Comeuppance For Ashley Madison

A large number of people are mortified that they have been outed as adulterers, what with the well-publicized hack attack on the procuring service known as Ashley Madison. This is another prime example of the guerrilla, asymmetric tactics that defenders of society can and should resort to, given that today's government has no interest in protecting the values that keep society healthy. Modern, runaway government does not want responsible or independent moral agents for citizens; it much prefers irresponsible and dependent scum, who require constant government oversight.

Adulterers are the worst form of scum. Anyone who invites numerous guests, takes a public vow of fidelity in front of them, celebrates the occasion as something wonderful and momentous, yet breaks that vow is unfit for society. Adultery defecates on the spouse, the families of both spouses, the children (if any), everyone who attended and celebrated the wedding, and society at large. It strikes at the very heart of what keeps society together.

In a saner era, Ashley Madison and its patrons would be subject to prosecution for soliciting and engaging in criminal activity. While that's not available anymore, exposing, shaming, and shunning certainly are. To the plaintive cry that these are private matters for the spouses to work out, consider for a moment why all those witnesses were invited to the wedding; why states license marriages and officiate divorces; and why the Supreme Court felt a need (however misplaced) to intervene in the issue of gay marriage. These are public matters that affect the public's well-being. If your behavior mocks or injures the public well-being, the public has a right to protect itself from the likes of you.

Reality Comes Crashing Down

On stocks, which (like everything else in modern America) are built on lies and manipulation. The NASDAQ, Dow, and the S&P 500 futures all have been halted to prevent people from selling even more than they already have. The market was never allowed to correct itself in the aftermath of 2008; instead, government and bankers came rushing in to preserve failed businesses, punish savers with zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), encourage even more debt creation, and generally double down on the Keynesian lunacy that created the problems in the first place. While credit is necessary for an economy to function, it is not sufficient. Real prosperity is built on free-market saving and investing, not government-goosed borrowing and spending. Prosperity is the fruit that grows from the tree of freedom; one cannot uproot that tree and expect it to continue bearing fruit.

You can run from reality, but you can't hide. The question remains whether enough people will come to grips with the reality of the situation or, like addicts, demand even more of the same poison in a spiral leading to death. Based on history, it's most likely the latter.

UPDATE:

Stocks are re-bounding right now, so I'm sure everything is okay and that you can rest easy knowing that the experts are in control of your life.

Keen Insights Into The Tattoo Craze

This article accurately describes the pathetic popularity of tattooing:

As the more defensive members of the over-inked community will recite with Pavlovian inevitability: ‘Tattoos have been here since before Jesus Christ.’ Indeed they have. Well before Jesus Christ, actually. And so have drought, war and pestilence. Your point is? ‘It’s about self-expression.’ No it isn’t, it’s specifically about your personal inability to express yourself married to a pathetic and fundamental predilection for inaction masked as a dramatic statement of intent or personality.

The half-educated amongst the dermatologically-afflicted usually go on to cite a long list of eminent people who you might not have expected to embrace ‘body art’: Winston Churchill, King George V, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Orwell and Thomas Edison among them – Edison, in fact, after his patent of the ‘electric pen’ in 1876, can be considered to be at least partly responsible for the whole modern pandemic of skin vandalism.

The difference, however, between these men and an idiot from Burnley or Billericay with a Maori warrior tattoo on his shoulder (to match the one on the rear window of his pimped-up Vauxhall Astra) is that the former group are not defined by the ink under their skin but, rather, by their achievements. You defeat Hitler, invent the light-bulb or write ‘1984’ and the design you have on your body is going to pale, or rather smudge, into insignificance.

Well said. Tattooing is for shallow people who are desperate to prove to the world that they are unique, but cannot find any genuine way of accomplishing it. 

The Donald

I've never been much of a Donald Trump fan because he epitomizes some of the worst tendencies of modern America, among them shallowness, narcissism, vulgarity, and irresponsible/crony capitalism. Yet it was still very much a pleasure to watch him crash the first Republican presidential candidates' debate, an affair stuffed to the gills with people more loathsome than he is. He gave straight talk in a room full of unctuous liars, eunuchs, sycophants, and white knights who regard his blunt rhetoric as a greater threat than the actual policies that are tearing this country apart (and which all "right thinking" people regard as sober and prudent).

When Fox News mannequin Megyn Kelly attempted to shame him for his occasional barbs at women, his response was excellent: we have far more important things to worry about than political correctness (i.e., your feelings). Trump casts aspersions far and wide, on men and women alike. If women are truly men's equals and worthy of participating in politics, Trump's remarks at the debate and afterwards shouldn't faze them any more than they would a man. The fact that they do for many women doesn't advance their avowed cause.

The real threat posed by Trump isn't hurting the feelings of shrinking violets; rather, it is speaking truth to power and piercing the bubble of psychotic fantasy that most politicians and their stupefied constituents inhabit. Republicans express worry that Trump is hurting their "brand," a term revealing just how perverted our situation is: the important duties of citizens to consider issues of national survival have been relegated to the banal choices of consumers who wish to shop for a candidate as they would for soap, cereal, or tampons.  

None of this means that I would vote for Trump if he won the Republican nomination or ran as an independent. It is beneath me to vote in a federal election, just as it would be beneath me to vote for the next head of the Mafia, a drug cartel, or any other criminal enterprise. I merely find it interesting to watch how far a country can slide into the pit of lawlessness and self-destruction until some effort in "mainstream" politics is made to stop it. Given the "mainstream" attack on Trump, I'm learning that a country can slide very far indeed before that point is reached, if ever.