story just this week. But please don't take my word for it, you can look this stuff up for yourself.

You know, do your own research, like These Fucking People are always saying?

It's not virus RNA, it's the Word of God. You don't need an M.D. to understand it, you just need an open heart and some degree of literacy.

Hell, technically you don't even need that. You can find audio versions of the Bible online.

Or if you prefer you can buy a copy of the Word just about anywhere, order one online (probably get it for free, even) download it, stream it, find it on the Blockchain. I mean, seriously, the possibilities are endless. I'm not a born-again anything and I'm not trying to evangelize anybody. I'm telling you what I read.

These people make Jesus sound like the son of well-off suburban woo woo nuts who believe in New Age garbage, drink Kale smoothies and watch too much Dr. Phil and Oprah, people who can afford to hire a midwife and shit and have a doctor on speed-dial in case something goes wrong.

Trust me, it was not that way, and all the modern medicine and technology that we take for granted didn't even exist.

And I did not fail to note the unsubtle undertone of Eugenics and Dr. Strangelove-style Purity Of Essence garbage.

If the real Jesus, the way He actually was, looking how He would have looked...were sleeping on a park bench near their house, these fucking people would call the police on Him. It happened enough with mere statues of a homeless Jesus. Think I'm kidding? 

This actually happened in North Carolina. People called the cops on a statue of a homeless Jesus. Think about that for a second. Think about how much of an utterly selfish willfully-ignorant shit you'd have to be to even do something like that.

Christian nation, my fucking ass.

Little baby
Pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too
Pa rum pum pum pum
I have no gift to bring
Pa rum pum pum pum
That's fit to give our king
Pa rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum
Shall I play for you
Pa rum pum pum pum
Pa rum pum pum.
~The Little Drummer Boy, Christian Hymn.

These people don't give a fuck, and since the days of Donald Trump, which they will forevermore look back on as some sort of a golden age, they don't care if you know they don't give a fuck. But don't worry, they'll still get mad if you don't publicly pretend they're righteous, sober Believers in all the shit they reject out of hand in real life. 

They want the glory of being seen as righteous Christians without ever being that.

Hell, anymore they're not even willing to take the time to sit there looking oh-so-serious reading their favorite verses in the middle of the break room at work.

They want to be seen as some kind of traditional culture like the Amish without any of the pacifism or various strictures that guide such societies. 

They want to be seen as a warrior culture like the Sikhs or the Zulus without the courage and honor and values that often must define such groups.

They want to be the king of the castle, like the Afrikaners in Apartheid South Africa...but without accepting the changes that kept those people relevant in the world, without accepting the ideal of the Rainbow Nation that likely saved the Afrikaners from extinction, and ultimately redeemed most of them.

They want power without obligations, rights without responsibilities, sin without consequences and wealth without work.

They want America without the diversity and pluralism that has always been our defining feature.

Look here:

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way.

That's conservative icon Ronald Reagan.

I suppose it should go without saying that these selfish people don't share the Gipper's belief in peace, either.
 

Mary nodded
Pa rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time
Pa rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for him
Pa rum pum pum pum
I played my best for him
Pa rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum
Then he smiled at me
Pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum

~The Little Drummer Boy, Christian Hymn.

And they want all that is America without having to do anything for it, defend it, or maintain it, or practice the active, informed citizenship that our system implicitly demands and that our Founders expected of us. Unlike Ronald Reagan, they do seem to believe that freedom is something they pass on in the bloodstream. As I've pointed out before, there can be no freedom without truth

Without a verifiable baseline of fact and a respect for the same, the brightest lights and the biggest spectacle are very likely to win, and keep winning, and what really is be damned.

Even the Word of God doesn't matter to these people, not as much as a good meme anyway.

These people, the Antivaxxers, the conspiracy theorists, the fascists and insurrectionists, they sure as hell don't appreciate America.

Nothing is more important to these fools than their shitty ideologies of self and selfishness and their idea of a godless world where Man's self-satisfaction is the moral purpose of his life:


.

And they're telling us that, loud and clear, as if they believe there will be no consequences for it.

We'd best prove them wrong.

Like our lives depend on it.

Because they do.

Making a better world starts with giving a shit, including caring about other people.

That was the whole point of Jesus and most of what's in the Bible.

And again, I'm not a born-again anything.

It's what I read.

