We Hold These Truths to be Self Evident

I get it, Christian morality has a dilemma: you can’t seem to change your stances on moral issues because if you do, then you’re accused of relative morality. And if you don’t, then you’re accused of being irrelevant to any moral conversation because an all-knowing, omniscient God knows the future and should know that, for example, slavery would eventually be considered immoral in most circumstances.

But, I’m old enough to remember when American Christians:

• Led the calls for gun control after Columbine
• Believed fathering multiple children out of wedlock with multiple women, as well as being a known adulterer, was disqualifying for high office
• Were the main opposition to gambling,
• Believed one of their main activities as an organization was helping the poor

So it’s absolutely ludicrous to claim that their morals aren’t flexible and don’t change. Admittedly, they’ve always hated anything LGBT, but if they can change in their stance on gun control, and whatever else, then there’s no reason they can’t change their morals as it comes to basically anything.

But religion is about control and power. And there are no limits when your only goal is power, not morality. As an atheist, my morals do change based on information, like with slavery. We realize in the modern world that slavery is wrong, but the Bible was written before society came to that conclusion, and so must contort itself by saying things like “Christianity is what allowed people to find slavery unacceptable”, an incredibly weak argument that glosses over the hundreds of verses which detail how to be a good slaveowner.

Things have changed. And only one of us is willing to admit it. So can you really trust them?

Watching conservatives is like watching drug addicts. As more and more conservative “influencers” and “news stations” come out as being paid by Russia, you start to realize what is really happening–the conservatives are addicted to “conservative news”, a thing which does not exist. But now that Fox News is so dominant in red areas in the US, and they’ve been shoveling this down their throats for years, the people don’t want the truth anymore.

Anytime a conservative tries to tell their constituents something that is true but that they don’t like, they boo. Example one: There’s no invasion at the southern border. “What do you mean the border crisis is invented? No it’s not!” Then they fall into cognitive dissonance. Example two: Women who aren’t “sluts” still need comprehensive reproductive care, and you are killing women if you support this. “If they don’t want to get pregnant, don’t have sex!!”

And it’s completely obvious they’re brainwashed, because between Biden announcing his withdrawal and Kamala being chosen as the nominee, the man on the street interviews have gone terribly. Because the right hasn’t coalesced around an attack angle, the only thing they see when asked why they don’t support Kamala is that they don’t like her laugh, the exact thing that is filling the vacuum on the airwaves of Fox.

And they’re confused now, because racist and sexist attacks won’t work, and every criticism that Biden received now applies to Trump and only Trump. And his latest appearances show that he is completely unfit and unprepared to be the leader of the free world, as his word salad continues to get more tossed. And he is showing something that Republicans have been showing for years…the fact that they won’t answer a question.

The reason they don’t answer questions any more is because the answers refer policies that are widely unpopular. And rather than embracing that underdog status they just waffle and obfuscate and try to avoid accountability. When asked what the government can do to lower the number of mass shootings, especially in schools, JD Vance called for better security but then metaphorically threw his hands in the air and said that mass shootings are “a fact of life“. Uh no they are not. Just ask the other countries that have gun ownership but no school shootings, or very few.

But this is their policy: more guns and easier access to guns instead of reasonable gun control. Therefore, according to them, we can’t save those kids. The evil is too strong I guess. And when shootings are so often caused by easy access to high-powered war weapons (the Georgia shooting involved a 14-year-old whose father had given him an AR-style weapon for Christmas and who also had previously praised the Parkland shooting), this position is of course, widely unpopular. And why they don’t want to talk about their positions on almost anything, because they are awful.

But they don’t dare tell their voters that.

An indictment was handed down today against two Russians, backed by the Russian government and state media, who were funding a rightwing propaganda machine (and who knows how many others) in the US. They were paying Tim Pool and other lowlifes $100k per video episode to upload Russian propaganda to their YouTube and other social media platforms. The indictment apparently claims it was “unwitting” but I don’t know how dumb you have to be to not know, especially as noted in the indictment that they said the money came from “the Russians.” But this is no surprise, my question is how much of rightwing media and politicians are actually not compromised? Many elected officials have been saying the exact same things that these traitors have been, especially the further into the MAGA underworld you go.

But as despicable as these shills are, the whole movement is a danger because of the things I talked about earlier this year, and it’s proving to be true. When politics becomes your religion, and your fellow citizens become the enemy, people become more and more desperate to have those beliefs reinforced, especially in the face of evidence to the contrary. So they become easier and easier to manipulate simply by repeating their talking points. And whether it’s greed or genuine belief, the outcome is the same…selling out Americans to further Russia’s interests, all while claiming to be patriots.

In Georgia, school has barely started and already there is a school shooting with “AR-style weapon” that killed four and injured many more. I put this right at the feet of MAGA and the right wing, because before the “tea party” and later “MAGA”, school shootings or any major gun violence spurred changes in laws. But after the Sandy Hook shooting, the right sold their soul to politics, essentially saying that mass shooters have a right to the most deadly weapons available and that the 2nd amendment curtails our ability to limit them or who owns them.

