Happy (?) Climate Week

 It's Climate Week everybody! Checking in on my home country and former home province of Alberta, or as I like to call it, "Albertabama," (thanks Heather) and this is what I see. Both hockey teams, the Calgary Flames and the Edmonton OILERS, have been cleared for NHL games at full capacity. Look a little more and THIS is what I see. Alberta has asked neighbouring BC to take some of its Covid patients. BC said they can't handle them. They're not as bad, but pretty bad. Meanwhile Ontario, where they are taking a more serious and cautious approach to Covid, and where it hasn't yet been determined whether fans will be able to attend Toronto Maple Leaf or Ottawa Senators games, is doing better than Alberta or BC. 

 So let's recap: 42 cases per 100,000 people in Ontario where they are most careful about Covid and may not allow fans at hockey games to start the 21/22 season; 121 cases per 100,000 in BC where they will be allowing limited capacity; and 423 cases per 100,000 people in Albertabama where I guess they reckon hockey to be more important than health. Well, it's oil country, they're the Edmonton Oilers, not the Edmonton Solar Panels.

 Covid 19 has become so politicized and partisan that, forget about ignoring the scientists and medical professionals, (which is happening) people are ignoring the obvious. The same goes for climate issues. During climate week, one of my friends who is always posting about what a jerk Trudeau is and how he's cost Canada jobs by battling fossil fuel companies and opposing pipelines and such, posted this:

I commented, "I guess even an objectivist clock is right twice a day." Not sure that will be understood by my friend, but in case he reads this, I'll explain that a bit further. Ayn Rand is a person who believes that man's sole moral purpose is his own happiness and that productive achievement is his most noble pursuit. "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" are the novels in which objectivism is fleshed out. The character Dominique in The Fountainhead is raped by the main character, Roark, but realizes that it was just what she had needed, then later she marries a guy named Keating who SELLS her to another guy named Wynand, but eventually falls for the "greed is good" philosophy of Roark and they marry. You don't need to know much more about the book. Its message seems to be that the epitome of the above description, Roark, (and oh yeah, he's also a rapist) just might be the perfect, objectivist human being. 

 Or is it John Galt? Who is John Galt? heh heh heh. A little literary humour there. John Galt IS the perfect objectivist human being. He invented a motor that runs on static electricity, but kept it from a "horrific," egalitarian world that would have used it to help everyone, not just himself. In "Atlas Shrugged," Galt makes a speech that Ayn Rand considers to be a massive mike drop that everyone should be able to suspend their disbelief completely enough to buy into. In reality, we hear John Galts all the fucking time and have since over 350 years before Christ (probably the exact opposite of John Galt) when Aristotle taught us how to debunk their rhetoric. Aristotle could pick apart John Galt's speech and expose it for the (ar ar) train wreck it actually was. You can read the whole thing for yourself here, but I'll just summarize it because it relates directly to the current mentality that enables the powers that be in our fucked up world to completely ignore climate change and other things like Covid 19.

 To begin with, you need an audience of the previously convinced to get away with a speech like John Galt's. Like in my last post when I said everybody wants to be happy, so it makes the "happiness is your responsibility" argument easier to sell, in this case, the speech can only be successful if the audience possesses the selfishness and greed necessary to want to become super rich and powerful. That, John Galt, Ayn Rand, Gordon Gecko, Ronald Reagan, and every trickle-down bullshit artist we've heard in politics, religion, economics or any other arena BELIEVES... HAS FAITH IN... WORSHIPS like their religion, but claims to be atheist. Most of these brain damaged people believe their dysfunction is universal. They believe we are all greedy scumbags and that it's human nature to fuck everyone else for personal gain. A massively tragic flaw that has to be accepted before the speech even begins, but let's continue, shall we?

 Another massive flaw that we need to suspend our disbelief in before the speech can even begin is Ayn Rand's personal creation of a dystopian world in moral crisis that would exist if society embraced only virtues that demand self-sacrifice and not those "virtues" that demand selfishness. John Galt lists them at the beginning of his sermon. "You have sacrificed independence to unity, reason to faith, justice to mercy, wealth to need, self-esteem to self-denial, happiness to duty..." and then proves his incredible arrogance by saying that HE has allowed them to do that. 

