People who dramatically unsubscribe are the same people that share Facebook posts of throwing away Goya food cans. Just do it, and shut the fuck up about it. deBoer likes to brag about the cheese he's making, so he mentioned he makes about quarter mil from this gig. Your $5 don't really matter. Your threat is laughable.
I read deBoer because I like his writing, not because I think I'd like him as a person. He's a typical scumbag leftist and Marxist, with all that entails, including blinding self-righteousness. So what? Good writers and other artists are often assholes. James Joyce was notorious for being one.
People dramatically unsubscribing is no worse than all of the patronizing tools who rush to the comments every post to let everyone know that they, unlike that idiot who they pay every single month to hear their opinions, are much too smart to be Marxist.
Yeah, man, I’m sure Freddie is waiting with bated breath to hear comments about his “blinding self-righteousness.” Paying literal money to be able to comment on an avowed Marxist’s newsletter just to get circlejerk upvotes from other culture warriors is probably the lamest thing I can think of.
The only real purpose of your comment is to signal, so please take some of your own advice and keep your patronizing, useless comments to yourself. Learn a little respect or write your own fucking newsletter.
I didn't mean to get under your skin that much. I'm sure deBoer is not waiting with baited breath for anything written in these comments, including your very sincere and passionate defense of poor Freddie by a lame meanie like me.
I write what I want when I want. I'm sorry that bothers you. Actually, I just lied. I'm not sorry at all. I will not stop criticizing Marxists and socialists just because you want something else. Why don't you take some of your own advice and write your own newsletter where you can control who gets to do what. Never forget, you have the option of not going into the comments at all, to avoid dealing with uncouth proles such as myself.
P.S. Can you please upvote my comment since I upvoted yours? You measure worth by Internet likes. That is a sign, and it's a bad one.
He's a big boy, he can take it. And it's nothing personal. All Marxists are actually scumbags. There's a lot of graves, and I mean a LOT of graves, that prove this point.
I don't see deBoer as a host. This is not some salon. This is the Internet where criticism is allowed. Why do you subscribe to someone whose politics you abhor? Because I like their writing. Nobody seems to believe me. Where else would I get a well written defense for something awful like giving even more power to race hustlers? Good writers, like good anything, don't just grow on trees.
Look, I don’t care what you think about socialists or Marxists or whatever. As much as whatever you might think of my opinions, I’m sure there’s some issue where I’d surprise you. (FWIW, I don’t even consider myself a socialist.)
All I’m saying is that going on Freddie’s comments and calling him (paraphrasing) a dumb, self-righteous asshole is unhelpful, annoying, and an abuse of his very lax moderation policies.
There’s people on here far to my right who vehemently disagree with Freddie on nearly everything, and while I wonder why they’re here, I respect their right to be here and argue their positions. It’s a big tent and I’m not insecure about my positions. But they’re respectful. And you’re not.
Newsflash: When you declare your passionate hate for America, how much you hate hate HATE HATE!!!!! HATE!!!!!!1!!!!!!!1111!! it, except.... for all the good things that you like you and would get nowhere else you ARE being a " dumb, self-righteous asshole". You can't just come into the dining room, take a shit on the table, whipe your ass with a flag, grab a turkey leg on your way out and expect everyone to like it. If you want respect you got to give respect, and coming out of the gate with "let me tell you about all the ways I hate America" is pretty disrespectful.
And I assure you, I'm not the first one to come up with a brilliant observation that socialists are self-righteous.
You are the writer of this. Surely you understand that when you write stuff that is highly offensive, that is MEANT to be highly offensive, some people get offended. And surely being called "self-righteous" and "sanctimonious" are not the worst things you've been called in your life. I stand by my thoughts on the subject,
Can’t believe I’m ‘entering the fray’ already batting second, but let it be known that IMHO FdB is not a scumbag!
