Remember: if you are flying a drone, YOU ARE A PILOT and are responsible for flying safely.

But what if there is no middle?

On Safari in Trump’s America

The trip was predicated on the optimistic notion that if Americans would only listen to each other, they would find more that united than divided them. This notion—the idea that, beyond our polarized politics, lies a middle, or third, path on which most can come together in agreement—is Third Way’s raison d’etre. It is premised on the idea that partisanship is bad, consensus is good, and that most Americans would like to meet in the middle.

But what if there is no middle? What if, beyond policy prescriptions and ideas how to help the country, lies a fundamental philosophical schism which can never be bridged any more than matter and anti-matter can be mixed?

Of course the problem with the Third Way folks is that they wanted to find political consensus, and they “found” it:

… The Viroqua representatives were eager to extol the virtues of their community. It was an oasis of sanity, an organic farmer in a pink-and-blue plaid shirt said—unlike the dismal city where he’d grown up. “There was no culture with which to identify, just television, drinking, maybe sports,” he said. “There’s nothing to aspire to. You’re just going through life with a case of Mountain Dew in your car.”

The cafe owner—a bearded man in a North Face fleece—had recently attended a town hall held by the local Democratic congressman, Ron Kind, a Third Way stalwart and former chair of the House’s centrist New Democrat Coalition. “I’m not, like, a jumping-up-and-down Berniecrat,” the man said. “But what you see in these congressional meetings is a refusal to even play ball” with ideas considered too extreme, like single-payer health care. “All these centrist ideals,” he said, “are just perpetuating a broken system.”

This was a direct attack on the very premise of Third Way’s existence. These were not the ideas of the middle 70 percent. These were not the voices of an America that wanted to find mutual understanding with its neighbors. They were, essentially, separatists, proud of their extremism and disdainful of the unenlightened.

…

That moment of doubt does not appear in the report that Third Way released, which distills the group’s conclusions from the tour I joined. …

The report surprised me when I read it. Despite the great variety of views the researchers and I had heard on our tour, the report had somehow reached the conclusion that Wisconsinites wanted consensus, moderation, and pragmatism—just like Third Way.

But if you don’t examine your own ontological stack–if you don’t examine the core assumptions and core philosophies which motivate your own thinking–then really you have few lessons to learn:

“I’ve come to the conclusion that most of our divisions have to do with lack of understanding,” [Nancy Hale] told me. “And I don’t mean in some kind of academic way, I mean in a very human way. …”

A true Democratic operative.

---

But what, at the bottom of the ontological stack, is a fundamental schism?

What if there is no compromise between “top-down” solutions and “bottom-up” solutions? What if there is no middle ground between The Divine Right of Kings and The Will Of The People? What if there is no such thing as “partial-enslavement”, what if you can’t just be sorta pregnant?

When I read stuff like this, my mind goes back to Thomas Sowell’s excellent book A Conflict of Visions, Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. In his book, economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell postulates two fundamental underlying visions of humanity:

The Unconstrained Vision (generally held by liberal-progressives)

Sowell argues that the unconstrained vision relies heavily on the belief that human nature is essentially good. Those with an unconstrained vision distrust decentralized processes and are impatient with large institutions and systemic processes that constrain human action. They believe there is an ideal solution to every problem, and that compromise is never acceptable. Collateral damage is merely the price of moving forward on the road to perfection. Sowell often refers to them as “the self anointed.” Ultimately they believe that man is morally perfectible. Because of this, they believe that there exist some people who are further along the path of moral development, have overcome self-interest and are immune to the influence of power and therefore can act as surrogate decision-makers for the rest of society.

and the Constrained Vision (generally–but not always–held by conservatives in the US).

Sowell argues that the constrained vision relies heavily on belief that human nature is essentially unchanging and that man is naturally inherently self-interested, regardless of the best intentions. Those with a constrained vision prefer the systematic processes of the rule of law and experience of tradition. Compromise is essential because there are no ideal solutions, only trade-offs. Those with a constrained vision favor solid empirical evidence and time-tested structures and processes over intervention and personal experience. Ultimately, the constrained vision demands checks and balances and refuses to accept that all people could put aside their innate self-interest.

