'Salad Fingers' Creator David Firth takes the Unwashed Masses to task with CREAM

From the file of 'What the Fuck Did I Just Watch'...

I've been a big fan of the 'Salad Fingers' series for years. It's just... darkly bizarre and there really is nothing quite like it. David Firth typically creates some very dark stuff that's hard to forget and some of it really pushes the limit, or even just cuts right through the limit entirely. Ole Salad Fingers just scratches the surface of his others works that do a damned good job of making you feel like you've lost a piece of your soul after watching them -- pieces you may never get back. Of course, why would anyone watch stuff like this? Us millenials love it, for some reason -- we gobble it right up. A lot of us tend to be drawn, in a way, to some really dark, shocking, and nihilistic themes. In humor, even, the darker the better.

This is something entirely different, though. Firth is not merely expressing himself through another dark, depressing, scary, brutal, existentialist nightmare of an attack on our delicate (read: sane) sensibilities. The animation and ambience is, as expected, 'classic Firth' -- not that I think Mr. Firth is capable of making anything that looks or sounds remotely 'normal', in the first place -- but don't let the general creepiness turn you off from watching it. It hits on all cylinders with regards to the point he's trying to convey and the themes and concepts he's alluding to.

In proper ad absurdum fashion, even if someone had somehow invented something that literally cured society of all of life's ills and inconveniences, ended all war and lifted our standards of living to that of an immortal, healthy, beautiful, intelligent, wealthy, always happy state -- perhaps even allowing us to achieve a kind of godhood -- the great unwashed masses could probably be manipulated to not only be against it, but hate it, and ultimately support prohibiting it through institutional violence. It's a cleverly illustrated extreme example, but Firth asks you to step outside of the zeitgeist of constant infotainment and propaganda overload, reflect, and for christ's sake... think for your fucking goddamned self.

Challenge the status quo, even with an amazing, humanity-saving concept, or better yet -- even something as simple and powerful as truth, and be destroyed by the machinations of those in power with something to lose. Further, prepare to have the rest of society join in on it, because how dare you. Sounds about right.

You'll find that Firth critiques some of the worst offenders, here:

• Intellectual property arguments
• Ubiquitous dishonest and agenda-driven 'studies'
• Fearmongers and alarmists
• Character assassinations
• Mainstream media pundits, talking heads, shills, surrogates, sophists, and other propagandists who try to 'get ahead of the narrative' to manufacture public opinion with outright lies and other forms of general deceit and intellectual dishonesty
• Black Propaganda 
• 'Useful idiots' who lose themselves in the manufactured group-think and lose their ability to think critically
• The State

I could go on in greater detail, but Mr. Firth communicates everything much better with the story of his super miracle cream than I could with more words.

Watch it, below...

On being an outsider very effectively speaking truth to power, or just all-around upsetting the status quo in an extreme way -- watch for the character assassination campaigns and the mass-manipulation that could be taking place. CREAM creator, Dr. Jack Bellifer, could just as easily be someone like Julian Assange of Wikileaks. Or Edward Snowden.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels, German politician and 'Reich Minister of Propaganda' of Nazi Germany

Or, dare I say it, as someone with mixed feelings about him -- Donald Trump. Trump is regularly, and often enough rightfully, called out for stating untruths of various degrees, but here's the thing some are saying about 'ole Donald, that I think gets it right. For better or for worse, one shouldn't take everything he says literally, but one should take it seriously. Politicians use the truth to tell lies, while artists use lies to tell the truth, and Donald Trump is not a politician. Trump is the anti-politician, a kind of social artist, and part of this is what has sent everyone into a tizzy in seeing the upset of all of our political norms and expectations. While Donald Trump may not be the president we wanted, he could very well be the president we needed -- a protest vote that could finally, actually, somehow win against the vast and deep political machines of both parties.

And, as we can see, the character assassination campaign is certainly out in full, unadulterated, unapologetic force, to an extent we've never seen before, with complete disregard for the collateral damage, and by so many with the greatest ideological, economic, and political assets at stake.

The True Nature of Voting

The "right" to vote?  What is that, exactly?  Does this mean that I can insinuate my voting right into any other person's life?  If this person refuses to listen to me, can I sue for damages?  How is this right violated?  How is it maintained?  How is it asserted?

Oh, I can only use it in terms of elections organized by the state?  Can I use my voting right to help pass legislation?  No?  I have to be an elected official first?  I thought you said this was a right?  Why would I need the state to define when and how I could use it?  If the state determines when and how I use it, is it really a "right"?

