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

Слава Україна!

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

Слава Україна!

 [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

Zombie Jesus (Land Of Confusion, Three.)

Ignorance was the enemy. Lies and superstition, misinformation, disinformation. Sometimes, no information at all. Ignorance killed billions of people. Ignorance caused the Zombie War. Imagine if we had known then what we know now. Imagine if the undead virus had been as understood as, say, tuberculosis was. Imagine if the world’s citizens, or at least those charged with protecting those citizens, had known exactly what they were facing. Ignorance was the real enemy, and cold, hard facts were the weapons. ~From the novel World War Z, by Max Brooks.

...

When the last broadcast came from Buenos Aires, when that famous Latin singer played that Spanish lullaby, it was too much for one of our operators. He wasn’t from Buenos Aires, he wasn’t even from South America. He was just an eighteen-year-old Russian sailor who blew his brains out all over his instruments. He was the first, and since the end of the war, the rest of the IR operators have followed suit. Not one of them is alive today. The last was my Belgian friend. “You carry those voices with you,” he told me one morning. We were standing on the deck, looking into that brown haze, waiting for a sunrise we knew we’d never see. “Those cries will be with me the rest of my life, never resting, never fading, never ceasing their call to join them. ~From the novel World War Z, by Max Brooks.

I saw this a few days ago.

Some idiot Pastor saying the parents of Transgender kids should be "shot in the back of the head, and their bodies strung up on a bridge."

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" could not be reached for comment. 

Then I saw this Tweet from Rick Wilson, QT in response to Jesse Kelly demanding an American dictator just now.

I have a confession to make.

I've read "1984" like five times.

Partly because I was a Security Policeman assigned to a Bomb Wing when I was in the Air Force, I've always had a morbid fascination with apocalyptic nuclear novels. I used to actively collect them. 

I have a copy of Trinity's Child by William Prochnau (the book on which the film "By Dawn's Early Light" is based) around here somewhere that originated in the base library at KI Sawyer. 

One day back in 2007 I was randomly flipping through "World War Z" at Borders Books in Traverse City, Michigan...and that shit went home with me that damn day.

Since I first heard of it, I was a fan of The Walking Dead, both the comic and the later TV show.

I mean, shit, I was a member of the End Times Prophecy Movement for like five years.

But all that shit falls flat with me now.

COVID-19 pretty much killed all that stuff for me.

Until they make a Zombie Apocalypse series where some idiot is running up to the Zombies, shouting back at the cops or the soldiers or at other survivors "You can't tell ME what to do!" And gets eaten, yet others still have to be physically restrained from following and call out to people they think they know who turned, who in spite of a world of obvious evidence think something's still left...

Until they make a post-nuclear apocalypse novel where some Grunt is deliberately drinking irradiated water in defiance of orders and even basic CBRN protocols because he thinks it'll turn him into Doom Guy or Spider Man or the dude from Bioshock or some shit...

Until they make an Christian End Times novel where the high-tech forces of the Beast's One-World Government are trapped in some Texas hellhole, fighting heavily-armed Christian extremists who blow shit up with car bombs and suicide bombers and string people up from bridges like the Radical Islamists in Fallujah did in a continuous string of month-long battles over the course of a whole year...

Until somebody writes a story where the Antichrist is cut down with some ancient grand master's sword by some Templar-wannabe screaming "Deus Hoc Vult!" who's then cut down in a hail of gunfire on global TV and then Old Scratch resurrects only to get blown up by some stoned Assassin who shouted "Allah Akbar" before he flipped that dead man's switch, and then hacked by some North Korean saboteur in the name of Kim Jong Il or Lenin or Mao when he tries to upload into a cyborg or some shit...

I mean what could a literal goddamned Antichrist think up that Antivaxxers and Evangelicals haven't already?

But the difference is that the Antivaxxers and the religious nuts got to call their shit "Righteous."

Unless you can write a thing that reflects all these different strains of base stupidity, internet contrarianism and religious dumbfuckery and have a plausible way to deal with it, what's the point?

It just doesn't reflect enough of the truth of this fucked-up world we live in to even hold my interest.

These chucklefucks have ruined apocalyptic fiction for me. It's just not any fun anymore, not even as a guilty pleasure.

