TheSanSabaSongbird

It's what Timothy Snyder called "the politics of inevitability" in his excellent 2017 book, "The Road to Unfreedom." I highly recommend said book to anyone who wants to understand Putin's larger project. It's almost like Snyder had a crystal ball that he could see into the future with.

It's from the Cohn brother's movie, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs." Early in the film Buster lists off some of his other "cognomens," one of which is The San Saba Songbird. It's not really relevant to anything, I just thought it was amusing. I do, however, play guitar and sing cowboy songs.

Hardcore agreement with regard to hiking groups. I'm in my 50s and happily married, but my wife has MS and isn't really able to join me on my hiking excursions. I have a brother and a nephew and a son who will sometimes join me on my various expeditions, but they aren't consistent partners, which is fine, so I've since turned to a local hiking group that has things happening on any given weekend.

I'm not single or even remotely looking for a relationship, but I've definitely seen some younger people find romantic partners in our little hiking group.

How is that a morally coherent stance? You're basically condoning state-sanctioned murder.

The problem is that if you get it wrong even once --and we know for a fact, through things like The Innocence Project, that many innocent people have been executed-- then it's the state committing murder in our name.

Morally I'm not OK with that. Are you?

I'd rather err on the side of caution.

Again, we only have to get it wrong once, which we know we have done, and it's basically the state murdering an innocent citizen.

How many innocent citizens are you OK with murdering?

It's going to be an issue anywhere rural.

I'd rather be in some dark holler...

While you are correct in one sense, you've also managed to completely miss the point in a way that to me seems deeply stupid, small-minded and idiotic.

I would ask you what part about my comment you didn't understand, but I can tell that the answer is "nothing," that you understood nothing, that you are utterly incapable of accurately rephrasing my argument, and that as such, you are a disappointing example of your sorry generation.

Here's the thing; we are trying to treat a figurative heart attack while you are bitching about a figurative cancer.

In medicine we have the concept of triage, wherein we treat the most immediately life-threatening issue first, and then, once the patient is stabilized, we move on to the next treatment.

What you are arguing in favor of is basically treating the cancer while ignoring the full pulmonary arrest that is happening right before your eyes.

What part about this do you not understand?

I don't get it. I truly don't.

Nothing about what you ultimately want will happen if you and I do not stand up together right fucking now.

The plane is about to crash into the fucking mountain and you want to bitch about your little fucking objections?

Really? That's who you are?

It's an interesting and terrifying thought experiment. Hopefully we're not actually going to run it IRL.

For whatever it's worth, I don't think it would fly in a country as massive and habitually fractious as the US, but I've been wrong about a lot of things in the past --never imagined that an unlettered buffoonish corndog conman like Trump could even come within sniffing distance of the presidency for example-- so who the fuck knows?

I don't have a lot of faith in my fellow Americans. I probably never should have, but hindsight is always 20-20 or whatever.

Yeah, sigh, you're right. On the plus side, I'm in my 50s and already feel old, so no worries about that.

Not a chance.