I will start by saying that this post is indeed a thought or two. It is not one of the fantastically accurate and well constructed posts I usually spoil you with. Just, you know, a bit of this and that, in more of a stream of conscience thing (it is not, in fact, stream of conscience but let’s go with that.)
So my thought is: what is the point of democracy? Is is not, as the naive Glib may think, to allow The People to decide. What a ridiculous notion. Anyway The People suck. Closer to the mark is that it allows a periodic peaceful change of the diapers on top, when they get too full. The so called Elites (which I so called before in a post.) These days this seems to fall flat, because you keep exchanging the bastards and mostly they either turn out the same or they cannot get anything done. I have a slight suspicion that, in the end, democracy is simply replacing the mandate of Heaven in legitimizing the rulers. The Mandate of The People, different thing, still fictional.
Those who rule over us need legitimacy. Democracy gives that in one of the strongest ways possible: the Will of The People. Much stronger than heredity. And much harder to topple by revolution; it is easier to rebel against a clear dictator than against the nebulous Will.
This, off course, can have positive effects. Many wonder why most shithole authoritarian countries have such bad armies and institution. Would the dictator not want a competent army to defend him? Well no, because any competent army can depose them. Any competent officer can take their place. Any competent minister as well. But in democracy, when the change of rulers is done by vote, competent institutions can be built as they will not directly take over – directly being a key word here. This goes both ways, The Institutions cannot take over the official leadership role, but the official leader does not have full control of The Institutions.
The above mostly works in the beginning, as long as The Elites getting legitimacy are vaguely competent and sufficiently well intentioned and The Institutions are also fairly competent and sufficiently well intentioned. To Be Fair, the peoples opinion often sucks and things just work better if it does not matter, as long as the people on top have better opinions, which did happen on occasional spurts throughout history. The Elites are rarely right, The People almost never. It works until Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy kicks in. Then it metastasizes like a cancer and stops working. And The Elites start following their own agenda, often aligned with The Institutions and The People start seeing their opinions not only do not matter, but never really did. And then we get some swamp or other.
Any elected official that wants reform and is not aligned with the status quo sees that The Institutions are too powerful and “democracy” limits their authority and that nothing can be done, as other elected officials have no interest in anything but The Agenda. And so The People become irrelevant, and while voting does change The Leaders, it does not matter.
Some populists use this to see we need to give back power to The People, but that does not work either as the people are morons. So things work once in a while, until they stop working and everything crashes and burns. Such is the cycle.
Usually, people need some pleasant illusions to make life bearable. Democracy is just such one illusion. Another is, for example “separation of powers” which sounds lovely but it is meaningless, and especially incompatible with democracy. Is you have a judiciary that is “independent” and does whatever the fuck it wants irrespective of the legislative branch, how does that work? In general the whole concept of “independent” institutions is suspect. They get tax money and then they do whatever they want with little to no oversight? That’ll work, sure.
In the end, we vote because it makes us feel like We Matter, and anyway, if we do not the wrong lizard wins. Whenever there is a threat to the establishment, it is suddenly a thread to democracy, and a need to strengthen democracy. By strengthening they mean giving the establishment what they want, duh. We need to fix democracy they say. One would think that democracy is people voting so why do you need to fix it when people vote? Well because democracy is not people voting, it is simply giving legitimacy to the establishment.
One would be inclined to say wait a minute! There is wisdom of the crowds. The People cannot be that dumb. They will wake up. And eventually, they might, but usually when it is too late for practical purposes. Voting may occasionally right the ship, slightly, and avoid short term catastrophe, maybe. Right now we have a slow but steady decline, and this is much harder to stop, until the shit hits the fan and it is too late. And as The People become more polarized, tribalism increases, propaganda gets better, getting a critical mass of people to actually change somethings gets harder and harder. Due to main parties become more and more similar and deep state getting more powerful, you need outsiders with more than a bare sliver of a margin of votes. This does not seem to happen.
