February 2025

Robert's Rules for Resistance (Because apparently we're doing this now)

Rule #1: Don’t post it on the Internet you absolute dingbat.

Everything you post online, everyone can read.

Read that again.

Anything. Everything. Everything you’ve ever posted, said, drawn, or thought about online is forever. Even the stuff you deleted. It’s all there. It can all be recovered. Yes, even Myspace. Even Geocities.

Ok, maybe not Geocities. Alas, my Teknoman fanfiction…

So yeah. If you truly believe that you live in an autocratic state, you’ve already broken the first rule. You’re reading this on the Internet. You should be reading this on a printout of some sort. Assuming you’ve gotten this far and are not on your way to a black site, congratulations! On to rule 2…

Rule #2: Remember lo-fi is your friend.

No credit cards, no cell phones, obviously. None of that traceable stuff. Of course. You know that. That also, sadly, means no computers. That’s going to be tricky, since computers are in freaking everything now, from apples to zeppelins.

So, you logged off Facebook, threw away your phone, and dusted off your bicycle. Ready for some hardcore resistance? Okey-dokey.

Rule #3: Get ready to lose.

Yeah. Your country’s government has a plan for you. You’re pretty much screwed. They’ve planned for every eventuality, including the one you’re coming up with right now. They’re experts at strategy. You’re not. You’re some college kid who majored in poetry and minored in Mario Kart. Successful resistances hired professional killers to do their fighting, and look where that got them (See: Russia, Cuba).

So. What can you do? Just hope for the best? Pray?

Well, maybe more than that. I think peaceful protest is still viable. I don’t think the current U.S. administration is irredeemably fascist. I do think it’s incredibly wrong in terms of what the left actually stands for in a lot of ways. (I also think the left gets a lot of things wrong, but that’s a topic for another day.)

I don’t think we’re headed for a fascist, autocratic, theocratic nightmare state. No. I don’t think we’re headed that way. I mean, I hope not.

Look, speaking as a Christian and a Catholic, I understand that I’m supposed to WANT a Catholic nation, but…um…no, thank you?

If I wanted a Catholic nation, I’d go live in the Vatican, thank you. I love America. I live in America. America is a nation of Christians, but we are not a Christian nation in the sense that we have no official, national religion. Culturally, yes, we are Christian. We celebrate Christian holidays and acknowledge the Christian God on our currency. We have a National Christian Cathedral. We have the Ten Commandments and Biblical art in our government buildings. But we don’t go around proselytizing or oppressing non-Christians. Not as federal mandate, anyway.

Sure, theocracy (the rule of a Divine, perfect Being) could be fantastic. The problem with theocracy is that it doesn’t exist. Instead, what we get is hierocracy.

Theocracy is the rule of God, who is perfect and good and Divine. Hierocracy is the rule of priests. Priests are imperfect. Priests are human. Priests can be corrupted.

Hierocracy and monarchy are what we had in the Middle Ages. And that worked pretty well I guess. Serfs had more days off than we do today, but I kinda like this idea of republican forms of government. I believe in democracy. In representative government. In free and fair elections. Because I’m an American patriot.

Anyway, some Trumpets certainly appear to want Christian nationalism, but they’re not quite fascist enough about it if that makes sense.

They’re like the Diet Coke of fascism. Just one calorie. Not evil enough.

Although this talk about owning Gaza is kind of off-putting. Didn’t Christendom try something like this about a thousand years ago?

How’d that turn out for us?

Sorry that today’s post was more of an unhinged rant than a focused diatribe. I just had a lot of feelings. I get irked when people with no sense of history make ahistorical comparisons. It insults people living under actual authoritarian regimes. People who are actually suffering and dying and trying their darnedest to get by, resist, or just plain survive.

Anyway, don’t forget to check out my comic because I’m still a capitalist shill, and issue 3 of Secret Operations is now available, which means you get to find out how Bubblegum-Man transformed into living candy and what Egg-Man looks like beneath his thick metal shell. Spoiler: He’s a thirteen-year-old girl genius.