It is a cliche that misery loves company, but nearly every conservative I know is a deeply unhappy person. And they won't be happy until YOU are unhappy. Even the super-wealthy conservatives I know are like this, and it mystifies me. You have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and you spend your spare time trying to make life worse for someone working two min-wage jobs?
You're wrong in thinking they're a death cult. They're actually a mass torture cult. The inevitable deaths are just a happy side-effect of the misery they want to spread far and wide.
A specific media diet can whip the Rubes into a frothy Mass of hate and outrage. It's very easy to bilk money from frothing Rubes. The money is too good for the people who engineer all this to ever dream of giving it up. Fortunately, the only true believers in this dark scenario are the Rubes that are getting fucked by the people really making bank. The people in charge of this shit show are making too much money to ever want to see it end.
Trump is horrible . Trump is a whirling dark suck hole of evil shit. He's also a fuckup whose only real talent is ripping people off. We really did dodge a bullet( a hail of semiautomatic rifle bullets. )
As I keep ranting, if the GOP response to Covid and now some of the abortion laws spewed in response to Dobbs didn't make it clear that these people are, well, if not pro-death, they're at least opposed to delaying dying from nut jobs with guns or responding responsibly to a global pandemic.
As for conservatives' ammosexual desires, a lot of it is #freedumb and 💰💰💰 from th NRA.
Too, as I also rant, a nation gets the state its elite wants or at least allows and we have what they want. We're fortunate to have some agency but, in aggregate, we've pissed away and here we are: likely to be formally a one party state within a couple of years without radical action starting now.
I get the frustration, specially the sense that the federal government doesn't much care about the nation's people. Scary! Frustrating! But progress is not normal. Never lasts; could have here but our masters voted it it. We could have pushed back but... again, here we are with likely worse coming in 2024 when the GOP regains the White House (for reasons I've noted in the past and aren't again) and has SCOTUS with its criminal majority and maybe control of Congress.
But since Mark Lungo laid a guilt trip on me so bad that even I'm getting sick of my negativity, some hope again:
All well said and sadly true. But let’s not adopt the error of thinking the Second Amendment was meant to arm citizens against their own government, if that’s what you were implying. Anyone who has worked through the odd syntax of 18th century American English can see it prohibits the Federal government from interfering with the states’ ability to raise, arm and regulate a militia, undoubtedly because back then a national standing army wasn’t a thing people wanted. Despite Scalia, it says nothing about government’s ability to pass laws restricting private gun ownership. Or swords or halberds or grenades or any other arms.
How can you say that when you can plainly see how torn up they are that Herschel Walker's baby Number Whatever wasn't even given a chance at this beautiful gift we call life?
Belief in "Limited Government" --> General distrust of all government --> Hatred of government --> Hatred of anyone who benefits from government or works in government.
And the Republican party absolutely HAD to follow this progression. Do you know how many voters you can turn out if you stay at the Belief in "Limited Government" stage? Not enough, that's for sure. Hate is the great motivator, especially when you're ideologically blocked from offering the voters anything else.
I'm workin' up a powerful hatred myself, but it's not required to vote for the candidates I vote for. I can vote for Bernie just because I'd like some health care or a $15 minimum wage or my student loans forgiven. And I actually know people like this, who don't focus their energies on hatin' Republicans because they're too busy working FOR things.
If you're a media both-sideser, "mutual hatred" is just too easy and available, because it's true. But what "mutual hatred" misses is that one party can actually do without the hate, while the other wouldn't stand a chance without it (you guess which is which).
The Party of Self-Hatred as I like to call it. I just don't have the words today. But it's been clear to me for a long time that when reason and any sense of humanity is devoid in someone regardless of their political affiliation it motivates outward aggression because of denial, the inability to confront the mirror when society reflects their own perceived shortcomings. So the Party has created a life preserver of sorts, where they can thrash about securely as a group in scary waters, united in feeling right about hating the 'others'.
Non-American here: Can't private businesses (Starbucks, supermarkets, etc.) still ban people from coming in with guns? Or are gun owners the only Americans with rights? Do people without guns have any "rights"? If I'm an American without a gun and I see one with a gun and feel threatened, can I bash his fucking skull in with my baseball bat under "stand your ground"? What if I'm just visiting the US? Does "stand your ground" apply to me? Or do non-citizens not enjoy the rights of the greatest, free-est nation in the history of the world? Can someone explain to me why anyone anywhere should continue to support a country that has clearly lapsed into general lawlessness? I'm Canadian and I love you guys and your art and your culture and your science and a bunch of other shit. But I have no plans to visit in the near future
“It’s not the money but the burning desire to fuck people over just because they can that animates them. Without that ability, what’s even the point of being hyperrich?”
