Of Independence Day, Dirty Jobs, and Best Friends

The wife was watching "Independence Day" the other day. Nice human race comes together to thwart extinction, underdog beats the technologically superior parasite race that has come to feast on us sort of escapist movie.

I've gone over my favorite part before many times with people, and that's when in under 24 hours the down-and-out genius with the cute ex-wife figures out enough about an alien civilization's computer system and languages to write a virus that will take it down, and on top of that figures out how to dial up and connect to that system and upload it 20 minutes after taking off toward the alien mothership in an alien fighter craft they know just about zilch about.

But when it comes to entertainment I have an amazing knack for willful suspension of disbelief, and therefore I can enjoy movies lots of other people can't even when things like that bug the heck out of me. (Don't even get me started on "The Day After Tomorrow" or "Twister". But they're still fun.) On the Independence Day issue, though, a co-worker noted that it's all explained by the JGIAG -- Jeff Goldblum Is A Genius -- plot element that he says pops up in Jeff Goldblum movies.

However, this time through "Independence Day", our tortured widower president who is Hawkeye Pierce and apparently Tom Cruise's "Maverick" character rolled up into one ... gives a rousing, unifying speech about how the world will come together and defeat this menace..



It's a great sentiment, and I'm all for bottom-up world unity.

But this bit stuck out at me as a Progressive wet dream:

"But should we win the day, the fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice ..." (blah blah blah)

So America is no place special and it would be best if we would forego celebrating our founding, our independence.  (But by all means keep celebrating Cinco de Mayo.)

And a few other things happened over the last few days. One of them was the "no best friends" meme that has been recently yammered to death in the conservative media. Of course, it's not "fair" to have anyone stand out above the rest, these "experts" want everyone to be the same, presumably to eliminate envy. Plus there's the whole Marxist idea of breaking down the family, replacing allegience to family with allegience to state and making the children as unlike their fathers as possible. Very Orwellian Marxist (Yeah, people forget that 1984 was an anti-socialist work. "Ingsoc" was newspeak for "English Socialism".) And I suppose this is a logical extension of that idea. There shouldn't be anyone you're closer to that you might trust an opinion from over that of the state.

It brings to mind a bunch of children living their lives in drab uniforms with the same haircuts and eyes always on the chalkboard/overhead/TV monitor of state instruction.



Indeed, all of the great statist movements from the pure socialist to the national socialist flavors have been offshoots of progressivism.  Fascists were progressives, and admired by progressives here in the United States.

And then last night we were watching Mike Rowe ... a compilation episode, where he was talking about lessons learned. And he brought up "experts". Beware of "experts", he pointed to a Mike Rowe motivational poster which underscored his statement.

I don't know if you've ever seen this excellent motivational type talk he gave a few years ago -- but you should if you haven't -- and in it he talks about the sheep castrating incident. Before taping the episode, he had gone to the "experts" on what the most humane way to castrate sheep would be, and they said the rubber band method.

But when he got to the sheep ranch to do the deed, they cut them off (actually bit them off) and he said "woah, woah, wait"... aren't you supposed to do it this way? The ranchers explained why they don't, and even illustrated it by doing one that way.

The one they did that way went over and laid down near its mother in extreme discomfort, probably for the next several days -- while the ones who had been done the, uh.. "surgical" way were off frolicking again in minutes.

Which brings us around to this. The progressivist worldview is based on the idea that "experts" will run society from the top down. It is justified as "democratic" by saying that that's what everybody wants whether they know it or not.  By progressive "logic" it's really bottom-up, it's just that too many people are too stupid to realize that that's what they would vote for if they were smart.  So they are constantly trying to deceive people into voting more for top-down government, which they happily supply when they succeed, citing that 50.1% of the people voted for it and the other 49.9% are just to stupid to know they actually like it. You know, we'll just pass the bill so everyone can see what's in it, and all.

But of course, the classical liberal (now called Libertarian and in America typically classified as "conservative") would say that people should make their own decisions, including the decision involving whether or not to consult an expert in the first place, and if they want to, which expert(s) they will consult.

Because the fact of the matter is, "expert" in today's society is more likely to be an academic designation than one reflecting experience actually doing the thing at which they're supposed to be expert.

And so we have a "Constitutional Scholar" for a president, and he's surrounded himself with academics who have spent their lives theorizing a society where outcomes are equal and everybody's happy because of it, and the people who actually make stuff and design stuff and fix stuff or want stuff made or designed or fixed don't have any say over how much they can charge or pay, or are restricted from doing things or hiring people to do things at their own discretion because it might violate the governing monopoly's idea of "fairness".

So we have state-imposed collectivist rules that inhibit us from accepting help with the Gulf oil disaster from other countries, and a myriad of state agencies with various regulations all with veto power over any emergency plan the people trying to cope with the problem especially on the oil damage prevention side because they might squash an egg or spoil the spawning habitat of a fish (that's going to be killed anyway by the oil they let come ashore -- but hey, rules are well-meaning rules, and they must be followed) -- and the administration's response is to talk to academic experts and give speeches about how it's been on the case since "day 1", busily talking about it and putting boots to necks and trying to figure out whose ass to kick. Meanwhile, the oil continues to spew and the containment effort is less than what it could be.

And of course the speechified solution to all of this is to grow government, pass cap and trade, add more regulations (was this a problem of not enough regulations or regulations not being followed?  Time will tell) and more and more "experts" making more and more rules and siphoning more and more money from the private sector to use to selectively enforce more and more state control over everything, stimying growth, innovation, or pretty much any movement at all not directed by "experts" while we wait for Unicorns to show us the way to efficient wind and solar energy.