 I don't want to get too caught up in the book, but I'm sure any of my readers can pick apart most of that quotation without too much trouble. Unity is not an ugly word, nor does it necessarily sacrifice independence. Indeed, in a world such as our REAL world where capitalist greed is firmly in control, independence is necessary to achieve unity. Just ask a protestor in Hong Kong how their independence was squashed. Now you might be drawn into believing that China is communist and Hong Kong's capitalism and desire for self-improvement was being punished by a government similar to that of Ayn Rand's novel. Or is it the pure greed and selfishness run amok of the Chinese Communist Party requiring mindless unity and devotion to the party trying to beat protestors into lockstep? You will often find the "I know you are, but what am I" syllogism in the lies and rhetoric of those trying to subvert you and control you. The bad guys almost always accuse the good guys of their own worst evils.

 Reason to faith, well, as I said, there is an awful lot of faith (the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen) required to believe a world fully controlled by greedy, objectivist people won't achieve full on Armageddon as fast as intellectuals who act on reason and not faith can say, "We told you so."  

 Justice to mercy, as though the two are mutually exclusive. The person who stole bread to feed her family - give her the chair! The person who works two shitty jobs at prosperous businesses, but doesn't earn enough to feed herself - let her starve! The writer who uses female pronouns to represent all of humanity - execute HER!

 Wealth to need? I mean, this is what I just mentioned. Only a fucking prick would think it's good to prefer wealth to need! You need that money, but I want it. I don't need it, but I'll kill you for it and convince myself it's a virtue because I'm just chasing happiness. Give me a break! This is unnatural and requires heavy brainfuckery to achieve even in those who want to believe it.

 Self-esteem to self-denial? There are those of us who feel self-esteem by committing acts of self-denial. In fact, we are the majority. What better way to feel good about yourself than by helping others? Those who can only feel self-esteem by helping themselves are sick human beings. Helping myself past the point of need is only acceptable to a point. That point, to a normal person exists somewhere in relation to other people. There exists NO point of guilt or shame at helping ones self in the mind of the sociopath who cares only of him/her self. To a normal person, if helping myself causes others to suffer, I feel natural, and proper negative feelings of regret, shame and guilt.

 Later in the speech, John Galt says, "Do not cry that you need us or beg us to return, we are on strike, the men of the mind. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil and we should feel guilty about it." The irony! The I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I!!! The world would not be a dystopian disaster that Rand outlines in the book without these greedy parasites! They, the morally reprehensible minority, are the ones responsible for the chaotic suffering in the world. Nobody would cry at their loss. Galt even goes so far as to say, "We do not need you" later in the speech. Again, the mirror syllogism. It is the majority who doesn't need those jagovs. Where would their wealth come from without the workers? But they are too brain damaged to realize this.

 Finally, Galt says that the people sacrificed happiness to duty. Isn't this the spoiled rotten little man children (or women children) saying they don't wanna accept responsibility? Why not? Cuz I don't like it! Doesn't make me happy! You have to be pretty fucking rich and entitled to think that duty is the opposite of happiness. The world had 4 years of the most obvious example from politics, so I'll give you one from literature, since we're on that road today. BETTER literature than the books of Ayn Rand. Take Holden Caulfield as an example. And I'm not the first to draw this parallel...