I have all respect for the wisdom of the crowds in a decentralized market economy with price and profit signals. Free market economics works. It simply does not translate into voting. Public choice theory covered this at length. But the way people act when voting is simply different than in economic situations. And the feedback received is different. The scope and impact is different between voting with your money and voting in some asshole with too much power over society and the economy. and so forth.
I seem to be a tad on the blackpill side on the issue, so lets have some optimism in the comments. In the end everything will work out, because it has too. This is what I often hear in Europe, things cannot get truly bad, because I do not want to believe they will. I cannot believe they will. I refuse to! I have no solutions, but somehow things will work out for the best, they just have to. While a curmudgeon like me is not amenable to these arguments, lets hope.
I’ll end with the classics.
(Without reading, yet…)
The point of democracy is to give the average Joe on the street the illusion that they have some control over their government, and thus cut down on the number of riots, bombings, and assassinations that the ruling class has to deal with.
Democracy is a veil over reality.
Take a few white pills, detoxify over the weekend, and lay off the woe.
There aren’t enough white pills in the world.
He’s right.
Step one – put the bottle of black pills down.
You need to break your dependency on depressives.
After I hit submit I realized “depedency on despair” was a better fit.
Always after the point of no return.
Get a load of Eeyore here.
The Federal government is toast. Debt line go up!
Some state governments might be salvageable.
Who’s woeful?
And I plan on *retoxifying* this weekend. Thanks for the reminder, I need to pick up a couple bottles of booze for the road…
The Kansas thread was on the last post.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2v8YragSIuI
*stands next to EvilSheldon, spits on hands, hoists the black flag, and gets ready to slit throats*
pest control is easier if you use poison bait or traps for the mice. Running them all down with a miniature cutlass and an eyepatch is a bit of a hassle. Though if you want to retain the pirate theme, you can use the bucket of water trap and have them walk the plank.
I have no illusions that the people actually decide things, and no desire for the people to decide things. All I want and all I think we need or can ever hope for, is for limits on the scope of the power exercised by whoever gets on top. The people are in fact retarded. The people on one side actually believe in substantive equality, despite presumably having met other people and seen the range of capabilities they possess. The people on the other side include a non-trivial number who believe the Universe is 6000 years old and that God will see us through the hard times. This despite God historically, and in their own holy writ, having effectively no interest at all in preserving nations, peoples, or cultures from their own failings. Leave me enough slack to live my life, enjoy my own successes and suffer my own failures and I am happy. Unfortunately technology, and various creeds among those who want to power seem to make that increasingly unlikely.
stream of conscience
Is that where one confesses one’s sins?
Your command of our language always impresses me. The occasional error in no way devalues the message.
And he is so clean cut too!
His pants are creased perfectly…
I’m feeling a little thrill up my leg.
The problem is people figured out how to use the government as a piggy back to take my money and fill their wallets with it. Whether corporatists or layabouts, the end result is the same. Chumps like me are slowed drained dry.
Is is not, as the naive Glib may think, to allow The People to decide.
Good heavens, what a terrifying notion.
Decide what is the question. Because without constraining the shit out of the scope, you’ll end up with Hey Buddy… real quick.
All hail Starlink, for connection when none was expected.
It worked in El Salvador.
Maybe on crime but who knows what else is going on there? I don’t.
I know a guy from there, he’s buddies wit a guy who seems to be in the know and has some connections to elpresidente.
Sounds like things are going OK. Property prices are not super low anymore, lots of road building going on. The latter could simply be government doing something and leveraging debt to look good.
I don’t know.
I’m planning on going on a fishing trip there this winter.
SugarFree isn’t as raunchy as usual today.
It’s one of those tame ones that lull you into a sense of complacency, until he hits you with something extra foul the following week.
I’ll end with the classics.
That is a fantastic ending.
If you haven’t seen the documentary (“Wild Wild Country”, 2018) that this clip comes from, you should. He started a cult in India, moved it to Oregon, got driven around in a Bently, attempted murder, etc…
Bentley? Not bad.
