Worst century ever

“Roadside bombers and tsunamis. Oh God, how I miss those Commies.”

My second favorite Jimmy Buffett song is his tribute to Tierra Del Feugo: Party at the End of the World. The verse relevant to this post is

In case you hadn’t heard, things are getting quite absurd
No one really shocks us that’s for sure
Roadside bombers and tsunamis. Oh God, how I miss those Commies
No one seems to play fair anymore

Likewise, my second favorite Grateful Dead song is Touch of Grey. The relevant passage is

I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It’s even worse than it appears
But it’s all right

Cows are giving kerosene
The kid can’t read at seventeen
The words he knows are all obscene
But it’s all right

Both songs deal with a world that is ever-changing for the worst. The Dead’s song was from 1987 and it was optimistic: I will survive.

20 years later, Buffett didn’t want to survive. His solution was Buffettian: get drunk and party.

The Dead’s response was strictly 20th century. The sun will always come out tomorrow and we will get another chance to right the wrong.

Buffett’s response was 21st century. The sun will always come out tomorrow and we will have to go through this shit again.

Y2K ushered in the new millennium that begins with a 2. It presaged this senseless century.

Forbes reported on December 29, 2019, “For a time 20 years ago, millions of people, including corporate chiefs and government leaders, feared that the internet was going to crash and shatter on New Year’s Eve and bring much of civilization crumbling down with it. This was all because computers around the world weren’t equipped to deal with the fact of the year 2000. Their software thought of years as two digits. When the year 99 gave way to the year 00, data would behave as if it were about the year 1900, a century before, and system upon system in an almost infinite chain of dominoes would fail. Billions were spent trying to prepare for what seemed almost inevitable.”

Secretly, I hoped we would go back to 1900 again. No FBI. No Federal Reserve. No IRS. Less than half as many people lived in DC and what are now high-priced, leafy suburbs were farms back then.

Alas, it was not to be. Forbes said, “But then, when the end of the year did come, and midnight struck in time zone after time zone around the globe, almost nothing happened.”

But like the Comet Kohoutek, Y2K taught us a valuable lesson on trust, and the next time the media and the government conspired to panic the public we — fell for it again and called it covid-19 because we are a pretty foolish people.

Before that came 9/11, which was a real problem. President George W. Bush rose to the occasion, literally grabbing the bullhorn to tell those complaining they couldn’t hear: “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”

It was a great moment in history as Bush showed leadership that America had not seen in decades. Unfortunately, what the people who knocked those buildings down heard was Islam Is A Religion Of Peace. FDR didn’t caution Americans against Japanophobia after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

But his was a 20th century reaction to sneak attacks. In the 21st century, we must be timid in our words and lame in our actions. We cannot blame every Muslim for the actions of the few, right?

And within weeks we were indiscriminately bombing Afghanistan and Iraq. Now we are telling Israel not to destroy Hamas because the payback must be proportional. And we know how well 50 years of proportionality has worked out for Israel.

The 21st century has given us shorter life expectancies.

This comes despite a plethora of safety laws from the FDA, OSHA, CDC and numerous other federal agencies. By despite, I mean because — because they don’t know what they are doing. They just do what they want and if anyone calls them on that, they deny, deny, deny. One study in an obscure academic journal tried to link asthma to gas stoves. The bureaucracy declared war on gas stoves. Never mind the benefits of gas stoves — cheaper, safer, quicker to use and a better way of cooking. Some kid somewhere might get asthma. Maybe.

I liked it better when Congress, not the bureaucrats, wrote and enacted the laws.

But passing laws risks voter reaction so Congress puts lawmaking on automatic pilot and everyone gets re-elected. The richest men among the rich men north of Richmond are not the ones who lobby Congress but the ones who lobby the bureaucracies and the congressional staffers.

I liked it even better when the people made the law. The courts now will have none of that.

In 2008, Californians voted to ban gay marriage. Not only did the courts declare the new amendment to the state constitution “unconstitutional,” but the Supreme Court later declared gay marriage the law of the land in 2015 under the 14th Amendment, which was ratified on July 9, 1868. Somehow after winning the Civil War, Republicans enacted gay marriage but kept it secret for 147 years.

In the 21st century, love is love. For the first 20 centuries, God was love. I think He still is.

In the 20th century, sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you.

In the 21st century, you watch your mouth or the always-angry, ever-ready mob will go after you. The left is a generation of Suzy Snowflakes.

Geniuses created an automotive industry based on gasoline, a waste product in the refining of kerosene from oil. They built a supply chain, support system and interstate system that enabled people to drive across the country in days, as refueling took but a few minutes.

Idiots are forcing us to abandon that in favor of unreliable battery-operated cars that have almost no infrastructure for repairs and maintenance, and have to recharge for hours every 300 miles or so. We are replacing pickup trucks with overdeveloped golf carts.

In the 20th century, the nation built floodwalls and dams to tame mother nature. The dams created water reservoirs and provided electricity.

In the 21st century, we are tearing them down in the benighted belief that nature is pure and everything man makes is a sin. Then they tell us they will replace our steaks with meat made in a lab.

Oh, and you will eat bugs.

But the biggest problem with this century are the lies. The media outlets no longer are content with telling just one side of a story. No, now they make things up and report on imaginary facts. The Russian election interference hoax was used to discredit the 2016 election. The insurrection hoax was used to discredit legitimate concerns about the 2020 election and to throw shade on the 2024 election.

Democrats in Colorado and Maine are pretending there was an insurrection to invoke the 14th Amendment ban on Confederates seeking federal office — congressman, senator and elector in the Electoral College — to ban Trump from the presidential ballot.

Rather than mock these loons by pointing out the fact that he was never charged or convicted of insurrection, the media promotes this idiocy.

AP reported, “Congress did remove that disability from most Confederates in 1872, and the provision fell into disuse. But it was rediscovered after January 6.”

How could Congress magically remove a section of the Constitution without ratification by three-fourths of the states? AP does not say. Instead it says the ban magically “doesn't require a criminal conviction to take effect.”

Says who?

The story does not say. In fact, the story quotes no one on anything. There are no citations with the exception of quoting the Constitution. The story pretends to give both sides to the legal argument without bothering to talk to any of the lawyers. It is the weirdest thing that I have seen in journalism.

Which means it totally fits in the 21st century.

I named my second favorite Grateful Dead song, figuring readers would know my favorite is Truckin.’ Of course. Everyone likes the song about traveling and getting busted by the cops. Its message is simply accept the absurdity of life.

Sometimes the light's all shinin’ on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it’s been

And of course, my favorite Buffett tune is Margaritaville. The song made him a billionaire. While it tells the story of a self-pitying man, it ends with him finally assuming responsibility for his situation.

Yes, and some people claim
That there’s a woman to blame
And I know, it’s my own damn fault

The 21st century didn’t just happen. We made this mess we are now in. We have to ignore the diversions and get back to the basics. Government exists to protect our liberties, not our lives.

I suggest prayer. Psalm 46 is a good start.