The problem with feel-good ideas is that there’s usually a lack o’ standards applied to them, which encourages mindlessness like lead poisoning. This is ‘specially the case with a raw issue like suicide, a complex issue that has no easy rational answers, & yet has extreme consequences.

It’s quite easy to puke out irrational answers, but I doubt it’s easy to actually help someone with them, e’en if you put the pound sign before some mess o’ words mashed together to noncomprehensibility (I love how the internet is making us go backward in terms o’ linguistic development by making us forget how to use spaces). I already mentioned in a previous article wherein I seriously discuss this issue by making fun o’ a teenager’s 1st poem that proves the inherent badness o’ suicide with the famed “Missed Sunset Theory,” wherein I question the effectiveness o’ telling someone thinking o’ suicide, “Duh, don’t do it. Life’s sunny” & passing the buck to suicide prevention hotlines (which was the most effective, actually) & argued that talking ’bout suicide as a single issue was probably futile & only fed this abstraction to the point o’ mindlessness that makes anti-suicide rhetoric so useless.

¡But look @ how my prayers have been answered! Some shadowy figure named YOU’RE NOT FINISHED–whose name sounds mo’ threatening than calming: “DON’T YOU DARE COMMIT SUICIDE. YOU’RE NOT FINISHED. YOU GET RIGHT BACK HERE YOU SON O’ A BITCH”–offers a mathematically-tight proof that suicide is no good, man, in an article full o’ too many insipid Twitter hashtags for me to type here without needing to commit suicide myself in consummate shame:

I have heard (more than I ever want to) from some that suicide is freedom. Suicide is death, so that means if suicide is freedom, death is freedom (according to the math).

Actually, that’s a logical fallacy. Based on that same logic, we can prove that Stevie Wonder is god by showing the Stevie Wonder is blind, & love is blind, & God is love; therefore, blind is God, & thus Stevie Wonder is god.

I could also point out that to call this “math” stretches the definition o’ “math,” which is only 1 definition mangled here. Clearly YOU’RE NOT FINISHED is assuming that “is” means “equals,” & not “is 1 o’ potentially many examples o’,” as it’s clearly used here. It’s also true that murder is death, but no one would call that freedom. When people call suicide “freedom,” they’re focusing on the choice o’ death, the part that distinguishes suicide from other types o’ death. Hence why they say “suicide is freedom” rather than simply “death is freedom.”

Let’s unpack that for a second. To make sure I got this right I looked up the definition of freedom, knowing that word is objective. It can be interpreted to mean so many things to so many people. Three definitions stood out to me most:

Well, you failed there, unfortunately, before you e’en got to this point, & hereafter. Your “knowledge” that the word “freedom” “is objective,” for instance, is quite wrong. Anyone who knows anything ’bout language knows that it’s all, by nature, made up & therefore has no objectivity. “Objectivity” comes from concrete nature, not from people’s minds. That’s why it’s called objectivity–the focus is that it is a concrete object that can be sensed.

Notably, too, YOU’RE NOT FINISHED finished this paragraph wherein they claimed to look up the definition o’ “freedom” without bothering to provide a source, & then admits that the definitions they chose were simply those that “stood out” (can be used to back up the conclusion they already want to decide).

1) the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or physical restraint
2) exemption from external control
3) personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery

Note that these definitions are so vague (& to some extent simply repeats the word in a different way) that it could apply to any possible existence, making true freedom impossible. Only the 3rd entry is concrete ‘nough to be meaningful & it’s, tellingly, quite an open definition: pretty much every modern person in the western world would fall under that definition.

But that’s digression. Let’s look @ YOU’RE NOT FINISHED’s brilliant “math” theory:

When you die, you are confined to a coffin.. [sic] […]

Actually, your body is. By definition, if one’s dead, one doesn’t exist.

[…] subjected to people’s perception of you… […]

That’s true o’ being ‘live, too. Mo’ importantly, nowhere in the aforementioned definitions o’ freedom is there anything ’bout controlling other people’s perceptions o’ oneself. That would, ironically, be a violation o’ their freedom o’ thought.

[..] not at liberty to change and better your circumstances or live out your purpose.

Uh O: they’re breaking out into poem. I can already see the sunsets coming.

I don’t think I’d consider “better your circumstances” or “live out your purpose” to be precise ‘nough to be useful for a “mathematical” theory. Also, the rhetoric they use, putting the word “at liberty to” before it, could be used for anything. Indeed, that’s what that word-salad poem I made fun o’ before did:

• You’re not @ liberty to pick what song to play on the radio,
• you’re not @ liberty to pick your nose clean o’ snot,
• you’re not @ liberty to clean out your garage,
• you’re not @ liberty to kill yourself

(Note: that last 1 is actually a serious point–that “suicide is freedom” is self-contradictory, since suicide, ironically, eliminates one’s ability to commit suicide. [Granted, such logic would eliminate almost all freedoms, given the inevitable permanence o’ one’s actions, leading me back to my belief that nothing’s “free”] ‘Course, YOU’RE NOT FINISHED doesn’t bother with such technical nonsense, ’cause it’s clear that they don’t understand basic logic & would rather puke out flowery cliches ‘stead.)

[…] Not free to love and be loved. […]

Like these. Note that the freedom “to be loved” hinges on someone else, & thus the only way to ensure it is to eliminate someone else’s freedom.

[…] You’re gone. […]

(Laughs.) & ‘gain we see someone momentarily hitting a ’bout o’ self-awareness & admitting that their nonsense is helping no one, & thus anyone suicidal ‘nough to need to read this is probably doomed, anyway. Mo’ like YOU ARE FINISHED, ¿amirite?

All of those definitions, even the other two I did not list, […]

Wait, wait, wait: hold on. ¿What other 2? ¿Why aren’t you listing them? ¿Why bring up something that you refuse to e’en tell us? ¿Are you Fermat? ¿Did you prove the Theory o’ Suicide’s Badness, but ran out o’ room in the margin o’ your blog post to type it out?

[…] imply that you have to be alive to experience freedom which means that death could not possibly equal freedom in any circumstance, no matter who you are.

Literally the only example YOU’RE NOT FINISHED–god that’s a stupid name; it’s e’en dumber than “Careerealism” & “Post-Keynesianism”–that is relevant to the listed definitions is the 1st 1 ’bout being stuck in a coffin, which relies on the assumption that someone who choses to leave any consciousness or awareness o’ their body cares what happens to their body afterward, which is doubtful.

& now that I think ’bout it, you could just choose to have your body cremated or e’en frozen. So e’en the assumption that suicidal people have no control o’er their body after they die is obviously false.

This is like the “neoclassicalism” o’ suicidology–& just as useless for curing depression.

Spoiled brats whine ’bout how the evil idiotic public through evil democracy doesn’t give them what they, the supposedly superior elites, want, & while doing so prove exactly why the idiotic public shouldn’t listen to the e’en stupider elites.

Washington Post in particular had a stupid article on the issue, where they basically make fun o’ democracy by pointing out some random effects that could’ve had an effect on the results, but to which we have no evidence they do, & them simply stating that they don’t know why certain people supported a certain way. Maybe you could be actual journalists & ask somebody, dumbasses.

Indeed, e’en as someone rather skeptical o’ e’en referendums as instruments o’ democracy (see later), this article talking ’bout how people went to extreme depths to get to a polling station belies that idea that this was simply absentminded voting. Usually we criticize the vulgar masses for neglecting to vote. The only connection this article made to the “leave” side was that it characterized them as caring mo’–‘gain, without any evidence to back this up. E’en if that were the case, the fact that the other side didn’t e’en care that much could say something ’bout that side.

Meanwhile, “Ethicist” (read: person highly paid off heavily-tax-funded college for spewing mindless drivel) Jason Brennan was so riled up that he decided to write a whole book Against Democracy & decided to exploit Brexit as a way to whore his book to the mass media.

He claims that “[t]o have even a rudimentary sense of the pros and cons of Brexit, a person would need to possess tremendous social scientific knowledge. One would need to know about the economics and sociology of trade and immigration, the politics of centralized regulation, and the history of nationalist movements,” but that “there is no reason to think even a tenth of the UK’s population has a basic grasp of the social science needed to evaluate Brexit.”

