Never Forget. Remember, Remember...

 

"... the true genius of the plan was THE FEAR... FEAR became the ultimate tool of this government." -- V, V for Vendetta 

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Under the Republicans, petty tyrants used 9/11/01 and the threat of "terrorism" -- a real thing that existed but that the government-sponsored fear campaign and its lackeys in the media leaned on far too heavily to grease the skids to justify new, increasing power grabs.

Under the Democrats, for the past year-and-a-half up to today, 09/11/21, and likely into the near future, petty tyrants are using "covid" -- a real thing that exists but that the government-sponsored fear campaign and its lackeys in the media lean on far too heavily to grease the skids to justify new, increasing power grabs.

 
While not all the details are the same, how unfortunately prescient the movie "V for Vendetta" was... It takes place in 2020, after an infection was made in a lab, leading to a pandemic, that a national political party generated increasing FEAR around in order to win a divisive election, and upon winning continued to lean more heavily into in order to maintain and enhance control over the population, imposing upon the populace a remedy that resulted in record profits for a pharmaceutical company, while still instituting lockdowns and other increasingly draconian policies based on FEAR in the name of "UNITY".

And while we in the US might not be at the level of tyranny as seen in the movie, add in another similar factor of British-sounding accents, curfews, family members being taken from homes, concentration camps, and more -- and Australia is just about there, revisiting its history and ancestry as a continent-sized prison colony. 

So maybe it's not as far off as we'd like to believe, considering how rapidly Australians made their transition.

The parallels are a little too close for comfort.

Petty tyrants, at any level of government, whether they claim to be so-called "conservatives" or "liberals" (whatever these terms even mean, anymore) should be allowed nary an inch. It's the same old story that repeats itself. The generation and propagation of FEAR is, has been, and will always be, the greatest tool the government can use to get the people to willingly grant them, due to inflated or even outright false pretenses, increasing and permanent control over their choices, their livelihoods -- and their very lives. 

As the slip slopes, the dominoes will continue to fall...

A thousand cuts. The ubiquity of it all numbing us, dumbing us down. They grow increasingly numerous, sharper, and deeper -- all for a virus with up to a 99.99% infection recovery rate, where the vast majority of the infected have a mild to asymptomatic response, where those with sever reactions have an average of four comorbidities, and where the average death age is higher than the average life expectancy. 

According to MedRxiv (pronounced "med-archive"), a free online archive and distribution server for complete but unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in the medical, clinical, and related health sciences, and jointly owned and operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), Yale University and BMJ, "The [Infection Fatality Rate] of COVID-19 in community-dwelling elderly people is lower than previously reported. Very low IFRs were confirmed in the youngest populations." Until people hit their seventies, all age groups have survival rates well over 99%:

• 0-19: 99.9973%
• 20-29: 99.986%
• 30-39: 99.969%
• 40-49: 99.918%
• 50-59: 99.73%
• 60-69: 99.41%
• 70+: 97.6% (non-institutionalized)
• 70+: 94.5%

In spite of this, the narrative of FEAR and impending chaos and looming ubiquitous death must be reinforced, regardless -- note the constantly shifting goal posts and the focus on "cases" as opposed to considering the actual virulence of the infection.

Your "jab" is less and less consequential. Enjoy your forever-jabs!

Covid, now endemic as so many of us always expected it to be, is never going away. If the ongoing narrative regurgitated by the usual suspects in the government, media, and useful idiots in the rank-and-file embeds itself over the long-haul, then these and other power grabs along with the campaign of FEAR continuing into perpetuity is a very real prospect. 

The beatings will continue until morale improves

I don't know about everyone else -- but I know what I'm watching, tonight, on this September 11th.

Get Woke, Go Broke: Gillette's Second Ad with Pandering Redemption Arc tries to Disallow YouTube Comments and Impressions, Fails

Remember the polarizing Gillette ad, 'We Believe the Best Men Can Be', released a couple of months ago? Looking at those ratios, it's clear that most of the vocal part of the internet, at least, male and female alike, found the ad very problematic. Toxic, even. As always, the best (worst?) content is always in the comments section -- it currently sits at 29.5 million views, with 418,608 comments, the easy majority of which are very derisive, with 1.4 million 'Dislikes' to 776 thousand 'Likes', a ratio of almost 2:1 negative. On top of this, many people are alleging that many of the YouTube comments have been deleted and dislikes significantly reduced, as well, suggesting the ratios for Gillette's ad are far worse, in reality (many commenters and articles noted they were as much as 10:1 negative).

Depending on their core political beliefs, you could fairly accurately determine a person's opinion of the ad, with some seeing the ad as a rare example of corporate social awareness and responsibility, a right-and-proper 'woke' calling-out of western men being outright guilty of, or at least complicit in, rampant 'toxic masculinity'. Others saw it as just another example of off-the-rails, dishonest feminist misandry and oversimplified or entirely inaccurate hyper-generalizations of western male culture, all while insulting their customers and pandering to third-wave (what I refer to as 'vulgar' as opposed to 'classical') feminist ideologues. While I initially found the ad to be a mixed bag, at best, I could definitely appreciate the arguments as to why it was interpreted as particularly misandrist, by so many. 

Regardless of one's thoughts on the ad, it's safe to say it was a huge marketing blunder, and I'm not going to delve deeply into that, here -- it has been done well enough, elsewhere, already.

Today, Gillette released a new ad, titled 'Every Hero Sweats'. While still playing it safe so as to not undermine their infamous previous ad or irritate the virtue-signaling hordes of Leftists, they seem to be running to the opposite side of the spectrum in an all-too-transparent attempt to placate 'those' who could be 'the only ones' irritated by the whole ordeal -- blonde, white conservatives, 'obviously'! The ad even satisfies that old conservative trope of military 'hero' worship, putting it right in the title of the ad. It all seems a bit too contrived, misses the sticking-point entirely, and, also, is probably too little too late. Unfortunately for them, any potential good faith in the corporate executives and marketing teams at Gillette likely evaporated into thin air when they drew that line in the sand with their first ad.

