I originally submitted this column in July. The Cud’s editor is quite liberal and lets a lot through, but he and his lawyer were concerned over the original title, when I did not refer to them as “Happy Fluffy Bunnies.” Everyone’s panties were in a collective bunch. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that I called them “terrorists” because their actions were the equivalent of terrorizing people—or, for that matter, if I called them “frighteners” or “assholes.” I suppose the legal worry is if someone would sue because I called them terrorists when they didn’t terrorize anyone or frighteners when they didn’t frighten anyone or assholes when they weren’t (I think you can guess where I stand on all three of those).

So the worst has happened: Even The Cud doesn’t dare to run something. Are you kidding me? I’d WELCOME a lawsuit by a member of SCOTUS. You can’t buy that kind of publicity. But I get it. So we’ll call them Happy Fluffy Bunnies because people are THAT worried today.

As a courtesy to The Cud, and to do my part to unbunch any legal panties anywhere, I have replaced all images in this column with pictures of happy, fluffy bunnies. Don’t say I’m not a team player.

And in one final way of appeasing the lawyers: This column does not reflect the views of The Cud. All Happy Fluffy Bunnies and other opinions are mine only. And I absolutely welcome any lawsuits—especially since you’ll be suing over bunnies and water guns. Please, bring it on.

Roe v. Wade
This is just the beginning. This conservative court and its Happy Fluffy Bunnies always intended to overturn Roe v. Wade. It also intends—as indicated by Justice Thomas writing in support of the decision—to overturn gay marriage, allow states to outlaw sodomy, and let states make contraceptives illegal. If the religious right decides anything at all is offensive or wrong, they’ll be able to stop it. Homosexuality, transgenderism, pornography, public opinion—it’s all at risk. Don’t let the declining numbers fool you: Christian dominion is not dead yet.

This is just the beginning of the consequences of Hillary Clinton losing to Donald Trump in 2016. First, Sen. Mitch McConnell refused to allow hearings on Obama’s SCOTUS nominee, with the claim that it made sense to wait until the election was over because the winner of the next presidential election should decide. No, Obama won the previous presidential election; during his presidency, his nominee should have been considered. Instead, McConnell prevented hearings for ten months, until Obama left office.

So, Trump got his nominee in, and then another one. And when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died less than two months before the 2020 election, instead of abiding by his previous claim that the next president should decide, McConnell rammed through yet another GOP nominee before Biden was sworn in.

This is the failure of the American democratic republic. It has been failing ever faster since Trump landed, and it shows no signs of letting up. Thomas and his ilk had a mission to undo Roe, and now has a mission to undo other things that they just don’t like. I assume that Thomas is a hypocrite and wouldn’t be willing to undo other SCOTUS precedents to make interracial marriage illegal, resegregate the populace, or define a Black as once again being just three-fifths of a person.

I don’t advocate for violence—hell, I want everyone to be happy and fluffy and bunny—but in the wake of what this court is doing I cannot help but wonder if our flawed, crumbling, and GOP-abused system leaves us with no other way to stop the madness. The extreme right talks about revolution, but what they mean is forcing people to submit to their wants and demands. They cannot handle equality, homosexuality, a woman’s right to choose, or anything that they perceive as going against their religious values. Anyone else’s values don’t matter to them.

We’ve listened for years to people threatening revolution and civil war to force us to live the way they demand. When will we hear talk of such things by those of us no longer willing to be forced to live that way? This court is taking us backward—stripping our rights under a thoroughly far-right attempt to redefine the United States of America with the power of their Christian mythology. Eventually, people sick of being forced to live under theocratic rule will take up arms against those who are oppressing us and put an end to this judicial terror. If that happens, I wouldn’t cheer, but I’d probably rest a lot easier that night.

Guns
Taking up arms will be ever easier, thanks to the Supreme Court, whose Happy Fluffy Bunnies have already started expanding gun rights, even as Republicans for the first time got behind Democrats for common-sense gun legislation. How soon before the country is overrun with dumb rednecks itching to pull the trigger on the arsenals they’ll openly carry? (Wait—we’re already there!) And how soon will the other side take advantage of those laws and show the other side that we’ve had enough?

These gun nuts—sorry, these Happy Cute Kitties Who Idolize the Second Amendment—don’t care about the out-of-control gun violence in this country. It doesn’t matter to them how many innocent people are mowed down in a supermarket, or how many innocent children are murdered in a school. The Second Amendment is holy to them, no matter how many people die. They’ve made that abundantly clear, over and over.

I can’t help but wonder how the NRA would feel if a few people with… er, water pistols… showed up at a convention and… you know, just soaked everyone there with water, or if someone did the same at the CPAC convention. The irony of such a thing would not be lost on me. I wonder if the last thing that would go through their brains—before the water that would undoubtedly get in through their ears—would be, “Gee, maybe we SHOULD have common-sense gun control!” You know, common-sense water-gun control. Because we wouldn’t want to talk about them getting hit with anything other than water.

