Snivels and rants! Snivels and rants! Snivels and rants and rants and rants.
Big government apparatchiks (and part time US Senators from Ohio) Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown act to bail out their sponsors in AmTrak, America’s socialized choo-choo, but it is we who are being railroaded with yet another insider subsidy. Though the edifice of Cincinnatistan’s Hall of Justice (or “Union Terminal” if you insist) does indeed make a powerful and evocative architectural statement, is it really worthy of tax-victim support?
180728
14 July 2018
Kylie and Stormi Jenner are a very good example of a very bad example. Whether your intentions as a “proud” or “loving” parent are to mutilate your daughter’s ears or your son’s penis, it would be well to remember this: infants are unable to give informed consent.
To mutilate any person without his permission (or short of a medical emergency) is trespass and violence. Trespassing against another’s person or property or violating their bodily integrity is wrong. It’s wrong even if your Rabbi or the Village Elders insist that it’s righteous. And it is wrong even if all your friends tell you that “everybody do that.”
If you’re paying your own bills and making your own decisions lately and you fancy some tats or piercings or a circumcision or a clitorectomy, then have at it. It’s your cash and your body.
But leave the children alone!
If I’m going to hector strangers on the evils of child abuse, I should confess my own shame. Attend then to the sad despicable cascade of disgrace.
Shortly after the birth of our first son, Busy Body and I were moving into a house owned by her parents. Helping out with their new grand baby was their joy and I’m delighted that they had the disposable wherewithal to take part. However, discovering that young Stargazer had yet to be circumcised, Grandmama expressed her horror that her little grand darling could not be welcomed into the Kingdom of God.
Grandmama wanted to please a loving and merciful god, Busy Body wanted to please her mother, and I caved in to my wife and betrayed my son. I am comforted by the fact that I do not remember my own circumcision, and I suspect that few of us do. Our brains are not well organized yet to hold on to much. However. I do remember Stargazer’s circumcision. I remember the sterile room with the tiny form fitted tray for his little body. I remember being escorted out to the waiting area. I remember the screaming. I still remember the screaming. I’ll always remember the screaming.
Am I a hypocrite because I now exhort others not to commit the crimes that I have? No. I do not forgive myself for this, but I’ve tried to make the best of my life in spite of immutable history. If I were to remain silent I would be a hypocrite and a coward.
Please, for the love of life and liberty and decency and dignity, leave your children to their own natures and they will express it in their own time.
14 July 2014
Meeting the meter is my metier, and I often fall for the allure of alliteration. But getting back to meter. What follows is kind of a collaboration, I guess. I don’t know if I actually wrote any of it, though I will confess to rearranging M Rouget de Lisle‘s brilliant original. You may have noticed that irrespective of melody many songs have matching meters (I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke, House of the Rising Sun, and Amazing Grace, for one memorable example.) And some meters merely overlap, sometimes just barely glancing off each other. My all-time favorite national anthem, Les Marseilles, has an amusing overlap with another favorite. To get yourself started before you start reading, try whistlin’ Dixie.
Allons enfant de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivez.
Aux armes! Aux armes! Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos bataillons, marchon, marchon!
Formez vos bataillons. Marchon pour Dieu et Patrie.
Aux armes, aux armes, aux armes pour Dieu et Patrie.
Marchon, marchon. Aux armes pour Dieuuuuuuuuu…
Et Patrie!
I don’t really mean it. My initial misgiving is that Brett Kavanaugh is too much in the John Roberts mold. Still, the resemblance is clear, and I like to imagine new professional opportunities for Bob Odenkirk; I’ve generally enjoyed his work.
180710
1 July 2018
Correspondent EM “got completely torn apart by [the] TSA” the other day, very nearly missing her flight, over which correspondent GJ opined that he has “nothing but contempt” for them.
I too have plenty of contempt for the TSA, but as a former federal employee I also sympathize. Some of us are so spectacularly incompetent at the arcana of people’s delicate little fuh-fuh-fuh-feeeeeelings that such drone work (or cashiering at the QuikkStopp by the Interstate) is the best employment that we can score.
Of course, when I actually witness one of these tax-feeders DELIGHTING in their abuse, then all sympathy fades.
Do I confirm correspondent GJ’s theory that the TSA “is just a govt work program for low-IQ individuals?” I don’t know if I confirm it, but I guess I do offer a little corroboration, as well as some counter-argument.
Irrespective of “low-IQ” employees, I’d say the TSA is more than “just a govt work program.” More importantly, it is public relations at its most nakedly honest. It is, to swipe the wit of the writers of Colony (DO NOT MISS IT!), their way of showing us who’s the bug, and who’s the kid with the magnifying glass.