Curiously, Brennan doesn’t bother to offer a slice o’ info, other than some anecdotal story ’bout dumb Britons Googling questions ’bout what the EU is–without any evidence that those same questions were posed by people who voted “no,” or were e’en people who voted @ all, or were e’en the majority. Possibly his lack o’ economic enlightenment on Brennan’s part is ’cause anyone who actually has read much economics knows how simpleminded it is ‘hind its pretty graphs & how much o’ an utter failure it has been @ predicting anything.

Indeed, London’s stocks have been growing, as e’en Krugman had to admit (while arguing that this will still have some disastrous consequences for some vague future). He then defends economists alarmist ’bout short-term consequences as essentially lying for the public’s good, since the public is apparently too dumb for subtle messages (so much for the enlightened elites guarding the public gainst their bad tendencies) for being well-intentioned, e’en if wrong.

Then we get this hilarious end, typical o’ Krugman:

Unfortunately, that sort of thing, aside from being inherently a bad practice, can all too easily backfire. Indeed, the rebound in British stocks, which are now above pre-Brexit levels, is already causing some backlash against conventional economists and their Chicken Little warnings.

Commenter ReaganAnd30YearsOfWrong gave the perfect response:

Krugman thinks economists still have credibility. Seriously.

But back to Brennan: he describes his point in the way most thorough scientists do: some clumsy metaphor ’bout a doctor who apparently knows nothing ’bout medicine & is basing his views on “prejudice” & “whishful thinking” putting a gun to your head & forcing you to use his treatment. That social sciences like economics & politics are significantly less certain than chemistry–hence why they’re called “soft sciences”–is apparently beyond this brilliant “ethicist.” He contrasts this with monarchy, which is apparently knowledgeable doctors doing such to serve their own interests (actually, that’s meritocracy; last time I checked, monarchs don’t have to pass civics tests to be born to the right family). He then offers some made-up “epistocracy” as a 3rd option–an option that he describes incredibly vaguely so that you have to buy his book to actually know what it is, which no one in their right mind would do. All he says is that it involves some reapportioning o’ voting power based on knowledge. Since what is & isn’t “knowledgeable” is ultimately decided by humans, that makes this a circular-logic affair–a brilliant basis for a political system (not surprising from a market thumper, since markets work the same way). Presumably, he implies that colleges–¡which produced such brilliant minds as Brennan, as well as Mankiw, George W. Bush, & pretty much every politician!–determine voting, which would make them electoral manipulators, if not outright oligarchs.

He then admits that he has no evidence that this system would be any better than “democracy” (it should be pointed out that Brennan makes an outright contradiction when he variously calls western societies “democratic” & “republican,” while, accurately, distinguishing these 2 concepts), &, in fact, has no evidence for anything. Essentially, this “ethicist” is just pissing into the wind (that must be the “horse-piss” Marx warned us ’bout).

He then concludes the article by complaining ’bout an unproven (a’least by him in this article) rise in “angry, resentful” “nationalist, xenophobic, & racist” movements that pad out their word count with redundant words, & claims that they are low-information voters, which he also provides no evidence for. He seems to imply that those who voted for Brexit are these stupid racist assholes–my own much mo’ concise term for what he said–without any evidence proving that Brexit voters were particularly racist or stupid–he only proved that some Britons became mo’ curious ’bout what the European Union was hours after voting, without any knowledge o’ what side those Britons preferred or whether these Britons e’en voted @ all, & without any evidence that these Britons were anywhere close to the majority.

Not included in this article is any serious look @ the reasons given for Brexit, though the internet, being the internet, is hardly free o’ it. For instance, Steve Keen @ that den o’ the resentful bigoted peasants, Forbes, offers some reasons–ironically, including the lack o’ democracy in the European Union. Brennan himself offers no economic insight on why Brexit might be bad; but considering he’s the writer o’ Markets without Limits, we can guess that he himself is a “low-information voter,” by his own definition, since not e’en the most raving market-thumper economist would e’er support such a thing.

But e’en the liberal critics o’ Brexit rarely talk ’bout the specifics o’ why Brexit would be so bad, other than that some o’ the people who support it happen to be racists, which is such an obvious ad hominem attack–‘specially for a college-educated “ethicist,” whom you’d s’pose would have a solid understanding o’ logic 101, which only shows how o’errated such “prestigious” colleges are when they turn out such dopes as Brennan. Rarely do they e’en discuss the questions o’ how democratic the European Union is or the way it limits deficit spending, or simply the fact that it has failed to improve Europe’s recessions & unemployment problems for almost a decade–&, in fact, has done worse than the US. This last criticism could be applied to economists in general, as well, although they could use the alibi that some governments ignore them, anyway.

Actually, sadly, the only coherent left-wing criticism o’ Brexit I heard was from a slap-dash website from anarchists (which, granted, still adhominems Brexit by pointing out people who supported it–ignoring that such corporate conspiracies as gay marriage have also been funded by rich people), wherein they point out that the assumption that austerity would’ve been prevented–or would be ended–by a lack o’ Britain involvement in the EU is foolish.

That’s a common problem I’ve seen ‘mong “free trade” supporters, & the fact that many o’ the people I’ve seen complain ’bout Brexit, such as Brennan, Krugman, & Noah Smith, ‘mong others, are big proponents o’ “free trade,” that may ‘splain this. “Free trade” pushers, in addition to applying an immensely propagandist & dishonest label (usually this is “free” for people with money, but quite restricting on governments to the behest o’ bigger organizations, like the EU itself, as well as usually involving stronger restrictions in terms o’ copyright), oft simply insult “free trade” skeptics rather than actually engage any o’ the ideas they present. I’m reminded o’ economist Charles Wheelan in Naked Economics–admittedly a book meant for the “dumb masses,” & thus dumbed down e’en further than Samuelson or Mankiw–essentially just criticizes skepticism o’ “free trade” as “they throw rocks @ windows,” in reference to the NAFTA protests in Seattle. Similarly, here, rather than engage critics o’ Brexit, they would rather depict them as the most vulgar o’ racists–e’en Steve Keen, who not only attacks racists in the linked article (which doesn’t mean much by itself), but also says he supports open immigration, while criticizing aspects that have nothing to do with race @ all. Which, in a sense, is simply a way for them to hypocritically demonstrate their prejudice gainst the average working class people–the depiction o’ them as resentful ignorant racists is an ol’ stereotype. But then, the major hypocrisy o’ western culture is the way it demonizes racism, but upholds rich supremacy, e’en though e’en economists admit they can’t prove that people who are poor did anything themselves to deserve it, & that one’s wealth is heavily influenced by aspects they can’t control, such as one’s wealth @ birth.

That’s the most mystifying part o’ so many o’ these laissy lib & economist “meritocrats” so critical o’ the “dumb masses”: these so-called “meritocrats” are usually dumber than the average person. That &, no different from Brennan’s monarchy doctor analogy, their true goal is to serve themselves, not the majority for whom they reveal they hold nothing but contempt.

To be fair, I thought The Atlantic’s article was rather balanced–as good a summary o’ the issues as you could probably do in such short space. They e’en mention what I think is a legitimate critique o’ referendums as a form o’ democracy: that narrowing questions to just “yes” or “no” still stifles & manipulates the public. (The Anarchist Writers page does the same, creating an odd situation in which moderate liberals & anarcho-socialists agree.)

I would actually say I have mixed views ’bout both the European Union & “free trade”–not the least o’ which being a less Orwellian name for the latter. For 1, one could point out that this “democracy” in regards to an international issue excludes others in the world, which is the ethical equivalent o’ a plot o’ private land within a country voting within itself to secede from its country so it doesn’t have to obey its laws. As The Anarchist Writers article points out, it’s simply the replacement o’ neoliberal superstitions with nationalist superstitions–& superstitions are still superstitions. Honestly, to call anything limited within a certain nationality “democracy” is as erroneous as calling voting ‘tween just a small elite “democracy”–it’s what we call “oligarchy.” The very definition o’ “democracy” is that it includes everyone; thus the only true “democracy” is international. Anyone who praises national democracy but criticizes oligarchy is simply a hypocrite, since they follow the same logic. & anyone who supports socialism–or a’least has skepticism toward income distribution–are just as hypocritical for assuming that the current distribution o’ nations is just simply due to historical tradition.

