The language we speak does in many ways affect the way in which we think.  For example, when using many of the world's languages, I must think about the gender of every object... or, in German, the third state of neuter.  Enter the Social Justice Warriors (SJW), who imagine that they are fighting bigotry by practicing an even greater bigotry: Defining who someone is by the constellation of identifiers the SJW approve.  So my race, my ethnicity, my disabilities, and any other things the SJW have chosen to classify as "markers" combine to define who I am, according to the SJW.  The SJW then propose to do away entirely with the English word Man (and derivatives, and with the pronouns associated with Men) and replace them with a detailed taxonomy to describe the large number of "genders" resulting when adopting this process of defining people by these constellations of "markers".  Because I was born male, grew up as a boy, and finally attained manhood with all of its obligations, I am now instructed by the SJW to refer to myself as a "cis-male", which now compels me to be aware of and constantly talk about people who are confused about their sexuality all the time.

I reject all of this bullshit for several reasons.  Firstly, I make my living with my brain and refuse to permit the SJW to invade my thought processes with their ideology.  Secondly, I have no problem with transgender people and treat them as exactly what they present before me; I believe this is as accepting as anyone can be.  I refuse to adopt a vocabulary requiring me to constantly think about how someone came to present as they do; in fact it is none of my business unless they wish to get in bed with me.  Thirdly, I believe that determining who someone is by his or her or its classifications and markers is the very definition of bigotry, is it not, and therefore an act of consummate hypocrisy on the part of the SJW who insist they are bigotry-phobic?

To me people are defined by what they do during their short time of life.  And it is indeed a very short time.  The only thing of real value people possess is a finite and unknown amount of precious, irreplaceable lifespan.  Why would any sane person wish to expend this finite resource telling other people what to do, how to live, when and how to breathe, and in this case how to speak and think, rather than actually doing something good and useful?

Cultural Appropriation

If "cultural appropriation" is to be forbidden us by the mind police, then damn it let's be consistent and inclusive about it.

Soap appears to have been a Babylonian invention more than 4000 years ago.  Among people living on earth, the inhabitants of Iraq are therefore entitled to wash their bodies, clothing, dishes and so on with soap.  Anyone else who lacks Babylonian roots is sinning by Cultural Appropriation and should be using sand or perhaps lilac blossoms instead.

On that subject, toilet paper was invented by Joseph Gayetty of the United States in 1857.  The rest of the world may wipe its asses with its left hand or commit the Sin of Cultural Appropriation.  Leaves might work as well, or the pages from old telephone books or printed catalogs if you can find one.  If all else fails, the pages of books written by the Mind Police themselves could come in handy.

The internal combustion engine is an invention of Europeans and Americans.  Those of other cultures sin by riding automobiles or motorcycles, with the possible exception of those rich enough to drive Teslas.  These appropriators should walk or ride bicycles except that bicycles are also a European invention, so get out there and hoof it, the rest of you.

Antibiotics are an European and American invention.  Those of other cultures sin by trying to stay alive through cultural appropriation.

Electronic digital computers are an European and American invention.  Those of other cultures may use the Abacus if they are Chinese, but they may not use sliderules because these too are European inventions.  And what do we say about Egyptian Music Videos?

I find it offensively stupid that the mind police (those who attempt to control thought through controlling language and other forms of self expression) have convinced presumptively intelligent, or at least "educated", people such as college faculty members that it is somehow evil for me to make a dough of masa flour, press it into a tortilla, and throw it in a frying pan to make and subsequently eat my very own taco on the grounds that such an act is "Cultural Appropriation", when people from all the third world shit holes on this planet are perfectly golden when appropriating all the civilization enhancing inventions of Western Culture.

The consistent application of this particular form of Political Correctness would, incidentally, implement and enforce a real, rather than imagined, form of  Western Culture Privilege.

Reply to the Heroic Susan Collins of Maine

Dear Senator Collins,

I am not going to send you any money.  And the fundraising organization that is conducting this campaign will probably ignore my reply, so my writing one is actually the sort of lament from the wilderness that you claim yourself to be doing below.  Nevertheless just in case someone actually deals with feedback from your solicitees I shall write this anyway, to explain *why* I am not going to send you any money.

