House of Eratosthenes

He had met up with the “Aisle Nine Disappointment.” The bank of four self-cash-out machines is positioned in such a way that there is no room for a line of people, so the line forms up Aisle Nine. Several times a minute, therefore, a customer in a hurry descends upon the machines under the impression that there is no waiting to be had. And then one from a variety of experiences falls upon him, with the outcome being that he learns there is, indeed, a line. And often that he’s guilty of being a cutter. These experiences have all happened to me at some time or another.

They fall into two major classifications: You figure out the unpleasant truth yourself, or someone has to tell you. Civilized people think little of this. It means two or three minutes more waiting, when you’ve already been inside the better part of an hour.

This fellow’s face reflected genuine surprise, and then contorted into rage. Gave his cart (2 or 3 items) a mighty shove, and walked off in the opposite direction. My vantage point was from within the line, so it looks like, once again, I have aroused anger in someone by existing in this universe. When will I ever learn? No seriously — where, I must wonder, would people like this choose to direct their rage?

I am not free of rage myself. I have been quite unhinged on occasion. At my worst, the target of ire is some inanimate object. I’m not proud of this. I hope at my funeral, someone sees fit to immortalize something else about me. But I do have this to offer in my defense: The target is there. There is one. From the target of ire, there is at least an implied goal, and from that, at least an implied plan. Something to do with destruction, replacement, or both of those things.

What is the implied plan, with turning your shopping receptacle into a projectile, possibly hurting someone? Someone is supposed to notice you’re upset? Who? For an explanation, all I can think of is a chemical imbalance in the brain, or poor upbringing. It’s not just him. Something is just a bit off today. One of these days, I need to learn to do my shopping here when the professionals do it; seems when they’re there, I have a lot of trouble parking, but when everybody else is there I have problems with everything else. People don’t understand what they’re there to get, which is excusable, but they also don’t seem to understand how to move around other people. Which is not. C’mon, you’re not five anymore. High traffic areas, low traffic areas, these things are not the same. You need to check your bearings, figure out what’s next on your list, have a quick conference with your spouse…where do you do that? In the way, or out of the way? You should have to pass a test like this before being allowed entrance.

Perhaps that is what escalated the agitation level in the “gentleman” who made this impression on me. Several minutes of that. Still, that’s no excuse.

Here’s the fascinating part. I would bet good money that this is an Obama voter. But there’s no use heading over to Social Media to say so, it would just start needless arguments, butt hurt, and a LOT of rebuttal. That’s the advantage of having taken the time to argue with liberals, you learn things. And the fascinating part is, Obama voters, while being seen in this light by normal people, look at normal people this way too. No really. They think when normal people think about high taxes the way normal people think about high taxes — high, therefore questionable at least, and certainly very taxing — we’re being the asshole who gives a cart a mighty shove, thereby contributing to the congestion problem that he is simultaneously announcing to the world is too much for him to tolerate. They think that guy is us. You hear them say so all the time. Who among us has not heard the endless litanies about how we have to have a tax system so we can pay for police departments, fire departments, park benches, et al. They’re so cute when they work so hard to avoid saying anything good about the military. Also, traffic lights are like this. Part of the price we have to pay to live in a civilized society is that we have to follow rules, much like stopping for a red light and waiting for it to turn green. Yes, that must be the problem. I’m opposed to more public debt because I’m a red-light runner.

Give Me Reparations I’ve heard this many times. I can re-type it with my eyes closed. Yes, take it from me. Leftists see real-people, as just more specimens just like the shopping-cart asshole. They don’t show any signs of understanding why we see them that way. The ignorance may be genuine.

Yesterday I had made the point, as I had made it before,

Liberals should not summarize the viewpoints of their opposition on behalf of their opposition, because liberals don’t understand their own opposition. They’re proud of not knowing.

And what motivates their opposition is,

What exactly does conservatism seek to conserve? Civilization, the blessings that come from having it, and the definitions that make civilization possible. From what does liberalism seek to liberate us? Those things — starting with the definitions.

The definitions that make civilization possible include, but are not limited to…waiting in line. Shopping-cart-asshole is their dude, whether they realize it or not. In fact, so are the people who run red lights. All those who doubt this, allow the liberals to wander away from this issue and bloviate about something else for awhile. The pattern will soon set in and it won’t often be disrupted to any extent: Where there is a definition, they want to kill it, especially if it is a definition upon which civilized society depends.