Last Post

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

Monday, December 27, 2021

Antichrist Soviet Socialist Republicans

Follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by

Listening to the wind of change
The world is closing in
Did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers
The future's in the air
Can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change
Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away
In the wind of change. ~Scorpions, Winds Of Change

I used to be a Christian, a conservative, a Republican.

Now? I'm disgusted

I know people who have been the victims of authoritarianism, be it radical Islamic or Soviet or various petty dictators, and nobody who has ever lived under that type of shit and gotten away really wants to go back to it.

But Republicans? They're lining up to pledge their fealty to the Beast exactly like how they write the "Liberals" in one of those cheesy Christian End Times novels.

I see the parallel and it's so obvious it's not even funny.

Let me tell you a story; In May of 2000, I was going over to Traverse City for the day one day...I had a doctor's appointment that morning and a date late afternoon and among other things, between those two I went to Borders book store across from the Grand Traverse Mall. They had the new Left Behind Series novel; The Indwelling. I'd been a pretty loyal reader of that series up to that point. I mean, it wasn't the greatest but it had its moments. Where the previous books had dealt with time-frames of weeks or months, this one poured lavish detail into 24 hours, detailing the resurrection of the recently-assassinated Antichrist and his Possession by the Devil. Anybody who read those stupid books, at this point, had been waiting for this one for like five years or so...the big reveal, as it were.

And it was shit. It was cheesy complete and utter garbage with some of the worst characters and writing I've ever seen in book form, it was directly comparable to Atlas Shrugged in terms of "Worst shit I've ever read in my life."

It was so bad, that even considering that the date I had that evening was the first time I met my now ex-wife, I still remember that shit.

I not only didn't buy the book...even though I had the money...I never bought another of those novels again. It was just that bad. LaHaye and Jenkins had apparently looked at how much money they were making and just decided to start mailing it in.

Kind of like the Republican Party nowadays.

I'm utterly disgusted with what I've seen from my former political side of the fence in the last day.

#1 Donald Trump Jr. basically declares himself the Antichrist, Christianity is for suckers, let's be evil. And he sucks so bad at this that no one cares. It's like something said by Franco Macalusso or Nicolai Carpathia or any one of these other Antichrists that talk all stupid that these fucking people make up for their books...but because it's one of their own they don't notice, or care.

Actually, strike my last...I'm sure as long as they get to be the ones imprinting the Mark Of The Beast and killing those who refuse to take it, the Redcaps think its a fucking great idea.

#2 Madison Cawthorn, Commie Spy. I mean, who'd of thunk it? I suspected trouble when I saw that his wife looked like one of those Russian softcore porn models that were all over the internet about ten years ago, but this shit is ridiculous. 

I mean, I get it. Horny disabled religious dude with not much education and no social skills, Okay. But I mean, dude. Did you have to fall that hard for the goddamned honeytrap?

It's an obvious ploy, damn it.
Obvious enough my dumb ass at his age might've thought of it. And I have no sympathy. If you can't control yourself, you shouldn't be in a position of power, nor aspire to one.

At this point, there needs to be an interrogation ran by somebody like Gary Busey's character from Lethal Weapon and a fucking full on national security review of everything this punk knows with adjustments made accordingly, I'm serious. 

Do I think this idiot would deliberately sell out his country? That I'm not sure, I'll give him that much credit and say "I don't know."

But...

Do I think this absolute fucking stolen valor wannabe would try and make himself feel like king shit by blabbing all type of military and national security secret shit while getting his cock sucked by a likely graduate of the Sparrow School? 

Again, I'm completely not kidding here.

(Yes, the KGB ran a training school for honeytrap agents, I suspect its successor agency does the same, if more covertly.)

And do I think he'd let her rat us the fuck out?

Bet your ass I do.

Because as long as she kept doing whatever she did that he liked, he'd do whatever she wanted and let her do whatever, as well. I know the type. 

He doesn't have the character to do anything that would result in him not being able to enjoy himself.

Not least because his own pleasure is the entire goal of all his bullshit. Again, I know the type, as long as he gets to have an orgasm, the rest of the world could fucking burn and he wouldn't care. I suspect if he figured it out after she fucked him, America would get weighed against that, and America would lose.

And I'm pretty sure he's not the only Republican out there who's like that, just saying.

I'm so old I can remember when something like "Let's Go Brandon" wouldn't have been considered funny by Republicans any more than it is by the rest of us.