What's the point, when no matter how screwed up of a story you can come up with some idiot will one-up you by literally not acting like a believable goddamned human being for the dumbest possible fucking reasons imaginable!

I mean, fucking seriously?!?!

Seriously, I literally got my first vaccination for COVID-19 over two years ago. I'm still obviously here, I'm alive. And these Antivax morons can still say this shit without being dragged out back and beaten with golf clubs?

You could drive yourself crazy trying to keep up with this horseshit. I damned near did.

Yeah, there's Zombies out there alright, and it's these fucking people.

What else can you even call somebody who just keeps going on this right-wing shit and will not learn anything? I'll wait. 

Addicts keep going this hard, this long they drink and drive, they get arrested or they overdose. Addicts can hit rock bottom and stop, can end up in jail and be cut off from their supply, or can be persuaded to pursue Sobriety.

I've looked at this from an addiction standpoint for awhile, and that no longer seems sufficient.

So...Zombies?

And it seems like more of them than are otherwise are simple-ass screaming fanatics that aren't even interested in anything else. The cruelty, the stupidity and some grievance against the world, real or imagined, is the goddamned point.

I mean how the fuck does anybody look at somebody like Lauren Blowbert and think that's who they want helping to run the country?

Who the fuck looks at some Nazi ramming the White House fence and immediately thinks "False Flag!" and not "Oh, shit?"

As far as I'm concerned, if that's you, then "What the fuck is wrong with you?" doesn't even begin to cover it and I'm not particularly interested in phrasing that as a question. Fuck you, get off my lawn.

Shit, in the middle of the night last night some nut with a U-haul truck and a Nazi flag ran into the White House fence and by morning it wasn't even news.

Where does this bullshit stop?

When's enough, enough?

I think the only answer to this garbage is a complete lack of social tolerance, and a zero-tolerance policy enforced with at least the occasional visible knuckle sandwich. Embarrass people who say dumb shit in public, fire people publicly instead of taking them back in the office first. Peel the warning labels off everything, let stupidity be painful for the stupid again!

And if somebody's got some short in the wiring like a broken computer that spits out -1 or "Me, Me, Me" as the answer to every fucking thing you goddamned sure don't let them run for President. If somebody has a ravening hatred for Black people or LGBT folks or is obsessed with the genitals of transgender folk...you don't let that person run shit. You hand them a fudge-sickle and direct them to the couch so they can watch Spongebob or Televangelist sermons or whatever.

Stop giving idiots a platform!

And you goddamned sure don't give them a fucking weapon.

Let alone let them try to reshape America into some totalitarian gulag, like North Korea but with Republicans because of what amounts to lame-ass bullshit excuses.

We've got people, right here in America, who are so eager to prostrate themselves before the Hammer And Sickle and Vladimir Putin that they'd gladly sell out the United States and all of its power to a fourth-rate 18th Century shithole that's literally trying to commit genocide against people who didn't even do anything to it. 

A country so backwards that right now the Russians cannot even contain or stop some cheap ass bunch of rebels in what looks like the modern equivalent of the Bay Of Pigs in Belogrod Oblast...except that it's working, at least for the moment. Depending on who you ask, These guys appear to either have fallen back across the border in good order, claiming few casualties and having captured some Russian heavy equipment including a T-90 tank...or they're still at it, I suspect it's one element is still on the attack and the other had to fall back. Depends on how well-led the Orcs were.

Thing is, at least one of the two factions of these raiders is far-right and could well cause more problems than they solve, should they happen to win.

But nobody's thinking that far ahead.

And I'm a tell you what.

We got here by lionizing "Beliefs" and "Feelings" and letting "Conservative" White People do whatever they wanted...so long as some rich person got to take advantage of it at some point. It's like a bit over a decade ago it just became accepted that it was Republicans' societal role to just fuck shit up and so long as they didn't go over some arbitrary line somewhere, everybody just shrugs and lets these pig-fuckers do whatever the fuck they feel like.

Literally anything, other than "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

And as a result, they and their belief systems and even their topics of conversation have become utterly unrecognizable to me...me being a former one of these fucking people!

