Time Passes

In 53 weeks I will be half a century old. My Forties have not been nearly as much fun as my oddly unsettled Thirties were. It daily feels as if I am getting old. This hurts, that hurts. Lame complaints, lame excuses, lame panics. I punched out of a damned MRI because I couldn’t handle 30 minutes of lying on back keeping still. What sort of hideous whiny crap is that? I used to be able to handle anything. I liked caves. I like small rooms. And I can’t handle 30 minutes of noisy, banging, goddamned magnets shooting at my crochety bits? What a loser. Oh well, it’s my first whack and getting old and I am flunking the test.

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. . . are overruled

I don’t know how to celebrate and celebration itself feels icky in a way. Surely these are the greatest words written in government in many years:

“Held: The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion:, Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

Of course this does not mean an end to abortion. Nor perhaps, should it. It means we will have to talk about it. Compromise. Do politics. It does mean a new and different world. All the politics of the last 50 years has been inextricably bound up in the abortion debate and certainly in the last 40 years in the ability to appoint Federal and Supreme Court judges that will stand for or against the “right” to an abortion. All that is swept away today and a new political world is beginning.

Many of the people mourning the loss of their “right” to abortion fail to recognize – I think – a huge impact of the last two days of decisions. In both Bruen and Dobbs it seems to me that the Supreme Court recognized that words mean what they say they mean and if they aren’t there you can’t invent their presence. It sounds to me like John Adams’ famous closing statement in the Boston Massacre case:

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence . . .”

I think the truly interesting facts to come out of this week is that words have meaning and law without meaning or law that relies on twisted meanings or non-existent words is not law and cannot long stand. The fact that non-objective reality has no standing will hopefully strike a blow against the entire concept of reality being in the mind of the perceiver. If that happens, we will all be better for it.

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(In)famous

Look at this silliness.

Civil War re-enactment a 'hobby' to many, a way of life for some (via NewsWorks)

June 27, 2013 By Peter Crimmins, @petercrimmins When you spend a third of your annual income, and take all the time you take doing the re-enactments as vacation time, and you’re as crazy as I am to move where you died 150 years ago, it’s more than…

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Letter

Dear American voter,

FUCK YOU!!!

You hate me. You hate my children. You hate my country.

And I hate you.

And I hate the country you apparently want to build.

I hope you fail. Even if you drag the last, best hope of earth down with you – I hope you fail. And I hope you suffer acutely the pain of your failure.

I quit. I don’t care any more. I will cope with this world you’re building as long as I can and when I can no longer deal with the constant strain and uncertainty I’ll get out.

Enjoy your impending doom.

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Election

Today is election day. As always, THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIME! Silly, but I suspect it may actually be true today.

Today we find out whether the American People regret the mistake they made in 2008 or whether they actually intended to dissolve the United States of America as embodied in the Constitution and create something different.

This election, more than most, is a clear choice: One side advocates for equality of outcome, the other side for equality of opportunity. One side believes that the charter of government is to make sure “all men are . . . equal.” There ought to be a chicken in every pot, a roof over everyone’s head, everyone making $60,000 a year with good benefits, everyone able to retire at 65 with a good income and their needs taken care of. It sounds lovely.

The other side – my side – believes that as Lincoln says “all men [should have] an equal chance.” I believe in opportunity without boundaries, good education according to needs of the child and community, the ability for mothers and fathers to decide for themselves how best to prepare their children for the future. I want to be able to prepare for my own retirement, pay for my own roof over my head and earn my chicken – and the pot – by the sweat of my brow. Level the playing field, yes, but only so we all have the chance to run as far and as fast as we can without impediment.

Does this mean there will be winners and losers? Of course, but there will always be winners and losers. That’s human nature. Harness the desire to be a winner by incentivizing winning and make it so the struggle to win will better everyone’s lives. Allow people to build a better phone to get rich and we’ll all end up with mind-bogglingly powerful, always connected communication devices in our pockets for less than the cost of a television. Demand that the rich live in a modest ranch house in suburbia with no more meat on their table than their neighbor and what’s the point of building a better phone for all of us? We’re all going to end up the same, why bother?

Today I proudly voted for equality of opportunity: everyone has a chance to play, nobody picks winners or losers and nobody builds stumbling blocks to progress. We’re all in it together, yes. And the best way to get us all to work a little harder is to offer greater rewards for our hard work.

I hope that November 6, 2012 will not prove to be the day that the United States confirmed its decision to dissolve itself. I expect it to be a new beginning.

Not that my vote counts. I live in New Jersey.

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