Assholes 2020

I posted on Facebook about the Trump supporter, and my last blog was about bad cops.   It's time to step back and look at the bigger picture: ASSHOLES.  I'd actually covered this topic back in 2011, but at that time my focus was on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.  This time around Donald Trump and the coronavirus are a bit more important.

This Trump supporter will be voting for Trump not despite the fact that he's an asshole, but because he's an asshole.   "Get things done?"   No.    

The men & women in the health profession risking their lives ever day.   Assholes?  No.

The scientists, the Einsteins and Teslas, making the world a better place for us.  Assholes?  No.

The Founding Fathers, who established a democracy, a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, including George Washington, who declined lifetime dictatorship and stepped aside after two terms.  Assholes?  No.

The philosophers, the thinkers, the idealists, were they assholes?  No.

How about Hitler, Stalin, Putin, Mao, etc. all those dictators?  Yes, they were all assholes.   Assholes who never took responsibility for anything, who shifted blame to everyone else and took credit for everything.  Sounds like anyone we know?

The assholes don't "get things done".  They screw things up for everyone else.   We're supposed to meekly take their word for it, to not assert ourselves, to let them do as they please.   Because THEY NEED US, but WE DON'T NEED THEM.   And they're terrified we'll realize this.  So they have to bluff and bullshit their way.  It's our job to call their bluff and tell them to fuck off.  

The US is leading the coronavirus epidemic.  We have something like 5% of the world's population but 25% of its cases.   Why?  Because ASSHOLES won't wear masks - as a matter of principle.   Because the masks don't protect us from them, they protect them from us, the ASSHOLES consider it a waste of time.  Helping anyone else is for chumps.   With anyone else in the Oval Office, they might actually have the shame to comply purely out of social pressure.   But this time around, they finally have THEIR GUY running things.   And THEIR GUY won't do jack shit to help his own country.   His position varies from "it's a HOAX to make me look bad" to "not my problem."   ???  So the President himself, our so-called leader, is encouraging his entire country to behave like assholes.   And too many of us are.   And we're paying the price.   Whether the death rate is 1% or 5%, that's 1-5 out of 100 dying because some jackoff won't wear a mask.   

Those of us who aren't assholes, aren't perfect.  We make mistakes, and not all of those mistakes are honest.   So we apologize, sincerely, take responsibility, and make amends.   And try not to do it again.  Hopefully, we'll succeed.  One thing we don't do, is behave this way consistently as a matter of principle.  That's what separates us from the ASSHOLES.   

Cartman.  The South Park character.  Can consistently be counted on to mistreat everyone and act like an asshole.  I love that meme, “who said it, Cartman or Trump?” because Trump basically acts like a grown up version of Cartman. 

UMCP Dorm Experience.  I went to the University Of Maryland, College Park, for undergraduate college, and since my parents were overseas in Paris all four years, I was on campus for that entire time.  For sophomore year and fall semester of junior year, I was in Talbot Hall.  My FS/JY roommate, ES (initials to hide identities) wanted me out so his buddy from the suite next door, DH, could come in and replace me.  At first I believed ES was the only one in the six person (three double) suite who felt that way, until I spoke with CR, who was in the end suite with BD, a friend of my buddy DB.  The middle suite had WI and CA, both from Hagerstown, MD, with whom I got along fine – or so I thought.  CR, with whom I also didn’t seem to have any overt problems, told me that himself, WI and CA all wanted me out:  BD was the exception, remaining neutral.  And CR said, we want DH in “because he’s an asshole and you aren’t.”   ???? Go figure.  Well, I moved out, and for senior year I was in a huge single in a suite with 5 other guys I got along with.  If they had a problem with me it was moot, I was out soon enough anyway.

Han Solo.  In ”The Empire Strikes Back” he realizes that Princess Leia fell in love with him, not despite the fact that he was “a scoundrel”, but BECAUSE he was “a scoundrel”.  However, he wasn’t nearly an asshole.  In the prior movie, even after admonishing Princess Leia that he expected to be paid and wasn’t in it for her rebellion, he still came back and saved Luke in his attack on the Death Star – instead of simply leaving and paying off Jabba The Hutt.  As rogueish as he was, Han was no asshole.

Ayn Rand.   Some accused her of advocating being a selfish asshole as a matter of principle, but she added an important element which assholes lack:  consistency.  First off, I’ve yet to meet anyone, asshole or otherwise, who explicitly declared that they live by her principles.   Second, her main two fictional heroes, Howard Roark (The Fountainhead) and Henry Rearden (Atlas Shrugged) are not assholes.  They forge their own destinies by their own ambition and talent, but not at anyone else’s expense.  They lack the ruthless exploitation of others which epitomizes the Asshole.

Ayn Rand herself was notoriously unlikeable and cheated on her husband, Frank O’Connor, with Nathaniel Branden, then used her own philosophy to justify her behavior.  I recall a scene in “Dirty Dancing” when a character misbehaves and throws a copy of The Fountainhead as if so say, “Ayn Rand told me this conduct is acceptable.”   My own experience is that I’ve yet to meet anyone who specifically claimed to live their life by her ideals; most said something to the effect that they tried reading her books but found them too boring to finish.  I certainly championed her views in college but never believed she advocated doing whatever you damn well please and screw everyone else, though that seems to be the way she actually behaved, and how many people, who weren’t actually familiar with her philosophy, perceived it to be.  Rational self-interest, including consistency (“do unto others as you would have done unto you”) doesn’t rise to the level of justifying being an asshole. 