Hell, I can remember when Madison Cawthorn would have got run out of Congress and the Republican Party on a rail by now, probably two. One for him and the chair. Yes, I'm going to hell. No, I don't care.

Not just that, but that he'd likely already have been arrested and Republicans would be lining up 'round the block to testify against his ass and Republican Presidents like Reagan or either Bush would be looking for the biggest possible bus to throw him under...

And the collective MAGA response to the one-two punch of popular Republican figures publicly ditching Christianity and what seems like a bad remake of a 1980's spy movie? 

Seems to be "So much the better for us!"

In fact it seems like all one has to do to become a MAGA celebrity is betray America, kill somebody, say "Fuck You" to your own country and in general try to burn down civilization.

Slap MAGA hats on those old Black-and-White photos of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg at Sing Sing and these fucking people would probably call them heroes.

Republicans are anti-American, anti-Christian, and not only conniving with the enemies of our country but publicly saying "Fuck you" to the United States of America in any way they think they can get away with.

Up to and including being pawns of hostile foreign powers.

Makes me wonder who the hell's running Blowbert and MTG, ya know?

Or who or what they might be agents of.

And I think that needs to be investigated, too.

Because where there's one, there's usually more.

And speaking of human garbage.

When somebody tells you who they are, believe them the first time.

This is America, we don't do monarchs. 

More to the point even monarchies usually have civil rights, due process and legal systems.

These people want to have absolute totalitarian power such as the world does not normally give to anyone, and they want to kill you with it.

If you can't take a stand against that, what the fuck is wrong with you?

And this shit is getting worse by the day, today is an order of magnitude worse than yesterday was, and yesterday was pretty fucking bad.

Imagine America at war, both internally and externally, the old "Two-and-a-half war theory" but the brushfire is domestic as we fight a two-front war against the Russians, NATO and US and Ukrainian troops fighting off insurgents and Russian conventional forces alike in the Donbass, air battles, human wave attacks against combat outposts, shocking brutality as the enemy not only tries to kill soldiers and civilians but aims to sap people's will to fight. Same with cruise missile attacks and network warfare against Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, South Korea and the West Coast, while domestically, right-wing insurgents in the Midwest and the South, Northern California, Eastern Oregon, maybe a few other places...do things like turn Asheville into an Appalachian Stalingrad.

And these fucking people, Fox News, Republicans, etc. at every step openly and publicly cheering for the fucking bad guys, sending journalists into the field for interviews with enemy leaders in secret locations, all that type of shit. All in the name of being "fair and balanced."

And if you think COVID-19 or any other damn thing is bad now, like I've said before, imagine social distancing when you've been shot.

My job, such as it is at the moment, is to have something to say about anything and everything and I'm so fucking disgusted I don't even have the words for this.

The only people these motherfuckers are interested in being fair to are the enemies of America.

All they want to do is give the rest of us the finger and be seen doing it, no matter what it takes, no matter how stupid they look doing it.

I'm old enough to remember when you didn't put somebody like that up on TV, you punched them right in the mouth.

And we'd best do it before these people hate and middle-finger and shit-talk themselves into being some kind of American Soviet Socialist Republic taking orders directly from Vladimir Putin. Because if they do that, this culture war bullshit turns into a real war and that won't work out well for anybody.

I used to be a Republican. I don't know these people anymore.

And what I see them becoming bothers me, because it's the opposite of what I was taught. It's like it's the End Times and they're picking the wrong side and they know it, but they don't care because it might annoy some rival sect or something if they choose to serve the Antichrist.

We need to start doing something about this shit.

Last post

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan





 


Sunday, December 26, 2021

Cocaine Jesus and the 57 Communists

I said, "Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful?", and he said, "Well, it intensifies your personality." I said, "Yeah, but what if you're an asshole?" ~Bill Cosby, Himself

I saw this last night.

The Cleveland Indians, Jesus, and Robert E. Lee...what? Unless this is a particularly off the wall game of "Marry, Shag or Kill" I don't even see the point of this silly bullshit.

Also...why is she wishing Merry Christmas to racist brand names and a football team? (Which got rid of its name only to have the lack of a name become a brand in its own right.)

Also, Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989. 

And since Communism generally mandates Atheism...well, that kind of eliminates both God and Satan from the discussion, doesn't it?