I expect they realize this, because as one can plainly see -- they've disabled any method of directly commenting on the video. No comments, likes, or dislikes are allowed. In their reach for absolution, they have, once again, firmly placed themselves behind the line they've already drawn, just now utilizing the tool of censorship to try to shield themselves from the fallout of their short-sightedness. 

Luckily, the time of politically biased content censorship is on its way to being over.

Was President Lyndon B. Johnson Just a Time-traveling, Alternate-reality Racist Rick Sanchez?

On this gray, stormy, Boston October, Saturday morning, I engaged one of our favorite pastimes -- tumbling down the internet rabbit hole. Eventually, it brought me towards 'ole Lyndon B. Johnson, former Vice President to John F. Kennedy who, upon JFK's assassination in 1963, succeeded the throne to President of the United States. LBJ is particularly hailed by his fellow Democrats for his 'Great Society' reforms, where,

... the main goal was elimination of poverty and racial injustice... [and] in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There are some, errr, lesser known facts about him, as well, though. As it turns out, he was quite the character. Self-absorbed egomaniac, exhibitionist, known machiavellian for getting policy through congress (Frank Underwood from House of Cards was primarily "two scoops of LBJ with a dash of Richard III and a pinch of Hannibal Lecter"), and mid-sentence burps all give LBJ a certain je ne sais quoi that even Rick Sanchez, himself, might envy...

"Ladybird--I mean, Morty--everything in life is about sex, Morty -- EXCEPT SEX. 
Sex is about POWER, Morty!!!" - Frank Underwood/LBJ/Rick Sanchez

Rick Sanchez, is that you?

I came across this wonderfully, appropriately animated video of an audio recording where LBJ is on the phone in the oval office of the White House ordering some tailored pants. This is where I found the rabbit hole and started peering into it. Now, it's clear this guy knows how he likes his pants and throws around measurements like its nobody's business, but there's a segment of the video, from about 1:11 to 1:51 that really stood out...

The glorious transcript of this segment, below:

A Meta Review: Ubisoft's New 'Far Cry 5' has the Ideologues All Bent Out of Shape... AnD tHaT's A gOoD tHiNg

Originally, I wasn't very interested in picking up Far Cry 5, the latest entry in a series of formularized games going back to 2004 -- but the more I read about and saw more of its gameplay a couple of weeks leading up to its release, the more excited about it I became. The Montanan setting was much 'closer to home' than past installments, the cult concept was intriguing, the graphics looked gorgeous, the music highly thematic, and the gunplay sweet. The addition of co-op in its beautiful and chaotic open world of Americana was all just too much to pass up, this time around.

Pre-orders were placed.


First, The Actual Game

Allusions to 'The Last Supper', anyone?

On the politics (or mostly lack-thereof) within Far Cry 5 -- they had absolutely zilch, zero, nada to do with my initial excitement, subsequent purchase and ongoing enjoyment of this game. Far Cry 5 feels like The Dukes of Hazard taking on some equally cartoonish cult, and, ultimately, if I’m playing a Far Cry game, I’m not doing it for deep political commentary, regardless of the setting. I'm doing it to have fun in amazingly rendered open worlds and with the characters that dwell there, with great voice-acting, script, and well-executed facial and other animation mo-cap. I expect solid gameplay and combat with many ways to approach varying, highly dynamic situations within the chaos-engine that smashes, head-first, into what would otherwise be considered a paradise on earth.

At the end of the day, you and your buds are going to be sending flaming mountain lions to ravage a bunch of goonish, cult-obsessed, drug-addled hillbillies. Or maybe you'll take out psychopathic cultists with an M60 machine gun mounted on a flame-painted muscle car. Or maybe you'll whack them upside the head with a barbed-wire, nail-studded bat as you whip by in a pickup truck. Or maybe you'll raid doomsday prepper stashes. Or maybe you'll just enjoy the scenery. Or maybe you and your friend will do some fishing in order to feed your diabetic pet grizzly bear, 'Cheeseburger'. Whatever floats your boat, man (like, literally, you can go fishing on your boat).

Medical Journal 'The Lancet' Shows that 'Low Fat' 'Diets' are Probably Actually Killing You

Ah, yes. As a 90s kid, I remember the old 'FDA-approved' Food Pyramid plastered all over the walls of the cafeterias of elementary school all the way through high school. Pure carbohydrate foods like bread, pasta, cereal, and rice made up the massive foundation of supposedly healthy eating, whereas fats were, for some odd reason, lumped in with sugar, and should make up the least of your diet. They apparently updated this slightly in 2005, and in 2011, simplified it all even further for our carb-loaded (read: sugar-loaded), nutrient-and-fat deficient brains (our brain is made up of fat) with the dopey MyPlate iteration in 2011.

But it's wrong -- all of it. Unhealthily, mortally wrong. Consuming 'low fat' foods are what is actually making people fat and unhealthy and as it turns out -- literally killing people. The government FDA-approved and propagated 'Food Pyramid' and 'MyPlate' too many of us have been convinced of for so long has been nothing but the result of power politicking in Washington DC.

Remember this nonsense? 

The Lancet, a widely known and well-respected medical journal, published a study that has officially and finally blown up the old post-hoc, ergo propter hoc justified narrative of 'consuming fats = bad, therefore, minimize fats (and by implication, replace with carbs)'. Of course, this also ignored the fact that much of our bodies, including our brain, skin, and almost all of our internal organs are made up of fats. 

