Big Thoughts – Page 49 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Parents, Photos, And Moving Out

“Well, the part where Romeo dies is sad. But where Juliet died is sad too. But I think the saddest part of all is when Jan said ‘Who goes there?’ before Peter said ‘Hark’.” – The Brady Bunch

Definitely would have been a better show with this cast.

There’s a larger point to some of these stories that I’ll be putting out on Friday that will become obvious over time. But I want to stress this: outside of the obvious jokes, 100% of these stories are true.

I remember the first time I called Ma Wilder “mom.” I know that’s a memory that really most people don’t have, since most people don’t even know what a mom is when they call them mom. Heck, it isn’t even the earliest memory I have, which involves PEZ®, a claw-foot bathtub, and a poorly insulated electrical appliance.

I don’t recall how old I was, exactly when I first called Ma “mom”. I do recall it was a bright spring day and Ma Wilder was ironing in the laundry room. The back door was open, letting light and air in through the screen door that led to the backyard.

What Ma Wilder figured out while ironing: she had more pressing concerns.

I think what the sentence was (memory is a bit fuzzy on this, too), but I think it was something, “I’m going to go to my room, Mom,” or something like that.

I recall being a bit scared. How would she react? I was pretty sure I was supposed to call her “mom” but what if she reacted poorly? What if it made her mad?

She said, “Okay.”

And it came out of her mouth like it was normal, though, looking back on it I think even she had to hold back and concentrate on it being . . . normal.

The reason I remember this is because, unlike all those people who have to work at it, I was born a bastard. Longer version, I believe that this was the day that my adoption was finalized and I became an official Wilder rather than “that blonde kid that keeps hanging around the house and breaking a nearly endless stream of things.”

Because I did that, too. Most of the calamities that I caused were out of a sense of experimentation. For instance, one day I was watching The Brady Bunch after coming home from first grade. Now, as rankings on television programs go, The Brady Bunch was certainly the lowest tier of after-school television. Much higher was F-Troop and also Hogan’s Heroes. Of course, the gold standard was Star Trek.

Obscure fact: Ricardo Montalban had a tough time finding work after Star Trek II: No one wanted to hire an ex-Khan.

Anyway, it was The Brady Bunch that caused much of the destruction of my family’s stored memories. You see, in one episode, Greg (it was Bobby, I think) had taken a picture that proved the receiver’s foot was out of bounds on a key catch in a football game.

How did he prove this? He took a picture into a dark room, and then put it in water with some chemicals. Presto, he was able to stretch the picture and make it bigger. Why on Earth was the Wilder family making do with these little tiny 3” by 5” (2mm by 5 liter) snapshots when I could just dunk them in water in the bathroom and stretch them to make them larger.

I was no dummy! I knew that to make this work, you had to be in the dark, so I closed the door. Thankfully, this bathroom was an interior one with no windows! I put the picture in the water and tried to stretch it. No go.

Huh, looking back I could have died of exposure.

Maybe if I soaked it longer? I’m sure I waited for at least 15 seconds before my sucrose-addled brain realized the problem. Of course! It was simple! Greg had chemicals in the water that made the photo stretch!

Where could I find chemicals? Yup, mom kept them under the sink.

I added pretty much every chemical I could find under the sink to my impromptu photo embiggening water bath. I believe I probably created a stew of chemicals that would have been recognized by OSHA as not a violation of civil law, but probably regulated by the Geneva Convention as one of those pesky “war crimes”.

I took the photo and tried to stretch it. Still a no go. Well, it must be this particular photo. Why not put all of them in the sink to try to stretch them? I’m sure it’ll work.

Hmmm, no go on any of the dozens and dozens of photos that chronicled the life of my brother (it’s now obvious why his name is John Wilder, too) from birth to 8^th grade. Well, no harm, no foul, right? I’ll just let the toxic brew of chemicals water out and leave the soggy mass of soap, home cleanser, and hand lotion (I do distinctly recall adding that) covered photos dry out.

The best way to let them dry out? In a soggy mass. I’m pretty sure that when they “dried” they stuck together well enough that the only things left of my brother’s childhood are his dental records.

This was my attempt to teach my newly minted parents that I was certainly not like the other children and that, just perhaps, I shouldn’t be left alone quite so much. Silly adults.

They didn’t learn. Their next attempt was for Ma Wilder to quit her job to take care of me. There was one two-week period Ma was needed down at the bank that Pa ran to help get The Books ready for the Bank Examiners. They did what every parent would do: hire a local teenager to watch me. The first one quit after a day. The second one quit after two days.

Ma Wilder, actual quote in my room after I did this: “Do you smell something burning?”

I’m thinking that it was about this point that Ma and Pa were regretting paying that attorney all of that money to get me free and clear as their child. And I think I had broken them.

“John, would you please, after school, just come home. Make yourself a sandwich. And then sit and watch TV. For two weeks. If you do this, we’ll pay you.” The equivalent they were offering me, per day, calculates in 2022 dollars as $78.39. For a first grader. All I had to do? Just not destroy the house during those hours. I could destroy at will when I was off the clock.

This was a good deal. I accepted it, and kept my end of the bargain.

So, my first paying gig was to just restrain myself from being an insurance hazard for two weeks, for which I was paid the (2022 equivalent) sum of $783.90.

Tax free, baby.

So, they paid me. I didn’t feel slighted that they put my money into a savings account. But, what to do with all my newfound wealth? I thought about it and decided. About a month later I announced at breakfast, “I think I’m going to move out and get my own place.”

These people had all these stupid rules. It was time to fly free.

There’s nothing sweeter than a baby’s laughter. Except when it’s 3am. And you’re home alone. And you don’t have a baby.

Ma Wilder, again, didn’t react poorly. “Please tell me about your plan.”

I explained to her that I had $783.90, and I was going to go get my own apartment.

“What will you do for food?”

“I have money, $783.90 in 2022 dollars.”

She gently went through what food for a week would cost, as well as rent. She never said I couldn’t move out, but after doing the math, it turned out all the money I had would be gone in a month.

“Well, I guess I’ll stay then,” a pause, “Mom.”

