no surprise.

I keep hearing “it’s shocking, but not surprising…” in regards to storming the capitol a week ago, and in regards to COVID deaths now at over 4,000/day.

And I think, “How could these people not see this coming? How could they be surprised by this?”

I have a new thought. They could see it coming. They aren't surprised. They were okay with it, or at least the risk of it happening in favor of whatever else they wanted.

So, the people who want to open the economy and not shut down and not wear masks… it’s not that they couldn’t imagine 500,000 people dying, overworked healthcare workers, etc… it’s just that they were okay with that happening compared to shutting down an economy, people out of work, etc…

The people who talked about fraud, stolen elections, etc… it’s not that they were surprised with what happened at the Capitol, it’s that they felt it was worth it, and potentially, still is.

I’ve got to change up my tactics. It’s not that no one saw this coming… it’s that we just disagree on what we want to come.

the difference.

It’s hard to put into words but I think we all know there’s a difference between…

… a literary classic and some pulp fiction…
… a song for the ages and a pop radio hit…
… an Oscar winner and a summer blockbuster…
…a profound perspective and rehashed non-fiction…
…investigative journalism and propaganda…
…spirituality and religion.

Sometimes the two can merge but it seems like most of the time there is a difference.

So, how can we tell the difference?

Maybe we can’t. Maybe only the creator of the art can.

Because there’s also a difference between a driving passion for success and a driving passion to express the human experience through art.

the disconnect.

I was recently with a financial advisor who said something along the lines of “It’s my job to make sure you pay the least amount of taxes you can. To basically work around taxes…” I was recently with a fairly wealthy individual who said, “Ryan, you don't get it. You can raise taxes but I’ll find ways to not pay them.”

But…

Both of these individuals complained about taxes being potentially raised on them.

And both of them hate debt.

It seems to be the same thing with masks and shut downs. Instead of just wearing a mask, people refuse and then complain that the government keeps shutting things down. Or they complain that shutdowns don’t work…. while people don’t follow the very rules of the shutdown.

What is this phenomenon? The cup is leaking and instead of plugging the leaks we create more leaks and then complain that the government makes a bigger cup to try and hold water for longer.

As Colbert said, it’s a bunch of people asking for a government handout for an election win, instead of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and working for more votes in the next election, while complaining about lazy people getting government handouts…

The disconnect and hypocrisy is overwhelming.

I’m not saying the government is perfect by any stretch - but it’s just an extension of us. It’s not going to get better until we help it get better.

Right?

I don’t know if this is a uniquely American thing but it does seem to be uniquely worse here than other cultures. I suppose, at the end of day, it’s just selfish, short-term, individualistic thinking but, damn, it’s maddening.

I’ll add this to my 2021 list… less complaining, more contributing.

Poisoned roots...

Everyone has said everything about yesterday and many far more eloquently and profound than I could, but after a historical day like that, you can’t just be quiet and pretend nothing happened.

So, the only thing I would add or at least document is… from one of the best books I’ve ever read… Caste… by Isabel Wilkerson…

America is an old house. We can never declare the work over. Wind, flood, drought, and human upheavals batter a structure that is already fighting whatever flaws were left unattended in the original foundation…

…We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now. And any further deterioration is, in fact, on our hands. Unaddressed, the ruptures and diagonal cracks will not fix themselves. The toxins will not go away but, rather, will spread, leach, and mutate, as they already have. When people live in an old house, they come to adjust to the idiosyncrasies and outright dangers skulking in an old structure. They put buckets under a wet ceiling, prop up groaning floors, learn to step over that rotting wood tread in the staircase. The awkward becomes acceptable, and the unacceptable becomes merely inconvenient. Live with it long enough, and the unthinkable becomes normal. Exposed over the generations, we learn to believe that the incomprehensible is the way that life is supposed to be…

Like other old houses, America has an unseen skeleton, a caste system that is as central to its operation as are the studs and joists that we cannot see in the physical buildings we call home. Caste is the infrastructure of our divisions. It is the architecture of human hierarchy, the subconscious code of instructions for maintaining, in our case, a four-hundred-year-old social order.

This isn’t Trump. This isn’t Ted Cruz of Texas; Josh Hawley of Missouri; Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi; John Kennedy of Louisiana; Roger Marshall of Kansas; or Tommy Tuberville of Alabama though all of their names (along with many others) should go down in history as self-seeking cowardice leeches.

This is America (as Childish Gambino said it). This is who we are and the names above merely tapped into those evil roots and destructive foundations and “inspired” people with them (and technology makes it easier than ever).

Many in this country demand the caste system not be broken and that system has white men at the top and it always has. It was founded that way, built that way, and perpetuated that way. Many have also demanded a god who goes along with it all, a fantastical god built out of greed and power and violence - not love or unity or peace.

