Something from some email.

Here's some truth.
This is from a comment to a blog post, actually the post and comments are pretty interesting in their own right.  I was trying to find out how to make schnitz
und nep which is apparently different from apple dumplings.  Comments from me follow.

From:
here

The problem with trying to give white people a little color is that so much of it has already been lost--often forcefully scrubbed away by our own hands.

I vividly remember living through a part of that assimilation.

My family is Pennsylvania Dutch and have been in the same area since the mid 18th century. Not recent immigrants, and yet I grew up surrounded by the culture.

My grandparents spoke fluent Pennsylvania Dutch. My great-great-grandmother was a powwow witch (I have her spellbook.) My mother cooked traditional PA

Dutch foods like schnitz and nep, hog maw, fasnachts, pot pie (not the stuff the rest of the country thinks it is!)

But in school, we were taught that all of this was wrong. I'm talking the sixties and seventies, here, where this culture was beaten out of us. If we used

PA Dutch words or the German sentence construction where we got our phrases and verbs out of order, we were called "Dumb Dutchies." We were made to feel

ashamed of not being "normal."

Today, PA Dutch culture is an isolated tourist attraction in Lancaster County. Here in York, it's dying out. Few people under the age of seventy know what

you mean when you say reutch, brutz or strubly anymore.

I'm still not sure why there was this deliberate effort to obliterate it--or why today there doesn't seem to be any desire to revive it. But what I remember

is a real anger in the movement to assimilate that probably had its roots in many different events and issues. A lingering memory of a sort of "no Irish

need apply" mentality, the humiliating 1929 Hex trial where PA Dutch culture was held up to international ridicule, and long-simmering racial issues that

erupted in the 1968 race riots (a solid white front being a stronger force than one culturally divided?) Fear is always a great motivator.

And then the cynical side of me wonders how much of it was driven by marketing. Easier to market to a broad common population.

In working with kids in my son's school (and they're almost all "white," in a sharply economically divided community, but that's another long rant) I found

that none of them were aware of the origin of their last names and had no sense of culture beyond a consumerist one. They have learned at their parents'

knees that it is the things you have that make you who you are.

I don't really remember any anger or insults, but I do remember the English teacher who did public speaking telling us that if we ever used "yous" or "ain't"
in a speech, we'd get an F.  I was never sure if that was for the speech or for the whole class, but given some of my teachers the whole class wouldn't
have surprised me at all.

We lived in an area where a German dialect was spoken fluently by an older generation, and the languages we could take were French and Spanish.  I know
at least some of the teachers knew some sort of German because I remember a guidance counselor, that would be Mr. Stump, asking another teacher, Mr. Unger
maybe, to translate some technical German he had from some book, about a gun I think.  I also recall Mr. Unger arguing with me that English wasn't a Germanic
language, the idiot.

I don't think we had a lot of anger or anything, but did everybody play on that, hey you don't wanna be from some hick town and saund stupid nau wuntz
do ya?  You bet your ass they did.  Unfortunately I went right along with it and only realized what we didn't really have until I was much much older. 
That's how it works when you're a kid I guess.  Now you tell me the part at the end about being what you have isn't true. If you do you're lying, heh.

I have a question

I've got lots of questions for Dr. Helen, but really they all come down to one. How much batshit insane dumbness can you cram into one video? I'm no expert mind you, but I think I've managed to come up with the answer. You'll have to wait for a bit though while we journey deep inside of the video in question. So get ready to read along while I provide a handy guide to the choice craziness in whatever this is.

First we interview Megan who's the self-described world's tallest female econoblogger. Wow! I'll bet people are beating down your door to challenge that one. This is sort of like saying you're the oldest man to get trampled half to death by midgets wearing cleets at 10:35 am. on Saturday, June 20, 2000. You have no real way of knowing if it's true, but really, who gives a damn one way or the other? To be fair, Megan tries to make a joke out of it, and so does Dr. Helen. It's an incredibly lame joke and I'll give Megan credit for realizing that, even though she participated in it, because as we'll see in a moment, she needs all the credit she can get.