Can I use it in any election?  No?  I have to be registered first?  It needs to be on the ballot in my voting district?  If I have been incarcerated, does the state guarantee that I am available and able to vote in my district's elections?  No?  So, it has been revoked?  Can I vote down martial law if it is imposed?  No?  Revoked again, I assume.

I'm sorry, but this sounds less like a "right" and more like a state-granted entitlement and an extremely weak, tightly controlled power to influence the state and impose its will on others, assuming those in office magnanimously grant it.

How has this ruse not been seen for what it is, sooner?  The vote is not "majority rule,"  it is not "Two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner," it is hardly even political power, in any meaningful sense of the word.  It is a fragment of a bone, offered as a bribe to the population at large, to convince them not to revolt, or to interfere with the day-to-day operation of the State.  It is a cheap pacifier for the all-but-powerless.

Congratulations for falling for the con.

Why Libertarians Should Have Absolutely Zero Sympathy for Weeping Progressive Democrats

It's definitely hard being a true-scotsman 'libertarian' in this world and I wanted to share something I read that really struck a chord with me and motivated me to slam around a bit on my keyboard...

"... I have no sympathy for weeping democrats. We libertarians live every day, every election, seeing horrible people get elected, and good ideas shot down. We are always the minority, we always lose, our rights are always trod upon. The democrats who are weeping crocodile tears because they have to live under Trump's Presidency for 4-8 years -- suck it up -- that's how it feels to be a libertarian all the time." -- N. Stephan Kinsella, author of 'Against Intellectual Property' and contributor to C4SIF

Personally, I've thoroughly enjoyed savoring the waves of salty, smug, Progressive crocodile tears. Let it be known that their melodramatic reaction is going exactly as predicted in a couple of pieces I wrote back in March ('YOUR GOD IS DEAD') and July ('A Tale of Unfathomable Triggering, Endless Tears, and the Self-induced Neutering of the Progressive Vanguard'), in addition to broadcasting their abyssal disconnection from America with constant proclamations of 'What Went Wrong?' and 'How Could This Have Happened?'.

"NOOOOOO!!!" -- Picasso's 'Weeping Woman', 1937.
Also, 'Progressive Democrats', 2016.

Of course, it's one thing to 'have no sympathy for weeping democrats' and another entirely to engage in a thorough bout of Schadenfreude, but I think it's well-deserved. Progressives have been, hands-down, one of the greatest threats to advancing and protecting liberty for as far back as libertarians can remember. During the past 8 years, SJW culture (the abominable love-child of Progressivism and political correctness), has relentlessly tried to shame and silence any and all dissent into this madness, using every social and economic tool at their disposal at both an individual and collective level. One might try to argue that they're just using social pressures to try to get their way, and 'at least they're not using the state' -- but it would be a trip into self-delusion to think that institutionalizing their ideas into the state and imposing them by the force and consequence of law is not the end-game, here.


The 'Referendum Creep' on Progressivism

Luckily, the election of Donald J. Trump as the President of the United States (no, that still hasn't quite sunk in, yet), along with the continued majorities in the House and Senate and safeguarding the SCOTUS likely for generations (along with the implications this has on past, present, and future law), has been an unbelievably devastating upset of a defeat that they may never recover from. Particularly so, when you consider the 'decimation' noted by The Washington Post regarding not just the presidency and congress, but of state legislatures and governorships throughout the country:

"We tend to focus on the loss of the presidency as the example of Democratic failure. That's blinkered. Since 2008, by our estimates, the party has shed 870 legislators and leaders at the state and federal levels -- and that estimate may be on the low side. As Donald Trump might put it, that's decimation times 50."

Stated differently, there has been an ongoing kind of 'referendum creep' on the Democratic Party for the past 8 years and it just recently culminated in the election of Donald Trump. Progressivism hasn't been in such a weakened position in many, many decades, but we can't let ourselves get too complacent and comfortable about all of this. This was a grave mistake they made and one of many reasons why they lost -- they were so easily duped by bullshit, skewed polling, smug talking heads and other political hacks, that it resulted in a thick fog over a vast rift between political reality and their delusional perspective of it.


A Black Hole of Identity Politics

Identity politics, despite its vacuousness of actual ideas, has been a mainstay of Progressive, SJW, and Democrat strategy for a long while, now, with Hillary and her surrogates doubling-down on this, thinking it would secure the presidency. Identity politics obviously didn't secure her a win, so maybe it can excuse her loss? Van Jones, et al, want to paint an early narrative that this all was some kind of racist 'whitelash'. Ah, of course -- this is the great revenge of the slave-owning white man! Isn't that right?

