The Fun Clovers Killed

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Several years ago, I wrote an article (see here) about converting the “shaker” hood scoop of my 1976 Trans-Am from decorative to functional.

Many people don’t know that while every ’70-81 Trans-Am came with a hood scoop (or a hood bulge, in the case of the ’80-81 turbo Trans-Ams) the only Trans-Ams that came with a functional shaker scoop – so called because the assembly was mounted to the air cleaner and shook with the engine, even when it didn’t scoop – were the 1970-’72 models.

A solenoid-actuated flapper door opened when the driver floored the accelerator pedal, admitting cooler outside air to the engine. It also looked cool to actually see the engine gulping air.

Naturally, the Clovers objected to this – and put a stop to it.

They used something called drive-by noise standards – that is to say, their standards – to board up what had been a functional shaker scoop. It became a scoop that didn’t but just looked like it did, beginning with the 1973 models and all the way to the end of the run in 1981.

It was still possible, for a few years, to countermand what the Clovers decreed. Pontiac – which was still run by Car Guys at the time – “complied” with the drive-by noise standard by installing an easily removable metal plate where the flapper door had been. Many people removed it – and the scoop became functional again.

Naturally, the Clovers objected – and beginning with the 1977 models – the scoop no longer had a removable anything. It was molded out of a single piece of fiberglass and if you wanted to make it functional, you had to mutilate it by cutting it.

This was almost 40 years ago, which gives you an idea of just how long generations of Clovers have been working to suck all the fun out of cars.

Another example: Subaru’s rear-facing, bed-mounted jumpseats. Close your eyes and try to imagine a brand-new car offering this feature – and “getting away with it,” to use the language of Cloverism.

Subaru did – briefly.

There was a little pick-up called the Brat (Bi-directional All-Terrain Transporter) that Subaru made in the late ’70s and into the 1980s. It was available with a pair of plastic jumpseats welded to its bed. This added passenger capacity – the Brat was otherwise a two-seater – and end-ran another of Clover’s control freak fatwas, a thing called the “chicken tax.” This was a tax applied to small pick-ups, almost all of which were made outside of the U.S. – as a retaliatory measure for taxes applied by Euro-Clovers on chicken exported from the U.S. to Europe (seen more here, if interested).

By adding the extra set of seats to the bed, the Brat qualified under Clover’s own rules as a passenger vehicle rather than a pick-up and thus was exempted from the extortionate “chicken tax” applied to little trucks.

The seats were also big fun.

Your friends could jump in the bed – and go for a ride in the breeze. This was legal. You didn’t even have to buckle the seatbelts Subaru provided. Armed government workers had better things to do – or rather, were not yet empowered to harass people over such petty (and none-of-their-proper-business) things as adults electing to ride in the bed of a pick-up, buckled-up or not.

Clovers put a stop to that by decreeing it “unsafe” – according to them. It was perfectly safe – and lots of fun – to the people who got to experience riding in the bed of a Brat without any harm coming to them. Clovers empowered AGWs to threaten them with harm, though.

And threatened Subaru with harm, too. The jumpseats went away after the 1985 model year and the Brat itself soon thereafter.

Another fun thing lasted a little longer – into the 1990s: The T-top roof. It was a hugely popular option available in cars of all types, from Chrysler Cordobas to compact-sized pony cars like the Ford Mustang and its GM rivals, the Camaro and Firebird. It was like having a convertible but without having a fabric roof that any Guido with a box-cutter could get into.

And – unlike many convertibles, which look ungainly with their tops up – a car with T-tops looked good either way. You also got reasonable protection from the elements – not the either/or offered by a convertible, which you could only drop when it was warm enough or you had on clothes enough to deal with the cold.

T-tops extended the open-top driving season because you still had some top even when the tops were in the trunk. It was viable to drive around in November or December, with temperatures in the 40s – something not-so-viable with a drop-top.

Clovers nixed the T-top, too.

As per their loathsome passively aggressive practice, they did so not directly – via honest tyranny, by decreeing we’re not allowed to have T-tops anymore – but instead by making it impossible to sell cars equipped with T-tops.

Via roof crush regulations that could only be complied with by eliminating T-tops. (Convertibles get around the regs because they have no roofs; instead they have roll bars to “achieve compliance” with the Clovers’ fatwas.)

There are many other examples of Clovers putting the kibosh on fun behind the wheel – and even in the back seat, which you can’t use anymore to responsibly “sleep it off” after having some drinks wth your friends. The Clovers have decreed that this constitutes “drunk driving” as much as actually driving while drunk.

Might as well not drive at all.

And that’s exactly what’s wanted – by Clovers. They hate cars because of the fun – because of the freedom to have fun – which they used to be all about. They will not admit this, of course – for the same reason they characterize things like the 15 percent of every dollar we earn that we are forced to hand over to finance the loathsome intergenerational Ponzi scheme called Social Security as a “contribution.”

An uber Clover . . .

Instead, they will preach sssssssssssssaaaaaaaaaaaafety – and feign “concern.”

What happened to this country? When did the “safety” of adults, supposedly free, become the justification for pointing loaded guns at people – which is exactly what will happen if you assert your right to ride in the bed of a pick-up with jump seats – and without “buckling up.”

Clovers have relied for the past 50 years on our tacit acceptance of this justification. Maybe the time has come to shove this justification down the pie hole – or up the other orifice – of the next Clover who has the effrontery to so much as hint that the “safety” of any free man or woman is any of his got-damned business.

Yeah, I’m angry.

And if you’re not, there’s something wrong.

. . .

Got a question about cars, Libertarian politics – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!

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174 COMMENTS

  1. Still no general seatbelt or helmet requirement in NH. And as of 2006, I regularly was a passenger in a pickup bed with no issues. AGW here are more interested in ticketing Massholes, generally speaking.

    • Hi Freak,

      You NH people are lucky… in that respect. The problem is that every state is tyrannical in some other respect. One can move here – or there – to improve things in this way a little bit… but things in that way get a little worse. Plus, it’s cold where you are – and that’s a deal breaker for me. I hate the cold. It screws up my motorcycle time and makes running outside unpleasant, if it’s even possible.

      And I gotta be able to run… or else all I’ll do is drink!

      • Hey Eric!

        Just don’t drink AND run…. the penalties for RUI are probably draconian these days! For goodness’ sakes, if you’re gonna drink, best to have about 4000 lbs. of metal around ya!

        (I envy you runners! I was never any good at running…even when I was a kid!)

      • All very true, that everywhere has it’s issues.

        Until recently, it was illegal to have license plate readers in NH. The cops finally got the Democrats, who took over the House, to approve them.

        There’s supposed to be a 5 minute limit on retaining the info, so in theory it can only be used to check for outstanding warrants and such.

        But it sucks that they got their foot in the door. At least speed and red light cameras are still prohibited.

        No income tax, sales tax and constitutional carry, along with no seatbelt/ helmet/ insurance requirement in NH.

        But we’ve got generally high property taxes, are lagging the region on cannabis (Democrats again… in the pockets of the police), and inexplicable restrictions on low speed vehicles like the Roxor. Ffs, the Democrats this session are trying to require canoes and kayaks to be registered.

        • ***” the Democrats this session are trying to require canoes and kayaks to be registered”***

          Ah well, ya gotta have boat control! Otherwise, before you know it, any yahoo would just be taking to the water…err…someone might get hurt.

  2. Eric, I can tell you, the kill-joys that run Calipornia sure as hell seem to have been on a crusade against anything remotely “FUN”!

    How many “hot rides” haven’t been available in the once-“Golden” state, because California Air Resources Board (ironically, it’s acronym is “CARB”) won’t approve it? The Kalifornia Kar Kommissars is what they are!

    How many “cool” (i.e., functional and USEFUL) firearms are “banned”, because the panty-wetting libtards are scared shitless of anything that looks “military”? Ewwww!!! Even my great-uncle (who jumped with the 11th Airborne into Luzon in 1945), whom left his M1A2 “Paratrooper” Carbine (shoots the same .30 cal carbine rounds as the other M1s issued by the gazillions to supporting troops, gun bunnies, tankers, truck drivers, combat engineers, and so on, and the most commonly sold rifle in the Federal Government’s Civilian Marksmanship Program) to my Dad, whom handed it down to yours truly, and I in turned gave it to my middle “little goil” (the best shot of all my kids, I almost didn’t get her a .22 rifle like her brothers had gotten, but when I got a tip that if she didn’t get one, she’d be one unhappy 12 y.o., fortunately, the old Sacramento Armory had a sale on the Ruger Mini-14, so back in ’99 some young lady in suburban Sac town slept with her .22 rifle for a MONTH…), whom had it, UNTIL…the jerks in the CA legislature decided that it was now an “assault” rifle, even though, like any other carbine of its class, it’s a relatively innocuous rifle, good for mid-range home defense and as a “varminter”, but hardly “high-powered”! She could only keep it legally IF she REGISTERED it and paid a hefty registration fee! Well, FUCK that! So I ‘smuggled” the offending weapon out of “Calipornia”, and her big brother has it for safekeeping, for the time being. Yeah, public safety is really endangered by a 32 y.o. mother of two little girls who’s won several marksmanship trophies with her great-great-uncle’s 75 year old carbine.

    • Doug, and that’s the state with the hit song that had the lyrics “fun fun fun” till her daddy takes her T bird away.”

      • I keep hearing about how the good people are going to rise up and rebel…..”when they take just one more liberty” (As is happening in Virginny). Well CA. is already well ahead of the rest of the country as far as tyranny (as is New Pork and MassOfTwoShits…..and guess what? Nobody has rebelled!!!!!

        • Americans are too comfortable to rebel. It may not even happen when the economy actually implodes. They’ll be too busy looting from their neighbors to go after the real culprits.

