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Lucas Brigham 1/30/25 Lucas Brigham 1/30/25

Political Negligence

*Aerial view of Washington-National Airport (DCA). Image taken from Engineering-News Record.*

Unfortunately, I come to you today with some horrific news. The news, of course, is that American Eagle Flight 5342, a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Wichita to Washington-National, collided with a military helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River.All 67 people on board both aircraft lost their lives. It is the first fatal commercial airline accident in the United States since 2009.

The blame game has started. To be clear, I am not an air safety expert, and I do not know definitively what the investigation will show. However, lots of people online (on both Reddit and BlueSky), as well as former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg , have been blaming the new Trump administration for the crash.

These people have a good case. After all, within hours of taking office, Donald Trump fired the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as well as the head of the TSA. Additionally, he has instituted a freeze in hiring new air traffic controllers. You know, the people responsible for making sure aircraft don’t crash into each other in midair. If he replaces these people at all, it will probably be with incompetent loyalists.

So yes - they have a point.

However, I think it’s important to emphasize that if we were going to see a major drop in safety standards for American airspace as a result of Trump taking office, it would have taken a lot longer than ten days to really have an impact. And it’s not like it only takes ten days to become an air traffic controller in some of the world’s busiest airspace from the day you sign up.

Then again, according to this piece from The Guardian, the shortage of air traffic controllers in the United States has lasted for years, which is why we’ve had an increase in near-misses. We are understaffed in this department, and Trump’s decisions haven’t helped matters. But the problem existed before Trump’s second term began, so it’s not entirely on the orange felon.

The elephant in the room is Trump’s press conference that he gave about this crash. I can’t bring myself to watch it, but apparently he kept hammering home the idea that DEI has infected the aviation industry and led to a decrease in safety standards. Whether or not Trump is directly responsible for the tragedy, his rhetoric at the press conference was still highly irresponsible.

As troubling as this is, though, my main point today is not to argue that the tragedy last night at DCA is or is not Donald Trump’s fault. Instead, I want to use this case to illustrate how asymmetric our polarized political environment has become.

Imagine what it would be like if the crash had occurred while a Democrat was President. The Republican-controlled Congress (or even a Congress with a Republican minority) would demand investigations. They would summon the President in for many hours of testimony before every committee in both the House and Senate. Indeed, they’d probably be calling for the pitchforks, especially if that Democratic President had just fired the head of the FAA.

*Hillary Clinton during her 11 hours of testimony over the Benghazi attack. Image taken from BBC News.*

In fact, you don’t even have to imagine. That’s exactly what happened in 2012 when Hillary Clinton, then the United States Secretary of State, was blamed for the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Most Americans could not locate Libya on a map, if they’ve heard of the country’s existnece at all. Regardless, it is in fact a tragedy that four Americans perished in this attack. We should indeed have been upset about it, and Secretary Clinton should indeed have been called in to testify. This incident basically tanked Hillary’s future presidential campaign in 2016, leading to Trump’s first presidency. But I’ll get to that later.

Later in Barack Obama’s presidency, an Ebola outbreak occurred in West Africa. To be clear, Ebola sounds like an absolutely horrifying illness that I never want to catch. And the two American deaths that occurred as a result of this outbreak are tragedies. However, the 2014 midterm elections swung massively against the Democrats, and Ebola is a commonly cited reason why. This enabled Donald Trump to enter office in 2016 with as much power as he had.

During the first three years of Trump’s term, we were pretty lucky. There were no major crises affecting the United States that were not of Trump’s own making. In fact, I still remember watching the RNC last year and feeling like I was watching a film adaptation of Orwell’s 1984, because they kept asking the crowd “Are you better off now than you were four years ago in 2019?”

Of course, four years prior to 2024 was not 2019, but 2020, as the archived MSNBC footage that played shortly thereafter reminded us. That was the year when we couldn’t leave our homes without wearing a mask, or were at least advised against it. That was the year when refrigerator trucks held excess dead bodies of COVID victims. Overall, more than a million lives were lost in the United States from the coronavirus. The fear, the isolation, the boredom…that was Trump’s fault after he infamously disbanded the pandemic preparedness team in 2018.

*A 2019 Twitter post from Joe Biden about pandemic threats, posted only a few months before the outbreak reached the United States. Screenshotted from Google Images.*

Despite the tragic disaster that was Trump’s first presidency and COVID response, the Democrats were utterly unable to effectively saddle Mango Mussolini with this horrendous record in the 2024 election. They let him get away with claiming that 2020 didn’t happen, to the point where the pandemic was basically memory-holed. That’s why Trump won in 2024 - people didn’t remember just how much of a disaster he was. And their buyers’ remorse will only do so much good now.

Republicans never let Obama get away with two Ebola deaths, or Clinton with the four fatalities in the Benghazi attack. The fact that Democrats let Trump get away with over a million deaths from COVID-19 is absolute political negligence, and I’m almost as ashamed to call myself a Democrat as I am an American. I might even switch my voter registration to NPA at this point.

Even if Trump wasn’t directly responsible for this particular plane crash, he has far more than 67 peoples’ blood on his hands. And the Democrats let him get away with it. That’s the real story here.

Lucas Brigham 1/29/25 Lucas Brigham 1/29/25

Nobody Asked For This AI Bullshit

*The worst feeling on the Internet. Image taken from r/Memes.*

I remember the good old days when you’d go to Google Search and type in whatever question you wanted the answer to. You’d be pointed to several sites ranked in roughly the order of how helpful the algorithm thinks they’ll be. To some extent, this is still the case today.

However, whenever you Google a question, you’re presented with an “AI search overview” that basically already answers the question. This leaves aside instances where it doesn’t give you correct information, including this infamous case last year in which people were told to eat glue and rocks.

Now, at first glance, this AI may seem (mostly) harmless, provided nobody actually eats glue and rocks. Never mind that AI is apparently cooking the planet at an alarming rate. But maybe, you figure, we can find a greener way to do it. Maybe we can have more energy-efficient data centers, or run them entirely on renewables the way Iceland already is. And for the sake of argument, I’ll grant you that.

But think about this for a moment: Google’s AI search overview basically removes the need for websites. Nobody’s going to provide traffic to a small website like my own if you’re already given the answer to your question. This is how what some call “late-stage capitalism” works; greedy corporations are going to take over the market, and then they’re going to choke out the competition. There will eventually be no competition.