I seem to be a tad on the blackpill side on the issue, so lets have some optimism in the comments.
Sorry, can’t oblige, largely agree with what you wrote.
So does agreeing with you mean you’ll drain me of my blood last?
One just has to look at the tax rates that democracies have imposed. The massive surveillance state we’ve built that any authoritarian regime on the planet would blush at to see that democracy is used more as a justification to do anything and everything by governments.
Democracy is a religious tenant unto itself on both sides of the spectrum in the West. I saw someone the other day say that the right fundamentally misunderstands what politics is for and votes wrong. Their opinion was that voting is about dividing up the spoils/resources of society. Rather standard left wing claptrap.
No offense to Pie, but I really need some Sugar Free horror today.
I’m spending the morning at a local coffee shop* and a barista comes out of the back room (she was handling the drive thru) to go to the bathroom. This gal is a very heavy set gal. At first I assumed that she had quite the fat roll around her waist. Then I noticed that that fat roll had nipples poking through her t-shirt. Yep, she had huge flap jack hooters that were unencumbered by a bra and would probably hang around her knees if they weren’t being contained by that t-shirt tucked into her pants.
I need something to get my mind off the horror I just saw in real life. Something to convince me that things like that only exist in fiction.
* This is not my usual coffee shop, the one next to the yoga studio where Fourscore, Tundra and I used to meet.
Well I am not in charge of the scheduling.
Also hope SF is fine.
Also had a pending post about the visa thing bur this was chosen.
When I open my bathhouse in Minneapolis, I expect to see you there. We’ll serve coffee.
And no morbidly obese women (or women at all) will be present.
I expect to see you there.
Well I’ll expect to see you there being
FirstedFisted.Coffee enemas?
Stop looking in the mirror.
Yesterday I saw the most stereotypical millennial couple ever in the elevator in my office building.
Her: morbidly obese, purple hair in a side shave, septum ring, black t-shirt, black shorts, Crocs.
Him: morbidly obese, ratty hair and beard, noticeably bad posture, black t-shirt, black shorts, facial expression like Al Bundy.
I wanted to ask them where the Antifa demonstration was, but not while sharing an elevator.
Why is it my first thought was “Was there a welfare office in that building?”
I don’t know if you share space with other organizations.
No. It’s actually a mixed-use building, residential apartments 2-15, business suites up top. There’s a county homeless shelter right around the corner, though these two didn’t look homeless. Just losers.
It’s heartwarming to know that there is someone for everyone.
Millennial, or Gen Z?
They were both so rough-looking that it was hard to tell.
Hello I am Mr. P your substitute teacher pleas open your textbooks at page 73
Substitute teacher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQaLic5SE_I
In America it is customary for the substitute teacher to show a movie, preferably on a film projector but VHS is acceptable.
Or a filmstrip with the soundtrack on a 45 rpm record with the bell tone to tell you when to advance to the next frame./former substitute teacher ::suppresses old facial tic::
I recall the preread books on audio casette where the most common phrase was “*ding* Turn the Page”
Great article BTW.
put the bottle of black pills down.
If only it was mere depression and that we could all wake up and realize it’s all going to be OK in the end.
Well. It’s not going to be OK in the end. That’s not depression. That’s pragmatism.
I was an avid chess player growing up. One of the first lessons you must learn to get good at chess is to recognize when you’ve stumbled into a losing position. You’ve got two choices: 1) hope your opponent is an idiot who will blunder away a won game; or 2) resign, learn from your mistakes, and start over.
The current version of the American experiment is a lost game. The only remaining questions are how long before it comes completely unglued and how bloody will it be when it breaks apart.
Now, there is always the chance that it doesn’t fall apart and just turns into a completely totalitarian state with an undefeatable government. Except there is the small issue of the many hundreds of millions of firearms already in private hands.
It’s not depression – you are spending time actively trying to convince yourself not to see evidence that makes the doomerist outlook less of a foregone conclusion.
Feel free to list such evidence.