I do have further thoughts about the college-loan column though. As a Californian of a certain age who was able to take advantage of the inexpensive tuition rates that were part of the OG state master plan for higher ed. in the post-war era, the inflation of tuition truly has been astonishing. That it was accomplished and has been sustained by a bipartisan consensus, though, is undeniable. Money talks to both sides. Just how much wealthier is Nancy Pelosi now than when she first entered Congress?
The left has consistently invoked Reagan as the boogeyman behind de-regulation and a host of other negative developments since his days in office lo those many years ago, but, as time passes and his well-coiffed corpse grows colder, his services as an all-purpose villain grow less reliable. I’m not defending him, and am at least as put-off by right wingers’ worship of him. But all of that just underscores the need for viable alternatives to the Big 2 parties that dominate American politics. Burning effigies of dead men is just about as deranged as defending bronze equestrian statues of failed champions of slavery.
We have a lot to do. We know that the ongoing sumo match isn’t going to end anytime soon. But a 3rd party that could establish a grass-roots base and interpose people into the see-saw battles on various levels could tip the balance away from the political stasis we’re living with. How about that as a subject of future musings?
Yeah FdB is pretty much the opposite of a scumbag. But for some reason I assumed JR was just grouping him within the Dirtbag Left group of writers/podcasters*, rather than using a straight-up pejorative? But what do I know. Glass half-full over here.
All good. The comment action is always interesting. If he wasn’t any good that wouldn’t be the case. But it flies so fast I can’t always keep up. Usually I have to get ready for work. Today I’ve got a response in mind to a member of another tribe who apparently likes reading him too but obviously IDs w/those elephants on the other side of the ball. But, despite my typically left-leaning aversion to yard work, I’ve got stuff to do first...
I didn't comment on the Thanksgiving one because it seemed like your basic thrust was too simple to really engage with; it wasn't an invitation to debate, but a declaration. The American Empire is a horrorshow of brutality on its fringes and in its maintenance, but a holiday specifically set aside for feasting with kin and friends in a spirit of gratitude for what life has thrown your way is still pretty cool. Just like, aight. Logging it now, but I've no real response.
But I will admit it HAS been bugging me since you posted. I expect mostly just residual outrage at people who bring "America BAD!" to every discussion. Just how I was raised, and I've mostly grown out of the outrage.
I just started a job at a middle school where they say the pledge of allegiance every morning. Kids are supposed to stop and place their right hand over their heart as it's being read, but of course they don't and I'm supposed to stop them and correct them. I don't have the heart for the task. These kids don't know jack shit about fuck. No conception of what citizenship means, no idea what America is or does, not framework to view the world. They just know the adults want them to do something so they don't wanna. I would love to explain to them that patriotism doesn't count if it's coerced, that I will never, ever stop them to make them stand still and mumble the pledge even if the admin try to make me. But I'd also like to give them a crash course in history about how America was founded at war with itself, with its high ideals of liberty at odds with its material realities. I'd like to walk them through its development over the centuries, show that as the friction increased and the boiling points were reached, material realities shattered on contact with ideals and gave way, allowing other contradictions and conflicts to step up and begin the pressure cooker anew.
We are still at war with ourselves. The contradictions between what we do and what we tell ourselves we do are still here. The pressure cooker continues building. And that I don't think the high ideals will win again unless the population- aka, the people, today's children and tomorrow's citizens- decides they will. And they won't, if they decide they hate their own country and that the ideals were bullshit since the start.
So I kinda see the "Hate your country, loves parts of its civic religion" rhetoric as counterproductive. I don't think citizens should hate their country except for a few things they pick and choose, like a kid picking the good candy out of a Halloween bowl and leaving the low-quality stuff behind. I think they should love it. I think they should be fiercely attached to it, and hate the current condition it's in.
Meh. I'm just a dumbass who got too much romanticism as a youngin', what do I know.
Funny how the readership changes over the years. If this was 2016 on your blog I'd assume all the anger about that Thanksgiving post was from people who thought you were too soft on Thanksgiving and ritual, but here and now it's all people who think you're too hard on America.
"There's the basic market economics of something dropping in value as it is produced in surplus."
The imbalance isn't just happenstance. There are people responsible for it.