Probably the most infuriating part about this AI “revolution” is that nobody really asked for it except the tech companies.

Now, I’m not saying that every scientific breakthrough should need to be voted on democratically. If anything, that might be a bad idea in a country where Donald Trump won the popular vote. Besides, some innovations just happen organically. However, artificial intelligence is going to make life so much worse for the vast majority of the population that I can’t help but feel this “innovation” is forced.

Let’s talk about AI “art.” In many ways, I miss the early days of this era, the halcyon era that was spring 2023. Back then, the most prominent use of AI online was to make public figures play video games. And for the record, the videos of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden trash-talking one another over Wii Sports remain some of the funniest content I’ve ever seen. I’ll never forget this exchange:

Obama: Donald’s in the bunker.

Biden: Bunker? Wait, what happened?

Obama: Bunker in golf, Joe.

Even in those early days of artificial intelligence, there were constant warnings about the nefarious purposes for which this technology could (and inevitably would) be used. The first anti-Biden attack ad of the 2024 campaign (before Biden dropped out of the race) was generated by AI and featured a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Given that Trump’s now selling out Taiwan, the acronym GOP once more stands for “Gaslight, Obstruct, Project”.

But let’s move on past the geopolitical implications of AI and deep-fakes and talk about the fine arts. We keep hearing stories about AI-generated novels and maybe even movies. In fact, during the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, which went on for nearly five months, one of the key issues at play was related to the use of AI in Hollywood. As the linked Associated Press article notes, the humans won - for now.

Still, that was a temporary victory. Humans and the movement for creativity must win every time, whereas our AI-pushing overlords only need to triumph once. On some corners of the Internet, AI has already won.

Take the once-popular website DeviantArt. At one time, it was the go-to platform for anything creative. You could (and still can) post digital artwork, photography, or even fanfiction there. However, as of 2025, it’s fallen out of favor among many artists. The reason? According to this online forum, the site is using submitted artwork to train artificial intelligence. Plus, it’s populated with so much slop that you can’t tell what artwork is genuine and which wasn’t actually produced with a human mind behind it. Consider it a warning sign - a cautionary tale, if you will.

Imagine a world where nobody wants to be creative anymore. Yes, we might still enjoy the AI-generated sitcoms and whatnot (hell, they might already be out there), but on this issue I’m very much a purist. The late science fiction author Harlan Ellison put it best. At one point in the linked 1995 interview, Ellison states that it should cost you something to produce art; otherwise, it’s not art.

And I agree with this. Even if what we might consider our “souls” is ultimately just a product of our brains, we still need to cherish it. It’s what keeps us human.

Maybe some people will still want to write novels or film movies. However, human-made art may pale in quantity to the AI-generated garbage that’s sure to flood our screens and bookshelves (if bookshelves still remain, that is). Why would anyone go to the trouble of writing a genuine novel when they’d get far more royalties from something a computer wrote for them?

Finally, let’s look at the fields of academia. There’s been a lot of talk about DeepSeek (an open-source Chinese AI model) and ChatGPT lately. Since I’m based in the US and have never been to China, I’ll just talk about ChatGPT here. And if my adventures on Reddit are any indiction, we’re in a lot of trouble.

To share my personal experience, I took a course on Middle East Politics in the fall 2023 semester (an eventful time to be taking such a course, to be sure), and the professor kept harping on to us that we were not allowed to use generative AI to write our essays. Each of us needed to write three essays that semester, and each paper was meant to be turned into AI-detecting software before the professor would read it.

Now, I never used ChatGPT to write my papers, because I have at least a modicum of academic integrity. But I can’t know if any of my classmates did, and apparently the software meant to detect plagiarism or the use of generative AI is far from perfect. It’s none of my business whether the other students honestly wrote their papers, but I know I did.

My university is far from alone; and indeed, this problem is far from unique to the postgraduate level. All over the country, and probably in other countries as well, teachers are having to adjust their curricula to reflect that some students may be turning to AI to write their assignments. But the AI will keep getting more effective, as ChatGPT and other platforms update, and the teachers will struggle to keep up.

Most importantly, there are some jobs in which you can’t just look at your notes when you need to do something; being a heart surgeon is one commonly cited example. Medical school is already very expensive in the United States, which could lead to a shortage of such professionals; imagine if the existing surgeons cheated their way to their MD?

Fortunately, there is hope, though not a lot of it. Back in November 2024, an AI-generated ad for Coca-Cola caused a lot of controversy and ridicule. We need to have more backlash like this, keeping the many dangers and disappointments of AI in the spotlight. That’s how we might stand a chance at keeping as much of our humanity as possible.

To the tech companies forcing this on us: None of us wanted AI to take over our lives and destroy the planet. Really, we didn’t. So go fuck yourselves.

We will take back the human race. We will not be force-fed your dangerous, destructive technology like the duck pictured below.

*A meme of a cartoon character force-feeding a duck AI. This image was found on BlueSky, posted by one Marcus Hutchins at Malwaretech.com.*

Lucas Brigham 1/27/25 Lucas Brigham 1/27/25

We Are All Digitally Divided

*A PSA comparing social media algorithms to addictive drugs. Image taken from Hot In Social Media Tips & Tricks*

Much has been made of the term “digital divide” in academia. It’s been well-documented, after all, that countries in the Global South tend to have less access to digital technologies such as the Internet. Given the ubiquity of the Internet today, inability to enter the superhighway of information we know as the World Wide Web has become pretty much a deal-breaker if you wish to participate in the global economy.

With the advent of social media, anyone can have their 15 minutes of fame. You can be famous for writing book reviews, famous for playing video games, or even just famous for being famous. If you don’t believe me, this 2024 CNBC poll suggested that over half of Gen Z-ers wanted to be influencers.

You can show off your personal life to anyone who wants to see it. You can live-stream for hours every day, regardless of whether anybody else is watching. In many ways, this world is more connected than ever before…or is it?

I’ll offer a paradoxical thesis: Despite the popularity of social media, human beings are more alone than they have ever been.

Here’s an example. I’m not going to romanticize the age of cable TV - it was all too easy for the TV companies to screw you over with high prices. Of course, it’s the same way with streaming services where you can pick what you want to have access to. But still, in the cable TV era, it was common knowledge what shows were on at what time. Like so many other things in life, you don’t fully understand what you’ve got until it’s gone.

