Category: Musings

A thought on competition and the public sector

Hello and welcome back to Pie ponders in which Pie tries to understand things. This is a different type of Pie ponders, in which I try to better understand what drives certain arguments with the help of crowdsourcing – that is where you bunch come in. You need to use crowdsourcing and big data and machine learning these days to stay relevant you know, basic bitch reasoning don’t cut it no more. So to proceed…

Today I focus on the debate about private X and public – aka state managed tax funded through the lens of competition. As a libertarian I think you know where I stand. Off course, I have my biases, and I try to listen to the opposite opinion. In this case I am, as in most others, at a loss to understand the fetish some have for the concept of public and their opposition to competition. I leave it to the commenters to point out where my thoughts and arguments may be wrong.

To generalize, we want X, and doing it requires people, materials, management, in general cash, mullah, dough. So the debate boils down to who uses these things better and I struggle to understand how some believe it is the government.

So what are the arguments? One would be against profit, which supposedly takes away money from the actual task at hand, but this is, in itself, irrelevant. If X is accomplished better and cheaper overall while some money goes to profit than when it does not, profit is not in any way a waste. It is a cost of efficiency. Profit is, in fact, often a valuable signal. It tells a company whether they are doing what they should. In commie Romania, many factories were not driven by profit and had no competition to speak of, and yet, shockingly, were extremely inefficient, had stocks of products that no one wanted and shortages of products in demand, all of poor quality, and overall no way of knowing if the way they produce is good. In general if a company changes something and profit improves, they get the info that the change was good.

Beyond the first argument, some people seem to have the ridiculous notion that for certain X, no one should make a profit, because that is somehow immoral. Why this is, I could never understand. Beyond money bad. There is the argument that profit incentivizes people to maximize profit instead of maximizing X, but in a market situation that is not distorted by government, most times the two things go hand in hand. And furthermore, how can one know they are maximizing X?

In the end, all people want profit. Or better said increased satisfaction. But in the public healthcare systems of Europe, doctors who at dinner parties will claim “making a profit from healthcare is immoral” – happened to me several times – and a month later strike for higher salaries. But that is not profit somehow.

A second observation of mine is humans overall perform better when there is competition. This should be a straightforward fact, but somehow isn’t. This has two factors. One, simply because humans can easily get complacent if there is not something to keep them on their toes. Second, if you have different concepts, ideas, methods to organize an activity, there really is no better way to see which works best except letting them compete. Due to the many complexities of the world, second and third order effects, unknown unknowns, you cannot outright say which way is better, which is what bureaucrats and governments claim to do.

X, people will say, it is too important to be left to competition. Or competition does not work for X. Why competition would work for something else and not for X is not always clearly explained. But what is the alternative? The dream of a group of “experts” figuring out the best way, which does not work nor has it ever worked?

The fact about X – healthcare, education, whatever – being too important is also not a valid idea. The thing about competition is that it either works or it doesn’t. It is not it works for product A but not for product B. Because the product is not the key here, the human is. The importance of X does not in any way change the fact that humans do not function efficiently without competition. You need buildings, people, and supplies. As such these are subject to the same economic laws as coffee or clothing.

I find it strange how people believe the human perceived importance of something changes the underlying issues. If a plane is crashing, physics cares not about how important it is to the passengers to recover. If competition is necessary to make TVs, it is necessary for healthcare.

The way I see it is this: the things that are key is not the field or product, but humans and human nature. Going from cars to medicine does not change the fact that humans are involved, and the same constraints of humanity apply in the same fashion. You still need labor, allocation of capital, decision making. There is still self-interest, dishonesty, ego, the whole package. These do not go away because healthcare is important.

There are many bad arguments against competition. One is someone loses. Sometimes sure, but the loser is not taken out back and shot. Yes from competing ideas, if one is better, the worse one is abandoned, that is a good thing. Unless every single thing needs to be implemented so someone does not feel bad. Another is working together is better than against each other. Which, like most things meant for children, idiots and leftists, sounds superficially good. Until you realize that cooperation has limits and it will hit the invariable issue of being unable to automatically see what works best from multiple solutions.

Competition is a race to the bottom is also popular, although what this is based on escapes me. Certainly not of the high quality of government monopoly services or the how bureaucrats strive to make things easier on the public. Not when privatizing certain services or introducing competition usually is accompanied by significant improvements in efficiency. In competitive private sectors, plenty of high quality products are made, unlike government owned businesses thorough history. So what is this race to the bottom?

We cannot gamble with our children’s future, I heard. But what is the alternative? Sticking them all in a failing system? Or the alternative is the magic committee of experts solving all problems?

In the end, decisions have to be made, and the general idea for some seems it is better to be made by bureaucrats than by people receiving a given service. While I do understand how this could be an issue for emergency services – cannot choose hospitals while you are unconscious, there are multiple ways to solve it in a private system.

There have been a myriad of studies for private vs public education, healthcare and such. And the concept that public works better is simply not supported, no matter how much proponents claim. This will not be solved anytime soon given the massive bias in all studies made, by either side, the massive amount of information existing and missing, and the impossibility of controlled experiments. I will not do a literature review on this, I am trying to approach this by basic reason. Some strict empiricists will dismiss such arguments, but I do not see strict empiricism working in this case.

A further issue is that, when you look at it, in general, bureaucrats are not always the most competent of people. Certainly, the best and brightest seldom dream of becoming civil servants. Nor are they more motivated, more caring or in general better people, and outside leftist delusions you have no reason to believe they would be. Most countries on this planet have plenty of literature and art mocking bureaucrats. So it is quite a known phenomenon.

But I want to give an example of what I mean. The significant innovation and cost reduction introduced in the field of space exploration. SpaceX – whatever you may think of E.M. – is quite the success. This was clear when European government audits a while back informed the European Space Agency that it will be in no way competitive in the future if it does not radically change its MO. And the ESA and Ariane and their other contractors reacted by starting to research reusable rockets, using in part SpaceX innovations, by contracting with more companies and startup, by pushing innovation. This raises the question: why did they not really do this before competition forced it? Why I think this is relevant? Because, if you want to see a field which does attract the best and brightest, this is it. These are people who are at the top of their field, the best education, and furthermore many of them do work they enjoy and are passionate about. And still, without some competition, they were complacent for years and the innovation rate quite slowed down. If in this field this happened, why expect differently for others?

August 27, 2019
Glibertarian Confessions

Today we are going to confess a small shortcoming that has plagued us all for an undetermined amount of time. Why you ask?

I ask why not? I will even begin.

There was a time I thought the Newman’s Best brand was something silly. A reasonably good product for a reasonable price. By “reasonably good” I mean it’s better than the partially gelatinized goo that Kraft puts out. The guy threw his face on everything, and sent all the proceeds to charity. Then I turned 14 and discovered that charitable donations are tax deductible.

