To go with an earlier journal.

I generally try to avoid the drama that goes around in furry. Too often it seems to start with something that gets taken far out of context or even sanity. But in general there's a problem with assumptions, more than the usual joke.

I had been made aware someone I was following was, in fact, an awful person. It didn't take much checking to verify this and I quickly unfollowed said person. Now, this could have gone very differently. Instead of working on the notion that I might not be aware I was following an awful person (and unless you have a very short list of people you're following this is easy to have happen), the person informing me could have just blocked me because I was following the person running under the assumption that, because I follow the person I must therefore support the person's views and stances and therefore must also agree with them.

That is, I'd be guilty by association and condemned for something I didn't do just for having followed someone several years back and not really keeping an eye on what they were doing. States, incidentally, love to do that sort of thing too where someone driving a car from a robbery is not only guilty of aiding the robbery but also the deaths of any people killed in said robbery whether they knew anyone died or not.

Guilt by association is a wonderful way of clearing oneself of having to actually consider there might be more going on. Why block just one person when you can also block everyone that happens to be following that person and not bother to tell them why? Friend of years you find is scandalously following the Bad Person? Block them and never speak to them again! After all, you're in the right about the Bad Person and if your life-long friend is following them, well, they can't have been much of a friend, right?

This is something I get to have lots of fun with as a Catholic Christian. Given the sheer number of both Catholics and Christians that have behaved badly both in the past and present, people seem to assume that if I identify that way, I must also support all stances held by both Catholics and Christians in general. Or I get a lot of "but you're so nice!" "you're one of the few good ones" or similar. To say it's exhausting is an understatement.

So maybe, before you go jumping on the latest ban-wagon, you get in contact with the person and ask them about it. Remember kids, poor communication kills.

1) Talk about Greek mythology

2) Mention Zeus raping women (other deities will work, but Zeus has the most cases)

3) The person who responds with "well, rape also had the meaning of 'being forcefully carried away'" is your apologist, especially when the myth is explicit on the sex part
--They may, alternatively, demand proof of it. In any case, they will in not admit the woman was actually raped and will usually accuse you of being a feminist.

So there's a problem that can arise that's not easily addressed or even discussed. Being White, Male, Cisgender, and Gay I have quite a lot of different privileges, many of which I take for granted. I'm not going to enumerate them, nor pretend I'm aware of all the ways my particular privilege works out, but I'm aware enough to know that I have many.

Now, of course, being homosexual does help with this. I need not look too far to see how non-hets get treated--not so long ago there were states we couldn't get married in (or even be married at all!), and there are still areas where being non-het causes issues. So I can understand and sympathize with other groups who end up on the wrong end of the cultural stick.

If I were to go back far enough in time, I could even claim to be non-White because my ancestors were Irish and Italian (which goes to show exactly how bad race stuff gets). Don't get me wrong--I know full well that both groups are considered "White" in the present and that the non-Whiteness was something like a century or more ago, but this only fuels my anger against racists because of the stupidity it involves. It is a willful desire to see someone socially "under" one--even if it costs one better wages or other benefits.

Racism is a nasty, petty desire to ensure a social hierarchy. Despite our marvelous technology we still have the primordial urge to be "better" than someone else and also to have caste-like systems where people different than us are not our social equals.

What does this have to do with the start? Well, our society has expectations about how things work. A starter idea is that men can't be raped (except when they are). Any arguments that a man ejaculating must have wanted the sex is on par with the thought that a woman getting pregnant can't have "really" been raped.

Another one is about race relations. With a heightened sensitivity and desire to see justice for those who are victims of racism also comes an unfortunate side-effect that even non-racist interactions can be framed as racist.

How does this work? I can give an example.

When I used to work at Kmart, I worked in the electric department. Besides the usual maintenance part of my job was security. I greeted anyone shopping but also had to keep an eye out on them because of store policy. This made for some very awkward situations and at least one woman accused me of keeping an eye out on her because she was Black.

Now, this wasn't the case. I kept her about as much under watch as I did any other customer. At least I felt like I did anyway. I can't claim that there was no underlying bias because the US society is not one to let a person escape that entirely, but I try to be as fair as I can.

Nothing came out of it, except me trying to be more circumspect when I was doing my duties, but something could have.

