Tulsi Gabbard for Secretary of War

19 May, 2019

It’s convenient for a political junkie to live in an open primary state. In 2016 I was the first of my friends to vote against President Pantssuit. Fortunately Lady MacBubba went down in flames anyway, but I still get to claim I voted against her more (though I probably hate her less) than most of my peers.

This go ’round, I expect I’ll be pulling a Democrat ballot again in Ohio’s Primary and voting FOR Tulsi Gabbard. Do not mistake me, I think that she has a childish view of economic reality and could be a disastrous President of Johnsonian (or Dubyic?) Proportions. I don’t care. I expect I’ll vote the Libertarian ticket in the General Election, but in the meantime I want her in the Democrat debates. I am a squeamish peacenik coward whose fundamental political metric is body count, and she hits this issue first and she hits it hard! I don’t know if I can bring myself to send her any money (I’m already paying her salary!) but I’m telling you and I’m tagging my car and encouraging peaceniks in open primary states to keep this issue alive. The slavering jackals of Faux & MSNBCNN are trying to bury her (Tucker Karlmarxon excluded.) As long as she’s willing to beat this drum for me, I reckon I can throw in a few Amens!

Songs from the Hooterverse

Jed Clampett is a millionaire!
Lived a simple life without a care!
Found oil in his bottom land,
Sold the leases and now he’s a wealthy man!

Kate Bradley runs the Shady Rest!
Her hospitality’s the best!
Three daughters and her Uncle Joe:
One old codger and pretty maids in a row!

(nih nih, nih nit nit!) The smog!
(nih nih, nih nit nit!) The dog!
(nih nih, nih nit nit!) Jethro!
(nih nih, nih nit nit!) Bedloe!
You’ll have a laugh, a hoot and a half!
Paul Henning’s mind’s aglow!

(nih nih, nih nit nit, nit nit!)

200408

Time to book your reservations at the Shady Rest.
When you’re ready for relaxin’ come and put them to the test.
They roll out the carpet when the Cannonball arrives;
It’s on such service that the hotel business thrives!
Nice rooms! Scenic views!

When you first check in Kate will greet you at the desk,
And then Uncle Joe will escort you to your nest.
When the dinner bell is rung come a-rushin’ down the stairs,
For the best scratch cookin’ and down-home country fare!
Fried chicken! Apple pie!

(intermezzo)

And now it’s time that we checked in on Ollie and his bride.
They left the bustling city for the quiet countryside.
He tried his hand at tillin’ but he couldn’t raise a crop!
He may be a fine lawyer but at farmin’ he’s a flop!
Miserable, he is! Epic fail! Get those weeds, now!
Ya best stock up, now, ya hear?

200412

( — this has been a FilchWeighs Desecration™, dahlink — )

On Sheep, Wolves, and Men

22 February, 2020

Sheep fear wolves.  As well they should.  Wolves are aggressive carnivores; sheep are passive herbivores.  Wolves are feral, sheep are docile.  Wolves are predators, sheep are prey.  Fear is rational.

Sheep hate individuals more than they fear wolves.  In fact, many sheep love, respect, and admire wolves.  Sheep will love the wolf who protects his larder from the other wolves.  They express their love in many ways: 

“He kept us free,” “He kept us safe,” “Thank God for Negan,” and, “I have observed him on television; he shall trounce those violent criminals.” (or, in the Original Klingon, “Ah seen him on teevee.  He’s go’n’ whoop them ter’rists.”)

Respect?  Admire?  I do believe.  One point and two questions:

The point  —  Che Guevara is on more T-shirts in America than Ron Paul, Sam Adams, Tom Payne,  Ben Franklin, or Emma Goldman.

The questions  —  Why do mass murderers become more popular after their convictions?  —  &  —  Why do convicted mass murderers get marriage proposals from strangers?

So why should the sheep HATE individualism, even as they LOVE their wolves?  Because individuals “cause trouble.”  They “stand out” and “rock the boat” and “make waves.”  They’re “asking for it” and they “think they’re better than us.”   Worse yet, even though it is Negan™ who is actually killing members of the flock, it is Rick Grimes™ who is “getting them killed.”

