Just about ready to get this thing going

Libertas aut Mors… it means something very personal to me, though I suspect anyone reading this site would wonder why it hasn’t been discussed much in the first three posts. Well, my reasoning for that is pretty simple: the first three posts are there just to get something there. I may have gotten into a bit of a rant with the third post [WordPress, Gutenberg, and the BIG “Fuck You” to users] but that doesn’t have anything to do with the subject of this blog, not the main one anyway.

So what is the main subject of this blog?

To know that, you first have to know what Libertas aut Mors means, and that is Liberty or Death. Yes, I believe it. Wholeheartedly.

The United States of America are anything but these days. Liberals are out of their minds in search of greater power, conservatives have an idea of the mission but get lost playing the liberals’ games, and those of us on the libertarian side of things are stuck fighting them all.

The people are divided like never before. Between race, religion, sexuality, and gender, we’re at each others’ throats constantly, and the media seems hellbent on keeping us that way. I don’t really subscribe to any mainstream media outlet, though Fox does tend to hit closer to the mark of true journalism than the others, but I see the efforts by the left to sway the nation through the nightly news.

The up and coming generation of Americans have absolutely no idea what being an American means, and instead lose sight of the mission for hate. Hate is easy and it’s abundant, but it’s also useless.

I could go on; in fact, my head is swirling with all that I could continue saying. But that’s not the point.

My point is this: my freedom to not do wrong by others is my right. I do not ask permission to breathe just as I seek not permission to own or carry arms, to speak my mind openly, or to believe in what inspires me. I aim not to harm others because it is their equal right to be free from harm for the things they do and say.

It takes time to really see it

It’s taken some time to get where I am now. My 35th birthday is just around the corner. When Al Gore lost against Bush in the 2000 presidential election, I was angry. I was also a teenager. I saw the disparity between the popular vote and the electoral college and felt wronged.

Since then I have educated myself on the differences between the Democracy people love to say we Americans have and the Constitutional Republic we actually have and take for granted. I’ve taken the history I learned in school and built upon that knowledge, all so that I may recognize my true enemies, those who wish to take for themselves what is so very fundamentally mine. Libertarians talk a lot of ends, whether it be the Federal Reserve or prohibitions against marijuana or taxes; it’s a bit scary to think of this government would transition to the ideologies of Libertarianism, truly.

I’ve come to believe that the hardships of righting this ship are just, however. We have been losing our way for almost 100 years now and the pains ahead are merely a consequence of that wayward trajectory. We wen’t the wrong way and now must make a u-turn, double back, and get back on the right path.

But kids today don’t know our history, their history, and are falling for the “hate now, pay later” mantra of the left. Teenagers are so unsure of themselves anyway, it’s easy to bribe them with easy lessons that barely have the illusion of substance, and excuses for their perceived awkwardness such as sexual preference and gender identity. They’re just looking for a reason they feel the way they do and the left has found some.

My identity was never in question as a teenager. I was good at blending in no matter the crowd and could easily go off on my own. I’ve never been much for following anybody, let alone people who don’t even know my name, so I never struggled the way my peers did.

My mistake was taking liberal words at face value. I’d say the real eye-opener for me was hearing Obama’s early campaign promises and seeing them unravel before the election. He was a snake oil salesman, nothing more. That’s the strategy of the left. Well, one of them at least.

They center the topic around something noble, something heroic, like ending tyranny, so that any opposition to their goal can be labeled as tyranny itself. They say the immigration problem in this country is about offering a chance for a better life and escape from oppression and tyranny and the uneducated among us eat that shit up like Skittles. But like with anything the left comes up with, the cost of “doing good” far outweighs said good on the backend.

I didn’t see that when I was younger. I didn’t understand the cost of something like free healthcare. The government was this all-knowing, all-powerful entity that had endless funds and the integrity and wisdom to do right by the people. It’s easy enough to believe, especially these days, but wrong nonetheless.

Where does this go from here?

Good question. My plans are to vent my frustrations. I’m no scholar, as will be plain soon if it isn’t already, so I won’t try to pass myself off as any sort of teacher. That’s not what I am. I get things wrong all the time, I miss things.

My goal here is just to get shit off my mind. I can’t do that on Facebook or Twitter. Minds.com and Gab.com are both capable outlets but they have drawbacks too. If I’m going to settle for less exposure anyway, I might as well take full control, right?

So that’s the plan. I’ll talk about politics, culture, lifestyle, hobbies, and anything else I feel like talking about. I’m going to slap a few ads on here because hosting isn’t free (and I don’t do “shared hosting”), but it won’t be much or the point. What you can expect to read about here is the struggle for liberty, guns, motorcycles, cars, and maybe even a little football.

Until next time.

WordPress, Gutenberg, and the BIG “Fuck You” to users

I’ve been watching this whole “Gute” situation for the last year or so and I have to say, what the fuck, WordPress? Gutenberg is a turd being polished shiny enough to overlook its flaws. It is NOT what the majority of users want.

