If There Are Seven Basic Plots, Which One Is Yours?

“There’s no plot.  It just goes on like that for an hour.” – Videodrome

Why don’t they use thyme as medicine?  I hear I heals all wounds.

Last week’s post was about life as a three-act play.  It may or may not work, and, like all metaphors, it’s flawed and suspect.  Perhaps I should used something better, like a metaphive?

The Third Act

During the post, I also mentioned that a dude named Christopher Booker had written a book called The Seven Basic Plots.  In it, he broke down most everything we watch into, well, seven basic plots.  I guess he completely blew the suspense with the title.  These plots all follow the same three acts discussed last week, though this week I’m using “hero” more as a descriptor than “protagonist”.

But what are the plots?

Overcoming The Monster:  Destroying a great evil that threatens good.  Examples:  my divorce attorney from my first marriage, Star Wars®.

Rags to Riches:  Start out poor and drunk, get money, lose money, get more money plus the girl and a private helicopter.  Examples:  Sonny Bono, Brewster’s Millions.

The Quest:  The search for and attainment of a thing or place after being found worthy.  Examples:  losing my virginity, The Lord of the Rings.

What kind of magic to GloboLeft wizards use?  Soycery.

Voyage and Return:  A trip to an unfamiliar place, a learning experience, and a return as a changed hero.  Examples:  The Mrs. and I moving to Alaska and back, The Hobbit.

Rebirth:  External events happen, and force the hero to change for the better.  Examples:  I was adopted.  Duh.  Groundhog Day.

Comedy:  External things keep happening and pile up to the point that they get more and more confusing, but then sort themselves out in the end.  Examples:  My first marriage, any episode of Frasier.

Tragedy:  Bad things happen to good people because they let temptation spoil their virtue.  Examples:  Me giving up on a drug-addicted friend, Macbeth.

Yup.  Seven plots.

Whether or not you agree with them, all of them (with one exception that we’ll talk about in a bit) all have the same basic idea:  the hero goes out, does stuff, and grows.  That personal growth is what leads to ultimate victory in the climax of the story.  Sure, luck can play a part of the victory, but to have a really emotionally satisfactory end, the victory comes because the character has faced his past mistakes, worked, grown, and is now a better man.

Our new puppy can’t write a decent plot.  The only thing he can get out is ruff drafts.

This is a wonderful story and sings to our hearts:  who of us hasn’t lost?  Who of us hasn’t worked hard to get better, and then won in the end, even if it was just a small victory?

It is the personification of a story of virtue that we want to change to improve, to work to a higher goal, to pay the price in effort, and to win.  Who wouldn’t want their children to live that life?

An aside:  one of the (many) reasons modern movies suck is because, especially with victim-class characters and girl-bosses, they can never be shown in any sort of negative light.  Looking at the stupid movie that made me hate Star Wars™, The Girlboss Awakens©, the main character starts off as invincible, invulnerable, and never has to grow.  Why should she?  From the first moment she can pilot the Millenium Falcon© better than Han Solo®, fight better with a lightsaber™ than a man who has spent his entire life in perfecting that skill, and is way better at The Force© after hearing about it for the first time.

No struggle.  No growth – how could she need it?  She was born the BeSTeSt EvAR hero because she’s a girl.  This is of course, even though the character was written by people who would tell you that gender doesn’t exist and that you’re a bigot for not liking girls even though they don’t exist either.  Bigot.

Her next movie?  Fifty Shades of Rey.

It’s also the deprivation of that challenge that’s ruining our kids.  I had a conversation with a Zoomer the other day, and he noted that, yeah, they were a generation that lived on phones, didn’t have bullying, and were afraid of real challenges because they never had to face them.  Why are Zoomers on anxiety meds?  Because their parents protected them from the dragons and never let their kids work themselves out of a hole that they’d dug for themselves.

We need to let kids do heroic things, dammit!

Okay, I’ll step back away from that ledge, and end this aside.

Fun fact:  most coyotes, despite years of effort to teach them, cannot do simple calculus.

What was I talking about?  Oh, yeah, plots.  There’s one different plot.

Tragedy.  This plot shows how temptation lures in the innocent hero, corrupts him, and then causes his ultimate destruction.

This is also a story we want our children to know.  Regardless of intent, regardless of skill, there is a danger in allowing temptation to overcome virtue, allowing negative emotions to rule our lives.

Here’s a real-world example:  the firefighter who was murdered (Corey Comperatore, PBUH) at the Trump rally.  A tragedy?  Do you think he’d look back at his life and call it tragic?  A hero who died saving his family, who fathered children who love him and who was married to a wife who mourns him?

It’s not tragic.  It’s heroic.  There was no vanity, no anger, no petty emotion that led to his downfall.  He didn’t have a downfall.  He died a hero’s death.  Tragic?  Absolutely.  The plot of a tragedy?  No.

And, in this case, we find seeds of the important:  the plot of our lives, as long as we breathe, as long as we can change, isn’t set.  The ultimate destiny of whether we live as the hero on a quest or a villain who lived the plot of a tragedy rests with us.

Me?  I’m trying, very hard, to be a hero.  I can look back on my life and see places where I could have been more heroic, but also places where I’m damn proud of my actions and would do them again, no matter the outcome.  I can also see places where my weaknesses made me the villain in a tragedy or two.

But, as long as I’m breathing, I’m still attempting to be the hero.

You can, too.

How Corporations Ruin Nations, Part II: Readers Strike Back

“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” – No Country for Old Men

How many clickbait articles does it take to change a lightbulb?  The answer will shock you.

First:  thanks everyone for the comments last week, agree or disagree, it was an epic comment section with over 5,000 words of well thought out commentary.

One of the things that I think we all have to realize is that the thought process and institutions that got us into this situation are the thought processes and institutions we have to reform because that’s how we got here.  This is the same logic used by the Founders when they created this place.

I am first and foremost for things that make the family strong, and the virtue that comes from being observant is absolutely one of those things.  The Constitution isn’t agnostic, though it allows you to be.

I am furthermore very much in favor of limited freedom.  Well, limited how?  You know, pesky things like murder should be outlawed.  Does no-fault divorce with alimony and child support make women “freer”?  Yes.  But it’s horrible for our nation.

And I am for a mostly free market.  Should marijuana be legal?  Probably not.  Should Google™ be able to change its search algorithm with the express intent of keeping Donald Trump out of the White House?  Also, probably not.

Should every corporation be able to live forever and go into any line of businesses, leading to Facebook™ buying competitors just to keep relevant?

Yeah, no.

What’s the difference between Mark Zuckerberg and your wife?  Zuck knows more about you.

Below are some great points that I had to condense.  I tried with utmost sincerity to try to trim them fairly, so they didn’t lose context though I fixed a few typos.  Keep in mind if I had kept all the bits, this post would probably end up doubling to around 7,000 words, and ain’t nobody got time for that.  Comments are in bold italics, responses are mine.

Free market capitalism only works in a very homogeneous society with a shared and enforced set of Christian values, along with churches strong enough to enforce said values.

John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Freedom, and free market capitalism, really only works with a moral and religious people. Everything else quickly turns into some form of tyranny. Or tranny. Or both.

I disagree – the free market can and has flourished in many locations through history, see Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings.  Now, combining the free market with a mostly free society?  Yes, that requires a virtuous people, with a shared virtue founded in a shared religion.

The worst is altruistic people without religion:  those are monsters.

Kipling, Gods of The Copybook Headings, and It’s Different This Time

Ahh, when you get the smug feeling that comes from your altruism but somebody else pays the price.

the absolute number one reform on corporations that needs to happen is not on the list though: this is removing the liability shield. The shareholders of a company must be liable for the actions done in their name, as well as for the debts of the company, and they must be actual people, not other corporations. the debts are easy to prorate over the outstanding shares. the liability for damages or criminal activity, however, must be shared by all shareholders.

In researching this, although not all shareholders may have been liable, the managerial class of the corporation were legally and criminally liable at least for a time in the country.  I was surprised!  And, for the same reason you suggest.