She calls herself Jane Galt! Oh boy! And why does she do this? Does she have a deep dedication to Ayn Rand? Nope! She wanted to piss off some dork on the internet! Hey he was calling people to the right of Chairman Mao randroids! She's not into Rand or anything, but this seemed a good reason to try to piss him right the hell off. Then we get into some dumb conservative boilerplate. To be fair, it's apparently because business people have all the courage of a rabbit confronted by a lawnmower, but hey. Pay attention, the lawnmower will come up again. Apparently when the government expands, because we all know if it gets smaller that's only super special awesome!, businessmen get all a-scared and refuse to invest in anything whatsoever until they know "the shape of the government". Personally, a boomerang would be cool. Or maybe a rhombus. these are the same people you can frighten with rumors that CEOs had a heart attack into selling off billions of dollars, it happened with Apple, look it up. That was in one hour, BTW. But remember, the market's all rational and stuff.

Hey how many times have we heard the phrase "going John Galt" so far? If you're not already sick of it, pay attention, it'll get better! But hey, people make a tradeoff between work and leisure, specifically a tradeoff between "taxes and leisure consumption". That's bad for society. Why, exactly? If they're consuming, isn't that good? Don't they have to pay people? Speaking of paying people though, people say Europeans have more leisure than we do.

Good news! Megan says, sure they do! Bad news! Europeans are fucking stupid, apparently! Why? Because they spend a lot of their "leisure time" doing things like mowing their lawns and painting their houses, that we'd pay people to do. Now to give Megan's argument, if you have a heart surgeon, it's not really the best use of his time to have him mowing his own lawn, because that's not what he's best at. Barring the fact that mowing my lawn isn't the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the word leisure, what's this argument saying? Basically, hey screw you and your leisure buddy, you're best at heart surgery, so get back to work bitch! Europeans, feel free to tell us how all your fabulous leisure time is actually sucked up by random housework and of course, feel free to wax rhapsodic about how much better it would be, if only you could pay somebody to mow your lawn. Say, a neighborhood kid who might want a little spending money or something. Except you probably don't have neighborhood kids, for some reason. They're probably all hooligans who are high on pot anyway, so they'd probably try to mow your lawn in the shape of Bob Marley's head and screw it all up, and then people would make fun of you for having a fucked up Bob Marley head in front of your house.

But here comes the real crazy, Megan's just the warmup! Meet Byron, Lindsay, and Erickch! Yes I don't feel like looking up their names. They're brave because lots of people wrote Dr. Helen saying they can't come on because they might get fired from their jobs and, I quote, "the Obama thugs might get me". Byron pipes up with what "going Galt" means, it's rejecting the philosophy of altruism and that "man is a sacrificial animal". Byron later says he's not a "hundred percenter" Objectivist, never mind that the only people who say "Miss Rand" and spew quotes directly from Rand are all Objectivist nutjobs. Byron's gonna reduce his taxes, legally of course, because he doesn't agree with what's going on and it's immoral. We're not our brother's keeper! Anybody know where that comes from? Anybody know who first proposed that argument? Hint: He's in the Bible and he's trying to riggle out of a murder, the first one in fact!

That's right! Byron's little bit of self-justificatory wisdom is from the Bible! It occurs in Genesis. Yahweh asks Cain, one of the four human beings currently on earth, if he knows where Abel is. This is the first trick question because Yahweh knows perfectly well that Cain beat Abel's brains out with a rock because Yahweh liked Abel's burned sheep better than Cain's stupid wheat offering. He knows this because, to add to the complete creepiness, Abel's blood cried out to him from the earth. So Yahweh says, hey Cain, where's your brother Able? To which Cain replies, roughly paraphrased, how the fuck should I know, am I my brother's keeper? Stupid son of a bitch can go wherever he wants to! That's right, Byron's morality comes from somebody who's trying to lie his way out of a murder trial. But remember kids, when "Miss Rand" says "selfishness", she doesn't mean the common dictionary definition, oh no no no. It's super special awesome "selfishness"! It's "rational self interest"! You know, rational self interest, the thing that was supposed to keep people in the market from making completely moronic decisions that could potentially destroy the economy?

