The Milquetoast Wit

There’s a lot of things I dislike: olives, mosquito bites, the color orange, that weird smell that comes from my kitchen sink randomly and with no apparent source. There are relatively few things I hate, but hypocrisy is pretty damn high on that list. The thing I can’t stand about hypocrisy is that it betrays a lack of self-awareness and objective examination. Hypocrisy is an immediate indicator that a person’s philosophical opinions and beliefs are nothing more an excuse to behave how they want, when they want, while controlling others as much as possible. As Mark Twain said, “Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.” I couldn't find a good Mark Twain pic, so hopefully this Samuel Clemens guy will do I find hypocritical politics to be especially aggravating because it’s so easy to see the hypocrisy and so few people apparently care. The national debt under Donald Trump ballooned by nearly $8 trillion dollars . During his 4 years in office hardly a challenge was r...

After years of stomping all over the integrity of our highest office, months of claiming the election was stolen, and weeks of demanding legislators and his own vice president not certify the election results,  Donald Trump spent a few minutes telling his followers to storm the capitol and they did . A woman has been shot , legislators have been evacuated, bombs have been found , and the national guard is being dispatched to deal with the mob currently engaged in massive sedition (and very probably treason). I’m pretty sure this is the part where the rest of Trump’s supporters will claim to have no idea he would do something like this, or that his followers would actually do it. This is the part where they wash their hands of their sin, and we should absolutely not let them. American citizens cowering in fear as president's supporters threaten violence There’s never been a good reason to support Donald Trump. From the beginning people have been warning about his authoritarian ten...

So, here we are. This is it. Joe Biden won the election and now we are in the worst part. The real worst part.  Right now, it’s amusing watching Donald Trump, his allies and his base flail about with completely unfounded claims of voter fraud. There’s something truly enjoyable about seeing people who so relished the concept of “might makes right” finding out they are weak and therefore, wrong. Trump's legal challenges over the election continue to be rejected by federal judges , with some even condemning the very essence of the case for being built on " strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations." At the same time, the election challenges aren't the only thing going on. As enjoyable as it is, watching Republicans try to understand how a system that favors them could let them down, it's easy to miss their continued attack on the American government. It's deeply disheartening to be reminded that over a century of legislative precedent ...

I know I said the worst was yet to come , I just didn’t realize how long it would take to find out if the worst is yet to come. Because apparently a bunch of state legislatures decided allowing absentee ballots to be counted before polls closed would be bad, for some reason... 2020 really is just Hostel in year form. Full disclosure: I haven't seen Hostel and don't know the context of this scene. Best Guess? This probably isn't from the movie. President Trump has completed his entirely predictable course of challenging the validity of the election, making unsubstantiated claims of fraud and claiming victory on the basis of dibs. You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to see this coming. Trump has been laying the groundwork for this for months. This is the reason he spent so much time and effort calling the validity of absentee ballots into questions and speculating about widespread fraud. Not because there was any evidence of these things, but, to quote myself “so that his ba...

Millions of Americans are watching the results of the election come in with bated breath. Not me. I’m a 6’4” athletic white heterosexual male of above average intelligence with a nice smile, smooth bass voice, and about 90% of my hairline intact. Worst case scenario for me is things get really weird before I resume my destiny of slowly failing my way upward to a middle management position at a bloated fortune 500 corporation.  His department underperforms and has mediocre parties. It seems like maybe there’s a problem when you need to be built like Adonis – with a complexion to match – in order to go into a presidential election worry-free. Sure, there is an outcome that’s better for me. But there is no substantial change. I’m not going to find myself losing protections , access to healthcare , or subjected to an increase in hate crimes depending on the victor of the election.  Of course, the election won’t be decided tonight. It never is. Electoral votes aren’t cast until ...

  No, not really. The republican platform for decades has sought to remove protections for the most powerless among us, ensuring that power continues to accumulate in the hands of a few. They oppose   raising the minimum wage, taking action on climate change, and generally support slashing spending for education and other public services. In short, their policies screw those without power. Is this necrophilia? No of course not. That’s insane. Words have real meanings and while I could make an argument that their policies amount to necrophilia (who has less power than a corpse?) you’d be right to point out that doing so stretches all credibility and reveals me to be little more than someone interested in fear mongering without debating the actual merits of what is being proposed. I shouldn’t accuse republicans of promoting necrophilia because that behavior is moronic and does not aid in civil discourse.  Yep, birds are gross. So why is socialism any different? Socialism...

This is part 4 in my series explaining the only three logical reasons I can come up with for people to continue supporting our 45th President, Donald J. Trump. Check out parts 1 , 2 , and 3  if you haven't already done so. Is your 401(K) today worth your child’s head tomorrow? That’s the question I ended the last post with. For some people, the answer to that question is a resounding, thundering yes. Which very conveniently brings us to the last reason people continue to support Donald Trump… Once you are aware of his bad behaviors, and why they are so deeply threatening to the continued existence of the republic, the only rational reason to continue supporting Donald Trump is selfishness. There is no other way to explain the act of recognizing a threat to the common good and ignoring it for personal reasons. It’s basically the definition of the word itself: putting your own interests ahead of the interests of everyone else. Especially when the cost to the individual is relativ...

