A thought about how we raise our children: There’s a lot of emphasis put on “social skills,” and a temptation to read that as: Make your interactions with your peers rewarding, so that you brighten their day, and motivate them to come seek out your company more often later.

We think of this as the baseline requirement for growing up well-adjusted, socially engaged, not-an-asshole. An asshole is a child who’s given up on this as he matures. For some reason, he’s driven to make these interactions non-rewarding for people. We don’t put a lot of effort into figuring out why this wouldn’t be, but we know we don’t want our children to grow up into that.

And yet so many do!

From what I’ve seen of people, a whole lot of them give up on this “interaction is mutually rewarding” thing fairly early in the game, and we don’t call them “assholes”; we call them introverts. But I’m also seeing a lot of them, perhaps all of them, give up on this aspiration to make their social interactions mutually rewarding, for the simple reason they haven’t found them to be that way.

Interacting with others isn’t fun for them. It hasn’t been. How do they figure out how to make these interactions rewarding for others? Such a handicap would be entirely debilitating. You wouldn’t even be able to get started on such a task.

I notice something else about people: “Socially engaged” and “functioning properly,” no matter how much we may wish it to be so, is not equivalent to “make social interactions rewarding for everybody.” It’s far more accurate to peg it more like “Ostracize the right people” or “the usual suspects.” Figure out who’s being made a pariah, by everyone else, and then help do that. Show you’re proper clique material by loving the right people and then hating the right other people. Display the proper stencil pattern in your selection.

We teach this early. In all the schools. Informally. And, enthusiastically.

The hatred put on President Trump genuinely frightens me. There are those who would say I identify with it because I’m an “asshole” just like Trump. We have it in common that we’ve given up on making interactions mutually rewarding with other people — who, all too often, are simply not trying. Serves us right! We chose to be assholes! Well…I look at what happened during the State of the Union address, and I’m thinking…did we? Really? We have a lot of people among us who are genuinely convinced, down to the marrow of their bones, that they’re thinking for themselves. Articulate, engaged, highly educated people. And yet they hate everything Trump has done. Everything.

You show them something Trump did that is objectively good — undeniable. Lowering the crime rate, negotiating the release of hostages, etc. And they’ll find a way to deny.

There’s only one conclusion to draw, and it’s about us. It isn’t flattering. We do not call out undesirable policies, harmful policies, “asshole” behavior, rudeness crudeness etc. People don’t criticize that stuff. They criticize brands. There can be debates about “You painted a target on your own back” or “You did it to yourself,” but the fact is, that’s how it works. If you are of the brand which is to be criticized, you can’t do anything right. Everything you do is wrong.

If you’re Trump and you cure cancer, the concern is over the right people have to die of cancer, and you’re denying them that.

There’s only one explanation: Someone is distributing talking points in hard copy, like on actual cards. Like a poker dealer dealing out cards. A good democrat is supposed to take the card and then repeat what’s on it over and over.

Because it doesn’t make sense to say “It was staged!” and also “I’m sad that he missed.” One or the other of those. Not both.

I guess that quality of mutual exclusivity didn’t make it into the instructions, or too many people weren’t paying attention. Or the cards stuck together. But we have an awful lot of democrats who are following letter and not spirit. It’s too bad he missed — and — it was staged. We out here are supposed to take all that seriously? We can’t. The pieces don’t fit together.

You shouldn’t need me to point that out for you, democrats. Your brains have atrophied ahead of time in anticipation of this perfect new world you want to build.

We have got to get into the habit of discussing ideas. You know, that thing the Greeks were doing post-Socrates. A 2,500 year old idea idea about how to evaluate ideas. Why should we do X. Why should we not do Y. What’s true. What’s false. What do we know. What do we not know. What’s it all mean.

“I am forming an impression that you are a stupid person because of this idea you have” has become a sort of default template for all arguing and we really have to bring it to a stop like a.s.a.p. There are many reasons why I say this.

For one thing, like Justice Scalia used to say, we have some very good people pushing some awful ideas. You’ve taken a wrong fork in the road if you’re attacking the person. You’re making it look like people risk friendships when they discuss politics, and you’re also lending a certain credibility to that. You’re providing evidence that it’s true, and people have to refrain from discussing politics to remain friends. This naturally means people need to deceive each other to maintain their friendships. It’s awkward, unworkable and it’s fracturing a good nation.

What follows is, or is not, a separate item on this list. Maybe it’s not. You decide. Smart people push dumb ideas. They do it all the time. We have some friends we know because I used to work with the husband. They’re the couple who seem to understand the spirit of Red Meat Saturday better than most — they’re into it for the meat and wine, and the fellowship. They absolutely get it, and I respect the husband’s level of intellect enormously. I’m sure he’s smarter than I am. But they’re liberals because of the wife, it really shows, and some of the ideas he pushes are totally idiotic. I would never presume they’re representative of his level of intellectual acumen. That would be…well…stupid.

Now this is another item on the list: It’s not persuasive. Really, think back. How many minds have you changed by telling people their political opinions make them idiots? You’ve probably seen it work as often as I have. Big fat zero. I can guarantee it will never work on me because a lifetime of foul-ups has dissuaded me from trying to convince people I’m smart. “Morgan’s brilliant, he’ll have no problem figuring this out” has consistently preceded awful disasters and I don’t want to hear it anymore. It also ends with a dangling preposition and I don’t like that, but that’s neither here nor there.

What if you run into someone who you’re genuinely convinced is a dumb person? Here is an important point about dumb people that demands some focus, although I think most people have figured it out already. To a dumb person, a normal person doesn’t look smart. Dumb people see normal people as dumb people. To you, it seems I’m describing this person with a wrong opinion who you’ve decided is dumb. Well, he sees you that way, and that remains true even if he really is the stupid person and you’re the brilliant genius. No matter how you cut it, it’s a stale mate. And it’s entirely disconnected from the pressing question of which idea is the better one.

Another item: When you call people idiots for subscribing to a certain idea, or failing to accept your own idea with sufficient enthusiasm, it may not convince them but it will certainly make you feel better about your position even though you might not have reason to feel good about it. It tends to make you into an intractable asshole.

Finally, and maybe this is the same item as the previous paragraph, again you decide. It’s just plain immature. It’s what little kids say on the playground. Third grade playground. “You’re dumb!!” When you have an opinion that’s different from someone else’s, but you can’t say why you have it, or why the other person has theirs, and you’re totally unprepared to argue about it in every meaningful way…that’s your go-to. Your one port in the storm. “You’re dumb!”

Knock it off. Now. I mean it.

For I am a bear of very little brain. There are lots of people smarter than me. Some of them have opinions different from mine. But I’m right and they’re wrong…I think…not that I’m super-duper sure about it, but that’s the way things are going to stay until you can present me with an argument about why I have it backwards, and they’re the ones who are right, and I’m wrong until I change my mind. But you have to make it a good argument. Something coherent and logical, based on known truths. Something people use when they’re older than 8.

Smart people have figured out President Trump is a king. Or is trying to be a king, or something.

They’ve figured out he’s the reincarnation of Hitler and is trying to take rights away from women. I can’t see how he’s taking any women’s rights away. You might say I did “Nazi” this coming.

They know, because I don’t share their hatred, I must be “in a cult.” If I’m in one, I can’t see it. They think — no, they know — we shouldn’t have done anything about Iran at all. So they must know Iran is harmless, like for sure. Or if they have any uncertainty about it, their superior smarts enable them to see we should all pretend not to have any doubts. Wait some more before doing anything about them. Wait until the missiles are flying.

I’m not smart enough for that to make sense to me. Seems to me if missiles are flying, it’s probably too late.

It must be nice to be so sure of everything. But then again, these smart people aren’t so sure a woman is a woman. They need a biologist to tell them what a woman is.

They’ve figured out we’re invading the “Iranqcks” for the oil. This is news to me. How’s that work, anyway?

They’re so smart they see something safe and non-threatening in a regime that shouts “Death to America” over and over again for 47 years. And they see something dangerous and “problematic” in a president who, after a succession of prior presidents who talked about this problem a lot without doing anything, actually solved the problem. Danger in safe things, safety in dangerous things, truth and consistency in people who do the opposite of what they say they’ll do, and skulduggery and shenanigans in people who do exactly what they said they’d do.

Because they’re this smart, they strut around with their chests puffed out, like pigeons. Feeling very good about it all.

But maybe they shouldn’t.

1. Given that white people were slaves sometimes, and some black people were slave owners, how can we ever get started figuring out this “reparations” settlement — anywhere?
2. How could women have possibly “fought for and won the right to vote” without at least some male assistance, if the women did not yet have the right to vote?
3. If masculinity is toxic, how come the dysfunction, illiteracy and high crime come from perpetrators who grew up without fathers or father figures?
4. Reagan’s inquiry: If none of us can be trusted with governing our own affairs, where do we get these wise, angelic public servants who are somehow fit to manage everyone else’s?
5. If women can do anything men can do, then how come there is a “patriarchy” we need to overthrow or upturn? How could that possibly have come to be? How did men end up leading or dominating anything anywhere?
6. If genitalia do not determine gender, then how does surgically altering them “affirm” it?
7. If it’s impossible (or okay) to be racist against white people, how are we ever going to achieve equality?
8. Given that people are law abiding, how is the society in which they live made unstable, when there is greater material inequality?
9. How can a government guarantee a service as a “basic human right” without involuntarily conscripting the people who have the capability to provide that service?
10. If we accept that government is less efficient in spending money, most of the time, compared to the taxpayers who’d spend the money if they were allowed to hang on to it; why then do we become perplexed when we discover a wealthy person or a corporation didn’t pay as much in taxes as we think proper? As long as it’s legal, shouldn’t we be celebrating that?
11. If there is no God, how did plants and animals develop the ability to reproduce? Walk me through it.
12. If it’s “not all men, but always a man” doing these bad things; what are we to do about that? Assuming wrongdoers are a subset of males, what sort of plan of action can we build around that? Seems some sort of deprivation of liberty without due process is the only preventative remedy. Or is that the point?
13. Since we have a process for enacting new laws and repealing the ones we find to be in error, and we even have an amendment process for the Constitution, what’s up with these “peaceful protests”? They’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing unless they physically obstruct law enforcement operations, or some other normal operations, right? So they’re altercations. Why call them peaceful? And why do we need them?
14. If DEI is good, why is it an insult to suggest someone is a “DEI Hire”?
15. How do you go about figuring out whether or not land is “stolen,” if borders don’t, or shouldn’t, matter?
16. If women are routinely doing the same work as men just as competently and efficiently for a fraction of the pay, why don’t companies everywhere make bigger profits by hiring only women?
17. If we’re only just imagining the vote fraud, and it doesn’t really exist, why not go ahead and require voter ID and in so doing, prove it?
18. Why didn’t the Biden administration release whatever is in the Epstein files that would have embarrassed Donald Trump?
19. How can Donald Trump be Netanyahu’s puppet if he’s already Vladimir Putin’s puppet?
20. Assuming you’re invested in some way in our oil industries and you have partial control over our country’s foreign policy; how do you realize ill-gotten gains or any other material benefit from our “invasion of an oil rich country”? How does such action improve your personal economic situation? What’s the plan? Does it involve increasing, or decreasing, the price of oil? Neither? Both?