You assert that the left is exerting itself to intimidate people they disagree with.  This is certainly true, and in this regard most of the "news" media are acting in concert with and therefore acting as part of the Left.

The Left has been engaging in Hate Crimes since before we won in 2016, and all of us voters who made that win happen are the objects of their hatred.  Not just you.  Individuals and mobs have been serving the Left just as the Brownshirts (SA) served Hitler and as the Bolsheviks served Lenin.  We all see video of "Antifa" (actually, Pro-"fa") mobs threatening citizens with deadly force on the streets in Portland and in some cases applying it.  Remember that damage done to a victim which does not heal fully in six months is defined as serious bodily harm in most States, and that inflicting or threatening to inflict serious bodily harm is a use of deadly force justifying a response with up to deadly force to stop the attack.

We common citizens have only the common law and some places statute law which acknowledge that we have what Blackstone called "the cardinal human right of self defense."  For most of us common citizens, this human right is our *only* shield against intimidation and threat of death or grievous bodily harm from Leftist mobs.  For most of us, there is no one available but ourselves to protect us, and unless we are in a State that allows us to carry the means for self defense, we are completely defenseless, and unable to exercise our cardinal right, in the face of deadly Leftist mob violence.

You ask for money so that you may protect yourself against intimidation.  This is absurd.  You are a sitting US Senator and as such have available to you armed security, to a degree unavailable to most common citizens, to augment your own right and ability to defend yourself if you so choose and if your State or District government rulers allow you to do so.

I already pay what is, to me, an obscene amount of money in Federal taxes which pay your salary and expenses, including I am sure armed security, in serving as you have been elected to do.  Inasmuch as I am solely responsible for my own defense and that of my family, and inasmuch as the Left's hatred is directed not merely at politicians but at the people such as me who elected them, it is I who should be asking your support in my defense, not you asking me.  Let's see you vote enthusiastically in favor of National reciprocity for State concealed weapon permits, for example; I am presently not permitted to carry weapons in Oregon and so if I found myself in Antifa's way there, I would be reduced to begging on my knees unless I, a 70 year old man, foolishly tried grappling with club wielding, fit young men.  Either way with good luck I might merely wind up in a hospital.  So I look forward to your support for this.

If on the other hand you are seeking funds to facilitate your re-election as a US Senator, there are two problems with this.  The first is that your duty is to serve the interests of the State of Maine, not of me or of the State of Wyoming.  Therefore it would seem appropriate that you raise funds from Maine and let we in Wyoming raise funds for the people who actually represent *our* State.

The only rationale for my contributing money to your next campaign in Maine would require that I somehow concluded that your actions in the Senate served my interests and those of Wyoming.  Your letter refers to your dramatically belated consent to the President's appointment of Brett Kavanaugh as though it is some incredibly laudable act on your part.  I don't agree.  Given that Sen Schumer (the same man who grinned during the House hearings about the murdering of women and children by Janet Reno's minions in Waco Texas) basically announced in advance that his party would vote in lockstep to oppose *any* nominee proposed by the President, the appropriate advice from the entire Republican party would have been to dispense with hearings not required by the Constitution and proceed to consent immediately.  You simply did the right thing, as did your peers in this case; but, as you have done on several matters before the Senate since we elected President Trump, you once again grandstanded for publicity by taking advantage of the Media's enthusiasm for representing you as some sort of un- principled swing vote who could be swayed by the winds of public opinion polls often conducted by those same media.  I might be wrong, but to me it certainly appears that your public grandstanding is designed to serve Susan Collins and not Maine, the United States or we citizens.  I am also pretty sure that the reason the Left is perhaps targeting you more than some other Senators is that rather than simply voting "yea" you milked the situation for as much publicity as you could get.  If that is not the case, you need to redesign your messaging because that is exactly what it conveys now, at least to me.

My problem with supporting your next campaign, Senator, is that in many of your past grandstandings you finally cast your vote in ways that *do not* serve the interests of me, my family, my State, our my Nation.  For simply one example:  Perhaps you do not fully understand what the falsely named "Affordable Care Act" has done to destroy the feasibility of insuring a working family in this country.  Up until 2010 I could insure a person extremely well using a high deductible major medical policy and just paying for most services and medications up to the deductible.  Total cost on the order of $4500 per year with no services needed, 8500 per year max and thereafter no co-pay and no practical upper limit.