I worked from the age of 12 in agriculture, manufacturing, food service, construction... got married then took a pay cut to work in the corporate supply room with my strategy to get my foot into the MIS department because I had decided that was the career I wanted to pursue. I did this all while earning my undergraduate degree in business and finance. I was a B+ average student in high school. Worked after school, on the weekends while also playing on the varsity basketball team, and the track team. Also played guitar and sang lead in a rock cover tunes dance band (well... it was the 80s so it was sort of rock).
I have neighbors retired in their 50s from their government jobs. They feel they deserve it. They don't. I have been working many more years and will continue to work until I die. I think that is what we are supposed to do.
I am the oldest of three... my mom and natural father divorced when I was 10, she remarried to a younger man when I was 13... a man that would adopt me even though he sucked as a father and my school life suffered because my family life was a bit of hell. I was out of there at 18 after graduating high school and I never looked back.
Of course, our life-experience shapes our worldview. Mine was one where I don't hold a single ounce of guilt nor regret. I know I earned everything I own today... it was through hard work, goal setting, toil, struggle, perseverance... risk-taking, not giving a shit about what others thought of me because I always knew myself and developed a foundation of self-worth that could not be shaken. That never meant I would be closed to learning. THAT as much as anything, I think, was always my key to success... abundant curiosity to advance in that mediocrity of American life. Work is where most of that learning takes place. It is humbling.
But when I look back and consider the game today, what I see is that we have destroyed the multitude of work pathways people could navigate to acquire a good life. Those pathways, like the meandering one I took to be CEO of two businesses today, used to be plentiful relative to the number of people served by them.
There are a number of forces of change that contributed the current and growing imbalance between the supply and demand of career paths, but it all boils down to this... we have seen our government policies and society in general favor the growth of wealth instead of ensuring an abundance of work.... and related to that a dysfunctional view of human hierarchy that assigns significantly higher societal value to someone that milked student loans to acquire a PHD in gender-studies than it does for the high school graduate that worked with his hands, took out a loan on an F-150 and founded his own small business. Thank many parents for that... not wanting to have to explain to their peers that they little darlings are anything less than well-credentialed academics from prestigious schools without any calluses on their hands.
I'm sorry... but education is not life. Most people do not find their meaning and purpose in life until they work pursuing a career. Most people don't get the fog cleared from their muffin heads until and unless they work assesses off in the competitive meritocracy of enterprise.
But we allowed the elites to piss away these work-path assets we previously had. That was the glue that held us together... it was the reason that immigrants flocked here instead of more for the handouts today.
The kids, after achieving their over-priced degree, now expect to be planted firmly in a 30-hour per week, six-figure salary with lots of benefits and paid time off, where robots and lowly uneducated immigrant serfs do the physical work.
After the crushing administrative overreach of the COVID authoritarians, the Biden Democrats have just accelerated the war on the working class, the war on small business and propagation of a massive, big corporation consolidation. The postmodernist Marxist hive we label as woke, in their nihilist deconstruction project, have conveniently added a war on work. The kids not only demand that their student loans be paid off by taxpayers, but that they should get Universal Basic Income and free healthcare and subsidized rent... so they can travel and vlog to help fill their lack of life meaning.
Sorry, but the little shits will not achieve any life-meaning that way. They will not earn a better life. They will not deserve anything close to the social hierarchy standing that they think they deserve.
Today I was out talking to the local small business owners in the town where my family has a cabin. They cannot find any workers. Nobody wants to work. The kids all got lots of Biden Bucks. They have had their unemployment benefits extended. They are back living with mom and dad and maximizing their screen time.
What a damn mess... a mess of our own making... a mess that is specifically and directly related to a shift in American values away from what has made us great to what will destroy us. Fixing what is broken will require a shift back to policies that increase the supply of work and the incentives to work, and a corresponding shift in societal views that value those that work over those that wave their academic credential while flapping their gums demanding that someone else pay for it.
It’s appallingly common to undervalue work, simply work, any work. Bad job, good job, another job. Damn it, any work is far better than no work. And not in a materialistic sense, either.
