The First Law of Stupidity is to blame all of your problems on someone else. This relieves you of any responsibility whatsoever for your life, and also makes the people you blame your problems on into permanent enemies. This is a highly intelligent thing to do!
The Second Law of Stupidity is to never learn from your mistakes. The smartest people learn from other people’s mistakes, the second smartest learn from their own, and the dumbest don’t even learn from their own mistakes.
The Third Law of Stupidity is to talk or act without thinking. That is, be impulsive! It’s the same thing as being ruled by your more childish, indeed infantile, feelings.
The Fourth Law of Stupidity is to think than what you feel is what is right. One of the things it’s based on is arrogance, or what the Greeks called Hubris. It is of course followed by Nemesis.
The Fifth Law of Stupidity is not to know you are impulsive and convinced that what feel is what is right. Instead, you believe you are rational and logical, even though you don’t know even one logical fallacy.
The Sixth Law of Stupidity is to not listen to good advice. This is related to the Second, Third and Fourth Law of Stupidity. In fact, all the Laws of Stupidity are related to each other, and it’s probable that all Stupid People show all of them in one degree or another.
The Seventh Law of Stupidity: you don’t know you’re stupid. In fact, you think you’re smart! Aristotle noticed this one, when he wrote about ignorant people who didn’t know they were ignorant. That was like 2500 years ago! Oh no! Stupidity is inherited! Someone get me one of those castration things that are used on sheep.
The Eighth Law of Stupidity: you can’t tell when someone is smarter than you and almost always think you’re smarter than them. This is related to what I call Scott’s Law, after a friend of mine who formulated it: “The smart understand the stupid a lot better than the stupid understand the smart.”
The Ninth Law of Stupidity is that you can have a high IQ and still be stupid. I’ve heard these people referred to as “high-IQ idiots.”
The Tenth Law of Stupidity is: “The stupid are always really surprised when they end up in prison or when someone kills them.”
It’s a bit frightening to realize there are Ten Laws of Stupidity, just as there are Ten Commandments (although “Commandments” is the wrong word – Utterances, or Words, is correct).
Let’s see if I can put all this into one sentence. Stupid people blame their problems on other people, they never learn from their mistakes, they think and act impulsively, they always think they’re right, they think they are logical and rational, they don’t know they’re stupid, they think they’re smarter than other people, they don’t listen to good advice, and they’re amazed when they get caught.
The Laws of Smartness, of course, are the exact opposite of the Laws of Stupidity.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Setting on Fire Everything I Could Find
As a little boy I enjoyed playing with fire. The reason I no longer have any of my plastic ships, tanks and airplanes is that I set all of them on fire or else blew them up with firecrackers. It’s also the reason I don’t have any of my Little Green Army Men, either. I melted all of them (the worthless ones went first, like Mine Sweeper Guy).
It was great.
I also set myself on fire, sort of. I’d take the plastic bag the bread came in, wrap it around a stick, and set it on fire. When the plastic melted it would drip and make a zip zip zip noise. Each droplet would stay on fire until it hit the ground. Had I been in special effects in the movies or radios, I would have used that sound for a disintegrator pistol. ZIP ZIP ZIP “Wow…nothing left but boots with smoke coming out of the top of them!”
It was great.
Somehow – and to this day I have no idea how – a few drops landed on the back of one of my hands. There are few things more exquisitely painful than having flaming melted plastic extinguish itself in your skin. I had to dig them out with my fingernails.
That wasn’t so great.
Then there was the Episode of the Barn. One of my friends came over with some matches and a baby food jar full of alcohol. Since I lived in a rented farmhouse, there were quite a few barns in back.
He and I were outside one barn, doing something flammable. I don’t exactly remember what. But this moron – and he was a moron – threw the jar of alcohol into the dried hay in the barn and threw a match on it.
Whoosh.
We were about ten years old, and I realized there was going to be big trouble unless we got this fire out. I ran in, overturned a bale of hay, and began to bounce it up and down on the fire. I almost had the it out, and had my moron friend helped, we could have gotten it out.
When I looked around, he was nowhere to be seen. I ran outside the barn and saw him flying through people’s yards on the way to his house. He had set the barn on fire, made no attempt to help me put it out, and run away.
I looked in the barn and saw a wall of flames. I knew things were out of control, and ran across the street to my cousin’s house to tell them to call the fire department.
The fire department showed up and couldn’t do much. The barns were ancient tinderboxes, and every one of them – and there were several – went up in flames in about ten minutes. The outhouse went up, too. That’s how old the whole complex was.
Of course, my moron friend lied and blamed everything on me. After that, he and I were never friends again, and in fact I never saw him again. He moved away not too long after.
There’s nothing like a crisis to find out if someone is really a friend or not.
Then there was the Episode of the Wheat Field. Another friend of mine, who was not a moron, was taking flaming branches out of a fifty-gallon barrel, the kind people burned trash in, and was putting them into a wheat field.
I told him to stop, because he was going to set the wheat field on fire. He didn’t listen.
The wheat field caught on fire and the whole thing burned up. Again there were fire trucks, just like with the barns. This time my friend admitted he burned he wheat field down, that I had nothing to do with it, and in fact had warned him not to do it.
He and I remained friends.
Speaking of those fifty-gallon barrels, my parents had me put the trash in them and set it on fire. Everyone burned their trash and leaves that way. I would always put my mother’s empty hairspray cans into it, run around the corner, and waited until they exploded into a mushroom cloud ten feet tall. Then I would check on them and found they always burst along a seam.
It was great.
Out of all those things, the only time I felt bad was over the barns, and that wasn’t my fault. That was the moron’s fault, and the worst thing about it, after the fact the pussy ran off and blamed it on me, was that he burned down our landlord’s barns. But then, I sort of got the impression the landlord, an old farmer, didn’t much care, because the barns were worthless, should have been torn down a long time ago – and he got his insurance money.
These days, that whole area is a new subdivision, so the barns would have been torn down anyway. He got them burned down for free, sold his fields for truckload of money, and retired a rich man.
Not so surprisingly, the moron some years later died of alcoholism. It turned out his whole family was composed of morons, because when he fell asleep on the couch and croaked, his sisters threw a glass of water on him to wake him up. Of course, he did not wake up, being dead.
The second kid became a world-famous high-rise diver.
I haven’t been involved in a fire since I was 11. I still play with matches, though (only now it’s one of those disposable Bic lighters), so there’s still hope.
It was great.