Our Financial System: It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

“So, I am to receive thirty percent for finance, for legal protection and political influence. Is that what you’re telling me?” – The Godfather

Hunter was so stoned he ate a kid’s meal at McDonald’s® yesterday. The kid’s mom was not happy.

I am a fan of capitalism, mostly. Over time it has proven to be the single best way to have people contribute. It gives them a reason – if they do well, they gain more. By combining lots of people competing fairly, the entire world gets wealthy enough to afford a full tank of gas. How we split it 8 billion ways is up to us, I guess.

It’s simple – with capitalism, people don’t try to get more of the cake, they make the cake bigger. Or they make more cakes. And it’s all voluntary, unless it’s for a gay person. I’ve been told that baking cakes for gay people is the one thing in capitalism that’s not optional.

Capitalism is so excellent that it (along with several thousand nuclear weapons) was the primary weapon that allowed the United States to not become fragmented into places like Collective Farm #1701 in the Nebraska Oblast of the Greater Soviet Union.

I saw a the Davis twins at my high school reunion. Those two sure looked the same!

However, there is a problem with pure capitalism.

Morality, or more specifically, the lack thereof.

I used to be a complete libertarian, and I thought that, generally markets would take care of any imbalances over time. They don’t. What has happened is that the economy has been warped.

When I graduated from college, I didn’t really have the vocabulary to describe the way that I felt about it, so I said, “I really don’t want to work for a financial company, I want to work for a company that makes something.” At 21, that was about all I could come up with to describe it.

Thankfully, I’ve spent more time out in the world and have come to understand what I was trying to say so inelegantly back when I was young. Here’s what I’d say today: “I don’t want to work for a company that’s a vampire leaching off the economy by providing nothing.”

Still better than Goldman Sachs®.

And that’s what a lot of the economy of the country has become. It’s led by companies that don’t fundamentally produce anything. Black Rock® financing private investors who bought hundreds of thousands of houses across the country is a great example of this. Why? To turn renters into profit centers.

They were creating no value for society, instead their entire idea was to turn a necessity – a place to live – into a profit center and create no value in doing so. And that’s the segment of society that’s increased – finance, real estate, and insurance. We make less stuff, but spend more time and effort on the segments of society that only leach off the cake, not make it bigger.

I hear the Vatican started an online bank. They call it Pa-Pal®.

I won’t argue that banking isn’t important as a way to store and fund money, but banking isn’t the purpose of the system. Banking, insurance and real estate are services to make food, to make cars, to make radios, to make planes, to make movies, and to make plants that make PEZ® dispensers.

Why is it like this?

The short answer is: because we let it be like this.

The long answer is that, since they had lots of money, they bought enough bureaucrats and legislators and judges that they changed all the rules of the game in their favor. And we let them do it.

The good news is that it wasn’t always like this. And there’s no reason that it has to be like this.

Now, I’ve seen plenty of blogs go off the rails when the writer comes up with a complex system that will be the one and only true system that will get the world out of difficulty. Uh-uh. Not this guy.

But throwing light on the problem is important, because after the system collapses (and it is collapsing) we should recognize the reason that it is collapsing and not let it get back like this again. Ever.

The signs are clear. Look at Boeing® – offshoring an entire industry to teach China how to make planes so China could learn to make planes so they could . . . make planes. I’m not sure exactly what Boeing™ makes anymore, but when they decided that having everyone else make all the parts instead of them was a good idea, they ceased to be a plane maker and began to be . . . a vampire.

Looks like Boeing® hired the Wrong Brothers?

Boeing© isn’t all the way there, but you can see it headed that way. They want the profits without making the plane. They have ceased to be a plane maker, and will take any profit that they can at any time. In a search for profits, they have lost their sense of self.

I believe there’s an old statement that covers this situation very well – “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” And I think that particular quote covers a lot of the issues that we have as a country right now.

So, I guess if we have a vampire problem, we have a lot at stake.

Mr. Jones And The Lies Of Communism (And Communist Tools)

“Good morning. My name is President Taft and this is my brother-in-law Lee Harvey Oswald. This is the 35th season of our Oscar-winning radio series Prune Farming in the Ukraine.” – Penn and Teller

What sound did Stalin make when he drank water? GULAG, GULAG, GULAG

Some subjects for these columns seem to select themselves. An example is today’s topic – the movie Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones came out in 2019, and I had never heard of it until the screen saver on my television said I could watch it for free even though it did not feature James Spader. Or was that why it was free, because it was Spader-less?

I was already familiar with the titular (12-year-old me snickered) character of Gareth Jones. I was actually sort of shocked that this film was made. It was released in 2019, and is a very anti-communist film, showing that the Soviet Union was totalitarian and homicidal in a way only exceeded during Mao’s China in the twentieth century. The fact that anyone was putting money down to fund a film, especially in 2019, that was this anti-communist surprised me.

The subject of the film is Gareth Jones’ discovery and reporting of the Holodomor. I know that many of you are already familiar with the Holodomor, but a brief recap is required for context for those that aren’t familiar with it. The Holodomor was, essentially, the Soviet government giving the farmers of the Soviet Union a “going out of business” sign so he could create collectivized agriculture.

No Leftist idea is so bad that Justin won’t try it again.

Lenin had tried to corral the farmers, but he discovered fairly quickly that the Revolution doesn’t run on good intentions, and had to back off. Farmers were allowed to farm so that the Revolution could be fed. But after Lenin died, Stalin took over and decided to make a “kinder, gentler” nation.

Just kidding. Stalin started purging right and left. And as poor as everyone in the Soviet Union was, a hardscrabble farmer (wink) that made a few extra bushels of grain was considered very wealthy. They called them Kulaks. Who was a Kulak? Well, anyone with just a little more than the average peasant.

So, Stalin decided to go to war against his own people. He mobilized factory workers, gave them guns, and sent them out to root out the real enemies of the revolution. Keep this in mind when you hear about the war on farmers in Canada or the war on farmers in the Netherlands.

How does one get rid of millions of farmers but not starve the rest of the nation? Take all of the food the farmers have. All of the food. From all of the farmers. Then let them die.

I guess they won’t be having any Holland Oats anytime soon.

