Tonight- The Height of Light Fights, Might and Right, and Sights of Wights
Ah, the Golden Mean... the most magnificent bastard in all of mathematics.
October 29, 2012
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"Might makes right" is nice when you're mighty, but not as nice when you're only right.
Let's accept as a fact that Trump slowed down the mail by appointing his big-donor Postmaster General (with no mail experience) to tear out the high-volume sorting machines, and that he did it with the intent to have legally cast ballots not make it in on time.
Since then, mail has gotten slower and slower, as one might expect. Only about half of the First Class mail in the cities of swing states is arriving on time. We can debate his intent if you want but it's true.
(Want the quick version of why it's true? There is a 0% chance that he would have done it if he would have hurt Republicans instead of Democrats, and he's currently fighting in court to not fire the machines back up, and to toss ballots postmarked before Election Day but received after Election Day.)
This means he's trying to delegitimize the election, which is a pretty insane thing to do when if it's your own election. I don't like to say that, but unfortunately it logically follows.
If Biden wins, it's in spite of Trump's dirty tricks. If Trump wins, maybe it's legit, but maybe it would be a result of his dirty tricks. The tragedy is not that we wouldn't know, but that we couldn't know.
Wouldn't he want to win on his own merit to preserve legitimacy? Nahhh, that's not the way he governed. He governs strictly for his base only to preserve his own power, to the point that even in a national emergency, he withheld federal aid from governors that he said weren't "nice enough" to him. Might always makes right in Trump's book.
Perhaps not coincidentally, "might makes right" is the tagline of all authoritarian regimes. No need to check the Constitution, we are a Democratic Republic, and it's taken us a long time to get to this point. Not even "us" as Americans, "us" as humans.
In Gorgias, Socrates disputed Thrasymychus who said, "justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger."
Jesus contradicted the notion in the Beatitudes, "Blessed are the meek . . . blessed are the poor in spirit."
Lincoln said, in a campaign event, "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
Freud and Einstein sent a series of letters back and forth on the subject.
I hate to break this to anybody who doesn't already know, but Trump is no Socrates, no Jesus, no Lincoln, no Freud, and no Einstein, despite what he would have you believe.
Many Trump supporters say things like, "I'm not going to defend the way Trump is." Right, since he has no moral foundation, he's indefensible. Seems like not so long ago the Republican party thought they had a monopoly on morality. (A moralopoly?) I seem to remember Jesus fitting into the puzzle somehow, but it's hard to remember how.
"Might makes right," is antithetical to the foundation of moral philosophy, which of course is a meaningless notion to the immoral. Does it even register as a criticism to its adherents?
"Might makes right" is the opposite of believing something in principle, because the mighty would never wish to be the ones they are oppressing. To believe something in principle is to wish it to be a general rule without knowing which side you would be on.
"History is written by the victors"... a variation of might makes right. William Barr, the president's toady, said the quiet part out loud recently. When asked about how history would view him dismissing charges against Flynn, he said "History is written by the winners, so it largely depends on who is writing the history." This guy thinks he's running The Department of Being Viewed Positively If You Are the One Writing the History.
(An aside... can't you imagine looking up the word "toady" and seeing a picture of Barr sitting there on a log?)
Machiavellianism is a personality trait centered on manipulativeness, callousness, and indifference to morality. Take a guess which Machiavellian group this quote was written about.
"Is anyone really surprised that the same tough guys who threatened a teenage girl for trying to save the planet are now threatening an elderly doctor for trying to save lives?"
Republicans? No, it was written by those who denounced science, by those who believe that might makes right. Science doesn't make right to them, might makes right, and might trumps all, so to speak.
I'm not talking about Democrats vs. Republicans here, none of this has to do with policy. I'm talking about those who are pro-science vs. those who are anti-science, pro-democracy vs. "don't count those votes," freedom vs. oppression, the strength of ideas vs. dirty trick schemes and muscle, right vs. might.
Trump's election scheme proves he's the King of the Machiavellians, and it couldn't be more important for him lose. Either we're a country with principles or we aren't.
