[I didn’t know how to communicate my thoughts for this post. Ever had something to say that eludes your ability to write? Bear with me as I give it a shot.]
How deep does the rabbit hole go? Deep enough that:
- I wish they’d stop digging.
- I ain’t going down there!
The second point is key. I don’t want to go to hell even if everyone else insists on riding there in their stupid little handbasket.
By now, chaos is just another name for Tuesday. We’re in the third year of “OMG we’re all gonna’ die in a plague”. Coincidentally, the pandemic freakout began in the third year of the “OMG Orange Man Bad” psychic shitstorm. The shitstorm never ended but entered a new phase with the “we’re going to peacefully protest until there’s nothing but ashes” clusterfuck. Have you noticed there’s always an urgent reason folks use to excuse shitting their own pants?
Way back in 2017 I figured people would get tired of self-flagellating and get back to living life; like a toddler burning out after a long tantrum. I was wrong! I moved on but society itself remains in a self-reinforcing loop of failure.
So long as chaos benefits one party (or the uniparty) “emergencies” will never end. So long as we’re an unserious society, we’ll be awash in bullshit. Wise people (including wise asses) see the futility of engagement with chaotic unhinged human bots. We’re unwilling to shoulder the burden of other people’s self-inflicted ills. We stay checked out of the “panic of the day” whirlwind. We carefully root ourselves in reality. As for the rest:
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
None of this shit will end through normal means; self correcting mechanisms have been thwarted. When a group of people fuck up everything they touch, they should be replaced with better people. For various reasons that’s not happening. In terms of medicine, has Fauchi ever cured anyone who was sick? If not, why the hell would anyone listen to him? In economics, Paul Krugman is wrong about everything he says. The same is true for Robert Reich and for that matter Jim Cramer. Why would anyone listen to them? Public schools have a terrible track record in education. So why do parents let people who can’t even teach fractions expand into morals, ethics, or sex. Biden was either unwilling or incapable of leaving his basement to campaign. A man who can’t leave his house is going to be a shitty president; and he is. When people who fail aren’t replaced by people who perform you continue to get failure.
Even if elections were squeaky clean, voting once every two years ain’t enough.* You can’t solve a world where losers are put in charge by checking a few boxes bi-annually. However, this brings our focus to the elephant in the room…
“Joe Biden won more votes than any other candidate in American history.” Say it! “Joe Biden did better in off year elections than almost any president in the last century.” Go ahead, say it aloud.
You’re required (almost literally by law) to pretend it’s true. So go ahead and speak the words aloud and see how you feel. Tell your cat that “Joe Biden won more votes than any other candidate in history”. Repeat the official line (assuming you don’t believe it) and you become a tool of your oppressor. Did the cat scratch your lying ass?
We just experienced the second consecutive “election of statistical improbability that can’t possibly mean anything at all so shut up“. The first “statistical surprise” shocked even cynics like me. The second “statistical oddity” is only a few weeks old but EVERYONE knows what it means. If it worked in 2020 that’s possibly a one off but if it happened again in 2022, then “unforeseen unusualness” will happen continually until the gambit no longer works.
Perhaps I was fool to trust any election? Did the cheating really just start? 2020 was so obviously weird that an accountant seeing similar shenanigans in your bank statement would nail you to a wall. But weren’t the hanging chads of Bush v Gore 2000 not the same situation? How long has this been happening? Nobody is surprised when they read about the Chicago effect during Nixon v JFK 1960. Are we all as fixed as Chicago has always been? It’s as old as human corruption. 1876 had flat out proven cheating. Interestingly, the cheating was unearthed, aired out, and dealt with more peacefully and intelligently in 1876 than the concertina wire and political prisoners mess set off in 2020.
When the selection process is shit, you get shit results. Nobody knows who’s really running things and Biden is a barely ambulant meat puppet. Even the people who voted for him don’t really like him. Nobody thinks he’s a good president. Ask your leftie friends to speak aloud a statement like “Biden won more votes than any other candidate in history and is therefore the best president ever”. Watch their eyes when they say it. They know.