Yup, that was it. That was the strategy. And it worked. Bodies were collected on a regular basis, and all across the Soviet Union, millions died. Many were shipped off to the GULAG system, too. This is yet another reason the Soviet Union wasn’t the inspiration for many theme parks.

This is where Gareth Jones comes in – he was a British writer/reporter who talked himself into the Soviet Union, and talked himself into visiting the Soviet countryside, specifically in the Ukraine. What he saw wasn’t good – it was exactly the mass starvation that I wrote about in the paragraph above. If only he had read that, he could have saved himself some time and a whole lot of trouble.

But the main reason we know about the Holodomor is that Gareth Jones wrote about it. He told the outside world, so we owe him. The movie, Mr. Jones, depicts this journey across the Ukraine in a pretty unfaithful way – meant to shock the viewer, and also meant to particularly show that Ukraine was the victim. In reality, Ukraine was hit particularly badly, but millions of farmers across the U.S.S.R. outside of the Ukraine were also treated in a similar fashion.

But it will be different this time, right?

That’s one of the beefs that the Jones family had with the film – Jones never ate nor witnessed the items on the menu that the film depicts. They were also a bit miffed that they felt that his memory was used to be anti-Russian, rather than anti-Soviet. You can see a bit more here (LINK) on how the family felt. In one sense, it looks like this movie was made not because of the anti-Soviet theme, but because of the anti-Russian propaganda value. Maybe because of Trump and muh Russia collusion?

Who can say?

But one other thing to note is that the Soviets aren’t the only bad guy – there’s another: Walter Duranty. Walter Duranty is one of the scummiest people to have ever lived. The fact that he enjoyed a life of power and debauchery was only part of it.

For an example of how degenerate Duranty was, he was best buds with Aleister Crowley. They did magic together as well as drug-fueled orgies with participants of all varieties. This, of course, made him the perfect hire for the New York Times©. Duranty wrote such a glowing portrait (“there is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be”) that he received a Pulitzer Prize® for his work denying the Holodomor. Duranty’s writing about the Soviet Union was influential in getting the Soviets accepted and into a cozy sleeping bag with FDR.

Some things never change . . . .

So, given that his hands are stained with the blood of literally millions of farmers, you can understand that this is probably one of the few times this sentence has ever been written in the English language: In retrospect, Duranty’s drug-fueled pederasty might be the nicest line I can write about him. Oh, wait, he’s dead. That’s something positive I can write about this vile leach that stained the lives of millions.

In the movie Mr. Jones, Duranty is depicted as just the depraved greasy worm I sketched above, so it’s got that going for it. And the family of Gareth says they got his character spot-on, that’s two for two of the main cast. Oddly, they have Jones meeting George Orwell, when in fact during all of Gareth Jones’ life Orwell was still an avowed socialist who had yet to become disillusioned by fighting with the commies in the Spanish Civil War and there’s zero evidence the two ever met.

Overall, the movie made $2.8 million at the box office, so unless they made mad bank from Blockbuster™ rentals, they ended up losing lots of cash. Again, it was an art-house anti-commie movie released into the woke world of 2019. What did they expect?

My birds were stuck together. I took them to the vet – he said he couldn’t help – it was toucan fusing.

So, do I recommend it? Dunno. It wasn’t bad. I probably wouldn’t watch it again because it’s a “one-time” movie and did not have James Spader in it.

The Best Post You’ll Read Today About Almost Anything

“You don’t know what cold is. I once survived an entire week trapped in a Swiss glacier eating nothing but frozen Neanderthal. To this day, I can’t stand the taste of early hominid.” – Futurama

So, after 232 ties in a row . . . Gung decided that “rock beats skull”.

Usually, I write about money and finance and the shenanigans going on in the world now. I thought I’d deviate from that formula for several reasons. First, I’d like to have some good news about the financial world, and that didn’t happen this week, unless Biden had a brief moment of lucidity and finally figured out that the sanctions are actually hurting us more than Russia. (Checks news.) Nope.

Second, on Monday I wrote about collective vengeance. It was, in modern Western Civilization, an anachronism that is rapidly returning. The post talked about how I had grown up in shell where collective punishment simply didn’t exist and that it was rapidly returning.

I’ll note that my youthful innocence on collective punishment didn’t extend forever, but the point of the post was that the Left fed on collective punishment – I might write more about that in the future, since (last time I checked) I still seem to have an infinite amount of words combinations left.

I am, however, very aware that collective punishment was at one time the norm. Reading in the Bible, when the wall of Jericho came down, not a single person was supposed to be left alive, so historically in a story we all know, collective punishment was a thing.

Why don’t the Amish complain when people make fun of them on the Internet? Amish: “What’s an Internet?”

I’ve written about things even farther back in history, and (perhaps) why people are the way they are based on tribe sizes in a theory that I think is entirely unique (read this because it’s awesome) until someone shows me that it was already written about the year I was born. I’m still irritated that Newton figured out F=ma when I was only six. Conversely, wouldn’t it be a hoot if an Internet humorist actually figured out why people are nuts?

Third, this post is really related to Monday’s post, and it shows this: collective punishment may be actively written into our DNA, and only during brief moments of history (as brought about by Western Civilization and its particular individualist elements) is it not the norm.

I’ll start this rather unusual post with a concept that many a familiar with: the Uncanny Valley.

The Uncanny Valley is that weird place that we get when something looks human, but isn’t. An example would be CGI that looks like a human, but there’s something in the CGI that makes us step back because we process the simple equation: it looks a lot like a human, but it’s not human.

Well, it’s nice that the spirit of Yoko lives on. Except this one takes out a monarchy that started in 1066.

Zombies are a perfect example. For me, that idea that something that is so close to human is propelled by an intelligence that is certainly not human is one of the scariest ideas.

Why? Why do things that inhabit the Uncanny Valley between human and observably not-human give us the creeps? The Uncanny Valley implies that at some point in human history, there was something that looked like us, and wasn’t us. It must have been a very, very big deal if tens of thousands of years later it still can inhabit our collective memory and produce a (general) revulsion and fear.

What was it that did that?

I’m sure they had a very complicated order at Starbucks®.

