Who am I?
Since everyone is curious.
Seems like several of my posts have gotten wider attention, resulting in a slew of new folks dropping by; new folks who don’t seem to be familiar with the old blog.
As is the norm for these fragmented times, everyone seems to want to know my politics.
Well, let’s piss-off everyone, shall we?
I was born on the island of Malta in 1967, the son of two American parents. I was raised in Africa and the Middle East during the turbulent decade of the 1970s, where I watched civil wars, bush wars, coup d’etats, and revolutions up close and personal. I observed and experienced communism, socialism, tribalism, and over-large governments failing at literally everything — other than racking up a body count. They’re really good at that.
Communism and socialism only work — and even then poorly — in small groups where everyone knows everyone else. Once your group becomes large enough that someone is unknown to someone else, they fall apart. Yes. Every time.
I have been a servicemember during the Cold War, where I led young enlisted, mentored young commissioned, and dealt with with senior NCOs and officers on the regular. None of this left me with any great regard for large groups of humans as a whole. There are, I must admit, great and good human beings. Individually. In a large group1, people devolve to the lowest common IQ, and give me a headache.
I followed that with a two decade career in law enforcement. During those twenty-plus years, I got to see a whole bunch of people under incredible and intense stress — at the spot where (to misquote Sir Terry Pratchett2) the rising ape meets the falling angel — and, I’m sorry to say, while kinder, gentler, better instincts did rise — occasionally — for the most part people devolve to nasty, brutish, dirty little bugsnipes under stress3.
As I rose in rank, I also got to see the political sausage being made at the County, State, and Federal level. Ugh.
Politically-speaking I am a strict Constitutionalist. We have a Constitution for a reason — learn it, live it, love it. Particularly the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. Yes, I am a Second Amendment absolutist. Why? Because I know why the power kept going out in Entebbe4. Hands off my guns.
At the same time I also realize and understand that the American public has voted into office a Legislative branch which has abdicated all their power and responsibilty to the Judicial and Executive branches, saving only the right to whinge about it. We have done this by continually voting into office lizards who are terrified of losing their cushy jobs, and thus refuse to grow a spine and post any controversial votes. They’ll get on Media and snivel piously about the other two branches over-reaching though.
The Government of the United States is too large, too invested in getting their noses off in my personal business, is barreling like a train towards complete economic disaster, and is populated completely by toadies, lickspittles, brahmandarins with delusions of adequacy, and useless office placeholders with all the morals of a windsock.
The American public seems bound, bent, and determined to put a king into the Oval Office — and then either have their Daily Two Minutes of Hate, or fawning adulation, depending on which side of the aisle your lizard is from.
Pfagh.
Seriously — if you don’t have to be reminded who’s currently in the Oval Office, that person has too much power.
If your pet cause doesn’t involve me, my DNA or my money5, don’t demand that I care about it. Matter of fact — don’t issue demands of me at all, unless you have the right to do so. People making demands of me when they have no right to do so triggers my oppositional defiance.
I think the American educational system is a complete, abject, and total failure6 — philosophically, morally, financially, and generationally. I think welfare is charity, should be called charity, and I don’t see anywhere in the Constitution where charity is an enumerated power of the Federal government; while I have a deep distrust of organised religions of any stripe7, I think charity should be handled solely at the local level by religious or private institutions. Period.
I think that the United States has devolved into attributing sainthood and hero status to victims to the point that anyone who wants to be a hero can be one by just asserting victimhood. Don’t have the courage, moral grit, or self-sacrifice to throw yourself into mortal peril? No fear! Just figure out how to be a victim! Instant sainthood! Grr.
Too many alleged adults have decided that public tantrums and bumper sticker philosophy constitute public discourse, that the group that screams louder and displays more “passion” is the right side, no matter the actual facts.
I think that social media8 has stolen our courtesy, crippled our critical thinking, and destroyed our attention spans; and that the Legacy Media is playing everyone for hate clicks and rage-bait.
There. That should be something there to annoy EVERYONE.
I’m going to sleep off P-Con. See y’all tomorrow.
Ian
Like, say, government.
If you’re not reading Terry Pratchett, you should fix that. He is the philosopher for my generation.
Don’t believe me? State’s Exhibit A: the behaviour of your neighbours during the recent Great Covid Over-Reaction.
Idi Amin’s government killed so many unarmed people that the crocodiles couldn’t eat all the corpses, and they jammed up up the hydroelectric generators. That’s a lot of dead citizens.
That includes my tax money. If you’re using my tax money, I just paid for an opinion on the subject — and I’m probably going to hurt some feelings.
I hope John Dewey is enjoying his stay in hell.
My father said that “Organised religion” is a Latin phrase that means “You’re too dumb to know what God really means, so I’ll tell you.”
And lack of duelling.
You failed. You didn't annoy me at all. Way to go!
Once again, it is the footnotes that take your post over the top. As much as you say you love the footnote ability here on substack, I love READING your footnotes (then going back and re-reading your post) even more.