BevoAbyss

The football gods lined up the stars for Sark, Ewers, and Company. Sadly, they blew it at the end. 1. Title game in Houston, making it like a de facto home game. 2. Bama chokes, meaning Horns don't have to beat Saban twice in a season (not impossible, but surely a tall task). 3. Washington's massive gaffes on last drive literally gift us a chance to snatch the game. 4. The football gods then give us two epic completions, followed by 4 shots from inside the 15. None even close to being a score. Mind-boggling bad calls from Sark, bad passes from Ewers. We all saw it. -- If we score a TD pass, Sark/Ewers are instant eternal Longhorn legends. If we score, I think the title game would be in the bag vs. Harbaugh's crap offense in Houston. The UT crowd energy would have been through the roof after a miraculous comeback. That's why this game had a f*cking catastrophic ending! The ending of this game will trigger misery for Longhorns for decades. I think this game exceeds the Simms collapse/Colorado loss in 2001 Big 12 title game, when the stars lined up for a title chance and Mack/Simms blew it. It is what it is. A lost chance to play for CFP title in Houston. And title game chances are rare and must be taken when presented, especially when given by the football gods. (And a chance to inflict apocalyptic Aggy misery!)

Roma. You are 100% spot on. "Climate change" is nowhere near accurate/serious enough to describe what humanity is doing to Planet Earth—from global warming ... to plastic-filled rivers/oceans ... to CO2 spewing in the atmosphere ... to loss of biodiversity .... to habit destruction ... to humanity creating its own fossil layers as we transform the Earth's surface and ecosystems. Scientists have a name for it: the "Anthropocene," the human epoch. And it is leading to the 6th Extinction Event. Most of the world is in denial. Similarly, pundits, editors, talking heads, and almost all the mainstream media do the exact same thing with MAGA-GQP-Republican Party. They are not mere "conservatives" ... or "hard right ... or "extremists" ... or "evangelicals" ... or "Christian nationalists." These terms are too neutral, not strong enough, or longer even accurate. It's clear to anyone with the eyes and ears open, MAGA-GQP-Republicans are fascists and theocrats, at least according to any dictionary not tossed out of a Texas high school library. The MAGA-GQP-Republican goal, as they have repeatedly said and shown is to install and impose fascism (racist, nationalist, authoritarian, suppression of opposition), backed with violence, all under Biblical rule, i.e., a theocracy. That's the goal. They are working hard on it. They are making it happen. Fascism and theocracy need to used in the headlines and all talking points when discussing Trump, Abbott, MAGA, GQP, Republicans. But it won't happen. Most of America is in denial. That apparently includes most Democrats. Same with terms like climate catastrophe, climate cataclysm, Anthropocene, etc. Not happening either.

The goal is not protect purity, but to make people feel guilty. As Orwell showed, making people guilt/shame about sexual pleasure is a powerful way to control/suppress their existential desire for freedom/liberation. Hence the "Anti-Sex League." Of course, behind the scenes, sex was totally happening among the Party Elite. Not unlike Moms For Liberty founder threesomes and whatever sex MGA-GQP power brokers are in to. Amazing how Orwellian is the Party of Freedoms!

2024 marks the 40th anniversary of Gregory Johnson burning an American flag in Dallas, across from the Convention Center holding the Reagan coronation that was the 1984 Republican National Convention. Johnson was arrested and convicted of violating a Texas flag protection law. The case made it to the Supreme Court and in a 5-4 opinion, the Court sided with Johnson and held that flag-burning was "symbolic speech" and protected by the First Amendment. Has anyone in Texas burned a Texas flag in protest of Abbott, Paxton, MAG-GQP, anti-abortion law? (I don't live in Texas, so I might have missed that story.) Will any of the Surly Leftists get out the matches/gasoline and torch a Texas flag in protest of Abbott, Paxton, MAGA-GQP? Or is the Lone Star love too deep, even as fascism/theocracy take over the state? Or the fear of MAGA-Proud Boys-Kyle Rittenhouses exercising their Second Amendment rights to shoot Leftist protestors?