I’m thinking that maybe, just maybe, it was the Neanderthals. This was spurred on by the book Them+Us by Danny Vendramini. He’s got a website here (LINK) and the image of the Neanderthal below is from his site, which he allows based on terms that seem to have disappeared, so, I’m thinking Fair Use covers it all.

I like the book. Spoiler, Them is the Neanderthal, and Us is, well, our ancestors.

He starts the book by attempting to reconstruct what a Neanderthal really looked like. For most of my life, what I’ve seen were the pictures of people who, with just a wee bit of barbering, you could toss into a suit and they’d be at home at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange®.

Vendramini thinks not. First, he thought that they might have been covered with hair. What’s his evidence? The first part of his evidence is that there is no evidence that they could make clothing of anything more than the most basic “throw an animal skin over your shoulders” type. So, how do you keep warm?

Hair. Hair is the norm for mammals in the world, except for people (sorry, Italians). So Danny (sorry, Vendramini is too many letters to type again and again) came to the logical conclusion that, like other primates, Neanderthals inhabiting Europe and the Near East would be quite hairy.

Pretty much no one argues that Neanderthal was about six times as strong as modern man, or even of the beta version of homo sapiens that existed at that time, so about a 431 times stronger than a typical soy-latte-based ambisexual® Leftist.

But Neanderthal wasn’t just strong, he was smart. Neanderthals made things, like spears. Like stone blades. Like stone axes. Hmm, I’m seeing a pattern here. I don’t see any mochachinos.

Based on the size of their eyes, Danny thinks they were huge. What needs huge eyes? Things that hunt in low light. So, Vendramini thinks that Neanderthals might have been low-light, nocturnal predators. What else would low-light nocturnal predators have? An amazing sense of smell, so there’s no reason to have a nose like ours – a nose like a pug.

And eyes? The most efficient eyes for low-light hunting are slit-pupil eyes – like a cat. The brow ridge? It shielded the eyes during the day – and the eyes were much higher than a normal human, like where our forehead is. So, huge eyes in the forehead with slit pupils. Not scary, right?

Okay, I’ve finally found something scarier than my ex-wife.

Oh, every bit of evidence says that Neanderthal ate meat, so he was a carnivore. But he also ate . . . Neanderthals. So, he was a cannibal. Eating puny humans? That’s pretty easy if you’ve eaten Neanderthal. Probably more tender, too.

Neanderthal lived in the forest. Oh the forest, my dear, is lovely, dark and deep . . . . One anthropologist described Neanderthal as this: wolves with knives. So imagine that there are wolves in your neighborhood that are at least six times stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger at his peak. And they are as smart as a human. And they have knives.

Think that might help you sleep at night?

So, our ancestors, say, 50,000 years ago were wonderfully happy, living in a world where they were the king. It was Eden-like. Garden-like. Hmm.

Anyway, one day they wander across a border and find? Neanderthals that want to eat them. Or, make babies with them. Yup, they could make babies with humans, and between 1-3% of your DNA comes from nocturnal, cannibal, predators, unless your DNA is entirely from Africa.

So, when a Neanderthal group of hunters found a human group, it was the equivalent of a college party: sex and food. I’m not sure what order makes it better.

This, of course, baked our noodles. It made it necessary for us to become smarter. Vendramini suggests that this was the stepping out of the Garden which required us to have the knowledge, skills and brainpower to fight the Neanderthal, to beat them, and to become much better.

Does one hate the stone that hones us? I think not. Note: my beard is better, but my abs need work.

It describes the Uncanny Valley in many respects. What are the myths of our monsters? Werewolves and vampires and cannibals and (Biblically) the Men of Renown (look it up). It also explains our instinctive fear of the dark, where the huge, strong, cannibal near-human that can smell you from two counties over might be hiding waiting to get frisky or to turn you into a snack.

But we fought back. The mark of a conquering civilization is the Y-chromosome, because, well, dudes give that part. As I read it, the Y-chromosome in humanity is, human. In the end, we won. But they changed us even as we eliminated them. It’s likely we did our own collective punishment and killed off all human males that looked too much like the enemy – too Neanderthal. So, yeah, collective punishment.

And this also provides an explanation for the Uncanny Valley, and why it is generally the source of the ultimate horror and fear that humanity feels. But we won.

There’s drinking, fighting, and death and drinking and fighting. I think this is an insurance company’s nightmare.

As Western Civilization fades, the barriers to collective punishment fade as well. So, sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight . . .

And we’ll win again.

Collective Punishment: It’s The Plan Of The Left

“Could be race memory stored in the collective unconscious. I wouldn’t rule out clairvoyance or telepathic contact either.” – Ghostbusters (’84)

Reminder to Leftists: the Geneva Convention is not a checklist.

One of the things that I was raised with was the idea of individual responsibility. That didn’t come from society – it came from Ma and Pa. If I drew on the hardwood floor under the bed in ink I’d blown out of ballpoint pens? Like a dozen ballpoint pens?

It was on me. And when it was found, it was my responsibility to scrub it until the ink came off. I could add in another few dozen things I did, but what parent doesn’t remember coming home and seeing the family photo collection curling up because their six-year-old thought he could make bigger copies by stretching them in water? I mean, it worked in the darkrooms on the TV shows. I mixed in all of the cleaning chemicals under the sink because it seemed odd that the pictures weren’t stretching.

And those are not the worst examples of my behavior – not even close.

I once told a joke about the Hindenburg. It didn’t land well.

For society as well, that seemed to be the rule. While groups might have different attributes, if someone broke a law and was convicted, they didn’t send grandparents and children and uncles and nephews to jail – they sent the guy who broke the law to jail.

Certainly, families may have felt shame, but the person who did the crime did the time.

That is so deeply ingrained in me that it took me quite a while to understand that viewpoint is no longer the default in Western Civilization, but rather it is on its way to becoming a quaint anachronism. What’s replacing it?

Collective guilt. You can see that nearly everywhere, and the 1619 Project®, the BLM™ and reparations movements, anti-Christian movements, and others are proof. Reparations: people who did no wrong paying people who weren’t injured 150 years ago.

