MG XI

responses to posted comments also: here (MG X); here (MG IX); here (MG VIII); here (MG VII); here (MG VI); here (MG V); here (MG IV); here (MG III); here (MG II); and here (MG) ~

<<nota bene: some of my responses may not appear to some viewers via Safari (web browser); use an alternate web browser to view ALL of MY RESPONSES>>

Mille Grazie (XI)

from 2026:

selected comments (in grayscale, more or less) and 

my responses (in purple, more or less)

(in more or less chronological order by blog post, comment, or response)

* January *

Enter the Police State (1/6/2026)

my responses (batch I - 1/10/2026...)

Sneaker (1/9/2026)

"If we remain optimistic that our rights will remain intact simply because they always have been, we fall into a trap of normalcy bias. We need something more rigorous than optimism: we need informed skepticism that leads to radical responsibility."

when a police state repudiates a public's right to subject police-state-'agents'

to accountability measures by, for example,

'illegalizing' documenting actions of police-state-'agents' or

'illegalizing' documenting police-state-'sanctioned' rules, policies, practices or

'illegalizing' real reality

a public that trusts a police state's 'report' of 'the truth'

because 'honorable people', 'pious people', 'normal people' trust police-state-'agents' implicitly,

is a public that repudiates its inalienable responsibility to discern fiction from real reality

"A police state thrives on compliance. The antidote isn't just a positive attitude, but a willingness to be a friction point in the machine."

absolutely

a 'frictionless' populace is part and parcel to 'the purpose' and 'the end-game'

of wind-up plastic rictus-faced monkeys, casually evil cheerleaders, servants of Ate

"if we are sitting back waiting for a happy ending to the current trend of global surveillance and state overreach, we are essentially consenting to the outcome. The response required is not a smile and a hope for the best, but a grim, determined vigilance that prioritizes action over expectation."

advocates of 'obedient' inaction

are police state pacifiers and police state allies

in all but name

"thank you!"

thank you!!!

BenLewis (1/9/2026)

"We've moved past Big Brother and straight into 'Big Narcissistic Stepfather!"

not only are 'loyal believers' naive to the weaknesses of police states

but 'loyal believers' lionize and revere "Big Narcissistic Stepfathers"

like parking lot pennies are 'liberators' of 'the faithful'

as if everyday people who are police state loyalists aren't as casually evil

as 'absolute dominators' of 'the meek and mute faithful'

"We're sleepwalking into a world where your freedom is just a series of pre-approved options! You want to protest? Fine! Just make sure you do it in the Free Speech Zone which is a soundproof box in the middle of a SALT FLAT IN UTAH! And once you are there, don't be shocked when you end up in the new Free Speech Zone in a random Central American or African institute..."

lolol

reminds me of the motivational aphorism:

'The criminalization of being a living, existing, breathing human being will continue

until police state ratings improve!'

"I have a right to be a private, miserable human being without an idiot counting how many times I scratch my backside in a CVS parking lot!"

amen

police states 'break eggs to make omelets', which is to say,

sanction police state impunity for breakfast

because 'omelets' = 'ratings'

"I can't take it! My brain is sweating! We've traded our souls for the promises, the winks, the optimism of a better tomorrow, a safer tomorrow. We are STUPID! We are a nation of toddlers handing our car keys to a shark because it promised us a cookie and a locked door!"

for your insights and your candor - THANK YOU!!!