That said, forcing the public to not be superstitious–& I will agree that the masses can be superstitious–won’t fix anything, ‘specially since we can’t assure that the elite won’t be superstitious, as can be proven by their love for simplistic “economic” models. & that said, nor should one mindlessly support what the masses believe just ’cause they believe in it. That would be corrupt–a self-perpetuating circle o’ the masses following the masses simply ’cause the masses say so: a circle jerk.

But we already have the best solution that could already exist: democracy with freedom o’ speech. We let the majority decide & we try to urge & educate the majority as much as possible, without forcing gainst them.

But perhaps ‘stead o’ simply throwing ad hominem attacks @ skeptics & trying to crush public will when they dare to defy them, supporters could try to have a slight semblance o’ compromise & maybe such extreme rebukes gainst them wouldn’t happen.

But then ‘gain, the fact that the so-called experts refuse to be reasonable might just be evidence that having the public rely on them to help them is futile–‘specially when they think so li’l o’ the public. Quite the opposite, it shows that the public refusing to submit to the will o’ an elite that despises them so much is the smartest decision they could e’er make.

Or, as it’s called in Europe: Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island.

Since I’ve been talking ’bout ol’ Game Boy Advance, I might as well write ’bout the other games for which I have strange nostalgic stories.

Though my family had a Genesis, we only had a few games, & only 1 o’ which I cared ’bout & involved Sonic: Sonic 3D Blast. As strange as it’ll sound, this was the only Sonic game I’d played or known ’bout for a while, till playing Sonic 3 a few years later. I didn’t play any o’ the other ol’ Sonic games till I was a young teen, on some GameCube collection.

‘Cause o’ this, this game has still been rather embedded in my mind as the iconic Sonic game; & in particular, the “Green Grove Zone Act 1” song is to me the prime Sonic song, not the forgettable “Green Hill Zone.”¹ But in truth, just ’bout every song in this game makes me ooze with nostalgia.

Seriously, the 1st 30 seconds o’ this video encapsulates a huge part o’ my childhood. Also, look @ the rest o’ that video to see some fine cutscene animation. That shit’s Pixar-quality.

So, having grown up adoring this game as a kid, I was surprised when I saw so many people on the internet not like this game so much—in fact, thinking this game is shit & blaming it for all the embarrassing lameness, furry fetishes, & shoddy sprite comics that apparently later plagued the series.

Here are just a few review headlines from GameFaqs:

• You could’ve worked on a real 3D Sonic game instead, Sega.
• Not a blast. Not 3D. Not really even Sonic. What the hell is it?
• Close, but no Cough Drop [ed: ¿What the fuck does that mean?]
• Not quite a blast – more a snap, crackle and pop
• Where the franchise first jumped the shark – in glorious “3D”
• It’s okay, but not up to the usual standard
• I guess Sonic Isometric Blast was not catchy enough [ed: this is a good point, to be fair]
• The most ridiculously average game I will ever play.
• A Mediocre Effort From Sonic Team and Traveller’s Tales
• Play it for the bosses. The rest sucks.
• Picking up birds isn’t fun in this game.. [sic]
• A great game, if you like headaches
• The Controls Suck
• Mediocrity never tasted so bland

There’s e’en a hack o’ this game that lets you remove the Flickies, whom you need to collect from defeated enemies to go through checkpoints & exits in the normal game. ¿Why? That’s the whole point: without the Flickies, it’s just a lame straightforward line to the exit, with no challenge @ all.

This ‘splains why I liked Sonic 3D Blast mo’ than Sonic fans. Sonic fans apparently despise exploration—or anything that gets in the way o’ going in the straight line. This game’s also much slower than the 2D games, which does sort o’ go gainst the main gimmick o’ the series. Granted, I quite like being able to tell where I’m going, so I didn’t mind that too much. Also, to be fair, the 1st Sonic the Hedgehog game had quite a few slow platforming sections, too. I mean, it wasn’t as if “Labyrinth Zone” was a rocket race. That level also had obnoxious music that droned on for the million minutes you had to spend in it—fuck that level.

Looking back, Sonic 3D Blast is mo’ like a mediocre Mario game than a Sonic game, which is why I rather liked it as a kid, since I always preferred Mario to Sonic. That said, I’ll admit it hasn’t aged well. While the game’s not so fast, Sonic’s movements still are, which makes him feel slippery & hard to control, ‘specially if you’re used to Mario’s steadier controls. (‘Gain, to be fair, the 1st Sonic the Hedgehog game had this exact problem). The isometrics mixed with these controls make actual platforming sections a huge pain in the ass.

But I still stand by this game’s soundtrack is some o’ the best Sonic music e’er—2nd only to maybe the Japanese soundtrack for Sonic CD.

Recommendations:

• “Title Theme”
• “Menu Theme”
• “Green Grove Zone Act 2”
• “Volcano Valley Zone Act 1”
• “Diamond Dust Zone Act 2”
• “Dr. Robotnik’s Theme”
• “Rusty Ruin Zone Act 2”
• “Bonus Theme” (Admittedly not as good as “Special Stage” from Sonic 3).

I’d only recommend watching a speed run o’ this game, honestly, if you don’t have any strange nostalgia for it. Otherwise, you probably won’t give a shit.

---

Paul Samuelson is the most influential American economist ‘mong people who have actually read economics (i.e. doesn’t include the average dope who claims Paul “Baby-Sitter’s Club” Krugman or Helicopter Milton Fucking Friedman as filling that role). He wrote the most influential American textbook, the creatively-named Economics, for half a century. Then he let some drunken slob William Nordhaus dumb it down by shoving in mo’ references to the need to maintain market freedumbs & other propagandist noise that gets in the way o’ Paul Samuelson’s sexy curves o’ relationships based on assumptions that he himself within the text admits are probably wrong.

Thus, we will getting this from the 1976 edition, a classic that was unsoiled from Nordhaus’s lecherous grip (&, as a bonus, cost only $5 on Amazon, as opposed to $200 mo’ than I’d e’er pay for a fucking economics book–¡just look @ how that price drop causes the substitution effect to come into place!) To be specific, we’ll look @ page 600 for 1 o’ Samuelson’s sadly underrated theories that proves the net productivity o’ capital:

To see this, imagine two islands exactly alike. Each has exactly the same primary factors of labor and land. Island A uses these primary factors directly to produce consumption product [sic]; she uses no produced capital goods at all. Island B, on the other hand, for a preliminary period sacrificed current consumption; instead, she uses some of her land and labor to produce intermediate capital goods such as plows, shovels, and synthesized chemicals. After this preliminary period of sacrificing current consumption pleasures in the interests of net capital formation, she ends up with a varied stock of capital goods, i.e., with a sizable amount of capital. Now let us measure the amount of consumption product [sic] she can go on permanently producing with her land, labor, and constantly replaced capital goods.

Careful measurement of Island B’s “roundabout” product shows it to be greater than Island A’s “direct” product. Why is it greater? Why does B get more than 100 units of future consumption goods for her initial sacrifice of 100 units of present consumption? That is a technological engineering question. To sum up, the economist traditionally takes the following answer as a basic technical fact:

There exist roundabout processes, which take time to get started and completed, that are more productive than direct processes. [All bolding mine; italics in original.]