I also set myself on fire, sort of. I’d take the plastic bag the bread came in, wrap it around a stick, and set it on fire. When the plastic melted it would drip and make a zip zip zip noise. Each droplet would stay on fire until it hit the ground. Had I been in special effects in the movies or radios, I would have used that sound for a disintegrator pistol. ZIP ZIP ZIP “Wow…nothing left but boots with smoke coming out of the top of them!”
It was great.
Somehow – and to this day I have no idea how – a few drops landed on the back of one of my hands. There are few things more exquisitely painful than having flaming melted plastic extinguish itself in your skin. I had to dig them out with my fingernails.
That wasn’t so great.
Then there was the Episode of the Barn. One of my friends came over with some matches and a baby food jar full of alcohol. Since I lived in a rented farmhouse, there were quite a few barns in back.
He and I were outside one barn, doing something flammable. I don’t exactly remember what. But this moron – and he was a moron – threw the jar of alcohol into the dried hay in the barn and threw a match on it.
Whoosh.
We were about ten years old, and I realized there was going to be big trouble unless we got this fire out. I ran in, overturned a bale of hay, and began to bounce it up and down on the fire. I almost had the it out, and had my moron friend helped, we could have gotten it out.
When I looked around, he was nowhere to be seen. I ran outside the barn and saw him flying through people’s yards on the way to his house. He had set the barn on fire, made no attempt to help me put it out, and run away.
I looked in the barn and saw a wall of flames. I knew things were out of control, and ran across the street to my cousin’s house to tell them to call the fire department.
The fire department showed up and couldn’t do much. The barns were ancient tinderboxes, and every one of them – and there were several – went up in flames in about ten minutes. The outhouse went up, too. That’s how old the whole complex was.
Of course, my moron friend lied and blamed everything on me. After that, he and I were never friends again, and in fact I never saw him again. He moved away not too long after.
There’s nothing like a crisis to find out if someone is really a friend or not.
Then there was the Episode of the Wheat Field. Another friend of mine, who was not a moron, was taking flaming branches out of a fifty-gallon barrel, the kind people burned trash in, and was putting them into a wheat field.
I told him to stop, because he was going to set the wheat field on fire. He didn’t listen.
The wheat field caught on fire and the whole thing burned up. Again there were fire trucks, just like with the barns. This time my friend admitted he burned he wheat field down, that I had nothing to do with it, and in fact had warned him not to do it.
He and I remained friends.
Speaking of those fifty-gallon barrels, my parents had me put the trash in them and set it on fire. Everyone burned their trash and leaves that way. I would always put my mother’s empty hairspray cans into it, run around the corner, and waited until they exploded into a mushroom cloud ten feet tall. Then I would check on them and found they always burst along a seam.
It was great.
Out of all those things, the only time I felt bad was over the barns, and that wasn’t my fault. That was the moron’s fault, and the worst thing about it, after the fact the pussy ran off and blamed it on me, was that he burned down our landlord’s barns. But then, I sort of got the impression the landlord, an old farmer, didn’t much care, because the barns were worthless, should have been torn down a long time ago – and he got his insurance money.
These days, that whole area is a new subdivision, so the barns would have been torn down anyway. He got them burned down for free, sold his fields for truckload of money, and retired a rich man.
Not so surprisingly, the moron some years later died of alcoholism. It turned out his whole family was composed of morons, because when he fell asleep on the couch and croaked, his sisters threw a glass of water on him to wake him up. Of course, he did not wake up, being dead.
The second kid became a world-famous high-rise diver.
I haven’t been involved in a fire since I was 11. I still play with matches, though (only now it’s one of those disposable Bic lighters), so there’s still hope.
A Trip to the Paradise of Cuba
I haven’t seen this guy since before 9-11, so I seriously doubt he does this anymore, because of the Security Theater at the airports, which like everything Orwellian, catches the innocent and misses the guilty.
This is what he would do: every year he would but the largest suitcase he could and fill it with blue jeans, socks, soap, toothbrushes, shampoo, perfume, make-up, toilet paper and all the rest of the items we take so much for granted we don’t even think about them.
Then he would fly to Mexico – Cancun, I believe – where the authorities would give him a separate piece of paper to be stamped instead of his passport (because you’d better not have a Cuban stamp on an American passport), then fly to Cuba.
There he would pass out all his goodies, make friends for life, buy a couple of boxes of Cuban cigars, leave the big suitcase down there, snuggle his cigars back in a little suitcase, sell them at home, and get his trip for free.
Pretty smart, I’d say.
He told me that all those things we take for granted, a lot of them Cubans don’t have. Other things they do have, but they are rationed. Toothpaste? How about one tube every six months. Clothes, food, soap? All rationed.
What do Cubans get for being so short of everything it has to be rationed? A health-care system (a very good one) that whacko leftists praise to the heavens and think should be imposed on the United States.
Okay, fine, let’s impose such a health-care system on the U.S. But let’s not pretend that to not get shortages and rationing in the health-care system itself, we’d get shortages in everything else. Because when you concentrate all your resources on the health-care system, you’re not going to have much left over for everything else.
Leftists like to pretend none of this will happen. This is why the late Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn commented, “Leftists don’t merely misunderstand human nature; they don’t understand it at all.”
After all, Americans aren’t risking their lives floating 90 miles on dangerous home-built rafts to Cuba. It’s the other way around. They’re willing to desert their vaunted health-care system…for some perfume and toothpaste
This is what he would do: every year he would but the largest suitcase he could and fill it with blue jeans, socks, soap, toothbrushes, shampoo, perfume, make-up, toilet paper and all the rest of the items we take so much for granted we don’t even think about them.
Then he would fly to Mexico – Cancun, I believe – where the authorities would give him a separate piece of paper to be stamped instead of his passport (because you’d better not have a Cuban stamp on an American passport), then fly to Cuba.
There he would pass out all his goodies, make friends for life, buy a couple of boxes of Cuban cigars, leave the big suitcase down there, snuggle his cigars back in a little suitcase, sell them at home, and get his trip for free.
Pretty smart, I’d say.
He told me that all those things we take for granted, a lot of them Cubans don’t have. Other things they do have, but they are rationed. Toothpaste? How about one tube every six months. Clothes, food, soap? All rationed.
What do Cubans get for being so short of everything it has to be rationed? A health-care system (a very good one) that whacko leftists praise to the heavens and think should be imposed on the United States.
Okay, fine, let’s impose such a health-care system on the U.S. But let’s not pretend that to not get shortages and rationing in the health-care system itself, we’d get shortages in everything else. Because when you concentrate all your resources on the health-care system, you’re not going to have much left over for everything else.
