The whole left-right, red-blue, all-or-nothing nonsense rots the brains of those who embrace it. If you actually look at the percentages, so-called “red states” don’t actually have many more “red” voters than “blue states” do. The idea of monolithic “red” or “blue” states is a fiction promoted by nitwits with childlike views of the world who long for easy, clear “white hat-black hat” narratives that simply don’t apply to mass politics. I grew up in a so-called “red state”, lived for a while in an even “redder” one, and for ten years now have lived in a “blue state”. And the balance of political commentary I heard from neighbors, casual conversation in public, etc hasn’t changed much over my lifetime. What has changed is the amount of power given to dangerous, psychopathic crackpots, and the erosion of citizens’ protections from said crackpots. This has been a bipartisan project all along; even the Constitutional crisis which started 24 years ago last month and finally came to a boil in January, was a contest between the GOP and Dems to see who could erode more civil liberties and scream “FOR THE CHIIIIIIIIIILDREN!!!” the loudest. In the end, the GOP turned out to be the party that broke and completely succumbed to populist-flavored fascism, but that’s because it has long cultivated a more rigid belief-system which broke when the winds of change blew hard enough. The Dems cultivated a more flexible catechism which did not snap in those winds, but instead has become so warped and weakened it isn’t good for anything. Trumpism is the immediate danger, and needs our focus. But don’t fall for lies that Democrats are noble saviors, else ending trumpery will be no more than leaping from one boiling pot to another.
Posts Tagged ‘left-right myth’
One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State
Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged ethics, fascism, left-right myth, Louisiana, Oklahoma, politicians, Washington (state) on October 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Cowboy Logic
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged abortion, cell phones, censorship, consensual crime, Eavesdropping, fascism, Florida, I Spy, left-right myth, libraries, nanny state, Panopticon, politicians, propaganda, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, surveillance, teachers, Texas, The Last Shall Be First, Thou Shalt Not, Thought Control, transgender, universal criminality, Universally Criminal updates, Welcome to the Future on October 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »
There’s usually some kind of boogeyman…that justifies the building of a very extreme…policing apparatus. – Matthew Guariglia
It’s not unusual these days for a news item to fall into more than one category, so I have to figure out which is best; in such cases I typically link recent examples of the other applicable categories, or at least include them among the tags. But sometimes the article does such a good job of analyzing the connections between the various categories, I feel it’s better to simply call my readers’ attention to the article and urge y’all to read it in its entirety. This Reason article from a week ago today is a good example:
…On issues such as library books, abortion, gender, and even food, the culture war is now feeding the police state. This phenomenon started in the states, and none have pursued it with more intensity than Florida and Texas, where governors and legislatures have competed to show that they’re fighting the hardest against what they call “woke”…[but] now…using criminal law, mass surveillance, [snitch] lines, and the threat of police violence to wage the culture war…is [becoming]…a danger to every American who wants to live, work, and travel without being monitored and menaced by the state…
…the…Trump…[regime]’s campaign against universities on such issues as anti-Israel protests, transgender athletes, and critical race theory were all preceded by Florida, wh[ich]…PEN America…[has] dubbed…the “blueprint state” for the White House’s run of education-related executive orders…The sheer number of bills churned out over the past few years by Florida and Texas is notable, especially in light of how petty the targets can be—drag queens, librarians, whoever might be using a certain bathroom stall…Also notable [is] those laws’ dismal track record in court. Federal judges, even those appointed by Trump…have repeatedly struck down culture-war bills…represent[ing] a boundless paternalism…indistinguishable from the…identitarian politics that [proponents of such laws claim to oppose, such as bans on]…cultivated meat…[one] Texas [politician ludicrously defended as]…”plain cowboy logic“…in the bizarre, zero-sum logic of politicians like DeSantis and [Nebraska Governor Jim] Pillen, the freedom to eat bacon harvested from a pig that was alive and sensate before it was slaughtered is contingent on consumers never being given a choice to try an alternative…
…What makes the creation of new criminal statutes especially worrisome is law enforcement’s sweeping power to search and investigate targets…[via] vast, nationwide databases of personal information…facial recognition, cellphone surveillance, license plate tracking, sophisticated social media monitoring, and more…the huge surveillance architecture and data-sharing networks being created now won’t go back in the box when the current…[regime] is over, nor will they consider whether their targets used to have the right kind of politics…
There’s much, much more, bridging tags including Eavesdropping, Guinea Pigs, I Spy, The Last Shall Be First, Panopticon, Pyrrhic Victory, Thou Shalt Not, Thought Control, Universal Criminality, The Vultures Descend, Welcome to the Future, and many others. So go read it!
