Satire Saturday: Gifts for WORMS

04 Saturday Jun 2022

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse

Tags

Democracy, parody, politics, satire, truth, USA

It’s nearly Christmas! Well, not really. But before you know it, Yuletide decorations will be everywhere and it will be well past the optimal time to choose a gift for your favorite ultra-wealthy, tax-avoiding, dead-eyed, sociopath who already has everything.

Never fear! I am here! I have catalogued those items most needed for the very neediest amongst us: the born-rich, old white males who, as we all know (because they tell us constantly) are the most unfairly treated group in all human history. They selflessly spend their own precious time prescribing what others may or may not do in their “private lives” because — let’s face it — women, and POC and Native Americans and immigrants and college kids and Hispanics and did I already mention immigrants? And females and homosexuals and lesbians and vegans and vegetarians and people who believe in science and evolution and math and facts and such can not be trusted to make decisions for themselves! Oh, my no! So, the old white guys are stepping up and stepping in whether they’re wanted or not. They don’t have time left over from this precious work of theirs to find presents for themselves. We have to … I should say, we have the privilege to do it for them. It’s a daunting task, but I have made it much easier for us all!

Each gift chosen from this catalog will be wrapped with one ton of earth-trashing plastic! But mainly it’s the gift itself that will let you know that you did your part to show your appreciation for the tireless efforts of that under-represented under-appreciated segment of our society — the White Old Rich Male Sociopaths — WORMS for short — among us. Their vision is legendary, often extending far beyond their fingernails all the way to their bank accounts. Their courage is so awesome as to require almost no statement. Almost. But just to remind folks of one of a few of their sacrifices, imagine an eleven year old gets raped by her step-father and now she has to agonize about whether to have an abortion or have a baby to take care of. No problem! The WORMS have graciously decided to take that decision completely off the table for her. Whew! Problem solved.

And, that’s not all. What about that troubled teen Todd, a child of one of the WORMS, whose teacher threw him out of the spelling bee in the first round simply for misspelling the word “treason.” Come on! One word and he’s out? What kind of bee is that? He spelled it: E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N. Pretty darned close! Right? E, T, O, and N are in both words! Anyway, free and fair elections are treasonous as everyone knows. Women shouldn’t be allowed to vote unless their owners/husbands can be sure they’ll vote as ordered like Amy Bare-it. And POC? Seriously? Who says they can vote? Anyway, the point is, terrible problems like this are solved all the time by those unspoken heroes, the WORMS. In this case, the WORMS are making sure kids like Todd have access to assault weapons so they can express their frustrations in an appropriate fashion — by honoring the Constitution and its Most Holy Second Amendment. Who but the WORMS are there to make sure that no-one actually reads the Second Amendment because that would confuse ordinary mortals since the Founding Fathers accidentally spelled “individual” as “well-ordered militia.” A typo. Obviously. Duh!

Anyway, no need to keep dwelling on how utterly fantastic and under-appreciated the WORMS are. I’ll just say one more thing and then, I promise to move on to the exciting catalog itself. Did you know that some of the non-WORMS are trying to change your habits so that the earth is viable for future generations? What nonsense, right? Who cares if future generations are flooded, or starved, or can’t get clean drinking water, or thousands of species die or humans are plunged into endless war? Trivial stuff like that can always be solved by the WORMS. But meanwhile, they’re trying to reduce plastic? Plastic? Are they nuts? In the beginning, Ben heard the word! And the word was “Plastics”! ‘Nuff said.

As for the gifts themselves, the first thing to say is that you can rest assured that none of these gifts will be the kind of worthless trinkets that poor people buy with their money — you know — trivialities like clean water, food, clothing, shelter, health care. What fun are necessities? How crude! How rude! No sir! None of these gifts will be consist of necessities. These are gifts that show distinctiveness and fine taste.

CATALOG OF FINE GIFTS FOR WORMS

(All prices are current estimates based on current Market Conditions. All prices are subject to change without prior notice).

US Representative What better gift for WORMS than having their very own US Representative in their pocket? Representatives come in a variety of special flavors including, but not limited to:

Wacko Conspiracy Theorists! One of our most popular items! Whether it’s Jewish Space Lasers or Ersatz meat from a Peach Tree Jar or Vaccines with Computer Tracking Devices, your WORMS can own a US Representative who will spout ridiculous absurdities to distract everyone from their tireless work destroying US Democracy! Current Market Price: $300,000.

Gun-Toting Incompetents! What better way to help squelch any semblance of stately debate than to have your very own Representative show up with an assault weapon, hand grenades, or even a sawed off shotgun! Is it illegal? Sure it is! That just makes it all the more fun! Can be yours to give for the low, low introductory price of only $6969.

Table Banging Blowhards! What a nice gift this makes for WORMS. Whether it’s a child rapist or merely a former wrestling coach who looks away from sexual predation right under his nose, the Table Banging Blowhard will quickly turn any substantive debate about policy into a shouting match. What a fun way to destroy the world’s oldest continuous democracy! $75,000.

US Senator If there’s one thing WORMS like more than their own “Representative”, it’s having their own Senator! One of the advantages of owning a Senator is that they never have to show their ownership by actually voting on things. They can simply refuse to vote! You remember those movies where a Senator “stands on principle” and yacks it up till everyone loses patience and interest on a topic? Those were the bad old days. In today’s Senate, they don’t actually have to filibuster to filibuster; they just have to say they will.

The Hypocrite’s Hypocrite! Made from moldy bread and manure heaps, yet much resembling an aging turtle, these fine folks can not only speak from both sides of their mouth at the same time; they can do it with mock sincerity! They can explain on Monday why even considering thinking about nominating a Supreme Court justice with a Presidential election only a decade away is against common sense, the spirit of the Constitution, the Legend of Babe Ruth, the rules of propriety, and the bylaws of Kentucky’s largest Chicken! On Tuesday, they will explain why it is crucial to confirm a Supreme Court justice with a Presidential election already on-going! Each Hypocrite’s Hypocrite comes with dead shark eyes and is guaranteed to have undergone a complete bilateral ethicsectomy. Price — a mere $500,000.

The Sick Sycophant! The sick sycophant will periodically make a run for the Presidency! During this time, they will explain, with apparent sincerity, why the would-be dictator they are running against would not be good for America. They will explain that he is a failed businessman, a liar, a crook, a racist, a sexual predator (self-proclaimed) and that he has zero experience relevant to being a President, or even, come to think of it, anything else. But have no fear! Once the incompetent liar becomes Putin’s nominee, The Sick Sycophant (SS for short) will tout the would-be dick-tater as the best thing since sliced stupidity! If the would-be dick-tater lies, the SS will repeat the lie endlessly. If the would-be dick-tater tells people to drink bleach or stick UV light up their butt, the SS will demonstrate. If the would-be dick-tater tries to sell out his own country to become an actual dick-tater, the SS will vote against impeachment. On special today for only $666, 666.

The Kinky Kid Killer! Often referred to as the KKK, the Kinky Kid Killer will tout how we must protect the innocent life of a fertilized egg or even an egg that might be fertilized or the sacred right of a man to fertilize any egg he wants to, and meanwhile, ensure that actual living, breathing, loving kids are killed on a regular basis. He or she will explain how Americans will never be safe in schools, movie theaters, grocery stores, street corners, rock concerts, post offices, or hospitals until every man, woman, and child in America has their own personal arsenal of conventional, atomic, chemical, and biological weapons. While the favorite way for the KKK to kill kids is via shredding caliber automatic weapons, the KKK is quite versatile. They will often support rolling back food safety regulations, safe water regulations, air pollution standards, workplace safety standards and, naturally, oppose free health care, child care, after school care and lowering taxes on the poor. The KKK is one of our top line items at an even $1,000,000 but guess what? You only have to pay one half of the cost! That’s right! If you act now, the Kremlin will funnel the other half of the cost through the NRA! What a bargain! You really can’t afford not to buy one of these Senators for your favorite WORMS.

Extreme Court Justice These items have only been recently added to our catalog! Act now before it’s too late! The US Extreme Court (formerly known as the US Supreme Court) is the final authority on Big Lies and Partisan Bickering. Help the WORMS completely control every aspect of American life from the proper bedroom behavior to health care options to controlling the press and the media.

The Logician Magician The Logician Magician will cry, scream, threaten, frown, and lie on command! He will wave his hands and drink beer. Hey, he likes beer! He will show you that he cannot possibly have sexually assaulted someone because — Look here! Look here! — There’s no entry in his calendar for the alleged sexual assault! Well, if that doesn’t establish his innocence, nothing will. Also, did I mention that he likes beer? Price: $2,000,000.