But some repairs are happening. The first black senator from Georgia was just elected as was the first black (and) woman Vice President as was a whole host of other things. Even yesterday seemed to open some eyes to the reality - confederate flags and nooses are still being erected as symbols? What do those have to do with a stolen election?

As Van Jones said eloquently on CNN - sometimes you have to believe to see and he believes there is hope and change coming and possible, and when you believe, you start to see it.

So, I hope despite the long predicted chaos of yesterday, that some better destruction is on the horizon. The destruction of the uneven pillars and joists and the eradication of the toxins lurking in the soil. If not, we’ll just do this again, even if it gets buried for another few years.

With that destruction is going to have to come listening and empathy and kindness too… and radical honesty and self-reflection and selflessness.

So here’s to better and bigger change on the horizon that will take all of us to help carry out.

But, you were so careful...

We’ve been one of the more careful families since COVID came on the scene. We definitely haven’t been perfect and we’ve definitely taken our fair share of risks but we’re the family that doesn’t let their daughter go hang out indoors with 3 friends when we’re told not to by the governor.

So it’s funny when we got COVID how we wanted to say things like “wait, we got it, us, what about them?” and it’s funny how some of our friends, including my daughter’s teacher who knows us, said “but you guys were so careful…”

And all of that is true but it also speaks to a very Western thing and not the ONLY reason we were careful.

It’s not about us. It’s about Us.

Our daughter goes to school twice a week. Our son teaches at a school that has been… shall we say not the most careful… so when we don’t let our daughter go inside with 3 friends it’s not just because we’re scared of her getting it, we’re scared of her giving it.

Which, it turns out, she would have had we let her hang out with her 3 friends inside the night before our son tested positive. That could have been 3 families. Which, it turns out, we would have potentially given it to my parents and my wife’s parents had we hung out with them. And on and on it goes.

You see, the response isn’t always '“but you were so careful, how did you get it?”

Sometimes it’s “you were so careful, thanks for not spreading it to more people.”

Keep wearing masks. Keep social distancing. Keep doing all the things, yes you might protect yourself but you will also protect others.

For 2021.

Every year around New Year’s Eve, the fam and I take out note cards and write down at least 5 things we’re grateful for or loved about the year we are ending and we flip it over and write down at least 5 things we’re dreaming for/planning for the upcoming year. We put them in an envelope and then read them the following New Year’s Eve - we’ve said all these cards for the 6 years we’ve been doing it.

I won’t share with you all 5 of mine but here’s 1 of them - they are starting to get longer than the 1 word stuff we used to do.

Less meat, more veggies.
Less news, more science.
Less twitter, more books.
Less drama, more curiosity.
Less outbursts, more calm.

We’ve been shooting for less meat for a while as a family but COVID really set us back a bit. We’re back to trying to get to 5 days a week no meat. I know there are some Keto people out there but this is primarily for environmental reasons - raising cows, quite frankly, is destroying the planet.

All 5 of us got COVID over Christmas break (fun times) and I decided for my own anxiety that I really needed to stop with all news while I had it - to try and stay calm. It was amazing what it did for me. So much that I’ve decided to really slow down my news consumption and instead read Science magazines and nature magazine on Apple news - it’s way more uplifting than Trump and McConnell and COVID - which I still somehow find out enough about.

Less Twitter. Twitter was becoming pretty addicting with the election, etc… and it’s another stress raiser for me. I trimmed down my follows - mostly science and nature and discovery - and prefer to look at a book when I feel the need for information - currently reading a Genghis Kahn book - wow.

Ted Lasso quoted (a falsely attributed) quote of Walt Whitman that said “Instead of judgment, choose curiosity.” Loved the line and slightly changed it for me - instead of drama about what is happening or what is not, I’m trying to choose to be curious and ask questions, stay receptive to wonder.

My wife calls them outbursts - imagine me in a car when someone cuts me off - and then take that to all kinds of things in life - like a lightbulb being out. When I was really making attempts to stay calm, I noticed how much stress and pressure those outbursts put on me, so I’m choosing more calm this year - which means I’m choosing more mediation - to better enable that calm.

There ya go. Here’s to 2021.

lazy.

To all of those who hate “the lazy people who get free checks” please, for the love of all that is good in the world, can you stop being educationally lazy yourself, and do some research on something you believe to be true, and then read a book or two, and then read another article instead of forwarding along the absolute informationally lazy garbage that you do?

Please.

You’re better than this. I know it.

America, you have to do better.

Thomas Jefferson, you know, one of the main contributors to this system we live under, said this:

An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.

Things like this don’t make me feel good about our level of education:

“North Dakota is currently at the top of the list for both COVID-19 cases and deaths. They have also elected a state legislator who died from COVID-19 a month ago. Now the state Republican party will be tasked with appointing a temporary fill-in for the job until a special election can be held.”