Imagine Texas ruled by MAGA-GQP for decades longer or perhaps the rest of the century. The border issues will include stopping "illegal" immigration, but also stopping the other "Threats to Texas" seeking to exit the Lone Star State. Even it is just barricades and razor wire along the borders, the wall is sold to Texans for keeping immigrants out, but also conveniently used to keep people in. The wall will be branded something like the "Lone Star Wall" or "Davy Crockett Alamo Wall" and will also include the New Mexico border and perhaps the other states. Depends on the exit routes. Police, vigilantes, and social media posses will be approved to hunt them down. First targets will be: -- Pregnant women seeking an abortion (and those who help them). -- Doctors charged with bogus crimes for treating/aiding women during pregnancy. -- "Illegal" immigrants seeking to avoid 10-year jail terms for merely being in Texas, 20 years if they held a job a Texan could have had. Anyone helping immigrants. The list of "Threats to Texas" will grow to include the following people on the run: -- Librarians with banned/unapproved books hidden in their homes or public storage units. -- LGBTQIA people and those who help them. -- Educators teaching evolution in secret meetings in backrooms of homes, libraries, bars, indie coffeehouses. -- Any educator not teaching the GQP-MAGA-Christian approved history of Texas and the world. -- Scientists not teaching the 6000-year old universe in their courses. -- Flag burners who torch the Texas flag as form of protest (and you know it is coming very soon!). -- Environmentalists protesting widespread eco-destruction approved under Christian Dominion ideology. -- Religious believers who have not shown sufficient allegiance to the approved Christian theology, White Christian rule, etc. -- Atheists -- And who knows what other targets for Texas thoughtcrimes will be created in this glorious future. Long Live the Lone Star State!

Solid post. But the "intellectual concept you are describing for has been identified and fully explained. It is called "doublethink" -- the cognitive process in which a person holds two opposite, contradictory propositions and believes both to be true at the same time and in the same respect. Thanks to George Orwell and the masterpiece 1984. Most people think 1984 is all about Big Brother and surveillance. But the underlying ideology and mass cognition was doublethink expressed through "newspeak" (dumbed down language), powered by the Ministry of Truth. That kept the entire totalitarian Oceania/Big Bro system running. We now have social media, which empowers doublethink and newspeak on a planetary scale, in ways that Orwell could hardly have imagined. One other key thing Orwell pointed out about doublethink: Deep inside, the doublethinker knows they stand astride truth and falsehood, so it must be ingrained in them to feel huge pride (not shame) in their cognitive powers. The must feel awesome as they tower above above logic and reason, thumping their chest for all to see, especially Big Bro and the Party Intellectuals. And for Republicans, we all know Big Bro is Trump and the Party Elite is MAGA.

Y'all can keep making lame excuses for Abbott. But, the 100% unimpeachable fact is: Greg Abbott is a fascist theocrat who is doing what 55% of Texas voters want. That's implementing laws to impose a fascist theocracy in Texas. The goals of MAGA-GQP include Texas under Biblical rule in a merger of church and police-state. How much more evidence do y'all need? Texas is fast becoming a full-on fascist theocratic state. It's only going to get more authoritarian and insane. The ACLU is correct to issue warnings. And Texas will be fascist/theocratic until 51% voters say otherwise for a couple of decades.

Oh, we know who a large swath (45-60%) of Abbott's Texas is, what they believe, the world they desire. Dystopian sci-fi predicted it, Hollywood has filmed it for decades.

The belief that a Supreme Court ruling represents the "opportunity to reset the GOP" is one the most laughable things I have read on this site. -- But it expresses an underlying belief system for some (not all) Republicans/conservatives on this site and in America. Namely, that Trump is an anomaly, somehow. And if the cancerous Trump is gone, GOP will return to its halcyon days of defending tradition, capitalism, lower taxes, and, of course, keeping American strong with nukes, guns, flags, eagles, etc. Where in the hell have you Republicans/conservatives been for 40 years? Sitting in your McMansion counting your $$$ with a Ronnie Reagan portrait above your desk? Everything that is happening now in the MAGA-GQP has been building for decades. Since Reagan! There is NO going back. -- They finally got Roe and abortion. On the table since Reagan. 35 years before Trump/MAGA showed up. -- They are targeting the "immigrants" with razor wire, partial border walls, and now can arrest anyone who might be an illegal immigrant. On the table since Perot's United We Stand convention. 20 something years before Trump/MAGA. -- They are attacking secular education on all fronts, getting the Bible/God in schools. On the table since Reagan and Falwell held hands. 35 years before Trump/MAGA -- They are attacking science on numerous fronts: evolution, medical science, environmental science, cosmology. All on the table since Reagan. 35 years before Trump/MAGA's idiot world of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. Hell, these f*ckers attacked medical science during the worst global pandemic in 100 years, leaving 1.2 million Americans dead (and still counting). You think they care about people dying under their rule? -- They are attacking LGBTQ, people of color, and they will come for the non-Christians of all types. "Crossfit Atheists," look out, you'll soon be a target. "Reset the GOP." Lulz. It has been set for decades. MAGA-GQP will not stop, even with Trump gone. There is no going back. NO! It will only get worse.