 Throughout "The Catcher in the Rye," Holden is a 16-year-old child who seems to have quite a privileged position in life attending a private (and undoubtedly expensive) American school like Pencey Prep. It's fictional, but it's in the book for a purpose. We know he's probably upper-middle to upper class. I'd say upper-middle. He seems to have a lot of money to throw around on dates, taxis, and older ladies he's just met. He is trying to find the problem in his life and everybody seems to be telling him it's his inability to apply himself. Take responsibility for his studies, his relationships, his family. Holden, beneath all the impetuous fighting and declarations of phoniness, is a good guy. He'd like to stop every kid from running through the rye field and off the cliff they can't see. He wishes people could maintain the adorable innocence of childhood, including himself. But when he sees his young sister Pheobe at the end of the book riding the carousel and grabbing for the golden ring, (as a perfect allusion to our Ayn Rand books) he realizes that "a body" can't "catch" all the kids running through the rye. They need to be allowed to make their own mistakes and learn from them. If they are never allowed to grow up and become responsible, they will become assholes. Probably unhappy assholes. So, at the risk of contradicting the topic of my recent post, without responsibility, we never grow up and we can't, therefore, experience fulfilling and happy lives. So, in short, duty is a requirement of happiness. Again, it takes a pretty antisocial, privileged, sick in the head individual to consider a life without responsibility as happy. But that's what John Galt's speech implies.

 You can agree or disagree with what I've written, but it has to be impossible, even for a proponent of ALL John Galt's erroneous points, to believe that EVERYBODY shares these ideas. Are there people like that? Really? Well, no one can say. There certainly are people who ACT like that for their own selfish purposes. The vlogger who cried when she saw a Chinese bank in France, then got enraged at the "scummy" people of Taiwan for criticizing her love of Chinese capitalism and economic imperialism. Again, China is NOT the egalitarian society that is considered so evil in Rand's novel, but the screw-your-fellow-person society that is prophesied by Galt to be a Utopia. Check her out when you get the chance. Here's what a citizen of the perfect Randian, objectivist society looks like:

 We've seen her before, haven't we? Not just in China, North Korea, Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot era, but this is what Trump Nation is beginning to look like too. I don't want to give Trump more credit than he deserves cuz it's not hard to sell a philosophy of childish irresponsibility. What's hard is being born rich enough to pull it off and although he doubtlessly believes he had something to do with this, he didn't. 

 I see the same thing in people who are still refusing to admit they should get vaccinated against Covid. I see the same thing in people who still deny climate change. Objectivism is a socially irresponsible philosophy that many people, like willful children, continue to cling to at the peril of the entire planet. But let me show that in a less dire, preachy, doom and gloom way. All the major late night talk shows did their Climate Week episodes and they were awesome! Kimmel told us that there is no planet B. 

Seth Meyers did his always hilarious Bernie Sanders impression and told us, "News flash: climate change is real!" "We DID Start The Fire!"

And Emmy winner, Stephen Colbert told us we need to do the one thing that no industrialized nation has done before to end the climate crisis: anything.

 See if you can apply some Aristotelian bullshit cutting and spot the John Galt, Randian, Objectivist, selfish, anti-social thinking at the heart of world control that is the reason that our world bears a real resemblance to the dystopian situation in "Atlas Shrugged," which Ayn Rand created as the result of the exact opposite. 

 Ayn Rand's books made her money. There's no way of knowing if she believed any of that crap. If she didn't, she was pretty shrewd. If she did, she was an ignorant whore. Either way, she was wrong, and so are we. Our world, that is.

So we know the problem, it's just time to do something about it. It's our responsibility. It's our duty. And, as I've said before, it needn't hurt our self-enrichment. Converting to green energy will actually save the world while MAKING money. It's actually cheaper to change.

 It's my suspicion that there is good news. Well, as good as a world like ours can allow. We'll get past this global climate crisis. But we'll do it without getting past the global moral crisis. All we need to do is be patient while the greedy, anti-social scumbags of the world figure out how to take over the green energy market. And that'll probably happen. They're nothing if not industrious. It's easier for them to be since they don't give a hunk of shit about anyone but themselves, which makes cheating second nature. So we'll probably avert the climate crisis. But the moral crisis will lead to something just as disastrous or even moreso. Nukes? Another pandemic? Aliens? Who can say?

 There actually is a chance I'm being too skeptical here. There is an alternative. All the John Galts of the world might simultaneously reveal all the static electricity engines, all the globally advantageous technology they've been selfishly withholding and realize that they can get rich AND help the world. Yes, riches just might not have to come through selfishness. They might have a J.D. Salingeresque epiphany. All at the same time! 

