It was getting too sickeningly sweet with all the kudos for Robert and pleas that we all "just get along". Fuck that. There are some folks here I find utterly reprehensible lately no matter how accommodating and humorous they can be in Off-Topic or how instructive they can be on Space Science.

I'm sure Stalin and Joe McCarthy had their own special brand of humor and wonderfully intellectual conversations with their close friends and family and there were people that loved them dearly. However, you don't judge a person by some tiny aspect of their actions but by their behavior when the going gets tough and they're faced with ethical choices of how to deal with their fellow human beings.

In that test, the times when the ship is sinking and there's not enough seats on the lifeboat, is when we find out who they really are and I think these past few months have clearly shown who would be forcing themselves to the front of the line and pushing the women and children out of the way.

We have people in this country that could be standing in bread lines and dying in our gutters in the upcoming years, many of which are not welfare abusers and have worked their hearts out over their years and yet these cretins want to blame their woes on labor unions and environmentalists. There are folks who will be forced to choose to allow a treatable illness fester until it requires a trip to an emergency room because they can't afford health insurance or they've been turned down for a pre-existing condition and these bastards on here can't see the necessity for a single-payer universal health system because it of course portends to this looming communistic takeover. This is despite clear evidence that countries often prosper and remain democratic with those plans.

And then the lies Lindy. They're not just little white lies either. They're big fat juicy distortions that cause people to die, be discriminated against, and have their honor shamed.

There will never be a part of my life again where I allow these inhuman freaks to prosper in my presence. I don't care anymore if that makes some of the kum-ba-yah crowd uncomfortable. We got to see what indifference, turning the other cheek, and just going along with the status quo got us. It didn't fucking work. I see this as a mirror of the times prior to our Revolutionary War. The very bright and brave people that went against conventional wisdom and spit in the face of unrestrained power gave us this amazing blueprint on how to face these ideological bullies. I'd love to see a Thomas Paine on an internet blog these days. You think I'm tough with Tom? He'd drink his milkshake.

Art