I have not prepared an itemized list – I was hoping to encourage you to take a look around yourself for the signs you’ve otherwise disregarded.
Where do I go to find these “white pills”?
Offline.
The click-based economy thrives on bad news because it draws eyeballs.
Go outside. Interact with real humans.
Go outside. Interact with real humans. – while social media decides politics…
UCS as the voice of hope? You know what, I am not going to tease you about it. Good for you! There is nothing to be gained by borrowing misery from the future. And hell, we all expected Obama to be followed by Hillary, and a permanent Democratic majority in 2016 so manifestly things improved .
Social Media decides nothing.
You’re not my supervisor!
You got that right.
I don’t because I know it doesn’t matter.
We have CIA lady in charge of Virginia and if I had voted, we would still have CIA lady in charge.
Given people are morons, and no argument, how do you find anything positive in politics?
I do write from an european perspective…
Also I am not existentially black pilled like the end of humanity. Who knows what will be in 100 years or two.
But short term I see no tendency towards the right direction.
The US is at most a few years behind Europe when it comes to decline. Everything in your article describes exactly what is going on in Blue states now and soon Red states.
I think this may be just the thing to increase OMWC’s newfound ability to sell wine.
https://x.com/TheCriticalDri1/status/2072092700967645451
Intriguing.
“Some say you can almost taste the bush.”
That is hilarious.
To Sensei, and threedoor.
Showing a 300$ battery operated consumer ADSB in device is mendacious for airliner ADSB-in compliance.
That airspace all ready required 100% asdb-out compliance… but the military are exempt. They had TCAS and other technologies that get inhibited during landing to you don’t get false positives.
This was a combination of military night vision, low altitude training and commercial aircraft arrivals. They should have been strictly separated.
At that point in landing the pilots are looking at the runway, not their “traffic scopes”.
this particular accident was “night vision” close traffic routes, night. You get by, until you don’t.
Yup… You knew that plastic enclosed thing was not going into anything commercial or military.
The worst part – ok not worst part; most chilling? – was the CVR where the pilot flying expressed a desire not to divert to 33 and the pilot monitoring saying “I can just call them back and say no”, “nah, it’s OK, we’ll just do it”.
I mean there’s 10 things that went wrong to lead to the accident, but to realize that they were a split second decision away from avoiding it all.
There were a bunch of holes that lined up in the swiss cheese model. Change any one of them and it wouldn’t have happened.
I think the two key ones are “no military risk level flights near commercial operations” and Night vision is not “visual separation”.
If you want to hear chilling radio, listen/watch the Charlie Victor Romeo movie. its hard for a pilot knowing that some of them were miscommunication/analysis and they flew themselves into the wreck.
There were a bunch of holes
Indeed. I think the thing about the reluctance to accept 33 that is haunting to me is that it’s explicitly NOT causal. Most of the other holes were structural and/or failures of peoples decision making related to safe operation and they all add up to compromise the ability to operate safely. If the pilot had just said “we’re already set up, have all the numbers, let’s get on the ground” like he clearly had the inclination; but to help airport operations, he accepted something that’s perfectly routine, but clearly didn’t want to do. And the result of that desire to help was disaster for the one victim of the accident that had absolutely no part in the structural and decision failures that led to it.
If any other participant had not lined up one of the other holes, it would have been because they were correcting a mistake. This pilot was being the ‘good guy’ and his decision had no implications of being right or wrong, but the price was death.
I have accepted ATC requests, that aren’t really requests.. if you don’t accept them you will be sent elsewhere.
Comair: “Unable 13″…
ATC; Comair 123 “landing clearance canceled, go around, please advise when ready to copy route change and holding instructions”
they wouldn’t have been asked to accept the other runway unless some other operational parameter was about to be squeezed.
Visual operations are about that.. see and avoid, the Helicopter was directed to see and avoid and could not comply. By the end there was no way for the airliner to see them, it is unlikely that extra electronic monitoring would have intervened.
There will always be something.
