Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

What Is Truth?

“She’s always hungry. She always needs to feed. She must eat. All she gets is nasty Orcses.” – LOTR, Return of the King

I saw a wanted poster for Schrodinger’s cat.  It said, “Wanted Dead And Alive.”

I have a general routine that I start before I write.  I interact with my family because they seem to want me to do so.  I then retire to the Wilder Tub of Genius where I smoke a cigar the size of a crutch that Tom Cruise might use.  It’s not a huge cigar, since Tom isn’t that tall.  But it is a mighty cigar nonetheless.

Then I generally enjoy life.  Unfortunately, sometimes the muse hits me while I’m happily hanging out in the hot tub, and it pulls me away from the three pages (yes, it was that many) of notes I had prepared for you.  Whenever that happens, I always, and I repeat always, go for the muse.

The idea of a muse is simple:  it is creation.  It’s an untamed force that hits you and takes over.  It’s not exactly like The Mrs. hitting me in the face with a raw chicken covered in Ranch® dressing, but it’s close.

That’s tonight.  Fridays are often that night where I go where the muse hits me

What hit me tonight?

Tonight it was this simple idea:  controlling what goes into your mind is the key.

https://youtu.be/VYEU-12U32A

Except the dormouse. I hate that guy.

I start every post with a quote.  There’s a reason why I do this – it sets the mind of the reader into a familiar idea.  If the reader (you) doesn’t recognize the quote, it’s okay.  The quote isn’t necessary for the magic that follows, but if you know the quote, you are nearly instantly transported into the ideas that will follow.

It’s like a subtle form of hypnosis, but one in which I don’t require you to pretend you’re a duck who has just created an egg out of chocolate and plutonium.  Well, not more than once.  As far as you know.

I use that because I want to create a mental space where the ideas that follow will sit well.  If you’re already on familiar ground, the ideas will flow more smoothly.  It’s a stupid idea, but it’s grounded in reality.  Besides, I like movie quotes.

The reason I chose movie quotes is because they are the most shared of our experiences.  Millions have seen, say, Ghostbusters®, while only hundreds of thousands have read Dostoevsky.  Heck, I told my buddy who was an Orthodox priest that I was reading Dostoevsky and he shook his head and said, “John, that’s a little heavy, don’t you think?”

There was a really bad joke about ghosts.  It still haunts me.

When a guy in a Russian cassock tells you that Dostoevsky is a bit heavy, well, it’s probably not the best way to reach people.  By the way, spoiler alert:  It’s Russian literature, so everyone dies.  And then it gets worse.  It’s almost as bad as reading a German instruction manual for a chainsaw – I tried reading one once all it gave me was a longing to invade Poland.

Or a British cookbook.  Good heavens.  The British have ruined pudding for me forever.  Well, maybe Cosby beat them to that, but, still.

So, here I am, admitting that I want to manipulate the emotions of my readers so that they are more receptive of the ideas of crazy people like Plato or Seneca or Aristotle or Twain (Shania, not Mark) and the message that follows will sound crazy.

Be careful of what goes inside your head.

You don’t think that color scheme was an accident, do you?

I’ve tried again and again to show this very simple point:  in 1900, the only regular contact any American would have had with the Federal government was the postman bringing letters.  Now?  When I get up in the morning I have nearly a dozen interactions with the Federal government before I leave my front door.  The alarm goes off, and

  • The lights (subject to Federal emissions standards at the power plant) come one and
  • I go to the shower (subject to both EPA water standards and EPA waste disposal requirements) and
  • Brush my teeth with toothpaste (subject to FDA requirements) and
  • Put on my clothes (subject to The Mrs. wanting me to not look too cool in public) and
  • Go into the Wilder Morning Den and drink a cup of (USDA approved) coffee and
  • Have some (USDA approved) bacon and
  • Pick up my (Federal Highway Administration Approved) keys and
  • Check my (FCC approved) cellphone for messages and
  • Walk upon my (Building Code Approved) floor and
  • Open my door (which is made of lead and plutonium) and
  • Start my (Insert a zillion Federal regulations here) car and drive to work.

Oddly, this little demonstration undersells the impact of government in my life.  There are dozens of regulations that I skipped because, well, I’ve been drinking.  Blame Jim Beam®.

This is just the setup, however.

What goes in your head?

I’ve told you how I try to make a post better by increasing your receptiveness to it.  My motives are simple – I am not trying to sell you anything except ideas.  And those Ideas are (mostly) the ideas of the most brilliant people who have ever lived on Earth.  I try to sneak a few of mine in, because, hey, my beard is awesome, so I might have built up some wisdom.

But who is trying to manipulate the ideas that go inside your head?

The Mrs. had a complement the other day.  She couldn’t listen to mainstream media coverage on a certain topic because Truth that I shared with her had infiltrated her brain.  Every Single Time the media tried to lie to her, she reacted in revulsion because . . . the Truth had set her free.

What goes in your head?

What do you feel that is real?  Why is that you feel that thing?

Those are very, very difficult questions, and are not for the weak of heart – what if you understood that most things you felt were truth were instead, lies?

This is a devastating lens.  What lies do you believe in because they are pretty little lies?  The more you examine them, the more they fall apart.

Communism sounds good on paper.  Unless you’re reading a history book.

I promise you that I have done my best to make every word as Truthful as I can make it.  But I ask of you this, can you understand the immense amount of propaganda you have been fed nearly every day of your life?

Step back.

What, really, is the Truth?

There is an entire industry made of tens of thousands who want to feed your head.  They want to bring their ideas into yours.  There is an amazing amount of money being spent to try to influence you.

What, then will you choose?

The pretty little lies, or the Truth that you know exists underneath?

The “Take This Job And Shove It” Economy

“Sure. Grab it, store it, shove it.” – Babylon 5

My parents always called me a gifted child. Turned out I was abandoned in a box on the front step.

I was at the store the other day with The Mrs. and Pugsley. We saw a retail clerk we knew and were discussing life with him. Normally, the retail clerk is very opinionated but upbeat. I’ll admit, it has been over six months since I’ve seen him, but his transformation was amazing.

He’s “retired” but spends his time selling things that he likes to sell. He’s probably one of the biggest experts in town, and a job like his is (more or less) being paid for talking to people about his hobby. He doesn’t have to work, but he wants to. Thankfully it wasn’t a weird hobby, like taking pictures of trout wearing cute outfits. That’s like shooting fish in apparel.

This visit to the store was different. Like I mentioned above, he’s normally upbeat. Now? Not at all. He was angry. He railed against management that didn’t care. He railed against customers that treated low-wage retail employees as if it was their fault that the store didn’t have their particular brand of banana mist spray. The store employee sounded as angry as Darth Vader – I mean he was really venting.

The clerk we talked with wasn’t quitting. Yet. But he was done. He’s done taking crap from management. He’s done taking crap from customers.

I got fired for asking a customer “rare or well done?” The funeral home said that wasn’t the right way to ask, “burial or cremation?”

One more customer screaming at him because something wasn’t on the shelf? He might take off the company shirt and step outside with the customer. After he’s finished the business with the customer he would probably just keep walking.

And this is in Modern Mayberry, where we’ve been essentially untouched by the ‘Rona crisis and mandates and masks. He’s done.

In society at large, I see the very same pattern.

Keep in mind, the retail worker that I described above was nearly at the sour cream stage on his taco because of the rude customers. Why were the customers so rude?

They’re done, too.

  • They’re done with an economy where they have been abandoned.
  • They’re done with shortages they don’t understand.
  • They’re done with rising prices to feed their family.
  • They’re done with expensive gasoline.
  • Oh, and they’re done with masks and mandates, too.

Voters on the Right are done, too. The idea of compromise is hateful – the positions are crystallized:

  • Vax mandate for the greater good versus basic human rights.
  • Collective guilt over crimes committed hundreds of years in the past versus meritocracy.
  • Five million other things. I’d list them, but you know them. You see them every day, and it boils down to the violence of the collective mob versus the rights of a constitutional republic.

In my adult life, the high point of our country being cohesive was on 9/12/2001. In that moment, we tried, really hard, to come together as a country. The result? Two of the longest wars in United States history, trillions in debt, the Patriot Act, and Obama.