Newman’s Best is nothing more than a scheme for Paul Newman to avoid paying taxes, and when presented by that angle it is something to respect. Its bothered me since then that it took me 14 years to figure this out. That is my confession.

Now you go.

August 20, 2019
Motel Living Random Thoughts

People

Pedestrians. The worst place for them is Santa Clara California, signage everywhere, but drivers are assholes, very dangerous for walkers.

Worst pedestrians are in Santa Monica, it’s all about them, signs be damned, and they are all pedestrian favorable, WTF?

People are fat, there I said it, HO LEE Fuck. We are a truly gifted nation.

Waffle House makes a fine biscuits and gravy.

Grifters, it goes from a cigarette to a beer to a ride to 20 bucks for drugs.

Dogs are fine for motels but kittahs, not so much, we sent her back to Cali.

Here’s a dog in action.

You always want to be close to Walmart, everything revolves around them, Target, Home Depot, Panera, Chipotle, Dollar Tree, the list goes on.

Find a good beer store and try the local stuff, if it sucks they always have West/East coast alternatives.

Gallery of Colorado beers I have tried.

Met a man named Sam, he runs the Torture Chamber at the Larkspur Renaissance Fair, nice guy.

Back at my normal job, EMS systems, people complain about the traffic. Yes, it’s horrible but I have one word, you want bad? 210 Freeway anytime.

Moving day is a drag, you start the day before work, reservations, loadout, etc. then off.

Las Cruces, NM

Nice place on the Rio Grande, got a carnitas burrito that was all carnitas, nothing else happened. On Monday, I arrive at the job site to find that the local electricians installed my entire system, which sounds great until it dawns on you who did the work, so I spent the next three days cleaning up the project, and, yes, it works fine.

Bella is a fantastic dog for traveling and living like this, quiet, no potty mistakes while I’m at work, and just a love puppy. We walk and drink a lot, and meet people like Lorenzo.

Lorenzo is an old cholo from Texas, and was working at the missile range. We talked and drank in the evenings about kids, life travel the whole nine yards. Lots of pizza and weed, and good camaraderie, when him and I both realized we would be stuck one more day, barbeque! Cheddar brats and cheddar bacon burgers, a real fun time.

BTW, that’s Erwin our Native American Friend.

Where is Lorenzo? I always ask before taking pictures of people, and tell them I’m a writer, doing writer type stuff, he said no pictures, but yes to the story, and that’s cool. I’m not Time Pool or Dan Rather, just a guy on the road, telling tales from America.

An unafraid roadrunner decided to taunt Bella, so I let her stalk the little shit, and he totally toyed with the dog, funny stuff there.

Off to the Colorado River for family, rest and party; Bullhead City to be precise.

I’m a Rocket Man.

Gallery

I did make it to my daughter’s house, chilling well.

August 8, 2019
Weeping Sores

Imagine if instead of using “micro”, they had gone with another synonym when coming up with “micro-aggression”: Measly-aggression. Lilliputian-aggression. Pygmy-aggression. Any of those would clearly expose the self-detonating nature contained in the concept. Those synonyms also don’t lend the air of scientific terror that “micro-aggression” enjoys. “Micro” evokes similar terms like “micro-organism” which is a potentially lethal creature because of its diminuitive stature. Micro-aggressions are on par with serving E-coli burgers at a Jack-In-The-Box drive through.

Psychologist Derald Wing Sue describes micro-aggressions as, “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership.” You’ll notice that intent is not part of the equation and that is by design as it renders the perpetrator incapable of mounting a defense. When dealing with E-coli, Mens rea is no excuse for diarrhea. As long as the words or behavior appear on a list cultured in a petri dish at some university sociology department, you’re guilty.

Self-righteous and zealous social movements take kernels of truth and surround them with shit so thick it’s impossible to pluck them out. Assuming a Mexican woman at the hotel is a maid, telling someone they are a credit to their race or asking a black person if you can touch their hair certainly could be deemed offensive. However, they would be offensive only if there is no context which would change the dynamics. If the Mexican lady is wearing an orange apron and emptying a trash can in the lobby, you could be forgiven for believing she isn’t an astronaut. “How dare you assume I work here! Micro-aggression!” she shouts. The problem with MA aren’t that assholes are nonexistent, but rather that the entire concept guarantees you’ll be an asshole in return.

In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes, “You have power over your own mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” If there were an AA for MA addicts, the opening prayer would go, “God grant me the serenity to not mistake an offhand comment for HIV.” For any recovering MA addicts out there, I`d like to offer another way of looking at the world: Micro-respect. MR shifts a person’s perspective from finger wagging to chin stroking. The respect comes from waiting for a person to express themselves thoroughly before you jump down their throats like streptococcus.

MR uses the earlier definition of MA with a little tweaking. MR, according to me, are, “Brief, everyday exchanges that send humanizing messages to certain individuals regardless of their group membership.” I can’t go a week without a Japanese person asking me, “Where are you from?” I suppose I could try to get all 120 million Japanese to never, ever ask me that question again. めんどくさい。Rather than pissing blood and assuming that the question is the product of a grave historical injustice, how about I just answer the question and see what happens? In fact, it was the first question the hot young number that became my wife asked me.

Human interactions are messy and festering with opportunities to assign malice to even the most benign questions, comments or behaviors. Sure, MR may allow some comments that are truly bigoted to slip by unchallenged. But, unlike with MR, MA will slap blame on many people that don’t have it coming. There aren’t many cultures that devolved into murderous killing sprees because ten year old boys played “Smear the Queer”. History is replete, however, with many cultures that destroyed themselves by playing “Spear the Unbeliever”.

Links

Derald Wing Sue on MA: https://world-trust.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/7-Racial-Microagressions-in-Everyday-Life.pdf

Examples of microaggressions: www.sph.umn.edu/site/docs/hewg/microaggressions.pdf

August 5, 2019
SLD: The Libertarian Case for Section 230 Reform

There’s a piece of legislation that has been invaluable in the rise of social media, the Communications Decency Act. In particular, Section 230 of the Act says “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Without Section 230, it’s hard to fathom that Facebook or Twitter would ever have been able to surmount the potential legal liability they would otherwise face from civil lawsuits over IP infringements, libel claims, or threats that are posted to their websites on a regular basis. They’d be potentially liable for whatever anyone decided to post on their sites.
Interestingly, though, the provision wasn’t even created with social media in mind. The Act was passed in 1996, before social media was even a glint in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye. The provision was included in the Act ensure that internet service providers or e-mail providers weren’t liable for anything that anyone decided to transmit on their services. And that makes sense. You wouldn’t hold Verizon or AT&T responsible for anything anyone says on the phone. They don’t control what people say on the phone, so they shouldn’t be responsible.

The internet shouldn’t be any different.