Here's a direct link to the abstract for Associations of fats and carbohydrate intake with cardiovascular disease and mortality in 18 countries from five continents (PURE): a prospective cohort study, with the general summary provided below.

Chaos is a Ladder in the Orwellianization of Sex and Gender

Look no further than the Mount Everest, peak-levels of cringe surrounding this issue in popular media and so-called science fiction and you'll see why this is increasingly becoming something worth addressing and talking about. Yes, it's lamentable that much of this has to be reiterated and more rigorously argued for, but here we are. Sex, gender, pronouns -- it's all being ripped apart and mashed together over social and popular media, with the (so-called) progressive, postmodern, CTRL-Left (the flipside of the collectivist, identitarian coin that also includes the ALT-Right) and their Social Justice Warriors increasingly latching on and doubling down, pushing for individual and institutional thought and speech control. Critical theory is their muse, which in a broad sense claims that all knowledge is historical and biased, that any claims to objective knowledge are illusory, and that it should all be maximally destabilized through various strategies and tactics. In arbitrary, subjectivist ideology, the ends justifies the means, as well -- this means that minimizing, obscuring or concealing any alleged truth up to engaging outright lies is a small price to pay to achieve a greater goal.

This is not to say that everyone who has been convinced of this mode of thought and speech is necessarily an underhanded activist (although it's relatively easy to spot the activist types). However, those who aren't are being tooled into useful idiots in doing so, and it's important to be equipped with the knowledge and integrity to avoid becoming an intellectual casualty of this ideology.

Appreciating where there are some clear, settled, and calm waters of knowledge, understanding, and communication so society can turn its focus to more pressing and important issues, it is the CTRL-Left's modus operandi to come along, dump a bunch of dirt and shit into it all, kick it up, and rub our faces in it. We might ask why they do this -- why this is their M.O. -- but to me, it seems pretty clear. Compared to trying to enact radical, social change in the face of established norms and accepted realities, it's much easier to do it amidst chaos and distraction -- especially if you can trip people up on what they think they know, their ability to understand the world around them, and how they're able to communicate.

This strikes at the heart of why the Orwellian deconstruction of knowledge and language is so effective. In the words of the infamous Lord Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish from Game of Thrones, "Chaos... is a ladder."

Part I: 'Sex' as an Empirical Construct and Exceptions that Prove the Rule
Part II: 'Gender' as a Social Construct and its Relative 'Elasticity'
Part III: Where Social Justice Ideologues go off the Rails on Gender
Part IV: The Increasingly Absurd Application of Transgender Ideology

Part V: The 'Pronoun Issue', By Definition

Part VI: Vanguardism and the Anti-scientific Regression of Leftist Academia

Part VII: In Conclusion

Part I: 'Sex' as an Empirical Construct and Exceptions that Prove the Rule

In the human species, sex is binary, permanent, and unchanging. This is readily, empirically observable -- male or female, man or woman, him or her, he or she -- all of these are both defined and conceptualized specifically according to an objective biological ‘sex’, identical across all times and cultures of human history. This isn't even referring to the superficial perceptions of someone's sex based on outward appearance or genitalia, this is in regards to the empirical, objective reality of an individual's DNA as genetically derived -- XX for female or XY for male.

"♪♫ 46 and 2, ahead of me. ♪♫"

When the Social Justice Warrior is confronted with the argument from the empirically observable, genetic reality surrounding sex, he will often want to point out either the development of a fetus as 'female by default' or the less than 0.01% of individuals with more complicated allosomal (referencing the sex chromosomes) profiles.

While easily dispatched, the 'female default' fetal development claim is, unfortunately, far too often one we still hear and have to put up with. The claim is partly that because a penis on an XY fetus doesn't form until about the 9th week, then that means an XY fetus prior to that time is a 'female' with a 'vagina' and 'ovaries', with the alleged implication being that XX or XY chromosomes must then not necessarily be what determine sex, and that sex is more 'biologically fluid' than is being acknowledged. Also, a quick Google search of 'female as default sex' yields quite a bit of content of people continuing to propagate this error based on decades old and very limited research in the field of fetal sex differentiation. The reality is that prior to the 9th week where sexual differentiation actually takes place, there are neither 'female sex organs' nor 'male sex organs' -- merely as-of-yet undeveloped, non-functional 'buds' that will eventually form according to allosomal profiles, ceteris paribus.

In addition, this whole 'female is the default sex' claim was completely debunked, as expressed by a Stanford paper on The Genetics of Sex Determination. In a nutshell,

Research on sex determination (the differentiation of the embryonic bipotential gonad into a testis or an ovary) traditionally focused on testis development. Andrew Sinclair’s 1990 Nature paper famously identified a Y-chromosome gene as the Sex-Determining Region Y (SRY). Female sexual development, by contrast, was thought to proceed as a "default" in the absence of Sry. In the case of sex determination, "default" became the prevailing concept for female pathways—i.e., an ovary results in the absence of other action. The active processes controlling ovarian development remained a blind spot. The notion of a "passive" female fit with current scientific theories and gender assumptions in the broader society. 

Around 2010, questioning the notion of "default" led to the discovery of a cohort of genes required for ovarian function. Gender analysis led to three innovations in this field: 

1. Recognition of ovarian determination as an active process. These investigations have also enhanced knowledge about testis development, and how the ovarian and testicular pathways interact (see chart).
2. Discovery of ongoing ovarian and testis maintenance. Research into the ovarian pathway revealed that the transcriptional regulator FOXL2 must be expressed in adult ovarian follicles to prevent "transdifferentiation of an adult ovary to a testis." Subsequently, researchers found that the transcription factor DMRT1 is needed to prevent reprogramming of testicular Sertoli cells into ovarian granulosa cells.
3. New language to describe gonadal differentiation. Researchers have dismissed the concept of "default" and emphasize that, while female and male developmental pathways are divergent, the construction of an ovary (like the construction of a testis or any other organ) is an active process. Each pathway requires complex cascades of gene products in proper dosages and at precise times. [1]

Further, in fewer than 0.00001% of XX and XY fetuses, the sex organs may fail to develop, leading always to infertility and what are called 'streak gonads' (non-functional, usually cancerous, fibrous tissue) as well as a failure of secondary sex characteristics to develop during puberty. This is called gonadal dysgenesis and, depending on the form, can include complications such as deafness, eye disorders, and cancer (at the site of the streak gonads during infancy).