For half a century or so, I’ve been listening to people who consider themselves too smart to be deceived by anything or anybody, figure out that the countries we invade or liberate or conquer or whatever…are “oil rich.”

This seems to me like “wet streets cause rain” thinking. I myself have been noticing that these countries are consistently dominated, rather than governed, by some egotistical asshole. There is, consistently, a history of recent maneuvers put into effect by said asshole preceding our interference or whatever-we-did. So maybe, just maybe, this abundance of natural resources, which includes oil, enables this asshole into thinking he can’t do anything wrong…which precedes these moves that a more humble and prudent nation wouldn’t contemplate. Time after time, such a situation escalates further and further with nothing stopping it, until something has to be done.

Here in this country, activists have literally ruined just about everything. It starts with this mythology about “peaceful protests” being the “hallmark” of “democracy.” It is the opposite of what’s true: We enjoy all the benefits of elevating the common man, so that he has a voice in our public affairs and policies, which we call “democracy.” What maintains this is the willingness of the losing side to say — eh, we blew it. We had a fair contest and we lost. The next two-to-four years belong to the other side, and we still have the rights of the minority, but the minority is what we are. Let’s lick our wounds, go off and figure out how we’re out of step with the mainstream, assuming we really are. Or, how we botched our messaging. Resolve to do better next time, but accept that until then, we’re not the majority. They are.

What we have come to accept as “peaceful protests,” are the exact opposite of that. Peaceful or not, they’re temper tantrums. They’re the child playing Monopoly who lacks the maturity to accept the periodic setbacks, throwing money, Chance Cards and plastic hotels across the room.

It’s a question we should all be asking more often, about a great many things: How come it is that seemingly everyone goes bonkers all at once?

Blame the girls? Maybe. Possibly.

But, what she’s talking about is a change in tone, not quite so much a change in demographic. Although the change in demographic is bringing about that change in tone. But with that, our fellas are acting a lot more like women than they used to…and the women are compensating for that, bringing the manly masculine characteristics where they’re needed, and where they can no longer count on their “brothers” to do it.

We’re definitely feminized more than we used to be, just a decade ago. Seems undeniable.

The shouting back and forth about those two stupids who challenged armed federal law enforcement, imposing themselves as something between an irritant and a threat, has diminished lately to a dull roar. Before the issue drops off the radar entirely, I’d like to make one more observation. Someone should. This never was an honest discussion. It often appeared to be what it really was, but it never presented itself that way.

Those intent on making enough noise that their numbers seem to be greater than they really are, insist the authorities who discharged the rounds, and/or their employing agencies, should be up for some kind of punishment. Others don’t think that. This inspires a furious exchange of ideas, not unlike an exchange of gestures between two wild badgers tied up in a bag. Beneath this exchange there is a layer, hidden from view, in which other ideas are exchanged with the same force and fury; the difference of opinion, here, is about what we take into account when bad things happen to you. There’s a “daddy faction” placing importance on the dumb stupid thing you did right before the bad thing happened, and a “mommy faction” that wants to ignore this entirely. The latter of which insists, in so many words, that bad things should never happen. It doesn’t matter how stupid you were. There should be some kind of guarantee, and the guarantee should be in place, inviolable, every minute womb to tomb.

Well…not womb to tomb. Cord-cutting doctor-spanking first-cry to tomb. Or, to euthanasia treatment. But those are wholly different issues.

This is a significant observation, if I dare say so myself. We’re eardrums-deep in these cries of “Watch the video!” or “I saw the video!” or “Did you see the video??” But it’s not about angle of car tires or what model of 9mm pistol or any of that. It’s about whether you should expect bad things to happen to you when you do dumb stupid things. Some of us say yes and some of us say no, the latter being more militant about it, insisting on absolutes, iron-clad guarantees and never-never-never.

I notice “When you pee up a rope, piss lands on you” is a sort of a standard. There are consequences for flouting the standard. I also notice, observing human behavior, that in the absence of standards performance sinks…and sinks…and sinks. It’s how we’re built. There is no bottom. More time allocated means slower completion of tasks. More physical space granted means sloppy sprawling. A lower expectation of cleanliness means a bigger mess.

The mommy-faction is not thinking logically. Or, not taking human behavior into account. They want to abolish all standards with their hue and cry of “No matter what s/he did, s/he didn’t deserve that!” They need to watch Unforgiven. It’s got nuthin’ to do with deserve. It’s about consequences. And that doesn’t mean the daddy faction wants these two dipshits dead. If you actually talk to the people in the daddy faction, you’ll pick up a strong preference that the two dipshits should still be alive. Coupled with an understanding that people in the daddy faction don’t get to decide what other people do. So that’s why the dipshits are dead.

But the mommy faction people don’t talk to the people in the daddy faction. They just upload prose and poetry about “s/he didn’t deserve that” onto Facebook.

I notice something else. Now that we’ve established the mommy faction is not thinking logically and not taking human behavior into account, and not coherently discussing the issue with their opposition, we should not be surprised to see what’s next: Stridently insisting on punishment for the armed officers and/or their employing agencies, they’re not in any way united or settled on what this punishment might be. Oh they’re great for tossing around ideas: Murder conviction, civil penalties, reform of the agency, abolish the agency. A lot of them are in favor of abolishing the agencies. It’s already been explained to them, multiple times, by myself and others, that the agencies exist to enforce laws on the books, namely that you can’t just waltz across our border and start living here in the shadows, unauthorized. If you don’t like that law, you have a variety of tools at your disposal you can use to reform the law or get rid of it. How come you not doing that?

But — did I mean to imply that the mommy and daddy factions are still married and living in the same house? I should not have done that, for marriage is an institution that works when it joins together two fully functional adults. That’s not what we have going on here. The mommy faction, having already expurgated the notion of meeting standards, living under a system of laws, or performing to someone else’s expectations, is made up of box-wine cat-lady mommies. That’s why we’re having this debate about consequences for doing dumb things. Funny how that happens: An insistence on impunity following any dumb stupid thing, morphs into a push for more dumb stupid things. The elimination of “Find Out” after the “Fuck Around” shrivels up, like a banana on a window sill, into an elimination of responsibility or obligation, and a push for more dumb silly individualistic behavior, more fucking around. Bushels of I-get-to without so much as a teaspoon of I-have-to or I’m-obliged-to.

It’s a good conversation for the nation to have, especially in a midterm election year.

But, let’s just keep in mind what we’re really discussing.

Donald Trump is not at the center of it all. Neither are our immigration control agencies. These are merely manifestations, shadows of our real conflict between the serious and creative, versus the absurd and (self-) destructive.

Great stuff. Bulls-eyes something that’s been a favorite theme of mine, for years and years. Many years. All the years since I realized people showing off their empathy for others, were doing a lot more damage to those others — and to me too, for what that’s worth — compared to those who didn’t care so much about what others thought. One Michael Clary writes at RodMartin.org:

Stop Falling for Weaponized Empathy
For all the gullible Christians angrily venting about ICE, your Christian love is not pure. You’re functioning as agents of chaos. Stop it.

Weaponized empathy is everywhere right now. And Christian, you have got to stop being so gullible and falling for it.

Seriously, your naivete might feel warm, nice, friendly, and loving. But that’s not how true Christian love works.

I saw a post by the radical progressive “pastor” Benjamin Cremer that was getting shared a lot on Facebook. The post listed all the “un-Christlike things” he claims that ICE is supposedly doing, such as using “children as bait,” “shooting unarmed protesters,” “teargassing families,” and “terrorizing immigrant communities and people of color.”

[snip]

But here’s the truth: it isn’t Christlike to be gullible. It isn’t Christlike to believe and share debunked propaganda. It isn’t Christlike to be led by your emotions. It isn’t Christlike to outsource your critical thinking skills to the left-wing activists in the media.

So why are Christians so gullible? It’s because they’ve been trained to think “love” means whatever it feels like in their happy place. They assume Jesus just wants us to be nice and get along and never do unpleasant things like hold people accountable for their actions. They equate “love” with their feelings. They assume Jesus wants them to go around and feel sorry for people, no matter what they’ve done to bring harm upon themselves, because Jesus is all compassion and zero accountability. And if people are held accountable in ways that cause them pain, then that is not being “Christlike.”

I can only speak for myself, but I’m so far down this road as to start wondering about the strength of this seductive power. People fall for it when it doesn’t end up helping anybody, and surely they must be able to see this. Because it’s an opportunity to show off how empathic they are, how nice and wonderful they are. How much they care about people. What brings such potency to that sort of a draw? Why the eagerness? Christians may value community esteem, but only to a point; they’re supposed to know and understand the reckoning of the omnipotent God supersedes the opinions of everybody else.

Why not just do things you know are good for people, and whatever anybody else thinks about it, well, like whatevs. That’s supposed to be the big motivation. That should outrank everything. Why doesn’t it?

Compensating for something? What’s in their past? What is it they don’t like about themselves?

So, for all the gullible Christians who are angrily venting about ICE, your Christian love is not pure. It is not blameless. You are functioning as agents of chaos. You bear the blame for your irrational outrage, even if you present it as love and care and compassion…Allowing anti-Christian and anti-American radicals to manipulate you through weaponized empathy is a sin. It is wrong to carelessly wield the name of Christ, making false accusations against law enforcement and making excuses for criminals.

I do not think “the majority of undocumented immigrants are good people.” I think that’s false. Can’t prove it. But I have to be honest, my skepticism is growing.

1. I keep hearing it. Never with any variations to the words. Suggests mass produced propaganda. Much replication little thought.

2. “Majority,” taken literally means more than half of something. Someone would have to go through all of these immigrants and apply tests to see how many are good. I don’t think they did that. If they did, they should get word to the officials who are struggling to figure out if we have 5, 10, 15 million or more.

3. The people who say illegals are mostly good people don’t go on to say MAGA people or church people are also mostly good. They speak and think in terms of stereotypes, attesting from a cartoon world. They “know” a little too much about which groups are all good and which ones are all bad. Real life doesn’t work like that.

4. What do good people do when they’re compelled to migrate off grid, work and get paid under the table for a season, go home and then go through the same thing the following year? They would, I’m very sure, change that situation after awhile. Move their families. Fill out the forms, pay the fees, fines, whatever. They wouldn’t keep doing it. A conscious decision to just live out one’s life that way suggests something to hide.

I wish we could discuss the issue, veering away from this weird daisy-chain-fallacy of “illegal immigrants are just immigrants, immigrants are brown people, you have to presume purity in brown people or else you’re racist.” It’s not how mature people make decisions about things. And we have to get serious about violent crime. Once we’re serious about it we have to stay that way. We’ve experimented a lot, over the last century or so, with turning a blind eye to violent crime, deciding some other matters are more important for this reason or that one. It hasn’t worked out well. Courts leaning too far in the direction of protecting the accused, at the expense of the rights of the victims; timid prosecutors afraid to open anything they don’t think they can close. People get hurt as a consequence.

There are very few “victim” classes more deserving of our sympathy and our resolve to make things right, than victims of violent crime. It is really the ultimate in minding your own business right before someone jumps in to create whatever chaos, damage whatever property, or deal out whatever injury.