Kids had their Saturday morning cartoons, during which they’d get up at the ass-crack of dawn and bound down the stairs to binge-watch their shows while binge-eating endless bowls of sugary cereal. Adults had their soap operas in the evening that they might watch with their romantic partner. Finally, anyone who couldn’t sleep (possibly including the aforementioned children who lived on Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs) would have infomercials at 3 AM.

*Calvin telling us how amazing Saturdays are. Taken from Reddit.*

I probably sound like a boomer saying this, but I remember when the Boston Globe published TV guides in all of its papers, telling you when your favorite shows would be on. Chances were good that at least some of your neighbors would watch the same things, and you’d bond further with these people over what insane plot twist had just been unveiled or who’d won Wipeout last night.

That’s not the case these days. If I’m at a party with a neighbor, and they recommend a TV show for me to watch, I first have to check to ensure it’s on one of the streaming platforms I pay monthly to remain subscribed to. In all probability, I’ll forget about their recommendation, simply because I’m not interested in the show and it’s not on a channel I prefer. Gone are the days when we bond over shared television series. We’ll never again have a show with as much cultural relevance as Seinfeld or whatever else was popular in the 1990s.

Now let’s talk about the news. Obviously, “the news” has varied from time to time, and it’s very often depressing these days if you’re at all sane. Overindulgence in the media can be harmful to your mental health - that is no secret. But think about this for a moment: When was the last time you saw anyone under age 60 reading a newspaper?

*A slide from a presentation I gave a few months ago about how the news used to be, versus how it is now.*

I’m not talking about the digital editions of the New York Times, the Boston Globe, or whatever local news outlet is still limping along and breathing like Steve from Amazing Race (if you know, you know). I’m talking about the physical newspaper. The kind that got delivered to your door every day for a small fee.

Now, my mother still gets the Globe, but guess what? She’s 60 years old, and even among people her age, she’s in the minority. My grandmothers also get the physical paper, but they’re obviously much older than sixty. Most people I interact with on a day-to-day basis outside my family get their news from social media. And that’s a problem.

As I write this post, it’s been one week since Donald Trump became President again. Despite being convicted of 34 felony counts, despite having promised to implement tariffs on other countries and tank the economy, and despite Sleepy Joe Biden having dropped out and been replaced by a far more energetic candidate, he still won. In my mind, David Pakman said it best: “Lots of people in this country have no idea what the hell is going on.”

Think about that for a moment. Google searches for terms like “did Joe Biden drop out” reportedly spiked on the day of the election. I don’t know about you, but it was a pretty big news story in my (admittedly liberal) circles. I remember lying on the front porch with COVID, enduring endless coughing fits, when I received the Discord ping that President Biden had withdrawn from the race.

Once I was no longer testing positive, I joined my family inside to watch Biden’s primetime address from the Oval Office. It was an important occasion, but apparently not for much of the country. That’s because 8 PM is no longer “primetime” for so many people. Instead it’s just another time when you might be watching TV, or, more likely, aimlessly scrolling through social media.

Many people in the United States are just prisoners of the algorithm. The right-wing echo chambers kept attacking Joe Biden, making the red-hatted Trump supporters think their opponent was the 81-year-old Biden instead of the then 59-year-old Kamala Harris. They were blindsided by their ballots when they discovered their options, because they never learned that Harris had replaced Biden more than three months prior.

The last thing I’ll address here is the bookstore. Now, even if I’ve been reading a lot lately, I’m well aware that this hobby is falling out of favor among the Generation Alpha crowd. They’d rather play Fortnite for hours on end and watch Skibidi Toilet videos in class.

One reason I prefer to purchase my books from the local bookstore is because I want to support small businesses as opposed to Amazon whenever it’s realistically possible. And yes, I like the human element of entering the building and asking for recommendations from the staff. But there’s an underrated reason why I prefer the physical store.

There’s no algorithm.

If I look up a book on Amazon, there’s always a section on the buy page saying people who bought X also searched for Y, or something to that effect. In the long term, I’ll end up reading largely books of the same genre and similar themes, rather than getting a well-rounded array of titles like I might at the bookstore. Ultimately, if I’m going to keep doing these book reviews in the long term, I want to read a wide variety of novels.

I know this analysis largely comes from an American perspective. Some of the problems I’ve talked about on this blog, such as expensive health care and gun violence, are unique to the United States. And some of the loneliness is brought upon us by car-dependent infrastructure, which is not as pervasive in, say, Western Europe.

That being said, the U.S. is not the only country where social media algorithms have been deployed. And I’m not even going to say that the algorithms are all bad; there are too many videos on YouTube to know what the average user might like without any data.

However, anyone who values personal interaction should be wary of these algorithms. After all, technology is not neutral, no matter how much we’d like to think it is.

Lucas Brigham 1/22/25 Lucas Brigham 1/22/25

We Need To Talk About Elon

*Elon Musk jumping in the shape of an X onstage at a Trump rally. Image taken from NPR.*

Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. As of the moment I write this post, his net worth is well over four hundred billion dollars, and it’s rapidly growing to boot.

To put that into perspective, imagine that you had $400 billion USD. In practical terms, you could never spend all that money in a human lifetime, unless you’re about to become immortal. Which is far from impossible given just how much technology has advanced in recent decades. Even so, that’s an insane amount of money, and Musk is evidently using it to buy the U.S. government.

Given his close alliance with now-President Donald Trump (as much as it pains me to utter those words), Musk has been in the news a lot lately. And, given just how much Trump’s mind has been going over the last few years, Elon Musk is effectively already President of the United States. It doesn’t matter that he’s technically ineligible to be commander in chief - he is Trump’s “puppet master.”

During the “celebrations” surrounding Trump’s inauguration the other day, one moment in particular has captured the Internet’s attention. Given just how taboo the gesture is in a civilized society, I will not put an actual picture of it in this article; to me, it’s equivalent to using the N-word with a hard R. But yes, I am referring to the moment when Elon Musk gestured at the ceiling with his right arm slanted toward the heavens.

The New York Times, in their infinite anticipatory obedience, have described “speculation” being drawn over the gesture. Quite frankly, I struggled over my decision to even include that link there, because the New York Times has arguably enabled Trump more than any politician. A broken clock is right twice a day. The media is indeed the enemy of the people, because their sane-washing of the MAGA movement helped them return to power.