A few points to note:

• In Samuelson’s fantasy archipelago, Island A’s resident feeds herself on dirt, while Island B magically makes shovels & synthetic chemicals through only dirt & her brute force.
• This “preliminary period of sacrificing current consumption pleasures” becomes threatening to the whole productivity o’ the operation if it leads Island B’s resident to starve to death before finally producing food–& considering how long it takes to make shovels out o’ dirt, that’s a likely scenario.
• Samuelson’s vague ’bout what “equal primary factors of labor” is, but I’ll assume it’s time spent working. Otherwise we might have to imagine someone not only creating shovels out o’ dirt, but also doing so while only holding said dirt up to their mouth & opening & closing their mouth–& I don’t think a simple time difference in scheduling these actions would change the outcome much, other than the aforementioned starvation problem.
• Samuelson spews random #s that have no basis in the 1st paragraph &, ‘pon asking rhetorically how he arrived @ those #s, turns that rhetorical question into a real question (something I’ve ne’er seen before, but intrigues me on a literary level immensely) by noting that “this is a technological engineering question,” which means that Samuelson essentially admits that his #s were completely made up.
• Samuelson “sums up” by simply noting that economists take some arbitrary, & quite vaguely worded, claim as a traditional given. Acute readers will note that this does not “sum up” this entire thought experiment so much as have nothing to do with said story. “To sum up my story, economists believe for reasons completely unrelated to my story @ all that there are some circular actions that take any real # o’ time–which is to say, they are any kind o’ actions–that are mo’ productive than just eating dirt.” (I may have misinterpreted something.)

  I don’t know why people bitch ’bout economics being “boring”: if you pay attention, it’s hilarious.

  Still, you can’t argue with his central point: if you had a choice ‘tween an island in which you just eat dirt all day or an island in which you can use magic to create all kinds o’ tools & chemicals out o’ just dirt, ¿why would anyone want boring ol’ Island A?

I shuffled my papers so much till they molded into millions.

“Just start with 1 true statement,” said Hemingway.

I stepped up to the microphone & cleared my throat:

I am amazed by how much I prefer the rain to the sun.

¿Was that too many words? ¿Should I have kept it to just, “I prefer the rain to the sun? ¿Would that have been punchier?

She didn’t look @ me. She continued staring down @ the pad in her lap & wrote.

“¿& what do you think makes the rain seem mo’ appealing than the sun?”

O, I dunno.

“Just guess. There’s no wrong answers. It’s your world: do what you want.”

Rain is less dry.

Rain isn’t dry.

It’s wet.

Finally, she looked up @ me. “¿& what makes that mo’ appealing?”

Well, I guess, I guess that it’s just that, that I,

I feel like I can feel it.

Then sun feels so distant,

its dry heat so half-hearted;

but rain touches me up close.

& yet, everyone adores the sun;

¿but who adores the rain,

who creates just as much value,

but gets li’l credit?

“¿You think it’s a li’l unfair, maybe?”

¡It’s injustice!

“It is rather drab, though, ¿don’t you think? All grays.”

¿Is gray not a color?

¿Does it not have just as many lights & darks as purples, greens, & reds?

¿Can it not cooperate with other hues just as much as they do ‘mong each other?

¿Have you forgotten ’bout cobalt? ¿Thistle? ¿Rusty red?

“I guess I had…”

& not all rain is gray:

some is black, some is purple;

some is the color o’ rocky oil,

dancing down thirsty storm drains;

some is patched with the brown, orange, red, & yellow o’ leaves;

some is solar yellow

in front o’ after-midnight streetlamps;

some is every rainbow hue @ once.

She flipped through a few papers.

“Yes, I’ve read you mentioning storm drains & leaves a few times before.

¿Is there anything else you associate with rain?”

Too many things.

Why, just last night I saw a chain link fence

that seemed to sweat under the collaboration

‘tween the rain & the streetlamps.

¿Who could imagine seeing such a thing?

“I mus—

¿Have you see—? O, sorry…

“No, go on.”

¿Have you seen rain stains in the street—

some hours into a cessation after a hard rain?

“No, I haven’t. ¿Do they look good?”

Unbearably beautiful.

“`Unbearable.’ You seem to treat the rain’s beauty as something o’ a tragedy.

¿Is that due to the world not appreciating it?”

Yes.

I don’t know why,

but I like the look o’ something so dreary but harmless—

so pitiful.

Rain’s cute,

the li’l guy.

I guess that says something wrong with me.

She shrugged. “There are many who feel that way.”

You don’t need to patronize me;

I know & accept that there’s something wrong with me.

“¿Why do you think you’re `wrong’ for liking something unpopular, like rain?

¿Didn’t you say yourself that ’twas unjust for other people to not appreciate rain?

Those are just ‘scuses for my refusal to make compromises.

I should learn to love the sun.

That’s how good people succeed.

“¿But didn’t you just criticize them for not compromising on their love for the sun?

Compromises have to go both ways, after all.”

…

It took me a while to realize she was calling my name repeatedly.

“I noticed you have trouble keeping from looking outside.

You just can’t get o’er your love o’ the rain, ¿can you?”

Yes, it’s like heroin.

It’s toxic.

“¿Do you think it’s toxic;

or is it that you think other people think it’s toxic.”

That’s what the winner’s say.

They’re winners for a reason:

they’re right, & I’m wrong.

If you can’t beat e’m…

“¿Who says they’re winners—

or a’least that they’re the only ones who are winners?”

They have money,

& they can get it doing what they want.

People respect them.

“¿But didn’t you say that people were wrong for thinking that?

I thought ’twas `unjust’.”

I take it back,

I take it all back—

the muddy foot tracks,

the crumpled leaves,

the bubbling rain water that looks like oil o’er the concrete…

Fuck…

“¿Is having money & respect worth giving up something you clearly love so much?”

¿What, is money just for decoration?

You can’t eat, can’t drink, can’t live without money.

The rain is struck down by Mammon’s thunder,

nightingales pale to the power o’ the pecuniary,

the steadfast bright star’s ‘stead fastly shot down by universal finance.

That’s why people like Keats & Shakespeare are dead so young,

their dusty work buried to mold,

only truly read by a few ol’ cranks,

while tossed blurry in cobwebbed corners o’ the average mind,

while the gold on which we all revolve shines stronger than all.

¡Yes! ¡Money is everything!

¡Rain is nothing!

Don’t patronize me:

just ’cause I’m a fool,

doesn’t mean you need to feed my foolishness.

Now ’twas time for her to pause in silence.

Finally, she said, “You’re dramatizing:

actually, if you look @ studies,

most people consider such things as aspirations, family, & friends to be mo’ important than money.”

They’re fools.

¿What would they know ’bout themselves?

The fact is that they can’t have any o’ those other things without money.

The average person thinks li’l o’ the sun;

but their lives revolve round its heat & its fuel for oxygen all the same.

“But you yourself said that the rain was just as necessary:

plants can’t live & make oxygen without rain, either.”

¿So?

“So, I ask ‘gain, ¿how can loving the rain be so bad if it’s an objective fact that rain is necessary for life?”

¿“So”?

¿“So”?

So, I can barely pay my rent, my student debt, my gas & car maintenance, these cloud-high sessions that my star-high insurance doesn’t pay for, & food;

¿Who gives a fuck ’bout rain when one has to worry ’bout getting ‘nough to afford this all?

“I’m sorry to hear all that.

It can be stressful to deal with so much in such limited time ‘lone, ¿isn’t it?

It seems to me that maybe that’s 1 other thing that might make rain so appealing:

it’s calming, ¿isn’t it?

In fact, your contrast there seems to explain it:

maybe it’s precisely ’cause rain’s so removed from all the stresses in life that you enjoy it so much.

Maybe what you’re looking for is a temporary ‘scape from the stresses.”

Yes, it’s like opium.

It’s toxic.

It’s a delusion.

You can’t ‘scape the stresses.

“¿Not e’en for a few minutes every so oft?”

&, ¿what, just turn off my mind every so oft?

“Sure. ¿What harm could it do?”

¿How would I do that?

“Just stop thinking ’bout the stresses for a moment.”

¡I can’t! ¡That’s the problem!

¿& what use is breaking off pieces o’ my limited time for something useless?

Successful people don’t do that:

they get rich doing what they want ’cause that’s efficient.

The point is that there’s a diametrical contrast ‘tween what I like & what is successful.

In this world where one’s career is one’s life,

one can’t afford to live like that.

“¿& why can’t you be successful liking the rain?

As you said, it’s necessary.”

I told you: people don’t value it;

& if people don’t value it,

they won’t pay for it.

While poetry ’bout the sun can sell bank,

¿who the hell wants to buy poems ’bout dirty ol’ rain?

“Well, ¿why can’t you convince people to buy poems ’bout rain?