“What good is money if it can’t inspire terror in your fellow man?” —Montgomery Burns
A close analysis like this brings me to the limits of my world view, or at least my vocabulary. My knee-jerk reaction to them is, "They're so stupid." and "That's stupid." and "My god, how stupid can you be?"
It's true, but it's not enough, is it? Maybe I'm hung up on the intellectual/cognitive aspect of things, whereas their death-cult self-destructiveness barely touches on that. Rather, it's emotional. They're stupid--or crude, or unreflective--emotionally. The joke during Trump was, a MAGA would burn down his own house, if it made the liberal next door cough. And that's still the case. I feel like the everyday world of intelligent discourse hasn't fully addressed the potent self-destructiveness (and seductiveness) of resentment. If you prodded a MAGA crowd into admitting that they really wouldn't care what happened to them (or their kids), as long as it made liberals unhappy, you'd get Jack Nicholson's Col. Jessup's explosion "YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT I DID."
Whew. Glad Roy's Friday essay was about psychopaths and their need for suffering and death for everyone and the planet in general. Based on last night's twitter, I was afraid it would be about Rod Dreher exploring his teen sexuality.
What if they in fact recognize the implications of their idiot gun policy? After all, it'll make cities all the more dangerous, and we know how much the right HATES cities. What could be more useful to them than more urban violence? And guns in stadiums and bars, places well known for calm, reasoned discussion of views. (Libraries? Museums? Who goes THERE, except egghead libs who think they're SO superior, someone should show THEM, by god)
"an opportunity for any number of assholes legally carrying loaded guns to kill a whole lot of people"
And it's a certainty that when those people are killed thanks to Clarence's junta, as with all mass shootings, the last thing conservatives will ever blame or even talk about is the guns they freed from all restriction.
It is a cliche that misery loves company, but nearly every conservative I know is a deeply unhappy person. And they won't be happy until YOU are unhappy. Even the super-wealthy conservatives I know are like this, and it mystifies me. You have tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and you spend your spare time trying to make life worse for someone working two min-wage jobs?
You're wrong in thinking they're a death cult. They're actually a mass torture cult. The inevitable deaths are just a happy side-effect of the misery they want to spread far and wide.
A specific media diet can whip the Rubes into a frothy Mass of hate and outrage. It's very easy to bilk money from frothing Rubes. The money is too good for the people who engineer all this to ever dream of giving it up. Fortunately, the only true believers in this dark scenario are the Rubes that are getting fucked by the people really making bank. The people in charge of this shit show are making too much money to ever want to see it end.
Trump is horrible . Trump is a whirling dark suck hole of evil shit. He's also a fuckup whose only real talent is ripping people off. We really did dodge a bullet( a hail of semiautomatic rifle bullets. )
Trigger warning; word salad ahead.
As I keep ranting, if the GOP response to Covid and now some of the abortion laws spewed in response to Dobbs didn't make it clear that these people are, well, if not pro-death, they're at least opposed to delaying dying from nut jobs with guns or responding responsibly to a global pandemic.
As for conservatives' ammosexual desires, a lot of it is #freedumb and 💰💰💰 from th NRA.
Too, as I also rant, a nation gets the state its elite wants or at least allows and we have what they want. We're fortunate to have some agency but, in aggregate, we've pissed away and here we are: likely to be formally a one party state within a couple of years without radical action starting now.
I get the frustration, specially the sense that the federal government doesn't much care about the nation's people. Scary! Frustrating! But progress is not normal. Never lasts; could have here but our masters voted it it. We could have pushed back but... again, here we are with likely worse coming in 2024 when the GOP regains the White House (for reasons I've noted in the past and aren't again) and has SCOTUS with its criminal majority and maybe control of Congress.
But since Mark Lungo laid a guilt trip on me so bad that even I'm getting sick of my negativity, some hope again:
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2022%2Fsep%2F14%2Fwe-need-to-celebrate-incremental-change
Unlike me, Solnit is always correct.
All well said and sadly true. But let’s not adopt the error of thinking the Second Amendment was meant to arm citizens against their own government, if that’s what you were implying. Anyone who has worked through the odd syntax of 18th century American English can see it prohibits the Federal government from interfering with the states’ ability to raise, arm and regulate a militia, undoubtedly because back then a national standing army wasn’t a thing people wanted. Despite Scalia, it says nothing about government’s ability to pass laws restricting private gun ownership. Or swords or halberds or grenades or any other arms.
