A thought.

Something occurred to me, late last night, as I was drifting off to sleep.  I've often referred to the tantrum-throwing left as toddlers...and that connected with all the kids pretending to be anything other than what they are.  

This is a normal stage in human development.  

Both my imp (now 16) and my pixie (soon to be 14) threw tantrums.  I showed them through being firm and consistent with consequences that tantrums would not only not get them what they wanted, but would get them the opposite of what they wanted.  

Unfortunately, we've got eighty years of protests of varying levels of justice and violence demonstrating to a lot of these overgrown toddlers that yes, tantrums do work.  Unfortunately, it's going to take a lot of harsh consequences, fairly and consistently and constantly applied, to undo that lesson.  

Both of my children had phases of pretending to be an animal--a dog, a cat, a dragon, a dinosaur (oh my gawd the dinosaur was Pixie, and she jumped on Imp and bit him.  Because "dat's whut raptors do. I a dinosaur! RAWR!).  I...put a stop to the dinosaur stuff, but not because I stopped the imaginative play, but because I did not need them biting each other. 

They sort of still play make-believe, but via Minecraft, now.  Other than that, they've grown out of it. 

Leftists...haven't.  I'm not sure if it's because they didn't engage in imagination play as toddlers/preschoolers (kind of hard when they're overscheduled for every second of every day by parents that didn't want to parent their kids), or if it's because they're told that they're bad for being born white/male/cis het/rich/poor/female or whatever.  But whatever the reason is...

...leftism looks, from the outside, like a giant case of Peter Pan syndrome.  Delayed development.  Socially-enforced retardation.  

Call it whatever you will, they need to sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, and let the goddamn grownups actually run the country.  Because trying to enforce kindergarten rules on a grown up world has backfired spectacularly.  If your cunning plan depends on "if people will just..." it won't work.  Because people will not "just." 

I'm personally tired of putting up with behavior that should have been met with a spanking before the little 'tards hit kindergarten age.  

I vote we start calling the behavior like we see it--socially-enforced retardation--and treat them like toddlers: ignore them, up until the point their behavior crosses a line and must be corrected.  

Because that's the other thing about toddler misbehavior: they're doing it for attention.  If we stop giving them the attention, some of them will stop acting out...and some will earn the richly deserved slap-down.

Get ready...

We have been completely out of debt for the past year.  The mortgage is gone, we have one credit card that we use for gas and larger expenses than the debit card will cover (and which is paid off in full every month), and we'd owed nothing else.  

That brings...a lot of security.  I don't have to worry about keeping creditors off my family's back while I stretch what we have to make sure to keep a roof over my head, lights and water on, and food on the table (damn good food, too, even with a minimal grocery budget).  We are not to that point, but so many are...and the hell of it is that it's entirely because nobody taught them how to manage...well, life.  

And we are in for one hell of a ride, coming up.  I'm seeing prices climbing--not in obvious ways, but because I'm paying attention.  Even when prices aren't going up, package sizes are shrinking.  

I have been actively avoiding the news, because I don't need the stress when there's not a damn thing I can do to fix things.  All I can do is worry, and keep doing what I've been doing anyway.  

I have some bits of advice for people who are only just now starting to wake up.  

First: learn the differences between need and want.  That, for some reason, seems to be damn hard for a lot of people.  It's something I've been working on teaching my kids, and it's...not easy for them to pick up.  Then again, they're 12 and 10, and have never gone without because of their parents' stupid choices.  I'd be willing to bet that a lot of kids out there who get most of their nutrition through free school meals are going to grow up to keep a lot of food in the house...and will learn to cook.  I did, after all (and I only had one year in that situation, early on in my childhood memories).  Everybody needs a basic phone; nobody needs the latest, greatest, biggest smart-phone on the market.  

If you want it, and can afford it after all needs (shelter, food, water) are met, more power to you, but it's not a need.  

Not every home needs a gaming computer, the newest laptop, the biggest cable package (or even a cable package).  Not every home needs a gaming system.  

