"But the chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule ..." - Plato, "The Republic"
2020 will one day be remembered as a watershed period in history for a variety of reasons.
Any serious and sober future historian will find much to perplex and confound in the already-moldering bones of the last year, and perhaps, if the cyclical nature of human progress is, in fact, an operative thing his age will be one marked by a return to sanity and a genuine curiosity that will provide the proper background for his analysis of this Annus Horibilis.
That is to say, he won't (we pray) be a nose-picking dumbfuck obsessed with his social status, gender, race or genitals, like
I have my doubts...
I don't need to run down the horrible events of the past year for you, since you've lived through them (unless you had the misfortune to be living -- and now NOT living -- in a state run by anyone named "Cuomo", "Newsome", "Whitmer", "Murphy", among others).
But until the day comes when more-rational human beings emerge from the fetid sewer of this present epoch, we have to face certain facts. They are uncomfortable and distressing facts, because they are intensely personal.
Considering the lumpen mess of flesh and whine we call "Leftists" are beyond help, I am going to specifically aim my rant at those of us "on the Right". That was put in parenthesis because some of you have come full circle and sound and act like leftists.
A good many of you reading this will be terribly insulted.
And I don't give a fuck, because you should be.
If you had any sense, your bruised feelz would rapidly transform into a deep and painful sense of shame, you'd understand your own part in the Year of Giant Fucktard, and you might even be driven by a sudden desire to either kill yourself or perform a DIY sterilization.
Then again, a lot of you are so fucking lazy you'll just wait for the Struggle Session to come to you. You've been robbed of the power of action by comfort, bad ideas, piss-poor ideology and belief in something beyond this world.
It (suicide or sterilization) is the least you can do to atone for your sins, and I do mean "the least", because doing anything else is difficult -- "anything else" requires brains, skill, a sense of responsibility, objective honesty, and a willingness to undertake a mighty challenge, and these, My Minions, are EXACTLY the things Americans no longer have or do.
Others will point to a variety of external factors that have led us to civilizational decline, the prospect of Socialism With a Smiley Face (and firing squads), the destruction of liberty, the elevation of the banal and the disgusting to commanding heights, the loss of faith in the Invisible Jew in the Sky. They will look to ideology, "systems", cause-and-effect, perhaps even blame some of our current issues on "pandemics" and "polarization", but I'm not going there.
Because those aren't the root of our current difficulties.
Our deficiencies lie squarely within the realm of Human Capital.
Which is to say, we have very little of it. And what little we do have is prevented from balancing the books by the sheer numbers of debits with lower-than-an-Affirmative-Action-SAT-score intelligence on the American ledger.
The (Below-) Average American
(Note: To be referred to throughout this essay as BAA).
I was about 40 when I came to the unavoidable conclusion that I was, to quote Rick Moranis in Spaceballs, "surrounded by assholes".
Stop clutching your pearls, Francis. You are an asshole, no matter how much you may protest to the contrary. You just haven't realized it. You haven't realized it because you're an intellectually-lazy piece of shit either waiting for the Flapping Rectum on the idiot box to spoon-feed the bad news to you, or at least for someone to send you a text message to that effect.
Unbunch yer panties, Hazel, because you're the sort that, on the one hand, cries about how "Washington doesn't work for you", or that "Republican Congresscritters aren't "conservative enough", or that "we need Term Limits" and then you send the same reprobate back to the Hallowed Halls 80% of the time. You expect that the people who you accuse of having no regard for you and your stupid feelz, who you refer to as thieves, who you say do not represent your views, will simply "fix the system" because you whined a little louder this election cycle than last.
Benjamin Franklin said the proof of insanity was in repeating the same action and expecting a different result.
Based upon the results, you're all insane. Based upon a lifetime of experience few of you actually know what you're talking about; you wouldn't know a "conservative", a "democratic socialist". a "libertarian" or a "Patriot" if one ran up and bit you on the ass. The terms are meaningless in the current political context; they have become mere marketing labels, gang colors, a means of selling you books you don't read, cruises with non-entity keynote speakers, and injecting you with a constipated vision of the country which is several decades out of date and at odds with physical reality.
Put your (metaphorical) vag in neutral, Mary, because your Asshole Merit Badge is as big as your mouth, and worth about as much as your stupid ideas of how things ought to be, stupid ideas that keep you from understanding just what is happening and changing around you, and keeping you from making the adaptations necessary to survive the changes.