It is a coincidental but oblique confirmation of this idea that the constrained vision of man as unchanging, self-interested, and flawed that Justice Janice Brown makes in her excellent speech “A Whiter Shade of Pale”: Sense and Nonsense — The Pursuit of Perfection in Law and Politics when she refers to the U.S. Constitution and her discomfort in Justice Holmes dissent in Lochner:

That Lochner dissent has troubled me — has annoyed me — for a long time and finally I understand why. It’s because the framers did draft the Constitution with a surrounding sense of a particular polity in mind, one based on a definite conception of humanity. In fact as Professor Richard Epstein has said, Holmes’s contention is “not true of our [ ] [Constitution], which was organized upon very explicit principles of political theory.” It could be characterized as a plan for humanity “after the fall.”

(Emphasis mine.)

“The fall,” of course, refers to the Fall of Man from the Garden of Eden, after Adam ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And it refers to the idea of Original Sin, which in some corners is interpreted not so much that man is evil, but that free will gives us the capacity for evil.

In other words, “human nature is unchanging and man is inherently self-interested.”

Also, keep in mind “self-interested” is not the evil horror that is sometimes suggested. Many on the Unconstrained Left consider the idea of self-interest as inherently destructive and evil: consider the number of times we hear about “greedy” companies and the horrors of “greed” and self-interest.

Yet, in “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, Adam Smith’s prequel to the more famous “Wealth of Nations”, observed:

The administration of the great system of the universe … the care of the universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings, is the business of God and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers, and to the narrowness of his comprehension: the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country…. But though we are … endowed with a very strong desire of those ends, it has been entrusted to the slow and uncertain determinations of our reason to find out the proper means of bringing them about. Nature has directed us to the greater part of these by original and immediate instincts. Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the two sexes, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for their own sakes, and without any consideration of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great Director of nature intended to produce by them.

The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.

In other words, mankind is finite, unable to comprehend much beyond our own immediate sphere of influence. We were then created as “self-interested” and “selfish”: determined to help ourselves and our families–yet in this great system where I produce your daily bread for my own benefit and not yours, somehow we are lead by an “invisible hand”, which is, in a real sense, the invisible hand of God.

---

I point out these two examples (though there are countless others ranging from the Federalist Papers to modern-day economists and philosophers) to illustrate the idea that Thomas Sowell’s notion of the constrained man as burdened Original Sin is not a new idea unique to Sowell’s writings, but reflects a range of ideas from Locke (and his idea of the mind as tabula rasa, with knowledge determined only by experience), through Hume and Smith to Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind,” which establishes belief in transcendent order and natural law as a cornerstone of conservative thought.

(The one place where I depart from Russell Kirk is in his apparent belief that Western Civilization can only hold if it is held by Christians. To me, the idea of a constrained vision of man, led by self-interested people who are unable to conceive of those beyond our own line of sight, but somehow organized by the spontaneous chaos of billions of people seeking to live our lives in freedom–is a universal one. The constrained idea of man and the idea of “original sin”–that is, that we are born with free will but no understanding how to act, that we are finite beings only able to understand what we experience–is one that can be understood as true by Atheists and Muslims and Jews alike, even as they reject the more technical concept of Christian “Original Sin.” And it is Russell Kirk’s mistake he could not separate the philosophical idea that man is finite from his own deeply held Christian faith.)

---

The thing about this theory, of two conflicting visions–one of a perfectible man which can strive towards Utopia, be it Marx’s communist paradise or the paradise of a Socialist Utopia, another of mankind “after the fall” who may aspire to the better angles of our nature but are forever groveling in the dirt–is that this conflict can never be reconciled.

You either believe mankind can be elevated: that we can create a better society by improving mankind as a species. Or you do not.

You either believe growth and salvation is a personal affair, or a societal affair.

You either believe there are “the anointed”, those Bodhisattvas who can lead us as a society to salvation–whose very presence cause “the rise of the oceans … to slow, and our planet … to heal”.

Or you believe there are no anointed, no Bodhisattvas who can take our pain–and all that is left is for each of us to cut our own way through the jungle. That it is for us alone to find our own full potential as individuals, to use our freedom to express ourselves, to discover ourselves, and to pursue contentment and stability and pass those values as we find them to the next generation.

There is no middle ground.

---

Sadly for The Third Way who went on a safari in Middle America to help chart a course for Democrats to follow, this lesson was lost on them.

But then, they weren’t even looking.

It was gratifying to Nancy Hale to find, in the end, that America wasn’t lost. To be sure, there had been moments that made her wonder. But as she looked back on it, she had managed to edit those moments out of her memory. The American people, she concluded, were not as divided and irreconcilable as the election made them seem. Progressive neoliberalism was not a lost cause. The world she believed in before—the world she preferred to inhabit—was the one she and her fellow American explorers had managed to find: not a strange land at all but a reassuring one.