Restricting corporations sounds great, but how could it be enforced? More .gov, more bureaucracy, more laws, more grift. Rather than strongarm huge national and international entities, think of ways to incentivize the local aspect. We don’t need any more .gov regulation mucking up our lives.

Just devolve it back to the Several States, it would be a rather simple Constitutional amendment.  Oh, and have the Several States select senators to protect their rights.  Much of this nonsense happened after senators became “super congressmen” with longer terms.

Sorry, looks like this picture has a piece of Schiff on it.

Corporations only exist because of government powers. They could not exist without the government enforcing their existence 24 hours a day. If the government were to simply no longer recognize corporations as legal entities, they would disintegrate in seconds. So changing the terms of that government support is not anything out of imagination.

Yes.  And there is historical precedent.  And don’t forget that AT&T being broken apart didn’t cause the world to explode even though they had a Death Star© logo.

The corporations MAKE the laws.

This is very, very true.  I reference the exact stats a little lower in the post, but if the Elite is for a regulation, then it happens.  Look at the endless hordes of illegals:  this was chosen by both sides.  Either could have stopped it, and either could stop it today.  But the Elites have bigger pocketbooks.

Peter Turchin’s End Times: There Be Dragons Here

Chain stores outcompete mom-and-pop stores. Customers prefer to buy from them. Why are you objecting to what customers have decided they want? It is not obvious that patronizing chain stores is contrary to customers’ interests.

Your policy prescription reads like the envy wish list from local pharmacists who can’t compete on price and selection, and demand government ban their competition.

At one point, I agreed with your statement wholeheartedly even though I’ve never been and never will be a pharmacist.  Customers do prefer lower prices.  Larger big-box stores can get those by several ways:  a good one is lowering the cost of goods delivered to the store via increased efficiency, a bad one is offshoring all manufacturing in critical industries.  But the impact on the community is not zero sum.  Profits that would stay local aren’t local anymore.  That has a cumulative effect.  If you really want big box stores and they’re 50% locally (in-state) owned with a specific mandate, and there are strategic tariffs?  Maybe we’re both happy and life is better.

Never put a catheter into a pharmacist, you’re just left with a harmacist.

The next comment went point by point, but I skipped a few points (length):

  1. Require corporations to be chartered as separate entities in each operating state.
    And here we have the restriction that really silos the states from each other. I don’t know – CAN this be done at the state level, or would this require federal action?
  2. Require a percentage (greater than 50%?) of local (think, people living in the state) ownership in each corporation.
    If the preceding point can be done, so can this.
  3. Sharply restrict lending by out of state institutions.
    Ok, I know there’s a federal law on this – the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking Act.
  4. Tiered sales tax based on company size: the bigger, the higher, which reflects the value these companies are taking out of state.
    Let’s add income taxes in here too, and combine this with points 1-6 above, and create a new legal entity – the “Domestic Missouri Corporation” (for example), which must have 50%+1 local ownership, a 50 year limited life, collects no sales tax, is exempt from as many state regs as reasonable; and income derived from a DMC is taxed at an extremely low rate by the state (if at all), and liquidation distributions from a DMC (at the end of the 50 year life) are exempt from state taxes. DMCs can be banks, and are then exempt from most state-level banking regulations.

There was an awesome longer comment talking point by point about the legality at the state level of doing this that I excerpted above.  Yes, it would require an amendment to the Constitution, because the Supreme Court (activist in the Robber Baron days) essentially nationalized corporations, primarily to protect the railroads (many of the court cases that changed the status of corporations from limited to infinite dealt with railroads).

Our local railroad has a good training program.

The big corporations collude with the government to use your tax dollars – stolen from you at gunpoint – to subsidize their costs.

A point I missed, thanks for bringing it up.  This is a particularly insidious trap – and it creates more input for the victim machine that is the GloboLeft – they import millions to undercut wages, profit strip an area, but are in favor of subsidizing the low-wage Potterville they’ve created.  People who depend on the government want . . . more government.  And (as noted by another commentor, they also look to have local communities give them a tax break, or even tax citizens to get them to pay for capital expansion (new stadium, anyone?).

. . . lots of corporations make contributions to local interests. WalMart posts these inside their store. In my neck of the woods, Family Express does lots of community support. On a national level, Thrivent does all kinds of stuff. All you need to do is ask. They approve even marginal stuff, though I know of no cases of them funding LBGTOMFG crap.

Back before the Boy Scouts went woke, I was a Cubmaster.  We went to Wal-Mart® and asked for contributions for day camp, even offering ad space.  “No.”  No large, non-local business contributed.  Local businesses did.  My experiences only.

I don’t disagree with any particular point, however, no set of laws will ultimately protect you from a group who A) is reasonably intelligent, B) is entirely unscrupulous and C) instinctively works together against outsiders. The only thing to do with a group like that is not deal with them and exclude them if at all possible.

Effectively, we are currently ruled by such a group. Until we are rid of them, these laws would grant temporary protection at best.

This is a significant problem, but it’s one that exists, well, everywhere.  Look at Indians (dot, not feather) that get jobs at Microsoft©.  What do they do?  They get on the hiring side and only hire additional Indians.  The same can be said of other groups that are insular – a friend works for a Mormon corporation.  He noted that non-Mormons can get jobs there, but never C-suite positions.  And, yes, Jews do this too and have been exceptionally successful at it.  One of James O’Keefe’s targets noted that at Disney©, there was no way that anyone but a Jewish person could get a top job.

Under a decentralized set of solutions as we’ve discussed, it is simply very, very difficult to concentrate that much power.

There’s a highway to hell but a stairway to heaven, which may be a commentary on the expected traffic load.

As an entrepreneur myself, I think all you really need is #1:  Restrict corporations to a limited life span, at which time they have to divest. . . . (or) . . . Just make them play by the same damn tax rules. That’s probably sufficient.

How about we replace most taxes with tariffs?

Your great ape brain firmware wants to blame the competing outside tribe instead of traitors who look like you, but that group is called “middle class WASP voters”. That group has such a large percentage of the votes that no other group can force any policy onto them. Why then are there so many policies made against their interests? Are middle class voters mostly a bunch of non-player-characters whose minds are programed by the mainstream media? If so then voting can never work.

But policy after policy has been shoved down the throats of the middle-class WASP voters.  Who voted for unlimited immigration?  Here’s Turchin:

“The political scientist Martin Gilens . . . gathered a large data set – nearly 2000 policy issues between 1981 and 2002.  Each case matched a proposed policy change to a nation opinion survey asking a favor/oppose question about the initiative . . . .

“Statistical analysis . . . showed that the preferences of the poor had no effect on policy changes . . . . What is surprising is that there was no – zilch, nada – effect of the average voter.  The main effect on the direction of change was due to the policy preferences of the affluent.  There was also an additional effect of interest groups, the most influential ones being business-oriented lobbies.  Once you include in the statistical model the preferences of the top 10 percent and the interest groups, the effect of the commoners is statistically indistinguishable from zero.”

Given inflation, the poor are revolting.  No surprise, soap is expensive.

I will say that communities becoming dependent on the corporations is a problem as well. Again, example here in New Home: We have two very large corporations in town and one just down the road that are likely substantial employers for this entire region. If they go, it will have a huge impact.

There is a place for larger corporations with longer lives.  But they need to be sharply held to task.  Why is Facebook™ still so big?  They bought all potential competition when the competition was still small.  Facebook® as Facebook™ is fine, but when they want to just buy other corporations to make themselves invulnerable?  No.  But someone needs to make aspirin and airplanes, and Bayer® and Boeing™ can do that.  Maybe if Boeing had maintained a focus on airplanes they wouldn’t suck.

One (of Denninger’s suggestions) was to eliminate the ability for large investment firms like Blackrock and Vanguard to vote proxy shares on the mutual funds of their customers. This gives them ginormous power to influence the country which is why we have DEI (among other things). With this power it becomes easier to vote themselves even more control. To stop this, the actual owner of the stock (even via a mutual fund) should be the one who votes the shares or else the votes are forfeit. That would deflate their power tremendously. I would go a few steps further though, and limit their ability to invest in certain areas (real estate for example).