Thing is...it's gotten to the point where a basic something (desktop, laptop, netbook and internet connection) is kind of necessary.  It's getting harder all the time for people who haven't learned the difference between need and want in the past to figure it out now (and harder for those of us who have).  

And the hell of the matter is that it's getting harder and harder to meet basic needs, between prices going up, and availability of some things going down.  

Second: break the habit of pulling that credit card out to pay for everything.  Interest rates are going to have to go up.  Government "help" is going to force the issue, no matter what Wall Street wants.  If you have any debt, look up Dave Ramsey, and start working on his program.  Hell, if you have an adjustable rate mortgage (and some do, because it looked like the wiser option at the time) refinance to a fixed rate mortgage.  Do it now, before rates start climbing in an effort to combat the coming stagflation that'll make the 1970s look tame.  If you don't own a home, don't start looking now--everybody else already is, and the prices in real estate are already jacked up from government "help."  Because they didn't learn the first time.  

Third.  If you own a home, do any needed repairs that you've been putting off now.  Remember inflation?  It's already hit things like building materials.  It's one of the reasons (but only one of them) why we got the roof replaced now, rather than saving a little longer.  

If you've been putting off any necessary purchase and have the cash to do them, do them now.  Otherwise, there's no telling how long you'll have to stretch things.  Just...do not go into debt over a computer for the household...or a cookstove...or anything.  Remember the interest rates.  Yeah, you may have to settle for something different from what you'd planned because the Covidiocy shut down the wrong factory at the wrong time and what you want isn't available (see: last summer's dishwasher debacle).  But now is the time do do any purchases for durable goods.  

Oh.  Yeah.  And build up a stockpile of food, if you can.  Go for basics: legumes, base ingredients, etc, rather than packaged food.  God alone knows how bad it's going to get before people get pissed off enough to make it better. 

Almost over...

Tuesday is voting day.  I honestly can't wait.  I am so sick of petty political partisanship that I could vomit.  I don't want to hear anymore about any of the parties, politicians, or any of the other inanities that surround election year for at least two years (but you know we will--this has become religion to most of the left).  

I am...concerned, let's say...that there's going to be unrest (for lack of desire to use a more accurate term) during and after Tuesday.  Tomorrow, I have plans to do some shopping--a few top-ups on groceries, some things Walmart doesn't do in curb-side delivery, and a new package of ear plugs.*  

We've already gassed up both vehicles and gotten extra pet food.  

I do not plan to leave the house more than absolutely necessary until things calm back down a bit.  

*I use ear plugs for sleeping.  They help a lot when I'm in the worst side of a chronic illness attack. 

Done.

I'm done.

I will not play chess with pigeons any longer.  I hadn't for a while, but now, I've got serious justification.

Read this.

Go ahead.  I'll wait.

Interesting thing...a lot of the woke-scolds are vegan.  Study after study suggests that, while vegetarianism isn't too terrible for the human body long-term, veganism is.*  It causes serious degradation to the amygdala (fear and emotional processing) and reasoning centers of the brain.  In other words, vegans aren't as capable as others of filtering their emotional responses through reason.  They are, in a word, toddlers in both reasoning capacity and emotional control.

Makes sense of a lot of the riots and temper tantrums we're seeing in woke-run cities, doesn't it.

It also makes sense of the utter panic over a fucking cold-on-steroids, too.  People are reacting with emotion, rather than doing research and using their brains (a lot of people's have atrophied through non-use).  And, when offered research on the effectiveness of measures proposed and/or taken, with an offer to explain anything that the layman doesn't understand (I have a stupidly-high reading comprehension, even for things that aren't in my bailiwick), they screech back with emotion and/or personal attacks:

• "You're a moron." (A response to the assertion that unless you're buying stuff rated for hazmat, your mask isn't saving you or anyone else.  Despite plentiful research showing exactly what I'd posited.)

• "You just wanna kill grandma!"  (No, that was Cuomo in New York and Whitmer in Michigan, both of whom put still-contagious Corona patients in nursing homes...after warning their people to remove their own elderly relatives, of course.)