If rain’s as necessary as you say it is,

there must be a market for them.”

But I just shook my head.

No, I checked.

Maybe in years gone…

But now…

But, god, did I love the sound o’ that pattering on my window…

I followed her glance up @ the clock,

having not noticed till now that ’twas ticking similar to the raindrops.

“Well, let’s schedule ‘nother session.

¿Would 2 weeks from now be good?”

I nodded, but my gaze was somewhere else,

my mind was somewhere else.

* * *

“Have a nice day.”

I raised a hand, but didn’t look back.

I stepped out the front door into the embrace o’ the rain.

¿Remember Magical Socialism™, that silly religion/political school that I made up based on the pretentiousness o’ the various Qualitative Socialisms–¿Where’s “postsocialism,” by the way? We might as well have that–& the cultishness o’ economic schools?

Well, it turns out our friend Lord Keynes is trying to do that with “Realist Left,” including creating a Reddit topic, a Facebook page, & designs for a hypothetical Wikipedia entry. ‘Cept he’s dead fucking serious–which is the silliest thing o’ all.

Reddit Page

&, as we can see from the Reddit page, it’s truly a blooming new political label, right up there with “New Left” & “Left-Libertarian” in terms o’ notability:

As you can see, under the giant Mao-like portrait o’ smarmy-as-fuck Keynes–the real Keynes, not the Lord variety–this topic has a whopping 5 topics, almost all o’ which are started by obviously-not-LK CamelCase “EnUnLugarDeLaMancha.” Most are just link dumps o’ articles from his blog, & most have no comments. The only comments come from “Realist Left,” which is probably also LK.

Part o’ me thinks he had to try hard to make a Keynesian Reddit topic that didn’t attract Austrian-school insults like bears to honey; but then I realized that most o’ them are also part o’ die Anti-PC Polizei, so they probably hung in indecision for hours ‘pon reading the topic, unsure o’ whether to bash it for perpetuating the devilish blasphemy o’ Keynes & how his gayness ruined economics fore’er, or whether they should praise it for also bitching ’bout bitches that be taking all my boys’ sweet attention from the Tamestream media.

Facebook Page

There’s not much to say ’bout the Facebook page, since it’s just, as is the nature o’ Facebook, a place for link pimping. Also I can’t stand navigating The Wastelands 2.0. All I’ll mention is this Leistung o’ a banner image @ its top:

I don’t know if that creepy uncle sipping a mug o’ what must be human blood on the left is John Maynard Keynes, but he frightens me. He, & the gang o’ children he’s kidnapped seem to be just as amused as I am by LK’s sad attempt @ making “Realist Left” a thing. “He he he: ‘Realist Left.’ ¡What a fucking joke!”

As if to confirm my murderous suspicions o’ creepy black-&-white Keynes, the text is an elegant red slasher font promising that this Facebook page will be the best horror flick o’ the year.

Also, can I put on my web-designer hat & bitch @ whatever dumb ass decided to save that banner as a 24-bit PNG worth o’er 200 KB when I was able to shrink it to ’bout 60 KB with minimal quality loss simply by saving it as a JPG–you know, as fucking photographs are s’posed to be saved. I thought I left this tedium ‘hind with my sprite-comic-mocking days, but apparently not. You’re not going to help the working class much when they have to either get gold-plated internet or wait hours to load your website.

Imaginary Wikipedia Page

Last we have a sweet Wikipedia article plan that will probably be rejected from Wikipedia, ’cause LK & his hive are the only people who use the term. Also, “Realist Left” is a value statement that’s impossible to define objectively. That’s like terming oneself the “Awesome Left,” as opposed to one’s enemies, the “Pedophilic Left.” I’m sure there won’t be conflicts when his followers try adding that to Wikipedia–since our great Lord Keynes is much too important to waste his time on such vulgar low-level details.

In fact, we see this @ the start o’ the article, wherein he contrasts the “Realist Left” with the “Regressive Left”–literally the “Poopy-head Left.” He’s actually thinking ’bout adding an article to Wikipedia that is nothing but a verbose form o’ “Fuck Leftists who focus on gender, race, & religious issues.”

But the Origins are golden (which means you Redditors better buy a lot o’ it before the $ plummets–¡It’s coming any time now!):

The Realist Left emerged in 2016 amongst older and younger left-wing people profoundly dissatisfied not only with mainstream left-wing, neoliberal political parties, but also with mainstream cultural leftism, including French Poststructuralism, Postmodernism, truth relativism, extreme social constructivism, cultural relativism, moral relativism, extreme multiculturalism, and divisive identity politics.

(Laughs). Yes, that famous time in 2016 when such high figures as “Lord Keynes,” “Ken B.,” & “The Illusionist” came together @ some Blogspot blog to bitch ’bout pussy Millenials & their love for French philosophy (& who can’t e’en get laid–¡ha!) is right up there with the “Students for a Democratic Society” meeting @ University of Michigan or The “Cambridge Circus” discussions in terms o’ historic importance.

It’s a good thing he emphasizes that this includes both “older” & “younger” left-wingers. “None o’ you fucking middle-aged assholes, though. You can keep your dumbass fucking New Left.” (If “New Left” is New Coke & “Old Left” is “Classic Coke,” I can only imagine that “Realist Left” must be something like “Shasta Cola” or some other sludgy knock-off 10¢ cheaper.)

Early supporters of the Realist Left also felt that many people of the Millennial generation will come to abandon cultural leftism and Social Justice Warrior (SJW) politics, but that such people will need some new left-wing politics to fall back on when this happens, so that they will not be lost to the Right.

[Citation needed.]

Ah, yes, ’cause Lord Keynes said so. That’s why. He doesn’t offer any reasons; he simply states that ’cause it’s “petty” & “irrelevant,” which are also only ’cause he says so. E’en if this were correct, there are still people who think capitalism’s inevitably going to collapse, e’en after 100 years–when we all know that shit’s like AIDS &’ll ne’er go ‘way. E’en if immigration was such a threat to the majority o’ Americans getting jobs so shitty & low-paying that starvation is almost better (‘gain, LK ne’er gives any evidence, ‘cept that which disproves this), that wouldn’t stop most people from clinging stubbornly ’cause they’re, well, stubborn.

Just like neoclassicals, LK is wrongly assuming humans have perfect rationality. & just like the kind o’ narcissist who makes up encyclopedia articles for their own pretend political clubs, talking ’bout their li’l click in 3rd person as if an objective viewer, he wrongly assumes that he is rational.

Also, “Social Justice Warrior” is totally an objective scientific term appropriate for Wikipedia. ¿Did it e’er occur to LK that Wikipedia has much different standards than his silly li’l blog? I hope if any economics journal e’er made the mistake o’ publishing his work (snort) he wouldn’t consider putting “the SJW Neoliberal Illuminati” as a reference to those who don’t believe in the Modern Monetary Theory. Maybe he’ll supplement his research with that link to a video calling laissy libertarians “full retard.”

The rest is just verbosely saying that “Realist Leftists” oppose the SJW Neoliberal Illuminati & oppose their drunken brothers, laissy libs, & that they support Post-Keynesianism & a bunch o’ objectively-good things like “Full Employment” & “High Wages” that they can’t guarantee. They also oppose “mass immigration” on “economic” grounds without mentioning that the vast majority o’ research shows that immigration has a positive effect on employment & wages & that the “Realist Left” has no scientific backing on their opposition to immigration @ all, hence why LK ne’er links to any on his blogs.

Hilariously, they also bitch ’bout how the breakdown o’ “Nuclear families” ruins economics–which means that these “Keynesians” also apparently think that Keynes himself hurt economics with his homosexuality, too.

I also love this hypocrisy:

(2) Realist Left politics supports reasonable and sensible civil and equity women’s rights and gay rights, but not cultural leftist identity politics or endless cults of victimology, and the bizarre conspiracy theories that blame all our problems on the capitalist, white-male, heterosexual patriarchy and universal “institutional racism.”

Blaming the SJW Neoliberal establishment & their conspiracy to manufacture multiculturalism, as said by some book published by some Bohemian Bourgeoisie when he was stoned, is perfectly rational, though.

