You Are The Resistance, Plus? Lots of Star Wars Bikinis

“Resistance fighters, humans, sent back from the future by John.  And what?  Are they manning some kind of apocalyptic paramilitary convenience store filled with fake IDs and guns and money?” – Terminator:  The Sarah Connor Chronicles

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That also explains why I have a piano player who is only a foot tall in the house.  Stupid genie.

Back in 2015, like a few hundred million other people, I was excited to see The Force Awakens®.  This was the first movie since Disney© had purchased Star Wars©.  Since Disney™ had done a good job with Marvel©, I hoped they’d turn the Star Wars™ universe into a compelling and entertaining set of movies.  I got The Boy and Pugsley and we headed off to the theater.  They don’t allow us to bring in outside food, but that’s okay.  We Wilder’s have a few Twix® up our sleeves.

I’m not going to turn this into a complete review of a movie that I feel is fatally flawed and ultimately stupid in many ways.  The plot of The Force Awakens® was an inferior remake of the first Star Wars® movie.  This was a flaw, and perhaps a fatal one – how many Star Wars© movies would end up being about blowing up yet another Death Star© – I’m beginning to think that Death Stars® might be hard to get insurance for.  And does a Death Star™ require homeowner insurance or vehicle insurance?

Regardless, The Force Awakens was as unsatisfactory as Joe Biden’s hair plugs.  But I did notice one thing that bothered me:

After destroying the largest weapon ever created and killing the Emperor™, the Rebels® had failed.  The ending of Return of the Jedi™, with fireworks and celebrations on world after world seemed to indicate that the Rebel Alliance© won, that the Empire® was finished.

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I find the best alarm clock are the rumble strips.

Yet, here, in the first sequel after Return of the Jedi®, we find Princess Leia© at the head of the Resistance™.  What, exactly, is she resisting?  The new government that was set up after the defeat of the Empire™?  Bad scriptwriting?  No.  It’s the Empire™, but I assume we can’t call it that because otherwise Disney© has to pay George Lucas ten percent.

There are thousands of great plots that could be made about the Force™, the New Republic©.  Lots of these are of big ideas worthy of an entire galaxy and the fun derived in the first Star Wars© movies; great ideas worthy of a cast of heroes that we knew from previous episodes.  Heck, The Mrs. and I when discussing this post came up with a plot idea good enough to give me chills – Stormtroopers™ in bikinis, of Kini-troopers©, if you will, learning to use the Force™ at a summer camp in the 1980’s.

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And did the Stormtroopers think they were the good guys, working on a thing called the Death Star?

But why the Resistance©?  After reflection of several years and several other movies, it has become clear – the producers of Star Wars® are leftists.  The ideology of Star Wars© becoming Leftist ideology was more important than the story.  It was more important than the money.  Star Wars™ had to be made to fit the narrative of the Left.

The narrative of the Left has always been of a smaller force fighting a larger opposing force.  The story of the Vietcong, the story of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and the story of Antifa© are all the stories of resistance to larger powers.  This is the myth that the Leftist leaders use for propaganda when they want to explain to the peasants why they don’t have any food, why they are poorer this year than last.

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There’s a reason he’s called Darth™.  All the Stormtroopers laughed when he went by “Master Vader©”.

The Resistance© is the narrative of the Left, and so Star Wars™ had to portray the good guys as the underdog no matter what.  The Resistance® is how they see themselves – at the mercy of large systems that will destroy them – it’s in the mythos of all of the Left’s literature and entertainment.  Thus, this curious choice:  taking the victors and making them the victim.  The only reason I can see this is because it was written about the Left, for the Left.  Plot?  Entertainment?  Nah.

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Stormtroopers© get cash from an AT-ATM.

The Mrs. and I talked for a while about why this was.  My theory was that the Left’s power was ultimately derived from being a victim – that’s why the language of the Left is the language of victimhood, and the conversations of the Left are about creating division based on that victimhood.

Hence, the Resistance™.

The Mrs. thought that it was interesting that the Left also chooses to characterize its enemies in terms of the two wars – the Left is fighting Germany in World War II.  The Left is fighting the South in the Civil War.  Why?  The Left views these wars as moral wars, simple wars complete with cartoon villains so it can remove complexity.  This allows the Left to feel good about itself while teaching and preaching hate.  It’s clear the Left is moving further left, while the Right retains roughly the same values as it did 40 years ago, which is intolerable to the Left.  In the view of the Left, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama aren’t on the Left – no.  Clinton and Obama are considered center-right, if not farther right.

But back to the Resistance©.  As I listed in a previous post (American Civil War: Four Fates, From Freedom to Soviet Tyranny), the Left controls:

  • The K-12 educational system.
  • Colleges and Universities.
  • Most Protestant religious organizations.
  • Most Catholic organizations.
  • The psychological establishment.
  • The American Medical Association.
  • All mainstream news media.
  • All mainstream entertainment media.
  • Most departments of the Federal government, absent the armed services.
  • The general officer corps of the armed services.
  • The courts.
  • Silicon Valley tech companies.
  • Many (but not all) Fortune® 500™ companies.

It should be clear from the above list that the Left is marching through American institutions quickly.  When Donald Trump was elected president, immediately, however, the Left returned to its normal nomenclature, it advertised itself as “The Resistance®” even though it had quietly amassed major power throughout nearly every phase of American life.

I'll Have Two Scoops

 

The real crime is noticing.

You and I know that the Left isn’t the Resistance, it’s in control.  Why doesn’t the Right protest in hats made to look like genitals?  Because we have jobs and families.  But if you stand against the goal of state control, against the goal of only the “correct” thoughts being allowed, against being put at the mercy of the confederacy of victims?

You are the real resistance.  And they’re afraid of you.

Patrick Henry, The Constitution, and You Can’t Blame The Boomers

“The colonel behind me… that’s Colonel William Aylett. Now, his great-grandfather was the Virginian, Patrick Henry.” – Gettysburg

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While salting his food, Patrick Henry said, “If this be season, make the most of it.”

The biggest genius of the Constitution was an afterthought, the result of a protest.  Patrick Henry refused to go to the Constitutional Convention held in 1787, convinced that it was merely an excuse to create a strong central government out of the relatively loose Articles of Confederation.  And even though it’s my policy to never trust anyone whose name consists of two first names, I’ll admit that Patrick Henry was right.

When the new Constitution was finally released, Henry (among others) complained, mainly that it didn’t contain a bill of rights.  The promise was that if the Constitution was passed, the first act would be to create a bill of rights.  Unlike a political promise in 2019, the framers actually did what they said, probably because in 1792 a state could have fairly easily left the United States, since at the time that was widely assumed to be a right held by states.  The states voted into the agreement, the states could vote themselves out.

The Bill of Rights was passed by the House and Senate, and sent to the states for ratification – 10 of the 12 proposed rights were ratified.  The 11th, the Right for Ben Franklin to be Naked Whenever He Wants was narrowly defeated by people who had seen Franklin naked.  The 12th, establishing a National Taco Tuesday and Mandatory Metallica® failed initially but was finally ratified in 1994, much to the relief of radio stations everywhere.

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When does this bill show up?  Is it monthly?

One objection to the Bill of Rights was that it was felt that the states could do a good enough job protecting the rights of their citizens – the Federal government didn’t have all that much power, right?  Another objection?  It was felt that listing the rights would allow people to think that those were the only rights.  That second objection is somewhat prophetic, especially since (by my count) nearly every right in the Bill of Rights has been violated at some point.

Me?  I’m pretty glad Patrick Henry got the job done – the Bill of Rights has been instrumental in keeping us as free as we are today.  My Aunt told me I was related to him somehow, and that’s not hard to believe – he had a total of 17 children, so there have to be a zillion descendants.  Being his great-great-great-grandkid isn’t all that rare, though I imagine getting a good night’s sleep at the Henry household was rare – especially for Mrs. Henry.  If I were to brag about being related to Patrick Henry, it would be like an iguana bragging that he was descended from a velociraptor.  While it may be true, it won’t help the iguana get a part in the next Jurassic Park® movie, especially after what his cousin, Harvey Weinstein did.  Most people don’t know that Weinstein is part iguana, on his mother’s side.

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I hear that freedom weighs a WashingTon.

If that’s where we ended, with a stronger central government and a strong bill of rights, we’d be fine.  We’d have a Bill of Rights that protects Americans from abuse by their government in many different ways.  But in the decision of Marbury v. Madison, the newly installed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall, had a tequila-inspired vision that the Supreme Court had the power to invalidate laws that it felt were contradictory to the Constitution.

This is nowhere in the Constitution itself.  Marshall made the logical leap that since the Constitution wasn’t a vague set of political principles but rather the supreme law of the land, it had to be followed as if it was a law.  So far, so good.  If Congress made a law that couldn’t be interpreted to follow the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, the law had to be made invalid by the Supreme Court.

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A Supreme Court is just regular court, but with sour cream and tomatoes.

Thomas Jefferson had a different view:  he felt that each branch of government had the power to declare acts by the other branches unconstitutional.  Presidents have, in multiple cases, not enforced laws they felt were unconstitutional.

Jefferson further felt that states could declare laws that were especially in violation of the Constitution void.  The recent legalization of marijuana in multiple states without intervention from the Federal government has proven the principle that Jefferson wrote about early in the life of the country.  If it took a Constitutional amendment to make booze illegal, why shouldn’t it take one to make marijuana illegal at the Federal level.  How can the Federal government legally make enforceable laws dealing with the amount of decongestant I can buy?