What do you call Bill Gates’ divorce? An unplanned update.

The lowest point?

Right now.

This has significant political implications, but also economic implications. People like the retail employee, working because they want to, can leave anytime. But it’s more than just that one retail employee. How many other people are just walking away? How many are one rude customer away from wadding up the company smock, and walking out the front door for the last time?

How many firefighters will quit rather than get the jab? How many EMTs will simply walk away rather than submit to it? By my count, the number is not insignificant, and these are crucial jobs if you like keeping your house not burned up like and would like granny to get to the emergency room in some other fashion than you tossing her into the bed of the pickup after you move the Purina® Lion Chow™ out.

Often, the people who run the services that keep the economy running are paid at the lowest levels. What happens when they decide they are done with the nonsense, too? What happens when they look around and see that they could work at McDonalds® for 10% of the stress and 90% of the pay?

No matter how often I ask for a large fry, they keep giving me lots of small ones.

We hear about an economy where jobs are plentiful, and takers are few. From what I see here, it’s true. Except the jobs that are plentiful are at the lowest levels of pay and prestige, and the people are simply not interested in taking them.

We have shortages of everything. Inflation is wonderful at creating that: inflation pulls demand forward. Why buy a window tomorrow when the price will be up. Buy the window now. Buy everything that that you can, now. This is a rational reaction, but when everyone does it, it feeds inflation.

Tensions are high. People who make $30,000 a year have seen themselves take a $3,000 pay cut, simply through the government’s printing of money. The cause may not be apparent, but at the gas station they see it. At the grocery store they see it. When the time to pay the rent comes?

They see it.

It’s not just that. At the voting booth, they look back at the 2020 election.

They see the fraud.

I will say this, he’s certainly given himself an incentive to not slip . . .

This is, to say the least, a very, very chaotic situation. As I said, we have shortages of everything. In 2018, the economy was working because the people in it were working. Now, in addition to the shortage of “stuff” we have shortages of the people who make things go, as well.

What does that lead to?

Increasing dysfunction. Worse services. Longer waits on EMT calls.

Why?

I call it the IDGAF economy. People are done. How many folks simply don’t care? How many have been crossed out of the economy and have the attitude, “screw ‘em all, I didn’t need this job anyway”?

A lot. In the 1977 as inflation hit there were similar sentiments – Johnny Paycheck scored a big hit with Take This Job and Shove It. This is where we are in 2021. People are done. People are sick of it all. They know the economy isn’t right.

I got some extra money this Halloween. I went into a haunted house and on the way out they handed me a paycheck.

Economies consist of more than companies and procedures and policies. Each of those things depends on: people. Lose a foreman? The crew may or may not do as well. If it was a good foreman, it’s likely that they don’t do as well. Lose an EMT, and you’re one shy for a full shift? Which heart attack do they skip out on?

Who makes that ambulance run? Who gives time off to the weekend dispatcher? Who runs the window at the DMV? Who makes the PEZ®?

The reactions I’ve seen so far are discouraging. The idea from at least some management is that, “Well, isn’t that a part of their job?” which is technically correct. But if they can do another job for a dollar less an hour that doesn’t cause a sacrifice?

They’re gone.

That’s the difficulty. An economy isn’t Nike® or Amazon™ or Netflix©. An economy is made of the people that run it. We’ve seen that truckers can paralyze an economy. Now imagine the economy when all the people that make it go say, “IDGAF”.

We’re close.

The Five Laws Of Human Stupidity

“Don’t call me stupid.”  – A Fish Called Wanda

I hear of you hold a pistol like that, you can hear the Rittenhouse.  Alternatively, this might be an Alec Baldwin gun safety video. 

Carlo M. Cipolla is a dead Italian economic historian.  So, not a dead economist, because we know that a dead economist was at least right one time.  I don’t know much about him, outside of:

He has ceased to be. He’s expired and gone to meet his maker.  He’s a stiff.  Bereft of life, he rests in peace.  If you hadn’t nailed him to the perch he’d be pushing up the daisies.  His metabolic processes are now history.  He’s off the twig.  He’s kicked the bucket, he’s shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible.  This is an ex-economic historian!

Sorry, I went full Monty Python on you.  Never go full Python, unless of course, you’re pining for the fjords.

But, Dr. Cipolla is dead, as I think I have abundantly established.

About the only other thing besides his condition of demise is that Dr. Cipolla is most known for writing a goofy little essay called The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.  He wrote this essay originally in 1976, which proves that he might have had time to meet Joe Biden before writing it.

What do you get when you cross an economist with the Godfather?  An offer you can’t understand.

Text in italics (and those in quotes) beyond this point are direct quotes from the former Dr. Cipolla, except the snarky things I say underneath the memes I have handcrafted in the Wilder Meme Lab.

The First Law:  Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

Tongue in cheek, Cipolla notes that “any numerical estimate would turn out to be an underestimate.”  So, it’s clear that there exists a nearly infinite and inexhaustible supply of stupidity in the Universe.  I have observed this in action:  I have been to the DMV.

The Second Law:  The probability that a certain person will be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.  

Cipolla felt strongly that stupid people weren’t made stupid, they were born stupid.  And, just like the First Law would predict, they are numerous and everywhere.  They inhabit colleges (I think Harvard™ is full of them) the government, and the Pentagon.  Stupidity can also be found at McDonalds®, but that’s excusable.  If When someone is stupid at McDonalds©, an order gets screwed up and I get not a Sausage McMuffin® without the muffin, but just a warm muffin (this happened) at the price of a Sausage McMuffin©.

When someone is stupid at the Pentagon?  They get promoted after the cover-up.

It has also been my experience that if you ask the right questions and listen to the answers, it’s amazing where you will find intelligent people.  Just like there is no bound on where you will find stupid people, there is no bound on where you will find intelligent ones.

Roses are red, violets are blue; no one in Washington cares about you.

One personal example is that every time (not occasionally, but every time) I felt full of myself, soon enough an intelligent person from a place I’d least expect would correct me.  The lesson I learned?  Listen.  Ask questions.  Just as idiocy hides everywhere, gems of wisdom are often when you don’t expect.

Great stuff.  But what, exactly, is stupid?  That’s what the Third Law is for.

The Third (and Golden) Law:  A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

The third law is what really caught my attention.  Here, Cipolla defines what stupid is – and this is an especially interesting definition:  a stupid person screws something up, and doesn’t get any benefit.  At all.  Here Cipolla constructs a chart to define it:

One of my girlfriends in high school was arrested for bank robbery.  She made out like a bandit.

Cipolla dices up the world into two parameters: do they help or hurt society, or do they help or hurt themselves?

Help Self, Help Society:  This is the quadrant that Cipolla reserves for the intelligent.  They end up creating a harmony where they help not only society, but end up helping themselves in the process.  Take the makers of PEZ®, for instance.  They make money by selling the sweet, sweet PEZ™, and society benefits, because, PEZ©.  In this instance it’s a win-win.  Society wins, and the makers of the product win.

These are the people that create the upward drive for society.  They make things better, and they make the people around them better, too.  This is SpaceX® Elon Musk.  He’s revolutionizing space transport and making it cheap to hit orbit ($25 a pound within 10 years???) while raking in piles of cash.

What next?  The helpless.  Helpless people, by Cipolla’s definition, are those that make bad deals.  The bad deals end up helping someone else (even society at large) but end up hurting the people making the deals.  Note:  this wouldn’t be people who help others and get joy from it – they’re getting a benefit.

The biggest group I can think of that represents the Helpless group in 2021 are Biden voters.  Man, I’m thinking they’d take that back if they could.

Joe Biden’s press staff is mainly women, I guess because he doesn’t have to pay them as much.

So, that’s two out of three.  That leaves most politicians bandits.  Bandits, according to Cipolla, come in two flavors.  The first is the net zero bandit.  A net zero bandit just takes $20 from one person and keeps it to spend on themselves.  Bernie Madoff and most conmen are net zero bandits.  They take money and then enjoy it themselves.  Society as a whole (outside of the trust and breaking the law things) isn’t hurt.