The counter-argument regarding more complicated allosomal profiles is far more interesting and more important. Notable examples include combinations such as XXXXY, XXXY, XXYY, XX/XY Chimerism, XXY (Klinefelter Syndrome), XXX (Triple-X Syndrome), XYY, XX Male (de la Chapelle Syndrome), X (Turner Syndrome), and more. These are all extremely rare, and apart from one or two non-intersex profiles, they're all very unfortunate disorders that have complications ranging from sterility, to deafness, to eye disorders, to deformalities, to cognitive or physical developmental disorders, and in many cases shorter to much shorter lifespans and cancer. Most often, you'll find a combination of these unfortunate complications.

While still extremely rare, other intersex individuals often referenced are those historically known as true hermaphrodites, and more clinically referred to these days as having ovotesticular disorder of sex development. While their external genitalia are often ambiguous and they usually grow up sterile, these individuals typically have far less severe complications than the previously mentioned syndromes and can usually live normal lives. 

The 3 Primary Karyotypes for True Hermaphroditism are XX with genetic defects (55-70% of cases), XX/XY (20-30% of cases) & XY (5-15% of cases) with the remainder being a variety of other Chromosomal abnormalities and Mosaicisms.[2]

It's important to bring up true hermaphroditism, since at first glance, this seems to possibly propose a problem for the idea of the empiricism of binary, clear-cut sexes. However, reality still reaffirms this. In the cases where true hermaphroditism isn't expressed through one of the previously mentioned severe syndromes, most are simply cases of the XX/XY chimerism -- being that what was initially to be separate twins actually ended up with one XX or XY twin absorbing the opposite sex twin at a very early stage of development. Where there would have been two clear-cut opposite-sexed individuals -- an extremely rare, developmental fluke took place, instead. 

In consideration of all of this, how does it follow, then, that 'more than two sexes actually exist', or that this justifies genetically healthy and normal folks to claim that sex isn't based on one's chromosomes? If over 99.99% of individuals follow the standard genetic profile of sex as 'male' or 'female', and the further an individual unfortunately genetically drifts away from the standard blueprint of a healthy, fully functional individual brings more and increasingly severe complications, then it would actually follow that our conclusion should be the exact opposite. Simply put -- there are two sexes, and the more genetically intersex an individual is, the worse off he or she will be.

Ultimately, the subject of one's sex is a matter of an empirical, binary reality for 99.99% of all individuals born -- male or female. As for the remaining 0.01% of genuinely intersex individuals, it makes sense to refer to them as intersex, but not because there is a 'third sex', or no sexes, or some other arbitrary number of sexes other than 'two', but because there are two sexes. They are the extremely rare exception that proves the rule. If these weren't complications, and additional sexes were necessary or even just possible in the sexual reproduction of the human species, then intersex could be considered an additional 'sex'. Further, it's a particularly strange line of reasoning to fall on the argument of pointing out these intersex individuals and those with genetic complications as some justification for transgendered individuals to be able to claim to be the opposite sex, when they were, in fact, born genetically healthy and normal.

Part II: 'Gender' as a Social Construct and its Relative 'Elasticity'

Gender, on the other hand, is a subjective, social construct, albeit still based on a bimodal distribution of ‘masculinity’ vs ‘femininity’. It's a social construct because while expressions of gender are typically tied closely to the sexes across cultures, the cultures themselves express masculinity and femininity in sometimes wildly different ways. It's a bimodal distribution because while an individual would be on the spectrum of more or less masculine or feminine expression, there would be a peak concentration around a typical degree of masculine expression amongst the general populace, and a separate peak concentration around a typical degree of feminine expression amongst the general populace. In the middle of these peaks you'd have a very, very deep trough with a small connecting point representing essentially the androgynous, alienesque Mechanical Animals (his, ahem, best album, obviously) incarnation of Marilyn Manson, or Ziggy Stardust-esque androgyny.

In Nomine Tantum: Hitler's '25-point Plan', 'Four Year Plan' show that 'National Socialism' was just as Socialist as it claimed

The go-to talking point for 'progressives', socialists (or do I repeat myself), and SJWs is that Nazism was only nominally socialist for the purposes of the Nazi propaganda machine -- that it was actually a kind of 'capitalism run amok', or 'radical capitalism merged with the State', and that the socialist nomenclature was nothing more than a superficial cover to gain appeal from the masses. While the Nazis and Dr. Joseph Goebbels, notorious as the Minister of Propaganda (and widely recognized as an ardent leftist) were, unfortunately, indeed masters, if not forerunners of modern propaganda -- the reality of Nazi economics reflected much of what their propaganda claimed.

Old Nazi pastimes like institutionalized book burnings, mass-censorship (public and private), and other such forms of information control of anything that wasn't in absolute lock-step with propagating National Socialism, 'German purity' or other such concepts are historically well-favored and effective tools in socialist regimes. Even Nazi extermination camps actually used the Soviet model as a template. Nazi SS Official Rudolf Höss, the architect behind the infamous Auschwitz concentration Camp, found himself inspired:

The Reich Security Head Office issued to the commandants a full collection of reports concerning the Russian concentration camps. These described in great detail the conditions in, and organization of, the Russian camps, as supplied by former prisoners who had managed to escape. Great emphasis was placed on the fact that the Russians, by their massive employment of forced labor, had destroyed whole peoples.[1]

You simply don't find this kind of stuff in capitalist systems. Of course, if you call these out as some examples of the socialist personality of Nazi Germany on social media, you need only wait mere moments before some rando Defender of Socialism rears his or her or xer head to jump on the opportunity to claim that the Nazis and Nazi Germany weren't actually socialist.