"Or maybe not. The exit polls are remarkable. Would you believe that Mitt Romney won a greater percentage of the white vote than Donald Trump? Mitt took 59 percent while Trump won 58 percent. Would you believe that Trump improved the GOP’s position with black and Hispanic voters? Obama won 93 percent of the black vote. Hillary won 88 percent. Obama won 71 percent of the Latino vote. Hillary won 65 percent. Critically, millions of minority voters apparently stayed home. Trump’s total vote is likely to land somewhere between John McCain’s and Romney’s (and well short of George W. Bush’s 2004 total), while the Democrats have lost almost 10 million voters since 2008."

Okay, well... men are obviously threatened by a woman leading the country. Even though women did the right thing of voting with their vaginas, men did the wrong thing of voting with their penises, right? In the articulate words of Donald Trump, "Wrong".

"In fact, Trump beat Clinton among white women 53 percent to 43 percent, with white women without college degrees going for [Trump] two to one."

Fine, so it wasn't the 'white male patriarchy', but what about those nefarious third parties? If not for their election spoiling and the irresponsible, short-sighted, liberal non-Hillary-voters voting for them, Hillary would have dominated, correct? Nope -- Wrong again.

"CBS News' exit poll posed the hypothetical question of who third party voters would support if the race were only Clinton and Trump, and both Johnson and Stein supporters appeared to support Clinton over Trump by about 25 percent to 15 percent. But 55 percent of Johnson's supporters would have just sat out the election, as would 61 percent of Jill Stein supporters. According to New York Times exit polling, a whopping 63 percent of voters who declined to cast their ballot for the two major party candidates said they would have not voted at all in a two candidate race."

Conclusively, simply not enough people were willing to turn out to vote for Hillary and her Democratic Party, and that fact cuts across sex, race, and class. The 'referendum creep' struck in her loss and it struck again in all of the contrived excuses for her loss. Identity politics is an abject failure in every meaningful way and the people have come to recognize that -- so much so that they have handed the Republican party almost complete free reign to do as they please (remember, they still don't have a super-majority).

In light of recognizing the political reality of this 'new normal', some Progressives in the fourth and fifth estates have taken this all better than others. Some have engaged in a well-deserved deep reflection of their journalistic failures (see here, here, here, here, and here) whereas others think they should retreat further into their anti-intellectual swamp of delusion and dishonesty (here, here, here, here, and here). Even the November 11th episode of 'Real Time With Bill Maher' shows Bill actually starting to understand and articulate a part of 'what happened' and their inability or unwillingness to see it. Unfortunately, his entire panel regularly drowns him out, retreating back into their swamp, dragging him along with them. Sad!

Yet, while I'm sure there may be some genuine feeling from these kinds of folks regardless of how they're rationalizing the news, I do believe that both approaches of self-reflection and self-delusion serve different tactics of self-preservation (likely depending on the political environments they work in) and, thus, should be taken with a giant heaping of salt.

That salt, of course, should be harvested from their tears.


So Where Do We go From Here?

It's important to note that while Progressivism as an ideology may be much more 'hardy' and take a couple more knock-out hits before going down for the count, SJW culture has still been in its infancy. As such, we need to turn the tables and do what we can to strangle it in its crib while it's in such a weakened state and while we still can. It's not a serious threat (and even less so after the election), now, but if and when such a movement were to mature and place its hands on the levers of state power? The consequences and slippery slopes for protecting, let alone advancing liberty, will be dire.

As Sun Tzu said, 'opportunities arise as you seize them'. So how do we do this? How do we 'turn the tables' on SJWs and Progressives to maximize this opportunity? Apart from actually going out and voting (and getting as many others to vote as possible), one thing I've found that they always used much more consistently and effectively than anyone else has been shaming, ostracism, and boycotting. This has been their primary social tactic and it, all too often, has shut down debate and silenced the opposition of good ideas and counter-arguments. It's high time we put an end to it. No more having to go on the defensive from dishonest charges of 'racism', 'sexism', 'hate', and other such nonsense. It's all an intellectual retreat, and they know it. We're smarter, more knowledgeable, wittier, and we have reality on our side. We've allowed them to be shameless with their dishonest tactics for too long, having overplayed their hand and rendered toothless and virtually meaningless some very important concepts to signal legitimately bad people in society. So while we must continue to intellectually destroy their arguments, we should especially focus on helping them rediscover their shame and turn their charges around on them at any and every opportunity we find. We should take a page from their own playbook and they should be mocked, shamed, and boycotted back into that brain-dead and dishonest swamp they crawled out of.