Again, I wouldn’t cheer at senseless… soakings… but I’d certainly be the first to say that they had it coming—that they enabled it for decades, and reaped exactly what they’d sown.

And someone has to say it: If those who were… soaked… in such a terrible event were those who enabled it, and that led to actual change… would those… soakings… be senseless?

You might think that’s cold. Or wet. But consider that the gun nuts have been basically saying that all the gun deaths we’ve seen have not been senseless deaths—because they died preserving that holiest of rights, the right to have all the guns you want. It’s too bad they died, sure, but… guns! Right?!

Wrong.

Atheism
I’m an atheist. I’ve lived my life unafraid to speak my mind (as you might have guessed from reading this column today), because I’ve known that the days of burning witches as heretics are long gone, and that the law protects me. But for how long? SCOTUS and its resident Happy Fluffy Bunnies recently decided a football coach could lead prayer on the field, which of course pressures everyone on his team to join in lest they be ostracized. Yet one more backward step. I live in the state of Maine, where SCOTUS just ruled that the state must use public money to send kids to private religious schools. If someone wants to send his child to a private religious school, they claim, then denying paying for his child to go there as opposed to a public school would deny him his religious rights! What about me, the atheist whose religious rights are being harmed by subsidizing that religious school? What about the Jews and Muslims and other non-Christians in Maine? The Supreme Court has decided that I don’t matter and neither do they. This ruling is a thinly veiled “Only Christianity matters.”

Note that this applies to all religions, so the same smug Christians would have to shut up and accept public funds sending kids to private Muslim schools. Their hypocritical reactions would be fun to watch. The reality, of course, is the Christians will once again proclaim that this is a Christian nation, and such a law should only apply to Christianity.

So how long before the Happy Fluffy Bunnies do exactly what the Christian right has always wanted? How long before they decide that this nation is constitutionally Christian? How long before they say “Oh, the Constitution says that CONGRESS shall make no law establishing a religion—but, despite centuries of precedent, we’ve decided that state governments can oppress and control or even evict those who aren’t Christian”? How long before they decide “Atheism isn’t a religion, so you don’t have a right to it” or “YOUR religion isn’t Christianity, so you don’t have a right to that”?

How long indeed. How long before I won’t be able to write about my atheism, talk about it in public, live in a world where children are once again forced to pray in school, or be forced to attend church? How long before SCOTUS decrees that someone’s right to believe in—or not believe in—a religion is up to the states? How long before imprisonment or execution return, with Christian jailers and executioners? How long before some angry Christian reads these words and has me arrested for blasphemy? And then what? Imprisonment? Forced conversion? Crucifixion?

Laugh at your own peril. This IS where we’re headed. I said earlier that Christian dominion is not dead yet. It’s time that it is. I’m damn near ready to do whatever it takes to help end it. You know, with water guns. I’m not a violent guy.

Democratic Republic
This is the problem with a democratic republic. Democracy sounds good, but mob rule can overtake things. And even if the mob is on the right side of things—like the 70 percent of Americans who don’t think abortion should be completely outlawed—a republic is run by elected representatives who don’t have to do what the people want or what makes sense. And rarely do.

We’re screwed, folks. (LAWYERS: I said “screwed” but my original word choice was much harsher. I think we can let thai one go.) And for those of you who aren’t in this country, when we’re screwed, you can be sure that you’re screwed, too. Like it or not, whatever happens here spills over everywhere. And if you’re in the mood to make snide comments about how dysfunctional the U.S. is, look in the mirror first, screwer. You have your monarchies, political stupidity, religions, cultural intolerances, and everything else that makes it sad to live on this planet. It’s just that ours is front and center. The solution isn’t fixing the U.S.; no, it’s fixing the planet. We’re all screwed because we’re all screwed up. And it’s time that people do more than saying they give a screw; everyone needs to act to take the world back from the motherscrewers who are fighting to keep us in the past.

If I could time travel ahead a few hundred years to a unified Earth where peace reigns and nobody is oppressed, would I do it? I might have to go further than that. Five hundred years? A thousand? Two thousand? More? It would be nice to skip over all the bullshit of this planet and get to the future, when the hateful, intolerant control freaks are all dead and gone—where the only Happy Fluffy Bunnies are actual bunnies who are fluffy and happy. The people in that future will no doubt look back with slack-jawed astonishment at the evil that today’s monsters wrought—and realize that we went full reverse back to the Dark Ages long after we’d thought they were done and gone.

Sometimes I feel quite depressed and frustrated over what’s happening. Like many of you, I feel like I live in the wrong time. I want to be in that better future.

But if we could all go there, should we? After all, if we all leave the present, there won’t be anyone left to fight to create that better future. Maybe we should stick around.

But I’ll keep my water guns handy. You never know when the revolution will happen. And you never know when the religious zealots will get too much newfound power and come for you.

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.