"The reader's always right." I've mentioned before that one of the nicest things about blogging is receiving interesting comments and emails. Most of the comments these days are spam, but everybody has that problem.

I got more comments and fewer emails when I previously blogged under a different name, a nom de plume. At that time, I was engaged in business, and I self-censored in order to avoid offending customers. These days, I am under fewer such constraints.

Uttering Terroristic Threats

I'm not entirely free. To avoid the close personal attention of the Department of Homeland Security, for instance, I try to review posts before they go online to ensure that my hyperbole doesn't violate the statutes against uttering terroristic threats.

That's an absurd law, of course. In the movies, uric Goldfinger explains himself, then says, "No, I expect you to die, Mr. Bond." That's stupid. It gives 007 time to plot an escape, and frees him from hesitation in retaliation, since he knows that Goldfinger definitely is an enemy and not just a practical joker. When confronted with a swordsman of jew-dropping dexterity and skill, Indiana Jones doesn't talk him to death, he simply pulls out his pistol and dispatches him with a single shot. Point. Set. Match.

We Should Repeal That Law

We want people to utter terroristic threats. It puts us on guard. The people we need to fear are the ones who silently and calmly do damage with no warning at all.

And our politicians should fear the electorate. They definitely have reason to fear me. I wield a ballot with deftness, skill, and malice aforethought. I consider it an act of cowardly treason to not vote against cretins, suckers and criminals.

Party Differences

When I started voting (somewhere in the 13th century, as best I remember), there was a midwestern prejudice against pointy-head east-coast liberal elites, only we didn't call them that. We called them "Joiseys." Government works best when there's a light hand on the ship of state. That means you want to set up things so they regulated themselves.

If a business harms consumers, the best cure for that stain is to bleach it by exposing it to the harsh midday sun. Usually, that has a sufficient salutary effect. If not, lawsuits by consumers have a similar effect, and the awarding of punitive damages can work, provided that the punitive damages are truly punishing.

Tort Reform?

The theocratic birchers that have kidnapped the GOP object to punitive damages, claiming that people are filing frivolous lawsuits in order to enrich themselves. In some cases, they are right - but if they are winning the lawsuits, they aren't frivolous. If ordinary men cannot make good decisions with presented with all the information, why do we let ordinary people vote?

But the elites don't trust juries either. Given a choice, they set up huge organizations of unresponsive civil-service bureaucrats to enforce inflexible and quickly-outdated regulations. That's even stupider.

But As I Almost Was Saying

Anyhow, I recently got an e-mail saying that the writer enjoyed my writing, my satirical voice, my use of hyperbole. I'm so passionate and judgmental, the writer says, it's as if I was consumed by rage. What am I so mad about?, he asked.

Blondie thinks so, too. We'll be in the office, our backs to each other, working on our respective computers, and suddenly she'll ask me what this post is about. And she'll be right. I will have started to write a blog post. I start hammering the keyboard with my fingertips, she says, as if I was really angry.

I always respond that I hadn't noticed that I was particularly angry.

Wives Are Always Right

It's a good policy for husbands to take the default position that the wife is correct when she says something, even though they're wrong. In this case, though, I'm willing to concede that she may have something there.

The problem is that I can't explain it in a few words, and if I interrupt a post long enough to try, I lose my head of steam, and I can't finish that post. This time, though, explaining it isn't an interruption of my post, but the subject.

They lied to us. I don't know who "they" are, but there are surely enough of them sumbitches. And it's not paranoia if they really are out to get ys.

The Permanent Record

Sit up straight, pay attention, study hard, don't misbehave, and you'll succeed. Nothing bad will happen to you, you'll end up with a great job, a wonderful wife, a nice home, a cottage with a power boat on the lake, and children that will adore you. If you misbehave, it will go down in Your Permanent Record.

At no time did anyone actually explain the consequences of having something go down in Your Permanent Record, but we were given to believe that it had something with the success or failure of communism.