 Eat your hearts out talk show hosts! That was funnier than all YOUR material!

Has it been 4 years already?

 

I'm starting to see a lotta the above stuff on friends' Facebook pages. Not very much of the below.

It makes me feel like Mr. Nike in the following video:

Who Is Responsible For Happy?

Chuseok is upon us here in South Korea. The biggest holiday of the year when Koreans have the responsibility of subjecting themselves to nightmarish traffic jams to meet in agreed upon rural locations to tend ancestral graves, and practice many other traditional traditions. It's always seemed a bit ironic, at least to me, that the modern problem of traffic precedes the old, not to say antiquated Chuseok responsibilities. Like the charye or tea ceremony or the seongmyo or the cleaning of the grave sites and offering of food, wine and bows, two forms of ancestor worship lots of Koreans engage in. I bring this up for a couple of reasons. To give the reader an idea of what is happening now, and my future self when I feel nostalgic and look back on this blog, and because this post is going to be partially about "responsibility." 

It may not be in the way you think. I've written before about how I have no truck with the hyperpositive and I've written about how I loathe even more those con artists, life coaches and snake oil salespeople who seem to be multiplying almost as fast as their slick, well-oiled B.S. holes can regurgitate slogans like, "Your happiness is your responsibility." If I were vulnerable to their cereal box psychology, I suppose I could take "responsibility" for the massive irritant in my life that they represent and just force myself to ignore them and refuse to let them steal my joy. Problem is, constant positivity is a form of escape and I prefer to live in a world where I acknowledge the "metric" of reality, not depend on the "metric" of fantasy or make believe. I refuse to accept toxic positivity as a panacea for all life's ills. I feel more and more outnumbered in that life choice. Am I wrong?

I guess I'm seeing it a lot in the job market right now in which businesses are trying to slowly get back to work as people receive their Covid vaccines. Businesses never want to lose, and usually don't if they can pass the losses on to customers and/or workers. Customers post-Covid are going to have to do some very toxically positive self-placating to pay the prices we'll be charged to "help business recover from Covid." And workers are going to have to delude themselves into believing that shittier jobs than ever are acceptable for the same reason. I think people might be willing to accept these inevitable results of a pandemic in a capitalist world IF there weren't so many jackholes saying that emergency Covid relief benefits have made people lazy. "People have lost their work ethic." "There are plenty of jobs out there, people just won't take them." Despite a million articles like this one. 

Stories like the above represent, or at least they should, a wake-up call to the necessity, nay, the urgency to do something about one of the worst symptoms of capitalism whereby prices and profits skyrocket while wages stagnate. The only person upon whom this gradual slide into wage slavery can be perpetrated is one well trained in explaining it away with a smile. 

I guess this sort of thing wouldn't be able to rot my socks so efficiently if I weren't so well trained in recognizing the sophistry, rhetoric and bullshittery that is used when trying to foist this crap upon us, the general public. We are in an instant position of weakness because we all WANT to be happy, so we actually make it easier for people to convince us that we have the power to make ourselves happy. It's all just in the way we perceive our lots in life. The fact that my lot in life is better than many, but not nearly as good as it could or should be, is one reason I am here to tell you that this type of reasoning is only valid to a point. After that point it becomes the tin-eared, out of touch ramblings of the privileged. And with the availability of living wage jobs on the steady decrease due to inflation, the demise of labour unions, and globalization to name a few causes of the dilemma, it doesn't help much to tell a person who can't even pay the rent or put food on the table even though he/she is working two jobs that their unhappiness is not their fault, but it IS their responsibility. 

I read the book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck" by Mark Manson and in it he tells a lot of good stories and makes some great points. But oddly, after a chapter decrying the "well at least" people who always try to be happy with the least, saying that denying negative emotions leads to worse negativity and emotional dysfunction, he launches into the reverse Uncle Ben philosophy. Everybody knows the line from Spiderman when Uncle Ben says, "With great power comes great responsibility." Well, Manson decided to reverse that and write a chapter explaining how with great responsibility comes great power. We have the power to make our lives happy if we take responsibility for our sorrows essentially. This was in successive chapters for crying out loud!!!