Lulz. Abbott and his fascist warriors ain't gonna FAFO anything. Nope, nada, nothing. Rather, the BMDs might FAFO with challenging MAGA-GQP policies. All Abbott has to do is hint is BMDs are "woke."

Just think Longhorn fans: At the Sugar Bowl, Abbott will be on the sidelines hanging with CDC, McConaughy, Clemens, VY, and other UT celebs. Wouldn't be surprised to see Cruz there, too. Great look for our university on national TV. I'll say it again. Texas is home to a nakedly fascist GQP, with political ground zero in Austin, led by a UT alum, also an obvious fascist. What a f*cking disgrace.

In their ranking of Texas House members, The Texas Tribune uses the standard labels of "conservative" and "more conservative" to completely normalize fascism and theocracy in Texas. Check out the article below. -- Meanwhile, women are fleeing for their lives, west Texas cities want to blockade the highways to catch them, Abbott installs razor wire at the Rio Grande, kids in cages, mass deportation of immigrants, open calls for Biblical domination of Texas, attacks on educators, book bans, anti-science idiocy everywhere (from Covid to Climate Catastrophe), the Governor endorsing for president a known insurrectionist who seeks to install himself as dictator ... The list just keeps growing. -- But the Tribune treats it like we're still in the 1980s and its just liberals v. conservatives ... when we're in 2023 and the issue is democracy vs. fascism and theocracy. (Of course, most of American media do the same.) -- The evidence is right before our eyes. The Republican Party, MAGA-GQP is fascist and theocratic, by any definition in a dictionary not tossed out of a Texas high school library. -- Saying anything less is utter denial and gaslighting the rest of us. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/15/mark-jones-texas-house-special-2023-liberal-conservative-scores/

So can women of theocracy. Because that's where the anti-abortion madness is coming from. The Church. The goal is Texas Gilead.

With all due respect, this is incorrect. 1. First, I never said it was a "conspiracy." It has happened right before our eyes. The media has covered it all. -- Just because a bunch of Republicans and Libertarians had their eyes closed and heard what they wanted to hear, it does follow that it was a conspiracy. 2. There is a grand line. Not a straight line, but a clear highway with some curves, detours, zig zags and gravel roads, and then back on the Reagan-Falwell interstate. But the highway clearly begins with Reagan/Bush (though some might say Nixon) in the 1980s and goes to Trump and beyond. 3. Reagan and Falwell energized the Religious Right/Moral Majority (RR/MM) to go full-on GOP. -- The RR/MM were anti-abortion and openly wanted Roe overturned, they harassed family planning locations for decades, and so on. There is the seed for Dobbs and the end of Roe and attacks on women's reproductive rights we see all over Texas and in other red states. -- They wanted religion back in the schools, were anti-LGBTQ, etc. Reagan explicitly said at a 1984 campaign rally in Austin he wanted God back in the schools. GOP has been working on that for years, now in a full-on war with public (secular) schools. The whole "school choice" is largely a smoke screen for Bible schooling at home. 4. Bush 1: You mean the President who ushered in Alt-Fact culture on the campaign trail with his line: "I'll never apologize for America, I don't care what the facts are..." Elected in a landslide over Dukakis, while using the racist Willie Horton ad, too. 5. Perot: I never said Perot was a crypto fascist. I said he was a prototype for Trump. Billionaire, tough talking badass, cult of personality, etc. Whatever Ross Perot said in his book is not everything I saw with my own eyes at the United We Stand conference at the Dallas Convention Center. -- We pulled into the parking lot and what's the first thing we noticed? The striking lack of BMWs, Mercedes, Jaguars or super-luxe Euro cars. This was not the Highland Park old school Republicans. -- The predominant cars were Cadillacs, Buicks, Fords, Trucks, Minivans, etc. Mostly Team USA cars. These people were most likely from the Burbs and areas north, west, and east of Highland Park and Dallas. Plus, small towns. -- Inside, the energy was MASSIVE. As in electric. These people were 150% fired up and ready to change America. This was not old school Republicans quietly discussing tax benefits, corporate empires, or the commies. -- All throughout the concourse, there were tables with people passionately championing various issues with pamphlets, xerox manifestos, etc. It was 30 years ago, so I do not recall all the tables. But I clearly recall at least two tables wanting a wall on the border, with rabid anti-immigration (racist) pamphlets. Ramped up Drug War stuff, too, blaming immigrants. Tables for "freedoms": gun rights, home-schooling (Bible learnin'), patriotism, something about religious freedom, owning gold/silver, etc. Libertarians had their tables, too, with tax issues, budget issues, free markets, etc. Might have been a table on anti-flag burning laws and hating the media/conspiracies. -- I am not saying everyone at the United We Stand convention was a proto-fascist. What I am saying is the fascist seeds were there. Perot struck a nerve, just like Trump. -- My artsy female friend and I walked out, headed to Chuys and downed a few margs and some fajitas. We both agreed. If United We Stand people got full power, there could be big trouble in America. 6. Add on two decades of Alt-Fact Fox News and you have the propagandized GQP fascist consciousness we see today that Trump mines on a daily basis. 7. The line continues from Tea Party to MAGA to Trump. That's self-evident for anyone with their eyes open. TLDR: It begins with Reagan-Falwell and leads directly to MAGA-GQP-Trump. Surly Republicans, just own it.