Yes.  BlackRock® should be neutered.

Why wouldn’t you trust Dr. Anthony Fauchi?

Undertake to lay your finger on that clause in the Constitution which gives government that authority and power.

“To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;” – this is the literal and exact purpose of the article.  But note, this uses the proper word “among” meaning that Massachusetts couldn’t blockade Vermont if Congress said “no”.  It does not mean “within” which is the source of the mischief.  States are, however, given the power, and had it, and restricted the formation of corporations to a legislative event because they were so frightened of unbridled corporate power.

At the beginning, when the Founders were still around, most corporations existed for large, well-defined purposes for a limited amount of time, and couldn’t own things that didn’t meet that purpose.  This isn’t my idea, it was the Founders.

Yes.  It was and is misused horribly.  But it is applicable here.

Corporations get too big, and live too long (list of dead corporations)?

Yes.  Just because Sears© cratered as it was looted doesn’t mean that BlackRock© or Facebook™ or Google® should be allowed to wield unlimited power, either financial or via information restriction on the public.  The power of the corporation in public life can and should be limited by limiting their reach, lifespan, and ability to work across business sectors.

BTW, how did Smoot-Hawley do at saving American jobs?

Don’t know, ask China in 2024 – we’re not 1930 America.  At that point(1930) we had a trade account surplus.  Now?  Not so much, and it’s a race to the bottom.  A $5 tariff per $700 (at the time) iPhone™ would have swung the production cost to favor the United States.  By 200%.  Countries can (and do!) strategically target markets so that they can “corner” the intellectual skills and know-how to make strategic goods.  Domestically produced F-35?  No way, there are parts that in 2024 have to come from China, and the timeline for competency in that tech is measured in decades.

And how is NAFTA really working out for the economy?

I shot the tariff, but I did not shoot the subsidy.

Penalize companies for outsourcing jobs overseas, and you might be onto something.  But don’t subsequently bitch when American cars and medicines cost 20x what the same products cost overseas, where they’re made in sweatshops, and are uncompetitive in the rest of the world for the same reason.

That’s making my point for me:  we used to be able to do that – the P-51s flying off the assembly line and into Europe was because we had the capacity and the know-how.  Germany could figure out how to make cars.  And in what industry (exactly) are we 20x less efficient?0

I’ve been thinking a lot on this lately. Do communities really benefit from cheaper prices at stores like Walmart or DollarStore if all they are is conduits sucking money out of local communities? Or, banking at MegaBank Corp when the local bank is owned by shareholders in the community?

I know a guy who owns a bank here in Modern Mayberry. Has a nice house that he had built.  By local labor.  Bought the concrete at the local plant, owned by locals.  He also volunteers his time to lead a civic group.  Make him a branch manager of MegaBankCorp© and he’d be buying a crappy house, and too tired to go out and help out after dinner.  But, hey, with MegaBankCorp™ your interest goes to New York!

I’m guessing (hoping) this discussion is really just JW’s way of pointing out the dearth of anyone having read Adam Smith’s Wealth Of Nations, which came out the same year as the Declaration Of Independence, and therefore being wholly ignorant of how liberty works in a country not controlled by the state, cannot come up with one reason (out of any five hundred) why government control of any markets is asinine and stupid in the extreme.

Adam got a lot right theoretically but also wrong practically.  Yes, it would be silly to grow grapes in Greenland, but comparative advantage says not.  We’re not talking about grapes, though.  And, Smith was against tariffs, but the average tariffs went up as high as 60%.  During our industrialization phase up until 1930 or so, the average tariff was 50%.  Average.  And they made up 95% of federal revenue – so much that we didn’t need an income tax.

Adam Smith was against those, so we can see the United States was very weak and not an industrial powerhouse.  Oh, wait.

Socialists would be fine using the invisible hand to change a lightbulb, but it would have to be somebody else’s bulb.

Bonus points: When the government also decrees that the national minimum wage should be $20/hr, how many of you will venture to local restaurants to buy dinner out?

I’m against minimum wages.  Boot the illegals out, restrict legal immigration, let the price float while defanging .gov as well as .com.  Yes, government is a dangerous servant and a cruel master, but so are Facebook™, Google©, and BankAmerica®.  Defanging both of them isn’t a bad idea.

So you’re okay with a government corporate entity living forever, but the idea that private citizens could have the same ability and right to incorporate scares hell out of you?  And when, exactly, are the masters of that government held liable for the consequences of their actions?

Governments end.  We have successive congresses, and successive presidents (elected or not).  Putting all of them on trial like the Spartans did after their terms (limited!) end is maybe not a bad idea – it would be fun to watch Clarence Thomas in charge of such an event.  I think the bigger problem is the regulator class, which should be mostly eliminated by actually following the limits placed on the federal government by the Constitution.

That would probably make her Schiff her pants.

Thanks for participating in this little thought experiment.  Again, it’s clear that the concentrated power of government is bad.  It’s also clear that the concentrated power of corporations can be just as bad, since they appear to inevitably twist themselves into anti-competition behemoths that want to control governments, import endless streams of illegals, and support Leftist causes – hence, the GloboLeftElite.

The Third Act

“That’s why every magic trick has a third act.” – The Prestige

A man has to have a purpose in life.  All memes today are “as found”.

I’ve heard it said that there are only seven basic plots to stories, and that was the thesis of a book by the Christopher Booker.  Who would have thought a guy named Booker would write a book?  On the other hand, I’d hate to be the guy named Booker who didn’t write a book, unless my name was Dan-O.

Anyhow, we might look at those plots in a future post (maybe next Friday?) but now I want to talk about how most movies are made – they use a three act structure, and compare that to a human lifespan.

The First Act is the setup.  It introduces many of the characters and the situation.  You start by knowing absolutely nothing about what’s going on other than the title and maybe you might have seen a preview.  It’s the job of the storyteller to let you know what’s going on, while at the same time bringing drama and challenges into the life of the protagonist.

For most people, their first act may vary in details, but it’s the time of life from when they’re born until they complete their schooling and are “out in the world”.  Obviously, most of the ways that we reached adulthood are different, but most of them rhyme pretty well.  You may have had more or less adversity, you may have had more or less wealth, you might have been raised in the mountains or in the city, but those are just variations on a theme.

True story:  when I started my first website back in 2000, I was trying to figure out how to get it in search engines, so I did a search, at work, for “Submission Websites” when a bunch of fetish websites for a fetish I never even knew existed popped up.  Thankfully, the web controls were weak then.

Most people lose a grandparent, experience some tragedy, experience some conflict with parents, and almost everyone has to deal with the disturbing revelations of puberty and growing awareness of how small they are in comparison to the world.

Sure, some stories vary greatly, and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be raised in the 1930s Soviet Union, but I imagine most stories of those reading this are pretty similar through adulthood.  Not the same, but similar.

How do you ground someone from Gen Z?  Make them go outside and socialize with their friends.

That’s the end of the first act, and the first challenge for most people is finding their way and path in life.  That’s the second act.  In a movie, the protagonist has a problem introduced in the first act that they have to solve.  In a good movie, the protagonist has to grow in ability, skill, virtue, or some combination of the three to deal with the problem.  The second act transforms the protagonist into something more than what he was.

The Second Act of most lives consists of wrestling with careers and marriages and children for most people.  Some miss part of that triad, but most people deal with all three.

I tried this, and it actually works, but video games are more fun.

This is the time in life when marriages succeed or fail.  When careers go where you expected, or, more likely, veer off in wild tangents that 18-year-old you would never have expected.  And, children.  Anyone who has raised more than one knows that each one is different, and each one presents a different challenge in order to make them suitable to add value to the world.

Or not.  Sometimes, all of these things fail.  I guess that’s why they make comedies?  Regardless, it’s the time when people are busy trying to accomplish things, trying to solve problems, and trying to make a place in this world and contribute.

Say what you will about Vlad, but he took action when the stakes were high.

While similarity remains, there is much more variation in the Second Act for most people.  That’s where fortunes rise and fall, and that’s where heartbreak and setbacks are either overcome or we allow them to overcome us.