Historically speaking, here, there were plenty of Black Communists and Communism as a whole was not a racist philosophy nor did it seek to profit from things like racism in the same way that Capitalism so often does.

In fact, I find it interesting that she considers the Capitalistic decision to retire certain racist brand icons or names to be somehow both Communist and racist. I honestly have to wonder how the fuck this lady served in the Air Force without getting booted out for racist bullshit, or how she made it all the way to retirement without knowing what words mean?

She served during the Cold War. I've honestly never heard of anybody else that did who wasn't glad when that shit was over, let alone wanted to go back to it later. I mean, maybe it's just me but I never found the idea of dying in a nuclear airburst to be appealing, let alone surviving it long enough to die of radiation poisoning.

Or was it the shitty culture and politics of the Republican Party that broke this person? I mean, having heard all about it growing up, what the hell makes a person "Long for the return of McCarthyism?"

I was a Republican for a majority of my adult life, so far, and I never heard anybody do anything but disavow that shit.

The "Joe McCarthy was right" crap didn't start until 2010 or so. And I was horrified by that shit then, not least because I knew how badly it ended for the Republicans.

So is she a Republican because she's a bad person, or did she become a bad person because she's a Republican?

More often than not, though, that's one of those "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" Type of questions. Terrible people just seem to naturally be drawn to the Republican Party anymore, like it's some perverse law of attraction.

And she retired the same year I got medically discharged...so why is she still posting pictures of herself in a damn flight suit all the time or trying to make herself look like some kind of Anime superhero?

It's been 25 years, Wendy, it's time to move on. If I was posting pictures of myself in full battle rattle when I was 22 years old, anybody what knows me would be laughing about it. Why? Because I haven't even been that guy in over 25 years now.

It's almost like these people know they're shit, and they're desperately trying to be somebody else or reclaim who they used to be...but without changing anything about themselves as they've become, least of all their shitty opinions. 

It doesn't work that way.

I'm going to point it out once again, that these fucking idiots conflating their shitty political and social beliefs with Jesus and Christianity is a pretty big goddamn reason why I'm not a Christian anymore.

And while I'm at it...if these people are so right, or so righteous...why are so many of them always fucked up on drugs? Why is it that in so many conservative-led governments, they find traces of cocaine all over the place in legislative spaces?

And why is it, that I haven't seen a picture or a video of Donald Trump Jr. in over a year where it didn't look like he was higher than the goddamn International Space Station? 

I mean, dude, In 25 years of working in food service I worked with Jamaican Rastafari that got high less often than Junior does. I mean, for fuck's sake, dude, I don't know what your issue is, but get help! At this point, keep it up much longer and you'll be far more known as a stoner than as a Republican and you can ditch the politics and just start a career as a YouTube person who posts videos of saying dumb shit while obviously baked. 

Oh, wait, never mind. You're doing that already. Ditch the shitty politics and it'll probably be more popular. Granted the Trump Supporters already think Junior is some kind of Cocaine Jesus, but still...

We're coming up on the new year, in a brave new world where the only constant is change. So why, then, do these people who think they know All Truth seem so desperate to reach back into the past...if they aren't just avoiding reality altogether?

And how in the fuck is this shit what conservatism turned into anyway? I'm sorry, but I cannot for the life of me imagine somebody like John Eisenhower or even Jenna Bush recording a video of themselves while they look higher than a goddamn kite, let alone calling somebody a hero for basically just chickenshit coded-swearing at the President.

If you really think that, you need to rethink your life.

I mean, I'm pretty sure the children of most previous Presidents would have the character and guts to just say "Fuck that guy" if they didn't like the current one.

And that's the problem. This whole "Let's go Brandon" thing neatly encapsulates both the childishness and the gutlessness of modern Republicanism. Profiles In Courage they ain't.

And that's the thing, ain't it? You can't turn off that kind of cowardice. Having fostered and nurtured this mentality and run everybody out who wouldn't have it, there will come a day when Republicans need their people to be brave...and they will be incapable of it.

They will look at the enemy and say "I don't care what you do to me, I'm high."

I'm old enough that I can remember when we were better than that, better than even tolerating this garbage. The whole idea here is that if you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. If you want the world to be better, you have to be a better person. You have to stand up.

And this ain't it.

As we head into a new year, remember that.

#Top20



Saturday, December 25, 2021

Antichristmas (Christmas 2021, Part Three.)