Bernie Madoff may make a lot of rich people angry, but he’s not going to create the fall of western civilization because his clients can’t afford to donate money to Harvard© so Harvard™ will let their third-rate children in.

The worst kind of bandits are the asymmetric (my term) bandits.  These bandits cause an outsized amount of trouble for a small gain for themselves.  I can’t think of any real-life examples, but what if some politicians subverted the monetary system just so they could buy votes for themselves while causing massive inflation?  Of course, something that crazy could never happen, right?

That, of course, leaves the subject of the essay:

Stupid People.

Most people do not act consistently. Under certain circumstances a given person acts intelligently and under different circumstances the same person will act helplessly. The only important exception to the rule is represented by the stupid people who normally show a strong proclivity toward perfect consistency in all fields of human endeavors.

Stupid people, Cipolla opines, are even more dangerous than bandits, because they screw everything up.  Stupid people take wonderful ideas, destroy them, and then hurt themselves in the process.  They’re the equivalent of a six-year-old sticking a knife in a toaster and getting knocked out, and then doing it again.  Repeatedly.

Think of it as evolution in action . . .

Again, from Cipolla:

Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behavior. An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit’s actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality. The bandit wants a plus on his account. Since he is not intelligent enough to devise ways of obtaining the plus as well as providing you with a plus, he will produce his plus by causing a minus to appear on your account. All this is bad, but it is rational and if you are rational you can predict it. You can foresee a bandit’s actions, his nasty maneuvers and ugly aspirations and often can build up your defenses.

With a stupid person all this is absolutely impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy.

And because there’s no rationality to the attack it’s impossible to defend.  How do you defend against a naked person covered in sex lube attacking you with a rubber chicken?  No, really, how do you do that?  I don’t ever want to be in that place again.

This takes us to . . .

The Fourth Law:  Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

This should be called the Rittenhouse Law.

Kyle was attempting to help society.  And, perhaps he did because I don’t think the world is a worse place off after he was done, but stupid people managed to ruin his night.

And, remember that stupid people vote.

Stupid that night, stupid on the stand.

The Fifth Law:  A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.  Corollary:  A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

Here is where Dr. Cipolla might have lost me, but only because, perhaps, he never imagined that bandits could operate on the scale that they do in 2021.  What if you could steal from everyone at once?  Just print money, and you can.

What if you could get yourself two (or six!) more years at a job in Washington, D.C. and all you had to do was bankrupt the country?  That’s banditry that, perhaps, aspires to stupidity.  The end of the system will end up being the end of their banditry.

See?  Stupid.  So, maybe he was right after all?

Demoralization? No. Remoralization.

“Hold them back! Do not give in to fear! Stand to your posts! Fight!” – LOTR, Return of the King

Chuck Norris threw a boomerang.  It’s afraid to come back.

It’s Friday.  Thankfully.

On Monday and Wednesday, we have heavy topics.  On Friday?  It used to be health focused.  But then after a year or so I had most of my health topics (things I wanted to say) completed.  Sure, more will show up over time, but most of health is either really, really simple or so blisteringly complex that it’s not solvable.

That’s why on Friday (in most recent posts) I have had the ability to focus on:  remoralization.

Life has a known beginning.  It has a known ending.  For religious folks there is a promise of a lot more.

Demoralization is simple:  the idea is to make you feel that you’ve lost.  Put into context, demoralization is fear.  The idea is to make you afraid.  And what does fear do?  Fear sells products.  Fear sells politicians.  Fear sells.  Heck, even suicide bombers have a fear:  dying alone.

When I look at a scene like this, I expect that a coyote and a roadrunner were involved.

Fear is also the basis of almost every negative action.  The proof of this is left to the reader, as many of my textbooks in college said.  My proof is this:  whenever I’ve acted in a manner that was in some way against my values, I can look back and see those actions were based in fear.

Sure, I’d like to place myself in the category of fearless, but I’m human.  Or at least I can pass for human in dim light, according to The Mrs.  But as I looked back and realized that nearly every action I had ever taken that I regretted was due to fear, I decided to get rid of fear.  Thankfully overcoming my fear of escalators was a one-step program.

Does just deciding to not be afraid anymore work?

Well, mostly.  Fear is (amazingly) just another choice.  I discovered I don’t have to feel fear at all.  The decision was simple – I stopped focusing on outcomes.  If I worked every minute at my best, and worked according to my values, well, if it turned out wrong?  It turned out wrong.  Heck, I’m even slowly getting over my fear of speedbumps.

What do you call a chicken crossing the road with no legs?  A speedbump.

I discovered something weird.  People hate it when you’re not afraid.  People want you to focus on fear, especially bosses.  I had one conversation where my boss said, “John, do you realize that (my great, great, great grandboss) would be upset about that?”

My response was simple, “Well, I’d love to tell them my story.  Have them call me.”

His response was, “Whoa!  Why did you bring them (great, great, great grandboss) into it?”

Me:  “I didn’t.  You did.”

Strangely, that implied threat . . . disappeared.  And was never used again.

As I said, people hate that.  Especially bosses.

My boss asked me to make fewer mistakes at work.  That means I get to come in later!

Another example was when I was working at a company that was experiencing significant financial difficulty.  My boss came up to me, and said, “John, do you know what kind of difficulty this company is facing?  How can you walk around so happy all the time?”

Weirdly, I have never understood how being unhappy and worrying about impending doom has helped, well, anyone.  I explained that to my boss.  I told him I would try to appear less happy around the office.  And, while I make a lot of jokes in my posts, this isn’t one.  This really happened.

I really had a boss upset with me for having too good of an attitude.  Go figure.

Being happy is a weird superpower.

It makes people uncomfortable.  A salesman makes a joke that, “Hey, I bet you’re overworked and underpaid,” and when I respond, “No, the work is fairly interesting and I’m satisfied with my compensation,” the look I get is priceless.

I love my couch, it makes me feel regal.  I am “Sofa King” happy!

I also look at most of my choices like I look at a menu.  It’s a choice of something good or something better.  “Do I want the ribeye or do I want the . . . of course I want the ribeye.”  Seriously, if there’s steak on the menu, all of the other pages are wasted.

To be honest, this superpower wasn’t because I was born on a far-distant planet named Krypton® that orbited a red star.  Even though that’s true (I told you I was adopted but wasn’t too specific for, well, reasons) the reason I came to this Truth was the way that I think nearly everyone comes to Truth:  the long, dark night of the soul.

As I have found it, this is the Truth.  There is no aspect of character that comes without scars.  This may be personal, but in my life I recall a very simple pattern:

  • Something awful happens. It may or may not be related to my actions.  Often it is not.
  • There is a decision for me to make. It is a moral decision.
  • I think about it. Often (if time allows) I consult people I trust – people of moral character.
  • I take action.

The important bullet point is the last one.  And when I decided to do whatever was right, regardless of the consequences?

Freedom ensued.  When I stopped focusing on the outcome, and started focusing on what is good, True, and beautiful?  I stopped caring about the outcome.  When I became the embodiment of those things?

I ceased being myself.  I was working for a higher purpose.  The phrase, “let the chips fall where they may” comes to mind.   Oddly, the more I act in accordance with my principles, the better the (average) outcome is.  Not that I care.

I’m disappointed.  I went into the restaurant restroom and waited for hours.  Despite the sign, no employees came to wash my hands.

This is freedom, acting upon principles, regardless of outcome.  The secret is a simple one:  each of us is capable of doing this.  It’s a choice.

Freedom isn’t a document.  Freedom isn’t what someone gives us.  Freedom is what we take.  Freedom is a choice.  And the most good and True freedom is acting upon moral principles.

And then?  Not caring what happens.

There is a word for that.  Courage.

So, there’s a choice, and it’s a choice we face every day.  Courage or fear.

When you give in to fear, you have that stain for life.  Courage?  It outlives us all.

The better news?  We all have the seeds of courage inside of us.

The very best news?

We can all let those seeds grow.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, Special Wednesday Edition: Are We There Yet, Part III

“Yes, I shall certainly choose revolutionary France for my holiday again next year.” – Blackadder the Third

There are two types of people:  those that can extrapolate from incomplete data.