For one, she could have accused me of being racist, sexist or both to my managers.
For another, I could have (at minimum) been made to have sensitivity training. At worst I could have been fired.

Now, I'm only too well aware why someone should be extra sensitive on this. It doesn't take much looking at the news to find someone jailed, injured, or killed because of a cop who decided that an alert about a "strange person in the area" meant a Black person in the area. Such interactions only fuel the problem further. Your job as a cop is to protect your community, not act as judge, jury, and executioner! And it is certainly not to act as a Mafia thug, "protecting" a community by wrecking homes and taking stuff.

So being aware of this, the problem becomes: when I, a White person, see someone non-White doing something they shouldn't be, what should I do that won't get me labeled as a racist?

If you don't think this can happen, take the incident at Smith College where accusations flew and people were tarred, feathered, and fired before any sort of investigation was done into the allegations.

This sort of thing is the same as anyone laying any other sort of false accusation. The lie can benefit the person doing it while harming a great many people both while it's believed and even after it's found out. After it's found out, the reputation of a person found guilty--by public trial anyway--cannot be fully restored. Some people will always believe the lie even when presented contrary evidence. It's worse if there was an actual trial because it's very hard to get someone to reverse a jury's decision, even when the person turns out to be innocent.

The best way, of course, is to do research first. Our natural instinct is to warn others of SOMETHING BAD. This has helped us survive. However, in the modern era we are not generally warning about SOMETHING BAD in the form of a people-eating snake or whatever. Instead it's usually a human predator, which is arguably more scary. But, this also usually affords us more time to assess. We can observe or even interact with the person to see what they're up to. This may, in fact, be the only way to find veracity in a claim.

Does that mean it'll always work? Unfortunately no. Some people are master manipulators. They live off the amount of gaslighting they can do to other people and love when people fall for their con. That can't be helped. But if we don't try to assess better, all we do is relive the persecutions that have happened throughout history.

Though much maligned, I actually like him. Though he is a bit bratty and foolhardy at first, he eventually learns caution and effectively starts filling in the Fred and Velma roles (both with his trap-making and his research/computer skills).

I also ended up wondering what happened to his mom.

We see her in the series exactly twice. First was as an adult in "Scrappy's Birthday" (in the second series of "Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo" which aired December 20, 1980). Second we see her as a child in "Curse of the Collar" ("A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" which aired September 9, 1989). She looks very different, so I wonder if it's because they wanted to separate her from her adult self (making her more like Daphne), or if something was wrong with her as an adult that caused her fur to fade and head fur to fall out (possibly cancer she later died from).

The latter is actually pretty grim for Scooby Doo, but it would explain a lot about why Scrappy is always with his Uncle Scooby and Shaggy. The two likely adopted the pup after his mother died.

If it's the former, that still leaves her fate unknown. If she's alive, she's obviously not in Scrappy's life much since he's always with either Scooby and Shaggy or Yabba and Dusty. Does he even keep contact with her? Did she give guardianship to Scooby and Shaggy? How does the thing with Yabba and Dusty work anyway? Is it some other continuity? I don't remember him mentioning Scooby around Yabba.

---

Yes, I know, this is much too much mental work for a goofy show, but I do want to see Scrappy return someday as a hero.

One of the biggest frustrations of having a two-party system is it seems to end up becoming a matter of choose your poison.

In the one corner Democrat Donkey! Eager to promise the sun, moon, and stars in exchange for your vote! Will not, in fact, give the sun, moon, or stars and will most likely instead focus on "proper procedures" and ignore the minority groups that gave them power. Is constantly shocked at loosing to Republifant in the next election cycle after single-handedly making people wonder what the point of voting for them is.

In the other corner Republifant! Eager to promise policies that inevitably hurt the poor and minorities, this towering pachyderm not only wins but alters the rules to ensure they continue to win whether people want them to or not! Republifant seems eager to control minority groups, even so far as to make voting harder for them! This is surprisingly popular in a nation based on equality for all. Has lately been seen fraternizing with Nazis, but this hasn't hurt their popularity much.