I remember back in the day (pre 9/11) flying into 13 on the Anacostia approach, and being too high (even longer story). so ATC suggested a 360 over the river at about 700′.. No problem, one circle to the right, land and held short of 1.
That crash was stupid on several levels. The Blackhawk should not have been there. Period.
It was pretty obvious birthright citizenship would stand. At least to me. But it’s a bit hard to believe that the guys who crafted the 14th amendment really intended it to apply to modern anchor babies. But the text is ambiguous enough that it could be twisted to mean as such and the vested interests that matter in this country have little desire to see it changed no matter how ridiculous the result.
If the guy who wrote the damn thing is on record as saying that of course it didn’t mean that it would apply to foreigners and aliens that seems like a pretty good indication that they fucked up with they crammed the half-assed ratification of that thing through. Like he said that explicitly along with specifying that it would not include anyone with an allegiance to another sovereignty. You know, like people who are just vacationing here at the least you’d think. But nah – it’s too radical to say that for our current political class.
There’s enough straw for both sides to grasp on this over the history of the country because immigration was pretty much a clusterfuck. but the people who fucking voted on the 14th wouldn’t have understood it as it is currently being applied according to the guy who wrote it. Doesn’t stop Heritage from saying of course it applied to the children of “aliens.”
Rand Paul has a constitutional amendment to rectify it that will never see the light of day or an actual discussion anywhere. Probably even in committee.
Nope. They will just slowly bankrupt the country until we’re no better than the countries from which they all washed up here. Which is exactly what the left wanted all along.
They told us in no uncertain terms that it was not. Nobody Who Matters cares.
It’s just another illustration of the fact that it’s not words on a page, no matter what they are, that prevents political and social catastrophe. It’s the underlying culture. And the culture of the People Who Matter in this country has been pretty much hostile to its historical foundations for a couple of generations now.
Thanks colleges.
People That Matter deserve the consequences they are begging for.
Question: Why do the people incessantly bleating about “oligopoly” think the answer to regulatory capture is more regulations?
They mostly don’t really think of regulatory capture. They always think it’s unfettered capitalism. Consolidation is viewed as the natural order of capitalism to these people because that’s what they see around them and they’re ignorant of the reasons. And no one really talks about it because it’s a lot of stuffy and technical legal history.
I made the point to the guy I mentioned above that you will never have government that can split up all the resources in society that is free of corruption. That there is no magical right group of people who will get that shit done. The only real way to get money out of politics is to get politics out of the money. Otherwise you really are just fighting against human nature at every turn.
He didn’t even bother to touch that idea so why engage with that person?
You really can’t debate someone who thinks that government/democracy/politics is rightfully about divvying up the shit in society like it’s a fixed piece of pie we all own that everyone needs a fair share of. Most of the people here and the founders of this country had a crazy idea that our government was founded to ensure basic rights were met which was in line with the Enlightenment, but also Western tradition.
I have also been beating people over the head with this idea lately when they talk about what government should or should not do – government has always been viewed, especially in the West, as a necessary evil. Most people don’t really think about what government is. They view it as some friend or benevolent master or at best a tool to get what they want and to punish their enemies.
The only way that makes sense is if they trust that the people wielding the power will be good at it. But would they be happy if Trump hand picked the people in charge of enforcing those regulations?
It’s so asinine especially in a democracy where power swings wildly between oppositional parties. Even if you just want your guys to wield the power, it’s obvious they won’t be the only ones doing so. But progs can’t wrap their head around that.
But just extracting modern political biases from the equation, even if for a brief moment you got the exact right people who were completely incorruptible in charge it would never last. At some point no matter what system you have an incompetent/corrupt piece of shit is going to gain power. That’s like the biggest absolute in world history no matter what politics you believe in.
The American system wasn’t designed with capitalism in mind per se, but it sure as fuck wasn’t designed with sweeping control over economic life either. It’s really only compatible with a free market concept.
I have said this for years, there is this amazing shortsightedness to people who are extremely political. As soon as they get power, they just assume they will always keep it.