Profits go to people and businesses that are most productive. That, too, is a definition upon which society depends. They’re none to fond of it. Who’s going to give the worm to the bird who doesn’t particularly feel like getting out of bed too early? Not — from where should the worm come. Just — where’s the program. More worms would keep the society going. More programs bring it to a stop. So the stencil-selection involved in their aggravated curiosity is most telling.

I think they’re rushing to get the talking point out, about “You just don’t like taxes because you’re a stranger to the concept of following rules,” because it helps to conceal a truth that has become evident to all serious observers, even the most casual ones: The Left is burdened with a far greater saturation of these shopping-cart-shoving assholes who don’t want to take turns. I mentioned up above somewhere about an ignorance they show, that is likely sincere? They have one that’s insincere: They pretend not to understand that high profits are what make our society go. Some of them pretend that they’re keen on some obscure bit of wisdom, that eludes us slope-foreheaded people who can’t see the brilliant inventor in clock boy, or the woman in Caitlyn Jenner. But that’s all fake. It’s bluster; they don’t even have the beginnings of an idea of what that obscure bit of wisdom would be.

The “I need a program” part is genuine. The “taxes, not profits, are what make society go” is crap. That comes from just saying whatever you have to say to get what you want.

Occasional reader/commenter Nate sent along, in the e-mails, an article about, and written by, a lefty-inclined person who’s starting to see the light.

I will always believe in “The Revolution”. But I am becoming very frustrated with modern “activist” culture.

First of all, I’m tired of watching people turn into pretentious assholes who think their activism makes them better than everyone else, even those oppressed and marginalized groups with whom they claim “allyship”.

It’s got some funny parts in it, which aren’t intentional unless this is supposed to be parody. A possibility I can’t dismiss right away. “Allyship”?

They talk about listening, being humble, questioning one’s preconceived notions about other people and hearing their lived experiences…and yet ignore the lived experiences of those who don’t speak or think properly in the view of university-educated social justice warriors, regardless of how much worse off they really are. That is not to say that we should accept bigotry in any form – far from it. But I would go as far as saying that the politically correct mafia on the left perpetuates a form of bigotry on its own because it alienates and “otherizes” those who do not share their ways of thinking and speaking about the world.

Something tells me the cupcake could’ve saved herself a lot of time and trouble, merely by listening to a conservative once in a while and taking what he or she had to say, at least somewhat seriously. The essay reads like “no freakin’ duh.”

But, back to breaking these rules that keep society together, the running of the red lights, the shoving of shopping carts; lefties think normal people are doing that and normal people think it’s the lefties doing that. Each side thinks it’s the other side that can’t take turns. How to resolve the impasse?

Isn’t their guy’s master-slogan something like “We Can’t Wait”? Yeah…I thought so.

Checkmate.

[…] Freeberg nails it again. […]
- DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Someone Can’t Wait | 02/28/2016 @ 12:58
I run red lights all the time.
Right on red, after a full stop, traffic permitting.
I sought out the alternative to “waiting in line” (know WHEN to shop, WHEN certain stuff goes on sale, WHEN the welfare/unemployment checks come out, etc…) with morning rush hour traffic as well.
Not ONLY did I discover the “I can’t believe no one goes this way” route, but also
BOTH of the only traffic lights in Manhattan that are “right on red” intersections.
Somehow, learning the rules, as practiced by the savvy, which are NEVER intuitive, NOR “as directed”
by the “experts”, got me cool status, and got me laid more than my “fair share” from the bad boy admiring “out of your league” (according to beta associates) ladies.
It all made for a higher level of serenity in a sphere based on havoc.
- CaptDMO | 02/28/2016 @ 13:43
Tangential to your point, I realize, but I love the ol’ “if you want lower taxes, you must hate public utilities and the police department!” I read somewhere that doofy college kids were trying this out on GOP supporters in Iowa — “Get off our socialist sidewalks!,” their posters read. I always challenge them to name me a single conservative thinker who maintains that governments shouldn’t provide sewers and police — and no, that Cheeto-stained bong warrior on your friend’s dorm floor doesn’t count as a “thinker.”

In fact, I tell them, I’d be happy to pay taxes at my current rate — hell, at double my current rate — if I got to allocate where they go. Imagine that: You do your taxes, and at the end of your 1040 form you have a fill-in-the-blank section where you allocate percentages of your tax bill to various government initiatives, and that’s the federal budget for the year.