Generally, I plan my posts in advance, sometimes weeks ahead of time.  I try to research the topics, and, quite often I’m surprised by the thing that I thought that were true that simply weren’t true.  Things that are “common knowledge” are often incorrect.  Who knew that telling an upset woman to “calm down” would have the opposite effect . . . every single time I’ve ever tried it?

That being said, the comments from the last Civil War 2.0 Weather Report pulled me off of my schedule.  As usual, the commenters at this site are generally at least one to two standard deviations of intelligence above the norm.  It’s a smart room, and a tough one.  When I make an error, even a grammatical error, I get called on it.  I hate to think that I make one grammatical error and then my post is urined.

Oddly, I really appreciate when people point out those errors.  Even though  I will eventually die.  My chances for a legacy on this planet are:

  • my children,
  • the things that I have done (think, work),
  • my PEZ® dispenser collection,
  • the lives that I have touched,
  • and the ideas I was able to share or spread.

Truth, with a capital T, is more important to than me “being right”.

By my reckoning, I’ve popped down in excess of 65,000 words on the conflict in American that is coming to be called Civil War 2.0 over the span of years.  I keep writing about it because it has hit a nerve:  these are some of the most viewed posts that I have written.  People are interested because, like me, they feel something big coming.

Does a nurse need to carry a red pen in case they want to draw blood?

The comments on the November edition of the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, though, are special.  There is a great division in what we even consider the ongoing conflict.  Is it even a war?  Will it ever be a war?

When I think about this I look to analogies from the past.  When Germany decided to take a fall vacation in Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on them.  And then, after Poland was gobbled up by the Germans and the Soviets in September 1939?

Nothing, or, mostly nothing.

For about eight months, the largest armies in Europe did (mostly) zilch.  Newspapers have to have something to write about, so they wrote about the war that just wasn’t happening.  This no-war version of war was called names like Sitzkreig, and the British started calling it the Bore War.  The name “Phoney War” finally stuck.

Well, at least the French won that war.

Then?  On May 10, 1940 the Germans attacked realized that the French were sitting on a lot of stuff that they wanted (mainly, France).  By the middle of June, Germans were having wine in Parisian cafés.  By the end of June, the jokes about French military, um, “prowess” started.

I bring this up because I wonder if we’re in a lull like that right now.

In an attempt to catalog the progress to a war, I tried to use existing international standards to codify the steps towards war.  On my ten-point scale, last six points were:

  1. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
  2. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  3. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  4. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  5. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  6. Open War.

Point 5. is beyond dispute.  Point 6. is ongoing, right now.  I have had dozens of people in real life and on the site talking about moving away simply because they did not want to be in Leftist-controlled state.

I’d tell more jokes about the Civil War, but I keep getting Stonewalled.

Point 7. was very common.  Violence has, to a certain extent, dropped backwards due to rioting becoming “so 2020”, although societal violence levels are still increasing.

But Aesop had this gem in his comment:

“And those 1000 casualties? In a 12-month period? That rolling criteria is rolling backwards, not forward. We’re currently back at maybe 6½, not 10.

In the way I thought about my model, these were ratchets – point 6. supported point 7., and so on.

But Aesop is right.  Violence (especially of the riot-y kind) has decreased.  At least for now.  I’ll state that point 8. has happened and can’t be undone.  The structures are far better organized on the Left – Charles Péguy said it well:  “Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.”  But when faced with real, proximate threats the Right has shown that it can organize thousands in a week.

Point 9.?  I would say that this level of terror continues in American cities, right now.  Leftist violence (though not always pointed against the Right) continues and isn’t punished.  Leftists can commit a huge variety of crimes and be walking the streets in the new “no bond” world the next morning.

Non-violent people who walked unopposed into the Capitol building on January 6, 2021 are being held in conditions that approximate a Soviet GULAG.  Don’t take my word for it, you can read a letter from an inmate here (LINK).  So, is number 9. happening?  It clearly is.

Aesop continues:

But the most obvious reason it’s not midnight, nor anywhere close, is because you’re even asking the question.

No one had to tell the ship’s band on the Titanic that the sh*tfestivus had begun. They knew the minute they sat down to play that the performance would end with their shoes getting cold and wet, before they even sat down.

I don’t think we’re taking on water, and I don’t even think we’ve even hit the iceberg yet. I do think we’re barreling towards it blind in the night, at flank speed, in a fog.

But that’s a far cry from taking on water, and doomed to sink.
Yet.

Those are good points.  It’s sort of like the definition of drowning.  If have the breath to ask, you’re not drowning.  At least I told my kids that when I taught them how to swim.  You can’t have a Civil War if nobody comes.

And yet . . . we’ve been in a cultural war since long before most people ever realized we were.  And one thing we’re good at (as humans) is normalizing life.  We get complacent, and behavior that would have led to social ostracism becomes almost acceptable in a few years.  We can get used to that level of violence, too.  If you look at the Google® trend for the term “riot” it spikes with the first Floyd riot, but goes back to the same level of interest after only a few weeks, despite riots being prevalent all summer long.

We get used to things, even bad things, very quickly.

One or two people might get this one, but they’ll really enjoy it.

Various other comments –

McChuck:  “The cultural, political, economic, legal, and demographic war has been waged against US for generations, and we are losing badly. If we don’t fight now (or very soon), we lose by default.

When only one side shows up for a war, it’s called genocide. That’s where we are now, even if it’s being done slowly.”

The Docent:  “We have a fight between factions for control of the government. So I would suggest that the issue is whether it rises to more than “civil disturbance.” This is where the minimum yearly body count of 1,000 (with at least 100 per side) comes into play. If we are only looking at the BLM/Antifa riots, we are at a civil disturbance level. If we consider COVID jabs for the kill count, we get over the 1,000 minimum, but because it is unilateral it is a genocide rather than a civil war.”

jojo:  “Yup. Wilder – throw away your charts. Look at what’s going on. It’s on already. And has been for more than a little while. Add in political prisoners locked up in D.C. for trespassing with no bail – you got a chart for that?”

It’s clear that there is some feeling that we’re not seeing any sort of war – just flat-out genocide.  And that’s the reason for the charts.  People who are invested in the system, who feel that they have something to lose are generally willing to put their heads down and keep quiet.  I will keep the graphs going.  I’m plotting something.

Well, that’s one way to properly fill out a ballot in Georgia.

So, are we there yet?  Ask some folks, it’s clearly a yes.  Ask others, it’s clearly a no.  It’s also, clearly, likely to be the biggest event that we’ll see in our lifetimes.

And in places like Modern Mayberry, I imagine that there is a good possibility that we may never see any direct violence related to this, except on YouTube® reports.

But, I can see spending time to review the markers – these are two and a half years old now.  I might even stay with them, but recalibrate them with some objective markers.  We’ll see – I’ll give it some thought.

It is clear.  We will never be able to return to the nation that was, and what we will become will be born from the next few years.

Who will we become?  We all have a stake in that.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Are We There Yet? (Part II)

“Brandon, come on, let’s go . . . Brandon?” – Brightburn

Midnight?

  1. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  2. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  3. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  4. Open War.

I’ve bolded both 9. and 10.  That’s the lead story.

As close as we are to the precipice of war, be careful.  Things could change at any minute.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Making The Call, Part II? – Violence And Censorship Update – Models For The Future, It’s Personal – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – After Virginia – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 600 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

https://wilderwealthywise.com/civil-war-weather-report-previous-posts/

Making The Call, Part II?

Last month we spent time discussing whether or not the United States has met the international criteria for being in a civil war.  The answer (in my opinion) is that we are close enough that it’s hard to tell.  Some people are solidly on the “it’s already going” and some are not.  One bit of criteria that was sent to me by a faithful reader – thank you 173d VietVet.  Mike Shelby (Forward Observer) wrote up a short missive on this question (LINK) and came out on the “no” side.