He gives the infuriating example of a man who lost his son in a car accident and called him an asshole for expressing in a blog post that he might be responsible for the pain he felt at his son's death. I agree with the man who lost his son. Manson goes on in the book to describe that how the man reacted to his son's death was his own choice. Manson describes how he wanted to reply to this man and angrily tell him that his comment was missing the point and that just because he hadn't lost a son doesn't mean he hasn't felt pain. But he didn't. He writes proudly of how he just told the man he was sorry for his loss, then applied his OWN advice to his own situation and took responsibility for staying happy and not fighting with this man. Then fucked up his wise decision by writing the whole story in his book. I guess because he gave too much of a fuck? Not subtly or artistically either.

He should have stuck with his previous chapter's advice. Only one thing can heal a wound like that and that is time. We all have differing grief recovery schedules. But to try taking responsibility and forcing the grief out of yourself unnaturally, that's escapism and it could lead to emotional dysfunction. He talks about one of his relationships in the book too and as gag reflex inducing as that is, I actually related to that better since I've never lost a son either. 

He caught his girlfriend cheating and they broke up. He says he blamed her for a long time until he finally took responsibility for his sadness and got on with life and dating. I feel like maybe he didn't give time enough of the credit. I had a breakup that I moped about for a long time too. But it was when I was young and stupid. Before I learned of Aristotle, syllogisms and the art of mindfuckery. The saying goes that love is for the young. I think they should add "foolish" to that. I was young and foolish and I was in love. Fooled around and fell in love... as it were. What got me out of my funk after breaking up with my girlfriend was the realization that I was largely deluding myself! The ability to overlook warning signs or fault in a relationship can be what keeps successful relationships successful. But it was what made me realize that while in the relationship, I wasn't as happy as I was forcing myself to believe, just as I wasn't as miserable as I was conning myself into believing I was when it was over. What I learned with time was love was self-delusional and so was my blubbering over lost love. It was awesome while I thought I was in love, but it was also largely a complex mental construct of what I had learned from songs and movies I enjoyed while I was a kid. With that knowledge, or dare I say wisdom, it's unlikely to ever happen again. Love is for the young. 

In my "mourning" period you'd better believe I had people trying to sell the same garbage that I'm talking about here. Join our group, convert to our way of thinking, become a member of our church, open your mind to our philosophy, sign up for our cult, I'm sure the "responsibility" ploy was in there somewhere. But I wasn't buying. It would have just been trading self-delusion for being conned by someone else. A step down intellectually, I thought. No, by then I had developed a healthy skepticism. I had grown up.

ANOTHER unpopular opinion among the hyperpositive. I'm gonna be hit at the party tomorrow. I'm going out, which we're not supposed to do during Covid Chuseok, but there will probably only be a handful of folks there, all vaxed and we'll be outdoors. Hopefully none of my opinions espousing harsh reality will seem too buzz killing to the partiers who don't know me. I sometimes feel outnumbered. If only I could master the subtle art of not giving a fuck about that. It's probably easier than mastering the art of taking JOY in the sufferings of the world. It's such a hard thing to do! 

Some of you might be thinking right now that taking joy in suffering sounds an awful lot like taking responsibility for your suffering. It DOES too! But I think the difference is how. If you try to hide from your problems and pain, and fake like you're happy, it's that toxic positivity. I'm working on making my life a happy one that includes, and actually REQUIRES suffering. How can we know happiness without suffering? I have actually been known to subconsciously set myself up for suffering from time to time. Bad choices are the spice of life! Tomorrow might be the next...

 

RIGHT?

 It's been a few days since 9/11. People have posted things on Facebook, had conversations, said prayers, participated in moments of silence, and remembered in their own ways. Not just Americans either. A lot of people around the world were shocked at the reality that if it can happen in NEW YORK CITY, surely it can happen anywhere. 2977 civilians, mostly American, tragically lost their lives that day. The world mourned in 2001, and those victims have been mourned every year at this time since the WTC attacks. Millions of people vowed never to forget. 