I can see why the devs at WP think they need a Gutenberg around; page builders that permit users to use blocks to build pages and posts have been prolific for years now. Perhaps the most well known example of this is WP Bakery’s Page Builder, formerly Visual Composer. It has 366,000 sales on Code Canyon. I’ve got no less than five themes that came bundled with the builder. It’s seriously popular shit.

Gutenberg is not a page builder

WP’s own devs, the men and women working on the project, freely admit that Gutenberg is not a page builder. It is a block editor. Much like the so-called “classic” TinyMCE editor I’m writing this post in, it’s for text, images, and embeds.

Of course, the problem is that Gutenberg is the starting block of what will one day be a page builder that comes standard with WordPress. The goal is to tie Gutenberg into the Customizer to provide a real-time site editing experience. Not just content, but everything; the layout, fonts, colors, etc.; and no matter how often the Gutenberg devs claim the editor is just an editor, we know that’s not the end goal they have in mind. They don’t hide it.

What they do is deflect with claims of an editor when users groan about a inferior page builder being forced on them, then turn right back around and blog/comment that Gutenberg will be expanded into a page builder one day.

They do this while claiming WordPress needs to adjust with the times and that users want this new editor, while simultaneously ignoring the massively expanding list of negative feedback on the Gutenberg plugin and surge of installs of the Classic Editor plugin.

Talking out both sides of your face deserves 2 slaps

One for each of those cocksuckers. That’s right. Fuck WordPress. More specifically, fuck the devs who think their vision is what matters.

Once upon a time, their vision was important, even all-important I would say, but that was more than a decade ago. Nowadays, WP is a known commodity that people the world over rely on to solve a vast array of problems and serve all parties through the use of third-party plugins and themes – a market easily worth millions now. And maybe that’s the problem.

The role of Automattic in WordPress is getting smaller and smaller as the community innovates more and more, and cramming Gutenberg down everyone’s throat is a way to combat the behemoth third-party market. I’m watching Theme Forest and some very popular themes and I haven’t seen any of them introduce compatibility with Gutenberg yet. Not one, including the top-selling themes for general purpose and newspaper/magazine sites (The 7 and Newspaper, respectively). They’ve had a year to get started and still they haven’t even spoken about it, which I assume means they haven’t started on it yet either. Theming isn’t exactly a top-secret industry.

Bottom line and my plans to deal

I’ve tried warning my writers about the change, and even forced some of them to use Gutenberg on one site, but the resistance isn’t lessening. It’s remaining strong. Using Gutenberg doesn’t convince anyone who wasn’t already in its target market. We publish news and commentary, it includes images, videos, and embeds, and we do this A LOT. Gutenberg doesn’t offer a different experience for us, it offers a useless experience. It offers a complete change to the workflow of the famous blogging software, almost as if they (WP devs) believe they’re responsible for WP’s reputation as a CMS, which is solely attributable to the community of plugin and theme developers.

I will install the classic editor plugin and that will remain until we no longer use WordPress at all, if Gutenberg is merged into core as the default editor. I can’t continue to utilize WP if I can’t get a basic rich-format text editor without a plugin.

This new fork of WP called ClassicPress has a ton of appeal, but its potential is limited right now. WP is a total clusterfuck of code that ClassicPress devs will have to unwind and maintain to make it viable. I wish them all the luck in the world, but I can’t switch my production sites to it any time soon. I’ve tried every open source CMS/blogging software out there, even a few commercial products too (Craft being the most promising), and while I know that none of them offer the capabilities I need (WP doesn’t either), many of them will serve my sites exactly as they are now.

What seems more likely to me every day is that I will build my own CMS. It will match WP in a lot of ways, but it will add a few extra features for network use that WP could only dream of offering. It’ll suck dick, but it needs to be done.

For now: fuck you too, WordPress.

So, what’s the point?

Fuck. I’m doing this shit again.

Libertas Aut Mors is a private site for a private man. I don’t share my shit with the world. I have Twitter but don’t use it. I have Facebook but took 4 years off and only recently got back on it after a friend died who I only communicated with on Facebook the last 7 years. I have Instagram too… what the fuck is the point of Instagram? The only “photo blog” I want anything to do with is more ass and titties than anything else.

I am private, and reserved, and I use the word “fuck” a lot. What the hell you’re even doing here is totally beyond me. You likely won’t get shit for your time here.

I’m a constitutional conservative, dare I say, even Libertarian, but I have my own views on a lot of shit and Facebook has been RILING ME THE FUCK UP lately. Need someplace to vent this shit, an outlet free from the dumb-stupid-simple fucking Socialists hiding as Liberals.

Benny ain’t my name, but it is as far as you’re concerned. Happy to put my name on my actions, and I do too, but this isn’t action. It’s stress release. So fuck my name.

Stick around a while, or don’t. IDGAF. Not trying to be a dick, but I don’t. This isn’t for you.