Because power keeps flowing to the Federal government.

The Constitution was written in 1787, and the Bill of Rights was fully ratified in 1791.  The words in the Constitution clearly have changed only through the 27 amendments to the Constitution.

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Hey!  I can write bathroom graffiti that kids can’t understand!

One concept in English Common Law is that of precedent.  From Wikipedia®:  Common Law Legal systems place great value on deciding cases according to consistent principled rules, so that similar facts will yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observance of precedent is the mechanism by which that goal is attained.  The precedent of the Supreme Court is supposed to remain unchanged.

Most of the time, it is.

Yet there have been 141 cases where the Supreme Court changed its opinion and rejected previous Supreme Court decisions.  102 of those cases came during or after 1960:  that was about the time that the Supreme Court became activist in finding new “rights” – the right of people to use contraception or be free from hearing a prayer at the start of school.  28 of the 141 reversals of precedent were in just a single ten year period between 1960 and 1969.  Earl Warren was Chief Justice during that time.

When the right involves the federal government being prevented from interfering with liberty, I’m for it.  But the Warren Court specifically focused on creating new rights and new judicial power and accomplishing goals that the legislatures either at the state or Federal level wouldn’t – the Warren Court was about fairness and equity rather than justice – the Supreme Court decision mandating participation ribbons and allowing soccer into the United States came from the Warren Court.

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I had to play soccer with second graders the other day.  I really should save up and buy a ball.

Any action provokes a reaction, and the Warren Court specifically was opposed by the newly formed doctrine of “originalism” – the idea that the Constitution means what it says in plain language, and not what you want it to say.  If that’s the case, the Constitution just becomes a series of popular (on the Left) interpretations like “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” should really be read as “the state has the right to arm the police,” and “Congress shall make no law” really means “Congress can do whatever it wants to do this week – it’s having a midlife crisis.”

It can be shown that the 1960’s and early 1970’s was the time that set the stage for every problem that we’re experiencing today.  As much as blaming the Boomers is popular (I’m not a Boomer), it’s really not deserved.  The Boomers had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time – I can make the case that 1973 was the high-water mark for the economy of the country, and the Boomers did what anyone would do – make the best of their time, while wearing dark socks with sandals and listening to way too much Bob Dylan®.

The real culprits of our situation today are the leaders in charge in the 1960’s.  The Greatest Generation really created the Greatest Problems.  They fought and won a world war, but they put in place policies that are demographically tearing the United States apart today, and have put our economy at risk through a debt that grows exponentially.  The Boomers didn’t take us off the gold standard.  The Boomers weren’t responsible for Green Acres® being cancelled.

The Boomers did, though, give us Led Zeppelin.  Even better when sung by a rubber chicken being observed by a cat.  

The Constitution was awesome for a very long time, but it won’t save us – the Constitution of the Soviet Union provided for “freedom of speech” after it was, of course, reviewed by the appropriate government censor.  The next Leftist president will happily appoint as many Supreme Court justices as required to interpret the Constitution to mean whatever the Left wants it to mean.  The Warren Court wasn’t an aberration- it was a test case, one that set the stage for the future dream of the Left – complete power.

One thing stands in their way.  You.

Virginia in this November’s election shows that the solution isn’t to vote moar harder.  Virginia, the state that gave us Patrick Henry, is now permanently Left, with both houses and all top state-level jobs now held by Democrats.  The Left wants more and bigger government, the exact opposite of Henry wanted.  When I was growing up, and someone wanted to do something, I’d often hear, “It’s a free country” as an answer.  That meant, essentially, do whatever you want.  I rarely hear that phrase anymore.

However, the Right isn’t done yet.  Remember what Janis said –

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
Nothin’, don’t mean nothin’ hon’ if it ain’t free, no no

And while you can vote yourself into tyranny, you can’t vote yourself out of it.

Free Speech? Not If You Want Healthcare.

In the wild, there is no health care. In the wild, health care is, “Ow, I hurt my leg. I can’t run. A lion eats me and I’m dead.” Well, I’m not dead. I’m the lion. You’re dead. – The Office

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Thankfully we have the United Nations – where governments that oppose free speech can finally be heard.

On Monday, November 4, 2019, the National Health Service (NHS) of North Bristol, like my ex-wife, implemented a policy to deny service to people whose opinions they don’t like.  The italicized text directly below is me quoting the NHS directly.

The abusive behaviour policy covers anyone (visitors or patients – J.W.) with mental capacity making (sic):

  • Racist or sexist language, gestures or behaviour.
  • Excessive noise.
  • Abuse of alcohol or drugs.
  • Threatening and offensive language.
  • Malicious allegations.
  • Intentional damage to trust property.

I’m pretty sure my ex-wife’s list is shorter, consisting of only one item: “Being John Wilder.”  Breaking those NHS rules will get you banned from the hospital.  If you are a patient, they’ll at least wait until your life isn’t in immediate danger.  And then they won’t serve you anymore.

You can read it all here (LINK).  First, I’m assuming that whoever wrote the web page knew English, but the English spell it behaviour – we spell it behavior.  They spell it colour, we spell it color.  Flavour?  No, flavor.  I guess that must be why George Washington texted King George “LOL, getting rid of u” in 1776.  Second, this seems like a pretty reasonable list, right?  How could you be upset about those things?  If someone were coming into my place of business, I’d kick them out for doing many of the things listed.

But this isn’t a private business – this is the provider of healthcare for 90%+ of the population of the United Kingdom.  And the plain language that you and I might agree was reasonable will morph over time.  A guy casting a porno movie is being investigated for a hate crime in Britain because he didn’t want to cast a transsexual with, um, man parts for the porno he was filming about sex between a man and a woman.  Why is that a hate crime?  Because the transsexual (who, I remind you, has man parts) identifies as female and wants to play the woman’s part in a porno, but without having woman parts.

Yeah.  I need a scorecard, too.

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I guess there’s no Internet in Farmington, NM.

But the silliness doesn’t stop there:  a comedian that goes by the Internet name “Count Dankula” was sentenced to an £800 fine for teaching his girlfriend’s dog a trick.  Was the trick eating toddlers?  No.  The trick was teaching the dog a salute that was fairly popular in Germany between 1932 and 1945.  Why would he do that?  He was irritating his girlfriend, and unless he can teach the dog to pilot a bulldog-scale Messerschmitt Bf-109, I think the United Kingdom is safe.  Since the dog was featured on a YouTube® video, it is, therefore:  hate crime.

Given the two examples above, if I were British, I’d have zero confidence in the way those “reasonable” points on the list above would be interpreted in the future.  Deny white privilege?  Obviously hate speech – we’re not going to work on your broken leg.  Oppose continual reparations for (INSERT GROUP HERE)?  Obviously racist – we’re sending you to racist jail!

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Help me eliminate all Cancers.  Then we’ll move to the Capricorns.

Great Britain has had the National Health Service since 1948, since they decided that German bombs weren’t effective enough at destroying their economy.  I kid.  The English seem to generally like the NHS – like Social Security in the United States it appears to be a political third rail.  Touch it, and your career in eating crumpets, bangers, mash, and drinking tea in Parliament is over and it’s back to fish and chips and sending your children to the mill so you have enough money to buy cheap gin.

The service has drawbacks, but seems to work for the English, for now.  I have some doubts about long-term viability, but I’m not British, so I don’t get a vote.  But “Baby Oliver” is alive today (LINK) because even though the NHS refused to operate on him, he got surgery in the United States.  It appears that the NHS learned their lesson with that publicity – they wouldn’t even let “Baby Alfie” out of the country (LINK).

On the bright side, dentistry is free(ish), too.

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The British have sensitive teeth.  They’re so sensitive, just saying that offends them.

The kicker is, of course, the control.  The most ominous line in the press release is:

Any cases will be reported on the trust’s (a subdivision of the NHS – J.W.) incident management system and on patients’ individual notes.

Back when I was in grade school, teachers would say in a really grave tone that certain behavior would end up “on our Permanent Record.”  They really said that, and you could hear the capital letters when they spoke.  It was as if that in some far-flung future where Snake Plisskin was attempting to break the President out of New York and I was applying for a job and it would still be in the Permanent Record.

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The Secret Service expenses for all of the living ex-presidents are highest for Bill Clinton.  That party bus ain’t gonna drive itself!

I imagined that when I finally got that great interview to be Starship Captain or whatever the interviewer would pull out a copy of my Permanent Record, shake his head disapprovingly, and say, “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilder.  We simply cannot offer you a job because in fifth grade you called Brenda Vincent, a,” he would then take a long pause and adjust his glasses while staring at the paper, “poopy haired chum smuggler.  We simply cannot have a man like that at Enron®.”

In reality, my Permanent Record from grade school was probably sent to a landfill when they tore the building down.  Brenda’s bait smuggling history is now lost to eternity.

But in 2019 we really do have permanent records, and in greater detail than most people realize.  I get ads on my laptop in the evening that relate to conversations that I had in the afternoon when the laptop was off but my phone was nearby.  There are networks of cameras that cross the nation that track license plates.  If you use a credit card, you can be tracked from gas station to gas station and hotel to hotel.  Your Internet search history?  If your ISP doesn’t have it, the NSA does.  Speaking of job interviews – you don’t really have to apply to the NSA – they already have your resume, cover letter, and know all of your references.

