I recently happened upon this article about The Englishman’s travails with Gummint, and I passed the link on to the kids as the place under discussion happens to be where their mother is buried.
Daughter’s comment (and Quote Of The Day):
“I feel like this is the definition of bureaucracy.”
I would have put it somewhat differently (with much more venom and bad language), but I think she’s encapsulated the issue perfectly.
This article by Janet Street-Porter triggered me, and I’ve decided that I’ve had enough of people attempting to foist their pathetic belief systems and accompanying lifestyle choices on to me. Let me count these irritants off.
Religion:
Fucking Christians and their oh-so virtuous need for evangelizing — like everyone needs to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior — give me the cramps. There are the Morons Mormon’s polite “elders” ringing my doorbell to hand me a pamphlet so that they can attempt to debate me — with all the acquired wisdom of their adolescent experience to back them up — about some fucking bullshit dreamed up by some asshole who was thrown out of somewhere — justifiably, in my opinion — in the fond belief that I’m suddenly going to See The Light and become a member of their foul little sect… fuck off and leave me alone. Then there are the other Christians who try to convince me that I will find God’s Peace by doing whatever and being “born again” — do you realize how insane you sound, you pious fools? Do you not realize that spiritual peace is an intensely personal matter, and your attempt to intrude on what is the most intimate of individual thoughts is about the most arrogant action anyone can perform? Don’t even get me started on the missionaries, who quite frankly all need to suffer the same fate as that tool who tried to bring Jesus Christ to the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island, and got turned into archery practice. The problem with Christianity today is that it needs more martyrs — probably a few million of the most evangelical ones, starting with that Marxist asshole in the Vatican and ending up by blowing through the leaders of the “mega-churches” like Sherman through Georgia. Good grief, am I the only one who is repelled by the insufferable smugness of the martyr complex?
But if the Christians need a few million martyrs, the Muslims need about a hundred million of them — preferably by some global mass suicide (not by bombing, just the razors-in-a-bathtub kind) — with said suicide being confined to the most extremist of them. Christians try to convert non-believers with nauseating syrupy promises, but at least they don’t try to kill you when you tell them to fuck off (well, not anymore, anyway). Muslims, on the other hand, never having left the 9th century in their outlook and behavior, are quite prepared to kill non-believers and apostates, because in their arrogance, they believe that unless you’re a Muslim, you don’t deserve to live. As attitude goes, they’re an order of magnitude worse than modern-day Christians. And if Muslims don’t want to commit mass suicide, then what we need is some very old-fashioned Christians — let’s call ’em, oh, Crusaders — who can set about killing Muslims for being the evil assholes that they are. In the immortal words of Henry Kissinger talking about Sunnis slaughtering Shiites and vice versa: “It’s a pity that one side has to win.” So mote it be with today’s Crusaders and Saracens.
Animal-worshipers:
By now, everyone should know who I’m talking about here. Whether it’s the PETA types who throw cans of paint over people wearing furs, or the insufferable militant vegans who think it’s quite okay to invade restaurants and start haranguing diners about the eeeevils of meat-eating, my suggestion is that they should all eat about a pound of Romaine lettuce from that poxy farm in California. Let me tell you: if some shit-for-brains threw paint all over my wife’s $10,000 mink coat, I’d catch the fucker and make him or her drink the rest of the paint in the bucket. As for the vegan protesters, they’d get a (pre-chewed) mouthful of meat spat all over them, followed by a fist-clubbing such as experienced by baby seals, just so that they can become as one with the cutesy wickle animals they glorify, and feeeel their pain with them. “It’s not food, it’s violence!” they scream. Hmph. Let me introduce you to the concept of real violence, you self-centered little shits.
Marxists:
By now, everyone knows that Marxism / Socialism / Communism has been proven to be an abject failure — probably the worst failure of all socio-economic systems ever devised by Man — in every place it’s been tried. But then there’s the (again) insufferable arrogance of these bastards, who truly think that they know what’s best for you, and you can’t make your own decisions because you’re inferior to them, the Enlightened Ones. And FFS, how can anyone espouse a philosophy in which the outcomes — no matter how awful — are irrelevant as long as the intentions are “noble”? It’s almost the classic example of narcissism. And just like the Muslim assholes (see above), Marxist assholes are perfectly willing to harm you if you don’t fall into line with their twisted little belief system. I’d suggest a course of mass suicide for Marxists as well, except that their arrogance would tend to make them try and kill us non-believers first (again, just like Muslims), so we’d probably be better off waging war on them (like Crusaders) and knocking them off by the various means they’ve used on others in the past. (I was going to add some illustrations at this point, but we’ve all seen the pictures of Babi-Yar and the modern-day Chinese mass executions.)
