Ice on the Moon

20:20 “-we created a system a hundred years ago that said no one company can control society-” (actually, a hundred and thirty years ago)

From wiki: “In the 1880s, hundreds of small short-line railroads were being bought up and consolidated into giant systems. (Separate laws and policies emerged regarding railroads and financial concerns such as banks and insurance companies.) People for strong antitrust laws argued that, in order for the American economy to be successful, it would require free competition and the opportunity for individual Americans to build their own businesses. As Senator John Sherman put it, “If we will not endure a king as a political power we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life.” Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act almost unanimously in 1890, and it remains the core of antitrust policy. The Act prohibits agreements in restraint of trade and abuse of monopoly power.”

Railroads really enabled the modern era to begin in the early 1800’s. Think about it…before railroads the only way to move large amounts of material or people any distance was by water or by horse-powered wagon. That was it- since the beginning of civilization ten thousand years ago this had not changed. Most people never traveled more than ten or twenty miles from where they were born and almost everything used by people was locally manufactured. If you did not live by a river or on the coast you were a long long way from anywhere or any-thing. Because railroads enabled vastly increased industrialization and commerce the wealth associated with this was astronomical.

Greater concentrations of private wealth than ever seen in history…ever.

The railroad companies were the first to stop competing against each other and began cooperating in mergers and this immediately resulted in these large companies blatantly raising prices as high as the market would bear. This made for super-rich shareholders and the general population essentially paying every penny they had for basic necessities. Like selling bottles of water for 10 dollars each after a hurricane except all the time. The citizens went to their representatives and the government began throwing executives of these companies in jail and breaking up the corporations. This is basically admitting super-rich individuals are a threat to the nation and regulating the amount of wealth they can have. Really.

But some corporations were seen as “good” in their effects and if they presented themselves as doing a service to the public they were allowed to continue as super-large companies. The main reason this was allowed, under strict government regulations, were good business practices that created a high standard of living for workers. From wiki:

“Welfare capitalism is capitalism that includes social welfare policies.^[1] Welfare capitalism is also the practice of businesses providing welfare services to their employees. Welfare capitalism in this second sense, or industrial paternalism, was centered on industries that employed skilled labor and peaked in the mid-20th century.

Today, welfare capitalism is most often associated with the models of capitalism found in Central Mainland and Northern Europe, such as the Nordic model, social market economy and Rhine capitalism. In some cases welfare capitalism exists within a mixed economy, but welfare states can and do exist independently of policies common to mixed economies such as state interventionism and extensive regulation.^[2] ”

Any distinctions between “welfare capitalism” and “embedded liberalism” (The New Deal) are about what side of the aisle the economists and politicians discussing them are on. An example of this word salad is found in this forward to a book on the subject:

“The current globalization debate has revived interest in the viability of welfare
states in competitive market economies. Comparing Welfare Capitalism challenges
the popular theory of a downward convergence. It argues that there are at least
two varieties of capitalism: Anglo-American free market economies, and Rhenish
(Germanic or Japanese) coordinated economies; each variation in production
systems is embedded in a national welfare regime.”

A new term for me to think about: the “coordinated economy.”

In 2020 we have these billionaire founders with a controlling interest and their shareholders who are also lesser billionaires running Super Corporations presenting themselves as providing necessary services to the public. They are inferring they should not be penalized or broken up when they in effect “regulate themselves” in pursuit of greater profits. They of course want to present all of this in the most confusing manner possible so they can keep getting richer and richer. It is…corruption. Plain and simple.

Neoliberals do not, in any way, consider regulating themselves richer as corrupt or immoral. That is their ideology. They have invested mountains of money over the last half a century in propaganda to convince the working class the rich are “the good guys”; the wealth creators who raise everybody up with what trickles down. Those of us living paycheck to paycheck who understand history have a different opinion; we are the ones paying ten dollars for a bottle of water. Let me copy and paste what I wrote a couple paragraphs up again: “The citizens went to their representatives and the government began throwing executives of these companies in jail and breaking up the corporations. This is basically admitting super-rich individuals are a threat to the nation and regulating the amount of wealth they can have. Really.”

