Posted on 03/15/2026 7:13:40 AM PDT by Starman417

Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men.
And, weak men create hard times.
G. Michael Hopf – Those Who Remain
Like most red blooded American men, I think about sex and the Roman Empire numerous times every day. In recent years, I’ve added the above quote.
As I think back, the different elements of it were probably floating around in some amorphous, uncoordinated morass in the back of my mind for years, never bothering to coalesce. No doubt the reason they didn’t is that for most of my life, America was enjoying the “Good times”.
Good doesn’t mean perfect. For the first three quarters of my life, times were far from such for America. From Vietnam to issues of race to the rusting of the manufacturing belt to economic tumult and the crime wave of the 80s & 90s, much of that period felt like Americans were living on a roller coaster. But overall, life was forward-looking and optimistic. Slowly but surely, things seemed to be moving in the right direction in the long run. Japanese imports may have turned the Big Four into the Big Three, but they helped improve quality and innovation in the industry. Computers came along and started making everything from writing term papers to coordinating shipping logistics easier and more efficient. Among other things, transportation deregulation, the collapse of Ma Bell, and the growth in franchising brought about a rise in economic standards and a spectrum of lifestyle offerings that no humans had ever imagined, never mind enjoyed.
But then we got Barack Obama. He had a goal of transforming America, and indeed, he succeeded. It was the beginning of a time when Americans stopped being able to actually debate ideas openly. Once Obama emerged on the stage, everything became about race and victimization. On virtually every issue, if someone disagreed with the administration on anything, it was racist. I’m not suggesting it was all Obama’s fault. While he is most certainly a race grifter, the reality is that the silencing of debate by calling someone a racist was enabled by Nancy Pelosi and every other Democrat in America.
But sadly, it didn’t stop there. Beginning in 2008, the Democrats – always the party of victimization, including their offspring, the KKK – perfected a tool for suppressing debate: wall-to-wall victimization.
From that point forward, Republicans were either racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, or all at once. Suddenly, the spectrum of issues for which debate could now be cut off, because Republicans were characterized as the living, breathing incarnations of Nazis, covered pretty much everything. From education to social net programs to airline safety to community policing, to the butchering of children, literally every single issue on the table was infected with the victimization / DEI cancer, where debating on the merits was no longer tolerated.
Which brings me back to the hard times. We are very much living in those hard times now. Not in the sense that Americans are destitute and the economy is a broken husk as it was during the Depression. No, the economy is doing fairly well, but make no mistake, we are careening into the abyss, which will not be pretty.
What do I mean by that? We have become a nation where logic and rationality no longer exist and where no one seems capable of or willing to do anything about it. Across the country, we have states that not only pretend boys can be girls and vice versa but are enabling schools and hospitals to butcher children without their parents’ consent or against their wishes.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
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The SAVE act forces Republicans to reveal who they really are.
Weakness has nothing to do with the SAVE Act. Democrats are strongarming their Senators who have made this a loyalty test to resist anything Trump.They know that passing this is a confession that they vadalized the electoral process in 2020 to defeat the consent of the governed who elected President Trump for a second term.
How ironic, imo, that this guy is playing the victim.
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