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. ~Matthew 2:1-12

I keep seeing this shit. White people posing with guns, citing Christianity (and conflating it with politics) or posing with Christmas trees and shit...along with whatever the latest they-think-is-clever "Fuck Joe Biden" merchandise. So, according to white "Conservatives" Christmas is all about guns, politics, and sticking your middle finger up at the other guy...and more importantly, about being seen doing all this?

I was a Christian, and a conservative, for most of my life. I'm still a gun guy, and I would never have even thought of doing this type of shit.

Because my family and most of the people I know would laugh at me and respond with some variation of "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

It's not cool, it's not funny, It doesn't scare anybody, and it sure as hell has nothing to do with Christ or Christianity. On top of that, this stuff is just plain dumb. What is the purpose of acting like this? Do you idiots think Democrats don't have guns, or don't do things like serve in the military or do other dangerous jobs where they're not going to be bothered by your weapon that you likely don't know how to use?

Like, seriously, get over yourselves. No one cares, what you're doing only looks impressive to you and other idiots like you.

And again, it's Christmas, you couldn't even put down all this stupid political bullshit and Trump worship for one damn day? Not just any random date on the calendar either, but the date that your religion celebrates the birth of your alleged Savior...who was on record, in the Bible, for being against violence. More to the point the Bible itself says that too much submission to Earthly rulers is bad, and that worship of them is forbidden.

These people don't believe in God or Jesus. They worship an unholy trinity of  Gun, Ideology and Self, and the "Nation" or "Trump" is only really cover for that. What the shirt says is "FJB" what they're really trying to say without saying it is "I Love Me."

Ya know, it'd be cheaper and less obnoxious if you fuckers just sat at home eating cookies and watching old Dr. Phil episodes and Marianne Williamson YouTube videos instead of bothering the rest of us with this silly bullshit.

Oh, and that's what these people really might get violent about, not most people disagreeing with their politics, not "their" President being out of power...but that the rest of us don't bow down to worship them and their ideology of self and selfishness.

It's basically Ayn Rand on valium after having binge-watched all the Die Hard movies, without understanding the point, and they haven't even read Atlas Shrugged

These are the people who put the "I" in Ideology.

And all they're even getting for doing all this shit and making complete jackasses of themselves is transparently scammed by their own so-called political "Leaders."

It's a Merry Christmas for Ted Cruz alright, oh, you bet it is. How much of that campaign donation money goes into...if not into Ted's own pockets after having been filtered through his campaign, to high-cost brunches and hotel stays and trips where he gets to build his shitty political brand while also enjoying himself?

And more to the point these fucking morons, if confronted directly with this shit, so that they cannot deny it, will simply say that this is the spoils of power for people like Ted Cruz. 

Ted's only real job is supposed to be representing his constituents as a Senator...but we let these people act like they're some kind of celebrities or something...and nobody has run with that more than the "Conservatives" who used to be the sober, serious people who got shit done and left the movie star crap to people like Bill Clinton. 

Well...theoretically, anyway. That era is actually when all this crap really started falling apart. It didn't catch on right away because the people doing the grandstanding were hacks like Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay who were, if anything, even less attractive than Ted Cruz while also lacking the bullshit star-power of a Donald Trump. But the shitty ideology at the top is still the same.

Problem we have, is that this ideology is being supplanted by an even more shitty ideology...actually you can't even go that far, it's basically grunting "Me have big stick" and reactionary anger and grandstanding...mostly in opposition to the fact that other people even exist.

And they not only will surpass Trump, they're doing it already. All the other shit he did wasn't the end of him, but admitting that he was vaccinated and boosted just might have been. Now they'll try to find someone even worse.

And that's why all these people, like Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz, are jumping back into the game, grabbing onto Trump's coat-tails so they can elbow him out of the way.

And then they'll try to be even more shitty, so Trump's base doesn't see (or think about) what they did. It's really all about the petty selfishness and I can't stress that enough.

Christmas is supposed to be about compassion, peace on Earth, goodwill towards others. 

Not guns, politics and selfishness.

Compassion. Love, Peace.

That's all.

But the people most in need of compassion, the people Jesus was born to live among, to represent, ultimately to save...they don't shell out the big bucks for campaign donations or get bamboozled into forming right-wing insurgent armies that you might use to get your way if you lose a real election.

