patrick.net

That will teach them to read patnet.

America bought into liberal narratives, and rejected time tested principles of conservative virtue. Once that happened, we went down hill. It's gonna be a tough road back up, many Americans will have to come to their senses as life difficulties will require that. But we can do it.

I couldn't finish reading all that tripe. Kurt Anderson might just not be my kind of writer.

It's been said that men go mad in droves, and slowly regain their senses one at a time.

I think it began in the 90's with the advent of the PC, the birth of the internet, and technological explosion. Parlayed with massive credit expansion, it was a dangerous mix. Money and (cheap) credit fuel the fire, and can obviously have deleterious effects on unsuspecting humans. All aboard! Before the train leaves the station, nobody wants to miss out. Mania ensues, and is exasperated by the booms and busts as we bubbled 'the economy ' over the next two decades.

They say idle hands are the devils playground. This time period was when easy living went mainstream, and everyone was afforded a taste. It's hard to process such titanic shifts, while the ground is still moving beneath you.

What with all this newfound free time, easy living, and cheap and easy credit, what could go wrong? Sell our souls, sell um on the cheap, and whore out our nation to the highest bidder. Is it any wonder?

Yeah I'm sitting on this barstool
Talking like a damn fool
Got the twelve o'clock news blues
And I've given up hope for the afternoon soaps
And a bottle of cold brew
Is it any wonder I'm not crazy?
Is it any wonder I'm sane at all?
Well I'm so tired of losing I got nothing to do
And all day to do it
I go out cruisin'
But I've no place to go
And all night to get there
Is it any wonder I'm not a criminal?
Is it any wonder I'm not in jail?
Is it any wonder I've got
Too much time on my hands,
It's ticking away with my sanity
I've got too much time on my hands,
it's hard to believe such a calamity
I've got too much time on my hands
and it's ticking away,
ticking away from me
(Too much time on my hands)
It's tick tick tick tick ticking away
(Too much time on my hands)
And I don't know what to do with myself
(Too much time on my hands)
(Solo)
(Too much time on my hands),
(Too much time on my hands),
(Too much time on my hands)
Now I'm a jet fuel genius
I can solve the world's problems
Without even trying
I have dozens of friends and the fun never ends
That is as long as I'm buying
Is it any wonder I'm not the President
Is it any wonder I'm null and void?
Is it any wonder I've got
Too much time on my hands,
It's ticking away with my sanity
I've got too much time on my hands,
it's hard to believe such a calamity
I've got too much time on my hands
and it's ticking away,
ticking away from me
(Too much time on my hands)
Tick tick tick tick ticking away
(Too much time on my hands)
And I don't know what to do with myself
(Too much time on my hands)
Hmm mmm
(Too much time on my hands)
Tick tick tick ticking away
(Too much time on my hands)
Hmm mmm
(Too much time on my hands)
Too much time on my hands
Too much time on my

EST Sessions (Esalen)
All Truth is Relative
Create your own reality
My Lived Experience
As an X...
Identity Politics
Herbert Marcuse
Susan Sontag
Post-Modernism is literally Truthiness, and which grouping of People embraces it the most?

The problem of putting the onus on religion is that religious belief is declining (and all the Creationism and Life-after-death associated with it), while the Grouping traditionally into Reason, has steadily abandoned it as a White Male invention, and embraced pseudoscience like "Humans are a blank slate and all gender differences are Social", "Meat is poison", "You can't say one culture is superior over another", "Create your own reality", among many other things. We literally produce college graduates who believe in the efficacy of African Magic and Ancient Black Astronauts and the Global Eternal Patriarchal Conspiracy Theory that destroyed the Earth Mother and enslaved All Women Everywhere.

errc says

It's been said that men go mad in droves, and slowly regain their senses one at a time.

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."

errc says

massive credit expansion

This.

President Nixon made his disastrous deals with KSA, switching the USD from the gold standard to the Petrodollar standard. America got into a whole series of incredibly self-destructive decisions, sold on lies, from LBJ's "light at the end of the tunnel" in Viet Nam to Nixon's supposed secret plan to end the war, which consisted of expanding it to most of southeast Asia and killing millions of people. Politicians told ever bigger lies to sell ever more expensive policies on behalf of both MICs (medical and military), and countless industries cashed in on deficit spending both public and private. Somehow debt became credit which became "borrowing power" and thus "spending power," and lenders encouraged people to believe themselves richer if they had more credit, even while sinking deeper into debt. High oil prices produced more Petrodollars and thus enabled even more borrowing.

It took incredible self-deception to reimagine debt as wealth, medical insurance as health, KSA and Pakistan as allies of the USA, and endless war on behalf of KSA and Pakistan as promoting peace.

jazz_music says

Early on Kurt Anderson hits the red meat here

... we are a divided nation … divided between those who think with their head and those who know with their heart … Because that’s where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen—the gut.”

... and in the end he brings it all home as quoted below

It will require a struggle to make America reality-based again. Fight the good fight in your private life. You needn’t get into an argument with the stranger at Chipotle who claims that George Soros and Uber are plotting to make his muscle car illegal—but do not give acquaintances and friends and family members free passes. If you have children or grandchildren, teach them to distinguish between true and untrue as fiercely as you do between right and wrong and between wise and foolish.

The alt right used cult anger by radio on the daily commute to sidestep rationality, as do the evangelists especially the ones that us...

As long as you believe the "other guys" are void of logic, you are buying into a false dogma, and that divide will remain.

Wow. This is very dan-esque...

errc says

Yeah I'm sitting on this barstool

Gentle Reader,

I'm pretty sure that America has always be more than a little deranged. It's why I like living here.

Regards,
Roidy