We need to honor our most basic tenet- our votes must count. Unfortunately this time around, it looks like it might take more than rightfully necessary.
Don't let this dispirit you though. We're going to do this! We're going to do it because Lincoln was right- and right does make might. When you are on the right side of history, you already won.
And when you tear out high-volume mail sorting machines, to slow down the mail during a pandemic, fight in court to keep them torn out, when your opponents disproportionately plan to use the mail to vote legally- you're a loser no matter what.
October 29, 2020
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A political truism- never vote for a miracle pill salesman.
October 29, 2022
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Just saw a guy wearing one of those idiotic shirts- bright pink, it says "DON'T LAUGH, THIS IS YOUR GIRLFRIEND'S SHIRT." If it was, it would say, "DON'T LAUGH, THIS IS MY SHIRT," and I don't think anyone would be so dumb as to have a girlfriend that would think that's funny for some reason. No, it's your bright pink shirt dude, it's your bright pink shirt. I think these guys are modern-day repressed transvestites, looking for some sort of socially acceptable way to dress like a woman in public and this is the closest they can get. Just go all out man, it's cool.
Keep in mind that this is coming from a guy who just had a shirt unearthed from 20 years ago that says "LIME SOFA KING WE TODD DID." So glass houses.
October 29, 2017
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Huh, America's worldwide approval dropped from 64% to 50%, and Australia, the Netherlands and Canada now view China (China!) more favorably than us. Simple facts emblematic of a downward spiral.
This might have something to do with the president's foreign policy and trade, and his focus on zero-sum games. To him, for America to win someone else must lose. The concept of win-win is foreign to him. (Try to sell something on Craigslist with that philosophy.) He doesn't understand that the leaders of countries he wants to bully are beholden to their electorate who also need to see their country win.
October 29, 2017
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Hitchens, on religion as a guide for morality, “I challenge you to find one good or noble thing which cannot be accomplished without religion.”
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Born-again orange Buddha, until he starts bopping the other cats on the head again.
October 29, 2013
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A monster storm pieced together by other storms that hits right around Halloween... let's all take a step back, quit scoffing, and recognize the name "Frankenstorm" for was it is- pure genius!
October 29, 2012
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President William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, was executed by electrocution understand 1901. Supposedly his last words were, “I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people—the working people.”
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The New York Stock Exchange crashed on this day in 1929, "Black Tuesday", the beginning the Great Depression.
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On this day in 1943, Anne Frank wrote this in her diary:
”My nerves often get the better of me, especially on Sundays; that’s when I really feel miserable. The atmosphere is stifling, sluggish, leaden. Outside you don’t hear a single bird, and a deathly, oppressive silence hangs over the houses and clings to me as if it were going to drag me into the deepest regions of the underworld. At times like these, Father, Mother and Margot don’t matter to me in the least. I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs an feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage. “Let me out, where there’s fresh air and laughter!” a voice within me cries.”
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On this day in 1969, the first-ever computer-to-computer link was established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
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The three surviving perpetrators of the Munich massacre were released from prison on this day in 1972, in exchange for the hostages of the hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615. How can that be?
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Philosopher A. J. Ayer was born on this day in 1910.
"When one buys a pair of shoes, one is buying three things, the right shoe, the left shoe and the pair."
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Primatologist, Frans de Waal, I was born on this day in 1948.
"We would much rather blame nature for what we don’t like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like."
Here his TED Talk on moral behavior in animals
http://t.ted.com/xcKp0g4
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Dan Castellaneta was born on this day in 1957.
Homer Simpson- “Trying is the first step towards failure.”
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Civil War General McClellan died on this day 1885. He called Lincoln, "a well-meaning baboon."
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From Wikipedia:
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (c.1867 – 29 October 1949)[1] was a philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and "dance teacher".[2] Gurdjieff taught that people are not conscious of themselves and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and serve our purpose as human beings. The practice of his teaching has become known as "The Work"[3] (connoting work on oneself) and is additional to the ways of the fakir, monk and yogi, so that his student P. D. Ouspensky referred to it as the "Fourth Way".[4]
"Dance teacher," huh? I wonder what's going on there. Maybe I'll look it up sometime.
