Red State (Pearls Before Swine, One.)

Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why behold thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at:

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes or thorns, or figs of thistles?

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. ~Matthew 7:1-21

Just saw this, apparently Tara Reade (Remember her?) Has defected to Russia.

So yeah, #MeToo #MyAss, at least in this particular case. Bitch just defected to a country where, at the request of the Russian Orthodox Church, marital rape has been decriminalized.

Think about that one, please, take all the time you need.

It was never about #MeToo or women's rights. Tara Reade was a Republican/Russian ratfuck operation. 

I remember, the Republicans and especially Fox News were desperate to run against Bernie Sanders to the point where they were already telegraphing the red-baiting and salivating over a chance to call Bernie a Communist.

Communism hasn't even been a thing since 1989. Vlad's trying to bring it back but it's not working...and if it was, Republicans would be all cool with the Hammer And Sickle now.

But even so, I also remember when in spite of Tara's bullshit, at the urging of Jim Clyburn and a few others, Black people in South Carolina came out in droves for Joe. In so doing, they may well have saved America in the process.

And by the way, I wrote about that at the time, too.

When White folks couldn't be bothered to get off the couch, Black folks mobilized. When White Leftists were saying they were too good to vote for just any old Democrat, that they wanted their damn Unicorn, Black Americans showed the fuck up and here we are.

Meanwhile, Russia is slouching back towards another Great October Socialist Revolution, but effectively with the connivance of the existing government this time and they're not even subtle about it.

Ukraine, meanwhile, being a "small-c" conservative and Christian country...is basing its war rhetoric in Christian terms and entirely on the ideal of homeland defense.

You'd think it'd be the conservatives who were terrified of the former and enthralled by the ideals of the latter, but that is not the case.

In fact, these Republicans seem utterly in thrall to and more to the point enthralled by the fucking KGB Agent in the Kremlin as does a much smaller percentage of the American Tankie Left.

Ukrainians are fighting the war against Russia now that so many American Republicans were convinced was going to happen in the 1980's...and more to the point, they're winning. With HIMARS and Javelins and outdated German Leopard I tanks, they're fucking winning.

Because somewhere along the way, Ukraine became steeped in Western military doctrine, and Ukrainians individually and as a people started giving a shit. 

And that's wrecked a lot of people's plans. Not just in Russia, but over here, too.

It just amazes me how awash the global "Political class" is in moral rot and Russian money, mostly but not exclusively on the right-wing side of the fence.

I remember when so much of America barely even took notice of the Maidan revolution and subsequently, the initial Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine and the War in Donbass. 

The Gamergate scandal, the infinities of the Benghazi hearings, pop culture dumb shit, and America generally being up its own ass with First World Problems was more important. I was there, anybody saying "If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen" was swimming against the tide.

That's the kind of situation Republicans would like the rest of us (Aside from their continually amped up Base) to go back to.

That's the way a hell of a lot of Russians live, literally not caring what's going on with their government and generally believing that Russian Imperialism is "Correct."

Global Authoritarianism, Inc. longs for having that disengaged America back, for the same reason that low-wage employers want the pre-COVID-19 America back, and it ain't in your favor.

That's why an idiot like Tara Reade thinks she can make a big deal of herself, and people (outside of Russia) will care.

That's why Republicans are stuck with making up salacious bullshit, even about somebody like David French who used to be one of their own.

Because that's all these fucking people have. 

More to the point it's all they want to have.

In a sense, they have in fact gotten that, except that it's people outside of the Republican Base mostly stopped listening to or paying attention to them. It's kind of understandable, most of us simply can't keep up with the crazy.

Oops.

Republicans long for a disengaged citizenry in which only their supporters pay attention and vote, why the fuck do you think they got the meme that the "Cool Kids" don't pay attention to politics so deeply stuck in the heads of a lot of the Hippie Boomers who didn't Get The Jesus and start voting Republican in the 1970's? 

Shit, these fucking people would love to have the kind of Rubber Stamp government that Vladimir Putin has!

Just so long as the President was "Their Guy."

In today's Republicanism that means...Trump

With DeSantis waiting in the wings.

In today's "Conservative" movement that means literally anything other than "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal..."