I am voting for anything that sounds like “A New Deal.”

I somehow missed another day in the election countdown. Oh well.

“He’s gonna double and triple your taxes- because he’s following The Radical Left Agenda- take away your guns…no religion, no anything, hurt the bible, hurt God, He’s against God. He’s against God, he’s against guns, he’s against energy- our kind of energy.” Donald J. Trump

(double and triple your taxes) Not much chance of that happening anytime soon; give a progressively driven congress and senate some time though. The tax rate on the top earners was 91 percent and that was really what made America great.

(take away your guns) The second amendment is about a “A well regulated Militia.”

In the 1700’s avoiding conscription was one of the reasons people came to America. To avoid having to maintain a large standing Army it was desirable for civilians in the colonies to have their own single shot muskets as this was the single common principal weapon used by all nations. No AR-15’s that could kill a hundred people a minute in 1776. The argument can be made that limiting weapons ownership would open the door to a large standing army and so it can be argued the right of the people to preclude Hessians and mercenaries and conscription with Militias was not to be infringed. 

Oxford English Dictionary: Militia– “a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.” 

Big news today about the NRA.

A problem in America, one inextricably linked with the corruption of the NRA, is the “assault weapon.” This is a non-specific term sometimes used to describe a firearm having some characteristics of an assault-type military weapon. The assault rifle concept was developed by the Nazis (who else?) for use on the Russian front. It essentially gave the infantryman the option to use aimed semi-automatic fire out to several hundred yards or fire bursts of fully automatic fire like a light machine gun. This would allow a standard service weapon to replace heavier rifles and submachine guns and to a certain extent replace light machine guns. 77 years after it was invented the assault rifle is now the standard service weapon of all armies.

The AR-15, at under 8 pounds loaded, plus carrying six 30 round magazines in pouches and weighing an extra 6 pounds, adds up to a total weight about that of a heavy bag of groceries. A person who is a fair shot (they don’t kick much and are easy to shoot) who has practiced reloading can theoretically kill over 200 people in less than 5 minutes. Mass shooter Anders Breivik is an example of what these weapons allow any disturbed individual to do:

On 22 July 2011, Breivik detonated a fertilizer bomb outside the tower block housing the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in Oslo, resulting in eight deaths.^[76]

Within a few hours of the explosion he travelled to Utøya island, the site of a camp for Worker’s Youth League, posing as a police officer in order to take the ferry to the island, and then fired intermittently for more than one hour, killing 69^[77][78][79] with one murder victim as young as 14 years old.^[80][81][82]

When the second amendment was written the standard military weapon was the muzzle loading musket with a rate of fire of about 3 shots per minute. So, theoretically, Breivik could have wandered around that island shooting 3 shots per minute and killed 60 people in only 20 minutes. But that is not reality and neither is the worn-out argument that armed Americans will prevent tyranny by rising up against the government if necessary. Which is what many NRA members claim is the correct interpretation of the second amendment- and why they hold to the insane idea that the unrestricted sale of military grade weapons should never be infringed upon.

Might as well allow anyone to buy hand grenades.

The related hot button issue in America is handguns. I once asked a former special forces guy what was the best handgun and he told me they are “mostly useless in combat and mainly used for executing prisoners.” Not useful for going to war against the government. The most infamous handgun is the Deringer used to assassinate Lincoln. It was, like the musket, also a muzzle-loaded single shot that took about a minute to load and a person in the early 1800’s, very concerned with protecting themselves from dangerous adversaries, might carry two of these little guns in their coat pockets- and were actually called “coat pistols” and sold in pairs.

For over a decade before Lincoln was assassinated Colt revolvers were available and the terrorist equivalents of those years carried four or five revolvers, giving them a couple dozen shots to rob banks and trains with. This was fairly accurately portrayed in the movie, “The Outlaw Josey Wales”, except the pair of that very large type of revolver the central character used were not typically carried on the person and were kept in holsters on the saddle.