"But...but....My Lord, I have no choices! I'm a single individual! I'm powerless, because others have stolen my power!".
You sound like a fucking leftist with that line of crap, Susan. That's how pervasive leftist (un-)thought has become: the supposed-rugged individualist, the salt of the earth backbone of REAL 'murica, is just another victim of society.
Just another BAA, like the losers on the left. Except that the left exists SPECIFICALLY because there are BAA's, there's very little obvious difference between any of you. Spineless, hypocritical, double-talking, knuckle-dragging morons who can do little but complain, who won't actually FIGHT for anything worth having because that entails sacrifice. Even the idiots who stormed the Capital were operating under the same assumption that ANTIFA does:
They wouldn't DARE...certainly not in front of the cameras.
That "brave" action was only undertaken because no one believed there would be any pushback, in the same way ANTIFA invaded Portland and Seattle and set up "autonomous zones" where even the murder and rape were sure to go unpunished.
You all talk a good game, and then fail to show up when it matters. Driving to Washington and carrying signboards in Paducah are worthless gestures because the solution to our problems is not to be found in the malarial patch between Virginia and Maryland, nor are they reducible to a slogan written in Sharpie on a piece of oaktag.
The solution is to elevate the BAA to Above-Average American (AAA) status.
The first change on the agenda has to be the BAA. We cannot afford Below-Average, anymore. There can be no passengers on this metaphorical bus, only drivers.
We live in a time when drastic change is necessary and we are equipped with broken tools that resist change because change means tossing long-cherished (and ultimately valueless) ideas overboard; it requires an objective evaluation of place, time and circumstance by people still blinded by memories of a time, place and circumstances which are no longer operative, or which no longer exist.
The problem is YOU, Abagail.
And just like recovery from addiction or mental illness, you need to fix yourself, first, Gertrude, before you can accomplish your goal of being happy. The first step, as they say, is to admit that you have a problem.
Here's a list of your issues:
1) Ignorance - The (Below-) Average American is a cretin.
I mean like weapons-grade retard.
The proof of this is abundant and has a dog-shit-on-the-sidewalk quality to it, as in it's being so common as to be unremarkable.
YouTube is replete with American stupidity of the "hold muh beer" variety.
A stock joke on late-night television is the "Man-in--The-Street" segment where Americans are shown to be incapable of answering simple questions across a broad spectrum of subjects. Late-Night television is, itself, a reflection of the dumbass, consisting mainly of unfunny comedians making politically-charged (but humorless) "jokes" interviewing "celebrities" (more like "celebrutards") who are only there to promote their latest "artistic" (or is it "autistic"?) excretion.
In between are the commercials for the miracle pills that will cure your eczema, erectile dysfunction, spastic bladder, garden-variety blahs and "treatments" for everything from chronic dry eye to chronic dry vagina, all of it coming with enough side effects that to list them all takes up most of the 30-seconds allotted and always includes "risk of death" as a consequence of getting rid of your bad breath or spotty taint.
The rest of their television time consists of nothing but time-wasting, non-enriching fare of a dubious quality or sensibility -- college sports with it's undecipherable systems of rankings, interminable playoffs systems, and sheer non-utility, shows about incredibly obese people getting weight loss surgery, "competitive" entertainment revolving around dating and elementary-school-level trivia, binge-watchable soap operas, and "infotainment" propaganda programs aimed at specific slivers of the viewing audience and designed to either reinforce what you (think) you know, or completely obfuscate reality.
Whether "Hannity" or "Maddow", "60 Minutes" or Bill Maher, it's all the same format:
Segment 1: The Other Guy Sucks
Segment 2: Here's our sides' newly-minted savior
Segment 3: Serious piece on glaringly-obvious non-issue
Segment 4: Did we tell you The Other Guy sucks?
Test this for yourself: ask five of your friends some rudimentary questions about what the top five planks in either party's political program are; ask someone to describe the differences between a constitutional republic and a democracy; the differences between capitalism, socialism, fascism and communism; ask them to point out -- within 500 miles -- other countries on a map. See what kind of fuckwit emerges out the back end of the process and then either laugh or weep.
We need better-educated voters. We cannot depend upon the media and educational establishment to provide them, and so it is incumbent upon us to take it as a personal challenge to Make Intelligence Great Again.
2) Apathy - because the BAA is a literal jackass, he gives little thought to what happens around him, and undertakes even less positive or productive action in return. He is unaware of the latent power he possesses, either contented to be led down a primrose path by a talking head reading off a teleprompter on the newscast or from the campaign stump, or, alternately living in a state of constant friction with his "leadership" or society, as a whole, incapable of articulating his discontent or of formulating a useful response to it.