It’s not like they aren’t desperately trying to keep permanent power, with every dirty trick in the book.
It’s so asinine especially in a democracy where power swings wildly between oppositional parties. Even if you just want your guys to wield the power, it’s obvious they won’t be the only ones doing so. But progs can’t wrap their head around that. – this is why you need independent institutions led by experts which will be forever prog
My central disagreement with Occupy Wall Street. They had a pretty good diagnosis about the unholy alliance between big banks and big government.
So, the answer was…give more power to one of those groups.
Ugh I was working across the street throughout that farce.
My main objection was that it was a bunch of vagrants and hippies.
In short, because they’re morons.
Go outside. Interact with real humans.
Gaaaah. Be serious.
I know! What a horrible idea. They always end up screaming anyway when I say hello.
Okay, okay, fine, here’s a small white pill – https://www.fox5dc.com/news/justice-department-sues-virginia-over-new-semi-automatic-rifle-ban
😀👍
how does that help Europe.
You could always follow the good examples (and avoid the bad examples).
it does not look like we can
You may be interested to learn I’ve been in contact with Rufus J. Firefly. He still lives in Montreal. Whether he works is not something that came up in the exchange.
I mailed him a Glib pin. Mailing it from the U.S. would have resulted in Rufus paying a C$10 processing fee in addition to the taxes and duty due on a US$2 item so I hopped across the border and mailed it from Canada. The price for a small practically weightless box going 70 miles was C$23: C$16 postage, C$4 fuel surcharge, and C$3 in taxes. The price for a USPS medium flat rate box (70 pounds max) anywhere-to-anywhere in the U.S. is $23.
😱
Oh, yeah, is he at least doing all right?
We didn’t get into details but it sounds like he’s doing fine.
Canadian or USA, I don’t care.
We haven’t had a decent spate of postal workers snapping and shooting up the place for a good long while. Young kids probably don’t even understand the phrase “going postal” anymore.
can he recommend a god whisky bar in Montreal 🙂 ?
I’ll ask him.
Yep. Every time I order from Canada, I get a bill for $10 from UPS. I thought that was over and supposed to be refunded. Apparently not.
I am glad he is still around. I think about him periodically.
Did we talk about AOC’s comment that black people really invented democracy made on a podcast where the podcaster shook her head vigorously in affirmation saying, “That’s right! That’s right!”
Your future president right there. You know it’s coming.
black people really invented democracy – soon Greeks will only have “inventing gayness” left
At least part of the black people invented X argument is that the Egyptians and Greeks were black.
The whole reason Egyptians depicted the Nubians as a different color was because the Nubians were a different color while the Egyptians had more in common with their mediterranian and mesopotamian neighbors than the subsaharans in terms of genes and complexion.
The sahara really is the northern boundary of Black Africa.
My attempt at white pilling you would be to say that AOC can’t win nationwide.
Just like Ilhan Omar not being able to win statewide in Minnesoda, I think that the uber Left can’t win outside of their super blue districts.
Just like Hilary couldn’t win nationwide, too many normies would show up to make sure they don’t get their claws on the levers of power.
Insurrection in the spiritual realm
A group of traditionalist Catholics directly defied Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday by consecrating four bishops without his consent, dismissing the resulting excommunications and break with the Holy See by saying it was necessary to defend the Catholic faith.
The Society of St. Pius X, which opposes modernizing reforms in the Catholic Church, went ahead with the five-hour ceremony at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland, despite a last-ditch appeal by Leo to call it off. The American pope warned in a letter Tuesday that consecrating bishops without his approval amounted to a “sin of extreme gravity” that will actually harm their faithful.
The consecrations amounted to a crisis for Leo, who has prioritized church unity and healing tensions with traditionalists that worsened during the Pope Francis pontificate.
The SSPX, as the society is known, is a threat to the Holy See because it represents a parallel, ultra-Catholic faith. It now has six bishops, 751 priests, 264 seminarians training in five seminaries, 145 religious brothers, 88 oblates and 250 religious sisters representing 50 nationalities, according to SSPX statistics.
