House of Eratosthenes

We were discussing at lunch the rather remarkable achievement of opening the Roseville Galleria for business so soon after the mall got torched by a jackass just a week before. As we were walking to our desks one of my colleagues turned to me and mentioned we needed to bring back stocks in the public square, if for no other reason than that the community deserved a chance to express its feelings about whatever transgression was being judged.

This got me to thinking, because, you see, nobody at work knows about my blog. They don’t even know about my political orientation…at least, I like to think they don’t. My tentative theory is that I’m just not that important and not worth the research. I haven’t Googled anybody else’s name, why would they want to do that with mine?

But this was cause for pause; I have written exactly the same words about the tragedy of getting rid of the one form of punishment that placed emphasis on a feeling of shame…and therefore shored up the associated feelings. Without something like that, we have no shame. People just do, like, whatever man. And so we have sad incidents like what happened in Roseville last week. We just put up with it. The events accelerate, up to and past the point where there is a palpable feeling that we’re living in the end times — and we continue to tolerate. Without a handy wooden frame in which to entrap the convicted as we pelt his mug with rotten cabbages, there isn’t anything else we can do. Just tolerate and tolerate some more.

And so we had a “shared pet peeve” moment, my colleague and I, kind of like the single solitary decent scene out of Lethal Weapon IV…only less annoying.

(Potty mouth language warning in effect.)

Anyhow. I don’t think there’s been any synchronization on viewpoints here other than what happened in the hallway on the way back from the cafeteria. There is a feeling in the air, felt by many, that society is going through dry rot because there is no culture in the society…no feeling of “this, and this, and this are simply not done.” There are exceptions. We don’t tolerate discrimination, we don’t tolerate bigotry, we don’t tolerate sexism, we don’t tolerate…intolerance. But what’s that worth, when you think about it? When we expand the definition of intolerance to include anything that might possibly be interpreted as intolerance, by a sane mind or some other kind of mind. When we keep expanding that definition until it includes tolerance, and we identify tolerance as intolerance and then show our intolerance toward phony intolerance.

What you’re then left with, is a “society,” of sorts, of cowards. People who allow anything and everything, save for whatever their anointed liege lords tell them they aren’t supposed to be allowing. Which is the same as saying people who allow everything.

So I have more people to put in stocks, when and if the day ever comes we bring ’em back.

Anybody who would oppose my stocks, because we need to keep on allowing everything (save for what the anointed mystics tell us we shouldn’t be allowing) — they need to go in my stocks so we can throw rotten vegetables at their faces.

The jackass who burned down the Galleria, absolutely, needs to go in so we can pelt his stupid face with stinky vegetables. Hey, it beats a knouting.

You know those commercials on the radio where they run a toll free number past you? They never do it just once…research has shown, obviously, that the number will stick in your head if they do it three times. That’s one, eight hundred, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. That number again, blah blah blah blah…that announcer goes in the stocks so we can throw rotten tomatoes at his dumb ol’ face.

The producer who told him to do that three times also goes in the stocks.

I notice, lately, a fashionable trend has started to run the toll free number past us four times. I didn’t hear this before — oh, say — about 2001, maybe later. That means there must be a paper out somewhere, some item of research, maybe a guideline that was written on the research, saying four times works better than three.

If it was research, then I figure there is a likelihood there is a singularity of responsibility. One individual must be responsible for having conducted it. One person has opened this Pandora’s Box and unleashed this modern “That Number Again” curse upon us.

That asshole needs to go in stocks. He needs a twenty-four-hour treatment, noon to noon. Rotten tomatoes, rotten onions, rotten cabbage, rotten squash. Pelt pelt pelt pelt pelt. That rotten vegetable again, to make sure you don’t forget it, is…pelt pelt pelt pelt pelt pelt pelt. One more time…

Better that than re-enacting Passion of the Christ. Better that than a branding iron.

Now that is what I call “compassionate conservatism.” Some people don’t have any shame, so they need to be taught some. The compassionate community will teach them some.