 I was 34 in 2002 when it happened and there are many things I have not forgotten about the terrorist attack on the Trade Center. There are also many things I have not forgotten about what life was like before 9/11. This article briefly talks about the 4 changes that may have been the biggest, not just in America, but all around the world. Give it a read. Watch the vids. It'll give you some perspective on just how momentous an occasion 9/11 really was, in case you have forgotten a little bit.  

 Category 1 in the article, "Forever Wars," reminds us that Afghanistan was invaded less than a month after 9/11 and as a result of it. The purpose of the invasion was the dismantling of Al Qaida and the Taliban government harbouring it in Afghanistan. Just under 20 years, it has been America's longest and most costly war. Since the recent withdrawal, most have heard of the 2 trillion or more that was spent on the war, but the far more tragic and far-reaching cost has been human lives. According to this AP article, US soldiers - 2448, US contractors - 3846, Afghan military/police - 66,000, other soldiers - 1144, Afghan civilians - 47,245, Taliban and other opposition - 51,191, aid workers - 444, journalists - 72, for a total of 172,390 lives. 121,199 excluding the 51,191 that represent the terrorists in this "War on Terror." 

 It's impossible for me, and for anybody in my opinion, to truly grasp the gravity, the suffering, the loss, the varying emotions, the COST each one of those lives has had on the US, Afghanistan and the entire world. Al Qaida is not gone and the Taliban is back in control of the government of Afghanistan, but the "War on Terror" continues all over the world. It seems like it might continue forever. 

 It could be argued that the the greater tragedy of the forever war on terror that began with 911 has been in the lives of survivors, as the above article describes. Not only from Afghanistan but Iraq and all over the world. And not just soldiers with PTSD and brain injuries, but in some way, the war against terrorism that was ramped up on Sept. 12, 2001, has affected almost all of us. Most of us have been impacted in many ways. 

 The article goes on to describe changes in American immigration and deportation laws and in the videos you can listen to regular people admitting that the events of 9/11 changed their ideas and their trust of people from areas and ethnicities associated with the attacks. In the article, airport security is the 3rd major change listed. Good Lord, even de-privatization, something notoriously hated by Republicans, was a sacrifice they agreed to in this area! Now the government run TSA is in charge. Since 9/11, scans, body pat downs and shoe removal is complained about, but can you imagine what it's like - to this day - for Arabs or East Indians with the appearance of Arabs and East Indians, trying to have an uneventful flight? It's hard to say without being blunt: discrimination, racial profiling, anti-Muslim sentiment, and what we so erroneously call "racism," has absolutely increased since 9/11. 

 And the fourth of the big changes listed was that of "big surveillance." This would probably have increased with or without 9/11, but there is little doubt the way was cleared and the scope was widened by the attacks. 

 Think about all of this and how hard it has been for all of us. Few can say they've remained unaffected by the events of and the reaction to 9/11. Few have not been impacted by major changes and few have not had to make sacrifices. There's really no way we can forget 9/11 even if we try. Yet even for those who consider the entire 20 years in Afghanistan to have been futile, the Iraq operations to be criminal, the immigration standards to be immoral, the deportations to be cruel, the airport security to be excessive, the surveillance to be invasive, and the suffering to be harsh, we all agree that it was necessary. Right? If you refuse to take your hat off and be silent at a baseball game on Sept. 11th, why, you're an asshole! Right? If you don't like people's Facebook posts on 9/11 saying, "Never forget," and if you don't feel saddened by the tragic loss of lives and suffering of those most immediately affected by 9/11 and the resulting war on terror, you are absolutely heartless! Right? 

 I'm not going to disagree here! This might look like I am going to. That's not my intent. While there are plenty of mitigating details and conspiracies that have emerged since 9/11, the act of terrorism might even make me angrier and more heart-wrenchingly saddened every successive year. I hate terrorism. I wish it could be reasoned away and/or fought diplomatically, but I understand that sometimes force is warranted. Right?

