Impeachment Pie

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The world of politics in these here United States have become a gooey mess with not enough sugar and too much shortening. I wish I had something more profound to say about what’s going down with Trump and the boys,but I don’t. I will leave that to others. Instead I will say: Maybe Michael Scarn can save us.
 
 

Irony Does Not Translate on Social Media

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I spend a lot of time (too much) on Twitter making silly replies to other people’s tweets. Not everyone gets the joke at first.
 
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It can take a few tries for my subtle brand of humor to sink in. Eventually if I elaborate enough, I figure that people will catch on to it. But that’s not always the case.
 
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If the joke doesn’t end up working, I surrender myself. Why torture a good line by trying to explain it? But I also ponder if I’ve ended up making fun of myself in the process.
 
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The life of a comedian is an absurd exercise. The world will not be tamed, neither by sword nor by jest.
 
 

Taxation is Violence, Part 112

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The Libertarian mindset can be quite a sight to behold when it speaks of taxation. Violence is so often the metaphor, as if we’re all living in a TV melodrama always seconds away from some plot-changing action or revelation. Or perhaps to be kinder, it is Shakespearean: “Want to help the poor? Well, you’d have to stab the rich. And that would make you a Brutus according to this Buzzfeed Which-Roman-Empire-Figure-Are-You? quiz. Hail, Caesar!”

Okay, my metaphor isn’t any better, but at least it’s funny. Sort of.
 
 

Hello, Again

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I haven’t posted in this blog much in the last few years mostly because I’ve tended to write social and political commentary for it, and the news has been horrendous for awhile. But I want to try again. There’s still room for analysis that isn’t absurd or bleak, I think.

My most read piece on this blog by far has been the one about The Hobbit and Socialism, and with Bernie running for president again, Socialism is much in the news. I wanted to make a point I don’t really hear beyond the silly assertions about how Socialism will save us or deliver us to the Gulag. That’s pretty much ancient history by now. So many people’s thinking is still stuck in Cold War mode it’s not worth broaching any of that.

To push the debate forward slightly (one can hope) I would argue that Capitalism as we know it has succeed as well as it has not in spite of challenges from Socialism but because Capitalists were willing incorporate the successes of Socialism into a broader economic stew while Socialists remained purists far too long and only over time reluctantly embraced the aspects of Capitalism that worked. This dynamic has slowly degraded however. Purism seems to be on the rise, and ignorance of the lessons of history and the cold logic reality often provides endangers our future.

We are in a dark time precisely because facts have ceased to be a cultural necessity and various fictions have taken precedence. Progress is not possible if we do not build a solid foundation of truth (imperfect as it always may be) to construct a better society upon. We are regressing towards myth and abdicating our power as a result of it. We can either write our own destiny or toss it to the cruel whims of fate. The choice is ours.
 
 

Failure Shakes Your Hand and Says, “Good Luck to You!”

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Image via garfieldminusgarfield.net
 
 
I’ve never been afraid of failure, for it is a great learning experience if one is humble enough to self-examine. Failure reveals your flaws and blind spots and allows you an opportunity to ameliorate them. One cannot improve without contrast, and though success may tell you what works, failure confirms it. Knowledge, like a map, is far more useful when all the details are filled in. Live and learn goes the old saying. Failure, the great teacher.