Mandatory Breeding Thesis

In the year 2084 birth was no longer a right; it was a privilege earned through argument. The Global Rebalancing Accord had made it law: before anyone could conceive a child, they had to defend the decision before a council of judges. A Procreation Thesis was required–minimum fifty pages, peer-reviewed, complete with ethical citations and projected environmental impact report.

They called it The Great Pause. The birth rate dopped so sharply that entire industries collapsed overnight: toy companies, children’s television, suburban housing developments. People had to ask themselves a question that had never been asked before, not seriously: Why bring another life into this world?

Julia had spent six months writing her thesis. It was called “Replenishing Wonder: A Case for Ethical Renewal Through Parenthood.” She cited studies on human empathy, argued that carefully planned upbringing could forge more compassionate generations. Her bibliography spanned philosophy, biology, environmental science, and obscure treatises on the metaphysics of suffering. She even included a footnote quoting Albert Camus: “Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”

Her defense was scheduled for a Tuesday afternoon in a pale marble building called the Bureau of Intent.

The judges–three gray-suited scholars and one AI adjudicator–read her thesis in silence. Occasionally, the AI blinked its cold blue eyes as it processed her arguments. Finally, they asked her to stand.

“Ms. Lewis,” said one of the human judges. “You argue persuasively for the ethical upbringing of a future generation. You demonstrate awareness of resource limitations, existential risks, and psychological burdens. However, you fail to address one critical point: what gives you the right to gamble with another being’s non-consensual existence?”

Julia’s mouth went dry. She’d prepared for this.

She quoted her thesis: “Because existence, while a risk, is a canvas. It is not the guarantee of suffering or joy but the possibility of either. To deny that possibility altogether is to deny hope.”

The AI processed her words for several long seconds, then it spoke in its chilling neutral voice: “Hope is not permission.”

Thousands failed every year. Those who passed were granted a Parenthood License, good for one child. If they wanted another, they had to write a new thesis, and it had to be better than the first.

Julia failed.

She walked out of the Bureau under a blackening sky. Couples clutched each other on the steps, some sobbing, some enraged, some simply silent. In the plaza, a massive bronze statue depicted and ancient figure: a faceless mother offering a tiny child up to the stars, as if pleading. At the base of the statue were engraved the words:

“To create life is to stand trial before the future.”

Julie went home to her small apartment. She poured herself a glass of wine and opened a new document.

Title:

“The Ethics of Refusing to Create: A Defense of Non-Parenthood in an Age of Crisis.”

She smiled for the first time all day. Maybe she hadn’t failed after all.

I got the idea for this post from one of my dear friends, Scarlett (not sure how she feels using her real name online.) Go check out her blog:
https://mammonelleblog.wordpress.com/

Trumpism vs Conservatism

Once upon a time, conservatism had a brand. You might not have liked it–hell, you might have hated it–but you knew what it stood for: limited government, free markets, family values, and a worship of Ronald Reagan that bordered on the religious. It was buttoned-up, corporate-friendly, and polite at dinner parties. Conservatism had talking points, a think tank for everything, and just enough moral panic to keep the suburban vote.

Then came Trump.

Traditional conservatism is like a country club: exclusive, outdated, and pretending it’s still 1955. It champions small government while bloating the military. It preaches personal responsibility while handing tax breaks to the wealthy. It’s a polished ideology, wrapped in American flags and “founding father” cosplay, with a Constitution in one hand and Ayn Rand in the other.

At its core, conservatism believed in institutions such as courts, constitutions, and capitalism. You could argue with it, debate it, but it had a script. Trumpism burned the script though.

Trumpism isn’t an ideology. It’s a vibe. A movement built not on principles but on performance. Trumpism is what happens when conservatism gets radicalized by reality TV, Twitter algorithms, and decades of right-wing media rage. It’s not about shrinking government. It’s about weaponizing it. It’s not about free markets, but about loyalty, tribalism, and the illusion of “winning.” Where conservatism says “let’s preserve tradition,” Trumpism screams, “Burn it down unless it worships me!”

Trumpism didn’t evolve from conservatism. It hijacked it. It slapped a red hat on it, handed it a flamethrower, and said, “Say something racist on live TV.” Suddenly, the old guard–McConnell, Bush, Cheney–look like moderates. Even Mitt Romney, the human embodiment of corporate power is now “too liberal” for the party he once led.

