Category Archives: The Contrarian

U.S. Flag v. U.S. Constitution

It’s not often you get to forecast history, regardless of what news outlets would have you believe. But mark January 6th on your calendar, because the showdown will not only be epic; it will be historic.

Technically, Wednesday will see the U.S. Congress gather to validate the Electoral College’s election of Joe Biden.

But in truth, Jan. 6 will mark a Scopes-Monkey-Trial-level battle between faith and reason, in this case embodied by the U.S. flag and the U.S. Constitution.

The American flag has come to represent nothing if not our toxic addiction to identity politics. We turn ’em into t-shirts, bumper stickers, tank tops, toilet paper, you name it.

The American Constitution has yet to become a t-shirt craze, though many of the lawmakers who gather in congressional halls will certainly wipe their asses with it Wednesday.

And we should note everyone who does, and remember them, by name. Because those will be the elected officials who formally declare that they consider claims valid even when when they are unaccompanied by facts.

Wednesday’s ringmaster, of course, will be Donald Trump, the P.T. Barnum who has already signaled some elephants in the GOP to prepare to stand on their chairs when he sounds the whistle. He already sounded another whistle, of the dog variety, over the holidays to supporters, Proud Boys, QAnoners, and other slackwits for what he promises will be a “wild” rally Wednesday.

Make note of them, too.

Because the Dunce Confederacy that will gather in marble halls and outside them pose an existential threat to this world, country, and you individually.

These are the people who refuse to believe the globe is heating up, round, or overseen by primates. These are the people who believe that voting is a privilege, not a right (a white, male privilege, to be precise). These are the people who believe if you’ve been saddled with a vagina, melanin or uppity attitude, you don’t deserve a seat at the table.

Oddly, or perhaps fittingly, the person at the center of the showdown is not Trump, but Mike Pence. For it’s Pence who will be tasked with calling the Electoral College’s results legit, and to admit political heresy by conceding there is no god, er, Trump, er Higher Power. It’s hard to tell them apart beneath the patriotic cloak of faith.

It’s worth noting that should reason win out, it will be a profound affirmation of the Founders and the power of their thesis paper. They could not have been more prescient: They may have pictured King George when they penned independence, but they painted Donald Trump in their cautionary tale of governance gone mad. What a layered, measured prescription they wrote for the body politic! It remains prophecy on parchment.

If faith wins out, god help us all.

Because faith requires conviction, not evidence. Reason requires evidence, not conviction. When the former holds sway, what chance, the voice of the muted? What armor, the threadbare?

It’s not often that fools and traitors put their names in a registry. When they do, let’s go Memento on their asses. Let this be OUR tattoo to jog the memory:

Lincoln may have been a Republican, but he was killed by conservatives.

Donald Trump: COVID-19 Embodied and Metastatic

Iran-Linked Group Caught Spreading COVID-19 'Disinformation' On Facebook And Instagram

There was much consternation and confusion over Donald Trump’s apparent refusal to sign a COVID relief bill this weekend, which strikes me as odd. For one, there’s plenty of congressional support that will make some iteration of “relief” inevitable. Secondly, the timing feels off; the infection has already set.

After all, Donald Trump is the novel coronavirus incarnate. Consider the parallels:

  • Tremendous infection rate.
Initial COVID-19 Infection Rate in U.S. May Be 80 Times Greater Than Originally Reported

There have been more than 19 million people with COVID in America. More than 75 million people voted for Donald Trump. While not all of those infected were hospitalized, all were clinically ill.

Coronavirus: Sense of smell and taste 'improve for most' - BBC News

COVID patients reported side effects that include loss of taste and smell, and doctors say some complications could be permanent. Trump infectees exhibit a resistance to science, reason and factual information. Some of those most afflicted even lose the ability to count, according to state election officials nationwide.