Thought I should go ahead and embed this one. I was listening to it in the car right after it came out, and it took into account everything that had been verified at that time, steering clear of any known falsehoods. I know none of this is funny, but “St. Tail Light” makes me chuckle a bit.

And of course I know why. These simplistic constructs are so hastily cobbled together of good people and bad people. It’s embarrassing when real life is revealed to be real life, and things turn out to be a touch more complicated.

The videos, the videos. People see them and they come away with this conclusion or that one, but seldom with any minds changed. Contrary to popular wisdom, the videos don’t educate us that much about the people shot and killed by ICE or Border Patrol agents, or whether the shootings were justified, or not. They teach us about our own human nature.

There’s something special about Minnesota, and Minneapolis. The mainstream press wants to put out the story that the Trump administration is picking on the locale, ostensibly because people didn’t vote for them in 2024 or 2020, and/or 2016 or something. But this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If you’re washing a car and you see a particularly filthy spot on the car, you scrub. If the grease spot defies your efforts, you scrub harder until it’s gone. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether that particular fender voted against you or is angry with you.

But if it is capable of anger, and that anger can somehow be tied in with this resistance to your efforts, of course you’ll intensify your efforts. It’s part of the job. So yes, there are more enforcement agents in Minnesota.

Leftists enjoy the luxury of not only telling us what’s going on there, but what we should think about it both before and after we see the videos. But with the latter, all they can really do is try. They forgot that we can form whatever conclusions we wish. It’s not up to them to dictate.

I’ve decided, from this, that I don’t want leftists/liberals running anything. Of course I didn’t want that before, but all this just confirms my sensible conclusion that they shouldn’t run anything. I recognize they don’t want me making any decisions about anything either. But I happen to be right. I’m not trying to wreck everything, and they are. But from watching them go at it on social media, how they pick up these talking points and run with them, and taking into account all the chaos and destruction I see in these other large cities they’re running, I come to realize

1. If there is violence, The Left consistently comes out ahead. It doesn’t matter if they’re the ones committing the violence — in which case, they get what they want because people are intimidated. There’s a name for that. Terrorism. Or, if they’re the ones feeling threatened by the violence, claiming victim status from the violence, or the possibility of the violence, making a show of being scared. Either way, they get what they want. Someone somewhere is taking notes about this. Wherever their desire to win is most keen, that’s where things start to become unstable. And for that, of course, they want us to blame others, but who stands to benefit? Liberals who want to win, foment violence. It’s clear they see that as a winning strategy. In this case they’re trying to put together the narrative that the law enforcement authorities are dangerous, trigger-happy, chomping at the bit for any excuse to start gunning down civilians. Why then are they organizing more protests? If you take their concerns seriously, it doesn’t make any sense. But if you take note that liberals consistently win from violence, everything falls into place.

2. The right to swing your fists around ends where someone else’s nose is. If you listen to a liberal waxing lyrically of his rights or of a fellow liberal’s rights, it’s all fists and no noses. They don’t even acknowledge the other noses are there. For years I’ve been warning about people who make decisions based on feelings rather than thought. We think of emotions and feelings as a sort of first step to being kind and considerate to others. But the truth is, people who value feelings over thought, value THEIR feelings. Theirs. Not yours. And they don’t care about your nose. They just want their rights, as they interpret them. There’s no spirit of negotiation, no trading of half-a-loaf, no concession of anything. Over the years I’ve come to see this in everything they’re willing to discuss, every little issue in which they want to extol the virtues of their “civil rights” or what have you. I see it in the abortion issue, which the country as a whole recognizes as a conflict of interests between mother and child, but to the emotionally entrenched liberal, it’s distastefully distilled down into the simplicity of “her right to choose.” I see it in all the controversy washing over what they call “the January 6 insurrection”; the rest of us should enjoy an implied right to justified confidence that an election was conducted securely, fairly and with integrity, but the liberals don’t think so. And I see it in these physical confrontations between protesters and law enforcement agents, the latter of whom have the right to defend themselves but again, the liberals think rights are things that only exist on one side. I see this over and over again. Feeling over thought, and people who decide these weighty matters with feelings don’t care about anyone else’s.

3. They think in terms of simplistic narratives. When they’re in conflict with others, which is often, their vision of the kind of “win” they want to score looks like a daisy-chain of prizes, one after the other. Example: ICE is to be found guilty of homicide and/or a variety of procedural transgressions. As I’ve pointed out before, that’s different from yanking ICE out of Minnesota. And that in turn would be different from opening our borders and granting amnesty to all the illegal aliens who have entered and started living here without authorization. To the passionate emotion-driven liberal, though, it’s all one win. Or rather a chain reaction, like firecrackers with their fuses braided together. One is to follow the other. This is a distortion of the issues, and an effective one; the nominally curious but not too meticulous observer will start to conflate these two issues. In this way it’s “decided,” albeit passively, that we may be a nation of laws, but our laws about the border shouldn’t count for anything because “we” will not stand to see those actually enforced. For the nation at large, that’s just an error in judgment, one that’s reinforced across time by precedent. But for the strategically minded liberal, and the unscrupulous businesses that depend on this illegal labor, it’s a battle plan. Unfortunately, when carried to its natural conclusion, it leaves the rest of us wallowing around in a kaleidoscopic mishmash of “laws” that don’t really mean anything, short leashes staked to the ground used to tether in place only those who are willing to abide by them, while the rest run around wild and free. And I think everyone realizes deep down that our society can’t function that way.

I listen to these liberals expressing their feelings, pretending to have discussions with concerned people like me, but really just showing off for each other. I can see their feelings of what’s right and what’s wrong should take precedence over the plain meaning of written law; but when you compare the law to someone else’s understanding of right and wrong, it’s different. The other person’s perception of right and wrong don’t even enter into it. And then how someone else might interpret the written law, that doesn’t seem to enter into it either.

I don’t want liberals running anything. They’re not ready to accept the responsibility anyway. If they were capable of accepting responsibility for something not coming out right, they wouldn’t be liberals in the first place.

That should really be the Republican position this year, and most every presidential or midterm election year. But especially this midterm election year: “We don’t want democrats running anything.” And these are the reasons.

Of course, the rejoinder will come back thick and fast: You’re alienating the noble centrists, the ones who consider themselves above it all.

And then the Republican strategists will start assuaging and mollifying: Oh no, we didn’t mean it. We’re okay with whoever running whatever. Just put us in Congress though, because, uh, er, ah, you know, reasons.

When what they should say is: Ya know what? If you sensible centrists can’t see the logic in it, we don’t want you running anything either.

It has been explained to me that when people consistently fail to understand something, they may not be trying to understand it; in fact, they may be putting in a good amount of effort to avoid understanding it. Intelligence or lack thereof may not be the limiting factor. There must be a third problem concealed from view, somewhere, for my failure to understand liberals has been like an itch under a cast that my coat hanger can’t reach. People tell me not to pay attention, but as a California resident, I look around and I see the strangeness of liberals impacts every little thing around me, everything I do. Could intelligence be the limiting factor? I am a bear of very little brain, I know.

But looking at it from high to low and with all available humility, evaluating it scientifically, I know there is some intelligence somewhere I can bring to the fight. I know this because fresh, new and unfamiliar problems, emerging on those very few occasions, confound and perplex me. After I’ve solved them, I’m not proud of the use I’ve put to my time — but, now, whatever the problem is, it’s no longer unfamiliar. It goes into the inventory of familiar problems. Which I can solve easily and nimbly. That’s intelligence. It may not be something I can bring to a contest with some other intelligent person selected at random. But that’s not the question. I’ve got at least some! But after decades and decades of having my face ground into the problem of liberals, sometimes in concert with my wishes, sometimes against ’em, like a puppy having his face mashed into his own feces; I’m just as confused today as I was as a child, hearing for the very first time of “Watergate.”

I’m under the impression that the thing I really want to know about, is concealed with several layers of obscurity and duplicity, with fragmented bits of evidence that are evidence only because they’re somewhat connected, but only weakly, left out in the daylight for my studying and evaluation. Like figuring out the nuances of a giant’s asshole by studying his toenails. My impression is that I’m struggling to figure something out about the liberals that the liberals, themselves, don’t completely comprehend.

Lately they have busied themselves with their efforts to re-weave the social fabric that binds us all. These efforts are out in full view of everyone. They fancy themselves to be in charge of the dashboard full of levers, buttons, switches and dials, in autocratic control of the rewards and punishments that fall on the rest of us as we participate in society. They’re not completely wrong about this. My observation, though, is that this has become the Trump-hater’s go-to tool: “How could you vote for a man who…” followed by some kind of fluff. We’ve really done it now. Our apologies are going to fall on deaf ears as history vilifies us! Our apologies? I don’t know of any Trump supporter offering any. Bear in mind that today, nearing the end of the calendar year, we’ve got some half of a year or more since we’ve seen any discussion of policy from the liberals or other Trump-phobes. We used to argue about tariffs; they were going to do this and do that and upset the balance of nature and result in higher prices across the board and another Great Depression. It seems, when that didn’t happen, that’s when someone in some central command-control kiosk decreed the new talking point is going to be this history-will-condemn-you stuff.

There is a problem here and it’s rather obvious. Social conditioning will work with pronounced effect, and most efficiently, on some of us but not on all of us. In fact, just about everyone who’s open to its effects, has been converted already. There’s little point to getting some “wave” going of “I hate Trump because everyone else seems to hate him,” because those people already abandoned any support of Trump quite some time ago, assuming they ever had any.

And so we’ve all embarked on this cycle that’s become embarrassing to watch. Liberals and other Trump haters will thunder away about how it’s too late for us to apologize for supporting you-know-who, history will mark us dirty, we’re going to be struggling to hide any evidence that we ever voted for him or said anything flattering or supportive about him, etc…and then someone will emerge to intone: “No use talking to these people.” But they’ll make sure we can see them saying this. Bees don’t waste their time telling flies that honey’s better than shit! — buzzed the bee, loudly, making sure all the flies can hear him explaining this to the other bees. All the flies. Again, for the ones in the back…

And then I guess someone somewhere is taking stock of how many of us have been converted this way. And the answer that emerges from that, must be falling short of something because, like a child who’s just made a grand final exist from the room in tears, slamming the door shut but then thinking of one more thing to add, they thunder back in with “And another thing!” And the cycle renews. History will blah blah blah…now bear in mind what I said, it’s been months since discussion of any policy issue.

I don’t get it. I understand midterms are coming up and we’re about to hear all about “a woman’s right to choose.” It will be up to those hearing it, be they sympathetic to the cause or not, to bolt on to the end of that hackneyed catchphrase — “to murder unborn babies” since those repeating it, so consistently lop it off for obvious reasons. And I guess they can’t argue issues because Trump’s been fixing them.

Pundits, leaning in all sorts of different directions, are prognosticating a “blue wave” next year. Could very well be. I don’t know. I see for the past several years, there hasn’t been one. Does Obama even count? That looked more like “Look at me, no way I can be racist I’m voting for a black guy” than any widespread or passionate approval of left-wing policies.

It could be my rose colored glasses fooling me; I’ve been wrong before. But I’m looking around and I’m seeing an awareness of what’s been bothering me for years now, that I didn’t see before — just a few years back, it was me singing my lonely little song, off in the tall grass, in quiet frustration that nobody else was noticing this. Liberals run our big cities. All of them. And misery abounds. We don’t need to wonder about the effects their policies have. We know. For sure.