The final act is the Third Act.

In a film, it creates a climax.  All of the action, all of the plots, all of the tension built into the story is resolved, for good or bad.  It finishes the story, and resolves enough of the plot to satisfy the audience, and finally allows reflection by the protagonist on how they’ve changed, and understanding who they really are.

In a life, what does the Third Act look like?  Is it a gold watch at retirement, cruises, and sitting on the patio in a shade with a lemonade watching boats go by?

For me, I can’t see that.

I can’t imagine that being my Third Act.  I’ve consciously filled my life with struggle, with daring myself to improve and get better and see my worst times were when I was complacent and life was easy.  It may be that you’ve chosen differently, and I’m just messed up, but it does set up my Third Act.

Steve Jobs said he wanted to “kick a dent” in the Universe, and he certainly did.  Would smartphones have come without the iPhone®?  I do think so, but I think his overall legacy is a negative one.  Smartphones haven’t made humanity happier, for the most part.  Instead, they’ve created a false connection where people are still seeking real connections.

This would be a good third act.

I guess, if I were looking for a climax to my life, it would kicking a far different dent in the Universe, allowing people to see that we don’t have to live like this.  There is another way, and it’s better, and freer, and provides that hope of humanity becoming the flower of creation, rather than another weed.

I believe that with all of my heart, that there is another way.  I’d write a book about it, but my name isn’t booker.  Wait, maybe if it was a wild book?

The Book:

How Big Corporations Ruin The Economy, One Town At A Time

“I still say genetics are stronger than will, and blood is thicker than altruism.” – Andromeda

Should we rejoin Great Britain?  It’s not like we mind taxation without representation anymore.

At the turn of the century, in 1900, that is, 25% of the people who worked had jobs for “larger” companies, think “something someone would say a robber baron owned”.  These were things like railroads and steel mills and PEZ™ factories.

Most people worked for themselves or for smaller businesses.  People farmed, which was a very big deal, taking up around 40% of the country’s labor force.  The remainder worked for themselves or for small businesses, being a lawyer, working for the butcher, or delivering home-grown artisanal PEZ©.

The result was that the majority of the profits stayed local.  The owner of the bank that loaned for the mortgage for Farmer McWilder didn’t ship the interest payments back to New York:  those profits stayed in the community.  People were more independent:  the local optometrist didn’t work for Opti-Co™, a Ramtron© company, which is a division of GloboChunk®.

Introverts hate being optometrists.  They have to make eye contacts.

When BigDrugStore® moved into Modern Mayberry, what did they do?

They bought the local pharmacies from the local pharmacists.  They hired (then fired after a year or so) the local guys.  Now, profits that used to go to funding the local little league team are funneled to investors in New York where they buy part of a bathroom renovation in the Hamptons.

Likewise, the local manufacturers have dried up, too.  There used to be at least seven little widget factories that made various doo-dads and thingamajigs that now are produced either in People’s Liberation Army Factory #323 or in Whamco’s™ huge factory in Pakistan.

I guess that’s an everlasting jobstopper.

Big businesses have two impacts:  they suck profits out of communities, and they make everyone less independent.  There are several factors that have led to this:

  • Allowing corporations to live forever and do anything.
  • Having combined huge corporations making huge purchases so that the combined purchasing power of all of the (for instance) Wal-Marts® can be used to put the pressure on suppliers to lower every cost, including labor,
  • Burden small companies with exactly the same regulations as large companies, giving large companies the incentive to seek out stronger regulation to keep competition down, and,
  • Realizing that every dollar pulled out of the community is an extra dollar of New York profit for putting in that new pool house.

This did reduce prices, at least enough to put small businesses out of business, but it has hurt America by taking profits that were local and nationalizing them to the existing GloboLeftistElite.  Yes, there were benefits, but each of these communities is now (over time) poorer for having these larger businesses in them.

DNA is like Taco Bell® – same four ingredients, nearly infinite results.

An aside:  this process has funneled huge amounts of money to the GloboLeftistElite.  Who are they?  They’re the people who run and own the largest corporations, yet are Marxists.  Don’t believe me?  Look at all of the class struggle propaganda that shows up from their typical GloboLeftist company in a year.  Trotsky would blush, I mean, if he hadn’t been killed with an icepick.

This has hurt rural America, which was built on individuals working and creating wealth locally.  I look at small towns across the United States at their aspirational city halls and libraries, and think, “Could any of them afford to build those structures now?”

No, they couldn’t.

Why not?

Because the locally created wealth has been siphoned off.

In the end, what can be done?  Here’s a modest proposal:

  • Restrict corporations to a limited life span, at which time they have to divest.
  • Restrict corporations to a specific line of business.
  • Require corporations to be chartered as separate entities in each operating state.
  • Require a percentage (greater than 50%?) of local (think, people living in the state) ownership in each corporation.
  • Ease regulatory burdens on smaller companies, making it easier to form and grow them.
  • Sharply restrict lending by out of state institutions.
  • Tiered sales tax based on company size: the bigger, the higher, which reflects the value these companies are taking out of state.

I could probably think of more changes that would actually return more capitalism to the country.  Yes, Apple™ isn’t fond of competition or capitalism or even the United States.  GloboLeftBigCorp© companies that have done their best to concentrate capital and economic power while at the same time being overtly Leftist.

You should respect people like me who wear glasses.  I paid money to see you.

Feel free to attack any individual points above, but the constant concentration and combination of economic power has to be stopped – inherently, it is anti-capitalist and anti-freedom, which leads to the failed ideology of group altruism.  Besides, those were the result of five minutes of thinking and I avoided thinking about creative uses for lamp posts.

Why is group altruism bad?  When .gov takes your money and gives it to another person it likes better than you, no one gets to feel the inherent power of helping people.  Helping people is great on an individual level, because it reinforces the idea of humans helping humans.  Helping people voluntarily is virtuous, especially if the help changes the path the person is on so in the future they don’t need the help.  Those that help go from anonymous people who are tax farmed to people who have actual skin in the game in helping people succeed.

On the other hand, group altruism creates a situation those who are most in need become the most despised because they are seen as the irredeemable bit of society.  Group (.gov) altruism doesn’t want to make people independent, because dependent people are dependable voters for more .gov and more regulations and money transfer, and .gov loves a divided people.  Also, since people pay taxes, many of them feel no obligation whatsoever to help anyone.  They’ve farmed out their virtue.

I read that a big company helped blind kids.  But they meant the verb, not the adjective.

Want to know why Reparations for slavery from people who never owned slaves to people who never were slaves is popular?  It’s the GloboLeftElite’s mechanism for creating a feeling of entitlement that will never go away.  How much is enough Reparation?  There is no answer, because the GloboLeftElite has said that there will never be enough Reparation.  Never.  That’s the result of group altruism.

Do I want people to not starve and also stay in Africa, or India, or (insert country name here)?  I do.  That doesn’t mean that individual organizations can’t help them, but to do so should be voluntary, and not the power of the government to take wealth and allocate it around the world or, through action or inaction, bring an unending supply of immigrants to our shore.

The solution in the future is to create a society where commerce is human scale, is focused on maintaining and encouraging the family (which is the atom of the nation) and is based on the nation, not on every person on the planet.

Anyone else ready to party like it’s 1899?

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Dances With Dementia Edition

“We’re talking a Sunday drive into some serious dementia.” – Mannequin

Biden’s doctor told him he has dementia.  His response?  “I’m sorry, I don’t remember asking.”

  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. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  5. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  6. Open War.

Volume VI, Issue 2

All memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”.

This is a moving situation, and things are changing quickly.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Felon and Fading – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Immigration Update – 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 850 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at or before 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

Felon and Fading

June is certainly the biggest month so far in the 2024 Presidential campaign, and it’s hard to beat may when Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies in New York.  Seriously, why would a business want to do business in New York now?

Regardless, I was expecting a bad Biden debate performance, but I wasn’t expecting to see the worst debate performance in the history of presidential debates, and probably in the history of the English language.