And so liberals go back to the same old thing: to chart a new course to Utopia that can be successfully taught to the rubes of Middle America, to find a new Bodhisattva who can teach that new way, and for those Bodhisattvas to walk amongst the common people rather than stay in the ivory towers and think tanks within the Beltway.

---

How frustrating it must be to be a liberal today.

To see a country embracing what they see as a fundamentally divisive President who tweets all sorts of nonsense at 3 in the morning. To see a country turn its back on “compromise”–compromises which seem based in the notion that there is, indeed, an obvious way forward. To see a country systematically reject the calm Bodhisattvas and technocrats capable of lowering the level of the seas and healing the planet, and embrace someone who seems bent on destroying their noble works.

How frustrating it must be to encounter people who seem to be fighting against their own self-interest–rejecting policy prescriptions and taxpayer assistance which are designed to help communities in trouble.

And if only they would listen; if they would only allow themselves to be changed, to find the compromise position that could lead us to a better world, to a better Utopia.

But they don’t.

And as a liberal, you can’t help but conclude that most people are just fucking stupid.

 

But sadly most Liberals seem unwilling to look at themselves, and recognize that to those like myself who believe in a constrained vision of mankind, what lurks at the bottom of the liberal ontological stack seems unrepentantly evil.

Not just “incorrect,” not just “uncomfortable”–but evil.

Because if you consider that in order to reform society you must fundamentally remake mankind (through education, through limiting choices, through force if needed), and remake mankind in your own vision as a people able to appreciate those beyond our own line of sight as you explain them to us, to instinctually sacrifice for the betterment of The State, what you are really arguing is against freedom. You are demanding I follow your Gods and Bodhisattvas and Leaders, and stop thinking for myself.

You’re demanding enslavement.

And to those of us who are believers in the Fall of Man, what you are doing is complaining that we are refusing to follow you into slavery for “our own good.”

Fuck you. I’d rather go hungry than be a well-fed slave.

---

Don’t believe me that this is what lies at the heart of a Liberal–the unconstrained view that mankind can be made better if only led by the right Bodhisattvas? That the modern liberal-progressive movement doesn’t care about freedom as a fundamental concept, but only in a limited idea of “freedom” as picking from a State-approved menu of choices?

Just look at the move by the Workers World Party–a Socialist front group reportedly funded by Russia–pull down the statue in Durham. Look at the Left as it shuts down free speech by using violence.

And understand to a conservative these do not look like the exception. They look like the drive to Utopia and the desire to improve mankind, but with the soft glove removed and the bare knuckles exposed.

What we hear is that “you will be improved and society will be made better. And while we want to do this through education and pursuasion and by eliminating ‘bad-think’, we will make you better even if we have to beat you to an inch of your life and send you to the Gulag.”

---

Sadly the Third Way doesn’t see all of this, doesn’t recognize the ideological and ontological burden they bring when they seek “compromise.”

They don’t realize their prescriptions won’t work because they are unwilling to look at themselves. They are unwilling to find compromise because to find compromise you must be willing to admit that perhaps you are wrong, perhaps your assumptions are incorrect.

And at the end of the day, their attempts seems more about figuring out a better way to lead the lambs to the slaughter.

Some thoughts on the “me too” campaign.

I managed to miss a good chunk of the feel-good hash-tag du’jour “#metoo”, where women are encouraged to share their stories of victimization in order to illustrate their victimhood status.

Okay, let’s make one thing very clear before I go into why all this makes me uncomfortable.

Sexual assault is bad.

That I even need to clarify this illustrates just how fucked up the public discussion on the abuse of women (which I would consider a superset of sexual assault rather than identical) has become. And that I need to clarify this illustrates just how fucked up the public discourse on generally abusive behavior (which again, I would consider a superset of misogyny rather than identical) has become.

It’s almost as if we’ve forgotten what it means to act with manners, treating each other with respect. We’ve forgotten what it means to seek the seven virtues for ourselves and hold them in our hearts as we interact with others: to practice chastity and temperance as we interact with strangers, to act with charity and patience, to show diligence, kindness and humility.

In some quarters, we have deliberately forgotten these virtues–dismissing them as something only religious zealots do. After all, these seven virtues (literally “a habitual and firm disposition to do good”) are a Christian teaching–and as we all know, in these modern post-religious times, anything religious is bad and deserving of being dumped as trash.

And once you dump religion (and its teachings on what it means to be a better person), what is left to govern our interactions with each other?