Whether religious, dietary or political extremists, therefore, my message to all of you is quite simple: leave me the hell alone. And if you foolishly believe that you can “convert” me to your side or prevent me living my life on my own terms by some means of terror, coercion, bullying or shaming, allow me to say quite simply: “Wind, meet whirlwind.”
Enough is enough.
Talking about this utter and complete bullshit, J.D. Rucker saith:
“Whenever I see a story that invokes Ivy League scientists finding a solution to anything, I brace myself for the worst idea ever. Once again, they didn’t disappoint.”
Keep reminding yourself of the observation: “Your suggestion is so stupid, so devoid of commonsense and logic that it could only have been made by an academic or intellectual.”
Most of the time, you will not be misled.
In his Devil’s Dictionary, the late and very-much-lamented Ambrose Pierce once wrote the following:
“When politicians speak, no matter the topic, they’re talking about money.”
…and boy, was he ever right. Here’s an example.
For the past couple of years, governments have been talking about the “obesity epidemic” (as though getting fat can spread from one person to another over the air, instead of being the result of a conscious decision by individuals). And of course, along with such alarums and panic from the Usual Suspects — those who Know What’s Best For You — have come clamors that Something Must Be Done. And when people use the dreaded passive voice, of course, that means one, and only one thing: government intervention.
So, of course, in steps Nanny Government to the rescue. Of course, instead of pointing out that people get fat because they eat too much, or that their children get fat because their parents give them too much of the wrong foods, Big Nanny sets about punishing people for ingesting said wrong foods — and the easiest thing to target, because of its ubiquity, is sugar.
We all know that too much sugar is A Bad Thing, and if you eat too much of it, you get not only overweight but various health problems. Let me repeat: we all know that.
But how to punish excessive sugar consumption? Do we (i.e. Nanny Government) ration the stuff? No, too difficult and costly to implement, manage and police (although I would bet against it in the future — such difficulties have seldom stopped government in the past, e.g. ObamaCare coff coff ) But sugar is not only bought and sold per se , it’s also a ubiquitous ingredient, and most egregiously so in the case of carbonated soft drinks (to normal mortals, that would be Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew etc.) wherein can be found the equivalent of a dozen or so teaspoons of sugar per can. Not that this is always A Bad Thing:
So, goes Nanny’s thinking, if we punish people for drinking Cokes and reduce consumption thereof by making it more expensive to do so, the very best way to implement such policy is… to tax it.
Which brings us back to Ambrose Bierce. And lo, there we have proof of the man’s sagacity:
The UK’s sugar tax has raised almost £154 million in its first six months, Government figures have revealed.
From April, companies selling drinks with added sugar have been taxed between 18p and 24p per litre for certain drinks containing high levels of added sugar.
The new levy was introduced in an effort to fight childhood obesity, as more than a third of 11-year-olds in the UK are now overweight and soft drinks are one of their main sources of sugar.
With that degree of success, replication must surely follow:
Raising so much money from the tax was ‘encouraging’, one expert said, but they urged the Government to extend the levy to calories in sweets [candy] as well.
And there you have it: Nanny Government at its absolute finest. It’s even more nasty in that with the above policy, the BritGov didn’t increase the sales tax on carbonated soft drinks — too difficult to implement, police and collect, see above — so instead they levied the tax at its source:
There are 457 companies registered to pay the tax, and more than 90 per cent of the money came from charges on drinks with higher levels of sugar.
Much easier. And needless to say, most of said companies simply raised the price of their product and passed it on to consumers — that would be us — to whom rising prices are a fact of modern life, and therefore the added cost went pretty much unnoticed.
Which actually makes it a perfect government tax policy: it’s barely noticed by the public, it’s easier to collect / enforce (457 companies vs. many thousands of retail outlets), and best of all, if it fails to have the desired effect (making people drink less of the stuff), Nanny Government can simply increase the tax rate until it does — or until the supplier companies either quit or go out of business, which won’t happen because Coca-Cola / PepsiCo / Dr. Pepper / Cadbury-Schweppes etc. are collectively richer than Great Britain. So there is theoretically no limit as to how much tax revenue the BritGov could collect from this policy.
And all because you, you fat bastards, insist on buying your kids Big Gulps and pouring Dr. Pepper over their sugary breakfast cereals (a rant for another time, coming very soon to these pages).
And at the bottom of all this, of course is the reason why Gummint — in this case the Brit manifestation thereof — should care about fat children at all. It’s not because they’re concerned for the chillins’ health (although that’s the figleaf), but because when obesity causes health issues, then said issues have to be covered by the foul (but government-funded) National Health Service.