Anything other than "If you want a better nation, be a better citizen."

And more to the point there's no one these Republicans detest more than the people who vote for them. They openly treat their voters like the voters are stupid, and you know what? At this point, maybe they are.

Fuck No.

I'm tired of it.

If you want to cast your pearls before swine and emigrate to Russia, "Conservatives" have the fuck at it.

Shit, I'll help you pack.

I don't know why the hell you'd want to give up living in America or the West for some fourth-rate 18th century shithole like Russia, though.

But then having to live with LGBT people and liberals and people of Color never bothered me, I was in the military, I've worked for several major corporations. I've had to do so already as a matter of course, if not of basic survival. 

I mean, fuck, a casino in America will throw out enough food to feed a small African country on any given night. Russia can't even bother to feed or properly arm, equip and train the soldiers it sends into battle.

And this is the future Republicans want?

If you cannot imagine these motherfuckers, having broke off a neo-Confederate satellite-state sitting there drinking some 100-year-old Chardonnay plotting the next round of their perpetual Ratfuck-Olympics while American boys die in the mud from Hellfires and M31 rockets, with nothing but old AK-47's and ratty uniforms...fighting other American boys and girls with all those technological terrors we've wrought still at their fingertips in the kind of war where their quick defeat is prevented only by far more willingness to kill their own people than the other side has, you have another thing coming.

Not just the entire military budget of these idiots' "American People's Republic" would end up in some Russian bank account, probably most of the rest of its budgets, too...because that's what these jagoffs think that government is for. And buying that shit with a river of American blood is nothing to them.

So, the fuck do you think they'd do to our EU/NATO Allies, the Ukrainians, or anybody the fuck else? "LOL, Nothing Matters" is exactly what these motherfuckers think! 

So long as they get to keep living high off the hog.

But it's even better if You. Don't.

And they'd gladly live this way, while taking orders from KGB agents and United Russia "Political advisors" and subjugating and weaponizing Christianity and any other damn thing for their debased whims.

When I say "Reagan Wept" I'm legit not joking. I honestly think at this point the Gipper must be in whatever room in hell he occupies, just throwing shit at the TV and yelling himself hoarse.

I'll tell you what, "Conservatives" if you don't like America, you can leave. I'm not sure whoever coined the term "Red State" had a new Soviet Union in mind, but hey, have at it.

Just don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Last Post

Слава Україна!

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

...

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X. 

$20 Jesus (Reagan Wept, Revisited, Five.)

From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root....If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly....Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated. ~Ronald Reagan

...

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.

~Bob Marley

...

You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. ~Malcolm X. 

Saw this on Saturday night, after Biden and McCarthy reached agreements "in principle" on the debt ceiling.

And the Freedom Caucus immediately lost their shit. I mean, hell, it's been four days and it isn't getting any better.

These fucking people never wanted a deal, hell, they don't want a functioning government unless it's entirely theirs and nobody else gets a say in anything.

I have to admit, I'm vaguely curious about the username "Atlas Futurism" yet at the same time I was on break at work, so I didn't have time to check it out.

But it implies what I've been thinking we're dealing with, in that we're finally hitting the point where Randian Objectivism is reaching some kind of syncretic status with Trumpism. Note that this could only happen without the direct supervision of Trump himself, because Trump isn't going to worship even at any godless altar that's not dedicated in his own name.

In other words, like the Bible and Christianity post Paul's Damascus Road conversion, MAGA is shifting from being the politics of Trump to a politics about Trump and I'm really not sure that's much of an improvement.

Because the next step is probably some iteration of the whole Galt's Gulch thing on a wannabe-national scale for these idiots, but with even longer and more tiresome speeches. 

I mean, what do you think this "National Divorce" crap is?

And I've *Read* Atlas Shrugged, nobody wants that.

Also one of my posts of aggregated threads is getting swarmed by whiny Neo-Confederates crying about me blocking them. 

If there is to be another Civil War, it'll be short and they'll lose even worse this time.

Same fucking people have been melting down since the weekend over an article that David French wrote about traditional masculinity...and what that actually is and how it relates to actual traditional conservatism.

And the first thing Runaway Hawley does is link to his book with the tagline "Enrage the Left, buy my book."

