When the Borg Breaks...

I love how Star Trek used symbolism to convey political and even spiritual or religious messages. Some of my favorite episodes involved The Borg.

It was compassionless, power seeking, and had an interesting relationship with the "Hive" which consisted of all the beings whose planets had been overtaken by The Borg and whose will and independent thoughts had been removed from them. It appeared that most did not struggle and those that did lost. They were either "assimilated" or they were obliterated.

The Borg gave all orders and brooked no discussion, much less dissent. Members of the hive merely obeyed The Borg. It cruised deep space, "randomly targeting" planetary systems or wandering vessles to garner more and more members for the Hive.

Everything was a collective in the Hive. Worn out components, ejected. The appearance of the Collective was only in support of The Borg, as there was no 'communal voting' or any other input from The Hive.

Their individuality had been so erased and replaced by the Hive mentality that they could not even save themselves or spot intruders if the intruders did not directly engage them in combat, on a level they could respond to successfully, by overwhelming the intruders with their sheer might of numbers. It allowed intruders to get a look at their inner workings and systems that proved their undoing. Unable to see, or ignoring what was happening right in front of them, they had no way to know how much of their weaknesses were being revealed.

But The Borg had a flaw. The all powerful, listen to no one, Borg was completely dependent on the Hive for its survival. The Borg could do nothing without its Zombie Bots there to perform the actual tasks and perform regular maintenance.

One of the ways to attack or defeat this monolithic computerized, souless monstrosity, was to give it a question or statement that contradicted itself as it agreed with itself. It would consume its own resources trying to find the 'logical' outcome in its own mobius trap. Lacking creativity, intolerant of dissent, it was unable to resolve issues in a creative way.

The only way it new to survive, was to assimilate others into its structure, without assimilating any of the characteristics of those whom it had conquered. It could not adapt. It could not evolve.

In nature, that which cannot adapt, does not evolve, does not survive. The Borg defied the Laws of Nature, up to a point.

The origin of The Borg is somewhat vague. It could have been created, originally, as something used for Good. To protect and to defend; to provide and to support. But somewhere, it went awry, and no one stopped it. After awhile, no one could stop it. Ultimately, The Borg had to self destruct.

In episodes where The Borg was damaged, members of the Hive were lost, confused, often repeating mindless tasks, unable to generate a creative thought on their own. Wandering through the Hive, we could see them performing the last task given to them, over and over again, regardless of effect or outcome. They knew nothing else and could do nothing else. The one instinct they had left, 'survival', only revolved around The Borg being able to survive in order to again, tell them what to do.

A viscious cycle of repetitive, meaningless, mindless actions, which is what The Borg demanded, began to weaken The Borg, disabling it incrementally, as the Hive wore itself out.

What was once a powerful force to be reckoned with, was reduced to a floating piece of space junk, pathetic in its weakness. It's only threat to anything was to perhaps crash into functioning systems and damage them like a drunken driver, risking and taking on further damage itself with each encounter.

An Army of Straw Men

Watching the posts on Twitter from people who call themselves "TCOTS" (Top Conservatives On Twitter) I am seeing a pattern of desperation take form. What I at first thought was ignorance or even mindless stupidity, by one or two, turns out to be a fairly consistent systematic and deliberate effort on their part, to distort and twist anything that is being said or done by anyone that is NOT a Republican, into a faux 'attack' either on God, Country, Constitution, Rights, or anything else we, as Americans, hold dear.

This is done in a way that can only appeal to and inflame those who cannot think for themselves, and cannot understand what they are hearing, either from the source or from the radical Conservative groups that are twisting the message, and who will, in the most reactionary ways, rant and holler.

I find that when this group, individually, or collectively, targets someone, it is because they feel threatened that the person can get out a message of reason that is somehow a threat to their collective.

The Republicans, at one time, were the party of the intellectuals, the successful and the ones with the Moral Compass regarding compassion and the common sense that if we work together, and deal with the issues, we can better protect ourselves, and increase our overall health and prosperity by raising up the standards of living for us all.

I used to joke, when I was a kid and just starting out in my independence, that I was a Democrat, working to open new doors of possiblities for our nation in my lifetime, but that when I was older and retired, I wanted to be a Republican.

But somewhere along the way, the GOP went awry. It was hijacked by a mindset that was impatient with the process of all of us growing together and of fixing and repairing along the way. It became the party of Money and Power.

The once shining intellect became a radical, bullying tactic of ignoring/twisting facts and information, and spewing more and more inflammatory rhetoric. They became more and more devisive in order to stand out in a nation where we all pretty much regarded one another as equals.

They used coded terminology to promote racism and to undo, where they could, much of the progress we as a nation, had made in overcoming stereo-types. Under the banner of "Freedom of Speech" they gave shelter to White Supremisists and other racist organizations. Government became less vigilant and diligent in pursuing hate crimes. Tacit approval, indirect support.

Dividing the races, the religions and even pitting women against men, they began the weakening and the undoing of our society. Chasing after issues, such as abortion, with such zeal and force, that other issues which were real (what was going on in the economy, and the rules that governed it, for instance) were silently gliding behind the scenes.