Listen, I get that we can have different “educated” opinions. But, when people elect a dead person, I don’t take that as a very educated citizenry, and given much of the information about socialism, the economy, jobs, etc… there is LOTS that points to a very uneducated citizenry.

No matter which way this election goes, America it’s clear we need to start educating ourselves quite a bit more! Put in some effort. Put in some sacrifice.

Put in some work, for that freedom we claim to value so much.

here we go.

On this momentous and potentially historic day in American history, here are some thoughts.

I don't care about politics.
This is fine but just know that you also don’t care about health insurance, minorities, gay rights, women’s rights, equal pay, the military, immigrants, the economy, the environment, traveling on a plane, police, fire, water, electricity, the internet, education, health care, and all kinds of other things.

They both lie.
I hear this a lot about Biden and Trump and while true, it’s also true that both soda and draino are bad for us. One of them, however, we drink, and one of them we know will instantly kill us. There is a spectrum of “bad for you” just like there is a spectrum of “lie”.

We’ve been through this before.
This is definitely true. And at every point in the history of humanity when people had to make choices about which direction they wanted a society to go, some people made a helpful choice, some made an unhelpful one, and some didn't make any at all. Just because my child dates someone who isn’t that great, when they start dating someone again, who they say isn’t that great, I don’t say, hey it’s okay you’ve been through this before… just keep going.

My vote doesn’t matter.
Also kinda true. But imagine if we could vote in a party that agreed with this and wanted to change some things so that every vote did matter. Then would the vote matter? Also, if the vote doesn’t matter, just go ahead and vote for… Biden. Or Trump. Wait, it’s not that easy? So… it does matter. Maybe just to you?

I’m anxious, scared, nervous, excited, and just want this day over!
Today is either going to be really really good day where it feels like we shine a little more light on a pretty dark year, or it’s going to be a really really hard day where it feels like the darkness gets more suffocating.

I can hardly do anything, but I’m hoping America finds its way (or at least a better way) today.

pt barnum and trump.

Since I heard that Trump was going on FoxNews tonight to show his health to the nation, I thought of another story. P.T. Barnum started his career by selling ticket to see a lady he said was 161 years old and had been a nursemaid to George Washington. Truth was that she was a poor woman who was blind and a slave. Barnum rented her for the shows.

Word got around that it might not be real so Barnum staged an autopsy to prove she was 161.

No matter what Trump discovers tonight - which I’m sure he will be more perfectly healthy than anyone has ever bee - here’s the critical piece of the story:

The surgeon who performed the autopsy declared that it had been a hoax—Joice Heth was no older than eighty. But this news didn’t harm Barnum’s career; it made him. He played it for publicity, telling story after story to the New York press over the course of many months—Heth was actually still alive, the corpse had been a different woman, Barnum had been hoaxed, Barnum was the hoaxer. He understood how the new media worked better than almost anyone (at one point he was said to have twenty-six journalists on his payroll), and quickly realized that truth and trustworthiness weren’t the keys to his career; notoriety and the ability to supply an entertaining story were.

Phillips, Tom. Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullsh*t

conman.

This is Part Fourteen. Part One is here.

—

Conmen have been around a long time. They have lied to people for years and convinced them to believe all kinds of things in exchange for all kinds of money. There is a great book called Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullshit and it documents many of these cons. 

But here’s the part that got me. Some psychologists did some research on conmen and their personality traits. Here’s what they had to say: 

…con artists are lacking in empathy, narcissistic, greedy and self-justifying. When caught, they will deny and deflect, blaming just about anybody else rather than taking responsibility. They often justify their actions with the belief that they’re simply reflecting the behavior of others: everyone else is crooked, too, and the victims deserved it because they were equally greedy and corrupt.

In addition, con artists often have what Frankel calls an “addiction to unrealistic dreams and overwhelming ambitions”; comparing the skills of the con artist to that of an actor, she suggests, “It may well be that con artists act the character they have long been dreaming of.”  

“Their belief can make them believable.” 

Here’s the thing… so many of us are being conned. Let me phrase that differently. What if you are being conned? By Trump? Of course, maybe I’m being conned?

I’ve thought through it quite a bit. If I’m being conned to believe that this is a momentous occasion, that voting matters, that the world should be more equal, that wealth should be spread out, that the climate matters, that socialism, communism, and Marxism are not things we are going to become but we might add some elements of them, that America is not great and is actually pretty racist, in debt, violent, and very short sighted, then I’m okay with it. 

You, on the other hand, Trump voter, what if you’re being conned? 

See I know you. I know you’re better than that. You’re smarter, you care more and you know, at the end of the day, that money isn’t the thing that makes you happy anyway. I know you care about people who can’t make ends meet because the whole system has been built from the ground up to be against them and you know that Trump is honestly a narcissistic, bully who doesn’t deserve your vote. 

