An idea for flag burners

 

Twenty-some years ago, I wrote a couple of stories about how stupid it was to try to ban flag burning.  At the time, there were people trying to make an Amendment to ban it, but after some time the issue kind of died away because anyone with half-a-braincell knows there are 8,000 other, more important problems facing America.  That’s how things stood until Dipshit signed an Executive Order. 

I figured I should dig those stories out and post them, and that’s what I did with “Star-Spangled Ploy.” But the other story, I read through it for the first time in over a decade, and realized it had some problems.  Basically, it was written with only the most basic legal knowledge gleaned from TV and movies.  Reading through it now, I was like, “The judge wouldn’t allow that,” and, “Oh, all of that would be revealed in discovery.” So instead of trying to rewrite the story to be more realistic, I figured I’d just post the idea.  If you do try this, just know, THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE.

The story was about a guy who burns a “flag” on the steps of the Supreme Court and is arrested.  But at his trial, he produces two pieces of evidence.  The first is a receipt from a custom flags company for two, not real American flags with fourteen stripes and fifty-one stars.  The second piece of evidence is one of these “flags.” The point being that the state could not prove that the item he burned was an actual American flag and not one of these fake “flags.”

I’m sure a real lawyer could find holes in this approach, so again, THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE.

***

Image from Pixabay.

Small acts of resistance

A couple months ago, I found an interesting message at work.  Since then, I’ve been trying to think of other, small acts of resistance anyone could do.  We’d like to think that a few big acts will turn everything around, but it doesn’t work that way.  It will take a few big acts, untold thousands of medium acts, and millions of small acts. 

Big acts are things like organizing multistate protests, or running for office to replace a Trump supporter with someone who actually cares for America, or building a secret entrance so you can hide a family in your attic.  Not many people can do those things. 

Medium acts would be organizing local protests, or making YouTube videos documenting the crimes of ICE, or giving money to worthy groups and candidates.  While there are more people who can do such things, it’s still out of reach for many.

So here are some of the simple, small acts of resistance I’ve thought of.  The first is to find some YouTube video showing the crimes of ICE.  Make a QR code for this video, print it out and tape it to the ice machines most convenience stores have. 

I recently discovered that one of the local news stations has polls on their website.  It’s not every day, more of if there’s a big news story they’ll put up a poll about it.  Living in a deep red part of the state, it’s depressing to see like 50% thought Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize, but also 90% want the Epstein Files released.  And while my logical and realistic vote won’t change things, I do think it’s important to show the magats that not everyone agrees with them.

If you have a pen and a dollar bill, you can make a speech bubble of George Washington saying, “No Kings!” Or you can leave a message, such as Leviticus 19:34.  If someone who gets that bill is curious they’ll look it up to find, “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

Start a garden, or start buying from a local farmers market, especially if you normally buy from a store that spends millions to bribe politicians.  The added benefit is it’s also better for the environment.  If you don’t have a yard, or even a balcony, maybe just get one of those herb things you can have on the counter. 

And my final idea for a small act of resistance is to just be a good person living as happy a life as you can.  Crank your favorite song, repost that silly cat video, or stop kinda flirting with that person and just ask them out.  The war to turn America around will take many, many years, and the hardest thing to maintain during long wars is morale.  Do what you can to keep yours up.

Where does Trump rank in terms of America’s enemies?

Anyone with more than a few brain cells knows that Trump has caused considerable harm to America.  I was thinking about this the other day, and I wondered where he stood in terms of damage done by our historical enemies.

With his botched handling of Covid, I’d say it’s certain Trump killed more Americans than al-Qaeda.  But he probably hasn’t killed as many as Nazi Germany or the Empire of Japan did.  Yet. 

I have no idea how many – adjusted for inflation – billions of dollars’ worth of ships and aircraft and other equipment our WWII enemies destroyed, or how that compares to the billions of dollars America has lost from his idiotic tariffs and other failed economic ideas.  Of course, all those ships and whatnot were already built and paid for, whereas who knows how much money we’ll lose as people around the world stop buying American.  How many small businesses will go under, and how many millions will lose their jobs. 

While Trump hasn’t killed as many Americans as some of our bigger historical enemies – yet – I’d say the material damage he’s caused is probably comparable to them.  But the one thing he excels at is the damage he has done to America itself.  Hitler or bin Laden could only dream of hurting America as much as Trump has.  If America falls, it won’t be because of a Nazi (classic Nazi, that is) or a suicide bomber, but some dumbass loser playing a King. 