To me, this decision was a clear change–saying essentially that no matter what happens, conservatives and right-wingers cannot be influenced or changed or made to feel guilt or shame. And when asked what they would do to help solve the problem, it’s either completely unserious or dystopian.

On the unserious side they say that mass shootings are caused by “mental health”, of course with no explanation. But is mental health then funded or even addressed? No, because it’s just as unserious as “thoughts and prayers.”

On the dystopian side, you have “active shooter drills”, arming the teachers, and bulletproof backpacks. Really. Not make it more difficult for shooters, but more expensive for regular students.

I’ll be happy when this election is over so that either a) MAGA loses the election and then starts on a slow decline taking what’s left of Republicans with them or b) they take over the country, never to let free and fair elections decide our leaders again.

I’m just hoping that I get my friends and family back who I’ve lost to MAGA. Although it will be hard to ever take them seriously in the future.

I’m committed to truth, no matter where it is or comes from. That means I can’t simply ignore outlets like Fox because of their bias; I need to occasionally check in to see what’s going on over there.

But watching Sean Hannity is totally bizarre. It’s like you tuned into a TV show and there is no plot rewind and you just have to figure out what everyone is referring to to figure out why the next thing they say is supposed to make sense. They just throw off terms like “communist” and “radical leftist” and lead with something like that, even though them being true requires that you watched earlier when they asserted that without evidence. Once something is asserted and repeated, it is truth.

Like the “after-birth abortions” thing. Everyone just says it like it’s true but I’ve never seen one person, let alone a Democrat, who has ever said they were fighting for what is otherwise called “child murder”.

And when you later see these things repeated verbatim on social media, your immediate reaction is to refute their points, but that is a useless exercise. Now the first thing I think is, “What planet are they on?”

Whenever they complain about “homeless in San Francisco” or how San Francisco is a hellhole, they never say what they would do other than at best some authoritarian “crackdown” that just moves the problem to a different place. The rightwing solution to what they deem to be the biggest problem in America, immigration from the south, is currently mass deportment and internment camps. Not cutting off the incentives, which might actually solve the problems, like actually enforcing labor laws that prevent immigrants from “takin er jerbs.”

I just find it exhausting that they have no desire to find out the truth, but want to be lied to. When someone tells them a truth they don’t like at one of their rallies, they boo.

You can’t lead the world if you’re not living in the world that everyone else is in. You can’t lead the world if you need to be lied to. And you certainly can’t solve any problems if you can’t even figure out what the problem is.

Which are why there are only insane “solutions” coming from the right.

The governor of Texas has pardoned a man who was tried and convicted of murder. That in itself is not that unusual, as things happen and the pardoning process can sometimes rectify these situations. But no, that’s not what happened. It appears that Gov. Abbot has pardoned him because he killed the right people. He was convicted of killing a BLM protestor in Austin, Texas. The measure he is sending is clear: “If you kill the right people, we will not hold you responsible for those killings.” This is something that if you told Americans even ten years ago, they wouldn’t believe, but now is a reality. And soon they will start suggesting capital punishment to women and their care providers who will not act as brood mares for the state.

The future looks dystopic if you venture into the South.

And of course, it won’t be enough to please the American hard right. Already, the comments are “too little, too late”, but that is rich considering there was a bipartisan immigration bill before Congress that extreme MAGA rejected, and Biden is forced to do this because of their recalcitrance.

It’s frankly amazing how much Biden has done to appease the right, essentially everything they asked for that is not culture-war based. He lowered gas prices. He increased American energy independence so that now the US is a net energy exporter. He signed a huge “roads and bridges” infrastructure bill that was rejected by every R in Congress (who still are going home to their districts and claiming credit for it). He has brought down inflation. He helped us recover from a disastrous COVID response from the last president. He brought the troops home from Afghanistan at great political cost.

Those are all so-called conservative talking points! And mind you, the last administration did NONE of those things. And yet, right wingers still seem to be unhappy, while their candidate just got convicted on 34 felony counts and was proven in court to be an adulterer and a liar. A person that can now not legally travel to 37 other countries because of that. And on top of all that, the conservatives are now attacking law & order itself, because that system is holding one of their liars to account. What a precarious time to be an American. Let’s hope there are enough rational people out there who can see the world beyond their little bubble and prevent the collapse of America that would surely happen if any R gets elected President. Especially this one.

Do you never, ever want an increase to the minimum wage, for any reason? Vote GOP.

Do you want women to be forced to give birth to dead fetuses and the babies from incest and rape, nationwide? Vote GOP.

Do you want to have female contraception made illegal? (Don’t worry guys, condoms and Viagra will never be made illegal.) Vote GOP.

Do you want family reproductive decisions to be decided by elected officials in your state capital as opposed to between the family and their doctor? Vote GOP.

Do you want to have the voting and constitutional rights of you and your fellow citizens further eroded? Vote GOP.

Do you want to give up the chore of choosing and just let someone else tell you what to do for the rest of your life? Vote GOP.