Personally, I'm entertained by the bouts of mental gymnastics that these authoritarian 'leftists' engage in when they try to rationalize their cognitive dissonance the first time they hear about Hitler's and the NSDAP's '25-point Plan'. Interestingly enough, most of these 'true believers' in socialism seem unfamiliar with the actual policies and economic systems underlying the Nazi economy.

Note... I have highlighted socialist policies in red, particularly socialist ones in emboldened red, and the most egregious, arbitrary and murderous socialist polices in underlined and emboldened red. The rest range from more general to nationalist to radical nationalist policies.

The '25-point Plan' and Platform of the NSDAP

1. We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the people's right to self-determination.
2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in respect to the other nations; abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the sustenance of our people, and colonization for our surplus population.
4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of the race.
5. Whoever has no citizenship is to be able to live in Germany only as a guest, and must be under the authority of legislation for foreigners.
6. The right to determine matters concerning administration and law belongs only to the citizen. Therefore, we demand that every public office, of any sort whatsoever, whether in the Reich, the county or municipality, be filled only by citizens. We combat the corrupting parliamentary economy, office-holding only according to party inclinations without consideration of character or abilities.
7. We demand that the State be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total population of the State, then the members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich.
8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to leave the Reich.
9. All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to productively work mentally or physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all. Consequently, we demand:
11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.
12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people, personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore, we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16. We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.
17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.
18. We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
19. We demand substitution of a German common law in place of the Roman Law serving a materialistic world-order.
20. The State is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbürgerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.
21. The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
22. We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
23. We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press. In order to enable the provision of a German press, we demand, that:
1. a. All writers and employees of the newspapers appearing in the German language be members of the race;
2. b. Non-German newspapers be required to have the express permission of the State to be published. They may not be printed in the German language;
3. c. Non-Germans are forbidden by law any financial interest in German publications, or any influence on them, and as punishment for violations the closing of such a publication as well as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-German concerned. Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our national life, and the closure of organizations opposing the above made demands.
24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the State so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: The common good before the individual good. (Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz). Has also been translated as "The good of the State before the good of the individual."
25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich. Unlimited authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations in general. The forming of state and profession chambers for the execution of the laws made by the Reich within the various states of the confederation. The leaders of the Party promise, if necessary by sacrificing their own lives, to support by the execution of the points set forth above without consideration.

It's extraordinarily clear that there is not a single capitalist policy in their platform -- quite the opposite, actually. I count 13 to 15 policies out of the total 25, making more than half of the total platform of the NSDAP anywhere on the spectrum from 'socialist' to "holy shit, that's murderously socialist". Sans the nationalist and racist flavor added in to these policies, avowed socialists and, ironically, 'Antifas' the world over would absolutely cheer at such proposals. They would see such a rising, popular platform as a harbinger of incoming 'Social Justice'.

'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.

'Bill Nye Saves the World' is a shit show and Bill Nye is the Kim Kardashian of Science

Lurking around on Twitter, today, naturally sucked me into yet another black hole of a host of 140-character 'exchanges'. Not having initially realized that a lot of the chatter was due to the new Netflix production, pretentiously named 'Bill Nye Saves the World', I'd expressed my increasing disdain for Bill Nye. Some rando had the nerve to honestly try to compare him to a modern-day Carl Sagan. How anyone could even remotely consider such a comparison is a stretch beyond belief.

Carl Sagan has rightfully earned his place in the pantheon of science popularizers. His long list of qualifications and experience working in academia, deep engagement with NASA, SETI, and the scientific community in general and receiving numerous scientific awards, having written multiple acclaimed science fiction books (one of which, 'Contact', was turned into a great movie), and creating the widely popular and effective show, 'Cosmos', leave no question as to his contributions. Further, he's long posthumously solidified his place simply based on how many prominent figures in science he's inspired.

... And then you have someone like Bill Nye. A lot of us fondly recall him as 'Bill Nye the Science Guy' on PBS from our childhood, who made scientific experiments look fun and interesting. I remember looking forward to watching his show wheeled in on a big CRT television, played from a VHS tape with poor tracking during science class in elementary school, and tuning in while staying at my grandparents' house. How fleeting such sweet nostalgia can be as you witness Bill Nye continue his fall from grace, but even I was not prepared for the shameful train wreck I was about to witness.

I'd already come to my own conclusion that his scientific mind and approach to things didn't seem to have aged well. Relying purely on nostalgic celebrity from (fellow) millenials as some kind of implied claim to scientific authority should almost be sufficiently disqualifying, but Bill Nye seems utterly relentless about whittling away at any perception of authority he has left. When live and in the hot seat and not following a script, his either remarkably obtuse or remarkably dishonest attempts to debate scientific issues he portrays himself as an authority on show a greater degree of intellectual vacancy than I would have thought. Unfortunately, what little respect I'd had left for him had been mostly drained, flowing from nostalgically positive, to now negative territory, especially after having finally seen a clip from his new show.

Seemingly, the SJWs have hollowed out and infected this man's mind, turning him into a veritable husk of his former 'Science Guy' self. Do you think I'm being a little overdramatic? Well, then... Please brace yourself, for we have now reached Mount Everest, peak-levels of cringe...

Oh, my, how far the mighty have fallen.