God was unavailable for comment.
Catholicism is called the Mother Church because it does tend to have other denominations schism off of it on the regular.
I can’t imagine why, nor that the current Pope is making it worse.
The next Dan Brown novel is going to be lit.
Trying to explain compound interest to a dragon sitting on a mountain of gold is, in fact, quite more daunting than one would think.
Compound Interest is really a side effect of a highly developed system of business investment where the party paying the interest can reliably gain a greater return from using your money elsewhere than they are obligated to pay you for being able to use it.
So the stepping stone would be to get the dragon investing directly and invent banking.
The dragon can’t comprehend why one would be so stupid as to trust another man with your gold on the strength of his word, which is really what investment boils down to. My wizard can’t really explain that without explaining the concept of a high-trust society backed up by laws and guns, and the dragon’s like, “Oh, whatever, buddy. You do you. Meanwhile, on my mountain of gold…” My wizard is trying very hard to skirt the tulip issue, but the dragon picks up on it. Mmm hm. Yeah.
I feel there’s a reference I’ve missed in there.
Speculation at its finest and most destructive.
Ah. Yes.
My mind had gone towards Tall Poppies instead. Probably why I forgot about that bubble.
Dragon investing. https://ibb.co/1wW7h8F
LOL.
Now, my wizard isn’t asking for gold. He doesn’t know why he was dropped there or by whom. The dragon decides he is worthy of some gold, but the catch is, he can only take as much as he can carry without his knees buckling. The dragon has very rarely met anyone who can do that.
Am I missing something? Seems like anyone can carry some gold without their knees buckling. Or is this a commentary on how greedy most people are?
Yes, greed. It’s a monkey trap. MOST people will think, “If a little’s good, a lot’s gotta be better” and/or overestimate their abilities. It’s an exercise in restraint.
Ease into it?.. with ridiculous levels of return?
Just one piece of gold… “This one, is very warn, not really worth much, I need equipment to expand my gold mine you will get ten more back… .”… then 2 to 20..
Or exchange? I have this silver.. but really need 1 piece of gold.
and then keep it building via Ponzi until it is all gone and the dragon rampages over the entire kingdom.
He’s explaining in terms of usefulness and its relative value in the future, so … commodities, really. Of course, he’s going to have to explain insurance and all that, but basically, he’s saying, “Yes, this is a risk. Yes, it’s based on trust. Yes, people judge poorly. I’m willing to take this risk for future return.”
The point is to get us to buy in enough to pay our taxes instead of shooting the bandits.
Another win for working families
Two federal judges on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from implementing new restrictions on a student loan forgiveness program that would have barred public service workers from receiving debt relief if their employers are deemed to have a “substantial illegal purpose.”
——-
Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said the agency is evaluating next steps for its “commonsense policy.”
“The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program is intended to support Americans who serve the public good, not to subsidize organizations that engage in terrorism, facilitate illegal immigration, or support the mutilation of children,” he said in a statement.
Congress established the PSLF in 2007 to encourage college graduates to pursue careers in public service by forgiving their federal student loans after 10 years of qualifying employment in the field. More than 1 million Americans have had their loans canceled as a result.
Public service, my eye. This program seems outrageous on its face, but what do I know?
The whole program needs to go.
You chose the degree program.
You chose the career.
You took out the debt.
You pay out the ear.
It is nothing more than yet another means for implementing permanent leftist utopia.
It needs to be killed and yes it looks like only Congress can do that. Sorry, the rest of America. You’re screwed.
The dragon can’t comprehend why one would be so stupid as to trust another man with your gold on the strength of his word, which is really what investment boils down to.
Dragons are smart. That’s why they died off. Why loan out your pile to earn interest when you can just go steal more from the puny humans?
Well, the strength of his word plus the likelihood that if he steals from you Bad Things will happen to him.