The Memory Leak The Memory Leak will answer any question you don’t ask and none of the questions you do ask. Nonetheless, he will eventually make you believe that he’s answered your actual question. For example, if asked about allegations about sexual misconduct he is accused of actually doing, he will say, “I would never do anything designed at making a woman uncomfortable!” (Translation: I only bring up the topic of pubic hairs on my can of coke to turn her on and thereby give her pleasure; not to make her uncomfortable). If pressed for more information, he will say he can’t remember. If asked about whether he supports the decision in Roe v. Wade, he will say, “It’s settled law!” (Translation: The right wing has spent tens of millions of dollars getting conservative justices so we wouldn’t overturn it!) If asked whether he debated the issue in law school, he will say, “I don’t think it ever came up.” (Translation: Seriously? I’m not answering that.) “Should I recuse myself as judge simply because my wife is a probably defendant? My wife? I didn’t remember she was my wife.” (Translation: eff yew) Price: $1,500,000.

The Handmaiden The Handmaiden has plausible deniability about everything because she belongs to a cult that believes women should defer to their husbands on all things. Price may seem high on this one, but remember, these are lifetime appointments and she’s barely out of her teens. Price: $3,000,000.

The Witch-Hunter This guy’s still truly PO’d that Sally Jones wouldn’t agree to be his date for the Senior Prom. Instead, she went with Charlie Jenkins just because Charlie was the football team running back and made All-State. If the Witch-Hunter happens to run across a part of the Constitution he doesn’t like such as the Ninth Amendment (also known as the “Democracy for Dummies” Amendment which basically says just because a right isn’t explicitly listed doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist), he will find an earlier precedent from some other source such as Attila the Hun, say, or an English judge who sentenced women to be burned at the stake for being a witch like Sally who should have gone to the Prom with the judge, but instead chose Charlie Jenkins, damn him. He wants women to be property, not to be mean, of course, but because — you know — it’s nature’s way! Men are bigger and stronger and live longer and are much more likely to be rapists and killers so men are obviously superior! Even the Taliban knows that! And so what if men can’t have babies? How fair is that? How can men even know if the baby is really theirs? You have to keep them indoors and locked up. For their own good, of course. WORMS will love this gift, but this particular robot seems a bit damaged so it can be yours to gift for the bargain basement price of $1,750,000.

Join the club! Help buy American Democracy for WORMS!

Remember our motto: “The life you ruin may be your own, but you’ll ruin lots of others as well!”

Remember our second motto: “All sales are final. We are not responsible. For anything. If we were, we wouldn’t be selling the country to the Kremlin.”

—————————-

Dick-Taters

Absolute is not just a vodka

Bill of Obligations: Article One

Bill of Obligations: Article Two

The Extreme Court

Clarence but not Darrow

Beware of Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing

The Extreme Court of The United States

10 Tuesday May 2022

Posted by petersironwood in America, politics, psychology

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Constitution Roe v. Wade, Democracy, ethics, Justice, politics, SCOTUS, truth, USA

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The above is the text of the Ninth Amendment to the US Constitution. It is not my “distillation” or “summary” of the Ninth Amendment. It is the Ninth Amendment. You may recall that the first ten Amendments to the Constitution are known collectively as the “Bill of Rights.” To me, the Ninth Amendment could, in today’s terminology be titled, “Democracy for Dummies” Amendment. In the linked article in the Wikipedia, you can see that this ninth Amendment was added quite intentionally. In fact, some founders who argued against provisions of the Bill of Rights were worried that by enumerating some rights, such as the right to free speech, later generations might take it to mean that since those rights were enumerated, no other rights existed. So, just to make absolutely sure that no-one would make such a silly mistake, the founders added the Ninth Amendment. This says just about as clearly as it’s possible to say: “Look, just because we didn’t list a right should be not be used to argue that it doesn’t exist.”

Remember that the founders had just waged a war of independence against the tyranny of England. They had essentially bet their lives on winning a war against a much greater military power. They were quite serious about freedom! The passage is short and unambiguous.

The first thought that occurs to me when it comes to a Ninth Article in the “Bill of Obligations” is simply that each citizen should read the Ninth Article. Further, we should be vigilant that no politician, party, or demagogue tries to pooh-pooh it away or intentionally misinterpret it.

It honestly never occurred to me, as recently as a fortnight ago, that a Justice of the Supreme Court would be the one to pooh-pooh it as being meaningless, particularly a Justice who otherwise argues for a “strict reading” of the Constitution. But that’s where we are today.

Justice Alito is so hell-bent on destroying freedoms for Americans that he intentionally pretends he cannot comprehend this single, clear, short sentence in a foundational document for our country. Remember, Justices are sworn in. When they are sworn into office, they swear that they will uphold the Constitution of the United States. There is no “escape clause” in their oath. They do not say, “I swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States except for the parts I don’t like.” They do not say, “I swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States unless people who supported me to get on the court tell me to take a wrecking ball to it.”

Here is the text of the Oath of Office for Supreme Court Justices regarding the Constitution.

“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

What do you suppose “without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion” means? To me, it means just that. It’s not okay to take the oath of office with fingers crossed behind your back and think to yourself:

“Finally! The opportunity to foist off my ideas about how America should be run on an unsuspecting public. Screw the Bill of Rights! And totally screw all those Amendments and precedents since about having women vote and blacks being citizens and an implied right to privacy. Nope! What I want is an American Taliban. So, that’s what I’ll make happen!”

That’s not what taking the oath of office means.

There is another part of the oath of office for Supreme Court Justices:

“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”

What do you suppose it means to swear that you will “administer justice without respect to persons and do equal right to the poor and to the rich”? Would you interpret that to mean that it’s okay to show preference to rich donors? Would you interpret that to mean that you’re going to use the power of your office to enhance white privilege or male privilege? Is it okay to mean that if you happen yourself to be a white male? Is it okay to subvert the oath of office if you happen to believe that things are just better if white males have more power? Is it okay to subvert your oath of office if you happen to believe that, actually, come to think of it, people of color and females really shouldn’t have any rights at all?

If a Justice of the Supreme Court decides to “strike down” part of the Bill of Rights because they don’t find it personally to their taste, what is the appropriate action? How about if they are sworn in while saying one thing but meaning something much different and more self-serving? How about if they lie under oath during their confirmation hearing? How about if they intentionally mislead under oath? Is that acceptable?

Let’s consider what constitutes a lie. Suppose we are playing tennis and you hit a ball that lands near the line on my side. I see it as in, but close. I call it out anyway. You ask, “Really? It’s your call, but it really looked in to me.” I answer, “Well, it was close all right, but I had a really clear look at it. I’d call that ball out every time.” That could be the literal truth. It was close. I did have a clear look. And, since I cheat, I’d call it out every time. But the implication of my statements, in context, is that I am re-affirming that I saw it as out.

Or, suppose you and I are throwing a surprise party for a mutual friend. I tell you, “You know, it’s going to cost some money for the food and drinks for everyone. I’ll go pick up the stuff, but can you afford to pay for half?” You say, “Oh, I can afford to pay my half. That’s the fair thing to do.” Note that you didn’t say you would pay for your half. You just said you can afford to pay half and that it’s the fair thing to do. If I interpret that to mean you will pay half, is there lying involved?

Photo by Dan Cristian Pu0103dureu021b on Pexels.com

Here’s another example. You apply for a consulting job on a large new construction job. You give them a lot of good ideas about how to go about solving the problems they presented to you. Instead of hiring you, they decide to use your ideas but have the boss’s brother-in-law implement it on the cheap. In fact, that was their intention all along. You ask about it and the boss says, “We looked at your proposal. Many of the elements of it were exactly what we were planning to do anyway, so we figured, we didn’t really need an outside consultant after all.” Sure. They were going to file a plan with the city, just as you proposed. They were going to file an environmental impact statement, just as you proposed. They were going to hire a crew to do the work, just as you proposed. So, yes, many (three, to be exact) of the elements in your proposal were indeed something that they were going to do even before they read the proposal, but there were also many other elements of your proposal that they had not thought about until they heard your proposal. They had not previously considered passive solar heating, gray water irrigation, or battery back-up. In context, they were intentionally misleading you, perhaps to avoid your suing them.

Suppose you go to a doctor to see about allergies. The doctor has just gotten back from a conference where a paper was presented about an expensive new drug (Damitol) that might work for allergies; unfortunately, some patients lose their sense of smell and others break tendons. The drug company mentioned that doctors who publish papers about good results with Damitol will get free tickets to a conference in Hawaii. The doctor engages in the following dialog with you.