Let us have a moment of silence for what little dignity remains for this man, once a titan in our young, hungry, curious minds. What was once someone teaching and showing us about objective, empirical science has now crossed over into a sideshow of bizarro-world, gender-fluid theory, as so artfully and tastefully displayed by 'Rachel Bloom', from 'Crazy Ex-girlfriend', whoever the fuck that is, anyways. Seeing ole Bill Nye dancing around so creepily to it all is just cheap icing on this cringe-cake I wouldn't serve even to my worst enemy.

So how could this have happened? Let us top said cringe-cake with some sour grapes, to boot. Of course, Bill Nye was never a real 'Science Guy', anyways. He actually just has a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering and merely played a 'Science Guy' on TV, according to a script. Being intellectually vacant and willing to do anything for money and some sad vestige of fame is what has turned Bill Nye into the Kim Kardashian of science. 

Now, if some think I'm cherry picking only one cringey piece from an otherwise great or even mediocre or even sub-par show, I'm really not. Out of the sake of pure, morbid curiosity, I invite you to flip on Netflix and actually put yourself through an episode or two of this. I've watched a bit and there's really only so much I could take. With that being said -- I really, truly do hope that Progressive SJWs continue pumping out trash like this. They've become a parody of themselves, and they're too delusional, tone-deaf, and stuck in their sad little echo chambers to realize it.

Oh, and don't forget -- almost half of the fun of watching any youtube video is reading the comments!

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...

Newspaper Brains, Television Souls, and High-school Ideas

“I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead; men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideas. Kennedy himself was 9/10ths the way around the clock or he wouldn't have accepted such an enervating and enfeebling job -- meaning President of the United States of America. How can I be concerned with the murder of one man when almost all men, plus females, are taken from cribs as babies and almost immediately thrown into the masher?”

― Charles Bukowski, Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993

Ted Cruz and the Twilight Zone Election of 2016

George H. W. Bush 'the Elder One' refuses to vote for Trump, and may even vote for Clinton purely out of spite. The old man is obviously butthurt over Trump personally embarrassing his son in front of the nation, but at least he has some honor and sticks by his family.

As we're all well familiar, Donald Trump insulted Ted Cruz' family, called his wife ugly and threatened to 'expose her secrets', whatever that means. He generated attention towards conspiracy theories that his father was involved in the murder of JFK. He effectively labeled him as 'Lyin' Ted', and as a final, penetrating thrust, insinuated that he (GASP!) wasn't a true scotsman American and may not have even been eligible for the presidency in the first place, bringing attention to his Canadian-ness.

Ouch. That last one? That's a doozy.

So how does ole Teddy respond to these constant attacks on his person and family? He tells The Donald that he's immoral, a liar, unfit to be President, creates a whole bunch of drama and feet-stomping over it, and just yesterday, endorsed him in a lengthy Fecebook post which has garnered over 100,000 'Likes'.

... yes, you heard that last part right.

It seems particularly low, even for a politician, to trade in his family's honor for some vestige of power, scraps of power, or promises of scraps of power that no one will have any real obligation in fulfilling -- and it doesn't seem Cruz has any good bargaining chips left to hold them accountable to it. If Donald Trump were a career politician who relies on maintaining a reputation of back-door deals, the situation would be different, but that's just not the case. Naturally, Trump is going to get a significant boost out of this, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that many #NeverTrump folks follow in predictable Fibonacci fashion, whether they publicly admit it, or not. If Clinton was finally coming to the realization that things were going to be a lot more difficult than she and her outrage machine expected, before, then she's going to be having a lot more trouble, now.

But I digress from the purpose of my post, and I'd like to culminate this all into a little story...

You and others are herded into a large room. You look around and see individuals from all walks of life; young and old, rich and poor, black and white, and any other arbitrarily drawn lines between them you can think of. Trump's presence is amongst you, and you were all brought here to legitimize this event. Whether you actually wanted to be here for this or not, it still wasn't your choice today, just as it wasn't yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that. It's part of the whole point, I guess. Any public, ritualistic expression of power isn't merely for the sake of the domination of one individual over another, after all.

"Enter, the Dishonorable Senator Cruz from Texas!"

Heavy doors open, slowly, with a thick haze emanating from its void. It looks empty, like there's nothing there. Was this a ruse? Did ole Lyin' Ted pull a fast one on The Donald as one final slight? Could there be, perhaps, a sliver of honor left in this man?

The haze diffuses throughout the audience. It has a putrid stink to it, and you cover your mouth to lessen the heaviness of it all. Still, nothing... until you look down. From the void you catch the glimpse of a heavy mass coming into focus. Its movements are unnatural and lethargic. What is this wretched, cursed thing? Could this be some lowly, devolved beast? A creature that natural selection had still yet to eliminate from whatever unholy environment it had borne from?

With baited breath, everyone waits.

Suspense turns to impatience until, finally, you and others recoil towards the sight of the foul thing that emerges. Alas! It is Cruz, as initially expected, slowly writhing on its belly towards Trump, leaving a foul-smelling kind of trail in its wake. It tosses itself forward, much of its mass concentrated in its head, an agonizing look on its twisted face.

Thump. Slap. Thump-thump. Slap. 

Finally, it worms its way up to Trump, groveling at his feet, its tiny meat-hooks at some point in its miserable existence having probably been arms, reaching, as it slinks up to and 'grabs' ahold of Trump's leg -- begging, mewling, not even for crumbs, but the mere promises of crumbs from its overlord, Trump. The Donald flicks his foot away, similar to how one might try to remove the feces he had just barely started to, but not yet fully, stepped on.

It opens a hole in its face you can only assume is a mouth. Noises come out. No one understands, but no one really cares, neither.