The Ascension of Throwback Thursday
Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged blogging, censorship, ethics, left-right myth, libraries, politicians, psychology on October 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »
October is more than just my native month; it is my native country, and the time in which I have always been most at peace and (paradoxically for a time associated with haunts, dying vegetation and the dying year) felt most alive. – “The October Country”
An authoritarian government enacted by election is much worse than one produced by a coup, because while the latter can have little credible pretense of legitimacy, the former can represent itself as fully legitimate and claim the “right” to do whatever awfulness it wants because “the majority wills it”. –
“The Veneer of Legitimacy”
It is not the job of libraries to enforce parental censorship choices; that is the job of parents. – “Garden of the Muses“
Tweet Street
Posted in Miscellaneous, Music, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged advertising, artificial stupidity, Bluesky, Catholicism, consensual crime, cops, crypto-moralism, drugs, ethics, Europe, Facebook, fantasy, Google, imaginative fiction, internet, language, left-right myth, Mad Libs, politicians, propaganda, psychology, racism, robots, scams, STEM, teachers, The Puritan Recrudescence, Twitter, universal criminality, vaccines, Venezuela, Washington DC on September 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Sorry, partisans: both vaccines and french fries are good.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-12T16:41:51.013Z
A Maggie story that will surprise no one:When I was about 16 politicians imposed a curfew on minors in our parish (county). I had never been especially interested in going out late until then, but after the curfew was imposed I started going on 3 AM walks every Sunday just to flout it.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-14T17:50:46.184Z
A word crying out for more widespread usage.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T07:50:27.486Z
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-17T17:22:30.905Z
Someone whose name isn't Maggie McNeill FINALLY had the intellectual courage to use the word that best describes Trump. http://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-18T16:51:49.659Z
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-20T03:52:04.139Z
What kind of servile bootlickery is Google pushing?In a liberal republic, "those in positions of authority" should get the LEAST respect and the MOST derogatory language. Lèse-majesté is for autocracies.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-21T03:25:32.476Z
You have to admit it's funny (in a short of frustrating way) when career politicians try to engage with Trump's deranged mouth farts as though they were statements by a rational person. It's like watching them argue with barnyard fowl.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-21T18:40:32.072Z
Europe has been shaped by crusades against reality for quite a few centuries now.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-23T17:57:13.545Z
Protip: it's better to set your apocalyptic "predictions" far enough in the future that you won't still be alive when the passage of time proves you to be an idiot.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-24T03:05:09.833Z
Martin is apparently laboring under the misapprehension that he is a train.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-25T07:37:24.002Z
"Don't give money to strangers you meet on the goddamned internet."Done.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-26T07:29:49.402Z
Yes, decaying things often change noticeably on a daily basis. reason.com/2025/08/27/t…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-28T16:48:42.823Z
1) "Father Justin" is the name of a program, not a person.2) There is no such thing as "AI"; programs cannot think.3) In Catholic doctrine a program has no soul & cannot be ordained to the priesthood.4) Chatbots function by word association; their action is more like shitting than "suggesting".