Jerry.  My former boss is aggressive and forceful as an attorney, which explains his success.  But what I realized when considering him is that he didn’t screw over anyone to get to where he is.  He is about as assertive and dominant as you can be without being an asshole.   As well as many other successful people in our society who don’t behave like Trump does – arguably far more successful than him, when you closely examine his business failures in more detail with a more critical eye – it’s clear that “asshole who gets things done” is far more rare than Trump and his followers would like us to believe.  More like it being a false claim used to justify their behavior to those calculated to take their word for it.  Well, I won’t.  And if the polls are any indication, neither are a whole lot of other people. 

So this November, vote for the non-asshole, be it Joe Biden or Jo Jorgensen.   If your state or federal legislator is an asshole, vote them out of office - all the way down to county reps, mayors, and soil & water conservation whatchamacallits.   Vote a straight NON-asshole ticket.   And get rid of these jerks, the sooner the better.

Quarantine

Looks like another occasion where what might otherwise be writer’s block is rescued by some huge problem which merits some discussion.   The COVID19/corona virus shitstorm has resulted in a quarantine here in the US.   Ideally, stay home.  If you do go out, try minimizing such excursions and stay at least 6 feet away from everyone.  Then go home and catch up on whatever it is you could do at home were it not for having to be out 40 hours a week working.

My own job is an attorney, in a firm by myself, an office manager (Vietnamese woman old enough to have met Japanese officers as a little girl during WWII), and a secretary who is as difficult and headstrong as she is attractive (actually, considerably more so).   Part of my practice is personal injury, meaning I can call insurance adjusters from home and try to settle cases.   Ultimately, many of my cases require some form of court appearance, whether be a status hearing to set a case for trial, a one-and-done traffic or misdemeanor case, a one-and-done 341 hearing on a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, or a simple uncontested hearing on a divorce.  The local courts have removed most cases from the docket for the time being, subject to being rescheduled later. 

As of yet, I don’t feel any aches, pains, fevers, chills or any other illness.  Just the last week I went to the ER for a tongue infection, though I was discharged that day with a prescription.   That issue is healed.  I live alone, in a huge condo building.   My mom is in an assisted living building 30 minutes northwest (Herndon), and that building is taking the sensible precaution of prohibiting visitors, so I call my Mom and talk to her on the phone.   My brother lives not too far away, in Centreville, with a wife and three kids.  They are all stuck in the house together.   Last time I visited, though, I found the local parks and trails within walking distance of his house.

Despite the obvious temptation to bring up the ever-popular plague, there are huge differences.  First off, corona-virus is…a virus (!) whereas the plague is caused by bacteria.  As such the latter can be treated with anti-biotics.  It’s usually caused by rats and fleas, which means in normal First World environments the sanitation system is inhospitable for the plague and we rarely see it.  Back in the Middle Ages, when sewer systems weren’t always around, and anti-biotics were nonexistent, the plague would have been a much bigger problem.

Even so, “quarantine” still applied.  A map of Europe in the mid 1300s appears to show that Poland was relatively little affected, allegedly because the king, Casimir the Great, quarantined Poland from the rest of Europe.  In practice, this seems to be an oversimplification and difficult to verify.   The truth is that Poland did suffer the plague, but less than surrounding countries, and we really don’t know why.   However, with 3 of my 4 grandparents originating from Poland, to the extent that the plague was not as serious there as elsewhere, to the extent 3 of my ancestors survived a disease which might otherwise have killed them, making my own existence impossible, I have to thank God that this was in fact the case, to the extent it was and for whatever reason.

As of April 2020, I am staying home most of the time, wearing a mask when I do go out, and catching up on Rick & Morty (season 4) and Ozark (finished season 1).  As yet I know of no one I know personally who has contracted the virus, but I would hope and expect that the geniuses are at work on a vaccine which will address the issue.  

I’m still unclear as to what anyone is doing about keeping these viruses to spring forth from the Wuhan market in China, which seems to breed these viruses from the exotic animals kept in close proximity.  The experts agree that the virus was not man-made, but to the extent the PRC is a totalitarian dictatorship which could summarily shut down the market if it cared to do so, I’d say the Chinese government’s willful inaction amounts to de facto germ warfare, by default, against the rest of the planet.  

Likewise, I won't blame our own Orange Fuhrer for having developed this disease himself.   But you would think that he would at least have consulted with experts and managed the crisis here a little better:  giving us accurate information about the threat the virus poses and what we should do about it.  Firing the team, ignoring his own experts, and dismissing the whole thing as a hoax was criminally stupid.  I'm not particularly impressed by the Democratic challengers in 2020, but even the dumbest of them (most likely Biden) would have enough brain cells to manage this whole thing more competently than the current yahoo.  He can Make America Great Again by resigning, effective immediately, as even Pence can tie his shoelaces better than his own boss.