The other claim I want to address is that Elon Musk, who is autistic, was merely stimming. I want to be clear about one thing: I’m on the autism spectrum myself, and I remember rocking back and forth a lot as a child. Even now, I love rocking chairs and hammocks. These days my stims are mostly vocal, but I do rock and flap on occasion. Sometimes it weirds people out; I get it.

But let me make one thing clear: You don’t make that gesture by accident.

The salute Elon Musk made at the inauguration is one with a very dark past. The people who popularized it were responsible for one of the most horrific events of the last few centuries. The Nazi salute is now associated with the Holocaust, the systematic murder of six million Jews and millions of other “undesirables” in Europe. And no, another visit to Auschwitz is not going to make us believe Elon isn’t anti-Semitic.

Indeed, Germany, the country whose government spearheaded these atrocities, is now among the most progressive countries on Earth. It’s far more progressive than the United States, at any rate, when it comes to bigotry in all its forms. There are in fact laws against Holocaust denial, and if you make that salute in public, you will probably be arrested. Here, we let Elon get a pass.

I’m not saying Elon Musk is going to commit genocide against six million Americans, but what I am saying is that he knew what gesture he was making, and was happy with how it would be perceived. Or at least, he wasn’t so unhappy that he would decide not to make it. And I know that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists seem to love it.

Another moment I want to touch upon is the one pictured below. It’s from the “Victory Rally” Donald Trump held the night prior to being sworn in as the 47th President of the United States.

*Donald Trump at his “Victory Rally” on January 19, 2025. Image taken from ABC News’ website.*

During this event, Trump claimed that Elon Musk “knows computers better than anybody. All those computers. Those vote-counting computers. And we won Pennsylvania by a landslide.” Now, if you call a 1.7% margin of victory a landslide, sure. It was a landslide. It was even enough to narrowly drag former three-term US Senator Bob Casey Jr. under the line. But that’s not the most important moment from this speech.

As much as I hate Elon Musk, he’s an incredibly tech-savvy individual; I’ll give him that. He manipulated the Twitter algorithm to prioritize hateful content, to the point where the site is virtually unusable except by users who love such content. Trump’s right about this.

Yes, on its own, the passage above is a non sequitur. But if you replace “and” with “so” in the last sentence, Trump appeared to state that Musk helped him cheat in the 2024 election and steal Pennsylvania from Kamala Harris.

There are two options here: Either Trump got confused again just like he did about whether or not there were airports in 1776, or he admitted to election fraud. And to be clear, I think the former option is more probable. It’s still not the sort of thing to joke about, even if Trump most likely got every single vote that was counted for him. Then again, Trump won’t tone down the rhetoric, not even when it almost got Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer kidnapped.

The most important thing to note is that Elon Musk is, right now, the most powerful person in the world. He has more power than Trump, Vladimir Putin, or even Xi Jinping. His power may not end with the United States. While I think other countries’ voters are smarter than Americans, only time will tell, and Musk has endorsed far-right parties all over Europe, something German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has acknowledged and condemned.

*An image the Democratic Party posted on social media. Where was this energy from Democratss during the election? Image taken from the People’s Party website.*

Some people think the bromance between Trump and Musk will be short-lived, that we’ll run into “trouble in paradise” early on in the administration. I hate to say it, but I believe this is likely false.

Remember, Elon Musk is the richest man in the world by far. He might even be a trillionaire in two years. If any Republican member of Congress waffles a bit on Trump’s legislative agenda, Musk has the wealth to single-handedly fund a primary challenger to that disloyal Republican. Even if incumbency is difficult to overcome in a primary, Musk can bully sitting Congresspeople and Senators into submission via the mere threat of a primary. As long as Musk offers that to Trump, I don’t see these two breaking up any time soon.

So what can we do?

Well, the obvious answer would have been to not elect Donald Trump as President, but that ship has unfortunately sailed. Failing that, it makes sense to boycott the platform Xitter (X/Twitter, pronounced “shitter”) as long as Musk owns it. It’s become a far-right, hateful cesspool that no decent person should support.

Furthermore, though he’s not quite as evil as Musk, Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, deserves condemnation for blocking his newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris. When possible, we should aim to support local retail businesses as opposed to Amazon. All the books I’ve reviewed so far were purchased at small bookstores. To be clear, even if Harris had won, we should still have been doing this - Trump’s policies just make it more urgent.

So if you want to support journalism and book reviews, please consider subscribing to my newsletter. It would mean a lot.

Lucas Brigham 1/21/25 Lucas Brigham 1/21/25

A Rant On American Culture

*Facade of the Boston Public Library. I took this photo myself. Aren’t this many flags a bit excessive?*

Whenever I rant about the state of the United States and feel like running my fist through a wall or yelling something I’m going to regret, people often claim that “all countries have their problems.” And maybe they do, but I feel like that statement is a cop-out.

Not only are many problems not unique to a nation, but problems are not equal in their scale or scope. Some flaws in nations are worse than others, but the worst national sin in my opinion is the inability to solve problems when they arise. The thing I hate most about America is that no matter how many people protest in support of a policy that’s taken for granted in another country, nothing ever changes for the better. This stands in stark contrast to other countries, where demonstrations do lead to social change.

Let’s talk about gun violence first of all. Among wealthy nations, the United States is a major outlier on this issue. The United Kingdom had one school shooting in 1996, the Dunblane massacre, and then they issued a buyback program. Like the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in the United States, an elementary school was targeted. It’s horrific that Dunblane happened at all, but at least something was done, whereas it’s often said Sandy Hook was the end of the gun control debate on this side of the pond.

Australia also had a high-profile mass killing in 1996, the Port Arthur massacre, and then they issued a gun buyback program. Port Arthur, Tasmania was and is a tourist destination, so you might compare this to the Las Vegas shooting in 2017. Nothing was done after Vegas except the banning of bump stocks, which was overturned in 2024 by the Supreme Court. And nothing will ever be done.

*Australia’s Royal Flying Doctor Service tending to a patient. For free, as Reddit will love to remind you. Image taken from r/Pics.*

Now let’s talk about health care. The United States is famously the only country where health care costs any significant amount of money, to the point where there’s a popular TV series where a man resorts to cooking crystal meth to pay his medical bills. And let’s be real: Just like with gun control, if nothing changed after the COVID-19 pandemic, nothing will ever change. Instead we elected a President who just rescinded Biden’s executive order to make prescription drugs cheaper. So if anything, it will become far worse.