Shades of the TV preacher saying "I know the way to Jesus, if you give me $20 so can you!"

But of course the "way" has to keep changing, lest the donations dry up, doesn't it? 

It's all Gnosticism and Hokum. These people's magical world simply does not exist.

I stand by what I said that all this modern "Conservatism" crap is bullshit and nothing but a big scam to make money off of angry gullible reactionary idiots.

For the record here's a snip of what David French actually said, which is that the most important thing is firm convictions and a level head...and this tracks with what I was taught about what conservatism is, also.

But of course, with that model of conservatism it's simply not possible to keep "The Base" amped up all the time, it's harder to get attention and sell dumb shit and that's all there is to it. You can't make nearly as much money off the truth as you can off lying all the time.

Chaos is easier to make money off of, good governance doesn't sell newspapers or online clicks, telling people to eat their vegetables, exercise and vote in their own interests with their principles at heart and still, some attention paid to the common good...like I was taught...is simply a lot harder to get people to have screaming hair-on-fire fits over, let alone click the donate button or write checks.

And clearly, on the Rightward side of our political divides nobody wants to hear that shit, anyway.

Were these people rational, I'd suppose they might wonder why they keep giving money, yet nothing ever seems to get any "better."

It's the same reason that an Evangelical, Fundamentalist or Pentecostal preacher will not usually tell you that if you believe the Nicene Creed, and have accepted Jesus via some kind of conversion experience (or even simply asking) and you make an effort to conduct yourself accordingly, you're good, you're going to go to Heaven per the terms laid out in the Bible.

Because if they did that, people might stop coming, might stop giving them attention and money. The truth don't put asses in the pews.

Trust me, I was part of a group that most of the members believed what the Word said over what Man said. We weren't like that, we didn't have...didn't need...a pulpit-screamer or some kind of public freak show. There was no money involved, we never once took an offering. We all contributed to the groceries for our weekly meal and we all helped each other out now and again, as needed. 

We'd meet at our nominal Pastor's house, eat breakfast, smoke weed and listen to music, talk Bible...or ya know, whatever else on Saturday mornings. Hell, sometimes like when God Of War III came out, we'd sit around and play video games all day while a couple of us held forth on Greek mythology whenever something relevant came up.

And if somebody agreed to specific beliefs because of it all...great! It wasn't required.

We were a community.

People got different jobs, people moved, a couple people died, as is only natural because things change.

We were in it for what we saw as what was true, not for how much money we could get out of it.

And all these right-wing grifters and liars and pulpit/truck screamers? They will never be happy anyway, not until every Church in the world looks like the one in this picture and serves as a spiritual locus of a totalitarian State. Only difference is each of these narcissistic goons expects to see their own face looking back at them from the paintings.

Because being happy, being right, hell even winning the argument they're so obsessed with...isn't the point let alone the Purpose of it all to them.

Money and worldly power is.

If you're on Twitter, look around. How's that working out, even for the one guy who allegedly has all this crap...without having the responsibility of being some kind of national leader?

And actually winning their glorious struggle is impossible as they are, because every last one of these idiots thinks they'll be the king, or the queen of some totalitarian empire. Truth is, only one person gets to be that, so they can never "Win" and all feel as special as they want to. If they won, the money might stop rolling in.

Then they might have to get real jobs and just live like regular people again.

No one knows more than those who believe it, let alone preach it, that the only ones who prosper from the Prosperity Gospel are the preachers of it.

Get a job? That's not the world these fucking people want to live in.

But belief in their $20 Jesus? That shit will send your ass straight to hell.

It's much the same with everything else.

And, Liberty is so much less fun for them that what they imagine Q-Berty might be like.

Reagan Wept.

Four

Слава Україна!

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

Ridiculosity Again (Reagan Wept, Revisited, Four.)

No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind as between the internal and the external threats of communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Good night, and good luck. ~Edward R. Murrow

I saw this yesterday.

I have a question: Why in the hell is everything a goddamned grift, scam, or trawl for "donations" with these fucking people??

And why must every damn thing, no matter how long it's been around (Consider that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were incorporated in 1979, nobody outside of Southern California or the gay community seems to have noticed this until recently, though) be framed as hair-on-fire existential, no matter how innocuous or unworthy of comment it may seem to the rest of us??