Today the modern 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol has a magazine capacity of around 15 shots but smaller caliber weapons with higher capacities of up to 20 shots are becoming popular. Handguns are harder to shoot than assault rifles but at close range inside buildings, and with some practice, are also effective at killing dozens of people as the Virginia Tech shooter of 2007 proved when he killed 32 people. Why several thousand every year die of gunshot wounds in the United States is obvious; modern handguns are easy to conceal and carry, have up to half the number of shots an assault rifle does, and can be reloaded just as fast- about one and a half seconds.

Exactly how to lower the death rate with gun control laws that still allow people to defend themselves is the question. It is not an impossible challenge. Not rocket science, not like putting a man on the Moon. Even allowing a segment of the population to possess military grade weapons as some kind of police reserve militia is not that hard. What is hard is overcoming those using the second amendment as a political lever to further their agendas. With a diet of action movies conditioning males to prepare for the apocalypse it is easy for conservatives to inspire fear and get people to vote for them so as to prevent “the radical left” from coming and taking their AR-15’s away- and ending their Rambo fantasies.

One example of a possible solution is the Colt Single Action Army revolver of 1873. It is featured in all classic western movies. 6 shots. Slow to reload. The short barrel model is easy enough to carry concealed. If some maniac wants to kill a couple dozen people it would be much harder to accomplish this when having to go through a free background check, psychological evaluation, and safety certification. Free means nobody will have to worry about getting priced out of their second amendment right. The Colt SAA does not greatly facilitate shooting dozens of people in a short period of time. Neither does a bolt action hunting rifle that holds three or four shots. See how that works?

We limit the number of shells a shotgun can legally hold to 3 when hunting birds. Might make sense to limit the number of rounds to double that for concealed carry and the Colt design makes it almost impossible to instantly reload. The whole cylinder can theoretically be taken out and a new loaded one inserted but there are ways to modify the design to prevent that. Really.

So you see, it is not impossible.

Looks like I am missing time. I don’t think it was an alien abduction though.

Probably working a 13 hour night shift and being completely exhausted.

Home from work. Will try and write a few lines before I go back.

It is off to work I go. Will try and write something on break.

The Seven Deadly Sins

1. Support the police! 2. Support the troops! 3. Taxes are theft! 4. Social programs are communism! 5. Regulation is bad! 6. Government is bad! 7. Wealth trickles down!

These talking points explain everything for many conservatives. Yet none of them have any merit. I am so sick of being beat over the head with this stuff. 

1. SUPPORT THE POLICE!

Taking a rough look at the demographics, about 163,000,000 Americans fall into the category of adults under age 65 who are most likely to interact with police in a “negative venue” such as being felony suspects or repeat criminals or actually being arrested. “The best current estimate is that just less than 1% of all noninstitutionalized males age 18 and over are psychopaths.¹ This translates to approximately 1,150,000 adult males who would meet the criteria for psychopathy in the United States today.² And of the approximately 6,720,000 adult males that are in prison, jail, parole, or probation,³ 16%, or 1,075,000, are psychopaths.⁴ Thus, approximately 93% of adult male psychopaths in the United States are in prison, jail, parole, or probation.”

With most of the psychopaths in prison the less dangerous type classified as sociopaths are quoted in some sources as making up around 4% of the population. Rounding down slightly to give the lower number of female sociopaths the benefit of a doubt we have about 6 million people with sociopathic traits in the U.S. and this segment of the population is essentially why the police exist. Counting all sworn police officers, prison guards, and parole and probation officers, a very rough estimate of around 2 million are controlling the 6 million on the street that represent “the problem.”