The liberals, themselves, look on these pronounced, unique effects, and they don’t try to cloud the issue with “Actually that city did have a Republican mayor, just ninety years ago.” No. They accept the responsibility, and spin the results. Their favorite tactic is to claim credit for the “high per capita income” in this or that big city. Yes…big cities have high average incomes. When it costs five grand to rent a tiny studio apartment and you’re taxed up the butt on everything, you have to make money. Or, be a homeless person. That’s a liberal big-city for you. You have to do a little bit of thinking about whether you want that for the country as a whole, and it seems to me the country, at large, has done the thinking. But again. That’s just my perspective. Rose colored glasses.

At the end of it, if I were a Trump-loathing liberal who was concerned about the midterms next year, I wouldn’t be swaggering into this poker match confident of my high hand. “Trump’s an oaf” and “Trump is boorish” could have been effective maneuvers, but those who might have been swayed by such personality-based arguments, were already swayed a long time ago. I would be looking at policy differences. That’s what elections are supposed to be about, is it not? For them to abandon that and persist in this business of “We are the weavers of the social fabric and we’ll make sure you can’t sit at our lunch table” comes off looking like a tacit admission that Trump has already won on policy, and all-around.

It also looks like a tacit admission that this is the “one tool in the bag” for liberals, and has been for so long that they don’t know any other way to win an election: Forget policy. We’re the Mean Girls. We’ll threaten you with social ostracism…because we’re from middle school, and we don’t know any other way to do it.

So let’s see: Calling it a “Trump Shutdown” didn’t work. The democrats had to cave without having won a single thing they wanted. But, like a racquetball hitting a wall, the narrative carried a surplus of kinetic energy that had to go somewhere, so…BOUNCE. Suddenly we’re all supposed to demand release of the Epstein files. Trump invokes the time-honored technique of “Destroy a stupid idea by taking it seriously”…bully-pulpits the Congress into authorizing the release, signs the bill.

It turns out just like the Russia Russia Russia hoax: Everyone was collaborating with Epstein *except* Donald Trump.

Racquetball hits the wall with a loud KITOONK sound, and suddenly we’re all supposed to be talking about yelling “Quiet, piggy!” at a female reporter.

No one seems to be interested in the identity of this “female reporter,” which is floated among three candidates, one of whom is named Margaret. White House says Trump was actually saying “Quiet, Peggy” and although this seems unlikely to those who have listened to the recording, there’s nothing to prove otherwise.

So, KITOONK, two senators and four congressmen decide we’re all supposed to be talking about the issuance of illegal orders to the military.

Trouble is, they can’t name any illegal orders that have been issued. Three of them have been directly confronted with the question during interviews and all three had to waffle and weenie out of it. That means the six are guilty of weakening the chain of command purely for political purposes, which is sedition. Meanwhile, two members of the national guard are shot, one fatally. Loudmouths wanted everyone to think of the national guard as following illegal orders and potentially shooting unarmed civilians, and it turns out when you say stuff like that, someone takes it seriously.

It’s scandal-racquetball. Trump isn’t supposed to win at this, so when he does, it becomes imperative to bounce that ball and spawn off another scandal.

The kinetic energy accumulates, with deadly results.

Meanwhile, I notice something about the way people argue when the subject turns to this stuff.

Trump’s policies which are supposed to be illegal, unconstitutional, hurtful and morally deficient…although no one can say how or why…supposedly manifest his moral failings and character shortcomings as a person.

If you oppose the Trump agenda, you’re socially obliged to speak out about these shortcomings. Even if you don’t personally know Donald Trump, you’re supposed to churn out several paragraphs about how morally bankrupt he is.

Of course people are much more loquacious about things when they don’t have the knowledge to support what they’re saying, so what ends up spewing forth is this geyser of blah blah blah about what a terrible person Donald Trump is.

And if you have an opinion about that — you are further socially obliged to think something similar about his supporters. All of them. Every single one. Although you don’t know us any better than you know Donald Trump, whom you don’t…

There can be no “I oppose the reforms they support, but I know their hearts are in the right place.” None of that. None. We must hate the women hate the gays hate the blacks hate the trannies and be anti-science and anti earth.

And if you’ve figured out what terrible people we are…

…you are further socially obliged to oppose the reforms we support. And it goes back to the beginning. It’s a feedback loop.

So we end up with post after post, page after page, paragraph after paragraph, kilobyte after kilobyte, of this…stuff.

• Trump’s policies are wrong
• Trump is a bad person
• We who support his reforms are bad people
• Lather, rinse, repeat

We get to read all about that. But meanwhile, we have a lot of illegal immigrants inland. And there are industries built around them. They inflate the welfare rolls and the registries of various public assistance programs. They cost us a lot of money, we’re 38 trillion dollars into the public debt which is climbing. These are real problems…and no, nobody anywhere is saying “Get rid of Donald Trump and it solves all these problems.” That would be so absurd, even the most frenzied Trump hater is coming nowhere close to saying that.

Just: Get rid of Donald Trump.

Sorry to say, this all ends up looking like what it is: Trump came along for a reason. The country is divided on him because it’s divided on whether we want the problems fixed or not. A lot of people don’t want the problems fixed and that’s why they hate him and whenever they come up with a new scandal and he ends up surviving and winning that scandal, they have to create a new one.

Meanwhile, no one is addressing these problems.

Except Trump. And we who support him.

Everybody is else just babbling nonsense. Pulling new scandals out of thin air, trying to win at them…and failing.

Making things worse. Getting people hurt.

It happened Wednesday.

Liberals are showing new strains of ignorance, hitherto uncharted intensities of it. Yes, I’m fully aware that they’re saying the same thing about people who see things my way.

But once again, I see their own ignorance is unique because it mixes in apathy in equal parts. When you blame Republicans for the shutdown, for example, which we’re repeatedly told most people do — this comes at the end of not any kind of critical analysis, but mere word selection. This side is “holding out” or “refusing to budge” on something; the other side is “blocking” a continuing resolution. So-and-so is “standing firm”; the other guy is “holding government hostage.”

People don’t dissect these word-choice burbles. For the most part, they think what they’re told to think. Then, if there are any doubts, they might ask people like me “What news sources should I watch/read?” Watch or read? You mean, follow? Believe uncritically? None of them, of course.

I notice a lot of people can’t even process that.

Another thing I notice, since this shutdown began, is that there is a whole array of topics on which liberals display a special ignorance. Ronald Reagan was quoted as saying “The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

That’s because a lot of it is not based on fact. I say something like “The mainstream media is biased, to the left” — a leftist liberal might hear me say this, and figure, incorrectly, that I’m saying this just because I lean the other way. So he’ll retort “No, the mainstream media is biased, if in any way at all, to the right.” Just like returning a volleyball serve. But, no. If he bothered to discuss and debate, we’d get into some of the examples I might have to offer, and then he’d be obliged to come up with his own. But we don’t get that far. Such an exchange devolves into a shouting match, just like a volleyball match, or a racquetball match, or a ping pong game. I serve, you return, I return the return, etc.

They don’t argue to learn. They argue to win.

So they end up not knowing very much. About a great variety of topics that are supposed to be interesting to them.

It occurs to me that if you make a list of such subjects, and then make another list of subjects on which they want the final word…refuse to take no for an answer. Subjects on which you must must must, do it their way their way their way…

…or else like a socially arrested eighth grade schoolgirl they’ll just hate you for-EVER!! Can’t be friends! Because you didn’t do it their way…

The two lists would be exactly the same.

The economy.

The presidency, Congress and the judicial branch.

The rest of the U.S. Constitution.

Rights.

Privileges.

Responsibilities.

God.

Guns.

Hunger, famine, poverty.

Capitalism.

Socialism.

Education.

Bigotry.

Tolerance.

Civilization.

Societies.

Cultures.

Defense.

Immigration.

War and peace.

Surpluses and Deficits.

Marriage and family.

Work and play.

How pretty sexy blonde girls sell blue jeans and what we are to think of that.

And, discussing any of the above.

In fact, out of the many things on which liberals maintain an ignorance, there is only one item that does not appear on the list of things over which they demand control, and that is: The motivation of their opposition.

This is something they don’t understand, and at times, it seems they know they don’t understand it. They don’t care to learn about it. They’re proud of not knowing and they’re proud of not caring.

But at least, on that one particular thing, they’ll allow us to do as we will. It’s part of their final dismissive gesture as they shut us out of the village gates to starve in the winter. Or, to modernize the metaphor, intone to us that we can’t sit with them at lunch.

If we all have rights, and liberal politicians are free to add to this list of rights on a whim, then primary among these rights would have to be the right not to be defined out of existence by way of specious arguments. That would be necessary for enjoying any of the others. And yet liberals violate this routinely, and flippantly, with “It’s a clump of cells” or “It’s a parasite” or “not capable of surviving outside the womb therefore not a person.”

If cops are harassing black people and shooting them and killing them without justification and this is happening all of the time, and whenever someone finds an example of it someone somewhere is deciding we should be hearing about it everywhere we go for months at a time — sooner or later there should emerge an example of it that doesn’t crumble and fall apart on inspection. Like Trayvon “Skittles” Martin fell apart, or Michael “Hands up, don’t shoot!” Brown fell apart. Why can’t the activists find an example of this that’s any good, that endures?

If there’s a “wage gap” that’s so reproducible we can count on men being paid extra for doing the same work as women, who are consistently being paid less — we should expect all of the jobs to go to women, every single one of them. Any exceptions wouldn’t make business sense, and thus, wouldn’t happen.

And if men are running the world because of “patriarchy” in spite of the fact that women are just as smart and strong and fast and capable of doing anything men can do, something must have happened to put the men in charge. Consistently, In all the continents, as civilizations evolved…separately.

If we were under a king and in need of holding a no kings protest, then we would not be able to hold a no kings protest. Said king would surely stop us. Furthermore, the government would be open. The king would simply make it so and that would be that. Clearly, this is not what is happening.

If masculinity were toxic, and for the past several years we have increasing numbers of kids growing up in fatherless homes, we should be able to expect those kids to be earning better grades in school, and coping with fewer head-case problems, getting into fewer conflicts with others and with the law, compared to the kids with a father or other adult male figure in the house. Somehow, it is consistently the opposite that is the case.

If such-and-such an oppressed group has only just now achieved equality, there’s no more achieving to be done because they’re equal. If there’s still work to be done there, then they must not have achieved it yet and whatever “progress” was made in the past, was illusory this whole time. If the progress they made in the past achieved equality, then everything taking place in the here and now is nothing more than idle bitching.

Over and over again, it is liberals versus logic.

We explain this by taking note of the futility of talking to them. We notice how few ideas are actually exchanged when the true believers come in contact with the non-believers. We see again and again that it’s “Conservatives debate, liberals diagnose,” as in: “If all the guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” — “Oh, so you’re in favor of outlaws and non-outlaws killing each other, huh?” So we figure liberals controvert logic and common sense, because they only pretend to discuss things, only pretend to consider opposing views, but actually persist in living in their hermetically sealed echo chambers.

That works, for the most part.

Until this “no kings” thing. Here, there are new problems.

