“Equal, but not even.” – Die Another Day
What did the Frenchman yell as he went down the slide? “YES!”
On Wednesday after the election, I consciously decided to sleep in – I had taken a vacation day from work. I slept in. It was luxurious. Like a Roman soldier, I really enjoy resting on my pila-case. At a time that was later than I’ll admit to, I rolled over in bed and picked up my phone.
Substantial leads for Trump from the night before had evaporated. For whatever reason, this reminded me of the story of the Fox and the Scorpion.
Fox and the Scorpion both wanted to cross a river. Why? Probably a decent discount on quality unpainted furniture on the other side. Scorpion wants to ride on the back of Fox. Fox, not being stupid, says, “Dude, you’re a scorpion, you’re going to sting and kill me!”
Scorpion, logically, responds, “C’mon, man! Let me tell you what my dead son Beau would say. You know the thing. But if I sting you while we’re crossing the river, I’ll die, too.” Scorpion paused, ”Just like I died when I fought Corn Pop.”
Fox, remembering his mandatory training on systematic speciesism, agrees and apologizes for his microagression and his foxist privilege. Fox says, “Hop on.”
Fox begins swimming through the river. Halfway to the other side, Scorpion stings Fox.
Fox, through the haze of pain and spreading paralysis as Scorpion’s neurotoxin spreads through his system says, “Scorpion! You’ve killed us both!”
Scorpion responds, “C’mon man! You knew I was a scorpion when I got on your back.”
I pushed the fable out of my mind as I slowly scrolled through all the data. I then turned off my phone. I went into the front room and sat down to read for a while. Pugsley and The Mrs. were off at school and work, respectively. It has been as rare as late-night TV show hosts with a sense of humor since 2016 that I’ve had the opportunity to just sit in silence without any work or a blog deadline hanging over my head. I decided to grab a burger and a beer.
How many vegans does it take to eat a Double Quarter Pounder® with cheese? One, if no one is watching.
In Modern Mayberry, we have five fast-food restaurants. The day was perfect in temperature, which means it was on the cold side for most people. I got to the speaker and ordered. I then drove home, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and ate my burger. I tried to remember what my doctor said. I think it was “Don’t eat anything fatty.”
It was good – cheesy and greasy and just the right amount of pickles. I then remembered what my doctor had really said, “Don’t eat anything, fatty.”
For me, Wednesday was about balance. It’s easy enough to fall into the trap of getting so wound up about politics that you lose perspective. Honestly, one of the nicest things about living in Alaska was that Lower 48 politics was thousands of miles away. You could nearly ignore it. I’ve found that turning off my phone works almost as well.
On Thursday, it was back to work, and back to writing. Of course, I have thoughts about the election, and you can probably guess what many of them are. But the big thing that comes to mind with the 2020 election is fraud. It’s easy enough to look for fraud, heck, when that psychic told me she’d take my check I knew she was a fraud.
These ballots are from Seattle, so they definitely got mac n’ cheese.
Honestly, if you look at nearly any election, you can find things that look like fraud if you look hard enough. The exception, of course, is my election to LOCAL OFFICE, where I estimate I had 335.33% more votes than the nearest competitor.
Hmmm, that sounds suspicious. 33533 is the same backwards as forward. And it’s all 3’s with one five. Normal numbers never look that way . . . except . . . I was running unopposed for a job that no one else seemed to want.
You can confirm your bias that I stole the election – that 335.33% just looks too perfect.
From an ideological perspective, stealing an election is the last thing I’d do. What ideology says that? The ideology of the Right
The ideology of the Right is very different than that of the Left. The Right is focused on Equality. The Left is focused on Equity. It’s really the fight between Equality and Equity that best defines the split between thinking on the Right and thinking on the Left.
A Marine with a salt and pepper beard is likely a seasoned veteran.