          • Absolutely, Handler. Just look at the Great Depression- when the government had a lot less power, and the people had a lot more freedom and guns….. Instead of rebelling, they just all looked to the government from whence their problems stemmed, for salvation- and we got the biggest expansion of government EVER….as people would gladly sell all of their and their children’s liberties for a few crumbs and the ever-promised “prosperity”.

    • The one CA law I recall with amazement (when I was stationed there in the 80’s) was the limit on how high you could lift your pickup.

      Turns out some politician’s daughter was killed when a lifted truck ran a redlight and hit the vehicle she was in. Which I’m sorry for his loss. But then he went and got a law passed banning all those inanimate objects because one person wasn’t being responsible.

  3. I disagree with the idea that t tops were more useful than a convertible. As I recall they were prone to leaking and the pieces took up space in the trunk unlike a soft top which folds like an accordion and you can still use the trunk. Also, some newer cars have heated seats and heated neck warmers so you can enjoy the top down experience in cooler weather. Guess I’m just a ragtop guy.

    • Whatever. A T-top did have that “redneck” appeal…however, what’s missing from the discussion is: does the driver get to pick how his ride is configured, whether ragtop, T-top, sunroof, or whatever?

      Me, given enough deustchmarks, I’d rather my “other ride” be a Pzkpfw VI “Kongistiger”, but with a modern 1500 bhp MTU multi-fuel engine powering the drive sprockets through a ZF gearbox. Seventy tons of fun!

      • Sure, our choices are being limited and it’s getting worse. We are headed down an authoritarian road. Maybe there will be an Atlas Shrugged moment that will turn it around. Or maybe not, time will tell.

        • Hi Rik,

          I hope so, for all the obvious reasons! And the thing is, there is still time for this to happen peacefully. All it would take is for enough people to passively resist; to just say no.

          • Hey, Eric- any progress on the comment list which used to be on the right side of the site? I love your site but seeing what the rest of the community is saying is a big part of the enjoyment. As it is now I just have a list of names of recent commenters and what article they were in.

              • Twas the reply of the cartoon “Wicomicos” in an old National (Bohemian style) Beer (aka “Natty-Bo”). It depicts Lord 2nd Baron of Baltimore, Cecil Calvert, landing at what would become St. Mary’s city, and among the gifts for the native Americans, a barrel of “nut-brown British beer” (slightly anachronistic, as the Act of Union, which created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was signed in 1707, this landing is mentioned as “in sixteen-hundred and thirty-four”. The Wicominco Indians are busy brewing their own concoction made with “molasses, bran, corn, PERSIMMONS, and ‘stuff’ “, which the character that offered the now green-faced Lord Baltimore a gourd of their brew admits is not as good as National Beer, which the other Indian says “we ain’t invented…yet” and the first adds, “but we’re working on it!”. The commercial indicates that Natty-Bo had some questionable beginnings in improvised Native American brew craft but indeed, the “natives” brewing skills have since improved.

  4. My dad had a 79 Cordoba with t-tops. My brother and I thought that was the coolest thing.

    I live outside of a town of about 3500. In the summer on a run to the grocery store or gas station my 6 year old son and 4 year old daughter rode in the bed of my pickup on a few occasions. So far I haven’t been called in to be hut hutted as you like to say.

    I say f**k the clover’s and their willing enforcers. One day I may go down, but I treat life as I treated it when I was young in the late 80’s and 90’s. If they take me down, it’ll be only a shake down of money. That’s the crux of the issue, REVENUE. They take your money in the name of “safety”.

    • Hi JWK,

      You write: “But you will likely cast a vote for your preferred sociopath…” This is gaslighting. Akin to faulting a man facing a beating for “preferring” one leg broken rather than two. Or – faulting a man for taking pain meds when he has cancer. He’d prefer not to have cancer, obviously.

      We are all under duress. There is no option C – to be left alone. There is only option A and option B. The argument that we are supporting tyranny by doing what is possible to lessen it is absurd.

      We can defend our principles and pursue them – while also making do with least-worst alternative available to us.

      So, I voted for Trump. Because there was no other choice – in terms of who would wield power against me. It was him – or her.

      No option C.

      My vote wasn’t for Trump – more gaslighting – it was a vote for less worse.

      I fully understand the lesser-of-two-evils argument. And I agree – I wish we didn’t have to choose any evil. Unfortunately, that’s not the choice we’re presented with.

      • “Akin to faulting a man facing a beating for “preferring” one leg broken rather than two”

        How do you handle having both legs broken regardless of who you vote for 🙂
        That seems the present situation. IMO there no longer exists a lesser of evil,,, they’re all equally evil.

        Look at the Demos….
        Pocahontas,,, (lol) lies her way into Harvard, is offering everything but the kitchen sink. 71 years old.
        Bernie,,, like Pocahontas but throws in the kitchen sink. 78 years old, you might want to check out the VP.
        Biden,,, don’t let him near your women folk. 77 Years old. VP will probably end up as Pres like Bernie.
        Repubs…
        Trump,,, Iran war for sure,,, possibly Venezuela as well. The kid in the bunch at a mere 74.

        See a trend here? Surely out of 280 millions of Americans and 60 millions of illegals we can sport someone just a little younger!

        Yes I’m a boomer but the boomers need to vacate the premises. I’m getting tired of hearing everything is our fault!

        • Hi Ken,

          The Orange Man has done a few things that are both good and would never have been done by anyone else who might occupy the chair:

          One, he rescinded the Obamacare “shared responsibility payment” – the massive tax added to the back of anyone who declined to send the health insurance mafia money. This is no small thing. The tax starts around $700 annually – and rises from there to $1,000-plus annually. This one thing has kept at least $2,000 in my pocket so far and the pockets of other Obamacare refuseniks – which is no small thing. An even bigger thing is that by rescinding the fine, OM severely undermined Obamacare itself. No other Republican – and certainly no Democrat – would have done this.

          Two, he repealed both a tripling of “gas guzzler” fines that had been pending and the federal EV tax kickback.

          Three, he has publicly disavowed “climate change” – a huge thing. He has helped to delegitimize one of the (and perhaps the) most serious threat to what remains of the freedom we still have.

          Four, he has incited people far more loathsome than he to paroxysms of rage. The establishment hates his guts. It is not a show. And that makes me like the orange SOB!

          • “The establishment hates his guts…”.

            “They” certainly do. At first I couldn’t figure out why, beyond normal political opposition. After all, to me Trump is like that 60ish CEO in the commercial for an off-brand cell phone service provider, whom voices his like of the service, telling his 25 y.o. assistant, “It makes me feel like I’m sticking it to the ‘Man’!”. The befuddled assistant, incredulous, replies…”but Sir…you ARE the ‘Man’!”

            Then it occurred to me that when the 2016 election was going down, there seemed to be almost a resignation that the “Hildebeast” was going to win, and win handily. Then the returns started coming in, and we gradually saw the smirks and haughtiness replaced by worry, then disbelief, and finally an outcry like the high school cheerleaders were found on the football field, stripped, raped, and disemboweled. THAT”s why “Orange Man” is so viscerally hated…he’s the reason these libtard idiots didn’t get to see, not an election, but a CORONATION, that of the “Mad Queen!”!

      • Duress is a constant. There has never been an option C. (Accept it, or burrow back into that c-section…which still won’t change a thing, do away with duress – in fact, well, you know….) Pretty good theory is that option D, death, is the one & only end to duress. Does that make life a duress rehearsal? Sure. Why not.

        Life Of Stress (Hans – ha! – Selye).

        Duress is duracell bunny, sonny, & Bono be thy name of the rosebuds that, gather as ye may – another robin Williams scene – go down to ungathered smithereens anyway.

        Masturbation’s ok. But wearing procaine-coated chainmaille gloves to do it, or that crucifix scene in The Exorcist, is something else entirely. ♪ Hurts so good ♫ mea culpa, indeed.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gywYLsxVwmw ~28:46

        Black Robe’s a good flick, very good flick, about “multi”cultural sameness: all these mo’ foes – I gotta’ have more cowbell! — mofo’s is just the same.

        But as far as this smaller game of duress, the heads they win & tails you lose one _-jaysus again!_- **every rule that rulers permit & allow to the ruled has always been clipperchipped – mein gott! what’s become o’ my balls? — Trojan horses**.

        JFK, MLK, RFK, 9-11, Epstein…if these, among soooo many others, don’t, can’t, scrape sleep-snot crusts from eyes, debride the denial from brain & blood & bones, put “voting” & the rest of the civics Trojan horseshit into perspective – what will?

        Rhetorical question, that. Nothing will. Cuz where there’s a wile there’s a way to transmogrify won’t into “will.” And there’s pretty much nuthin’ but wiles wooing won’t’s amongst the weebles.

        Besides all that, where’s the “principle” in “voting”??? In general??? For a murderous lout (+retinue+littlewo\men behind the royal purple curtain)??? For interchangeable murderous louts et al???

        Yeah, it is that network scene: “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.”

        You ain’t gonna’ use “the rules” to even slow it down, let alone turn it around. Is why that Mr. Smith what went to Washington is seen, by them that can see, for the sap he was. Same goes for the Ron Pauls et al & their cheerleaders.

        If you accept any of it, the “participatory largesssssse,” you are coocoo for cocopuffs cocreative coconspirator in the misfolded over prion ouroborosness of it all. ∞ X marks the wetwork spot…& no matter where you roll, you will continue to always be in the coldblooded redrum, redrum wetspot..all work & no play makes Jack a dull, & dully red-stained, boy….

        In this smaller game most everybody is POW. And the choices are to take it, or to collude with the jailers…which, yeah, very much includes all the various & sundry factions of other inmates emulating their internalized – inner child (didja’ read, think on “paedomorphosis”?)- jailers, too.

        If their militarized shrinks won’t pop an oppositional defiant disorder cap in you, youse somewhere on the “we”•ll-adjusted oughtism spectrum o’ hut!hut!

