Tag: Power

Government, Politics

You Can’t Handle The Truth

First off I have to confess to liking a good conspiracy theory. I can sport a tinfoil hat with the best of them. And you have to admit that this last week has provided a plethora of deep state, unknown force theories all working to undermine our country. The last few days I haven’t been able to refresh my X/Twitter feed fast enough. Approximately every five minutes I’ve been shouting down the hall to Mrs Troutdog the latest news. “OMG won’t believe this – the shooters cell phone had three phone calls from Vladimir Zelensky!” “You won’t believe this – Biden actually died in Vegas and Obama has been coordinating the plan to dump Kamala and get Newsom elected!” You get the idea. But upon reflection this morning… I don’t think any of this is a “conspiracy”.

While I enjoy intrigue, I’m also a realist. You know, that whole Occam’s razor thing. All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually correct. The more I think about all the recent happenings, there’s one common thread. Incompetence.

Government generally speaking is incredibly incompetent. Usually laughably so. The incompetence increases the further away you get from local government. By the time you reach the federal government, an inability to manage the simplest of tasks is rampant. Throw in greed, corruption, naked ambition, stupidity, and the bubble of Washington, and you have the perfect recipe for the incompetent blog that characterizes much of government.

This is how California has a high speed rail project that’s been going for 15 years, has built virtually nothing, will cost $150 billion, and isn’t projected to finish for at least another decade. Or how the Biden administration “invested” $7.5 billion on EV chargers and has only built 7 of them. Or how we fucked up the Afghanistan withdrawal. Or the Covid response. At the local level it took my town more than six months to get a dashboard/tracking website up for Covid cases. This was the ENTIRE MISSION OF THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT and they weren’t ready. You had one job, be ready for a pandemic event, and you failed completely. The examples are endless. This is government at its finest.

So now when I reflect upon the (many) events of the last weeks, I’m seeing them through the lens of government. I think it’s a cascading series of events that are trying to be managed by incompetent people. Was it a conspiracy to hide multiple shooters paid for by George Soros at the Trump assassination attempt? No, I suspect it was incompetent DEI leadership, lowered performance standards, and laziness that allowed the typical lone wackjob shooter to nearly succeed. Everything else is a collective rush by everyone to cover their butts. Hide behind lawyers, the DOJ, stall, blame “the ongoing investigation”, throw a few local Barney Fife types under the bus, and by the time Kamala is president it’ll be forgotten. You really think anyone in government is actually capable of keeping a secret? Hell, the Secret Service Directors full statement was just “leaked” to the press before she could give it to congress. Leaking is how Washington works.

The Biden drop-out issue? I think in reality this has been in motion for a while. The DNC simply had no idea what to do. Biden didn’t want to go and nobody wanted Kamala for fear she couldn’t win. Finally with the horrible debate performance, the donors started getting cold feet and that was enough for the big players to pressure Jill and Hunter to convince him to drop out. Everything since then has been nothing more than a scramble to figure out how to message this and how to handle the Kamala scenario. Realistically there was probably no way the DEI wing of the party was going to let the first female VP be passed over. Considering Kamala has been the abortion czar and that’s 1/3 of their party platform, the optics wouldn’t have been great had they removed her.

So that’s it. Stupid, power hungry people, desperate to cover their butts, all jockeying to be in the best position possible when the dust settles. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that. I mean my god, have you seen the picture of Biden’s speechwriting team? Nothing but college interns and gender studies graduates. It’s frightening to think these are the people shaping the messaging of the most powerful country in the world. It actually goes a long way to explain much of the past four years.

I think it’s time to put away the tinfoil hats and crazy theories about a new world order orchestrated by the UN and the WEF. Obama, Hillary, and Pelosi aren’t pulling any strings behind the scenes other than trying to figure out how to make their stock portfolios grow. The CIA isn’t planning the next Bird Flu pandemic to disrupt the election. And the FBI is too busy working with the DOJ to arrest more of those evil J6’rs to be involved in anything more sinister. So just check those conspiracies at the door and let the process play out. The country likes equilibrium and tends to balance itself out every few elections. It may look a little messy, but I guarantee all will be status quo given a bit of time.

LOL, just kidding. Nothing adds up and there is shit being covered up at the highest levels in all agencies. There’s been a glitch in the Matrix and the system is scrambling to regain control. And the closer we get to the bad orange man regaining the presidency… the more desperate the state will get. Buckle up buttercup, it’s about to get weird.