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At least someone is interested in my life.

Increasingly in our “capitalist” system, people with unpopular opinions keep getting being censored, but it gets worse. Recently, Stefan Molyneux, who is more of a libertarian than anything, was kicked off of PayPal® – though at this writing those links were still up.  If he were in the U.K., he might be denied medical services as well, and since he’s suffering from Stage 4 baldness, I hate to think about the potential future complications.

To be clear:  in a socialist medical system, if you disagree with their opinions, the Leftists want to deny you medical service, and hope that you die.  In a capitalist technocracy, if you disagree with their opinions, the Leftists want to silence you, deny you banking services, and hope that you die.

This will be a factor in your life.  Life may get very rough before it gets better, and “rough” may last quite a few years.  But I tend to think that the Right will win in the end.  Why?

Because my ex-wife is on the Left.  And I wasn’t sure about Hell until I met her.  Now I’m sure.

So if there’s Hell?

There’s Heaven.  Onward, my friends!

Life is Struggle. Struggle is Easier with Panzers. Especially if You’re Struggling with France.

“Your death will stand as a landmark in the continuing struggle to liberate the parent land from the hands of the Roman imperialist aggressors, excluding those concerned with drainage, medicine, roads, housing, education, viniculture and any other Romans contributing to the welfare of Jews of both sexes and hermaphrodites.” – Life of Brian

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Fun fact:  the first winner of the Tour de France was a Panzerkampfwagen III.

A few years back I worked with a friend named Will.  Will was one of the more creative people I’d ever worked with.  One particular week, I knew he had a deadline to finish a rather significant project for our boss that Friday.  It was Tuesday and I asked him if he had finished it, since he was goofing off enough to make George R.R. Martin’s writing progress look like a cocaine-snorting crotch-weasel.  And cocaine-snorting crotch-weasels move pretty fast.

Will responded, “No.  I think I’ll start on Thursday afternoon.”

In the conversation that followed Will admitted that work was pretty easy for him.  “But if I wait until I have some important deadline, until I’m not sure that I have enough time to finish, then work gets pretty interesting.”  He was completely serious.  He didn’t really care if he got fired or in trouble – he just wanted life to be interesting.  I thought about it, and, looking back, had noticed that I had done much the same thing.  In fact, it’s so common, there are thousands of posters and jokes about it.  I mean, if they threatened to kill one of my friends each hour I procrastinated, I could probably be pretty productive.  But, you know that depends, too:  which friend?

In retrospect, this points out that winning doesn’t make people happy, in and of itself.  If that was the case, Will would have done his work in advance and goofed off later rather than earlier.  That’s simply not the case.  Most people do the same and procrastinate in some fashion.  Statistics show anywhere from 25% to 95% of people procrastinate.

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Procrastination will be my downfall.  Emphasis on “will”.   

That’s a wide enough range to be utterly meaningless.  And since social scientists did the study, I trust it about as much as I trust drunken toddlers run the legislative branch of our government.  Congressmen probably would agree with me, since I know that they generally really hate that kind of competition from intellectually superior people who are at least attempting to be potty trained.

Why procrastination?

I think there’s a lot of stress today in the workplace because the work is no longer optimized for the worker, it’s optimized for the lowest common denominator.  Most companies want most processes to be able to be done by someone of limited *ahem* intellectual means.  That makes the pool of qualified workers so much bigger, and they can pay lower wages.  Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean that everyone who’s working a job that’s designed for an I.Q. of 85 has an I.Q. of 85 – far from it.  But take someone of average (100) I.Q. and dump them in an 85 I.Q. job?  There is more than a little potential for boredom.

And with that boredom can come mischief.

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Horseplay?  Quit foaling around.

The best possible job for anyone has certain characteristics – you know what’s expected of you.  You have the tools to do it.  Crucially, the job can’t be so easy that it’s trivial.  The job should also not be so hard as to be frustrating.  There’s that middle road, where you’re learning, where there’s enough challenge to keep you fully engaged in the work.  Thankfully, many jobs have a ladder where as you increase your competence, you get increased responsibilities.

The downside, of course, is that the most skilled carpenter might make a really crappy carpenter foreman.  The skill set from one spot in the organizational hierarchy to the next step up may not even be remotely related.  The idea and general practice of promoting the best carpenter to foreman at least has one advantage – at least we know that the foreman is good at something.  That something may not be leading people, but worst case, his people know he’s good with a hammer.

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H.P. Lovecraft loved getting hickies, but would only get them from neck romancers.

I’ve mentioned the following story more than once, but I keep bringing it up because it was one of my “a-ha!” moments of understanding in life.  In the very old HBO® series Dream On the protagonist was a literary agent.  He had a secretary named Toby, who specialized in being unhelpful.  In one episode, Toby was at work, playing a supermarket simulator on the company computer.  She started as a bag boy.

“Cleanup in Aisle 9!” she screamed at one point in the episode.  She showed an intensity playing the game that she never showed on her job.  “I’ve been moved to cashier!”  She was thrilled at the promotion.

Finally, her crowning achievement.  Toby had won the game.

“I did it!  I did it!  I’m the manager!” she yelled, with excitement.

A long pause.

“Of a supermarket . . .”

Now her voice had dropped into a questioning tone.

“that doesn’t exist.”  The last line was delivered with profound sadness and self-awareness that her day had been wasted.

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Me:  What’s up, glitches?

Toby, the secretary had been thoroughly engaged in the game in a way that was never available to her in real life.  I’ve played a few video games since seeing that episode, but for the most part that one line stripped them bare to me:  “Manager . . . of a supermarket . . . that doesn’t exist.”  It showed that her victory was as hollow to her as the skull of a congresswoman from New York.

Since many jobs have been defined downward in so many ways, I can certainly see the rise of gaming.  Gaming sells the experience people want and need.  Good games provide a tutorial system to show you how to use the controls.  They then run you through a series of challenges that teach you to be more competent with the in-game systems and controls, and provide tools that are in many cases only barely adequate for the job, requiring focus and concentration for you to succeed.  Winning the game requires an investment of work, study, concentration, focus, and control.  And $60.

Games provide the challenges that work really should be providing to the younger generation.  They often have tools and abilities that far exceed what their job should provide.  How do they cope?  Killing cops, stealing cars, shooting radioactive zombie cowboys.  But eventually you have to go home so you can play your game that you paid $60 for.

Gaming is popular because humans are machines built to compete.  If life offers sufficient competition to keep us interested?  Fine.  But if living standards are great and everything is going well, but the people aren’t challenged?  Hello, World War One.  There was simply no reason for Europe to descend into that madness other than things were going well and the people were rich and bored.

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If you survive assault, pepper spray, and mustard gas, are you a seasoned veteran?

Easy success is boredom.  What happens to a society, a world, where success is set on easy?  It breeds discontent.  We see that in Europe now.  Germany was nice and happy and reunited and things were going well.  Boring.

Here’s an idea!  Let’s import a bunch of foreigners.  That should spice things up!  Foreigners now make up 12.8% of the population, but commit 34.7% of the crimes, according to the Wall Street Journal®.  Why do they commit the crimes?  I’m pretty sure I don’t care.  But why would Germany want to import a population that commits 30% of the murders and over 41% of the burglaries?  They were bored.  Things were going too well.

Normally, when things were going too well, Germany would fire up the panzers and take a trip west, but that turned out just to be too easy.  And I like giving the French a hard time – I get more visitors from Malta (Want Some Short Term Gain and Long Term Pain? Also, Malta.) than from France.  And the Germans certainly couldn’t take over Malta, mainly because the distance to Malta isn’t measured in panzers per baguette.

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I recently read a book about French war heroes.  That was an inspiring six pages.

But if you have the difficulty of your society set too hard?  Riots and revolution and turning into a tyrannical dictatorship.  The difficulty is no easier, but at least you get brainwashing and random executions, so there’s that.

Western Civilization has been fairly stable is that it’s built on two fairly strong foundations – capitalism and hierarchy.

Crony capitalism is inevitable.  If I were to say “in a properly functioning capitalist society” I’d be no better than the Leftist weasels that lament that their particular brand of Hell on Earth has never been tried.  No.  Capitalism in the United States isn’t fair, and the rich get to make a lot of the rules and restrict competition.  But you have the ability to join them.  The system isn’t so rigged that mobility is impossible.  And you can certainly trace out a comfortable life, especially if you’re born rich.

But capitalism really does provide competition – it’s hard to dominate a system (unless your name is Bezos) that is so huge, just like Jeff’s mistresses butt.  It’s a game of nearly infinite complexity.  You can play as hard and as long as you want on so many different angles.  That leads to stability.

The other factor leading to stability is hierarchy.  Men, left alone, will soon develop a hierarchy.  They want the hierarchy.  It gives them a place.  It creates (generally) healthy competition to reach the top, unless your name is Macbeth.  That hierarchy is often replicated in structures across the country – from homeowners associations at the very bottom, to Elon Musk at the very top.

Sure, there is only one Elon, but you can live in the middle to upper half of the hierarchy without having to even have a job.  There are many activities that pay nothing and lead to huge amounts of mojo.  Musician.  Biker.  Actor waiter.

Blogger.

And, yes, there are days when I put off things, too.  I’ve had this one project I need to do at work.  I’ve had it since July.  It’s due next Friday.

Guess I should be starting that one pretty soon . . . .