        But if those capguns *is* brought to bear, youse just might be one o’ the few, the proud, the maroons…(or maybe just a redneck). And to those I say grok on water brother strangers in this strange land of self-estrangement.

        All is good. Nothing is good. It’s the no wo\mans land in between that is the so-called swamp. But I been in lots of swamps & calling that other thing “swamp” insults hell outta a very interesting\cool environment.

        Voting (amongst all the other ‘thank you sir, may I please have another’’s) violates the NAP (which’ll never stop pretzelibertarians from insisting otherwise).

        Not because it “works,” not because it “matters” in the way the civics operant conditioning “education” immersions infuse it does (& it would violate NAP if it did do exactly what the infused believe it does, too), but because it – fraud (fraud of force, force of fraud – it’s commutative) – slathers kabuki kimono cover-ups over the naked aggression of empires big & small so as to confer “respectability” & “legitimacy” – at least that’s what the true believers in the cult of franchisement – billions of mystery meat burgers, other “foods,” sold (I look at those infamous golden arches & see the position assumed & the positionee waiting to take it up the ass…) – will regurgitate ‘til the day they die of it.

        “The people have spoken.” Guffaw! “Spoken” because the not so invisible (at all) hand is up those asses & muppeting those mouths.

        But, cogdystrophy is the enabling, & the disease, that predates all others, & “makes the pieces fit,” by muscling memories muscles so much that hardly any can ever forget it, quit the programmatic reflex knee jerks, & get on with it.

        Sure it does…masters of the jigsaw. Now fit the pieces of that Humpty that trumpty said “do it” & egged Baghdad with back together.

        As for one lumped leg, or two, here’s the flash:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4BC4JGXwlE I wonder if Williams did choose a belt…in any case, he went out strong.

        “I’m stubborn. I won’t play ball with this system!”

        Persistence is a virtue, stubbornness is a superpower, & the system has no compartments, any more than four corners has a cross in the ground with quadrants of AZ-NM-CO-UT.

        What “it,” this nonexistent, fiat, place, does have is an opposite George manumit spelled “monument.”

        And every one of those system bangles is just variations on offside Rushmore-more-more! faces & names over option c-less granite realities.

        So it’s either pitons & rappelling, or sarcophagi & tombstones. Since the latter’s coming anyway, & soon enough, wtf is the question?

        Just this: how can “we” postpone? How can “we” just dangle off the Rushmore bangle o’ washington’s nose candy?

        And that’s the cornpone that capone’s most (he died in fed prison “proper”). & fast feddy bernays knows it: pass that boat & slop that sauce cuz all humanimals is equal but some is more equal than others…& humanimal would not have it any other way.

        I am definitely going to make some cornbread tonite. Maybe some béarnaise sauce, too.

        Tip I “hope”

        ((what’s another word? I been in hopium anon for a long time…as I was exiting the birth canal I read the sign – it may have been a tattoo — above the traportal: abandon hope, all ye who enter here…pretty sure the five man electrical band – who I think of as “the Milgrams” for short – zzzt! — was playin’, too))

        you look into: Pete Egoscue. Heluva story, his, featuring the Vietnam “version” of fast feddy. & I had some fine results with his stuff. There’s prolly practitioner\s close enough by you. & there’s prolly more than one way to skin that shoulder (I broke one of mine, too, missed the rotator cuff scuff, but, all the same…).

        Yippee-ki-yay, brother of a different mother…(ain’t no clovers can kill this)

    • Hi JWK,

      The primary purpose of Democracy is to grant perceived legitimacy to political authority, thus voting matters in the abstract. However, your individual vote, or non vote, does nothing, the act is not immoral, it is amoral. The insistence among some libertarians that voting is immoral, overvalues the importance of voting, as does the Statist, “you must vote” crowd. I hope for a day when people no longer vote, but that will only occur if enough people realize that political authority is illegitimate. An individual’s vote, or non vote, is the least significant political action they will ever take, it seems odd to place so much importance on it.

      Cheers,
      Jeremy

    • I didn’t vote, because there was no one to vote for. There never is.

      If one votes for which thug will rape you and your neighbor, you are giving the rapist at least a few points of validity when he says that you chose him to rape you- or, even if the other guy rapes you whom you didn’t vote for, that you at the very least gave your assent to what they are doing by participating,- which is the opposite of protesting or defending one’s self.

      There is no “lesser evil”. They all do the same thing. Many of the agendas we are seeing unfold have been going on for decades or even generations; they, along with the tyranny and ever-expanding government just keep multiplying with each successive administration. It is NEVER dialed back; It is never even kept at the same level at which it was last year; it only increases.

      The “less evil” only seem less evil because of the words they may occasionally mouth- words carefully calculated to woo one half of the participants(voters), and because of the the way the media portrays them, to emphasize the role that they are playing (e.g. if Trump had run as a Dumbocrap- which he was for most of his life- the media would now be emphasizing and praising him for furthering immigration and gun control. When Slick Willy was in, they downplayed his welfare reform; if it had been a Repugnantcan, they would have been screaming about how he was “harming the poor and how racist he is”).

      This false dichotomy is what keeps the millions participating and contented.

      Sad thing is, if all of the people who vote for ‘the lesser evil’ would actually STOP participating and stop validating the system and giving their assent, they might actually be a threat to that very system- or at least realize that their salvation is not going to come through that system, and so start actually living their lives apart from that system/stop cooperating.

      You would think with the spectacular faiulure of Trump, that more people would see this- but instead, they continue to fall for the false dichotomy “The left is out to get our scumbag, so let’s support him even more!”- and he can thus trot out the very same slogans and promises (promises which he has already broken and has no intention of ever fulfilling) and his supporters will still wave their flags like salivating dogs….just as long as it’s Trump who’s bombing Syria and assassinating foreign diplomats and pissing on the Constitution and our liberties….instead of Hitlery or Burn-me.

      • In a “normal” election year, as if any of the last 10 election have been “normal,” I would have agree with you. There was no material difference in the candidates for public office beginning especially with President Bush 41 to Clinton, to Bush 43, to Obama. Trump was substantially different from Hillary and the constituency. Because of Trump’s positions on trade and his stated positions on foreign military interventions (get the hell out of Iraq, etc), I decided to cast a ballot for the Orange Man. He has largely followed through with his major promises. I never had any illusions that he would do much to roll back the security state. What he did do was strengthen the purchasing power of a small non wealthy segment of the population to a level high enough to stimulate economic growth as well as stabalize the economy somewhat. Yes, debt has gone up as a result of some of these actions, but not being one of those “there are 2000 million trillion in unfunded obligations” debt hawks, I am not too concerned. I am not happy with OM’s foreign policy, though. So, where does that leave someone like me. I can choose not to vote. Yes. Or I can choose to vote for the OM or for certain destructon with a Democrat. The OM has not been perfect with civil liberties and foreign assasinations, but he’s technically no worse than a D. The drooling libertardians have not fielded a worthy candidate since around 2004, so it leaves me with voting for Trump. If things ever get back to normal, I will encourage people not to vote so as to withdraw consent.

        • Swampy,

          Have you been asleep for the past three years? What Trump said….versus what he has done, are two vastly different things.

          Look at him now; unabashedly ordering hits of foreign dignitaries; engineering regime changes in South America and elsewhere; sucking Israel’s schlong; strengthening rather than cutting ties with NATO and the UN; bragging about stealing Syria’s oil; telling the Iraqis to shove it when they said they wanted us out of their country; further and exponentially militarizing the pigs (just in time for his further assaults upon the 2nd Amendment!); unilaterally breaking treaties; establishing NAFTA 2.0; increasing the military budget to the highest it’s EVER been; starting a “space force” (LOL) to complement Obammer’s “Space Weather Agency”….

          This guiy is a globalist’s dream; the male (or should I say more-male) incarnation of Hitlery.

          No matter who you vote for…you get the same damn thing! But of course…the words are different; and phony fight between the “leftists” and the “rigthists” continues with renewed vigor. In fact, the more they do things the same, the more the act is put on, to make it appear that there is a clear difference.

          The fact that some even here have fallen for that act, shows howutterly hopeless the situation is, and that there is only one option for anyone who hopes to maintain any shred of liberty (expatriation).

          • It’s the old “he’s basically done what he said he would” bs. He’s done exactly the opposite of the points he ran on.

            I hear the exact same thing from my group. Now they have sent a link to “300 things Trump has done”. I don’t want to see his commode. I don’t need to see his barber. I certainly don’t want to see his Zionist un-American son.

            I realize this has nothing to do or what he will do but I can’t stand his voice nor his bragging. He never quits.

            It was fine coming from Ali because he was the greatest. He beat everyone who went against him in the entire world. I see Trump and think of that spoiled bully kid I’d just love to take “out behind the barn” as little Jimmy used to sing.

            • 8, it’s like I’ve observed since I was a kid…only more so: It just keeps getting worse with every new administration. I at least thought maybe with Trump that we’d at least have the luxury of hearing some good politically-incorrect rhetoric- but it’s like ya said- can’t stand to hear the bastard’s voice (Luckily it’s easy not to when ya don’t watch TV nor listen to the raddio)- I mean, he just makes up his own BS “facts” as he goes; says things that only a 5 year-old would believe (“We’re gonna make Mexico pay for the [stupid] wall”) and keeps saying similarly ludicrous nonsense….and the dumbasses eat it up…

              At least old Cassius could actually back-up his boasting….and at least ol’ Reagan was a good enough actor to makle ya feel good and all warm and fuzzy…..but this dick can’t even act! He’s just a bad liar- and a brash, crass unabashed servant of the elite- he doesn’t even try!

          • That asshole also raised the smoking age to 21 when he signed the Israel Defense Spending Bill.

            The elites are merely putting on an elaborate show to screw with the public’s minds to further distract them from the real issues.