Government

They’re Watching

I spent the last week on a beach outside of the USA. Good food, too many margaritas, and plenty of time by the pool. With nothing but time on my hands I consumed a number of books. One was about the United States biometric data collection practices and another was Edward Snowdens book. Both were fascinating and frightening. The allegations Snowden makes about US surveillance capabilities almost seem made up… and then we experienced it firsthand crossing back across the border.

Mrs Troutdog and I both enrolled in the Global Entry program so we wouldn’t have to stand in the passport line coming back from vacation. This trip was our first time using it. We walked up to a handful of empty kiosks and a customs agent. He instructed us to look into a camera. In under five seconds a green light came on and we were done and on our way. Instant facial recognition indexed against a database of god knows what information about us. (also used by the Clear airport security program) It was creepy, especially knowing that this technology is probably being used on us daily as we walk around minding our own business.

If you weren’t aware, the NSA/CIA/DIA invested heavily in biometric harvesting and analysis during the global war on terror, primarily in Afghanistan. One of the offshoots of that is a company called Palantir founded by billionaire Peter Thiel. They created AI that takes biometrics and metadata, indexes that against intelligence data, and creates predictive behavior models – basically tracking your movements and predicting that you’re very likely to plant an IED or attack soldiers in the future. That battlefield program has now been turned over to police departments under the auspices of “predictive policing”. A number of big departments, LA, New York, New Orleans, have been experimenting with it to target gang activity. It’s unclear at this point to what degree it’s been implemented beyond trials.

Another fun company, also funded by Peter Thiel, is Clearview AI. They’ve scraped billions upon billions of images from Facebook and other social media sites to build a massive neural network of facial and location recognition. Give the algorithm a face and it will spit back all known locations that person visited and their associates/friends. It’s currently being used by law enforcement and private companies. Wonder why you didn’t get that job? Maybe one of your friends is too controversial. Maybe they know you visited that seedy massage parlor or attended a protest of some sort several years ago.

But where does the government get this data about you? Besides companies like Clearview AI, thanks to Mr Snowden we now know that the NSA is intercepting all internet traffic. There is a series of servers sitting at all major US telecom sites that internet traffic is routed through. The first is called TURMOIL and it intercepts your web request and makes a copy. The second is called TURBINE which parses through your data looking for keywords, metadata, and flagged web sites. If you trip the algorithm, the TURBINE server can insert malware which is then downloaded to your device and voila, the NSA is now actively monitoring you.

The NSA and CIA are monitoring and collecting every single bit of data you produce and storing it at a massive data center south of Salt Lake City (reportedly capable of storing yottabytes of data). Internet searches, phone calls, location data… basically anything that makes contact electronically with the outside world is harvested. Add on top of that facial recognition data and license plate readers from a sea of cameras planted throughout your city and it’s fair to say you are being tracked and monitored most of your waking moments. All in the name of “security”.

Going into Snowdens book, I wasn’t sure how I felt. I love my country and after 9/11, of course I want to ensure the terror tactics seen in Europe or on the battlefield don’t spread here. Snowden signed the NDA’s and swore an oath – you don’t then get to just violate that because you think you’re being righteous.

The problem is that our country lied. James Clapper, director of national Intelligence, sat in front of congress and swore we did not collect data on Americans. But they do. They collect all of it. Everything. The justification they now give is that they collect and store it, but they don’t use it unless there’s a reason. Uhm, yeah right.

When you see the overreach and abuses we’re currently witnessing from the FBI, the weaponization of the DOJ, the illegal FISA searches, NSA monitoring and leaking info about journalists, and the alphabet agencies partnering with social media to censor news… my trust level for the government is about as close to zero as you can get. So as far as Snowden goes, I went from ambivalent to firmly on team Snowden.

We have a minor little thing called the fourth amendment in this country. The government does not have the right to spy and collect data about you without due process. The people have the right to understand what information is being harvested about them and how it’s used.

While the founding fathers may appreciate that pithy little paragraph, it’s meaningless. We’ve already crossed the point of no return. This genie isn’t going back in the bottle. We officially live in a big brother state. You are going to be watched, monitored, and have predictive AI make decisions about your life from the moment of birth until your death. It’s Orwellian stuff of science fiction novels. It’s all fine and dandy I suppose, as long as it’s used against bad guys. But what’s that old quote? “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely“

It wouldn’t take much for an administration to decide some segment of the population was getting a bit too subversive and to take action. Write the wrong thing in a blog post, say something about the government in your living room with Alexa listening, order a flagged item from Amazon – you’re going to get a knock on your door from the feds. Good luck booking airline travel or applying for a job when you’re on an enhanced watch list.

Can you honestly say we’re very far away from that reality? What makes you think we’re not already there?