Probably the thanksgiving post annoyed people on both ends of the horseshoe: one end doesn't like that you can hate your country, and the other end doesn't like that you can still love its rituals.
I subscribe because I appreciate your perspective. Doesn't mean I agree with it. Matter of fact, I do because I often don't.
Churchill once observed something to the affect that Americans will always do the right thing, but only after we've tried everything else. Bad as it may be that puts us ahead of the pack, and we need to make the most of it.
>they are very good at busting the myth that students are simply clay to be molded by talented and hardworking teachers, and that there are externalities the education system can’t control which contributes to our problems.
Sentence structure confusion: are there two myths here, or only one? Blank-slatism is well-known and frequently put paid to, but I thought "learning begins at home" etc. was actually true, rather than dewey-eyed Deweyism. (Of course, the question of *whether* schools ought to be in the wraparound services business is a separate question. There have ever been systemic issues which one can at least modestly stop the bleeding on for modest sums, e.g. school lunch programs.)
The ritualistic Thanksgiving post...didn't touch the comments there cause it got so heated (Feature Not Bug?). But I guess I wanted to say that it's one of a handful which would have been tipping points to me subscribing, if I wasn't already. There's all the usual classics, your Greatest Hits that Everybody Knows, and those are of course excellent. But I'm primarily here for the honesty and candor, the sense not so much that "this dude's the truth" (though you've got your strong topics in that column, of course)...more like, "this guy is writing just to write, and loves the shit out of the act itself". The same sense some other bloggers give off, where they like blogging way more than their actual day jobs. Authentic passion just feels hard to find in this curated modern world. So much so-called writing ends up feeling like ad copy...too much focus on selling ideas, whether or not they're any good, or anyone actually believes in them.
Anyway, I'm glad you published it, and look forward to Thanksgiving reaction post.gif later.
I follow people on Substack who I think generally have interesting things to say — many of whom I often disagree with, and that’s fine. It’s more than fine — it’s incredibly valuable to routinely take in ideas that do not match your own. And I have no problem at all with people disagreeing with me in return. It’s healthy, and I think we need more dialogue between people who don’t see eye to eye on everything in this country today.
The only problem is when people react to a different view or pointed question with a lack of civility or reflexive attack. There is SO MUCH of that everywhere these days, and substack can — at its best — be a refuge from that. As such, my only problem with your Thanksgiving post was actually your immediate accusation of “troll” to my honest observation/question born out of my own direct experience. That seemingly defensive (and quite tired) response brings nothing to the discourse. I was surprised at that.
And I think the reaction to your response suggested that perhaps it wasn’t your best moment. There has to be such a temptation to bask in the glow of the sycophantic responses you receive and dismiss any constructive feedback. I wonder if you would ever admit to a misstep in that response, if upon reflection you agreed that it was perhaps uncalled for.
I did not make a dramatic declaration about unsubscribing — it didn’t occur to me to unsubscribe at this point. I’m hoping your response was an anomaly and that I still, on net, will extract something useful from this follow. That comment — and one or two followers who seem intent on turning your substack into a nasty, worthless Twitter feed — did make me pull out of that discussion, though. I rarely comment on substack. But when I do, I hope for a civil, good faith conversation. If that’s generally not to be found in your comment section, I’ll stay away from it in the future. Life is too short to waste time like that!
I liked your "you can hate your country but love its rituals". Your country is both: the place and the people.
But on further reflection, if you hate your country, and you have the free option to leave, but choose not to leave - either your "hate" is performative, or is a form of magic thinking. If there's a better place, you should go.
When you don't "accept what you cannot change", you are choosing to hate - you are choosing to be a hater. Hate America's problems is OK, hating America is OK;
hating America but staying there when you don't have to? Something wrong with you.
People who dramatically unsubscribe are the same people that share Facebook posts of throwing away Goya food cans. Just do it, and shut the fuck up about it. deBoer likes to brag about the cheese he's making, so he mentioned he makes about quarter mil from this gig. Your $5 don't really matter. Your threat is laughable.
