Free Enough to Complain

I rode all day. Aurora, because Nyx is in the shop getting the only warranty repair she’ll probably ever see.

The sun was out, but it was fucking cold. I had hand warmers in most of the day, and they helped … a little. My fucking fingers still got numb after about an hour, and so I found myself stopping throughout the day. Usually for coffee, but also for donuts.

At one point downtown I rolled past protestors doing that thing that protestors do: marching with signs. And like what has been happening almost fucking daily since the 2024 elections, it was a stream of solemn faces, all holding what is best described as a heavy, world-ending posture. For two fucking years, I’ve watched half of the country act like civilization itself has collapsed.

And why? Because their guy, the curated choice chosen by half of the country to run against the other curated choice chosen by the other half of the country, because he lost … and they don’t like the other guy.

I just… I fucking shake my head at this shit. No offense, but it’s been two years. Two whole fucking years. At what point does losing an election stop being trauma and start being identity? Because here’s what I saw: people walking freely down the street, holding signs criticizing the government.

You know what I didn’t see? I didn’t see any police dragging them away. I didn’t see any suppression. And I didn’t see any fear.

If you can publicly condemn your leaders without consequence, you are not living under tyranny. You’re living in a free country.

That’s the irony that made me laugh out loud, much to the chagrin of the solemn-faced snivelers: the performance of oppression while exercising the privilege of protest. It didn’t feel like courage. It felt like ritual. And I’m allergic to ritualized grievance.

You lost. Fine. Win next time. Organize. Fundraise. Campaign. Convince voters.

But two years later, marching like the sky is falling? It starts to look less like principle and more like emotional dependency.

And maybe that’s the part that irritated me most. Not the politics. The drama.

Because if the system were truly broken beyond repair, you wouldn’t be allowed to criticize it safely downtown on a Saturday afternoon. You wouldn’t be going home after. You wouldn’t be stopping for ice cream. You’d be escorted by armed guards into the back of a van and never heard from again.

The fact that you can protest — that’s liberty.

And yeah, in a political system run by two corrupt, self-serving parties, your guy is going to lose occasionally, likely every four or eight years, give or fucking take. But the sky isn’t falling, and guess what? Half of the country’s views are being represented in the Oval Office right now, just not the half that you belong to.

Politics requires winners and losers. But liberty? Liberty only loses when we cede control to a strong central government, when we outsource personal problem-solving to an uncaring and unwieldy governmental mass. Liberty, by definition, isn’t lost when you can still eat, drink, breathe, and think whatever the fuck you want.

So please, stop being so goddamned dramatic.