So yeah, I approve of what Snowden did. We need more of that. More sunlight. More details. More exposure. Because I like quotes, here’s another one for you: “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” Those in power do not want this and will fight it tooth and nail, in the name of security. Understand this and reject any and all attempts to expand the security state.

Now excuse me, I’m off to feed the Facebook algorithm false information to confuse the feds. Just kidding. I watch cute Vizsla videos and mountain bike crashes.

Or that’s what I want you to think.

Daily Life, Government, woke

Now What?

Susan looked down at the desk. Three different color highlight markers were lined up precisely on the right hand corner. The book was centered on the desk, propped up at a slight angle. She had a notebook just to the side for jotting down important things to reference later. Susan loved studying in the library. The quiet. The purposefulness of being there. Her roommates were too loud and not always the most studious, so the library was her refuge. In truth, she’d always been a good student and spent more time in the library than with friends or playing sports. She didn’t mind. This was where she was comfortable.

Feeling the light haptic buzz on the wrist from her smartwatch, she glanced down at it. She saw the partial title from the new email and breathed in a quick involuntary gasp. “From: Columbia School….” This was it. She’d been waiting for this moment ever since pushing the application submit button yesterday. Well, truthfully ever since starting high school she’d wanted to be a journalist. She worked with singleminded focus ever since. Joining a few carefully selected clubs. Writing for the school paper. An internship at a human rights organization. She been very careful with social media from the beginning. Always adding a like to the important social issues of the moment. Making sure to have the correct flags and symbols in her profile at all times. She prided herself in properly honoring peoples pronouns when emailing them. While she didn’t have many friends, she did have several acquaintances who were people of color. She’d made sure her photos with them were prominent on her social media feed.

Susan pulled out her phone to read the message. Her hands trembled as she opened up the email. “Thank you for your interest in The Columbia School of Journalism. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a spot in the next cohort. Our Admissions Team found several things in your record that did not meet Columbia’s high standards of admission…”

She felt the hot tears starting to fall down her cheeks. How could this be? She’d done everything right. She’d sacrificed. She had straight A’s. She’d stayed off social media other than the carefully curated time she planned out so she’d have the exact right online presence. Only to have her fate decided by an AI engine in less than a day. An AI engine that took her name and national ID number, which is all the “application” consisted of, and instantly scanned her entire on-line history. An algorithm designed to evaluate if she fit the current DEI profile Columbia needed in order to maintain their federal journalism license.

The wave of despair she felt was paralyzing. Now what? She hadn’t applied anywhere else. It wouldn’t matter at this point. A rejection is now in the system and no other school was going to take her with that on her record. The reality of a lifetime of blue collar work began to set in. She struggled to catch her breath.

Matt’s finger hovered over the submit button. Was this going to work? His parents had been smart, purchasing a second ID as soon as he’d been born. His entire life, he used that ID to surf the internet, log into online games, and shit post on X and various counter culture forums. His real ID had been cultivated like a rare flower. Even though it was illegal to use one of the dark web ID coaches, his parents thought it was worth the risk. Everything his real ID did online was carefully calculated for maximum effect. His online self was a perfect being.

Like Susan, Matt didn’t apply anywhere else. A few years ago he’d briefly thought about simply applying to one of the merit based schools, but those were mostly in the midwest flyover part of the country. Graduating with a bunch of deplorables only to be some sort of materials engineer wasn’t going to make his parents happy. It had been important to them from the moment he was born that he be a lawyer and part of the East Coast establishment. That was only real path to power and money.

The second ID had been a risk for sure. The AI engines were smart and able to collate and cross-reference millions of online interactions he or his parents had and look for irregularities. Even with spoofed IP addresses, was there a chance the fake ID could be somehow linked to him? Matt hoped not. His parents had paid a lot of money over the years to the ID coaches to ensure his real persona was squeaky clean.

Like Susan, he didn’t have a backup plan if he didn’t get accepted. The thought of having no other options other than being a blue collar drone or autonomous vehicle operator was not something he wanted to think about.

His finger hovered over the submit button a little longer before he pushed it.

Government, Politics

Do They Even Listen?

Public service. Representatives of the people. Elected officials. Doing the work of the American People.

How many times have you heard these pithy phrases in the last ten years? Whatever the number is, it’s a lot. Our elected politicians LOVE to campaign and talk about being champions for the people, to represent the good folks who sent them to government to be your voice. To fight the good fight. Maybe it’s just me, and call me crazy, but I’m getting the feeling that they don’t really care what you think.