• "You care more about money than people!"  (The economy is more than money--it's food, medicine, medical care, everything that makes living in civilization possible, and the lockdowns are killing the ability of the nation to manufacture and move everything.) 

• "Just put on the mask!  Show you care!"  (I don't care.  And I don't jump on brainless bandwagons, either.) Or "Put on the mask!  You're killing me if you don't!"  (How long will this take?  Because I haven't worn a mask, and won't wear one.  And it's been five fucking months, already.)

Enough.  I didn't argue with my toddlers.  I won't be arguing any more with so-called adults who've descended to toddler-level in cognition.

*Going vegan short-term, for defined benefits, is not what I'm talking about--I can see an argument for that, if it's go vegan for a year or die of heart disease within that year.  I'm talking about a permanent, lifestyle choice.  

OH, FFS!!!

No grounds.

The Democrats have no grounds to impeach President Trump.  The Republicans that hate his fucking guts know that.  They also know that he's a vindictive son of a bitch, and did not vote in favor when the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives decided to dive face-first into the manure pile for a mud-wrestling* session.

Abuse of power?  Obama did that.  Bush II did that.  Clinton did that.  Bush I did that.  I don't remember Regan, considering I was a pre-teen when he left office, so I can't say one way or the other.  If simple "abuse of power" was an impeachable offense, every president for the last 200 years (with very few exceptions) should have been impeached.

This opens up #10 cans of worms the Democrats really don't want opened, in ways they really don't want those cans opened.

I do not like President Trump.  I do, however, respect the fuck out of him, and I do respect the job he's taken on, trying to clean out the Aegean Stables.  He's making decent progress, too.

Hence, this stupidity.

Dear God, they know not what they have wrought.  


*Mark Twain comes to mind.  Also pigeons and chess. 

Musings

I'm waiting on the mail to run.  I ordered a copy of Office '07 from Ebay.  Claims to be Office Pro, with licenses for five machines.  I'm hoping it's an accurate description.  If it is, and it works, I'm storing that sucker for the future. 

As I wait, I was thinking.  My other half and kids watched 1776 the evening of July 4, while waiting for the sun to set for fireworks.  I listened and paid attention, because it's honestly one of my favorite movies.  I love the dialogue and the music. 

As I did, I came to an utterly startling realization.  A couple of them, really. 

First: the only thing that's really changed about our government and how it works is the size of the chamber and the number of loudmouths in it.  They were horrible and nasty to each other: mud-slinging, insulting, and everything we deplore in our current politics. 

Well, one thing's definitely changed: they're nowhere near as witty as they used to be in their insults.  Then again, I'm pretty sure we don't have a Franklin in politics, now.  With the skeletons in his closet, there'd be no way for him to survive the sharks.

I am of the opinion that Ted Cruz is today's John Adams.*

There was wrangling, boredom, fretting at the lack of getting anything done, irritation at the weather,** and irritation at colleagues abstaining from most, if not all, votes (New York's rep--the state couldn't agree on instructions to send). 

You can see the exact same shenanigans watching C-Span. 

And second: the philosophies haven't changed, even if what the parties call themselves has.  Instead of Whigs and Tories, we have Republicans and Democrats...but the names don't necessarily line up with what the political philosophies boil down to.

Freedom vs. Statists.  Freedom vs. slavery, though not necessarily called that. 

It comes down to the difference between being a citizen and being a subject.

And those "cool, cool, considerate men," those in favor of slavery and in favor of staying under British control?  They are still around today.  They're the ones still in favor of a government controlling people's lives and livelihoods.  And they're in both parties.  In nominal and factual control of both. 

The only difference, anymore, is how fast they want to crush the rest of us under their well-shod heels.

I am a Whig, if I am anything.  I favor freedom.  For all.  And I favor allowing people to face the consequences--good and bad--of the choices that they make, rather than diminishing the good and cushioning the bad. 