Politics?

I mean, it’s not like leaving it in the hands of individuals works very well, especially when there is a power disparity.

---

But I’m not very comfortable with the #metoo thing, for two reasons.

First, we’ve had this conversation before.

We’ve done the whole “women, by show of hands, how many of you have been sexually assaulted?” Like #YesAllWomen, #WhenIWas, #ShePersisted, etc.

And have they helped do anything to actually reduce the instances of sexual assault? Have they done a damned thing other than to devolve into a pointless exercise of victimization reaffirmation?

I mean, shouldn’t we use a different strategy?

#MeToo named the victims. Now, let’s list the perpetrators

It’s true that telling our stories can help – it can help victims not feel quite so alone and make others understand the breadth and depth of the problem. But the truth is that nothing will really change in a lasting way until the social consequences for men are too great for them to risk hurting us.

Why have a list of victims when a list of perpetrators could be so much more useful?

But I suspect part of the problem with the newfound approach of women standing up to abusers, perhaps by getting the police involved, is related to my second reason why all this makes me uncomfortable.

---

Second, we can’t seem to agree on what sort of “abuse” qualifies one for the #MeToo campaign. And in the process it’s slowly devolving away from talking about physical assault, through loutish behavior, and ending at outright misandry.

Take, for example, this article which seems to conflate sexual assault, abusive behavior and loutish behavior–that is, behavior that is obnoxious but not necessarily abusive: #MeToo. To me there is a sharp distinction between “predator” and “creep”, between “sexist remark”, “rape jokes” and “rape”–yet the article uses them as interchangeable terms.

It’s not to say any of these behaviors are acceptable. But when we live in a world where a suggestive conversation is considered under the same umbrella as a violent rape, when some guy who was told “no” asks for a date a second time is considered under the same umbrella as Harvey Weinstein–haven’t we devolved the later by lumping them under the same umbrella as the former?

Don’t we do a disservice to rape victims by equating their violent rapes with the discomfort of being in the same room as two men share an inappropriate joke?

Can you imagine someone going in a hospital room where a woman, half beaten to death after her rape, lies in recovery and telling her “sister, I know exactly how you feel; once someone called me a ‘bitch'”?

I mean, it’s gotten so bad that the #MeToo campaign has spawned another campaign–from men: #HowIWillChange, which presumes men are guilty of sexual “abuse” until proven innocent.

Again, it’s not to dismiss loutish behavior. Remember my premise above: we have forgotten the seven virtues–and an inappropriate joke in the workplace is a violation of the principle of temperance, of voluntary self-restraint in the face of others.

But the Left, many of whom have latched onto the latest fad of claiming #MeToo (and worse, #HowIWillChange), want nothing to do with this religious mumbo-jumbo, having declared it obsolete.

So what is left? Unprincipled handwringing hasn’t worked; just look at the countless other hashtags going back decades which have done nothing to resolve issues of misogyny in the workplace. Neither has the misandrous attempts at forcing men to confess their sins (but without a framework for “sin” other than deconstructed feminism), which often turn into victim blaming when men point out that, in some instances, they’ve been on the receiving end of inappropriate behavior by women.

(Hell, I’ve been on the receiving end of workplace sexually inappropriate behavior; first, by an overly flirtatious woman when I was working at JBL who wanted to show me her boob job in private, second, by an overly flirtatious QA woman at Symantec at a Christmas Party who suggested we go find a room somewhere to have sex. When I pointed out I was married, she said “me too”; it gave us something in common.)

And it’s why, by the way, we won’t change tactics and provide a list of perpetrators: because doing something like that could backfire. Yes, Harvey Weinstein deeply deserved to be outed decades ago. But the poor sap who asks you out on a date at an inappropriate time: would including his name on a master list of “male predators” really solve anything?

---

Personally I believe the problem is that in our modern day and age we’ve been systematically dismantling all the cultural frameworks of what it means to be a better person.

The Left has engaged in a systematic war on religion–and while the bad parts of religion (such as tribalism and elitism) certainly deserve to be attacked, the aspects which teach “original sin” (that is, when we are all born we are all blank slates unknowing of what it means to be a good person) and how to be a better person (that is, how one can improve oneself morally and ethically) certainly did not deserve to be tossed in the trash heap.

Because without striving to make ourselves better–without the constant individual pursuit towards personal knowledge, self-discovery and self-improvement–what is left? People as cogs in a political machine? Piling up money and political connections? Claiming “#metoo” so you can feel good about your victimhood status and your position on the victimization totem pole?