Meanwhile Zombie "Conservatism" just shuffles along through the land of confusion, moaning occasionally and eating anything that won't run away fast enough while decomposing and spreading its contagions all over, literally. And those who could put a bullet between its eyes just yawn and shrug, and keep eating Cheetos and masturbating instead of doing their civic goddamn duty.

You don't crucify the Zombie Jesus, that's not a kill. You have to shoot it in the head.

When do we stop putting up with this horseshit?

When do We, The People, pull together and say "No?"

We are the front line, and the last line of defense.

We are America, and don't you forget it.

Two

Слава Україна!

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

...

 [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.

Manifest Idiocracy (Land Of Confusion, Two.)

 [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.

I saw this earlier.

MTG said she felt "Threatened" by Democratic congressman Jamal Bowman.

She said his manner was "Aggressive."

Bitch, I've seen the shit you say about people. Talk to me and I'll fucking show you "Aggressive."

Note: I think Stonekettle was right here, to compare MTG to the bitch that got Emmett Till killed, who was by the way, subject to several grand jury investigations damn near right up to the day she died, and rightly so. 

Personally, I think MTG's whining is an attempt to get her Democratic colleague assaulted or killed.

Does that strike you as an act of any person who's even the least bit interested in civilization, much less representative democracy??

If anybody's being aggressive here, it's MTG and I say that as a white dude.

Republicans are literally trying to use laws and political power to attack the rest of us, and when that mostly fails, they will attempt to fight a civil war. Now, I don't think they'll get near enough people for that...I strongly suspect their Jihad against the young means very few people even close to military age would fight for them at this point...but they'd sure get enough for some bullshit-ass insurgency.

These people...and mind you, people like Hoebert and MTG very much do represent the Id of the Republican voter base...are literally trying to claim they're under attack, or to try and present themselves as martyrs. 

Why?

Fundamentally, because Other People Exist. Yes, that's literally their problem. Other people have the balls to exist in the same world as them and not offer themselves up to destruction or slavery. 

They're mad because the culture is changing, because the world is changing. They're upset because Black people and LGBT people and young folks for the most part aren't voting for them, don't support them and aren't content to be "The Help" or otherwise be subordinate to Republicans who, frankly, could give a shit about anybody who isn't a rich white Republican

And it seems to me like the more Republicans lose...and note Republicans recently lost a mayoral election in Colorado Springs...the more they double down infinitely on the very bullshit that's making them lose, that's making them unpopular, and that's been costing them voters for years.

I used to be a Republican. 

I got out in 2008. Conspiracy theories, Racism and Sarah Palin were all dealbreakers for me.

And I'm here to tell you that when they lose enough, these fucking people will start resorting to violence to try and get their way. 

Hell, it's already happening. It's been happening.

And speaking as a veteran here, it will almost certainly get worse.

We're fundamentally dealing with people who think the Bosnian Serbs and the Khmer Rouge and the Manifest Destiny motherfuckers who tried to exterminate Native Americans were in the right.

Hell, these sons of bitches still fly the Confederate Flag and the Swastika!

I mean, I haven't seen a T-shirt that said Pol Pot or Slobodan Milosevic did nothing wrong yet.

But these assholes are heading that way.

And some of them have been saying Adolf Hitler or Robert E. Lee were in the right for a very long time indeed. 

I brought up my thought that their "Ideal society" is basically the Killing Fields but with a Chick-Fil-A and a Mall at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and absolutely nothing I'm seeing has caused me to reconsider that thesis in the fucking least.

Especially not lately.

I fully expect these sons of bitches to break the law, do evil shit and push for others to do the same on enough of a level that it ultimately necessitates the Federalization of National Guard troops and ultimately, armed federal action.

Remember Ruby Ridge, the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco?

These motherfuckers are pushing for that kind of bullshit on a large scale...if not for an outright civil war...and that's if they don't just up and try to J6 a Republican city or state where things go against them. I can almost guarantee it'll be over some hard-right Republican who failed to be hard-right enough.

And merely being a Christian or a conservative or a Republican...or hell, even a goddamned fascist, ultimately...won't save people from the mob's appetite for blood. Denver Riggleman, who I quoted above, is a former Republican Congressman. 

