Nothing Left To Lose

"You young people," our beloved English teacher once scolded us, "you've cleaned up all my beautiful dirty words!"

It was true. There wasn't a part of speech we didn't drop an F-bomb in, and the word didn't hold a sting anymore. We'd rendered it harmless. Meaningless.

Something like that has happened to another F-word, too. And Freedom was a pretty good idea, worth fighting for. Our founding fathers were on the right track: freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. Freedom to peaceably assemble. All of these freedoms are rightfully enshrined in our documents. Blood was spilled for them. They represented humanity at its finest.

It was a worthy aspiration, but in a new land with so much room in it for rugged individuals to push into, the concept of freedom was destined to lose its shine. Freedom began to be equated with acquisition. Unearned ownership. Plunder. In a country unconstrained by boundaries or kings, we all became little kings. Survival still took pluck and initiative, but freedom for some meant slavery for others. Or genocide. We got some things right, and still felt free to massacre.

We didn't let freedom ring. We let it metastasize.

We let ourselves imagine that a family that runs domestic cattle over untold acreages is being deprived of liberty if we insist they account for the damage accrued to the rest of us: loss of habitat, of water, of wildlife. We let ourselves imagine our freedoms should drive other people's freedom underground: the customer unserved. The medically fragile left to die for our freedom to infectiously assemble.

It's beyond juvenile. "It's a free country!" That's what kids my age used to say whenever someone told them it was bedtime, or scolded them for sass. They didn't know what it meant to be free but they didn't care to be told what to do. At least, when I was being brought up, that retort got the attention it deserved. None.

It would all work out if there were fewer of us. Multitudes fewer. But we're densely populated all over the planet, and everything we do affects everyone else. There must be rules. Freedom cannot be unrestricted, or it results in loss of freedom. If Americans during a quarantine think their freedom is being threatened, they have already been compromised by a wealthy class that has paid dues to ensure we do not notice that they've already taken away our freedom. They've taken away our ability to organize by telling us unions deny us our "freedom to work"--to work for scraps, for no security, for no benefits. We have the freedom to accept what little they are willing to give us. Tell an American her freedoms are being stolen, and you can steal everything she has. You can leave her desperate after one month without a paycheck, and she won't even suspect there's something wrong with a system that produces so much wealth for so few while leaving so many in poverty. You can convince her someone even poorer than she is the real thief.

Get the people all riled up for some shitty little freedoms like not wearing a mask or not baking a cake, and send them to the polls, and you can pick their pockets clean.

Will we stand for that? Or will we stand together, and thrive?

The Color Of Money

Andrew Jackson is said to be one of Trump's favorite presidents. Dollars to donuts he can't name more than about ten of them altogether, and only boned up on Jackson when he learned that Obama wanted to have him replaced by Harriet Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill. Clearly this could not stand. Because Obama, number one. And number two, as Trump said upon seeing the proposed design, "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posed ta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?"

So Trump got someone to read him the Cliff's Notes on our seventh president, and he liked what he heard, and ordered his portrait hung in the Oval Office.

Even when he was running for president he weighed in on the issue, and while declaring Harriet Tubman a very fine woman, he thought she could just as easily dress up one of your lesser currencies, such as the Malawian kwacha. He said the whole idea of evicting Jackson from the twenty was a matter of pure political correctness, which is what people like him call correctness.

It is, however, a fine idea, and inspiring to many. Harriet Tubman was an exceptionally brave woman who was instrumental in establishing the Underground Railroad after she herself fled slavery. Jackson's reputation, on the other hand, has suffered a bit because he offends the delicate sensibilities of moderns who have been engaged in "rewriting" history, or stripping the propaganda out of it. And many of these people look askance at his enthusiastic embrace of slavery and his role in driving Native Americans out of their homeland on the so-called Trail of Tears so white people could take it. Slavery, extermination. Stuff like that.

Freakin' snowflakes ruin everything.