Doctor: “There’s a new treatment for allergies,Damitol. I’m recommending it for you. It’s expensive though.”

You: “Oh, well… aren’t there cheaper drugs?”

Doctor: “Yes, but they don’t always work.”

You: “Does the new drug, Damitol, have side-effects?”

Doctor: “Every drug can have some side-effects, but personally I’ve never seen a single patient with bad side effects from Damitol.

You spend a lot of money on Damitol and lose your sense of smell. Worse, you snap your Achilles tendon.

Did your doctor lie to you? Did he intentionally mislead you?

Are those mealy-mouthed misleaders the kind of characters you really want on the Supreme Court? I certainly do not. It may be tempting to think: “Well, it’s okay to cheat because they are on my side.”

That is precisely the flaw that dictators and would-be dictators have used to gain power since the beginning of time. “Look here,” they say, “I’m on your side. And once I get in power, I’m going to favor you by cheating for you.” It never turns out that way. They lie, and cheat, and appear to favor you in order to gain power. Once they gain power, they will wield it to steal from everyone including you. Putin, e.g., kills generals and oligarchs who support him when it suits him. Killing “the faithful” is an important tool to keep everyone in line. The message is that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you believe or what you’ve done for the dictator in the past. The only thing that matters is what they feel like doing at that moment.

It’s no “accident” that Justice Alito cited an English judge who condemned women to death for witchcraft! It’s a signal to every guy who never learned how to partner or be successful in consensual relationships: “Hey! I’m going to help create a world in which you never have to ask for sex again! Women should be chattel. You’ll be happier that way. And so will they. And if they don’t do what you want, we’ll burn them at the stake. I’ll help you get revenge on all those women who turned you down! And once we begin to burn them at the stake for ‘witchcraft’ (another word for ‘disobedience’), you’ll be surprised how docile they become.”

———

References:

Ninth Amendment – Wikipedia

Oath of Office for SCOTUS

Draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade

Author Page on Amazon

Stoned Soup

The Three Blind Mice

Clarence, but not Darrow

Absolute is not just a vodka

Dick-Taters

The Mammoth and the Mouse

The Bill of Obligations

06 Friday May 2022

Posted by petersironwood in America, politics, psychology

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

America, Bill of Rights, Democracy, freedom, obligations, USA

The Constitution of the United States of America is a foundational document.The Constitution outlines a form of government and processes to ensure democracy. At the same time that the Constitution was ratified, so too were ten important Amendments collectively referred to as “The Bill of Rights.” The founders rightly thought that outlining the structures and processes of government was not enough to ensure democracy. It was also necessary, as they foresaw, to outline rights of the people that could not be abridged by those governmental structures and processes. They are often referred to as “unalienable rights.”

To comprehend what the Constitution says and how it came to be, it’s useful to outline just a little of what the founders were reacting to and who they were. They were men. For the most part, they were financially successful men and relatively well-educated. They were “white” men. They were overwhelmingly of European descent. They were mainly English speaking. They had successfully executed a War of Independence against England. They were not a homogenous group, but compared with the world as a whole or the current population of the United States, it was a very homogeneous group of people. They were still quite aware of the excesses of monarchies and the horrors of tyranny. That background is important to understanding why they wanted to make sure that people’s rights were protected from government over-reach.

Their homogeneity as relatively rich, well-educated, white men meant that the envisioned “government” would be for their own kind. Blacks had no rights. Children had no rights. Women had no rights. The other species on the planet had no rights. When they talked about rights, they were talking about their rights.

Their background and particularly, the homogeneity of their background, also meant that they presumed some degree of honor and rationality existed in the whole cohort. They didn’t agree with each other about everything. Far from it. There were many debates and compromises baked into the Constitution.

I cannot read the minds of the founders, but I imagine that because of their recent experience with tyrants, they were quite aware of the necessity of protecting rights. It’s not clear to me that they thought much about the need to codify obligations. They had been brought up to assume obligations and so had the other founders they worked with. It’s not surprising that they did not to bother to enumerate obligations. These were the days when a young woman or man of nobility would forgo someone they truly loved in order to fulfill family obligations. If men thought their “honor” had been besmirched they would duel to the death over it. Honor really mattered. I think that’s part of why they didn’t feel it necessary to even think about a “Bill of Obligations.”

I would like to engage in a little thought experiment based on the premise that now, centuries later, we do need to think carefully about obligations. You have the right to free speech. You do not have the right to go into a crowded theater and scream “FIRE!” In order to cause a panic and kill people. This didn’t occur to the founders because, none of them would have ever done such a thing; at least, because of honor. It isn’t that rich white men were morally or ethically superior to a multi-cultural society. Far from it. But it is another aspect of the historical reason, I think, why they might never have bothered to enumerate such obligations.

To start, let’s look at the very First Amendment to the Constitution. I hope everyone will have the patience to wade through this lengthy document.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Oh, look. It’s really not that long after all.

The government should not be in the business of establishing a religion.

The government should not restrict people from practicing their religion.

The government should not abridge freedom of speech.

The government should not abridge the freedom of the press.

The government should not abridge the freedom to peacefully assemble.

The government should not abridge the freedom of people to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Despite the simplicity of the concept, there have been various arguments, often in courts, about what these rights “really” mean. It is not legal to scream fire it a crowded theater. That seems reasonable. It is legal to use your wealth to ensure that your favorite candidate wins because the courts have recently held that spending money to buy politicians is just “freedom of speech.” Huh?

But I don’t want to argue about how to interpret “The Right of Free Speech.” Rather, I want to examine what might be reasonable and commensurate clauses in “The Obligations of Free Speech.”

Here are some candidates.

People have an obligation to speak the truth.

People have an obligation to listen respectfully.

People have an obligation to consider that their own opinion is not the only one that matters.

People have an obligation to follow agreed upon rules of conduct for the speech they are engaged in.

One major benefit of the right to free speech is that ideas can be discussed and debated, and people working together can come up with more intelligent decisions that those of any single individual. In order for that to work, we need to hear many ideas, not just one. The obligations of free speech are also necessary for that process to work in achieving its goals. If we hear many ideas but many people lie, or refuse to listen to each other, or are disrespectful or break the rules of debate, we will not have intelligent decisions.

Consider an analogy to tennis, although you could generate one for any sport; indeed, for nearly any human endeavor, but let’s stick to tennis. In tennis, you have the right to hit whatever shot you want. You can hit it hard or soft, or anywhere in between. You can hit it flat or put a lot of topspin on the ball or slice it or put sidespin on. You can drive the ball or hit a lob or a drop shot. You can hit it down the line or cross-court.

Over the years, people have tried all sorts of various strategies and tactics for tennis. People use different grips. Some hit a two-handed backhand and some hit a one-handed backhand. A few even hit with two hands on both forehand and backhand. People try different things out and play improves, not only for the individual, but for the sport. So it is in any sport. Performance improves over time because people try out different things and what works better tends to be repeated and what does not work tends to fade away. But none of that would happen unless all the players also follow the rules. Their right to hit the kind of shot that suits them works hand in hand with their obligation to follow the rules. If players did not fulfill their obligations to play by the rules, and instead began simply insisting that they had won every point, tennis as a whole would not improve nor would the individual players improve. Most would eventually quit and among those who were left “playing tennis,” without rules or obligations, it would soon degenerate into a fist fight, or, more likely, I suppose, it would escalate from shouting to shooting.

It’s the same for every human endeavor involving more than one person. You not only have some freedom of action vis a vis the other(s); you also have obligations. Just because you feel like assaulting someone on the street and taking their money, doesn’t mean you can do it. People who assault people are meant to end up in jail. Most eventually do.

A society with a high degree of freedom and no sense of obligations is like buying a Lambroghini and paying extra not to have any brakes. It isn’t just human institutions and inventions that have opposing systems in balance. Look at life itself. Inhibition/excitation; inhale/exhale; sympathetic nervous system/para-sympathetic nervous system; biceps/triceps; adductors/abductors; dilation/contraction; heartbeats; sleep cycles; ATP/ADP Cycle.

By the way, a society that was all obligations and no freedom would be like buying a Lambroghini and paying extra not to have a steering wheel or gas pedal; having the tires replaced by railroad wheels; you get to ride your Lambroghini down the track and back up again. That’s it. Well, that sucks! Yes. It literally sucks most of the fun out of life! It makes your life more predictable, but that’s not a good tradeoff; at least, not to me.

Compared with most people, I think I prefer a lot of freedom. That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in obligation, however, or that my freedom is subject to limits when it infringes on the freedom of others. I strongly prefer freedom of speech. I’m very happy for the First Amendment. But I would not go into a crowded theater and scream “Fire!” Nor should you.