Which brings us back — AGAIN — to Ambrose Bierce’s dictum. It’s all about the fucking money.
At the beginning of this post, I said that Bierce’s death was much lamented but as I think about it, I’m glad that my favorite cynic of all time isn’t around to see all this. He’d probably commit suicide.
And as a footnote, allow me to recommend unreservedly The Devil’s Dictionary, which under the reign of World-Emperor Kim would be a required textbook in all high-school curricula.
From an article detailing how ex-President Token and his harridan wife are making millions, we find this little nugget:
In October 2017, Michelle Obama was a keynote speaker at the Pennsylvania Conference for Women, a non-profit that promotes education and networking. The New York-based Harry Walker Agency Inc., which books both Obamas for speaking gigs, billed the Pennsylvania Conference for Women $225,000 in 2017, according to the non-profit’s most recent tax filings.
Barack Obama currently rakes in $400,000 per speech, and earned at least $1.2 million for three talks to Wall Street firms in 2017.
But, but, but… #IncomeInequality !!!
Barack Shithead Obama earns twice as much as his Pore Wife, for doing the same job!
#ShameOnBarack #PayTheBitchMore #FairnessInSpeakingFees
Whatever all that shit means.
So having taken back the U.S. House, the Socialists are starting to feel their oats:
WASHINGTON — A Democratic congressman has proposed outlawing “military-style semiautomatic assault weapons” and forcing existing owners to sell their weapons or face prosecution, a major departure from prior gun control proposals that typically exempt existing firearms.
In a USA Today op-ed entitled “Ban assault weapons, buy them back, go after resisters,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., argued Thursday that prior proposals to ban assault weapons “would leave millions of assault weapons in our communities for decades to come.”
Swalwell proposes that the government should offer up to $1,000 for every weapon covered by a new ban, estimating that it would take $15 billion to buy back roughly 15 million weapons — and “criminally prosecute any who choose to defy [the buyback] by keeping their weapons.”
And when he got some blowback, the little turd went full Stalin:
It is a recurring fantasy of socialists that they can disarm Americans without too much difficulty. Of course, we know that’s not true, and if the FedGov were ever to try it, the cost would be prohibitive (in so many ways). And for the record, let’s forget all about nukes. That’s just a wet dream on the part of socialists like Swalwell; they want to wish the problem away with a wave of a magic wand — it’s a recurring fantasy of theirs for just about every issue — and “nukes” is just a shorthand.
Where this socialist scumbag and his ilk are dangerous is this bullshit talk of “common ground”. Let me make this clear: between gun owners and gun confiscators, there is no common ground. It’s the same with the “commonsense gun control legislation” that they bat around: there’s no such thing. Every single piece of legislation suggested by gun controllers has one, and only one goal in mind: the eventual disarming of the American people. They can protest all they want, but we know the truth of the matter, which is that all gun control legislation is incremental, because they know that sweeping gun control (confiscation and disarmament) just ain’t gonna happen, dreams of the Swalwell types notwithstanding.
It is quite possible that gun confiscation might have some small success — e.g. in Swalwell’s own district (see below), where the incidence of legal gun ownership is probably quite low and the Democrat Socialist-majority voting population might even support the idea of giving up whatever guns they have. (And I know what you’re thinking: nuking the 15th district, and especially with the concomitant fallout, would actually solve quite a few problems, but let’s not go there.)
Also, Swalwell might have at his behest the loathsome assholes of the California State Police, who were so notably efficient in disarming households in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina floods. So yeah: it’s quite feasible that confiscation could work there.
In North Texas, not so much. In the first place, the would-be confiscators would have to overcome Texas political sentiment about guns — good luck with that — and according to our last county sheriff, the confiscating force would first have to go through his deputies to get to our guns. And I’m sure that north Texas isn’t alone in this attitude, not just in Texas but all over the U.S.
We don’t have to worry about gun confiscation, the wet dreams of pissants like Swalwell notwithstanding. What we have to worry about is, as I said above, all the “reasonable” gun control legislation such as, for example, legislation that would limit the type of gun you can own, or equally bad, limits on things like the amount or types of ammunition you can own, or whether you have to register with government as a “gun owner” before being able to buy it. (Don’t laugh; that’s the situation that faces Californian gun owners right now.)
Did I already mention that today is National Ammo Day?
Let me offer a little additional advice: if you don’t already own a semi-automatic rifle (and we all know what I mean by that), you might want to improve your gun collection by buying an AK-47, AR-15/20 type, SAR-58 or HK-91 (to name but some options) — and buy it today (along with a “sufficiency” of ammo for the rifle, of course). Send me an email if you want some more details.