            It makes me sad to see how many intelligent people are falling for this charade. Every time I mention what a fraud Trump is to one of my family members, a fight erupts. People are too far gone, sadly.

            • Dont’t ya love it, Handler?! Ya live in America, ya vote for an American politician, and you “make contributions” to the IRS……and your president signs a bill to defend a foreign nation….while letting yours be invaded….. And this is the “conservative”?!

              And nobody in the mainstream sees anything wrong with all of this? It’s ABSURD!

              When did we become vassals of Israel? And yet people say that there’s no conspiracy being orchestrated by a Jewish cabal!

              • I hate to talk positive of the guy, but Obastard was one of the few presidents that was neutral towards Israel. The Mossad must not have had any footage of him receiving fellatio from Larry Sinclair.

                • Hi Handler,

                  I think OM has to be more Pro-Israel because it is red meat for “conservatives” – many of whom seem to venerate Israel far more than America, much less liberty!

                  • eric, I don’t get it and neither does anyone I personally speak with. AIPAC is the worst thing to happen to this country. Every single hard heart in congress is taking money from AIPAC. They should have plenty to give since the US sends over $4B a year to them. If I had that sort of chump change to spread around things would changed rapidly and to a great extent. No doubt I could get them to pass a law requiring every person of legal age in the US to sign a document recognizing ME as having the final say on everything that I could change on a whim.

                    This is exactly what Bloomberg is going for.

                • Awww, jeez…..C’mon guys! It’s all just WORDS and media emphasis. THEY ALL DO THE SAME THING! They just use different words.

                  Obozo kept the wars going and served Israel’s interests just as much as GWB and DJT- you just didn’t hear of it as blatantly in the media, and the prick didn’t overtly talk about it.

                  POLITICAL THEATER for the people.

        • Well said Nunz. We had a fantastic candidate in 2012 – Ron Paul. His son Rand Paul who is alo fantastic ran in 2016. This year Tulsi Gabbard is the best. Guess who always gets ignored? Folks that dont want our kids to die for nothing. crazy aint it. Trump is a dangerous loon.

          • Heh, yeah Mark3- I would have even voted for Ron Paul. (Rand is O-K…he’s “my” senator- but he’s no Ron).

            The fact that Ron only garnered 3% of the vote in the Republican primary is a pretty sad commentary on the state of our people– 60 million voted for the Clinton bitch in the last election, but even among “conservatives” only a handful vote for the only real conservative, and proponent of liberty and small government.

            Pretty much shows that no matter what the elites do (even if they did nothing) our neighbors are so totally brainwashed that there’s no worry about them ever “running out of the pen”, even if the gate is left wide open.

            • Nunz, an article by Joseph Mercola M.D. pointed out Google can swing 15 million votes in the US. We don’t have to wonder how they’ll swing. They also have been able to change election results in 25% of the world.

              Well, whaddya expect from a company started and funded by the CIA/NSA bunch?

              • 8, what difference does it make? The power structures that are in place, and have long been, are not going to be unseated because of how some plebes vote.

                Ya go to some small third-world country- they have an election and get a new administration, everything changes. There are noticeable differences from one admin to another.

                Here? What changes? Just the rhetoric.

    • No one prefers ANY “sociopath”, of course.

      The reality of how politics evolves is that it DRAWS them. After all, the idea, though everyone in the “game” does so with a pretense of righteousness and altruistic motives, is to get as much as you can for those that, in effect, “hired” you, and, of course, why shouldn’t you “help yourself”?

      Hence why so often you must truly pick the “lesser” of two EVILS, but understand that both are “evil”…it becomes then a matter of which “devil” you get to know. Then said “devil” has to be watched, CAREFULLY…

      That’s part of the reason why our “Federal” Government was established by the several states via a Constitutional Convention, which some claim ended up being a “betrayal”. Originally this country was a loose federation of states, and we’ve heard all along at how ineffectual it was. Again, victors write the history books (and, where applicable, conduct the “war crimes” trials). Sure, there were issues like Shays’ rebellion, in which poor farmers, many of whom were on the verge of losing their farms, like Daniel Shays. Of course, they rebuffed efforts of their local sheriffs to foreclose their properties, and even occupied court houses in Western MA and refused to pay their taxes. This had the country in an uproar, as not only in MA were there disgruntled and UNPAID Revolutionary War veterans. Most of the states were in danger of defaulting on their outstanding debts, which, from the war, were considerable. There is considerable support that the Convention was at the behest of the banks, whom stood to see their respective portfolios wiped out if nothing was done about the “debt crisis”. Still, even then what we had was very limited, in terms of overall size and how much of the GDP it consumed, and likewise the several states, compared to what we have today. For that, we can blame “Dishonest Abe”, whose war, promulgated on the seceding Confederate states, with no less justification than there was for all the states having broken free of British rule some 80 years prior. His actions in ironic effect destroyed the Federal character of the Government, which was the SERVANT of the several states, and, like Lord Vader boasted on the Death Star to Obi-Wan Kenobi, now the Master, becoming NATIONAL in character.

      Our current infestation of the White House is hardly a perfect man, his flaws are legend. However, consider what things would be like if the Witch were in charge. So let’s console rather than congratulate ourselves that Trump is our current POTUS, and keep working to (1) move members of his party to more Libertarian ideals and (2) get outright Libertarian party members and independents with libertarian ideals elected, as well as resist any further encroachments of our liberties, like what’s going on with gun rights in VA.

      And yes, though I’d prefer to work peacefully and lawfully, “within the system”, history is seldom made by the law-abiding and peaceful.

      • Hi Douglas,

        “Then said “devil” has to be watched, CAREFULLY…”

        Hey look, he’s breaking another law, ignoring his campaign promises, trampling people’s rights, continuing illegal wars…. Look, he’s doing it all again, and again, and again…

        Good thing we’re all watching him so carefully.

        Cheers,
        Jeremy

        • Jeremy, “Good thing we’re all watching him so carefully.”. I’m taking that tongue in cheek. As if he could give a shit. There won’t be any significant change regardless of president. I can only come to that conclusion from watching it closely the last 6 of my 7 decades.

          The prez is simply a figurehead. His wild numbers of employed and other such nonsense is just numbers being liars. Notice he Never mentions inflation and he won’t. All his billionaire banker pals would shit a brick if he made a big deal out of that or auditing the fed. I called my rep today to support the bill to stop his ability to make war without congressional consent. It was just a phone call and I don’t expect it to make a difference in the vote on HR 550 but it doesn’t break me to try it and I was pissed off enough to vent a little to his staff.

          I realize I shouldn’t get pissed off but the weather is making everything I strained yesterday hurt like hell. Just another bitch with a period and it didn’t make me feel a bit better. peace b

          • There’s never a shortage of suckers. They line up by the thousands just to be able to see and hear Orange Man lie to them in person.

            At least seals in a circus have to be thrown a few fish as a reward for being compliant. Voters only require a politician to promise them a better future.

            • Too bad people aren’t at least as smart as dogs. I mean, at least a dog, after a time or two of you making believe that you threw the toy, will stop running for it. But voters, no matter how many lies they are perpetually told, will just keep believing.

              • Hey Nunz,

                “But voters, no matter how many lies they are perpetually told, will just keep believing”.

                For most voters, the reward for voting, is voting; they believe it to be a positive good. In that sense, their decision to vote is rational.

                Cheers,
                Jeremy

                • Jeremy, aside from that, all too many people vote rather than work for a living. As Menken observed:

                  “The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods.”

                  • Hi Jason,

                    Mencken, perhaps riffing on Bastiat?

                    “If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.

                    They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly, such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly, we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.”

                    Cheers,
                    Jeremy

  5. Great read – your description of the shaker hood on your Trans-Am reminded me of the time I helped my buddy with a few mods on his then-new 1979 Trans-Am (with that loathsome 403) one of which was opening up that scoop with a hacksaw and file. After that, headers and a true dual exhaust. We did a pretty good job of it, and he was happy with the results. That was 40 years ago. Definitely a different time. Damn . . .

    • Thanks, Keith!

      And: The 403 Olds has an undeserved bad rep. It wasn’t any worse – in stock form – than the standard Pontiac 400. Both made a dismal 180 horsepower (advertised). Both could make a lot more with a cam, higher CR heads and the usual mods (back then – re-jetting the carb, headers, etc.).

      I helped a friend who had a ’79 – like the one you worked on – we did the above and got probably 300 honest hp out of the 403. It ran strong – and with the 2:73 highway gears these cars came with, the thing was fast, too. We twisted the 100 MPH speedo around to 20 again several times!

      • I had a friend with 79, a silver one. First off he changed cams, installed dual and a different intake and old 403 was a fast sumbitch. And like you said, the rear gears and the torque of the engine allowed it to reach well up there above 120. Nice cars except for the T Tops but his didn’t leak. He knew they all seemed to so he asked what he could do to keep them from leaking. He was told to simply not use them. So he took them off, put some good ol Westinghouse clear RTV on them and they never leaked a drop.

      • What kind of car were you in. I remember the GM 100 mph speedometers. They were around from 1975-76 before being replaced by 80 or 85 mph units in 1977. All were truly horrible. I don’t understand why automakers seemed to standardize speedos across the board except when they were required to by 1980. FMVSS 127 lasted from 1980-1982 model years.

        • My SS El Camino had one of those speedos. I don’t remember exactly where the needle was when I was doing 140+ across a huge amount of lava in N.M. I did note the rpm I was turning, where I got the speed reading. It covered that ridiculous fuel economy gauge. And that was on vaca with a bunch of stuff in it not to mention its 4380 svelte lb dry weight.

          I used to get compliments on its idle. It wasn’t some lumpy thing. It was specially ground by Lunati. It just had this sound of power and not actually stock smooth sounding.

          If I rebuild it, it might have one of the all-aluminum LS’s in it.