Don’t you? 

I’m done now. Thanks for listening. It’s now my turn to listen to you. Feel free to comment and/or write me or share this with your friends and family who might be voting for Trump or not voting. 

I’d like to be fair on this - and open. I will post any updates and rebuttals and things I was wrong on - on this blog.

More love. 

the end.

This is Part Thirteen. Part One is here.

—

Let’s end this way. 

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, higher than that of Russia and China, with a rate of 655 per 100,000. The United States imprisons more people, 2.2 million, than any other nation. Yes, more than even China. How? (We’re ending so I can’t get started on the fake drug war that started from racism and goes after black and brown people way more than whites but read Chasing the Scream if you want to know more.) 

American women are more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women in other wealthy nations. With fourteen deaths per 100,000 live births, the maternal mortality rate in America is nearly three times the rate in Sweden, according to the Commonwealth Fund. Part of this reflects the woeful maternal death rates for black and indigenous women in the United States.

Life expectancy in the United States is the lowest among the eleven highest-income countries. I said this one already but it’s worth repeating. 

Infant mortality in the United States is highest among the richest nations, 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births, as against a combined average of 3.6 per 1,000 live births for the richest countries, as against about 2 per 1,000 in Japan and Finland. 

American students score near the bottom in industrialized nations in mathematics and reading. Fifteen-year-olds in the United States scored well below students in peer nations on math literacy, below Latvia and the Slovak Republic, among the dozens of countries that exceed U.S. test scores. 

By the time that the first woman major-party candidate ran for president in 2016, some sixty other countries had already had a woman head of state, including India, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and smaller countries such as Iceland, Norway, Burundi, and Slovenia. 

And, in perhaps the most important measure of all for citizens anywhere, the United States ranked eighteenth in happiness in the world, just above the Czech Republic, according to the consortium of organizations, including Gallup, that publishes the results each year. The United States has fallen seven spots since 2012, a testimony to our continuing discontents.

(all of these stats are from Caste - again you should read it.) 

America is 33rd in access to quality education, 33rd in child mortality and 31st in clean drinking water.  

But our stock market is up!

Again, this does not make sense. Does it?

Also I haven’t even brought up the wall, immigration, and so much more. Because, well, at some point we have to stop. But before we go… that wall. Just so you know as of May 2020 there have been 16 miles of new wall built. The rest has been fixing old wall - although much of that has fallen down. 

5 miles was built by a private firm that raised money and then was arrested for money fraud. 

Oh the price of that 16 miles is about… 3.6 billion dollars - taken from the military budget. (I mean I love that it was taken from the military budget but 3.6 billion for 16 miles is a lot of money. 

Which kind of sums up a lot of Trump and brings us to the final point. 

global.

This is Part Twelve. Part One is here.

—

You know how we started off saying that Idaho can really hate New York but they are dependent on New York for their survival? Yeah, so here’s the final thing - the United States can’t be great, without the world being great. 

I know, I know… but we’re America! 

Yeah, here’s the thing. We live in a global economy whether we like it or not. That means that our success depends on China’s and Europe’s and Pakistan - who makes some amazing hoodies that are very high quality for an incredibly low price - even if they have sky high abortion rates.

You see, making America great doesn’t mean ignoring the entire world and making them all hate us. Which, by the way, in a recent poll, the entire world is basically terrified of us - not because we’re going to kill them, but because we’re going to collapse with Trump as our leader and they are scared of that happening because they understand that they are dependent on us too. They are more worried abut Trump than COVID and that says a lot because… well… they are pretty scared of COVID which is why their numbers are so much better than ours. (This all circles back on itself doesn’t it?) 

climate change.

This is Part Eleven. Part One is here.

—

I know, I know. So many people still don’t think it exists. That’s okay, let’s go with the idea that science is wrong and that the record setting heat every year (we literally are setting a new record every year) the fires, the hurricanes, the Prosecco growers in Italy who told me that the grapes always froze by the end of October when they were kids and now they never do, the fact that crabs have disappeared from Westport and that the world’s largest glaciers are disappearing and… I’m exhausted… there’s so much to ignore but let’s ignore it.

Or let’s pretend this is all natural. It’s just what happens, because the Earth cycles. 

So let’s back out of any climate change agreements (see Paris) and let’s throw all the regulations that don’t let us put poisons on our crops, in our rivers, and in our air out the window because, hey, that stuff costs us money and hurts our economy which runs on capitalism which means making the most profit as possible and it does cost some money to not use poisons in stuff. Let’s pretend Roundup is not basically spreading cancer on all of our crops and let’s not ban it like Russ and Mexico have and are doing. Yes, Russia and Mexico.

Let’s come back to the way I started this thing to end it. 