How about someone using Big Data analytics on your on-line behavior being used to manipulate you into buying stuff from the company who’s paying for you data. Here’s the deal. You think you are communicating on GiantSocialMediumCompany with your friends. The GiantSocialMediumCompany hardly seems as though it’s even there.

“Sure, it pops up some annoying ad about Kepsi or Poke every so often, but it easy enough to scroll past it. Except, you know that most recent Kepsi ad was kind a cute. Anyway, of course, I didn’t click on it.”

Uh-huh. But you see, the fact that you even slowed down as you scrolled down past the Kepsi ad, is interesting data to Kepsi (and Poke too for that matter). They aren’t the only two parties who will be interested in your data. Who else might benefit? Lots of people. From many examples of your on-line behavior over time, they can determine which “wedge issue” you are most likely to emotionally react to. They likely have a rough categorization of the type of approach you’d pay most attention to: visual, clever text, GIF, video, website, complex/simple, personal/impersonal, etc. Then, you can be targeted with arguments that are calculated — not to open your mind or to help you see the other side. No. These are arguments designed to move you a little further away from your neighbors and friends; anyone who has even a slightly different opinion about a topic you care about. That’s the purpose. Not to educate. To divide. And it’s working.

And, that, to me, is a an absolutely egregious breach of what should be the First Article in the Bill of Obligations.

What do you think?

Author Page on Amazon

Absolute is not just a vodka

A lot is not a little

The Mammoth and the Mouse

03 Tuesday May 2022

Posted by petersironwood in America, politics, psychology

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Democracy, Dictatorship, fiction, parable, politics, story, USA

Mammoths and Sabre Toothed Tigers, Knebworth, Hertfordshire by Christine Matthews is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0

Once upon a time, a great wooly Mammoth happily grazed on green and golden grass. He had satiated his hunger early that morning, but he continued to graze all afternoon. After all, he reasoned, who knows whether the grass will be here tomorrow?

The Mammoth, who had been eating tons of grass from a seemingly endless field of grassy plains, grew bored. The Mammoth, of course, was rather mammoth. He liked the grass, but eating tons of it became ever more boring for the mammoth Mammoth, so his mind wandered and he noticed that a small Mouse was chewing on a grain of grass seed.

“Hey there!!” The Mammoth bellowed. “What are you doing eating my grass!? Leave that alone! All this grass is mine!”

The mouse scampered away and the Mammoth resumed eating tons of grass. But it was still just as boring as ever using his trunk to shovel mouthful after mouthful of grass. He decided he would go looking for the Mouse. He eventually found Mouse and the Mouse was again eating a teeny grass seed.

“Hey there!!!” The mighty Mammoth bellowed. “I told you not to eat grass!! It’s all mine!”

The Mammoth noticed that other animals were laughing. Hyena came over to Mammoth and said, “You are a mammoth Mammoth! Why are you bothering a tiny mouse?”

The Mammoth waved his trunk menacingly and answered, “Indeed! What business is it of yours? Anyway, as you can see, the Mouse is hoping to gain enough weight and strength so that he can come and eat me!”

Now, other animals had come to observe the commotion.

A large Elk said, “That’s ridiculous! Mice don’t eat Mammoths!”

Mammoth smirked and said, “I tell you he wants to eat me! He wants to kill me! I am going to crush this mouse and make life safe for myself, my family, and for all of us.”

The Hyena laughed. The Elk rolled his giant eyes. Even the Yaks began to yuck it up.

Mammoth however began raising up his giant feet and smashing them down to squash the Mouse. But each time, the mouse would scamper away just in time. The Mammoth grew angrier and angrier still because he was having such a hard time smashing the Mouse. He smashed his giant foot down on a sharp stone so hard that it caused his foot to bleed.

The Mammoth bellowed in pain and anger. “Now look! See?! That Mouse is making me bleed! I told you he was trying to kill me and eat me!”

This only made the Hyenas laugh harder. The Elk shook his head in disbelief. The Crows cawed and chuckled. The Lion roared with laughter at the misguided Mammoth.

This only made the Mammoth even angrier and he smashed his giant feet down trying to crush the Mouse. Most of the time, his giant feet came down in the dirt or the grass, but, as luck would have it, he also smashed another foot down onto a sharp rock and now another of his feet began to bleed. “Look! See!? The Mouse is trying to kill me! Laugh if you like, but after I protect myself by killing the Mouse, I’m going to protect myself more by killing everyone who laughs at me! I’ll show you all!”

—————

It has been estimated that there are about 40 billion mice on earth right now.

There are zero wooly Mammoths.

——————-

The Moral of the Story?

Don’t be a greedy A-Hole.

—————————-

Author Page on Amazon

All for One and None for Most

Absolute is not just a Vodka

The Ailing King of Agitate

Poker Chips

Imagine all the People

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

The Crows and Me

27 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse

≈ 54 Comments

Tags

Democracy, Dictatorship, fiction, freedom, story, Ukraine, USA

You think your backpack is plenty large enough.

Sure you do.

Just like I did.

Of course it seems large enough when you think you’re headed to grandpa’s farm for the weekend. That’s what I was doing when the bombing started. Mom & Dad were going to drive me there after work. But they never made it home. Not yet.

The backpack seems large enough until you find yourself rushing all around the house, like I did, trying to decide what to stuff in it to get away from the bombs. Water? Food? Our pet cat, Lucy? Weapons? Extra clothes? Some of each? Radio? Batteries? Chargers? Electricity. Phone? The kitchen knives, unsheathed?

Meanwhile … the noise never stops. No word from folks. Think you’ll get used to the explosions and the inhuman screams of pain. But you don’t. Not really. You think you’ll find a place that’s better than the last place you were. But you don’t.

No, you won’t get used to it. At least, I never did. You won’t find a better place, either. At, least I never did.

Just death everywhere Stench. And noise which I never did get used to.

The “sharpness” in the explosions evaporated though. I studied enough bio to know what happened. I lost some hair cells is all. They still make a huge THWOMP in my sternum and they still hurt my ears. Oh, yes. The nearby explosions are plenty loud. They are just dull.

Like everything else now, I guess.

I don’t hear birds any more. Maybe there are a few left. What’s that thing about canaries and coal mines? Hard to believe the air here used to be clear enough to breathe without choking. It never used to stink thisbad either. Maybe the stench killed the robins and jays.

Maybe the birds all flew away first. Smart. They have their own built in method of transportation. Anyway, whether the birds are all dead or all flown away, I don’t know. I just know I don’t hear them. Anyway, why would they be singing? I like to think they flew away. All I know for sure is that they’re gone.

Except for the crows*.

I remember in the “before times” being grossed out at the way the crows picked the meat off the bones of road kill. I remember wondering: “Do they get sick from rotting meat ? Or, do they just never realize that rotting meat makes them sick? Or do they do know it makes them sick but they’re so damned hungry, that they don’t care.”

I was sure, back then, that I’d never be that hungry.

What did I know?

Anyway, I thought the crows were gross, all right. But they were brave! They’d swoop out to their sickening feast of squashed squirrel or raccoon or unlucky dog and peck away at the rotting carcass while a car or truck would zoom right at them! Only at the last second, they would angrily flit out of the way. I never saw one get hit.

I guess I kind of wanted one of them to get hit. It would serve them right for being so gross!

“For being so gross.”

As best I can understand it, that’s how all this started. Some folks were being gross. I guess I never really saw them being gross. My parents thought it was a good idea to kill all the gross people but others didn’t agree. I don’t know what the grossness even was. My folks — did I mention I haven’t seen them since all this started? — any way, my folks never explained it.

That was back in what I call the “before times” when we could just drive to the grocery and get fresh vegetables and fruits, butter, cheese, chips, cookies, bread. Olives. I especially liked olives. My folks thought that it was weird for an eight year old to love olives so much. In fact, they called it “gross.”

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com

They were joking. I think they were joking. They may have been joking. I kind of miss them. I don’t think they thought I was gross back then. Lots of people eat olives. I don’t think I started the war. Olives?

I don’t know. I don’t think I was gross enough to deserve to die. Like I said, I’m not sure what the “grossness” was all about — not the grossness that they were killing each other about.

No-one should eat road kill. Or bomb kill.

And no-one does.

Except for the crows.

And me.

*Author’s Note: At the exact moment I wrote the line “Except for the crows” (the first time), the crows outside cawed loudly! Now, all I hear are the wind chimes.