It seems like it's only in the last few years that "Conservatives" bothered to take note of a changing world...and now?

Well, they'd be desperate to stop it, except that they seem to be far more desperate to make money off of it, while not making any effort to actually change anything, in any way such as changes could even possibly be made.

And are all these fucking people who give these scammers money just that dumb or hopped up on the perpetual outrage machine that they can't see that all this stuff is still here?

Same with all this "Own The Libs" and "Triggered" crap. Do these fucking people really think we care?? I see that kind of crap, my first response is to block the idiot on whatever platform I'm on, and move the fuck on with my day.

And then when somebody calls them out, they...hit back trying to simply use the same words, as if "racist" were simply an insult rather than a descriptive of a belief system or bigotry??

Seriously, nobody is going to stop being bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender or a liberal or a person of color or whatever because of the "disapproval" of "Conservatives." Just like nobody who doesn't already believe in it is going to bow before right-wing authoritarianism or White Supremacy.

By the same token, unless you're an already-conservative-leaning celebrity or somebody who's desperate for attention, money or to have that narcissistic hole in your soul filled up for a second or two, nobody's going to go out and change their life because of the approval of "Conservatives" either. There's simply no benefit in doing so, for the vast majority of us.

Unless you're just a scammer looking for a bunch of easy marks for a particularly unimaginative scam.

The only reason these fucking idiots are mad about diversity, inclusivity or "Wokeness" is that they're by definition not the only ones who get to have it.

Why the fuck do "Conservatives" and Republicans think the world revolves around them (or that it should) and also think that so many people out there are just dying inside waiting for their approval??

Simply put, the rest of us end up wondering why this overly-tattooed neckbeard MAGA "Rapper" that nobody's ever heard of or heard a song by is standing there looking so intently at boxes of tampons. And trust me, I see a dude like that...especially looking at tampons...the last thing that's going to cross my mind as a way to describe them is "Christian." I'm far more likely to think they're just a dude-bro picking up feminine supplies for a girlfriend or their wife, I'm sure not going to make a big deal of it. Happens all the time where I work.

And what, exactly, went "Viral?" I ask because I sure haven't heard it. This whole Target thing...like so many of the other right-wing moral panics...seems rather like a Tempest in a Tweet to me.  An awful lot of it seems to be not too much more than Benny Johnson trying to make himself feel important...which isn't hard.

Yeah, Target's stock prices are down, but they're down because the last quarter's numbers just posted and Target had a bad quarter, entirely before all this silly bullshit even started!! 

It's like the whole Bud Light thing, trust me, nobody's stopped buying Bud Light and if they did AB InBev (a global corporation based in Belgium) wouldn't care because they don't answer to American "Conservatives" anyway and have a diverse global customer base to cater to. 

The people bitching the most about this crap where I work?? They mostly don't buy beer anyway.

The real danger of all this sticky-fingered bullshit is that these fucking assclowns trying to make money off this shit rile up dimwitted violent goons, which has already happened in this and other cases.

In situations where, thanks to too much access to weapons, it only takes one person to perpetrate some horrible massacre...well it's getting to the point where I personally think these fucking people should be held accountable for incitement and corn-holed by the Law. 

I think all it would take is one or two of these little shits having to be really careful not to drop the soap for a few years and a lot of this bullshit would go away.

And the thing that gets me is, it's not like there isn't a lot more serious stuff that's going on in the world that should be tying up these people's attention.

I'll note after a steady diet of stories of right-wing BS from Poland a lot of that shit went away as soon as there was a real threat invading Ukraine right next door.

Or maybe it's just that, given a real opportunity to prove themselves, to protect their own freedom, to prevent being invaded and colonized (again) by Russia...the Poles saw a chance at greatness and took it, or saw a threat and reacted appropriately at least.