I’ll be honest: I’m a bit of a pessimist by nature, but even I never thought that the loss of over a million people to COVID would have been memory-holed so easily. If we couldn’t make healthcare cheaper, then at least we could maybe not elect the man responsible for those million deaths to hold the highest office in the land again.

But that’s exactly what we did. We forgot about COVID just like we forgot about mass shootings, only on a far greater scale. That’s how depraved this country is.

And yet, it still gets worse.

Climate change is upon us. The year 2024 was the hottest year on record globally, and we’re sure breaking a lot of records, aren’t we? The day after the most recent election, it was in the upper seventies in Massachusetts, in November, and I felt like the weather was mocking us for electing Donald Trump.

Oh yeah, did I mention that we elected Donald Trump? He literally just withdrew from the Paris climate accords last night when nobody was watching. In 2017, this was a major spectacle during which Trump gave a laughable speech about having the cleanest air and cleanest water. This time, crickets. The only three other countries that aren’t in the agreement are Iran, Libya, and Yemen. Look at the company we’re keeping - two failed states and a theocratic dictatorship. The best people, the best.

Now, in practical terms, I don’t know how much the Paris agreement matters given that it’s non-binding even for its remaining signatories. Private companies are still reducing their emissions (for now). And let’s be honest, most other countries aren’t doing quite enough either, even if they’re doing far more than the United States in terms of switching to renewable energy. But if nothing else, it’s bad PR for the USA and makes us a major pariah globally. Which we should be.

Climate disasters are not unique to the United States, but again - they’re doing more to mitigate them elsewhere. As Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and others ramp up their renewable capacity, Los Angeles is ravaged by fires. The most significant U.S. response to these increasingly intense wildfires is a mediocre CBS TV show about conventionally attractive firefighters. Just look at it

*Official CBS promotional image for “Fire Country.” Image taken from Kate Hamberger’s website.*

In my mind, the biggest problem with the United States is the culture.

When I visited downtown Boston the other day, I walked past the Boston Public Library (pictured at the top of this article). It wasn’t the only building with an American flag on it, and I think that’s really quite telling.

Look at this way: In my mind, if you are American like me, there is nothing to be proud of. This is the worst country in the world, at least in terms of what we do to other countries, and we should be ashamed of our flag. But even in countries that are far greater nations by any objective standard, “flag worship” isn’t a thing to nearly the same extent. Redditors from outside the United States are always very proud to tell you that they hardly ever see their own country’s flag flown, even in front of government buildings. This thread is a great example.

Furthermore, the Pledge of Allegiance is pretty fucked up as well. There’s an American flag in almost every public school classroom, whether its community may be black or white, urban or rural, rich or poor. Every morning, students put their heads on their hearts and face the flag, saying a series of lines about pledging allegiance to the flag. Like, it’s just a piece of fabric! If you saw it in another country, or even in an evangelical church here, you’d probably think it’s a brainwashing ritual.

And yet, in many ways, the United States is like a cult. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, we tell our children stories about how we’re the greatest country in the world. And maybe we were at one point - putting a man on the moon first was pretty neat. But no longer. And if we want to be that great nation again, we need to make it that way.

Now, there’s a famous saying “Your freedom to swing your arms ends in my face”. In other words, you can do whatever you want as long as you’re not harming anyone else.

If electing Trump only impacted the United States, that would be one thing. I still wouldn’t have voted for him, but it wouldn’t be such a crime against humanity to make Donald Trump President. However, the fact is that we remain among the most powerful and influential nations on Earth (even if we’re not the greatest). Progress against climate change was at stake, as were the nuclear codes amid existing wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, and elsewhere. And that assumes Trump doesn’t start new wars by invading Panama, Greenland, or even Canada.

In other words, it’s going to be a very long four years.

Lucas Brigham 1/18/25 Lucas Brigham 1/18/25

Why Gaming Sucks Now

*A Simpsons meme about the gaming industry taken from r/Memes.*

Cory Doctorow, science fiction author and all-around tech nerd, popularized the term “enshittification” in November 2022 to describe the decline in the quality of online services over time. I won’t use Doctorow’s own words here, simply because I think my readers want to know what I believe as opposed to what someone else does. If you want to know what Doctorow thinks about enshittification, you should read his blog, not mine.

We’ve all been acquainted with this concept in recent years. After Elon Musk purchased Twitter and made it virtually unusable for anyone who’s not a wannabe fascist, the platform has been upheld as an example of decay. In many cases, of course, the enshittification is more gradual than this, but it’s still a big problem.

It’s not just limited to social media either. These days, whenever you ask a question on Google, there’s an AI search overview for your very question. That’s right: As AI cooks the planet, you’ll receive whatever some higher-up at Google thinks you should see. This really takes the wind out of smaller websites like mine. And sometimes the AI overview isn’t even factually correct!

Possibly the most infuriating thing about this Google AI is that nobody really asked for it. That being said, you can turn it off with this extension called “Bye-Bye, Google AI”. And no, I’m not sponsored by the developers - I just love their extension.

However, today’s article is not about the Internet, but rather about a medium that’s increasingly tethered to the Internet - video games. It’s been said before, but I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that video games are getting worse.

Let’s go back to the good old days, the bygone ancient time period we know as the 1980s. Back then, you’d go to the store, find an NES cartridge that looked appealing, and fork over however much money it cost. And the best part? Once you handed over the green stuff, you were done spending money. You just got to enjoy the game.

Nowadays, it’s different. Games have found new ways to get your cash. They’ll make you fork over small pockets of dough at first for a new Fortnite skin, and you’ll think: It’s not so bad, I’m only paying $5 for my character to look like Sonic the Hedgehog. But then you just keep spending, and before long you’ve given them enough dough to start a bakery. Here’s a humorous yet infuriating video about microtransactions.

And that’s before we even talk about DLC! I swear, developers these days have realized they can make more moolah just by releasing the initial game in a half-finished state. On launch day, all too many long-anticipated AAA titles are plagued by numerous glitches and generally don’t work. In the words of Kyle Justin, “they rip you off and don’t care one bit!”