Leftists like to pretend none of this will happen. This is why the late Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn commented, “Leftists don’t merely misunderstand human nature; they don’t understand it at all.”
After all, Americans aren’t risking their lives floating 90 miles on dangerous home-built rafts to Cuba. It’s the other way around. They’re willing to desert their vaunted health-care system…for some perfume and toothpaste
My Cat Karma is in the Plus Side
I don’t even like cats. I’m a pug person. Yet I’ve never saved a pug. But for some reason, I’ve been in two situations in which I tried to save one cat, and did save another. So, my cat karma being in the plus category, no cat can bother me again for the rest of my life.
The first encounter with the miserable world of helpless-and-harmless-animal-eating-murdercats was when I was about 11 or 12. I was walking home along a road that was deserted except for a grain elevator. Since it was Saturday, the elevator was closed.
I suddenly heard a meowing from the side of the road. When I investigated I found a kitten in the weeds. He – or she – was about two months old.
The reason I couldn’t tell if it was a he or she was the area in question was mangled beyond recognition. The bone was showing.
I was mystified as to how this mangled kitten ended up on the side of a deserted road. I had no idea how it was mangled in such a bizarre way, and still don’t have a clue. Did somebody dump it? I doubt it could have crawled from a house, the nearest one being a mile away.
I carried the cat home, told my parents, who called the vet and were told nothing could be done, so I put the kitten on a blanket in the garage and gave it some water. It didn’t last the night.
I buried it in the backyard, which was an annoyance since it was all stretched out in rigor mortis, so I had to dig a trench. It didn’t even have the decency to die curled up in a ball. Even dead, it had to torment me.
These days, I would have taken it to the vet to be euthanized, since it was beyond hope. But I was 11, maybe 12. I didn’t even know animals were euthanized.
If nothing else, I tried to make it as comfortable as possible.
In college I was delivering pizzas in the rain and found a wet cat next to a dumpster. I put him in my car and dried him off with the heater. Then he jumped on me, started purring and kneading me. It’s not going to work, cat! I’m not taking you home!
I found a dry spot and put him there. Damn cats, trying to play on my sympathy and then leaves mutilated dead mice on the front and back porches. Or brings them into house alive so it can torture them to death at its convenience. Bastards!
My next major encounter with carnivorous evil killercats was decades later, when I saw one cat fall down a storm drain after fighting with another cat. I dragged the fifty-pound manhole cover off, pulled the cat up with some wire, and so saved its utterly worthless life. It ran off without a thank-you.
I spent half-an-hour out of my life saving one member of this foul and most foreign species.
So listen up cats! After all I’ve done for you, I expect some gratitude. Since cats are incapable of gratitude, I’d appreciate it if you just left me alone. In other words, I DON’T WANT TO SAVE ANY MORE CATS!
Stop coming up to me on the street begging for food and trying to follow me home. I DON’T WANT YOU. I DON’T LIKE CATS!
Thank you very much.
The first encounter with the miserable world of helpless-and-harmless-animal-eating-murdercats was when I was about 11 or 12. I was walking home along a road that was deserted except for a grain elevator. Since it was Saturday, the elevator was closed.
I suddenly heard a meowing from the side of the road. When I investigated I found a kitten in the weeds. He – or she – was about two months old.
The reason I couldn’t tell if it was a he or she was the area in question was mangled beyond recognition. The bone was showing.
I was mystified as to how this mangled kitten ended up on the side of a deserted road. I had no idea how it was mangled in such a bizarre way, and still don’t have a clue. Did somebody dump it? I doubt it could have crawled from a house, the nearest one being a mile away.
I carried the cat home, told my parents, who called the vet and were told nothing could be done, so I put the kitten on a blanket in the garage and gave it some water. It didn’t last the night.
I buried it in the backyard, which was an annoyance since it was all stretched out in rigor mortis, so I had to dig a trench. It didn’t even have the decency to die curled up in a ball. Even dead, it had to torment me.
These days, I would have taken it to the vet to be euthanized, since it was beyond hope. But I was 11, maybe 12. I didn’t even know animals were euthanized.
If nothing else, I tried to make it as comfortable as possible.
In college I was delivering pizzas in the rain and found a wet cat next to a dumpster. I put him in my car and dried him off with the heater. Then he jumped on me, started purring and kneading me. It’s not going to work, cat! I’m not taking you home!
I found a dry spot and put him there. Damn cats, trying to play on my sympathy and then leaves mutilated dead mice on the front and back porches. Or brings them into house alive so it can torture them to death at its convenience. Bastards!
My next major encounter with carnivorous evil killercats was decades later, when I saw one cat fall down a storm drain after fighting with another cat. I dragged the fifty-pound manhole cover off, pulled the cat up with some wire, and so saved its utterly worthless life. It ran off without a thank-you.
I spent half-an-hour out of my life saving one member of this foul and most foreign species.
So listen up cats! After all I’ve done for you, I expect some gratitude. Since cats are incapable of gratitude, I’d appreciate it if you just left me alone. In other words, I DON’T WANT TO SAVE ANY MORE CATS!
Stop coming up to me on the street begging for food and trying to follow me home. I DON’T WANT YOU. I DON’T LIKE CATS!
Thank you very much.
Friday, December 24, 2010
I WAS A TEENAGE TV ANTENNA
When I was a child and a teenager the TVs were a lot different than the ones today. For one thing it took four people to move one because they were full of vacuum tubes, and all were supposed to look like furniture, so the exterior was made of wood. My mother used to wax ours with Lemon Pledge. She would also put decorations on top, like a bowl of wax fruit – apples and a banana.
Another thing is that for years TVs were black-and-white, so when color arrived, many of the programs were still in black-and-white. Some were in color, so when a color program was going to come on, our new color TV would announce, “In Living Color.”
Then there was the problem with the reception. TVs, which were supposed to be furniture, all looked ridiculous with rabbit ears on top. Some people opted for the cost of an outdoor antenna, which were usually about 20 feet tall and which today I still see in rural areas, along with aboveground septic tanks and outdoor clotheslines.
My dad only got the rabbit ears, which weren’t all the good. Sometimes they worked fairly well…and other times they didn’t.
When the reception was bad I became the human antenna. My father, who would not move from his recliner, would make me stand by the TV and manipulate the rabbit ears until the reception was clear.
“Okay, it’s fine,” he’d say. “Now let go.”
I’d let go and the reception would go all fuzzy, since by grabbing the antenna I became a bigger antenna.
“YOU MOVED THE ANTENNA!” he’d scream at me.
“No, I didn’t,” I told him, “When I grab the rabbit ears I become the antenna. When I let go the picture gets fuzzy.”