But, as the internet advanced, the logical extension of this principle went to websites themselves. And that still sort of makes sense, at least conditionally. If the owners of the website don’t control what is posted or not, they shouldn’t be liable for what people do post. The key distinction is whether the owners of the website are providing an internet service or whether they are providing internet content. In Fair Housing vs. Roommates.com, the courts said you couldn’t claim to be a service provider if you weren’t a passive pass-through of information provided by others or simply a facilitator of expression, you had moved on to become a content provider and weren’t immune from lawsuits under Section 230.

Today, many conservatives, and even libertarians are concerned about the editorial lines that are increasingly taking hold in the social media universe. In their attempts to filter out “fake news” or “Russian bots” or “disruptive voices” or “hate speech”, they are increasingly deplatforming conservatives and libertarians for behaviors that they show no concern with coming from the left. We know that the social media giants are culturally very much aligned with the “woke” left and many claim that they’re rigging the public discourse in favor of the left.

While some conservatives have suggested addressing this by breaking up the social media giants or subjecting them to regulation, an alternative that many of us have advocated is reform of Section 230 to make it clear that you’re a publisher if you’re pushing an editorial line. You can have rules of the road and can forbid threatening, harassing, or inciteful posts, but your rules have to be objective, viewpoint-neutral, and universally applied for you to retain Section 230 protection. Otherwise, you’re a publisher and should be treated as such.

This isn’t an idea without some controversy. As believers in the free market, many argue, conservatives and libertarians should let the market sort itself out and take their business elsewhere. As private businesses, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter shouldn’t be under any obligation to provide a voice for those whose views they find abhorrent. And, as Ken White of Popehat argues, it’s a stretch to suggest that the social media providers are the people creating the content. Even many of the advocates of Section 230 reform suggest the move goes against the grain of their libertarianism, arguing that this is a situation just to rife with abuse.

I think these concerns are misguided. Far from being a violation of libertarian principle, Section 230 reform would be a move to impose free market discipline on the social media giants. The question of whether the social media giants are original content creators is utterly beside the point. Of course they aren’t! But, Section 230 itself doesn’t address whether the service provider is the creator of the original content. It’s about whether they are to be treated as publishers.

And it’s clear that they are acting as publishers If you’re maintaining an editorial line, you’re not acting simply as a passive pass-through or a facilitator of expression. You’re doing pretty much the opposite. You’re acting to define what is acceptable and what is unacceptable expression on your platform. If you’re demonetizing Stephen Crowder for making a side reference to homosexuality while maintaining a guy like Carlos Maza after he specifically encourages assaulting conservatives, you can’t honestly say you’re just an open platform for people to exchange ideas. If you’re banning Carl Benjamin while giving Antifa a pass, the last thing you’re doing is acting as a neutral pass-through. You’re acting as a publisher deciding what they will and will not publish.

And that is and should be their right. On that, I completely agree with Section 230 reform sceptics. If you believe in free speech, then you have to believe that people cannot justly be compelled to speech any more than they can be censored. And demanding that social media provide a platform to conservatives is just as much a compulsion of speech as insisting Rush Limbaugh devote a show to singing the praises of Elizabeth Warren or that MSNBC devote a day to critiques of climate change.

What the social media giants don’t have a right to is special favor from the government. If they’re acting as a publisher, then they should be subject to the same laws and same standards as any other publisher. To treat them more favorably is to grant a subsidy to established and entrenched interests over brick-and-mortar competitors, as well as new entrants in the social media space.

For just about any other industry the injustice of such a policy would be glaringly obvious. Imagine if the government said the hotel industry or the movie theater industry would be exempt from labor laws or health and safety laws. Or worse still if the government said that certain hotels and certain movie theaters would be exempt from those laws. Libertarians would rightly be up in arms about such a policy. They’d rightly note such behavior as just the sort of crony capitalism that libertarianism rejects. The same applies to the social media giants acting as publishers. You might say that the laws holding publishers responsible for any libel or IP infringement or harassment they publish are bad laws. A libertarian case can be made for or against them. But, holding some publishers liable and exempting others is the least libertarian response. It is, simply put, the government openly picking winners and losers.

Moreover, the social media giants’ hidden imposition of an editorial line has poisoned so much of social media culture. To understand this, imagine that, rather than the fashionable progressive causes of the day, the social media giants took an editorial line that was “pro-seltzer”. They’d happily let commentary advocating the benefits of drinking seltzer and actively deplatform anyone arguing to the contrary. The public relying on social media for information, believing they were getting truly decentralized discussion about seltzer would only see discussions about how great seltzer is and how terrible those awful people who want to suggest people might want to drink milk are. Without understanding that the social media are only telling you the pro-seltzer position, a good many readers would become convinced, not only of the pro-seltzer position, but also of the social media morality in advocating for seltzer. The non-seltzer people, unsurprisingly, only militate when they realize the public is being lied to about them and their positions. And the less radicalized, lacking a means to evaluate the claims of the genuine anti-seltzer extremists, since the entire anti-seltzer argument has been excised from the public discussion where ideas can be tested, tend to be pushed to the more radical position.

I respect the social media giants. They took an ambiguity in the law and leveraged it to build a whole new means of communication that offers tremendous opportunity for public discourse. But, with success comes hubris. For the social media giants, that hubris has led them to abandon any claim to that ambiguity. They’re now acting as publishers in the most obvious and clear-cut manner one can find. And, in addition to being an injustice in its own right, that preferential treatment is leading them to behave in a way that is rendering our public discourse increasingly toxic. To set things right, we don’t need to regulate the social media giants and we don’t need to break them up. We simply need to resolve that ambiguity to make clear that they’re either publishers, with all the legal liabilities that any other publisher faces, or they’re public fora where they don’t get to dictate what viewpoints deserve an audience.

July 29, 2019
A day at the park

In the summer of ’81, I was 15 years old. I wasn’t your average teen. I was a committed juvenile delinquent and drug “enthusiast,” with a somewhat troubled past. My parents were hippies who–like many counter culture rebels–became hard core drug addicts. They divorced during a state mandated custody battle. The cops seized my siblings and myself because my parents refused to snitch on their dealer, basically. I spent two years (’76-’77) with my grandmother, who was a vicious and mean, high-strung stress case with an extreme superiority complex. My Mom eventually regained custody of us and we returned to our outlaw life. After a few years, and developing a drug habit, I tired of the poverty and stress of it all. I was offered to return to my Grandma’s house and I accepted. I returned much more street smart and ready to party it up.

The San Fernando valley in the early eighties was a great place to party. Cruising Van Nuys Blvd (if you google “cruising Van Nuys Blvd” you can see what it was like) had been shut down about a year earlier and that scene had moved to a large park called Balboa Park. The lot would fill with cars, all of which would tune their radios to KMET, and a huge party would happen. Every once in awhile, the cops would drive through and everyone would hide their beers and what have you. It was a great scene.

My friends and I would buy six packs of Mickey’s big mouths and split them. You’d put one beer in each back pocket and drink the third. That way, if you had to run, you only lose one beer. We had a plan for everything. This informal gathering happened every Wednesday night, just like the Van Nuys Blvd scene it replaced. We had many memorable times there, and this story centers around the last one I had there, during the summer of ’81.