This isn’t a party shift. It’s a personality cult, draped in the decaying skin of the GOP.

If you’re hoping this ends with a return to “normal,” good luck. “Normal” is what built the staircase Trump descended. Conservatism laid the foundation. Trumpism built the casino on top and rigged every slot machine to spit out conspiracy theories and bootlicking.

But here’s the thing: we don’t have to pick between Reagan’s America and Trump’s circus. The problem isn’t just the flavor of right-wing decay, it’s the whole rotten system. Conservatism and Trumpism are two wings of the same vulture, circling the corpse of a world built on exploitation. So…

What if we stopped trying to salvage this system altogether? What if we built something beyond it? No billionaires, on bootlickers, no CEOs, no bosses. No political theatre where our choices are a condescending suit or a fascist clown. Imagine direct democracy. Mutual aid instead of tax breaks for mansions and yachts and private jets. Housing and food because you’re alive, not because you’re useful to a corporation. Community defense instead of bloated police budgets. Power, not hoarded at the top, but shared at the roots.

We don’t need Trumpism or conservatism. We need liberation. Burn the script. Burn the stage. Tear it all down and re-build something worth living in.

Hitler, Guevara, and Lenin and the Line We Walk

There’s a reflex in our culture–especially online–to flatten political history into a moral binary. You’re either on the side of the good guys or the monsters. In this simplified universe, to admire Lenin or Che Guevara is to place yourself in the same camp as those who admire Hitler. That comparison isn’t just historically false, it’s intellectually lazy.

Let’s draw a clear line, shall we?

Admiring Lenin or Che is not the same as admiring Hitler. It’s important to understand why, especially if we want to engage in political conversations that go beyond slogans and settle into substance.

Their goals were fundamentally different.

Hitler’s ideology was rooted in racial supremacy, conquest, and genocide. His vision required extermination. It was designed around hate. There is no version of Hitler that isn’t a fascist or a mass murderer.

By contrast, Lenin and Guevara operated under a radically different vision, however flawed. They saw themselves as liberators, fighting systems of exploitation and imperialism. Lenin wanted to smash the czarist monarchy and capitalism to empower workers. Che fought for global revolution against colonialism and U.S. theory, about freedom, equality, and solidarity, not domination and extermination.

Does that mean they got everything right? Hell no. The crimes can’t be ignored though.

Lenin authorized the Red Terror and laid the groundwork for the state repression in the USSR. Che oversaw executions of political enemies in revolutionary Cuba. They believed violence was a necessary tool of revolution. That can’t be whitewashed or excused with historical whataboutism.

However, here’s where critical admiration comes in.

You can admire someone’s courage, clarity of purpose, or strategic brilliance without endorsing every action they took. You can appreciate Guevara’s fearless commitment to anti-imperialism and still mourn the people who died because of him. You can study Lenin’s revolutionary theory and still criticize how it was implemented.

There’s a difference between admiration and apology. Admiration is honest. It sees both the brilliance and the brutality. It doesn’t romanticize, but it also doesn’t erase the context or potential of revolutionary struggle.

Apology is denial. It minimizes or justifies atrocities, insisting the ends always justify the means. That’s where things get dangerous.

If your admiration turns into excuse-making–“they had to do it,” “it was for the greater good”–you’ve stopped thinking critically. You’re no longer admiring. You’re worshipping. And revolutionary icons don’t need worship, they need interrogation.

Bottom line is history is messy and so are its heroes. We don’t need to build saints out of revolutionaries, and we don’t need to pretend they’re all devils either. The left does itself no favors by refusing to wrestle with the full truth of its icons. And the right discredits itself by comparing every revolutionary to a fascist.

So yes, I admire Lenin and Guevara. I admire their courage, their clarity, their willingness to challenge empires and imagine a different world. But I don’t ignore their flaws. I don’t excuse their crimes. And I don’t pretend they didn’t make serious mistakes at the cost of real lives.

That’s not an apology.

That’s what it means to learn from history instead of being trapped by it.

The U.S. War Machine

Let’s stop pretending the U.S. is a reluctant world police officer, dragged into conflict by duty or democracy. The truth is uglier: The U.S. war machine exists to prop up imperial interests, feed the military-industrial complex, and maintain global dominance. It’s not about freedom and it never was.

The U.S. spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing … they’re not building weapons for defense. They’re building profit pipelines, and their stock value depends on war. It’s no coincidence that conflicts abroad send defense stocks soaring. War is an investment, and the return is drenched in blood.