It grimaces and lets out a pathetic sigh. It slumps to the ground, no longer managing the energy it takes to hold itself up, resigning itself to whatever fate awaits it. How could this foul, feeble thing have survived for as long as it did?

A quiet, awkward moment passes, dragging out the spectacle. Trump stands there, like a statue. The others are looking at eachother, unsure of what to do. The event is painfully uncomfortable to witness.

The creature lays there, isolated, rejected. Its inadequate protrusions stretched out in front of it, the putrid trail connecting it to the feet of its overlord.

"Please!", you cry out. "Let us finish this chapter in the Theatre of the Absurd! End this poor, miserable creature's suffering, for its own sake -- and ours!"

The Donald's face moves slightly, and he glances down at the thing. His face melts into a kind of mix of disdain, disgust, and annoyance as he places his shoe closer to the creature's face.

Its head hangs low while it looks up at its master, who stares back down at it, unflinching, unfeeling. The creature capitulates under the weight of his eyes, and curls into itself as it pushes out a shaky tongue towards the sole of The Donald's foot, which is pulled back a few inches. The Donald grabs his belly and laughs, and the room stays quiet. It laments and musters the last of its energy to inch forward, but buckles.

For a moment, silence.

Suddenly, the thing starts wheezing. Its breathing becomes erratic and its body and sad protrusions start to convulse. The Donald is unmoved by this, and stares. You and the others look down and away as you hear the final death rattle, and then, nothing.

...

The crowd disperses. On your way out, you hear a frightened child ask, "Mommy, what was that ugly monster?"

She responds softly, trying to comfort him,"Shhhhh. It's okay, my child. That thing was once a man, a long, long time ago."

It backfires and the child becomes agitated. "But... mommy, does that mean I could turn into a monster like him, one day?"

The mother is caught off guard, realizing she must choose her words wisely. "No, honey, but living your life as a politician sure won't help."

The Carnival Continues

As democratic governments continue to try to stretch the bounds of human depravity, we take this moment to point out some of the absurdities of today's social order.

According to the OECD  the United States' government spending was 38.1% of GDP. What this means, of course, is that the United States government was responsible for 38.1% of the consumption in the economy. Whether the money was being either shuffled around at gun point or simply created from nothing, it doesn't matter. The money was being spent by people who did not have to do anything to obtain it. Think about that for a minute: at least 38.1% of spending was performed by people who didn't earn the power to dispose of that purchasing power by creating something of value.

Of course, GDP equations are nonsense. Just assuming government spending adds to economic output at a 1:1 ratio along with all other spending is an assumption we just can not accept. We would not accept the idea that spending necessarily adds to social welfare. If that spending does not come along with its naturally associated cause, production and savings, then it is pure consumption with no productive value. Not all decisions are created equal, and not all resource expenditures are desirable from a long run perspective. Only decisions which are sound and not wasteful in the long run are those which actually qualify as wealth producing decisions.

We don't really understand how governments and central banks think these kinds of conditions are sustainable. We are pretty sure they don't believe this: they simply must continue the charade as long as possible.

One thing we are certain of, is that until humans are willing to allow the social order to evolve as it naturally must, the discovery process of trial and error inherent to economic calculation can not function. We are optimistic that some day this will happen, but right now the belief in authority is consolidating its position.

The Rise of 3D Printing pushes the State closer to the Absurd Logical Conclusions of Intellectual Property and Copyright

The UK has just changed its copyright-and-patent monopoly law to extend copyright to furniture and to extend the term of that copyright on furniture with about a century. This follows a decision in the European Union, where member states are required to adhere to such an order. This change means that people will be prohibited from using 3D printing and other maker technologies to manufacture such objects, and that for a full century. 

... 

The people selling these copies are not necessarily “scam merchants”. Everybody knows they’re copies and not Vitra or Herman Miller originals. […] But – is there really £6800+ worth of value in the Vitra product? Or are they just charging that because they can? Who’s the scam merchant? 

A relevant question indeed. Where’s the real scam when something designed 50 years ago is suddenly off limits to 3D printing and home manufacturing, requiring people to buy it at a 2000% markup instead?

Read the full article by the good folks over at Private Internet Access (a great and important kind of company) covering this issue, here.

Looks like yet another reason to finally abolish copyright and intellectual property, if you ask me. The only ones who will really win out in the grand scheme of things with laws in place for IP and copyright are the state, lawyers, and special interests.

The concept of private property was created and evolved to more easily minimize, manage and settle disputes regarding who had just control over some resource(s) -- be it land, real estate, raw materials, capital -- or any other kind of actually economically scarce resource. Desperately needed information systems regarding the supply, demand, their meeting place of 'price', profit and loss (which reward or punish you for management or mismanagement of these valuable, scarce resources according to the demand of society) evolved further out of that concept.

Intellectual property and copyright create artificial economic scarcity by fiat when there is no natural scarcity. It's a bastardization of the concept of private property, and is actually anti private property, since it gives individuals more power over your privately owned scarce resources than you, simply because of a claim on artificial scarcity given to an individual(s) by the State.

Imagine what society could be like if economically scarce resources were no longer scarce and could be copied like ideas, recipes, arrangements and blueprints? Imagine if we all had star trek replicators, how much better off society could be -- if food, clothing, medicine, and so many luxuries could be replicated on demand at no or virtually no cost and how high the resulting standards of living would be for everyone? We would no longer have any, or at the most very minimal need for the concept of private property (other than to establish self ownership, or for some kind of currency still needed to pay for specialized labor, collectibles, 'time', and that's really mostly it).

Unfortunately, we don't have replicators for economically scarce resources, and we probably won't for quite some time, if ever. We may, in some distant future, achieve economic superabundance (which would make these scarce resources relatively unbelievably cheap) -- but this still doesn't eliminate economic scarcity and the need for currency. However, we do have 'star trek replicators' for ideas, blueprints, arrangements and recipes -- your mind and your will. By supporting intellectual property and copyright, you are supporting the state abolish the natural start trek replicator that is our right by birth and by the fact of existing.

