House of Eratosthenes

Well, Good For Her! The one thing that made by far the biggest impression on me about the joyful, tragic, thigh-slapping ya-gotta-be-kiddin’-me tale of Henrietta Hughes, is the list of comments under the story at Fort Myers News-Press (hat tip: Boortz). It’s just like Wikipedia — half a quart of relevant information for those willing to study the article itself, plus a five-gallon bucket of it if you’re willing to simply click through to the “Talk Page.” Henrietta’s a plant. Obviously. It’s a little silly that there’s any debate about it. And President Obama saw to it she got everything she wanted…since she was on camera, and he’s a bleeding-heart lib. Then he made sure he got the publicity for it. So far, everyone’s doing what they can be expected to do.

Well, you’re not likely to meet Henrietta Hughes or Barack Obama. What is useful, is to study the behavior of everyday folks. These are the people with whom you have to share a subway ride, or a freeway, or an office building. And this is a fascinating window into the souls of all of us.

Do select the option to read the oldest posts first. Pretty please. See what I see? For the first page and a half, no critical thinking whatsoever — none. Oh joy! She got a house! And she’ll live happily ever after!

This is how people think. It’s the “doughnut rule”: Once someone’s picked out the first glazed, or maple bar, it’s fair game. You can measure the consumption in pastries-per-minute. But until that first one’s been picked out, the box just sits, and sits, and sits. No one wants to go first.

That’s the way with noticing, by President Obama’s behavior, that it’s nearly impossible for Ms. Hughes not to be a plant. And, that if everything’s on the up-and-up, her problems are just beginning because of the taxes that have to be paid on her new home. And — gosh, it’d be nice to have some more details about what happened here, like how she got into this rally, what her 37-year-old son’s situation is, how things got to this point, and that really ugly one…what are all the other homeless people supposed to do, just wait in line for The Divine One to descend from heaven somewhere near them?

This is why I want you to read oldest-first. See the doughnut-rule in action. One or two dozen glittery comments from folks who’ll just let the naked Emperor parade right on by. By the third page, people have been given license to type in exactly what’s unsettling about this, what’s giving them second thoughts.

But the intellectual lightweights continue to lash out.

I think my favorite was AuPouvoir:

2:55:07 PM
I would like to know what else Mrs. Hughes needs, and how I might get it to her.

3:40:56 PM
Replying to wickedlyscarlett:

I am so tired of these gimme gimme gimme types of people. Gimme a break!! They’re leaches!

You need to sit back and reflect.. there but for the grace of God, go YOU!

3:41:47 PM
Replying to grannym1:

I am glad she is getting help, but SHE WAS PLANTED IN THE AUDIENCE. Someone knew of this problem and pulled strinsg so “Obama of the White Momma” would look good. This woman is no
better off then my grandson who can not get disabbilty or health insurance, unable to work, needs a hip repacement more whiney stuff. etc. So excuse me but poltics are just that. Obama of the White Momma, need more that this showy stuff. So get behind me Satan and lets help the economey instead of showing off !

You should be ashamed of yourself. I don’t even know you, and I’m ashamed of you.

You see the pattern I’m seeing?

You have the goo-gooders — and you have the every-man-for-himself s.o.b.’s. You have feel-good emotions — and you have logic and reason.

The goo-gooders do not deal in logic & reason at all. Many among their ranks will admit this readily. Who cares about what causes what, and what is the effect of what, when Ms. Hughes’ story just makes you feel so gosh darn good? Others will put up some kind of phony masquerade pretending that they are, in fact, dealing with logic…or a superior base of knowledge, anyway. We all are, after all, just a paycheck away from living in a car just like Henrietta Hughes, are we not? So you s.o.b.’s need to just think ahead, and anticipate where you’ll end up someday. Henrietta Hughes is you!

Now the s.o.b.’s work with a mixture of logic and emotion. Logic as in: Eh, Obama can’t give anybody a damn thing without taking it away from someone else. If massive blessings are about to rain down on someone due to the blessings flowing from the Substitute Jesus, there will have to be an equivalent plundering from someone else.

Here, we run into a basic fact about people and the way they behave. Parents, telling their children how people work, out of politeness leave this out…along with lots of other things. In fact, it’s right there on the list of Things I Know Now About People That I Wasn’t Told When I Was a Child — Item 16:

People who are overly concerned about their emotions, don’t want anyone else to be overly concerned with thinking.