  6. I know I’ve probably mentioned it already, but I’m guessing once cars are out of the picture (well for us, anyways), the elites’ next target(s) will be bicycles. Then “Radio Flyer” wagons, then running, then walking, and so on, and so on.

    If we don’t put an end to this anti-fun charade, eventually, we’ll all be so “safe” that existing will be banned. After all, can’t get hurt or die if you never live.

    • They already got Radio Flyers, remember? They gave them that ridiculous steering limiter that constrains the front axle to the point where they’re pretty much useless for actually carting stuff around your yard. You have to pick up the front and swing it around in mid-air to make any reasonably tight turn.

      I’d like to say they won’t bother to mess up bicycles due to their being slow, inconvenient, and overall limited enough by default, but the problem is, whether the elites plan to ever attack bicycles or not, they’ve already created a safety monster. We already have so-called “car enthusiasts” who think side-curtain airbags should be mandatory even though they were already widely available years before they were made so. If I’m not mistaken someone is already floating the idea of a bicycle airbag. Yes, a bicycle airbag. The fact that anyone could say those words without immediately realizing how blatantly worthless and silly the entire concept is, already proves that we as a society are completely hosed.

      But I’m sure it’s going to be enforced at some point, because just that’s how things work now. The idea will remain mostly unheard of until some undefined point in the future when suddenly it bursts onto the scene and becomes common almost overnight, then just as suddenly it will become mandatory, and then it will become “child abuse” or neglect or something to let your kid ride an old bike without one. It happened with plastic bag bans and raising the smoking age, why should anything else be exempt?

      That’s what I mean by creating a safety monster. Even if the elites are content to mostly leave us be on our stupid little Chairman Mao bicycles once they’ve got rid of cars, the vast herds of programmed fraidy-cats will still demand bicycles be subject to airbags and speed limits and whatever else too, lest someone manage to sneak in a little bit of fun somewhere.

      Don’t get me wrong, I still hate bicycles as much as I ever did. But a BICYCLE AIRBAG? Um, seriously? You know, sometimes when a thought comes into your head, you should just sort of leave it there and not let it out into the world? There is literally no situation imaginable where any person on earth could derive ANY sort of benefit AT ALL from such a device – except perhaps for a new category of repairman which will have to exist just to service these pointless liabilities, and the anthill of political/regulatory non-doers which will be retained to police these repairmen and their “customers”. Is nothing safe from safety?

      “If we don’t put an end to this anti-fun charade, eventually, we’ll all be so ‘safe’ that existing will be banned. After all, can’t get hurt or die if you never live.”

      This matches exactly my own thoughts on the issue. The thing of it is, most people out there really can’t see anything but what’s right in front of their face, and have bought into “zero visions” without fully realizing it. How can you be against less pollution? How can you be against fewer deaths? How can you be against following the law? On and on and on, and they can’t see – refuse to see – the bigger picture. What they want is a monotonous beige hell where nothing ever really happens and everything is just sort of “OK” (for a VERY generous definition of such) all the time, but at the same time they can’t really admit that, even to themselves, and so will deny it vehemently. It’s why gradualism works so well.

      Well, I was like that as a child and for most of my teenage years. I’ve been down that road, and I know there’s nothing down that road but boredom and loneliness. Now I’m 24 and all I have to show for my former safety obsession is no friends, a cruddy car, and nothing to do for fun but sit behind a keyboard and shake my fist at the world.

      • Hi Chuck,

        I agree with you – it is inevitable that more ssssssssssssafety edicts will be passed with regard to bicycles. Not the bold. Many states already force bicyclists to wear a helmet; why not force them to buy an air bag, too? The principle (as you note) is exactly the same. And that is why I harp on it. If the government – if the cLovers – can force you to do X because safety the the Clovers can also force you to do (or buy) Y on the same basis.

        • I recall another character who’s famed for speaking withhh a lisssspp…and his “song” is “Trust in Me”…with which he nearly made a morsel out of Mowgli!

          We should look at these “safety advocates” with the same degree of suspicion and distrust for the same reason.

      • “Is nothing safe from safety?”

        You hit the nail on the head with that one! I recall reading an article a while back (might have been one of Eric’s articles IIRC) about a proposal that would require Amish horse buggies to be outfitted with seatbelts and “safety glass”, even though they only travel at like, what, 5 MPH? But then again, this may actually be a good thing. I mean, if the feds are dumb enough to mess with perhaps the most peaceful group of people in this country, then all hell would probably break loose.

        • That’s the thing about do-gooder logic. It’s never about actually solving a problem, it’s about FEELING like you’re solving a problem.

          I’ll give you an example of this psychological trap. I recently picked up a second job as a checker at a major chain supermarket. I won’t say which one, but I will say that they have an initiative whereby a customer can round up their total to the nearest whole dollar and donate the amount of the round-up directly to the local food bank. When I’m checking and I’m asking people if they would like to do this, it’s very difficult not to judge the ones who don’t as greedy and selfish… even though I myself basically forget the existence of this program when I’m on the other side of the checkstand!

          As near as I can tell, it’s roughly the same mentality that drives Cloverite decision-making. People enter a mentality where they forget to respect the dignity of the individual and begin to care only for making everything “safe” or making the statistics look good. The fact that side-curtain airbags (including the one’s that saved your dad’s life, guy on another forum!) were frequently used as a selling point for years before they were made mandatory, and that people are perfectly capable of reading spec sheets to determine which car has the safety features they want, and that all these mandates jack up the price of a new car so that the poor get stuck in old and often poorly-mantained used cars which not only lack safety features but also suffer from relatively primitive metallurgy and maybe even structural rust, don’t matter. Once the government has made a safety diktat, we have a moral imperative to support it, they think, and if we mourn the absence of, say, a car that was discontinued, or only ever available in kit form/as a track car only, because of regulations, then we obviously have our priorities wrong.

          So go the bicycle and motorcycle airbags. I personally can’t even fathom a crash in which having an airbag in the handlebars would actually help anything at all, but it’s a safety device so Safety Doubleplusgood!

          • Exactly! To quote a verse in the bible, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). In other words, good deeds mean absolutely nothing if we’re doing them just to feel better about ourselves or to please someone else instead of doing them from the heart. Trust me, I learned that the hard way growing up.

            • By the way, that article I was referring to in my last comment was one that Eric wrote back in 2017 called “No Exceptions”.

            • “In other words, good deeds mean absolutely nothing if we’re doing them just to feel better about ourselves or to please someone else instead of doing them from the heart.”

              Exactly. Virtue signaling is simply a form of narcissism.

    • Hi Bluegrey,

      I have been singing this song – against sssssssssssssaaaaaaaafety – for decades. I have always known it was not about “safety.” That “safety” is just the excuse for exercising control. The antidote is so easy, too. It is to stand firm and deny that my safety (speaking first person; I mean you and everyone else) is no one else’s proper business. My mother – maybe any woman in my life – can express “concern” about my “safety” and ask me not to this – or to do that. But other people have no right to force me to do or not do anything, based on it being “safe” – or not. Because I own me. Every last got-damned cell and atom. If I want to drink bacon grease or drive unbuckled – then that is my business because it is myself being risked. It is beyond obnoxious to assert – as this society does – that an adult can be punished or constrained in any way on account of some other adults deciding it is necessary for the “safety” of that adult.

      Man up, people! We are not children – or property. Kick anyone in the ass who dares to even mouth words that your “safety” entitles him to order you around, punish you or steal your money under color of law.

      • Eric wrote: If I want to drink bacon grease or drive unbuckled…

        I believe it was Denis Leary’s character, Edgar Friendly, in “Demolition Man”, whom expressed a desire to run amok in the streets, smeared in green Jello, reading a Playboy magazine, and exist on a diet of bacon, butter, and buckets of cheese! IDK how he’d manage to acquire the cigar that’s as big as Cincinnati, but that’d bode well for tobacco futures in 2032, wouldn’t it?

        Man, when I was a kid, and we’d visit my Uncle (whom I’m named after) in Lancaster, CA, we kids would all pile in his pickup’s bed and “Unca Doug” would haul ass across the desert at over 100 mph! Just imagine the fits that the Clovers would pitch over some old boy doing that nowadays!

      • eric, all too often those “telling” you are doing so with a gun in hand. A sure way to get murdered is to argue with one. I notice the right side of the page is super-funky. Awww, that’s the way uh huh uh huh I like it uh huh uh huh.

    • “After all, can’t get hurt or die if you never live.”

      Methinks that’s the twisted logic behind the Pro-Choice movement, or the most radical of them, the Feminazis, whom seem to want EVERY pregnancy terminated with an abortion.

      • The irony, though, is that many of them rush to have kids so they can use them to get child support money. Or is that only in “da hood”?

        • The irony ore o’ yore before, tho, was grow your own labor force kids. I came out of just such an environment. There’s child support-money & then there’s child-support money.

          GB Shaw nailed this to the church door: A family is a tyranny ruled by its weakest member.

          & could say it’s a version of robbin’ hood: steal from the rich – in youthful energy, naivete & ignorance generalized — & give to the poor old parents who were treated the same way once, & have since run down their accounts from surplus to deficit & that’s what kids are for: chinking up the gaps…which also usta include that final gap of old age pension.

          https://narcissistfamilyfiles.com/2017/01/26/the-narcissist-family-its-cast-of-characters-and-glossary-of-terms/

          Pedestalizing is a red flag, even when it’s pretty well done, like say as by Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Walton’s Mountain iconography…all of which also serve buttress the mindfookery.

          • Hi Ozy,

            Well, if the race is to continue then children must be born. What then is the best general circumstance for this? To be raised by one’s parents, or by the state? For the man to provide for – and the woman to anchor – the family? Or both man and women to serve the state and serve as breeding stock for the next generation of serfs for the state? For the state – which is just other people, keep in mind – to direct how children are reared? What gives these people the right? How is it that they are possessed of superior knowledge?