And neither the people using them nor the people being used care if they die and go to hell, because all they want to do is kill, and take some other people with them where they know they are going.

These people are Antichrist.

And this is their Antichristmas.

Live, on social media.

You know, if you actually look at the wording of Revelation 11 you could almost say it predicts this bullshit.

Merry Christmas. 

Try and do better than these fucking people, it isn't hard.

Part II.



 

Friday, December 24, 2021

Crypto-Mas (Christmas 2021, Part Two.)

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ~Luke 2:1-14

It's Christmas Eve.

And Steve Bannon is launching a new Cryptocurrency "FJB Coin."

Maybe it's just me but I think this is a transparently obvious pump and dump scam.

But more to the point it's Christmas, don't these shitty little haters ever take a day or two off? I mean, seriously, what the fuck?

This is nothing more than the guy who shouted "Let's Go Brandon" in a conference call where Joe Biden was wishing a bunch of kids a merry Christmas, but for idiots who have money.

I mean, these people be basically saying "You can electronically rob me if your politics are as selfish and shitty as mine." And since this Crypto shit is basically something somebody just made up, that's being traded like a commodity with actual state-backed money...it's hardly some kind of road to financial independence...except maybe for the already-very-wealthy.

But I know people who will probably buy this shit.

I mean, seriously, you'd think the people who demand that everybody accept their God and follow their religion would be fine with the idea of "Peace on Earth, and good will toward men" at least on the days we celebrate the birth of their supposed Savior.

But no, that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

I guess I was just taught a different way.

20 years ago tonight, I'd worked my shift as a line cook at Big Boy in Petoskey, Michigan. We had to close, so we didn't get out of there until like 2:00 A.M. and I was driving back to my Mom's house...it was mid-winter break at the college and the dorm was closed. I was bone tired it was snowing like something from the ice planet in Empire Strikes Back. I mean, literally, it felt like my car was on the inside of a snow-globe and if you turned on the high beam lights it looked like it too.

I was flipping around stations on the radio to keep alert, and I hit this discussion on some Christian station or other where they were talking about how if you actually look at the Christmas story and the events...Jesus was most likely born in September or October.

And it sort of hit me, that if we don't know when Jesus was actually born (or even if He is any sort of real historical personage?) why do so many people only act out of "Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward men" for so short of a time? (If even that, in too many cases.)

Why not try to be a better person throughout the year, so you might not end up being an asshole on the actual day that Jesus was born?

I was still a Christian at the time, and that just kind of stuck with me.

When I had that realization, or revelation if you prefer...I was also still a conservative, and a registered Republican voter. But what's the point of all that shit, if you can't even put it down for long enough to enjoy Christmas?

What is the purpose of all this, if you can't even be a decent enough person to show respect for another human being...which last I checked, the President still is...on the eve of such a holy day?

What's so great about Cryptocurrency, and MAGA and all this political bullshit that it takes precedence over Christmas?

And aren't these the same people who got all soggy and hard to light for a couple weeks because somebody burned down the Fox News Christmas Tree? Seems to me like some people be missing the whole damn point.

If Christmas is just another thing to be outraged over, or to use as a political prop or get all mad about, what's even the damned point?

It's bad enough we've turned it into a months-long festival of Capitalism, can we have a few limits here, please?

Part I

#Top20

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Blood Red Christmas (Christmas 2021, Part One.)

Thou Shalt Not Kill. ~Exodus 20:13

Former officer Kim Potter was found guilty and taken into custody this afternoon.

Good.

But there's something here that bothers me.

The defense tried to say that she should not be taken into custody at this time because...get this...she's a devout Catholic and it's Christmas.

Fucking seriously?

First of all as far as I'm concerned "Devout Catholic" kind of falls flat as a defense when you killed somebody and just got found guilty of First Degree murder.

Like, what the fuck ever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill?"

Forgiveness of sins and the spirit of the Holidays is great. Somebody can make sure she gets a nice Christmas care package in the slammer. 

Thing is, as I was always taught you do the crime, you got to do the time. You do wrong, you got to pay for it, and show remorse and change your behavior. She killed somebody, she's part of a culture where that happens too much. Somebody has to be called to account and in this case it's her.

Again, good. Somebody got justice for Christmas. I don't see why religion should be a defense against that. Doesn't Christianity...according to the Bible at least...call for justice for all as a matter of course?