---

And those, folks are your choices! Wait, you want to see systematic change so that the rich pay their fair share, prisons aren't hellholes, minorities are treated like equals, we adopt technologies that won't pollute the environment and actually think immigrants should feel welcome instead of being indefinitely detained at the border or sent "back where they came from" after spending most of their life here in the US? Haha! Silly you! That's not going to happen. It'd require a third party, and if the two we have have one thing in common, it's a united front against anyone else getting power.

I often wonder if humans have much of a future to look forward to. Those who are richest or are in power do their best to keep it that way. They care nothing about the suffering of other humans, except when it can be used to make them look better.

There are even less differences in our political clime in the US. The GOP is big into punishment and making laws that inevitably hurt minority groups. Even now, in many states, voting laws are being altered in ways that inevitably will hurt the poor and, of course the Black communities. The claim is "voter fraud" but there's no proof of it on any scale nearly requiring that. Between the amount of earlier rigging and gerrymandering, though, it's little wonder the Republicans think the Democrats must be cheating when they win.

It's been a long time since I've seen any Republican say that a Democrat has won an election fair and square. There always seems to be this loud noise of voter fraud without any backing.

On the other side, and especially lately, I've seen a lot of folks saying that Texas and other Republican-controlled states deserve what they get and ought not to be helped out. There's an amazing amount of cruelty in that line of thinking, as equally cruel as the governors reopening everything despite medical experts saying what a bad idea that is.

What is it with people wanting to be needlessly cruel? Aren't we here a short enough time without wanting to see our fellows die faster? Do people just not care enough about suffering, when it's not happen to them, that they can be so okay with it happening?

Behold my mighty CURE! This will ensure people around the world never go ill!

Capitalism: So how much are you going to sell that for?

Me: "It's a cure that will benefit all humanity! Why would I want money over helping my fellow humans?

C: "That's bad. That's socialism. Besides, do you really want to die poor?

M: "I'm going to die whether rich or poor, I might as well help as many of my fellow humans as I can while I can."

C: *whistles to attract mega corporations who proceed to patent my cure and not only leave me penniless but also ensures it's either hidden or sold only to the rich* "Now, if you'd only done it my way from the start, all this nastiness could have been avoided."

---

That's the trouble with capitalism, the only question it can answer is how to make money off of something. It cares not about human suffering, nor helping others. People will say things like "well, without money, people couldn't research to start with". This is technically true, but that doesn't mean that something saving human lives ought to be sold to the highest bidder. If you're wondering, I am referencing what happened to the price of insulin. I foresee it happening with the COVID vaccine too, if it hasn't already.

You can't be moral and put money before people. Human lives are priceless. As soon as you start ensuring those lives must pay an outrageous fee or end, you've chosen money over people. To be frank I feel that, if you're religious, you've also chosen money over God.

The Governor of Texas is now both condemning the price hikes and investigating the companies. So there may be hope that folks will see a moratorium on their electric bills (and cancelations) and hopefully those already wiped out financially will get back on their feet between state and federal aid.

I'm really hoping something better will come out of this mess. If anything it only goes to prove exactly why we need better social safety nets in place. Not just relief funds for those facing disaster, but also why government restrictions and oversights are needed in areas that are going to affect large swaths of people. I know there are people (and myself included) who largely don't trust the government overall, but there is a need for agencies that help ensure people are looked out for and that the drive for ever-more profit does not cost human lives.

So in Texas, many people are being charged with exorbitant bills.

There will be people justifying this via personal responsibility.

They will say the person knew the risks or ought to have known them.
They will say that it's not the government's duty to regulate prices to ensure this doesn't happen.
They will say that the person deserves exactly what happens to them.

They will not say:

The person deserves their money back.
The person deserves forgiveness on their bills.
The person deserves any sort of help at all.

Because that would be "socialism".

So, content on their moral superiority, they'll be okay with this happening, as they are okay with all other human suffering because if the person didn't deserve it, it wouldn't be happening to them.

Religion vs LGBT+ ULTIMATE COMBAT SHOWDOWN! Who's rights will be declared more important and who will be made to live as second-class citizens? The titillating details at 11!

No one ever wins this, not ever. I wish this sort of stupidity didn't happen. Being Catholic and Gay I always feel caught up in the crossfire of this sort of thing. If I support GLBT+ rights, that shouldn't mean I simultaneously have to want to see less religious freedoms. I want to be able to live in peace, which includes both the LGBT+ relationships and to worship in peace, which includes not having folks hate on me just because I'm a Catholic Christian and they've got a beef with someone that decided to tell them that they, their family, and their friends are all going to rot in Hell. Or who fired them, a family member, a friend because they aren't cisgender/heterosexual.