The other big bombshell was that Trump’s sentencing on his conviction has been pushed back until after the Republican National Convention, so there is this odd place where a Paperwork American (actually Colombian) judge is going to oversee the sentencing.  How could he do anything but sentence the Republican candidate to prison?  But that’s in September.

In June the debate made everyone forget Trump’s trial.

And now we are certain that the person currently holding the title of “president” is certainly no such thing.  Whoever is actually making the decisions wanted to expose him so they could replace him.  And no Democrat thinks Kamala can win because she’s either always drunk or stupid.  Or both.

Where we are now is that Biden is done – the GloboLeftElite just don’t know what to do yet to make that so, and how to remove Kamala at the same time so that they can find someone electable.  July will be an even more eventful month, if my guess is right.

This level of political intrigue is the highest since 1859 or so, and it’s quite clear that the glue that holds the country together is nearly gone, and this is a signpost on the way to Civil War 2.0.

Violence and Censorship Update

Although these Tweets™ are about a Canadian forum, the headquarters of Reddit™ are in San Francisco.  San Francisco used to be about innovation, now it’s about conformity to The Narrative, which includes mass immigration, everywhere:

Before we leave Canada, look at your future if the GloboLeftElite get their way:

While technically not violence, the fact that basic infrastructure is being sabotaged in California probably deserves a mention:

And the Deep State is worried that Trump would do to them what they’re trying to do to him:

What happens to a story that doesn’t meet The Narrative?  It gets ignored.

Oh, and I bet none of you heard about when Putin and Kim decided to crash a Pride parade:

Biden’s Misery Index

Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .

Yup, up again.  It’s like there’s a pattern here . . .

But technology will save us, right?

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:

Violence is up, a little.  I wonder if Chicago’s Democratic National Convention is going to spike temperatures?

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it is slightly down.  I expect this fall to be a bit more crazy.

Economic:

The economy looks to be juiced, but thankfully we have housing options.

Illegal Aliens:

June is showing as down, since (my take) the .gov folks are just making up numbers now.

Immigration Update

I thought I’d just leave these here so you can form your own conclusions.  I’ll be more wordy next month.

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://nypost.com/2024/07/06/us-news/oakland-looters-ransack-gas-station-as-store-owner-sam-mardaie-claims-cops-took-hours-to-respond/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13325763/Gas-station-Atlanta-Decatur-Shootout.html

https://x.com/GangHits/status/1808303782922473571/video/2

https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2024/07/05/chicago-fourth-july-violence-12-dead-55-shot

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-07-02/gang-violence-mexico-bodies-found-cartel-battle-for-drug-migrant-trafficking-routes

 

Good Gal

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13328107/university-chicago-student-fights-armed-robber-hyde-park.html

 

One Guy

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13556823/Kyle-Rittenhouse-Kenosha-mom-sister-faith-gofundme.html

 

Body Count

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-fbi-stats-show-historic-declines-violent-crime-rate-murder-showing-rcna156573

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-urban-violent-crime-spike-is-real

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/VORO_US-Troops-Overseas_Site.jpg?itok=T8aq2vJ2

 

Vote Count

https://truethevote.org/news/want-to-do-something-help-review-voter-rolls-training-this-wednesday

https://www.themainewire.com/2024/06/49-states-including-maine-are-handing-voter-registration-forms-to-illegal-immigrants-applying-for-welfare/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/republicans-ballot-harvesting-fraud-claims-rcna151952

https://www.axios.com/2024/07/06/house-democrats-oppose-gop-noncitizen-voting-bill

 

Civil War

https://www.yahoo.com/news/secession-states-cities-wealthy-already-124257756.html

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/state/3010829/oregon-conservative-secession-plan-flee-liberal-state/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/19/oregon-idaho-state-secession-national-divorce/73677225007/

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mo/st-louis/news/2024/05/24/pritzker-secession-vote-november

https://www.keranews.org/politics/2024-05-30/texas-secessionist-group-could-get-a-boost-from-new-state-gop-leadership

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/30/inpu-m30.html

https://www.sacurrent.com/news/texas-gop-adds-secession-to-partys-2024-official-platform-34749083

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/-death-chaos-civil-war-furious-trump-supporters-out-for-blood-after-conviction/3236326

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-hush-money-verdict-maga-civil-war-1906671

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/06/11/canada-us-civil-war-00162521

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13521773/Canada-preparing-American-CIVIL-WAR-election.html

https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-fans-proudly-tell-cnns-donie-osullivan-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-predict-civil-war-if-trump-loses/

https://time.com/6991271/civil-war-conflict-ray-dalio/

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-ally-issues-premonition-civil-war-warning-us-4th-july-1921191

Is There Room For Anything But Materialism?

“Our great war is a spiritual war.” – Fight Club

Does a llama think the end of the world is called the Alpacalypse?

Generally, around holidays, I let my remaining seven strands of hair down and allow a post or two to deviate a bit from the normal categories.  Why?  Because we live in a world where often unusual ideas will eventually be found to be true, and I like to ask, from time to time, “What if?”

Enjoy!

Just as the pendulum of society has oscillated to the GloboLeft position (and, is oscillating back to the TradRight as we speak) there has been an oscillation of the way people think about the world.

Now, I would suggest, Western Civilization is at another peak:  peak materialism.  By materialism, I mean not that people are into material goods (even though they are) but that the entire focus is that there is a material explanation for everything, including why Kamala Harris exists.

Ever notice that Tom Cruise has one tooth in the middle of his face?  Now you’ll never be able to unsee it.

This isn’t a revelation to anyone in the West, since this is what we’ve been dealing with for the majority of our lives.  We have a mechanistic determinism that says that everything has an explanation, and that those explanations are all based in some sort of material, physical, phenomenon.

I used to play rugby, back in the day (prop) and our coach would, during practice, say “bad luck!” when someone goofed up.  My immediate thought was, no, that wasn’t bad luck, the player goofed up.  But was I right?

Well, if the world had taken a slightly different turn, the ball a different bounce, the opponent a different line, maybe the decision the player made would have been the right one.  Perhaps, then, there is a place for luck.

What’s the difference between a teabag and the American Rugby World Cup team?  The teabag stays in the cup longer.

And I do believe in luck.  Part of is because my life has been an extraordinarily lucky one.  And, no, not the “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity” definition, but “How is that stupid SOB so lucky?”

Okay, that’s a sample size of one, and the average scientist would say that’s just one data point, and not a series.  But, it’s not:  a series of improbable events in a single lifetime isn’t just one datapoint, it’s a series of them.

But what about actual studies that show phenomena that are far outside of the real of anything science can explain?

This one (LINK) shows that 90 experiments across 33 labs in 14 countries have shown that precognition exists.  What’s precognition?  That’s knowing the outcome of a future event, before the event occurs.

What kind of event?  Well, one study that I read used sensors on someone viewing a computer screen.  The screen would show random images, most of which were rather dull.  Occasionally, though, the screen would an emotionally charged picture – think nudity or an accident victim, meant to be a “shocking” picture.  The sensors recorded (in general) things like increased heartrate and increase blood pressure before the emotionally charged images showed up onscreen.

I went to a swimwear store and asked them if I could “Try on the bathing suit in the front window.”  They told me I’d have to use a changing room.

The subjects “knew” subconsciously that something was up and their bodies reacted.

Now, I can certainly come up with several ideas from quantum physics that might allow for this time-reversed phenomenon, you know, when effect happens before cause.  But people before, say 1900, would have just said that precognition was part of life – from the ancient Greeks to the prophecies of the Bible, precognition was just accepted as a part of reality – one that couldn’t be explained.

I’ve even had weird, precognitive dreams about odd events.  One time when I was in seventh grade, I awoke, laughing.  Why?  Because someone had stolen the lock off of my school locker, but left the valuable stuff inside.  I found it really humorous that someone would just steal the lock.

The next day?  After fourth period (the period immediately after I’d told my math teacher the humorous story) the lock was . . . gone.  My stuff?  There.

I can’t understand kids these days and their overwhelming Axe®-scents.

Certainly, it could be a coincidence.  But the odd perfection of the dream and the reality was jarring.  I’ve had other dreams that came true as well.  Most have been relatively boring things, and, certainly I’m not above calling them coincidences.

