That culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

Totally reminded me of this joke where a man tells a doctor, “I don’t drink, smoke, or gamble. I don’t drink coffee or tea, just water. I don’t eat meat. I work out 5 times a week and always go to bed before 10 pm. I avoid stressful situations. Will I be able to live to 100 years old?” “Probably,” the doctor says. “If you can call this freak show of yours life.”

Don’t people notice how ridiculous they sound when they produce such descriptions of robotic goodness? If one were to meet such a fellow in RL, he’d probably turn out to be a serial killer. Because you can’t repress to this degree and not have a major shadow lurking behind the robotic exterior.

Of all the images of the hurricane, this is the most shocking one to me:

What a horrible tragedy.

This post reminded me of how when the archives started to get open back in the late 1980s, and we discovered, to our great shock, that all of those Communist leaders who confessed to being German and Japanese spies during the public trials of the 1930s weren’t making their confessions under duress. They weren’t tortured or mistreated in any way. Other people were tortured horrifically but these party leaders weren’t. 

They thought that if the party arrested them and required them to confess to treason, there must have been some higher cause or reason that made it all good. They marched to their deaths after having libeled themselves and condemned their families to torture and eventual execution. Yet they were convinced it was the right thing to do because the party required it and the party can’t be wrong. 

Because the feeling of having a larger purpose is too seductive. 

It’s the sad destiny of all progressive movements that gangs of wily opportunists easily master the progressive lingo of the day and begin to destroy the movement from within under the guise of fighting for purity among the ranks. 

The first to fall are always the most earnest believers because they genuinely care for the cause and can be easily convinced that they are the source of all sorts of harm. First, they engage in public acts of renunciation and self-shaming. But that’s never enough, so they always get destroyed or expelled. 

The last left standing are the coldest, most cynical bastards who believe in nothing but their own advancement. They terrorize the less cynical members of the movement into compliance, and gradually the movement becomes its own exact opposite. Champions of the working class turn into rich exploitative bastards. The defenders of the indigenous burn indigenous villages. Feminists cheer the subjection of women. 

Progressive movements are almost never defeated by outside enemies. They are destroyed from within because of their peculiar nature of dependence on words. 

If a fellow wants to publish a sexist rant, it’s super easy these days. He just needs to add the word “white” before the word “women” and every gushy progressive will eagerly republish and praise his woman-hating excretion.

‘Gone with the Wind’ is gone – from Memphis theatre after 34 years

because the theater officials are afraid of Twitter nasties. As if you can actually placate them by anything you say or do. 

The hurricane had nothing to do with the timing of the Arpaio pardon. It was done on Friday so that people have something to feel outraged about over the weekend. We are always given a fun, enjoyable activity to occupy our weekends. Just to make sure that people don’t use all that free time to actually do anything.

And here’s a fresh example of what I’m talking about. According to this fellow, not only an immigrant but even a child of just one immigrant parent is not entitled to say “our American culture.” 

These fuckers don’t give a crap about immigrants. They just want to feel all superior and self-righteous in the moment. They won’t accept an immigrant as one of them no matter what he or she does or doesn’t do. 

I keep coming back to this because of all things I couldn’t have imagined being bothsidesed it was… Nazis. I mean, sure, that there are white supremacists in this country is not news. But actual Nazis. Our entire 20th century mythology is about how “we” fought Nazis.

Mythology, that’s precisely what it is. You tolerated them then, you tolerate them now. It’s all in keeping with a long-standing tradition.

We thought watching House of Cards would be boring in the current political climate so we put it off for months. Now we are finally watching it, and the show is actually quite engrossing. Especially the strategy on how to avoid holding elections if you know you won’t be reelected. 

I think this is a possibility we all need to consider. It’s not that hard to accomplish. But of course it will only become a concern if the Democrats stop scaring away voters and make even just a half-assed little effort to come up with a platform. Ending the ridiculous debate over who was more evil, Hillary or Bernie, would be a swell idea. 

By Democrats I mean all Democrats, not just the elected officials. If the same number of people who FBs ridiculous weepy memes showed up to the regular meetings held by our hard-working state representative, things would begin to change.