I read deBoer because I like his writing, not because I think I'd like him as a person. He's a typical scumbag leftist and Marxist, with all that entails, including blinding self-righteousness. So what? Good writers and other artists are often assholes. James Joyce was notorious for being one.
People dramatically unsubscribing is no worse than all of the patronizing tools who rush to the comments every post to let everyone know that they, unlike that idiot who they pay every single month to hear their opinions, are much too smart to be Marxist.
Yeah, man, I’m sure Freddie is waiting with bated breath to hear comments about his “blinding self-righteousness.” Paying literal money to be able to comment on an avowed Marxist’s newsletter just to get circlejerk upvotes from other culture warriors is probably the lamest thing I can think of.
The only real purpose of your comment is to signal, so please take some of your own advice and keep your patronizing, useless comments to yourself. Learn a little respect or write your own fucking newsletter.
I didn't mean to get under your skin that much. I'm sure deBoer is not waiting with baited breath for anything written in these comments, including your very sincere and passionate defense of poor Freddie by a lame meanie like me.
I write what I want when I want. I'm sorry that bothers you. Actually, I just lied. I'm not sorry at all. I will not stop criticizing Marxists and socialists just because you want something else. Why don't you take some of your own advice and write your own newsletter where you can control who gets to do what. Never forget, you have the option of not going into the comments at all, to avoid dealing with uncouth proles such as myself.
P.S. Can you please upvote my comment since I upvoted yours? You measure worth by Internet likes. That is a sign, and it's a bad one.
Calling your host a "scumbag" is generally considered impolite.
He's a big boy, he can take it. And it's nothing personal. All Marxists are actually scumbags. There's a lot of graves, and I mean a LOT of graves, that prove this point.
I don't see deBoer as a host. This is not some salon. This is the Internet where criticism is allowed. Why do you subscribe to someone whose politics you abhor? Because I like their writing. Nobody seems to believe me. Where else would I get a well written defense for something awful like giving even more power to race hustlers? Good writers, like good anything, don't just grow on trees.
Look, I don’t care what you think about socialists or Marxists or whatever. As much as whatever you might think of my opinions, I’m sure there’s some issue where I’d surprise you. (FWIW, I don’t even consider myself a socialist.)
All I’m saying is that going on Freddie’s comments and calling him (paraphrasing) a dumb, self-righteous asshole is unhelpful, annoying, and an abuse of his very lax moderation policies.
There’s people on here far to my right who vehemently disagree with Freddie on nearly everything, and while I wonder why they’re here, I respect their right to be here and argue their positions. It’s a big tent and I’m not insecure about my positions. But they’re respectful. And you’re not.
Newsflash: When you declare your passionate hate for America, how much you hate hate HATE HATE!!!!! HATE!!!!!!1!!!!!!!1111!! it, except.... for all the good things that you like you and would get nowhere else you ARE being a " dumb, self-righteous asshole". You can't just come into the dining room, take a shit on the table, whipe your ass with a flag, grab a turkey leg on your way out and expect everyone to like it. If you want respect you got to give respect, and coming out of the gate with "let me tell you about all the ways I hate America" is pretty disrespectful.
And I assure you, I'm not the first one to come up with a brilliant observation that socialists are self-righteous.
I'm about to put you on timeout.
You are the writer of this. Surely you understand that when you write stuff that is highly offensive, that is MEANT to be highly offensive, some people get offended. And surely being called "self-righteous" and "sanctimonious" are not the worst things you've been called in your life. I stand by my thoughts on the subject,
Can’t believe I’m ‘entering the fray’ already batting second, but let it be known that IMHO FdB is not a scumbag!
I do have further thoughts about the college-loan column though. As a Californian of a certain age who was able to take advantage of the inexpensive tuition rates that were part of the OG state master plan for higher ed. in the post-war era, the inflation of tuition truly has been astonishing. That it was accomplished and has been sustained by a bipartisan consensus, though, is undeniable. Money talks to both sides. Just how much wealthier is Nancy Pelosi now than when she first entered Congress?
