I'm writing this on Veterans Day in 2026, when a lot of Americans fight wars against things that don't exist. The sad thing is, they're losing. It's hard to land a punch on something that isn't there. Ask anybody who ever fought Muhammad Ali in his prime.

You can't find a better example of this than Jake Lang, a bravely purposeless warrior who survived of the Battle of the Capitol.

Lang is an "influencer," a job you can get if you can't read, and he defends traditional American values the way you can only do if you're trying to make a buck off people who are scared of everything.

There's no end to that business, not yet, but the American right wing is getting dumber and more desperate all the time, so my guess is there's a lot of life left in that hustle.

Most recently, Lang bulled his way into a Seattle event for cat fanciers, wearing a tactical vest and shouting anti-gay slurs.

It seems this modern-day crusader had confused the cat convention for a "furry" event.

In case you missed it because you're pretty satisfied with wearing pants and thinking your wife is beautiful without pants, furries are people who dress up like animals and sometimes act like animals.

For some people, there's probably a sexual aspect to being a furry. This is because we're human beings and for us, there's a sexual aspect to everything from bowling to the bond market. Don't ask me how I know.

So, Lang breaks into the cat convention like the Greatest Generation storming ashore at Normandy and all he finds are people who really like cats.

"Stay in your carrier, Mr. Fuzzytoes," a middle-aged man in the back yelled at his kitty. "There's a patriot in the building!"

Oh, the humanity! And the kittery!

Trouble is, Lang went to the wrong place.

If you want to see people who live like cats, you don't go to a convention hall where somebody's taking tickets at the door and vendors are selling cat treats shaped like small fish. No. Where you go is a homeless encampment.

Walk down the street past the middle school. Across the street from the extended care facility, you'll see a path into the brush. It's about 2 feet wide, but it broadens out when you reach the encampment.

And there they are, people living like feral cats.

They're sleeping in boxes, just like your cat Mittens does at home. Sometimes they yowl and fight with each other, and there's usually a good number of them with scars from old fights.

Like other colonies of ferals, they depend on softhearted people for food. Members of various churches set out bowls for them every couple days, less often if the members of the church are busy with work or their own home lives. When that happens, the feral humans do what the feral cats do. They eat garbage.

A guy who buys a cat costume and meows at his girlfriend when he's in a loving mood is only partially committed to the cat lifestyle. A guy who eats garbage is all in.

Like any cat, the feral humans enjoy treats, mostly meth, fentanyl or crack, and like cats, they'll do simple tricks to get the treats. I told you, we're humans. Everything turns into sex sooner or later.

There are differences. Cats are afraid to get a shot. A lot of the time, feral humans aren't. Also, feral humans don't have litter boxes. They want litter boxes, but they don't have them because every fast-food joint in a six-block radius locked their public bathroom about five years ago.

How many furries you think we got in America? Probably not as many as there are guys who make their wives dress up like Britney Spears in the "Oops!... I Did It Again" video. No one's bothering those guys because they're in Congress.

Yeah. Lang was in the wrong place. If you want to see lives twisted, if you want to see unnatural ways of living, if you want to see people who have taken on the habits of animals, you don't go to a clean, bright convention hall.

Just take the narrow path that goes into the brush, at the end of the street, just across the street from the extended care facility.

To find out more about Marc Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paper back from Anazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.

Photo credit: Manja Vitolic at Unsplash