Success, Fight Club, Strippers and Socialists

“We have just lost cabin pressure.” – Fight Club

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The second rule of Wilder Club is if this is your first visit, you have to comment.

I had a conversation with a friend today.  Oh, sure, I hear you say, what would an iconoclastic iron-jawed individualist with a body odor redolent of medium rare ribeye (with just a hint of pepper) like John Wilder need with a friend?  I guess we all have our little weaknesses.  And dogs follow me.  Because I smell like steak.

In this particular case as with most of my friends, I’ve known this friend for years.  I’ve known most of my close friends longer than The Boy has been alive, and he’s in college now.  It’s nice.  If a day, a week, a month or a year goes by, so what?  We can still restart the conversation where we left off.  It’s as comfortable as watching a movie you’ve seen a dozen times.

I’ll make the observation that the only place where the character of people change is in a movie – almost all of my close friends have the same sense of humor and the same sense of values that they had when our friendships were forming.  Absent a significant emotional event, people are a constant.

And I like that.

There is a corresponding trust that comes with being a close friend – honesty.  That’s why when talking with my friend, I really enjoyed the chance to be honest.  Honesty is difficult because it requires that trust, because really honest criticism is hard to take, even when it comes from a friend.  Or a co-worker.  Or a relative.  Or someone you just met.  Or your UPS® delivery guy.  Oh, wait.  Most people don’t like honest.  But my friends do.

This particular friend is really in a good position in life, which seems to be a common pattern with my friends.  He has a spouse that makes more money than he does, and, in general, the household probably brings in enough cash each month so that Nigerian princes send emails to them asking for money.  They’re wealthy enough that they donate to the homeless.  This appears to be a more socially acceptable donation strategy than my “donation to the topless,” scheme.

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Yes, this is the only joke that I’ve ever seen that involves both the Greco-Roman philosophy of stoicism and stripping.  I’m sure that Seneca would be proud.

But lest ye want to class my friend as the evil, selfish, wealthy type, he’s not.  The family has a huge number of kids, and it’s a close family.  My friend is constantly taking time off to go to athletic events, and when we catch up, I can sense that the relationship he has with his kids isn’t a surface relationship – it’s genuine and deep.  I can tell, because I know people who understand genuine relationships, who listen to both sides of a family argument – my neighbors.

And yet . . . despite the wealth, despite the great family, my friend feels that there’s something missing.  He is as high as he wants to go in the company he works at – any higher and the travel demands would pull him away from family.  He’s long since mastered his job – there is little that can be thrown at him that he hasn’t seen in the last fifteen or so years.  So, his condition is one of high pay, mastery of work, and, improbably, discontent.

John Wilder:  “You realize you have an advantage that 99% of people would die for.  You’re financially secure.  You can quit your job anytime.  Literally, you could walk in to your boss this afternoon and quit.  Your lifestyle wouldn’t change a bit.”

Not Elon Musk:  “Yes.”

Unlikely Voice of Wisdom John Wilder:  “So, what is it you want to do?”

Really, I Promise It Isn’t Elon Musk:  “I need to think about it.”

Channeling Tyler Durden From Fight Club® John Wilder:  “No.  If you think about it, you’ll end up doing nothing but thinking about it.  You have to do something.  Physically start it.  This weekend.  I’ll check back on Monday to see how you did.”

There is a scene in the movie Fight Club™ where Tyler Durden holds a gun to the head of a liquor store clerk.  If you haven’t seen the movie, I strongly suggest it.  I probably watch it once a month while I write – I think there are few movies that communicate the human condition in modern life so well.

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Pugsley doesn’t miss many school days.

JACK, in voiceover:  On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

CLERK:  Please… don’t…

TYLER DURDEN: Give me your wallet.

Tyler pulls out the driver’s license.

TYLER:  Raymond K. Hessel. 1320 SE Benning, apartment A.  A small, cramped basement apartment.

RAYMOND:  How’d you know?

TYLER:  They give basement apartments letters instead of numbers.  Raymond, you’re going to die.  Is this a picture of Mom and Dad?

RAYMOND:  Yes.

TYLER:  Your mom and dad will have to call kindly doctor so-and-so to dig up your dental records, because there won’t be much left of your face.

RAYMOND:  Please, God, no!                            

JACK: Tyler…

TYLER:  An expired community college student ID card.  What did you used to study, Raymond K. Hessel?

RAYMOND:  S-S-Stuff.

TYLER:  “Stuff.”  Were the mid-terms hard?  I asked you what you studied.

JACK:  Tell him!

RAYMOND:  Biology, mostly.

TYLER:  Why?

RAYMOND:  I… I don’t know…

TYLER:  What did you want to be, Raymond K. Hessel?

Tyler cocks the .357 magnum Colt© Python™ pointed at Raymond’s head.

TYLER:  The question, Raymond, was “what did you want to be?”

JACK:  Answer him!

RAYMOND:  A veterinarian!

TYLER:  Animals.

RAYMOND:  Yeah … animals and s-s-s —

TYLER:  Stuff.  That means you have to get more schooling.

RAYMOND:  Too much school.

TYLER:  Would you rather be dead?

RAYMOND:  No, please, no, God, no!

Tyler uncocks the gun, lowers it.

TYLER:  I’m keeping your license.  I know where you live.  I’m going to check on you.  If you aren’t back in school and on your way to being a veterinarian in six weeks, you will be dead.  Get the hell out of here.

JACK:  I feel sick.

TYLER:  Imagine how he feels.

Tyler brings the gun to his own head, pulls the trigger — click.  It’s empty.

JACK:  I don’t care, that was horrible.

TYLER:  Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessell’s life.  His breakfast will taste better than any meal he has ever eaten.

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How dare you . . . make Greta uncomfortable.

And it’s true.  I tend to think that everyone’s life would be a little better if they had Tyler Durden to be a life coach, to ever so gently coax them to be the best they can be while holding a .357 magnum Colt® Python™ to their head.  That seems to be a bit frowned upon, so that leaves my friends with me.  See how lucky you are?

In my role as Dr. Durden, I’ve noticed that there’s a problem some people have.  It’s being too clever.  It’s thinking.  How do I know?  It’s my problem that I try to compensate for by writing and doing.  If I think about doing something, it will never get done.  I keep thinking about fixing the bannister that broke when we moved in to the house a decade ago.  It’s never been high on my list, since people falling down stairs is funny, with extra points if they are really old.  But thinking about doing something never accomplishes anything.

If I plan to do it, it will get done.  Half of my time driving to and from work on a day I’m going to write a post, I’m writing it in my head, selecting jokes, thinking of themes.  It’s also spent thinking of how I’m going to connect the idea I want to share with students who might be forced to read this post when Mrs. Grundy tells them to compare and contrast my work with that poseur, Mark Twain, in high school in the year 2248 (that’s when Kirk will be a sophomore).

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Okay, generally on my drive to work I have about five or ten minutes between cars, so it would take several hours to get a group of cars behind me like that.  But a man has to have goals!

It may look like I’m driving to work, but I’m really plotting out what I’m going to write about.  To be honest, it sometimes takes both lanes to do that.  I wish the State Patrol® would be a little more understanding to artists like me.

Thankfully, The Mrs. is.

The Mrs. and I had a conversation the other night.  It may or may not have involved wine – I’m not telling unless I’ve been subpoenaed and am under oath to a House subcommittee.  Actually, it wasn’t so much a conversation as The Mrs. describing to me how she felt about this little project I publish three times a week.

I don’t make any money on this blog, though I’ve made clear since day one that can change at any time.  I have plans for several (eventual) ways to do that including adding subliminal messages causing you to want to pay for my health insurance.  It looks like it’s already worked for Bernie Sanders.

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In a socialist paradise all bloggers make $450,000 a year, right?  But I worry that for this Christmas we won’t have an Elf on a Shelf, we’ll have a Bernie on a Gurney.

No, at this point, writing is a hobby.  But it’s a hobby that takes over 20 hours a week, sometimes closer to 30 hours.  I still have a job, and I won’t stop interacting my family, so most nights I won’t even start writing before 9pm.  A lot of that time comes from time I’d normally be selfishly engaged in what you mortals call “sleep”, but a chunk of that time comes directly from time I’d be spending with The Mrs.

When I’m writing, I’m simply not available.  I’m writing.

The Mrs.:  “You know, I would certainly have an issue with the time that you spend writing, if it weren’t important.”  There was more to this, where she detailed the number of hours I spend.  But I keyed in on the word “Important.”

I was a little surprised by that.  “Important?”

The Mrs.:  “Yes.  I can see that what you’re writing about is important.  People need to hear it.  So keep doing it.”

Okay, that proves she never reads this stuff.

But as I talked more with my friend, the concept of “meaning” came up.

My Friend Who is Really Most Certainly Not Elon Musk:  “So, it’s about meaning?”

Suddenly as Wise as the Roman Philosopher Seneca John Wilder:  “That’s silly.  You don’t go off chasing ‘meaning’ in your life.  Pick out something you like to do, and do it.  But figure out how to make it important to other people.  You like to woodwork, right?  You say you never have time to do it.  Do it this weekend.  Film it.  Put it up on YouTube®.  I’ll be checking up with you on Monday.”