Or, considering the entire population, one person out of 65 is employed to keep three other people out of that 65 “under the control” of our society. I hope my math is close to correct. Consider it as a big room with 65 people representing the entire population. Some are young, some are old, but one adult has the authority to remove anyone who is disrupting the event. There are three other adults in the room who are very likely, for whatever reason, to individually try and disrupt the event. It is important to understand if those three combine against the one, it is not going to end well. To prevent that from happening all adult guests agree to abide by some rules. If those three combine against the one the guests will combine against them to enforce the agreed upon rules and prevent “civil disorder.” This is distinct from civil disobedience in that disorder is dangerous, while disobedience is how rules are questioned and beneficial change occurs, or, to use another term, “progress.” The adults that make up that part of the population who decide what the rules are will decide on any single issue and be “conservative” and conserve the old rule, or “progressive”, and change the old rule into a new one. This system is utilitarian (the greatest good for the greatest number) and not a zero-sum competition (one winner eventually takes all).

If the number of people in the room who are likely to break the rules and disrupt and ruin or even end the event is beyond the naturally occurring number of sociopathic anomalous individuals- then this is an indication of something being very wrong. That failure is historically a misidentification of exactly who is “the problem.” The poor and oppressed who are unwilling to bear any more disadvantage and abuse are not the cause- a small clique of high-functioning sociopaths are always at the other end of that wealth spectrum. If we had less inequality we would have far less police. And if they kick your door down in the middle of the night and you are disappeared, you might wish you had not so strongly supported the police.

A police state is not going to fix society.         

2. SUPPORT THE TROOPS! 

It is interesting that in many infantry tables of organization around the world the basic element is a “fire team” made up of four individuals- a team leader and three subordinates. Two fire teams make up a squad (8), five squads make up a platoon (40), and five platoons make up a company of around two hundred soldiers. As was noted in our society we presently have one person with authority to control three others who are figuratively out of control. Just as that police patrol officer may not be an especially remarkable person, the team leader in that smallest fire team element of an Army is also just another soldier who, for whatever reason or merit, has been given a basic responsibility to accomplish a mission. The mission of the soldier is to protect your people. Protect your buddy, protect your country, and protect your loved ones by doing the first two. Even if you lose your own life. That makes you remarkable. Always been that way…until recently.   

On 16 July 1945, war as the human race had known it for thousands of years ended. The first atomic bomb made any future war impossible to win. And we have not had a real war since then. A few nations without nuclear weapons have waged limited conflicts but no World War III between the superpowers has occurred due to M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction). The bomb was made due to a letter sent to the President of the United States 81 years ago by the scientist whose equations made the weapon possible. That scientist sent the letter because some colleagues had approached him warning of a possible Nazi bomb.

Despite the almost zero possibility of a non-nuclear war, the United States spends more money on the military than all the other nuclear powers combined. We spend over 16 percent of our GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on the military while Russia, our most likely adversary, spends less than 4 percent. The vast amount of tax dollars being expended is almost incomprehensible to the average citizen. The U.S. could easily afford universal health care, free college education, and build a solar energy economy with money from the defense budget- and still spend more than our two main rivals, Russia and China, combined. The reason we do not reduce military spending are the immense profits involved and this phenomenon is called the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). The fantastic array of expensive non-nuclear weapons seem to confirm this as obvious. Our most recent endless trillion dollar “war” has made the rich so much richer, and the rest of us so much poorer. Truth.

The republican President who as a general made the incredibly difficult decision to invade Europe in bad weather and thus began the defeat of the Nazis warned us about this. The defense industry owns politicians at every level of government and shareholders in defense corporations hold over 80 percent of stock market wealth. The reason for much of the inequality in the United States is remarkable-  we have been brainwashed into pouring money into the pockets of the super-rich with the simplest of all propaganda slogans:

“Support the troops.” 