When Elizabeth Warren canceled her presidential campaign, it wasn’t the first race she had to leave. (meme not original)

The theory is rather simple – every person related to someone who did something in the past is guilty. The idea is that groups are collectively sinful and must be punished collectively. This is certainly not an idea that is enshrined in the West. Oh, sure, the town of Mudstinklebottom was been put to the torch because the Earl Hootertinkletwerp of Snottlyford was not amused because his trousers weren’t pressed properly. But these examples of collective punishment are rightly viewed as atrocities, not a “how to” guide.

And I wasn’t at a single one of them. And neither were you. As I wrote last week, no one alive should feel even the smallest amount of The Guilt® that is featured on display every day in our world.

But yet, the statue of Thomas Jefferson has to come down because the things he did, which were considered normal back in 1780, are now realized to have been morally abhorrent. The genius of the man, the founding of the University of Virginia, drafting the Declaration of Independence, and inventing sno-cones can’t be thrown aside based on the moral lens of 2022.

I named my daughter after Thomas Jefferson. About 250 years after.

The real idea for the destruction of American (and Western) history loops straight back to the tactic collective punishment. Dismantling the heroes of a civilization, the men and women who saw farther and did more is just part of the punishment – and more on that in a minute.

The Left hates Western Civilization and wants to bring it down. The Guilt is simply one of the tools of the Left, in order to have the battle end even without a fight. It’s demoralization, and it’s part of the playbook. But it is intended on a collective basis. Who is the guilty party? Based on what I know of my readership, if you’re reading this, you can nearly be assured that the coming collective punishment is intended for you. And this collective punishment is indeed a tool of the Left. If you’re not familiar with the Left’s regular use of collective punishment, here’s a taste from your humble author (LINK).

But news of the broom really swept the nation.

Because, as I’ve written before, the aim of the Left is to win before the first battle is joined. To do that, they have to make us hate our past. Why?

In order that the enemy (us) will accept collective guilt. Again, I’m a poor test subject because I feel zero guilt about you can’t effectively punish a people if they have pride in their past, and pride in themselves. If every American was evil, and the country was founded on that evil, then everything the country has done since then must be evil, too, right?

Sadly, there are many Americans who have utterly fallen for this concept. They blame themselves for actions that they have never taken, for thoughts they have never felt, and for crimes that they have never committed. And the Left wants to take down, to erase all of it.

I’m working less at the cat shelter – they reduced meowers.

Why? Because they believe, deeply, in collective guilt, and the West has been tried and convicted as far as they are concerned. The sentence, if they can carry it out, is death. As has been said before, the Left hates you and wants you dead.

Yes, I still believe in individual responsibility and individual guilt – Ma and Pa Wilder certainly taught me that. So I guess most of the Leftists should have individual trials. And individual punishment.

Economics In 2022, A Picture Book

“Stay classy, San Diego!” – Anchorman

I think the Chairman of the Federal Reserve® is required by law to drive a Fiat®.

Recently, part of the revolution has been televised . . . the Dutch government has decided that farming is evil because it keeps people from eating bugs and living in the pods:

Of course, the Dutch have commies there, too:

But who thinks hunger is good, besides the commies at Antifa? Oh, the United Nations:

Well, we know the UN never comes up with their own ideas, they’re too busy with waste and corruption. So where did this idea come from?

Oh, yeah, the World Economic Forum.

Thankfully, they’re not at all evil, right?

Karl nods approvingly:

But the World Economic Forum® has plans to help, right? How it started for Sri Lanka:

How it’s going, I mean they’ve had four years to implement The Plan:

But they’ll help Europe, right?

How it might end:

But the United States is not immune from economic illiteracy:

I’m sure this won’t put 40 million people on edge:

But Joe Biden is coming to the aid of the American people:

And Kamala is planning on how to leave Kabul Washington.

While all of this goes on, there are differing views on the economy:

At least Amazon® will help us:

But in the end, maybe we will come to an ethical conclusion:

Stay classy, America!

Victimhood And Guilt: Tools Of The Left

“Guilt was created for what reason? For man to enslave himself?” – Borgia

You can stop saying Amber Heard wasn’t a victim – her acting school clearly failed her.

What’s the easiest way to defeat a people?

You make them do it themselves.

That’s been the motif for quite a while from the Left. In reality, this is a playbook that has been used for decades by Leftist groups like the Frankfurt School (I’d look it up for you but I’m lazy), and it’s difficult to explain some of the things that we’re seeing in the world right now without thinking through the tactics that they’ve employed.

The first thing Leftist groups tried was to exploit a class difference in America. That didn’t work very well, since unlike Europe, we’d rather firmly out the King generations ago without letting it turn into a Leftist bloodbath, like in France (memo to self – the French can win a war, but they have to be fighting other French people). We were self-governed, and there was sufficient freedom so that (if Homer Q. Citizen worked for someone rather than just doing his own thing) Homer could tell them to take this job and shove it.

I hear in France on Halloween the kids go out Trick or Retreating.

So, class was out. What was the next lever to pry?

The Leftists thought about it quite a bit, since they were doing nothing but being paid for hating America while working at universities like Columbia® and Harvard™ and attending fancy faculty parties while they plotted to destroy the country. Their big breakthrough was in understanding the American psyche in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

What was the vulnerability of the nation at that time?

Build a world of Guilt® and Victimhood©.

We’ll take Victimhood© first. The Victimhood© was crucial, because if there isn’t a victim then the scam won’t work. Don’t have a ready victim? Manufacture one. All of the social movements in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s were based on attempting to drive a culture into turmoil, and for that, one needed a steady stream of victims.

In the year 2022, what’s more relevant? Women’s Lib, or Mad Libs®?

I’m not saying that some of the movements didn’t have actual problems and valid concerns at their root. Regardless of that, there’s no way that I’d ever try to base building the character of one of my kids by telling them, “Oh, Pugsley, you got a bad grade in math (he didn’t) because that teacher had it out for you!”

If I do that, I ruin a kid. Similarly, when Victimhood™ is assigned to an entire group of people, that group is morally crippled. Instead of the group taking the issue and working ways to actually solve the issue, those afflicted with Victimhood® simply must perpetuate that Victimhood©.

Microagressions™? Really? Cultural Appropriation®? The length that people have to reach in 2022 to whip up a frenzy is amazing because of the lack of real problems that don’t also involve the behavior of the group. The war against statues? Critical Race Theory© is a playbook straight out of the Frankfurt School.

