Network

 There is a malaise gripping America. It is expressed by everyone I talk to, liberal or conservative. Everyone feels angry, upset, anxious, afraid, confused. Nothing feels 'right'. We are not living in the America that older people grew up in or the America promised to younger people. It is a collective Network moment. We are all mad as hell.

Our nation, our universities, our leaders, our churches, our employers- all of them spout the same inane beliefs, clearly at odds with a large majority of Americans.

The University of Pennsylvania and the Ivy League defend a man who claims he is a woman swimming against women. The women's swim team does not object for fear of retaliation and cancelation. Trans 'women' hold cycling records, have won multiple state level championships, and are now beginning to compete in and dominate women's college sports. A candidate for the US Supreme Court testifies she can't define a woman. We can all define a woman, and they don't have a Y chromosome and don't have to amputate a penis.

We have street riots and pass them off as peaceful protests. They aren't. When you throw Molotov cocktails and burn buildings you're a rioter. We have homeless encampments in cities unwilling to act prejudicially against the 'unhoused'. In San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles no one is ticketed for public defecation. Shoplifters are not prosecuted. Neither are muggings, and  thefts less than 200.00 are not even investigated. Seattle tolerated a takeover of a part of its downtown. Apparently public order and decency laws are prejudicial and restrictive of personal freedoms, to which decorum and manners have been subsumed.

Anything that leads to a differential racial or sexual outcome is 'prejudiced'. Let's ignore basketball (88% black) and longshoremen (83% male). If something is dominated by men, particularly white men, it is racist, sexist and Evil. If black kids fail the schools are racist. If women don't pursue STEM degrees it is because men are sexist. If men don't become pregnant it's....oh, wait....never mind....Men who identify as women are women, just women without uteruses.

The CDC had said for years that the wearing of masks did nothing to prevent the passage of respiratory illness. Until 2020, when suddenly they were necessary, then two were needed. We mask up children despite the fact that those under 18 represent less than 0.1% of deaths. We persist in social restrictions even though 71% of the entire US has been vaccinated. We close businesses and wonder why workforce participation is low.

And the solution to this is....more government. Subsidies for bills, abeyance of rent payments, and to hell with the  landlords, who are surely creepy, exploitational white men taking advantage of our poorest and most vulnerable with extortionate rents. They can go out of business, and if they do the government has an unlimited supply of federally funded and subsidized housing that is of course free of drugs, grafitti, violence, and decay.

Dropouts and child crime are at or near all-time highs, but this has nothing to do with fatherlessness. 75% of black infants are born to single mothers, 30% of white infants. There is excellent data on the damaging effects of voluntary fatherlessness. But of course we don't need fathers, those avatars of toxic masculinity. Every time the issue is raised someone gets trundled out to talk about their rape or abuse or exploitation by their drunken, unemployed, pederastic father. No, damn those penises! Best thing is to cut them off and let the men be women, or whatever they are.

We have a budget deficit as a percentage of revenue that is an all-time high. It is higher than in World War 2! No problem- we print money, but inflation is the fault of nasty conservatives and businesses who jack up prices. 

Meanwhile our infrastructure, once the pride of the world, is falling apart and well behind other nations, notably China. We had the tallest buildings in the world for 71 years....Until 2004. Now we have 2 in the top 20. All the rest are in Asia. We had the longest suspension bridges in the world. Now we have 3 in the top 30, topping out at number 18.

China makes 90% of the world's computers, 90% of its cell phones. The US makes just 12% of its computer chips, despite making 55% of all semiconductor materials. We import 48% of all our vehicles, 25% from NAFTA partners and 23% from overseas. We import 12% of our food! 

Russia invades Ukraine after being goaded by the flirtation of NATO and the EU with Ukraine. We moralistically rush to Ukraine's defense....as if we can do a damned thing about the situation. If we get aggressive Russia shuts off Europe's gas supply. If we deploy soldiers and materials we risk a much broader war. We don't have enough transport to get meaningful amounts of war material to Ukraine in less than 3 months. We concede we can no longer fight a two ocean war, or fight in two locations simultaneously. Some world policeman. 

We are incompetent, moralistic, and socially misguided. We tolerate violence and crime while decrying success and achievement. We subsidize failure in the name of helping our most vulnerable, while acknowledging success only through higher taxes. We preach to other nations while being incapable of military or social intervention. And somehow close to a majority of our nation thinks these things are a good idea! We cheer this agenda of failure, our achievement of mediocrity. And when we try to elect someone different there is ample evidence of election manipulation and fraud, except that anyone who says so is shouted down as a kook.

This is where and how we live. I'm completely disgusted by this mess, and so is everyone I know. 71% of Americans believe the US is on the wrong track, and we are. Voting for a Democrat is off the table, but I don't think a Republican will do much better. We are fat, soft, lazy, stupid, and ignorant, and yet feel entitled. To what exactly is unclear, but it's something.

I'm mad as hell, and I completely decry all of this. To the extent I am able, I refuse to cooperate, subsidize, honor, or admire this mess. 

Ted