we talk a lot about institutions being skinsuited tho everyone carries on as if they they were the same as they once were.
it occurs to me this applies hardest to governments and peoples.
the US government, the UK government, on and on have no substantial institutional continuity with the entities we traditionally associate with those labels who generated the prestige of the organizations. the presidency is debauched, congress is castrated and vestigial, the court profaned, the bureaucracy metastatic.
similarly our notions of "americans." what is an "american" today? what have they to do with the people who fought the revolution? who conquered the frontier and the world? who bore the long twilight struggle, even?
it seems to me very little. the blood is grown thin and saeculum has done the rest.
we have forgotten the face of our father.
@CityBureaucrat Easy to forget Ron Wyden’s corpse has been in congress since 1981. More indication that an army of red and blue robots trained to push “yea, nay, present, not voting” would serve the country better.
Platner and Talarico are cosplaying electable candidates, wearing skin suits of a persona dem consultants believe appeals to a cross section of state voters. It’s almost an insult to expect them to be normal and competent - which would put them at odds with the bulk of congress anyway. Frankly, if we just elected red/blue robots it would save a lot of cash and feel more honest.
@SwannMarcus89 In the end, it becomes a distinction without a difference. Utopian policies always produce the opposite of what they promise (unless, and this must be considered, destruction is the endgame).
bwahahaha. Ok. You asked. All "art" is of the right, as a matter of aesthetics, simply because "art" is the act of creation which is a principle of the right. The left is focused primarily on the act of destruction. (This has no bearing on the ideological/electoral nature of right/left, however, which are meaningless distractions.)
I think this clip misses that while Sophie was weeping into her diary, old Leo was in the sauna trying to beat the demons out with birch. (Mostly because of her signaling she thought him a pervert.) the older I get, the better I understand the aristocratic practice of keeping mistress.
Raised three sons, and looking back on the experience, it’s a lot like training a bird dog. They need discipline to be their best. You want them to be independent but conscious of the rules and objective. Different breeds take different methods, same as kids.
One of my sons called me years ago when he was in the Navy asking for advice on a car question. I started to describe some scenarios he should be cautious of and he said, “dad, I know. I hear your voice in my head all the time.”
@spongeworthy2@dandakich Frank Deford and Patrick McManus at Field &Steam were the first two magazine writers that caught my eye as a kid. You had to be good back then and got paid accordingly.