What about Duante Wright? As a young Black man he was most likely religious too, how come nobody brought that up? What about his family? How do you think they're doing this Christmas? I'm serious, I'm sick of lawyers and the media ass-kissing cops, the privileged, and Republicans...even when these fucking people have just been convicted of a goddamned crime! I mean, for fuck's sake, she murdered a kid!

Seriously is this person's claimed religiosity supposed to excuse the fact that she broke one of the ten primary laws laid down by her own alleged God?

Merry fucking Christmas, huh?

I'm also going to remind you that this woman was a field training officer for her department, and she claims that she intended to draw and use her taser rather than draw and fire her sidearm. I'm here to tell you, as somebody who knows a little about this. If she knew her right from her left, much less had been properly trained...that shouldn't have been possible, period. The way your gear is arranged is set up that way, to avoid exactly this, because if something happens you go on autopilot, muscle memory, training.

So either she was badly trained, or she was lying, and in either case she shouldn't have been there.

Religion be damned, either you have the character as a person to know when you fucked up, and take the consequences, or you don't.

Either you know what you're doing, or you don't. If your job involves carrying a weapon, bad character or incompetence should disqualify you from it especially if you're dealing with the public.

I don't give a damn if you think the public is a bunch of idiots who hate your guts and want to fuck with you or shank you in the back or not. If you think that, isn't it your job to be better than that? All too many seem to fail to get that. Several of my bros back in the day were Black or Latino (or both, in one case) and they all said the same thing, all too often, the Police conduct themselves just like another damn gang.

And Kim Potter is apparently no goddamned exception.

To say that I have no goddamned sympathy for this lady or her family is a fucking understatement and I hope she enjoys every bite of that jail-food Christmas dinner.

And that is not a joke.

Like Stonekettle said "I hope they add an extra year to her sentence just for pulling this bullshit."

I'm serious. 

I have no tolerance for racism.

I have no tolerance for stupidity.

And I have even less tolerance than that for hypocrisy. And that is, on all counts, exactly what's going on here.

If you want to lean on your religious credentials, and do your job properly, that's Okay.

I might not like you for it, but this is America, you can do that.

If you want to murder somebody under color of authority, then lean on your religion to get out of being taken into custody to await sentencing like any other common killer, that's Not Okay.

And if you don't understand why, you're a part of the fucking problem.

We regard life as too cheap in this country, and treat profit and social status as if they are sacred things.

As if you can spend money or be all that when you're dead.

And the conservative Christian tradition I used to be a part of has changed to reflect exactly this.

Here's Franklin Graham literally describing his own religion as a death cult, saying Jesus was the "only person born to die" as if that isn't something we're all going to do eventually. I'll just go ahead and let you think about that for a second.

I guess it's not so hard to figure out how a supposedly-devout person like Kim Potter could just draw her pistol and shoot somebody down like it was nothing, then lie about it later, huh?

For this death cult to be happy in this time of year, somebody's got to have a blood-red Christmas.

Just so long as it isn't them.

It's Christmas, where we celebrate the humble birth of a King whose Kingdom was not of this world, who grew up to be nothing more to Earthly eyes than a carpenter and an itinerant Rabbi that the Scriptures themselves say had no place to sleep a lot of the time. He would preach his message, gather a following, and then be falsely accused and murdered by the Romans on bullshit charges from religious authorities whose power He became a threat to.

Just think about that, think about that and all that it implies vs. what Christianity has too often become. (And note, I say this as a former Christian myself.)

Christianity is far too often nothing but cosplay righteousness for the powerful and privileged at best, in the middle it's often just a cover for evil deeds, and it's a cult of power and white supremacy at its worst.

The Pharisees fucking won, at least in this world. Power values death over compassion.

And I think I can pretty well guess what He would have to say about that, much less some person trying to use religiosity as a shield to delay the consequences for a crime.

Especially religiosity in the Church one of His bros would later start, in this particular case.

My guess is, it would probably involve an impressive amount of profanity in several languages, and it would get pretty loud. And probably a whole bunch of people would go to Hell.

The purpose of Jesus was the Resurrection, not death. His purpose was not to practice Sin or to enable it, but to overcome it. Eternal life requires compassion, not greed. It requires loving your neighbors, not killing them.

We can change our future, people. What will happen is not set.

But if that's what we want, we have to be better than this.





 

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Mark Of The...Blockchain?

