Random Thoughts (Political Edition)


It's going to be the midterms so get used to hearing it
Sadly, not surprising. The courts are busted, too. For all the conservative whining about judges ruling from the bench, the 5th Circuit absolutely does just that, except it's on the right-wing side, so the right-wing partisan hacks don't complain. Hypocrites. The willingness to toss judicial precedent out the window and ignore the fact that a) this isn't a damn theocracy and b) you should (in theory) bring scientific, provable, areligious evidence into court basically flushes every principle this country was founded down the toilet.

This stupid law hurts *anyone* with a uterus, regardless of their beliefs. It tells us we're not valid. We're not fully human in the eyes of this state's trash government, and not fully capable of making our own damn decisions regarding our bodies, which in some cases involve life-or-death issues I never, ever want to be faced with. The government has no right to butt into what should be a private decision between a person and their doctor.

If you believe it's wrong, convince people of that. Evangelize your religion as much as you want—you're free to do so under the First Amendment—but you cannot legislate your religion in such a way that it forces adherence to it upon everyone else here, especially in a way that will, without a doubt, kill pregnant folks in tough situations. Are you super-conservatively religious? Well, it's between you and your own principles to decide what to do in a tough pregnancy. The state should not intervene.

I'm fortunate enough to be able to get out if the absolute worst-case scenario happens and I need to access such services, but my gosh, so many people aren't in this state. This will kill people. This stupid bounty-hunter-based legislation flies in the face of the rule of law and screw it, I'm done. If Texas' precedent is allowed to stand with this, it's a free-for-all. It's dangerous. It could be the absolute breakdown when it comes to law, order and rights in this stupid, busted country. Any other state could say "screw it, let the people sue each other and we'll reward them if they're successful" to anything their state government doesn't like that day, and precedent could allow it to stand. This is absurd.

If there is no respect for the right to basic bodily autonomy, and no respect for **anyone** born with a uterus (good grief, don't get me started on the pointless picking on trans kids when THEY SHOULD BE FIXING THE STUPID ELECTRICAL GRID SO PEOPLE DON'T FREEZE TO DEATH NEXT TIME, either), then why live here? Honest question. People made this valid economic point—that far-right legislation will thwart the ability of businesses to hire the best possible employees and thwart other major companies or events from doing business here—to deaf ears in the hearing about trans kids being able to participate in sports, and of course, the state lege ignored the overwhelming opposition to ram it through.

The state government doesn't even care what we think. They don't care about Texans who aren't like them, and especially don't care about anyone's right to determine what to do with themselves, with their own bodies, with their own families or any of it. The pandemic made that especially clear. They don't care if we die, if we kill ourselves, if we get sick, if we suffer, if we lose our families or friends, or if we simply move the hell out to somewhere run by actual freaking adults. They don't care about businesses here, they don't care about major events, and they don't care about the continued ability of this state to thrive. All they seem to care about is power and maintaining it for themselves, full stop.

I don't have any faith in our country's ability to turn this around, even though I'd like to be pleasantly surprised. The proposed Texas district maps take gerrymandering out anyone who might skew even centrist on an international scale even further. There's a proposed district in the Austin area that puts the original "Gerrymander" cartoon lizard district to shame. Our area isn't allowed its own representation. They flat-out hate us because most of the city doesn't vote like they want us to, which is stupid. We're Texans, too, allegedly.

Will the national government do anything about it? Nope! They've thrown us to the wolves with the abortion rules, they've neutered the civil rights legislation that would have prevented the obvious redistricting along racial lines that's going on in some districts, and consequently, I've lost all faith in even the national government to keep this state's stupidity in check. What laws? What precedent? The entire system and the basic rule of law keeps getting flushed down the toilet.

I know @DanRoM has noted this based on previous rants, but at this point, I just want out. If this abortion thing goes to the Supreme Court, it's probably done. They have so many partisan hacks who also don't care about precedent or science that the whole right to determine what happens to your own damn body is toast. Again—to be clear—this is never a situation I plan to be in or expect to be in, but also, there are no exceptions for rape, the 6-week period is before most people know they're even pregnant, there are already rumblings about restricting access to morning-after pills and at the very core of this, this is a government overreach and I simply want the basic respect that I know what I'm doing with myself—my own body—is fine, period, end of conversation because no one but me and a trustworthy medical professional should be in on that.

Congress can't and won't do diddly squat to say, hey, you should have the basic right to do what you need as a person. I mean, we're to the point where we're concerned that they'll let the entire economy fall apart based on partisan lines. Do you really expect them to DO anything at all? No—I have zero faith left here, and I don't have any faith that people will replace the folks who hum-haw or reject the idea that women know best on matters that affect them, either.