No matter who wins a race in Bangkok, it’s still a Thai.

Similar things happened with the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s. The result of turning a little over 50% of the population in the country into a group of victims was astonishing and horribly negative. The divorce rate in the United States spiked along with the Women’s Liberation movement, removing social cohesion, and creating yet another victim class, and now it’s waaaay harder for some guys just to get a sandwich.

But creating the victim is only half the equation, and perhaps less powerful than the other weapon: Guilt®.

Let’s return to the American psyche in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. The American psyche was long built on openness and fair play. Why don’t we cut in line? It’s been shown in study after study that Americans from that time period would go out of their way to not allow free riders – people who don’t contribute to the system. Line cutters are just one example.

Studies have shown that this level of dislike for free riders and those who treat others unfairly is so ingrained that individual Americans will work to stop that unfairness. Individuals will work to stop free riders even if it requires them to do something uncomfortable, or if it causes them financial loss.

“What if,” thought the Frankfurt School, “we could convince the American people that they were immoral? That their system is awful?”

“Well,” I imagine they responded, “now you’ve got something.”

What happened when John Galt took too many sleeping pills? Atlas Drugged.

The Frankfurt School was collectivist, and believed in collective, not individual punishment. They hated the individual ideas and nature of Western Civilization, and the United States in particular. To put this in perspective, it is exactly the burning hatred for these ideas that spurred the Frankfurt School on. These ideas live on in exactly the hatred that every Leftist (and many “conservatives”) hold for the “flyover” states and the “red states”.

They are the Americans who say things like, “I’ll never have a child,” and “I hate America,” and “I can’t stand the sight of the American flag,” and pick any and every opportunity that they can to tear down the country. Sadly, people who say that are at the heads of infotainment companies, the executive and legislative portions of government, the military, and are all over in the academic world.

They hate those that they are supposed to lead and govern.

To put it simply, this Guilt® has turned a large portion of the people who are at the levers of power into people that hate America. And these people suffering from Guilt, are people that also hate you because you are getting in the way of their planned suicide of our country.

So, if one way to defeat a people is to have them defeat themselves, then that must mean that the Left is very, very afraid. They’re afraid of you and the power that Americans inherently possess. That’s why they hate you, and that’s why they want to tear down everything that you love and leave a smoking crater.

I feel like we should talk about the aliens.

The great news is that in the midst of the economic and social crisis that has been engineered to create more control, people are waking up. The Guilt® is lessening as people push back against the vilification of people like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington while granting sainthood to the designated felon high on lethal amounts of fentanyl victim of George Floyd. The Guilt© will, I think, begin to fall apart as the crisis continues.

Will we be the same America as in the past? No. But I do believe we will win, because independence and truth usually triumph over Victimhood® and Guilt™.

Plus, you know, it’s not like they’re fighting the French.

28 Things That Make Me Happy

“Happy premise #3: Even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won’t.” – Bowfinger

Why can’t you make coffee happy? It’s always bitter.

What makes me happy? Oh, sure, like everyone else I love it when Joe Biden falls off a bicycle and want to start a GoFundMe® to buy him a 350 horsepower motorcycle. But beyond that motorcycle, what really makes me happy?

A lot of things. So, the following are a few of them, in an absolutely random order:

Helping people see what they otherwise would not have seen. That’s why I write.
Writing.
Helping people laugh. I stood up in front of several hundred adults when I was in third grade and did a standup routine. It was awful. Why do third graders not do standup? Their material is awful. I have been writing humor since about that time.
A good cigar. I smoke them rarely enough that my insurance company calls me a non-smoker. But sitting down in the hot tub with one and staring out at the peaceful night sky in Modern Mayberry as the coyotes creep out of their dens to howl at sunset?
A good book. I’ve read several this year, and was planning on doing a post about those. Regardless, a book is transformative. I like mine in paper – something about the tactile feel of the book is hypnotic. E-books are convenient, but are less immersive.
A bad book. I generally learn something even from those.

I once mixed a snake with a fruit. I called it a bananaconda.

Cool days. I am really not a fan of summer except at elevations above a mile and a half or latitudes near that of Fairbanks. Winter? Never seen one too cold.
The smooth taste of a cup of coffee in the morning makes me hate waking up a bit less. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I have to get up, and to move from comfort to discomfort if I want to accomplish anything. Coffee is our bitter friend that makes being awake work for me.
Making the world better in big ways. If I can make the world a little bit better for thousands of people I don’t know, awesome. I’ve been lucky enough to do that a time or two.
Making the world better in small ways. I tip well and don’t complain (much) when I go out to eat. Waitresses, even crappy ones, work hard so I don’t want to make their lives harder when for a couple of bucks I can make it better.

Chuck Norris and Superman® wrestled once. Loser had to wear his underwear on the outside of his clothes for the rest of his life.

Being with my family. Good heavens, I love those dunderheads. The thing that family provides is, perhaps, the only lasting legacy that I’ll leave.
I had a friend once who is an Orthodox Priest (I seem to attract priests and clergy – I have no idea why) and he asked me a simple, but profound question, “If you love learning, is that a good thing?” Great question! My only answer that I’ve come up with so far is that to know Truth takes us closer to knowing God. To know what is False tells us what is not God. Still a great question, and I can see the idea that learning can sometimes be a distraction that takes us away from Truth.
Making liars uncomfortable. I have no idea why, but I cannot abide by those that aren’t faithful, and those that lie (there’s a difference). I’ve heard it said that we all lie, and I must admit that in my youth I told a few. I’ve since learned that I cannot escape the Truth so I try to be as faithful to Truth as much as I can be. Has telling the Truth cost me when a lie would never have been caught? Was it worth it? Yes. My honor is clean. It’s not my job to judge, but when I can make them feel pain? I love it.
Good music. What do I like about music? I like optimistic music, music that looks to a future that, while it might mean there’s a fight, means that there is hope. Rock and roll used to be that music before it got whiney.
A good mystery. I love being able to take clues and figure out the real answer. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

In the 1970s, Led Zep™ went on vacation, so Pink Floyd® tended their gardens. So, Roger Waters Robert’s Plants?