Another aspect of enshittification in the gaming industry is the lack of innovation with new titles. Now, part of that isn’t the fault of developers. At a certain point, there are only so many ideas that can be experimented with, and graphics can’t get more realistic than real life. (Personally, I don’t think a game has to look realistic to have “good graphics” - there’s a reason Okami is considered one of the best games ever made. But that’s just me.)

But I think it speaks to the modern economy that nobody wants to take risks anymore. If a AAA developer has determined that it’s more profitable to pump out endless cookie-cutter titles each year as opposed to coming up with a fresh idea, then they’re going to select the option that nets them more currency. Companies want to make money. In other news, water is wet and the Pope is Catholic.

Anyway, I literally had to search Google (with my AI-disabling extension) for how many Call of Doody: Brown Plops games there were! And guess what? There are six. SIX! And that’s not even counting Modern Garbage. Garbage in, garbage out - that’s the story of the mainstream gaming industry these days.

If the current era of AAA gaming is the Great Depression, indie titles are the New Deal. There’s a reason why so many of the most beloved games of the last decade, like Deltarune, were made without the support of giant, greedy studios. Because small developers have less to lose, they’re willing to take risks and experiment, giving us masterpieces. But the indie scene is struggling in the current economy, and even when it succeeds, there’s plenty of trash. You’ve just gotta find a few gold coins amid the hundreds of Call of Doody: Brown Plops titles - did you really think I was done making fun of that franchise?

Finally, let’s talk about the format of modern games. I want to be clear that not all current games are like this; there are still plenty of story-driven titles being released to critical acclaim. However, let’s be real: ESports scholarships are not going out to players who speedrun games like Okami that have actual plots.

Instead, today’s biggest hitters include Fortnite, League of Legends, Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege, Hell Divers, and of course Minecraft. None of these games have any story whatsoever. Very often, you’ll need a Battle Pass in order to actually play them, which costs you additional greenbacks. And don’t forget the microtransactions!

*A Toy Story meme about microtransactions, taken from the Vulcan Post.*

Most games that are widely played by my friends on Discord are online games, matching strangers up against one another based on some Elo system. They’re highly competitive, and I’m not even saying that competition is inherently bad, but some kids take it way too far. I remember being ten years old and getting very frustrated trying to stay above 7,500 VR on Mario Kart Wii, to the point where it was affecting my mental health. I’d either be relieved or frustrated upon finishing a match, and in the latter case all I’d want to do is play again to regain points (or potentially lose more).

But here’s the striking thing about it: Even if you are massively successful in the game and attain a Platinum rating, nobody cares.

That’s it. Being a master at League of Legends isn’t going to gratify you if you have no friends in real life (COVID and maybe bird flu pandemics notwithstanding), if you don’t read books, and if you don’t take care of your physical and mental well-being. You’re not accomplishing much in the real world other than bragging rights, and nobody who doesn’t play the same mind-numbing online game as you will set any store by it. They likely won’t even know what you’re talking about.

I’m not a particularly religious person, but one thing I’m pretty confident about is that humans were not put on this Earth to sit in front of screens all day raging at some Fortnite griefer from halfway around the world. We’re meant to produce art. We’re meant to connect with people in real life. We’re meant to have real experiences instead of crafting intricate worlds to avoid reality.

I rarely play video games these days. Simply put, it feels like a chore now, and upon spending some time in the StopGaming community on Reddit, I’ve learned even more how addictive it can be. Excessive gaming can destroy lives, in some cases literally, but many people simply can’t play in moderation.

I’m not going to say I don’t have my own vices - we all do - but after reading the story of one Cam Adair, I’m very glad I don’t game for hours on end anymore. It just isn’t as fun as it used to be, and there are so many better things I could be doing with my time. You only get so much time on this planet, after all.

This post was admittedly all over the place at times, but if even one person reads this and decides that they’ll put down the controller, at least for a brief time, and think of something more productive to do (even for just 30 minutes), it’s worth it to me.

Lucas Brigham 1/17/25 Lucas Brigham 1/17/25

American Idiots

*A Pink Floyd meme about double negatives taken from Flickr.*

People often say that children are our future. This is in fact the case; today’s children are going to one day be adults, and they will have to keep our society going via the wide variety of jobs that must be done. We will need future doctors, future construction workers, future custodians, future air traffic controllers…you get the idea.

Despite the importance of training current children to be prepared for adult life and the workforce, K-12 teachers are notoriously underpaid, at least in the United States. The average American public school teacher made just under $70,000 during the 2022-23 school year. Maybe it’s more in other countries, but in one of the nations with the most “hard power” globally, this is a crisis.

Teaching has always been a difficult, demanding job, but it’s only become more so in recent years with both the rise of school violence and the increasingly-unhinged school board Karens. It’s gotten a lot worse since 2021 or so…more on that later.

Now, it’s commonly said that the Republican Party wants students to be dumb. If kids don’t know how to think critically, if they have no idea what’s going on, they will vote for the GOP because they don’t know any better. That’s what they say.

For what it’s worth, I agree with that assessment.

As a progressive myself, I agree that education is incredibly important, and that teachers should be paid more. I’m disturbed by the increasing number of school boards that have promoted the teaching of falsehoods like creationism or the idea that systemic racism has never existed in the United States. To be clear, I was only taught about creationism in the context of “here’s what some people think, and here’s the evidence that they’re wrong”, and I graduated high school prior to the critical race theory panic.

But then again, I live in Massachusetts, considered to have some of the world’s best schools (if you don’t get shot, that is). Forrest Valkai, on the other hand, is from Oklahoma, where the educational standards are more…questionable. This video of Valkai’s, for instance, claims that only 28% of American students are properly taught evolution, which is just insane. If students aren’t even taught basic biology, perhaps it’s no wonder so many adults here deny climate change.

However, the creation-evolution “controversy” is just the tip of the iceberg. I think even a lot of progressives, who by and large value education, don’t fully appreciate the crisis that’s barreling toward us like one of Japan’s bullet trains.

First, let’s talk about the dumbing down of educational curricula. I graduated from a pretty small high school in 2019. In 11th grade, we read classic American novels like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Grapes of Wrath. They’re considered contenders, in fact, for the title of Great American Novel, and even if you don’t personally enjoy them, you can appreciate that they’re well-written and contain complex themes.

In 12th grade, my English course was about British literature. I had to read Pride and Prejudice and conduct a research project on George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. During both my junior and senior years of high school, there was a lot of writing involved, as should be expected of a course on literature. Even beyond what my educational institution required of me, I started writing fanfiction around my sixteenth birthday and continued off and on for a number of years.