However, .gov, (in conjunction with the Stanford Research Institute) created a project for remote viewing – clairvoyance, where they created a program that produced (according to some sources) actionable information and according to at least one independent statistician were clearly 5-15% above random chance.

Those are just two examples of potential phenomena that exist outside of our ability to explain using purely material descriptions.  And, no, I’m not wedded to the idea that those phenomena exist, but that would certainly be the simplest explanation for several events in my life.  But, I am a committed Christian, so obviously I have the belief in things that have and always will be beyond the understanding of men.

And, again, before 1900 or so, the vast majority of people in all civilizations all over the world would have agreed that while there is the material plane of existence, but there is also the spiritual plane of existence, with as much (if not much more) relevance to our daily lives than the physical.

I like Chihuahuas, but not enough to eat a whole one.

One thing I’ve learned during my life, is to understand that there’s a lot that I’ll never understand, but that I do think that there is far, far more to our lives than just materialism.  Heck, if I had a dime for every time I thought about materialism, I could probably afford some Gucci™ socks.

The Best And Funniest Fourth Of July Post You’ll Read Today

“What do you do when you’re not buying stereos, Nick?  Finance revolutions?” – Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels

I guess the taxes were too steep.

In honor of the holiday, here are some facts that I made up about the Declaration of Independence:

  • John Adams felt that July 2 would be the national holiday, but just to spite him because he was a tool, it was changed to July 4.
  • The Continental Congress could not afford air conditioning, so Thomas Jefferson used his sweat as the liquid in the ink.
  • The original Declaration of Independence was stored at the Pearl Harbor naval base until 1941 in a rusty footlocker, but was moved back to Washington, D.C., because John Wayne told “that pinko” FDR to bring it back.

They were going to name a street after John Wayne, but then realized that no one could cross John Wayne and live.

  • Thomas Jefferson was originally going to have the Declaration printed, but because his HP™ printer kept flashing “replace black ink cartridge” and because Office Depot™ would not exist for another 200 years, he wrote the whole thing out by hand.
  • The Declaration has a secret message written on the back, that, when translated said, “D-R-I-N-K-Y-O-U-R-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E. No one knows what that means.
  • Disney® tried to buy the rights to the Declaration in order to make a cartoon, and then a live action version of the document, replacing Thomas Jefferson with Jada Pinkett Smith.
  • Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day, and their bodies regenerated in a secret lab of Benjamin Franklin’s where they were combined with parts from a cotton gin to become MechaAdamson who took the lead in opening trade relations with Japan, and whose portrait is on the $1500 bill.

Okay, on to the more serious bit.

It has been 248 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed.  Obviously, it was written the night before, because Jefferson was cramming for the final.  We often think of the Founding Fathers as Old Dead Guys, because they are, but let’s go back in time to 1776:

Thomas Jefferson was 33.  In 2024, that would mean that in 2024 he would still be saving for a downpayment on a house, but when he was 13, he inherited nearly eight square miles of productive farmland.

Jefferson wasn’t very old, but I think he did the job of writing this amazingly subversive document very, very well.  John Adams, who was 40 at the time, convinced the committee (yes, the Declaration was the result of a committee) that Jefferson should write it because everyone liked Jefferson, and everyone thought that Adams was a tool.  Adams said that.

“The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you’re finished. – Benjamin Franklin”

So, if a Jefferson would be alive today to write up a new Declaration, he’d have been born in 1991 and would be younger than Teen Spirit.

Jefferson was a genius, but how big a bag did they have to pick from to find him?  2.5 million people were the total number of citizens in the colonies.  Today, all but fourteen states each have more people than the colonies did, and yet they produced a Franklin, a Jefferson, a couple of Adams boys, and a Washington.

The point I’m trying to convey is that even though we look back at the bravery and genius and learning of the Founding Fathers, we sometimes overlook the fact that they were ordinary men in an extraordinary time.  I would bet that in any population of 2.5 million Americans of similar stock in the United States today that you’d find men of Washington’s bravery and ability; Franklin’s learning, cunning and sense of humor; Adam’s stoic stubbornness; and Jefferson’s erratic brilliance.

What was Thomas Jefferson’s father’s name?  Thomas Jefferdad.

Keep in mind, too, that the whole proposition of “standing up to the world’s biggest empire” was pretty risky.  War had been ongoing sporadically with Great Britain for the better part of a year, but up until the Declaration, the idea and hope was for a reconciliation with the Mother Country, although one built upon respect for the Colonies.

Obviously, that didn’t happen.  Once the committee tasked with drafting the Declaration was done, Congress itself edited the document, word by word, and sentence by sentence.  This chopped a bunch out, and Jefferson was miffed.  Regardless of Jefferson’s butthurt, on July 2, the Declaration was adopted on a 12-0-1 vote, with New York being in a dither, as usual that finally changed its vote due to peer pressure from the cool kids, eventually making it 13-0.

When it was time to check out of the empire, they all checked out.

I have said before that the United States of our forefathers, even the United States of my youth is dead – heck, one wag even said, “we all die in a foreign country”.  But I have also said, and I will stand by that, although we may not live to see it, we stand ready for the seeds of a new, and hopefully more glorious Republic in the future.

It will require the burial of nearly 200,000 pages of federal regulations.  There will certainly be depravation, and likely more than one horrific battle.  It took decades to get the United States into this mess, and digging out will be the task of generations:  keep in mind that from 1775 (the real start of the Revolutionary War) to the first presidential election was 13 years, and that we’re not even to 1775 yet – I peg us at somewhere between 1765 and 1773, and I think the Revolutionary War will look easy in comparison.

I accidently signed up for the company 401k – I don’t think I can run that far.

Along the way, a new form of government will be born, hopefully with an eye to the freedoms we have lost and with sure prohibitions (I can think of another dozen amendments today of what government should never be allowed to do) to keep government in check and make it take at least another 200 years before the rotten edifice of regulation and emanations and penumbras can be reconstituted.  Maybe we’ll add a third house of Congress that can repeal any legislation with a 33% vote, I mean, if 33% of the country hate a law, why keep it?

America is dead, but also waiting to be born.  Come with me.

Let us go and find her.

Chevron And The Fall Of The Deep State

“I’m Jack’s medulla oblongata.  Without me, Jack could not regulate his heart rate, blood pressure, or breathing.” – Fight Club

Don’t worry!  I’ve been told by 51 intelligence operatives that the Deep State isn’t real.

I know that the event of last week in the media was the debate.  I’ll agree, it was pretty significant, significant enough that I stayed up even later to chat about it with The Mrs., who gets up really early.  How early?

JW:  Tonight’s debate was thermonuclear.

The Mrs.:  You mean yesterday’s debate.  Oh, wait, you haven’t slept, so for you it’s still yesterday.

Whatever timeframe you’re using, a really, really big thing happened on Friday.  Let me explain, I’m a trained professional.

Let’s go back in time a bit.

Back in 1938, the Congress passed a law establishing a thing called the “Code of Federal Regulations” act.  That act required all federal regulations to be put in a single source, which is now called the CFR.  Note that I didn’t say a single book, since the CFR pages totaled 188,343 in 2021.

That’s not a typographical error.  There are nearly 200,000 pages of federal regulations.  They say that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but I’m pretty sure that there is no sane human that could read and retain that insane level of regulation, except for Alex Trebek, and he is, alas, no more.

That meant that people like these were responsible for making the regulations you had to live by, with no restraint.  It’s like allowing random members of a Pride march to decide on your healthcare.  Oh, wait.

Now, there are several groups that really love that level of regulation:

  • Lawyers, who build careers on understanding them,
  • Big Business, to keep out small-fry competition that can’t afford lawyers to interpret the rules to keep them out of trouble,
  • the Antifa® fascists, who are the people who really get bent out of shape if your lawn is 0.05” higher than the regulations say, and
  • They exist to write regulations, so they just want to write more.

This is an unholy combination.

Regulations are based on law.  The Congress of the United States passes a bill, and the President of the United States signs it, and, a law is created.  I learned that on Schoolhouse Rock™ when that damn bill just wanted to be a law.