I am a leave-me-the-hell-alone libertarian.  And I'm pretty sure Mr. Adams and Mr. Franklin would approve (even if I'd have to slap Mr. Franklin a few times). 

I am also all set up with Office, so I'm going to go get to work.  Cheers!


*"I am obnoxious and disliked, you know that, sir."  

**It was hot.  Sweltering.  Keeping windows closed made it worse.  And opening windows with no screens plus horse crap in the streets (and human crap in the outhouses) meant flies. 

Woah, the stupid...it burns...

To quote Han Solo, I've got a bad feeling about this. 

Basically, several states have decided to work on legislation to hand the state's electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote nationwide. 

This is what is known as "a very bad thing." 

What this does is ensure that whoever wins the East and West Coast votes wins the whole shebang, no matter who wins the vote in the states passing this.  It silences the voices of the state's voters. 

That's gonna end badly for absolutely everyone involved.  Really, really badly.  As in, CW2 badly. 

I don't want that.  I don't want that for my kids.  I don't want that even for the idiots who haven't the sense God gave a domesticated turkey that are pushing for this.  Because they're the ones that are going to die first, and they're going to die ugly, in ways I don't want for even child molesters. 

It would be far quicker and more humane to start enforcing the laws about sedition and treason written into the Constitution, and executing those working against the direct best interest of the nation in favor of failed political ideologies that would see the Constitution scrapped. 

Idiots

I won't repeat the fisking of the dumbass who claimed that poor people can't possibly cook for themselves.  Larry Correia did a more than adequate job.

No, this is reserved for those who are screeching about the suggestion that, instead of giving people easily defrauded ways to buy their own groceries (junk food????  Seriously???  You're buying soda and snack cakes on your ebt cards, and complaining that your children are going hungry???), we should bring back the non-perishable goods food pantries.  Canned stuff.  Y'know, the stuff I grew up eating.  Because I was painfully poor.

I've heard people screeching that it takes away the individual's right to choose what they eat.  Let's start with that.

So fucking what.  I don't give half a shit about the individual's right to choose what they eat, not when money is being forcibly removed from my household to give to these people.  I don't drink soda, nor do I eat a whole lot of processed crap.  I cook.  From scratch, for the most part.  Because it's cheaper, and tastes a hell of a lot better (if you can get your hands on a '60s Betty Crocker cookbook, their black midnight chocolate cake tastes a hell of a lot better than a mix, and costs a lot less to make).  I don't eat steak, much, either.  I've never eaten lobster.  Because I can't afford to.  I do NOT want someone who chooses not to work to eat better than my family does.  Hell, the threat of starvation's a hell of a motivation to get a fucking job.

I've also heard people screeching that the boxes of non-perishable foods lack any nutrition.

Uh, what?

Every can of vegetables has, just above its list of ingredients, a chart.  That chart is the nutritional values of whatever's in the can.  I use a LOT of canned food.  Wanna know why?  Because fresh or frozen green beans squeak when you eat them, and my children refuse to eat them.  And because I can get a lot of canned food, and it can sit in the pantry until I need to use it.  I put canned corn in taco soup, in my version of fajitas, and my daughter occasionally demands I open a can just for her, and eats it in about three days' worth of suppers.  I use canned green beans--warmed up with garlic salt, and my son's actually willing to eat them, provided he has coctail sauce or barbecue sauce to dip them in.  Canned tomato products are actually better for males than fresh.  And boy howdy, do both of my guys like chili.  And pasta bake. 

I've heard "but people won't know how to cook the food in the boxes, so that they can eat it."

Actually, I can't dispute that.  I had a friend in high school whose mother kicked her out.  She got the food pantry boxes with macaroni, canned meat, canned veg, government cheese, and stuff like that.  She lived on the peanut butter and bread handed out with the rest, because she didn't know what to do with any of it, until I showed her a couple things, then took her to the home-ec teacher.  For the most part, it can be solved by adding a small cookbook to the first box collected, and maybe a few basic cooking lessons.  Hell, maybe put a 6qt crock pot in the first box, with the cookbook, and a few pounds of dried beans, black eyed peas, and other legumes.  A decent one is under $20, and will make cooking the beans a thing of simplicity that beats microwaved frozen meals.