 Not just forcing people to take off shoes at airports, or have their internet surveilled, but physical, deadly, military force is sometimes warranted. I'm assuming most people would agree with me since very few, if any would protest the moments of silence at the baseball games. I'm not saying it's not an American's right to do so, but I haven't seen anyone do it yet. Think about why. Reduce it to the bare minimum. Break it down. Why? It's because foreign invaders came into the US and killed 2977 innocent people. That's what it boils down to. This is what warranted all the voluntary suffering and loss of freedoms Americans virtually unanimously agreed to and still support today. 

 NOW you might know where I'm going with this. While the above is not yet accurate, it might as well be. It won't be long anyway. It's neck and neck. On the day I am typing this, over 662,000 Americans have been killed by another foreign invader. That's certainly many more than the 9/11 attacks, Iraq and Afghanistan combined! It's like a world war! Americans know the invader's identity and they know how to defend themselves against it. I'm talking about Covid 19 and every 2 days it kills more Americans than were killed in the 9/11 bombings. 1500 people dying every day!!! That's GOTTA stir in the hearts of Americans, the same kind of defiant sacrifice that allowed them to endure the hardships and personal freedom restrictions that 9/11 led to... RIGHT? Joe Biden has declared war on Covid 19! And the president, who has certainly mounted a counter-offensive against the deadly invading force every bit as aggressive and tough as George Jr's "War on Terror" if not, even moreso, should be receiving the kind of praise and hero-worship that was piled on Dubyuh during his retaliation against the terrorists back in the day... RIGHT??? 

 Well, that would just not be in keeping with the absolutism, the infallible contrarian political stance of the true, modern day Republican. I'm not talking about those who still apply thought to their political views, I mean the knee-jerk jerks who need nothing but an idea, opinion or action from the enemy to completely devote themselves to the opposite. If ever you had any doubt that this was the attitude of a great many Republicans, including many in positions of power within the party, not just the electorate, surely this issue has got to wash all that doubt away! Ivermectin? THAT'S dedication!

 And these are not the kind of people who, even if they disagree, would take off caps and silently go along with the crowd at the ballgame either. They are proud and boisterous in their vacuous defiance. Some Republican senators as well as media sycophantic to the Republican cause are calling Biden's vaccine mandates "a power grab," "(a) blatantly unlawful overreach," "one of the most heinous displays we've ever seen from a president," "the closest thing we've gotten to a dictator yet," "naked authoritarianism," even saying they'll "fight them to the gates of hell!" As Seth Meyers says, they're just "crime-adjacent weirdos pandering non-stop to the ugliest instincts of their base to stay relevant." 

This despite the obvious parallel (shown in the vid) of his worship, the hairpiece head of the party, when he stated in relation to ordering people back to work despite the pandemic and the lack of a vaccine, that the president has "the ultimate authority" and that's the way it's gotta be. There is not a doubt in anyone's mind that every good GOPer would re-agree with Cheeseface if he said the exact thing again... as president. And they'd go right along with every bill he signed and agency, board or commission he created to establish the infrastructure of a police state. But with Biden as president, this does not apply. 

 There are elections upcoming in both Canada and the US. Party politics has become just as absurd in Canada as it is in the US, don't kid yourself. They want you to vote based on us vs. them, not based on platforms, which, let's face it, are only lightly tacked together so they can be more easily ripped down after the election anyway, win or lose. And I'm not just talking about the Republicans or their equivalent in Canada, the Conservative Party. Both the Democrats and the Liberals do the same. False promises, pandering to private interests, accepting bribes (or as we call them today, lobbying), selling our legal system to the corporate rulers of the countries, it's total corruption. And they're not hiding it any more. 

 BUT... if I were to suggest that the vote is absolutely ludicrous because of the quadrennial farce politics has become, I'd be that asshole at the ballgame with the hat still on, refusing to be silent, maybe even saying, "9/11 was a fake!" RIGHT?