The Insanity of Doing Nothing
This might seem unbelievable to the people who have only read some of my recent writings on this site, but I told myself near the beginning of the year to stop putting up “downer” posts. Essentially, I wanted to stop sounding like the canary in the coal mine that people weren’t hearing. It may be hard to believe but I am generally a positive person. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt and I give respect to people until they prove they don’t deserve that sort of treatment. I even try to be non-confrontational to people I don’t like and disagree with. I have this shirt that says, “I used to be a people person, until people ruined it.” You wouldn’t believe the number of people who agree with that sentiment.
Unfortunately, this is probably going to sound like anything else I’ve been writing for the last year or so.
I started this last weekend like I do almost every one, wondering what I was going to do. I mean, I always have something I have to do, even if I don’t want to do it. However, it was memorial day’s weekend, so as I do on every memorial weekend I spent at least some time thinking of the people I know and those in my family whose service to the nation ultimately cost their lives. They didn’t have to die in combat, after all my father’s death from agent orange just took longer than my uncle who died in Vietnam, but their service both cost them their lives. I also wonder how many of the other veterans from that era that I knew growing up suffered the same fate.
In this mood I hoped the weekend would be good, and Americans would get back to their lives outside of politics. Maybe they would sit down and watch the Indy 500 or go to a show. Of course, if you’ve seen the news, that wasn’t going to be the case. On Thursday we get the first volley from one of the constant idiots of congress saying that we have a second amendment and he thinks we should use it. Sure, Matt Gaetz was talking about one of the usual whipping boys of the Trumpist conservatives, silicon valley tech firms, but he didn’t just end it there. Nope, he told the standard retcon conservatives seem to like the most about the 2nd amendment. The framers wrote it so the people could keep up an armed resistance if they needed to overthrow the government.
First, any honest historian would tell you that isn’t why we have the second amendment. The framers didn’t want a standing army, mainly because armies were often used against their own people and the cost was prohibitive to any small government. Instead they wanted the citizens to make up the bulk of all armed forces, therefore the people would need the weapons. This is why the first part of the amendment starts with, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state…” You know, the part of the amendment that conservatives ignore, on purpose.
Anyway, for anyone who didn’t quite catch it, Gaetz was saying that conservatives have an obligation to use their weapons to resist silicon valley, the government, and anyone who was going to stand in their way of their new utopia. He was giving the people the permission to kill other Americans to uphold his insanity and theirs. Oddly enough, I haven’t heard a word from any of the people in Congress who are in charge about not only reprimanding Gaetz, but removing him from the body. This guy is essentially advocating for armed and bloody revolution. If Senator Sanders or Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez had even gone half that far in something they said, Republicans all around the country would be demanding their immediate expulsion and imprisonment. But as always, anytime a Republican says something that should be disqualifying or nationally condemned, all you hear are crickets from those in charge, and constant agreement from every right-wing site that exists.
Soon after that we get the second insult to our nation from a former leader. Disgraced former general Mike Flynn spoke at a Qanon rally. You know that insane conspiracy web where everyone in power is somehow a satanic pedophile that the “virtuous” Donald Trump is going to bring down and become the savior of the world. Someone there asked this adored traitor why America couldn’t have a military coup like what happened in Myanmar. Instead of defending the republic, as his oaths to the nation once required, he said he couldn’t think of a reason why that couldn’t happen. He sat there to thunderous applause.
Of course, realizing what he said and what he was suggesting, a military overthrow of the Biden administration, he later tried to clarify that he actually said that we couldn’t have that happen here. Funny, I suppose we are supposed to not believe anything we see or hear. Isn’t that what Trump and right-wing media have been telling their devotees? Don’t believe anything anyone else says about us or your dear leader, because we are the only people telling you the truth. Never mind that this is exactly what propagandists say to the people they aim to coerce and pull into their fantasies. It seems there are always enough people in a crowd who are willing to let someone else think for them.
Soon after this we get Fox’s top white nationalist asking a conservative mayor who is complaining about non existent debit cards of $1400 dollars that all “illegal aliens” are getting as they are put up in luxury hotels, “why can’t we have a real insurrection?” I suppose the fact that brainwashed Americans drunk on seditious propaganda attacking the capitol and trying to end the government from fulfilling its duties didn’t qualify as an insurrection. Maybe that’s because not enough people died, and they weren’t successful. Nope, we need to get even more idiots in a froth. We need to make sure they are heavily armed and killing all those evil liberals who are trying to overthrow their nation.
Does anyone sense a pattern here? I know I am not the only person who has been asked by conservative friends whether I thought America was going to have a civil war or if we should take up arms against all those evil satanists. I know these people. They know I am one of those evil liberals, but they still ask me. Most of them are seriously curious what I think, and will I join them when the bloodshed starts. Every time I am forced to consider the possibility that one day I will be murdered by someone I once called friend. They know I won’t join them despite my patriotism, because I don’t believe in their delusion.
Each time someone brings this up I want to ask them, who is telling you we are heading toward civil war? I mean, I know who is doing it, and for some reason I can’t convince many of them to think for themselves and realize that the people telling you this are using you for their own ends. Do you really think that Tucker “Swanson” Carlson is going to join you on the front lines when you are facing the American military when for some reason they didn’t turn coat to your side? Is Sean Hannity going to carry the American flag held high in the front of the charge as you face the bullets of those who are upholding the law and trying to preserve the government and nation you swear you love? Is Donald Trump going to descend from heaven floating on a silver cloud and raise you from the dead to fight on after you feel the burning pain of assault weapon bullets rip through your body? You understand that these ideas are preposterous. So, why can’t you see the lies that surround you and understand that you are not living in a nation run by satanic pedophiles who are cannibalizing the bodies of the desecrated?
As terrible as all the stupidity was this weekend, it ended on an even dumber note. Donald “Der Furher” Trump said that he will be reinstated as president in August. Only an idiot could believe this, but hey, a little more than half of Republicans say they believe Trump actually won the election and was cheated out of a second glorious term. Facts don’t seem to matter. Truth is ignored. Instead we have people in power claiming that everything that Trump says is the God’s own truth, and those republicans who are unwilling to call out the “radical American terrorists” in their party are just as guilty as Matt Gaetz, Mike Flynn, and Tucker Carlson.
The blame doesn’t end there though. As long as democrats sit on their hands or refuse to hold any of these people accountable in some way (like maybe trying to convince those supposed good republicans to force these idiots out of their party and out of power), then they are just as culpable. All those talking heads who sit in their safe little newsrooms and complain about Dr. Suess, cereal boxes, or the lack of sauce for their christian chicken sandwiches are just as much to blame for the eventual bloodshed as the person you convinced had to pull the trigger.
We know where the problems and the insanities exist. We even know ways to end or mitigate these things. But, as always, we won’t see a damn thing actually done about it. Sure, we’ll hear a thousand excuses and complaints about the vitriol spewing from the mouths of fools, but it won’t really matter to any of them until someone they know dies. Nothing is as immediate as seeing or knowing someone who died. Even fear of dying isn’t as powerful as looking upon the body of a friend who died needlessly. I only wonder why we always have to get to that point in our nation before anything is ever done. Sadly, even then that is not always far enough.