I've heard "canned food is so gross!"

Yeah, some of it is.  It'll keep you from starving.  If you want to eat better than that, either get a job, or get a better job than what you have.  If you literally cannot, well, Velveeta makes a lot of things taste a hell of a lot better, even if it's over-processed crap for cheese.  Honestly, the worst things I remember from the food pantry canned foods with the white government labels growing up was the canned meat...and if you add it and a can of cream of mushroom soup to pretty much any pasta, maybe with some of that horrid government cheese, it makes a pretty tasty meal.  But yes, straight out of the can, it's awful.

On the surface, the protests seem to be "for the good of those who can't afford to keep body and soul together."  However, if you scratch that altruistic surface, what you find is a whole bunch of whining elitists that want to feel good about helping the "poor" without actually doing anything to help them out of poverty. 

Musings

I wish my university would tell me whether someone has been dropped involuntarily for non-payment, or whether they have voluntarily dropped my class from terror/not wanting to work.  It would make filling out my roll book way easier if I didn't have to add names out of alphabetical order because of an accounting mistake.

Ever have a day where your child is standing there, eyes and mouth wide open, because they can't remember what to do next in their morning routine?  The morning routine that they've been following for two and a half years?  There are times I find it harder than normal not to swear at my children...

I know you're not supposed to change the dog food around, but what if your dog hates the food and won't eat?  Do you make them keep eating the food they hate, or do you switch around until you find something they like?

I didn't vote for Trump in either the primary or general election, last year, but if he keeps doing the same job he's been doing for the past six days since inauguration, I may well vote for his reelection.

Finally found some of my draft books, yesterday--the one with the random-ass short stories* I've been working on when I get stuck on something else, and the draft book for The Schrodinger Paradox. Since my classes are working on writing their papers, today, I will be working on getting stuff transcribed from the draft books, and more written. 

One has to wonder how Lzzy Hale of Halestorm can possibly channel rockers who are still alive like she does.  I mean, the dead ones make sense--how does she channel the souls and capabilities of those still living?

One also wonders about the soul-destroying apocalyptic break-up voiced by Starset's new album Vessels.  Is it metaphoric, or literal?  And did it happen between albums, or was it a formative event in the lead singer/songwriter's life?  Either way, it's a gorgeous, powerful album that you cannot judge without listening to the whole thing. 

I currently have five students doing their writing in the classroom, two drafting long-hand, and three on laptops.  All the rest took off to go find a computer elsewhere, or a comfy spot to write. 

Shadow the cat wound up getting her wish, a few nights ago.  We forgot to retrieve her from sleeping on her boy.  She had mild regrets in the morning--a full bladder and an empty belly will do that--but not enough that she hasn't tried to repeat her accomplishment.

A few weeks ago, I made a knitted wool-blend yarn headband for the pixie in Lion Brand's Wool-Ease (worsted weight) Rose Heather.  And my mother in law asked me "Where's mine?"  So, I made one for my mother in law.  Then my mother, sister, and all three aunts asked where theirs were...so my sweaters are going to wait while I make smaller projects. 

I have one sweater almost finished (Wool-Ease Avacado green), but messed up counting rows on the sleeves.  The left one is an inch too short, and the right one is an inch shorter than that.  Thankfully, it's a pretty simple thing to undo the cuffs, and add a bit.  I just need to finish the projects for family, first. 

I still need to remake a couple other sweaters I messed up on, too...

I got the pixie a plastic loom for Christmas (then had to get her a better one, since there was no way to keep the nylon loops from flying off of the one I gave her while she worked).  The imp was so intrigued by it that he went and spent his own money to get one of his own.  They're both doing excellent work on their various projects--and have finished about four or five apiece.  (Or rather, I've finished off the projects for them, since they lack the dexterity to bind their projects off.)

