for my republican friends

Bill checked his suit for lint and stains one last time.
He picked up his notebook, with "DEBATE NOTES" handwritten on the front cover, and flipped through.
Everything was there the way he wanted it to be.
He left his apartment and got on the bus to the auditorium.
He flipped through the notes at varying speeds while the bus rattled down the street.
A friend of his in dress uniform waved out of the corner of his eye after a couple minutes.
"So you're going?"
"Yeah, it sounded like I'd get a chance to hear something interesting," Bill said.
"But it's all bullshit, it's the same thing we all hear in our one-hundred poli-sci class."
"Of course Tom, these people don't know anything. They just read the Saltman Dissent and figure that's good enough to get into bed with someone."
"You're never gonna change anyone's mind. No one wants to admit Satan exists."
Bill smiled. "I may get lucky some day."
The bus stopped at the ROTC building and Tom got off.
Bill kept reading his notes.
At the next stop about a dozen hippies and a couple of women in hijab got on.
They stopped talking for a second when they saw him, then started talking again.
Everyone got off at the main hub and walked to the auditorium, avoiding the potholes in the pavement.
The three dozen students there chatted amongst themselves.
Bill sat in the corner looking at the notebook.
The speaker entered the room.
Everyone clapped.
The speech went the way Bill expected, a lot of apologist whining for the Squigs.
They'd evolved a lot like humans (the woman claimed), even in their physical needs (oxygen, water, and heat), but without our disease immunities and resistance to our pollutants; and therefore purposely filling our ships with Manhattan air to be vented into the atmosphere on touchdown was unforgivable slow genocide.
The Squigs had "religions" like a lot of human religions, with alien visitors prominent in several of them like in human tribal religions, even coming from the same stars as the human tribes believed their alien visitors arrived from, suggesting shared history despite physical and cultural differences.
Their planet ("Bellone," not some unpronounceable Squig whistle) was rich in resources, and by looking at the papers leaked to Daniel Saltman, it was obvious that the stories about Squig "atrocities" were UNCRE propaganda to justify the occupation.
The conclusion was that we had to stop the war, because war is bad, or some other hippie thing.
Bill partly listened.
The speaker said, "Thank you for listening, I'd like to take questions from the audience now."
Bill raised his hand.
An usher handed him a microphone and he stood up.
"What about Monday the 16th, when the Squigs attacked all our hospitals, isn't that the kind of thing you're accusing us of doing to them?"
"That attack was sponsored by rogue elements within our own government, that particular point was covered halfway through the speech, and I'd thank you not to refer to the [whistle] as 'Squigs.'"
The crowd grumbled.
"Yeah, that was revealed by Saltman; did you know he's got a multi-million dollar movie being made about it?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I think you know."
The crowd started getting noisier.
An usher took away the microphone.
Everyone shut up, but they kept frowning through the rest of the half-hour Q&A period.
Finally it was over, and everyone applauded politely, then left talking to each other.
Bill pushed through the crowd and overheard a couple of the women in hijab talking about him.
"You've got to respond to that kind of bigotry and ignorance with outrage."
The other woman didn't respond, she just looked angry.
Bill got outside and got on the next bus.
Everyone left him alone.
He opened up his notebook again.
Everything in it was either badly-drawn pornography or "FUCK YOU, SQUIGGLY" in some variation of the phrase.
He pissed people off so they'd respond to him.
He was happy.