We’ve normalized endless war. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, some Americans couldn’t even locate these countries on a map, but their tax dollars funded drone strikes, invasions, coups, and occupation. These aren’t defensive wars, they’re acts of aggression dressed up in patriotic drag (which is much better and more American than drag queens.) The U.S. war economy requires perpetual enemies. If they don’t exist, we invent them.

U.S. imperialism isn’t just about boots on the ground. It’s about toppling governments that won’t play ball with Western capital. Iran in 1953. Chile in 1973. Haiti, Guatemala, the Congo. The list goes on. When diplomacy doesn’t serve U.S. interests, regime change becomes the foreign policy of choice. Empire with a smile.

The justification for U.S. imperialism is still the same colonial lie: “We’re bringing civilization.” Only now it’s rebranded as democracy promotion and humanitarian intervention. But we’re not spreading democracy, we’re spreading McDonald’s, oil pipelines, military bases, and sweatshops. And if a country resists? Sanctions, bombs, and coups.

While the Pentagon devours over $800 billion a year, Americans go bankrupt from medical bills, ration insulin, and drown in student debt. Empire is expensive. It always comes home. It militarizes police, surveils dissent, and turns the nation into a fortress built on fear. Meanwhile, infrastructure crumbles and the planet burns. And we want to bring more children into this wasteland so they can keep feeding the war machine when they turn 18, but they come back with PTSD and have to wait until they’re 21 to have a drinking problem because of it.

The war machine doesn’t protect us. It protects capital. Real security comes from housing, healthcare, education, and dignity. Not aircraft carriers and drone fleets. It’s time we stop worshiping the military and start dismantling it. That means defunding the Pentagon, ending the imperialist wars, and refusing to let our lives serve empire.

Republicans Pushing for More Births

I saw yesterday that Republicans are pushing for women to have more babies again, but…

They’re not offering paid parental leave.

They’re not fighting for universal healthcare.

They’re not fixing the housing crisis.

They’re not easing the cost of childcare.

They’re banning abortion, cutting food assistance, and telling you it’s your duty to breed for God and country.

Because if people stop having kids, the whole system starts cracking. Who’s going to work the low-wage jobs? Who’s going to fuel the next war or keep the machine turning?

They don’t see kids.

They see future labor.

They see a woman’s womb as a factory.

And they want production up.

This isn’t about life. It’s about power.

What Radicalized Me

I didn’t pop out of the womb swinging a red flag. I wasn’t raised by union organizers or taught to quote Marx before I could walk. Like a lot of Americans, I coasted on autopilot for a while. I figured the president—whoever they were—probably knew what they were doing. The system seemed fine, or at least functional. Corrupt, maybe, but stable.

Then came Trump.

That was the first crack in the illusion. Suddenly the office of the presidency wasn’t just some boring institution, it was a circus, a cult, a threat. It wasn’t just bad policy. It was kids in cages. Racist dog whistles cranked up to bullhorns. And half the country cheered. That’s when I realized the system wasn’t broken. It was functioning exactly as designed.

That’s when I started reading. Rand again, first. I loved her in high school—thought she was deep. Then I picked up Atlas Shrugged as an adult and felt like I’d been duped. It wasn’t philosophy. It was selfishness with a thesaurus. The heroes were sociopaths. The poor deserved it. The rich were gods. It clicked: capitalism doesn’t just tolerate cruelty. It requires it.

From there, I fell down the rabbit hole. Camus hit me like a freight train. The Myth of Sisyphus gave shape to something I’d felt but couldn’t name. This low, constant hum of absurdity. The rock rolls back down the hill, and we push it again. Not because it’ll change anything, but because we refuse to give up.

That absurdism became fuel. So did my misanthropy. Not in the “I hate everyone” kind of way, but in the “I don’t trust people to do the right thing unless they’re forced to” kind of way. I watched people defend billionaires like they were sports teams, as if Apartheid Clyde was going to show up and hand them a Tesla for their loyalty.

I started arguing online. Then organizing. Then donating. I joined the Democratic Socialists. I started lurking at meetings, listening more than talking. I wanted to shake things up, but not just with signs and chants. I wanted disruption. Chaos. Direct action. Guerilla organizing.

I kept reading. Kept pushing. Anti-natalism hit me hard—David Benatar, Cioran, all of it. The idea that no one consents to be born, and that bringing someone into this world is an inherently selfish act. In a dying planet, under a dying system, having kids felt like feeding bodies into the machine.