I asked myself, why is my friend working at all?  I think because he feels he’s supposed to work.  That having a job is a rule, it’s what he’s always done.  The problem that many of us have is that we tend to create rules where there aren’t any rules.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps we need to justify what we do.  Perhaps it’s like my two important rules for life:

  1. Don’t tell everything you know.

Success?  My friend is already successful in most ways a person can be successful.  Their life is really good.  I told them, directly, “You’ve been given so many gifts.  If you don’t make something special of your life, you’re wasting it.”

Interestingly, this applies to you, too.

And me.

How will your breakfast taste tomorrow?

How One Texas Court Case Defines The Future For A Seven Year Old . . . and The United States

“There’s no basement at the Alamo.” – PeeWee’s Big Adventure

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“I guess we’d better turn over our guns.” – No Texan Ever

In 1836, Colonel William Travis surveyed the situation.  It was grim.  He was surrounded.  His troops were outnumbered.  He was out of deodorant.  Defeat was certain.  The information his messengers brought back was clear – there would be no rescue.  With this certain death in mind, Colonel Travis addressed the defenders of the Alamo:

Colonel Travis:  “We must die,” he began. “Our business is not to make a fruitless effort to save our lives, but to choose the manner of our death.  We can surrender and be executed.  We can attack and be butchered.  Or, we can remain in this fort, resist every assault, and to sell our lives as dearly as possible.”

Travis then drew a line in the dirt with his sword.

Colonel Travis:  “I now want everyone here who is determined to stay here and die with me to come across this line.  Each man-”

Captain Triggered:    “Or woman.”

Colonel Travis:  “Or woman, to come across himself-”

Captain Triggered:  “Or herself.”

Colonel Travis:  “Or herself.  Furthermore, every man-

Captain Triggered:  “Or woman.”

Colonel Travis:  “Why don’t you shut up about women, Captain, you’re putting us off.”

Captain Triggered:  “Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Colonel Travis.”

Colonel Travis:  “Why are you always on about women, Captain?”

Captain Triggered:  “I want to be one.”

Colonel Travis:  “What?”

Captain Triggered:  “I want to be a woman.  From now on I want you all to call me Loretta.”

Colonel Travis:  “What?”

Loretta:  “It’s my right as a man.”

Davy Crockett:  “Why do you want to be Loretta, Captain Triggered?”

Loretta:  “I want to have babies.”

Colonel Travis:  “You want to have babies???”

Loretta:  “It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.”

Colonel Travis:  “But you can’t have babies.”

Loretta:  “Don’t you oppress me.”

Colonel Travis:  “I’m not oppressing you, Captain Triggered, you haven’t got a womb.  Where’s the fetus going to gestate?  You going to keep it in a box?”

(Loretta starts crying.)

Davy Crockett:  “I’ve got an idea.  Suppose, Colonel Travis, you agree that Loretta can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Mexicans, but that he can have the right to have babies.”

Jim Bowie:  “Good idea, Davy.  We shall fight the Mexicans for your right to have babies, brother.  Sister, sorry.”

Colonel Travis:  “What’s the point?”

Jim Bowie:  “What?”

Colonel Travis:  “What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies, when he can’t have babies?”

Davy Crockett:  “It is symbolic of our struggle against Santa Ana.”

Colonel Travis:  “It’s symbolic of his struggle against reality.”

norris.jpgI’m just waiting for his next movie:  Walker, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

This week another line was crossed.  Like the Alamo, it was really just another custody dispute in Texas.  Unlike the case of Santa Ana versus 3,000 crazy Texans, the custody case was about a real child, rather than a typical Texas divorce or Oklahoma tornado – where in either case someone loses a mobile home.

If you haven’t heard about this case, it involved a seven year old boy.

This particular seven year old child has been the subject of an ongoing trial that gathered national attention, and with good reason.  The child is a boy.  The father attempted to gain full custody of the child because the mother saw him liking the movie Frozen and wanting to dress like the main character.  I have never seen the movie Frozen.  Perhaps if Frozen was written by Matt Bracken (LINK) and starred a bunch of Soviet-era tanks, I might have been interested.

But this boy who likes Frozen is seven.  I recall when I was seven.  I wanted to be an astronaut, exhibiting a desire to dress in a helmet and coveralls, and pretending a plastic M-16® was a laser.  Ma and Pop Wilder, being concerned, took me to a psychologist.  The psychologist suggested that they transition me from the real M-16© that I kept by my bedside to a laser pistol and launch me into orbit at the earliest opportunity.  The psychologist explained that I had astro-dysphoria, which could be treated before I reached puberty though gravity blockers.

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I now identify as Tyler Durden.  But so do several people.

Okay, that didn’t happen.  But there was a kid in my class who played with his sister’s Barbie™ dolls.  Even in second grade we made fun of him for that.  Last time I saw him he wasn’t playing with Barbie© dolls.  He was playing nose guard for their high school football team.  What would have happened if he was seven in 2019?  I think he might have been given a dozen needy housecats and a barrel of chardonnay.

But a jury in Texas (Texas!) ordered that the mother get custody of the “trans” child so the mother could raise the child as she wished, which included “transitioning” the boy named James into a girl named Luna.  Included in the order was that the mother had full authority to give the boy hormone blockers as he approached puberty to suppress him becoming more manlike as puberty hit.

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Keep in mind, Silence of the Lambs was a horror movie, not a “how-to” manual.

On Thursday (10/24/2019) it appears sanity prevailed.  The judge in the case overturned the jury verdict and awarded the husband joint custody – in this case the mother cannot make sole medical decisions about James.  The boy’s father hailed it as a victory, but the judge also issued a gag order – neither party can talk any more in the media about this case.  This may be the last we hear about James until he’s 18.  More about that gag order later.

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The one time the jury voted to acquit me, it was great!  I got to keep all that money!

I did not sit in the jury box.  I’ve often been reluctant to criticize juries because I wasn’t there as the evidence was presented.  I wasn’t there to hear the testimony, to see the people involved in the case.

In this case it doesn’t matter:  I will criticize mercilessly, like a hungover, sleep-deprived Viking named Jen Vilder in the depths of a nicotine fit.  11 out of the 12 jurors, who voted to allow the mother to turn a seven year old boy into a girl, are monsters.

Each of them.

The point of principle is very strong here – as a society we simply do not allow seven year old children to make life changing decisions.

  • We don’t allow them to drink booze.
  • We don’t allow them to vote.
  • We don’t allow them to drive.
  • We don’t allow them to get tattoos.
  • We don’t allow them to own guns.
  • We don’t allow them to have ear hair.

These laws are in place because society rightly realizes that seven year old children have the brain capacity of a slightly mobile houseplant.  I have ice cubes and ribeye steak in my freezer that are older and wiser than your average seven year old child.  Children are malleable – Marx knew that.  Stalin knew that, too.  Stalin said, “Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”  This is nothing less than an attempt to devastate an entire generation and demoralize a people.

I speak from the experience of raising children, from being involved in youth organizations, and adopting “a few” random seven year old children from the Wal-Mart© parking lot.  I have never met a seven year old capable of writing a letter to Santa that would get past the screening Elf, let alone making decisions that could lead to permanent deformation and infertility.

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I hope this doesn’t make you Claustrophobic.

I’ll throw this in here:  if you’re an adult, and want to pretend to be a female?  I’m not sure I care.  It appears that this just might be a gimmick for guys to dominate both male and female athletics.  It’s not like women are transitioning to men to become a linebacker for the New England Patriots® – they can’t, because there’s no real affirmative action for football – society takes football seriously.

I have, however, heard that the latest complaint of the trans community is that it’s transphobic when lesbians won’t date trans women.  Yes.  Let me restate the complaint – trans people think that lesbians should be forced to date people with guy parts.

Frankly, that amuses me.

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“Hannah” took “her” team to a world championship.  Yay!

It’s wonderful when the Community of the Woke has to deal with the consequences of Wokeness, and tries to explain that men can have periods and women can drive well.  As long as I don’t have to believe it, I can take a Monty Python® view and wait for the trans community to argue that, even though men can’t have periods, they have the right to have periods.

Genius!

It’s fine to watch adults ignore reality – watching a man that has transitioned to being a woman play rugby with actual women is amazing – it shows that before long that trans women will conquer all of sports.  Biological women?  They can stay home and make sandwiches, I guess.

But kids are different.  Drag queen story hour at the library?  Wow.  That wasn’t a thing since Weimar Germany.  And we all know what happened after Weimar Germany (hint:  it rhymes with “Mitler”).

The remaining part of this story that bothers me is the gag order.  Sure, it’s in the best interest of the kid.  I’ll agree to that.  But if dad loses custody?  If Dad, who gets to see his son 56 hours a month loses the next court battle and his mother transitions him to “Momma’s little girl”?  We won’t hear about it because dad can’t talk about it.  And that . . . could be a travesty.

Colonel William Travis drew a line in the dirt in the Alamo.  The consequences were simple:  step over that line, and fight side by side with Travis, to the death if need be.

But a different kind of line was drawn in Texas this week, a line that is so profound that it should shake every reader to the core.  What bothers me, and what should bother you the most about this case is that it wasn’t the dictate of a crazed bureaucrat or judge.  No – in this case the judge was the sane one.  11 out of 12 jurors in the Lone Star state voted that a seven year old boy should be allowed to become a girl, is a sign not that society is collapsing, it’s a sign that society has collapsed.

I’m thinking that in Modern Mayberry, that wouldn’t go over very well.

Texans?  Stand up.  The line you have held dear has been crossed.

