House of Eratosthenes

Six more days until we sail off the fiscal cliff. You might be resting assured that the politicians in Washington are paying attention to the problem, negotiating, doing stuff, et al. But you won’t be very assured after you pay attention to the negotiating, at which time you’ll understand why the problem exists. Everything the guys-in-charge are doing, is a perfect step-by-step guide on how to do things the wrong way.

Here’s a hint: President Obama used His speech at Sen. Daniel Inouye’s funeral, to talk about Himself. Go ahead and give a listen. Holy crap, this is unreal.

It is more than a politician acting like a politician. It might be, as I noted before, an actual mental illness. But beyond even that, it’s easy to forget that what we’re seeing here is an established process for making decisions. We see it in the wake of the Newtown massacre, multiple times a week…

See what I see there? Three things.

1. Absolutely nonsensical conclusion with regard to the right thing to do;
2. Total misunderstanding of the values & motives of those who might have a different opinion (“feel like a real man”);
3. That smile.

And where, pray tell, did I see that smile before. It seems so familiar. Oh yes, now I remember. On Season 10 of South Park…except you’re supposed to have some closed eyes while you’re doing it, as you smell your own farts.

On a related subject, we were wondering over at the Hello Kitty of Blogging what was going on with women nowadays, that it has become unthinkable within a fairly narrow span of time to have the word “obey” in her wedding vows. The answer is, of course, the following: As is the case with all other things, it seems the people who make the most noise have the greatest influence on our evolving customs, even when the things they say are silly and make no sense. Which applies here, because those people take the word “obey” rather literally, and in their zaniness seem to have blundered into a realization way off in the weeds, with the rest of us in tow, that this is something women should never, ever, under any circumstances, ever, do. Unless I suppose it’s someone telling Sarah Palin to shut her mouth and then she “obeys,” that would be perfectly alright, but the rest of the time this should not be happening. No woman should ever do any of that obeying stuff.

Which is, of course, quite different from what the verb would mean, in that context. So these people aren’t even aiming their thoughts in the right direction. They want to do some smugging, by resisting the idea that a woman should ever be subservient…I’m gathering most of the time, that is the intent. But as any man knows who’s ever been unhappily married lately, this all too often translates (with nobody bothering too much to correct course) into an idea that the woman should never agree. If the smug people were still paying attention, it would be pretty easy to show how this doesn’t lead to very good results. After all, hasn’t the pattern become rather well-worn by now? The woman shouldn’t be subservient…therefore she should be showing her independence all of the time, in a lot of cases this translates to disagreeing, about everything, constantly. One day, she wakes up and realizes she is “unfulfilled” and this somehow becomes the husband’s problem, and he has to lose half his stuff. So this doesn’t produce good results.

But keeping your eyes closed is an important part of being smug.

Anyway, I said something in that thread that is probably better situated over here…

Trouble with women is that women are people, and as you go through the list of what’s wrong with the modern woman, a lot of it has to do with what’s wrong with modern people. Prof. Sowell put together a comment over the holiday which fortunately went viral, and it deserved to: He said that today’s so-called “intellectuals” were generally deteriorating everything, by incrementally replacing “what works with what sounds good.”

That’s exactly what’s wrong with liberals…AND women. And no small number of men. They come up with half-baked, silly answers to things, that once put into effect do *not* make anything better, but enable the person spewing them to sit, smile, and act smug. Lately that’s where all-to-most of the energy is going, for some reason.

Yeah, we just got done linking to the Professor’s remarks yesterday. His exact words are:

The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a wrecking crew, dismantling civilization bit by bit — replacing what works with what sounds good.

Yeah, this is how we’re saying goodbye to 2012. We’re enshrouded in a thick layer of Smug, people are running around adding to the gaseous covering everywhere you turn, but the atmospheric pollution is only the beginning of the problem. There are still the effects of unwise decision-making, waiting to confront us at the least opportune time. Global warming, climate change, whatever, that political movement is merely a subset of this. It is the golden age of the intellectual, defined by Tom Wolfe as “a person knowledgeable in one field who speaks out only in others.”

In that sense, anybody can be an intellectual. Just know something about one thing, which really isn’t a challenging bar to surpass at all; be loud and opinionated about one-to-several other things; and, lack the common sense and good judgment necessary to realize you’ve strayed outside the periphery of your knowledge domain. And a built-in bias toward nonsensical statements helps too. Presto, we all can be intellectuals. And this is our time.

We suffer and suffer some more, because the decisions we make are bad ones. So don’t forget to smile and close your eyes when you talk, and take some time to smell your own farts.

Isn’t that Beiber’s girlfriend?

Yeah. There’s a real man for ya.
- philmon | 12/28/2012 @ 20:01
I dunno. Ms. Gomez’ nose is shaped differently, and if you do a Google image search for “Selena Gomez guns” you don’t get this pic back anywhere…
- mkfreeberg | 12/28/2012 @ 23:02
[…] That’s because, in the liberal/Medicator mindset, human deeds are dirt. They are to become “better” by being made less of what they were before; becoming cleaner, not bigger. They are opposed to human achievement, because they are opposed to human life. They see humans as a contagion. To them, the grand achievement is to be a better and better GoodPerson, but the only way to do that is to apologize for oneself and the space he takes up in the universe. And so to become accepted, you become less and do less — then you can feel smug. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 07/21/2013 @ 13:22
[…] That’s because, in the liberal/Medicator mindset, human deeds are dirt. They are to become “better” by being made less of what they were before; becoming cleaner, not bigger. They are opposed to human achievement, because they are opposed to human life. They see humans as a contagion. To them, the grand achievement is to be a better and better GoodPerson, but the only way to do that is to apologize for oneself and the space he takes up in the universe. And so to become accepted, you become less and do less — then you can feel smug. […]
- Memo For File CLXXXII | Rotten Chestnuts | 07/21/2013 @ 14:23

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Teh SmuggWednesday, December 26th, 2012

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Wednesday, December 26th, 2012