Last week, I tried easing back from taking an equivalent amount of Aleve tablets to equal prescription strength naproxen that I'd run out of.  My body says, "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave."  Come to find out, chronic, systemic inflammation is part and parcel of CFS/ME, and I wind up feeling like somebody hit me with a Mack truck.  So, it's back to the full dose.  I hate taking pills...

I need to stop procrastinating by writing the blog post, and start writing fiction. 





*Short stories are being gathered for another collection, tentatively titled Normalcy Bias.  So far, I've got about 25K words, plus a few more stories I need to transcribe (and one I need to finish). 

I ordered ice cream, but will try to tolerate what was served.

I've been back on campus since the election, since I teach MWF mornings.  I had an equal amount of gloating in class...and outright terror.  Not anger.  Terror. 

Some of my students are terrified that President Elect Trump is going to do what Democrats have been saying he's going to do: deport everyone with brown skin, make gay sex illegal, roll back rights sixty or seventy years by making birth control and abortion illegal...

Thing is, he can't.  He literally cannot do these things.  Not legally.  All he can do is make sure that immigration laws are enforced, borders are guarded, and actually do the fucking job he was hired to do. 

He does, however, have the precedents set by his predecessor, which aren't good, but...

He legally cannot deport people in this country who are here on a student visa, work visa, or working their way through the process to immigrate.  Nor does he have any intention to. 

He, as President, cannot make law.  He cannot make gay sex, birth control, or abortion illegal.  Nor does he have any intention to. 

He cannot declare war.  He cannot sign treaties.  He cannot do anything, legally, that the current POTUS has been doing for the past eight years, and everybody on both sides hate him enough that he won't get away with trying.  

What he can  do is work with congress to sign laws placed before him.  He can defund executive branch government offices, should he so choose.  He can assess the state and direction of the nation, and suggest things for the legislative branch to maybe think about doing to fix a perceived problem, or right a wrong. 

The things that a president, any president, can and cannot do, must and must not do, are all laid out in very plain language that takes a lawyer to misunderstand.  Same as the responsibilities, duties, and acts forbidden to the legislative, and to the judicial, branches.  

It's all there, in the contract between the Federal government and the American people that he must swear to uphold and defend in his oath of office. 

Visionary.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded--here and there, now and then--are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck."
--Robert Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

The floor is open for discussion.  

Yet another fucking idiot that can't fucking read

I don't know how widely this has been disseminated, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor has come out and flat-out said she doesn't understand her job. 

Wait, what? 

Yep.  She says she's in favor of forced labor, and is in favor of forcing all lawyers to do pro bono work. 

Where this clashes with her job is that she is currently a Supreme Court justice.  Someone whose entire job has to do with whether a law is or is not constitutional.  Whether or not a law is rendered illegal by whether or not it contravenes any part--original or amendments--of the Supreme Law of the land. 

This...this is not. 

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. --Amendment 13

It seems to me like it takes a lawyer to misunderstand the clear language in the Constitution and its amendments.

Maybe lawyers should be banned from serving as Supreme Court justices.

Amen.

I can't say I'm surprised.

Reports I've heard out of France put the toll at between 120-160 dead; some reports say the perps are also dead, others aren't sure.

I am...unsurprised, to say the least.  I am also, to some extent, unsympathetic.

The people of France, like us, choose their "rulers" in elections.  Their "ruling class" chose to permit the waves of invaders inside their borders, apparently without even bothering to check baggage.  That, in turn, both permitted and damn near encouraged the recent events.

I cannot feel sorry for people who invited in and welcomed those who seek wage war, with or without a nation* backing them up.

Does that mean that I'm going to be unsympathetic to our own people if it happens here?

In a word?  Yes.

To an extent.  However, I don't think they'll find Americans as easy of targets, unless they deliberately hit gun-free zones (which they likely would).  However, after what's happened in Paris, I strongly doubt otherwise law-abiding carriers will leave their means of self-defense behind.