This photo was actually taken at Balboa Park on a Wednesday in 1981 or 1982 . Obviously it’s early in the day and things were just getting started.

I had a friend named Marvin. Marvin was far more criminally minded than I. He had been to juvie a few times and had a huge record. He’d dive right in to any criminally oriented situation with aplomb. He pushed me to expand my lack of respect for the law. I was positively small-time by comparison.

Marvin was very small. I was about 6” taller than him. I was kind of a protector of his. He’d get belligerent often and at ill-advised times, and I’d usually smooth things over with whomever wanted to kill him this time. Sometimes a fight would be unavoidable. Those times we’d just fight it out.

This particular Wednesday night was off to a good start when I ran into Marvin. I was already a little drunk, had my three Mickey’s big mouths and was raring to go. Marvin pulls out some ‘ludes and gives me two of them. I was starting to feel really good about things, a feeling later proven to be misguided. As we walked the rows of cars, talking to girls and checking out hot-rods, this big dude runs up and starts hassling Marvin. Here we go again.

I go to assess the situation. It seems that the ‘ludes Marvin had given me earlier had been fronted to him and he had no plan to pay for them. The big dude seemed very agitated and was demanding his 20 bucks. I sprang into negotiating mode and asked what he needed that we could maybe actually get for him. After some back and forth, we agreed that Marvin and I would go steal a car battery as payment. This seemed like an easy was to avoid violence, and we were sure it’d be quick and painless.

There was really only one option for stealing car batteries near this park, a row of apartment buildings across the street. We went to the first car, in the first space of the first building. It turned out to be a horrible choice. There was an overhead storage locker which covered the front half of the hood. I told Marvin to be the lookout, so he stood at the edge of the lot watching out. I had no tools, but I figured I could just wind the clamps off. The hood crashed loudly into the storage bin when opened. I got the negative cable off as planned, but the positive side would not budge more than a slight partial turn. Eventually, I decided to just yank it out and hope the inertia would pop it off. Drugs and booze famously spawn bad decisions. We had both the former and the latter.

Well, after one particularly loud crashing noise I see Marvin waving at me frantically. I start waving back to say, “I can’t help it,” but he responds as if to say, “NO, not that.” Then, he raises both his hands like a stick-up victim from the movies. I was perplexed until I saw the three people with guns pointed at him. They told me to come out with my hands up, so I did. They ushered us into one of the apartments and sat us on the couch inside. There were more armed residents inside and now we had about 6 guns pointed at us. I remember one of them looked like a flint lock taken from a plaque off the wall. Anyway, they held us until the cops arrived. I’m sure the proximity of the park caused them much concern, with all the partying and such, explaining the guns and quickness with which they used them.

The cops took us down to the station and handcuffed us to bench. After about an hour, Marvin’s Mom came and picked him up. I assumed my grandmother would come for me next. Well, an hour later, she still hadn’t come. Finally the cops came and told me that she had told them to keep me. I was going to be driven to Juvenile Hall. Whoo-hoo! After another hour on the bench, they walked me out to a waiting car and we were on our way.

Juvie was pretty much what I expected. It was a huge concrete building with only tiny windows way up high on one wall. It was three floors high and the lesser offenders like me were on the upper floor. That meant we could watch the traffic on the overpass through our window slits, if we stood up on our beds. The food was disgusting and the place was noisy and smelly and fucking cold all the time. We stayed in our cells almost all day. Ate in there and everything. There were some tables in the hall area outside the cells and we’d go out for about an hour every day. I spent about two months there going to trial and then waiting to get shipped out. I remember the radio played the Stevie Nicks/Tom Petty duet over and over because it had just came out. I will always connect that song to that place and time.

This is the actual juvenile hall I was in, as seen from one of the cars we would watch pass by.

Juvenile court is (or, at least, was…) unlike any other depiction or reality of court I had ever seen. As a minor, you have NO rights at all. There’s no concerns about proportionate punishments, rights to confront accusers, even the right to defend oneself. Marvin’s Mom had hired a lawyer for him and he (the lawyer) was the only one who spoke, other than the judge and, briefly, some kind of social worker/probation person, who made recommendations to the judge. Marvin’s lawyer gave a dissertation on what a good kid he was and how the only reason he was in trouble was because of my bad influence. I was steaming mad and kept raising my hand. The judge seemed irritated by me and kept waving me to shut up. After awhile he proclaimed that he had heard enough. Marvin was sentenced to house arrest and probation and I was sentenced to “suitable placement.” For how long, I had no idea. What suitable placement was, again, no clue. All I knew was I got jacked in that courtroom.

Well, one day they drove me out to my “suitable placement.” It was a large group of brick buildings arranged like a school, with a quad, dorms and a cafeteria. It was run by Catholic monks. Everyone was “Brother X, Brother Z,” etc. There weren’t any walls or fences, so escape was always an option. Only the knowledge that I would be hunted down kept me from just leaving, well, that and the constant reminders that the next place was gonna be much worse. There was a school adjacent to the facility and we would spend regular school hours there. I was assigned a job in the kitchen and a dorm space with a cabinet and a bed. We had group therapy every day, where we’d talk about our problems and receive any news about our status, etc. The staff got to determine how long we would have to stay. We got weekend passes which we could earn in various ways. I had to talk my grandma into letting me go to a few at her house (I’m pretty sure the staff called her and made it happen). I got two weekend passes, one of which turned out to be transformative.

There was three things that stood out as notable events while there. First, when I had just arrived, a guy in the kitchen had a half a joint. He was gonna share it with me. I figured we could put a ladder all the way up to the vent so the smoke could escape without smelling the place up. Then, we decided to cover any remaining smell with a mixture of all the cleaning products available, particularly the strong smelling ones.

It turns out that mixing these chemicals can cause a variety of symptoms, including loss of consciousness and even death. Who knew? All the fumes rose to the top of the room, where we were atop the ladder. The fumes were so overwhelming, I couldn’t tell if the pot had any effect. The other guy fell off the ladder, hurt himself and I had to go get him help. The whole thing was viewed as us mixing the wrong chemicals and we never got into trouble because they never found out about the pot.

The second thing was much more consequential. On my second weekend pass, I was out looking to get high. I ran into a friend and asked if he had any dope. He said he didn’t but he was going to a meeting and I was welcome to go. I had to cram as much into my time as possible and there was nothing going on so I said, “yes.”

We drove to some little room in a church. I walked in and immediately thought, “there’s no way these are my kind of people.” They all had cars and jobs and they seemed like normal people. Then they started talking. They talked about all the things I was doing as a delinquent and how they had done similar and felt bad about it. They talked about having a conscience and how it seemed no-one else did. They talked about how it felt to know you were gonna keep doing dope, no matter if it killed you and how hopeless it felt. They seemed to have a window into my soul and made me look at myself in ways I never thought I could.

