On Being A Square Peg In A Round Hole

America is degenerating ever deeper into lunacy and a civil war that is probably long overdue; the latter is necessary to purge the former. In times like these it's fun to step back and reflect on your own life and what makes you unique. Everyone is unique to some extent, though some more than others. In my case, for example, I'm convinced I was born in the wrong century or perhaps even on the wrong planet. Maybe some of you out there feel the same way. Here are a few reasons I consider myself a square peg in a round hole:   

• I don't understand people's obsession with sex. Yes, sex is enjoyable, but so are a lot of other things in life. To define yourself as a "sexual being" strikes me as just as crazy as defining yourself as a "wine being" or a "chocolate being."  

• On a related score, I don't understand people's fixation on superficial attributes when considering relationships. Men are fixated on women who are young and gorgeous, while women are fixated on men who are tall and popular. I don't want to be in a relationship with someone whose soul doesn't attract me, and that has nothing to do with those other traits.

• It baffles me how people can say they will do something, but when the time comes they don't do it and act as if nothing happened.

• Whenever I witness or hear about somebody doing something obnoxious, dishonest, or cruel and getting away with it, I find it deeply upsetting regardless of whether it has anything to do with me. 

• Although I'm right-handed, I hold the pen toward me like a left-handed person.

• I don't understand why people ride around on ATVs for fun. What's fun about driving a miniature automobile that has no windows or roof?

• I hate the wildly popular show Modern Family. The characters engage in a constant and obnoxious stream of sarcasm, with no hint of the sincerity that I would want in a family.

• The concept of charisma is meaningless to me. I've never met or witnessed anyone whom I instinctively wanted to believe or follow. I gauge all people the same way: on their merits, not their appeal.

• I love earning money just so that I can sock it away and save it. The joy most people get when buying a new TV or car, is the joy I feel when I steadfastly refrain from buying anything. 

• I've never had the desire to mock or belittle people unless they did something to deserve it. The way people casually fling insults or backhanded compliments at friends, family members, or strangers strikes me as petty and rude, but it's pretty much universal. I suspect it's a noxious form of egalitarianism.

• It seems everyone takes the world as it happens to be right now for granted, without ever pausing really to question it. A typical American today thinks it's perfectly normal for there to be an income tax, forced wealth re-distribution (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.), undeclared wars, public schools, zoning laws, "hate" crimes, and universal suffrage. All of these things are actually quite radical, but nobody cares because their perspective is narrow and confined solely to personal experience. I do care, but it's often pointless or even provocative for me to voice these kinds of concerns. 

• I've always been excellent at pretty much anything I do, whether it was soccer, volleyball, water sports, snow skiing, weightlifting, pool, chess, ping-pong(!), academics, language, public speaking, debating, researching, writing, starting and running my own business, etc. But the one area where I'm awful is people, and ironically that seems to matter more than anything else.  

Confederate Monuments

In the ongoing Kulturkampf against all things Confederate, more and more statues of the South's heroes are being removed from view. Though I don't know why I bother to debate these things on Facebook -- a hopelessly puerile forum -- I got into it with an acquaintance whose ancestors immigrated to America well after the War for Southern Independence, and who thinks that removing these monuments to the "losers" is just dandy. I posted the following response to her diatribe, which I'm sure will get me unfriended fast:

Even President Eisenhower explained that it is fitting to honor the heroism of Robert E. Lee and others who fought for the sincere -- and at the time, prevailing -- belief in the voluntary nature of the Union and the right to depart from it. To assert that Southerners have no right to publicly honor the sacrifices of their ancestors is radical and repressive. And if you look at the balance sheet, the South had far greater right to defend itself from invasion than the North had to conduct it, especially considering the barbaric campaign of rape, pillage, and plunder waged against men, women, and children throughout the South. It's eminently understandable why large numbers of people choose to honor the "losers" in that scenario. Then again, we come at this from different perspectives: my ancestors participated in the founding of the Union and the struggle over whether it would be maintained, so it is personal to me and many others with similar roots. We will not dig them up and burn them for anyone, nor should we be expected to.

It looks like everyone must choose sides now. If it means that my "friends" dwindle to zero, then I suppose my life will become more cleansed and purposeful.

The Charlottesville Eruption

As someone who spent three years attending law school in the beautiful town of Charlottesville, I'm saddened that it has become ground zero in the latest battle of America's new civil war.