How long will you stand for it?

Hold the line.

On the other side?  Madness.

Leftism is a Religion, and Kipling is the Cure

“Remember, we can’t question the mores of the natives.” – The Man Who Would Be King

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Our main weapons are . . . oh, sorry.  I triggered Briana by saying “weapon.”  To the safe spaces!

I had a subject picked out for today – despite your thinking that I might think up these topics in a booze and PEZ® induced haze on the spur of the moment by throwing Velcro®-covered toddlers* at a “Wilder Post Idea” mat placed on the wall to come up with humorous combinations of idea, I don’t.  Maybe I should – it actually sounds like a lot of fun, except, well, having to be around toddlers.  The upside would be throwing them.

No, dear reader, I try to map out these posts at least two weeks in advance using the much less amusing no-toddler-involved pen and notecard method.  I then do notes and research at least a few days in advance.  But last week I looked at my notes for the post I had planned.  It’s a big, complicated, ambitious post, so I’d been working on those notes for more than a week.

It’s not ready yet.

Thankfully, I have toddlers, Velcro© and a wall I have a list of ideas for posts written on notecards that I keep in several notecard boxes.  I’ve got several hundred ideas, depending on the category.  In truth some of them are little more than crude sketches in in crayon.  In reality, these are not second-rate ideas – they’re just ideas that I haven’t gotten to yet.  And I pulled this one out of the box:

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It means: “Leftism as a religion.”  It’s obvious, right?

You may or may not have a religious beliefs – I do.  I don’t bring up my religious beliefs on this blog as religious concepts for the purpose of discussing religion – I’m not the guy who would be good at that.  I try to stick with religion and how it relates to society.  With the exception of the immediate cultural references and political figures of our time, I aim to make a lot (50%?) of these posts timeless – something someone could pick up in 20 years (or 200 or 2000), and still get a chuckle and a bit of wisdom out of while wondering just who the hell Johnny Depp was, and why does the Great Bard of The New Dark Ages™, that handsome devil John Wilder keep writing about him.

But in 20 years (or 200, or 2,000), Leftism will still be seen as a religion.

I think religion is built into us, biologically.  In 2012, the best scientific research on this was:

“We have found a neuropsychological basis for spirituality, but it’s not isolated to one specific area of the brain,” said Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the School of Health Professions. “Spirituality is a much more dynamic concept that uses many parts of the brain. Certain parts of the brain play more predominant roles, but they all work together to facilitate individuals’ spiritual experiences.” (LINK)

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Okay, is it just me that thinks that it’s funny that the guy who studies brains and religion goes by the name of “Brick”?

As Brick says, most people have a religious inclination.  Some folks who read this blog are atheists – and I’m not here to try to convert them.  The ones that are here are the cool kind of atheist who, most often, don’t hate people who have religion.  They are, for lack of a better term, libertarian atheists – they don’t care if you believe.  Just leave them out of it.  On average, however, people want to believe in something.  Our brains are hard-wired for it.

And that’s why Leftism appeals as religion – it’s an effective way to drum up a group, and nearly 70% of atheists are Leftist in the United States.  So, Leftism cloaks itself as a rational, political movement, but it’s really a religion:  a religion as weird and deformed as Bernie Sanders’ aorta.  Let me explain:

Religion is a relationship between man and a higher power.  The deformation present in Leftism is that man is that higher power.  Look at the statues to Lenin, Stalin, and the posters of Fidel and Hugo Chavez.  Man has replaced the higher power – man is the object of worship.  Let’s dig a little deeper.

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I saw Lenin pick his nose the other day – I always knew that communists had no class.

The components of a religion are:

  • A belief system that doesn’t require proof.

It’s taken on faith. Leftism doesn’t require any more proof than is in Hillary’s chardonnay.  Every single Socialist or Communist government has resulted in thousands to millions of deaths, and all of them fail, either Soviet-style, Cuba-style, or Venezuela-style over time.  Ask an ardent socialist or communist, and they really will tell you that socialism in Venezuela would have really worked if only it had been given a chance.  I guess 10,000,000% inflation (per year) in a country with the greatest oil reserves in the world is a sign of a successful, functioning socialist economy.

  • There are (in most religions) demons – a power opposing the higher power.

Just as people are the higher power in Leftism, people are also the demons.  It’s the unbeliever (people like you and me) that is causing difficulty.  Leftism is great at finding and identifying scapegoats to point at to proclaim that they are the cause of all problems, Stalin and Mao were awesome at that(In the World Murder Olympics, Communists Take Gold and Silver!).  Most commonly, it’s people who are successful.  In Leftist terms, people are successful only because they are taking the success that rightfully belongs to the victim class.  Communism is great at finding villains, and great at finding victims, too.  Sadly, it runs out of the money of the villains.

  • There is a method of salvation.

The method of salvation for a Leftist is joining the Left.  It is becoming versed in the various High Holy Words of Leftist Salvation such as privilege, Climate Change© (formerly Global Warming™, the 1%, racist, social justice, assault rifle, greed, change, economic justice, fascist, and progress.  No actual change in personal comfort is required – taking a private jet to transport Leo and his starlet of the week to a Climate Change® conference is okay, as long as Leo keeps repeating that fossil fuels are evil.  I mean, a Leftist donates one kidney, he’s a hero.  When I donate ten?  They called me a monster.

  • There are sins – rules that cannot be broken.

You would think that most actions that were counter to the High Holy Words of Leftist Salvation would be wrong and would brand you a sinner.  That’s wrong!  You can falsely claim a person of another race put a noose around your neck when you went to Subway®.  It’s sad that you then have to hire immigrants do it, because it’s a job American’s won’t do.  Or falsely claim that a person of another race cut your dreadlocks.  Obviously, these are racist acts, but there is to be no punishment for them, because being a racist isn’t a sin, as long as you are a believing Leftist.  Being rich because you’re an evil capitalist isn’t even a sin.  There is only one true sin:  heresy (see below).

  • There is heresy.

This is the ultimate sin.  Thinking a thought counter to the ideals of the Left is bad, and itself punishable by re-education in a Leftist government.  But to dare utter a thought that’s counter to one of the catechisms of the Left?  That is the ultimate sin:  heresy.  Wrongthink.  Thoughtcrime.  But it’s okay if you’re not from this country.  You can ignore all of the above, because it’s wrong to judge an immigrant on a moral basis.  I mean, what could go wrong with marrying your sister?

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I’m worried about a cat and chardonnay shortage in 2023.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think that the people on Wall Street care about me any more than your average communist.  But thieves and people on Wall Street (but I repeat myself) only want my money.  Leftists want my money and my soul, The Mrs.’ soul, and the souls of my children in exchange for power.  I keep wondering . . . what’s the catch?

I used to enjoy engaging in light argument for fun with people who disagreed with me politically.  It was nice.  I learned a lot.  I learned where my arguments were weak.  I learned where I was wrong.  And when I was wrong, I admitted it, gave them the point and moved on.  It was fun – a great way to be exposed to new ideas and learn.  One two hour argument with me being pro-Second Amendment arguing with a friend who was against gun ownership ended . . . when I asked him if he had a gun.  He started laughing, and admitted he had what CNN® would call an arsenal.  He was having fun with me for two hours.  But I learned.

I don’t do that in person anymore.  If a friend who is Leftist brings a point up, mainly I’ll ask questions.  I don’t argue.  Friendly light arguments have gone from an enjoyable conversation to one where true emotion is unleashed and the person on the Left gets angry.  Heresy, you know.  So, I ask questions.  I don’t try to make points – I listen, and ask what the solutions should be.  But interjecting Wrongthink?  It simply won’t work.

That, primarily, is the difference between the Right and the Left.  The Right is confident enough that history has shown that the answers of the Right, though brutal, are effective (Kipling, Gods of The Copybook Headings, and It’s Different This Time).  The answers of the Right will return, not because they are ideologically pure, but they are the only methods known that actually work.  I’ll leave the word last to Kipling*.

*No toddlers were hurt in the writing of this post or the associated poem.

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I spent several hours trying to fix the kipling on my car today with Pugsley.  Turns out it was just a corroded battery terminal.

Gods of the Copybook Headings,

By Rudyard Kipling, 1919

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

 

Original of Crayon drawing by “My daughter Teresa” [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)] via Wikipedia Commons.

And, no, I don’t have a daughter named Teresa.

Regrets? Don’t Regret Anything, Unless You Want Me To Slap You When You Are Old.

“Nothing leaves alive.” – Dreamcatcher

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See, now Darth Vader® has no regrets.  Except for being in Episode III.

I’ve never written anything before that made me want to go to a hospice and slap a bunch of old dying people, but this particular post led me there.  I’ll explain.  It’s okay, it’ll all make sense in the end.  I’m a trained professional.

I have made many mistakes in my life.  Most of them I don’t remember – they were small and didn’t have any consequences, or at least any consequences I’ve seen yet.

Then there were some slightly larger mistakes – let’s call them medium size mistakes.  There have been consequences to these.  Again, medium-sized mistakes most often lead to medium-sized consequences.  A scar here (carve away from your thumb, not towards it), a stock gone to zero there (thanks a lot, Enron®) and one really bad car trade when I was 24 . . . medium-sized.  Medium-sized mistakes are big enough for a big sting, but whatever permanent impacts there might be aren’t immediately fatal.