3. TAXES ARE THEFT!

This is how to smoke out Neoliberal agendas every time. Just bring up taxes. Almost every single thing having to do with inequality and environmental problems is connected with the super-rich avoiding taxes. Very little of the technology they “develop” is paid for by their corporations- almost all of it comes from University or defense research projects paid for by the taxpayer. 90 percent of everything the one percent do or say is really about one thing only- not paying a penny not only for technology but also not paying anything for the healthy educated workers that made them so obscenely rich. It not just the free infrastructure and human resources they exploit in their corporate welfare package that is clearly Orwellian- the one percent take most of what millions of people actually deserve for their labor and put it in their own pocket. Productivity goes up and wages do not is the indisputable proof they are liars when they say taxes are theft. They have reduced their tax burden while reducing wages while becoming billionaires:

The super-rich are tax dodgers and are actually the thieves. Really. 

4. SOCIAL PROGRAMS ARE COMMUNISM!

A coworker engaged me in a conversation one day last year I was hesitant to enter into with him and it ended as I expected. He started off by complimenting me as being a smart guy and a good person to work with and then qualified it by questioning my “patriotism.” He had deduced from our few previous conversations about current events that I might lean a little left. I answered with a story about myself- that I had not grown up with much guidance and had been free to explore what I was drawn to instead of being steered in a certain direction. I liked to read and did not like team sports or games. I then said that what we believe about life is a series of connected stories we come to accept as being “real.” This was pretty “wordy” and he did not like it much.

I continued and stated my “patriotism” is based on the story of the great depression. He nodded like he knew what I was talking about but of course he did not. I went on to say the great depression happened because the government did not regulate the financial industry and instead allowed “free market economics” to run their course. After the crash, the labor unions and suddenly powerful American communist party approached FDR and told him either the government stepped in to ease the suffering or it might mean revolution. FDR paid attention as the USSR had formed in 1922, only seven years before the stock market crashed in the United States. FDR, who was a capitalist, went to his rich friends and told them there was going to be a “New Deal.” Social Security, unemployment insurance, a federal jobs program, and Fair Labor Standards (minimum wage, 40 hour work week, and overtime) would be the four legs of the deal- but the most important part would be the government strictly regulating the banks and financial markets. This was mostly based on the theories of a British economist named John Maynard Keynes and is usually referred to as “Keynesian Economics.”

In a nutshell, Keynes promoted the idea of a capitalist economy imbedded in a socialist society and this is called “Imbedded Liberalism” (free market entrepreneurs were originally called “liberals” and the meaning has since changed- a little confusing). The government would regulate (not control- an important distinction) the capitalist economy and if it crashed despite this regulation an established social safety net would provide for and insure workers did not lose everything they owned as they had in 1929. To pay for this large government regulating the economy and maintaining social(ist) programs the rich would pay taxes at a much higher tax rate than the working class, which is called “progressive taxation.”

The “deal” is simple enough to understand: you get to be rich but you don’t get what makes your wealth possible for free. The state will take some of your wealth and put it into a “lockbox” to insure your workers are not going to become homeless and starve because bad business decisions cause the economy to fail….again.

I went on to say what made America great was the New Deal and that was why I was a patriotic democrat. I finished by saying the democratic party and society in general has over the last half century been infiltrated by an extreme form of free market capitalism called “Neoliberalism.” And the only way to Make America Great Again is to go back and start over with another “New Deal.” Because of climate change the best plan is a “Green New Deal” that congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is promoting. He did not like this at all and I will not go into how badly our little talk ended. They really hate her.

Imbedded Liberalism is not Communism.

5. REGULATION IS BAD!

When I was in Alaska back in the 90’s I remember how dangerous the fisheries were. Close to forty fishermen drowned the first year I was up there. Regulations were passed requiring life-saving equipment, mandatory training, vessel inspections, and the outcry against this was intense. The fisherman were very unhappy about it. The next year fewer fishermen died. The year after that even fewer. Five years after the regulations came into effect less than half a dozen fishermen were lost. I have several other examples of the effects of regulation over my lifetime and they all have something in common- there was great resistance to the regulations, much anger and resentment with many people complaining their “rights” were being violated by “the nanny state.”