            I see nothing wrong, as such, with a child doing chores and contributing to the household. This is one of the ways kids learn that there is no free lunch. It instills a work ethic, helps establish the value of being productive and showing initiative.

            It sure seems healthier to me than kids being umbilically connected to social media and staying indoors.

            PS: Shaw was a Fabian Socialist, as you probably know.

            • Amen, Eric!
              Hey, Amish kids do real work- on the farm; in the shop; around the house, or at the busy-ness.

              An Amish store I used to patronize when it was still extant, had a ten year-old girl minding it while her parents had gone somewhere.

              Funny- their kids aren’t on drugs or getting preggers or giving each other BJ’s; they’re responsible adults in their mid teens, instead of drunken, helpless, clueless 20-something year-old educated idiots that we turn out.

              And so it was for most people up until recent times.

              The state killed my work ethic when I was a kid. I wanted to go to work when I was 10-11. Had a taste of it from growing up around other kids who were the children of small busy-ness owners, and doing little jobs for their parents here and there, to be handed $5 or $10. But it was ‘splained to me that I’d need “working papers”, which I couldn’t get till I was 15 or so.

              That was my second or third wake-up call, that all of this BS about “freedom” was a farce. Why did I need permission from anyone other than my parents to do something I wanted to do, for someone who was willing to poay me to do it? (Compulsory edumacation and taxes were the first wake-up calls!)

              As a consolation, my mother reminded me that if I worked, I’d have to also pay taxes. Hmmmm, wondered I. How is it that if I do labor for someone and they pay me, that I have to give a cut to someone who had no involvement in the transaction? And thus a Libertarian was born!

              I never fully regained the enthusiasm and energy which I lost by not being able to work then, and by having to instead be corralled into the government indoctrination center for endless hours of busywork.

              Yeah…you’re not allowed to do productive work- but you are forced to get up every morning at 6 AM and commute to “the office” where your time is wasted and you are not paid, so hopefully you’ll be satisfied to perform that routine for the rest of your life when you are paid a small stipend by some corp or gov’t agency for doing the same.

              A few thousand years later, and they’re still trying to practice Plato’s Republic. -communal wives bearing children to the state. Isn’t that exactly what we have now ?(If anyone thinks not, just ask any welfare mama!)

              It ultimately comes down to a question of who owns our kids? Those who create and sustain and nurture them, or the state? The state should not be- but things are so backwards, that the state not only is, it is often the one who is sustaining and nurturing the sprogs- so it feels like their daddy- and then it extends it’s fatherhood to even those whom it does not sustain nor nurture!

              • Nunz, when I was a kid the schools opened early so they could close early giving the kids more time to work during harvest. It was a different world. I never knew a kid who thought they were being done wrong. It was their living they were working for.

              • If that’s what it comes down to – “who owns our kids” – you are well & truly lost. But at least you’ll never be “lonely.”

                • If one thinks that someone other than the parents have say over kids….then they must advocate the apparatus of government and it’s authority over the lives and property of others- which is the diametric opposite of Libertarianism/Anarchy.

                  It’s as basic a concept as is the acknowledgement of one’s right to discriminate, or to freely possess any weapon; to freely speak, associate (Oooopps! That’s redundant. See: Discriminate)…..

                  • “Have a say” is not “owns.”

                    Neither collective can rightly “own” kids.

                    But when slavery is implicit & a priori start point, any & every damn thing is “justified.”

                    So, for one example, the abortionists rely on your “ownership” rationale as much as you do.

                    • ***”“Have a say” is not “owns.””****

                      The Nazis sure thought it was just as good- as, rather than advocating the state ownership of “the means of production” as the commies did, they rather let “the people” retain “private ownership” while taxing and regulating everything to death- to achieve essentially the same things as the commies.

                      So, if I have a say as to what color you paint your house, and can enforce my will to the point of imposing penalties upon you or confiscating your house, who then “owns” your house?

                    • Yes. The Boys From Brazil (novel, from the 70’s) had shit for meta-parents, too.

                      Was pointing out that “having a say” is a significant backpedal from “own.”

                      Words are clay at the bottom of a latrine, too, but aren’t you one of the many who believes otherwise?

                      So if & since you do not own your house — an inanimate thing & not a person btw, & which non-ownership is something that gets validly lambasted round here – you should be like the sumbitches that *do* own your house vis a vis your kids?

                      Is that projection, or internalization? Or is it just the way it is?

                      Like said, those sumbitches is spooled up versions of the daddy-mommy-progeny•property nuclear family.

                      Bottoms up, l’ chaim – not the top down wind in your hair (which I think you also favor as the story that “explains”).

                      & like somebody else said it ain’t likely you’ll be solving a problem with the same level of thinking that created the problem.

                      Not that thinking, beyond figuring out cover stories, has anything to with it.

                      & as also said, not that it’s a problem. It’s just the nature of the boastful beast…to make toasts over bar tabs s\he can’t pay.

                  • Hiya Nunz!

                    Arguably, minor children literally belong to their parents – as their parents created them – in the sense of stewardship – because minor children cannot practice self-ownership until they have attained the age of reason and become capable of it. Certainly, others have no legitimate claim to stewardship over other people’s children. On what basis would such a claim be based?

                    Obviously, parents haven’t got the right to abuse – to harm – their children. And it is understood that some parents will harm them. But I don’t see how that negates the basic idea of parental stewardship of their children. Much less grants power of stewardship to other people, who are not the child’s parents.

                    • Hiya(way to hell) Eric…

                      “Arguably” indeed. “susceptible to debate, challenge, or doubt; questionable”

                      Here’s where that part one to yesterday’s two-part post (that never made it outta mod queue) would circle round to flank…that bit about the slippery slope.

                      It’s also where Oedipus straps on the crampons, if s\he is Oedipus, or Oedipus-like, or has crampons to strap on.

                      “Please send me someone I can own” goes the good tune.

                      If I had to distill the swill all the way down to just one drop that drapes all those little wo\men behind the curtains who are to be disregarded (according to them), it is just this notion of people as property.

                      Too many incompetents to the task will take that first inch, & then slide ass over tea kettle all the way to the bottom.

                      And then, because too many – headcounts – comprise normality, call it good, right, proper, & all the other rationalizing euphemisms of tribal bribe taking & giving.

                      What sex-conception creates, in people who aren’t down there in the humanimal heap at the bottom, is obligation, responsibility.

                      Not property in persons.

                      (Naturally, all the sport sexers out there are appalled by this. But not just those wafflin’ SS’ers are appalled by it.)

                      Self-owners are pretty rare. Self-owning parents prolly have the best shot at stewarding their kids into self-owning adults.

                      Parents who property their progeny, otoh, aren’t self-owning & the probability of the desired outcome goes down accordingly.

                      The wheels on the generational busses go round & round. & not just in Sweden, either.

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2gKzAZH5UQ

                    • Well-said, Eric (as usual!)

                      As long as there are sentient autonomous beings….there will always be some abuse/evil in any endeavor.

                      The statist- even the conservative- seeks to eliminate evil through the auspices of the state- which of course is impossible, because the state is also comprised of sentient autonomous beings (and usually ones of the worst variety) and because to it would require that the state have total control and authority over everyt aspect of any endeavor.

                      Of course, that doesn’t stop statists of all denominations from still advocating that the state interfere- which of course does virtually nothing to stop evil/abuse (It usually empowers the abusers/evil) but greatly harms many innocent people, perpetuates taxation, and increases the tyranny of the state.

            • True, Eric, as far as that goes.

              Also true that as the race has continued to be born at a furiously unrelenting pace, the prospects of discontinuing the race, not to mention the multitudes of less than dead, not quite dead yet, pressure-tensions have increased at some serious g force. The gravity of all that gestation…gg force, maybe.

              You know what sustained g forces do to a body. That sustaining provides much of the fodder you write about. & that writing about it sustains you (as far as I know).

              Family is preferred to “extended” family, it takes a village idiocy. Because it is a lighter, as versus heavier, wave. Heavy water is death defying (if you make it) but also almost invariably deathwishing. Everything’s got a shadow, but not that many shadows, only the few shadows, wanna’ know.

              But how that’s anchored – which parent does what — need not be, should not be anchored…according, perhaps, to libertarians who didn’t break down on the side of the road before making it to ancapville.

              If it is anchored by compulsion to conform, or 3rd party imposition, then all involved in that square dance have psych\emotional problems. Call that “enculturation” if you prefer (just a synonym, that, tho, as the Black Robe flick technicolors). Or just call it the heavy water wave o’ biomass biology.

              But don’t unsee the fulcrum word nestled within. C-u-l-t. Cargo pants & the loads they lug might also be a useful, or at least fun, mental pic.

              My point especially is that family should also not be anchored to rosy religion tints, any more than any of the other collectives should be. Luther’s 95 against indulgences & dispensations was merely so much pruning; Shaw’s single sentence goes to the root.

              But that point, next to the pint collectivist punters keep strapped to their bodies with the mainline needle set to fast drip will never be more than the dot at the end of a short sentence that the inebriated will never comprehend.

              None are so blind as those who are blind drunk? But fetal alcohol syndrome is a thing – & not just in Sweden — a binge-bender generational thing, even…so who to blame\credit (that Darwin observation)?

              Chores? Sure. Not what I referred to, tho, is it?

              You know the history of mule team families. I pointed out that it’s not a bonny boon good thing, & that it’s not ancient history. I lived it & it is the life in much of the world.

              I hunted up Shaw’s quote because I did not want to paraphrase it. Clicked that link & there was Kings’ infamous family man as portrayed by Jack Nicholson. Since shining on had already found its way into thread that day, I just had to use it again.

              But all that other stuff re “narcissism” (among other things) is true enough…more than true enough.

              You do realize, too, that “family” is the model of\for\by states, right?