The point is, I knew how to write. And the sad truth is, lots of kids these days don’t.

More than that, however, is the fact that today’s students don’t even know how to read. According to this piece on the Education Trust website, the “nation’s report card” found that less than half of U.S. fourth-graders (43%, to be exact) scored at or above a proficient level in reading. For what it’s worth, this number was considerably lower for students of color or those with disabilities; given the aforementioned systemic racism, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

*Author Jeff Kinney with Pope Francis, who is reading one of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” books. Image taken from the Wall Street Journal.*

One of America’s foremost literacy advocates these days is Jeff Kinney, the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. Given that those books aren’t the most intellectually stimulating fare out there, Kinney may appear an unlikely face of this movement. But he apparently runs his own bookstore, and the efforts of Kinney, a practicing Catholic, even caught the attention of Pope Francis some years ago.

Even though my brother and I are both in our mid-twenties, we still think Wimpy Kid is the funniest shit ever. It’s basically a realistic dystopia told in the most hilarious way possible. And hey, if it gets today’s children reading, then that’s awesome.

However, Kinney himself stated in a 2018 BBC interview that he “couldn’t get his kids off Fortnite”. He was able to save other peoples’ children from the brain-rot, but not his own. And indeed, Fortnite, theoretically one of the most addictive video games ever developed, is not the only obstacle to making kids read.

There’s also TikTok. Earlier today as I write this, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the social media platform could be banned in the United States. To be clear, this is a worrying case of censorship, and something else will fill the void of brain-rot like Skibidi Toilet or whatnot.

That being said, I’m not going to shed too many tears for TikTok, because it’s a cancer on society. There’s plenty of evidence that it’s reduced the average attention span, which makes sense considering how that platform really emphasizes instant gratification and entertainment.

And hey, I get it - I’m autistic. I still adore rocking chairs and hammocks. Even now, I need stimulation sometimes; it just takes the form of vocal stims and off-key singing these days. But we need to be able to tolerate boredom sometimes, something I’ve learned the hard way all too often. Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, a time period during which many of us were on our screens constantly.

Now let’s talk about the horrifying implications of declining attention spans and dramatically reduced academic performance.

Imagine a world where a heart surgeon needs to consult ChatGPT in order to know how to perform a bypass operation. Imagine an architect who’s unaware which construction materials are most resistant to hurricanes, an ever-increasing threat in an age of climate crisis. Imagine a shortage of pilots because students can’t study for their exams.

And picture a world where there aren’t nearly enough teachers to instill a work ethic in modern children. Given the difficulties and dangers I’ve highlighted above, I don’t blame any individual for not wanting to go into the field of education. However, someone’s gotta do it.

Ultimately, this is why I read. Yes, it keeps me from doomscrolling and gives me something to do whenever I just want to run my fist through a wall at Trump’s threats to invade Canada or Greenland.

But I also want to keep my mind sharp and resist the brain-rot. I’m going to maintain my intellectual curiosity and academic integrity, because the alternative is that society will get…

*Movie poster for “Dumb and Dumber.” Image taken from eBay.*

Lucas Brigham 1/15/25 Lucas Brigham 1/15/25

There Is No Bottom

As of the time of writing this, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) has announced that she will vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense. This is a big shoe dropping in favor of Hegseth’s confirmation, because Ernst, a veteran and sexual assault survivor herself, was viewed as one of the Republicans who might have voted against him. Given this endorsement, it appears almost certain that Hegseth will be confirmed.

Let’s talk about Pete Hegseth. In my mind, I see him as evidence that Trump’s second term is going to be far more unhinged than the first. However you felt about Jim Mattis, Trump’s first Secretary of Defense, he was at least qualified for the job as a former four-star general. By contrast, Hegseth holds no qualifications other than being a Fox News host who looks good on TV; besides loyalty, that is perhaps what Donald Trump values most of all in his Cabinet.

Additionally, Hegseth faces numerous allegations of impropriety. According to this Democracy Now article, he has been accused of sexual misconduct and drunkenness at work. He’s also made statements disparaging women and LGBTQ+ people who serve in the military. Now, I’m not a big fan of the military anyway, and if there’s anything good that comes out of Hegseth’s impending confirmation, it’s that he’ll bring to light how rotten the U.S. military is as an institution.

But the fact remains that he’ll almost assuredly be Secretary of Defense, and he might well order the military to fire on peaceful protestors. That’s the whole point of firing civil servants who voted for Kamala Harris and putting in Project 2025. Trump told us exactly what he was going to do, and all too many of us thought he was the lesser evil. If Trump truly wants to invade Canada and make our northern neighbor the 51st state, do you think Pete Hegseth will stand in his way?

In the grand scheme of things, I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising that Ernst would vote for Hegseth despite her past. Every Senator had to evacuate the U.S. Capitol on January 6 when a mob violently stormed the building and tried to have them murdered. Not only did the man who incited that mob not get any jail time, he was elected President again and will be able to pass his agenda with the full support of his party. It’s a cult, led by a senile criminally-liable rapist who used to be a Z-list celebrity.

Hegseth isn’t the only horrendous Trump nominee who’s almost guaranteed to be confirmed. There is also Robert F. Kennedy Jr., last seen threatening to spoil the election against Kamala Harris due to being on the ballot in many swing states. He’s now been nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services despite being an anti-vaxxer whose rhetoric led to a measles outbreak in Samoa.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2024 presidential election, RFK Jr. stated that he would not take away anyone’s vaccines. He would not seek to ban immunizations - it was a matter of choice. However, given how the last decade has gone, how the “doomers” have been right more often than they have been wrong, I can’t help but think of this example:

*Donald Trump announces Brett Kavanaugh as his Supreme Court nominee in 2018. Image taken from the PBS News website.*

That’s right. During their confirmation hearings, Supreme Court Injustices Gorey Gorsuch, Gang Bang Brett, and the Contagious ACB all insisted that Roe v. Wade was settled law. They claimed they would not vote to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion.

Well, guess what? They did. In 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, meaning that these same three Injustices committed perjury. Because of our archaic Constitution that designates the nine Supreme Court members as basically imperial overlords, there’s no way to hold them accountable. And since they ruled that Trump was above the law and could do whatever he wanted in office, there’s no way to hold him accountable either.