—————————-

Absolute is not just a vodka

The Con-Con Man’s Special Friend

Their Dead Shark Eyes

The Dance of Billions

The Architecture of Karma

Karmic Architecture II

Sea, Ground, Water, Light, Love

Guernica

All for one; and none for most

Author Page on Amazon

Teliot State

24 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by petersironwood in America, creativity, politics, psychology

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

America, citizenship, Democracy, Dictatorship, essay, leader, USA

What is cancer?

A piece of life that has forgotten its heritage.

Cancer thinks it sprung to life all on its own.

Cancer has not only “forgotten the face of its fathers” (as Stephen King’s gunslinger says).

Cancer has forgotten the fact that it even had fathers and mothers.

Cancer has forgotten the fact that its life is made easier, every day because of those who went before.

Cancer has forgotten that every little victory it feels today comes about because of millions of choices and struggles of other lives that went before.

Cancer doesn’t care.

Cancer acts as though it is the only life form in the universe that really “counts.”

Throughout history, there have been many individuals who act as cancer.

A few of them have gotten into positions of power and used that power to blackmail, strong-arm, and manipulate others into joining the cancer. Their “relationships” are based on lies and power.

Now, we live in an atomic era when cancerous people in power use that power to restrict the ability of their own people to know the truth.

We live in an atomic era when cancerous people in power threaten to use atomic weapons unless they get their way.

Cancerous leadership has never been a good thing in the same way that having a cancerous tumor in your body has never been a good thing.

Perhaps you think: well, I don’t really care much about politics.

Okay, then what do you care about?

Sports? Guess what. Sports are ruined by dick-taters. Outcomes can be predetermined or overturned by the dick-tater. Cheating becomes common. If you don’t “toe the line” politically, you won’t be able to play or you’ll be imprisoned or poisoned.

Business? Maybe you just care about business. Guess what. Business success is determined by how much “protection” money you pay to the dick-tater. Whoever pays the most will succeed. And, even then you aren’t safe. When business people become too successful under a dick-tater, the dick-tater destroys them and takes their assets. Just like Putrid.

Your family? Maybe you focus your attention on your family so you don’t really care about whether you live in a dick-tater$hit. You should care. Under dick-taters, the children are taught to spy on and inform the authorities if the parents do something “bad.” Of course, since it’s a dick-tater$hit, what counts as “bad” can change from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And your children might or might not understand what you actually said. No matter. Turning in the parents will be a “feather in their cap.” How do you think that will change your family? Husbands and wives are also encouraged to turn on one another. Romantic love and family love — these are antithetical to a totalitarian state. Everyone should love the dick-tater more than anyone in their own family. And, they’ll be asked to prove it. Tell your teen-ager they can’t date a drunkard. Yeah, that might make sense. But understand: if they get upset with your parental guidance, they may turn you in. They’ll make up crap. There’s no burden of proof in the courts that are run by a dick-tater. The dick-tater doesn’t really even care whether you’re guilty or not. Having an innocent person jailed for crimes against the state, especially if they’re turned in by their spouse or kid — that sends a nice strong message to everyone else in the Teliot.

You may have thought I was going to end that paragraph with the word “country.” I considered that. But it no longer a real country. It is more akin to a toilet. In an ordinary toilet, the waste is flushed. But in a dick-tater$hit, the waste is kept. Whatever is decent, honest, truthful, creative, loving — that is what is flushed away. Instead of a country, you have a reverse toilet — a Teliot.

Not caring whether or not you and your family and friends live in a dick-tater$hit — that makes exactly as much sense as not caring whether or not you and your family and friends have cancer.

“I don’t care if I have cancer, because I’m really into sports!”

Huh?

If you die, you can’t play or even watch sports.

“I don’t care if I have cancer, because I really care about my business!”

Huh?

If you die, you can’t run a business.

“I don’t care if I have cancer, because I care about my family!”

Huh?

Maybe ask your family whether cancer affects them.

“Well,” you might say, “Democracies are far from perfect too!”

That’s true. Democracies are not perfect. Sometimes, people are unfair, even in democracies. Sometimes people are cruel. Sometimes people are corrupt.

Similarly, even if you are cancer free, you might stub your toe, or cut your finger shaving or slicing vegetables. You might sprain your ankle. And a few people will die in auto accidents. Does that mean it doesn’t matter whether or not you have cancer? Cancer, if left untreated, will necessarily be bad. It is the very nature of cancer to be bad.

Imagine a world in which you don’t just suddenly “get cancer.” You don’t have some weird symptom, go to the doctor, have some tests and find out you “have cancer.” No. Imagine that the only way you get cancer is if you choose to have cancer. You go to the doctor and he offers you a choice: “Would you like cancer? I can give you some, really cheap.”

Imagine a society who decides, “People stub their toes and get sick anyway so let’s all get cancer!”

Imagine a society who decides: “People aren’t perfect under a democracy so let’s have a dick-tater run the country!”

Photo by Pierpaolo Riondato on Pexels.com

Maybe all you really care about is food. Guess what? Food will be worse under a dick-tater$hit. Regulations about food safety will be rolled back. Your food will be more tainted.

Maybe all you really care about is art. Guess what? Art will be regulated under a dick-tater. In the Teliot State, the good stuff will all be flushed away, along with the artists who produced those works. The dick-tater will decide which are gets presented and most will be commissioned to glorify the dick-tater.

In the Teliot State, everything good is tainted. Everything good dies. Everyone decent is suppressed. Even the military is tainted, as the ineptitude of the massive Putrid war effort reveals. The police. The courts. The politicians. The shopkeepers. The business tycoons. The teachers. The parents. The kids. Everyone must allow the cancer of totalitarianism to invade and corrupt their body, their mind, their soul.

Democracy is hard. I grant that. And often it is messy. But it is a path to life. The Teliot State is a path to death. Don’t believe me. Ask the Russian journalists who have been disappeared. If you can find them. Ask their families. Ask the mothers of the thousands of Russian soldiers who were sent off to die — supposedly to “liberate” Russian speaking Ukrainians. A big fat lie, of course. Everything is based on lies in a Teliot State.

Don’t believe me. Ask the Russian athletes who are banned from international competitions.

Don’t believe me. Ask the families of the Russian oligarchs who were murdered in the last few days. Oh, wait you can’t, because they were killed too.

Don’t believe me. Ask the Ukrainians how much they’re enjoying their “liberation” so far. Ask the raped women. Ask the mutilated children. Ask the dead. Ask the tortured.

I’ve known many people who have had cancer. The treatments are painful and dangerous. But they’re still generally better than letting cancer take over. Because once cancer starts, it wants to take over everything. Cancer finds it distracting from its past failures so it keeps wanting to try to conquer new parts of the body. Same with Putrid.

Like all dick-taters, Putrid delivers far less than he promises. Of course he does. The Teliot State squelches incentives, creativity, innovation, truth, science, medicine, and life itself. To some degree Putrid and his ilk, tell lies about how well they’re doing, but the truth cannot be totally hidden from the people. So, Putrid, like all dick-taters is terrified of having the people find out just what a horrendously bad job he’s doing. That’s why he lies to the public and makes sure everyone else tells the same lies. If people don’t realize what a horrible job he’s doing, maybe an angry mob won’t tear him to shreds.

What better way to distract from your own failures than blame someone else?

So Putrid blames the west, NATO, the EU, the UN, Ukrainians, oligarchs who don’t spent enough time kissing his a$$, military commanders — in short, everyone but himself.

Remember the Berlin Wall? That was not erected by the West Germans to prevent poor people from East Berlin coming in and taking stuff. That was put in place by the Russian dick-taters to keep East Berliners from finding out just how bad off they were under the communist totalitarianism than were their brothers and sisters and cousins living in a democracy right next door! People were killed trying to get into West Berlin.

Every day, all around the world, people are trying to escape the cancer of the Teliot State. They risk their lives to do that. Why do you suppose they would do that? Because they have seen first hand what a stench-filled place a Teliot State becomes. The criminals run the Teliot State.

There may be honor among some thieves, but not among the sort of thieves who aspire to being dick-taters. They literally kill other members of their own families just so they can feel more assured none of them will try to replace them.That happened fairly recently in Saudi Arabia and in N. Korea. Putrid is now killing his oligarch supporters to strike even more fear into his fellow Russians. “See? You think I won’t kill you if you don’t support me? This long-time ally and friend had the nerve to ask me whether I should stop this war. The nerve! So, I killed him and his family.”

Maybe Putrid felt a teeny surge of heroism when the gave the order to kill his allies for gently questioning his wisdom, but mainly he did it to make sure every Russian understood the message: “I’ll kill anyone for anything so you do what I say or you’ll be next.”