The real reason people were upset was, of course, greed. Regulations always cut off the flow of money going into somebodies pocket. Those who are going to lose money have to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance. They will lie and obfuscate and try any trick available to cash out or get that last penny up until the last moment. Guaranteed. That is how business works. Persuading the public such regulation is a communist plot or a corrupt hoax is just another business tactic. Regarding these unethical practices the most heinous example of all is the Koch brothers and climate change. Neoliberals have almost zero regard for human life and regard the majority of the population as little more than domestic animals.

The Neoliberal ideology that presently dominates economic activity on this planet has no ethical or moral imperatives- it is simply about getting rich as the only possible meaning to existence- the only end goal and acquiring wealth as all that matters. It is more of a religion for sociopaths, a cult, than about commerce and markets. When money is the god of this world making rules to limit “wealth creation” is blasphemy. And like any holy war the demonic forces working against the individual becoming a semi-divine billionaire must  be relentlessly attacked and destroyed without mercy. Any weapon that gives the individual an advantage over Satanic “collectivists” is allowed.

When I used to get dragged into conversations about this (I avoid them now) with right wing conservatives at some point I was compelled to reveal to them the harsh truth and I would say to them, “the only reason you own anything is the rest of us let you.” The point being the golden rule that states those with the gold make the rules is not reality. It is what those with the gold want you to think is reality.

The only regulation desired by the wealthy is regulation that protects those with wealth from those without.

6. GOVERNMENT IS BAD!

If you “love America” then you love the American Government. The Government is the nation. No difference. If you vote you create that government. If you feel your vote is not counted you assemble and protest as guaranteed by the 1st amendment of the constitution. We the people are the government and we are the nation. That Ronald Reagan inspired Americans to distrust and called for reducing government was schizophrenic and played to the delusions of narcissists and other neurotics who honestly believe their own interests are all that matter. Here is found the great divide between the individual and the collective. Ayn Rand used this language and is a popular figure among those who hate any form of control imposed them. They often call themselves “patriots” but this is a strange and bizarre persona they wear like camouflage. The Neoliberal takes certain ideas and converts them into something different that matches their ideology. The primary conversion being the corruption of the word “freedom.” To those of us who are not, we clearly perceive Neoliberals as understanding the word as actually meaning “greed.” In other words, to Neoliberals freedom essentially means being free to practice absolute greed.

The reason Ronald Reagan disliked Government was his Neoliberal ideology. He was not about Democracy, or the Republic, or any other of the various systems societies organize themselves around; Reagan was a Neoliberal. In Neoliberalism everything must generate revenue, must make a profit, for an “owner.” This was later referred to as “the ownership society” by George W. Bush but it is simply a continuation of the Neoliberal revolution of Reagan. Calls to run Government like a business are the most pernicious expression of this ideology. Perhaps the best way to understand Neoliberals is to look at them as consciously evolving capitalism into a version of fascism. While the nazis made race their central theme it is wealth that occupies the center of Neoliberal ideology. Accuse me of playing the nazi card but replacing race with wealth seems to work in this case. The nazis exterminated their “useless eaters” while the Neoliberals treat non-revenue producing humans as a byproduct with no value- to be dumped as waste.

Government is not focused on the individual owner competing against other owners for the largest share of a market. Government is about the people and how they interact in their society, how they, as a people, effect and affect the collective functioning of the state. Democracy is especially antithetical to an ideology based on survival of the fittest and recognizing only the acquisition of wealth as having any meaning.  America famously turned the world upside down with every man a king and the government the servant of the people- Neoliberalism has twisted this into a very few men are kings who are served by unfortunate people with no government serving them. 

In a Democracy the citizen is the Government and that is not so bad. 

7. WEALTH TRICKLES DOWN!

This has taken me several hours to write and now I have come to that last deadly sin. Voodoo economics is not so much the big lie that is told so many times everyone believes it- it is that- but also a sleight of hand that few people are aware of. Trickle-down, or Voodoo economics, is used in discussion as a replacement for that most ancient and fundamental feature of civilization- redistribution of wealth. By endlessly demonizing this term, Neoliberals have validated exploitation, theft, oppression, and cruelty as the basic operating principles of society. The reason they have succeeded is because of the specific artificiality of civilization. Modernity has caused a kind of collective amnesia in the human species and we have forgotten our hunter-gatherer origins. Stone age hunter-gatherer groups were necessarily egalitarian. Egalitarianism is identical in meaning with redistribution.