Other than that...again, the American people have permitted gleefully placed in charge those who would welcome in our enemies with open arms (and perhaps the hope that those enemies will take out a few of those who vote against the socialist/fascist/progressive agenda, and remove enough "no" votes to change the political landscape).

So, yeah.  I'm not feeling a whole lot of sympathy.

I am not Charlie Hedbo.  I am not a Parisian.  I am not a victim.

And I don't feel too sorry for those who choose to be a victim in some weird version of Sister Bertha virtue signalling.  

*If world governments bothered asking the radicals, they'd find that the radicals see "islam" as their nation, rather than any particular acknowledged nation state.

Free is worth what you pay for it.

I think I've figured something important out. 

A few years ago, before I had the kids, I worked with the football team.  I tutored, and helped them correct, their writing about five hours a week.  Was paid about $10/hour for it.  I'd've been happy to do it for free, but for something a colleague (the one who set the whole thing up) said: "You have to set a price.  If you don't, they won't value what you're offering."

Most of my students don't pay for their own college tuition and/or fees.  They get grants, scholarships, and loans for that.  They don't have to bust their asses at work, trying to earn the money to pay $300+ per class, plus the approximately $700 for all the other assorted fees and textbooks.

From what I've seen, few of the traditional students--those who take out the most in loans and grants--don't value their classes.  They love classes like the "university experience" class (what used to be Freshman Orientation, and was a 1 cr hr 6 week course, but is now a 3 cr hr 16 week course), because they're "easy A" classes, or classes that it's "okay to skip because the professor doesn't care." 

And Bernie Sanders wants to make all undergraduate work "free." 

The thing is, most people see the grants and loans as "free" money.  They don't think about how much it's going to take to pay off the loans.  They don't think about the future.  And they damn sure don't think about what others have to do to earn the money for the federal grants.  It's "free."  Not worth anything.

I think I'm beginning to understand why so few value their voting rights.  Free is worth what you, yourself, pay for it. 

Because, with most of these kids, if they're not the ones earning it, then it's worth nothing.  They don't see others' sacrifice, and absolutely don't look toward the future. 

Tough call.

My sanity is starting to win the argument.  I don't have much left, and probably should protect what I have. 

Bad governance

I've noticed, recently, a larger and larger percentage of people have started simply ignoring laws and doing what they were planning to do anyway.  Only a small minority of that group happens to be violent criminals. 

We have huge majorities of people ignoring gun registration laws in their states--far too many to prosecute.

We have increasing minorities of legitimate, peaceful, otherwise-law-abiding gun owners noting that most mass shootings have occurred in gun free zones, and beginning to do the common sense thing for their own safety, and ignoring legal postings.  And nobody catches on, because hello, concealed carry.  

We have whole states decriminalizing drugs that the federal government still consider illegal.

Hundreds of thousands of people are simply...ignoring bad law that steps on their own personal freedom.  There aren't enough prisons in the country to deal with all of them. 

Same with a whole lot of EPA over-regulation of private property, like the twunt that confronted a Florida homeowner to tell him that the "barbecue smell" and smoke from his grill was not allowed to leave his property.  Or the new regulations of wood-burning heating stoves. 

The federal government has forgotten a few different things that it learned during Prohibition (when most people were ignoring a major law that had been amended into the very Constitution): you can't legislate morality, and never pass a law that you know won't be obeyed. 

Seriously, the only thing the government is doing is ensuring that the people no longer respect the rule of law.  And that...that's the first step in making sure the government loses the consent of the governed.

Sorta, but not quite.

So.  Ran across something last week that I've been ruminating on: "Skull-Stomping Sacred Cows: People are Dying Because We're Weak." 

We aren't weak.  Well, the American people (the real ones, the ones that remember what it is to BE an American, rather than European, or a "citizen of the world") aren't.  Neither are our military branches. 

Our politicians--the ones in control, and the ones our enemies look to when they assess the rest of us--are.  They desperately want to be "liked." 