But worst of all, the sheep hate the individual because he is a walking rebuke to their constant betrayal of their alleged standards.  Sheep love their wolves because the wolves remind the sheep that they are not wolves.  Sheep hate individuals because individuals remind the sheep that they are not men.

* * * * * * advertisement * * * * * *

cover illustration by Frank FrazettaTarzan created by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Used without permission.  Piracy Press is a non-profit enterprise dedicated to the preservation and distribution of great art and ripping good yarns.

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Stories are selected with the greatest of discrimination, but even numbered issues of Daring Love are specifically edited with the prurient interests of atavistic fanboys in mind.  Reader discretion is advised.

Wuhan Flu™

10 March, 2020

Technically inaccurate:  Wuhan “Flu” or Koala “Bear” or “Buffalo Nickel”?

Maybe, sure, why not?  I’m no microbiologist, so I’m grateful for correction, but “CoViD19®” may indeed be from an entirely different genus than influenzae.  So what?  It seems to manifest “flu like” symptoms:  fever, nausea, congestion, respiratory difficulty, death. 

And the marsupial Koala is ursine in no sense other than outer appearance.

And America’s iconic “Buffalo Nickel” is 75% Copper and features a Bison on its reverse side.

Still… so what?  Even if inaccurate, like Lime Disease® and West Nile Virus®, they are apt enough.

But racist?  No. (Or probably. And sexist, too!)

In Defense of the Judge, & of the Submariner, but mostly the Judge

17 November, 2018

I probably don’t like Roy Moore.  I don’t know, but I expect that, like many officers of various courts, he has condemned more than a few peaceful potheads to involuntary prison romance.  Like many of his ilk, he might protest that his “hands were tied” by mandatory sentencing guidelines.  I don’t care; if he purports to be a decent human being then he is obliged to resign such a phony judgeship and recognize that he is merely a robed administrator.  If you are forbidden to use judgment, then you are not a judge.

And that’s not even the defense part.  I point out how awful I think he could be, just as I have elsewhere detailed how awful Submariner, the wicked wicked step-father, was.

I cite their awfulness up front, BEFORE their defense, to illustrate a very important point:  I care more about WHAT’s right than WHO’s right.  If the Judge or the Submariner incidentally adhere to actually decent principles or can narrowly be defined as not an overt jerk in one regard or another, then that’s laudable in spite of other failings.

Roy Moore first entered my world a generation ago, when, as an elected judge, he chose to erect a monument to The Ten Commandments (at his own expense) in the lobby of “his” courthouse.  I haven’t read the relevant County or Municipal charters, nor Alabama’s constitution, so I don’t know if his act was in breach of any of those agreements, hut I suspect not.  None of the shrill complaints surrounding his act of historical citation ever mentioned such, but fully focused on his alleged violation of the First Amendment’s fictional “wall of separation” between church and state.  The First Amendment has no application to the Moore case, unless it is to protect HIS freedom of expression.  As a militant atheist myself I consider about half of The Ten Commandments to be offensive bullshit (the jealous god stuff), but all of it, like the mythology from which it springs, to be hugely significant, historically AND culturally.  It is, for good AND ill, the cornerstone of our contemporary theory of jurisprudence — don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, don’t insult petulant gods (or popular sensibilities).  A modest monument to legal history, on the Judge’s dime, does not seem worth getting overly exercised.  If I don’t like it, maybe I should vote for a different judge.

Years later he makes the scene again, this time amid a flurry of accusations of “pedophilia” and “molestation.”   The charge of pedophilia was both base and baseless.  It was cruel and inaccurate, to the judge himself, because pedophiles prey strictly on the prepubescent, and that’s not Roy, and to actual victims of pedophilic predation, because the dilution of such charges diminishes and denigrates real victims.  Attempts to distort and dissipate such specific concepts as pedophilia and privilege ill serves justice as it waters down precise notions and diffuses legitimate anger.  “Molestation” may enjoy a narrow, legalistic, and technical accuracy, but it withers under objective scrutiny.  Molestation implies an imposition, but Moore’s history doesn’t bear that out.