Knowing that the main limitation to what I do in the world is me. I am lucky enough to be able to choose what (mostly) I want to do. Because of that, my choices define my destiny. Not Destiny, that’s a stripper that works down in McMaynerbury.
Camping is a way to get away from the things that make us comfortable. Huh? I thought comfortable was happy? No. Comfortable is comfortable. When camping away from all of the things that mask us from the realities of the basic functions of life it leads me to focus on them, and understand that life in a cold tent in the rain after eating food that was poorly cooked is . . . still pretty good. Comfort isn’t happiness.
Knowing that there is much more on Heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy. I believe, as the man said to those dudes in Corinth, we “see through a glass, darkly.” I know that there is imperfection in what I know, and what I understand. I also know that, (at least) as long as I’m alive, I’ll never understand it all. How cool is that!?!? We live in a time and place where we’ll never have all the answers. The game is afoot.
Being on time. I hate being late – I think it shows disrespect to those that you’re meeting. When I’m on time, and not rushed? It’s wonderful. So, I try to do that because it makes me happy.
Sleeping in. I love to sleep in. It’s awesome. What makes it awesome? Getting up early. I hate that – that’s why getting up early is awesome.

Fush u mang?

Knowing that I have to do things that are uncomfortable to grow. Getting up early is one. So, doing things I don’t like, things that are uncomfortable make me happy because I know that’s a chance to grow.
Knowing that the most important thing I’ll ever do is probably in front of me.
Or not.
Fixing something. When something is broken it actively makes me unhappy every time I see it or have to deal with it. Weirdly, I get an outsized amount of happiness in dealing with the things that I fixed or made better.
Starting something. Every start is a new journey. What an adventure!

After reading the dictionary, every other book is just a remix.

Finishing something. Every completion is something in the past, something that I’ve done to my standard. What’s next?
Doing something pure. I used to make models, and sometimes I’d look at the unpainted model and love the purity of the completed plane or tank or starship. I almost hated to paint it. And then when the painting was done? Also awesome. But building something new and perfect is a thumb in the eye of entropy.
Watching my children achieve. Like I said above, my children are perhaps my only legacy. In three generations, most memories of me will likely be gone, so I’ll live on in the world only in the legacy of my children. And maybe that makes me happiest.

Now about that motorcycle. A Harley® or a Ninja™?

Copper, Bikini Economics, And An Early Warning

“My hemoglobin is based on copper, not iron.” – Star Trek, TOS

Why didn’t they let the clown make iron? He smelt funny.

The current economic mess we’re in has often been discussed by economists. Let’s look at the word economist so we can understand what that word really means. Eco comes from the Greek “echo” meaning repeating sound and the Serbo-Croatian word “myst” meaning where gorillas hang out, therefore it means a bunch of gorillas repeating the same thing back and forth to each other on PBS® until it’s time for bacon-wrapped shrimp and cocktails at the faculty lounge.

Likewise, the economy has been hit by what the “economists” call an exogenous shock.

Okay, what’s exogenous? I could give another silly definition involving the X-Men® and confused gender identity, but exogenous really means coming from outside. In this case, it’s the current mess in Ukraine, and, most particularly, the sanctions that were put in place.

Typically, I’ve noticed that when people want to punish someone, the idea would be to pick something that would be negative for that person. But, once again, Biden has managed to play Brer Fox to and thrown Brer Rabbit straight into the briar patch – Russian income is up compared to previously. Normally when you punish someone, bad things happen to them.

Oops.

I could probably round up a group of drunken fraternity juniors at any college that still taught stuff (sorry Harvard®, sit down) what could over a round of beer pong come up with better sanctions than Biden and his staff threw together. And at the worst case, they’d come up with sanctions that were silly yet didn’t hurt the United States. I mean, Putin doesn’t really have hair, so we’ll have to table Chet’s idea to give him a swirlie. Besides, Chet is passed out now and Brad has a Sharpie® out.

What do you call someone kicked out of a frat? A has-bro.

It started predictably enough – the energy sanctions have already caused a fill-up event to cost so much that it gives the Lefties goosebumps. This is wonderful in their eyes. Why? It causes less use of pesky gasoline and electricity. Their ultimate goal is to create an economy that produces no carbon dioxide at all, being run entirely by $80,000 electric vehicles to take Leftists from the Starbucks® to their Pilates lessons.

How far are they willing to go? The Dutch have implemented a plan that requires their farmers to reduce their number of cattle by 30% by 2030. So, less of whatever the Dutch make out of milk. I wonder if they’ll take the same stance with gasoline? If so, how will Vincent’s Van Gogh?

Vincent’s Van won’t Gogh. And since the economy can’t work on good climate intentions something will have to break.

Vincent did some karaoke – he liked to sing blues. One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Ear.

Something to break? Let’s talk about the price of copper.

Copper is a very good conductor of electricity. It’s also a metal that is in demand when an economy is growing. Why? Copper goes in wire for houses – 43% of copper is used in building and construction. Copper goes in computers – 20% is used in electronics. Add in another 20% for cars and such – and that takes us over 80%. I’d bore you with more facts about copper, but it makes me break out in hives – I guess I have a metallurgy.

I went to Steve Jobs’ funeral, just to ask this: “Who is thinking outside the box now, Steve?”

Regardless, let’s look at what happens to the price of copper when the economy is overheating – in 2006, you can see the price of copper (from Macrotrends, LINK) shot up. Interest rates were low, and houses were being built on every flat piece of ground from San Diego to Orlando.

That was the result of an economy that was overheated. Copper popped up in price, and then collapsed.

Copper does that – and it leads. When interest rates were low and anyone who could fog a mirror could get a loan, then copper prices shot up back in 2006. As long as the boom held out, copper held out. When the market for houses finally collapsed, so did the price of copper.

So, that’s the history.

What about 2022?

It started with a spike. Why? Low interest rates and easy money made it so the housing market, even in sleepy little Modern Mayberry was hot. When I bought my house, there were houses that had been on the market for over 300 days. Three months ago, a house hit the market on Friday and was gone by Monday.