When you’re out and about talking to regular people, they have concerns. Mundane worries about things like the cost of living, health care costs, taxes, and paying for their kids education. If you’re one of those far right, ultra MAGA extremists, you might even be worried about the border invasion or foreign wars. None of these things seem to be anything local or federal government cares about. Don’t get me wrong, they pay lip service to them in campaign speeches and on X/twitter. But in terms of actual legislation or executive orders… crickets.

It feels like an episode of that TV show Pawn Stars. CITIZEN: “I’m really worried about the cost of groceries and the flood of migrants crossing the border”. POLITICIAN: “Best I can do is spend cargo planes of cash for improved Amtrak service. Oh, and we’ll throw in another ten billion for Ukraine”.

Is it that they honestly don’t understand what the citizens want, or do they know and don’t care? Don’t answer that, it was rhetorical.

I know I tend to be on the skeptical side, but I’m getting the feeling that my elected officials don’t really care what the people think. Perhaps the mechanisms of government are simply too complex for us regular people to grasp. Maybe we’re just petulant children who need to be quiet while the adults talk. It just seems that nobody cares what we, the people, want.

We need to keep an eye on Argentina and its new president, Javier Milei. He followed through with his campaign promise and cut the number of ministries in half on day one. He killed the Ministry of Culture, along with the ministries of Health, Labor, Social Development, and Education. Will he be able to wrest some sort of financial stability and improvement, or will he be swallowed by the government blob, unwilling to ceed power to this madman? It will be interesting to watch.

If we had an actual politician here willing to do the same, would it work? Could the right personality actually start cutting back on the deep state and make a difference? Or is the government enterprise simply too powerful?

Let’s look at our options:

  • Biden (Obama) – the meat puppet is a pudding brained Alzheimer’s patient. He’s no longer an effective tool of the Obama machine and irrelevant.
  • Newsom – He’s the very definition of the deep state.
  • Haley – The female Jeb Bush/McCain, eager to be the next deep state representative.
  • Christy – The buffet is calling.
  • Trump – He had all three branches of government and… the deep state steamrolled him. It would be different this time, how?
  • DeSantis – Has the right governing instincts and executive skills, but lacks the charisma to fire up the people. Has run a piss-poor campaign which doesn’t bode well.
  • Ramaswamy – The most interesting of the bunch. Has the charisma. Has the right ideas. He’s a contrarian. The establishment won’t let him anywhere near the nomination.

So basically… we’re screwed. Nothing will change. The deep state, the enterprise, has grown so large and powerful I don’t think it’s possible to change. It’s like a black hole, slowly sucking all light and energy from the room, growing bigger every day. Eventually, like a massive star that triggers runaway nuclear fusion, it will go supernova and collapse.

Hopefully, like the decline of stars and the Roman Empire, that collapse will take some time. Regardless of who captures the throne, it feels like the next four years is an inflection point for the American experiment.

Will the people continue to go along to get along… or will they begin to turn on their masters?

Daily Life, Government

Be Prepared, A Motto

Does anyone remember the Boy Scouts? I know I’m dating myself, but I did the whole scouting thing. Eventually we moved to a different city so I never finished my Eagle Scout, but I was pretty involved as a kid. If you didn’t know, the scout motto is “Be Prepared”. When the scouting founder, Robert Baden-Powell, was asked “be prepared for what?” He replied, “Why, for any old thing”. This way of thinking was drilled into me even further when I was a member of a Search and Rescue team. I saw first hand what happened when people wandered into the woods without adequate preparation. (hint, it was never good)

A looooong time ago I lived in California, in the Bay Area. The possibility of the big earthquake was very real. Having a minor part in my cities emergency management system, I realized what a shit show things would be if the big quake really did hit. Trust me, your government is not ready. If a couple of overpasses came down, say goodbye to your food supply (grocery stores only have 2-3 days on hand at any given time). As a result, I had a fair amount of food and water stockpiled. I felt pretty good about my ability to ride out multiple weeks of no power, water, or food.

I no longer live in California (thank god). My little part of the world is reasonably immune from natural disaster. We have plenty of water sources, don’t suffer from droughts, don’t have earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes. We don’t have the civil unrest plaguing so many cities right now. While we’re starting to see some homeless and a bit of increased drug traffic… snowy winters tend to keep that somewhat in check. Basically our main threat is the Yellowstone super volcano blowing. If that happens, we’re all screwed so it’s not really worth worrying about.

So as you can probably guess, my “prepping” has gotten somewhat lax. I still stock quite a bit of food and things that go bang to defend the aforementioned food. Water is not an issue. So the question is, should I be preparing more?