What if this is one of the momentous decisions - not only in electing the next Hitler - but in literally saving the planet. I know I sound like Al Gore who made that silly film 14 years ago and, shit, we are living everything that film predicted. But, still, let’s pretend Al Gore is stupid and dramatized everything about climate change. 

I mean what if it’s true though? If we ignore it, we all die in a heap of toxins and poisons and dead fish stocks and no coral to snorkel around on vacation (also happening) and plastics in our blood (also happening).  That sucks. If it’s not true and we act like it is, we end up with a nicer planet, cleaner air, cleaner parks, less cancer, and yes, probably a little negative affect (maybe) on the economy that is currently “amazing” and very “unequal” and causing us to ignore this very paragraph because it makes us look short term and ignore long term. 

You see the dangerous cycle of this, right? 

marshmallows.

This is Part Ten. Part One is here.

—

(Not to be confused with the producer and DJ Marshmellow - who I wonder if he spelled his name the wrong way on purpose or accident.) 

Okay there is this very famous experiment that Stanford ran on kids. They offered them 1 marshmallow now or, if they waited 30 minutes, they would give them more. Most kids take the 1 now.

Standford tracked these kids and there have been many studies similar - and what they found is that the kids that are willing to wait 30 minutes for more marshmallows end up much more successful in life. 

Because, get this, life requires us to forgo short term thrills to avoid long term consequences - which, by the way is what the teenage brain has a big problem doing - which is why people don’t wear condoms when they are teenagers (condoms again?) and why America acts like a teenager most of the time. 

We sacrifice long term consequences in the name of a short term thrill. If America was a farmer, would we ever plant a single seed?

What do I mean? 

We’ve already talked about the economy. Yeah the short term thrill of the stock market rising, the short term thrill of lower taxes, the short term thrill of giving money away, look! We’re rich. 

We love everything fast. Fast food, fast religion, fast money, fast sex, fast articles - hell this is way too long of an article for most people to read which is why it’s broken up into smaller chunks. Did you know music is even changing because we don’t like to sit around as much? And let’s not get started on social media…

There’s also another major, major short term thrill. 

economic inequality.

This is Part Nine. Part One is here.

—

If we measure the gap between the wealthiest people in a country and the poorest we get a number. The U.S. is the worst in that number of any country in the world. We have the largest gap between the rich and the poor. 

This may not seem like a big deal to (if someone is on the rich side) but that’s where the fun starts. It actually affects the wealthy as well. There’s been numerous studies on how first class affects passengers. When economy class passengers have to walk through first class not only does it raise their anxiety levels, it raises the anxiety and stress levels of the first class passengers as well. There are more in-air incidents. 

You see we all think we like hierarchy but it adversely affects us all. 

How? If you want to know the problems it’s causing you (because it harms everyone) read The Spirt Level or The Broken Ladder but some of them are: 

Health.
Life expectancy.
Happiness.
Stress.
Depression.
Anger.
For starters.
Yes, it actually affects the life expectancy of everyone which is maybe why the United States has the lowest life expectancy among the 11 highest income countries. 

See just being rich isn’t enough, the rich has to spread out. 

We all want to live longer right? 

But, this one, oh man this one about what inequality does to us all. 

It makes us shortsighted and prone to risky behavior, willing to sacrifice a secure future for immediate gratification. It makes us more inclined to make self-defeating decisions. It makes us believe weird things, superstitiously clinging to the world as we want it to be rather than as it is. Inequality divides us, cleaving us into camps not only of income but also of ideology and race, eroding our trust in one another. It generates stress and makes us all less healthy and less happy. - Keith Payne. 

Wait, did we just define modern day America? All from economic inequality? 

Which brings me to marshmallows. 

racism.

This is Part Eight. Part One is here.

—

Well, there was a third thing about Obama. I forgot to mention it earlier. He was black. 

Yes, I know you hate the word, racism, because you aren’t racist. You’re right. You’re not. Because racism isn’t really a thing you get to decide whether you are or not. Racism is a system that has been built to benefit white people. 

I hate that, you say. That’s fine. I hate cancer and it still exists. 

That’s not true you say. I worked hard. Cool, slaves worked harder for hundreds of years. Is it about how hard you work? Or what you get for that work?

That is an awesome idea - called meritocracy - and it’s one of the reasons we love Capitalism. Work hard and you get the payoff. Don’t work and you don’t get my money. Except you see, remember Capitalism makes a killing on people working very hard for little pay because that’s better profits - usually those people are in other countries. 

Not true. I love black people you say. Again, this is not how you love or hate someone - it’s about a system that you live in that has been built over the years (and from it’s start) with a very distinct class structure that is built to benefit one group of people over another. 

I’m at the top. I love being at the top because of a made up thing that doesn’t exist. I really do. 