That’s fair.  He put forward some criteria, and I thought they’d be worth discussing this month.  These four bullet points are direct quotes:

  • domestic military action (i.e., not just police)
  • government involvement as a belligerent (i.e., not just a tribal war between citizens)
  • capable fighting on both sides of the conflict (i.e., not just a genocide)
  • at least 1,000 combat-related deaths in a 12-month period (i.e., sustained fighting)

My responses are in bold:

  • domestic military action (i.e., not just police) – Have you seen the police recently? They have equipment that most world militaries would love to have.  Heck, our police even have stuff we didn’t leave for the Taliban.  To require military action seems irrelevant. 
  • government involvement as a belligerent (i.e., not just a tribal war between citizens) – The trend in our current generation of warfare explicitly uses the citizen as a belligerent, if not the main belligerent. In my mind, it is more than enough that the government aids and abets citizens to kill others.  This is indisputably happening right now.
  • capable fighting on both sides of the conflict (i.e., not just a genocide) – This is the best point of the bunch. The violence (at some point) must go both ways.  Right now, it is observably one-sided, and is looks much more like a genocide.
  • at least 1,000 combat-related deaths in a 12-month period (i.e., sustained fighting) – Another valid point, but remember, in dirty wars, state sponsored combat looks like . . . crime. I do hope the violence level drops, but there is no sign of it now. 

Again, I have nothing but respect for Mr. Shelby, but the reliance on his past military background provides an analysis lens that I do not share and he perhaps parses the terminology a bit more finely than I would.  Thankfully, there’s room for both of us to be right.

If A is for apple and B is for banana, what is C for?  Explosives.

I’m not going to (besides the notes above) belabor the point.  I don’t care if the gun that shoots me belongs to a private from Louisiana or a cop or a Mexican cartel gunman.  I’m still dead.  And if the government is encouraging, it’s either genocide or, if the fighting goes both ways, it’s civil war.

There is more from Mr. Shelby a bit later in this edition of the Weather Report.

Violence And Censorship Update

Not a lot to add to violence this month.

Censorship, continues in full force.  At the beginning of the month, Congress had a Facebook® “whistleblower” as the main witness at hearings where . . . she said the big problem with Facebook© is that they don’t censor nearly enough.

What does the “p” in Facebook© stand for?  Privacy.

Yup.  That was the story.  But then it came out that that the “whistleblower” spent last October making sure that information that could damage Joe Biden was censored from Facebook™.  She was on the team that made sure that information related to Hunter Biden’s laptop was suppressed.

I’m shocked, shocked that she was wanting yet more censorship from Facebook.

Applying for work at Facebook® is easy.  They already have your details.

Since it’s November, I thought I’d remind everyone of a picture from last year.  Consider it a stroll down memory-hole lane.

There was more fraud in the 2020 election than in a Thanksgiving Wilder Family Monopoly® game.

Again, if you want free and fair elections, it’s absolutely certain that you block windows so the public can’t view the vote counting in any way.  Stalin said it well:  “Those who vote decide nothing.  Those who count the vote decide everything.”

Models For The Future – It’s Personal

I mentioned above that we’d see more from the Forward Observer, and here’s an excellent article where he discusses the model of the Irish Troubles as a model for potential future difficulties.  You can read it here (LINK).

Similarly, Mary Christine put forward a fictional piece at The Burning Platform in 2019.  Those set as a fiction, it describes how conflict escalated from the political to a guerilla war in Missouri during the Civil War.  You can read it here (LINK).

A third model to think about would be the Second Boer War, where the British defeated the Boer Republics and forcefully integrated them into British South Africa.  Like the other two, this conflict was based on guerilla tactics.   To defeat them, the British finally just started putting Boer civilians (women and children) into concentration camps with all the expected brutality and tragedy that is implied by that.  Tens of thousands of civilians died in the camps.

These models all have several things in common, but what strikes me is the utter brutality in each of them and the sometimes-targeted attacks on non-combatants.  Conflict of this type is marked by tragedy in a way that lasts for generations – it becomes and remains personal.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real-time.  They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings.  As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Up is more violent, and our perception of violence is holding steady.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it ticked up this month again, mainly on inflation fears.

Economic:

Economic measures ticked upwards in October – despite my prediction that they’d drop.

Illegal Aliens:

This data was at record levels last three months, and this rate is 4x the rate from any previous year in the last four.

After Virginia

Virginia has scared the Left, badly.  In their minds, Virginia had become a permanent Blue state – a Leftist outpost where statues could be taken down and Critical Race Theory could start along with hormone treatments for kindergartners.

Then they lost.  Big time.  And it wasn’t just a loss, it was a loss that was a psychological blow.  Biden is in political free-fall, and is less popular than COVID-19.

The Left is realizing the hard truth:  they won’t sweep into a victory, everywhere and forever.  The comments section in Leftist areas?

Calling for a peaceful split.  Previously, when winning, they wanted it all – they were sure they were going to win and establish a socialist paradise from sea to shining sea.

This was a sea change.  They realize that the attitude of the Right is changing, and they realize that they’re managing to make Trump look good to the swing voters.  Is a consensus building for a split?

Is this where we might beheaded?

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky.  Thanks so much, Ricky!!

From Sea To Shining  Sea

Brooklyn 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1NR_DWUeKI

Brooklyn 2: https://twitter.com/i/status/1454903434046578688

Lancaster PA: https://youtu.be/-Ch2q0Gw5Vg

Washington DC: https://twitter.com/i/status/1447913542674522117

Chicago 1: https://twitter.com/i/status/1445784277807890436

Chicago 2:https://twitter.com/i/status/1445483216475885576

Minneapolis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_6hA9PgICc

Mobile AL:https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1449214856138305536

Berkeley Campus: https://youtu.be/dYB9-o5QklE

Army Boot Camp: https://twitter.com/i/status/1449910120364879880

Marine Field Exercise: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10159949/Royal-Marines-commandos-force-troops-humiliating-surrender-training-exercise.html

 

Bad Guys…Guns…Good Gals

https://alphanews.org/78-instances-of-fully-automatic-gunfire-in-minneapolis-so-far-this-year/

https://buchanan.org/blog/who-is-killing-10000-black-americans-every-year-158601

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls

https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article255162407.html

https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/more-women-especially-black-women-are-becoming-gun-owners-ownership-firearms/531-49622eec-5ac8-4793-ab89-cfa0213ebff4

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republican-winsome-sears-becomes-virginias-first-female-lieutenant-governor

 

Election Tidbits

https://twitter.com/GlennYoungkin/status/1448396312098050048

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/breaking-fulton-county-georgia-ordered-one-million-absentee-ballots-printer-days-2020-election-knowing-no-time-mail/

https://www.wtnh.com/news/politics/emails-released-to-news-8-show-a-flurry-of-confusion-over-mass-absentee-ballots-mailed-to-guilford-voters/

https://www.defendflorida.org/canvassing

https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/secretary_raffensperger_calls_on_department_of_justice_to_investigate_allegations_of_fulton_county_shredding_applications

https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/gbi-chief-not-enough-evidence-to-pursue-gop-s-ballot-fraud-claim/article_edd11901-b7a1-524f-9815-6bedbdd4bc98.html

https://thenationalpulse.com/analysis/kline-zucks-bucks-were-illegal/

 

Secession – Thinking Nationally

https://link.medium.com/yNzD8Sxhzkb

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/columnists/dan-rodricks/bs-md-rodricks-1010-civil-war-20211008-sy33rtzmind5vnsawrshjh2tw4-story.html

https://www.thedailybeast.com/he-saw-americas-crackup-coming-in-2011he-says-its-worse-now

https://alt-market.us/in-a-civil-war-the-authoritarian-left-would-be-easily-beaten-but-it-wont-end-there/

https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/new-initiative-explores-deep-persistent-divides-between-biden-and-trump-voters/

https://www.salon.com/2021/10/09/a-new-confederacy-and-the-have-already-seceded/

 

Secession – Acting Locally

https://mises.org/wire/three-reasons-start-taking-secession-seriously

https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/california-secede-one-group-got-a-key-approval-last-week-to-try/

https://www.axios.com/atlantas-whitest-neighborhood-may-secede-7ae8755d-d378-4aa1-8534-f90faf029356.html

https://dnyuz.com/2021/10/22/bye-maryland-lawmakers-in-3-counties-float-a-plan-to-secede-from-the-state/