So I’d say that Trump is the worst enemy America has ever faced.  In which case, we need to ask ourselves, What am I doing to defeat Trump and all his minions?

What I hope happens to Musk and Trump

To try to post more blogs, I made a schedule I try to keep to.  Like, on the first Tuesday of the month I try to post a “Whatever I want to talk about” blog.  When I saw that the first Tuesday of April was on the first, I wondered if I should do a themed post.  But our country is currently being destroyed by fools, so I wasn’t in the mood.  But it did lead me to this post.

In the last few months, I’ve written a few stories about Musk and Trump.  (I even made a page that lists all of them.)  A few of them are actually about one or the other being assassinated.  Given how things are going, in a few months they will probably be grounds for me being sent to a gulag.  I was thinking I should do a post about why I don’t want either of those assholes assassinated, just to make my position clear.  And figured this was as good a day as any to post it.

What I hope happens to Musk

I do not want Musk to be assassinated.  Ideally, he should be investigated and if – as is a near certainty – he’s committed any crimes, he should be tried.  And if convicted – as he probably would be in a fair trial – he should rot in prison.  But since that is unlikely, my hope is that whichever of his kids is stuck with him, just puts him in a rundown retirement home.  Hopefully, most of the staff are black, and his neighbor incessantly talks about their favorite granddaughter, who used to be their favorite grandson.

What I hope happens to Trump

Trump belongs in prison.  Period.  The fact that he isn’t, let alone that he is destroying the country from the Oval Office is an utter failure of our justice system.  The only way to repair the system would be to remove him and all his cult assholes from the government, hold the Mar-a-Largo Trials (like the Nuremberg Trials) and throw most of them in prison.  But since that is unlikely ….

Ten years ago, if you had asked me if assassinations should play any part in a functioning democracy, I would have said, “Absolutely not!” But I think it was 2018, or 2019, when I caught myself thinking that, “Assassinations shouldn’t play any part in a functioning democracy, but I’m starting to see the appeal.” Just to be clear, I am not planning the assassination of anyone, let alone Trump.  I also have no knowledge of any assassination plans.  I don’t want to know of any assassination plans.

But the system has failed.  Repeatedly and horribly.  Which raises the question, do we need to go outside the system?  I don’t want Trump assassinated, but I feel that is his likely fate.  If he is assassinated, I’d say there’s a one-third chance it’s by someone on the left for a multitude of reasons.  There’s probably another one-third chance it’s by someone on the right whose kid was needlessly killed in some pointless, bullshit invasion of Panama, or Greenland, or wherever.  And there’s a one-third chance he’s assassinated by the dark powers tired of putting up with his shit.  And then Vance – who they can handle better – can blame transgender, immigrant, Tesla-haters or whoever so they can forge their Crap World Order. 

The only real negative of Trump being assassinated is the damage his cult will do to avenge their Dear Martyred Leader.  Picture sports hooligans when their team loses the big game times a thousand because it would be across the country instead of limited to one city.  It’s possible they might actually do more damage than a living Trump would. 

The fact that his actions have made me more concerned about what his cult would do if he was assassinated than the horror of a politician being assassinated, is one of the reasons I absolutely hate Trump.  When he dies – however – I will not shed a tear.  But I will not cheer, because I fear it will just be the start of a new battle to save America.

Voter Registration Drive Book Sale!

The other day I saw something about the deadline to register to vote for some special elections is like, next week.  I don’t live anywhere these special elections are happening, so I haven’t paid much attention to them.  But every election is important, especially now.  If you want to vote, you need to be registered.  And who knows what new hoops will be added to the registration process in the coming years.  So if you are an American citizen over eighteen, now’s the time to register.  The information to do so should be on your state’s website, but you can also check out Vote411.  And if you’re already registered, these sites should also let you check your voter status, because while voter lists need to be updated as people move or die, some go overboard.  Any “mistake” found now can be fixed long before the next election, making the election run smoother.

To draw a bit of attention to this, and to give some slight encouragement to register, I’m running a book sale from Monday February 24th, through Friday February 28th.  For that week, four of my ebooks will be free to download on Kindle.  I think it is against the law for someone to offer you something to register to vote, but it’s not like I’m offering you a million dollars to vote.  And it’s only four ebooks from an unknown author just to register.  If I was rich and famous, I’d be doing other things to pull democracy from the jaws of authoritarianism. 

If you’re not an American, you can still grab my ebooks.  I just ask you to participate in your government however you can.  Since America is no longer the leader of the free world, someone else will need to step up.