Last time , I explained how a key motivator for some Trump supporters is ignorance of his behavior. This angered some people. The following will definitely not relieve their ire. Donald Trump’s approval numbers remains comfortably around 40% . This means approximately 40% of the population remains in support of Donald Trump, in spite of the numerous bad behaviors I listed last time. Since then, he’s even managed to add a few new ones, like using his brush with death as an excuse to tell the American people to not fear the Coronavirus. Never mind that his treatment included several experimental drugs that aren’t available to the average American. Generally doctors don’t prescribe experimental treatments unless proven methods aren’t working. So, maybe do fear the Coronavirus. Some people aren’t aware of Trump’s behavior problems. Some people are aware of them and don’t understand why they’re worth worrying about. This group of people continue to support Donald Trump, not out of ign...

Last time , I wondered why people still support Donald Trump. This time, I examine one reason for this phenomenon. When it comes to human behavior I generally try to avoid reductive reasoning. Behavior is too complex and varied to be easily explained by one or two factors and I loathe ad hominem attacks (probably because my family resorts to reductio ad hitlerium the second I dare suggest government should take steps to deal with the runaway wealth inequality issue). With that being said, it has become increasingly apparent that people who continue to support Donald Trump at this point in time do so for three reasons (now, of course there are combinations of these three that create new reasons, but we’ll cover that later.  The first thing that leads people to continue to support Donald Trump is…   Ignorance is, as they say, bliss. After four years, it should be practically impossible to be ignorant of Donald Trump’s many failings, gaffes, and gr...

What makes Donald Trump worth it? This isn’t a rhetorical question, not really. It’s something I’ve genuinely struggled to comprehend over the last four years. Why do people ignore every reprehensible and grotesque act he commits? What makes him so worthy of the sort of blind support and faith that is usually reserved for religious figures? Why do people tether their souls to Donald Trump? The first thing to bear in mind is that Donald Trumps problems aren’t policy-based. If it were, you wouldn’t see an outpouring of support from Republicans for his opponent this election. People would still disparage him at every turn, the same way people disparaged Obama, Bush, Clinton, the other Bush, you know, politics. The problems with Donald Trump are entirely based on his behavior and reckless abandon for rules and norms. Rules and norms are important in government. They are especially important in a democracy. A monarchy may claim it’s power from god and use fear of the divine to keep the ...

The most revealing thing about political discourse on the internet is you get to see just how few people actually have meaningful convictions when it comes to politics. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of people who are deeply convinced what they believe is right and best for society. Unfortunately, there’s far too many people whose convictions begin and end with support for one of the two major parties. So long as their team wins, the methods don’t matter. Damn the norms and rules, what are they but niceties and pretenses that stand in the way of victory? Well they’re kind of everything. It’s a sad state we live in when the majority of people expect hypocrisy in politics. Not only do people expect hypocrisy, they tolerate it, defend it, and justify it. I assume there was a time when people actually held elected officials to some sort of standard. Maybe you have to go back to prehistory to find a time when people enforced a level of consistent conduct by their leaders. Groog didn’t ...

 This is my very first blog post in... 6 years. Wow. I mean, I'm not going to lie that seems very much like me to do. Actually, the most surprising thing is that I didn't somehow lose the login info for this site and that I'm actually making a return.  I read some of the stuff I wrote the first time around. I don't recommend you do the same.  Apparently I've changed a bit over the last 6 years and I find the guy who wrote all that stuff to be an obnoxious twat.  The only reason I'm leaving it up is because I think it would be intellectually dishonest to hide it.  Also, for as much as I dislike a lot of what I wrote, the through line of my argument had enough integrity for me to not be totally ashamed. Even 6-7 years ago I was committed to being philosophically consistent. My philosophy has changed, quite a bit, but even back then I refused to change my beliefs to fit the whims of those in power. Which is to say, even when I was a proud republican in name, I coul...

Mike Huckabee Hates Women?  The thing I hate about politics is that people are constantly looking for ways to make their opponent look wrong, to the point that they even fabricate issues. Mike Huckabee’s recent comments about women supposedly show how out of touch Republican’s are, but I am yet to see the issue with his statement. I’ve read enough editorials about the subject to understand that he is reducing women to nothing but “libidos,” except he’s using a straw-man argument so that’s not his actual position. I’ve also seen plenty of explanations that women’s desire for access to birth control is not due to unrelenting sexual appetites, but a quick web search reveals that most birth control costs $50 a month without insurance, and if that’s out of your budget you probably shouldn’t be having sex because you probably can’t afford a kid if you get a bad batch. All of which is to say that Mr. Huckabee’s argument that Democrat’s have targeted women voter’s exclusively throug...