E’en better:

4. Internet presence
Realist Left ideas are promoted on the internet on social media and blogs (see external links). The economic ideas of the Realist Left can be found on Post Keynesian and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) blogs, though these economists do not necessarily identify with the Realist Left and would take different political positions.

In short: “Here’s some ads for my other work, Wikipedia.”

As for the comments, Seb offers this brilliant insight in a

Also, 2) Do you think this new left-wing is noticeable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article and Wikipedia moderators to allow it? Because apart from some Facebook pages and unless there’s evidence to the contrary, I don’t think it is.

‘Course, LK assures him, yes, without any argument to back him up (LK should learn that his bold assertions should actually have something close to reason ‘hind it).

Yeah, no: that shit’s going to be shot down as quickly as GoldenGoomba21’s immensely culturally important sprite comic, “Sonic’s Zany Tails.”

Advice for LK if he reads this: try TV Tropes ‘stead, since they have no notability. Hell, you might as well make a page for your dumb blog, too. They have a page on that dumb site with that rap ‘tween bad actor in Halloween-moustache Keynes & Hayek, so they clearly have no standards.

Also, ¿Why no “Regressive Left” page? We need balance, LK.

Actually fuck that: We need a Magical Socialism™ page on Wikipedia. Get on that, peons. You wouldn’t want to be… reactionary… or bourgeois… or regressive… or pedophilic, ¿would you?

That’s what I thought.

I made the mistake o’ checking in on Social Democracy for the 21st Century, which I mocked mo’ than half a year earlier, & the ridiculousness o’ its content has gone from depressing to just laughable.

Immigration

“Lord Keynes,” who is so lazy a devotee o’ John Maynard Keynes that he just up & stole his name to the confusion o’ everyone, truly has a hard on for opposition to vaguely-defined “mass immigration,” despite having no rational basis. For instance, if one looks @ the papers he links here, one consistently sees minor positive influences o’ immigration on employment (with 1 paper stating that there was minor negative in the short run, but positive in the long run). Considering the basis o’ his argument was that immigration was just a conspiracy by the rich as “class war” gainst the working class, his argument obviously falls apart–¡& with evidence he provides! All he has left are a bunch o’ people who, ’bout a century ago, opposed immigration. Yeah, it’s also true that 19th-century socialists like Proudhon, Marx, & Bakunin were outright antisemites & racists. Shocking that people centuries ago may not have been as enlightened as we are now.

‘Course, anyone who understands how “class war” works can easily see how stupid this “plan” o’ the rich’s would be. Yes, under mindless mainstream economics–which Lord Keynes pretends to be mo’ sophisticated for, ‘less it serves his preconceived ulterior aims (so much for the labor market not being the same as other markets, “Post Keyensians”–god, I hate that dumb ass term)–a greater supply o’ workers may decrease the price; but what mindless mainstream economics ignores is that a greater supply o’ workers also increases their political power. That’s why Republicans are so ardent in fighting immigration: they’re seeing before their eyes how immigrants are turning their precious southern red states purple.

‘Stead, Lord Keynes trumpets voter-fraud scares based on weak anecdotal evidence. When a commenter asks LK to provide actual data, LK insults that person & simply reiterates his points. This is a common tactic o’ his, right out o’ the Bill O’Reilly school o’ pundit hackery: ignore critics’ valid points & ‘stead force their own irrelevant points, & then threaten to silence them by blocking their comments if they don’t answer exactly as he wants.

& some o’ his arguments are pure nonsense. Look @ this:

Now we have a second question for you: you asserted that given that low percentage of migrants, they were “hardly enough to sway any election.”

You now have direct evidence of an election stolen by ethnic voting fraud.

Actually, there wasn’t any. If LK actually looked up the issues, he’d know that, for the only real controversy, the Tower Hamlets 1, the allegedly “ineligible” votes weren’t ‘nough to sway the election:

A report for Labour’s NEC found that 16 of the roughly 900 people who took part in the candidate selection ballot might have been ineligible, but couldn’t say if they had voted for Rahman. Even if they had, it would not have affected the outcome. Rahman had won by 182.

& LK shouldn’t have the balls to throw round talk o’ “intellectual honesty” when he uses such bullshit weasel words as “there was very recently a strong suspicion that the Oldham West and Royton by-election was tainted by postal vote fraud [emphasis mine].” ¿By whom? A bunch o’ whiny UK Independent Party sore losers without an ounce o’ evidence, that’s who.

Also loved this line o’ LK’s

So please just f*ck off if all you can do is insult me like this, because I am not going to be slandered [emphasis mine] by anybody.

It seems that it’s not just American bigots who are too dumb to understand English…

Still, a’least he was courteous ‘nough to censor “fuck” in the most obvious way possible. There could be kiddies reading this.

Also, his defense o’ such luminary sources as fucking Breitbart.com on the basis that criticism is mere “ad-hominem” is bullshit. Breitbart isn’t so controversial ’cause it’s right-wing (nobody criticized him sourcing The Daily Mail); Breitbart is so controversial ’cause it’s been caught many times lying & manipulating facts, including doctoring documentaries (just look up Shirley Sherrod video or their “expose” on ACORN–the fact that the latter involved alleged voter fraud should especially make rational readers wary). Once you engage in that shit, you lose all credibility as a source, case-closed. & if Keynes’s claim that “Breitbart in that article is mostly just reporting the facts as you can read them in left-wing UK news sources like the Independent or Guardian,” ¿then why didn’t he quote those much mo’ trustworthy sources? ‘Cause they aren’t spewing these same “facts”–as I pointed out earlier, The Guardian disputes his claim o’ the effectiveness o’ the alleged Towers voter fraud on the election outcome–’cause he’s full o’ horseshit.

Then we get this genius work from habitual commenter Ken B:

The answer is, it doesn’t fricking matter is [sic] the information they cite is accurate. It’s dishonest to pretend you can ignore facts because people you don’t like cite them.

If the information they cite isn’t accurate, then by definition it isn’t fucking facts you fucking moron.

But it gets wackier. He quotes some dumbfuck @ Jacobin conflating neoliberalism & not being a bigot. “Most neoliberals aren’t bigots, so people who aren’t bigots are neoliberals. Duh, ¿What’s a Venn diagram?”

Then we get this nonsense:

Michaels even argues that the core of the Tea Party Movement was an element of profound middle class – even upper middle class – hostility to neoliberalism on the issue of mass immigration:

That’s right, Lord Keynes & Michaels are trying to argue that the Tea Party was a good, anti-laissez-faire political movement. You know, that movement whose core was laissez-faire economics, that couldn’t shut up ‘nough ’bout nonsense like “smaller government” & “low taxes” & “low spending” & whatever. That’s why it’s called the “tea party” movement, based on a (simplistic) interpretation o’ the Boston Tea Party as an anti-tax protest. We’re talking ’bout a movement started by Ron Paul fans–’cause we all know how much Ron Paul hates laissez-faire. If you think the Tea Party Movement is anti neoliberal, then, congrats, you are officially lobotomized.

If you read the clusterfuck mess o’ words that Michael pukes out–clearly he didn’t bother with such bourgeoise nonsense as proper fucking editing–you’ll read a lot o’ paragraphs o’ hand-wringing that basically says, neoliberalism is basically nothing mo’ than an equivalent o’ supporting illegal immigration, ’cause Milton Friedman said that you can’t have a welfare state with illegal immigration without any evidence. Yes, & Friedman also thought that Monetarism was a useful tool for preventing depressions. It’s quite clear that Milton Friedman’s a fucking idiot & that his wise words aren’t worth shit. I reiterate my point: ¿how the hell does increasing the population o’ working class people, & thereby their influence on the electorate, hurt their ability to compel the electorate to pass welfare? & you can’t fall on supply & demand, ’cause welfare is, by definition, outside o’ the fucking market. It’s not like there’s some imaginary rule that says that if there’s too many people, well, fuck, I guess the government can’t have welfare anymo’, for reasons. I guess they’d just run out o’ money, since any Keynesian knows that the government can’t spend mo’ than they take in from taxes, & the government can’t raise taxes, ’cause leading Keynesian social democrats Dick Armey & David Koch wouldn’t support that.