He got primaried by a Liberty University Ned Flanders clone because he officiated at the wedding of two gay men. Friends of his who'd volunteered for his campaign. Years of being a loyal Republican, of conservatism, of military service, and a vehemently pro-business record (and himself owning a distillery) weren't enough. Dude had a record most Republicans couldn't dream about and they still threw him off the fantail of the SS Nixonland.

Thing I don't get is, you basically have to give up your Self and become a rabid crowd-follower. I'd say like one of those old dudes that stares at the TV like an ADHD kid when Fox News is on...but Fox News fell by the wayside a long time ago.

To make it as a Republican today you have to literally be the absolute opposite of what I was taught by Republicans to be! 

Of course, most of the people who taught me are either dead of old age or voting for the Democrats by now.

You know what the fucked up thing is?

It's not even that they think they'll win.

These assholes already think it's the End Times and they're very often certain that if things get bad enough, their murderous version of Jesus will show up and destroy their 'enemies' and "Save" them.

And whether it's Disney or the Ukrainians or just some random person on the street wearing a "Black Lives Matter" T-shirt or not voting for Republicans, these fucking people are mad as hell that the rest of the world is fighting back.

Republicans think that since they've stockpiled a bunch of guns and political power and turned corporate media into their goddamned pets, that they should just get whatever they want.

No. And, they don't understand that it's human nature to resist and that the world simply doesn't work that way. With these fucking people "Authoritarian" doesn't even begin to cover it.

And they think "Well we have X and Y, so now you have to do what we want." (Yes, a lot of these people really are that childish.)

I'd say the day will come when they even try and throw Trump under the bus, but some Ron DeSantis supporter already tried to do just that, today.

And it's because Trump didn't get them the kind of total power that they want.

And what do they want to do with that power? Honestly, they seem to want the rest of us to just die off or otherwise go away and let them play their cruel fuck fuck games in peace. And make no mistake about it...it all is a game to Republicans.

And they're Wrong.

But in order to show them that they're wrong and beat this stupidity back down to a manageable level, we're all going to have to stand together. We're all going to have to push back against evil and stand against the fall of night.

I'd say the alternative is the modern Republican version of Manifest Destiny...but that's so outdated.

The alternative is Manifest Idiocracy.

One

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Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

Lost (Land Of Confusion, One.)

I must've dreamed a thousand dreams
Been haunted by a million screams
But I can hear the marching feet
They're moving into the street
Now did you read the news today?
They say the danger's gone away
But I can see the fires still alight
They're burning into the night
There's too many men, too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go 'round
Can't you see this is a land of confusion?

This is the world we live in (oh, oh, oh)
And these are the hands we're given (oh, oh, oh)
Use them and let's start trying (oh, oh, oh)
To make it a place worth living in
Oh, Superman, where are you now
When everything's gone wrong somehow?
The men of steel, the men of power
Are losing control by the hour.

~Genesis, Land Of Confusion

I saw this last night.

Blowbert, saying "Chase after Jesus with everything you have, and I promise, your husband will chase after you."

My ex-wife used to say shit like that. This kind of attitude is why, at least when it comes to Christian women, religiosity is a huge turnoff for me. It's also pure Evangelical bullshit, nothing works like that, trust me.

Also, I heard last night that Hoebert is getting divorced now. So yeah, bitch, how's that working out??

I saw this too, in response to the nothingburger Durham Report, Tommy Tuberville supports "Getting rid of elections."

Dumb motherfucker also "supports" not staffing the Department Of Defense and the military properly because something something gazpacho, so I don't know why anybody would be surprised.

These Republican motherfuckers just straight up don't want to live in America.

Of course they have no idea what they want to replace America with...except that they want it to be someplace where Republicans rule (and apparently also live) forever and no one...including other Republicans...has any recourse against whatever they might want to do.

Hate to rain on your parade, pal, but this kind of shit historically ends with Guillotines and revolutionary committees and terrors and wars. The unaccountable ruling class is usually the first to go. Generally, it happens in escalating rounds of people losing everything from the neck up. 

And no amount of guns will protect you, because when the People get tired of your shit, that usually includes the people with most of the guns, and people stop caring if they get shot.

Republicans think they're invincible, ten feet tall and bulletproof. They think common decency, laws, hell, shame, damn near anything shouldn't apply to them. And I have no idea the fuck why. 