If you hold a protest and you’re living in your echo chamber, only pretending to debate or discuss anything, so that things make sense to you when they shouldn’t; in the aftermath of the protest, you have to put in a little bit of honest deliberation as to whether the protest accomplished something. Right? Before you even so much as acknowledge the existence of a conservative, let alone debate anything with him. You have to wonder if the protest was effective.

We needed the protest because Trump is a king? But you didn’t get rid of him.

Or because he was acting like a king? So you taught him a lesson. His behavior has changed, then? It really doesn’t look like it, to me, but what do I know.

Or it was a warning, that this country has “no kings” and we want to keep it that way? Why bother with the protest then. We have had a Constitution. We still have it.

After all these years of watching liberals and trying to figure out why they do the things they do, I’m still learning.

I think it’s about feelings. If the “No Kings” protest accomplished anything at all, besides just a group or team building exercise or a way to meet people; then it, like many other protests, must be put into effect simply to make feelings visible. Just that. Nothing more.

This clicks things into place, as many other explanations have failed to do. Feelings. These must be people who make their feelings highly visible and known to many, and as a consequence of making their feelings highly visible and known, get what they want. These must be people accustomed to that. Maybe since childhood. Mommy found out they were feeling such and such, and so gave them a thing. Gave ’em what they wanted so she didn’t have to listen to it.

They accomplished this much, then: Elevated the sentiment “I feel like I’m living under a king even though I know I’m not,” to widespread visibility.

They accomplished something?

So, in 2028, or in 2026 with the midterms, a lot of people are going to vote according to: So many of my fellow citizens feel like they’re living under a king even though they’re not — so I should vote democrat?

We’re back to it not making any sense. If we had seven fewer democrats in the Senate, for example, right now the government would be open. The shutdown wouldn’t have even happened in the first place.

Once again, it’s liberals versus logic. If one is up, the other is down. If one wins, the other loses.

I guess, if you grow up with the sense of normal that you act like a goofball and then mommy gives you whatever you want, you’ll end up in conflicts with logic most-to-all of the time. Thinking like a responsible adult would be a constant challenge. After awhile, you’d let it go for good.

I end up where I’ve been so many times before, watching these people, wondering what makes them tick; Bewildered. Unclear as to how they can get out of bed, get dressed and function.

And so many of them do not only that, but become university professors. And then retire. And then protest.

And, we need it urgently. Higher ed as well as K-12.

When I went to school my class was taught that “protests” had a lot to do with the freedoms we enjoy, although there were very few specifics provided as to how this could be. So in a way the current violence was my fault, because I should have raised my hand and started asking the questions that were already popping into my head about how this didn’t make any sense. In the years since I’ve come to realize I was “senior” among the generation being taught this nonsense, although the line is fuzzy.

No, the nation was not built by hooligans rioting in the streets. It’s absurd. We don’t get any rights from them. Protests don’t do anything to take into account the wishes of those who aren’t down with the protest. They don’t include people. They exclude people. They’re supposed to do that. They’re “Do it our way and stop jawing about it, just do it or else.” They’re terrorism.

It’s true the protests of old did have causes. It’s true they were offering a voice to the voiceless. It’s a question of demand preceding the supply. That’s not what we have now. This is mass production of a great army of good little rebel foot soldiers, looking for a cause, and then maybe-maybe-not they’ll find such a cause; demand coming after the supply.

Putting it in simpler terms: The last two or three generations have been churned out by our educational institutions, under this premise that a society growing properly is a society artificially made unstable, with a youthful, energetic, “educated” layer of humans ready to riot. It’s not a scientific experiment; they’re not testing the hypothesis. It’s just expected by the practitioners to work, although it never has and never could. The theory that destruction equals creation.

People should have figured out this is unworkable.

They should have figured out it’s dangerous.

Building something is not the same as wrecking things. It takes a lot more discipline to build. You have to measure things, find centers of gravity, select materials and tools so things last. And then you’re liable for the results. Not to begrudge the noble occupations of people who break things for a living, but if you’re struggling to figure out what to do in life, you get equal credit for either one but you’re inclined to pick the one that takes less work, you’re going to be a destroyer.

Every time. And that’s what has happened.

This has changed things. A lot. And we should be talking about it. Could we land a man on the moon today? For the first time?

Build the Hoover Dam?

How about Operation Overlord, could we do that now? Land on Omaha Beach and start cleaning the Axis Powers’ clock, facing down those machine gun nests and turning the tide of the war?

Doubtful. We have to file environmental impact statements to build anything nowadays, and with masculinity being toxic, we have to defer to wives and girlfriends about every little thing. Today Hitler wouldn’t be worried. He’d know exactly where the allies were planning to touch down in Normandy, while Eisenhower and Roosevelt were still waiting to hear back from Mamie and Eleanor about what they decided their husbands should do while out shopping together.

As for the moonshot? Too much carbon emitted. Think of the climate change. No can do.

No engineering triumphs like Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge…but boy howdee, we sure can assemble a bunch of losers in the middle of a heavily populated city with a palette of bricks to throw through the windows. And then go on the idiot box and lie to everybody about “It’s not an organization, just an idea.”

We can do that.

But, that isn’t how we came to enjoy all the freedoms we have, or the privileges, the standard of living, the technology. It’s a cul de sac. We entered it a long time ago. The time has come to think about beating a hasty retreat. If we’re ready to start that, we’d better be in it for the long haul because it will take awhile.

First step would be to staff up our schools and universities, with people who are ready to train builders, not destroyers. That’s going to be a long hard slog all by itself.

We have these radio PSAs from the Teacher’s unions about how “bullying has no place.” If anyone in a position of import were listening, I would humbly suggest everyone keep their ideas about bullying to themselves, unless they themselves had ever been bullied. We’d be headed off in a wholly different direction in our dealings with bullies if we were to successfully implement such a policy, and it would be better than our current one.

Haven’t you noticed; all the people complaining about being “prosecuted/persecuted by Trump who is going after his enemies/opponents” — are complaining about just desserts? They’re complaining about being legitimately prosecuted for crimes. And, about being put on the business end of various maneuverings that they had been doing, just a few years ago, themselves.

This is how bullies operate. They whine about being the victims. They make their targeted victim look like the “real bully.”

Bullying is a reflection of us all. People don’t think of it that way, but that’s what it is. People think of bullying as a bigger kid tormenting a smaller kid, and that’s it. Actually that’s 5th-grade bullying; bullying in elementary school. A bully in middle school has figured out our social fabric, how it’s woven, how to manipulate it. How to propound a narrative and then micro-manage it.

“Mr. Smith, he’s hitting me!!” No way you can be a bully if you’re an annoying tattle-tale, right? Oh yes you can. Absolutely. That’s how it works, how it’s done; tell your story, leave out the part about all the things you’ve been doing to earn what you’re getting. Just squeal like a sissy and hopefully your “real bully” will be marched off to the Principal’s office, and on his way past, you can smirk at him.

In the past few years, I’ve seen a concerted, grandiose effort to drive bullying from the planet forever.

It hasn’t work very well.

Oh, it sounds nice to intone, so forcefully, “Bullying has no place here!” But when you’re being bullied, what really matters is not the speech-making, but the situation in the aftermath of the speech. And the fact is that no one who resolves to eradicate bullying forever, has actually done it. No one’s even come close. They make their speech, then things go back to the way they were, bullying and all. That’s what has been happening, in the grade-school world as well as in the grown-up world. We can work hard to avoid admitting it, but that doesn’t change what’s true.

And this shrieking about “He’s hitting me!!” has ridden a crescendo, during that time, up to today’s constant and fevered pitch.

We who were bullied, know what that means.

What’s sad is, if you weren’t bullied, you don’t see the pattern and there’s a very good chance you’ve been consumed by it, and become the bully yourself without even realizing it. That’s why I say anyone who wasn’t subjected to it in the grade school years, should probably sit down, shut up…just work the crossword puzzles on this one while those of us who know something, work out the details.

Bullying is deceit. It is acting. Off-stage theater. “I’m so abused!” It is cowardice in its purest form, whether you’re being a coward by picking on a weaker guy, or being a coward by staging a theater-play to avoid consequences you’ve earned. It is swiveling, like on a weather vane. Aiiieee, why are you picking on me?? It’s all part of the same cowardly stuff. And it is us, because we’ve built a cowardly world.

The weather vanes are spinning. Spinning like mad, and everywhere.

Trump is “coming after his political enemies”…after…all that stuff we’re supposed to forget. All of it. Impeachment over a phone call. Impeachment ceremonies. Impeachment gift pens. Rigging the 2020 election. Attempting to assassinate him — twice. Raiding Mar a Lago. Sifting through everything, including his wife’s underwear drawer. Faked up photographs of “classified documents.” Steele Dossier. Lying about the server hardwired into the Kremlin, nestled deep in Trump Tower, remember that?

He’s hitting me!! The real bully!! The weather vanes spin. Middle-school bullying.

We can pursue justice. Avoid injustice. We can try that…which raises the question, what’s the difference between the two? How do we tell the real bully apart from the real victim? When is a sanction proper and when does it become real-bullying? This can be tricky. To demarcate correctly, we can ignore those who don’t care what justice is. Or who are trying to avoid it. That’s a good start.

Unfortunately, there’s not much to come afterward. This about the best we can do.

Apart from just one other thing: embrace “toxic masculinity.” Haven’t you noticed, since it became popular to treat masculinity as some kind of blight, the bullying has gotten so much worse? That’s because there are no protectors. No one nips bullying in the bud, on the playground, anymore. No one steps in to intercede. All disputes have to be elevated to the level of the administrators, for arbitration. Who do a terrible job.

But we’re not going to drive bullying from the planet forever, like it’s smallpox or something. It is a window into us. Humans are corrupt.

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, while I’m waiting for the various falsehoods to stop flying around and get exposed, I’m struck by the parallel with another, entirely unrelated, set of issues. Every now and then a man will complain “A woman did something” or “Women do this thing” and, sure as the next sunrise, someone will emerge — not necessarily a female — to say “But all women aren’t like that” and/or “Oh yeah, well men are just as bad.” Or, “He made her do it.”

Answers no one wanted or needed, to questions no one asked.

These don’t move the conversation forward. They’re just defense mechanisms. Because it’s not a contest. You may assert that men are just as bad, or even worse. You might prove it, too. The problem is that 1) men have problems, 2) women have problems, and most importantly, 3) men and women got to where they are by way of different paths of travel. To ignore the problems with women and concentrate on fixing what’s wrong with men, in hopes that said fix will somehow spill over and improve women because what the heck, they’re all people, no different from each other — this is a false hope. It’s fallacious thinking. “The watch went missing over the ditch on that side of the road, but there’s no light there, the light’s much better on this side so let’s look for it over here.” People don’t want to criticize women. So they do this fix-men-instead thing. They do it a lot. They think they’re on the right track. They aren’t.

Enough about that.

This has been an awkward week for dedicated liberals, many of whom become liberals in the first place because they want to think better of themselves, as people. They want to be on the positive side, the peaceful side, the “look out for the little guy” side. And if that doesn’t work, a lot of them, I notice, are enchanted with the prospect of becoming perpetual victims. Oh, I can’t win. Oh, they’re doing this to me, they’re doing that to me.

So now one from among them has settled scores with a 30-06. Charlie Kirk lies dead. Having done nothing to hurt anybody anywhere. What to do?