APrince (1/9/2026)

a perfunctory 'defense' of 'shepherded sheep' does not deserve applause

here, there, or anywhere

SofiaTheFirst (1/9/2026)

"This is a classic protective racketeering strategy: the state breaks the world, then demands total authority to fix it."

as if the police state is the only 'legitimate solution';

as if anything less is unwise, unreasonable, indefensible;

as if such 'common sense' isn't casually evil cowardice

"The litanies and homilies serve as a moral anesthetic. By branding surveillance and militancy as [morally just], the state prevents the public from identifying government actions as violent or oppressive. Instead, they are framed as restoring order."

for reverential devotion to police states

lubricates the restoration of illusions of 'harmony'

"a perpetual market for state-sponsored fictions, illusions of success and approval"

police states deluge the public with narratives

so there's always an illusion of your choice to toss back with an 'omelet'

ACowboyAtMidnight (1/9/2026)

"architect"?

you?

an exhaustive body of comic-book-superheroes

have addressed ad infinitum

an exhaustive lot of conscience-impaired comic-book-villains

such that this corruption of sagacity and common sense

in flagrante

arouses no one who is not a #policestatetool

HeimdallAvatar (1/9/2026)

"To say that we overestimate the differences between us is a coward's lullaby. In the halls of eternity, we know that differences are what define the spirit. When the Giants march, shall I tell myself to stand down because a poll suggests they value peace?"

lolol

the oft-exalted credo of world unity and peace:

'The firing of lethal munitions during ceasefires will continue

until deaths by firing achieve peace!'

my responses (batch II - 1/29/2026...)

HamburgersFromLeipzig (1/16/2026)

"A state that sees its own people primarily as a threat to be managed, rather than as a sovereign body to be served, has already lost its moral compass."

how many states proclaim their "moral compass" - faultless -

while "managing" human beings - villainously!

"the instruments of a police state are the very tools that fascism requires to breathe. Fascism needs an atmosphere of fear; it needs a mechanism to silence dissent; it needs a police force that answers to power rather than to the people."

in other words - without casual evil - fascism cannot breathe

PainNowandForveverHereAndThere (1/16/2026)

"We behold today a specter rising under the guise of unity, a philosophy of fascism that seeks to bind the individual to the chariot of the state. It is a doctrine that demands the surrender of the mind and the worship of a mortal man as though he were a deity."

this "doctrine" proclaims its ideology the noblest of all - 'freedom'!

as if such ideology isn't a farce

for no citizenry commanded to appease a despot is free

"It is the business of little minds to shrink; but those whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue principles until their last breath."

"little minds" believe in spoils of capitulation,

especially illusions of power,

for enchanted kingdoms that serve slop and piggery

are anointed! sublime! golden!

AntiMoloch (1/16/2026)

"I see you hiding in the architecture of your own silence, building a skyscraper of not-my-business that scrapes the belly of a hollow heaven."

skyline after skyline of "not-my-business skyscrapers"

define by toothless teeth, nation after nation

"I am with you in the wreckage, where we finally look each other in the eye and say: NO MORE BLINDNESS! NO MORE SILENCE! The universe is a telegram of truth, and you are the one holding the wire, refusing to read the message while the world burns for a nickel."

thank you

AlphaCentauriOrBust (1/16/2026)

"You sit in your warm halls, counting coins while the wind of tyranny howls at the door of your neighbor."

we have done something - something we have done before - to "neighbor"

we have made "our neighbor" - our ally

we have made 'neighbors who are not ours' - our enemy

not by merit

or its lack

nor by character

or its want

but by the most meaningless and superficial... reality

by likeness

and difference

as if these are the most real... reasons

to ally or to war

"To trade the wide, white expanse of freedom for the narrow, gray corridor of a police state is the act of a slave, not a hunter."

which is to say, not a "hunter",

superior and formidable

but a "slave",

chained to a fiction that believes it's not

TeleogicalMeans (1/18/2026)

"Liberty, as we have established, requires the ability of citizens to deliberate together for the common good. However, when the ears of the populace are stopped with the wax of partisan zeal, deliberation becomes impossible. The echo chamber creates a state of stasis, where the citizens no longer share a common reality."