Motherfuckers been losing elections since the Alabama special election in 2017 and hell, even with the Press actively stanning for them last year they only gained a slight majority in the House. Things went badly enough in 2022 that most people assessed it as an overall loss for Republicans.

And they're just getting less popular as this mess goes on.

Yet they keep doubling down on exactly what's making them be not-popular, if I had to guess, because they have the same 20% or so of Americans that they always have so hopped up on all this "Own The Libs" horseshit that they'll tolerate literally anything.

And the rest of us can't really afford to wait for this mania to burn itself out, or for Republicans to beat themselves into an electoral nonentity. Yeah, the voters are the ultimate check on all this crap.

But some of the MAGA base is as bad as or worse than their politicians. 

Republicans are losing, they've lost the damned narrative, but they ain't losing fast enough.

In some places this garbage isn't going to go away until we start locking these motherfuckers up for all the illegal and unconstitutional and wrong shit they be doing, until we hold elites who break laws to account just the same as common criminals, or until the sons of bitches have all been killed in the Civil War they keep trying to start. 

It's going to go on, until We The People beat fear of the law and a sense of shame back into these fucking Republicans.

And I get it. I really do. Republicans, most especially Republican men...but also some of the women like Blowbert and MTG...can't see past or think any further ahead than the next time they get to orgasm, metaphorically or otherwise.

I was that way once too, when I was like 13 or 14.

And the funny part was even then I should've known better.

But ya know, there was this one time me and the neighbor girl got caught messing around...and not even going that far...but of course we both got in trouble. Naturally, being that age and full of myself I copped an attitude. My Grandma's response to this simply was "Well, if you ain't sorry I'm a whup you until you is. Go pick a switch."

I don't remember much else that happened the rest of that day.

Republicans not only don't believe in anything much these days, but Trump taught them that they didn't have to believe in anything that didn't feel good, or stroke the frills of their lizard-brains just right.

It's like these sons of bitches figure they can just go through life having one unending emotional orgasm now. 

Even, technically, with Trump less of a factor...now they're just applying that old 1960's "If it feels good, do it!" mentality to everything. Republicans are going right into all the McCarthyite and Randian horseshit from the past and figuring, well, it feels good to them so they'll probably get away with it...after all, Trump did, right?

And the thing is, even if they don't get away with it, it still feels real good in the moment. This is why we're stuck with unending political onanism from these idiots.

And they'd rather make the aged, the blind, the disabled, etc. work or veterans and working poor people have to get another job than have to stop this shit!

I'd say the cruelty is the point, but that seems like it's not even enough anymore, fuck you!

And that's all they really care about. These clowns have become addicted to getting high off the smell of their own shit. And like any basic addict, they don't care what they have to do to get high, or jerk off or whatever. Let alone what comes after that.

The only thing that matters is Right Now. Trust me, I know about this too. Addiction sucks.

I mean, sure, you got motherfuckers like Leonard Leo trying to set they shit up for the next thousand years...but the garden variety Republican isn't thinking any further ahead than they next dopamine hit. And, fortunately or unfortunately, that includes a lot of people in power who should goddamned well know better. In a normal country this would get them slaughtered electorally, but a quarter to a third of the voters are just as bad.

And guess what? Our entire system is predicated on the voters knowing better, if nothing else!

But too many of them don't. And they keep trying to outsource knowing anything to a category loosely described as "Other people."

But they don't like other people, so they don't want to listen when they get told things.

So naturally, these people's "beliefs" are nothing but a Land of Confusion, a flood of foolishness, a tale told by an idiot, full of much sound and fury but signifying nothing. 

It's pure nonsense, like trying to listen to these Evangelicals and Pentecostals who've replaced Christ with conspiracy theories. Like, who do you fuckers think is gonna save you, really??

The Lord's Word says that Man cannot Save Man.

But the truth is, like some shitty nihilistic teenager, they don't wanna be saved. They think it'd be "cool" to go to hell, or some shit, just to piss off their elders.

I'm old enough to remember when an attitude like that'd get a kid a pants-down spanking right in the middle of the damn store! 