This is where the defense mechanisms kick in. All left-wingers are not like that. Right wingers are just as bad. And your side — somehow — made him do it.

The desire among those who are on The Right, for The Left to press for much needed internal reforms, is sincere. Nobody wants to get shot. And The Left does need these reforms. This isn’t an issue with isolated incidents of dehumanizing and name-calling; the not-real-people lashing out against the opposition, has been coming from the top, and for many years now. Bitter Clingers. Baskets of Deplorables. Not welcome anywhere. Follow them to restaurants and yell at them. Fascists. MAGA Republicans. Garbage. Bigots. TERFs. Racist, racist, racist.

This kind of stuff stifles discussion. Ultimately, it gets bullets flying, because there’s bound to be a “follower” with a screw loose. But to concerns like these, I see The Left has a ready response in “The January Six Insurrection.” A little bit of look in this ditch where the light is better, not in that ditch where the watch was dropped. They don’t want to fix things where they’re actually broken.

Again: It’s not a contest. Also, it isn’t the same. If you take the time to actually listen to what conservatives have to say about January 6, they’re arguing against the setup, the hidden evidence, the various criminal missteps by the January 6 committee. And, the lying. The police officer pummeled to death with a fire extinguisher — sorry, it didn’t happen. Also, what kind of “insurrection” begins with the officials leading the insurrectionists on a guided tour through the building?

When you pin down what this-or-that insurrectionist did, that is violent, inexcusable, and most important of all, verified — the conservative will agree, yes, that person should be punished. I’ve not seen any exceptions to this. So no, it’s not the same. And it doesn’t work as a rebuttal against the Kirk assassination.

The fact of the matter is, this angry-little-lefty trope has been around for a long time now. We’ve slowly been adapting to it. Bullets are flying now, because of that. And it never did anything positive anywhere. A lot of these activists are out there flaring their pierced nostrils, balling up their little fists and stamping their little feet, anxious to show how they’re just about ready to lose it. Ready to show that what little control they still have over their surging emotions, is about to be overwhelmed and the dam is just about to break. A good chunk of the time it’s likely true, strung out as they are on their psychotropic meds and SSRIs.

Charlie Kirk showed the way. Unfortunately, it looks like those sorts of discussions are going to have to be had indoors from here on out, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the other side veer off more in that direction, discussing things coherently and courteously the way Charlie did, and get away from this “I’m so mad things aren’t being done my way” stuff. It’s unseemly as well as dangerous. If such a reform could be possible, I’d be all for it although I’d fall short of purchasing it at the expense of martyr’s blood. It’s valuable, but not that valuable. Be that as it may, what’s done is done, and Charlie is gone. My hope is that this era of the “non threatening but aggressively so” Hawkeye Pierce foot-stomping thing-throwing liberal, comes to a stop right about now. I know best case scenario, there will be a deceleration curve, and it’s going to take awhile. Things were tempestuous in our government and in our culture in the years following Lincoln’s assassination, and JFK’s. But there was some restraint kicking in, that had been lacking in the years previous, as well.

Besides, it’s tedious. I really don’t care how angry David Hogg is today or any other day. His various temper tantrums doth not an argument make. That goes for Greta Thunberg, too. These well-broadcast and thoroughly-replayed hissy fits are embarrassing to watch, embarrassing by proxy.

The Director of the CDC is refusing to step down after Trump has fired her.

I’m picking up a pattern here, what with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass pledging not to be intimidated by President Trump…um…attempting to clean up her city?

Defiant liberals who refuse to be intimidated, are all over the place. We could use them as landfill. But I notice you haven’t got long to wait until you see the next one, being defiant, refusing to be intimidated. And I also notice they’re never up to anything good.

In fact, it occurs to me. When a duly elected President fires your ass, and you defiantly refuse to move out of there for whatever reason. That’s a “Deep State,” right? That’s what it is. Unaccountable to The People. Can’t dislodge it. Not going anywhere.

Are they really committed to these bad policies they want to keep going, by refusing to budge? Because if not, and all they really want to do is show how defiant and hard it is to intimidate them, maybe we could come up with some special environment like a deserted island, or an empty lot, over which they can do their ruling and reigning and whatever. Then out here in the real world, we could enact some sensible policies and lower the crime rate, with them out of the way. They could lord over their little bottle-worlds and continue to show anyone paying attention how defiant and not-intimidated they are.

Just an idea.

“For now, the big fight is Democratic anger vs. Trump accomplishment” says the Washington Examiner headline. One of the things under discussion within the linked article is the “Democrats’ 33-63 rating — the worst for the party since 1990.” This is discussed in greater detail over here. It’s a good time to pay attention.

Sympathizers to the democrat party — self-identifying leftists and “liberals” — are behaving a bit differently. They’ve gone hyper on detecting and calling out various sins, like the supposed white supremacist “dog whistling” of Sydney Sweeney’s jeans ads.

Just a couple quick observations here.

“This means that”…as in, the jeans ad means Nazi stuff…is delivered with the same tone as “wet paint,” “thin ice,” “you have to wear a COVID mask,” etc. One person is calling it out to another. It’s the establishment of a relationship: I’m yanking you in, from the edge of the cliff, where the railing is less reliable than you think. I’m saving you. There’s a relationship being established here: Now you owe me. So really, less a relationship than a debt. Good thing I happened along here and kept you from doing something self destructive.

You had no idea the jeans ad had these racist undertones, so I saved you from making a pariah of yourself.

But really, if this was all on the up-and-up, there would be a moral differential between someone blindly tooting on the “dog whistle,” versus someone huffing and puffing away out of pure malice. Things the way they are, it’s all the same: Everyone who likes the ad, appreciates the ad, admires the ad, fails to call out what’s wrong with the ad, is a Nazi. It doesn’t matter if it’s out of ignorance or intent.

So that’s a little odd.

Also, there’s no difference between someone possessing this keen insight, figuring out “good jeans” is a Nazi slogan, versus someone who heard it from someone else and is passing the word along. If you’re merely passing the word along, you get to strut and swagger as if you figured it out yourself. That’s a little odd too.

I think what we’re looking at here is a phobia against co-existing with others — as peers. That’s odd too, since these are the people driving around with “coexist” bumper stickers on their cars, right? But the reality is that being around others is an intolerable ordeal for them, unless they have some device available they can use to establish their supremacy. This is what makes them the way they are, everlastingly warning, horn-blowing, tooting, scolding. “That’s a racist ad.” “Where’s your mask?”

What an awful way to live. Even to friends, family and lovers they have to constantly signal how worthy they are. “Good thing I’m here, to warn you away from visibly liking the blah blah blah.”

I think you’re going to find overall, this generalization holds as well as any other generalization — not perfectly, but often. Conservatives have given up on the whole thing. “If you think I’m a bigot, and the Lord grants us both another hundred years on the planet, at the end of it you’ll still think I’m a bigot no matter what I do.” So…heck with it, all of it. Trans women are men, and I’m going to think of Caitlyn Jenner as a dude because why not?

Liberalism is a religion without redemption. The condition is laid at your feet, and you meet it; “Oh yes, we have twelve years left to save the planet” or “Oh yes, trans women are women” or “Oh yes, choose the bear over the man.” You don’t get saved. You’re still damned until the next condition arrives and then you’re supposed to lunge for that too. It’s all about the lunging. You might compare it to an unarmed man in a cowboy movie being made to dance by the bad-guy psycho cowboy firing rounds at his feet; kind of a lot like that.

Whereas, since it’s a transaction, conservatives demonstrate superior intelligence evaluating transactions as transactions. You don’t get anything for this one. So, they say: F00k it. If you cram your absurdity down my throat and I let you, and repeat it back to you, I don’t get anything for it so why bother to go down that road? So they end up keeping the gas powered car. And, in the spirit of rebellion, maybe even revving it over 5000 rpm a couple times.

It’s funny. This late in the game, the “rebels” have moved to the other side of the political spectrum, because the political spectrum has ceased to be political. It’s become religious; fake-religious. A false, all-damnation no-salvation religion.

Where there is effect, there must be a cause. My current operating theory is that the liberals are breaking out with these social-warnings, like mad, in overdrive. They’re doing a lot more of it because it’s become futile. They’re losing their grip. It’s linked to this downslide of their popularity. Whether it’s permanent, or temporary — I hope it’s permanent — doesn’t matter, because it’s stirring up these feelings of apprehension in them, calling on them to cohabit with the rest of us as equals, which they don’t know how to do, never learned how to do.

So they’re going full tilt on this “Good thing I’m here to warn you not to like that thing” stuff. Pedal to the metal, to compensate for the slippage under the tires.

I’m struggling to remember where I saw this, but somewhere the “woke” kids were ‘fessing up to the real agenda: They want to problematize things. There’s a priority behind making more things problematic and it’s more important than the problematization of each individual thing. They want more problematizing. More conflict, fighting amongst ourselves, more squabbling, more back-and-forth.

Greater instability.

Problematic is a word, but problematize, problematizing, problematization, these all have the tell-tale red squiggly “you misspelled it or else it isn’t a real word” line under them when you type them into a text box or word processor. I’ve said before (somewhere) that this should not be the case; not only are these real words, but right now they’re important words. The words of our times.

Or…that’s the way it has been, up until now. Now they’re problematizing Sydney Sweeney and the American Eagle jeans ad.

I could be the one living in an echo chamber here, but it seems to me like the wet fire log isn’t catching. That’s steam, not smoke. This is a dud…the jeans ad isn’t being made problematic; not only that, but the whole trend is coming to well-deserved ruin. One can hope.

The impression given off is that these are ugly chicks jealous of Sweeney’s beauty. I came across one who insisted this was not the case. But she was fed up with these ad agencies telling us who to find sexy. Being a quiet and reserved gentleman concerned with salvaging what little dignity I have left, I let that one go — oh no I did not. Nope. I set her straight on the spot. How couldn’t I?

Doesn’t matter if Little Miss Indignant is gay or straight, whether she swings that way or not; what matters is that I swing that way, and I most certainly, definitely, emphatically, do not need an ad agency to provide me instructions to think of Ms. Sweeney as sexy, any more than I need instructions to get wet when it’s raining. That there, frankly was just a dumb thing for her to say. In fact, “ad agencies telling us what to find sexy” is exactly what has been happening with the opposite, with the two-ton lardasses waddling around in politically correct Victoria’s Secret ads.

Fit beats fat. But apart from that, there’s a healthy course correction taking place here: Men — remember us, right? — find this-and-that sexy. It’s supposed to be called “male gaze” and it’s supposed to be, well there it is again, problematic. But it isn’t. It is life itself. We are all here, I’ve mentioned a few times before, because of it. If you’re not a test tube baby, you exist because your bio-daddy thought your bio-momma was good looking. Probably not because an ad told him to look at her that way. It’s 100% natural and it is how we propagate the species.

Ads follow the men. Yes that’s right, that’s how it should work. Ads figure out what the men find sexy and the ads follow suit. Ads do not tell men what to find sexy. That whole notion should be buried a.s.a.p., zombie style with eight tons of concrete over the crypt so it never sees the light of day again. That’s another trend we’ve been practicing that just plain stupid. The male libido is a force of nature. Fashion magazines do not program it. They follow it.