Yet in the face of atrocity, Republicans not only double down on the fuck-fuck games and political horseshit and the stealing, they by turn actively side with the invader or pretend that nothing untoward is happening while at the same time feeling liberated to openly profess their hatred of America and their retroactive love for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 

I mean, seriously, I was a kid/young teenager in Southern California in the 1980's. If you would have told me that in 40 years Republicans (of all the fucking people) would be screaming about the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence (Gay men in Habits, LOL, what...being my basic reaction at the time and I was a freaking Catholic) as if they were an existential threat while treating a re-Sovietized and violently aggressive and imperialistic Russia as a non-issue or even as an ally? 

I wouldn't have believed you.

I have to wonder what they'll do when it's America that Ivan is looking at through a gunsight. Why? Because Republicans, themselves, are singlehandedly ensuring the day will come. 

It's Republicans and their bullshit, that in the face of European solidarity and Ukrainian courage, make it likely that Vlad or one of his successors sees America as the weak link and comes at us directly.

And as long as Republicans were told they could continue their stupid grifts and ratfuck games I have no reason to suspect that they'd stand up and fight. 

In point of fact, I believe they'd simply surrender and outsource that fight to the rest of us and that's if they didn't directly take up arms and join the enemy. I legit wonder if...or more likely simply how much, they'd try and steal from the Russians, too?

I used to be a Republican and I seem to remember being taught that we had...at least different values than this.

But since a Black man said "Yes We Can" the entire Republican mantra and value system has become "No We Can't."

Everything since flows from that, and they're completely fine with exchanging greatness for laughable ridiculosity as a result.

They've gone from demanding that the Berlin Wall be torn down to demanding that America be walled off.

Motherfuckers couldn't be bothered to properly defend themselves against a virus, think about that for a second.

Reagan Wept.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen. If you want a better world, you have to go out and make it better. Either of those things costs precisely $0.

Ridiculosity ain't the answer you think it is.

And don't you forget it.

Three

Слава Україна!

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

Survivor: Republican Politics (Reagan Wept, Revisited, Three.)

When day comes we ask ourselves, ‘where can we find light in this never-ending shade,’ the loss we carry, a sea we must wade? We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always just-ice. And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it, somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge a union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. ~Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb.

Somebody sent me this, early this morning (Or at least, before I was up, which was pretty late because work fucking sucked last night.)

The Mom who got Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb" shit-canned from a Florida school was at some point promoting the fake "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" antisemitic bullshit.

Tell me, something, "Conservatives;" Why does your alleged "Movement" these days, always come down to shit like this??

Like, fucking always, there is literally no point nor purpose to any of it but cruelty and hate.

And when you get called out on it, the general response these days is increasingly a shrug and "Yeah, so?"

And at this point even other people generally just accept that hate is what Republicans do.

Like it's not even an issue, it's just assumed. The hatefulness is implied. (And given the increasingly hateful, nihilistic and outright anti-American beliefs of "Conservatives" these days, I can see why people just figure all Republicans are ever going to do is crap all over everything.)

Seriously, Reagan Wept.

It's funny that the people who, early on in my life, instilled in me the idea of having a moral compass and a solid moral compass rather than a relativistic and situational one simply...lack that same thing themselves? 

Make it make fucking sense.

Or is it simply that having a "Moral Compass" or moralism as an idea was simply being used to cover for the fact that some Republicans were always hateful shitty people who could give a fuck about the Lord, His Word or anything else...so long as they got to disapprove of, hate and judge other people and feel "religious about it."

I knew people like that, and if you were a Christian or a Republican in past iterations of those things so did you, but generally speaking we always believed they were not the majority.

This is Meatball Ron's press secretary being heckled by some teenage Republican idiot, right here. I'm glad there doesn't seem to be very many "GOP Josh" types out there anymore.

I mean, I get that the DeSantis campaign "Launch" was in all respects a soup sandwich (I mean, look at it. Given that Elon was involved I'm not sure how anybody expected anything the fuck else.) But that's not what this CHUD kid is making an issue of.

And all it currently takes to instantly get "Voted Off The Island" these days is...running against Trump??

Yes, I will forever blame garbage like the Survivor reality show for the current state of the "Conservative" mentality and its obsessive selfishness.

I know this, this is my lived experience, it doesn't have to make sense to you.

But, I see your confusion, so I'll explain. Ever get a bad vibe off of something?