"not sharing a common reality" is where much begins

from the experiences of human beings subjected to injustice

to the experiences of human beings burdened by poverty

to the experiences of human beings with means

to the experiences of human beings in power

"the echo chamber" invites us to divide from each other

as if "our un-common reality" is a natural truth

that irrevocably disunites us from each other

instead of a hypnotic exhortation

that conflates 'experiences' and "reality",

transmuting 'our un-shared experiences' into "our un-common reality"

for they are not one and the same

no more than such conflation immutably defines, as if by a natural law,

who we are habitually united with

and who we are pitilessly divided from

"Thank you, as always, you are the nearest and dearest to the truth and I can't imagine the crater of a world we would be in without you and yours."

thank you

and you're welcome

TheHandThatFeedsTheWolf (1/18/2026)

"where is the 'liberty' we are always told America stands for?"

there are Americans for whom

'liberty' is a privilege for NOBODY but them

not because such human beings are more deserving of 'liberty'

but because an accident of birth privileges NOBODY else

notwithstanding, a privilege by accident of birth is not earned

any more than rule or throne by inherited claim or title is

"When you replace trust with roving patrols and fear, you aren't just enforcing law; you are breaking the social fabric. It feels like America is trading its soul for a false sense of security, and as someone from a country that values the rule of law and transparency, it's heartbreaking to witness this mass deportation machine being built on such a scale."

many Americans who cheer "this mass deportation machine" with one roar

salute "America's soul" with one fist

the purification of which

is through rites of witnessing 'the putting in trauma' of human beings

SifLovesNorway (1/18/2026)

"We are teaching [children] that: suspicion is the default state, privacy is a luxury, not a right, and authority is something to be feared, not questioned. If a child spends 18,000 hours in an environment where their every movement is logged and their every word is scrutinized, we should not be surprised when they grow into adults who lack the intellectual courage to challenge tyranny."

I wonder... if cultivating 'obedience' was not 'a noble purpose'

of 'strange bedfellows' of 'progressive' education reforms then

and I wonder... if fostering 'obedience'

informs 'strange bedfellows' of education reforms still

such that... education reforms now

unapologetically promote 'obedience' for 'obedience' is "the primary function

of an educational environment" that "essentially [programs children]

for a police state"

"I ask you to define security. Is society truly secure if its citizens are so conditioned to surveillance that they no longer understand the value of the liberty they are supposedly securing? Logic dictates that if you destroy the thing you are trying to save in the process of saving it, your strategy is a failure."

when... "your strategy" for "saving" children and "securing" liberty

is the police state,

you have failed both

HelloFromTheMed (1/26/2026)

"Save the children. Lock up the bad guys. Feel safe in a bubble. These are high-level marketing bullets. But the "How," the actual architecture of how you achieve those things, that's where most people lose their way."

when "one-button" makers pitch "one-button solutions"

as honest-to-goodness

is it surprising... that "one-button" buyers buy such pitches

as eagerly as Jacks buy magic beans?

I mean... when complex nuanced involved solutions are the alternative,

who can blame Jacks for flocking to flimflammery?

"once the "Law and Order" operating system is installed on every street corner and in every classroom, it doesn't matter who's sitting in the CEO chair." "People think they're buying a Protection App, but they're installing malware that eats their liberty." "We must... start asking how we can build a world where we don't need a big, beautiful bubble to feel human."

the "need" for "big, beautiful bubbles" comes from... somewhere

the "need" for "bubbles" to be 'served and protected' by "Law and Order"

comes from... something

such that giving up "their liberty" to meet imperative existential "needs"... is tenable

because somewhere something... must be an exigent threat to them

for whom "[saving] the children [and locking up] the bad guys [and feeling] safe"

call for nothing less than a police state

never mind the "actual architecture" of wronging with impunity

that define police states

JackOscarNeillToStars (1/26/2026)

"The reality on the ground is far beyond a safety narrative; it's a full-scale federal occupation." "This isn't protection; it's a retaliatory action against our community." "We aren't just reading about a police state anymore; we are living in ground zero."