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-29T17:09:20.519Z
I find it difficult to believe that this thing is an actual human being rather than a plastic mannequin animated by the Nestenes or some other parasitic alien species.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-30T03:35:04.593Z
One important but unappreciated sign of America's decline is that these audiences are contented with merely booing people their grandparents and great-grandparents would've pelted with rotting vegetables.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-08-30T17:22:38.679Z
The most outlandish thing I would do is to have a miniature railroad installed on my property, so I could ride around in my very own choo-choo. Everything else I'd buy is pretty sensible.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-01T03:57:52.756Z
The only positive thing this monster has accomplished is dealing the death-blow to Americans' idolization of his family.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-01T16:52:48.744Z
The mad emperor now claims anyone may justify wanton violence by pointing at the intended victim & barfing the words "drug boat". I'm sure digitally-altered audio will soon be produced in which the lunatic who shot that 11-year-old prankster will be clearly heard to say "drug boat!" before firing.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T18:01:32.308Z
Read this as, "I'm praying every day for God to deliver us from the scourge of cancer and send us a bountiful harvest.""AI" is a cult.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-04T17:41:19.853Z
People ask why I don't have ads on my blog.Yes, they'd bring in money. But I couldn't live with myself if I enabled this kind of shit.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-05T07:22:26.399Z
ALL bending of the knee is symbolic kneeling. That is the exact, specific meaning of the gesture: "I should be kneeling to you, but our practical circumstances require me to keep moving so I'll just acknowledge my subservience and then move on."
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-06T17:36:40.009Z
There is no "debate".Politicians want to control X.Sensible people explain why that's a bad idea.Politicians invent propaganda justifying their control.Critical mass of useful idiots believe politicians.Politicians gain control of X.Decades of damage, waste, and other consequences follow.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-07T17:16:34.136Z
You misspelled "Master".
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-08T17:31:11.121Z
It's almost like a lot of people don't know the difference between static load and dynamic load, nor really grasp what the phrase "potential energy" actually means.Physics is hard.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-09T07:25:29.051Z
Not REMOTELY panicked enough. When he retreats into his Führerbunker and won't come out, I'll say he's NEARLY panicked enough.When he cries like a baby on the way up the scaffold steps, THEN he'll be panicked enough.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-10T07:46:49.657Z
Private ownership of something may possibly result in it being controlled at some point by someone you dislike and oppose.Government ownership of that thing makes that a certainty.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-11T17:36:19.407Z
Teacher reply: "Politicians and bureaucrats are not role models."
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-12T17:25:04.514Z
My rule is to treat everyone with respect (like a person) up until the moment they start barking "orders" at me as though I were a dog. To behave as a cog in an authoritarian machine is to voluntarily surrender one's humanity to that machine, releasing me from the obligation to pretend otherwise.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-13T17:25:40.274Z
At this point, I'm glad as long as it ENDS. Stroke, assassination, committed as a lunatic, impeachment, war crimes tribunal, eaten by rats, being picked up by aliens, riding into Heaven in a flaming chariot, I don't care. He's the fucking Marvin K. Mooney of Washington.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-14T07:30:10.016Z
Zuckerberg's living on the other side of the looking glass. Here's what actual scientists on OUR side of the glass have to say: maggiemcneill.com/2025/09/06/i…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-15T17:17:24.605Z
This proposal met with general applause, until an old mouse got up and said: “That is all very well, but who is to bell the Cat?”
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-16T17:29:33.849Z
No mortal is worthy of worship. For one man or woman to worship another degrades the worshiper and deludes the one who is worshiped.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-09-17T18:17:31.017Z
Modern Throwback Thursday
Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged blogging, cops, dirty, ethics, I Spy, If Men Were Angels, law, left-right myth, LGBT rights, pragmatism, psychology, sex work is work, surveillance, yellow journalism on September 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Picket-fence queers…are beginning to notice that deliberately ignoring sex workers after they reached the Big Table…wasn’t such a good idea.