My post above is in the wrong thread, sorry about that. (Though I was supporting Roma's great post.)

This is 100% spot on. No, 100,000%. MAGA-GQP has been building for decades. Reagan/Bush >>> Perot/United We Stand >>> Bush 2 >>> Tea Party >>> MAGA >>> Trump. Right before our eyes! This ain't no mere grift by spineless con artists. Reagan/Bush: Merged the GOP with Jerry Falwell's Religious Right and the (alleged) Moral Majority, which was openly anti-abortion, Creationist, Fundamentalist, Evangelical. They stated they wanted a Bible-ruled America, God back in schools. They have been openly targeting abortion and women since the 1980s. Clear anti-science, theocratic agenda was being tested. Bush 1 puts Thomas on Supreme Court. Perot: Trial run for Trump. Billionaire businessman = political genius = strongman, tough guy, badass, cult of personality. Perot's "United We Stand" was prototype for Tea Party and MAGA. United We Stand was advocating for huge border walls in the mid-1990s, among many other "far right" policies. I saw it with my own eyes. -- Out of curiosity, I and female friend (no pics) went to one of the United We Stand conferences at the Dallas Convention Center. We were passing through Dallas and thought, what the hell, let's check it out. CNN and news outlets were there. We were staggered by what we saw. A weird conglomeration of "libertarian" rhetoric (cut taxes, my "freedoms") and nakedly authoritarian/religious policy proposals. Build the wall, stop immigration, home-schooling (re: Christian), God back in schools, anti-abortion (pro-life), etc. Early stage unorganized fascism. -- Later rebranded as "Reform Party." -- Fox News launched in 1996-7 to tap into the political audience revealed by Perot and United We Stand. Bush 2: Open embrace and installment of "faith-based" policies championed by United We Stand, war crimes galore, authorized torture regimes. Roberts and Alito on Supreme Court, theocracy now becomes clearly possible. Tea Party: The Tea Party used "tax policies" and "less government spending" as a smokescreen for their various neo-fascist agendas building on United We Stand. MAGA: Clear fascism and theocracy, anti-science, etc. Moral Majority & United We Stand on steroids. Megachurches and small town churches are radicalized. Trump: And here we are. Perot on steroids and paranoid ego-mania. A political strongman, badass tough guy, cult of personality, with backing of fascist-theocratic populace, now bent upon taking total power. No mask, no vaxx, science-denying in the middle of global pandemic costs hundreds of thousands of lives. Total of 1.2 million Americans dead. -- Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett on Supreme Court. Theocracy is now rooted on the High Court. Dobbs ends Roe and more horrors to come. Falwell's Dream come true. The GOP and Religious Right had a long-term plan. It is working. The goal is a fascist theocracy. Believe them. They have a spine.