All of that coalesced into anarcho-communism. Because socialism wasn’t enough. The state isn’t neutral, it’s a tool of capital. Voting helps, but it’s a bandage on a severed limb. I believe in mutual aid, in decentralized power, in horizontal structures. I believe in burning down what doesn’t serve us and building something new from the ashes. Something where people matter more than profit. Where community matters more than hierarchy.

And yeah, I still own guns. Gifts, mostly. I don’t shoot much. But they’re there—”just in case” feels more relevant by the day.

What radicalized me? The cruelty. The absurdity. The lies we’re told about success, about work, about life itself. And the quiet hope that maybe, just maybe, we can break the cycle. So I meme. I write. I organize. I fight. Because if this is a pyramid scheme called life, I at least want to go down pissing off the billionaires at the top.

What “The Wire” Got Right About Drug Policy

If you’ve watched The Wire, you probably remember the “Hamsterdam” storyline in season three. It’s one of the most controversial, radical experiments in the show, and maybe in TV history. For those who haven’t seen it: a police major named Bunny Colvin, frustrated by the utter futility of the drug war, creates unofficial “free zones” where drug dealers can operate without interference. In return, they have to move their business out of residential neighborhoods. He doesn’t legalize drugs, he just stops enforcing the laws in those pockets.

It’s a mess. It’s hopeful. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s probably the most honest take on U.S. drug policy ever aired. The whole thing gets shut down, of course. Because it worked. Hamsterdam reduced violent crime. It made it easier to get help to addicts. It gave communities some relief. But it also violated every sacred cow in American law enforcement. You can’t admit the war on drugs is unwinnable. You can’t show mercy. And you sure as hell can’t make policy based on reality instead of moral panic. That’s the part that stuck with me—because Hamsterdam worked. Not perfectly. But it worked better than what we’ve been doing for fifty years.

Our drug laws have always been more about control than safety. More about punishment than healing. We criminalize addiction, lock up the poor, and turn neighborhoods into war zones—all while pretending we’re “getting tough” on crime.

Meanwhile, drug use continues, overdose deaths skyrocket, and entire communities are hollowed out by mass incarceration. Hamsterdam wasn’t a utopia. It had problems. But it was rooted in a radical idea: What if we treated drug users as people instead of criminals?

Imagine if we took all the money we pour into SWAT raids, private prisons, and DEA sting operations—and used it for housing, harm reduction, mental health care, and treatment on demand. Imagine if we decriminalized drugs entirely, stopped arresting people for possession, and focused on actually helping people instead of ruining their lives.

Portugal did it. Overdose deaths dropped. HIV rates dropped. People got healthier—and the sky didn’t fall. The U.S.? We double down on failure because we’re addicted to punishment. Because it feels good to punish.

That’s why Hamsterdam couldn’t survive. It was too honest. We need more honesty. We need more Bunny Colvins willing to break the rules because the rules are broken. And we need drug policy based on compassion, not cruelty. Because right now, the real crime isn’t using drugs, it’s pretending our system works when we know damn well it doesn’t.

Why I Hate Elon Musk

Let’s get one thing out of the way: I don’t hate Apartheid Clyde out of any form of jealousy. It’s not because he’s wealthy, or famous, or “successful.” It’s because he’s the perfect embodiment of everything wrong with our world, gift-wrapped in a smug face and a broken social filter.

Apartheid Clyde is capitalism’s final boss. Not because he’s a genius–he’s not–but because he’s really good at taking credit for other people’s work while cosplaying as a messiah. He didn’t invent Tesla. He didn’t found SpaceX from scratch. What he did do was use inherited wealth to buy his way into tech projects already in motion, then spin a mythology around himself with the help of media and a small army of reply guys convinced he’s the second coming of Nikola Tesla, Tony Stark, and Jesus rolled into one.

Spoiler: he’s none of those things.

He’s a union-buster. A climate grifter. A serial breeder who thinks repopulating the Earth with his own genes is a noble cause. He preaches about saving humanity while exploiting workers and cozying up to dictators. He pretends to be a free speech absolutist while banning journalists on Twitter for criticizing him. He bought one of the most important online platforms just to turn it into his personal plaything–a megaphone for crypto scams, far-right rhetoric, and fragile billionaire egos.

He’s not a visionary. He’s a distraction.