Sweeney 1, Wokesters 0.

Over the last twenty years or so I’ve observed much and taken copious notes on narratives. Their importance continues to emerge, and surprise me, for I keep underestimating this. I think it not an exaggeration to say people are narratives, and narratives are people. Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, if you meet someone for the first time and are compelled by business or romantic ambitions to ensure things work out well, in order to get to know them, you figure out the narrative that drives them. It’s like a pulse. Everybody has one.

Some people can’t be around each other, even for a temporary term of time. That’s because they’re devoted to narratives that conflict. The narratives being incompatible, for the two to co-exist, one will have to give up the narrative so the other can keep theirs, and when neither one is willing to do this, that’s when people are incompatible. When their narratives are incompatible.

I noticed earlier that a narrative is a blend of the proven and unproven, of the true and not-so-true. But there has to be at least some truth. This is their seductive power. You don’t know for sure it’s a lie, and you don’t know for sure what parts of it are true; but there has to be at least something. If there wasn’t some truth to it, it wouldn’t come to be. On the other hand, as I mentioned, if it’s all the way true and all the way proven, it ceases to be a narrative. So there’s got to be something missing.

Does that mean a part of it has to be false?

I think the answer to that has to do with whether you perceive reality in the instant, or across an expanse of time — the static versus the dynamic. That’s a mouthful. I’ll explain.

The dictionary tells us a narrative is a story. It doesn’t go so far as to say it’s a synonym, but it comes close. Some dictionaries say the narrative has a point to it, and it’s presented in story form. This is one of those cases where the dictionary doesn’t work for us. It’s wrong.

Because the dictionary — correct this time — tells us a story is a sequence of events. An event is a meaningful occurrence, meaningful in the sense that the situation is changed. Imagine yourself writing a story. Hero walks into the room. Is that an event? No, not really. Now the hero is ambushed and taken captive. That’s an event. Prior to it, there was a situation in which the hero was free; subsequent to that, he is not. That makes it an event. Stories have to have events. If they don’t have events, they’re not stories.

A narrative is not a story, because if it has any events at all, they are antecedent. There is a narrative that we stole the land from the Indians. That’s an antecedent event. But we only care about the situation subsequent to that, which does not change. Narratives are mono-situational.

And this is where they fall apart.

There is a narrative that says women have been unfairly subjugated by men, and are now achieving equality. Have they done it yet? Are they going to be doing it a little bit off in the future? Maybe way off in the future? Back in 1974? In 1965? The narrative is fragile because if one of those answers is the right one, all the others must not be.

Narratives in general are not to be trusted because they’re static, while life is dynamic. Real life is a story, fully qualified as a story, with situation-changing events. Things are significantly different in the running-up to the event, than they are in the aftermath. We are dynamic people living dynamic existences in a dynamic universe. And that’s where narratives depart from reality.

“We’re prisoners today, but tomorrow we’re going to win our freedom.” That’s popular as a general form, but if it’s really true then there’s a win-the-freedom event, after which come some responsibilities. And you’ll notice, if you watch closely, very rarely do people accept those responsibilities. In the aftermath of Yorktown in 1781, they did. And they went on to settle other questions, Constitution, Great Compromise, Judiciary Act, Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, all that good stuff. It was a right-wing, not a left-wing, revolution; had the balls to admit it had won.

The way things play out far more often, is that the revolutionaries — left-wing — continue to cling to the narrative. They refuse to accept the responsibilities that would materialize in the aftermath of the event. Haven’t got the balls to admit they won. And so we all find ourselves in these absurd situations, where some oppressed group is supposed to continue to win new rights it’s supposed to have won already.

It’s a static narrative measuring dynamic things.

A dead narrative assessing the situation of living people.

The truth is that activists love this weakness of narratives. It assures they’ll never have to give up the power that was entrusted to them. We’re winning the new freedoms…still winning ’em…winning ’em some more. The years come and go.

And the situation does not change, because it’s a situation sealed up inside a dead narrative, like a dead insect pinned to a wall in a collection. The situation remains, for anyone who asks about it, endlessly, C.A.L.W.W.N.T.Y. — “Come A Long Way, We’re Not There Yet.”

“Pride Month” is starting in less than two hours now.

I’ve been mulling something over, and I think I’ve hit on the most ridiculous idea. I mean, out of all of them. It may not be the most out-and-out risible idea but it’s the most deceptive, and probably the most damaging, out of all the ideas in current circulation.

Burdening a true believer in this idea with a few laps around the track of the “Explain it to me like I’m five” game, can be a source of amusement. You have to laugh because if you don’t, you’ll cry.

Explain…like I’m five…the “LGBTQ+ Friendly” badge festooned upon some businesses in Google Maps.

Queer friendly businesses, as a concept, presuppose the existence of queer-hostile businesses. This is where the damage is done. The existence of this mechanism both relies on, and promulgates, a narrative that LGBTQ hostility must exist substantially in both businesses and in their clientele. Notice that no one anywhere is taking on the responsibility of actually saying so.

The entire thing takes advantage of people’s good nature, while at the same time exploiting hasty, low quality thinking: If I don’t have any first hand knowledge about LGBTQ+ people or their plights, going by this as a clue, I would have to presume they’re in a lot of trouble. Needing a special icon so you know what businesses you can patronize, without getting beaten or otherwise abused? How awful.

But meanwhile, every business I can recall ever having patronized — all of them, throughout my entire time on the planet — operated, and if they’re still in operation still operate, on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Does someone somewhere have a different experience? You walk into a bar and the bouncer pointedly inquires “Y’all ain’t one of them homersexuals, are ya?” and makes life tough for you if you can’t answer no. Where has that ever happened?

It’s divisive. For no good reason. There’s no necessity for this.

It just helps people act like victims. Helps them think of themselves as victims.

But we put up with it. Doesn’t affect us in any way, right? Just “tolerate” it.

But then we have to wonder why we’re all so divided.

Well, it’s because of gimmicks like this.

Entirely unnecessary ones.

Press conference for Elon Musk’s last day:

Many exciting things happened this month, but this is probably the most significant one.

Although it changes little. But there’s so much happening here.

Elon Musk — and by extension, DOGE, and President Trump as well — has been at the receiving end of a great deal of criticism, not all of it crystal clear or earnest. We should expect “big government” types, some of whom identify as big-government types and are proud to do so, to come up with some arguments against shrinkage of the government. But how is anyone opposed to eliminating waste? That’s the key question.

If you’re a big-government type, or if you’re neutral on where the size of government should go but you have some favorite pet program; you might come up with an argument against a specific action to cut the program, or to gut the program. But if Elon Musk and crew find out about Social Security checks going out to dead people, you should be all in favor of reclaiming that money. Right? If your own program is so important, you shouldn’t be wanting another program stealing money from it. Government can only spend so much.

It’s surprising how many loud people don’t seem to understand this.

But behind all this criticism against Musk and DOGE, which comes off looking like a critique against the second-wife’s evening dress coming from the first wife…it seems like there is something else.

These claims that Musk is “not a scientist, not an engineer…[just] a billionaire con man with a lot of money” ignore his many achievements, which have not been low-key by any stretch of the imagination. The intended audience for such remarks would seem to be people who are unaware of what he’s been doing, and those people would have had to have been living under rocks for the last ten years or more.

He lands rockets. Lands them. NASA has been launching rockets for years and decades, but landing a rocket on a target the size of a pie plate is a different thing entirely. And to ignore or to criticize such an achievement, with the criticism coming from someone who can’t even parallel park, is in bad form.

I think what really changed yesterday — culturally — was the nerd earning genuine respect, legitimately, from President Trump who is the guy on top of it all, the seat at the apex of the power pyramid. Our sense of normal for nerds, as I’ve noticed many times before, is very far removed from that. The way we’re used to doing it, the nerd may achieve a grudging acknowledgment that he’s capable of doing something the rest of the team needs to have done, and there’s no one else who can do it. And that’s the best a nerd gets. Like, ever.

You see it in our police procedural programs fairly constantly; it isn’t even worth the trouble to go out gathering links to provide examples. Just about every single episode of every single show has this scene. The nerd starts to explain what “ambient data” is, or how a key logger works, etc. Someone much cooler than the nerd lets him get five to ten words into it, then interjects to remind the nerd to speak in English. Then the nerd starts over again. It only burns off five or ten seconds or so, but ten seconds is ten seconds. They keep doing this. it’s become all but mandatory. Why?

To remind people: This nerd can do something you can’t do, in fact it’s something you need to have done, but never, ever forget, your objects of veneration are elsewhere. Not him. Those other guys. The ones who can high-kick and crack safes and hot-wire jeeps…but don’t know computers. Don’t learn the computers, kids. Learn the video games.

As one dating-age nymph commented in a thread I remember seeing some twenty years ago: “Everything worth inventing has been invented already. Learn to rap and do your crunches.”

This is cultural. Don’t be the nerd. That’s the social milieu to which we have become accustomed, and we’ve been getting accustomed to it for a long time.

“Fact checks” abound claiming Elon and his team haven’t actually found anything. It’s too bad we’re now living in the post-credibility age of the fact check, and everyone paying attention has figured out fact checks are just feelings-checks. From where come these feelings?

Part of it is the mission of DOGE. People don’t want elimination or reduction of fraud or inefficiency. There’s a distinct “Not anti-war, just fighting for the other side” flavor to this: People want the fraud to continue because they’re benefiting from it.

But also: To watch the nerd sail off into the sunset, with his significant contributions acknowledged by the guy on the top of it all. Gratitude expressed, earnestly, meaningfully, and with merit. To actually focus on the idea that the nerd got something done we needed done. He actually traced the carpet fibers on the dead body to where the murder took place, or decrypted the drug sale inventory, guessed the password, etc. He actually did that and it was pretty cool.

People aren’t accustomed to that. It’s more than they can handle.

To me, this is what Making America Great Again — is. It’s a renewal of focus on the objective of actually getting something done, of achieving the mission, in whole or in part. We have been needing that, for awhile. We’ve gone too long allowing the nerds to be upstaged by these hot sexy men and women who swing their big hair around and get in arguments about nothing, between the action scenes of karate-chopping bad guys. It hasn’t worked out well for us. It’s translated, by and large, into potentially talented, capable people doing next to nothing, because in real life there aren’t that many occasions to hot-wire jeeps, stow away on helicopters or karate-chop bad guys.

But we are surrounded by computers and other high tech devices, and someone has to figure out how to make them go. And then there are those rockets.

John Hawkins, writing at Culturcidal, offers five reasons.

As you’d expect from the people who invented the concept of “microaggressions” and “safe zones,” liberals have a tendency to wildly overreact to things most people would barely notice. They also tend to spend their lives terrified of imagined dooms that never happen…Really, it’s no surprise so many liberals mentally break when they spend their days endlessly being spoon-fed imaginary apocalyptic scenarios…

I have noticed, in my dealings with dedicated liberals outside of politics, there’s often this tension arising where I’m waiting on them to make a delivery of some kind. And rather than the product or service, what I see them bringing is drama. It gets to the point where I start wondering what the drama is going to be, and stop wondering if I’m going to get what I contracted to have delivered. The initiative is lacking, and they seem to be drawn to distractions like a moth to a flame.