Western Civilization has always been a civilization of Equality and the philosophy of the Right. You are born. If you make your peace with God? You can go to Heaven. It’s up to you. No one will drag you across the line. If you want to create a business? Be a glorious hero? Sure, class may have come into it, but there was always room for the barbarian to make it to king.
The Right is Equality.
Equality is a 100 yard (3450 meters) dash. I line up on the same line with my opponent. When the starter pistol goes off, we start running. If I’m running against a moderately athletic high school-aged boy who doesn’t have tularemia, tuberculosis, typhus, and tetanus, he’s going to make it to the finish line first. If it’s a fat kid? Okay, I might dust him.
As long as he has typhus.
Equality is about having the same opportunities. The opportunity, in this case, is the open track. It’s the same for both of us. The opportunity includes the starter pistol. We’ll hear it at the same time. Each of us have the same conditions.
I have had many of the same opportunities in my life as Elon Musk. I’m thrilled that he’s doing so well. We had an equal shot at the world, and he ended up with billions. I’m good with that. He ran the race very, very well. His running allows us to win, and in the end, makes us all wealthier.
If Musk flew his Tesla® through a black hole, because of tidal gravity forces, he’d be Elon-gated.
Equality is obsessed with fairness. One person, one vote. In Modern Mayberry, I think that getting the local officials to bend the rules during voting would have a penalty worse than speaking loudly in the local library.
The rules matter, and we follow them. When The Mrs. had to get her license when we moved to Modern Mayberry, you could see the gleam in the DMV clerk’s eye as she ticked off the things The Mrs. had to produce to get her license.
- Birth certificate?
- Proof of address?
- Current electrocardiogram?
- Head of John the Baptist?
- Marriage certificate?
Yup. She was denied because she couldn’t prove that I’d married her. Ha! You can bet that The Mrs. wasn’t very happy when I drove her home singing, “Guess you are my property, doo-dah, doo-dah; my wife’s my chattel property all the doo-dah day.” Of course, as I said this I had a brand-new Upper-Lower-Midwestia license in my wallet.
The Mrs. was not amused.
But the DMV clerk was 100% being fair. The rules are the rules, no matter how stupid they might be. The rules are the rules, no matter who you are. And DMV clerks should follow them.
To the letter.
That’s Equality. No matter who you are, when you walk into the DMV office, you’re all equally dirt in their eyes. I think the DMV clerk even shed a tear when I had every single document she requested. Getting through on the first time was like cheating to her.
Never get behind the Devil at the DMV if you need to do paperwork – the Devil can take many forms.
Believing in Equality is why people on the Right don’t steal votes. They want to see the race run fairly. If you don’t have the right paperwork?
No license for you. I will say that when I got my license, the DMV clerk tried to get me to be an organ donor. That was a girl after my own heart.
The DMV, at least here, is Equal. Equity is different.
Equity is the belief that fairness isn’t measured on the starting conditions but on the outcome. If a 100 yard (.31 centimeter) race was run on Equity measures, I would only have to run, say, 50 yards if I was running against someone twice as fast as me. The goal of Equity isn’t to see who is fastest, it’s to structure the race so that people finish the way you want them to finish.
Given that Leftists are focused on Equity, or the outcome of the race, does it make sense that they’d try to steal an election?
Certainly.
Leftist focus only on the outcomes. If a process like the 100 yard (34 milliKelvins) dash produces results where someone is faster, it’s the process that’s wrong. If the process consistently produces a race where the fastest person wins?
To a Leftist, that’s unfair.
Not mine. Second time I’ve used this recently. The main problem is that the Equity in Reality panel is missing the pile of skulls that Leftism always, inevitably produces. And the Easter Bunny doesn’t exist, either.
Equity, in the mind of the Leftist, isn’t in the casting of ballots. Equity is in the counting of them. Your favored candidate is losing? What’s a few hundred thousand extra ballots? They can punch them with a hammer or a sickle.
Why do Leftists cheat?
C’mon man, it’s because they’re Leftists. What did you expect?