Now, I’m thinking it won’t be nearly so easy to sell in a small market. And copper indicates that it’s likely that construction demand is dropping. Not only that, but China, typically a big market for copper, cut its demand for scrap copper in the past week by 47% (according to the one source in broken English I could find). So, it’s no big surprise that copper prices are down over 20% since March.

So, I’m not sure Biden can sanction Russia any harder unless he comes to our houses individually, breaks our windows, impregnates our dogs, and sticks his thumb in the butter in the fridge.

Oh, crap. You don’t think I gave him ideas, do you?

Thoughts On Independence Day, 2022

“My friend here is trying to convince me that any independent contractors who were working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when it was destroyed by the Rebels.” – Clerks

Where was the Declaration of Independence signed? At the bottom, silly.

Independence Day is just around the corner, and I’ve got the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report scheduled for that day, so I thought I’d give a few thoughts about one of the most cherished ideas in our history: Independence.

Independence was the life blood of our new nation. I think people were genetically (and sometimes judicially) selected for it. The people that came here looked around Britain and said, “You know what, I’d much rather be in a wilderness surrounded by hostile natives. Oh, and I’ll gladly cross an ocean in a dangerous journey that will take forever, and I’ll never see the land of my birth again.”

It’s one thing to do that yourself, but these dudes convinced their wives to come, too.

Leaving everything you know and love is not normal, but Duncan McWilder left Scotland before the Revolutionary War was over to come on over here. I don’t know his story, but as I trace his children across generations, not a one of them settled in a place where life was easy – in fact every one of them headed for the frontier (as it existed in their time) and pushed outwards.

They raised heaven knows what in Virginia and Alabama. They tamed Texas. They built the railroads. The homesteaded in New Mexico. Portions of the family were west of the Rockies in 1860. Not a single day was spent in a life in on easy mode. They built this country with their sweat, their tears, and over the bones of their wives who died in childbirth and their sons who died of fever and war.

None of it was easy. The hard choice was something else:

Independence.

But they had one thing in their mind – they bowed to no man. I feel safe in saying that should my forefathers have met any king or potentate that walked this Earth that not a single one of them would have bowed. They would have stood straight up, looked him in the eye, and thought to themselves, “You’re nothing but a man like me. And no Wilder bows to any man.”

When people mention to me that I am the beneficiary of “white privilege” or any other such nonsense, I laugh. My ancestors fought in Europe, twice, in the last century. They fought here at places like Shiloh and Manassas Junction. They fought at places like Valley Forge when the dark winter nearly doomed a nation yet unborn. I stand at the end of a line of brave men and women who looked on a new and fresh continent, not with fear, but with determination. They wouldn’t bend their knees even to their countrymen. Why?

Independence.

Life was never easy. But I look back onto that line of my ancestors and know – they made the hard choice, the choice to be free. They gave up comfort and, likely, material success to have control of their own destiny. Rather than submit, they pushed farther out – into danger. Wolves aren’t a problem now. Why not?

My ancestors (along with many others) killed them. Grizzly bears used to be in nearly every State. Not now. Why? My ancestors (along many others) killed them. They braved the cold, the heat, the snakes, the (now dead) bears, and the (now dead) wolves. Why?

Independence.

I’m not alone here, either. If you’re reading this, there’s a near certainty that you came from a long line of Big Damn Heroes® yourself. They carved a nation out of their heroism, their success, and, yes, their failure, all chasing the same dream.

Independence.

I’ve met billionaires, movie stars, sports stars, and rock stars. I hold none of them in contempt. And I hold none of them as my better. I had several times that I could have sworn fealty and abandoned my integrity and had greater success.

I never would. To do so would have been shameful to the memories of those that came before me. So, I never will. Why?

Independence.

I am not alone. The United States was a magnet for hard-headed men of principle that were looking for nothing but that chance to be free, to be independent, to live their own lives.

In 1900, my ancestors would interact with the Federal government whenever they got their mail. That might have been infrequent, at best, out on the frontier, out in the places where they might be lucky to see mail once in a month.

From once a month, we’ve moved to all the time. When my alarm goes off in the morning, it’s driven by electricity that comes from power plants regulated by the EPA. I go to the bathroom where I brush my teeth with toothpaste approved by the FDA, and then into the shower where the valve is regulated by the Consumer Protection Agency and water regulated by several government agencies. I then get in the car (approved in different aspects by several government agencies) fueled by gasoline . . . and the number of agencies in that chain just to get gasoline is amazing.

The biggest difference between then and now are the massive cities. Our cities are huge and complex and anonymous. Here in the country, you can configure your life to deal only with the people you see at work and the people that you see at the store, in the city there are people everywhere.

And the chances you’ll see a random individual again in a context so that you’d recognize them?

Nearly zero.

Thus, cities are an environment where people are anonymous. Anonymous people aren’t responsible for their actions – they exist outside of the constraint of society. Be rude to someone because your day isn’t going well? Whatever. You’ll never see them again. They’re not a part of your group, your tribe.

That anonymity might sound like Independence, but it’s not – it actually leads to the worst of tyranny – rule after rule because poor manners in an anonymous setting lead to rules about how tall a lawn can be. And if you don’t follow that rule, and don’t pay the fines associated with breaking it?

People with guns will take you to a concrete box and keep you there. So, cities don’t sound very free to someone like me.

On the other side of the equation, small towns provide accountability without resorting to the law.

A city slicker moved to Modern Mayberry and didn’t pay a plumber because of a disagreement. What are the odds any other plumber will even return his calls when something goes wrong? Or any contractor? Heck, even I know the story, so I’m giggling thinking about them making phone calls when they need to get their septic tank pumped.

Without anonymity, there is responsibility. It will be a tough lesson for the city slicker to learn. I remember that lesson every time I go to dinner and see the same waitress for the twentieth time. They are responsible to me as a waitress, and I am responsibility to them as a customer.

In my small town, I have responsibility. My forefathers had independence, but they also had responsibility. If they succeeded, they succeeded. If they failed, they failed. If they died because of their foolishness? They died.

The lesson is simple: independence isn’t freedom from consequences. Independence is being free to choose. Living with those consequences is the result.

We sit here at the edge of a new world that is struggling to be born out of the old world that we lived in. Will we choose independence and responsibility?

I know what my ancestors would choose.