And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13:14-18

I saw this earlier. 

I sort of imagine a conversation going like this:

God: Don't take the Mark of the Beast and pledge yourself to the World's false system, people.

Conservative Tech Bros: Yes sir, we'll be hyper-vigilant about that, you betcha. Hey, what about those vaccines? Could that be it?

God: ...

[Satan walks in.]

Conservative Tech Bros: Is that who I...? Why yes, I think it IS. Get away from us, dude. [Exaggerated Religious Fuckery Ensues.]

God: [Facepalms/]

Satan: Hey bros, I'm not here to try and take your soul or anything. I'd just like to talk to you about this new, exciting business opportunity...

Conservative Tech Bros: He's tempting us, just like Jesus. Guys, we're JUST LIKE JESUS!

God: Oh for fuck's sake... [Lightning bolt appears in His hand]

Satan: I'm a cut to the chase here, bros. There's a Blockchain. You could have the Blockchain *Underneath Your Skin* and literally be a living, breathing part of a revolutionary new financial...

Conservative Tech Bros: Dude, I mean, DUDE! Where do we sign up?

God: [Storms out, lightning bolts in hand with a look that says whoever came up with this Crypto shit and Libertarianism is going to get it, and a cell phone appears in His other hand.] Gabriel, yeah, it's me. I want Hayek and Rand in my office by the time I get back...

Communism.

It's all you hear about from "Conservatives" these days, Communism this, Communism that, everything they don't like is Communism...and with Trump out of power there isn't much these days that they like.

So everything is Communism. Hell, these people talk about Communism more than they talked about Trump, and sure as hell more than they ever talked about Jesus.

And Communism hasn't even been a thing since 1989. Oh, sure, there's a few notionally Communist governments still around. China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam. Hell, there's even active Communist parties with actual elected officials in a few places. But Communism as a world-system functionally no longer exists. Certainly, aside from North Korea...which has moved away from Communism in its own way...nobody really practices Communism on an economic level anymore.

But it's all American conservatives want to talk about these days, and the further-Right you go, the worse it gets.

Hell, some of these fucking people are so hell bent on getting rid of "Communism" by which they mean "Anything we don't like" (and so plain-ass fucking dumb) that they want to abolish corporations and private property and massively expand the power of the State.

In other words these people wouldn't know Communism if it sky-wrote the entire Communist Manifesto with a wing of Tu-22M Backfire bombers over their heads with the Soviet national anthem playing on loudspeaker.

Hence you get shit like some dumb fuck Tech Bro wanting to implement a "Social Credit Score" system on the fucking blockchain to regulate the fuck out of his fellow Crypto-Bros.

Yesterday I wrote:

And I'm here to tell you, if these fucking people ever take over a country or succeed in breaking off part of this one, guess what?

They're going to become all about the Chinese-style surveillance society, and I'll bet you money the "Mark Of The Beast" very quickly isn't the Mark Of The Beast anymore...especially when they see that something like this could mean vast convenience and technological privilege for the wealthy and whatever upper classes there are, and maybe the upper middle gets a slice too...but for everybody else (and really, for them too) it could also mean a total lack of bodily autonomy or privacy with the State literally under your skin.

I don't like it when I'm right about this stuff normally.  I like it a lot less when the results come back this fast.

It's not just that these people are stupid, or for that matter historically (and often socially) ignorant or even ideologically hyper-fixated..

It's that you scratch their ears a little and tell them what they want to hear and they're on that shit like the Zombies eating the horse in the first episode of The Walking Dead.

These are the people who...often without even knowing or understanding what it is...embrace fascism. They look at stuff like Cthulu, Cyberpunk, Neuromancer or the Warhammer 40K games and grunt and hoot about how cool that is...without ever so much as understanding in the least what the stories are even about.

If anything like an actual Antichrist or the Beast of Revelations ever arises...if these kind of people are still around, we're fucked.

But they will be the ones who get eaten first.

Because they're stupid.

Learn the right words, understand what their triggers are, then put up an Antichrist candidate who they "identify" with and you can get these people to march right into hell and call it heaven.

The Bible and this, that and the other thing that they said they believed in before, be damned.

Well at least then maybe they won't bother the rest of us with this shit in the afterlife?

We can take small comfort in that, I guess.

If we ever want the world to get better, we're going to have to do something about the sheer amount of free-range stupidity.

Think about that, for a second.