Real America

WARNING: Content may be offensive to some audiences.

Rep. Jim Jordan retweeted video from a Wisconsin football game yesterday with the comment, "Real America is done with Covid-19."

The phrase "Real America" is Jordan's equivalent of ein Volk, a phrase popularized by Adolph Hitler in the 1930s.

It's best defined not by what it means, but by what it doesn't.

Real America is not...

Real America is not Civilized America—those pain-in-the-ass weirdos who insist on wearing masks.

Real America is not Immuno-compromised America—those annoying wimps who worry they'll catch Covid-19. 

Real America is not Black America—those whiney, dangerous, hip-hop lovin' ingrates.

Real America is not Latino America—those lazy, foreign, Catholic beaners.

Real America is not Asian America—those creepy gooks who want our jobs.

Real America is not Indigenous America—those all-time champion losers.  

Real America is not Gay America—those unrepentant degenerates.

Real America is not East Coast America—those latte-sippin' socialists.

Real America is not West Coast America—those tree-huggin' communists.

Real America is not Jewish America—those overeducated loudmouths.

Real America is not Muslim America—those people who're worse than Jews.

Real America is not Poor America—those welfare-squanderin' weaklings.

Real America is not Homeless America—those whack jobs who foul the land beneath our beautiful freeways.

Real America is not Disabled America—those embarrassing feebs. 

Real America is not Old America—those wrinkled, funny-smelling people.

Real America is not Female America—those witchy pretenders to equality.

Real America is not Expert America—those Commies with doctorates from fancy-pants universities.

Real America is not Liberal America—the true enemies of Real America. You know, Democrats.

My advice to Jim to is simple: grow a toothbrush mustache. 

You'll complete the outfit.

NOTE: Fascism is hardly new in America. Learn more.

Incredulous

Like most small-bore, pretentious men, he shows the tendency to strike an emotional attitude and then, using that prejudice as a base, draw vast, unreasonable, philosophical conclusions.

— John D. MacDonald

The more closed the mind, the more open the mouth.

I encountered this phenomenon on Facebook recently. 

A philosopher posted an op-ed he'd published in Newsweek that argued for adding philosophy to elementary school curriculums.

Philosophy will improve kids' ability to think critically, he promised. 

"Absolutely not," one comment said. "The ability to think critically is not philosophy. Philosophy is not meant for everyone and is totally not needed for most."

No evidence. No source. Just bluster.

An argument like the one offered in the comment is known among philosophers as an argument from incredulity. It holds:

I don't know a thing to be true;
therefore, it must be false.

Arguments from incredulity are moronic, but we hear them all the time:

• "Vaccines can't be safe. Nobody should get one."
  
  
• “Humans could not have evolved from a single cell. Darwin is bunk."
  
  
• "No one would work if the government paid him not to. Socialism is wrong."
  
  
• "Immigrants shouldn't be allowed here. They're not like Americans."
  
  
• "It's always cold here in North Dakota. Global warming is bullshit."

• "Philosophy is not meant for everyone and is totally not needed for most." 

People prone to arguments from incredulity can't imagine that many true things are unimaginable. (Take, for example, that brick walls aren't really solid; that we're moving through space at 1.3 million miles an hour; or that matter is essentially mental. 

Our convictions, however strong, don't make a statement false. 

Only buffoons believe they do.

Condemnant quo non intellegunt, as the Romans said.

"They condemn that which they do not understand."

Bad Marketer, No Cookies for You!

What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself?

— George Orwell

Since Apple, Amazon and Facebook's recent admissions to eavesdropping, I interject blather into my phone calls, so marketers waste money targeting me.

For no earthly reason, I drop random nouns like "Kumquat," "Flag Day," "Jeggings," "Aardvark," and "PT-73."

As Orwell said, when the lunatic is more intelligent, what can you do?

In 2021 alone, digital marketers will spend over $455 billion on ads. With financial clout like that, we're powerless to stop them from targeting us.

Our phone calls are likely to become the primary tool they'll use in the future, because today's leading tool—cookies—are going the way of the dodo.

Data-privacy nudniks are taking cookies away, denying marketers the ability to track you on line. (Ironically, socialists in the EU are to blame.) 

Apple's Safari already blocks cookies by default. Mozilla's Firefox does so as well. Google's Chrome will begin to do so in 2023.

Bad marketer, no cookies for you!

But ubiquitous, AI-powered surveillance won't end simply because cookies go away.

 

Cookie-less, marketers will of necessity turn to phone calls for clues to our desires. 

Phone calls will provide our fingerprints.

There is, of course, a high road marketers could take to target you. 

It's called "consent management" (sounds like something an overworked lecher does.)

No—trust me—marketers will take the low road; they always do.

And Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google will be delighted to collect the tolls.

Web of Lies

No amount of belief makes something a fact.

— James Randi

Goebbels Didn’t Say It may be the best blog ever. 

Nearly a decade old, Goebbels Didn't Say It is an effort by two professors to explode myths and "put a small dent in the amount of nonsense on the Internet."

The professors have chosen to call BS on the effusion of fake quotes attributed to Hitler's chief propagandist.

"We want to reduce the incidence of a fabricated quotation by Joseph Goebbels," the professors say.

Demanding exactitude on behalf of a liar is an odd mission, but a worthy one, nonetheless.

My hat's off to these two tireless debunkers, saboteurs at loose in the falsehood factory.

The Elephant in the Room

When we don't tell the truth, and others don't tell us the truth, we can't deal with matters from a basis in reality.

— Jack Canfield

A cheerleader for the event industry recently begged organizers to avoid any mention of what's foremost on exhibitors' minds: attendance.

In an industry that's touted—and inflated—attendance numbers for 70 years, that suggestion isn't merely ironic; it's absurd.

But, as writer Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

When you're the one who's in charge of the circus, there's little sense in denying the elephant in the room.

Exhibitors aren't that stupid.