It’s been a long time since I gave this question any thought. But lately… the political, social, and geopolitical situation has me more nervous. We’re closer to WWIII kicking off than we’ve ever been. An EMP strike is a very real possibility. Side note, read “One Second After” if you want a realistic picture of what that would look like. Complete South Africa-like social collapse is certainly in the realm of possibility. I’d like to think my part of the world is isolated enough to avoid much of it, but you never know. China is nearing a collapse. Inflation, fuel prices and fertilizer shortages are skyrocketing the price of food. The price of cattle futures has doubled. Supply chain interruptions and food scarcity generally lead to bad things. A terrorist attack on our power grid? Yeah, that would be bad. So far this year, 160 people on the terrorist watchlist have been stopped on the border. How many snuck through?

The point is, I think it’s time to starting thinking about worst case scenarios. I filter “prepping” down to the following:

  • Does my family have enough food, water, and the ability to cook it for several months? Can we function without electricity for that length of time? Do I have the ability to defend it from people trying to take it?

That’s it. No more, no less. Nobody’s bugging out or going on the long march. We’re not setting up radio communications or coordinating neighborhood assault/patrol teams. I’m not digging a fallout shelter. None of that’s realistic. If something really bad happened, could we hunker down for sixty days and survive? If it’s still really bad beyond that… well, it’s probably end of days and Mad Max time. Nobody but the gangs and most brutal will survive that. I’m not sure I’d want to be around at that point.

My personal weak points are cooking, heating, and light. The hard part is that the solutions to those problems are somewhat expensive. It’s hard to spend money on something you hope to never use. Depending on what happens in the world this next year – it may be time to pony up and prepare.

How about you? Could your family survive a couple months without power or government infrastructure? One month? A week? It’s worth thinking about.

Whether contemplating the societal breakdown scenarios, or going backpacking, fishing, or riding a motorcycle into the backcountry, there’s a saying I like:

“Expect to self-rescue. No one is coming.”

Keep that in mind when planning stuff and you’ll be better off than most of the population.

Government

It’s A Conspiracy

Over this past Christmas break, we traveled to a warmer climate to visit the in-laws. It was a lovely trip, but spending time with my in-laws is, well, unique. Think the Costanzas from Seinfeld and you’ll have a pretty good picture of the experience. They’re getting older, so things tend to move at a glacial pace. You’d think I’d have figured this out by now, but for some reason I’m always baffled as to why we can’t get out of the house before 2pm. And you have to be back to the house by 4pm so you can take naps before dinner. Anyway, the end result is that I have plenty of time sitting around the pool… waiting.

To fill my time this trip, I read. I actually lost track of how many books I finished (there was a lot of waiting). Part of the reason I read so many books, is that I went down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Now I love me a good conspiracy theory. There’s just something about challenging conventional wisdom that appeals to the Contrarian in me.

But to be a good conspiracy theory, it can’t be too wacky. Chemtrails and birds aren’t real are too far-fetched. No, the theory needs to be outside of mainstream thinking, but have just enough facts rooted in reality to make you go “hmmm”. You don’t want to believe, but something in the narrative is just enough that you begin to doubt what you’ve been told.

I started my journey with the Kennedy assassination. First off, it’s weird that the government won’t declassify anything other than rehashed Warren commission stuff. That by itself is enough to make you go “hmmm”. The more I read, I’d think “no, that couldn’t be”. I’d do a little independent research and sure enough a certain person was verifiably there or involved in some way. It was an awesome trip down a weird rabbit hole. And you know it was a good conspiracy theory when you then start thinking, well if that could have happened, what else could be covered up? Boom. Next thing you know I’m four books into big brother controlling my thoughts and the CCP monitoring my activities through my smart refrigerator. I loved it!

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory. That’s why we’re so susceptible to ads and YouTube thumbnails that start with “Nobody knows this one trick to…” or “The secret Costco price strategy…” and “Lose weight by eating this little-known food…” We all want to be in on the secret.

But after my multi-day reading frenzy, I don’t know if I want to learn about any more conspiracies. Because if they’re even partially true – it’s disturbing, and kind of depressing. I WANT to believe that the world is fair and that everyone plays by the rules. I want to believe that evil cabals only exist in the movies. Otherwise, it means that us little guys are suckers and just pawns in a game that’s rigged.

I think it’s time for me to step away from the conspiracy theory genre. Maybe I’ll go find a good spy thriller or a whodunit mystery. Meanwhile, you’ll have to excuse me for a bit – I need to cover all the cameras and speakers in my house with black tape. With the research I did, I’m positive I’m now on some sort of government watch-list. Should I suddenly disappear, please know that I have no desire to Epstein or Mcafee myself.