Events, both wise and foolish, have consequences and they hit fast. It took a year for Orange Man bad to make a roaring economy out of Obama’s seized engine. It took a year for Captain Dementia to curbstomp Orange Man’s roaring economy. Today’s economy is the worst since Carter. It matches the current leadership’s inability. We will have Carter level inflation and Carter style gas prices so long as we have Carter level dipshits. This is true regardless of party (it wasn’t Dems who desperately wanted to run the walking human sedative called Jeb Bush).
I dimly remember poverty and inflation in the 1970’s but not shortages at the grocery store. This was followed by four decades of success so complete that I began to doubt my memories of inflation. Now, I get to see it all over again but with “supply chain disruption” (which is the phrase to used to avoid saying “predictable results of idiots messing with the economy”). People younger than me had never experienced failure this great. They’re beginning to bleed and the party’s just starting. Presumably the wonderous socialist miracle of food shortages and gas lines are only a few “improbable” elections away.
Given all that, I would expect to be in the same sour mood as the rest of the nation. However, I feel vaguely optimistic.
I queued up this video to enjoy the feeling of the times. (If you need a NSFW warning after the title of this post you’re clearly stupid… but here goes: they swear. Grasp your pearls and toddle to the fainting couch as needed.) I figured I would use the video to express rage.
But I don’t have rage to express. I’m not particularly pissed off because all the fucking up that’s happening is not mine to claim. I’m not the cause of problems. That’s key. Society going to shit doesn’t mean I’m shit.
Anger is for those who just realized what’s going on and more commonly for those who feel bad about what they’ve done. Helpless resignation is poison. I have my faults but neither being unaware nor helpless resignation are among them. If you’re reading this, it’s probably not an issue for you either. We saw these things coming. We weren’t the players creating them.
As bad goes to worse and stupid goes to malevolent we have a clean conscience. It would be better if things weren’t almost comically mismanaged but at least we have pride in our own behavior.
I’ve been happily humming “we are fucking fucked” as if it were any other song. Because it is:
(Hat tip to 357 Magnum.)
So what’s the deal? I’m happy because my freezer is full and it’s full because I made it so.
As the decline accelerates, there are a million little situations where I stood firm. Thus, I don’t feel guilty. For example, I didn’t go apeshit during COVID and I didn’t use it as an excuse to fuck up other people’s lives. I generally try to avoid fucking up my own life too. Basic human behavior that puts me far above politicians. Who gets into naked hammer fights, flew on Epstein’s plane, has a mansion on a $200K salary, or drowned their secretary to death? Politicians. Not me.
I never boss other people around. I won’t submit to coercion. I think before I act.
I didn’t wear a mask because I can define a micron and know the size of a virus. I know the difference between medicine and an “amulet of protection”. I know that when the man on TV says a lie, it’s still a lie. I didn’t shut down schools or businesses. When the gym required masks, I quit and stacked wood. I didn’t get the shot for a free donut because that’s dumb. If I really believed in perfect immunity to a plague that would surely kill me, I wouldn’t need a fucking donut to seal the deal.
When the president said he’d make all OSHA employees take the vax I didn’t bend the knee. He could have ordered me to eat chocolate ice cream and I’d have fought that too. I won’t move a fucking inch if someone is trying to force me. In the end, God seemed happy with my decision. As far as I can tell, every single human being on earth who refused the vax is happy with their decision. Could the other side say as much?
How good it feels that I didn’t panic and lose my soul!
I never fomented evil. I never caused harm. I never backed down. Given how people have acted lately, I’ve done well enough.
I could have done better, but I did as well as I could. That’s the satisfaction of an internal locus of control. It feels good. If far off government fucks the economy back to the stone age they still won’t have broken me. I’ll master flintknapping and sell non-OSHA approved arrowheads.
That’s why I can enjoy a song like “We Are Fucking Fucked” without bitterness. I might be just as fucked as a Roman citizen just before the fall… but I didn’t cause the fall.
A.C.
*You know where I was during the election? Right in the fucking room. The election was squeaky clean and boring in my district. I know this because I was right there holding the stack of ballots in my hand. Where were you?