Number Of His Name (American Revelation VIII, Two.)

If the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, you imprison people or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere. ~Hillary Clinton

I've got a confession to make.

I'm getting very, very tired of the Republican obsession with calling other people "Pedophiles."

Especially when one of the first things I saw on Twitter today was a bunch of stuff about how a Republican Congressman from Tennessee (which is trying to repeal age limits on marriage) met his wife when he was in his 40's and she was still in high school.

It's not just that that's creepy to me...it's "What in the hell could some middle-aged dude have in common with a goddamned teenager? How is there not a severe imbalance of power there, such as could make even the concept of consent itself illusory?

Yes, I get that patriarchal "Conservative" old Southern white men don't think about this shit. I never really had that much of a choice in the matter because first of all, I was never that kind of conservative, and second, the women in my life would never have let me. If I'd have tried to act like that...hell, if I did so today...I'm pretty sure somebody would slap my lips right off my face.

But of course, to These Fucking People, partnership and relationships aren't about love, they're about power. Literally anything is acceptable if their "Side" does it. Nothing that the other "Side" does is acceptable, it doesn't matter what any of it even is, only who does it.

And this shit is positively juvenile.

And it's absolute bullshit that these motherfuckers think they get to just call other people "Pedophiles" when they're enabling that exact kind of thing and tolerating it within their own ranks. Just because the sexual abuser marries his victim doesn't make it right, and shouldn't make it legal. Legality itself is about power to them. No, Fuck all that.

But ya know, speaking of legality, here's Tom Cotton saying that had she been around at the time, Ketanji Brown Jackson might have defended the Nazis at Nuremburg.

Newsflash, although it shouldn't be to this guy who's a Lawyer, Senator and US Army veteran. Under the American system, spelled out exactly in the US Constitution it says that every person tried by US courts and/or under US law is entitled to a competent legal defense and to a trial by a jury of their peers. 

If you're a defense attorney, that is your job. 

If I, with my limited experience of it, know this stuff, Tom Cotton damned well does too.

You ain't got to like it and hey, guess what? A lot of people don't. The Nazis at Nuremburg had defense attorneys, mostly German lawyers but provided (and paid) by the United States Army in some cases, and pains were taken to make sure their trials were as fair as possible and that all defendants were accorded due process. "Conservatives" like Tom Cotton have always believed that an accusation should be enough to damn somebody...and that is exactly what our Founders were against. 

Hell, John Adams represented the British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre...because he believed it was that important that everyone have legal defense. This is...and always has been...one of the core elements of our system.

And people who think that an accusation or the word of a powerful person should be enough to get someone's head chopped off or have them thrown into prison have always been opposed to that. If you don't think people should have rights, you're naturally going to be opposed to a right to a fair trial or a legal defense. These assholes want to live in a world of dictators and kings and potentates. They don't want to live in America, not really, anyway.

People like Tom Cotton want America to have and Americans to be subject to the same kind of bullshit Kangaroo Courts they had in the Soviet Union...where there might have been a trial, but the guilt or innocence of the defendant and the verdict of the case were secondary to spectacle and subject to political considerations.

And to politics-obsessed Republicans everything is a political consideration...even when it is not appropriate for it to be so.

Like, why the fuck else do you think these people are so into conspiracy theories?

And why in the fuck else do you think they're...even people who have clearly not benefitted much from their own associations with authoritarianism like AJ here, who is Jason Miller's Baby Mama...so hell-bent on defending authoritarianism and Vladimir Putin? 

I followed this lady until she became a Putin Apologist in the run-up to the Ukraine War.

And if these motherfuckers will deny empirical evidence of ethnic cleansing and mass murder or make up conspiracy theories and excuses for that kind of shit happening in Ukraine...they will damned well do the same thing if that kind of shit ever happens here in America.

And in point of fact, that's exactly what they want. We'd best not forget that.  

And they want people's life, death, and even humanity to be decided on by some all-powerful god-like despot just so they can feel good about themselves. This is exactly why they want to turn "marriage" into some kind of barbarian rape-fantasy bullshit. It's all about the power and being on the "right" side of the power. Hell, they probably want some kind of number stamped on their bodies so they all know they're on the "right" side, and who's what and who falls into what category.

I guarantee you if they can make up stuff like that Donald Trump is some kind of Antichrist who will bring about Revelation...they can just as damned well transfer their feral "loyalty" to Vladimir Fucking Putin.

And they will, too. 

And no, they don't give a damn about any of the familial or national sovereignty-related, or scriptural or spiritual implications of any of that, either.

They're desperate to be Subjects to a Despot...and they're willing to turn their backs on God Himself and pervert the purpose of well, everything, in order to become that. 

It's utterly not a stretch to imagine they'd want to have the Number Of His Name tattooed on their miserable hides...and demand that others do so as well.

(And then we have the balls to wonder why so many of these fuckers have issues with substance abuse?)

And yes, it will get worse.

That's why I said "Welcome to American Revelation."

Part One

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For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27