There you go. You got it. They are agnostic on most everything that is happening in Texas. -- The most horrendous of laws and actions taken by Abbott, Paxton, etc. are treated in the Tribune in a banal mundane summary of what is presented "facts" and "events" ... treated "objectively." It's all a smokescreen to keep the funding and not offend the power brokers and dominant ideologues in Texas. They will never identify anyone or any group with F Bomb: "fascist"

Spot on. The Texas Tribune is an intellectual fraud, pretending to be some high-brow journalistic endeavor. Like all the TV stations and newspapers in Texas (and 99% of America), the Texas Tribune has long been normalizing fascism and theocracy, bit by bit, under the cowardly position of being "objective" and fair to "both sides." Hell, I'll go further. They are enabling fascism/theocracy in their sheer intellectual bankruptcy and cowardice.

Holy Sheeeit! There are dudes in here doing exactly what Smith did to Winston in 1984. Telling him that the laws in Oceania are not madness, are not insane, not contradictory because the "true citizen" knows 2+2=5. Say it Winston: "2+2=5" Say it! Eventually, Winston says it: "2+2=5." Now dead inside, the torture is stopped and Winston is released, a "free man." That's exactly what this abortion law, Paxton, Texas S. Ct (et al) are counting on. Complete Orwellian doublethink.

Oh, we know what "the law" is. It's the Bible. Everything else is just legislative details for the MAGA-GQP legislators and judges to impose on the rest of society. Rather than feel ashamed, they feel holy and virtuous because they believe their God/prophets have ordained them to rule America and purge society of the sinners -- with as much pain and humiliation as possible. The goal is a Bible-ruled theocracy. They have said so. Believe them. And they're just getting started... more purges and pain coming.

Texas is worse than shit. It is fast becoming a fascist theocracy, a literal Handmaid's Tale right before our eyes. All sanctioned by that pasty-faced Texas Supreme Court Justice, Paxton, Abbott and the rest of their alpha dogs of Gilead. The MAGA-GQP Christians are shoving their Bible down the throats of Texas women and inside their bodies, while saying to the rest of Texas: "Fuck you! Try and stop us."

I'd bet 45-60% considering how many on the football boards deep throat the SEC! SEC! SEC! -- Make no mistake, joining the SEC was a total MAGA move, made well above CDC/Hartzell. By Abbott, BOR, and BIG Money Donors (et al) in the wake of BLM, Jan 6, etc. The foundational goal was to align the great UT Austin with the heavily fascist-racist, election-denying, Trump-loving MAGA South. Making $$$ and "big boy" football was the smoke screen. Of course, 99% of UT football fans bought it hook, line, and sinker. The SEC! SEC! SEC! move is a big "Fuck You!" to the liberalism of Austin and any Left Coast sensibilities. (I clearly recall in the 1980s-1990s when Austin was thought of as the Third Coast.)

Debate tactics never change among the theists, regardless of which team. 1. Cherry picking ("peace and love," "Jesus said..." ) from the sacred text, while ignoring all the horrors, violence, idiocy, fact-free fables, atrocities, etc. 2. Never having any evidence for their deity. No proof of Genesis 1:1. None. Nope. Never. 3. Deploying all kinds of logical fallacies, equivocations, and doublethink. 4. Remain in denial of the past 400 years of astronomy and astrophysics, plus evolutionary biology/sciences. 5. Thus, the last resort is name-calling atheists or irrelevant charges: "Bigots." "Cynics." "Freshman level atheist." "Not a serious thinker." etc. Or the newest: "Crossfit." Lulz. Sometimes i wonder if some of the people posting in Surly were running the creationist/evangelical/fundamentalist table in the Free Speech area on the West Mall in the late 1980s, early 1990s at UT. Same exact arguments and claims and denialism. Nothing changes.

For QB it is true. It is insane that Jason White, Sam Bradford, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Robert Griffin, and JFF all have Heisman trophies ... Yet, VY and Colt do not. That's just wrong.

After losing the starting QB job to Street, Bradley converted to DB and had perhaps the greatest game ever for a UT defensive back: 4 INTs ... in a single game against ... you guessed it .... Aggy! That feat deserves some love on this site. -- My dad said it was such an epic performance -- man among boys -- that if it happened with today's media coverage, it would be utterly legendary in Longhorn lore. Yes, Bradley went on to become All-Pro with the Eagles and was a helluva punter. My dad (RIP) said Bradley was one of the best DBs he ever saw at Texas.