Today, I would like to apologize for having watched every episode of The L Word. I also apologize for my fellow libertarian, Tom Palmer’s, hypersensitivity and extreme, irrational, unfair anti-Southern bias.
Since starting this site and blog sometime in 2001, I’ve always called it by the boring name, “StephanKinsella.com Web Log.” It’s time for a change. The new name is…. “THE DAILY APOLOGY: The Libertarian Blog of Stephan Kinsella”
Please help me think of things to apologize for, since we must ever appease our fellow dimwit-Serioso libertarians and other totalitarian-minded dimwits.
***
I’ve decided for now to do a separate blog: The Daily Apology. Feel free to post!
I apologize today for being white. I apologize to Tom Palmer and his dimwit-Serioso ilk for having a sense of humor, and for not having a stick up my ass. I apologize for the Holocaust and slavery. I apologize for not apologizing earlier, and for any deficiencies of this apology. I apologize for being a neoConfederate even though I am not one. And I better apologize for not being a neoConfederate too, just to cover all bases. I apologize for not being a bigot, and for defending people who are not bigots from false charges of bigotry.
6,859,481: Optically-pumped multiple-quantum well active region with improved distribution of optical pumping power.
My movie parodying the moronic punks on this Not Reason thread. Made w/ the D.Film moviemaker engine. Respek to Pete Canning.
Is it just me, or is Cal Thomas’s popularity and success a mystery? He has that stiff, weird, vaguely inbred, almost Down’s Syndrome look a lot of suspenders-wearing small-town fundamentalist types do, no?
Coda: Pete Canning scared me by sending me these two pix. Oh no! 
Our baby is now in school from 8:30 to 3:00 every day, so the nanny does housework and errands etc. for us during those hours. Yesterday I asked her to go to 2 grocery stores and the drug store, and also asked her to drive by a local cafeteria–it’s like a Luby’s or Piccadilly. I asked her to get 2 meals for the wife and me, and wrote it down on a list. I made the mistake of showing her the cafeteria’s full menu and circled about a dozen items we like there, that she could resort to in case they were out of one of the items I had written down, or that I request in the future. She called me that afternoon and told me she ran out of money, had to dip into her own wallet. I was perplexed since I gave her ample funds for all the errands. Then it dawned on me. My fridge is now full of white styrofoam meal containers from the cafeteria. She ordered everything I had circled. I could not stop laughing. She was so embarrassed. She said the lady at the cafeteria wondered why so much food, and she told her she assumed I was having company that night. Thank God some of the things I had circled were daily specials throughout the week so they didn’t have them. I told her not to bring her lunch today as we have plenty of food in the fridge.
Ever notice in movies the cool guys hold beers in a way no one ever does in real life? They hook their index or middle finger over the very tip of the bottle, as if it’s a cigar, then with a flick of the wrist they upend the bottle, as if it’s a cheroot. Real guys in the real world hold beer bottles by the fat part. And then they get jealous of the cool way the cool guys in movies hold them.
When you buy a lottery ticket and the clerk tells you, “Good luck!,” what exactly does he mean? Surely he is not telling this to you only. He says it to all customers. Does he wish that all of them win? Surely that’s not what they wish.
A Theory of Lopez’s Theory on Incivility [posted here; it seems to be held up for moderation for now]
As I have noted elsewhere, many nutjobs, conspiracy theorists, losers, racists, cranks, etc., associate with movements like libertarianism, conservatism, militias, common law courts, etc. I think the reason is, in part, that when a view is marginalized by mainstream American–e.g., libertarianism, militias, etc.–then successful people tend not to associate with it, since they have something to lose. Some of us have the fortitude and type of careers that allow us to swim against the tide anyway, yet still keep a foot in a successful career, but not everyone.
So these movements tend to draw disproportionate numbers of those who have little to lose–i.e., losers, uneducated, those on the bottom rungs of society. This is why, for example, at libertarian-party or similar events I’ve spoken at or attended, where, e.g., the topic might be something academic like whether decentralized legal systems (judge-made law, courts, common law, Roman law) are superior to centralized, legislation-based systems, many of the people who show up are uneducated Harley riders who ask you over and over again about the nutball “common law court” stuff (this happened to me one time at a FEE-sponsored discussion group in Valley Forge), or ask you to show where in the tax code you are “required” to pay income tax, etc.
And this is why militia movements, for example, which in the older days would have upstanding citizens and “patriots” as its supporters, now are populated with gun nuts, racists, skinheads, anti-semites, etc. These are the type of people who have nothing to lose so have the luxury of joining a marginalized movement, thereby making it even more marginalized and crankish.
So it’s understandable that the only people willing, by and large, to openly challenge mainstream views by endorsing views marginalized or ridiculed by conventional society are those with little to lose. Sometimes someone with stature or courage or backbone will buck the trend, or become martyrs, but by and large, it’s understandable why those with little to lose–who are either losers, or retired billionaires–predominate.
(As an aside–something like this has been true for some time regarding politically correctness. For a couple decades now there were things you just could not say or question–especially if you were (no offense, Lopez) a white male). But just as explicit socialism has crumbled along with the Soviet empire, so the majority are starting to shrug, like Atlas, the burden continually placed on them by the PC Seriosos. They are sick of being told they are evil for being white or in the majority, or for holding preferences similar to those held by the whining minorities or special interests; and the escalating, shrill cries of the politically-correct have become ever more absurd, making them sound ever more like bleaters. They have diluted and distorted and twisted concepts like racism, bigotry, anti-semitism so much that no one bats an eye any more when a dimwit cries “racist!”; people roll their eyes and move on. And this is as it should be. So my point here is that it’s becoming more and more acceptable to be “politically incorrect” as the PC standards are revealed as being hypocritical, strange, unfair. Again, no offense, Lopez.)
This brings me to my point, though. Lopez (and Kennedy? I can’t recall) seems remarkably passionate about not following any rules of civility. I suspect one reason for this is he is just a marginal nobody with nothing to lose. While I do criticize him elsewhere, I don’t mean this to be a criticism at all, just a hypothesis. From what I know of Lopez, he is a blogger and a blogger only; no real publications or books, no credentials or status, no “name,” etc. This is true of most of us so again, I don’t mean this to be a criticism at all. It’s in part a suggested explanation as to why some blogger types will be so incivil–because they have nothing to lose–no book deals, no TV interviews, no teaching positions, etc.
Now, no doubt some might try to rebut this by saying that I, Kinsella, am also incivil. This would be ridiculous, for a few reasons.
First, so what? So what if it applies to me too? So what if I’m a hypocrit? It does not mean I’m wrong.
Second, I am not generally incivil, but only to the marginalized losers who are incivil because of this status. Mainstream society does not frown too much on responding to losers, as long as one is not a loser himself.
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