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-canada-health-public-health-idaho-0d2015c826bb01a2cd04b31254c870c5

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2021/10/10/civil-war-trending-on-twitter-after-comment-made-by-trump-supporter/?sh=3c6d9b0b1853

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news/state/lawmaker-wants-new-hampshire-to-declare-independence/article_d2717e73-5b7b-55b8-a8b3-aa7a45da9bf2.html

https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/voters/should-the-2022-ballot-include-a-vote-on-new-hampshire-seceding-from-the-united-states/poll_fc16f69e-161c-11ec-8c39-b318093e8de3.html

https://www.amazon.com/Break-Up-Secession-Division-Imperfect-ebook/dp/B07X9PWSVG

https://www.amazon.com/American-Secession-Looming-National-Breakup-ebook/dp/B07N94RL11

 

Secession – Everybody Calm Down

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/no-were-not-more-divided-than-we-were-during-the-civil-war/

https://www.governing.com/now/is-america-in-a-cold-civil-war-not-at-all

https://www.sunjournal.com/2021/10/10/rich-lowry-national-divorce-is-a-poisonously-stupid-idea/

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/06/americans-national-divorse-theyre-wrong-515443

https://www.silive.com/news/2021/10/its-dangerous-for-pro-trumpers-or-anybody-else-to-want-to-secede-from-the-united-states-opinion.html

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043401926/russia-expert-fiona-hill-there-is-nothing-for-you-here

 

Secession – The Least Of Our Worries?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10154745/The-pace-China-moving-stunning-Americas-No-2-ranking-military-officer-said.html

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/moment-biden-casually-committed-ww3-over-taiwan-last-nights-town-hall

https://www.revolver.news/2021/10/secret-chinese-philosopher-lessons-for-america/

https://palladiummag.com/2021/10/11/the-triumph-and-terror-of-wang-huning/

https://dokumen.pub/america-against-america.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/

Change: Start Small

“I’m a man, but I can change.  If I have to.  I guess.” – The Red Green Show

It’s amazing to me how little people change.  It’s the same process, but the clothes are just so tiny.

Change.

It’s inevitable.  The only choice I have is whether change is intentional or whether it’s not intentional.

The reason for wanting to change varies, especially with the change.  In most cases, it’s because something in my life isn’t working.  My plan on only paying for power once every three months?  Turns out the electric company isn’t good with that.

Or, if it is working, it’s awful.  Ever have a job that is awful, that sucks your life out minute by minute and leaves it on a moist puddle on the floor?  Yeah, me too.  And that’s a sign for a change.

For whatever reason, the biggest difficulty most people have with change is starting it.  Scott Adams of Dilbert® fame had this advice – even though it’s written as a quote I’m paraphrasing:  “If you want to do something, just do the very smallest thing.  If you have to move your hand move your finger.  Your smallest finger.  The smallest muscle in the smallest finger.”

People who speak more than one language are considered more attractive.  Unless the language is Klingon.

It’s amazingly good advice.  Once physical movement starts, even the smallest of movements, it’s easier for the chain to start.  I have unconsciously done a variation of this technique for years.  Whenever I have to clean a room, I pick a place.  I almost always start with a corner.

It’s very, very easy to clean out one foot in either direction from a corner.  Then, when the corner is perfect, I move a foot outward from the corner in both directions.  And then further.  And further.  You might ask, “Well, how dirty does John Wilder let a room get that he has to start in a one-foot by one-foot section?”

I live with rodeo clowns.  Okay, now that The Boy is in college, rodeo clown.  Even though the chaos distortion field in our house is down to a single teenager-sized bubble, I’m still amazed that the door isn’t always open with tumbleweeds and vermin-like opossums and Leftists constantly drifting through.

So, yes, I start with a corner and build-out.  It’s the easiest way.  Plus, when the corner looks great it creates a contrast with the rest of the room.  Then all I have to do is make the rest of the room look like the corner.

I never drink when I clean.  I’m a dry cleaner.

So, starting with changing just one thing makes a lot of sense.  Changing just one thing out of your life is easy.  I mean, after O.J. Simpson stopped killing people, well, the world opened right up for him.

I’ll give a personal example.  I generally avoid video games.  I played them (from time to time) when I was younger.  But then I saw an episode of a television show, Dream On.

The secretary, Toby, was horrible.  She generally ignored her job, but on one episode, she spent the entire game playing a video game at work.  It was a virtual supermarket.

She started as a bagboy.  Ten minutes into the episode, she was yelling, “Clean up on aisle three!” and had been promoted to cashier.  A while later, she was manager of the produce department.

The episode was nearly over, and then Toby had beat the game, “I did it!  I’m the manager!  Of,” long pause, voice falling, “a supermarket,” voice moving down to a whisper, and filling with despair, “that doesn’t exist.”

The most common occupation to put a person in the hospital?  Paramedic.

That had a big impact on me.  Winning a video game was, well, hollow.  I gave them up (mostly) for years and years and years.  Then I found one that hooked me.  Yeah.  Sure, when I conquered the world, I was conquering a world that didn’t exist but . . . the complexity.  Good times.

But . . . it was taking six hours of my life a week.  Honestly, life is wrapped so tight that those six hours are straight off the top – I’m swapping sleep for world conquest.  So, I decided in September to stop.  So far I’ve gained about fifty hours of my life back.  Did I sleep during that time?  Sure, some.  But the change was significant.

And it was positive.

It wasn’t a big change, but it was a change.  Will I play the game again?  Sure I will.  It’s really fun.  But I’ll pick and choose when I’m going to give that sleep up.

So, starting a change is one thing.

The next?  Keeping up with it.  There has to be a reason.  Mark Twain said it very well – “Willpower lasts about two weeks, and is soluble in alcohol.”

I hear Shania Twain named her child Choo Choo.

The biggest thing people worry about is failure.  And it should be a big deal.  But dealing with the consequences of failure?  Get up and start again.  Like Mark Twain also said, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world.  I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”

It’s okay, he eventually got down to smoking just a single cigar a day, but he noted, “it was the size of a crutch.”  Plus?  Every single day of his life, he got to be him.  So, big cigars and being Mark Twain?

Sounds like a win to me.

The Funniest Tax Post You’ll Read Today

“Hey, I gotta uncle that lives in Taxes.” – Duck Soup

They just put in a new speed bump at Pugsley’s school.  I mean, I hope it was a speed bump.

What is a tax?

Most people think about taxes are money siphoned off from people and businesses.  Admittedly, the best kind of a tax would serve the public good, and also be in proportion to use of that public good.  A gasoline tax that’s used to fund the construction of roads certainly passes that muster.  The more a person drives, the more gas they use, and the more they pay.  Of course, it’s not perfect, but it’s hard to find a perfect tax.  However, from their perspective, the Taliban have created the perfect tax:  Americans pay, the Taliban get all the stuff.  We even deliver.

There are plenty of other things that function as a tax.

Unions function as a tax.  They take a market commodity, labor, and make it artificially scarce.  This increases the price.  In theory, unions can provide an assured level of labor quality, in stereotype they provide lowered profitability.  In practice, I’ve seen both.  Jeff Bezos is so against them that he got rid of his wife because someone told him marriage was a union.

Gameshows Jeff Bezos avoids:  Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Child labor laws were instituted for the same reason – to lower labor competition.  Oh, sure, in 2021 we tell ourselves that it’s for the benefit of the children.  Keep in mind that when these laws originally went into effect, 10-year-olds were working 12 hour days in mills.  And those were the good jobs.  “Nippers” as they called them, were young boys handling explosives and getting into situations that were too dangerous for adult male miners.  So, you need a minor miner for major danger.

Child labor laws act like a tax.

The body of regulations that businesses face likewise act like taxes.  Some of them are pretty reasonable, but when OSHA named that new regulation after me?  That was tough – it was for wearing too much aftershave.  They called it a “fragrant breach of regulations.”

If you hold a hardhat up your ear, you can hear the OSHA.