The left has consistently invoked Reagan as the boogeyman behind de-regulation and a host of other negative developments since his days in office lo those many years ago, but, as time passes and his well-coiffed corpse grows colder, his services as an all-purpose villain grow less reliable. I’m not defending him, and am at least as put-off by right wingers’ worship of him. But all of that just underscores the need for viable alternatives to the Big 2 parties that dominate American politics. Burning effigies of dead men is just about as deranged as defending bronze equestrian statues of failed champions of slavery.
We have a lot to do. We know that the ongoing sumo match isn’t going to end anytime soon. But a 3rd party that could establish a grass-roots base and interpose people into the see-saw battles on various levels could tip the balance away from the political stasis we’re living with. How about that as a subject of future musings?
Yeah FdB is pretty much the opposite of a scumbag. But for some reason I assumed JR was just grouping him within the Dirtbag Left group of writers/podcasters*, rather than using a straight-up pejorative? But what do I know. Glass half-full over here.
*which he's also not.
All good. The comment action is always interesting. If he wasn’t any good that wouldn’t be the case. But it flies so fast I can’t always keep up. Usually I have to get ready for work. Today I’ve got a response in mind to a member of another tribe who apparently likes reading him too but obviously IDs w/those elephants on the other side of the ball. But, despite my typically left-leaning aversion to yard work, I’ve got stuff to do first...
I didn't comment on the Thanksgiving one because it seemed like your basic thrust was too simple to really engage with; it wasn't an invitation to debate, but a declaration. The American Empire is a horrorshow of brutality on its fringes and in its maintenance, but a holiday specifically set aside for feasting with kin and friends in a spirit of gratitude for what life has thrown your way is still pretty cool. Just like, aight. Logging it now, but I've no real response.
But I will admit it HAS been bugging me since you posted. I expect mostly just residual outrage at people who bring "America BAD!" to every discussion. Just how I was raised, and I've mostly grown out of the outrage.
I just started a job at a middle school where they say the pledge of allegiance every morning. Kids are supposed to stop and place their right hand over their heart as it's being read, but of course they don't and I'm supposed to stop them and correct them. I don't have the heart for the task. These kids don't know jack shit about fuck. No conception of what citizenship means, no idea what America is or does, not framework to view the world. They just know the adults want them to do something so they don't wanna. I would love to explain to them that patriotism doesn't count if it's coerced, that I will never, ever stop them to make them stand still and mumble the pledge even if the admin try to make me. But I'd also like to give them a crash course in history about how America was founded at war with itself, with its high ideals of liberty at odds with its material realities. I'd like to walk them through its development over the centuries, show that as the friction increased and the boiling points were reached, material realities shattered on contact with ideals and gave way, allowing other contradictions and conflicts to step up and begin the pressure cooker anew.
We are still at war with ourselves. The contradictions between what we do and what we tell ourselves we do are still here. The pressure cooker continues building. And that I don't think the high ideals will win again unless the population- aka, the people, today's children and tomorrow's citizens- decides they will. And they won't, if they decide they hate their own country and that the ideals were bullshit since the start.
So I kinda see the "Hate your country, loves parts of its civic religion" rhetoric as counterproductive. I don't think citizens should hate their country except for a few things they pick and choose, like a kid picking the good candy out of a Halloween bowl and leaving the low-quality stuff behind. I think they should love it. I think they should be fiercely attached to it, and hate the current condition it's in.
Meh. I'm just a dumbass who got too much romanticism as a youngin', what do I know.
Funny how the readership changes over the years. If this was 2016 on your blog I'd assume all the anger about that Thanksgiving post was from people who thought you were too soft on Thanksgiving and ritual, but here and now it's all people who think you're too hard on America.
I know, brother, I know
I haven't changed. And it's cool.
But rude! Subtitle tie-in!
sorry couldn't help myself
The ones who think you were too soft ain't kicking in no quarter mil.