– “Under the Table”
Sex work…allows me to live my life with the minimum amount of interruption and distraction from what I actually want to do. – “The Best Option”
Some [“news”] articles are so vague they wouldn’t even be newsworthy were the accused anyone more credible than a cop or preacher. – “If Men Were Angels (#1373)”
Because laws pretended to control cops never include criminal penalties for violators, cops simply ignore them as they please without any consequences. – “I Spy (#1472)“
Burying the Past
Posted in Current Events, History, Perception, Tyranny, tagged censorship, Enshittification, Frequently Told Lies, left-right myth, Moving Pictures, politicians, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, rescue industry, The Implosion Begins, Walled Garden, Washington DC, yellow journalism on September 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »
As I’ve written before, dark ages are defined by the unreliability of their records; if records are sporadic, contradictory, or questionable, historians cannot be sure what really happened in the period (hence “dark”). One of the major factors in the dark age we’re entering now is computer-generated imagery and text spewed out at a rate that will soon rival or surpass actual information from this era, but another is 1984-esque rewriting of history by political regimes and their servant media. The Trump regime is actively engaged in this practice, but even its opponents are attempting to sow confusion in service to their agenda, especially to mask their part in bringing the regime to power.
Case in point, this recent tweet attacking a Trump talking point, which quotes a Washington Post story whose headline intentionally attempts to mislead readers about the point’s origin. “300,000 missing children” is indeed a “ginned-up figure”, but it isn’t from “the 2024 campaign”. It’s from a shitty sociology paper from 2001 which was distorted and quoted endlessly by politicians and media, including the Post, for two decades to justify attacks on sex workers. The entire US political establishment from Bush II to Obama to Trump to Biden was happy to use these imaginary “300,000 children” as cudgels to attack female independence, young people’s autonomy, and immigration; to justify swollen police budgets and increased surveillance and censorship; and as an all-purpose excuse for state violence on every level from the municipal to the international. For 14 years, all any cop or politician had to do was vomit the phrase “sex trafficking”, accompanied by disgusting wanking fantasies, onto the upturned, open-mouthed faces of the moronic masses in order to get them to allow themselves to be violated and oppressed even further. Both “sides” of the kindergarten “political spectrum” participated equally in this evil fantasy, until it began to mutate into “QAnon” and Trumpists won control of it. Then and ONLY then did “progressives” and Democrats suddenly start calling this toxic narrative that they themselves built half of, a “right-wing conspiracy theory“. And now they’re trying to fight a monster of their own creation, a monster which has spawned the ICE atrocities you now see and the swelling tide of internet censorship. If you ever retweeted a stupid meme about 13-year-olds, donated to a “rescue” organization, watched panicmongering shows and movies about brave heroes “rescuing” vegetable-like “victims” from mustache-twirling “pimps”, or otherwise supported the panic, you are partly responsible for Trumpism. Look at the pogroms against migrants, the demolition of the internet, the wreckage of the US scientific and medical establishment, and the warmongering and rampant insanity spewing forth from Washington daily, and think to yourself, “And I helped!” Good job, America!
Fracchia vs Throwback Thursday
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged abortion, artificial stupidity, blogging, cops, Enshittification, ethics, Google, language, lawheads, left-right myth, Life Imitates Artifice, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, psychology, rape on August 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »
It’s probably difficult for people under 40 to imagine the frustration of being unable to complete a multi-part story due to the conclusion being unavailable.
– “Missing Parts”
A corpse is no less dead if the hail of bullets in his back were fired “on duty”, and a woman or child no less traumatized if told that their rape was actually a “search” or “investigation”.
– “Off-Duty”
I suspect that the reason the “forced sex trafficking abortions” myth didn’t become more popular is that, despite the considerable overlap between anti-whore and anti-abortion activism, abortion rights constitute a sacred cow among the “progressives” who did much of the heavy lifting promoting the moral panic.