“NO YOU MOVED IT!!”
So I’d have to stand there for ten minutes, moving the rabbit ears millimeter by millimeter, letting go, moving them again, until finally the picture was clear.
On top of all this aggravation, I was also the remote control. “Go change the channel,” my father would order me.
“Why can’t you change it?”
“DON’T SMARTMOUTH ME I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD AND I CAN TAKE YOU OUT OF IT!!!”
The TVs in those days had rotary dials. So to piss off my father I would spin the dial, brrrip.
“DON’T DO THAT YOU’LL BREAK IT! TURN IT SLOW!!”
Click, click, click, click.
“IF YOU BREAK IT YOU’LL PAY FOR IT!!”
“With what? My dollar a week allowance?”
“DON’T SMARTASS ME I’LL BEAT YOU LIKE A RUG!!”
“I thought you were going to kill me. You know, you brought me into this world, blah blah blah.”
“GET OUT OF HERE GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!!!”
“Okay, fine!”
“I HOPE YOUR KIDS TREAT YOU THE WAY YOU TREAT ME!!”
All parents say that. It’s as common as kids wondering if they were adopted, thinking, “These people really CAN’T be my parents!”
I much prefer the TVs of today. I do miss those rabbit ears, though. I wish I had kept ours, along with my Secret Sam Attaché Spy Briefcase
Another thing is that for years TVs were black-and-white, so when color arrived, many of the programs were still in black-and-white. Some were in color, so when a color program was going to come on, our new color TV would announce, “In Living Color.”
Then there was the problem with the reception. TVs, which were supposed to be furniture, all looked ridiculous with rabbit ears on top. Some people opted for the cost of an outdoor antenna, which were usually about 20 feet tall and which today I still see in rural areas, along with aboveground septic tanks and outdoor clotheslines.
My dad only got the rabbit ears, which weren’t all the good. Sometimes they worked fairly well…and other times they didn’t.
When the reception was bad I became the human antenna. My father, who would not move from his recliner, would make me stand by the TV and manipulate the rabbit ears until the reception was clear.
“Okay, it’s fine,” he’d say. “Now let go.”
I’d let go and the reception would go all fuzzy, since by grabbing the antenna I became a bigger antenna.
“YOU MOVED THE ANTENNA!” he’d scream at me.
“No, I didn’t,” I told him, “When I grab the rabbit ears I become the antenna. When I let go the picture gets fuzzy.”
“NO YOU MOVED IT!!”
So I’d have to stand there for ten minutes, moving the rabbit ears millimeter by millimeter, letting go, moving them again, until finally the picture was clear.
On top of all this aggravation, I was also the remote control. “Go change the channel,” my father would order me.
“Why can’t you change it?”
“DON’T SMARTMOUTH ME I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD AND I CAN TAKE YOU OUT OF IT!!!”
The TVs in those days had rotary dials. So to piss off my father I would spin the dial, brrrip.
“DON’T DO THAT YOU’LL BREAK IT! TURN IT SLOW!!”
Click, click, click, click.
“IF YOU BREAK IT YOU’LL PAY FOR IT!!”
“With what? My dollar a week allowance?”
“DON’T SMARTASS ME I’LL BEAT YOU LIKE A RUG!!”
“I thought you were going to kill me. You know, you brought me into this world, blah blah blah.”
“GET OUT OF HERE GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!!!”
“Okay, fine!”
“I HOPE YOUR KIDS TREAT YOU THE WAY YOU TREAT ME!!”
All parents say that. It’s as common as kids wondering if they were adopted, thinking, “These people really CAN’T be my parents!”
I much prefer the TVs of today. I do miss those rabbit ears, though. I wish I had kept ours, along with my Secret Sam Attaché Spy Briefcase
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Why so Many Bosses are Idiots
When I got out of college and into the workforce I found, much to my
surprise, I was working for semi-incompetent, semi-clueless bosses.
Based on my participation in the jobs I’ve held, I’ve come to some
conclusions as to what makes an effective leader.
1. Every boss should listen to the rebels and the “trouble-makers.” They’re
the ones who tell the truth. Every organization needs someone to tell
the emperor he has no clothes.
2. To find out what’s really going on and what needs to be changed,
ask the people at the “bottom.” They’re the ones who do most of the
work and actually know what the problems are. Not once have I seen this done in
any job I’ve had.
3. Share the planning. If you don’t no one will trust you.
4. Know when to ignore your yes-men. In fact, why do you even need
them? Usually they’re called advisors, and just because they’re advisors
doesn’t mean they know more than the workers.
5. Don’t let your ego get in the way. Just because you may have an
MBA doesn’t mean you’re right all the time. Or even most of the time. Or
even half the time. Your workers know more about what’s going on than
you do.
6. Workers have lives outside work. I once worked for a guy who
thought his workers were supposed to work 55 hours a week. He didn’t
last very long as a manager.
7. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I worked for one place that
kept transferring people trying to make as much profit as possible.
They went out of business.
My experience has been that when people don’t follow these rules,
they have a high turnover of employees, workers not only walk off
but sabotage the place before leaving, and they file lawsuits every
chance they can.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The World as a Resentful Matriarchy
Let’s do a thought experiment and imagine a world in which women had all the high-paying, high-status jobs and men had all the dirty, dangerous jobs feminists never talk about because they certainly don’t want to do them – coal miner, steel worker, etc.
Hannah Rosin, who wrote an article, “The End of Men” and has given speeches about her beliefs (and seems to be quite gleeful about the whole thing), thinks women are taking over all the “better” jobs – lawyers, doctors, veterinarians, etc. Men, of course, would still dominate all those dangerous dirty jobs – firefighter, carpenter, etc.
What would happen in such a world? Leftists believe it would be a wonderful world and it would work just fine. But then leftists, as Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn accurately noted, don’t merely misunderstand human nature – they don’t understand it at all.
In reality this world would collapse. Such a world could be maintained temporarily by the power of the State, and to the degree the United States is heading toward this matriarchal society, it’s due to government interference, such as Affirmative Action.
As Charles Murray pointed out in his magnum opus. Human Action, men have been responsible for creating/discovering almost everything in the world. Specifically he pointed out (and this has been noticed by many others before him) it was European men, and their descendants in America, who have created/discovered 97% of everything in the world.
In other words, it’s been those disparaged and despised Dead White Males who’ve done all those things.
My thought experiment is of course extreme, a reductio ad absurdum, actually. But it makes things simpler to understand.
If women were in the position in my thought experiment, they would look around and find to their horror there would be no men to marry and have children with. So what would happen?