Do you want all levels of government to be corrupt and criminal? Vote GOP.

Do you want the government to continue wasting time passing completely worthless bills while doing nothing to help everyday Americans? Vote GOP.

Do you want the government to completely ignore major issues, like the housing, opioid, and climate crises, while doing everything in their power to distract from these issues with culture-war stuff that very few people actually care about? Vote GOP.

Do you want your elected government officials to lie about almost everything there is to lie about while at the same time gaslighting you? Vote GOP.

Do you want your politicians to completely ignore what you want and do what they want anyway, like when Ohio’s citizens legalized weed, but their elected officials have been slow-walking it ever since? Vote GOP.

Do you want state-sponsored religion Christianity American Protestantism shoved down your throat in every public aspect of society, from school to government, without any consideration for other religions or atheists? Vote GOP.

Do you want your government to not only ignore, downplay, and politicize the gun violence epidemic, but actively introduce policies that make it worse? Vote GOP.

Do you want the divorce / child marriage / domestic violence laws changed so that they again go back to protecting only the men? Vote GOP.

Do you want your elected officials to interfere in the choices you make about who you become romantic with, i.e., do you want the government in your bedroom? Vote GOP.

Do you want public education to continue to be attacked, setting our kids further and further back from the rest of the world, rendering them unable to function in the real world? Vote GOP.

Do you want to continue to be forced to go into a lifetime of debt in order to pay simple medical bills for you and your family? Vote GOP.

Would you like people to die simply because they are denied coverage by an insurance company or simply don’t have the money for treatment? Vote GOP.

Do you want your political leaders to talk all the time about immigration, but when bipartisan Republican legislation appears to address the issues, they reject it? Vote GOP.

Do you want your representatives to shout “FREEDOM” all the time while simultaneously limiting your reproductive, financial, and entertainment choices? Vote GOP.

Do you want to end “wokeness,” at the expense of all of the above, regardless of the consequences? Vote GOP. But, you’ll first need to define what “wokeness” is for you, and after you’ve done that, ask your representatives if their version of “wokeness” aligns with yours. Because “woke” is a very vague word and concept, and it means different things to different people. So if your main motivation to vote is to “end wokeness” without seeing what type of “woke” your representatives want to end, you may be surprised when their definition of “woke” includes you.

This time, I’m not going to talk about how a state just passed an unconstitutional law that requires placing the 10 commandments in every classroom. Rather than talk about all the problems with this, including that they must now also display the 7 Rubricks of Baphomet or whatever, let’s talk about the good things that could come out of this.

First, God explicitly mentions the existence of other Gods, and only asks that you worship him more than the others. I think a good question a child might ask is “Why is God mentioning other Gods? What Gods is he talking about?” Five of the ten commandments are just about how to worship this particular God. Don’t do what the other Gods ask you to do, do what I ask you to do, it seems to be saying.

Next, how about teaching a seven year old what adultery is? “Mommy, what is adultery and is that why Daddy doesn’t live with us?” A conversation I’m sure parents can’t wait to have as early as possible. And then explain to them why it’s wrong but people still seem to do it all the time. And then ask why is that the church seems to go after LGBT much harder than adulterers, especially since LGBT isn’t even mentioned anywhere in the commandments.

Of course, you can’t forget about the explicit approval of slavery or that a world could even exist that didn’t include slaves. “Daddy, why does it talk about having slaves but we don’t have slaves anymore?”

I know the parents will love to talk about the fifth commandment, “honor they father and mother”, and of course the kill, steal, and lie ones will also be popular, the “thou shalt not covet” one will be hard to explain, since that word is completely unused in modern language and I would guess it might even be difficult to explain to a kid what that means.

I do recall it being the first place that I read the word “ass” as a child though, growing up, and I’m pretty sure I asked what that word meant when I was a kid. If only I would be so lucky as the translation that was used in the classrooms had both “manservant” and “ass” in it.

Watching what the left and right in America are boycotting has been very illuminating.

On the right, they recently boycotted a company because they made a small promotion featuring a trans person. That’s it. They boycotted them merely for acknowledging their existence and influence. No one was killed, injured, or even harmed.

On the left, the boycotts have been coming from two main directions: The most recent one, to force companies to stop supporting a genocide with their actions and the other one is to fight against companies using their monopolistic power to raise prices and shrink sizes of products while wages continue to stagnate, and then suggesting outrageous solutions to keep the profits in those companies rising forever, like when the CEO of Kellogg’s suggested that people eat cereal for dinner.

See any differences? It appears to me that the people who boycott over a culture war issue don’t realize how incredibly privileged they are that they don’t even think about the genocide that is happening while at the same time saying that a trans person existing is the end of the world. Imagine these two protests side-by-side: on one, they are complaining that a company hired a trans person. On the other, they’re complaining that companies are supporting a genocide and using vulture capital schemes to continually feed a never-ending, always-hungry, capitalistic monster at the expense of hardworking Americans.

A stark difference if you ask me.