– “Life Imitates Artifice (#1366)”
The concept of “consent” seems foreign to the company whose slogan was once “Don’t be evil”. – “Enshittification“
In the News (#1557)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged advertising, Blunt Instrument, Broken Record, censorship, child "protective" services, China, Enshittification, Facebook, fascism, Georgia, homosexuality, hysteria, I Spy, illegal aliens, internet, left-right myth, porn, prohibitionist myths, racism, Rotting Fruit, See How Well It Works?, Signs, surveillance, The Implosion Begins, Thought Control, TikTok, violence vs. sex workers, Wisconsin, Without Let or Hindrance on July 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Technologies funded to police sex work now monitor everyone.
– Kate Zen & Chanelle Gallant
A [scam outfit belatedly set up to profit from hysteria over “]sex trafficking[” tried to drum up “gypsy whore” panic over] the NFL Draft in Green Bay[, Wisconsin]…HER Alliance, formerly known as Awaken…says they didn’t see a large uptick [of “victims”] during the draft thanks to [their propaganda about “]the signs of trafficking[“]…
Everyone victimized by “child protection” agencies needs to sue:
A Georgia couple whose children were [abducted by the state] for two years following a [malicious accusation] of child abuse have filed a lawsuit…in 2023…Matt and Tuckey Hernandez took their youngest daughter, 3-month-old Emma, to the doctor after noticing some swelling on one of her legs…X-rays found that Emma’s leg and ribs were fractured in several places…[pediatrician] Stephen Messner…[immediate]ly diagnosed Emma with “non-accidental trauma”…[despite] no evidence of abuse on the couple’s 3-year-old…Messner never reviewed any of Baby Emma’s…medical history…the state [immediately abducted both]…daughters…placed the[m]…in a series of foster homes…[and] charged [the parents] with child abuse…DFCS…refus[ed] to place the girls with relatives or family friends…Emma had very low vitamin D, which…had caused her to develop neonatal rickets, weakening her bones…Genetic testing also indicated that Emma had defects in her collagen genes, possibly causing conditions associated with fractures in infants. But these [facts] were…ignored by the DFCS, which continued to attempt to sever Matt and Tuckey’s parental rights [to sell] the girls…[to] another family…Last month, Matt and Tuckey were acquitted of all charges, and their daughters were finally returned to them…
The first interesting development in this whole affair since ever:
…QAnon didn’t start in a vacuum; it followed two decades of mainstream media and politicians…using the flimsiest evidence and most distorted data to falsely claim that America was in the midst of a sex trafficking epidemic. And then along came Jeffrey Epstein…[whose] well-documented crimes involving teenage girls, and his roster of rich and powerful friends, could be read by motivated audiences as backing up QAnon claims…Trump…[and his henchmen] began to actively encourage the idea that Epstein’s client list was being deliberately withheld by Democrats with something to hide…But…now, Trump is telling people to forget about Jeffrey Epstein entirely…so…the whole “release the files” business seems slightly less preposterous now that Trump and his lackeys seem desperate to draw attention away from them…The theoretical files were useful as a tool to raise suspicion about Trump’s opponents. But the actual files…could be a liability or an embarrassment…in that they don’t actually prove anything nefarious about any Democrats…As a political tool, the Epstein files are much more useful if they remain hidden…
Western countries have criminalized fiction the government dislikes for years:
Pingping Anan Yongfu…is among at least eight [writers] in recent months wh[o] have shared accounts on Chinese social media platform Weibo of being arrested for publishing gay erotic fiction…At least 30 writers, nearly all of them women in their 20s, have been arrested…since February…some are still [locked] in c[ages, and]…many more…[including some readers,] were summoned for [interrogation]…Haitang Literature City, a Taiwan-hosted platform known for its “danmei”, the genre of so-called boys’ love and erotic fiction…has cultivated a fiercely devoted following, especially among young Chinese women. These authors are being accused of breaking China’s pornography law for “producing and distributing obscene material”. Writers who earn a profit could be jailed for more than 10 years…Although authors of heterosexual erotica have been jailed in China…Gay erotica…seems to bother authorities more…