As a thirty-something bachelor, Moore dated teenagers, with the blessing and permission of their parents.  In the broad historical context his behavior could be described as correct, courtly, and courteous,  Protective parents likely looked on young professional Moore as an “up and coming” good catch,  To many today, that may sound creepy, but too many have been warped by a century of progressive infantilization.  Adolescent apprenticeships have been squeezed out of the market to make life easier for Union Bosses, while hapless students have been sentenced to longer and longer terms of government “education.”  It’s no wonder that so many reactionary do-gooders imagine that a 26 year old “child” would be helpless without Mommy’s insurance.  The invention of the “teenager” was a serious mistake, the residue of which continues to misinform our horror at the thought of historic dating habits or twelve year old drug mules.

I was a twelve year old drug mule, and I was delighted to do it.  During my thirteenth year the Submariner was stationed at the New London Sub Base.  When his boat was in port, he spent most of his Sundays on the couch watching football.  Every so often he would summon me, hand me a buck, and send me to the local QuikkStopp® for two packs of cigarettes plus whatever I wanted with the change.  He and I had our “issues,” but I do not fault his great and assiduous respect for property and agreement.  He soon learned that I shared that with him, so he trusted me with his cash and his smokes.  My older brother, the Thug, he did not, as the Thug had developed a taste for both nicotine, and larceny.  But for me and the Submariner, it was a good deal; he got his fix without stirring from the couch, and I got the latest minty fresh twelve cent issue of Adventure Comics or X-Men or Detective.  Again, what we shared was respect for property.  (The trouble was, he seemed to consider his wife and daughter to be property, but that’s a different and much uglier story.)

During my regular duties as a drug dealer, I will often commiserate with customers who are obliged to show ID before scoring their stash.  I never apologize because I consider myself to be just as much a victim of the regime as are they.  Depending on my mood, I might point out that were it up to me I would cheerfully sell a fourteen year old all the beer, ammunition, and heroin that she could afford.  Or I might relate that story above about the Submariner’s smokes.  Once they get over their shock many might reflect that the world has changed a lot since their own childhoods as well, and not just in the price of cancer sticks and funny books.

How do we make babies?  Your parents should already have filled you in.  Let’s move on.  How do we make grown-ups?  Give children responsibilities.  When they measure up, give them more.  How do we make large hairy children?  Deny smaller children responsibility, shield them from the consequences of their own misbehavior, and “protect” them from disappointment. Eventually you’ll get a generation of discourteous jerks and ignorant savages who believe that the beginning of a request sounds like “I need” or “I want” or “give me.”

Let’s get back to the Judge. We left him with one charge standing, that of “molestation.”  But does it stand?  Was it an actual case of a grown-up creep “preying on children?”  I’d hoped to have dismissed that “helpless child” nonsense by now, but I can still sense heels digging in across time and space.  

Still not buying it?  Dig out that old family bible, the really really old one that your Granny got from her Granny.  Go to the genealogy section and go back four or five generations.  Check the birthdates of respective pairs of ancestors.  I’d be willing to bet real money (Au or Ag) that you’ll find a few fifteen or sixteen year old brides with husbands who are twice or even three times their age.  Chances are your teenaged G’G’Great Gran was G’G’Great Grampop’s third or fourth wife.  The earlier models were all likely teens at their weddings, too, and they probably expired during childbirth (for centuries one of the major killers of women.)  Was G’G’Great Grampop also a child molester creep?  You owe your existence to his (mis?)behavior.  That’s YOUR history.  Dare you change it?

For millennia, thirteen year old boys would stand before their families and communities and declare, “Today, I am a man.”  (or, in the original Klingon: “Eye-yew’ muh-ni’ geh-vill’.”)  They meant it, and the community believed it, and held them to it.  They may not have been as fully respected as their gray headed elders, but they were on their way. They had stepped into manhood and renounced the excuses of childhood.