And now, for your moment of zen...

None of Us is as Dumb as All of Us

People love to talk about the 'combined knowledge' of group of random or similarly skilled people, and supposedly how setting that group to focus on and tackle a singular goal can achieve greater knowledge and understanding. Of course, this ignores all of the psychological research done and history in trying to understand the destructive collective phenomenon of groupthink, and the publicly-traded corporate world (which I thankfully escaped) really did me in, big-time on this whole concept. It's used often in 'team building exercises' (ugh), corporate outings (puke), and democratic-styled decision-making (double-puke). The idea is that if in a group of 5 people, each person has 20% of 'knowledge', that 5 people x 20% knowledge equals 100% combined knowledge, right?
But they don't qualify the knowledge. The logic assumes they've all got unique, specialized knowledge, when that's very, very rarely the case. So let's have some fun with this bizarro-world 'combined knowledge' logic, huh? It's very likely that out of 5 random or similarly skilled people, they each have 20% similar or the same knowledge. If we must talk about their 'combined knowledge', then what about their 'combined ignorance'? If you've got 5 people, each person with 20% 'knowledge', then by extension they also have 80% ignorance. By the logic, here, 5 people x 80% equals 400% combined ignorance.

No wonder this stuff turns out to be such a mess, and I'm actually fine with this old pseudo-maxim as long as the other side of the coin is presented.

So if we're to have more rigorous logic with this, then maybe it'll look better with averages instead, right? Actually, it still comes out to look like a bad idea. If you've got 5 people with about 20% knowledge each, then that leaves you with, naturally, about 20% knowledge in a group. However, now you've got a lot more hands in the pot and people wanting to feel 'important' or 'useful'. You've now made that ineffective 20% knowledge even less effective than it was in the first place. Now, take this logic, and expand it to a democracy of over 230 million eligible voters, or hundreds of representatives, and what do you get? Fucking chaos, that's what.

Great movie this scene taken from, by the way.

Indeed, none of us is as dumb as all of us.

I can hear it all, already. "Hey, Steve, you're such a negative nancy! All I hear are criticisms, Steve, with no solutions! At least we're trying! What do you suggest, then?!"

Oh, you're a good little corporate or state drone, aren't you? Ah, and I bet your 'intentions are good', too, right? Yeah, I know it feels good -- but you're still wrong. I do have a suggestion, actually, and it's not particularly controversial or special. Stop trying to impose your decisions and subjective value judgements on other people with your measly 20% 'knowledge'. If you have 20% 'knowledge' and want to properly get something done, hire a professional, or at least find someone with more knowledge than you to do it or figure it out, or get your ass to 60%, 70%, or 90% knowledge before you DIY. Don't let other people with the same or less knowledge than you be able to dictate or mix their hands in the pot of the work to be done. Acknowledge and embrace the all-important comparative advantages and division of labor and have specialized tasks done by specialized people in a marketplace.

See? Easy peasy -- and it didn't even take any tax-funded 'studies' to figure it out.

The United States actually voted for 'Nobody' in 2012

In *2011* the *voting age population* of the USA was 237,657,645. It's obviously even more in 2012.

61,173,739 voted for Obama.
58,167,260 voted for Romney.

That is 119,340,999 out of a total voting age population of 237,657,645.

That means that *more than half* of the population voted for *NOBODY*. Approximately 24.4% of the voting age population voted for Romney. Approximately 25.7% of the voting age population voted for Obama. Literally, about twice as many people of voting age voted for nobody as *either* Obama or Romney.

What does this mean? It means that *over half* of the voting age public (understandably) believes that it is not worth their time to vote for the options presented, or vote for the system at all. Some (rightly) believe that it is simply one big sick joke.

In any case, ultimately this means that over half of the voting population has completely rejected 'our' system of governance, or at the very least the system that determines who will run the system of governance.

It is particularly disturbing that only about *one fifth* (those of the total population who voted for Obama) of the population has decided how to dictate the lives of the entire population (312 million people).

I'm not a fan of democracy - as it is the tyranny of the majority over the minority. However, *this isn't even democracy* - this is the tyranny of the minority over the majority, backed by the aggression of the State.

It is a sick farce.

This post is a COPYPASTA that was originally published under my old pseudonym, 'Sentient Void', at the Ron Paul Forums Blog, on 11-20-2012.