There are no “black people” in Africa. Weird huh? There are people from countries like me and you. Black and white are made up stories and they are made up to make white people rise to the top and black people to sink to the bottom. Read the book Caste. Please please please. I beg you. 

We have a giant issue in our land. We don’t like losing our jobs to non-white people. We don’t like losing our power to non-white people. We don’t like non-white people (or women or LGBT or pick your hierarchy) gaining our power if we are a white man. 

We have to get over this addiction to power. Seriously, you’re better than that. Get over it. Please. Speaking of Jesus, this was the entire point of the entire thing. 

But it’s hard, I get it. 

Ever since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, FDR warned the Democrats would pay for its passage. Since then no Democrat has won the majority of the white vote and there has only been 3 Democrat presidents - Carter, Clinton and Obama. 

Damn. Whites don’t like giving up power and I truly believe in my heart of hearts and I say this as gently as possible. (But I’ve done a lot of reading and studying.) Many white people, maybe you, are voting for Trump for racist reasons. Again, you like the structure as it is and he will keep it that way - he does keep it that way - it’s in every single thing he says and does. No, you don’t hate people. No you don’t treat people poorly. 

You like the system the way it is even if it’s sub-consciously. 

Now again you have to think of the system. If you’re at the bottom it’s much harder to get out, it’s much harder to own homes, it’s much harder to break free, it’s easier to go to jail, it’s easier to get paid less, it’s easier to do everything that keeps you down the ladder and it’s harder to do anything that helps you rise. This is fact. 

That is why we have to do everything we can to right that injustice (which is what it is) and not throw flames on it because you are a human who cares about your fellow humans - especially fellow citizens, right? 

And it leads to another major issue. 

law and order.

This is Part Seven. Part One is here.

—

Law and Order.

Relevant, given the “debate” last night.

It’s always money or some form of “America is going to be overrun by looters” or “we won’t have any police” or “terrorists will kill us all” (shit, sorry that was the old one before we didn’t need it anymore). 

Okay, back to the Christian stuff for a quick second. Did Jesus give a rat’s ass about law and order? Did his disciples ever worry or preach that? Honestly, if you consider yourself a Christian, please sit on the question for a second. If you’re not a Christian you probably know the answer. 

Big hint: the government killed Jesus and most of the disciples for wrong reasons - and Jesus didn’t really fight back. In fact, he argued for a non-violent approach to life which is very Buddhist and also what Gandhi and MLK modeled. They weren’t all into the government cleaning up protestors - they were the protestors. 

Yes, Jesus was the protestor. That’s why they killed him. And Christians want to elect a President that will kill the protestor too. 

Sit on that for a hot second.  

Okay… so the whole Christian story is basically the opposite of law and order but let’s ignore Christians.

Guns. We love guns. 

Americans own more guns per capita than any other nation. Americans own nearly half of the guns in the world owned by civilians. I mean, again, how is this something we’re not “over” and COVID is?

Quick note: no country in the world has outlawed guns. Not a single one. That will not happen here. Stop whining about it. 

Defund the police. 

Quick other note: no one wants to remove police. They want to better train police and better remove all the crap police have to deal with so they can actually do the things they are trained to do. In other words, better police.

This could mean no guns for police but, again, many countries do this and have great police and low crime rates - especially if it’s tied to civilians not walking around with guns. 

Quick. We have the biggest military in the world stationed all over the world and we spend more than the next 10 countries combined That means we spend more on our military than China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, the U.K., Japan, South Korea, and Brazil  combined. Combined. Did that sink in?

If you told me my neighbor spent more on his fence then the other ten neighbors combined (including neighbors with way bigger yards) I’d wonder what this neighbor’s obsession was with spending money on fences. 

And Biden wants to spend more. I hate that. (Again, this guy is not a lot of Democrat’s first choice.)

Quick other note: we basically have two huge problems in our country that we can almost trace every problem back to and which Trump has not only not done jack shit about but exacerbated. We have one world problem that he has also not done anything about what exacerbated. Actually two.  

socialism, communism, and marxism.

This is Part Six. Part One is here.

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Socialism and Communism.

Holy shit. If I hear someone say they are worried about us becoming a communist or socialist nation one more time, I might just keel over. (We will get to Marxism and Black Lives Matter eventually.) 

Okay, let’s just start here: I’m a Democrat and I didn’t want Biden. He’s not liberal enough for me. He’s not liberal enough for most Democrats.  The dude is as centrist as it gets so, knowing that, the Republicans had to target Kamala - she’s the real villain here - and start in on her being a socialist, communist, marxist, that will turn us into the wretched hell hole of Denmark. (Please I beg you to look up “happiness and Denmark.)

No wait, she will not turn us into Denmark because that would be amazing - she will turn us into China! Or the Soviet Union. Or Venezuela! 

Okay, let’s dive in. 