…the [CGI] slop endgame, for social media companies, is creating a hyper personalized feed full of highly specific [fiction] about anything one could possibly imagine. Because [CGI] slop is so easy to make and because social media algorithms are so personalized, this means that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube can feed you anything they…want…Case in point: Facebook…slop…shows [LSU] football coach Brian Kelly assisting in the Texas floods…[on] a Facebook page called LSU Gridiron Glory…[which] is [also] churning out slop that includes Brian Kelly…reacti[ng] to last month’s tragic Air India crash…getting his lost wallet returned to him, donating to the homeless…in the hospital with a rare illness…being deported by Trump, talking to Apple CEO Tim Cook, and…secretly “paying off the debt owed by a struggling gardener”…fans of the NBC show The Voice…[are being fed] slop of judge Blake Shelton saving dogs in the Texas flood…carrying a girl out of a medical clinic…donating to an animal rescue shelter, etc…many of these bizarre images link out to [LLM]-generated “news” websites…overloaded with ads…
“Sex trafficking” hysteria laid the groundwork for Trump’s anti-migrant pogroms:
Since January…raids on massage parlors have intensified, targeting immigrant women suspected of sex work…[yet] these workers — among ICE’s most systematically targeted — are largely excluded from community defense…On June 11, ICE and local police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, raided nine massage parlors, d[isappear]ing 10 Chinese women…into ICE’s sprawling detention system…yet not a single organization called for their release…nearly 1,000 arrests in Queens, New York, targeted immigrant sex workers and street vendors. In Arizona, over 200 arrests were made. In Texas, 11 parlors were closed in February and May under emergency powers that bypass criminal charges…In other labor sectors, worksite raids sparked massive outpourings of solidarity and creative resistance..but sex workers are left to fend for themselves…the…immigrant rights movement calibrates its messaging to appeal to moderate respectability — complying with lines drawn between the “deserving” and the disposable…To some, the…[current anti-migrant pogrom]s appear unprecedented. But for those organizing with sex workers, they’re all too familiar. For years, ICE has used migrant sex workers as testing grounds for its most aggressive tactics…
Wave bye-bye to the last remaining shreds of your privacy:
…ICE…is now using data from the Insurance Services Office’s ClaimSearch, a private industry service for detecting car and health insurance fraud…ClaimSearch includes 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills—along with the personal data attached to them, including addresses, tax identification numbers, and license plates. ClaimSearch…[openly admits]…that it grants full access to [any cop shop or spook house which wants it, yet]…Verisk, the company that runs ClaimSearch, [l]ied [by claiming]…ICE…is [somehow an exception, probably because]…ICE has access…through another government agency…[given that] the Trump [regime issued] an [illegal diktat] to tear down “information silos” between federal agencies, and…Palantir…has a contract with ICE to…target [human beings for abduction]…
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Tweet to the Beat
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Music, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged advertising, animals, BDSM, blogging, Bluesky, bogus studies, censorship, comics, consensual crime, cops, disease, drugs, Florida, Grace, hysteria, illegal aliens, imaginative fiction, infidelity, internet, Japan, language, left-right myth, libraries, politicians, Post-Christianity, prisons, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, psychology, sex work is work, Twitter, vaccines, Vietnam, Washington (state) on July 18, 2025| 1 Comment »
The world was beautiful for eons before there were self-aware eyes to appreciate it, and it will still be beautiful for eons after we are all gone. And there are countless other beautiful worlds which have never been seen, and never WILL be seen, by thinking beings.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-14T17:08:13.335Z
Intentionally conflating normal people whose lives are ruined by persecution with shameless politicians returned to prominence by a machine is a choice. A stupid or evil choice, but a choice nonetheless.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-16T17:10:38.247Z
It came from the same place as the "300,000 trafficked children being raped 100 times a day" came from: the Justification for State Violence factory.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-19T15:25:32.902Z
"Vice offenses" is a government dysphemism for "poor people enjoying the same adult pastimes as politicians".