How can you say that when you can plainly see how torn up they are that Herschel Walker's baby Number Whatever wasn't even given a chance at this beautiful gift we call life?
Belief in "Limited Government" --> General distrust of all government --> Hatred of government --> Hatred of anyone who benefits from government or works in government.
And the Republican party absolutely HAD to follow this progression. Do you know how many voters you can turn out if you stay at the Belief in "Limited Government" stage? Not enough, that's for sure. Hate is the great motivator, especially when you're ideologically blocked from offering the voters anything else.
I'm workin' up a powerful hatred myself, but it's not required to vote for the candidates I vote for. I can vote for Bernie just because I'd like some health care or a $15 minimum wage or my student loans forgiven. And I actually know people like this, who don't focus their energies on hatin' Republicans because they're too busy working FOR things.
If you're a media both-sideser, "mutual hatred" is just too easy and available, because it's true. But what "mutual hatred" misses is that one party can actually do without the hate, while the other wouldn't stand a chance without it (you guess which is which).
They want to kill me and mine, and have since 1865. If they can get people like Herschel to sign off on his own destruction so much the better.
The Party of Self-Hatred as I like to call it. I just don't have the words today. But it's been clear to me for a long time that when reason and any sense of humanity is devoid in someone regardless of their political affiliation it motivates outward aggression because of denial, the inability to confront the mirror when society reflects their own perceived shortcomings. So the Party has created a life preserver of sorts, where they can thrash about securely as a group in scary waters, united in feeling right about hating the 'others'.
Non-American here: Can't private businesses (Starbucks, supermarkets, etc.) still ban people from coming in with guns? Or are gun owners the only Americans with rights? Do people without guns have any "rights"? If I'm an American without a gun and I see one with a gun and feel threatened, can I bash his fucking skull in with my baseball bat under "stand your ground"? What if I'm just visiting the US? Does "stand your ground" apply to me? Or do non-citizens not enjoy the rights of the greatest, free-est nation in the history of the world? Can someone explain to me why anyone anywhere should continue to support a country that has clearly lapsed into general lawlessness? I'm Canadian and I love you guys and your art and your culture and your science and a bunch of other shit. But I have no plans to visit in the near future
“It’s not the money but the burning desire to fuck people over just because they can that animates them. Without that ability, what’s even the point of being hyperrich?”
“What good is money if it can’t inspire terror in your fellow man?” —Montgomery Burns
A close analysis like this brings me to the limits of my world view, or at least my vocabulary. My knee-jerk reaction to them is, "They're so stupid." and "That's stupid." and "My god, how stupid can you be?"
It's true, but it's not enough, is it? Maybe I'm hung up on the intellectual/cognitive aspect of things, whereas their death-cult self-destructiveness barely touches on that. Rather, it's emotional. They're stupid--or crude, or unreflective--emotionally. The joke during Trump was, a MAGA would burn down his own house, if it made the liberal next door cough. And that's still the case. I feel like the everyday world of intelligent discourse hasn't fully addressed the potent self-destructiveness (and seductiveness) of resentment. If you prodded a MAGA crowd into admitting that they really wouldn't care what happened to them (or their kids), as long as it made liberals unhappy, you'd get Jack Nicholson's Col. Jessup's explosion "YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT I DID."
Whew. Glad Roy's Friday essay was about psychopaths and their need for suffering and death for everyone and the planet in general. Based on last night's twitter, I was afraid it would be about Rod Dreher exploring his teen sexuality.
What if they in fact recognize the implications of their idiot gun policy? After all, it'll make cities all the more dangerous, and we know how much the right HATES cities. What could be more useful to them than more urban violence? And guns in stadiums and bars, places well known for calm, reasoned discussion of views. (Libraries? Museums? Who goes THERE, except egghead libs who think they're SO superior, someone should show THEM, by god)
"an opportunity for any number of assholes legally carrying loaded guns to kill a whole lot of people"
And it's a certainty that when those people are killed thanks to Clarence's junta, as with all mass shootings, the last thing conservatives will ever blame or even talk about is the guns they freed from all restriction.
Roy be splashin poetry all over the joint:
"Or take abortion.
We normally talk about that as
Conservatives’ pitch to the rampant misogyny
Of their followers who thirst to see
Women deprived of their agency
And returned to the status of chattel.
And that’s certainly true!"
It gets no better than this. Maybe just as good as – the boy has it in him – but not better.
2 marks.