Or, for an older kid, locked up and they address and picture and some notes about what they done be in the local paper...a whole damn article if you did something shitty enough. Guess what? Nobody ever said a word about it...except in some particularly egregious cases, to speculate aloud about whatever nasty stuff might happen to a serial offender when they finally ended up in jail.

Ain't right, probably, but that's the world I grew up in.

Our society used to have standards.

I have a feeling reality is going to provide something along those lines, eventually.

But do you really want to wait that long, or let things get that bad? There's a lot of us out there who ain't got that much time.

You think if the situation with the war in Ukraine, the overall situation in Europe, boils over into something worse that these selfish fuckers are going to straighten up when the Russians come after us? 

Hell No, they won't. They're too hooked on Self and Stupidity. And a non-zero percentage of the alleged far-left wants to play Republicans fuck fuck games right along with them.

Shit, they wanna make things worse right now, across the board, on any issue you can think of! It's a goddamn Death Spiral of crazy!

More to the point, our enemies are counting on them doing exactly that!

To put it, simply, into the Christian terminology I was raised with, these people are Lost.

We can't wait for them to find themselves, let alone find Jesus.

We The People need to stop putting up with this garbage, Now.

You have to be a better citizen, and yes, that's on you.

So get after it.

Last Post

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We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom Of Fear (2004)

Land Of Confusion (American Revelation XII, Ten.)

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

I saw this over the weekend.

"Are Red-Pilled Men just a feminist Psyop?"

Please, just take a moment and consider the sheer level of paranoia that this statement must require in order for it to have entered someone's mind.

And this is Prager U, the voice of the old-white-guy-that-hates-spicy-food type of conservatives.

So, they're basically deciding they don't need the MRA's, the Nazis, etc. anymore.

Or the LGBT's or POC, or women, for that matter.

Which makes me wonder if they have something up their sleeve, or if they're counting on Civil War and the Russians or some shit.

The thing that gets me is, if these motherfuckers' goal is remaking American society as a whole, they've mostly failed.

 There's too much resistance, nobody wants this shit. When all else fails, the rest of the government can tell Leonard Leo's pet federal judiciary to go fuck itself, because they're not going to enforce SHIT without the compliance of the rest of the Federal government. 

But the thing is, Republicans have remade the American Right at the Base level into a goddamn wet dream for corporate assholes, dictators and kings.

I mean, I literally don't understand it. And I rather emphatically say that as somebody that used to be a Republican voter. 

I swear these people don't WANT to be Americans. Under the aegis of "Owning The Libs" the MAGA base would clap itself in chains, if only someone promised that they would be a superior class of slave to some potential tranche of future slaves.

It's to the point where, as I remarked to somebody on Twitter this morning, Liz Cheney would have a decent shot at a political future if she switched parties. Even hard-right guys like Tea Party Joe Walsh are voting Democrat these days. The Lincoln Project motherfuckers be in the club, already...without having done much more than leave the Republican Party and run ads against it and shit. Think about that for a second.

The issue is that these Republican assclowns, in giving themselves over to assorted fascists, Trump, and the vicissitudes of the Base, have essentially jammed like 98% of America's political spectrum onto the Democratic/"Left" side, whether it's actually "Left" at all or not, leaving the fringiest fringe of the scumbag far-right in actual control of the Republican/"Right" side with invertebrates like Kevin McCarthy nominally in charge.

And if they can't complete The Work and bring in Fascism tinged with medieval Catholicism, well, they can sure obstruct everything else and create more problems they can potentially take advantage of.

And these fucking people are actively working to crowbar our political divides wider and raise up the specter of political persecution and violence in the hope of fomenting civil war, which while they're unlikely to actually win on their own strength or pull any significant amount of US forces over to their side, if they can secure the support of America's enemies like Russia and/or competitors like China they figure they can lose a civil war but still effectively win and get their own nation out of it via international/UN negotiated settlement. 

This is the basic strategy a lot of guerilla movements (Like the FLN in Algeria) used in the 1960's...but for colonialism instead of against it. 

See, these idiots, they think Civilization has a Color Bar. To them, White Conservative Man is the bringer of civilization and light and the rest of us...aren't...and are therefore fit only to be colonized

(Where people like Arabic Jews, Black Uncle Toms and gay Asian fake-media fascists figure they're going to fit in with this bullshit, I'll never understand.)