Meanwhile, I noticed that Chuck didn't expend much effort on his schooling, but charmed his way through. He wore nicer clothes than anyone, and girls were fawning over him, even in the third grade. Sex hadn't been invented yet, but we knew that girls were important because someday, they were going to clean the house, pick up the clothes, and cook the meals. Jerry, on the other hand, wore faded and mended clothes, struggled mightily to work his way through, and it wasn't enough that girls didn't smile at him and pay any attention, the teachers never did, either.

Don't Drop Out

We watched the night sky, standing under the overhang of the pump house to block the light of the moon, making the stars more visible. The newspaper said that Sputnik would be passing overhead about 8:45, and we looked for a slowly-moving light. It was cold, that second week of October 1957, and Sadie said she was freezing, and she was going to go inside, that seeing Sputnik wasn't going to keep Khrushchev from raining hydrogen bombs down on us from space. Penny rubbed against my leg, wanting to be petted, and I knelt down, leaning against the pumphouse so I could continue to search for Sputnik in the sky as I gave the collie some well-deserved affection.

They warned us that only about 80% of all students who start high school finish. We need more students to finish high school and to complete college.

I'm not sure their arguments made a lot of sense. My high school graduating class was 60% male, 40% female. If one starts out with 1000 students and 800 graduate, that means that there'd be 480 men with diplomas out of 500 that started - a 96% graduation rate. There'd only be 320 women with diplomas, but that's not a failure of the schools, that's a failure of birth control. In an era of shotgun weddings, everyone accepted that girls got pregnant in order to become a housewife. They were telling us A Big Lie.

The Biggest Lie

They're still telling The Biggest Lie. It's actually a double lie. First off, they say only in America when there's damn little that is unique to America. And then they say that you can become anything you want to become.

Obama says he's telling The Biggest Lie to Sasha and Malia. The tea party repeats The Biggest Lie at rallies, whining that people need to get off their butts and become wealthy instead of trying to vote for more welfare.

But you can't become anything you want to become. Michael Jordan is certainly one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century, and he struggled mightily to be a major league ball player. Instead, he played minor league ball, and would have been cut from the team on the basis of his performance, had he not been filling seats in the stadium on the basis of his celebrity. A person of normal dimensions cannot be a professional jockey, racing thoroughbreds. I can't sing worth a damn, and most people can't handle mathematical puzzles I find easy.

Other Big Lies

That's not the only Big Lie. Planned Parenthood obviously isn't. My late first wife and I wanted a half-dozen kids, and after Jasper was born, we repeatedly had stillbirths and miscarriages. And it's also a Big Lie that there's no Santa Claus. I know because I used to be Santa Claus.

And you know about all the other Big Lies. A 5-year car battery is designed to fail after 4 years. The $100 list-price battery is always on sale for $71.95, but you go back to the store after 4 years because of the warranty. OK, you had 20% left, so we'll give you $20 off the list price of the new battery, meaning your cost is $80. You end up ignoring the warranty, and buy a new one at $71.95 instead. So why the warranty? It's a gimmick to get you to return and buy your next battery from them as well.

If you see the word FREE, it's almost always a Big Lie. Get a free cellphone, except that to get it, you have to sign up for two years of service at $65/month. That FREE just cost you $1560.

When I had the portrait studio, I used to give away a free portrait to people with a new baby, to get them before the camera. Once they saw the pictures, they'd usually decide to buy more. It really was free, no obligation, but only about 20% of all people accepted the offer, and when I called people to ask why, they said that they knew better, that nothing was really free.

Yeah, I'm Angry

So if you want to know why I'm angry, it's because I figured out early that it was all a Big Lie. I hear a lot of cretins who are still sold on the idea that Only In America can something happen, and sold on the idea that your success is solely determined by your willingness to work hard.

Try as hard as you want, you can't flap your arms hard enough to fly. If you pick up a calf every day, you won't gradually become stronger and stronger until you can lift a full-grown steer. If you forward that e-mail, Bill Gates isn't going to pay you $220.

Stop lying to me. Just stop it, already.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
comments - dropout rate - elites - Homeland Security - Indiana Jones - Joiseys - juries - lifting calf - Michael Jordan - nom de plume - passion - Permanent Record - Planned Parenthood - rage - Santa - Sputnik - terroristic threats - tire warranty - tort reform - wives