They would decide to have children on their own, without being married. Since an unmarried woman with a child has never been economically viable in any culture in the world, these women would have to give their children to others to raise – low-paid domestic help, day-care centers, etc.
These women would of course be outraged if these helpers cost a lot of money and would demand the government subsidize them and their children, i.e., the taxpayers, most of whom would make less money than they do. In other words, the less-well-to-do are supposed to support the better off.
Ah, the leftist delusion of a village raising a child fulfilled! For a very short while.
How would the children raised in this “village” turn out? Overall, not all that well. Some of course would grow up just fine, but to use the exception is the Fallacy of Composition – to assume what is true of one is true of everyone.
The humorist P.J. O’Rourke has written that without men civilization would last until the next oil change, and the feminist Camille Paglia has famously noted that if civilization were left in the hands of women we’d still be living in grass huts.
In other words, men created civilization, and have done this in every culture in the world. Women have generally done two things – have babies and determine the comfort level of the home.
Of course some women have contributed discoveries and inventions, but the statistics are so lopsided – thousands to one – that this difference is constitutional and not because of “oppression,” which leftists claim – and will claim until the end of time – is the cause of every problem in the world.
If indeed men were stuck in nothing but dirty and dangerous jobs, there would be little advancement in society. Society would in fact go backwards, until it collapsed and “patriarchy” was reestablished.
Women, for the most part, want husband, home and children. If denied these things, they get bitter, hostile and resentful, and blame their problems on men, rather than on themselves.
While men, when they have high-paying jobs (and wages stopped going up in the United States in 1973) don’t mind supporting women, if women had all the high-paying jobs and men all the dirty, dangerous ones, would they support men?
A few would, but most would be outraged. So what society would be stuck with are bitter, resentful career women unable to find husbands, so they have children on their own (many of which will grow up with problems), give them to others to raise, while the unmarried men would drink and see hookers.
What a life, and what a society.
“Patriarchy” is inevitable. Being side-tracked from it is causing some horrible things, which I suspect are going to be worse before they get better.
Hannah Rosin, who wrote an article, “The End of Men” and has given speeches about her beliefs (and seems to be quite gleeful about the whole thing), thinks women are taking over all the “better” jobs – lawyers, doctors, veterinarians, etc. Men, of course, would still dominate all those dangerous dirty jobs – firefighter, carpenter, etc.
What would happen in such a world? Leftists believe it would be a wonderful world and it would work just fine. But then leftists, as Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn accurately noted, don’t merely misunderstand human nature – they don’t understand it at all.
In reality this world would collapse. Such a world could be maintained temporarily by the power of the State, and to the degree the United States is heading toward this matriarchal society, it’s due to government interference, such as Affirmative Action.
As Charles Murray pointed out in his magnum opus. Human Action, men have been responsible for creating/discovering almost everything in the world. Specifically he pointed out (and this has been noticed by many others before him) it was European men, and their descendants in America, who have created/discovered 97% of everything in the world.
In other words, it’s been those disparaged and despised Dead White Males who’ve done all those things.
My thought experiment is of course extreme, a reductio ad absurdum, actually. But it makes things simpler to understand.
If women were in the position in my thought experiment, they would look around and find to their horror there would be no men to marry and have children with. So what would happen?
They would decide to have children on their own, without being married. Since an unmarried woman with a child has never been economically viable in any culture in the world, these women would have to give their children to others to raise – low-paid domestic help, day-care centers, etc.
These women would of course be outraged if these helpers cost a lot of money and would demand the government subsidize them and their children, i.e., the taxpayers, most of whom would make less money than they do. In other words, the less-well-to-do are supposed to support the better off.
Ah, the leftist delusion of a village raising a child fulfilled! For a very short while.
How would the children raised in this “village” turn out? Overall, not all that well. Some of course would grow up just fine, but to use the exception is the Fallacy of Composition – to assume what is true of one is true of everyone.
The humorist P.J. O’Rourke has written that without men civilization would last until the next oil change, and the feminist Camille Paglia has famously noted that if civilization were left in the hands of women we’d still be living in grass huts.
In other words, men created civilization, and have done this in every culture in the world. Women have generally done two things – have babies and determine the comfort level of the home.
Of course some women have contributed discoveries and inventions, but the statistics are so lopsided – thousands to one – that this difference is constitutional and not because of “oppression,” which leftists claim – and will claim until the end of time – is the cause of every problem in the world.
If indeed men were stuck in nothing but dirty and dangerous jobs, there would be little advancement in society. Society would in fact go backwards, until it collapsed and “patriarchy” was reestablished.
Women, for the most part, want husband, home and children. If denied these things, they get bitter, hostile and resentful, and blame their problems on men, rather than on themselves.
While men, when they have high-paying jobs (and wages stopped going up in the United States in 1973) don’t mind supporting women, if women had all the high-paying jobs and men all the dirty, dangerous ones, would they support men?
A few would, but most would be outraged. So what society would be stuck with are bitter, resentful career women unable to find husbands, so they have children on their own (many of which will grow up with problems), give them to others to raise, while the unmarried men would drink and see hookers.
What a life, and what a society.
“Patriarchy” is inevitable. Being side-tracked from it is causing some horrible things, which I suspect are going to be worse before they get better.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Invasion of the Bureaucrats
The Scene: a Restaurant and the Street Outside.
Grammy: I’ll have a cheeseburger, a piece of cheesecake and one of those drinks with the little umbrella in it.
Waiter (apologetically): Sorry, ma’am, but this morning the government has declared those foods harmful, so we can no longer serve them. They're illegal.
Grammy: The drink with the umbrella isn’t a food. Can I still have one?
Waiter: Nope.
Grammy: What do you have? (Looks at menu.) Raw carrots? Decaffeinated herbal tea? Zucchini? Are you trying to finish me off?
Waiter: The government is here to protect us, ma’am.
Grammy: It isn’t here to protect me or anyone else. It’s here to hurt all of us. (exits restaurant)
Bureaucrat (glaring at Grammy): Wait a minute! My Sooper-Dooper Advanced Nanny-State Snooper indicates you have tobacco on you!
Grammy: What?
Bureaucrat: In your purse you have a pack of unfiltered Camels! Hand them over!
Grammy: Who are you?
Bureaucrat: A government bureaucrat!
Grammy: Get lost.
Bureaucrat: Tobacco has been illegal since this morning! Now hand them over or I’ll shoot you!
Grammy: Okay. (opens her purse, takes out a Colt Python .357 Magnum and points it at the bureaucrat’s head) You were saying?
Bureaucrat: You can’t do that! I work for the federal government!