Musk sells the illusion that billionaires will save us if we just let them run wild with our data, our money, and our futures. That if we tolerate their tantrums and bow to their brilliance, they’ll build us a utopia on Mars. Meanwhile, here on Earth, wages are stagnant, cities are burning, and the richest man alive is picking fights with disabled employees online.

I don’t hate him because he’s unusual. I hate him because he’s typical–a grotesque symptom of a system that rewards narcissism, hoarding, and unchecked power. A system that mistakes wealth for wisdom. A system that tells us the people breaking the planet are somehow going to be the ones to fix it.

He won’t save us. He can’t. He doesn’t even care to.

A Gun Owner Who Wants Gun Control

I’ve already posted once today, but I felt like I had to post this in lieu of the recent shooting in Florida. Your thoughts and prayers aren’t enough.

Let’s get this out of the way: I own guns. Plural. I’ve owned them for years. I even own an AR-15. Some were gifts, some I keep around for “just in case,” and no, I don’t sleep with one under my pillow whispering sweet nothings about the Second Amendment. But I am a gun owner.

And I want gun control.

Cut the screeching “Traitor!” “Liberal!” “You just want the government to take everything!” bullshit. Calm down, Yosemite Sam. Nobody’s kicking in your door to confiscate your tactical Hello Kitty rifle. But let me explain this in a way that even your average ammo hoarder can understand: owning guns and supporting regulation isn’t hypocrisy. It’s sanity.

I don’t want everyone’s gun banned. I want people who think a Red Bull and a grudge is a personality to have a slightly harder time buying an AR-15. That’s it.

See, the problem isn’t gun ownership–it’s the wild ass fantasy roleplay that’s metastasized around it. Some of you treat the gun range like a cosplay convention for failed protagonists. You’ve got more gear than the National Guard and a brain that could maybe pass a middle school civics test if it was a group project. And these are the people we’re supposed to trust with zero oversight?

I’m not buying it.

We regulate everything else. Cars, food, prescription meds. Hell, I need a license to fish. But guns? Nah, let’s just let any twitchy rage troll waltz into some store and suit up like it’s Call of Duty. Seems smart.

Gun nuts love to say, “If you don’t know anything about guns, you can’t talk about gun laws.” Cool. I do know. I’ve shot them, cleaned them, owned them, and locked them up when I wasn’t using them. And that experience is exactly why I know how dangerous our current free-for-all is.

The truth? Guns are fine. Gun culture is diseased.

It’s built on fear, fantasy, and fetish. It’s no longer about self-defense or even sport–it’s about ego, paranoia, and performative patriotism. Half the guys screaming about tyranny wouldn’t last five minutes without DoorDash and a cell signal, but sure, let’s arm them like they’re about to liberate Nakatomi Plaza.

You want to call me a “bad gun owner” because I want regulation? Fine. I’ll take it. You know what’s worse than a bad gun owner? A delusional one.

So yeah, I support background checks. I support waiting periods. I support red flag laws. I support licensing and training. And I still own guns.

If it breaks your brain then good. Maybe it was already cracked.

I’m a gun owner and I want gun control.

Share this. Re-post it. Piss off your relative with a Punisher decal on his lifted truck because the only way we fix this mess is if the “responsible gun owners” actually act like it.

Less Bodies for the Machine

Procreation isn’t a sacred act anymore. It’s a recruitment strategy. Capitalism needs fresh labor. Empires need more bodies to throw at wars and wage gaps. And the ruling class needs you too busy and broke raising kids to organize.

It’s a pyramid scheme, but instead of protein powder or crypto, the product is existence itself. And just like any good scheme, those at the top get richer while the suckers at the bottom hold the bag–and in this case–the diaper.

They’ll tell you it’s “selfish” not to have kids. As if sacrificing your sanity, finances, and future for a planet on fire is selfless. As if love can only be proven through reproduction. As if creating another sentient being without consent isn’t the actual selfish act.

I don’t just hate kids. I hate the system that demands them. The system that hands them a crumbling world, then blames them when they can’t fix it fast enough.

So no, I won’t be “giving my parents grandkids.” I won’t be “building a legacy.” I’ll be here—fighting for a world where people are valued for more than what they produce or reproduce. Opting out isn’t nihilism. It’s resistance. It’s one less body for the machine to chew on. And besides, why bring someone else into this absurd mess when you can throw rocks at the throne instead?