A Tale of Unfathomable Triggering, Endless Tears, and the Self-induced Neutering of the Progressive Vanguard

I definitely don't support Trump. With that being said -- I most certainly prefer him over Clinton.

Why? Well, for the most part, I actually find both of their politics to ultimately be mere inches apart -- a trend of recent presidencies that show Republican and Democrat nominees for federal office (less so at the state level) have been moving closer to 'the center' from either side, with constituencies and the hoi polloi moving increasingly to the margins of progressivism and libertarianism. I actually think this recent phenomenon is due to the distillation of ideas due to the (sometimes crude, but still effective) purification process from the internet -- but that's a discussion for another time.

However, we do have some important differences between these two that are factors in my preference... 

The SCOTUS, Obviously

A big one and definitely a contender for the most important issue, is that of the next Supreme Court Justice to be appointed for life due to the recent passing of Antonin Scalia. There are a few other SCJ's getting a bit longer in the tooth, and with likely two full terms for the next president (which has been another trend for decades, now), we're looking at more than enough time for another SCJ or two to leave empty seats. SCJ's have not, in the history of the United States, broken more than 90 years of age, leaving fairly high chances for some more to be replaced within the span of the next eight years. 

Plumb-line, true-scotsmen, small-l libertarian SCJs are of course most preferable, but the least likely.  That leaves us with 'liberals' (which at this level and in this day and age seem to be more Progressive leaning as opposed to 'liberal', anyways) and Conservatives -- which really just means that leaves us with conservatives, since 'liberals' and especially Progressives are much more likely to centralize increased power to the federal government.

So imagine a Clinton Presidency, likely for the next two terms, and potentially two or three of her picks (likely during an inevitable flip of control of the legislative branch to the Democrats) bringing about an easy Progressive majority in the SCOTUS. Consider for a moment that this will thrust the SCOTUS to consistent Progressive interpretations of the Constitution and other laws for the next 30-or-so years and the long-lasting effects that will have on legislation in the past, present, and future and the entire structure of the US Government. Really, just let that sink in for a moment.

Right, I thought so. It is what it is.

Critical Mass

The other big difference is one of paramount importance and is, for me at least, a great silver lining in a Trump Presidency, unique to Trump vs the other possibilities throughout the primary season. Progressive heads will explode the world over when he wins. Actually, they've already lost. It's done. It's been done for weeks, if not months, now, and the writing is on the wall. Their ideology is completely unworkable, unrealizable, and incoherent. They're so out-of-touch with the American people that they're still nowhere near realizing it. A Trump presidency will not be a surprise to anyone but them. Their sad, washed-up vanguard is pushing a failed, desperate narrative -- and they keep pushing it and failing, regardless, even with the media above-and-beyond mostly on their side. The incessant hammering of politically correct social pressures has created some thick hides and rendered many immune to it. So many people are over the politically correct, third-wave feminist, SJW, whiny, entitled bullshit and they're not afraid, anymore -- they can't be shamed, and the shaming has completely switched directions. Progressives and their vanguard have overplayed their hand for far too long, and the final rejection of this bastardization of liberalism has finally reached critical mass with the campaign of Donald Trump.

Desperation

Again -- Progressives are a bit slow on the uptake for a lot of this. Naturally, they'll be the last to know, and all this flailing about we've seen from recently is to be expected. The unbelievable arrogance of trying to spin the recent DNC email leak and make themselves (and supposedly, the American people, by extension) out to be the victims of Russian agents and hackers to control the election in favor of a Manchurian candidate? Well, okay, then. Don't at all pay attention to the fact that they were the ones blatantly exposed for lies, corruption, and hypocrisy to their own donors, activists, and constituents -- whether it was even done by the Russians or the Chinese or a DNC leaker or martians is completely besides the point .

They're really starting to reach at straws, though. The sad new spin attempt today was actually quite an impressive coordination of "Quick, run to the phones!"-style, shameless, false propaganda. Following Donald Trump's recent Press Conference on Hillary Clinton, the shilling for ole Hillary reached great heights. Within the span of minutes, I suddenly saw dozens of extremely click-baity articles (a short list of examples here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) of center to left news pages (and even many supposedly non-political technology pages!) jump on claims that he essentially engaged in treason by explicitly and publicly asking the Russian Government and Putin to hack the US to get emails on Hillary. Of course, this was taken completely out of context, words were twisted to mean something completely different, and they tried (and failed) to blow it up into a much bigger deal than it was. All he said was that if the Russians do in fact have Hillary Clinton's missing 33,000 e-mails (and he didn't know if they did, and doubted they did), then he hopes they give them to the press. He never said he wants them to hack the US or a major party. He actually stated on Twitter (hours before the statements in the conference in question) that whoever has the e-mails, if they do, that they "should share them with the FBI." It's all right in the video, embedded below.

The fact that they're now using such weak and pathetic claims to try to control the narrative so cheaply, despite how easily debunked it all is -- shows how weak and tenuous they know their position has become. They're flailing and lashing about, like a small child who hopelessly knows he is not about to get his way.

And really, you gotta hand it to the guy... The sheer cojones to take unfiltered questions from a very hostile press, who are all or mostly very clearly trying to prop up Hillary -- and happily stump them... Just totally epic. 

He truly is 'a nimble navigator' (hat-tip, the_Donald Subreddit). I suggest watching the whole thing -- he's very good at dealing with the press on his own, he doesn't hold back much, and it's really quite entertaining, to boot.

When reality finally hits them -- it will all be absolutely delectable. And it couldn't come soon enough.