Next let's get to Lindsay! Lindsay's quitting smoking! Is it because it's dangerous for her health? Nope! It's for the children! If those little bastards want free healthcare, they can damn well take up smoking and pay for it themselves! Seriously, watch the video. Lindsay also thinks it's immoral and theft, I presume she means taxes here. Erikcch agrees with Byron, it's all about rejecting altruism and spreading Ayn Rand's morality! Erichkc sounds like a little pussy though with all his "umm .. uh ...", he seems to know he ain't doing shit to "go Galt" in college.

But hey, unlike his robot leftie peers, he takes ideas seriously, he thinks he can grasp things with his mind, and he's like, totally serious! Back to Lindsay again. She started "going Galt" a year ago, no Johnny Come Lately for her. Is it me, or is there sweet sweet irony in the fact that just as she says she's taken herself off of health insurance, somebody coughs up a lung in the background? She feels really good about it all though!

Byron, come on down! What could Obama do to keep you from "going John Galt", he's asked? Byron blathers the fuck on for a while, but basically he could sum up his whole answer with, become a Republican. Oh look, he's not really an Objectivist or anything, but we just got the phrase "mixed market"! Byron blathers some more Objecto-Libertarian boilerplate. Speaking of Byron, he's an "engineering consultant". I'm not trying to throw stones at anybody's job here, but just what does an engineering consultant do? Are there lots of freelance engineers out there just waiting for that call from the city because they need to build or repair a bridge? Byron would probably refuse because it probably involves immoral government money.

Erichck is back again! Do his friends support him? Why golly gee, all his friends and family are in his cult, urr ... I mean, are Objectivists, go figure! If "people seem open to the idea, I explain it to them", gee I think a Jehovah's Witness pretty much said the same thing to me the other day. Back to Lindsay! How does she fill her free time, now that she's not working? She's a web designer BTW. She reads and knits and sews and grows a garden and plays the guitar! She might be a luddite, she's not sure, said in the kind of contemptuous "I don't give a fuck what you call it stupid sheeple" voice that only true hypocrites who absolutely care what you think and are hurt very very deeply when you disagree with them can muster. And hey, she knows this cool donated clothing place run by a church! Why is it she seems happiest about how there's no "record of sale or anything"? That's right Lindsay! You're Dark Angel, and Manticore or Man power or Man Alive We Build Some Hot Sexy Mutants or whoever the hell it is can track you through your used jeans purchases. Fight the power girlfriend!

Byron, remember how he's not really an Objectivist? He might get political, we'll see, but right now he's reading a lot, he's got The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal, and Atlas Shrugged. For somebody who claims not to be in the cult, he sure is reading a hell of a lot of the scriptures. Ericckh is all into spreading the ideas of Ayn Rand and being all intellectually active and shit. Students can buy newsletters from him and print them out and leave them around campus.

Hey Lindsay's surprised they got letters about not coming on this wonderful show! Lindsay thinks that's hypocritical and kind of dumb, but wait, she's not done! If you're going to be paranoid, said in a voice that suggests your dumb as a bag of hammers, then what you need to do is like, totally be more paranoid because you should be worried about your email and cellphone and .... So hey, being paranoid is kind of dumb, but now that Lindsay thinks about it, you're not quite paranoid enough, actually! You keep looking out for those agents, Dark Angel, and be careful about coming on shows like this, it might blow your secret cover identity as an unemployed ... urr ... freelance web designer!