So you see, this is why AuPouvoir is ashamed of someone she doesn’t even know. She’s overly concerned with her emotions, she doesn’t want grannyml to be concerned with thinking…even if it’s thinking about others who are worse-off than Henrietta Hughes, and/or are perhaps more deserving of assistance from others. This really has very little to do, and probably nothing to do, with helping others worse-off. It’s about a cheap and easy way to “prove” you’re a decent person.

If this reads like I’m picking on AuPouvoir and people like her, I’ve only just begun. There really is no appeal in cheap-and-easy ways to prove you’re a decent person…if, deep down, you already think of yourself that way. In fact, if you’re truly concerned about lightening the load of others, the very last thing you’re going to do is upload a post to the blog of the Fort Myers News-Press saying you’d “like to know what else Mrs. Hughes needs” so you can get it to her. If this was your concern, you wouldn’t even need to have it pointed out that gosh, maybe there are some other folks just as badly off as Ms. Hughes who haven’t managed to attract the publicity. You wouldn’t need to have that pointed out to you. You’d already know.

But the real scolding comes for the every-man-for-himself s.o.b.’s who deign to show their emotions. See, the goo-gooders are unhappy when the s.o.b.’s vocalize their thoughts; but they’re really, really unhappy when the s.o.b.’s vocalize their emotions. That, right there, is encroaching on the goo-gooders’ turf. It’s a turf thing; definitely a turf-thing. To the dedicated goo-gooder, emotions have one purpose and one purpose only, and that’s to showcase to each other what incredibly decent people we are. And goo-gooder is the only way any humans should ever be. All those other ones should just dry up and blow away.

They want a complete monopoly on emotions. They get to have their emotions — you aren’t allowed to have yours. Not unless you join them.

These are not stable people. For a number of reasons. For one thing, if they got exactly what they wanted, they’d be miserable. There wouldn’t be any humans left except goo-gooders…emotional goo-gooders…constantly communicating their emotions about how much they want to help poor people. Which would just stiffen the competition. They’d have to talk & type that much faster, to maintain their “King of the Mountain” status in wanting to get more help to Henrietta Hughes. It isn’t about helping Ms. Hughes, or talking about helping Ms. Hughes. It’s all about relativity. It’s a competition. A race. As in, ha ha, I’m better than you, I want to help Henrietta Hughes more than you do.

The other thing is, they want anyone not like them, to go away. Not to lose arguments…but to disappear. That is always a sign of instability. But as a general rule, every-man-for-himself s.o.b.’s are more productive than goo-gooders. People tend to get bitter about having things taken away from them, when they had plans insofar as what they were going to do with those things.

So the goo-gooders can’t really afford for the s.o.b.’s to go away, because someone has to be fleeced in order to fund their plans to get houses to people like Henrietta Hughes. They want something that, because of their own ambitions, they can’t have.

I suppose I could’ve left these thoughts un-typed. If President Obama’s chosen strategy is to put people like Ms. Hughes in his audiences as plants, I could’ve pointed this out any ol’ time. Indeed, I do think this is the Holy President’s Grand Strategy, and I do think there will be many, many more occasions to comment on it later on.

But when I do, I’ll make a point of observing not so much how He behaves, and how His audience-plant-of-the-month behaves…but how others behave. There won’t be a lot of variation to it. The doughnut-rule will apply, and Item #16 will apply too. So, too, will Thing I Know #266:

People will flock, like moths to flame, to a way of showcasing some inner decency that is costless and doesn’t really mean anything.

These are constants in the human condition.

If this was your concern, you wouldn’t even need to have it pointed out that gosh, maybe there are some other folks just as badly off as Ms. Hughes who haven’t managed to attract the publicity. You wouldn’t need to have that pointed out to you. You’d already know.

I’d dearly love to know how much time the hypocritical little scold has spent volunteering in homeless shelters in the last year, or how much money she’s given at church, or what resources she’s donated to the Salvation Army or Goodwill.

Cause, you know, that stuff would actually put her in touch with people like dear Ms Hughes…and then our precious left-winger would be put on the spot…and asked to do something besides chastise those mean-spirited, cold-hearted conservatives via the Internet.
- cylarz | 02/13/2009 @ 22:56
And this comes on top of how I’m sick and tired of these Town-Hall-style meetings in which members of the public ask liberal politicians to solve their problems for them. That in of itself makes me want to retch; said politician never seems to reply with, “Well, Ma’am, I’m going to get the government the hell out of your way and its hand out of your pocketbook…so you can be free to dig yourself out from this mess on your own.”
- cylarz | 02/13/2009 @ 22:58

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They Monopolize EmotionsWednesday, February 11th, 2009

They Monopolize Emotions
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009