…and certain folks who won’t tolerate muslims being blamed for 9/11 celebrate Christian bashing. And those same will tolerate communists and socialist organizing a march they’ll attend but the speaking of lower taxes or a smaller government is extreme. And those that oppose everything Barry is the enemy while the real enemies must be reached out to like some abused stepchild who is merely misunderstood because of circumstances beyond his control and implemented by an imperialistic America.

Yes, stocks by all means. Just afraid of who gets to decide.
- tim | 10/29/2010 @ 09:51
Me.

I’ll certainly do a better job than “That Nobody Guy” who’s making the call right now!
- mkfreeberg | 10/29/2010 @ 10:24
This got me to thinking, because, you see, nobody at work knows about my blog.

Don’t kid yourself, Morgan. Your management prolly googled you before they hired you. I sure as Hell did with my prospective employees, and that was over seven years ago.

And yourself as stocks judge? BAAWAHAHAHA! There ain’t enough wood in all of Sacramento to build stocks to hold all the feminists, libruls, NPR supporters, Hooters picketers, nose-pickers, and such. It is to laugh. 😉
- bpenni | 10/29/2010 @ 11:56
It’s a renewable resource.
- mkfreeberg | 10/29/2010 @ 11:58
Regarding management googling me before they hired me…all I can say is wow. I must be really good at my job, since I’m here anyway.

I just don’t know about that. Not that I think I’m that good with keeping a secret, mind you. Whoever wants to know what I do, can find me, and whoever wants to know where I work, can find that. No, it’s true humility that persuades me to think my secret is still undiscovered…I’m just not that important. Morgan’s to the right of Genghis Kahn, or Morgan is a greenie, or Morgan is an anarchist, or Morgan is a Rastafarian. Long as he isn’t being a Unabomber or a Charles Whitman, who gives a…
- mkfreeberg | 10/29/2010 @ 12:52
I know a lot fewer things than Morgan does, but one of them, Things I Know #7 — says “Tolerance and Acceptance are not synonymous.”

This phony tolerance you speak of … I think it is tolerance without acceptance.

And in America, that should be good enough. You can’t legislate acceptance. Tolerance means you just don’t do anything about your non-acceptance.

I won’t try to tell you who you should or shouldn’t accept. That’s up to you.
- philmon | 10/29/2010 @ 15:15
Good observation.

I haven’t scribbled it down as a Thing I Know, but in the past few years I have noticed it is a very effective and popular tactic for murdering persons, institutions and countries to deny them the privilege of abjuration. I’m seeing this done to religious institutions*, the Republican party, the Tea Party, Israel, Europe and the United States. I also know there are certain staples required by anybody and anything that wants to live: Water, nourishment, warmth and some way to purge. Purging is just as important as the other three.

In other words, without being able to declare yourself incompatible with X, and X to be incompatible with you, you’re left without any way to…be. To exist, you must declare things unfit and rid yourself of them, according to your own judgment. When people make an issue out of conservatives failing to accept this-or-that or some other thing, they’re using this technique to eliminate the object of their dislike, which in that case is conservatism.

I have also noticed something that fascinates me: Those who are most strident about this, apparently living out their entire lives according to a dictum that nobody should ever reject anything — if you study them closely enough you’ll find they actually make a practice out of doing this rejecting. Can’t stop doing it for fifteen minutes, actually. They are denying the right & privilege of others, to do what they themselves do.

Perhaps the best way to address this is to simply tell them, “If we are to live out our lives never rejecting anything, and that is the only proper way to exist and that is what you are trying to teach me, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you lead by example. You must not reject anything, in any way, and you must not make any dismissive gesture toward anybody or anything — including me — or, if you do, you will be showing you actually approve of me as I reject things. If, on the other hand, we are all supposed to enjoy some sacred right never to be rejected or dismissed by anybody, then I am going to have to insist that I be allowed to enjoy such a privilege first and foremost. You are to show me how much you believe in your worldview, by showing me the unconditional acceptance you want me to show others…

“…otherwise, NOW&IHAPBEY.”

Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. But it states the terms of the argument in a way I think is absolutely fair.

*Not Islam.
- mkfreeberg | 10/29/2010 @ 15:33
NOW&IHAPBEY …. not only am I working on a graphic in my head here, but I think there’s a song there to help it roll off the tounge.
- philmon | 10/29/2010 @ 16:11

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