The official narrative is that a bunch of racists and right-wing fanatics descended on the town and brought death and destruction in their wake. The reality is that the marchers -- whatever their beliefs -- had a right to assemble but were confronted by a mob that was hellbent on causing a scene, and who were aided and abetted by the local government. This reality is being drowned out in the media, but it is not being overlooked by growing numbers of people who are disaffected with the status quo.

What happened in Charlottesville is unfortunate, and the fact that more whites are becoming racially conscious and radicalized is also unfortunate. But these things were predictable. You cannot on the one hand encourage every non-white demographic to be racially conscious and to demonize whites, yet on the other hand expect whites never to respond in kind. Either all groups must be blind to race, or all groups will be keenly aware of it. The former never happens, which is why multi-racial societies always degenerate into strife sooner or later.

My hope always has been for America to split up in a peaceful fashion. The people occupying this land today are no longer a nation in any meaningful sense, but rather a hodgepodge with no common set of principles, beliefs, or historical memories. If separation is not in the cards, I fear that Charlottesville will look like a picnic compared to what comes next.

The Dustup At Google As Microcosm Of A Larger Problem

A Google employee circulated a memo challenging the stifling ideological conformity there. For merely offering a contrary voice among the constant drumbeat of leftism -- e.g., white men are evil, women and minorities are oppressed, blah, blah, blah -- the employee was fired.

This episode is a good example of what anyone who disagrees with leftist dogma endures on a daily basis, whether at work or at play. I myself have been unfriended by a number of people on Facebook I've known for decades, merely because on the rare occasions when I make a substantive post rather than the usual fluff, I go against the grain such as by applauding Brexit or Trump's electoral victory. It made no difference that I made my comments in my own posts rather than someone else's, or that I was polite toward all critics who crawled out of the woodwork (traits that they lack, as their posts and comments are often crude, obnoxious, and hostile).

Leftists are fragile souls whose apparent certainty in their beliefs is belied by the hysteria they fall into when contradicted. This hysteria reaches fever pitch when confronted by someone who is educated and articulate. The existence of such a person is not possible in their crimped universe, so in order to retain what little sanity they have, they must exile and delete that person from view (such as by firing or unfriending).

Strong, confident people are not threatened by disagreement. Leftists are not strong or confident, but rather weak and neurotic, which is why they constantly browbeat for equality -- such a state would lift them considerably above the one they naturally occupy and deserve.     

The Impotence Of Atheism

Many of the people who reject religion do so by asserting that science is grounded in observable fact and therefore superior. Such people often tout scientific accomplishments in the fields of medicine, labor-saving devices, or astronomy to illustrate all the good that science has done for us.

But here's the problem. There is nothing scientific to suggest that a pacemaker is superior to thumbscrews, or that a nuclear power plant is superior to a nuclear bomb, or even that preserving life is superior to ending it. These distinctions are not based on science, which has nothing to say about them. These are judgments based on what is NOT observable, namely sentiment and ideals. Indeed, one can survey any number of the beliefs so strongly held by today's proud atheists and conclude that there is nothing scientific to support them:

• It is a fact that different races of people display marked differences in intelligence, athleticism, and any number of other measurable traits. There is nothing scientific about smothering this information or attacking people who bring it up, yet this is what atheists are often the first ones to do. 

• It is a fact that all manner of animals and plants go extinct on a regular basis, irrespective of human activity. More than 90% of all creatures who ever inhabited the Earth are already gone, most of them long before we arrived. There is nothing scientific about trying to prevent more species from going extinct, yet once again it is the atheists who often insist upon doing this.

• It is a fact the Earth's temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels are constantly shifting, and that the Earth will eventually fry as the Sun continues to grow larger and hotter. There is nothing scientific about demanding that human activity be compelled toward preserving the Earth in a given state, yet once again it is the atheists who often insist upon doing this.

• It is a fact that governments espousing atheism and "scientific" governance -- e.g., Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Stalin's Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam, Kim Il-Sung's North Korea -- have caused far and away more deaths during the 20th century alone than religion can claim throughout all recorded history. There is nothing scientific to recommend an atheistic government over a religious one, yet once again it is the atheists who insist upon doing this.

These examples are actually quite humble. If one embraces science and rejects all supernatural authority, he has no basis whatsoever to criticize rape, robbery, torture, murder, or even the Holocaust. To argue that these things are "bad" is not a scientific conclusion; we witness merciless behavior among the beasts of the jungle, but we do not judge them for it. The only basis for judging man is if one asserts that man is above and apart from nature -- which is a supernatural conclusion.

So at the end of the day, self-proclaimed atheists are theists but just won't admit it. (As I've argued before, though, there are no atheists.)