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-20T17:31:41.920Z
If the HPV vaccine had been available 20 years earlier, my beloved Grace might still be alive.Get vaccinated, while you still can.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-21T17:38:43.497Z
If you had written a satire in the 1980s or '90s where the president of the US wears a freaking BALL CAP everywhere, even in serious situations like giving formal speeches or planning goddamned WAR, critics would've said it was unrealistic.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T07:50:44.028Z
Actual LOL.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-23T07:57:01.365Z
PROTIP: If you can't use a word without feeling a psychological compulsion to misspell it by replacing one of its letters with "x", find a different word.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-24T16:51:07.852Z
Now if only we can get the US to abolish summary execution for misdemeanors.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-25T17:45:45.761Z
I'm not one to kink shame, but have these people no discretion? I mean really. bsky.app/profile/meid…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-26T08:12:44.396Z
Your regular reminder that websites outside the US can ignore US law, and the only way the US can stop them is by playing an endless game of whack-a-mole.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-27T18:27:08.695Z
I've decided the proper term for ICE thugs who hide their faces & leap out of vans to abduct people is "goons". I use the venerable term "spooks" to describe most G-men, but as one born during the '60s spy craze I can't help feeling it implies a degree of cleverness completely lacking in ICE goons.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-28T18:34:21.499Z
At this point, his being made into a martyr is probably less damaging in the long run.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-29T16:53:32.222Z
I'm not one to kink shame, but maybe you should keep this between you and your dominatrix.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-06-30T03:19:42.645Z
His approval rating is still MUCH too high. We need to see "Mussolini's funeral" approval ratings for him and his whole gang.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-01T02:40:20.242Z
Look at the bright side; the next two or three generations will have new cartoon villains to use in fiction, so they won't have to reach all the way back to the historical German Nazis whom absolutely none of them are old enough to remember as anything BUT cartoon villains.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-02T17:59:01.208Z
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4-G…
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-03T07:57:38.253Z
No. Both used their votes to help THEMSELVES politically. The difference lies not in their motive, but in their interpretation of what kind of vote will improve their political fortunes.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-04T17:52:24.728Z
Actually, YOU don't choose which entity you're praying to; the content of your prayers does that automatically.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-05T17:16:41.634Z
Yes, that's the point.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T03:52:48.861Z
I like to think Grace was there in spirit, jamming along on a ghostly bass; Ozzy was probably her favorite musician.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-07T17:51:16.476Z
Trump declares that whales can fly.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T17:36:38.666Z
THIS. Reporters need to STOP using Trump's second-grade names for everything. STOP calling legislation that will result in millions forced into poverty and a metastasized police state as "beautiful". STOP using cutesy nicknames for concentration camps. Just fucking STOP.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-09T18:21:48.165Z
The most realistic part of this joke is Trump not knowing that $1000 bills were discontinued in 1969 and banks are required to send any they get to the Treasury to be destroyed.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-10T04:21:57.746Z
Reporters: are y'all ready to use the word "megalomania" yet?
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-11T07:44:20.516Z
"What we need is not a non-volatile storage medium which is impossible to change once created, allowing dependable preservation of their contents, but rather centralized digital media which can be surreptitiously changed by 'authorities' at will, possibly without people noticing."
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-12T17:08:42.978Z
It always astonishes me to see people making the equivalent argument to, "air travel, including both freight and passenger, should be a government monopoly, because billionaires."It *shouldn't* astonish me because people really are that stupid. But that's the last little pest in Pandora's box.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-13T17:27:32.516Z
Watching Trump name things has given me a new respect for the names Eternian villains choose for themselves.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-14T18:34:26.533Z
This looks like liquid fabric softener.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-15T08:15:13.976Z
The way I've explained it friends who don't live here is: "Seattle people drive on the highway as though it were a surface street; on surface streets as though they were parking lots; and in parking lots as though they were at a square dance and the caller has left the room."
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-16T08:22:47.910Z
Guys, I keep telling y'all that seeing escorts is less expensive in the long run.
— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2025-07-17T19:08:26.779Z
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