As the Wicked Witch of the West once famously observed, “These things must be done delicately. “ So, Putrid made these murders look a little bit like suicide, but they were carried off with the same MO at almost the same time so that everyone in the country would get the message that these were killings ordered by the Teliot Tyrant but that everyone was supposed to act as though they were suicides.

The Russian people are in a tough spot. Ideally, they would rise up as one and get rid of the maniac; rid themselves of cancer. Ideally. But it’s a lot to ask. It’s one thing to go to a surgeon to put you under anesthetic and have them remove a cancerous growth. It’s quite another to perform the surgery yourself on your own body! Tom Hanks, in Castaway damn near killed himself taking out a bad tooth. It took a lot of nerve. And it will take more to take out a cancerous growth. But what choice is there? If you don’t kill the cancer, the cancer will kill you.

Meanwhile, we still have a choice. Do we want to put a monstrous cancer in charge of our country? And, that will not just mean that they are put in charge of government. Please understand, once in charge of government, they work to be in charge of everything up to and including your sex life. Before you decide that’s a good idea because everybody should have sex just the way you like it, you’d better understand that a dick-tater could just as easily decide and implement a policy that everyone should be trans or that everyone should be gay. At first, of course, a dick-tater$hip will implement policies that are supported by either a majority or at least supported by a violent minority. They need some support to gain absolute power. But not to keep it. Once they control the police, the courts, the army, they don’t need to institute policies that are popular any longer. They can institute any policy that benefits them. Any. Policy. Including your worst nightmare. It doesn’t matter what they say now. It doesn’t matter what they “really” believe. It doesn’t matter how many people agree with a position. Once they have absolute power, they will make it stick. They will accompany an unpopular policy with a host of lies to make it more palatable. These lies will not be debunked by the “free press” because there won’t be any. And if you yourself do not repeat these lies, you are subject to arrest — or worse.

Given any absurdity, given any cruel and stupid policy, I can write a paragraph of lies “explaining” why we’re doing this. Of course, it will typically be pretty transparent, but so what? It doesn’t have to stand up to debate. It doesn’t have to stand up to an election. It doesn’t have to stand up to the scrutiny of a free press. Everyone will be required to recite said paragraph. Everyone in such a society knows in their hearts that the policy is bad. And everyone knows in their hearts that they themselves are being evil by perpetrating it.

Can you image how that feels inside? To know that you are doing what you yourself know to be wrong, and yet, you feel compelled to do that evil every single day. On top of that, you’re required to encourage others to do that evil and to lie about it. It’s a whole evil and elaborate charade and every participant dies inside. But it makes the dick-tater feel good. The dick-tater is the only beneficiary.

In Russia right now, there are about 150,000,000 losers and one “winner.” Ultimately, the only person who benefits is Putrid. I have to qualify “ultimately” because of course, in the short run, some see a short term benefit of some kind (not be put in prison, receive bribe, steal neighbor’s wife, get his son a better grade) but at the same time, no matter how much people try to rationalize it, they know they are doing wrong.

In the USA, right now, we still have a democracy. But it’s hanging by a thread. There is nothing “conservative” about destroying democracy & instituting a dick-tater$hit. This is not a question of conservative versus liberal or left versus right. We can have those debates in a democracy because they are meaningful. Debates are shows in a dick-tater$hit. They are not meaningful. It doesn’t really matter to the dick-tater what philosophy he purports to adopt. One dick-tater might call themselves a “Communist” and the next one might call themselves a “Nazi” and the next might call themselves “Bicameral” and the next “Hufflepuff” — The dick-tater doesn’t believe any of those philosophies. Their “philosophy” is that the only thing that matters is them and whatever they feel like should determine what everyone does. And, if he goes absolutely insane and insists everyone in the country should all go eat poison ivy three times a day, most will pretend they did it and some will actually go do it. And on TV, there will be testimonials from people who ate poison ivy and it cured their gout or their heart disease or their “Ravenclaw” tendencies. People who die from eating poison ivy will not be counted in the official total as having died from poison ivy. It will be listed perhaps as “political putrefaction” but the world will find out fairly quickly.

Eventually, so will the Russian people. But by that time, something else cancerous happens first. People who survived the purges of Stalin, by definition, are more pro-Stalin and acted to please him more than the millions who were put to a fast or slow death. And the pro-Stalin survivors acted evilly for decades under him. One way to assuage your guilt about doing evil for a long time is to convince yourself that it isn’t really evil. The dick-taters like Stalin will give you a reason that you can tell yourself. The dick-tater knows it’s a lie; you know it’s a lie; everyone outside of Russia who thinks about it knows it’s a lie. But it makes you feel a little better. You start by habitually doing evil. Then you begin to habitually feel bad. Then, you find that believing the lies of the dick-tater makes you feel a little better. And now you have told yourself the lie so long that you actually come to believe it. That, in turn, means there is a lot of truth that you cannot listen to. You not only repeat Russian propaganda, you also self-censor because you don’t want to hear the voices of Western journalists, etc.; they will only make you question that which you do not want to question.

Question yourself now. Before it’s too late. Too late for you. Too late for the world.

—————————-

Author Page on Amazon

Absolute is not just a Vodka

Dick-Taters

Clarence not Darrow

Cancer always loses in the end

Addictions

You Bet Your Life

Checks and Balances

What about the butter dish?

Con-Con’s Special Friend

Sonnet of Vlademort

Siren Song

Imagine all the people

Voter suppression is life suppression

Choose your weapons

Poppa goes the weasel

Their dead shark eyes

The dance of billions

Their Dead Shark Eyes

28 Monday Mar 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Democracy, Dictatorship, peace, poem, poetery, politics, war

Don’t fall for shark-eyed demagogues.

They feign to care; they steal our share.

The name of game is always same.

Divide to rule; play fear and hate.

Gerrymandering allows politicians to stay in power no matter how bad a job they do for *all* their constituents; those who voted for him/her or those who didn’t. All suffer from divide & conquer.

Pretend to care; they steal our share.

Pretend to be a thing they’re not.

Divide to rule play fear and hate.

Addict your mind to happy lies.

Pretend to be a thing they’re not;

Eventually steal all you’ve got.

Addict your mind to happy lies.

They make believe and then devise;

Eventually steal all you’ve got.

You need not be a polyglot.

They make believe and then divide;

Hold out for deals that aren’t unfair.

You need not be a polyglot,

But take a look around this earth.

Hold out for deals that aren’t unfair.

Regardless of your wealth or birth.

Please take a look around this earth.

Don’t fall for shark-eyed demagogues.

Regardless of your wealth or birth,

Don’t fall for shark-eyed demagogues.

—————-

Dick-Taters

Absolute is not just a vodka

Drumbeat of Feet

Essays on America: The Game

Vlademort Sonnet

Poker Chip

The Ailing King of Agitate

Poppa goes the Weasel

All for One and None for Most

Where does your loyalty lie?

My cousin Bobby

Con-Con Man’s Special Friend

The Orange Man

The Three Blind Mice

Stoned Soup

The Power of the Unbrella

P is for Politics

A Little is not a lot

Trickle Down Your Spine

Freedom

A little is not a lot

At least he’s our monster

Karmic Architecture II

18 Friday Mar 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Democracy, Dictatorship, essay, love, peace, truth, Ukraine, USA, war

You and I and King Cobra and Queen Anne’s Lace and every other living thing on earth are small and temporary little leaves on the ancient (4.5 billion years and counting), vast, and diverse Tree of Life. Typically, you know a lot more about the neighborhood surrounding your little leaf than you do about mine and vice versa. Yet, I may discover things that are of use to you. And, you may discover things that are of use to me. So, humans, have one gift that is valuable above all others.

But before we explore what that valuable gift is, let me ask you a question about how you would react to a hypothetical.

Suppose you were so poor that you barely had enough to eat, no clothes to wear, a small damp cave for shelter. You were cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Now, suppose I gave you a magic ring that changed all that. If you wear this ring — voila! — you now have clean water and sufficient food and plenty of clothes and a house that really shelters you from the extremes of the environment. In return, you must wear the magic ring at all times. If you remove the ring, your life reverts immediately.

How tempted would you be to throw that magic ring in the toilet?

Yet, that is precisely what many people do.

And, if a sufficient number of people throw away the ring, everyone will essentially live the life of a beast.

That “magic” ring is, like most rings, circular. It represents the whole of humanity. It represents the family. It represents a club, a marriage, a lodge, a company, a church, a school, a class, a group of friends. It represents our respect for each other as human beings. It represents our ability to communicate with each other.