As for his defenses o’ anti-immigration on “cultural” & “democratic” grounds, these both fall apart:

Democratic

This is a corrupt, self-perpetuating argument: apparently “democracy” is conspiring to keep people from a different class from having access to said democracy through citizenship. Shocking that said “democracies” may be biased gainst them.

You could flip Lord Keynes’s voter-fraud scares: while greater protection may minimize Muslims getting mo’ votes than they merit, it’s just as possible that it would lead to Muslims who deserve the right to vote, & who have done nothing wrong, to be cut out, too, given the imprecision o’ the issue. ¿Why is Lord Keynes mo’ comfortable with unfairly costing Muslims votes o’er unfairly gaining Muslims votes, ‘specially when they are, either way, still relatively less powerful than whites?

In fact, an American couldn’t help noticing that LK’s defense o’ “Europe for Europeans” is suspiciously similar to southern US states’ “States Rights,” which is historically used as a ‘scuse to deprive black people o’ rights & portray southern states that do so as victims who have their “culture” wrongfully infringed by the evil federales. Both are equally hypocritical: if it’s OK for them to suppress other cultures, it’s just OK to suppress those cultures.

Culture

As for the “culture” part: the assumption that “Swedes” or “Tibetians” are the “rightful” owners o’ “Sweden” & “Tibet”–merely due to arbitrary history–is the same mindless logic market thumpers use to argue gainst any income redistribution. Rational people acknowledge that the past is full o’ so many disruptions that the current distribution o’ property–including land. Just as capitalists haven’t actually proven that they are the “rightful” owners o’ their property, Europeans haven’t proven that they are the “rightful” owners o’ theirs.

& if LK wants to talk ’bout culture & nations being disrupted by foreign influences, maybe he should read a fucking history book & learn ’bout the UK & its long history o’ dominating Middle Eastern countries through violent force–including chopping up the Middle East into the national boundaries that persist to this day. But while it’s fine to leave them with the consequences o’ that, ¡but don’t you dare let too many Muslims come into the UK &… not truly lower wages or hurt welfare @ all! After all, we have to see who the true victims are.

As a few commenters have pointed out, on basic logic, discriminating gainst someone due to their birthplace is no different, logically, from discriminating gainst someone due to race, gender, or any other aspect they didn’t chose. If anything, Muslims who actually work to get to Great Britain have proven themselves mo’ meritorious than lazy Britains who were just born there & otherwise did jack shit to deserve the privileges with which they were born. To support this double standard is neither consistent with socialist equality or purported laissez-faire meritocracy, or any rational ethical basis. It’s just hypocritical corruption–a mindless obedience to arbitrary tradition. That’s why both socialist Millennials & neoliberal elites support immigration–the same reason both socialists & capitalist supporters believe the earth revolves round the sun. That’s why Lord Keynes’s “Old Left” is dying out, as he bemoans so much. He can’t back it up with empirical evidence, he can’t back it up with logic. All he can back it up with are reams o’ ad hominem guilty-by-association arguments & paeans to the superstitious tradition o’ “culture.” The “Old Left” is dying ’cause it’s mental garbage & deserves to die, ‘long with creationism or flat-earth theory.

Also, LK is so historically ignorant or deceitful that he expects people to believe that the early 20th century–the era o’ the original Keynes–was the era o’ the “Old Left,” when the left goes far back to the 19th century, before Keynes e’er existed. & feminism & antiracism have been a part o’ the left longer than Keynes e’er was. To argue that they were inventions o’ those vile 60s hippies is the stupidest thing LK could say–& considering what we’ve seen him say, that says a lot. Same goes for open borders. ‘Gain, before Keynes was e’en born, classical socialists like Marx were famously saying, “The working men have no country.”

Identity Politics

Lord Keynes’s criticism o’ “identity politics”–from what I can understand, since he ne’er formally defines that term, is simply giving a shit ’bout anyone who isn’t white or male–is vague & incoherent in a suspicious way. LK loves to reiterate repeatedly that he isn’t racist or sexist–as if racists & sexists have ne’er said that–but repeatedly bashes feminism in general. ‘Cause nothing’s worse than women daring to get jobs for themselves ‘stead o’ being baby-making machines when it threatens men’s feelings o’ “running the home”–¡a vital necessity for men!

As for race, LK seems to have no problem with unironically calling alt-right Jared Taylor’s racial views that whites & Asians are biologically superior in intelligence as “race realism.”

The deep irony is that despite Lord Keynes’s criticism o’ Marxism, this attitude o’ his toward “identity politics” is taken straight out o’ the book o’ chauvinistic Marxists: that racial or gender issues are mere “distractions” from the “important” issues o’ poverty ‘mong white men.

¿But how are these issues not important to these other people? After all, ¿what use is welfare or work if women are still forced to be miserably dominated by men & black people & Muslims are still being murdered in the street? ‘Specially if LK’s promised true panacea isn’t e’en that great. A’least Marx promised true political equality; LK promises continued economic subservience o’ the working class, but with slightly better living conditions. Whooie. Considering one’s identity is central to their entire existence, it’s absurd to call caring ’bout one’s identity frivolous. Before one worries ’bout keeping oneself ‘live, one needs to worry ’bout having a reason to live @ all. Personally, if I were forced to spend the bulk o’ my life taking care o’ some snot-nosed brats or obeying some dumb brute o’ a man, I wouldn’t be so keen on guaranteed meager subsistence.

This myth truly bugs me: that such higher-level goals as self-actualization are only for the privileged; the poor need only care ’bout keeping themselves ‘live so they can continue to be mindless tools to be used by rich people so they can find self-actualization. This is whence comes the right-wing insistence on stereotyping working class people–or a’least the “good” working class–as folksy, “simple” (uncreative) people, while bemoaning weird, different, cosmopolitan things as “elitist”–as if only rich people can enjoy creativity.

This assumption is not surprising from Keynesians, since their own deity claimed that the working class were merely “boorish” & that only the rich were “the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement.”

Also, in more o’ LK’s ad hominem nonsense, he’s trying to spin some conspiracy that caring ’bout nonwhites, women, & gays–as well as all o’ the other cultural developments o’ the 60s & 70s–was all manufactured by the evil corporations to get cheap labor–proven by the primary sources that are YouTube clips o’ Vodka ads. ‘Cept they’re not truly saying that, since it’s obvious bullshit; they’re just hinting is all.

Look @ this brilliant exchange ‘tween Ken B & Lord Keynes’s main partner in crime, “The Illusionist,”–or as he’s called when he’s not in his D&D club, Phillip Pilkington–where Ken B somehow looks like the rational 1:

Ken B:

Idiots. I am not denying business bows down to SJW shit. But you have the sequence backwards. The culture is not full of SJWs because the Fortune 500 instituted diversity training bullshit. Companies go along to get along, to avoid potests, and suits, and OHSA complaints, and bad press and …

The Illusionist:

And we didn’t say it was, Kenny boy.

Ken B:

You certainly did say it. You said they were part of the program. That’s what part of the program means. If you meant they were useful idiots you’d have said useful idiots instead.

The Illusionist:

I meant they were active pushers. It is well-known that the 60s countercultural ‘revolution’ was driven by marketers:

They pushed this crap in the 60s. Now the crap has become more extreme and they’re pushing bathroom police and other nonsense.

This is very much so corporate driven. And if you’re familiar with corporate culture you’ll know why.

1 The Illusionist comment: “We didn’t say businesses inspired diversity.” Next comment: “But businesses totally inspired diversity.” That certainly is some magic illusion you pulled off there, Prospero.

But don’t worry, “Illusionist”: you can simply whine @ Ken B for excluding him from the “club” & for considering you “not 1 o’ us” & ignore all o’ his points, like you did when you tried arguing with Marxists on some other guy’s blog (ne’er live it down).