while citizenry who stand with no-kings are subjected to hostile campaigns

on city streets and in suburban parking lots and on front porches of family residences

strongholds of police-state-cheerleaders are not

which is to say,

when police-state-cheerleaders vote for the police state,

it's not their community or their people or their cities or their states

that are militantly occupied

first

CarolineTheBlack (1/26/2026)

this is absolutely everything

thank you

"They tell us the cameras are there because they love our children. They tell us the soldiers in the subway are there to protect our way of life. But what kind of life is it when you're constantly proving you're not a criminal just walking to work?"

police-state-cheerleaders "tell us": 'if we have nothing to hide,

we have nothing to fear'

after all, police states that have the truth to hide,

police states that have the truth to fear

cheer no champion of nothing to hide, nothing to fear,

more than police states

TheTribesSecondFinest (1/26/2026)

lolol!

"We're going with the, "Bright Side of the Moon," strategy while the moon is currently being fitted with a 4-terabyte surveillance lens and a tactical vest?" "if your optimism requires you to ignore [the occupying force] in the tactical gear standing in your flower bed, that's not a gift to democracy."

the Munchkins of Oz

who sing and dance to a witch's murder

and revere a seizer of power

who terrorizes seekers of a wizard's aid

are a gift to police states

that hallucinate that they are joyfully worshipped

by the policed

PowderWhitePerfectKing (1/26/2026)

"People speak of a police state as if it were a new invention of cold machines and glass eyes. It is not. It is the oldest hunger of the weak ruler [and the gilded crown]." "A police state is a cowardly thing. It hides behind the words of safety and protection" "A state that must watch its people in their schools and their streets is a state that is [terrorized by and hostage to fear]"

hypothetical parrot kings are old dogs that play old tricks

because time-worn plays are the cheapest in the parking lot penny book

IamtheRepublicWeWantToHave (1/26/2026)

"a serious, adult conversation"?

"about the reality on the ground"?

the police state has no respect for human beings

it has no "sacred duty"

for nothing sacred moves 'the soul' of a venal mercenary will

such that

the police state is nothing more than a golem

embodied

by "those who have no respect for the life and property of others"

like

the parrot and the tool and the puppet

"who live without the constant threat of" a despot's

gross legalistic license

How to Serve We the People (1/27/2026)

my responses (batch I - 2/3/2026...)

Sneaker (1/30/2026)

"once you give an inch to a tyrant, you're not just losing your rights, you're losing your soul. And once that's gone, there isn't a mountain in the world high enough to hide in."

how tyrants win free elections

is

bananas

you see,

every consequence that is consequential

is addressed to citizenry

like a campaign pitch

so rather than sit with uncomfortable

feelings of consequentiality,

citizenry accept invitations to marinate

as past and future electorates in

one campaign pitch deluge after another,

without confronting or interrogating or dispelling

illusions of 'enlightenment'

that despots lean into to defend

ideological callousness and indifference

and unwholesome calculations of state-sponsored harm

today

SifLovesNorway (1/30/2026)

"To call cruelty rational and harm better than the alternative is the oldest trick in a tyrant's book." "true service to the people begins by calling a monster by its name."

but when the monster is a bedfellow

keep the lights off and in the dark

call it 'master'

SofiaTheFirst (1/30/2026)

well said!

"the state stops being a protector and becomes a predator. This shift triggers a collapse starting with the death of legitimacy, the normalization of disobedience, and the shift from authority to coercion." "The state becomes a giant with clay feet" "[the people leave] the empire to collapse under its own hollow weight."

some people sneer "the social contract" is dead

while decrying its demise as an unthinkable tragedy

then

cheer despots who demand the 'restoration' of "the social contract"

while gustily dismissing its relevance

then

halo police-state-illusions of police-state-'success' and police-state-'gratitude'

while spitting at 'nasty' 'disrespectful' flies in "the social contract" ointment

like

whiplashed senselessness is 'just common sense'