Grammy: You’re going to be a dead ex-bureaucrat in about two seconds if you don’t hand over your pistol. You’re a disgrace.
Bureaucrat: Okay! Sure! Whatever you want, ma’am!
Grammy: Look at you, crying like that cop in “Thelma and Louise.” And you’ve pissed your pants, too. You’re nothing but a bully hiding behind bad laws. If you’re a decent human being than I’m a banana. Now go away before I get really mad. Treat an old lady like that. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Bureaucrat: Oh, I am!
Grammy: No, you’re not. You’re a liar. Now go away and if I ever see you here again I’ll shoot your left nut off, then your right one. Would you like that?
Bureaucrat: N - n - no!
Grammy: Git!
Bureacrat: I’m gone!
Grammy (lighting up a Camel): Buncha morons. And if people don’t do anything about it they’ll take over the world. But not if me and my pistol have any say about it. Yay for .357 Magnums making punks into polite people!
Waiter: Here’s your drink.
Grammy: I’ll have a cheeseburger, a piece of cheesecake and one of those drinks with the little umbrella in it.
Waiter (apologetically): Sorry, ma’am, but this morning the government has declared those foods harmful, so we can no longer serve them. They're illegal.
Grammy: The drink with the umbrella isn’t a food. Can I still have one?
Waiter: Nope.
Grammy: What do you have? (Looks at menu.) Raw carrots? Decaffeinated herbal tea? Zucchini? Are you trying to finish me off?
Waiter: The government is here to protect us, ma’am.
Grammy: It isn’t here to protect me or anyone else. It’s here to hurt all of us. (exits restaurant)
Bureaucrat (glaring at Grammy): Wait a minute! My Sooper-Dooper Advanced Nanny-State Snooper indicates you have tobacco on you!
Grammy: What?
Bureaucrat: In your purse you have a pack of unfiltered Camels! Hand them over!
Grammy: Who are you?
Bureaucrat: A government bureaucrat!
Grammy: Get lost.
Bureaucrat: Tobacco has been illegal since this morning! Now hand them over or I’ll shoot you!
Grammy: Okay. (opens her purse, takes out a Colt Python .357 Magnum and points it at the bureaucrat’s head) You were saying?
Bureaucrat: You can’t do that! I work for the federal government!
Grammy: You’re going to be a dead ex-bureaucrat in about two seconds if you don’t hand over your pistol. You’re a disgrace.
Bureaucrat: Okay! Sure! Whatever you want, ma’am!
Grammy: Look at you, crying like that cop in “Thelma and Louise.” And you’ve pissed your pants, too. You’re nothing but a bully hiding behind bad laws. If you’re a decent human being than I’m a banana. Now go away before I get really mad. Treat an old lady like that. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Bureaucrat: Oh, I am!
Grammy: No, you’re not. You’re a liar. Now go away and if I ever see you here again I’ll shoot your left nut off, then your right one. Would you like that?
Bureaucrat: N - n - no!
Grammy: Git!
Bureacrat: I’m gone!
Grammy (lighting up a Camel): Buncha morons. And if people don’t do anything about it they’ll take over the world. But not if me and my pistol have any say about it. Yay for .357 Magnums making punks into polite people!
Waiter: Here’s your drink.
Without Men, There is No Civilization
In college I walked out of the back door of the house I was living in just in
time to see two women put a quart of oil in the engine of the VW convertible Bug one owned.
I dashed over, yelling, “STOP!!”
“Why?” one asked, confused.
“Because that’s the CARBURETOR!!” I yelled.
She and her friend had poured the entire quart of oil down the carburetor. I had to take the carburetor off and clean it out. It took a while, but I finally got the car running. After three days. I told them they should give the car to me before they destroyed it completely. They declined.
I also knew a woman who, when her car wouldn’t start, hit the battery posts with a hammer. She broke a post off. End of battery. She also thought the way to tell if a car needed oil was to wait until the red oil light came on. She also blew up an engine driving it when the thermostat was stuck closed. She didn’t believe it would blow up, even though I guaranteed her it would.
I’ve also gotten two women’s cars – both of whom were strangers – running by simply cleaning the battery posts. One was in a gas station and one at a bank. I also once changed a woman’s tire in a parking lot, staring at her in disbelief as she tried to change it by herself with the wrong tools. She couldn’t figure out how to loosen the first bolt.
The humorist P.J. O’Rourke has written that without men civilization would last until the next oil change. I’d have to agree with him.
The feminist Camille Paglia, though a lesbian, is surprisingly not a man-hater. In fact, she understands that men created civilization, and has famously written that if civilization was left in the hands of women, we’d be living in grass huts. I’d agree with her, too.
I am completely mystified how some women, maybe even most, have no sense when it comes to the simplest of mechanical things. I know a mechanic who won’t let his wife drive the car. I understand. For another example, again in college, I found a woman trying to take the front door off the hinges with a screwdriver.
When I asked her what she was doing, she said the door wouldn’t shut, so she was going to take the door off the hinges to find out why. I told her doors don’t come off using screwdrivers, especially using little toy plastic ones about three inches long, then spent ten seconds diagnosing the problem, got my hammer and pounded down a finishing nail that popped up from the floor, preventing the door from closing.
Occasionally, let’s say when I’m outside, I’ll look around and subtract everything invented by men. What’s left? Almost nothing. Cars, houses, streets, heating, cooling, advanced technological society, advanced intellectual accomplishments, medicine, dentistry – gone. What’s left? Paglia’s grass huts.
There are no female Aristotles, Newtons, Eulers or Einsteins. I wish there were, but there aren’t. Women in general do two things: have babies and determine the comfort level of the home – otherwise most men would live in a pigsty.
I once worked at a place that employed mostly women. At the end of the shift they would all gather together and complain about men. Women may think men complain about women, but they don’t, not to the degree women complain about men. It’s not even one percent compared to what
women do.
The difference is that when men complain about women, their complaints are almost always justified. Women, on the other hand, always seem to have vague complaints that consist mostly of blaming their problems on men. And it’s always about their relationships.
These women would complain and complain and do it in front of me as if I was invisible. The other men who worked there were never around when these whine-fests erupted…which was every night. Maybe that’s why they were never around.
I also know that when many wives get together they mostly complain about their husbands. Do they think they married down?
I thought, what do these women want? Men have created/discovered close to 100% of everything in the world, in fact created civilization, and apparently that isn’t enough for them?
I occasionally run across women who tell me, if women were in charge we wouldn’t have this or that bad thing. I ask them, so men created civilization and are supposed to hand the keys over to you because you think you can do a better job?