I do not recognize the Christ these people follow.

To much disappointment (but not much surprise) Biden has decided to issue new deportation orders to ICE rather than abolish it and try those inside it for crimes against humanity.

If you're of the opinion that families ought to be torn apart at the boarder because they can't "prove" their families, you are lacking in compassion.

If you're of the opinion that people ought to be deported for being 'illegal' no matter how long they've been here, you are lacking in mercy.

If you're of the opinion that humans should be kept in cages without any sorts of amenities--to the point a judge has to order basic sanitary things like soap be given them--you are lacking in humanity.

There's this pervasive ideology in the US, the idea that anyone criminal deserves any sort of punishment prescribed by law because it is law and silly things like mercy and compassion ought not to temper laws. That all crimes are created equal, all criminals are inevitably going to commit crimes again, or that basic common humanity is no excuse for not doing horrible things to someone else.

My great grandparents on my mom's side came here from Italy. Before they had their citizenship they had their nine children, of whom four lived to adulthood. My grandmother was one of them, and you can probably already see why I'm right against people who want to remove birthright citizenship. You might also see why I feel very strongly against the notion that immigrants are all criminals and thugs.

I doubt many people who are for all these deportation really care about those being deported. They'll say they're illegal and that makes them criminal and, as I said, for some people being criminal might as well be being inhuman for what they're okay with seeing done. Some of them will pearl clutch and say "but how is it fair to those who got in legally" to which I reply: well maybe it should be very easy for everyone to become a citizen. Or, better yet, maybe we shouldn't worry about legal citizenship.

If a person is living in a community, helping out, paying taxes, and otherwise not causing trouble, why does it matter about legal citizenship? Just by being a good neighbor they are proving that they're already a good citizen--arguably better than someone that goes around causing nothing but grief whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower or whatever.

And that's another thing. This stupid ideology of citizenship neatly glosses over the fact that the US is all conquered land. It was stolen from the Indians who live here. None of these tribes got a say in who lived on their lands, or were given treaties not worth the paper they were written on. The colonists here have never honored their treaties. I can't think of one treaty the US has made with Indians that was ever upheld in full. All of them had terms changed when it suited the US to change them.

You can say that's negotiation. I call it dishonor. Honorable people do not change their terms just because the terms are no longer favorable to them.

You do not put humans in cages without trial and call it justice. You do not get to deport people and also claim to have mercy and compassion.

Perhaps you've heard the phrase "Doubting Thomas". This comes from the Bible and is a reference to the Apostle Thomas. For full context, it comes out of the Gospel of John, chapter 20 verses 24-29, which are as follows:

Jesus Appears to Thomas
Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Thomas does not believe until he is given proof. He is not the type of person that runs on faith (faith being belief without empirical proof). If you want him to believe something is real or true, you have to show him it is real or true. And, of course, Jesus points out that it's better to believe without proof.

There are all sorts of clever theologians who try to make faith into a sort of logical debate. Without the type of proof a scientist would want, they must instead argue based on other factors that would instead act as weight towards the existences of God and Jesus and why the Christian view is the correct one. These arguments can work for many different types of doubting Thomases, but they'll still fall short for anyone that wants actual evidence.

It's hard for me to have that sort of trusting faith. Too many times I've had promises broken or seen people I thought were good turn out to be whited sepulchers--hypocrites that seem holy and good outside but who are full of vileness inside.

Knowledge is also a burden on belief. That the Old Testament comes not just from the Torah but from oral reports. That the whole Bible is an anthology written by different authors over countless centuries. The Bible Truth, as it were, seems itself to be a fiction. We're supposed to believe the Bible is the Word of God and thus True in all senses. This, you may guess, is where Bible literalists come in. If the Bible is True then everything in it must be True as Written--in other words everything must be literally true. This won't work. The first two chapters of Genesis show different creations. It's not very hard to find other narrative variations or even things (like the Flood) that won't work with a scientific understanding of Earth at all.