In 2000 when I got with my ex-wife, Survivor was then in its first US season. Mind you, my ex was even more outspokenly conservative than I was, and she was allegedly a devout Pentecostal Christian. (NOTE: She is not a Trump Supporter, so far as I know.)

When that show was on, my ex became completely enraptured by it. I'm not even talking like "ADHD kid staring zombie-eyed at the TV." No. That wouldn't have bothered me as much. She would watch that shit with an absolute expression of joy on her face. It was fucking creepy.

And it repulsed me, I literally got a bad vibe off that TV show. I can't explain it. It was just gross to me. Something in my soul just said "Ick." 

It just felt wrong. I can't explain it in rational terms or make it make sense beyond that. Watching all these people do all this stupid shit, and then voting to decide who to kick out based on some bullshit idea of "Performance" and shitty political ratfucking?

(In retrospect, it hits right at the very heart of what a lot of stupid people think "Conservatism" and "Meritocracy" even is.)

This was a source of tension, and once we got engaged and moved in together, I literally forbade her from watching it because...and I actually said this...I thought it was ungodly and I didn't want that bullshit on the TV in my house.

So she would go over to her (considerably less religious) sister's house and they'd watch it, since her sister was also a fan. At least her sister didn't watch it like it was some kind of ecstatic sacrament, though.

All these years later I note that this was all part of Mark Burnett's reality TV empire and that was a huge part of what gave us Donald Trump as a former President and still-extant political force and that's why I think the bad vibe was the correct reaction. 

And I'll note, all these years later, just how many alleged conservatives and Christians have bowed down before this godless altar...to the exclusion of almost all else except hate. And they've not only left everything else to the rest of us...but actively strove to impede the rest of us from maintaining a functioning society since then.

And more to the point, these fuckers have decided a functioning society is not what they want.

It's more fun to "Vote people off the island" or something.

Maybe it's just me, and maybe because I'm a veteran and I have a little more real life experience at an environment where things have to be done a certain way, the right way, every time or somebody doesn't survive (and I also lived through the worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic in which a third of our society simply refused to do what it took to not get sick, thus suggesting all this "Prepper" and pro-life shit has just been a LARP) I'm considerably less enthusiastic about living in that kind of world.

But I don't think that's the only reason:

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

~Matthew 25:31-46

I guess I was just taught to see following Christ as a burden and a restraint upon the Self, as an anchor for the soul rather than as a source of worldly power or privilege or a thing to beat other people over the head with.

Consider this Catholic nut calling the "Sisters of perpetual indulgence" which is a gay men's protest group and charity an "Anti-Catholic hate group."

I'll believe that when I see gay men in campy outfits assaulting and killing Catholics and trying to make laws against them, bro, and not before. And plenty of "Christians" do shit like that to gay people all the fucking time.

More to the point, I don't see all that many Catholic priests trying to get their followers to stop abusing LGBT people...which seems like kind of a problem if you ask me.

And it's the same with People of Color. Most Black folks or Latinos are Christians, in point of fact many Latinos are specifically Catholic and yet too much of the American Church simply won't stand up for them, because the Cruelty Is The Point.

Now, we can either all keep playing Survivor: Republican Politics or we can act like a civilized goddamned society.

We cannot do both, and it's that simple.

Two

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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

Florida Man (Reagan Wept, Revisited, Two.)

When day comes we ask ourselves, ‘where can we find light in this never-ending shade,’ the loss we carry, a sea we must wade? We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always just-ice. And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it, somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge a union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. ~Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb.

I saw this earlier today.

First thought was "Oh my God, what is that thing?"

But ya know, it's not just his odd taste in hats or his lack of understanding of how to human properly that gets my back up about DeSantis. It's not just his stupid personal war with Disney over...basically a moderate statement of opposition, effectively demanded by their customer base and employees.

It's the priggish entitlement of this motherfucker, that I'm sick of all the way up to my eyeteeth. It's the Paul Ryan-esque expectation that the sheer wonkery of announcing on Twitter with Elon will somehow do it for him.

As opposed to, ya know, realizing a lot of people aren't on Twitter.

It's the whole idea of these motherfuckers thinking, because they are rich white men with an affected "Conservatism" that they think elevates them above the common MAGA mob idiots, that it's simply their turn. 

