gulliver
gulliver's JournalI guess I don't have the right emotions
I heard Jake Tapper talking with someone on CNN yesterday about the Jan. 6th coup attempt. The topic was the fact that Trump and his Republican servants are now methodically working on the next coup attempt. They're installing stooges and messing with legislation in key states with the idea that, next coup, they won't have to worry about principled Republicans getting in the way. The coup will work next time.
My emotions were wrong when I heard that, I guess. Tapper informed me that that was "frightening." He blurted out, "that's frightening!"
Frightening?
I have to admit, I didn't go to frightened. I skipped right to angry. Crazy, right? I felt that feeling that, due to certain biological factors, can sometimes make us humans lean a little forward in our posture, clench our fists, and pull our upper and lower lips back a little. I didn't seem to feel that other feeling that makes people want to flee, the one Tapper mentioned.
I think "fright" on our side might be what the goons want. I don't recommend that feeling. Quite the opposite. To me, fright is what the Trump pawns should feel at the prospect of their actually trying to overturn an election if that time ever comes.
Cops, teachers, and health care workers: Is there any limit to how much crap they are given?
Just thinking about this lately. Cops, teachers, and health care workers seem to have jobs that are getting worse and worse as the nincompoopism pandemic spreads. Those professions are all downstream from human folly, selfishness, laziness, and ignorance. That's not a good place to be when production of those "culture pollutants" is at record levels (and climbing).
It's blindness, that's all. I'm not sure what the answer is. The work is allowed to become worse and worse, and the people doing the work are given more and more abuse by an ever more thoughtless "customer base." It's not sustainable.
Trump's a hacker of the human system
There are gaping vulnerabilities in our system, and Trump simply exploits them.
For example, our legal system has this idea of "intent" that is basically a get-out-of-jail-free card. It's like putting your password on a post-it note next to your screen. To be found guilty, it has to be proven you think you're guilty.
Second, our legal system allows jury nullification. So, our very "security adjudication" system is vulnerable. This played out in two impeachments at the high crime level. It's a leading reason why Trump could be found not guilty if criminally tried, literally for anything.
Third, our legal system is wide open to social and political engineering. Witness Trump placing his own operatives, his own trojan horses, in as many seats of power as possible.
I've also noticed Trump doing classic hacker things like "script injection." He'll say things using his own name in the third person. For example, he'll say something like, "The Mueller report completely exonerates President Trump." Then news programs will quote him verbatim, in effect "reporting" that Trump was exonerated. Coincidence or Grade A hacker instinct?
We need to get serious about security.
Rationality vs. opportunism and emotional stampeding
A lot of folks are apparently stampeding now. The Iraq War was a stampede set off by Bin Laden. America lost its marbles. Now we've got Trump and all the little Trumps. On both the left and right we have people being melodrama stars and stirring everybody up. Fact, fiction? It's all the same when you're stampeding, warring, muddying, fogging, etc. Pays the bills, gets the clicks, tastes good, less filling.
We need rationality. That may seem like an unpleasant suggestion. If so, I rest my case.
Defending authorized Dem content to win majorities
The Dem ideas, represented best in the Dem platform and governed by the DNC, are the best ideas out there. They should win a majority every time. A main reason they don't is, I would argue, we don't enforce our character or our canon from a democratic majoritarian standpoint. We build a great car, but then we sometimes let a tiny few self-elected "teens" grab the keys and drive around town in it, waving booze bottles out of the windows.
The responsible, (democratically) authorized people need to represent the Dems, both in what we are and in what we aren't. We need to block the Republicans from taking outlier opinions and acts, exaggerating them mercilessly, and attributing them to Dems.
If someone were a pedophile, which party would they choose?
I think it has to be the Republican Party. Pretend to be conservative. All the lowlife must be lining up to be Republicans. Their moral southern border is wide open.
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