If we emailed the Constitution to each other, would the NSA give it to the Deep State so they’d finally read it?

Laws, however, almost always constrain human activities.  In some cases, like murder, a law can be a net social benefit, at least when the courts actually enforce the law equally and without favor.

But murder is simple when compared to some of the federal laws on the books.  I could get into the details, but it’s a federal crime:

  • to wash your fish at a faucet if it’s not a fish-washing faucet,
  • to let your pet make a noise that scares wildlife in a national park,
  • to sell onion rings that resemble onion rings, but made with diced onion,
  • to skydive drunk, and,
  • sell wine with a brand name including the word “zombie”.

Yes.  This was made the force of law, that unelected regulators could make up whatever they wanted and put you in jail if you didn’t do what they made up last week.  This was based on the “Chevron Deference” – a court decision that effectively let the Executive Branch make regulations, enforce them, and courts had to bow to their interpretation.  It’s been the rule for 40 years.

Here is a partial list of the people who will actually have to have a law to rely on to take away your rights in the future.

But the most pernicious part of this is that it feeds into the same mindset that the GloboLeftElite has relied on for years.  They want to take an existing law and pound and beat it to meet whatever they believe this Tuesday.  For example, there was a requirement that industries stop pollutants from going into the air.

That makes sense.  I could argue that it doesn’t need to occur at a national level and that states could regulate it and that might make it un-Constitutional, but, whatever.  The law is there.  It’s been there forever.  The regulations meant to enforce the law when it came out made sense – spewing methyl-ethyl-death across the elementary playground might not be a great idea.

On the other hand, maybe it would have made our children strong enough to work in the mines.

But that same law, written decades ago, was interpreted to mean that sweet, sweet carbon dioxide, you know, plant food, is now a pollutant.  Why?  Because the GloboLeftElite knows that gives them more control, and because it now fits with the Narrative of the Moment despite the original law being signed into law in 1963 and last amended in 1990.

I just found this X account, and I like the cut of their jib.

Since CO2 wasn’t on the list of evil things in 1963 or in 1990, having the EPA to suddenly decide it was evil is just regulators making things up.  The Supreme Court said, “No, you can’t do this.  You have to pass a law.  And no, the President can’t just say so.”  The Chevron™ Deferral effectively allowed the Executive branch of government be also the Legislative and Judicial.  This is extremely dangerous.

92% plus of people in Washington D.C. voted Biden.  If regulations can be made willie-nillie without congress even having to pass a law, well, it will be members of the GloboLeftistElite that will write them.  And, remember, these folks live to do one thing:  write regulations.

One of the worst regulators at fault is the ATF®, who can’t even decide what a gun is.  They’re in trouble on the rules they made up on “ghost guns” and pistol braces, and even the definition of who can sell guns without needing an ATF license.

Make no mistake, this is a shattering blow for the Deep State, who wants to make regulations with the force of federal law, without there even having to be a federal law change in the first place.

Why does the GloboLeftElite and the GloboLeft hate this?  Because all of their termites that have burrowed into the Fed.Gov are now less useful, and they actually have to follow the rules to make their changes.

If a priest becomes a lawyer, does that make him a father-in-law?

And that’s the sand the GloboLeftElite will have in their panties.  They have to pass a law.  They can’t make their regulatory changes in the dark of the night by unelected bureaucrats who reliably only vote for more government.

And, no, I won’t be waiting up for The Mrs. to get up so we can discuss this post.  I’ll probably just sneak into bed while she gently snores beside me.

Hey, wait, is there a federal regulation about snoring?  I’ll bet there is . . .

Also – this is what winning looks like.  Enjoy this one.

The Best And Funniest Debate Post You’ll Read Today: Read It For The Salty Tears

“I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay.” – Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Whelp!  All memes from X, and I didn’t even have to scroll more than three times.  This is an implosion.

I had very different plans today for this post.  During the debate, I had no fewer than 1200 words worth of notes, and had penciled in no fewer than nine really funny jokes on the first pass.  It would have been hilarious.  I guess that’s just me, pining for the humor of the situation.

But as the debate ended, I realized that wasn’t the post I was going to write. It couldn’t be.

I have predicted that Joe Biden would not be the DNC candidate for the 2024 election on these pages months ago.  When the debate happened so very early, I began to wonder:  why?

Someone on Team Joe® convinced him (which doesn’t appear to be hard right now) that he needed to debate Trump in June.  Why?  The conventions hadn’t occurred, and Joe wasn’t even the official nominee, merely the presumptive one.

Now I understand.  Having these debates in October would have assured a Trump landslide.  Even the deepest blue GloboLeftist couldn’t even salvage this monstrosity in a real manner after an October showing like today.  It would not be possible.

So, Team Brandon© (yes, Trump really called him Brandon and Joe didn’t react) decided to get him out early.

To expose him.

Joe is done.  He’s finished.  His political career is finished, and his candidacy is in shambles.  Reports are that his team are in tears, and “25th Amendment” (the one that allows for the removal of incompetent folks as president) are trending on X.

I had predicted that either Gavin Newsom (whose wife allegedly willing banged Harvey Weinstein) or Big Mike Obama would be the candidate months ago.  I’m pretty sure I predicted it in the blog, but certainly did so in conversations and it’s too late to check – Ricky might help me here! – that Joe would not be the candidate.

That is now certain.  There is another, like they said in Star Wars™:  Hillary.  I don’t think she’s physically up to the task, but she’s still in the running.

It won’t be Joe.  So, here’s my take on the night, along with a few memes.  I’ll respond to previous post comments tomorrow (like I said, it’s late).  Python, Monty® predicted this years ago.  Note, I hope that Joe Biden lives a long and pleasant life, this is in reference to his chances on being elected in November:

A voter watches a debate.

Voter: ‘Ello, I wish to register a complaint.

(The DNC does not respond.)

Voter: ‘Ello, Miss?

DNC: What do you mean “miss”?  Are you assumin’ me gender?

Voter: (pause)I’m sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!

DNC: We’re closin’ for the Juneteenth Pride Festival.

Voter: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this Candidacy what I decided to vote for not half a year ago from this very DNC.

DNC: Oh yes, the, uh, the Scranton Joe…What’s,uh…What’s wrong with it?

Voter: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. This Candidacy is dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!

DNC: No, no, ‘e’s uh,…he’s resting.  He has COVID.

Voter: Look, matey, I know a dead Candidacy when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.

DNC: No no this Candidacy’s not dead, he’s, he’s restin’! Remarkable Candidacy, the Scranton Joe, idn’it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

Voter: The plumage don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead.

DNC: Nononono, no, no! ‘E’s resting!

Voter: All right then, if he’s restin’, I’ll wake him up! (shouting at the Candidacy) ‘Ello, Mister Dark Brandon! I’ve got a lovely fresh 10% for the Big Guy for you if you show…

(DNC hits the cage)

DNC: There, he moved!

Voter: No, he didn’t, that was you hitting the cage!

DNC: I never!!

Voter: Yes, you did!

DNC: I never, never did anything…

Voter: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) ‘ELLO JOE!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o’clock alarm call!

(Takes Candidacy out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)

Voter: Now that’s what I call a dead Candidacy.

DNC: No, no…..No, ‘e’s got COVID!

Voter: COVID?!?

DNC: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin’ up! Scranton Joe stuns easily, major.

Voter: Um…now look…now look, mate, I’ve definitely ‘ad enough of this. That Candidacy is definitely deceased, and when I decided to vote for it not ‘alf a year ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein’ tired and shagged out following a prolonged ice cream.

DNC: Well, he’s…he’s, ah…probably pining for Corn Pop.

Voter: PININ’ for Corn Pop?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got ‘im home?

DNC: Scranton Joe prefers keepin’ on it’s back! Remarkable Candidacy, id’nit, squire? Lovely hair plugs and replacement teeth!

Voter: Look, I took the liberty of examining that Candidacy when I watched the debate, and I discovered the only reason that it had been standing by the podium in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.