I don’t want Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, foreign aid to anyone, PBS, the Department of Education, and those dumbass NIH studies that try to figure out why lesbians are fat (no, really). I DO want robust defense and a big ol’ wall on the southern border; as far as I’m concerned, ICE should have nukes and free rein to use them. I’m also willing to chip in a few denarii for the state highway system. Now liberals, I presume, would want the exact opposite, so… come April 15, we tally up everyone’s allocations, and see what’s what.

Who wouldn’t love this system? How could it be any fairer, or more reflective of its citizens’ desires? Why are we not doing this right now?
- Severian | 02/28/2016 @ 14:14
In fact, I tell them, I’d be happy to pay taxes at my current rate — hell, at double my current rate — if I got to allocate where they go. Imagine that: You do your taxes, and at the end of your 1040 form you have a fill-in-the-blank section where you allocate percentages of your tax bill to various government initiatives, and that’s the federal budget for the year.

Another vote for my “get rid of the government and put everything on kickstarter” idea…

(of course conservatives can see the flaw in the plan and usually laugh at the joke I made – it’s even funnier to watch liberals because they know it’s wrong but they can’t explain why without betraying one of their fundamental axioms)
- Nate Winchester | 02/29/2016 @ 09:18
Also Severian, you messed up your fat lesbian link again.
- Nate Winchester | 02/29/2016 @ 09:18
Bingo. Our “fund the government through Kickstarter” idea is childishly simple to refudiate… IF you have coherent ideas about what governments are supposed to do and why. Since liberals don’t have that… well, as you say, it’s fun to watch ’em squirm.

LOL on the link problems. I’ve been to grad school, man… I’ve been having problems with fat lesbian links for years.
- Severian | 02/29/2016 @ 10:00
“First of all, I’m tired of watching people turn into pretentious assholes who think their activism makes them better than everyone else, even those oppressed and marginalized groups with whom they claim “allyship”.”

This statement runs full circle on one of the many “Conservatives give more than Liberals” studies that I’ve seen. Pulling from a spectrum of poor to rich, the average conservative gave 10-25%, while the average conservative gave 0-10%. The part that elevated this study over all the others was that the researchers went back and confronted the “poll-ees” and essentially confronted them about their “generosity.” The typical liberal response was “I contribute in OTHER ways, such as agitating, trolling, making a nuisance of myself, etc.”

They think they’re better than anyone else because their “contribution” matters more, like a liberal child that smears poop on a piece of paper and gives it to a parent as art, while conservative child #2 (no pun intended) buys a useful present with money they made mowing lawns .
- P_Ang | 02/29/2016 @ 13:03
Reminds me of baseball: Sure the guy can’t hit, run, field, or pitch, but he contributes in so many other ways….

This is the one thing I don’t blame Karl Marx for. I blame Rousseau for letting loose the idea that talking about something — and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking — is the same as, or actually superior to, doing something.
- Severian | 02/29/2016 @ 14:05
Oh, and chalk up another case to the “need an edit button” bin…average poor-rich conservatives gave between 10-25%, average poor-rich liberal gave 0-10%.

Say, when comments on posts here get too large and are truncated, is there any way to go back and re-read the older stuff?
- P_Ang | 02/29/2016 @ 14:45
Oh, and I’ll put in a buck towards Sev’s “Fund fat government-linked lesbian Cheetos on kickstarter” campaign, just because I want to look like I’m contributing…
- P_Ang | 02/29/2016 @ 14:49
Hmm, since I’m not getting an answer on the truncating, I guess I’ll postulate some more:

I saw an article that made me think about actually throwing in a vote for Trump if he wins the primary against my honorable desire to write-in my chosen candidate. The cuttlefish are crying that they will leave the country if Trump wins.

On second thought though…they said that twelve years ago if GWB “wins again” and I didn’t see a single one leave, the baldest, winning-est cuttlefish included. Guess that idea’s nixed.
- P_Ang | 03/02/2016 @ 17:07
Sorry about that. I spent just a couple minutes looking into it and found the “Break comments into pages” checkbox got checked. Don’t know how, when or why. Gremlins.

Likely happened during the last update, I did this weekend sometime.
- mkfreeberg | 03/02/2016 @ 19:04
No problem, thanks for taking a look.
- P_Ang | 03/02/2016 @ 19:10

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Someone Can’t WaitSunday, February 28th, 2016

Someone Can’t Wait
Sunday, February 28th, 2016