We are not up against a similar culture, like we were in WWI or WWII, where we fought (mostly) in Europe against others who come from the same racial and cultural heritage that our nation was built on.  No, this is more like fighting on the Pacific front: we have facing us an enemy that sees nothing wrong in acts that seem, to us, to be cowardly, or barbaric. 

The thing is, they seem that way because they come from different cultural roots.  Ones that we only sort of shared.  These roots are in the Old Testament of the Bible.  Ours are almost completely founded in Europe alone, or in the New Testament.  Theirs are formed by tribalism,* ours by feudalism.**

We have it within our culture to overcome and wipe out theirs.  We've done it before, when we had to (see the early colonial period when we were forced to defend ourselves from the aggressive aboriginal tribes).  We are capable of doing it again.

Should a massive attack happen that hits us in the nerve center of the nation (i.e., Washington, D.C.), I do believe that our declared enemies, those who've declared war on us time and time again, will find that we are capable of doing it again, and that what they perceive as weakness--an unwillingness to cause unnecessary harm, or to torture instead of a swift death, or the discipline to not charge screaming into the fight but to wait and aim until there's no way to avoid our shots--are not weaknesses at all, but a massive well of strength that they, in their fractured, tribal based culture cannot hope to match.   

*Tribalism is focused on family, then extended family, then tribe, and to hell with anyone else.  And if stabbing a relative in the back is necessary for your own advancement, it's for the good of the tribe.

**Feudalism, done right, is a ruling class that cares for and protects its everyday people, right down to the individual families.  Advancement is not handled at the point of a knife, but by proving merit and working hard.

Disgust is the mildest term

I'm sure everyone's heard about the latest kerfuffle with Planned Parenthood.  I'll summarize, but won't link to the story plus video.  I don't want to owe anybody a new keyboard because they vomited on theirs.

In a breathtakingly horrific flouting of U.S. law, they are not only performing partial birth abortions by delivering late term babies breech and murdering them in the process, they're harvesting and selling organs when they think they can get away with it.

And each and every individual in the United States, willing or not, is complicit in this atrocity.  Because Planned Parenthood is supported by our tax dollars.

Never have I ever been so glad that we get more back than we pay in.  Because every dollar heading for the EITC is one that cannot be handed over to the murderers of the most innocent among us.

I am so far beyond angry that I cannot even express it.

We need to re-think things, as a nation of Christians.

There's a lot of panic going around, over how the SCOTUS's recent legislation will affect churches who do not want to officiate over gay wedding ceremonies.  Churches are terrified that refusing will lose them their tax exempt status. 

I say: so what?  That tax exempt status is preventing the churches from doing a lot of good--it's a chain, a muzzle, a gag.  Any pastor that says anything outright political that TPTB don't like gets threatened with the church's tax exempt status getting yanked.  That includes castigating parishioners that follow the feelz and have an abortion/fuck around outside of marriage/act on their urges to fuck around despite being married, or any other things that are frowned upon by the whole bible, not just the laws that were fulfilled by the coming of Christ. 

Instead, what we have is this watered-down, passive version of Christianity.  No Jonathan Edwards for us, no sir.  Why, that man was a fire-breathing, politically active pastor that said we were all going to hell!

Well, looking around at the things going on--God being forced out of public schools, while pornography is brought in; girls being snuck out by their school counselors for abortions, without even bothering to tell their parents they were even  pregnant; children being stolen from their families by the state teaching them that anything goes, and their parents are wackos for believing in an Imaginary Friend in the Sky--maybe we, as a nation, are headed in that very direction. 

The results--the mass shootings, the kids looking for direction joining radical Islam because they're not getting it at home or in church, the rising number of unwed mothers and/or abortions in certain demographics, the violence in the streets, the sheer, selfish, thoughtless lack of consideration for one's neighbor--sort of speak for themselves. 

So, yes.  Let that tax exempt status fall by the wayside.  Let the pastors actually start guiding their flocks again.  I will bet you anything that the true Christians will stand up and make damn sure their church is blessed by the removal of the chains and gag.