Byron and Dr. Helen have a little cuddle about how, hey let 'em come after us, they can't arrest us all! Kecrich thinks college students are all apathetic, and gosh it's hard to be all committed to reason and stuff!

so let's see if we can sum up. The government is immoral, children are freeloading asswipes who should take up smoking to pay for their own healthcare, and the students, who are probably all "lefties" anyway, don't really give a shit about anything. Obama be mad pimpin' with his thugs, yo, and you best be careful what you say lest they come give you some sort of beatdown. Europeans have more leisure time, which they paradoxically spend doing non-leisure things because they don't pay people to do those things for them like we do. We shouldn't do it because we should only do what we're best at like heart surgery, and not dumb leisure things we suck at, like mowing a lawn. We'll just ignore the fact that if we don't get some leisure time we'd probably all go insane, mind you.

I've written enough that I could have just posted this and left out the video link. Some of you may even be familiar with these arguments, in one form or another. But I want you to watch it, and here's why. These are real honest to goodness people saying these things and making these arguments. I am not making this stuff up. So let's see, I said I'd answer my own question. Just how much batshit insane dumbness can you cram into one video? The answer turns out to be, a whole fuck of a lot. I'm no psychologist/psychiatrist like Dr. Helen, but may I humbly suggest that these people, this includes Dr. Helen mind you, seek some professional help? And please, Dr. Helen, I'm asking, nay begging you, please for the love of "Miss Rand" and John Galt and their mongrel bastard capitalist lovechild, don't "go John Galt" until you've given the people who think there are "Obama thugs" who "might get me" out there the serious serious psychological help they so obviously and desperately need? Pretty please? With sugar on top? In the shape of a dollar sign?

Rally

Can somebody tell me what the difference is between this Palin rally and, say, a KKK rally? In both I see the same kind of random yelling, the same kind of hatred, the same kind of completely unsupportable points. I think this is the first rally clip I've caught that actually looks like it could potentially get violent though. Good job, nutwhack conservatives!

P.S.

I realize I'm picking on conservatives quite a lot in this blog lately, and I honestly don't mean to. If you find some liberal batshit crazy for me to comment on, please send it my way so I can give it the same treatment. I think conservatism tends to lead more toward this sort of nuttiness, liberals tend to get frothy about religion or conspiracy theories. I've already beat on atheists for a while and I suspect most of them are liberals. Still though, realize I'm picking on the people and their stupidity. I think their conservatism contributes to this sort of thing, yes. And I also think that more and more, the Republican Party is hammering on this sort of conservatism. But it is one type of conservative philosophy out of many, and I apologize to the others and share their undoubted sadness at being connected in any way with this idiocy.

Socialism

A friend of mine had an interesting question. Why do people in the US consider socialism and communism to be the same thing, when they're not? I had an answer but now I'm not so sure about it, so we'll see if anybody else has a better one.

Proud again

Remember in the most recent debate where McCain said he was proud of the people who come to his rallies? Remember when he said in response to people screaming "terrorist" and "treason" and such when Obama's name is brought up that there are fringe people at every rally? This seems like an aweful lot of fringe people to me.

I guess if you wanted to go all black helicopter you could assume that since it's al-Jazira that they just searched and searched to find all the nuts. But given the history of racism in this country I think you'd have a pretty hard time proving that. I sincerely hope McCain is correct, and that every single one of these people is on some whacko fringe.

Some of the comments I just don't get. Most of them, sure. Associates with terrorists? That's just McPalin talking points, no matter how much cranky old Flippy McSpin denies it. (Saw Flippy McSpin for McCain on another blog and loved it so much I'm stealing it .. because I'm a commie libral!) Blacks will take over, a "nigruh" running for president is "a second stringer"? Obvious straight up racist bullshit. But where does the crazy woman get off saying that Obama and his wife hate whites? Just exactly what evidence do we have for this? I mean, OK, we don't have any evidence for the rest of it either, but I get where it's coming from.

P.S.

In case anybody reading feels upset at my use of McPalin or Flippy McSpin, I'm sorry but that's funny stuff, I've got a counter combination for you. O'Biden, the foreign policy leprechaun! I guess to be in keeping with the post it'd have to be O'Biden, the nigruh foreign policy leprechaun. There you go, now quit saying all the democrats ever gave you was higher taxes.