If the law responded to claims that somebody had defrauded you or stolen your money with “You fucked up. Too bad.”, well, you wouldn’t see many people investing in much of anything.
See Bricks and Minifigs going down the toilet because of that.
Speaking of Sugarfree, I think he’s been plagiarized. Duffel Blog has a post on Bolton’s moustache being indicted for the mishandling of classified materials. We have a mole.
. We have a mole. – pour petrol down the hole that helps
Just like Ilhan Omar not being able to win statewide in Minnesoda, I think that the uber Left can’t win outside of their super blue districts.
Yes. Just like the latest DemSoc darling in Denver. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have a prayer of winning an election for dog catcher on the western slope. Except Aspen, maybe.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
You have to start somewhere. They play by the longest of games. This the natural result of decades of work.
I was expecting Bagwan.
https://threedoor.imgbb.com/
Here is a very thought provoking article by the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, John Wood Campbell on the best form of government.
https://www.free-culture.ir/Analog_1961_May_Constitution_for_utopia.html
I don’t trust science-fiction writers on theories of government – too many of them have turned out to be technocrats wearing libertarian clothing.
But just at a glance…this is a really good line.
I missed that. I started skipping sections to get to the conclusion.
But, it is a great insight.
My favorite line in the article as well. Immunity is what causes corruption. Power is the mechanism that creates that immunity.
yes that was the good bit
I do not call not immunity but lack of accountability in my thinking…
I get to vote. Hooray for me.
I find that doing things in the Real World(tm) makes me feel better. Which is why I get supremely bent out of shape when people decide to play politics in my shooting games.
I’m overdue for another walk in the woods with my dog.
Oh boy. What’s the BoD up to now?
My primary hobby has been overrun by young, woke idiots. I have withdrawn much of my involvement.
Lakers back office took stupid pills.
“Working families”
The point is that this view of socialism as a specifically third world ideology conquering the U.S. because of mass migration isn’t true. Affluent, native-born white and Black people are just as likely, or by some measures, more likely to support left-wing politics than many categories of immigrants, particularly Hispanic immigrants. If right-wing immigration hardliners had their way and restricted citizenship to just people who can trace their lineage back to colonial times, we would be no safer from socialism. In fact, the category most likely to support socialist policies is the highly educated.
Democratic socialists like to stress that their movement is populist and working class, though their adherents are disproportionately rich and credentialed.
If democratic socialism is once again having a moment, it’s not because throngs of working-class voters have finally decided that greater — or even total — government control of the economy and mass wealth redistribution would make their lives better. Rather, it’s wealthy and elite-educated leftists inflicting Platner’s politics on the rest of their party. It’s the champagne socialists, not regular people.
Soave peeks behind the curtain.
A lot of people are missing the fact that nobody votes in Dem primaries except fringe radicals. The actual working class is too busy working.
The Dems painted themselves into a corner because they created a system that kept them safely reelected year after year, and the commies figured out how to hijack it. Part of that system is “Vote blue no matter who”, so we’re guaranteed to have some of these people in congress. And any Dem who opposes this puts themselves in danger of getting primaried.
As I said upthread, people who obtain power tend to think they’ll hold onto it forever. They never imagine someone else could take the reigns from them.
I don’t imagine Republican primary voters are typical Americans either.
Ummm
Well, that gave us Donald. Not some crazy fringe lunatic.
I don’t imagine Republican primary voters are typical Americans either.
As of the mid-2010s, the average Iowa Republican caucus-goer fell into one of three basic groups: business owner/operator; socially-conservative Christian; or war-boner flag waiver. Almost of those folks are with hand-waving, hello-how-are-you distance of the middle of the road Iowan. Most fall within one standard deviation of the middle, none more than two.
The Dem caucus-goers, even then, were far more fractured. And while socially-conservative, blue-color workers made up a huge chunk of the base, the blue haired fringes where definitely a presence 10 years ago.
too fucking late. no one is going to see that.
I saw it Kinnath, but I don’t think of Iowa as a real place…
😉
Well, it’s not. It’s heaven.