  • High fatality rate.
COVID-19 outbreak: MERS & SARS had higher fatality rates - The Economic Times

More than 330,000 Americans have died of COVID, or about 1 out of 1,000 of U.S. residents. Roughly 46% of American voters self-reported cases of Trump Deficiency Syndrome (TDS) on Nov. 4, 2020. In addition, Trump held dozens of super-spreader events leading up to the mass diagnosis. While the exact casualty rate is uncertain, COVID undoubtedly peeled off a key percentage of Trumpeteers, including Howard Cain.

  • Strain on existing management systems.
Could Coronavirus Cause The Collapse Of Our Health Care Financing System? | Health Affairs

COVID has stagered the nation’s health care system, leaving some counties in America without an available Intensive Care Unit bed. TDS, meanwhile, has put a terrific strain on America’s political, a similar duress that tests the nation’s tensile strength.

  • Difficulty eradicating from the host body.
Trump Floated Not Leaving White House on January 20

Once COVID enters the bloodstream, it is a bitch to eradicate, often requiring months of therapy and treatment. Kind of like a president bunkering inside a White House, fighting eviction.

What a Human Covid Looks Like

Now imagine for a moment that coronavirus is a thinking, calculating human killer (which it may be). If you were COVID, and needed a human being to act as double agent, insurgent and propagator, who would you create?

Probably an influential leader of the species, willing to cast doubt on the invaders’ very existence, let alone its danger to hosts. Like a Remora convincing a shark that it’s not siphoning its food and hitching a ride on its pectoral fins.

Remora Fish, Those Suckers of the Sea, Are Inspiring New Adhesives

Fortunately, there’s a vaccine for both growths, delivered through hypodermics and elections.

And we’ve delivered both. Now we’re just waiting for the invaders to stop struggling and die off.

The Flaccid Stimulus

Congress seals agreement on COVID relief, government funding

There has been much braying surrounding Congress accidentally doing its job this week and agreeing to a COVID relief fund. And make no mistake: Any gesture that turns federal monies from a privileged spigot into a public sprinkler is American at its core.

But I have to laugh every time I hear or read that relief will include “stimulus checks” for working stiffs.

What a reprehensible, utterly dishonest term.

Let’s call these checks what they are: welfare checks.

What American, pray tell, tells herself, “Great! I’m getting a $600 Trump check! Now I can look into gold futures!”

No, I suspect that the average American is going to do what I’m going to do: Take that check to the bank, pray it clears, and buy food. Because that’s where this nation is after 10 months of a pandemic: scrounging and scared.

I saw Rand Paul on the Senate floor this morning, explaining how he wasn’t voting for the package because it would send the country deeper into deficit spending, devalue the dollar and ultimately saddle generations with debts their ancestors incurred.

Sen. Rand Paul recovered from coronavirus; volunteering at hospital | 10tv.com

Gosh, ya think so, Rand? So what makes this spending any different from the dollars you were spending before March? You know, when you were beaming about how rosy the stock market and jobs reports looked?

Forget that the Americans who churned those gears were already dog-paddling in a gig economy, turning their own Toyotas into Uber taxis and laptops into bartering tools. We were trillions in debt before we got sick, Rand. Where was that speech on prudence, Senator?

Let’s be clear: COVID-19 is largely an unfortunate tax on the stupid. We have chosen not to wear masks. We have chosen leaders who can’t be bothered with science. We cannot in clear conscience say that we don’t get what’s coming.

But illness eclipses ideology. Disease dwarfs principle. If COVID has reshaped the way we live, it will have to reshape how we spend. And in the face of a pandemic that tightens like a hangman’s noose, we’ll have to rethink what makes a livable wage, what passes for adequate medical care. Suddenly, $15 an hour doesn’t seem like price gouging.

We can’t afford healthy folks deciding healthcare. We can’t afford rich folks deciding spending policy. COVID has made America one bloated, irritable transplant patient, dependent on medication and susceptible to viruses. The next time your libertarian friend rails about getting the government out of his wallet, ask him what he did with the latest welfare check.

It will, after all, buy almost a third of an ounce of gold.