P.S. birds aren’t real

Government, Politics

Abandon Your Team

Loyalties are odd. Often, you’re loyal to something for no concrete or logical reason. You’re either a Bud or a Coors guy. They’re both rancid gutter water, but probably your dad drank one or the other, so that’s what you did as an impressionable youth. Coke or Pepsi. Ford vs. GM. I grew up as a Denver Broncos fan. I didn’t live in Colorado or anywhere nearby. So why the Broncos? As a kid my favorite soft drink was Orange Crush. The late 70’s Bronco defensive line was called the Orange Crush. Good enough for me. I followed Denver into adulthood.

Politics are much the same. I’d wager that the vast majority of people pick a party because that’s what their parents were. They then vote party line for their entire lives. If they become disillusioned enough, they tend not to vote, or vote rarely. I’m too lazy to look it up, but I’d be willing to bet it’s a pretty small percentage of folks that actually switch parties or vote back and forth depending upon the politician. People are creatures of habit and it’s uncomfortable to make changes. You’ll find a way to justify and cling to your beliefs no matter what. It’s like religion. Virtually nobody switches religions. The idea of abandoning your Catholicism for the teachings of Budha are inconceivable, no matter how disillusioned you may become. Worse case, you’ll just abandon religion altogether rather than switch.

And why don’t people switch teams? Because once you get beyond the initial infatuation/honeymoon period, you realize that the same crap that turned you off from your original team is rampant in the new team. Politics, religion, corporations, the deep state, the military industrial complex… all suffer from the same institutional inbreeding. Once entities reach a certain size and inertia, gravity pulls them to the same center regardless of where they started from.

Oh, they can put up fancy new window dressings and run expensive ad campaigns, but at the end of the day, if you strip away the fluff at the outer edges… the core is the same. Team Red controlled all three branches of government when Trump took office. The trifecta. And they spent more in those two years than the previous four under Obama. And that was pre-pandemic. Do you really think Team Red is suddenly going to see the light and become fiscally responsible when they take back the reins in ’24? If so, I have some NFT’s I’d like to sell you. Payment in Dogecoin only, please.

But wait, you say. We’re bringing back the bad orange man. MAGA time, baby! He’s going to kick some butt this time around. Our obsession with the office of the President is odd. Personally, I think it’s the bright shiny object intended to keep you distracted. The president cannot create budgets. They can’t cut budgets. They have the power to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, but that’s it. They can attempt to rule via executive order, but every single EO will be challenged in court and, worse case, overturned by the next administration. The president has the power of the bully pulpit, and that’s about it. That can be powerful for sure, depending upon the speaker, but it’s not going to fundamentally alter the structure of the institutions.

The real power is congress. And the same power players on both teams just keep getting re-elected year, after year, after year, after year. I’d be willing to bet 80% (if not more) of the population couldn’t name their two senators and representative. And THAT’S who’s actually making the decisions that impact your life. My representative has been in office since 1999. 23 years and I guarantee you’ve never heard of him.

My point? I’m not sure, I’ve forgotten by now. Oh, wait I remember. I read a substack article from someone way smarter than me, and he had a great quote:

Perhaps if when next you vote, you think not about left or right, about us or them, about the lesser evil vs the greater, but rather about “which of these people is most likely to take power way from government and defend the rights of the people”

Because at this point it’s become about authoritarianism vs liberty, not Red vs Blue. If your representatives haven’t done anything meaningful and demonstratable to reduce government, rein in the institutions, or protect your rights as a citizen… get rid of them. Vote the bums out. It’s time to keep shuffling the deck until we get something better. Even if you vote the same team, put someone new in. Stop the blind allegiance to a specific office holder just because. Trust me, there’s nothing special about them other than their ability to raise money. At this point, the best thing we could do for this country would be to randomly pull 535 people from the phone book and put them in office. Whoo boy, that would put the fear of God into the deep state!

I understand the Church of Contrarianism takes a bit to get used to. It’s hard to give up the dogma you’ve lived with for all of your adult life. The status quo is comfortable. I liken it to my separation from the NFL. Like any red-blooded American boy, I grew up with the NFL. Sundays were for football. I played Pop Warner and high school ball. And I had my team. And then in the late ’90’s there was a big free agency court ruling. And suddenly players who’d played on your team forever, left. That hurt. It wasn’t quite the same anymore.

And then, I discovered fantasy football. All of a sudden, I no longer cared about teams… I cared about individual players. That broke the hold Sunday games had on me. The player stats on Monday were much more interesting than an individual game. And slowly the fantasy leagues lost their attraction (mostly because I was really bad at it). I’d watch a few NFL game from time to time, but it was fewer and fewer every year. This year marks the second full year I haven’t watched a single game. And I don’t miss it.