How to we make children?  That’s too easy. Stop it!  How do we make a man?  Treat him like a man.  Hold him to account like a man.  Reward him, or condemn him, as a man.  As a parent you love your child, and may wish to be his friend, too.  Probably you are, and for years you will likely be the best friend that kid has, but you DARE NOT be his buddy,  Your job is NOT to “raise children” (there are already far too many superannuated children in the world), your job is to transform infants into adults.

update 200425: correspondent EW writes, “[Your story] made me think of how I got EXCORIATED by my wife, in-laws, and even a bit by my parents when I allowed my 7 year old son to walk to the store by himself which was only half a mile away and had 1 big street to cross. When he came back he felt really proud and all that jazz till my wife and his mother convinced him that he was LUCKY that he was still alive. We still can’t even talk about that to this day.”

These comments are sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars” in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates, c/o Gene Greigh //  401 Rio Concho Drive, Suite 105;  San Angelo, Texas;  76903

Living in the Voting Age

19 March, 2019

Speaker Pelosi’s proposal to extend the franchise to 16-year-olds has superficial merit even as it is deeply and fundamentally flawed.

It’s true that at 16 today a person is as likely to be aware of the latest in politics and have the same access to data as any 60-year-old, making us all as well informed as we are willing to be. Many at 16 and younger work and pay taxes, and the notion of “taxation without representation” is considered to be anathema to American traditions.

So why stop at 16? I’d much rather spend time with a 14 year old adult than a 40 year old child. People mature at different rates, and while many people at 16 or 19 lack the life experience or maturity to properly evaluate their vast body of knowledge, others are more capable. Voting is an awesome responsibility, often literally involving life and death questions, and age, as an arbitrary compromise, is a poor measure of maturity.

While neither a Democrat (in the sense of Cleveland, Carter, or Clinton) nor a democrat (in the sense of Marat, Marx, or Mao), I recognize that democracy is America’s national religion and I will address those predilections. Rather than the magic numbers of 16 or 18 or 21, I would repeal the 26th Amendment altogether and instead define other criteria: Citizenship (naturalized or “birthright” is a separate argument not relevant to this one), literacy in English (or the personal charm or financial wherewithal to coax or hire interpreters and advisors), and documented evidence of net tax-payer status (call it your “voter card” which you renew every decade perhaps, and surrender to get food stamps.)

For millennia, Jewish boys would declare on their 13th birthday that, “Today, I am a man.” They meant it and their families and communities believed it and they expected these newly minted men to act accordingly and mostly they did. “Teenagers” are a recent invention, the residue of capitalism and technology, but their minds have been stunted by decades of infantilization perpetrated by government schools and the welfare state.

A Covenant with Covetry

7 April, 2019

Correspondent DB recently scored the uber-coolest issue of Adventure Comics, number 300, featuring the beginning of 81 consecutive issues of “Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes” before they bowed out in deference to fellow Legionnaire Supergirl. I’ve read (and have) the story in reprinted version, so I don’t necessarily “need” that particular issue myself. But still…
It is such a plum.

I’d say I envied him if the stupid dictionary didn’t insist that I had to resent him first, and I’d say I was jealous if I thought that it was actually my property. So… sigh…

I admire the choices he made to come to this point in his life, and I aspire to acquire such cool things as he just did.

Sigh…
You’d think it would be easier to just say “envy.”
Or “covet.” Is “covet” still benign and wholesome? Or have the self-loathing scolds at Lexicon Central corrupted that one, too?

Featured above: The beginning of the Legion’s run in Adventure in 1962, and who followed their demise in 1969. Okeh, “demise” might be an overstatement. In fact the features swapped spots and the Legion was squeezed into the back of Action Comics, to later sputter out and precipitate the first Great Drought. Cover art by (left) Curt Swan & George Klein and (right) Curt Swan & Neal Adams. Adventure Comics, Sunboy, Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, Superboy, Lightning Lad, Triplicate Girl, Mon-El. Superman, Supergirl, and That All-Girl Gang are the works and properties of Detective Comics and Warner Communications. Used without permission. Constitutes free advertisement on DC’s behalf at the expense of Piracy Press and Greigh Area Associates.

Monopoly Power

12 April 2002

What governments do that is forbidden to all other entities is to use force to assert its will. An ethical government will use its power only defensively: to protect its borders, to protect the value of its currency, to protect the rights of innocents.