That problem is that they didn’t know what men have done, and if told, probably wouldn’t believe it. Some of them think there is a suppressed history of women geniuses who invented all kinds of wonderful things, or that they are as a sex “oppressed,” which is a close-to-meaningless phrase that’s supposed to explain everything.
It’s a bizarre situation…one sex that has created civilization, and the other one has created almost nothing and complains about the gifts given to them.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Laws of Political Science
The primary subject of political science is the struggle for political and
economic power.
Political words cannot be taken at face value.
The only permanent war is between the “elites” and the masses.
The masses are almost always inert, i.e. sheeple.
History and political science is the study of the elites and their relationships
with the masses.
Politics is based on Force and Fraud.
The primary goal of every elite is to maintain its own power and privilege.
Two opposing tendencies apply to all elites: to maintain its own power and
privilege, and to let in those from below.
The second one always wins, which is why no social structure is permanent.
A “revolution” is when the elites are replaced by another, oftentimes when those
from below force their way in..
A very small minority always rule the majority.
The only way to stop the elites from absorbing everything is through
opposition, which is why liberty is necessary and imperative.
A very small opposition can have a great impact.
There is no such thing as “the State” or “government,” only several groups
of elites who have gained political power.
The elites always say they speak for the masses when in reality they only
speak for their selves.
The elites can manipulate the masses through propaganda.
Sometimes the interests of the elites and the masses coincide.
The masses do not, in fact cannot, think.
Since the masses cannot think, they are maintained by “myths” which
generally espouse their own greatness and the non-humanity of their
“enemies.”
Wars are started based on the beliefs of the elites.
Soldiers are propagandized into believing they are fighting and dying for the
defense of their country when it reality it is for the beliefs of the elite, which
results in the maintenance of the power and privilege of the elites.
War is therefore a racket, as is “government” in general.
Only power can control power.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Jesus as Machiavellian Libertarian
As James Burnham pointed out in his book, The Machiavellians, Machiavelli and his followers were held in low regard for many years because they only described politics as they saw it, but did not prescribe any cures.
In the sense of describing the problem, I would consider Jesus a Machiavellian, although in his case, he not only diagnosed, but offered a cure. These days, politically, what he offered might be considered libertarianism (depending on how you define it) or perhaps classical liberalism, which has nothing to do with the fascist/socialist perversion so prevalent today.
What Machiavelli and his followers, such as Vilfredo Pareto, offered was an analysis of society based on what it is, not on what it is supposed to be. The primary subject of their thought was the struggle for political power between the “elites” (I use that term neutrally) and the masses.
Pareto referred to the elites as either Lions who used force, or Foxes who use fraud. Both used the power of the State to maintain their power and privilege and to oppress and exploit the masses. In other words, politics, as Lenin noticed, is about who does what to whom.
Jesus used some of the same words that Machiavelli and Pareto did. He referred to the elites of his days as foxes and wolves (he once insulted Herod as a female fox – a vixen). He also referred to them as vipers and said they would steal the last cent from widows and orphans (by the way, the “scribes” in his day are equivalent to lawyers who today infest Congress).
Libertarians use the word “State” to describe political power generally, and political power ultimately is the power to turn a man into a corpse. However, the “State,” strictly speaking, does not exist.
What we have instead are various groups who have gained political power, which they use to maintain their power and privilege and use to exploit “the masses.” The use of the word “State,” though, is fine as long as it’s understood what it really stands for – a reification, a word that refers to something that does not actually exist.
Jesus described his followers as sheep and himself as the Good Shepherd. Pareto also referred to the mass of people as sheep, shorn by the Lions and Foxes. The problem throughout history (and I believe this is so obvious there can be no argument) is that nearly all rulers have been Bad Shepherds.
Using the analysis of the Machiavellians – and Jesus – it’s clear that ultimately political power is by far more bad than good. This is why in one of his Three Temptations Jesus rejected the political power over the kingdoms of the world that was offered to him by Satan.
Not once in any of his sayings did Jesus say a good thing about political power, In fact, it was that power that led to his death, when the Roman government and the Jewish elites of his time had him executed. It has always amazed me that even though Jesus was murdered by the State people even today support the State as benevolent, as a never-empty breast from which all goodness flows, instead of seeing it for what it is – the greatest mass murderer in history.
The masses are indeed not only sheep, they are sleep-walking sheep, often being led over a cliff to their deaths. This has been the lesson of history, over and over, and yet the sheep never learn.
The fact that Jesus clearly understood the immense destructive power of the State and never supported it is why I dismiss as non-Christian any “Christian” who supports the State and political power. Most of these “Christians,” unfortunately, are so deluded they believe the State would work just fine as long as they were in control of it. This is not only nonsense, it’s dangerous nonsense.
As Lord Action wrote, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. Or as I put it, power intoxicates, and immunity corrupts. This applies to “Christians’ who support the State. The devil can quote Scripture to suit his purposes, and as the contemplatives of old told us repeatedly, many people cannot tell the difference between God and Satan, even if they are fanatically convinced they are Christians.
People, as John D. McDonald wrote, are “herd animals, social and imitative.” And herd animals follow leaders, not only following them but
oftentimes idealizing them, even if they are the worst of Bad Shepherds. Even today, there are Germans who still defend Hitler, Russians who defend Stalin, and Americans who defend Lincoln.
We’d probably be better off if the human race had evolved from dogs, with their goofy sunny manic natures. I doubt we could be any worse than we are now.
In the sense of describing the problem, I would consider Jesus a Machiavellian, although in his case, he not only diagnosed, but offered a cure. These days, politically, what he offered might be considered libertarianism (depending on how you define it) or perhaps classical liberalism, which has nothing to do with the fascist/socialist perversion so prevalent today.
What Machiavelli and his followers, such as Vilfredo Pareto, offered was an analysis of society based on what it is, not on what it is supposed to be. The primary subject of their thought was the struggle for political power between the “elites” (I use that term neutrally) and the masses.
Pareto referred to the elites as either Lions who used force, or Foxes who use fraud. Both used the power of the State to maintain their power and privilege and to oppress and exploit the masses. In other words, politics, as Lenin noticed, is about who does what to whom.
Jesus used some of the same words that Machiavelli and Pareto did. He referred to the elites of his days as foxes and wolves (he once insulted Herod as a female fox – a vixen). He also referred to them as vipers and said they would steal the last cent from widows and orphans (by the way, the “scribes” in his day are equivalent to lawyers who today infest Congress).