              The flow is upward. Not down. The little lonely tumors longing to meta, congeal together to heal together from that “lonlieness,” just gotta’ collective up.

              “We,” they say. My response, when I was down south, was “fook ya’ll.” (And since those parts are particularly oleaginous, I had a lot of fights.)

              Like I said recently, I had one founding father. One is all anybody else has, too.

              But one’s a Lays potato chip to the lonely.

              And bam, just like that, you got commercials for couch serfers for “the fatherland” (or motherland, as case may be). & cartoon characters with orange hair & twitchy twitter fingers playing Big Daddy atop the hot tin roof.

              So…either\or, family or state, misses all that – huge amount – insinuating cross pollinated metastasis.

              It’s fun, good exercise, to work it. But the catch-22 fix is in, designed in. This isn’t a problem to be solved.

              Those who believe it is a solvable problem, well…inebriation & faith-based “initiatives” have already been mentioned.

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2ncFrg9afa8 paedomorphosis

              ps Even a Fabian socialist can knock one out the park. Even if only a lucky strike, so what? Use it, MacGyver. Ayn Rand was a nutbag harridan. Again, so what?

              • pps Prolly the link that chains all this together is Fabian socialism is Shaw’s “solution” to the weakest member family tyranny. Objectivism (& its inseparableness from Rand’s tyranny over her inner sanctum cult) was Rand’s “solution.”

                There is no solution because there is no problem.

                There is just the nature of the beasts…which includes a lotta’ boasts about how to “change” that nature.

  7. “for the same reason they characterize things like the 15 percent of every dollar we earn that we are forced to hand over to finance the loathsome intergenerational Ponzi scheme called Social Security as a “contribution.”

    I really wish they would have made Social Security a choice.

    I am receiving SS now that I am “elderly” ,,, Yes Eight I can still manage a cars climate control and radio 🙂 I always understood the original intention of SS even though I hated paying it.

    Few Americans actually earn enough to save the money needed to survive the last twenty or so years of their lives. Most that got rich could opt out. And even if we did save,,, the depreciation of the currency now running around 8-10pct would buy only 30pct of what it did when you earned it over 50 years ago. The Stock Markets have crashed 5 times in my life and I have lost money but not even close to the money I am now losing due to the FED and its illegal maneuvers.

    Due to corpgov encouraging the offshoring of production to slave states (still is) and allowing mass immigration, I am reading article after article of Americans unable to cough up a $1000 for an emergency. Most would probably opt out of SS while they are young to capture that 15pct but as they got closer to retirement might recognize they did not have any or enough savings and would attempt to join in. This would make it even worse as SS would have lost all that revenue. Now I am all for freedom and I do not care for taxes especially the horrible things gov is doing with them.

    IMO they should give you the ability to opt out BUT once you do you can NEVER ever join in,,, for any reason.
    Problem is,,, One never knows what life has in store for him her.

    I am sure many posters here would enjoy this and opt out but can you imagine the millions that will become aged without any income! Is it their fault they could only get low income jobs? Many here would probably say yes not knowing their situation. The whole country would look like California’s tent cities. Probably soon will anyhow. People would be screaming for gov to do something,,, well about all gov could do would be either kill them all or start sending checks. It would be far worse then the present situation. Some say the children should take care of their parents and that worked until the industrial revolution scattered families.

    Tell youngsters today they will have to care for their parents and watch the reaction…. 🙂

    Yes gov is reckless with the money,,, yes many scam SS,,, and gov stole 2.5 trillion so Bill Clinton could say he balanced the budget which is why they are cash short today. They could do better for sure. When the pundits that have stock in the Military Industrial Complex start hitting on SS they will never tell you that. They just want more money for weapons to sweeten their portfolios.

    When younger and employed, saw a grandma who lost her husband and savings due to the Medical Criminal Complex buying a few groceries cashing her SS check I never complained. We have helped folks at the checkout that had more in their basket then they had money to cover. Many were young people!

    My son doesn’t pay SS. He laughs about it. Says he is doing well in his 401k stocks. I sure hope the markets don’t crash again in the next 30 years.

    Yes I see everyone’s point of view but ((( I ))) cannot come up with an answer that would work other than allowing folks to die off while blaming their poor choices….

    • Hi Ken,

      It’s said good ideas usually don’t require guns. Social Security is a great example. I suspect if one could opt out, most would. I know I would have – because by now, the money I would have saved would have accumulated to a sum sufficient to allow me a comfortable retirement in my 50s. But I am someone who lives below his means. I save. And I invest. I would have used the money not mulcted from me to buy land – which is almost always at the very least a hedge against the inflation value reduction you describe and often generates additional wealth. It doesn’t take a great deal of money to live a reasonably comfortable life if you own a modest home in an affordable area, have no debt and live below your means.

      So many people, however, live for the moment. Debt has become normal. I mean acquiring titanic debt that makes saving and investing impossible.

      Many of these people would just spend the “extra” 15 percent – and wind up broke at 65. But while I am sorry about that, I do not see how the irresponsible actions of people I don’t even know imposes an obligation enforceable at gunpoint on me to ameliorate it at my expense.

      That is the core moral issue – and principle – here.

      It’s not a question of “greed” or “selfishness.” That is gaslighting. It is a question of right. Assisting others who are in need when it is done by the individual and voluntarily is a wonderful thing. It is a loathsome thing when done using force. It established the evil principle that the misfortune – and irresponsibility – of Smith imposes an open-ended obligation on Jones, enforceable at gunpoint. This in turn serves as a kind of fuel for the politics of looting that defines our society today. It sets man against man – officially. It empowers the scum of the earth – politicians. It renders every person insecure at the most fundamental level – that of their property, which is to say – themselves. If my property can be lawfully taken to “help” others for any reason then it can be taken in any amount – and eventually, will be. How do you draw a line in the sand? The demand for “free” things paid for by others always goes up. Which is why property taxes always go up.

      Speaking of that. Even worse than SS/FICA because at least those taxes end when you stop earning. But you never stop paying property taxes – on property you paid for.

      I did some rough math once. I have paid something like $50 in property taxes on my current and previous house. Conservatively estimated, I have “contributed” at least $150k to SS over the past 30 years. So about $200k for me – leaving aside income taxes.

      Christ! I could retire on that sum right now.

      Instead, I have to keep on working… to keep on paying… like all the other tax mules out there!

      • Hi Eric

        You absolutely positively have a compelling argument that it is not our fault for someone else ending up broke at retirement.

        In a perfect world where everyone is a responsible adult SS would not be needed at retirement.

        In a perfect world Welfare, Chips, Foodstamps, WIC, Section 8 housing, and disability would not be needed.

        It’s kind of funny but I see much criticism of SS from just about everywhere but rarely do I see any criticism of the Welfare / Disability programs. Hardly never hear about the never ending property/schrool taxes. For some reason People apparently consider the young and children as necessary,,, whereas the elderly are considered mentally defective and useless eaters even when employers prefer them because they…. “show up”.

        Hard as I try,,, I cannot come up with a solution that doesn’t end up our having to pay for it somehow, some way.

        • Hi Ken,

          I think the solution is acceptance of the moral principle that helping others is laudable but that forcing others to “help” is simply theft camouflaged with sanctimony.

          My left shoulder aches constantly; I probably have a torn rotator cuff. It sucks. But my problem doesn’t give me the right to force others to “help.” If someone wants to help me, that’s one thing – provided they’re doing so without a gun to their head.

          Life is full of misfortune. Why institutionalize it?

          • You need to have that shoulder looked after. There are some doc’s that take cash,,, maybe some in your area?

            I had something similar,,, every time I moved the pain was extreme,,, rubbing didn’t help. Tried ice,, didn’t work. Doctor basically told me I was a pussy. Took six months before it went away. Just woke up one morning and it was gone.

            • Hi Ken,

              In re the shoulder: Yeah, I know. The problem is that the necessary diagnostic – MRI – costs $1,000-plus (not counting the doctor’s office and related charges). Then the arthroscopic surgery – which without “coverage” costs in the vicinity of $6k-$8k out of pocket. So basically, close to $10k … which is a non-starter for me. I’d have to take out a loan and become a debt slave to that – and the pain is preferable. I figure it’ll heal up eventually. If not, I’ll figure out a way to grin and bear it.

              I’m stubborn. I won’t play ball with this system!

              • 8 years after shoulder surgery I thought I would need it again but didn’t know what they could do since my joint looked like new after surgery.

                That’s when i realized my TENS unit was meant for increasing blood flow. I started using it at night and sometimes all night. After a couple months my shoulder got a lot better and I had more muscle, which helps keep some strain off the joint and ligaments. It bothers me now and then and I use the old TENS unit till it gets better.

                I need the other shoulder done but, like you, can’t afford it. Even so, I use the TENS unit on bofem and it helps them.. I use it to help my ankle pain too but you can only put it on muscle. Still, it stimulates bloodflow to the whole area which in turn helps the inflammation in my ankle and achilles tendon. I use it every place I have an old injury, even my ribs. Good ol broken ribs, the gift that never stops giving.

      • “But while I am sorry about that, I do not see how the irresponsible actions of people I don’t even know imposes an obligation enforceable at gunpoint on me to ameliorate it at my expense.”

        Exactly! We’re literally paying for others’ mistakes.

      • I did some napkin math… very rough estimation is that in my lifetime I’ve paid well for the sake of some privacy an enormous amount in taxes and if I keep working I will cross the seven figure mark before retirement.

        I have easily paid more than so many people do in their lifetimes but no, it’s never enough. My “fair share” is always increasing.

        The left and right likes to throw the “social contract” around, but society hasn’t lived up to its end of bargain for this tax donkey. Yet it expects me to keep producing. Then every time I look there’s another item in the news that translates to “Work Harder”.

        Work Harder. For what exactly? For what?

        • “Work Harder. For what exactly? For what?”