A typical refrain of the frustrated for many years has been "well, what can you do? I'm only one person", usually applied to an unpopular policy, some event of national importance, or questions of decency and illegality. It is the plaintive wail of the person who has become committed to being un-committed, who believes that "The World" or "Washington" or "The Powers That Be" are beyond their means to communicate with or influence.
The response, when there is one, is a general apathy (what percentage of the American public doesn't even bother to vote?), a dumpster dive into conspiracy theory, or the release that comes from Third-party politics, which has a sort of mirage quality to it -- while a wonderful way to register your discontent with either major party, it's also a good way to dodge personal responsibility or useful action, as the Third Parties currently available aren't likely to actually win anything.
Inertia is the general state of the BAA, and in a way, it is psychologically comforting for them. Since the end result is always expected to be a shitpiping the prophecy is always fulfilled, regardless of who is in charge, so you're always right and you can stand on the sidelines screaming "I told you so!". I'm sure this makes you feel virtuous and intelligent, but it is just another indication of moron.
The idea that things could be different with just a modicum of directed effort eludes this sort, who is easily discouraged by failure, under the mistaken impression that The System is monolithic, perfect in it's methods, and cannot be assailed or questioned.
In general, the Apathetic can only be moved to action by some gross violation, and even then, their new-found energy and passion quickly dissipate unless victory is achieved immediately and, being unused to positive activity, they can only be positively functional by harnessing their negative reaction.
Before they relapse into apathy, again.
3) Lazy - The BAA is a lazy bastard. This does not necessarily mean physically lazy (although the "epidemic" of morbid obesity is a constant buzzing sound in the background of American Life), but it certainly DOES mean intellectually lazy.
She is incurious. She is largely convinced that she knows what she doesn't know and often proud to wear the ribbons of her self-imposed incomprehension like campaign medals, responding to any challenge of her insensitivity to knowledge and facts by dismissing them entirely, attempting to change subjects, make weak moral-equivalency arguments, or to simply walk away from the entire thing just as the dumbfuck is exposed to avoid embarassment.
This is a consequence of the non-education the BAA received at the hands of public school teachers and universities more-interested in operating a unionized, publicly-funded baby-sitting service or an expensive Day Care Center with a football team (only with safe spaces and lots of binge drinking and sex) .
Education is no longer a service -- it is a BUSINESS -- and the product it sells are the illusions of knowledge and qualification. If the taxpayer demanded efficiency and efficacy from the schools she is forced to pay for, or the idiot picked her secondary education by virtue of content and not on the basis of male-female ratio or proximity to Spring Break hotspots or even according to which schools are known to give easy "A"s, she'd know this.
But then she'd also have the knowledge necessary to understand she's being underserved and overcharged.
So, education in this country is largely devoted to producing non-thinkers. It is geared towards churning out non-achievers because the prevailing political discourse either tars the achiever as selfish, "privileged", an oppressor and exploiter, or because it needs to justify it's own continuation by bringing forth a new generation of incurious mouthbreathers dedicated to perpetuating the system.
The intellect must be revived. The respect that intellect used to carry with it has to be reestablished.
It is a curious sign of our times that people who can understand and navigate the complexities of, say, a disparate social media landscape that is largely not of their own invention, never read anything of value. It is a common circumstance wherein someone implores you to "Follow the Science!" on Coronavirus or Climate Change, only to discover that they don't actually understand any of the science at all. All they know is that they've been told by "scientific" authority (never verified) that something is true or false, it fits with their world view, and that's all there is to it. It's fact, Son.
This anti-intellect posing as intellect is a pernicious poison.
4) Lack of Imagination - both political parties are bereft of ideas, and their idealism -- such as it is -- is largely concerned with tagging the opposition as the worst thing since a simultaneous battery acid enema and having all four wisdom teeth yanked without gas.
The left is mentally mired in the past. It is still singing the praises of Marx, it lives largely on the romance of the struggles for Civil Rights, Women's Rights, the false victories of the Welfare State. It calls itself "progressive", and yet every utterance from it's staunchest supporters indicates an inability to recognize any progress, whatsoever, so that Joe Biden can claim Mitt Romney (of all people!) "wants to put y'all back in chains", that the feminists can still use the specter of the Back-alley Coat Hanger to deflect any assault upon "abortion rights". A generation of storefront Reverends, having won their battles for equality long ago, can still go out every day and flog the dead equine of racism.