(pause)

DNC: Well, o’course it was nailed there! If I hadn’t nailed that Candidacy down, it would have nuzzled up to that podium, bent it apart with its strong arm, and VOOM! It would have talked about String Theory in six languages!

Voter: “VOOM”?!? Mate, this Candidacy wouldn’t “voom” if you put four million volts and a gallon of Adderall® through it! It’s bleedin’ demised!

DNC: No no! ‘E’s pining!

Voter: It’s not pinin’! It’s passed on! This Candidacy is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the podium it’d be pushing up the daisies! It’s metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, It’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-CANDIDACY!!

(pause)

DNC: Well, I’d better replace it, then. (he takes a quick peek behind the counter) Sorry squire, I’ve had a look ’round the back of the shop, and uh, we’re right out of Candidacy, except for Big Mike, Hillary, and Gavin.

Voter: I see. I see, I get the picture.

DNC: (pause) I got a Kamala.

(pause)

Voter: Pray, does it talk?

DNC: Nnnnot really.  Slurs quite a bit like it’s drunk.

Voter: WELL IT’S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!?

DNC: N-no, I guess not. (gets ashamed, looks at his feet)

Voter: Well.

(pause)

DNC: (quietly) D’you…. d’you want to come back to my place?

Voter: (looks around) Yeah, all right, sure, it is the Juneteenth Pride Festival.

DNC: (to the audience) Well! I never wanted to do this in the first place. I wanted to be… a lumberjack!

Gamer Gate 2.0: Ugly Women Edition

“Report here safely, stop.  Do not play video games.” – John Wick

Proof once again you’re an un-person if you remember the 1990s, intact families, and Christmas. (as found)

Pop culture exists, and I often write about it.  The reason is that it is pervasive, surrounds us, and can absolutely be used to manipulate human feelings and behavior, so, in a sense it is a form of programming about who and what we are.  In essence, it can be a myth that evolves with us, sort of like intestinal parasites.

Pop culture has always been around, but it has transformed over the millennia of human existence.  It likely started with Grug talking around the communal fire, telling stories of the clan, their origin, and the evils they defeated, and how he had to walk uphill both ways to get back to the cave when he was a child and that they didn’t have any of those new-fangled flint arrowheads when Grug was small.

Through this mechanism, the ideas that the clan had, its virtues, its norms, and even its fears were transmitted from one group to another.  It told the story of the group.  Their story.  That narrative bound them together as one – they knew the deeds of their fathers and sang songs about the virtues of their fathers.

My eye got infected with COVID. I had Corona-Iris.

Control of that story, then, is very, very powerful, and Grug probably (rightfully) skipped the part where he pooped his wolfskin jockstrap the first time he had to fight someone from the Wilder clan.  Grug’s stories and pop culture thus both provide and define the Overton Window – those ideas that are safe to speak about in a polite society.

An example:

The idea that JFK was assassinated by literally anyone other than Lee Harvey Oswald acting totally alone was not acceptable to The Powers That Be®.  What did they do?  They invented an entire new term to disparage any idea that varied from the Warren Commission report – “Conspiracy Theory”.

Oddly, when the House Select Committee on Assassinations looked into the JFK Lone Gunman theory in the late 1970s, they decided that, no, it couldn’t have been Lee Harvey Oswald acting by himself.  The results of the Committee were mostly ignored.  The smear of anyone with a different opinion continued, and if it weren’t for the Zapruder film, I imagine they’d probably try to convince everyone JFK killed himself because he hated Dallas.

I promise, I don’t know any dirt on the Clintons.

The cast of people who benefited from Kennedy’s death was huge:  The CIA, the Military-Industrial Complex, the Mafia, LBJ, Israel’s nuclear program, the gun control agenda, and the Boy Scouts™ all benefited.  Okay, maybe not the Boy Scouts©, but you get the picture.  The only person I’m sure wasn’t involved was me, and that’s because I wasn’t born yet.

Beat that alibi.

But crafting that public opinion isn’t just for the CIA or whatever thinktank meme’d the phrase “Conspiracy Theory” into existence.  Nope.  Pop culture is largely put out by Hollywood™ and, increasingly game companies.

Hollywood™ (if I include television, which I should) was the biggest influence when I was a kid.  Everyone in my grade was watching the same movies at the same time on the same station.  If a James Bond® movie was on, you were watching that, because cable came to the vicinity of Wilder’s Mountain about the time I was finishing high school and you had three choices (no one watched PBS™) and James Bond™ was always going to be better than whatever else was on.

I’ve never played Warhammer®, so I’m really hoping that it doesn’t have a “Shoe” or I’ll feel more stupid than usual.

We watched the same television shows, too.  And, I’ve related before, I remember wondering in middle school if there was a reason that the TradRight couldn’t be funny, since even in seventh grade I recognized that every comedy and drama on television was written from a GloboLeftElite perspective.  Even in middle school I recognized that Hollywood™ was a Leftist enclave.

Television (and movies!) was a pipeline that was well in place as owned turf of the GloboLeftElite by the end of the 1970s.  But a new medium was emerging, and the old monolith of the big three networks was fracturing.

The new medium was gaming.

I hear she wears Fruit of the Tomb™ underwear.

Gaming was, especially at the early parts, unabashedly libertarian, as was much of the infant Silicon Valley at the time.  Games like Pac-Man™, Pong©, and that one with the plumber were big, and largely free of politics, which is to say skewed towards the TradRight in the opinion of the GloboLeft.

Games rose under Atari™, sank, then rose again, this time higher and higher with Nintendo™ and then Sony™ and Sega™ and finally the X-Box™.  Each iteration brought more story and visual complexity to the games, but the consumer was mainly the same:  young white dudes.  Sure, women have always played games, but the biggest gamers have always been boys.  Oh, and the Prussians.  They invented wargaming when it wasn’t convenient to duel or kill someone just to pass the time (seriously, look it up).

And what do boys like?  Girls.  Thus, Lara Croft™ and the Tomb Raider© series came into existence, complete with her huge . . . eyes.  And shapely . . . hair.  Lara Croft® was about as realistic as He-Man® was, but that was okay.  She was an idealized version (through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old boy) of what a hot woman looked like.

But the GloboLeftElite have started a war against hot women.  I’m not sure why, but I think it’s because that women feel threatened by hot women.  I will note that not a single feminist ever jumped out and said that Superman™ was an unrealistic body model, or has tried to get Brad Pitt out of movies and replace him with that guy that plays Paul Blart.

When He-Man© did a PSA, was he He-Man®-splaining?

No.  They want to uglify women characters in video games.  I think so that ugly feminist women feel better.

The latest?  Jean Grey™, that buxom fiery-haired psychic that, ahem, inspired so many young men, has been redone.  Yup, here it is.

Yes, hot Jean Grey™ has been turned into a plank of wood that looks like Melinda Gates.  And who was responsible?  Not sure, but Sweet Baby, Inc. (links below) have allegedly been busy as they can be with Jean Grey, gumming up the works to make sure that all of the GloboLeftElite talking points and propaganda is included in the game and that the women in the games are as ugly as the Sweet Baby, Inc. women feel that they are inside.  And outside, I guess.

When I play a video game, I’d rather play a cool strong character rather than Archie Bunker.  Do women want to play as a hot chick, or do they want to play as a woman with a body best described as “tubular and featureless”?

Gamer Gate 2.0: Woke On Patrol

Gamer Gate 2.0 Update: Disproportionate Response Edition

It’s not just video games.  Dungeons & Dragons™ has said that they’ll be happy when white guys stop playing their games.

Okay, done. (meme as found)

Disney’s© latest Star Wars™ flop, The Acolyte, has lesbian witches creating a baby without needing no man via the Force™.  The producer also said that if we didn’t like it, don’t watch it, and then when we didn’t watch it, blamed us for not being the audience she (yes, you guessed it) deserved.  I guess that in Star Wars©, they don’t need no man to have a baby.

And since Sweet Baby, Inc., Marvel™, D&D®, Disney© and Star Wars© don’t need me, I won’t be there.

You can do what you want, but I’ll be skipping this round.  I like Grug’s stories better, anyway.