And remember, it was Eisenhower, a general and Republican, that warned us. Admittedly, Eisenhower was a different kind of Republican than we have today.
I've struggled similarly over the years and had my ups and downs. One thing that has helped me is remembering that my feelings are subjective, and not necessarily reflective of reality. My view of the world is often skewed, whether by brain chemistry, various biases, or the influence of others, so I have to seek out what's actually true in any given situation. It helps me; I hope it will help you, at least a little.
Honestly, in my experience, things get better when I exert control over what I can. I'd tell you to control what you can and go easy with the rest. Try to do better every day, really try consciously, and the struggle itself will be rewarding.
I'm rooting for you. If there is a Creator, and I believe there is, he's rooting for you, too.
Interesting. Looking at the Business Plot, it looks like Smedley Butler may just be a new hero of mine. Thank God they chose someone who wouldn't go along with their crap.
Does anybody remember the way the floors had a springiness to them and how they squeaked and creaked as you walked across them?
How about the mental kind of threshold-looking strip in the middle of the floor from wall to wall where I believe they had connected two halves together, if I recall?
As discussed elsewhere in the comments, the Union should have crushed the southern elites until this nonsense was dead for good. As a modern southerner, I can attest that was the time to deal with this foolishness.
The last few years have taught me the flag they're effectively honoring is not the stars and stripes at all. Honestly, the situation today is kind of like them awakening to the fact that they were Confederate traitors all along and not only acknowledging it, but being proud of it.
As a born and bred southerner, I wish Reconstruction had continued with harsh penalties until the freedmen would be able to retain their stake in government without the backing of the Union Army. As it was, after the compromise following the election of 1876, the Republicans effectively sold out the former slaves for thirty pieces of silver. Of course things went right back to white supremacy, just with different words for the institutions--not to be funny, but it was literally slavery with extra steps (sharecropping, Jim Crow, poll taxes, literacy tests, and the like).
There were so many missed opportunities from the late war to that election. I've always thought land redistribution to the freed slaves (aka "forty acres and a mule") would have gone a long way towards establishing a class of black landowners while eating away at the power and wealth of their former masters. That kind of economic freedom would have gone a long way towards ensuring personal freedoms could be defended and retained. Simultaneously giving poor whites more education and economic freedom could have robbed the elites of their mob over time.
As it turned out, they created a stratified set of underclasses, with African-Americans at the bottom all over again.
Anyway, it would have been a mercy to white trash like myself and freed slaves to just crush the old master class until they couldn't rise again. Lincoln was wrong about letting the Confederates up easy. Maybe if Andrew Johnson's impeachment had resulted in a conviction, things would have been different. Again, so many missed opportunities...
However, if you would continue, I would be greatly amused.
NOTE: No offense intended with the "gentlemen" line if either of you is not male--I'm just trying to preserve the spirit of this Victorian era-style psuedoscientific slap fight.
Fingolfin is the one who deserved a TV show. Going toe to toe with Morgoth...
The whole first age was full of awesome characters.