The people who do this have to do it. If they didn't ignore the real progress, if they acknowledged their victories, if they didn't fight to maintain systems of government control and distribution, they'd all be out of a job. And because they're leftists, this means starvation, as leftists do nothing useful or remunerative, living largely on their ability to extract from the productive.
So, from Square One, the left is -- collectively, which is entirely appropriate -- full of shit. It begins by making a plea for the advancement of mankind by the actions of The State, while ignoring that The State subordinates progress and advancement to the consolidation of control and power. The State exists to tax, to enforce, to regulate and to redistribute, and to ensure that it's institutions -- which means the people who work for it -- remain forever. True Progress makes the state redundant, and so the State has stood in the way of real progress for over 100 years, now.
The upper-tier leftards are aware of this because they plan to benefit from this situation, and already do from the current Speaker of the House to the lowest janitor sweeping up at the Department of Finding New Ways to Fuck With People. The rank-and-file dumbass-o-crat isn't aware of it because he's too busy crying about how hard it is to be him, and how he's "deserving" of a handout.
Once in power, the left discovers leadership means responsibility and then the enterprise fizzles out. Every democratic regime in my lifetime has come roaring in like a lion and then petered out with a whimper, having changed nothing, having solved nothing, and having created a new range of problems that previously did not exist.
The right is, likewise, mentally mired in the past. It's past consists of a mythical landscape of picket fences, cropped lawns, family vacations in the station wagon, that only exists in movies or television shows. It doesn't know what to do with itself if it does not have an existential enemy to play against -- the Soviets, the Chinese, The Terrorists, The Radical left (news for ya: it's ALWAYS been "Radical"). The right is wedded to a worldview which has not changed significantly since the 1960's (just like the Hippies on the Left!) and which does not, cannot, reconcile the vast changes to American society, nor begin to predict the consequences of such.
Large segments of the Right live in constant fear of change. Often, even the change that would benefit them in the long run.
The right depends for much of the force of it's legitimacy, much like the leftard, to a romanticization of the past. Where the left turns to Marx, Pareto, Gramsci, Stalin and Mao, the right turns to it's own pantheon of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, et. al,
This to-and-fro between stationary objects sets up a dull and repetitive set of oppositions -- the conceptual unity of the Melting Pot vs. the directed Divisiveness of Diversity; the Minuteman vs. ANTIFA; The Urban Proletariat vs. The Captain of Industry; the self-proclaimed Oppressed vs. the spineless Classical Liberal; The Inheritors of Western Civilization vs. The Inheritors of Failed Civilizations who are somehow "owed" for being failures.
And since both parties are nominally led by Old People -- people who (vaguely) remember World War 2 on one side, people who dropped acid at Monterrey and Woodstock (and who vaguely remember things that largely didn't happen, as a consequence), on the other -- the possibility of New Ideas is virtually nil. Old People become creatures of habit, after all, and the habits of these particular Old People all center on recapturing their own youth. They can't help but look backwards because backwards is all they know.
They are, every last one of them, reactionary and not pro-active. They are averse to risk. They get along by going along, mainly because this is how they managed to rise to the top --going along with really bad ideas.
You will get no progress from those who cynically refuse to see any when it actually occurs -- because this threatens their rice bowl -- nor from those who are frightened of the prospect of change they cannot comprehend. Both sides are intellectually-stunted at the top, wedded to really bad ideas that time and experience have proven to be about as useful as a third testicle, and whose main concern is to guide The System into a power-sharing arrangement wherein they simply take turns being in the ascendant.
Neither side has any idea beyond "The Other Guy is Worse" or "Socialism failed because we just haven't found the right socialists to run it...yet".
To reiterate: Our program for correcting the problems we now face must begin with the creation of The Better Citizen. One who is engaged, informed, active, and vigilant.
We must fight apathy wherever we find it.
We must fight ignorance whenever it rears it's ugly head.
We must eject this elderly and sclerotic "leadership" which simply repeats the same actions in slightly different forms and expects different results, and then can't figure out just why everyone hates them with a fervor usually reserved only for bedbugs, fleas and cockroaches, whom they all closely-resemble, based upon their actions.
In Part Two, we'll talk more about the Republican Party, specifically, and the systemic changes that just might reform it. I have no faith that the left can ever change drastically, largely because while the right is held back by attachment to fucktard, the left is hobbled by reliance upon it.
No comments:
Post a Comment