I should’ve never dived head first,
into this cesspool of greed and deception.
I should’ve probed the water first.
I haven’t been able to change—
not even one, of those MAGA ideologies.

I used to be content in my own space—
writing my liberty rhymes.
But when I was affronted by those injustices,
I was obliged to protest with political poetry.

Trying to turn the tide,
in the evil hearts of men—
but the waves keep crashing in.

Oh, how my eyes burn from the smoke—
when will the RINO’s learn—there’s fallout,
when you can’t defend your fellowman?

By: ElRoyPoet © 2021

On January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln addressed the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up among us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Christian McWhirter, Historian at Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has said that Lincoln’s main subject in this speech, which is generally considered to be Lincoln’s first great speech, was ‘The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions’: “By that, he meant he was concerned about a recent rise in extra-legal, mob violence in America. […] Lincoln believed America’s young democratic institutions were fragile […] and advised his audience that their political concerns could only be properly addressed through the law. Although mob action may seem expedient, it ultimately damages the rule of law, and with it the Constitution, and with that democracy itself. Thus, the reference to national “suicide.” Excerpts from Lyceum Address

“We must choose to live in this world and to project our own meaning and value onto it in order to make sense of it. This means that people are free and burdened by it, since with freedom there is a terrible, even debilitating, responsibility to live and act authentically. Every human is free, but freedom itself is relative; one must embrace limits, moderation, ‘calculated risk’; absolutes are anti-human. ‘I choose freedom. For even if justice is not realized, freedom maintains the power of protest against injustice and keeps communication open.’” (Is this is what happens when polarization takes hold of society?) “If you are thoroughly committed to an idea, are you compelled to kill for it? What price for justice? What price for freedom? Absolutism, and the impossible idealism it inspires, is a dangerous path forward.” Excerpts from How Camus and Sartre split up over the question of how to be free

Commentary: If you let semi-fascist republicans have the upper hand, we will all become bondsman, and democracy will fail, so we have no choice, but to make sure freedom prevails. Don’t believe trump’s lies, that you can have it both ways. You can’t support democracy and sell your capitalist soul to autocracy. It’s a trick to weaken your conviction; to destabilize your firm foundation; to make you over confident, that you won’t be affected by the slippery slope that leads to autocracy. If you support autocracy, you are undermining democracy—why is that so hard to understand?
The reason communists, socialists, fascists and marxists embrace each other is because they don’t feel threaten by the other, so they give each other space, in order to maintain their deception of “honor among thieves”.
The only way to save humanity is for truth and democracy to win over deception and autocracy. An “injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere”, and its coming to a theater near you. Just because I’m not adverse to the inevitable final confrontation between “good versus evil”, it doesn’t mean I won’t acknowledge that the world might burn if WW3 escalates into a nuclear showdown. But that’s the choice freemen must make, because that’s what we’ve enlisted for.

“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” By: Benjamin Franklin

“Though liberty is established by law, we must be vigilant, for liberty to enslave us is always present under that same liberty. Our Constitution speaks of the ‘general welfare of the people’. Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by [authoritarian] tyrants—to make us bondsmen.” By: Marcus Tullius Cicero

“If the right can’t tone it down, can you blame the left for toning them out?” By: A. Freeman