So here’s what’s most likely going to happen. During his confirmation hearings, RFK Jr. will “assure” Republican Senators that he isn’t going to ban vaccines. The GOP Senators who were previously on the fence will claim to believe him, and they will vote to confirm an anti-vaccine activist to head the HHS Department. Make no mistake: Even if bird flu doesn’t turn into a global pandemic on the scale of COVID-19, there will be plenty of vaccine-preventable illnesses and deaths as a result. When that happens, Susan Collins will feign surprise, making the face below when Kennedy does, in fact, ban vaccines and bring polio back.

*“Surprised Pikachu” meme. Image taken from WIRED.*

As horrendous as these policies are, however, I see no incentive for the GOP members of Congress to resist.

Now, let me clarify what I mean by that. I don’t say this because I lack conviction that vaccines are safe and essential, or that the Department of Defense must be run by someone who knows what the hell they’re doing. Rather, I mean that there’s no political incentive for people like Senator Joni Ernst to vote down these Cabinet picks.

Have you ever wondered why there haven’t been nearly the mass protests that there were after Trump’s first election? Well, other than the Kyle Rittenhouse precedent stating that you can shoot demonstrators in cold blood and literally get away with murder, Trump won the popular vote this time. He’s been normalized.

Yes, had Harris won the election, Trump would still have gotten 45% of the vote at minimum due to how polarized the country has become. However, the fact that more people voted for Trump than Harris means that people are less viscerally angry at the election being “unfair.” And as much as I hate Donald Trump, he did not steal the 2024 election. He won it fair and square, and that’s the worst part of all.

So no. The GOP Congress is not going to vote against any of Trump’s agenda, even if he tries to invade Canada. The American public has voted that there should be no limits to his power, and they voted for members of Congress who believe the same.

It’s too fucking late. The GOP is going to do what they will, and the American people are going to suffer what we must. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Lucas Brigham 1/14/25 Lucas Brigham 1/14/25

My Favorite Songs: “Big Red Gun” by Billy Talent

*Cover art for Billy Talent’s “Big Red Gun.” Image taken from Spotify.*

Billy Talent, a musical quartet hailing from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada (the city that looks like a giant office park from the air), have been one of my favorite bands for several years. And yes, in this case, several does mean seven - long live David Jelinsky!

In all seriousness, Billy Talent’s lyrics very often tackle difficult topics. They’ve got tunes about unrequited love, trophy wives, and plenty of political songs in case you weren’t sure if they were a punk band or not. One of their most aggressive songs is the first track off their 2016 album Afraid of Heights, which is titled “Big Red Gun.”

If you care to listen to the lyrics as you read this blog post, make sure you have headphones. The song is very loud, and you don’t want any passers-by to get the wrong idea if they hear you listening to it. Especially if you live in America.

Brothers in arms who share my fears,

Time to protect what you hold dear.

This line refers to the “camaraderie” between gun owners, particularly those who are in the National Rifle Association. To be clear, polling in recent years has suggested that even a majority of gun owners support gun control , but Billy Talent was obviously aiming for a caricature. And who can blame them? Second Amendment fanatics claim to own firearms for protection despite research suggesting that these weapons are more likely to kill a friend or family member than an intruder.

There's been a rise in new ideals,

Threatening to change the way we live.

This is how the “Second Amendment People” react to any attempt to tighten America’s gun laws. In reality, there hasn’t really been a rise in “new ideals”, because the gun control debate ended when nothing was done after Sandy Hook. I’ve said it before, but if you were going to write about a fictional event that would make Americans support gun control, you couldn’t do much “better” than Sandy Hook. Instead people embraced conspiracy theories and ensured that nothing would ever be done.

Who knows what trouble's found a way,

Found a way to your door today?

Who knows what trouble's on its way,

On its way to intimidate?

The Republican Party always loves to push a bogeyman, because that’s the main way they win (besides voter suppression, that is). In 2018 it was the migrant caravan that mysteriously vanished after that year’s midterm election. Actually, migrants from the southern border with Mexico are always a scapegoat. Because you can never know what’s going to come next, it’s best to have a gun at all times. At least, that’s what they say.

All I want is a big red gun!

(Oh, yeah, yeah, oh)

I'm gonna shoot, shoot, shoot at the setting sun!

(Oh, yeah, yeah, oh)

And all I want is a big red gun,

I'm gonna shoot, shoot, shoot 'till the thrill is gone!

This is the first part of the song’s chorus, which brings to mind a Western film in which an outlaw fires a pistol at the approaching dusk. I mean, that’s literally what the narrator says he’ll do. The narrator isn’t using his gun for any practical purpose either (not that they’re good for anything but hunting and killing) - he’s just firing away for the fun of it. This fits in with the gun culture we see in the United States; I mean, a sitting Congresswoman used to own a restaurant where “open carry” has nothing to do with takeout. It’s totally cringe-worthy.

'Cause this is my right no matter the cost.

Get outta my sight when baby's got a big red gun!

(Oh, yeah, yeah, oh)

Baby's got a big red gun!

(Oh, yeah, yeah, oh)

It doesn’t matter whether the shootings happen at a concert, a nightclub, a university, an elementary school, or a house of worship. Second Amendment fanatics keep insisting that it’s their right to own weapons of war, no matter how many people must die in places that are supposed to be safe. In terms of the “baby” line, we keep hearing those stories of 2-year-olds who accidentally shoot themselves with their parents’ weapons. And then there’s Congressman Thomas Massie’s infamous Christmas card.

*Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) posing with his family and their weapons for a Christmas card. Image taken from the BBC News website.*

Pride is a weapon in your hand.

Freedom awards the faithful man.

I hear the message loud and clear,

Straight from his lips into my ear.

And lord I just can't walk away,

Walk away from the enemy.

The law will never disagree,

On the target of my insecurities.

We constantly hear about how proud gun owners are to be gun owners; this is hardly ground-breaking. “Freedom awards the faithful man”...yeah, well, I want to be able to walk around in public without the fear of being randomly shot. The part of this verse that resonates most with me is “the law will never disagree on the target of my insecurities”. The narrator of this song wants a big red gun so that he feels strong and powerful. No matter how high-caliber his weapon may be, however, he’s still just a pathetic, insecure human being who wants to project bravado.

We call them twisted and deranged,