Prior to that I had all those thoughts and feelings, I just never considered saying them so out loud. I watched people (in my fucked up outlaw world, anyway) go steal, fight, scam and do any manner of devious stuff and never seem to have any feelings of guilt. I assumed that I had to do these things and I would force myself to, but I was wracked with guilt. I thought my guilt was a personal defect which kept me from being all I could be. My life to that point had been a constant battle with my morality to overcome its influence and finally feel the way others looked like they felt. I had never imagined that they all experienced the same turmoil. Now I had proof. I was hooked. I got sober and stayed that way for 30 years.

I was the only one at my placement who had gotten sober. I began to explore my soul and how it worked to regulate my morality. I completely changed my outlook and focus. In the group therapy sessions, I started actually being helpful to the other kids. I started helping them to solve their problems or at least begin to. The average stay there was about 6 months. Some people stayed 5 and some 7. I stayed a whole year. I’m pretty sure some of that was to find a suitable foster home (more on the “suitability” later) but I’m pretty sure my effectiveness at counseling the other kids played a part in extending my stay, as well. In any case, I set the record for longest stay for at least that era. Even a couple of other kids who went to foster homes were released after 6 months.

It was during this time that I developed an ulcer. I was taken to the doctor who injected me with some dye and then x-rayed me. Back then, they had no real drugs for this so they just gave me a list of what not to eat. It was basically everything. Because I was institutionalized, they made me actually stick to it. I spent the last month there eating plain mashed potatoes and egg whites with no seasonings. It was hell. Every meal was a plate of bland whiteness. It sucked balls. I was getting really fed up with the system and wanted out bad.

Eventually, the day came when I was allowed to leave. I was to move to a foster home in a good neighborhood with one other kid who already lived there. Oddly, the “parent” was just a single man, not a couple. I was happy to be leaving and ready to go out into the world. The guy seemed nice enough and the other kid was OK, I guess. I was happy to able to go to meetings and be out in the world, finally. It was about 14 months after I had tried to steal the car battery, and I was finally free to walk the streets, or so I thought.

The other kid that lived there was a full-on fuck-up. He would waltz in with a shiny new stereo and claim he found it in an alley. He’d say that he hoped it worked and then try it out. Amazingly they always worked. The “parent” seemed to buy all of this hook, line and sinker. This kid never got in any trouble whatsoever. He even got brought home by the cops once for some crime or another. The guy never even asked about any of this. In my case, however, if I was a few minutes past curfew, there’d be handcuffs on the tables and endless threats to send me back. It was clear that the other kid was immune from trouble and I had a target on my back. I was young and at least somewhat naive, so I never really understood what was going on until after I decided to leave.

One day I had had enough. I decided to find my bank book with my kitchen job earnings (about $300.00) and split. It was over a year and a half since my crime. I figured that I had paid my debt and was not going to live under this cloud of threats any more. I ditched high school and went hunting for my bank book. As I rifled the drawers in the “parent’s” room, I hit one that was locked. I assumed my stuff was in there, so I used a playing card to open it. Inside was a huge cache of gay porn and some sex toys that seemed like they were aimed towards women, IYNWIMAITYD. That’s when I started to remember a bunch of details. I would come home in the middle of the day and both the “parent” and the other kid would be in bath robes. Sometimes the kid would be taking a bath and the parent guy would go into the bathroom and stay 20 minutes or so. I realized that this guy was fucking the kid and knew I wasn’t going to be down with that. He was trying to get rid of me to cover it up. At that moment, he came in and started yelling about me being a thief, because I jimmied open his drawer. I really wanted to beat the living hell out of him with a lamp. I mean badly. The guy was a minister at a huge church, someone who convinced the state he could look after wayward teenaged boys, and this was what he did. I restrained myself and just left, not even bothering to find my bank book.

It was not easy, being alone on the streets at 16 years old. On top of that, I had a warrant for going AWOL. I started using a fake name, at least for anything official (like talking to the cops). I slept in an abandoned bar across the street from my AA clubhouse for a few months. I would put 4 bar stools together for a bed. I spent my days in bookstores reading book after book. I really can’t remember how I fed myself.

Eventually, I started getting jobs doing drywall or framing houses. Back then, you could buy a tool belt full of tools and just walk up to a jobsite and ask for work. 8 or 10 bucks an hour and if you worked really hard, they’d keep you. Nobody asked for ID or social security info. I did phone sales, auto repos and a bunch of other crap, too. Eventually, I got a job from a guy at the meeting in title insurance. It paid OK and I started saving a bit. Finally, I went to trade school for auto repair and became a mechanic.

One day, I hitchhiked to Santa Barbara with a friend of mine. We just went to hang out and have fun. We were walking down State Street and as we walked, I was cleaning my finger nails with a buck knife. My friend bumped into me a few times. I kept telling him to watch where he was going, but he persisted. Finally, I stopped and adamantly told him to knock it off. Right as I was doing this, a guy walks up and asks, “what are you doing?” He was just a regular looking guy with a Levi’s jacket on. I said, “nothing, just messing around,” and realized I had my knife in my hand, so I folded it and put it away. Well, he opened his coat and pulled out a gun and yelled, “Freeze!” which was silly, because we weren’t moving. We put our hands up and he took his coat off to reveal a Santa Barbara Police shirt. He arrested me for “disturbing the peace.” I used my middle name for a first name and my Mom’s maiden name for the last one. I told him I was 18 years old, so they took me to the county jail. This was on a Friday night.

I sat in jail until Sunday evening, when they called out my alias. I had forgotten it by then so there was significant lag time in my responding. Eventually, I caught on and answered up. The officer told me to roll ’em up because I had made bail. I was shocked. The only one who even knew I was there was my friend and he was 16 also and penniless. The cop walked me down some halls and finally stopped me in a quiet spot. He told me that some friends from L.A. had come up to look for me after my friend hitched back down there and told them what happened. They went to juvenile hall, the police station, the hospital, basically everywhere before ending up at the jail. They tried every combination of my name with no luck (they didn’t know what my alias was).

Finally, they asked to see pictures of arrestees from Friday night and found me that way. The cop said they told him my whole story and he was impressed. He said he was gonna let me them bail me out, but first he took me on a scared straight tour. This guy killed his mom, that guy stole a car, etc. Then he gave me a hundred bucks and said, “don’t come back to my jail,” and I was out.

I tried to make good on his admonition, but it wasn’t to be. About 2 years later, I was riding my motorcycle around and got pulled over. I had long since stopped using fake names, so I gave them my real name. They gave me a chicken shit ticket for loud pipes or dim tail lights or something and after I signed it, they whipped my hands behind my back and handcuffed me. I asked what they were doing and they said I had a warrant from Santa Barbara. Damnit!