BenLewis (1/30/2026)

"We've got a social contract that's being used as a piece of scratch paper by a bunch of corrupt power-tripping bureaucrats who couldn't find the public good if it was stabled to their foreheads! They build a police state, they sharpen the surveillance, they watch us like we're all suspicious toddlers in a china shop"

the servile obsequiousness

that police-state-allies and police-state-cheerleaders

ecstatically adopt

to paper-over and rug-sweep malicious incompetence

oozed by obviously perverse and "corrupt, power-tripping bureaucrats"

who 'serve' at the yawning pleasure of a despot

- not "the public good" -

but the private interests of power and wealth and influence and fame

is

as unbelievable

as fealty to 'the salvation of a nation and its soul'

being sacredly performed

through soulless capitulation to tyrants and their tyrannies

"The state is supposed to be the waiter, not the guy eating your dinner while he stares at you through a thermal imaging camera! Read it. Learn it. Or don't! But don't act surprised when the whole thing falls over because you forgot who was holding up the floor!"

wait...

"the floor" isn't held up by elephant-serpent-dragons on tortoise-turtles?

my responses (batch II - 2/8/2026...)

NWTyrone (2/7/2026)

"The Wizard of Oz is a literal nightmare. He's got that smoke and mirrors, he's got the village-crushing claims, and he rules Munchkinland with an iron fist. And yet? Look at those Munchkins! They weren't just following orders; they were harmonizing! You don't get that kind of choreography without a terrifying amount of buy-in."

that, in the end, is 'the brand'

try-hard pick-me main-character desperation

to coax the 'majority',

like counterfeit aftershave

that 'authenticates' the charismatic appeal of frauds,

to "buy-in"!

"[the opposition, certain segment of the population, enablers who live and breathe "stan culture"] are busy serving the Problem. They've traded their we for a he or a she or a Sentient Orange Shadow."

the... timeless... blueprint of "serving the Problem"

begins with "traded we for" believing in miracles

and ends with served slop and piggery

because Hell's best baked Alaska... serves

sure

AlphaCentauriOrBust (2/7/2026)

"You speak of your Founding Fathers as if they were benevolent gods... But... They did not build a hall for the people; they built a fortress for the few, and they paved the courtyard with the bones of the stolen and the broken." "It was never a rule of the many; it was a council of the wealthy, masquerading as a gathering of the free." "You follow tyrants who promise to protect you... while they pick your pockets and salt your fields... This is not the way of the benevolent; it is the way of the vulture."

'patriotism' isn't the love of a real story;

it's the love of a historical fiction

that commands a citizenry

to believe

or else

TheRealKW (2/7/2026)

"the "Founders?" They weren't saints in powdered wigs. They were chieftains" "[who]" "didn't build a commune. They built an empire while calling it a neighborhood watch."

'loyalty' to peoples' or states' or nations' mythologized histories

is less to do with celebrating sacred truths

than with narratives that license beliefs

case in point,

moral terror baiting slop that licenses lipstick wearing piggery

is less to do with principles of, say, patriotism

than with state-sponsored wrong-mongering

ThornsWithoutPricks (2/7/2026)

"my modern existential dread: the idea that our peace is actually just a high-gloss coat of paint over a foundation of silence." "In this framework, "optimism" isn't a hope for the future; it's a muzzle for the present." "There is a profound [senselessness] in a world that champions [our] authenticity while simultaneously demanding [our] appeasement."

'Hell's best baked Alaska'

is 'heavy lifting' beyond what I have thus far expounded

nevertheless,

"the side that thrives on" seductive lipstick wearing piggery

not only whiplashes senselessly: (i) the pig isn't on fire,

(ii) the fire isn't fabricated outrage,

(iii) everybody is charmingly seduced by performatively fiery spectacles,

(iv) there is no artificed spectacle worth tooth-achingly savoring

more than 'just desserts',

(v) 'just desserts' is never a lie

that serves lies,

but also: (vi) cake never tastes like tyranny

when it's the foundation of a farce on fire

my responses (batch III - 2/20/2026...)