You could call that ring love and I wouldn’t object. It need not be imbued with so much positivity that people feel love. But it must be overall positive. It represents truth. It represents empathy. Love is strong and it can overcome both a few misdeeds by everyone and many misdeeds by a few. But if lies become more commonplace than truths, civilization will run downhill and eventually cease.

Similarly, if hate and fear and contempt are how we mostly regard each other, the marriage, the family, the club, the school, the church, the party, the lodge, the company, the group of friends will eventually disintegrate. In many cases, it would disintegrate into a self-destructive war except that most people will stop themselves because they don’t want to be ostracized or jailed by the larger society. If, however, the entire society becomes rife enough with hate and fear, no one will come to anyone else’s rescue.

Our entire survival depends on our gift, our ring, our community, our country, our fellow human beings.

Our gift is not our lightning speed of running.

Our ring is not our ability to out-swim the shark.

Our gift is not our powerful jaws, or our steel strong talons.

It is our ability to communicate with each other by sharing experiences. It is truth, caring, and cooperation. That is our one gift that enabled us to survive and thrive.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

A democracy can take many specific forms. What it is, at base, is that it recognizes the gift as a fundamental value to be cherished and used. The fundamental purpose is to ensure that government is aware of and takes into account how policies and people and processes actually impact people who live in the democracy. In a representative democracy, the people, in turn, can vote for people to represent them. They can vote for any reason they like; e.g., because they admire a particular person; they believe they will do a competent job; they like the candidate’s promised policy changes; they find that the candidate reminds them of his funny old uncle Al who always had the best candy on offer.

No democracy is perfect. There has to be in its structure and processes more truth than lie; more empathy than indifference; more love than hate; more hope than fear. In some democracies, there are basically two parties; others have dozens. Parties may differ on philosophies, priorities, platforms, programs, etc.

A “party” who rejects democracy itself however, is not an actual political party. The term “political party” only makes sense in the context of a democracy. If “elections” are determined by those in power, they are not actual elections and there is no party. It’s just a group of thugs who want to rule by hate and fear and lies. That is not a political party. It is not a legitimate part of a political process. They want to throw the ring away in the toilet. They want to subvert the truth to lies. They want to severely limit love and enhance fear and hate. They divide rather than unify. Oh, and guess what else? Historically, they want war. They will ensure that war just as Putrid is doing right now.

Democracies have also been known to start wars. When they do, it’s often based on lies. As communication has become more ubiquitous, it has been harder and harder for democracies to lie, cheat, and be cruel. Most people don’t want that! Most people want there to be more truth, love, caring, and cooperation. There are plenty of differences about how to go about that. That’s fine. That’s just the sort of difficult and messy problem that democracy is particularly less bad than any other system.

As I said, I really think most people prefer interacting in a caring and cooperative way. We see that it’s more effective in getting things done and it simply feels better for everyone. For that reason, dick-tater-$hits have to provide lies to help assuage the consciences of its citizens. “Oh, they are all murderers and rapists! You shouldn’t feel bad about being cruel to them!” Another favorite is: “Oh, they aren’t really human beings, the way we are. No need to treat them any better than a fox trying to steal your chickens!”

Photo by u041eu043bu0435u0433 u042fu043au043eu0432u043bu0435u0432 on Pexels.com

Needless to say, this ploy completely fails on many people and isn’t completely effective on anyone. Any time you’re cruel, whatever story you tell yourself about it, you know you are destroying a bit of yourself. Except, what you are really destroying is something much vaster than a bit of yourself. In fact, what you are destroying is something much vaster than all of yourself. What you are destroying by being cruel, whatever story you tell yourself is the human branch of the Tree of Life. Lies weaken that branch. Cruelty weakens that branch. Bullying weakens that branch. So too does cowardice.

The architecture of karma shows that the future impact of your present day behavior is much greater in scope than your present impact. Behaving well is in your interest because what you are is essentially a very small and very temporary part of that ancient, vast, and diverse Tree of Life. The more you can enhance that tree with truth and love, the better for the whole tree.

Don’t throw away the ring. Wear it proudly. It is truly an amazing gift!

Author page on Amazon

Dick-Tater

Absolute is not just a vodka

The First Ring of Empathy

Pattern Language for Cooperation

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Listen: You can hear the echos of your actions

Poppa Goes the Weasel

The Three Blind Mice

Stoned Soup

The Orange Man

Math Class: Who Are You?

Ripples

Happy Darwin Day!

The Architecture of Karma

16 Wednesday Mar 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Democracy, Dictatorship, Ukraine, USA

The Architecture of Karma

One of the best books I ever read: The Architecture of Complexity by Herb Simon, makes a number of stellar points. Three stories that I remember are of the ant, the clockmaker, and the heat dissipation in the building.

As I recall, the story of the ant opens the book. He basically argues that an ant’s behavior seems complex to us partly because we can’t sense the world of the ant. Simon says that what we might attribute to complexity in the ant’s nervous system is actually due to the complexity in its environment. He’s right, of course, though I think he, like most, vastly underestimates the complexity within the ant as well. A single cell is hugely complex. Nonetheless, it is true that what we observe as complex is behavior that is influenced, and perhaps determined, by both the environment and the internal workings of the ant. That is just as much true for us as individuals, for groups, for nations, and for ecosystems as it is for an individual ant.

Ants, in various circumstances, do things that benefit people, or benefit the ecosystem, or do things that we find destructive or inconvenient. In the case of army ants on the move, they can be highly destructive or even lethal. It seems odd, however, to claim that ants are “evil.”ty

Why is that? It seems as though the ant is simply “following its nature” even if it spoils our picnic or herds aphids so as to ruin our roses. It doesn’t do what it does, we suppose, to “hurt us” or to “destroy beauty.”

When it comes to human beings though, it seems that some individuals do engage in destructive behavior, not because they actually gain anything substantive and useful to themselves but merely because they get pleasure out of inflicting pain and death on others. Every society has such thugs. In a healthy society, such individuals end up in jails or psychiatric institutions. At the least, they need to be put in such situations as to minimize the harm they do to other people as well as to other living things. At best, perhaps therapy can stimulate them to restart their stunted emotional growth.

In some cases, such thugs can gain powerful positions in a society. In the worst case, such thugs become dictators. The playbook they use is so old that it is tattered at the edges. It basically consists of playing on the hates and fears of others in their society in order to divide people against each other. Few would fall for such a ploy except that the dick-tater lies and sets up mechanisms to multiply their own lies and prevent people from knowing the truth about things. The dick-tater builds a clumsy but appealing false narrative so that many people will gladly allow the dick-tater to steal wealth, health, life and choice from his victims. I would use the word “evil” to describe what the dick-tater does.

Like the ant, however, what he does is not particularly “brilliant” or “complex” but it can seem so to those on the outside who don’t understand what the dick-tater is doing. For example, most people, in their daily life, use language to coordinate with others, to bond with others, and sometimes, to enrich life (songs, poetry, puns, comedy, drama, etc.). The dictator relates to language in a completely different way. Their purpose is not to “share experiences” or “solve problems together” or to “enrich life.” Their sole purpose is to manipulate others into doing their bidding.

There is a karmic price to pay for a life of misusing language however. A dictator becomes ever more paranoid and ever more cut off from reality. As a result, the dick-tater becomes ever less effective. This makes them even more paranoid and careful about who they surround themselves with. People willing to speak truth to power are fired, killed, jailed, or disappeared. People who surround the dick-tater are ever more cowardly and sycophantic. This means that the dick-tater becomes even more isolated from reality. The orders of the dick-tater become ever worse in terms of the very ecosystem that the dick-tater needs to survive. Their actions become more short-sighted in time and more restricted in scope.

A perfect example is in a concordance I once saw of the Watergate tapes. Months before Nixon resigned, he used the word need in sentences such as:

“What this country needs….”
“What the party needs….”
“American needs…”

A week before he was forced to resign, the scope of his interest had narrowed considerably. There was no more talk of what the party needed or what the country needed. It was:

“We need….”
“We need…”

“We need…”

And the day before he resigned, it was:

“I need…”
“I need…”
“I need … “

The ant may have a smaller brain than the dick-tater’s, but the ant is still tethered to her colony mates and to reality. The dictator has no such constraints.

The “beauty” of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD for short) is that no rational person would start an atomic war with another nation because everyone knows that both sides would lose such a war.

And that’s one of many problems with dick-taters. They are eventually guaranteed to become more irrational over time.

An egomaniacal, cut-off from reality, cut-off from those who would speak truth to power — that is just the sort of person a dick-tater-$hit puts in charge of atomic weapons.