And the MAGA base is screaming "Colonize me, Daddy!"

Thing is, whatever land these motherfuckers get would be subjected to ethnic, political, religious and other cleansings in hopes of hurting the rest of the world with swarms of refugees and (as the Algerian War did) bringing down some element of the global system (as the Algerian War brought down the French Fourth Republic. Next, Whatever they end up with will be a lab for levels of autocracy, evil, and fascism that'll require new terminology to describe. 

If this succeeds, it might save Putin's dystopian authoritarian project that the Ukrainians are otherwise wrecking, but in real terms it'll just create a couple small banana republics that Russia and/or China will then have to financially support. 

And yes, they will, because the Berre Seid's and Clarence Thomas's and Donald Trumps and Leonard Leo's et al will hoover up 90% or more of said Banana Republic's tax bases leaving the population in utter poverty and politically and religiously fueled/mandated willful ignorance.

(And don't be surprised if Leo and his ilk, not to mention the reactionary elements of the American Catholic hierarchy, try and use control of actual territory to form their own Church and go fully schismatic against the Vatican, also.)

And that won't do, because the actual people driving this thing don't need the distractions...but nobody can publicly say no to the oligarchs without wrecking the whole premise of their entire movement. Russia will have to step in and finance a Potemkin Village Nation so most of what the world sees is the "Glory" of Nationalist Conservatism. A few people might get thrown out some windows, though.

So, they'll basically create a Republican version of North Korea or Russia.

Think about that for a second.

All you Republicans who were against things like minimum wage, unions, etc. Y'all have fun with that. And note, you didn't know what you were asking for the first time...but you're sure going to find out. Most likely the hard way, because you're stupid. Remember...we're all basically a couple meals or missed paychecks from Revolution as it is.

Imagine a society where even the very old or the severely disabled are faced with the choice of "Work or starve" and where compassion and decency are for suckers, dismissed as "Liberal" and you constantly get threatened with legal action.

Can you imagine what the religious doctrines preached from the pulpits in such a place would even be??

Imagine a nation run...By people like Elon Musk, with a population kept in line by a trifecta of Guns Everywhere Vigilantism, mob rule, and Tucker Carlson Sneering Smarmily through the nightly news for the few what got any free time to watch it. Such a nation must by nature have few cops or soldiers of its own. But that would at least in theory get outsourced to Russian Orcs, FSB agents and Russian paratroopers everywhere...and they're the ones really running things.

But as long as Republicans get to play their fuck fuck games and impose the latest version of Christless Christianity on somebody else, they don't care.

Imagine the spiraling effects, in the world, of such a nation. You think the post-Brexit UK is a soup sandwich? LOL. In a country where nobody believes in government...situations like that of Donald Trump (where the ruler has no concept of what's going on and neither the desire nor intelligence to do the job, but he wants to sodomize the new cabinet secretary) or Liz Truss (who simply doesn't last long enough to do much at all) would be normal.

Imagine  most people basically doing the minimum necessary to avoid being killed while those above them fight for power, wealth and the favor of Russian or Chinese Communist overlords, while avoiding getting pitched out the window they own self.

You'd basically have a nation where everybody steals, where everybody has to steal, just to survive and where the only order at all comes from the use of force, and nobody has the slightest idea who's really in charge until they get shot for doing the wrong thing.

You wanna consider the mass mental issues that might result from that?

And Republicans and their assorted Nationalist butt-buddies would call this "Righteous."

The worst part is, I absolutely know there's Republicans who'd look at that, look at the kind of lead-lined radioactive shithole such a society would rapidly become and say "Yes, Please."

For no better reason than they think it's funny, or that it might annoy liberals and moderate conservatives.

I'm sorry, but I used to be a Republican and none of this is what I was taught.

"Conservatives" these days live in a Land Of Confusion, if not outright cruel fantasy.

And the world could not long tolerate these fucking people getting the kind of country or power that they want to have, lest we all be plunged into a new Dark Age.

Make it fucking stop.

Because if we don't, maybe there ain't no "End Times" but American Revelation certainly will be at hand.

When's enough going to be enough?

Nine

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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