This time, I went to L.A. County Jail and had to sit there for 5 days until a bus left for up north. I rode up with all the people who were sentenced to state prison. I got to Santa Barbara jail on Friday, so I had to wait until Monday to see a judge. When I finally did, he seemed pissed that I was there. He said, “years ago you did basically nothing on State Street, there’s not even any peace on State Street to disturb! Now, you’ve spent ten days in jail, and forfeited $100.00 bail for no good reason. I apologize and the case is dismissed.” So now, I get released at like 11 p.m. in Santa Barbara with no money and no way home. I hitched home and it took all fucking night. When I finally got home, my motorcycle had been impounded and cost me about $600.00 to get it out.

I could go on, but this seems like as good of a place as any to end this story. My life, both before and after these events, has been filled with the similar craziness, this is just one sliver of it. BTW, Santa Barbara County Jail, circa early 1980s, was a WAY better place to be an inmate than either L.A. County Jail or Sylmar Juvenile Hall.

P.S. When I adopted my son 7 years ago, I told this story in somewhat abbreviated form, to our social worker. She was amazed, not by that fact that it happened, but by the fact that I turned out OK. She said, basically, “ most of those kids end up spending their whole lives in prison.”

July 25, 2019
Libertarianism and personal morality

“Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.” – Walter Sobchack

Libertarians often have to repeat, ad nauseam, that libertarianism is, at its core, a political philosophy, not necessarily a personal behavior one, although, to be fair, the two spheres may touch. A philosophy of liberty and responsibility can influence wide areas of one’s life. But libertarianism primarily deals with government, individual rights and individual interactions that can infringe the rights of others. It has not, as a primary concern, individual activities that are mutually voluntary, though not necessarily beneficial. The cliché position on this is “Just because I think drugs or prostitution should be legal, does not mean I approve of drugs and prostitution” (I do approve though).

I have said before in one of my older articles, which everyone probably forgot already, that I see two domains of human life: the inner sphere is the personal – what you think is right when it mostly affects you and no other unless they agree to it, or at least you do not use aggression on others. This is subjective, as the only judge is you. Eating meat or not on a Friday, drinking, drugs, BDSM, reading SugarFree post and much more come in this sphere. The second sphere, the outer one, the one where humans interact and where your actions affect others. This second domain is covered by libertarianism as a political philosophy.

As we frequently debate these philosophical concepts, I wanted to do a different post, on personal moral beliefs that are not directly to do with libertarian politics. What does Pie believe in, even if he may not fully live up to those beliefs A sort of listicle, if you will.

While these are the things I believe, it does not mean others do, nor do I expect others to live up to these beliefs. The things I talk about are things I think people and primarily yours truly should strive for. I do not necessarily judge people for some of these and I do judge them for others. That is the whole thing about libertarianism, you can do whatever and I can judge you for it. As is my right. You do you. This is the opposite of there ought to be a law. There ought to be no law. Just because you are not free unless you are free to be an asshole, this does not mean you should be an asshole. I would argue the opposite. That is, in a way, the point. It is no great virtue to do something good forced.

“I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.”― Robert Frost

To start with something controversial, I do not believe withholding the truth or outright lying in itself is immoral. It depends on the context. I do not have to tell everyone at all times the truth. This may change with close family or friends, where I can see a sort of an implicit contract to be honest – even if no one really benefits from your wife knowing about that one drunk night with her sister.

To start with the previous conservative statement, more broadly the vices, my main view is I have no inherent problem with them, as long as they are voluntary and manageable to the person. This includes drinking, drugs, gambling – although I would put heroin and crack on the bad list. I do not think sex work is bad, although people on both sides of the deal need to be careful. I accept questions like “would you like your daughter to be a sex worker” only from people whose greatest wish is for their daughters to scrub toilets in a strip mall for a living.

Moving on from vice to more general things of life, the universe and everything. I think you should strive to do no harm, in general. To be, as a rule, nice and polite, as long as it is warranted and not longer. Try going about your day without bothering or inconveniencing others– you know don’t park over two spots, put the gym weights back in their place, clean up after yourself. Don’t be an asshole, if you will.

Help people who need and deserve it. This may include friends, family, neighbors, charity, or simply give your seat to the elderly on public transport and other small acts.

In life you should contribute and pull your own weight. Make enough money doing things other find useful. Try to leave the world better off. Build more than not destroy. Try to leave for the next generation a little more than you received. You know plant a tree though you may not get to rest under its shade or some such hippie nonsense.

Fuck whoever agrees to it while single – age of consent may vary. If you commit to a person, be faithful, as long as you are not in an open relationship. Your kink may vary, but it’s all good when consensual.

If you don’t want a family, you should save enough to cover your needs in your old age. If you do, take care of them properly. Raise your children right. And by this I do not mean strict, or severe nor do I mean lax. Find a balance. And as long as your parents raised you right, take care of them in their old age.

In general, try keep a measure of control of yourself. Avoid alcoholism, severe drug or gambling addictions and so on. Educate yourself. Take some risk on occasion. Take care of your body, at least to a point. Basically don’t be obese and lift weights. Running is for socialists, libertarians deadlift. Also practice hygiene and body odor control.

Be a good friend to your good friends. Keep your word and pay your debts.

All this in general of course. I could go on, but leave the rest as an exercise to the readers. I realize people have bad luck, make bad choices, take risks and lose. This does not necessarily make them bad people or immoral or anything. I have my failings and do not live to all these principles (When I look back upon my life… It’s always with a sense of shame). But I think these things are to strive for. One may fail but one must have a goal, something to aim at.

So how about you fellow glibs? What are your principles beyond the boundaries of “fuck off, slaver.”

July 16, 2019
A Better Tribute to Urophilliacs than the Gender Fluid…and That’s OK

This is all part of one big conspiracy to turn men into women and women into men.

This is my review of Boulder Beer Company Gender Fluid Lager.

No…not really. At least according to this article, this one, and this one, was made in recognition of Pride Month…or at least drag queen bingo. What is truly interesting about it, when I looked it up on Beer Advocate I found it had an average score of 0/5 due to there being absolutely zero reviews for it. Odd given the number of links telling the wild and wacky world of beer drinking it exists.

With regards to Pride Month, why does this need to be controversial? What difference does it make that people want to march because they are gay? Certainly, it provides an opportunity for trolls to provide a practical example of why somebody might want to participate in a gay pride parade. Which seems to demonstrate a lack of self-awareness given the reaction the trolls are intent on receiving. I can’t necessarily say there is no reason for Pride Parades, even if the number of countries legalizing gay marriages are becoming the norm. After all, Black History month is still celebrated and last I checked the Civil Rights Act was signed into law 55 years ago, and the 14th Amendment became law 151 years ago and neither was immediately accepted either. A victory is a victory, so celebrate it. Hell, World War 1 ended a century ago, and we still celebrate that (we just call it Veteran’s Day). It’s harmless, just know what streets to avoid if you’re driving and let them be.

As for gender fluid people and their potential choice in beer: it tastes like Heineken.