The biggest ones – I won’t give a laundry list of those.  Most of those were where either passion, inexperience, a momentary lapse of character or judgement, or (worst of all) when all three contributed to a mistake.  Some mistakes lasted longer, some were short.  But all stung.  The biggest include a marriage that led to divorce, underestimating a sociopathic boss, and wearing that white dress to my little sister’s wedding.  I mean, I look fabulous in it, but some brides just have to be the center of attention.  Also a bit weird because she wasn’t really my sister.

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Staaaaaart again . . . .

To put it bluntly, I am the author of almost every problem I have.  If I didn’t cause the problem, I’m probably complicit in creating the problem or not dealing with the problem.

But I don’t regret it.  None of it.  Not the victories, certainly, and not the failures.

Why?

Life is a one-shot deal.  And life is a ratchet.  It only turns one way – we can’t take anything back.

Regret isn’t a one-shot deal, though.  If there’s anything that will burn a hole in your soul, it’s regret.  Regret never comes alone – it brings guilt along for the ride.

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My biggest fear is having a heart attack during a game of charades.

If I were to dig more deeply into those feelings – regret and guilt are just ways that fear manifests itself.  Fear of . . . what?  Regret is a fear that the consequences of your choices or actions will impact you negatively, and cannot be changed.  Here is a list of some of the common regrets from people on their deathbed (from a former palliative care nurse named Bronnie Ware, and, yes, I spelled that right – blame her parents, not me):

  1. “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
  2. “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
  3. “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”
  4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
  5. “I wish that I had let myself be happier.”

Even a quick look at this list tells me one simple thing:  regret is for losers.  I have never seen a whinier pack of self-serving weakness since I last watched a Democratic presidential debate.  Everything, absolutely everything on this “top five” list is just, well, sad.

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Me?  I’m still holding out hope for a pyramid.

Would you like to go to your grave worrying about any of those things?  I can’t imagine doing it.  I refuse to let regret rule me.  And I refuse to let any decision I made twenty years ago rule me.  Hell, I refuse to let any decision I made last week rule me, except for choosing that convenience store egg/muffin sandwich – I don’t need to explain why.  Deal with the consequences?  Certainly.  But regret?  No.

Let’s go down the “top five” list:

Not living a life “true to yourself”?  I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life.  I was talking with a guy the other day who quit his job because his boss asked him to do something illegal.  That’s being true to yourself – he walked away without a paycheck but with his values and beliefs intact.  If you’re not being true to yourself, you’re either weak or flighty.  The good news?  Anyone who reads this blog is neither.

Wishing you hadn’t “worked so hard”?  That’s also nonsense.  A soul thrives on doing good work that matters.  Doing good work excellently is hard.  The Mrs. teaches, and works hard at it – I can see from her talking about her students, talking about the ones who learned and improved, the ones who keep coming back to her classroom to report on their lives that her work matters.  Working hard at work that matters is what makes us the best humans we can be.  If you think you worked too hard, you weren’t doing anything worth doing.  The good news?  Change now.  You have an entire lifetime to fix that mistake.

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I got fired from the calendar factory.  They get really mad when you take a day off.

Didn’t have the “courage to express my feelings”?  Wow.  This is the weakest on the list, so far.  Number one:  do you have feelings that matter?  Most feelings are stupid – and I have stupid feelings, too.  Thankfully, I’m not a five year old – I am at least twelve.  I get to examine my feelings and reject those that don’t reflect my values, my virtue, my beliefs.  I get to choose.  If I feel slighted by something silly or petty?  I get to choose to understand what a fool I’m being and ignore that feeling.  Again, if you don’t express your feelings, that’s not always a bad thing.  Your feelings are often stupid.

I’m sorry that “staying in touch with your friends” was so hard.  But it’s really not.  The people you care about, that care about you, are there.  They always have been, they always will be.  I don’t Facebook® much – why?  I call my friends, on an actual phone.  I text my friends.  Am I often the one that calls first?  Sure.  Do we develop different lives, does life pull us away for a while?  Do hundreds or thousands of miles separate us?  Maybe.  But I make quite a few phone calls.  And mostly my friends pick up. Sure, it’s true that the biggest miracle Jesus exhibited in the Bible was having 12 11 close friends (thanks, Judas) after the age of thirty – but you just need a few – a few that will have your back.  A few you can share with.

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Also, as a single guy it was easy to make friends.  Lots of girls I asked out wanted to be friends.

Seriously – number five on the list is a wish for “letting themselves be happier.”  Happy is easy (All You Will Ever Need To Read About How To Be Happy* (*Most of the Time)), being significant is hard.  It requires hard work while being true to yourself.  It requires expressing those feelings that your virtue allows to exist.  Friends?  The good ones will be with you forever, and you can restart your conversations with the slightest hint of time passing, even if you haven’t talked regularly in a decade, if they’re true friends.

I’ve never thought about going to a hospice and slapping someone, but this list made me want to do it.  I know, I know, it’s too late for them.  And this is the list of people who had regrets.  People like me?  I don’t have a single regret at this moment of my life.  Not one.  In a hospice, I hope I’d be the, “Regrets?  No.  More clam chowder, please,” guy.

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The Boy made me some fake ramen noodles this summer – it was an impasta.

To be clear – it’s not that I don’t care.  It’s not that I’m not blameless.  It’s not that I was always right.  Not one of those things is true.  But I have done the most important thing I can think of:  When I do something I regret, I’ve changed myself so that I won’t (Clintoncide, John Bolton’s Waifu, and October Market Crashes: Knock on Wood) do that thing again.  I cannot change the past.  But if I have learned, if I can help others not make the same mistakes while not repeating my own mistake?  Like an algebra teacher for the soul, I have taken something negative and turned it into something positive.  The bonus is I get to end the dreams of high school freshmen in the process.

And I’m not planning on having any regrets tomorrow.  If you have regrets?  Fix them now or recognize them for the dead weight they are and cut them loose.

The alternative?  Trust me, you don’t want to have me chasing you down in a hospice and slapping you silly.

BONUS SOUP MEME!  I made too much soup meme by accident.  Enjoy.

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The Best Monopoly Game For Your Leftist In-Laws

“World Socialism will be achieved peaceably. Our military role is strictly defensive. Is that understood?” – Octopussy

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A capitalist, a socialist, and a communist were meeting up.  The socialist was late.  “I’m sorry,” he explained, “I was standing in line for sausage.  The capitalist asked, “What’s a line?”  The communist asked, “What’s sausage?”

When I was a kid, say, younger than sixth grade, I loved to play Monopoly® at Thanksgiving.  It was great – it was simple to understand, and it involved buying properties to make money from the other players.  My Mom and Grandma would play along.  The fun part for young-me was that if you played the game right and got lucky roles you could reduce the other players to bankruptcy and evict them from your house.  I’ll miss Mom.

After a while Monopoly™ became not a game I looked forward to, but one I dreaded at Thanksgiving.  Why?  The game goes on forever, and the biggest determiner to who wins isn’t great playing ability – it’s luck.  It’s like playing Candyland© with houses.  So, I guess in that respect, it’s like owning real estate in California.  Also, at Thanksgiving I decided that eating enough tryptophan-drenched turkey to knock me on my sorry Thanksgiving butt was more fun, and the couch was as soft as the Cowboy™ defense.  But that was before Monopoly© Socialism™.

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But is it a gluten and conflict-free toilet paper made in a sustainable carbon-neutral factory?

Through whatever mechanism that Amazon© uses to track my purchases, it decided that I might be interested in a copy of Monopoly™ Socialism® as well as the tree-free-vegan-bamboo toilet paper.  I’m sure the toilet paper is carbon neutral, but I was more interested in the game, but sadly, Monopoly© Socialism™ was out of stock.  Amazon™ assured me it would be back in stock soon enough.  Part of the charm for me were some of the (actual) questions that other purchasers asked on Amazon®:

  • Do I have to wait in a long line for the privilege of purchasing this game, like a breadline in Venezuela?
  • Is the board waterproof so Progressive tears won’t ruin it?
  • Are there rolling blackouts? Do the players get to eat zoo animals?

With purchasers asking those questions, I knew I was in with my people.  I hit “add to cart” and it was on its way.  It arrived last Wednesday.

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Before candles, what did socialists use for lighting?  Electricity.  Which might explain why there were no utilities on the board.

The box was smaller than the usual Monopoly© box – the reason being that instead of just folding up the game board into halves, it folded up into quarters.  No biggie.  I thought that we’d keep the board game on a shelf, and perhaps pull it out next month to Make Thanksgiving Uncomfortable Again©, but Pugsley saw it, and convinced The Mrs. that we should play it on Saturday night.  As it didn’t look like learning the rules wouldn’t require an advanced degree in game design nor require the Supreme Court to weigh in on disputes, I agreed.

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I hear that after Ginsburg is gone, Leftists are worried that the decisions will be Ruth-less.

I have only one piece of advice when it comes to playing Monopoly® – do not allow The Mrs. to be the banker – she cheats.  I’m not making this up.  The Mrs. cheats gleefully and more-or-less openly (though she thinks she’s being sneaky) after a few glasses of wine.  It wasn’t three rolls into the game that I saw The Mrs. had been pilfering from the bank’s funds.  But The Mrs. obviously hadn’t been listening when I read the rules – the game is based on socialism, so you don’t win by having the most money.  You win by “helping” in the most projects, things like the “Rise Up” collective bakery.  If you help, you can put one of your Virtue Signal* tokens on the project while the community fund donates to the project.