It hurts a little bit to give up your blind allegiance to Team Red or Team Blue. But once you embrace the fact that the game is rigged… you’ll be happier.

Government

Snitches End Up In Ditches

While there’s many things that I didn’t expect in the overall handling of this pandemic, one thing in particular stands out. It’s how quickly people turned on their fellow citizens. I’ve often looked back at the history of something like 1930’s Germany and wondered how people could so blindly follow government authoritarianism down a dark hole. I always felt that here in the US we’re such a freedom loving, independent people, something like that would never happen. How frighteningly wrong I was.

Now before you get your panties all in a bunch, I’m not arguing for or against the vax, lockdowns, mandates, health passports, or anything else. I’m simply making an observation about human behavior. The first observations of scary behavior was with the police of Canada and Australia. I don’t know much about either country and how their police behaved before the pandemic, but what they did afterwards shocked me. Video after video of police officers dragging people out of their homes, restaurants, and business for the most minor of infractions. Not wearing a mask. Staying open past a curfew. A church holding a service. Just last week Australian police arrested a man in a park who was completely alone and holding his son in his lap. His crime? Not wearing a mask outdoors. How do police officers become so blinded by authoritarian power that they believe tackling and arresting someone for not wearing a mask is appropriate?

At least that wouldn’t happen here, right? Let’s see… remember the order to fill a kids skate park with sand so it couldn’t be used? Seriously there wasn’t one person when that order was issued who said this is ridiculous, we don’t need to be doing that? Or police officers chasing a lone surfer down the beach and arresting him for violating the lockdown? A certain governor mandated during lockdowns that it’s ok to buy lottery tickets, but you can’t buy paint for your home. The city of New York mandated that you have to show your ID and vax status if you’d like the privilege of dining out. And the entire population just meekly said, ok. Thank you sir, may I have another?

And never mind the police state… look at what’s happened with normal citizen encounters. People are shouting at others if they’re not wearing a mask. Online I see nothing but post after post of virtue signaling outrage, attempting to shame anyone who doesn’t agree with your stance on the vax, masks, lockdowns, etc… Question anything and you’re branded as some sort of hillbilly conspiracy nut. Flight attendants are happily shutting down flights and having passengers arrested because a two year old wouldn’t keep their mask on. How did we get to that?

I don’t know why, but I’m surprised. I’m surprised at how meekly the population just agreed with everything, without question. Not only that, but the amount of scorn and ridicule people are willing to dish out to anyone who even appears to question anything. If the government came out tomorrow and said we need you to start reporting anyone you see violating any public health mandates, half the population would happily be turning in their neighbors and family members as fast as they could. The worrisome thing is that they’d do it and feel virtuous and justified for doing so.

I didn’t think we were so meek as a nation. England and France proposed vaccine passports and there were protests in the streets of tens of thousands… weekend after weekend, in city after city. The largest city in the US imposes a mandate to show your ID just to get into a store and the citizens just rolled over and asked which app they should use?

This highlights for me just how important it is to be a contrarian. To question authority. Why? Because clearly at least half the population will blindly go along with anything the government says. And as history shows, that’s scary. Is mask wearing a hill worth dying on? Of course not. But what about the next edict passed down? And the next one, and the one after that? If we don’t continually remind the state that they serve us, not the other way around… pretty soon you will be nothing more than a servant to the state. You may want to read up on Russia, China, etc… to see how that works out.

The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous, rather than cowardly