“It’s either or…”
“Now isn’t the right time…”
“First we have to get rid of the welfare state…”
“First we have to get rid of democracy…”
It seems like it’s never the “right time” for steps in the libertarian direction, but is there ever a wrong time to do the right thing?
As an open borders anarchist myself, I say, “Let them starve at home or starve here.” If you want to deal harshly with trespassers onto your own ranch, then I guess that’s up to you. As for broad peaceful use easement onto MY public lands, MY sidewalks, and MY streets (paid for with MY stolen monies), I’d rather you didn’t molest my mules as they brought up my marijuana from Mexico. On the other hand, I guess I wouldn’t mind buying it at Kroger instead.
Correspondent JS asks, “Why would closed borders not be a step in a libertarian direction?” What constitutes trespass? What constitutes violence? Closing a border rather strongly suggests prohibiting people from traveling at will. How we stop them often requires brute force, usually by employees of The Occupation wearing government issued firearms. Exercising one’s right to life and liberty often takes some work, travel, and innovation. Interfering with any peaceful transit IS trespass, and caging travelers for declining to carry sanctioned documentation IS violence. And, before you play the “New Democrat Voters” card, yes, I already agree that VOTiNG is ALSO ViOLENCE, and that the only legitimate use of a franchise is defensive.
I do appreciate the temptation to “Nip it! Nip it in the bud,” but I tend to lean more towards due process than prior restraint if we’re going to infringe on people.
180625
24 June 2018
Unexpected good news comes from Ohio’s legislature. The standards of decency, gentility, self-control, and self-respect are all advanced by a couple of bills that help to push back the last century’s tide of “progressive” infantilization.
Most portentous is Speaker Smith’s “Stand Your Ground” bill now headed for Kommissar Kasich’s promised veto. Irrespective of its outcome, the bill bolsters our natural human rights to dignity, integrity, and self-defense. The notion of the “public space” means that all are free to engage that space, and that therefore none are entitled to bar others’ peaceful use. We do not “own” the sidewalks in the same sense that we might “own” our homes or our persons, but we have nevertheless established a peaceful use easement to such shared spaces. The legislative effort to acknowledge our natural human rights to stand our ground in the face of trespass, whether at home or abroad, is much appreciated, even if I don’t share Mr Smith’s confidence of his bill’s “veto proof” status. Once again, I hope I’m wrong.
Less obvious, but also far reaching in its potential for good is the “Cursive Writing” act now making it’s way through the legislative labyrinth. Though scorned by many as arcane, old school, and irrelevant to our keypad sensibilities, penmanship promotes mental development. Mastery of script, the ability to write smoothly, trains the brain to think smoothly and to appreciate elegance and clarity. Like tennis, golf, or needlepoint, writing in script helps to integrate and focus the mind, and just generally makes us more interesting people. Mastery of our “smart phones” teaches us to think incrementally, it diffuses and distracts our minds, and may even make us measurably stupider.
31 March 2003
“Together Everyone Accomplishes More!” Is it true? It says so on the poster down the hall at HR. Personally, I’m skeptical. “Everyone?” Unless you qualify it — everyone in class, everyone on the island, everyone at work — it means, “All human beings in the universe without a single exception.” Yeah, well, there ARE exceptions. Some jobs are just too small for too many. Lately I’ve taken to asking Drama Queen, “I think maybe we’d just get in each other’s way here, let me try it by myself first,” instead of, “Would you PLEASE back off for a second?!”
The nonsense continues.
“There’s no ‘I’ in TEAM!”
That’s right! Also no “I” in meat, mate, or tame.
Pick your favorite anagram!
For that matter, there’s also no “Y” in obedience, or follow, or march.
And if you believe that that’s significant, I’d also like to point out that there’s no “U” in imagination, originality, integrity, dignity, or intelligence.
But there IS a “dig it” in dignity!
Also, it is worth noting that you can’t spell “Humorless Robot” without HR.
Dig it!
Dick’s Sporting Goods answers to Dick’s Sporting Goods, and thereby is entitled to stipulate whatever terms of service they wish. I disapprove of this particular campaign — refusing to sell certain “scary” guns to people under twenty-one — as I believe it is but another step in the progressive infantilization of the American people.
Nevertheless, it’s Dick’s shop and if they want to discriminate, so be it. At least they have the courtesy to let us know up front so many of us now know where NOT to shop. As stand-up comic Jimmy Pak ( or was that Billy Park? I apologize to his whole family for misremembering) once said, “[I’d rather pass by a Gooks Not Welcome sign than have some moron piss in my soup ’cause he’s got issues.]”
180312
More than any other demographic, I think, libertarians and anarchists WiSH we were wrong. Unfortunately, reality is no more merciful than our own cognitive acumen.