The Mustelid Liberation Front: 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.

The Blind Men And The Elephant