[Reminder] The Masked Oppressors are the Cowards - That's Why They Wear Masks!

I thought this essay was great - it is free, so I don't mind reproducing in entirety - everyone shoudl subscribe to How Things Work:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/youre-a-bunch-of-cowards
You're a Bunch of Cowards!
We're all laughing at you.

Hamilton Nolan
Jun 10, 2025




Much has been made of an alleged “crisis of masculinity” among America’s young men. This sort of sweeping cultural proclamation should always make you skeptical. As an angle, it is catnip because everyone can fill in its details based on their own lives, and male writers, in particular, can use it as a launching pad to subtly cast themselves as the sort of well-developed masculine figure who might—now that you mention it—serve as a good role model.

I don’t know about all of that. What I do know is that if you are looking for negative role models for masculine virtue, there is an easy way to find them. They are employed by ICE. They are employed by the Department of Homeland Security. They are employed by the sprawling and unaccountable security state, and right now, they are out on the streets of our cities, snatching up mothers and infiltrating elementary schools. There is much to be said about the political processes that deployed these men, and the chain of socioeconomic failures that placed our nation in the position we find ourselves. But there is another important thing to be said directly to the men who go to work every day and don the tactical vests and facemasks and act like the willing gestapo agents of our idiot political leader: You guys are ****ing cowards.

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Tough guy? No. Straight up ****ing coward, man. Pathetic. Jesus. Have some self-respect.

The Wall Street Journal reported on a meeting last month where Stephen Miller summoned ICE’s leadership to a meeting where he demanded that federal agents lower their standards and “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,” outside of 7-11 or wherever. “‘Who here thinks they can do it?’ Miller said, asking for a show of hands.” The outcome of that demand can be seen in the ongoing terrorization of immigrants happening across the country.

Now, Stephen Miller is a little rat-faced Nazi b****. Since his youth just about everyone around him has despised him because he has always been a miserable racist little **** whose evil heart is manifested in his detestable rodent-like visage. Knowing that, I like to imagine all those big, bad, ICE agents, manly men, so macho, shifting uncomfortably around a conference room table as they are harangued by that psychotic little bureaucrat, and then rushing out to kidnap working men from a Home Depot parking lot in order to demonstrate to their master, Stephen b**** Ass Miller, how good they are at being America’s new gestapo.

“Oh, Mister Miller, sir! I put on 40 pounds of tactical gear and tackled a 55-year-old partially disabled day laborer! I prevented him from doing some drywall work and feeding his family, for you, sir! I yearn for your approval!”

****ing clowns. Straight up clowns. All you guys lacked proper male role models or whatever. All you ICE agents wear shades and face masks because you huddle in deep fear of being seen. I’m quite sure you can hardly stand to look at yourselves in the mirror each morning before you set out to lick the feet of your racist paymasters. Change everything about your lives immediately or I promise that your self-loathing will consume you forever. Clowns.

Yesterday, I went to a union rally in Manhattan in support of David Huerta, the SEIU California president who was arrested while protesting against ICE in Los Angeles. There were hundreds of SEIU members there—32BJ building workers, 1199 hospital workers, everyone. They all came out and showed their faces. Who is more brave, do you think? The immigrant woman who works cleaning up office buildings who is willing to come out to a protest and hold a sign supporting a man who was arrested for opposing injustice? Or the six-foot-tall weightlifting ICE agent with a gun and a badge and the force of law behind him who is so scared of anyone knowing who he is that he has America’s worst Congressmen filing bills to make it a crime to reveal his identity?


More badass than a cop.
I laugh at the cowardly ICE agents. There’s a reason people are yelling at you, man. It’s because you’re being a ****ing *******. Do you know what would constitute bravery? Saying, “No, I am not going to carry out this grotesque and racist government assault on its citizens, because I know it is unjust.” That would be brave. Saying “no.” Putting on your bulletproof vest and breaking up families and shrugging and saying “just following orders” and hiding your face is the most weak-ass thing I can imagine. “I’d rather destroy the lives of entire families than have the fellas make fun of me. I’d rather tear mothers away from their children than get a regular job.” Go **** yourself man. Because nobody cool is ever going to **** you. That, I guarantee. Keep on dreaming.

It can be difficult to laugh at riot cops. But we should all try. Because they’re so ****ing ridiculous. Hey, nice huge helmet and body armor and fake ass gun and shield to oppose a bunch of skater kids waving around flags. You all are the most terrified group of human beings in the United States of America. You all are the types of people who open carry handguns to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. You all need to stop getting your news from idiots on idiot websites. You all need to read some ****ing books and gain a minimal sense of perspective. You all need to embrace the crushing realization that for your whole lives you have been afraid and confused and have embraced a misguided set of macho enticements that have seduced you into believing that manhood depends on looking like some sort of cartoon action figure when in fact it is this look that reveals to the world the deep inadequacy that haunts you every day.

You all need to quit your evil jobs and try to be nice to people and run away from this despicable thing you’re involved in as fast as possible because it is polluting your soul and I promise you that history will judge you harshly and your kids and grandkids will be ashamed that you were such an obvious moral failure, despite all that stuff they teach in school about how it was bad when other people in other places in history did exactly what you are doing now.

On one side of these protests you have women and children and grandmothers and teenagers and a skater kid who becomes a national icon by dancing around while you shoot at his feet. On the other side we have you and all your colleagues dressed up like a bunch of ridiculous ****ing paramilitaries, as if you’re at war in Iraq instead of on a street in the middle of LA, shooting rubber bullets at people because they don’t want their neighbors deported, and because they believe in the First Amendment, and because, somewhere along the line, you made a bad choice in your life, and bought into the idea that this sort of thing makes you strong, badass, admirable, instead of admitting that it demonstrates to everyone with eyes that you are ignorant, weak, and cowardly. Too cowardly to say no when a bad person who doesn’t care about you asks to do evil things on their behalf. Real sad.

Twitchy, puffed up, goofy ass cops. No amount of guns and steroids and tear gas will ever make you cool. **** off, losers.

 

Biggest ****ing call of duty losers in the world had their minivan turned away from Dodger Stadium yesterday




Important reminder - these guys are afraid to show their faces, cause they are ashamed of what they do in life

 

This is only a matter of time, at some point one of these Deputized Proud Boys is going to knock on the door of someone who actually does have a stash of AR-15s rather than hairdressers & Grandmas.

There's a reason why they're concentrating on urban areas with lower rates of crime & firearm ownership & going to sports & slaughterhouses - because they actually are cowards