Demanding the ridiculous in giving the unborn more rights and protections than the living, is a self-defeating cycle no matter how you look at it. They demand less government, and even try to scare us away from National Healthcare under the terms "Socialism" which is code for "communism", and by saying they don't want government in the Doctor's offices telling us what we can and cannot do. (*Head spinning in that they want cops to arrest women in their doctor's offices if they attempt to get an abortion, even if it is to save their own life).

What they don't discuss is that we pay 15x more than any other country for Healthcare and we rank 33rd in quality of that healthcare. They don't want to fix it. Insurance companies, paharmaceutical companies, the biggest money out there, set that agenda for them. Keep you distracted so you don't look at what is really happening, failing, and what it will take to fix it. Fear mongering to mislead the masses.

Healthcare should be considered a Right, not just a privilege of the wealthy. It would, also, reduce the number of abortions, drastically.

Ignoring science is a critical element in all their rhetoric. Be it 'when life begins', or 'global warming', the blind race towards destruction of our society and our planet, was the course set and it would not be altered by any who wanted to rise to the top of The Hive.

In order for the Republican Party to survive, they feel that they have to appeal to the extremist in their ranks. They feel they need that yelling to drown out reason. They construct nothing of their own, because either they don't know how, or they have forgotten how, or they don't care. They seek only to destroy what others are trying to build or to salvage.

I watched a report last night, where the very real threat of Mexico's drug cartels, who now have armies of their own that rival and surpass that of Mexico's government, has become a real threat to the USA.

The report showed the arms that this paramilitary has. Rocket launchers, grenades, and stuff you would expect to find in the elite forces of our own military. Turns out that 90% of these guns and ordnance comes from the US.

Mexico's Atty General made the statement: "I do not believe that the Second Ammendment was intended to Arm Drug Cartels."

Immediately, TCOTs on Twitter, one of whom is in my stream, declared: "Mexico attacks our Second Ammendment Rights!". Clearly, this was designed to again inflame a reactionary response, to 'hate' Mexico, and by default, "Mexicans", and by coincidence, "Illegal Immigrants" and on down the line, until the uneducated reader or listener is so angry and racially biased, that they cannot hear any voice of reason.

They offer no solutions. Rhetoric, the more inflammatory the better, is now the credo and sole mission, the last futile task, issued by the hijacked GOP. They offer to, in the next election, replace people of reason and good intentions with radical Xenophobic members of their Hive.

I commented back to the guy who wrote the errant piece and corrected him. He had nowhere to go. If he disagrees with what the man really said, he would have to agree then, that the Second Ammendment was created to arm Drug Cartels. He was called on his bs, and recognized instantly, that he was in a mobius trap that he could not escape. Further, it would require him to make statements that would only mire him deeper in his own muck.

He chose not to respond. Instantly he 'unfollowed' me. I know, because I figured he would do that and monitored my followers list until he vanished. I then unfollowed him. It was clear to me, that he was not in my stream, or any stream for that matter, to share ideas and to learn from one another. Rather, he was there, as a member of a souless, mindless collective, to create fear and noise, drown out the voices of reason, wherever possible.

That is what they do.

Sad that it has come to this. The GOP overtaken by a radical virus that pushed out and ejected anyone that had different ideas. By doing that, they were unable to come up with 'better' ideas. When they were able to take over the legislative, Executive and finally, install many of their like in the Judiciary branches of our government, they thought they were, at long last, impervious.

Those who used the most abusive, abrasive tactics and who appealed to the lowest mentality, and incited the most inflammatory reactionary responses, had won.

But they had also lost. Unlike the Hive, the rest of the Nation woke up, stood up and we overcame the deepest stereo types, and elected a man whose all three names would have made him unelectable in the extreme realities envisioned by the GOP.

They were unprepared for the challenge of reason. They ignored the intelligence that was telling them that what they were doing was failing, more and more. They only knew what the Borg was telling them and had no way to access their own individual selves. They failed. And they continue to scorch and burn as they retreat, to punish the nation that became disgusted with them and now must clean up the biggest mess in our history.

Now, they resort to the old tactics. Lie, create straw men, make a big show of how we are being 'attacked' and then pretend to be the ones who will save us.

They get a radical moron in the Stock Market section to yell about how only losers need bailouts. He ridicules any attempt to save homeowners from predatory lenders, while silent on the billions that go into Wall Street, where he proclaims himself a Voice of the People. Wall Street is a Machine, a system. It has no face.

TCOTs attempt to incite and inflame the uneducated, the ignorant and the racist. They invent attacks, demand apologies, ignore real responses or questions that show their failed methods are continuing to fail. Their flawed logic is obvious to everyone but them. They continue to mindlessly repeat the same task over and over again, ignoring or unable to see what is right in front of them, as they pursue undoing of a nation to save their party, succeeding ultimately in their own demise and growing disgrace.

They are doing this in every realm of every media. It is all they know how to do. Over and over again, performing the same failed tactics, as a task mission, awaiting further orders from a crippled Borg that is floating like some space junk, only able to inflict damage upon collision, unable to repair itself.

Unable to adapt, unable or unwilling to see what is really happening, right in front of them, they proceed to their own irrelevance, as if they are right, as if they are winning.

The rest of us just step out of the way, and let them.