The second story I recall from the book is the story of two clock-makers. Both of the clock-makers made clocks that consisted of a thousand pieces. One of the clock-makers, however, had to arrange all thousand pieces before the result was stable. If someone interrupted the clock-maker when they were half-way through (or even 99% of the way through), and they were interrupted to answer the door, they would have to start all over again.

The second clock-maker constructed the clock by putting together 10 super-assemblies, each of which was made out of 10 sub-assemblies. If that clock-maker happened to get interrupted, they only had to redo that specific assemblage. As a result, the progress of the second clock-maker was much more resilient.

If a country’s decision-making is dependent on getting the okay of a dick-tater, it seems to me that it becomes very “fragile” like the work of the first clock-maker. If the dick-tater, for whatever reason, changes the dictated direction, all the work people had been doing is lost. In fact, it’s worse than that because not only is the work done now useless; the people who had been doing that work will not instantly change direction and begin working on the new priority. First, they will have to cover up the work that they had been doing! That takes time and energy. In the case of a particularly inept dictator, this will happen often. Scapegoats must be found so that blame will not fall on those little sycophantic lieutenants who were pursuing the previously approved (but now no longer approved) projects. The same sort of thing will happen if dictator one is assassinated and replaced by dictator two. The work and many of the workers who were doing what they could for dictator one must now be eliminated. Either way, the results are the same: consolidation of power to the dick-tater’s new whim and lack of sustained progress.

A well-functioning democracy is more like the work of the second clock-maker. Things are done at various levels of government and so long as what the mayor or governor does is consistent with the law, there is no need to trash the work (or the workers) simply because someone new gets elected at a higher level. Of course, sometimes that does happen. But it isn’t a perceived necessity as it is in the case of a dick-tater-$hit.

As a result, dick-tater-$hits are fragile when it comes to getting things done. Of course, people are afraid to fail. That can be motivating. You can build pyramids with the threat of a lash. But you cannot build a robust cyber infrastructure. You cannot bully people into being truly creative. In a regime based on hate and fear, a huge amount of energy is wasted on “covering your a$$” and very little is learned from success or failure. In success, those with relatively more power will take the credit and in failure, those with relatively more power will blame others regardless of what really happened. Moreover, neither failures nor successes are experiences to learn much from. It’s only a question of who gets promoted and who gets “sent to Siberia.”

Dick-tater-$hit is a crappy system for learning, improving, or innovating. It isn’t limited to ill-governed countries. There are people who “run their family” like a dick-tater-$hit and there are people who run their company or club that way as well. If the overall society is a democracy, the most capable people will tend to avoid such companies or families. If the country is a dick-tater-$hit, then, the entire culture will be pushed toward authoritarianism and its attendant ills.

The last story I recall from The Architecture of Complexity is about a building that consists of several rooms. Each of the rooms is subdivided by partitions. Simon points out that if someone brings a space heater into one of the small partitions, it will heat up that partition first. Eventually, the heat will dissipate into the whole room. But in a still longer time frame, extra heat will seep out to all the rooms in the building.

I tend to think of karma as operating in this fashion. In the short term, if you are nicer to the people around you, they will tend to be nicer to you. But people circulate. So, to a lesser extent, if you are nicer to the people around you, they will be nicer to people in general, and eventually, the whole society will be moved toward nicer behavior. That will benefit you, other people, and the entire ecosystem. As a result, you will live in a better world, other things being equal. Even more so, it bodes well for a nicer world for your kids, your grand-kids, and your great grand-kids.

Conversely, if you brutalize those around you, it will be bad for you and what you care about. In fact, since we live in an inter-connected world, brutalizing people anywhere will eventually cause pain to your progeny and the Tree of Life more generally. To brutalize means to harm others without any real material benefit to you. If a surgeon removes a cancerous tumor from their patient, that is not brutalization. If you trim injured or diseased branches off of your rose bush, that is not brutalizing the rose bush. But if you wantonly kill animals, plants, or other innocent humans, you will be wreaking havoc upon yourself.

That is not surprising, because bullies bully, essentially, because they hate and fear their own life. Life is too unpredictable and scary for bullies. They want to control the world and especially control other people. They think that this will make the world safer, but it actually just makes it more dead. The death, destruction, and brutality that a dick-tater inflicts on any part of the world is death, destruction, and brutality that is inflicted everywhere and on everyone. It may well be that it will take longer to feel it in some places than in others.

If you have untreated bone cancer in your arm, it may mainly hurt your arm initially. But, if left untreated, it will eventually kill all of you, not just your arm. Like cancer, the greed for power that a dick-tater feels knows no bounds. Remember: the dick-tater is cut off from reality and is very short-sighted in terms of time and space.

Photo by Aneta Foubu00edkovu00e1 on Pexels.com

The rot of dick-tater-$hit eventually seeps into every aspect of society. Schools will only teach what the dick-tater wants taught. Books that the dick-tater thinks will make people think or dislike him will be banned. Even people’s love lives will be constrained by what the dick-tater likes. The people who get the top jobs will not be the ablest or most productive but the ones who have ki$$ed the most a$$. Since the dick-tater’s entire life is built on cheating, they will encourage cheating in everything: business, sports, science, art. Anything alive and thriving is a potential threat to a paranoid dick-tater — and they will all eventually become paranoid. Of course, all this rot that the dick-tater has themselves instituted into society will ultimately make the machinery of the dick-tater-$hit slow and decay.

Dick-taters do not see that they are quite literally cutting off their nose to spite their face.

Dick-taters do not see that they are are harming all of life with their brutality.
Dick-taters do not see that they are harming themselves and everything they might care about.
Dick-taters do not see that in their quest for “immortality” they are trying to subvert the very nature of life itself.
Dick-taters surround themselves with cowards who will fail to point out to them the futility and folly of their foul ways.

We must point it out.

We must arrange the architecture of our society so that dick-tater-$hit is impossible and discourage anyone and everyone who believes that they are more important than the entire Tree of Life.

Dick-taters are always bad.

Now they are lethally bad.

The end of humanity doesn’t depend on all dick-taters being insane enough to use atomic or biological weapons.

It only takes one.

————————-

Author Page on Amazon

Poppa Goes the Weasel

Absolute is not just a Vodka

Poker Chips

Math Class: Who are you?

The only them that counts is all of us

Dick-Taters

Sonnet of Vlademort

The Ailing King of Agitate

The Stopping Rule

Cancer Always Loses in the End

Con-Con Man’s Special Friend

At Least He’s Our Monster

All for One and None for Most

Plans for US; some GRUesome

First of Several Stories that Shows How Narcissists View the World

Simon, H. A. The Architecture of Complexity. Springer. 1991.

Walkabout Diaries: Walk in the Park

12 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Democracy, diversity, flowers, love, nature, peace, photos, Ukraine, USA

Today, I decided to change up the photo scene so I walked to a nearby State Park. Some nice flowers presented themselves on route. For instance, the bright yellow flowers under the bright blue sky reminded me of the bravery of Ukraine.

When I arrived at the park, two flags I am proud of greeted me. Of course, it doesn’t mean the State of California is perfect — nor is the USA. But most of us at least are trying to make them better.

I was also rewarded with beautiful flowering trees on my walk on the park.

Many bright beautiful flowers also greeted me in my walk in the park.

Some of the beautiful flowers who greeted me on my walk in the park (as well as on the way there) showed their support for Ukraine and the bravery of her people.

The most beautiful gift of my walk was completely unexpected— a very large & very colorful celebration in an Indian tradition. I strongly suspect it was a wedding since I noticed a nearby restroom said “grooms”; people were in a good mood; the celebration included all ages; and everyone looked beautiful.

In addition to the color fest, a band arrived and played beautiful music beautifully! I thought about trying to record some. Where this picture was taken isn’t far from the highway. Since it was behind me, it was easy to block that noise out with my brain. It would be far harder for you listening to it on your device though.

The walk in the park also reminded me how wonderful is the music made by little children. It is the same music regardless of language if you listen with your heart.

Once more, I find myself grateful that humanity survived & thrived in so many diverse ways. So many solutions to so many problems! Amazing wealth of experience! We can become wise at a whole new level — if we are respectful and kind to each other. Is that too much to ask? I really don’t think it is too much to ask.

I love also the way plants have invented so many solutions to so many problems. We have much more to learn from them — and each other — than we can currently even imagine.

For example, I saw this “Wild Cucumber” as I began my walk home, still enjoying the music & the chattering children. This plant uses hydrostatic pressure to shoot its seeds out at 11 meters/sec. We can learn much from every living thing — including other humans.