Human rights are not a gift from a loving god, nor are they a privilege granted by a benevolent government. Human rights are an invention of human intelligence, and exist for those who recognize and respect them. They are assumed by default at birth and are preserved by adherence to certain principles. (Children do not yet understand this, but can be taught. It is the responsibility of parents to provide a moral upbringing for their children. Some children are raised improperly, or never grow up, and some are mistreated, but in the absence of overwhelming evidence of neglect or abuse, children are the responsibility of their parents.)

Human rights are retained by those who respect them. When someone commits theft he shows a lack of respect for property, and society may justly require remuneration in the form of restitution or labor. When someone kidnaps or detains without just cause, he demonstrates a lack of respect for freedom, and society may justly deprive him of his freedom. When someone kills another maliciously or gratuitously, he makes clear that he has no respect for human life, and may well forfeit his own.

A free society will never deprive a person of his rights, but a just law may act in response when, by misbehavior, a person surrenders his rights. The principle is codified in our Constitution in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, each stating that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

ANY behavior which is not coercive or fraudulent would be permitted in a free society. As a Member of Congress, I will NEVER act in opposition to these principles.

The most awesome and dangerous power of the Congress is the authority to declare war. Having served in the United States Air Force, and having placed myself voluntarily under the discretion of the Congress and my Commander-in-Chief, I do not take this prospect lightly.

Waging war against an aggressor comes closest to looking like a conflict between respect for human rights and the needs of national survival, but any perceived conflict is fictitious. Whether the example is Dresden or Hiroshima, the question of civilian casualties must weigh heavily on the minds of military defenders. When an enemy uses hostages as shields against retaliation they are already lost. The aggressor always bears the moral burden of placing innocents in harm’s way. A free society has the right to defend itself. Collateral damage is certainly a tragedy, but it is not, in and of itself, a crime.

update 180424: Collateral damage is ALWAYS a crime, but whose crime remains a relevant question. No defender has a duty to die, so aggressors retain culpability for innocent losses.

Many mystics and statists insist that atheists and anarchists CAN’T believe in rights because we don’t recognize their respective alleged grantors. Nonsense! Just as Kepler and Copernicus could build a rigorous astronomy on the observations of astrologers, just as Lavoisier and Priestley could found modern chemistry on the bones of alchemy, we can abstract a rational theory of rights.  (Ethics without religion is like astronomy without horoscopes.)

Rights are those expected reciprocal protocols of behavior — respect for person, property, prerogative, and precedence — that history has demonstrated lead to societies with the greatest degrees of liberty, security, prosperity, and longevity. It is proper to describe rights as being “violated” insofar as respect for rights is a reasonable expectation, and a breech of such an expectation would be contrary to the customs of that society. If you live in a civil society, you reasonably expect certain rights by virtue of that society’s existence.

Though calling them “rights” may have been an unfortunate misappellation. It seems to connote righteousness, moralism, and mysticism. But it’ll do.

I don’t know how I ever managed to type “ethical government” in the first place, but, recreating this file from notes, I had to rely on my “reportorial integrity” to get me through it.

Predictions, in re Notre Dame

  1. The Cathedral of “Our Lady” will be rebuilt to almost exact specifications, as it has been extensively photographed.
  2. The costs of reconstruction will be borne mainly by millions of Catholics worldwide who will dig deeper into their hearts than sometimes their pockets will suggest, and by millions of the French, theist or not, who will give every sou they can to reclaim a piece of the glory of La Francaise. Millions of other contributors will pony up, cheerfully and willfully, believers and non-believers alike, as they cherish the achievements of art, architecture, and Western Civilization.
  3. The French and Parisian governments will make this project more difficult, more expensive, and more time consuming than necessary. (( 190416 ))

update 190420: correspondent MM, in re critics of the aid offered in the aftermath of the fire, seems impatient with leftie hysterics and race hustlers when she asks, “Why must everything be about race?”

Because if it’s not about race, then there’s a very real danger that it might be about integrity, thrift, hard work, or personal responsibility. Because my personal failings can be lain at my personal feet, but my race is beyond my control.