Trump, on the other hand, relates to Andrew Jackson, whom he regards, now that someone has whittled his Wikipedia entry down to 140 characters, as a populist tilting against the elites. There are resemblances. Jackson was said to be easily offended and something of a bully. He dabbled in real estate, dealing in particular with claims that had been set aside for the Cherokee and Chickasaw. He may have owned more than 300 slaves in his life and was not known for treating them well, advertising at one point that should any of them escape and be caught, he would offer "ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred." Clarifying later whilst on the stump, which was probably an actual stump, he said "Knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, okay. Just knock the hell--I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise."

There are differences. Jackson was the only president who ever retired the national debt.

At any rate, we'll have to wait to see Harriet on our money. As Secretary of the Treasury and head pirate Steve Mnuchin put it, there's no way they can redesign the twenty before about 2028. It's just too complicated to do that and also work on other Treasury priorities, such as stripping consumer protections and rolling back financial market regulations, at the same time. Simply impossible. Makes Kennedy's moon shot gambit look like a stroll in the Rose Garden. "It is my responsibility now to focus on what is the issue of counterfeiting and the security features," Mnuchin said, by which he means "Trump said there ain't gonna be a nigger on the twenty while he's still President."

Where'd all those dogs come from?

They Shoot Out The Lip

[by DonkeyHotie]

Mike Pence is upset. "Throughout most of American history, it's been pretty easy to call yourself Christian," he said. "It didn't even occur to people that you might be mocked or ridiculed for defending the teachings of the Bible." He's right about that. Shoot, you used to be able to quote the Bible in support of slaveholding and killing the savages and nobody'd even bat an eye. That's how comfortable you can be when you're completely surrounded by people just like yourself, and you can do that by subjugating and exterminating the others.

I don't know. Maybe it takes being a non-Christian to notice how thoroughly saturated this country is in Christianity, where Jesus engineers touchdowns and is called upon to approve of war and discrimination, but if you really feel under attack, so be it. It does strike me as being over-delicate, although, as a practicing liberal, I have trained myself to take other people at their word when they feel oppressed or offended.

I understand. Being ridiculed is miserable. It's not like being kicked to death for being gay, or having a bull's-eye put on you for being a Muslim  or a refugee, or having your children kidnapped at the border, or having bombs dropped on you, but it stings. It stings.

So I'm here to assure you that I don't care what fool thing you believe. You could invent a planet to retire to, or make plans to shake Jesus's hand in the sky. In fact, you could bind up the creation myths of prehistoric goatherds and the hallucinations of schizophrenics and the edicts of tyrants, drop it a few dozen times, sweep it back up in no order and staple it together and tell me it's the word of God, and I won't mock you to your face.

I'm not a Christian, which I think is still legal. But it doesn't matter to me what you believe, unless it actually affects me, or other people, or unless I think it's evil, a word you don't own, and which I still get to use. Mr. Pence, you say that many people who espouse tolerance--you mean liberals--are often the least tolerant of Christian values. Not really, Mr. Pence. We love the Jesus values. Just not the values of intolerance.

You see, Mr. Pence, anyone can call himself a Christian.

It's possible to defy Jesus's teaching in every respect and still consider yourself a good Christian. There are good Christians who build homes for the poor. There are good Christians who murder doctors. There are good Christians who collect and control wives. There are good Christians who feed the hungry. There are good Christians who stand on street corners and hand gays the bus schedule to hell. There are even good Christians who endorse bombing the crap out of Palestinians just to hasten the End Times and catch the early flight to the Rapture. Who decides who's a good Christian? As far as I can tell, you get to decide for yourself.

Good people have some things in common, but being Christian isn't one of them. Some of them are Christians and some of them are atheists. Some of them have abortions and some of them vote for socialists. Some of them have the habit of prayer and some swear like sailors. Good people's hearts tilt toward kindness; they're not quick to judge. They can imagine circumstances different from their own. They aim for peace. They build bridges and tear down walls. They are generous. They do not demonize groups; they recognize individuals. They can imagine another's suffering as their own. To the degree possible, they live without fear.

Good people strive to not hurt others. They do this by recognizing other people as essentially like themselves, and so they can imagine what the hurt is like. It's a Golden Rule thing. Give it a shot, Mr. Pence.