There's part of me that wants to stay and fight for things to be better, but I'm exhausted just like a bunch of others fleeing or avoiding this stupid state. Do the gerrymandered majority of districts want to flush this state down the terlet? Well, don't drag me down with it. There's a point where the so-called "values" of this broken place don't match up with mine in the slightest in even a tolerable way, and other places have the most basic things like healthcare *that doesn't bankrupt you if you have health issues* already figured out. Hell, I'm playing catchup on a lot of health appointments after a couple years of unemployment sans-decent-insurance and it's a serious financial burden. That shouldn't be a thing! Actual first-world countries have this figured out already. Hell, even we figured out how to extend the COVID vax to everyone free of charge. Why isn't everything at least manageable? My family shouldn't have struggled when I was a kid after Dad had a quad-bypass, either. This whole idea that you have no basic right to be healthy or functional in a country where the means to keep you well exists is trash, especially when things happen like the healthiest, runs-every-day friend I knew suddenly passed away from a previously unknown health issue. We allegedly have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right? Let's treat it like that, or I'm out.

(Wow, that turned into a rant. Either way, there's a Gwar song about this.)
 
Last edited:
I realize I'm writing this from the comfortable European armchair, looking over the Atlantic to the US... anyway.

With this Texan anti-abortion law, it's not even the fact that this law is fundamentally wrong with regards to its content (an unborn baby is basically a parasite growing inside the mother's body, and nobody has any right to deny her getting rid of that).
It's the blatant disregard for how laws and law enforcement should work, and the obvious goal of circumventing any procedural and constitutional safeguards against an unjust and unconstitutional law. If the constitutional courts allow this "law" to stand, not only will this throw back women's rights in Texas quite a few decades, it'll become the blueprint for basically any new law anywhere in the US, no matter how outrageously unconstitutional.
In a sense, this stunt the Texas legislative is pulling here makes me worry more about the US than the previous president did.

At this point I can only recommend to any female Texan to move to another state - or country. The misogyny displayed there should be grounds for political asylum... (not really, as other US states are not quite as mad :p , but you get my point).
 
Yeeeeah, there's a lot of worse-off folks in line for asylum, many of whom look here for somewhere substantially more sane than where they're leaving. To be fair, they are!

But my goodness, the current breakdown in the rule of law going on with the Texas abortion law is absurd. The previous president is still a threat, spreading lies about how he won (he didn't), how the election wasn't fair (it was), and basically fanning the flames of misinformation to further destabilize this democracy, but yeah—it's all bad. It's all garbage that delegitimizes the structures that keep this country functional.
 
the current breakdown in the rule of law going on with the Texas abortion law is absurd
Not absurd, it's their design. There is an absurd argument against this law that "the democrats could make painful laws too". Nope, won't happen. What will happen is Republicans are going to make more of these laws in other states and against everything they find objectionable. This is no longer a Trump thing. He definitely is contributory but I think this is beyond him the entire Republican party is just this now. Chipping away at abortion rights, chipping away at womens rights, chipping away at freedom and democracy for their own desires and power. How do I know? I listen to them. They want to punish those who go to a different church, drive a different car, fuck a different way, they have said so! BELIEVE THEM!
 
 
 
"To avoid an average 10-day delay at California ports due to a 23-30% increase in volume, spend either 3 weeks (to go around South America) or 1 week + $450,000 (to go through the Panama Canal) to come to Florida, where your warehouses aren't, and where 10% increases in volume cause 2-week backlog delays."
 
And Karen brought her own blutfahne from the failed coup of our leader who will reign for a thousand years God bless.

hahaha
 
I want to see video proof, or a certificate of authenticity. lol
 
That sounds very much like a case we had in Germany during the election campaign.

In that case, a “hacker” (i.e. someone who knew a bit more about software than your average citizen) discovered a flaw in an app that the Christian Democrats were using to collect information. Result: personal information including voting preferences was accessible without a password. The party and the Federal Cybersecurity Agency were alerted and given time to react, which the party did in the most CDU-like way imaginable: they offered to bribe the “hacker”, a.k.a. a consultancy position with an NDA. After she refused, they decided to press charges even though she had not actually done anything illegal.

We can only hope that computer literacy will improve when the next generation of politicians takes over.
 
Last edited:
They should really get Barron Trump on the case, since he's so good with all the cyber.
 
Top