Human beings are social creatures (socialists) and have always had to share and sacrifice within a group to survive as an individual. The group dies, the individual dies. There is no disputing this. Unless you are sociopath- then you don’t understand how that works. Neoliberals dispute this because they don’t understand, and in this sense they are certainly sociopathic. The most successful Neoliberals are absolutely sociopaths as they have effectively turned off their empathy for their fellow human beings in order to horde obscene amounts of wealth. If this were not true they would be building schools and hospitals in third world countries instead of buying private jets and yachts. See how that works?

Unlike many Americans, as a Presbyterian Christian and a “liberal”, it is not embarrassing or strange to me that I freely express these ideas. That is what I am. In the same way Neoliberals are what they are and are also unashamed. They see absolutely nothing wrong in buying mansions and half a million dollar Italian supercars. In fact, they think that is exactly how the world works- that they are doing their part by supporting the workers who build the mansions and supercars. They are the good guys and deserve to be rich- and it follows those who are poor deserve to be poor. It is the useless eaters who actively call for taxing the rich that are evil- and should be selected by nature out of existence. We all get what we deserve, right? So it is a matter of opinion if the French nobility who went to the Guillotine by the thousands deserved their fate. Survival of the fittest- they were not smart enough to continue keeping the unwashed masses in servitude and so were selected out of existence- by a horde of useless eaters. Maybe the aristocracy thought it would make them more money?

I missed making this a 100 day countdown. Oh well. There is so much in the news about Trump “delaying” the election I thought I had better do my part.

This is my part. https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/election?p0=263&iso=20201103T00&msg=2020%20US%20Presidential%20Election

My 60th is fast approaching and any illusions I had about not being old will end. That number cannot be argued with. In Korean culture it is a big deal and my wife and daughter keep telling me this. I tell them it is going to be just another day. I have never been big on birthdays or holidays. But…I guess it does mean coming to terms with being an old man. Some very amazing people, like the author of Animal Farm and 1984, never made it even to 50.  Paraphrasing Orwell:

The highly socialized modern mind, which makes a kind of composite god out of the rich, the government, the police and the media, has not been developed — at least not yet. Maybe the pandemic will do it.

Below a certain income the petty crowds the large out of existence; one’s preoccupation is not with art or religion but with bills, medical insurance, working too much overtime and possible unemployment. Money is the real god of this world.

Think of life as it really is, think of the details of life; and then think that there is no meaning in it, no purpose, no goal except the grave. Surely only fools or self-deceivers, or those whose lives are exceptionally fortunate, can face that thought without horror? The solution is the Common Task of Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov.

 I am struck again by the fact that as soon as a minimum wage man gets a job supervising or moves into a salaried position, he acts as one in a higher class whether he wills it or not. By fighting against the system he becomes part of it. The fact is that you cannot help living in the manner appropriate and developing the ideology appropriate to your income. And I have always despised supervisors too much and was afraid of being someone who is hated as they are.  All part of the fear of failure and being seen as a failure. And yet I despise myself for not being the boss. Like the Alpha Male of the troop having the same misery-causing stress hormone levels as the lowest rank ass-bitten baboon. As I explained to a coworker the other night; people are actually all equal in one sense, we have the same human emotions and mental mechanisms driving us. Super-performers just have some hot rods in their heads while we have less powerful vehicles. All drive the same road. Perhaps the economy model mind survives better as in “orchids and dandelions.” Perhaps we children of a lesser God are “happier.” Nobody really knows.

There is the really disquieting prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere word socialism draws towards it with magnetic force every Kool-Aid drinker, nudist, tree hugging sandal-wearer, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in the land. Just like the word conservative draws sadists. I like all the other nuts better.