Other regulations are just meant to bring prices up, like the 42 page standard that the USDA has for lemons, which specify that they all are within 6/16ths of an inch in diameter in any given box.  There are thousands of pages of regulations on fruits that cause many to be discarded.  I’m raisin awareness.  But regardless, it lowers the amount of fruit that farmers can sell and people can eat.

It’s a tax.

Bad taxes take money from one person and just give it to another.

There are certainly plenty of those schemes.  Based on its current productivity, NASA is just a wealth redistribution scheme.  It used to have a mission of getting people into space, but now apparently has the mission of (I kid you not) making braille books for blind kids about eclipses.  At least they’re better at making books than launching humans into space, since putting people into space is something they haven’t done in over a decade, and I’m willing to bet they won’t do for years.  But, hey, books for blind kids, right?  It’s a bad tax, but it’s just dysfunctional.

With NASA, the sky is the limit!  Because they can’t go higher than however high Southwest® 737s fly.

NASA isn’t alone, but if they’re dysfunctional, stuff just doesn’t happen and we have to wait for Elon Musk to rescue us.  What happens if people listen to government idiots and take them seriously?

Up until the ‘Rona hit, the CDC was pretty good about doing next to nothing – sending out silly warnings at Christmas about “don’t eat cookie dough” that absolutely every human worth talking to ignored.  The precursor to the CDC got rid of malaria.  Since then?  Everything they focus on gets worse.  So, the cookie dough thing was something they could do and not screw stuff up too badly.

Yes.  People are losing their jobs because liberals are taking the word of a government agency that would make eating raw cookie dough illegal if it could . . . seriously.  It’s the ultimate in government incompetence turning into a pure evil tax.

High energy prices are a tax as well.  They touch every physical item in the economy.  If it has to be moved, energy is what moves it.  It’s a tax on people who have to commute.  It’s a tax on people who have to eat.

Don’t ask for whom the Toll House tolls.  The Toll House tolls for you!

Shortages are a tax, too.  A shortage increases the cost by limiting supply.  But let’s look at the shortage of pickup trucks.  Why are they in short supply?  Because of a shortage of computer chips there are a limited number of trucks that can be made.  Does that make Ford® happy?  No.  The shortage tax doesn’t help them.  About the only people that the tax makes happy?

People who have extra cars to sell.

Finally, the ultimate tax:  inflation.  It’s a tax on every dollar you’ve ever saved, making it smaller, day by day.  The early effects of inflation make people happy (ish), if they have something to sell.  Inflation, though, always ends in tears.

High taxes result in lowered freedom.  In (almost) every case, the taxes don’t produce anything but envy.  As an example, historically low energy prices equate to higher freedom, and higher energy prices equate to lower freedom.  I’d extrapolate that to most of the other taxes I’ve mentioned above.

To make the opposite argument, the interstate highway system was made with taxes, but it is an anti-tax.  It lowered the cost of goods and services across the country and paid for itself many times over.  Let’s compare to the “war on poverty” where we’ve spent trillions, and taken exactly zero people out of poverty since the poverty rate was dropping before the “war on poverty” started.

I beat The Mrs. at Scrabble®.  Now she is sending me threatening letters.

You know, when the interstate highway system was just getting going?  Huh, I wonder why we didn’t build the Taliban one of those?  Well, Biden still has three more years.

Masque Of The Red Death, 2021 Version

“A red sun rises, blood has been spilled this night.” – The Lord of the Rings:  The Two Towers

I knew my kid was creepy when she asked for an Edgar Allen Poe-ny.

Today we were at the local diner having a brulinner.  It wasn’t just brunch, because it also included dinner.  Regardless of what we call it, it was in the back room of the diner because we had a larger party, and still wanted a table rather than a booth.  The Mrs. never lets me pick a booth because I always ask the waitress if it’s the John Wilkes Booth.

It makes me cry inside when the waitress cannot get the joke.

Pugsley noted that the room was in some disrepair, having last been remodeled about a decade ago.  Of course, it would be easier to shut that room up and remodel it.  Or, better yet, leave it for posterity 100 years ago, complete with packets of Sweet ‘n’ Low® from 1999 that I may or may not have managed to throw into the diner’s light fixture to amuse The Mrs.  (It’s amazingly easy to throw a packet of Sweet ‘n’ Low™ into a low hanging fixture, even in a room filled with people.  It just takes timing.  You should try it.)

But faced with the idea of being walled up inside the room?

When your parents ask where your third-grade teacher went . . .

The Mrs. and I both thought of the same thing, that they would probably wall us in just like in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado.

We discovered early in our relationship that we both have Amontillado as our go-to Poe reference.  There’s nothing more fun than the idea of a person being walled up in a dungeon forever.  How to make that better?  Being walled up in the back room of a diner forever.

As much as we both enjoy The Cask of Amontillado, I think that there’s a more appropriate Poe piece for today:  The Masque of the Red Death.  Whereas Amontillado has all of the great humor of a man chained to a wall being walled up inside another wall, The Masque of the Red Death (I read the comic book version when I was seven) has a different setting:

Partying while the end of the world is taking place outside.  Spoiler alert:  it’s Poe, and the mystery guest at the party?  Death.

The Masque of the Blue Screen of Death.

Right now it feels more than a little bit like Poe’s party.

What are some of the data points on what’s going on outside the party?

Many “vaxx” deadlines are coming up.  Police are not taking it, firefighters are not taking it.  Nurses and doctors?  Not taking it.

The result?  Emergency services are operating at an even lower level in big cities.  Sure, that’s exactly what New York City or Chicago needs, since the residents there are already so perfectly behaved and rarely injure other people or incinerate themselves.

Oops.

I never made it past the interview stage in my firefighter interview.  “Fight fire with fire” is apparently not the answer they were looking for.

In Modern Mayberry (so far) there are no mandates.  If you need an ambulance ride, you get one.  It’s hard to get pulled over here, because (for the most part) cops don’t spend a lot of time sitting in the 25 MPH zone to give you a ticket for doing 28 MPH.

  • Plane flights? These are being canceled by the thousands.  Why?  Pilots don’t want “the jab” either.   Companies are dropping Federal contracts so they don’t have to comply.

  • Illegal aliens temporarily separated from family at the border? Biden wants to give them more money (up to $450,000 per person, tax-free) than is given to a soldier killed in the line of duty who has paid-up insurance.

  • The Secretary of Transportation says . . . that disruptions in supplies won’t end until everyone is “vaccinated”. Strangely, no one said, “falsely claimed” or “claimed without evidence” since both of those would apply.
  • Inflation?   Happening everywhere, and with everything.
  • Political collapse?   FJB and the phrase that everyone can say, “Let’s Go Brandon” are showing a direct rejection by over half of the populace against a deeply unpopular president with no real support – i.e., there were exactly zero votes for Biden, only votes against Trump.

Poe only had seven rooms at the party, so I’ll end with six bullet points.

As much as Poe’s work was fiction when he wrote it, if I were to have suggested any of these a decade ago (with the exception of inflation) in a fiction novel, people would have called it unrealistic.  This isn’t the script for a happy ending.  This is the script for a collapse.

I’ve long predicted (you can check) that COVID would provide a script where the ripples of the ‘Rona would reverberate through the economy and political world for years, if not decades.   Those ripples are here and now.  Energy prices have whipsawed from historically low to high.

Energy?  More on that in a future post, since energy alone has a special place in the fate of humanity.  But high energy costs in the short term are devastating.

He must be fun at parties.

I keep looking for happy things, but reality seems to keep intruding.  While we haven’t seen the darkest moment of this cycle, most of the things out there seem to be tracking downward.  This reminds me of the seventh room in Poe’s story.  That’s where Death joined the party.  To me?  That sounds creepy.

I’d prefer to skip The Masque of the Red Death.  I’d much rather be walled into the back dining room at the diner in The Cask of Wilder’s Brulinner.  At least they have infinite refills on iced tea and coffee.

Dinner? Who Would You Choose?

“Shiver me timbers Philip. At this rate I’ll never get to my Kraft dinner.” – South Park

I defeated my school’s chess champion in two moves.  Guess football and wrestling came in handy.