Now, an easier argument is a metaphorical truth. This doesn't expect someone to believe something is literally true that can be disproven by science, but rather that the Bible can act as a moral guide. However, even this won't really work. There are slaves in the Bible and slavery is never condemned in it. Indeed, the Bible was sometimes used to condone holding slaves here in the US. And, folks will be quick to point out, also used to condemn it.

In other words the Bible, like any book, is open to interpretation. Those who want can use anything in it to be able to justify any position they want and this will be (in their minds) as valid (or more valid) than someone doing it for some other position that they disagree with. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to have a firm faith through the Bible with these sort of lexical shenanigans.

Even worse is knowing the text of the Bible. It's very clear in a number of places that not everyone will be saved. In fact, the path to salvation is supposed to be very narrow indeed. Yet my sense of justice, human as it is, rebels at such a thing. A mass murderer that comes to believe may be saved and go to heaven at the last minute, yet an atheist that save millions of lives will go to Hell for the crime of not believing! Imagine being in Heaven alone because your friends and loved ones are all in Hell!

So I have a hard time believing, of having real faith. I don't know if God is real or not, of if God is real what sort of God there is. I have a hard time with faith when there's no proof or the type of proof I'm supposed to accept are arguments that can be debated.

Things that are hard for me to fathom:

1) Being okay with people being homeless or dying of exposure because giving them free housing would discourage them from working.
2) Being okay with people going hungry or dying of starvation because giving them free food would discourage them from working.
3) Being okay with people suffering or dying from medical-related issues because giving them free health care would discourage them from working.
4) Being okay with "right to work" laws that have nothing to do with ensuring a person is actually able to get a job.
5) Being okay with a minimum wage that is not a living wage because somehow "prices will skyrocket" even though cost of living always goes up anyway.
6) Being okay with anti-abortion laws but not being against war or the death penalty nor for any policies that will help either mother or child in any way.
7) Being okay with Nazis in any way, shape, or form.

To go with my previous journal, since I'm not sure it really conveyed what I want.

Folks in the US will say that Benedict Arnold was a traitor. Indeed his name has become synonymous with it. I don't think that most people know why he became a traitor. For some it won't matter. Nothing, in their mind, will justify betrayal like that. If you feel this way, there's not a lot of point commenting on this journal. If you, however, believe in mitigating circumstances, however, this journal is for you.

So, during the BLM protests there were acts of arson and looting which, by rights, I ought to have loudly condemned. Instead I sympathized with them and to a degree still do and may always do. This is not because I personally support violence and theft, but because of sympathetic feelings towards people who have been oppressed. Had the racial inequities of this country ever meaningfully been addressed, we'd not have had the BLM protests. There would never have been the LA riots either.

But we still do, and the long legacy of racism still exists. It exists not through obvious things like Jim Crow Laws, but through ones we end up justifying--police violence in particular. This year I will be 45 in April. I can still remember shows like He-Man, Thundercats, G.I. Joe, and Transformers--these shows involving these literal battles of good against evil.

Who wouldn't want to join the side of Good fighting against Evil? But it is a fight, whether through magic swords or laser guns. It is an encouragement of seeing violence as a solution to the problem. You fight evil with guns and swords and bows and fists. You don't negotiate with it. You certainly don't try and find peaceful solutions. After all, Evil is EVIL! They'll just walk over you! The only ways you can be sure they're permanently dealt with is inescapable imprisonment or death.

So, this being in mind, and the Revolution of our country being taught as it often is (plucky Freedom Fighters against the Evil Empire), it's not a wonder I should sympathize with acts of violence against folks I also see as oppressors. It's not right, but it's psychologically understandable and something I need to deal with on my own. Certainly, I cannot say I oppose seeing people held to account for any violence they've done or I'll end up being a hypocrite for wanting to see those who attacked the capital held to account.

Now, of course, comes the issue, and one I know some folks are going to disagree with: If I was okay with BLM violence (in respect to their oppression), then why shouldn't I also be okay with the attack on the capital done (as people say) by folks who feel similarly oppressed?

The answer, of course, is that I don't see the folks who attacked the capital as being oppressed. Why not? For starters, they were White. White people in the US are not considered a minority group for a reason. They generally hold positions of power and can legislate however they want. They are not, and have not been, subject to laws specifically aimed at oppressing them.