1. Do you know what socialism is? Just sit on that for a moment. What is socialism? 
   
   I’ve heard it’s “giving my money to lazy people”. Because it’s always about money right? But, also that is not what socialism is. We could go that route but if we do then capitalism is “giving my money to greedy people” and I’d rather give my money to lazy people than greedy people so… hopefully we can have some better definitions than that.
   
   Socialism is an economic theory that basically says that production, distribution, and exchange should be regulated (Yes, you can look this up on Wikipedia.) In other words, things are generally shared more, or better not allowed to get out of hand because of regulation. You can’t really get rich.
   
   Can you give me an example of a socialist country? Take a second.
   
   Vietnam, yes that’s the one? Vietnam. Okay it’s more socialist oriented so it’s not really 100% socialist because no country is 100% socialist including the Scandinavian countries. They are democratic socialist countries at best - which means they do everything we do here except they spread the pot a little more - with higher tax rates - especially on the wealthy - kinda like the U.S. did in the 50’s back when we were actually economically great. Seriously look up tax rates on the wealthy from the 50’s. They were sky high. (Side note: there are more billionaires per capita in Sweden than the U.S. so you can even get rich there but it’s much harder to be rich. And much harder to be poor. And almost impossible to not have healthcare and basic needs met.)
   
   No one, Kamala included, is proposing the U.S. become the first 100% socialist country in the world. It’s laughable.
   
   Could we spread the pot a little more? Since we already do spread the pot - this is how any country pays for military, fire, police, parks, medicare, food stamps, etc… they take our money and spread the pot - we’re just talking about how much to spread the wealth.
   
   Which, by the way, unless you make roughly $400,000 a year you’re not really going to be affected by this change. Do you know the billionaires in America just increased their wealth by 845 billion during the pandemic? That’s a third of their wealth?
   
   Honestly, that seem cool to you? Maybe it does and that’s fine but instead of arguing socialism you should say you just think people should have so much money they literally can’t spend it all while other people sleep in tents after fighting for our country in Vietnam (okay that’s a very slanted way of seeing it but that is also true.)
   
   We’ll try again. Instead of saying you’re afraid of a socialist country you might want to say you’re afraid of spreading out your wealth a little more to people who you don’t think deserve it as much as you do.
   

2. One of the reasons we just turbo charged through the debt records (that we were already blowing through) is because we just gave away trillions of dollars to American citizens to save the economy. Did you support that? That’s a very socialist idea in a very capitalist economy that most people approved because it was… helpful for the country as a whole. That number was on par with “socialist” Denmark percentage-wise so we’re already pretty socialist in many ways.

3. Trump's farm bailouts have cost taxpayers more than $28 billion already, and he just announced another $14 billion in payments as part of his reelection pitch to farm-heavy states. This is spreading the wealth too.

4. Communism is NOT socialism. It’s Communism and it’s kinda next level and ever since the word was invented Republicans have been scaring people into being afraid of it. From the Great Depression through the McCarthy era to today. Honestly, I don’t get how Trump supporters “get over” COVID and not somehow “over” Communism. COVID is way way more real.
   
   Anyway I just read The Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx (of Marxism) because I was so tired of people telling me what communism was. I highly recommend it. It’s short.
   
   Marx had a big issue with what he saw in Capitalism which I’m going to boil way too far down to this: he didn’t like rich people getting so rich while workers (who actually made the shit) suffered more and more so the rich could get richer and richer.
   
   So he sought out to create a system that was less class based and gave more power to the workers and also did some weird shit like take away all private property and weird stuff with religion, etc… but there were actually pretty good reasons and philosophies for that even if you read his book.
   
   But, and this is important: the Soviet Union was NOT a communist nation. It didn’t follow the Communist Manifesto at all. Lenin really loved power too much for that.
   
   Also if you want to get really crazy, which I do, read Erich Fromm’s Marx’s Concept of Man (Fromm lived through Hitler Germany and was a psychologist) in which he argues that we don’t understand Marx at all and most of the things we rip him for we actually live in the West. Read that book and tell me you don’t love Marx because you probably will.

5. Okay this stuff is really really complicated and that is the point. I’m no economics expert but I did read Angrynomics which I think is a great book and points to how angry the workers are in America from people “taking their jobs” which I think has a lot to do with Trump support too but that’s more caste and race than economic but we’ll get there.
   
   All of this to say a) the idea of Kamala turning us communist is a joke and b) there are good things in all of these “isms” including capitalism but very few countries are 100% them.
   
   You may not be for them as much as me but for the love of all that is good in the world please we have to stop saying we don’t want America to turn socialist because someone heard Sean Hannity say that. If someone is scared of “socialism” we’ve got to say what we mean about American taking on socialist principles we don’t like and then say how Trump is not doing that. Or is. Or whatever, while utterly racking up that debt for us all. 

Marxism.