Last week Remus, the late proprietor of the Woodpile Report came up in the comments.  Mike in Canada (one of Canadians that the triumphant armies of the right, good, and true will spare when we kick off Operation Leafblower:  The Cleansing Of The North, which is scheduled right after we finish Operation American Commie And Collaborationist CEO Helicopter Drop) made this comment:

“If you could have dinner with anyone, whom would it be?  Remus. I would have given a great deal to have met him and had a conversation.  I miss him very much. . . Tuesday mornings just aren’t the same now.”

That hit a nerve with me, for several reasons.  The first time any of my posts received any notice of any kind was on his site.  I’ll admit, I asked him to read it via email.  And he did read it, and posted it on one of his weekly musings.  Then, we emailed each other back and forth several times.

I still have his website bookmarked.  I can’t really bring myself to delete it, because I read it weekly for years even before I was featured on it.

I miss him very much, too.

Remus was very special to many readers and writers, primarily because it was obvious:  he was a reluctant warrior.  Like many of the posters here, and many of the blogs I frequent, he wanted no part of this.  He wanted peace, but circumstances kept dragging him back in.

In my case, I wanted to post funny stories and make fun of the events of the day while mixing in whatever wisdom I could scrape from the ages.  Oh, and add in some bikinis.  Why?

Because they’re bikinis.

Duh.

I watched a two-part series about the bikini.  It was very revealing.

But Mike’s question remained:  who would I want to have dinner with.  Remus is a wonderful answer, but I excluded him and other commenters/fellow bloggers from my list.  Also, I excluded dead family members, and religious figures and, of course, Deity.

Why?  Well, I’m the one writing this post.  My youngest experience (this really happened) with Jesus was when I was coloring a picture of him in Sunday School.  I colored him purple.  The nice Sunday School teacher said, “Johnny, Jesus wasn’t purple.”

My rejoinder?  “Well, he’s God, so if he wants to be purple, he can be purple.”

The Sunday School teacher sighed.  So, yeah, I haven’t changed.  Besides, I’m sure Jesus could drink me under the table if He chose to, purple or not, so it’s not fair including Him on the list.

That being said, I have several categories.  The first is, who, in history, would I like to have dinner with?

George S. Patton, Jr.

Since the age of five, I’ve been fascinated with Patton.  How fascinated?  So much so that my high school history teacher ordered a documentary film on him for our US History class, just for me.  When the lights went down and the projector started and his baby picture showed up even before the title showed – I yelled, “Patton!”

Yup, this was the picture.

My history teacher smiled.

Sure, Patton wasn’t fighting the best the Germans could throw at him.  Sure, he had intelligence information from Enigma knowing what the Germans would do (sometimes before they knew) but he was hip-deep in the intrigue and politics that created the postwar world.

He didn’t know all the dirt but he knew a lot of it.  Plus, the man knew a good cigar and a bad commie from a thousand miles away.  Dewey couldn’t defeat Truman in 1948, but I bet George S. Patton could have rolled over him like a Sherman tank.

Imagine the world with Stalin staring down Patton at the start of the Cold War.  Commies in the State Department?  They’d be hanging from lamp poles, and Patton would have led the columns of tanks entering Red Square when Stalin had used his one and only atomic bomb.

Stalin’s grave?  It’s a communist plot.

This wouldn’t be any silly single-course dinner.  This would be a full-on dinner that would last for hours and end with cigars and brandy on a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean on a cool autumn night.

Besides, who would pick better food or cigars for a dinner than Patton?

Who would I skip?

Einstein.  He looks like he smells like cheese, and not in a good way.  Also he seems like he’d be sort of like that guy who mumbled to himself in the back of the class and rocked back and forth.

Honorable Mention:

Isaac Newton.  Isaac Newton did more in any three years of his life than 99.999% of humanity will ever do in a full lifetime.  Me?  I want to understand what he learned about things other than physics, which are largely lost to history.  Downside?  I’d need to record it all because I’d want to hear it again and again.  Other downside?  How can you compete with that hair?

Okay, both Brian May and Isaac Newton have doctorates.  Only one of them had groupies.

Who would I like to get into a (no weapons) fight with?

Alexander the Great.  I’m pretty sure that 18 year old me could dust the floor with 18-year-old Alexander the Great.  Check that.  I’m certain I could take him.  But if I lost?

“Yeah, I remember the time that Alexander the Great just barely beat me.”

For me, it’s a no-lose situation.  For him?  My first thought was it would be pretty embarrassing.  But, after thinking about it, if Alexander lost a fight to someone who came from 2400 years in the future just to kick his butt?  Also a cool story.

Seriously, Alexander would be toast, though.

Who would I skip?

18-year-old Chuck Norris.  I don’t have a death wish.

Honorable Mention:

18-year-old Genghis Khan.  I hear he was tough, but it might be worth it.  While a challenge, since 8% of the men living in the former Mongol Empire are his descendent I’d get to say, “Who is your daddy now?” to millions of dudes.  Me?  I’ll turn Genghis Khan into Genghis Khannot.

Genghis was tough as a child.  I remember when he took his first steppe.

Discarded: 

Karl Marx.  It would be like hitting a fat, slow and stupid bug, and give me zero satisfaction.  And it wouldn’t stop communism, even if I gave him a swirlie and an atomic wedgie.  Someone would come along and write the “something for nothing” manifesto.

Have a (few) beer(s) with:

Ben Franklin.

I think Ben knew all the dirt on all the founding fathers.  If not, I think he would have an excellent collection of ye olde fart jokes.  Failing all of that?  Rumor has it he was quite funny when toasted.  Plus, he was rich enough to buy really good wine.

Who would I skip?

Any Kennedy.  Never drink with a Kennedy.  Any Kennedy.  And never, ever, drive with a Kennedy.

But if Teddy was driving, he would have drowned.

Honorable Mention:

Andrew Jackson.  Skinny as a rattlesnake and twice as mean.  He’d probably take you to strange bars that weren’t on the map because they were in someone’s basement or on their back 40 that you’d have to shoot your way out of.  Since Andrew Jackson was invulnerable to weapons like Wolverine®, just stand behind him.

Who would I like to be on a long airline flight with?

This one was hard.  When I used to be on long flights, I pulled out my book as a shield to not talk to the person next to me.  Who would I want to be stuck next to for four to six hours as I jetted across the country.  There’s only one answer:

Elvis.

Okay, just kidding, since he would probably eat my in-flight meal.  He’d want my hunk-a hunk-a airplane nuts.  The tough part of this answer is that you’re going to be trapped with this person for hours.  So, if they’re a jerk?  Yeah.  Hours of that.  So, I think I’d choose Mark Twain.  Worst case is that he’d tell you stories.  Best case?

He’d tell you stories.  Some of them might even be true.  And it would be fun to fight alongside Twain after some Stewardess told him he couldn’t light up an epic stogie in flight.

Who would I like to choose but I’m afraid he’s a jerk and I’d end up hating a legend?

Steve Martin.  I love Steve Martin’s work, and think he has a lot of genius and wisdom behind it.  That being said, being famous for, oh, nearly fifty years just might have jaded him to people.  Maybe.  And I’d hate to think that a national treasure like Steve was a, well, jerk.  Plus I bet Twain could take out a stewardess with a single punch.

Honorable Mention:

Quentin Tarantino.  I know he’s a jerk, but I think I’d love to argue with him for six straight hours when he couldn’t escape.  That sounds sort of fun.  And if he was a real idiot?  I bet I could make him smell my unwashed clothes from the trip.

Who under no circumstances would I want to be on an airline flight with?

Gilbert Gottfried or William Shatner.  Gottfried for obvious reasons, and Shatner because every time he’s on a flight something is on the wing trying to rip the engines out.

Don’t worry – William Shatner would never run a criminal enterprise.

All of that being said?  I think Mike is right.  I think Remus would have been a wonderful dinner companion.

Who are your choices, and (for more fun) what categories did I miss?  One category I drew a blank on was “who would I like to work for” and then I thought of Jesus again.

He would know when I was goofing off.

Dangit.  He already does.