"No Offense"
You can please some of the people, some of the time...
by Joel Bowman
“For the fairest.”
~ Inscription on Eris’s golden Apple of Discord
Hella, Iceland - "Crikey! It’s a good thing your editor does not mind holding unpopular opinions. Our reckless, anti-warmongering in Tuesday’s Note excited the umbrage of some gentle readers. (Catch up on our radical reckonings and dive into the comment section fracas – especially if you stand in disagreement – here: "Mostly Peaceful Bombings.")
Of course, we are not so naïve as to expect our own wife to agree with everything we write, much less an audience of thousands of people from different backgrounds all around the world. Notice we did not title this humble publication “Notes From the Echo Chamber.” It would be wrong to abuse independent-minded readers as though we had.
Rather, and unlike many in the so-called “legacy press,” we actively invite disagreement, courting discord like cheeky Eris and her golden apple. Indeed, we are inspired by a long line of ornery gadflies and impenitent contrarians.
Fighting Words: Back in the early 2000s, for example, we used to relish the delivery of Vanity Fair magazine for the pure pleasure of reading the monthly column, appropriately titled “Fighting Words,” from the pen of the late, great Christopher Hitchens. The iconoclastic pugilist rarely pulled his punches, and we disagreed with almost everything he wrote. (Mr. Hitchens was an unreconstructed Trotskyist who rabidly supported the Iraq war, just for starters...)
Still, we rarely parsed one of his columns without having enjoyed a chuckle or an “ah-ha” moment of some sort. And if it was pure disagreement we felt, at least we felt it more so after his essay than before. Of course, those were the good ol’ days, before being offended was considered to be an acute, and in some cases terminal, condition...
That being said, we will continue writing under the assumption that most folks tune in to hear what we honestly think... not what we dishonestly think they want to hear. (There’s enough pandering in the world already, without us adding to the steaming pile.) Besides, if we’re correct in our assessment of the latest quagmire in the Middle East, the mighty Military Industrial Complex will deliver us plenty of opportunity to offend and re-offend thick-skinned readers in future Notes. So, if you’re among the easily outraged... please, do stay tuned for more!
Meanwhile, let us turn from a subject upon which almost nobody can seem to agree, to one which everyone can surely disagree...Here’s CNN, with the latest from the center of the socialist universe: "Zohran Mamdani declares victory in NYC Democratic mayoral primary. New York State assemblyman and democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani declared victory in a speech as he is poised to win the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, with his top challenger Andrew Cuomo conceding the race."
Readers unfamiliar with Mr. Mamdani will grasp most of what they need to know by discovering that he was enthusiastically endorsed by gushing comrade in arms, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The snappy pair of socialists are part of what some, including veteran collectivist Bernie Sanders, are calling the “new guard” of the Democratic Party. This is a party, lest we remind readers, that witnessed the results of the last general election... in which they lost the House, the Senate, the popular vote, the presidency and every swing state there was to lose... and said to itself, “Hmm... perhaps if we moved further left?”
Eat the Rich, Redux: Naturally, Mamdani supports all the usual “eat the rich” slogans... higher taxes for the enviably wealthy and “greedy” capitalists alike, “free” rides on the city’s already dilapidated public transport, collectively owned grocery stores and more governmental intervention in the already highly dysfunctional rental market. (We addressed many of these ideas in another Note, titled “Real Socialists”. ) “But, but, but...” comes the inevitable rejoinder to our frequent socialist-bashing, “Bernie and his DemSoc juniors are not talking about Havana/Caracas/Soviet-style socialism... rather, they’re aiming more at Denmark-style socialism.”
Which would be fine... except Denmark is not a socialist nation, as Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was at some pains to note in a direct response to Bernie’s continued mischaracterization of his country and its people. “I would like to make one thing clear,” Prime Minister Rasmussen said in a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy. “Denmark is a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.”
Like its Nordic neighbors, Denmark is able to sustain generous welfare programs – universal healthcare, public education, etc. – because of its dynamic, highly functional capitalist economy. It is not the way it spends its money that makes it rich, in other words, but the way it generates it in the first place.
Denmark also happens to be a high trust society, something that cannot exactly be said of the mean streets of many a Democrat-run city in the US, where crime is rampant, baby formula lives behind plexiglass and stealing up to $950 of goods is considered by a growing demographic to be just a new and fashionable way of shopping, because: oppression.
We laid over in Copenhagen on the way to this icy End of the World earlier in the week and were reminded of this quaint cultural distinction when we saw the self-service vending machines and self-service stations at the airport...
Live Free and Prosper: For the uninitiated, these outlets operate entirely on the honor system. One makes their selection from a menu, swipes their credit card for the appropriate amount, then opens the door to the entire fridge, with all the goods within reach, and simply takes what he has paid for... and nothing more.
The items are not protected in individually-packaged and alarmed plastic containers, there are no security personnel to ensure compliance, and one gets the feeling nobody would dare entertain anything so wild as a smash-and-grab style shoplifting frenzy, as are regularly witnessed in cities from San Francisco to New York and between.
Buying people off with stolen freebies and relieving them from individual responsibility might win elections among low trust voters in the short term, but it doesn’t make the underlying society peaceful and prosperous in the long run. For that you need free markets, free minds and free people. But you already knew that didn’t you, dear reader. See you in the comments…And stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World..."
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