"There's the basic market economics of something dropping in value as it is produced in surplus."
The imbalance isn't just happenstance. There are people responsible for it.
I worked from the age of 12 in agriculture, manufacturing, food service, construction... got married then took a pay cut to work in the corporate supply room with my strategy to get my foot into the MIS department because I had decided that was the career I wanted to pursue. I did this all while earning my undergraduate degree in business and finance. I was a B+ average student in high school. Worked after school, on the weekends while also playing on the varsity basketball team, and the track team. Also played guitar and sang lead in a rock cover tunes dance band (well... it was the 80s so it was sort of rock).
I have neighbors retired in their 50s from their government jobs. They feel they deserve it. They don't. I have been working many more years and will continue to work until I die. I think that is what we are supposed to do.
I am the oldest of three... my mom and natural father divorced when I was 10, she remarried to a younger man when I was 13... a man that would adopt me even though he sucked as a father and my school life suffered because my family life was a bit of hell. I was out of there at 18 after graduating high school and I never looked back.
Of course, our life-experience shapes our worldview. Mine was one where I don't hold a single ounce of guilt nor regret. I know I earned everything I own today... it was through hard work, goal setting, toil, struggle, perseverance... risk-taking, not giving a shit about what others thought of me because I always knew myself and developed a foundation of self-worth that could not be shaken. That never meant I would be closed to learning. THAT as much as anything, I think, was always my key to success... abundant curiosity to advance in that mediocrity of American life. Work is where most of that learning takes place. It is humbling.
But when I look back and consider the game today, what I see is that we have destroyed the multitude of work pathways people could navigate to acquire a good life. Those pathways, like the meandering one I took to be CEO of two businesses today, used to be plentiful relative to the number of people served by them.
There are a number of forces of change that contributed the current and growing imbalance between the supply and demand of career paths, but it all boils down to this... we have seen our government policies and society in general favor the growth of wealth instead of ensuring an abundance of work.... and related to that a dysfunctional view of human hierarchy that assigns significantly higher societal value to someone that milked student loans to acquire a PHD in gender-studies than it does for the high school graduate that worked with his hands, took out a loan on an F-150 and founded his own small business. Thank many parents for that... not wanting to have to explain to their peers that they little darlings are anything less than well-credentialed academics from prestigious schools without any calluses on their hands.
I'm sorry... but education is not life. Most people do not find their meaning and purpose in life until they work pursuing a career. Most people don't get the fog cleared from their muffin heads until and unless they work assesses off in the competitive meritocracy of enterprise.
But we allowed the elites to piss away these work-path assets we previously had. That was the glue that held us together... it was the reason that immigrants flocked here instead of more for the handouts today.
The kids, after achieving their over-priced degree, now expect to be planted firmly in a 30-hour per week, six-figure salary with lots of benefits and paid time off, where robots and lowly uneducated immigrant serfs do the physical work.
After the crushing administrative overreach of the COVID authoritarians, the Biden Democrats have just accelerated the war on the working class, the war on small business and propagation of a massive, big corporation consolidation. The postmodernist Marxist hive we label as woke, in their nihilist deconstruction project, have conveniently added a war on work. The kids not only demand that their student loans be paid off by taxpayers, but that they should get Universal Basic Income and free healthcare and subsidized rent... so they can travel and vlog to help fill their lack of life meaning.
Sorry, but the little shits will not achieve any life-meaning that way. They will not earn a better life. They will not deserve anything close to the social hierarchy standing that they think they deserve.
Today I was out talking to the local small business owners in the town where my family has a cabin. They cannot find any workers. Nobody wants to work. The kids all got lots of Biden Bucks. They have had their unemployment benefits extended. They are back living with mom and dad and maximizing their screen time.
What a damn mess... a mess of our own making... a mess that is specifically and directly related to a shift in American values away from what has made us great to what will destroy us. Fixing what is broken will require a shift back to policies that increase the supply of work and the incentives to work, and a corresponding shift in societal views that value those that work over those that wave their academic credential while flapping their gums demanding that someone else pay for it.