They say they want to take their country back. Back from what, exactly?

There will be answers, of course. The chief of which are going to be freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

For freedom of speech I always find the argument an odd one. It generally seems to boil down to "I want to say something offensive and not be judged for it" and I can't help wondering why. Why do you want to say something you know is going to upset or hurt someone else's feelings? Perhaps it is my own rearing. I was raised to be polite to people, to try and avoid being offensive or impolite if I could. Maybe this is out of vogue. It wouldn't be the first time that people have gone the rude, crude route. But I'd dearly love someone raised by their parents to not be impolite to explain why they really, really want to and frame it as "just telling it like it is".

Freedom of religion I also find odd. As a Catholic Christian I've never felt particularly oppressed. If anything, Christians could easily be accused of wanting to oppress others by making their religious beliefs into laws (anti-sodomy, folks against porn, anti-abortion etc.). Not everyone will agree with that assessment, especially anti-abortion, but I only can accept someone is Pro-Life if they're for all life (against war, against the death penalty, etc.) If they're only anti-abortion, they aren't Pro-Life in my opinion, they're Pro-Birth and Pro-Mothers-Dying-From-Giving-Birth.

One thing very reassuring about living in the US is that things fail in fairly predictable ways most of the time. If, like me, you want change for the better you can rest well in the knowledge no matter who you vote for will utterly disappoint you.

Why so bitter? If anyone's been paying attention to the sort of "sentencing" the rioters from the 6th are getting, you'll understand why I'm so utterly bitter. I can guarantee you that, had they not been White, they'd either be dead or in maximum security by now. But no, because they're White they're getting these slap-on-the-wrist sentences. "Oh yes, you just brought things in with you to tie people up and hold them hostage. I'm sure us sentencing you to stay at home until trial will not result in you trying to flee the country."

You might say I'm being a hypocrite, since I generally dislike the punishment system. However, I don't think it's any more hypocritical to want to see traitors punished harshly for their treason than it is to give out this light touch to White people when everyone knows if they'd been Black or Brown they'd have been given million dollar bails or none at all.

Maybe I'll be surprised and when the actual trial goes on they'll get something more than a slap on the wrist, but I'm not holding my breath. I was sent an article a while back on whataboutism, and all I can say is if I'm expected to agree that rioting at BLM protests is as bad as rioting at the capital then it also ought to be agreed that as harsh a punishment should be given. If it's not, if there's some "but", then it's all just hypocrisy and you're asking me to agree with you without ever intending to agree with me.

Among many issues that shouldn't be political and yet somehow are, being good stewards to our world is one of them. There's not too much talk on the issue of trash and recycling, though I think that it's pretty hard to make the argument we out to throw out more stuff or that litter is a good thing, but get onto climate change and watch out!

It doesn't have to be this way, but oil companies have been very effective at creating and perpetuation a "d" strategy. What is this?

1) Dial D for Doubt

Denialism ("there is no climate change") and diffusion ("climate change research isn't as accurate as scientists make out") are the chief reasons that there's even a debate on the issue. The science is pretty well backed up and oil companies even knew about the risks before scientists did. I could link to articles, but I'm going to leave it up to the reader to research lest I be accused of using sites that are somehow or the other biased.

2) Dial D for Defeatism

A newer argument that's arisen. It basically amounts to "yes, climate change is real but now it's too late to do anything". It's basically a statement acknowledging that folks warning about climate change were right all along, but now--alas!--it is too late. The world is doomed, so we might as well not even try to do anything. One might think this is a foolish thing to do since the Doubts are still in effect, but it's actually a smart move. It's not going to really affect those in Doubt, but instead dispirit those who want a better, cleaner world for their children and grandchildren by telling them their efforts are too little, too late.

Lots of people seem to like to talk about the importance of paying off ones debts. No one ever seems to question why debt is needed to start with.

If you still support Trump after yesterday go away. There's no "both-siding" a literal coup.

Other year starts include:

Chinese New Year: February 12, 2021
Nowruz (Iranian New Year): March 21, 2021
Aluth Avurudda (Sinhalese New Year): April 14, 2021
Islamic New Year: August 9 and 10, 2021
Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year): September 6, 2021 – September 8, 2021