The essential job is to get people to recognize war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda. One is almost driven to the cynical conclusion that men are only decent when they are powerless. Why many middle managers are monsters. And just to be clear those two sentences are taken from two different commentaries by Orwell. I use them out of context. I can do that (my blog).

We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion and such truisms as a virus need not kill hundreds of thousands but the economy will need to be put on hold — have turned into heresies which it is actually becoming dangerous to utter. Fauci’s death threats are proof.

Between them these two books sum up our present predicament.  Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war.  Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war. There is no way out of this unless a planned economy can somehow be combined with the freedom of the intellect, which can only happen if the concept of right and wrong is restored to politics.

Review of The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek and The Mirror of the Past by K. Zilliacus, reviewed in The Observer (9 April 1944).

Interesting how Orwell reviewed Hayek’s book in 44 and now Neoliberalism runs the world. Sadly, there is no concept of right or wrong now, only the profit motive and how much naked absolute greed the sociopath billionaires can get away with. Enough about that. Closing in on 100 days till the election and then I will doubtless have plenty of reason to revisit this whole range of human conditions.

Right now I am waiting on a punching bag stand that I should have ordered months ago. I am so out of shape it is depressing to think about how much I will have to do to get back in condition. Nobody is above the law is what came out in the news yesterday. Good news if it proves to be true and not fake. Roger Stone walking seems to contradict that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC4JPhTKcgE

Jordan Peterson is not in the same class as George Orwell. He would be the first to admit that. He is in a different “class” entirely. He is more like me, a dot-connector. And I would be the first to admit he has a significantly higher IQ. The fact that the left has demonized him, and Sam Harris, is depressing. Both of them are well worth listening to. They represent the two ends of a spectrum to me that I rely on to support my own worldview.

Let’s move on to getting back in shape.

Almost 800 views and now the comments are arriving. The mockers and trolls sitting in mommy’s basement seem to have found something they can giggle and pee their pants about. Disgusting. I thought the spacex muskrats were bad…these guys are like a whole other legion. 

All of these master race super-warriors and professional assassins seem to have a bug up their arse about anyone having an original idea or trying something new. For those actually interested and not trolling I have put hundreds of rounds (a couple hundred anyway) through this gun over the last couple years developing it and it works. It is different and will be difficult to get on target very fast at first and never quite as fast as shouldering and looking straight down the barrel. But that is one of the trade-offs.

This setup is designed to allow sighting of a PGO shotgun, which is the main drawback of this type of weapon. It solves a problem and the basement trolls slapping their knees and guffawing at it have the collective imagination of a brick. Since this is now out there, I will add a couple of more detailed techniques to ensure proper use later today after I get some pictures-to-illustrate taken.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

And here they are:

In conclusion, a Pistol Grip Only (PGO) shotgun is more compact than a stocked weapon, making it easier to store in and deploy from a vehicle (why the police originally used it) and is more maneuverable in confined spaces. It also does not punish the shooter anywhere near what a stocked shotgun does. The hard plastic grip provided with many off-the-shelf cruisers does hurt the hand and a soft rubber after-market grip like the Hogue Tamer solves that problem. The main problem is aiming it. An offset sight is a trade-off as it adds complexity and due to the sight sticking out from the side of the barrel is not quite as easy to store. The “bazooka” position is also a quite different technique compared to “shouldering” and aiming requires an unorthodox offset sight picture. In my view the pros outweigh the cons.

As for the toxic comments, what a bunch of creeps you are.

10 July 2020

Over a thousand views and the crazy hate mail I received kind of rattled me, so I took these posts down yesterday. I felt bad though for those genuinely interested so I have reposted this one for a little while and will then probably take it down again. The original post that details the concept is not going back up.

20 November 2022

I put the “Joe Biden Shotgun” post back up and it has a couple more pictures. 

“The Joe Biden Shotgun…is back” post has more info.