While we’re on the big evil ‘isms” (and not addressing God’s favorite economic system of capitalism), let’s talk about Marxism which suddenly has become almost more associated with Black Lives Matter than with economic and philosophical structures but since we’re on Black Lives Matter, let’s go there. 

Again, I’ll give you a second. What is Marxism? Define it. 

This stuff is really hard. Marx kinda invented Communism which is past socialism so they all do get confused but let’s just say this: there’s never been a Marxist country either. Marx was trying to solve problems he found in the world and that he thought had been in the world from the begging of civilization which was this class struggle issue that he thought capitalism exacerbated (because it kinda does) and he wanted to solve it by abolishing class and not letting people own stuff (sometimes too far) but you can see his heart. 

Why would Black Lives Matter study Marxism? For very good reasons. 

Quick history lesson from Ryan as understood by Ryan and should be fact checked. Also, some opinions from Ryan. 

Do you know why there was slavery? Here is a hint. Capitalism is all about making as much money as possible. Yes it’s about owing property and starting business and yada yada but it’s about making that paper. If there are no regulations with capitalism you can really go crazy. (We have regulations to prevent us from going too crazy - but honestly that’s what much of this argument is about: the amount of regulations.) 

If you can get cheap labor to make stuff, you have more profits (like 12 year olds in factories in Vietnam - wait so we’re using a Socialist country’s work force as cheap labor so that we can get cheap sneakers and charge a ton for them and make more money? Yes, that’s capitalism - isn’t it great?)

If you can get free labor to make stuff (or pick cotton) you can make even more money. So when a bunch of Europeans looked at all the work to do to make money around the world, they thought, hey rather than us do the work or have to pay people to do it, let’s bring slaves over and have them do it. 

(And it’s us, the ancestors of these bastards who call people lazy. Good lord.) 

Anyway, they started a country with slave labor. With very distinct classes and caste systems and a hierarchy of who is important, who works, who makes money, who doesn’t matter, and who is treated like shit. If your skin was black you were generally at the bottom. 

Marx also believed that humans are not naturally incentivized to make their lives center around money - that was a product of capitalism - that he didn’t like. Because we’re better than that and once our lives center around making money - well we do things like slavery.

And people wonder why Black Lives Matter studies Marx? Of course they do! They should. Our country is exactly what Marx was talking about and he had some ideas on ways to fix it. It’s not that weird or scary, in fact, it’s not weird or scary at all - it makes perfect sense. 

I think that covers money. 

Now on to the next thing I hear - and which has nothing to do with Christianity either. 

money.

This is Part Five. Part One is here.

—

As we’ve already covered, anecdotal stories are dangerous - they aren’t statistics - but I’ve also read a fair share of stats. I haven’t yet had a conversation with a Trump supporter that doesn’t boil down to two things (f not abortion), the first of which is something to do with money. Either the country making a lot of it, he or she personally making a lot of it, or someone taking their money and giving it to someone who shouldn’t get their money. 

Money, money, money. I’m so sick of talking about money but I’m an American so let’s talk more about it. 

1. Economy. The economy is doing great is the argument. Or was before COVID. Can we talk “the economy” for a second? The USA is now in the most debt it’s ever been in, using just about any metric you can find. We’re setting quarterly records, annual records, percentage records, GDP records, I mean good god, there isn’t one debt record we aren’t setting. So, can we just say that is not a functioning economy? Of course, it works short term. Of course! But unless you’re willing to say I’m a millionaire if I borrow a million dollars on a credit card tomorrow - or from China - then we actually don’t have a great economy, which means a day of reckoning is coming. It can’t go on fumes forever. 

2. Let’s pretend we have a great economy though. Job numbers are up (or were) and unemployment was down, etc… there are plenty of arguments that the economy was doing well. I’ll give you that. I’ll also give you that the economy is all due to Trump - (we will pretend it was not already growing at a steady pace under Obama and just continued under Trump. We’ll also pretend George W. didn’t absolutely annihilate the economy before Obama. I’ll also give you that our trade deficit with China is not the highest it’s ever been - which it is. I’ll also give you that Trump didn’t react to COVID and is harming it more… shit, I’ll give you everything. I really will.)
   
   I will pretend that Trump has saved and made America’s economy great. I really will.
   
   Okay, is there anything else? Literally? I mean do you actually care about anything other than the economy? If you’re a Christian, well you can’t serve both money and god but I think everyone is long over that. If you’re not a Christian who pretends Jesus matters, or a more honest American who doesn’t pretend to give a shit about Jesus, is that your legacy to the world? I have money and I got more money! Even the liberal Hollywood rich atheist celebrities admit that is a very empty way to live but you can’t? Really? I don’t believe that. 

It’s not really about making more money is it? It’s about who is spending your money or who is getting it who shouldn’t be.

Socialism. Next.