*The game does not call these tokens Virtue Signal tokens, but the idea is to openly and publicly have other people pay for something that makes you look virtuous, so, to-may-to, to-mah-to.

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A Marxist, a Socialist, and a Communist tried to get into a bar.  The bouncer kicked them out after checking their IDs – “Come on back when you’re 21, guys.”

Money comes from the collective.  The game starts with 1848 dollars in the community fund, since the Communist Manifesto™ was published in 1848.  There is absolutely no reason to use one dollar bills in the game, so they tossed them in just for that joke so you can have 1848 dollars.  Nice touch.

I said the game starts with that much money in the community fund.  Every individual player starts with an socialist approved equal amount of zero dollars, so it was easy to see that The Mrs. was in a full on cheat when I saw she had a little pile of currency snuck back.  How does the game go if players don’t have money?  Easy.  If you don’t have money to buy property start a project or pay a fine, it comes from that initial pile of 1848 dollars, which gets replenished when you pass “Go” and get your living wage of 50 dollars, and you put in five for the community.

It’s not like that happened.  We didn’t make it all the way back to Go.  None of us even made it all the way around to Go.

The game ends either when a single player wins by playing all of their Virtue Signal tokens.  The game also ends when all of the 1848 dollars of community money is gone.  And if you run out of the 1848 dollars?  You lose.  Heck, everyone loses.

1848 dollars doesn’t last long.  And we’re not good socialists, so we all lost.

That loss, I think, is the underlying message of the game.  In socialism, pretty soon you run out of other people’s money to spend and everyone loses.  The game cost me $19.99, and it will be worth it to bring it out during Thanksgiving to be slightly more interesting than whatever snoozefest is going on in Detroit®.  It’s not like we wanted to talk to the Leftist side of the family anyway, right?

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I think if there Batman©-type Virtue Signal™?  It would have Justin Trudeau’s face.  I mean, without makeup.

But you can’t buy the game for $19.99.  It seems like Hasbro® has stopped making it.  Why?  I don’t know, and it’s useless to speculate if it sold out or if Hasbro™ folded to political pressure.  If you want to buy it on Amazon™ now, it’s selling for (cheapest price with free shipping) about $45, though it looked to be a bit cheaper elsewhere.  After playing the game, I certainly can’t recommend it at that price, unless you really want to trigger your Leftist neighbor/friend/relative.

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Maybe we should start calling Facebook™ and Twitter© Socialist media?

The reviews by purchasers at Amazon© are very positive, and they’re by verified purchasers.  The negative reviews, however, aren’t by verified purchasers, and one of them is obviously by someone who never even bought the game.

The reviews by websites on the Internet weren’t really reviews.  They were a listing of complaints that Monopoly® Socialism© didn’t accurately portray socialism.  I’m thinking that the talent of these people has been wasted – where were they when they could have been complaining that Marvel® movies don’t accurately portray superpowers or that Breaking Bad© isn’t a realistic view of teacher insurance policies in the Albuquerque Public School System?

It was as if this minor and humorous critique of socialism in the form of a board game had to be beaten back because the one thing that Leftism cannot stand is . . . being made fun of.  My favorite line from a review was this one where the reviewer almost (but not quite) achieves self-awareness:

Reading between the lines, the game’s designers are saying that with no incentive to work nothing gets done.

Somehow, that was intended as a dig against the game designers.  But it turns out that it’s an accurate representation of reality.  If there is no incentive to work, nothing gets done.  Period.

The simplest version of that statement is, “if you don’t’ work, you don’t eat.”  I’m pretty sure the reviewer (who has written thousands of posts for a clickbait site) would probably not show back up to work if they stopped paying him – he wouldn’t keep writing what the boss said if he couldn’t pay the rent or buy soy milk and chicken tendies.

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Socialism looks great on paper.  Unless that paper is in a history book.

It’s clear this game isn’t a real take on socialism, because the end of the game doesn’t feature a failed government, a population in near-starvation, shattered lives, and a blasted economy that will take a generation or more to heal.  In our house, the game ended up with a second bottle of wine, a different game, and a nice evening.

The one negative review that’s correct is this one, and it’s mine:  Socialism is a silly basis for a game, because everyone always loses.  And that’s why Monopoly® Socialism™ caused so many Leftist panties to twist:  because it got it 100% right.

 

Bad Bosses, Part I, Including Garfield as Written by H.P. Lovecraft

“Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth!  We weren’t meant to spend it this way.  Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements.” – Office Space

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“That’s what she said.”

I had just gotten the greatest performance review of my life.  It was outstanding in every way.  My boss (let’s call him Miller, it goes with the song) went on and on about how I was a stunning example of every possible good quality a person could have, and how I was universally loved, admired, and generally made women fertile just through a fleeting glance, and made men better than they thought they could be through the slightest example.  If the company needed someone to walk across a pond, on the top of the water, John Wilder was your guy.

For about a second, I bought it.  Flattery works because your mind really wants to believe all those nice things.  It’s like a horoscope, keep using nice adjectives, and you’ll find one that the person is already predisposed to agree with.

Then I thought about it – this guy Miller, my new boss, has been with the company about a month.  He barely knows where his office is and he’d only visited my office once.  For him to write a performance review like this?  I didn’t believe it.  As much as I’d like to think of myself in such glowing terms, I rejected his flattery.

Beyond mentally rejecting his praise as an attempt at manipulation, I also made the mental note never to trust Miller.

Why?

Anyone who will be quick to praise will be quick to condemn.  Besides, when I looked at him while he was smiling, he only smiled with his mouth – never with his whole face.  He was smiling because he was “supposed” to be smiling, not because the smile was genuine.  During those smiles Miller had the dead, flat eyes of a predator, like he was attempting to see if you were fooled and really believed the smile.

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I never did meet Miller’s wife – I think her invisibility suit worked pretty well.

I was careful to document every conversation with him.  Always trust your gut, people, unless your gut says socialism is a good deal.  If your gut says that, remember:  never go full Bernie.

I worked pretty far away from the company headquarters, where Miller’s office was.  I set up weekly calls to keep him informed on what I and my team were doing.  I’d done this in the past for my previous bosses.   These calls allowed them to understand what we were doing, and digest it for top management if they needed to.

Except.

Except I found out from a colleague that during these meetings, most of the time Miller was shopping for things online, teaching himself to play the banjo, translating Garfield® into cuneiform (did they even have lasagna in ancient Sumeria?) or, in general, not paying any attention to what I was saying.  My colleague noted that Miller generally wasn’t listening at all.

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If you get the cuneiform wrong and accidentally translate a passage from the Necronomicon© this is what you get.

Normally, that’s not a problem, I ran had been running my end of things for years, and after a few years you get used to the usual problems – and are expected just to handle them.  But my boss had a boss – call him my Grandboss.  When my Grandboss wanted to know about some aspect of what I was doing, he’d ask my boss, Miller.  Since Miller had literally no idea (despite weekly written reports and the phone call mentioned above) what I was doing, he did the simple thing:  he made it up.

Most of the time, it worked fine.  My Grandboss generally had an idea of what was going on, even if the specifics were a bit off.  But when the results my boss made up promised didn’t happen?  The Grandboss got mad.  Very mad.

So mad, in fact, that my Grandboss called me up one day and was yelling.  I explained, calmly, the real situation and the plan, and that seemed to calm him down.  He checked up a few more times to make sure what I said was really happening, and then went away.  But the troubles with Miller continued.  Our conversations became a random affair – one day he would be polite.  The next day, he would be literally yelling over the phone.  What had started out as a bad feeling based on that too-good-to-be-true performance review had morphed into a full-blown sitcom level bad boss.

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I mean, can you imagine such micromanaging?

I had one or two advantages – first, I had been at the company much longer and had several well-placed friends, and second, I wasn’t a deceitful sack of weasel meat.  I’m certain that my boss was lying based on my informants at headquarters, and I’m equally certain that the things Miller was saying weren’t very positive. It’s been several years, and my career is still recovering from his “help.”

I’m ashamed to admit it, but one of the happiest days of my life was when Miller got fired.  “But, you can’t fire me!  You don’t even know what I do!” were his comments as they took away his keys and allowed him to pop his personal possessions in a box and gave him a complementary cement bag (for the weight, dear).  And, he’s right – the Internet sure won’t surf itself.

As near as I can tell, the company didn’t skip a beat in his absence.  I’ll also admit that on the day he got fired, I had one of the best workouts of my life.  The entire time I worked out that lunch, I just listened to Mack the Knife on a loop for 45 minutes of the best treadmill time I’ve ever put in.  I smiled every second.  Why Mack the Knife?  I have no idea.  I rarely listened to it before, and haven’t listened to it even one time since that day until tonight.  As I write this, it’s on a loop in the background.

It may be a song from a Marxist play written by a Leftist, but it makes me happy that it made so much money – after the Marxist author died.  Also?  The most upbeat song about multiple murders.  Bonus trivia:  Lotte Lenya, mentioned in the song, played Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love.

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As you can see, she’s the perfect Bond® girl for 2019.

I’ve tried to feel bad about feeling so good because Miller was fired.  Even years later, it’s still a pleasant memory.  Yeah.  I shouldn’t feel good about that, but I do.

Okay, the choice was a single post that was twice as long as this, or this broken into two parts.  I chose two parts.  Next part is on Friday.