It’s appallingly common to undervalue work, simply work, any work. Bad job, good job, another job. Damn it, any work is far better than no work. And not in a materialistic sense, either.
Probably the thanksgiving post annoyed people on both ends of the horseshoe: one end doesn't like that you can hate your country, and the other end doesn't like that you can still love its rituals.
I thought it was a good post.
I subscribe because I appreciate your perspective. Doesn't mean I agree with it. Matter of fact, I do because I often don't.
Churchill once observed something to the affect that Americans will always do the right thing, but only after we've tried everything else. Bad as it may be that puts us ahead of the pack, and we need to make the most of it.
Thanks for giving me comment of the week!
>they are very good at busting the myth that students are simply clay to be molded by talented and hardworking teachers, and that there are externalities the education system can’t control which contributes to our problems.
Sentence structure confusion: are there two myths here, or only one? Blank-slatism is well-known and frequently put paid to, but I thought "learning begins at home" etc. was actually true, rather than dewey-eyed Deweyism. (Of course, the question of *whether* schools ought to be in the wraparound services business is a separate question. There have ever been systemic issues which one can at least modestly stop the bleeding on for modest sums, e.g. school lunch programs.)
The ritualistic Thanksgiving post...didn't touch the comments there cause it got so heated (Feature Not Bug?). But I guess I wanted to say that it's one of a handful which would have been tipping points to me subscribing, if I wasn't already. There's all the usual classics, your Greatest Hits that Everybody Knows, and those are of course excellent. But I'm primarily here for the honesty and candor, the sense not so much that "this dude's the truth" (though you've got your strong topics in that column, of course)...more like, "this guy is writing just to write, and loves the shit out of the act itself". The same sense some other bloggers give off, where they like blogging way more than their actual day jobs. Authentic passion just feels hard to find in this curated modern world. So much so-called writing ends up feeling like ad copy...too much focus on selling ideas, whether or not they're any good, or anyone actually believes in them.
Anyway, I'm glad you published it, and look forward to Thanksgiving reaction post.gif later.
I follow people on Substack who I think generally have interesting things to say — many of whom I often disagree with, and that’s fine. It’s more than fine — it’s incredibly valuable to routinely take in ideas that do not match your own. And I have no problem at all with people disagreeing with me in return. It’s healthy, and I think we need more dialogue between people who don’t see eye to eye on everything in this country today.
The only problem is when people react to a different view or pointed question with a lack of civility or reflexive attack. There is SO MUCH of that everywhere these days, and substack can — at its best — be a refuge from that. As such, my only problem with your Thanksgiving post was actually your immediate accusation of “troll” to my honest observation/question born out of my own direct experience. That seemingly defensive (and quite tired) response brings nothing to the discourse. I was surprised at that.
And I think the reaction to your response suggested that perhaps it wasn’t your best moment. There has to be such a temptation to bask in the glow of the sycophantic responses you receive and dismiss any constructive feedback. I wonder if you would ever admit to a misstep in that response, if upon reflection you agreed that it was perhaps uncalled for.
I did not make a dramatic declaration about unsubscribing — it didn’t occur to me to unsubscribe at this point. I’m hoping your response was an anomaly and that I still, on net, will extract something useful from this follow. That comment — and one or two followers who seem intent on turning your substack into a nasty, worthless Twitter feed — did make me pull out of that discussion, though. I rarely comment on substack. But when I do, I hope for a civil, good faith conversation. If that’s generally not to be found in your comment section, I’ll stay away from it in the future. Life is too short to waste time like that!
I liked your "you can hate your country but love its rituals". Your country is both: the place and the people.
But on further reflection, if you hate your country, and you have the free option to leave, but choose not to leave - either your "hate" is performative, or is a form of magic thinking. If there's a better place, you should go.
When you don't "accept what you cannot change", you are choosing to hate - you are choosing to be a hater. Hate America's problems is OK, hating America is OK;
hating America but staying there when you don't have to? Something wrong with you.
It's the hate the sin but love the sinner issue.