Proud

I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, to be lumped in with complete fucking morons. Yay!

Evil work

Is work evil? I don't mean this the way you think I might. What I want to do is analyze a typical doctrine of conservatives. In this camp I'd put Republicans, Objectivists, and Libertarians for a start, there are probably others. While these groups have vast philosophical and ideological differences, they all agree on this point.

All of these groups fear what they often refer to as "handouts". Why do they have a problem with it? Well, here's the theory. If you hand somebody a check, and give them a place to live, and healthcare, they'll be lazy. They won't go out and be productive, i.e. work, because they don't have to, you're giving them everything. They can just sit at home and watch talkshows all day, because they've got money coming in.

This certainly seems vaguely reasonable on the face of it. I'm sure we've all met people who want to get paid to sit and watch TV. There are however two problems with this. First of all, a character problem. Many of the same people who rail against "handouts" and "undeserving" people and such are the same people who wish they'd win the lottery. Then they'd be able to tell that boss off and go get that resort in the Bahamas and lay on the beach all day. So you castigate people for doing something you want to do yourself?

The second problem, and the point of this post, is this. There's an underlying assumption here that's not being talked about, well I haven't seen it, I'm sure it's being talked about and I just don't know it. Let me start with a contrast first. We'll take it in its starkest form for illustrative purposes.

Objectivism not only says productivity is good, but it's in essence the purpose of man's life. Certainly life is the first choice, according to Objectivism, but not just "simple survival", that makes you into a "brute man". Rather it's life as a rational being, read: Objectivist, should live it. And what you want to do with your life is be productive. Why do you want to be productive? Partially for survival, you have to get food and such, but also because there's this sort of inner drive the "men of ability" have. They need to do, to create, to change the world. For Henry, I realize I'm simplifying Objectivism here, but I think my point's fairly accurate. That point is, productivity is not simply a matter of survival, it's a sort of goal in itself, and it's very good.

So, if you give people everything, you make them not want to be productive. Do we have a situation where something like this happens? I think we do. That situation exists as grants. When you are given a research grant, you get money for living expenses, food and shelter and so on, but also money to fund your actual work, the research you're doing, the art you're creating ,etc. While it's true if you fail to come through, you won't get another grant, what matter? Hey, you just got some free money! Even if you'd have to pay it back, hey, worry about that in a year or two, free money!

So what's this thing that's not getting talked about? Well, we've seen that Objectivism, and I think conservatives in general, think that productivity is an end in itself, something that's just good. However, I think this is simply lip service. Why do I say this? Because of the doctrine I mentioned at the beginning. Assuming that if people had basic needs taken care of, food, shelter, health, they'd be lazy slobs who'd never work a day in their life has a corollary. That corollary is, nobody would work if they didn't have to, the only reason people work is because they are compelled by necessity to do so. If they did not have that necessity, they'd never do it.

Obviously I think this is wrong, and I think grants prove it. The whole point with grants is that people get enough to live on and continue their art/research/whatever. You can research AIDS, let's say, and not have to worry about where you'll live and where your next meal is coming from. Obviously I'm assuming a fairly nice grant, but I don't think this is unreasonable, we know such things occur. So if people get this grant, why do they work? For exactly the lip service reason conservatives give.

They are interested in the subject, they have an internal drive to create, or find out how things work, or so on. This can easily apply to other work as well, perhaps somebody really loves numbers and thus finds joy in accounting, for instance. But it's curious to me that conservatives give the doctrine of interest and productivity lip service, but belie it by claiming that if we didn't have to work, we wouldn't. Something related is the idea of shared suffering, hey I had to work and save and whatever for X, so you do too. Otherwise, somebody's getting a "free ride" and they don't deserve that.

So think about it. Next time you hear a Republican or such blathering on about work or productivity or "hard work", realize what they're saying is that there's a necessity to work and if there wasn't, nobody would ever do it. Then think about how, if everybody could stop worrying about where they were going to live and how they'd get their next meal, we might have happier people because they could, potentially, find the work they really enjoyed doing.