UrusulaIsMoreThanASetOfStars (2/7/2026)

'Hell's best baked Alaska' is serving fiasco on fire

with a working title of 'this is better than the alternative'

(like moral terror baiting slop

is what we order

so seductive lipstick wearing piggery

is what we are served)

notwithstanding,

 serving fire and ice (or the end of the world)

is how Hell serves just deserts

ProgressHasBeenHalted (2/20/2026)

if words were... progress, then who could... impede what drips and drops

from you so... naturally?

alas progress... "requires" more than words

dripped and dropped

PostTraumaticMachineShop (2/20/2026)

"The [calculus] is simple but the [ensuing chaos is senseless]... Mad respect for your insight. Keep being you!"

I don't disagree with you and thank you!

DarkEnlightenmentBeyondtheSilverReflection (2/20/2026)

"Get over yourself."

this is what you wore your big boy pants for?

to... attack...?

"subversive elites like [me]"?

"who want to strip away [your supremacism]"?

I can no more "dismantle" the fairy tales you tell yourself are 'the truth'

than I can deny you the atta-boy you tell yourself you have 'earned'

for... lowkey big boy pants energy

nevertheless...

it goes without saying that the grown up in the room

is never the one who believes the real Santa

is fascists in red hats

reply to above by SofiaTheFirst (2/20/2026)

YES!!!

"If your civilization depends on a lie to keep from collapsing, maybe it's time to ask what, exactly, you're so desperate to preserve."

as if that which has no equal -

unmatched hallucinations that license beliefs

that corrode

before oxygen and the sun and time -

isn't

rot and perversion and decay

preserved to seed a future born to perish

BlondeHolmHF (2/20/2026)

a "moral justification" for casual evil, though disingenuously framed

as a line in the sand in defense of "the rights of innocents", is still

a moral justification for casual evil

"we must be careful not to let the political nature of [serving "We the People"] obscure the underlying moral facts." "Individuals are not mere tools to be used for greater good, and ["We the People"] are not required to bear unreasonable costs that hamper our ability to live our own lives." "Often, "serving the people" [imposes] risk [and exacts] harms on innocent bystanders. If we cannot perform a service [without unforeseeable or incidental or collateral consequences towards others], then that service loses its moral justification."

to reverse the brittle senseless "morality" doctrine of despots

in defense of tyrannies

in order to explicitly

discourage a citizenry from "[being] used for greater good"

because "the right" to not suffer from any incalculable effect of "change"

is a "moral" line in the sand

defined as the "[requiring]" of a citizenry "to bear unreasonable costs"

presumes

the brittle senseless "morality" doctrine of despots

in defense of tyrannies

isn't prejudicially employed to senselessly "hamper" citizenry

with "unreasonable costs"

not for any harmless or riskless "good" or "service"

but for the indefensible,

 for totalitarian regimes

governed

by "morality" shields that license state-sponsored casual evil

tbc: name (date)

am

{ ~ }

&EverythingIsPolitical

Now is not the time to be pacified. (It never was and it never will be.) If a pacifier is what you seek, however, be not surprised when the world falls ass over teakettle to offer you pacifiers aplenty in exchange for everything that is real and everything that is true, which is to say, everything that is worth fighting for.

*

As always, thank you for your patience and understanding as comments and responses are posted to this blog and this page, at times sans my rhyme and rhythm, which is to say, PLEASE NOTE:

my formatting has been, is, and will be ABSURDLY and INEXPLICABLY altered such that neither explicit nor intentional MEANING should be 'inferred' or 'construed' or 'understood' from such INTERFERENCE, incl. text color, text size, text typeface, text typography, text restructuring, etc.;

notwithstanding in general and on the whole, intended recipients of my responses should know what is me and what is not because duh.

M