House of Eratosthenes

Memo to future generations: Some among you may be getting a bit thrown off by the lefty rhetoric about what it is they’re trying to do, as I was thrown off by lefty historians describing the goals and accomplishments of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Perhaps you’re literal thinkers, trying in vain to figure out the meaning of nonsensical phrases like “shoring up the middle class,” thinking something overly-sensible like: That sounds like changing some metric measured within the class, such that the class would ultimately cease to be “middle,” and yet the speaker seems to be speaking with the vision that all persons in the middle class stay in the middle class. What t’heck?

Liberalism is a bad sales job, and therefore will always have a division in its midst between those who are being duped and those who are doing the duping. Just like an ass will always have a crack. The duped are, for the most part, grown-ups who have buried and forgotten whatever grand dreams they ever had as children about doing or building something great; they’ve now vectored that exuberant energy off into their voting, figuring great-and-grand things are for the political class to do, the role for the rest of us is to sort of mill about being “middle class” and doing middle-classy things. Maybe a quick vacation once a year, maybe visit someone, maybe host a party, the rest of it is all lunch sacks to work, get yelled at by the boss, go home, get yelled at by the wife. And that’s as good as it gets. The bargain they have struck is: I’ve given up on ambition. Ambition might be for my kids. I’ll settle for less pain, that’s my ambition now.

Those are the dupees. The dupers, do I even have to explain them? We have ObamaCare, which is such a debacle that there is widespread and legitimate question now as to whether that was even an accident.

The arguing we are doing is about kiosks, whether to use them for our wants and needs, or whether not to. And those who say we should be a kiosk-driven society, are winning, without even stepping forward to say that is what they want. From all I can tell, the reason they’re winning is because they care. Kiosk-people want everyone else to use kiosks. You need some health insurance, you go to a centralized kiosk, which in this case is a web site that doesn’t work. Notice the dwindling importance that is being placed on the “not work” part of it. The important thing is that it is centralized and everyone, it is to be assumed, is going through the same line.

We wonder why we’re such a contentious society lately. The answer is because kiosk-people are winning, forcing everyone else to go to centralized kiosks for everything they want or need, regardless of whether that’s how they wish to get it. If more people want the commodity than can be serviced by a single kiosk at one time, then a line forms. Then we show how civilized we are by waiting in line…which is a sad way to show it, since first-graders and Kindergarten students can be expected to do that.

It’s also ineffective. If we both wait at the same kiosk and we have a disagreement about some matter of taste, then the way we resolve it is to vote on it. And then fight about it. That’s what has been happening. We’re brought up to think the voting will settle the matter, but it only “settles” things for one voting cycle, while the battle rages onward from one cycle to the next. That, too, is what has been happening.

In the other America, you don’t show how civilized you are by waiting in line at a kiosk, showing elementary-school skills. You show how civilized you are when a lady walks into a room and there are no seats available. Or, when you’re outside and it starts to rain, and the lady doesn’t have an umbrella. Or, when you’re walking along and you see her getting mugged. It doesn’t have that much to do with the gender divide — although, yes, that can figure into it. The difference is in making a difference. Altering an outcome.

Modern liberalism is the valorization of mediocrity. It’s the participation-ribbon society, where just showing up is some kind of heroic act.

I’d bet the full cost of an Obamacare gold plan that most if not all of the kiosk people never played little league. Few things are more beneficial in the long run than realizing, somewhere in your formative years, that some people are just better at some things than other people. Which, as a logical corollary, means that some people are just naturally worse. Billy Bob will always be better at basketball because Billy Bob is a glandular freak who will grow up to be 6’10”. Nothing made that happen — nobody caused it– and all the hard work, dedication, and, yes, money and social connections in the world will never alter the fact that Billy Bob’s got a foot on every other kid on the playground.

Most people grow up and get over it, because cursing God and Fate for not making you taller than Billy Bob is idiotic.

But some people don’t. Some people have invested their whole hearts and souls into basketball, and think that the world would recognize what special, wonderful players they are, if only the world weren’t distracted by Billy Bob’s entirely-height-based statistics. So they try to change the rules to eliminate the advantages of height, since that would allow them to shine. (Oh, and of course, it would let other short folks shine too. Not just them. Because that would be selfish. It’s “social justice,” see, and not just their insecurities writ large). We call those folks liberals.

Some other people don’t even like basketball, but they hate Billy Bob personally. And hating gives them such joy that it comes to feel like the only real thing to them, so they extend their hate to anyone who has ever cheered for Billy Bob, or been near Billy Bob, or seems like the kind of person who might not also hate Billy Bob if they ever happened to meet him. So they want to ban the game of basketball entirely, because fuck Billy Bob and anyone who shares his oxygen. We call those folks leftists.
- Severian | 12/19/2013 @ 08:03
Perhaps I can help.
Hey kids, do you remember the folks that you were instructed weren’t trendy or cool were saying stuff like “kicking the can down the road”, and “this deficit BECOMES the National Debt that will be forced on future generations”?

Guess what. You’re it.
Now do your patriotic duty to actually be productive, and give up MORE of your *pffft*” hard earned”.
By the way, pajamas aren’t practical garb for standing in line in “public”, and cocoa won’t even come CLOSE to Monster in keeping you awake to keep your place in line.
- CaptDMO | 12/19/2013 @ 16:29
[…] Me, about a month ago: […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 01/15/2014 @ 07:12

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KiosksThursday, December 19th, 2013

Kiosks
Thursday, December 19th, 2013