Libertarians use the word “State” to describe political power generally, and political power ultimately is the power to turn a man into a corpse. However, the “State,” strictly speaking, does not exist.
What we have instead are various groups who have gained political power, which they use to maintain their power and privilege and use to exploit “the masses.” The use of the word “State,” though, is fine as long as it’s understood what it really stands for – a reification, a word that refers to something that does not actually exist.
Jesus described his followers as sheep and himself as the Good Shepherd. Pareto also referred to the mass of people as sheep, shorn by the Lions and Foxes. The problem throughout history (and I believe this is so obvious there can be no argument) is that nearly all rulers have been Bad Shepherds.
Using the analysis of the Machiavellians – and Jesus – it’s clear that ultimately political power is by far more bad than good. This is why in one of his Three Temptations Jesus rejected the political power over the kingdoms of the world that was offered to him by Satan.
Not once in any of his sayings did Jesus say a good thing about political power, In fact, it was that power that led to his death, when the Roman government and the Jewish elites of his time had him executed. It has always amazed me that even though Jesus was murdered by the State people even today support the State as benevolent, as a never-empty breast from which all goodness flows, instead of seeing it for what it is – the greatest mass murderer in history.
The masses are indeed not only sheep, they are sleep-walking sheep, often being led over a cliff to their deaths. This has been the lesson of history, over and over, and yet the sheep never learn.
The fact that Jesus clearly understood the immense destructive power of the State and never supported it is why I dismiss as non-Christian any “Christian” who supports the State and political power. Most of these “Christians,” unfortunately, are so deluded they believe the State would work just fine as long as they were in control of it. This is not only nonsense, it’s dangerous nonsense.
As Lord Action wrote, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. Or as I put it, power intoxicates, and immunity corrupts. This applies to “Christians’ who support the State. The devil can quote Scripture to suit his purposes, and as the contemplatives of old told us repeatedly, many people cannot tell the difference between God and Satan, even if they are fanatically convinced they are Christians.
People, as John D. McDonald wrote, are “herd animals, social and imitative.” And herd animals follow leaders, not only following them but
oftentimes idealizing them, even if they are the worst of Bad Shepherds. Even today, there are Germans who still defend Hitler, Russians who defend Stalin, and Americans who defend Lincoln.
We’d probably be better off if the human race had evolved from dogs, with their goofy sunny manic natures. I doubt we could be any worse than we are now.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
People Who Don’t Make Lots of Money Are Worthless Bums Who Should Die
Wages stopped going up in the United States in 1973. except for the very wealthy, whose income has been sky-rocketing. They didn’t do it through the free market; they did it through theft. They’ve captured the government, i.e., your typically spineless politician (most of whom are lawyers and therefore lower than child molesters), and have written laws to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.
In other words, contra Rush Limbaugh (who used to live on unemployment) if a person can’t make a decent living today, it’s not their fault. The fault lies with the government, most especially through crushing taxation and destruction of money through the Federal Reserve Bank, which is not federal, has no reserves, and if it’s a bank, then I’m a banana.
Used to be, a man could work 40 hours a week and make a very good living, enough to support himself, his wife, two kids, and have a nice middle-class house with a yearly vacation. Those days are gone. These days, both spouses have to work, they’re always in debt, and if they have one kid, it ends up in daycare at about two years old. That’s no way for a family to live, and no way for any child to grow up.
The old saying tells us, the business of America is business. The belief is, you’re supposed to be economically successful, and if you aren’t you have no one to blame but yourself.
This belief ignores the fact half the people in this country have IQs less than 100. They’re not going to be doctors, lawyers or even high school graduates, unless they’re given the degrees. In the not-so-distant past they could make a good living doing blue-collar work. Not anymore.
In point of fact, it’s gotten to the point you can’t make a decent living these days unless your IQ is 120 or above, which is less than ten percent of the population. If your IQ is 125 and above, it’s about five percent of the population. The other 90%-95% of the population, well, there are minimum-wage jobs as janitor, pizza deliverer, etc. And there’s collecting aluminum cans, too. And don’t forget about crime, say prostitution and drug-dealing.
Bye bye middle class!
I’ve read one percent of the people in the U.S. own anywhere from one-third to 40% of the wealth. I repeat: the free market did not do that. If I had to describe what has happened, I’d use the word “fascism,” which is a marriage of the State and corporations (or as I like to refer to them, Cosmodemonic Transnational Megacorporations).
Of course, none of it can last. It always collapses, and if the collapse of society after society has anything in common, it is, as St. Paul wrote, the lust (not love) of money, which results in corruption, brutality and theft, and trying to turn people in wage slaves/indentured servants.
It's amazing how stupid the human race is. I'm amazed we've survived.
In other words, contra Rush Limbaugh (who used to live on unemployment) if a person can’t make a decent living today, it’s not their fault. The fault lies with the government, most especially through crushing taxation and destruction of money through the Federal Reserve Bank, which is not federal, has no reserves, and if it’s a bank, then I’m a banana.
Used to be, a man could work 40 hours a week and make a very good living, enough to support himself, his wife, two kids, and have a nice middle-class house with a yearly vacation. Those days are gone. These days, both spouses have to work, they’re always in debt, and if they have one kid, it ends up in daycare at about two years old. That’s no way for a family to live, and no way for any child to grow up.
The old saying tells us, the business of America is business. The belief is, you’re supposed to be economically successful, and if you aren’t you have no one to blame but yourself.
This belief ignores the fact half the people in this country have IQs less than 100. They’re not going to be doctors, lawyers or even high school graduates, unless they’re given the degrees. In the not-so-distant past they could make a good living doing blue-collar work. Not anymore.
In point of fact, it’s gotten to the point you can’t make a decent living these days unless your IQ is 120 or above, which is less than ten percent of the population. If your IQ is 125 and above, it’s about five percent of the population. The other 90%-95% of the population, well, there are minimum-wage jobs as janitor, pizza deliverer, etc. And there’s collecting aluminum cans, too. And don’t forget about crime, say prostitution and drug-dealing.
Bye bye middle class!
I’ve read one percent of the people in the U.S. own anywhere from one-third to 40% of the wealth. I repeat: the free market did not do that. If I had to describe what has happened, I’d use the word “fascism,” which is a marriage of the State and corporations (or as I like to refer to them, Cosmodemonic Transnational Megacorporations).
Of course, none of it can last. It always collapses, and if the collapse of society after society has anything in common, it is, as St. Paul wrote, the lust (not love) of money, which results in corruption, brutality and theft, and trying to turn people in wage slaves/indentured servants.
It's amazing how stupid the human race is. I'm amazed we've survived.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)