In general, LK’s tactic is the most mindless o’ ad hominem fallacies: he simply points out that elite capitalists support a thing, & therefore to oppose it must be the “true” left, ignoring that there are many things that both socialists & capitalists support simply ’cause it’s obvious. Based on that logic, since the elite neoliberal capitalists all oppose monarchy, true leftists should support monarchy–since we all know democracy is just a ploy by the rich to better control the government through the public using their control o’ the means o’ communication to control them. ¿See? I can make up bullshit conspiracies, too. It’s not hard. It shouldn’t be shocking that both neoliberals & socialists support feminism, racial equality, & equality o’ national origins: anyone halfway civilized is, just as is anyone who opposed monarchy, feudalism, or any other backward idea from medieval times. With ‘nough conflicts in terms o’ economics ‘tween neoliberals & socialists, it seems counterintuitive to try & bring back long-dead conflicts, like whether or not someone should be locked out o’ opportunities simply ’cause they were born in ‘nother country or born with a vagina, outside o’ their control.

The Problem with Keynesianism

This all brings us to a bigger problem: not only is it futile for Lord Keynes to talk ’bout what women or racial minorities should care ’bout; he’s clearly not e’en working class, ¿so what right does he have to talk ’bout e’en the interests o’ working-class white men like me?

I’m going to let Lord Keynes in on a li’l secret to working-class living: welfare isn’t as useful as he thinks it is. Honestly, the worst part isn’t so much just poverty as it is being forced to spend the majority o’ one’s time doing the most soul-crushingly tedious, inane, insulting, subservient work there is. No ‘mount o’ welfare or higher wages changes that, ‘less it’s so high that I can save ‘nough to retire much earlier than when I’m just ’bout to die.

That’s what the ol’ socialists understood, which was why they’re goal wasn’t petty welfare or wage increases, but changing the fundamental political relationship ‘tween workers & capitalists. Indeed, Keynes–both Lord Keynes & the original Keynes–were so dim that they didn’t e’en understand what made “capitalists” capitalists; it wasn’t that they were simply “rich,” but that they were so rich that they were free from working for someone else & could spend their time doing what they wanted to do, & still make money. That social relation was the most useful contribution o’ classical socialist economics, & Keynesians routinely miss it in favor o’ focusing on insignificant shit like the labor theory & their own petty abstract bullshit ’cause they’re just as ignorant, just as sheltered from the actual living conditions o’ most people as the neoclassicals they hypocritically criticize.

So, Lord Keynes’s practical solution is to keep the majority o’ the public in miserable subservient conditions for most o’ their lives,–in fact, to embed them mo’ into it, since the goal o’ Keynesianism is to increase employment¹–just that they’re less likely to starve & mo’ likely to live such miserable existences longer; & in return, women must go back to the kitchen, make babies, & be subservient to their husbands, & Muslims & other immigrants can stay in their own countries to starve. Forget “You have nothing to lose but your chains”; Keynesians will make it all better by prettying up your chains with slick paint & shiny bows. ¡Viva la mediocridad!

So, let’s summarize LK’s “Old Left”: they’re sexist, racist, nationalist, anti-foreigner, & not only support capitalism, but support the philosophy that, by the words o’ its own creator, Keynes, despises working-class people–& yet they claim they support working class (white male) people simply ’cause they’re opposed to the vaguely-defined “too much immigration,” regardless o’ most other issues… ¿So it’s 1 consistency is its opposition to weaker classes? Sounds rather right-wing to me; but in these Orwellian times, ¿who knows? ¿& who cares? Whatever he wants to call it, it has no basis in science (e’en the empirical evidence he found showed that immigration had a positive effect for the working class) or logic, & thus I’d rather just define it as “mental garbage.”

Also, I should point out that he defines those evil SJW (i.e. people who support such silly things as justice–AKA, consistent logic–as opposed to hypocritical, narrow interests) leftists the “regressive left,” “regressive” being no mo’ descriptive than a mere empty insult. It’s the intellectual equivalent o’ calling them the “poopie-head left” & demonstrates the level o’ rationality ‘hind LK’s arguments: don’t definitively defend a point, just assert it in the most simple-minded way & call anyone who doesn’t agree fools who will pay or useful idiots to the neoclassical Illuminati. Meanwhile, the “regressive left” laugh & shrug on, minds unchanged.

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Footnotes:

[1] This reminds me o’ the ol’ Chumbawamba song, “The Candidates Find Common Ground”:

Full employment, slave labor & schemes,
an unemployed workforce, a capitalist dream;
But let’s keep Britain working–
¡Either way, we must keep Britain working!

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Digression: “How I Left Common Sense”

& don’t get me started on some bullshit link some Anonymous commenter linked to, “How I Left the Left”, which is full o’ biotruth bullshit:

In actual fact, most women are instinctually driven to have children and this occupies a good deal of their consciousness. This manifests negatively in female feminists in their obsession with abortion. Abortion is how they politicise the denial of this core component of their femininity. Women also have a tendency to be more self-denying, devoted and, of course, motherly. This is again tied up with child-rearing but in the modern world it is exploited by employers who use this to extract more labour from compliant women. Feminists glorify this exploitation because it allows them to justify the suppression of the self-denying, devoted, motherly aspects of women which men do not possess in nearly the same degree. It was immediately obvious to me that this ideology leads many women into lives of extreme unhappiness.

Don’t be bothered by his utter lack o’ scientific evidence; he assures us that he has “a fairly strong grasp of the psychiatric literature,” without any evidence to back it up. Quite contrary, a simple look online will show that, for instance, his idea o’ what the “psychiatric literature” says on transgenders differs quite strongly from what actual, official psychological organizations say. Since he provides ample evidence (none), this is shocking.

I also love some earlier logic he uses: he knows that “actual” women are completely different from men in that they’re feminine (the concept o’ a feminine man, or that men can be different @ all, is ‘course not e’en considered @ all). ¿How does he know that? ‘Cause these “actual” women are simply women who aren’t feminists–which is to say, people who believe it’s OK for women to not fall into standards o’ femininity. Great circular logic, bud.

E’en if this were true, ¿who cares? Humans also instinctually become irrational when in stressful situations. Part o’ this thing called “modernity” is that humans develop this semblance o’ independent thought & fight gainst mindless animalistic “instincts” & do what they want to do ’cause they’re not mindless fucking animals.

¿Have I entered a time warp? ¿When has the basic ability o’ individuals to choose their own personality & behavior–to a reasonable extent that does not infringe on others ‘bove the usual–become radical ‘gain? I mean, we’re not talking ’bout women running round chopping off people’s dicks here; we’re talking ’bout women being evil ‘nough to get jobs or not be ruled by men or to have some semblance o’ independence from social norms.

From Grundrisse 05¹:

In fact of course, this ‘productive’ worker cares as much about the crappy shit he has to make as does the capitalist himself who employs him, and who also couldn’t give a damn for the junk.

I love how Marx emphasized that this shit was “crappy.” That’s right up there with “trashy garbage” or “pissy urine.”

‘Nother great line in which Marx is defending his homie, Adam Smith, gainst critics (or a’least certain critics):

What the other economists advance against it is either horse-piss [sic] […]

Producing horse piss is 1 o’ those things like belief in Say’s Law that ne’er goes out o’ style.

Hilariously, Marx is mo’ vociferous gainst people who might believe in the “mud pie” version o’ the labor theory than the most anti-Marx Austrian-schooler:

Or² the modern economists have turned themselves into such sycophants of the bourgeois that they want to demonstrate to the latter that it is productive labour when somebody picks the lice out of his hair, or strokes his tail, because for example the latter activity will make his fat head – blockhead – clearer the next day in the office.

Marxist.org does note in the contents page, “Marx did not intend it for publication as is, so it can be stylistically very rough in places.” No shit.

Part o’ me wishes there were mo’ “uncensored versions” o’ famous economics books, like General Theory or Paul Samuelson’s Economics. I can only imagine an early version o’ “Postulates of the Classical Economics”: “So these fucking retards Say, J. S. Mill, & Marshall spew some horse-shit that savings don’t exist.”

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Footnotes:

• [1] I can only assume that “Grundrisse” is German for “horse-piss.”
• [2] Yes, Marx stops a sentence in the middle o’ an either-or statement, having not learned o’ a semicolon yet.

“I don’t want to wake up tomorrow.”

So I didn’t.