Last year, only seven years later, the least expensive Obama approved non short term policy available for my 40 year old domestic partner here in Wyoming would have cost us $7200 a year in premiums and a $6000 deductible, with 50% co-pay after the deductible.  Let me help with the arithmetic.  This means a guaranteed loss of $7200 every year.  It means no help whatsoever with our expenses until we have paid out a total of $13,200 cash in one year (mandatory premium plus deductible amount.)  Thereafter the 50% co-pay applies.  What this means is a minimum health care cost of $7200 per year for a healthy person who needs none, and it also means that the Obama approved policy *only increases* the cost of health care above and beyond what the cash price would be, unless a person's annual cost of health care actually exceeds a number on the order of $20,000 at which point it starts producing a small benefit.  This assumes, of course, that the unfortunate insured is not already bankrupt after having shelled out more than $20,200 herself (7200 + 6000 + 14000/2) as of that point.  If so, then the lucky insured would find that the *next* 20k worth that year only cost her another $10k, again assuming she was not yet bankrupt.  And of course it all begins again at the start of the next year.

Seven years is a mighty short time for these costs to change that much given that the reason for the change was a cynically deceptive claim by the Left of making the whole business of personal survival "affordable".  George Orwell could not have misnamed it better.

I will not send you even $10 because you have voted to preserve this obscene scam known as the ACA.  My family needs to conserve its money to pay the drastically increased costs which we must endure thanks to the ACA, and we can only shudder when thinking about what next move the Leftists, probably with your thoughtful, deliberative and publicity-rich assistance, plan to make with that knife they have shoved into, and which you have voted to leave in, our backs.

Very Respectfully – Greg, a common citizen who loves liberty and despises hypocrisy.

European Union GDPR Bullshit

The EU, which somehow claims jurisdiction over what I post on this platform, also claims the power to compel me to do things.  I of course respond here and now to inform the European Union that my ancestors declared independence from the British Crown and created the United States precisely because the sort of imperious, absentee proclamations now made by the EU bureaucrats upon people to whom they are not accountable were intolerable, as it still are.  So, to the EU, shove your proclamations up your collective asses.

However, this platform is provided by Google.  That company, like other treasonous American companies, has demonstrated its submissiveness by willingly acting as an arm of the Communist Chinese government in promoting its propaganda, censoring what its unfortunate citizens read, and aiding that government in its surveillance efforts, among other things.  Therefore, to continue using this platform, Google demands that we post the following nonsense.  Also, to avoid being fined a King's ransom by the EU which still believes in Kings, I will declare here and now that I collect no personal information from or about anyone using this blog, nor do I wish to; therefore, there is nothing for me to delete, and any requests will be ignored.

===============   mandatory bullshit  ===============

"This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and analyze traffic. Your IP address and user-agent are shared with Google along with performance and security metrics to ensure quality of service, generate usage statistics, and to detect and address abuse."

The notice lets visitors know about Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies on your blog, including Google Analytics and AdSense cookies. Learn about Google’s privacy practices and how Google uses data on partner sites.

=================   end of bullshit  ================

About Trade Wars

Our "partners" in Europe are aghast that the United States would dare levy Tariffs on imported goods.  Free trade, blah blah blah.  My company, GreenArrays, Inc., sells its simple products all over the world.  When we sell to the EU, two interesting things happen.  Firstly, everything we ship to the EU zone has 20% VAT slapped on it before our customers may take delivery.  That is nothing less than a de facto Tariff, but of course the EU does not deem it so.  To the customers, the effect is the same:  If they are in the EU, then they must pay 20% more for our products than do our customers who are not thusly afflicted.  Secondly, in some countries, such as France and UK, there is an import tariff on the order of 17%.  What, a Tariff on semiconductors from US manufacturers?  Yep.  So in some of those fine European countries our customers are assessed a whopping Tariff, because that is what it is, of nearly 40% on our chips.  But we have Free Trade and our President is an evil bastard to levy Tariffs on some of the goods made in those countries.

I fervently hope that there is special torment compound in Purgatory reserved for hypocrites.