It's that the entire bit scans to me as being fake as fuck. Trump might be a fucking scumbag...but at least you know he's a fucking scumbag and he doesn't hide it. He scans as being a fucking scumbag. The motherfucker is, at least, authentically evil.

Shit, Trump is way more Florida Man than DeSantis, maybe he should just run for governor?

One gets the feeling that Meatball's political persona on any given day is exactly what his wife tells him it is. Which makes me wonder, if she wants to be so political, why doesn't she just run for office her own damned self? I guess some people would just rather manipulate than legislate.

But for all that, it's Ron, not Casey, who gives off the Hillary Clinton vibe. Rick Wilson wrote about this today and given DeSatan's strained efforts at even the basics of how to campaign politically...I think I agree with him.

But at least Hillary, for all her faults as a candidate, seemed to me like she was a real *Policy nerd* and what I saw of her program backed that up.

To this old Security Forces troop, DeSantis just comes off as the shit-talking Staff Officer. The guy who's all Mr. Big Balls talking shit in the chow hall or from behind his desk, but goddamn if he ain't nowhere to be found when it's morning PT or range time.

DeSantis strikes me as a shitty little paperwork bully, the kind of politico who's fine with signing bills into law in the dead of night surrounded by a few supporters, but he'd break down crying if he was confronted by an actual Black or LGBT person about his goddamned bullshit.

It's like We, The People aren't fit for him to have to lay eyes on.

That might work in Florida...but it won't work anywhere else. We're not all Florida Man doing dumb reality show shit while letting Republicans run our state into the ground. They'd rather get drunk and screw than be, ya know, citizens.

Meatball doesn't know what he's doing, and more to the point he simply doesn't care.

And this is America, bro. You can't be like that here.

And conservatism in general but the Republican Party in particular seem like they're both full of people who regard us, the citizens, as an inconvenience at best...and as a Thing, to be eliminated or entirely disempowered at worst.

They want to play their bullshit fuck fuck games or pursue weird ideological and religious agendas and throw the unwashed masses nothing but petty bigotries in return, and not have to answer to nobody.

And they're going to KEEP doing it, because MAGA and this "Own The Libs" bullshit have shown them that anything is permissible, to a certain percentage of our population.

So, rather than continue to function as citizens within a democratic nation, they're plotting everything from civil war to the destruction of America and democracy itself to try and make MAGA become their own country.

Literally anything other than "We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident..."

So I'm going to ask again...if, knowing that they have a far higher hill to climb, there are Russians fighting against Putin's tyranny now...why do we have Americans who want to live under a tyranny?

And why do so many of us simply tolerate this horseshit??

It's not just that the Republican Party is dominated by Florida Man. It let itself get that way, on purpose and with malice aforethought.

Reagan Wept.

One

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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

Six Men Of Indostan (Reagan Wept, Revisited, One.)

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 (Also, in reference to the title of this piece; Link here.)

I just saw this shit a little bit ago.

"America is going to need a Protestant Franco."

No. America doesn't need a "Protestant" anything.

America is a Constitutionally secular nation, and if you don't like that, too bad.

America needs to kick religious ninnies to the curb.

More to the point, I'm here to tell you, if you go to Spain...well, basically nobody wants another Franco. Nobody wanted to live that way within like, six months after the motherfucker died.

I'm serious. The "Morality" imposed by fascism comes crumbling down very quickly once the jackboot is gone.

Of course, several posts down into the thread I found this:

"Or a Catholic Franco, I'm not picky."

In other words, entirely how Fundamentalist Protestantism is continually getting buttfucked by the Sedevacantists, in seven words.

Like the six blind men in the titular poem, these motherfuckers are ignorantly groping about the metaphorical Elephant because they don't actually know anything. Nor do they really care to learn past their own opinions. 

They could give a shit about conservatism, or its many and storied philosophies, or the various justifications involved the harder Right one goes. None of that matters to them. 

They just want somebody to legislate their petty bigotries and various and sundry personal hatreds. That's all.

And they not only know they can't persuade anybody, they think they're too good to have to try.

Nor do they really care what happens after they're gone.

Their idea of "virtue" is only "I hate ______'s" and some idea of hurting The Other, that's all. 