Robert Anton Wilson
Daily Life, Government, Health

Crime Of The Century
  • This is hard for me to write. The emotions are still a bit too raw to think clearly about what happened. The feeling of being violated has shaken me to my core. An event happened a few days ago that has just left me speechless. Someone stole my garbage can. Keep in mind it wasn’t a fancy or special garbage can, it was the plain ‘ole black plastic, city issued garbage bin. Why? What sort of monster steals a garbage can? Reviewing my security camera footage, the can is clearly there on the curb at 11:33am, waiting for collection. At 12:08pm a car I don’t recognize comes up the driveway, then turns around and exits. The next view of the street is at 3:50pm and the garbage can is gone. All video footage has been turned over to the local police and FBI. I’m positive no expense will be spared to track down this menace to society. In all seriousness, what the hell is wrong with people? How does someone do something like that and then happily go to sleep at night? I shoplifted a candy bar once on a dare from friends when I was in sixth grade. I was so wracked with worry and guilt I didn’t even eat it. I gave it to one of the friends and then never went back to the store. And yet this fiend takes my garbage without a care in the world. Hmmm, wait. I don’t know if the can had been emptied yet. I have said some insurrectionist things here the last few months. Maybe it wasn’t a thief? Perhaps the government wanted to look for any top secret QAnon briefing materials I may have casually tossed out? I may have to revisit my operational security practices.
  • The lady at the waste disposal company who answered my call about the missing can was less than helpful. She said perhaps I can go around to all my neighbors and look for the can. I told her we don’t have any nearby neighbors and I have looked all around for the can. Silence. So… can I get another can? Long exasperated sigh. Fine, we’ll deliver another can next Monday. Trash bags are now piling up in the garage. I wonder if I’ll get charged for the new bin?
  • On a more serious note, my security cameras weren’t super effective. We have lots of large trees and every time the wind blows it triggers a motion alert. To combat that we turn down the sensitivity, which means the cameras no longer capture anything unless it’s right in front them. I’m going to have find better locations and settings for the cameras. They didn’t capture anything useful other than a snippet of a strange car in the driveway. Time to step up my security game.
  • The gods are clearly unhappy with me for my two straight months of whining about the cold, wet, and windy spring. We finally have a beautiful stretch of warm weather and I have a week off. I have plans for bike rides, golf, trail running, and a motorcycle ride. Aaaandd… I somehow managed to hurt my back. I have no idea what I did, but it hurts like a [BLEEEP]. Sigh. I guess when I said months ago that I needed to start strengthening my core, I should have listened to myself.
  • California is issuing power alerts due to the current heat wave. They’re asking people to be energy aware and to not use high demand devices during peak hours, such as… charging electric vehicles. This make me giggle.

Song of the day: Dr. Dre ft. Snoop Dogg – Nuthin’ But A G Thang

Government, Politics

You Don’t Need To Know

While there may be some exceptions, for the most part I don’t believe people in power are inherently evil. I honestly don’t think politicians and CEO’s have malicious intentions. I do think that people in power become so wrapped up in their own bubble and authority they lose sight of the big picture.

For example, take the mayor of my little city. At the beginning of the pandemic, public officials were panicking. For that I don’t blame them. The “experts” were publishing dire information and basically we were all going to die. Our mayor never actually made any tough decisions, only echoed whatever the state and CDC did. Three or so weeks after shutting down all private businesses, the grumblings from the citizenry started. The cities economy was cratering and job loses were huge. On several occasions, via an online forum, I asked the mayor what metrics the city would use to open back up? I received two answers. The first was “the city will follow the guidance of the health district, state, and CDC”. The second was “all our data is posted to the heath district’s web site” (it wasn’t).

Two complete non-answers. So either the mayor had no idea, or she didn’t want to be held to specific numbers in a rapidly shifting scenario. Either way, as a person in a position of authority she decided that as mere citizens we didn’t need to know what the governments plan or thought process was. She single handedly shut down private businesses and then wouldn’t be transparent about when they could open back up again. I think it’s easy for people in positions of power to get all wrapped up in the feeling of we’re doing what’s best for the public, so they don’t really need to know the details. Like parents telling a ten year old “because I said so, that’s why”.

The ultimate example is to watch any president’s press secretary give a briefing. Every single word is parsed and nuanced. Nothing is said that doesn’t advance the political messaging. The people rarely get to see or hear anything resembling reality. Are these people evil? No. But they are so caught up in their power and authority they’ve completely lost sight of the fact that they work for us. Or that’s the theory anyway.

The private sector is no different. I’ve been watching an interesting development with a YouTube channel I subscribe to. This channel has half a million subscribers and suddenly was removed from the partner program, which means it can no longer monetize the videos. No explanation, no warning, nothing. The channel creator has no idea why his channel was removed. The worst part is that once removed from the partner program you also lose all means of contact with YouTube. He has no way to actually contact them to try and find out what he’d done wrong. Now, Google is a private company and they can do whatever they want. But it is certainly the ultimate in power and authority when a company has the opinion they can treat their customers any way they want and feels no obligation to offer any explanation. I’m sure they justify it internally under the guise of “protecting” us vulnerable members of the public from something harmful. (see also, Twitter) Irony in full bloom from the company who’s slogan once was “Don’t be evil”.

I have little point to this other than to remind you that you probably shouldn’t accept anything the government, experts, or most authority figures tell you at face value. Timothy Leary in the ’60’s had it right with his slogan “Question Authority”. As this last year has proven time and time again… they are most likely wrong, lying, obscuring, or hiding the truth. But it’s ok – it’s for your own good.