***

Political Pies

Everybody complains about politics, but does anyone do anything about it? My attempt to do something about it is to collect forty of my short stories with a political element into my Political Pies anthology. The stories are either politically neutral or equally condemning of the national parties. Instead of trying to sway you to one ideology or another, my goal is to just get people thinking about politics in the hopes a rose might grow out of all the political manure.

Useless Cogs

Useless Cogs is a collection of forty, of my science fiction stories. They range from only a few dozen words to a few thousand and are filled with time travelers, AIs, clones, aliens, even sexbots, although not often as you would imagine. As example, there’s a time traveler that’s always a step behind, an AI that’s late on rent, and a sexbot with bad software. Some of the stories are humorous, some horrifying, and some … depend on your point of view.

The Only Certainty

On The Day, for reasons unknown, people began changing. They went to sleep as their old selves and woke in their beds in different bodies: bodies that had belonged to other people. And each time they fall asleep, they wake in a new body. Set months later, “The Only Certainty” follows Derrick Gorton on an average day in this new world as he deals with food shortages, the semi-collapse of society, and how to finish his latest novel.

The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars

Over the last few years a lot of people have caught Mars fever. It seems a week doesn’t go by without a report of some new group wanting to send people to Mars, or some big name in the industry talking about why we have to go to Mars, or articles talking about the glorious future humanity will have on Mars. All of this worries me. In my opinion, a Mars base is currently not sustainable because there’s no way for it to make money. A few missions may fly doing extraordinary science, but if it’s then cancelled for cost the whole Mars Project may just be seen as an expensive stunt.

Fortunately, there are other places in the solar system besides Mars. While bases on the moon and amongst the asteroids won’t be as inspirational as one on Mars, they will have opportunities for businesses to make goods and services as well as profits, meaning less chance of them being outright cancelled. This will make life better on Earth and secure a firm foothold in space for humanity. The essays in The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars allow me to describe my ideas on what can be accomplished on the moon and with the asteroids, and why Mars isn’t the destiny of humanity its cheerleaders make it out to be. 

When they went …

 Inspired by “First they came …”

When they went …

When they went after the foreigners, I joined them, because I hate foreigners.

When they went after the gays, I joined them because the gays were destroying America … somehow.

When they went after trans people, I didn’t really know what they were, but my people hated them, so I hated them too.

And when they went after what I am, I was surprised to see how quickly my people started hating me.

***

I don’t remember what depressing news story inspired this.  I liked it, but felt it needed more, so it got lost in my computer for a year or two.  About a week after the election, I was trying to think what I could do and I remembered this.  So I dug it out, and while I still think it’s a bit clunky, it still works.  Unfortunately, this is more relevant now than two years ago.

And just to be clear, this isn’t personal.  It was to be from the POV of someone who had bought into all the hate, only to learn it would eventually – some would say deservingly – bite them in the ass. 

Small acts of resistance

As a white, fourthish generation, heterosexual cismale, I know that I’m not at the top of the list of people the magats will go after.  But I do live in a very red part of the state.  As an introvert who isn’t a fan of confrontation, I do my best to keep my thoughts, especially political ones, to myself.  I have coworkers and family who voted for that treasonous shit weasel who, since I never say anything, probably assume I did as well.  Some will say I should cut those people out of my life, but I’m not that strong.

Anyway, I was physically ill the day after the election and had basically given up.  The coming shitocalypse will probably be so great that nothing I did could stop it.  I felt like that for a day or so, but as the disgust faded, it was replaced with a cold fury.  I will not let the fucking fascists win.  While that would make for a nice bumper sticker – that I wouldn’t feel safe enough to put on my car – it didn’t change the fact I’m still an introvert who doesn’t deal well with people.  What could I do? 

My plan is to write stories.  A few months ago, I had decided that I would put aside other writing stuff and spend 2025 finishing a fantasy book that I’ve been working on, off and on, for a decade or so.  That was the plan.  The plan now, is to hopefully spend half the time on that, and the other half on other short stories.  These short stories would be one part showing a better world where people have the basic freedom to be different, and one part being good for morale for those of us fighting for such a world.  I mean, even in the darkest days of WWII, I’m sure there was some French Resistance member cracking jokes to make the other members laugh.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, an unknown writer writing stories few people will ever read doesn’t seem like much.  And I realized that most of us fighting on the side of light feel like we can never do enough.  Our small acts of resistance won’t save the world.  But we have to remember we are not alone.  There are millions of real patriots out there who truly want to make America better, and every small act of resistance, from helping someone in need to just living a good life, it all builds and adds up. 

So, what small acts of resistance are you doing?