This may be more appropriate than I previously anticipated. I can sit here and morally justify my opinions on this beer’s flavor profile, its magnificent can, and assume that because my opinions on beer, the can, gender-fluidty, and the Venn Diagram of communities this beer hopes to encompasses will ultimately have no impact on my life. I can say that because I am a cis-heteronormative male married to a cis-heteronormative female, living in a world seemingly built around such normativities. Upon reflection, it seems my frame of reference caused me to miss the point entirely. Gender identity and yellow lagers are two prominent constructs that go hand in hand and one that I casually dismissed. Yet for others this is not so simple. If one lives in say, the Netherlands–or as pointed out to me, Thailand–one does not always have the option to display such privilege in beer preference because one’s experience in gender does not line up in a way to conform to biologically or socially accepted gender roles–and this beer reflects that.

To which I say, BRAVO. For identifying the disparity and putting it on display for those that are most likely to recognize this disparity for what it is, and subjecting it to their subtle mockery. In this light, mimicking the flavor profile of Heineken makes perfect sense. I therefore will leave the reader with this selection of ladies for perusal as penance for my word salad, as well as some music for which to celebrate while they do. Boulder Beer Company Gender Fluid Lager 1.5/5

July 13, 2019
Sir Digby’s Adventures in Product Promotion
```
I want a report on your initial excursions wearing the shirts. That could be a nice article.
You could have pictures of the shirts, and such. It’s time you Contributed, boy!
```
– CPRM

As you probably know by now, CPRM has a The Hat and The Hair merch store on CafePress, and, after heeding my advice, has opened one on Redbubble, too. I’ve been buying crap stuff from Redbubble over the last several months, and really like the scope/variety and quality of what they offer. It also helps that Redbubble is always having some kind of sale/online coupon (hint, hint). So, when his store went up, of course I was gonna buy something. And, that something was t-shirts.

I decided on the classic H&H design, as well as a Gropin’ Joe 2020 shirt. Redbubble has a lot of different styles of shirts for men/unisex, women, and kids. I always go with their ‘classic’ t-shirt, which is made using Gildan tees—medium weight with easy-to-remove tags. I can’t speak as to what the other styles use. Maybe you should go check them out and see what they offer.

The shirt color selection was the most difficult part of this process. I usually eschew lighter colors in t-shirts. However, the designs require a lighter background in order to see everything clearly—to really make ‘em pop! On top of this, I try to have some variety in my t-shirt collection, which I usually accomplish with t-shirts of various (dark) colors. Purple seemed to preview the H&H design well on the site, so, purple it was. I broke with my usual habit, and chose light blue for the Gropin’ Joe shirt. It just seemed so…correct. After a few button pushes, they were paid for, and all I had to do was wait for them to arrive.

In a mere eight days, it was mail call. Here’s the star of our show:

The Namesake

Here’s Joe—with a smile that just takes hold of you:

That smile….

An interesting fact about Redbubble’s shirts: They stink. I mean, the chemical smell is pretty strong. It’s a glue-like smell that’s from the manufacturing process. They even come with these little notes, attached by miniature clothes pins, that I could have sworn talked about the smell. I must be remembering something from an earlier order. Anyway, here are a couple of pics of those tags:

I thought it told you the shirts stink. Guess I was wrong.

They sure know how to promote themselves.

They put these on each and every t-shirt in an order. Why? Make-ready work, I guess. In any event, it doesn’t seem very eco-friendly to me. I note this because Redbubble is an Aussie company, whose State-side presence is an office in San Francisco. They also include at least one company sticker in each order, although they sometimes put in several.

Zombie Pandas?

A smattering of stickers

They are a quasi-nice little ‘extra’, and, I admit I look forward to seeing which ones I get. They seem to have a rather limited pool of designs from which they pick, so, the experience can be kind of ‘meh’. I have to admit that I’m not keen on “zombie pandas”; cute, or, gruesome, but not both. If I had my druthers, I would go with the quasi-The Quiet Earth design. They probably know this, and are just screwing with me. Now that the shirts have arrived, though, they need to be washed, air-dried, then put through a few “fluff” cycles (I am not a Philistine!), which will take the better part of a day.

Though all of this, CPRM’s words kept sounding in my brain: “It’s time you Contributed, boy!” Do a write-up of buying and wearing t-shirts. Not exactly Hunter S. Thompson territory, but I’d give it a shot. That led me to the question: Just where would I carry out this task? CPRM suggested that I go to a Starbucks –he’s such a kidder! If I did that, I probably wouldn’t stick around after getting my order, considering I even managed to find something worth giving them money. No, this was going to have to be somewhere where I would conceivably spend time productively, while surrounded by other humans, which also ruled out the DMV.

A fancy Target, apparently.

I figured that I might as well get some regular retail shopping done, and, this just happened to be the location of previous unexpected interactions with strangers (no changing rooms were involved, dammit). I considered the fact that it has a Starbuck’s inside only slightly ironic. “Slightly”, because it is a Target in Plano, Texas: an area where people seem to crave burnt, over-priced coffee. I’d have to swing a really big “dead cat” to find suitable alternatives, and, yes-I’m excluding McCafé.

The first associate that said “Hi” to me did seem to take a quick scan of my shirt, but nothing came of it. That would describe just about every interaction I had that day. Moms with their kids; busy clerks merchandising whatever section they happened to be in; wanderers like me. Some eye contact, and, maybe a quick scan of the shirt, but, no reactions. I shopped for about an hour and a half. Actually, it was mostly just wandering around and seeing if I could find anything worthwhile. I actually had a mission of sorts, that I will get to in the next section. While I probably missed out on a greater opportunity for chat by going to a self-checkout line, I did end up getting assistance from the poor guy who has to fix screw-ups (I scanned the wrong barcode on a sale item). Nada from him, too. Paid, and out the door, it was time for a quick stop at the booze shop.

Just use your imagination, people!

I didn’t even think of taking a picture of the store. Mostly because, I was on a mission to get the FIL a belated Father’s Day gift. It seems Amazon just up and lost track of it sometime over the holiday weekend, and, we didn’t find out until this particular day. As it was, we were headed up to see my In-laws the day after all of this, so, we would just take him some hooch. He is fond of a certain blackberry Merlot that I had introduced him to some years back, and I needed to stop at the only store I could find that carried it. It was a last-minute addition to my excursion, and it only barely registered with me that I might have an opportunity for explaining this cartoon president on my shirt. I needed help finding this back-water gem, and the clerk that drew the short straw with me was very helpful. I didn’t sense much interest in him, until just as we were parting company. I saw that he gave the shirt a scan (Hey! My eyes are up here!), when I thought I caught just the barest hint of a question forming about it. I guess he thought better about getting wrapped up in a conversation about a funny YouTube animated series. Your loss, Mr. alcohol-finder-helper-guy. A quick monetary exchange at the register—I couldn’t sense any curiosity in the cashier—and I was off to…

It’s some kind of thumb, I think.