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If Romney doesn't think there should be federal aid for disasters, he should be running for president of the Individual States of America.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/mitt-romney-fema_n_2036198.html
October 29, 2012
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What??? The frankenstorm is the coming together of two types of DIFFERENT storms. He should love it. If it was two hurricanes coming together he'd have a point, but this is a total hetero storm.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/10/29/1104901/anti-gay-preacher-blames-hurricane-sandy-on-homosexuality-and-marriage-equality/
October 29, 2012
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Aldous Huxley said. "Death … It’s the only thing we haven’t succeeded in completely vulgarizing." Just wait a second there Huxley...
http://selfiesatfunerals.tumblr.com
October 29, 2013
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IFLScience- Pope Endorses Theories Of Evolution And Big Bang
What's next, God is a metaphor???
http://www.iflscience.com/brain/pope-endorses-scientific-account-origins
October 29, 2014
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Joan Didion at Alcatraz
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Alternet- You don't need to be a shrink to understand Trump's mind
From the article:
This universal psychological tendency [to lash out teo-fold to any perceived slight] poses a problem if it is too extreme or compulsive. Trump, for example, seems unable to not strike out if he is made to feel even a little bit of shame, guilt, or failure. Such a reflex makes friendship, collegiality, compromise, or diplomacy impossible—significant problems in a Chief Executive. An ordinary person afflicted with such a reflex would likely suffer social isolation, problems working with others, difficulties parenting, and an inability to be intimate. For a President within reach of the nuclear football, this reflex can obviously have much more catastrophic consequences.
As far as diagnostic labeling of Trump is concerned, the diagnosis most often used to describe him --“Narcissistic Personality Disorder”—is also, itself, easy for a lay person to apply. You need only to refer to the bible of psychiatric diagnosis, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, or DSM, and look up the label that most seems to fit—in this case, the narcissistic personality—and read the criteria. In this case, The Fourth Edition of the DSM says that someone has this disorder if he or she meets 5 of the following 7 criteria:
(1) Has a grandiose sense of self-importance,
(2) Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty,
(3) Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by other special or high status people,
(4) Requires excessive admiration,
(5) Has a sense of entitlement,
(6) Is interpersonally exploitive,
(7) Lacks empathy.
https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/you-dont-need-be-shrink-understand-trumps-mind
October 29, 2017
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I just found Tug McGraw's autobiography at Community Aid, "You Gotta Believe!" That's a portent, right?
I'm a pretty rational guy generally, but lately it seems I've fallen under the spell of magical thinking. I think that when I put my Jean Segura hat on, that Jean Segura is going to get a hit. I think that if I miss watching a pitch, I'm adding bad luck. I think that the positivity of my mental state and my unwavering faith actually influences the game!
Just total flim-flam, but I can't help it!
A friend of Niels Bohr noticed a horseshoe hanging above a door at his house and asked him if he believed in such a pathetic superstition. The Nobel Prize winner for his work on the structure of the atom replied, "No I don't, but apparently it works whether you believe in it or not."
October 29, 2022
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De Waal again:
"I sometimes try to imagine what would have happened if we’d known the bonobo first and the chimpanzee only later—or not at all. The discussion about human evolution might not revolve as much around violence, warfare and male dominance, but rather around sexuality, empathy, caring and cooperation. What a different intellectual landscape we would occupy!"
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Locke- "All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions."
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Ayer again- "No morality can be founded on authority, even if that authority were divine."
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Lebowitz- "I never met anyone who didn't have a very smart child. What happens to these children, you wonder, when they reach adulthood?"
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Teddy Roosevelt
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
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Normie- "Many people are skeptical about marriage of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley. They say, Lisa Marie is more of a sit-at-home type, while Michael Jackson is more of a homosexual pedophile."
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As they say in the song, "Don't forget Winona." She was born on this day in 1971.
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