By the way, the drive to understand what it means to be a better person is not exclusive to Christianity. All major religions address this problem, to help those find “salvation” of a sort. Islam teaches Zakaat, the responsibility we have to help others, including the poor, the destitute and travelers in need. Judaism teaches the mitzvahs, commandments which require avoidance of certain bad behaviors and the performance of certain good deeds. Buddhism provides tools to its followers designed to help find samadhi, oneness. All the major world religions have something to say about how to be a better person, from literal commandments to spiritual practices.

Even the seven virtues of Christianity have their roots in earlier pre-Christian teachings.

Do away with all this teaching–do away with the ancient question of what it means to become a better person–and what is left?

Certainly Karl Marx had nothing to say about justice or morality. Marx’s work, off of which progressive liberalism owes a hat tip to, was only descriptive of historic evolution and economic issues. He had nothing to say about the *morality* of capitalism or communism. Later writers certainly interpret his works this way–and clearly liberals, when talking about unjust wealth inequality, are making a moral proclamation. But all these moral proclamations are being made absent a consistent moral framework of any kind.

And without such a framework, all that is left is politics: we make moral proclamations not because we have any moral principles, but as a political tool to gin up outrage in order to force political change.

That’s what the #metoo campaign really is: a political attempt to gin up outrage to force political change.

But politics cannot affect morality when political believers do not believe in morality.

All politics can do is rearrange the deck chairs: to give more political power to one group, to take political power away from another group. And worse: politics can only provide the illusion of morality–which is why Harvey Weinstein was able to thrive so long. Because as a major donor to the Democratic Party he had the perfect fig leaf, in the form of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to pursue his own sexually abusive appetites amongst the glitterati of Hollywood, all of whom knew for decades what sort of a predatory asshole Mr. Weinstein was.

---

Ultimately political attempts to fix morality without any sort of moral framework–which is where the Left currently sits–cannot work. Because there is no “there” there that can be fixed.

Which is why in the end, the “#metoo” campaign will join earlier attempts in the trash heap of history, having done nothing in the end beyond ginning up some outrage about how horrible men are.

---

You want my “#HowIWillChange”?

Here it is.

To better understand the idea of Original Sin.

To better understand the principles of the Seven Heavenly Virtues and to faithfully attempt to better represent these virtues when interacting with others or when working on my own meditations.

And to demand the cardinal virtue of Justice (that is, righteousness and fairness) in part, by pointing out the hypocrisy in the world around me. A practice which is exemplified in a very small way by this blog post.

And if you don’t see how the seven heavenly virtues leads to an eschewing of misandry and misogyny, to a demand for workplaces free of sexual abuse and sexual favoritism, to a call for women to stand up for themselves rather than to meekly hide in the face of injustice only later to share sad little stories about being offended by jokes told by loutish men who have been raised in a modern culture which teaches us to “feel good” about ourselves and to know no personal limits from that awful old-fashioned religious bullshit–then you are part of the problem.

I’m considering building a simple blogging platform.

The consolidation of blogging and social media onto two platforms–Twitter and Facebook–has had some really bad consequences:

Marsha Blackburn, Rose McGowan, The Power of Twitter and the Media

But in both cases there is more than a whiff of a reminder that Twitter — along with Facebook, Google and You Tube — have now acquired massive power to decide what the American and global public will be allowed or not allowed to see.

Even WordPress, which hosts this site, can become a gatekeeper of sorts: as each platform becomes less about self-expression and more about aggregating and presenting user-created content, there will inevitably be editorial pressure.

And that means censoring those who have unpopular opinions or who make the mistake of expressing themselves incorrectly.

---

It’s why I’m sad to see the death of RSS aggregators like Google Reader; an aggregator simply gathers news in one place. It may point you towards people with interesting opinions, but it doesn’t attempt to point you towards “curated content.”

---

The surprising thing to me is how quickly the Left is glomming onto these incredibly powerful companies to help with screening and censoring and presenting a world view consistent with theirs.

It surprises me because a sword has two edges–and an institution given a tremendous amount of power can then swing around and slice the other way.

Just like the Presidency, whose power was expanded well beyond its traditional frontiers under President Obama, now in the hands of a President Trump.

But it’s okay if you physically assault a man…

Tinder Launches Anti-Harassment Feature Allowing Women to ‘Throw’ Martinis In Men’s Faces

Two thoughts.

(1) If Tinder launched a feature allowing a man to “slap” a woman’s face, Tinder would end as a viable corporate entity. And rightfully so.