Even the fact of it doesn't really matter. 

I'll cite all that "Own The Libs" bullshit as an example. This really isn't a thing, but they think it is.

And they'll burn down the universe to feel like they're winning that argument with things that only exist in their own heads.

So on the one hand, they lose to the common person. On the other hand they lose to the philosophically or religiously-driven reactionary who simply finds them useful pawns.

Or, far more simply, they lose out to the cold-eyed cynical secular authoritarianism of somebody like Vladimir Putin because it never was about any of that other shit anyway.

They'd rather feel powerful and hurt others than be free. 

They don't even really care if they win, so long as everyone has to watch them lose. Right, Meatball?

When day comes we ask ourselves, ‘where can we find light in this never-ending shade,’ the loss we carry, a sea we must wade? We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always just-ice. And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it, somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished. ~Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb

They don't even care if they actually got to be powerful. In fact, I think they get some kind of a thrill out of making other people watch them wreck themselves simply because...short of not participating in the modern public square at all...we can't look away. 

And we dare not, because ignoring fascism is how you get more fascism.

This stupid bullshit is everywhere. 

And these fools will waste resources unimagined by the vast majority of the world for that 15 minutes of fame.

Then they hate us for ignoring them, doing what needs to be done, forging ahead and living our lives anyway.

Think about that for a second, how much of a miserable son of a bitch do you have to be to be mad that other people aren't miserable sons of bitches like yourself? 

Seems like a hell of a way to want to live.

And then, on top of that, the force that all these right-wing motherfuckers were relying on to make the world safe for reactionary authoritarianism is...getting kicked in the teeth by a couple of small groups of Ukrainian-sponsored rebels?

Putin's days might be numbered simply because he's being seen ignoring this bullshit little problem, while it gets bigger.

Dude is apparently prattling on and on about culture-war bullshit while these Free Russia volunteers not only come back for another night...but seem to be doing so largely unchallenged.

Per Wikipedia, the situation appears to be serious enough that nuclear munitions are being removed from a depot in Belogrod and the Russian ministry of emergency situations is evacuating civilians.

And the Free Russian-Ukrainian meme-war effort is, well, all over Twitter.

The thing that gets me is, here we have Russians fighting against Putin, while American "Conservatives" wish for a goddamned dictator. How the fuck does that even work??

Reagan Wept.

Either you believe in freedom or you don't.

What's wrong with you, America?

Last Post

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 [The Mandalorian brings together the entire Mandalorian covert after Carson Teva makes a surprise visit and asks him to help Greef Karga's situation on Nevarro when the New Republic won't lift a finger]

Mando: Now, many of you don't know Greef Karga. And those that do fought against him when you rescued me from his ambush many cycles ago on the streets of Nevarro. Since then, he's had a change of heart and has risked his life to save mine as well as the Foundling in my charge. [Grogu coos] I stand before you to petition an intervention. To help rescue Nevarro before it's too late. I am in no position to ask any more of you. However... However, the enemy that decimated this very covert were Imperials, not Greef Karga's bounty hunters. Greef Karga is now a High Magistrate and has offered me a tract of land on his independent world. Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome. So our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight.

Armorer: Does anyone else wish to speak?

Mando: It's up to them now.

Paz Vizsla: I do. I was there on Nevarro that night. I fought against Greef Karga and his hunters. I saw my brothers and sisters fall at the hands of the Imperial butchers that hunted us in the sewers. I saw many die to save the life of [gestures to Grogu] this one, tiny Foundling. And now we are asked to sacrifice yet again. The question we should be asking ourselves is, "Why? Why should we lay our lives down yet again?" Because we are Mandalorians! I have had my disagreements with this man, but he risked his life to save my son. And Bo-Katan Kryze did not give up on my child's life even when the rest of us did. These two are asking us to take up arms in the name of a brighter future, and I for one will take up arms to fight by their side. [Mandalorians agree] This is the Way!

Mandalorians: This is the Way.

Armorer: This is the Way.

This post is the strong son of this series, which I'm damned proud of and still consider some of my best work.

Iron Curtain Call

Back In The USSR

Hammer Time

Red Winter

The Blind Men And The Elephant