I had to buy rice. It was as thrilling and lively as that sounds. Most of the shoppers were older folk. A couple of moms with kids. It was a big goose egg. Even the checkout clerk managed to avoid eye contact. So much for customer service, I guess. I went with Success Boil-in-bag rice, and, some Tony Chachere’s Chicken flavored rice, if you’re curious. Of course, I remembered to take a picture here, where there was no place that allowed for an unobstructed shot. After almost burning out my retinas in the noon sun, I was ready for my last stop.

Not just a partial Costco, you see.

While I had hoped that the Mecca of warehouse-club consumerism would be more fertile ground, I had become sort of pessimistic. The greeter/card-checker was pleasant enough, and, he did seem to look directly at the shirt for a good second. We exchanged “hellos”, and in I went. Damn; I thought he might jump. OK, I had my shopping list, and figured that I would take a sort of ‘hover/saunter’ approach. I would take my time making picks, in order to give others a chance to get a good look at the shirt. I would consider the area to be conservative, and, it wouldn’t be out of line to find some people that got a chuckle out of the design. Pork chops: check. Cherries and blueberries: check. USDA Prime tenderloin cuts: you better believe that’s a check. I was in my grocery element, trying to not be too obvious in flaunting my wardrobe choice. As it turns out, I wasn’t too obvious. At all. Even when I picked up a Costco rotisserie chicken, the guys in the back barely took notice of me. And, it was a glorious chicken, indeed.

Golden Brown Perfection

C’mon—the butcher/meat counter guys should be a prime demographic for a curious chuckle at the expense of The Hat and The Hair. Really? Did I need to wave them down? Tom Thumb meat counter dudes were always talkative; maybe Costco thought their people didn’t need to go that route when it came to cutting up meat for their customers? After what seemed like a Target amount of time wandering the store, I was ready to check out. They had self-checkout lines, which was new to me. Probably another poor choice on my part if I wanted human interaction, but I was curious to see if these were a good idea for Costco (they were/are). I had also come to not expect much conversation from these employees, due to the need to keep the lines moving. They had a screw-up fixer who hovered around the kiosks to watch for whatever evil might crop up in a Costco checkout line. He did a quick sweep by me, with some kind of greeting. I was actually concentrating on the process, as I didn’t bring my bags inside with me, and I was trying to calculate if I had enough room on the pressurized counter. It was awkward unloading a cart, just to load it back up the same way, but I got through the ordeal unscathed. On the way out, while passing the food court seating, I realized I was being stared at by a young guy who was aaalmost in the right league for the half-ugly blonde sitting next to him.

You eye-ballin’ me, son? ‘Cause I’ll whoop you like Patton for a-

Oh, right; the t-shirt! Actually, he was giving me a sort of half-sneer that could have either been aimed at me, or, the shirt. Maybe both; I’m sure I presented some sort of challenge to his sexual primacy, wearing this funky fresh example of CPRM’s cleverness. In hindsight, I really shouldn’t blame the guy. Hell, if I had to do it over again, I would have let him know that he could get his own H&H swag at www.redbubble.com/people/cprm It might actually make a man out of him.

And, that was that. I was finished with my excursion and needed to get home so I could unpack. It was pretty much a goose egg for me in this experiment. I just needed to record my observations and thoughts on the day. I arrived just before a shipment of some of the finest coffee around was delivered, which picked up my spirits immensely. I think the postal delivery lady scanned the shirt, but I can’t be sure—she was already smiling when we exchanged pleasantries. It was about this time that CPRM’s words crept up on me again: “wearing the shirts.” Right! I have a Gropin’ Joe t-shirt that the world hasn’t seen. Damn… Well, I’ll have to worry about that later.

Right now, I have a lunch date with a Costco rotisserie chicken.
June 27, 2019
A thought on welfare and the UBI

I am one of those libertarians not quite on board with UBI. Why? I believe anyone who thinks UBI will replace other government programs and bureaucracy is somewhat delusional. If you look at the left, they clearly see UBI as an add-on. If you look at all the programs and agencies and bureaucrats involved in welfare, do you think they will simply be made redundant and thus save money? Come on. Let’s not fool ourselves. But I dislike the UBI beyond that. I generally dislike entitlement mentality in everything, not just government and money. Unless you have clear way to show you deserve something, don’t claim it. I fail to see how a welfare state – UBI even more so – does not encourage this. Furthermore, ethically, I do not think one deserves a permanent living just for surviving birth. I really don’t. I do not see why someone else should be forced to support you. Entitlement breeds entitlement.

Now the question some would pose is: doesn’t everyone deserve a decent life? Honestly, not really. Some people clearly do not. Unless you somehow think there are no scumbags in the world… In my personal, anecdotal, ehm… lived experience if you will, some people deserve little more than to starve in a ditch. These particular ditches should be shown to children everywhere, probably on prime-time TV, as the consequence of certain actions, with the message watch what you do or you to will end up starving in a ditch. I think that is sadly necessary for a society. Most people strongly disagree with me, so I do not say these things at parties.

I will not say, and I don’t think most others would either, that everyone who has a hard life did something to deserve it. It is silly. It is equally silly to say that no one hard up has a responsibility in their situation. I would say that, for at least a majority of people, there is at least a component of their actions which contribute to their issues. For the left, saying this is literally fascism. Everyone deserves the chance to have a decent life, and if the left cared about that, they would look to regulatory reform, licensing reform and other things. Now that we are done having a good laugh… I will engage in a bit of the old delusion myself and will present a form of UBI that I might find more palatable, on the entitlement front. Of course, my preference is no welfare at all. But considering that is not an option and people yearn for a safety net, I will think of one. I do not fool myself, and realize this would inevitably grow way beyond the limits I set, everything does. But… for the sake of argument, in a world where a UBI would be implemented once this way and stay the same…

I would do away with all the various programs and bureaucrats and whatnot and implement a partial UBI. Whoever applies for UBI gets it the next month, no means testing, no questions asked. But the kicker is, you get 120 months of this over working lifetime, say 18 to 68. It is up to you how you use your months. If you are done by 30, I have a nice ditch for you. I assume, in such a scenario, to be palatable to the majority, there will inevitably be an exception for severe disability. Outside that, this should satisfy all those who claim they want an actual safety net. 20% of your lifetime is plenty for a safety net, any more and it becomes a hammock.

I do wonder how many on the left would find this agreeable… I mean it removes a lot of the “humiliation” people go through the classic process. It can be made online and remove the stigma associated with being temporarily on welfare – although I am not sure of the wisdom of removing the stigma entirely. It can remove redundant bureaucracy and situations when people need welfare and are denied. You may be employed, but one month may need some extra cash, this is a way to get it. But it also a way to introduce personal responsibility and clear limits on welfare. I would say very few of our leftist brethren would agree…

Thoughts?

May 21, 2019