(2) If a woman were to throw a martini at me in real life, I would press charges for assault and battery. And honestly a woman who throws alcoholic drinks at other people is likely to be deranged and in serious need of professional help.

So what makes this feature acceptable?

Beats the fuck out of me.

The existential dread of pre-packaged meals you cook yourself.

The Bleat: Thursday October 5 2017

Anyway: The meal kits were welcome additions, and once Daughter is off to college I will resume them with greater frequency, since we can go to 2 people instead of 4. Perhaps my wife will like to make the meals, since she loves to cook.

Or maybe not. Turns out it’s all a lie, a clever corporate manipulation of expectations, a simulacrum of an honest experience.

…

“Meal kits offer restaurant-quality food with homespun quirk, suggesting that an honest hour of slicing and stirring could make you see yourself as a real person too.”

Just to remind you: we’re talking about a box of meat and produce, with cooking instructions.

So much angst over a pre-packaged meal you make yourself. The world is such a beautiful place–so we must find despair in the tiniest of corners.

Gun control: a comment left elsewhere.

I always like to point out an interesting statistic into these gun control debates every time someone brings up the high murder rate in the United States.

If you look at the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics, specifically at table 12 for 2016 which reports the number of murders by state and by type of weapon (including firearm, knives, hands/fists, and other weapons), you find something interesting.

Sucking in the data into Excel, we find the total number of reported murders in the United States as 15,070 murders or 4.66 murders per 100,000, of which 11,004 murders were committed by some sort of gun.

This leaves 4,066 murders committed by some other weapon than a firearm.

And a non-firearm murder rate of 1.26 per 100,000.

Now if we assume that every. Single. Firearm. Murder. would never take place if firearms were eliminated–a proposition I find highly unlikely, since as you note many of these deaths are gang-related, and I suspect if guns were never invented they’d simply resort to knives and baseball bats and more hand-to-hand combat–our murder rate is still higher than that of Europe.

More realistically, if we assume the lack of firearms reduces the murder rate by a factor of 4 for firearm related murders–that puts us in the 2.11 per 100,000 rate, twice that of Serbia.

And Serbia has the second-highest rate of private gun ownership in the world, just behind the United States.

This strongly suggests to me that in the United States we have a murder problem, not a gun control problem. And if you look at detailed maps showing the per-capita murder rate in the United States, you find the highest murder rates concentrated in a small handful of areas-which suggests to me a cultural problem, not an ownership problem.

Uncertainty as a negotiating tactic.

Scoop: Trump urges staff to portray him as “crazy guy”

“You’ve got 30 days, and if you don’t get concessions then I’m pulling out,” Trump told Lighthizer.

“Ok, well I’ll tell the Koreans they’ve got 30 days,” Lighthizer replied.

“No, no, no,” Trump interjected. “That’s not how you negotiate. You don’t tell them they’ve got 30 days. You tell them, ‘This guy’s so crazy he could pull out any minute.'”

“That’s what you tell them: Any minute,” Trump continued. “And by the way, I might. You guys all need to know I might. You don’t tell them 30 days. If they take 30 days they’ll stretch this out.”

Uncertainty (because you’re perceived as mercurial or crazy) is actually an asset when dealing with people. It keeps them off balance, and makes them question what you may or may not do. It is in fact a very valuable tool in a work setting because it forces people not to take you for granted.

Public Service Announcement.

In the United States, anyone who picks up a gun and starts shooting at innocent people, especially in a crowd, without any provocation whatsoever, is bat-shit crazy.

At some point after any shooting we will see people attempt to claim credit, we will see people attempt to ascribe a motive, we will see people attempt to use the tragedy for their own political purposes. All of this requires one thing: that somehow the shooter was behaving in a logical and rational fashion, one which can be influenced through cultural changes or legal changes.

Of course it fails. As it always fails. Because the shooter is, first and foremost, bat-shit crazy.

But it doesn’t stop those who want to believe the world is a rational and controllable place to score political points.

“It’s just that the people listening think you’re an asshole, and they’re showing you the door.”

Private school kicks players off football team for protesting racism during national anthem

But here’s the thing.

First, the school was private. Therefore government restrictions via the First Amendment does not exist.

And, as in yesterday’s XKCD unfortunate cartoon: “It’s just that the people listening think you’re an asshole, and they’re showing you the door.”

Second, if you are protesting but are unwilling to suffer the consequences of your protests–you’re just virtue signalling.