These “apocalyptic scenarios” seem, to me, to be conjured up for exactly that purpose: To distract from an ordinary, humdrum delivery. It’s like they can’t accept that life, for today, this block of hours, is all about fulfilling the expectations of another. That would be a boring existence. But if they’re among the final “survivors” who get to watch the mushroom clouds right before everything is consigned to oblivion, that would make them much more important.

I saw it during the 1980’s when Reagan was going to blow up the world. That would have made Reagan a very bad man, a fun thought for them to have. But even more fun was the idea of their own significance. That they’d hang around to sing Amen. The final extinction of the human race, after these hundreds of thousands of years…and they’d be in the middle of it. Burned a crisp, but at least, here to see it happen.

They didn’t say so outright. But it was plain to see they were unprepared for the alternative: Life will go on, tomorrow is just as important as today, and there are many tomorrows ahead of you…and in each one, someone is expecting something out of you that you have to fulfill. Something mundane.

The work they put into avoiding that mindset — it’s off the charts. Looks like a phobia to me.

The report is in on the cause of that deadly helicopter crash over the Potomac.

“Not only was the Black Hawk flying too high, but in the final seconds before the crash, its pilot failed to heed a directive from her co-pilot, an Army flight instructor, to change course”…The report further blames the air traffic controller for lacking both clarity and urgency in its communication with the chopper.

Captain Rebecca Lobach failed to follow her co-pilot and instructor Andrew Eaves’s order to turn left in a bid to avoid the descending aircraft, ignoring his instructions just 15 seconds before the crash.

Just ignored? For fifteen seconds, before it’s lights-out for everybody. Yeah, I wasn’t there, but sometimes speculation is safe. That’s a snub.

Our social reformers who want to regulate everything, and invariably get their way, remaining everlastingly unhappy with results even as everyone bends over backwards to do what they want — introduced quite awhile ago a new sense of normalcy: No “mansplaining.” If you need a man to tell you about it, it must not be worth knowing.

Somehow, we just accept this. Well, how acceptable would it be if it were a petulant middle-finger against “blacksplaining” or “gaysplaining.” That’s exactly how prejudiced is this recent campaign against mansplaining. And, it turns out, every now and then, the men do know something.

Now we have dozens of people dead. Completely avoidable — at the time. But no longer.

So right now, the huge back-and-forth argument taking place is whether the whole tariff thing is worth the present-term unpleasantness.

There are two arguments against: 1) There is no gain for the pain. The investor uncertainty that plagues us today is going to stay with us for the foreseeable future, and there is no benefit over the horizon offsetting it. Or 2) This is America, and we do not fix problems when the fix involves short-term unpleasantness. We only fix the fun problems.

If there’s truth to 1), then somebody had better get to work finding an alternative solution. President Trump’s antagonists may have not been paying attention, but he did an excellent job summarizing the post-WWII history, Bretton Woods, gold standard, etc. and how it leads to the current situation. It isn’t sustainable. We have to do something to fix this. Trump’s critics have had a lot to say about a lot of things, but I haven’t seen any of them propose an alternative. Closest I’ve seen is that some of them will deny there is a problem.

If 2)…we may as well just close up shop right now. What country, or company, or family empire, or organization of any kind, survives for any length of time only working on the fun problems?

I haven’t blogged much at all, because everything worth talking about has something to do with Trump. And the whole Trump thing is in that uncomfortable part — where I’m no longer in the minority. That part where the thing I want done, got done, and people are in the process of seeing it was the right thing to do all along. That Biden really was senile the whole time, he wasn’t running anything, and whoever was making the decisions was making them contrary to the interests of the country. That firing Trump was a mistake from the beginning. And the legitimate electorate might not have ever done that anyway, that the 2020 election was indeed rigged.

What more is there to say?

But this Signal thing. There is one thing worth pointing out about it. And I’m still not the first to notice it, but it’s worth talking about it a bit more:

Democrats were quick to seize on the Signal story as a case of Trump officials poorly handling classified information and as an excuse to call for terminations. But DNI Tulsi Gabbard quickly poured cold water on the notion that this unforced error was some major national security scandal.

“The conversation was candid and sensitive, but as the President, National Security Advisor stated, no classified information was shared,” she explained. “There were no sources, methods, locations, or war plans that were shared. This was a standard update to the National Security Cabinet that was provided alongside updates that were given to foreign partners in the region.”

Sure enough, the new texts revealed from The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg went on to prove that. Remember, he claimed he originally didn’t want to publish them because “the information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.”

Only that didn’t end up being the case.

“The Atlantic has conceded: these were NOT ‘war plans,'” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded on X. “This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”

Vice President JD Vance went on to note “It’s very clear Goldberg oversold what he had.”

With these developments, it’s no surprise how Democrats are changing the narrative.

Top secret war plans — to classified information. To, sensitive. Now it’s sensitive information.

I part company with those who are stridently defending the administration, in the sense that sensitive information is still sensitive. In fact the adjective is typically used to discuss information that isn’t classified, but isn’t a free-for-all either. You shouldn’t let it go just any ol’ place. It’s the term that should have been used from the very beginning.

And I’d still like to know what’s going on here, why Goldberg’s name got added in the first place. That doesn’t necessarily mean the administration botched it. But it does suggest someone is still friendly with someone else, who shouldn’t be. The swamp still has some swamp water left in it.

I used the analogy on social media — Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby Doo using end-to-end encryption to discuss how they’re going to trap the monster. Monster contributes to the discussion: What the hell are you meddling kids talking about here? And zoiks. How did that happen? Someone forgot to uncheck the little box by the monster’s name?

See…that doesn’t cut it. The question remains. How did the monster’s contact info get added? What’s he doing in there? To me, and many millions of others, the whole drama is Trump draining the swamp. See, we don’t trust the swamp. We don’t trust these little “Rolodex” connections, this web of strands connecting this person to that person. Someone was friendly with the monster, Mr. Goldberg. Best case scenario is, for convenience sake, someone borrowed someone else’s contact file and there was benign intent all around. Even with that, there’s still something worth investigating here.

It’s too bad our media sucks so much. All we get to hear about are a bunch of zany theories about Trump being unfit because Trump did this or Trump did that. But there’s another layer here.

For many years I have noticed that people lose their ability to discuss issues with clarity and focus as their quality of life improves. When you’re hungry, you’re not going to lose sight of your goal. If you can’t breathe, literally nothing else matters. With your purse and your pantry packed full, you start getting distracted by all sorts of dumb sketchy stuff. What makes it so? And are people aware? If their behavior changes, they must be.

But the people who are so privileged by present circumstances that they lose their direction, seem to lose awareness as well. You can just listen to them. They really think they have it so tough.

Now that Elon Musk is asking the federal “workers” to list five accomplishments they made for the week just ended, I’m seeing all sorts of blowback against this about this rich guy somehow in this position to pass judgment on what the ordinary people are doing. With some ricochets from those of us who’ve had to fill out such reports for years, and never questioned the necessity. And you know, suddenly, the thought occurs to me:

“So-and-so shouldn’t have an opinion.”

For the last several years I’ve been hearing an awful lot of supposedly strong arguments, built around that weak core framework. No uterus, no opinion on abortion! Trump shouldn’t ever be in a high political office again! If you’re white, sit down, shut up and listen! Etc. etc. etc…it’s fake and phony because, if such people who aren’t supposed to have opinions happen to have the “right” ones, you know the muzzle-obsessed person who wants them defrocked of any influence, suddenly will swivel 180 degrees on that. Oh that’s the right opinion. Everybody listen to this guy.

Also, we’ve been asked to consent — and apparently already given our consent — to living in a world of bureaucrats. This-or-that open question, the resolution of which will impact people’s lives irreversibly forever, will be decided by such-and-such a commission populated by strangers whose names you aren’t allowed to know, whom you’ll never meet. And their decision is final, there is no appeal. We keep running into that, over and over again, and have accepted that as normal. So against that backdrop, getting all particular about who can & can’t have an opinion seems a bit odd.

But back to my sudden thought. If we’re so privileged we’re unaware of our privilege, and we’re lacking a an altimeter, flying blind, with little instrumentation to reliably assess that we’re hovering so high that we can no longer focus on what’s important — wouldn’t this be a good tip-off? If you’re wondering where your next meal is coming from, you’re not going to be too concerned about who’s got an opinion about it or who’s allowed to pontificate about it. “So and so shouldn’t be in a position to say” is something you’re only going to hear from spoiled people. Spoiled, sight-impaired, tin-eared people.

Because the truth is, just about everyone has opinions. You can shame them into silence, but they’re still going to have the opinion. What, you thought because you couldn’t hear the opinion, the opinion simply went away? Or the person holding the opinion just evaporated into thin air? You’re even more spoiled than I thought.

Our concern should be about whether the opinions are correct.

So Elon Musk is going to scour over these five bullet points about what “you” managed to get done this week. Him, or some delegate of his. And form an opinion about whether you’re worth your weight…which may go one way, or the other way, and it may be right or wrong. He might screw it up and fire you even though you’re a vital cog in the machine. That’s the fear. But the fear-mongering isn’t about that. It’s that Elon shouldn’t be deciding this.

And that denunciation, in turn, doesn’t offer anything by way of a substitute person to decide this instead of Elon. There should be no decider. This is why I see it as a first world thing. “Nobody should have an opinion about the blah blah blah” — means — I have a cushy lifestyle, or lack of accountability, built around the blah. I have people slaving away for my benefit when I’m not doing anything to earn it…and it depends on blah. Or I’m doing things I know are wrong, and I get away with it…because of blah. The blah blah blah is the bough over my cradle, and I’m the baby, so I don’t want anyone screwing with that. NO ONE SHOULD HAVE AN OPINION.

Without “civilization” having advanced to the point of decline, and the spoiling effect it has; the lion chasing the gazelle, who will starve to death if the chase doesn’t end in his favor, doesn’t care who has an opinion about it. The gazelle, running for its life, isn’t too spun up about such things either. The farmer who has to get the work done, cares only about whether all the hay bales can be loaded into the truck in so-many-minutes so he can get on with the rest of his list. He’s not going to care who has an opinion about it.

Things like this matter. They limit the advance of civilization. If civilization can advance, but in so doing inspire the rise of these phony arguments, then the advancement of civilization is limited. Just like the speed of a rocket car is limited by the inertia and the headwind pounding on the nose cone, as the greater speeds are achieved. That’s us, we’re the car. Or, our civilization is the car. Our government, for the time being. If we want to go any faster, maybe the time has come to stop working on a hotter and mightier rocket engine, and take a look at the aerodynamics involved.

The concern is that our government has become a jobs program. Elon Musk is behaving as if it is one. The rebuttal is “Elon shouldn’t have an opinion about that,” and that’s a very silly, very counterproductive rebuttal. It protests too much, suggesting that all or most of the angst and vituperation against Mr. Musk’s efforts, are inspired by a situation which finds him correct. And his efforts overdue.

They’re arguing against him, the way people argue when they’re fat, dizzy and disoriented, inebriated from the elixir of long-standing affluence. The way people argue when they haven’t been wondering where their next meal is coming from, for a very long time. If they’re so sure Elon Musk is in the wrong, they need to figure out how to argue like a starving lion. Focus more on where the meat is. Not leave it up to the richest man in the world to ponder such things.