          To keep the corporate state afloat.

          They always promote those phony “rags to riches” fairy tales in order to keep the serfs motivated to work.

          • rags to riches?
            Time is riches. Time.
            Better to be poor with money and rich with time or so it often seems. But where does time come from? It comes from making others do more work. Others do the work that one would need to keep himself alive frees up lots time.

            So many people, many who are ‘poor’ get to have their time. Precious time.

      • Arrogant is the PRESUMPTION that most folks wouldn’t save for their retirement.

        Americans will do what they deem NECESSARY. And yes, if we have to see the sad example of another grasshopper, out in the cold, freezing, because we already have more fiddling grasshoppers to play “I owe the world a living!” after literally fiddling away their respective summers, so be it.

        I love it when libtards pontificate about some “social contract”. Contract? WHAT ‘contract’? A ‘contract’ is defined as a VALID agreement, signed between TWO parties, each capable of consent, with CONSIDERATION, for a LAWFUL PURPOSE. Where SS meets that criteria escapes me. I sure as hell didn’t sign no “Steekin’ Contract!”.

  8. Its funny how the market (as much as they try to suffocate it) always tends to go get what people want…. well at least partially. Some time back was in a new Velar – with the glass top….. when I looked up felt just like I was in an 80s T top (with glass ) car which my dad had briefly back when I was a kid (i think it was an oldsmobile cutlass supreme or something). I just remembered in that moment what happened to T top cars. If you say they were banned – I wonder what will happen to these glass top cars ! I’m sure eventually they will ban them as well!!

  9. I remember in HS having to get my sister from the school bus because two kids got into a fight on it and the cops were called

    Threw everyone who could fit into my H3 (as in, 4 buckled and everyone else laying low in the back) and took them to the mall for a bit

    Sure everyone’s got a variation of that story, but of course, the clovers would go REEEEEE if they every heard or saw that.

    Only modern T-top left afaik is the Whorevette and the Wrangler, otherwise the Clovers and Uncle eliminated them.

    As far as the hood scoops are concerned, always the aftermarket

  10. When I was a youngster, we’d pile in the back of my father’s truck going into town. Try that now and the AGW’s will be on you quicker than white on rice.

    • I remember riding in the back of pickups back in the day! Back then, there was little choice because they only had the single bench seat; they could only hold 2-3 people in the cab; there were no double cabs back then. I seem to remember that, in the mid-late 1970s, club cabs started becoming available. Anyway, back in the day, if a family wanted to travel in a pickup, the kids rode in the back; there wasn’t space for ’em elsewhere…

    • When we were little (early 80s), dad put a camper shell on the Toyota truck, put a foam mattress in the bed and we took a family vacay from Indiana to Wyoming, Colorado, S. Dakota, etc. My brother and I lined it with sleeping bags and pillows and had our games and books and my boombox and had a great time back there. We could stretch out and sleep. We didn’t even fight. If the parents wanted to speak to us, they opened the little window in the back of the cab. We actually still liked each other when we got to our destination.

      • Morning, Amy!

        I remember the same. Have you seen the Netflix series Stranger Things? That show captures the world which existed (sans the trans-dimensional monsters) and I love it for that reason.

        • In the early 60’s our Ag teams were so well taught we went to state in nearly every category. We’d load the F 100 (old green ugly thing)with mattresses from the gym, put the livestock sideboards on it with a tarp over it and tear off a couple hundred miles(before interstate)with 8 of us in it.

          8 teenage boys with high levels of everything. We never thought twice about it. We had a change of clothes, a raincoat(always rained at the first state meet for land and grass judging), toothbrush and my patented bottle of Scope mouthwash, vodka with green and blue food coloring.

          As far as I know, our parents didn’t think a thing about it. Hell, we rode around all the time with half a dozen kids in a pickup and 3 in front(unless you had two girls that wanted to ride up front and then it would be 4). There were no seat belts then so no law to break.

  11. Hey Eric,

    Just reread the shaker scoop mod article you posted awhile ago. Did you ever make a video of your scoop working under vacuum pressure?

    Cheers,
    Jeremy

  12. As kids my sister and I used to sit on the tailgate of the family station wagon with the window rolled down. We poked our heads up over the roof line and loved every minute of it. Can you imagine and AGW seeing that these days? The SS would probably take the children away from the parents!

      • Hi bluegrey,

        They do this! Hut! Hut! Hut! parents who “allowed” their kid to play in the yard without an adult obviously present and supervising. There was a case when a neighbor called to express “concern” for just this reason. The kids were in the backyard; the mother was in the kitchen. But not standing there in the yard, supervising every moment.

        The country is doomed.

        • The only peace my mother got was when we were outside playing. She couldn’t find me one day but it wasn’t a panic situation. The neighbor boy my age and I had dug quite a good sized “fort” underground and camod the entrance. She just asked the girls where we were, and hoping we’d get in trouble(we didn’t), they were only too glad to tell.

          Well, we finally got the word from on high we were to fill the fort up. So we put a board over the entrance, shoveled some dirt on it and the dirty deed was done. Then we’d slide it over, get in and slide it back. That got to be old since a fart could last a long time like that.

          • Hi Eight,

            Channeling Mr. T: I pity today’s parents. For 18 years, just about, it’s all kids/all the time. I like kids. But who the Hell wants to be around them constantly? And what normal kid wants parents around constantly? When I was a kid, both got a break. By the time we were six or seven, most of us were running loose in the neighborhood, or at least the backyard. I have great memories of being that age and searching for critters under rocks and such. We all did this. We would ride our bikes over to a friend’s house – or they’d come to urs – and we’d all take off and be gone the whole afternoon, until sundown – when we were expected to be home for dinner.

            But for great blocks of time, we were free… and so were our parents.

            • And that is why my mother could cope with 6 kids while helping Dad in his business. Nowadays one child is enough to drive parents up the deep end. No wonder large families have ceased to exist. And we had fun exploring the woods near our house and the new interstates being built then in the mid 60s.

              • Ain’t that the truth?! Until a few decades ago, it was not uncommon for some families to have 10, 15, or even 20 kids. I’m pretty sure it’s because 1: most women were better lovers back then, which encouraged more “action” 😉, thus resulting in more offspring; 2: kids were not treated as liabilities; and 3: people in general were just naturally more responsible.

                • Hi Bluegrey,

                  Well-said in re kids. Only the very affluent, the Amish – and the very irresponsible – can afford more than a couple of kids. I once calculated the costs of just the sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety seats and the necessary vehicle to keep them ssssssssssssssssssaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafe – and that alone runs to a stupendous sum. Now add all the “health care” and insurance costs one must bear – by law. It’s probably at least $100k per kid.

                  Leaving aside money, there’s also feminism – which has resulted in the average age of a woman first having a baby to almost 30 – if she has one at all. If she has her first at 30, she can only have so many more – biologically. Her best reproductive years (late teens/20s) spent “establishing her career” – that is to say, her job.

                  One of the worst tricks feminism played on women was to sell them on this idea of a “career” – i.e, some glamorous, exciting in-charge (and big money) thing… when the fact is that most women (like most men) just have a job. Not glamorous and exciting. Just a job.

                  It’s honorable – and necessary – to earn one’s bread. But at the end of the day, it’s just a job. For men, this job provides meaning when it allows them to provide for their family. But what meaning does a job have for a woman without a family? When it comes at the cost of missing out on what HL Mencken rightly describes as the singular experience of her sex?

                  • Not every woman should be a mother. Many unsuitable ones take on the job. I don’t know of many women in their late teens or early 20’s that could handle the responsibility without a strong support network from community and family. I think it’s time to let the species die out and let nature take back over.

                  • Want to hear of a strange arrangement? My brother has been married for over a year and still does not live with his wife. She works as an interior designer in N.O. and lives in her parent’s $1.5 mil cottage in the Garden District. Also drives a $70k Porsche her parents bought for her. She’s in her 30s now. Not only is she receiving family money, she’s receiving money and expensive gifts from my brother. The only thing my brother is getting out of this arrangement is sex.

                    I can’t for the life of me understand why he married her as he despises the idea of having children. Maybe he thinks he’ll climb the social ladder quicker by being associated with her family. He can’t dump her, otherwise he’ll be paying a lot in alimony.

                    • Hi Handler,

                      I’ve heard of similar arrangements – and don’t get it, either. If you just want sex, that’s easier to get all by itself.

                    • He’s her boy-toy. She can technically say that she’s married, while she gets to castrate the guy in a million ways while never knowing what it’s like to have man rule over her and protect her and provide for her, etc.

                      Until she gets tired of him and banishes him to the corn field when he becomes obsolete and after having wasted his best years.

                      The both of them must be crazy. People that could have many options and are in a position to find something meaningful….and they throw the opportunity away for some “service agreement”. What a waste. By the time they realize it…it’s too late.

                    • Yup. He’s obligated to drive 4 hours each weekend to see her.

                      I lost respect for him when I heard the news. He really had it made. Oh well.

                    • It’s really almost a complete gender reversal- a kept man- “play the part when I need it for appearances, and throw me one once in a while”.

                    • Eric, she’s no cover girl. She just dresses very well as you would expect from a woman with means.

                      Nunz, that’s exactly what’s going on. These people have to maintain a certain facade for these high society events. Loners/spinsters are still looked down upon.

                    • Haha! Aint THAT the truth, Handler!- about loners/spinsters!

                      As a loner myself, I find it quite absurd that these days, I would be looked upon more favorably if I were reaming some other guy’s poop-chute, rather than being a loner!

                      And I have a c. 75 (and VERY young for her age) cousin who’s a spinster- Nicest, most energetic lady you could imagine- if you spoke to her on the phone, you’d think she was in her 20’s- but the relatives who live near her all complain because she doesn’t hob-knob with them or participate in all of their events. (I’ve mentioned her before- she drives a 71 Mustang that she bought new when she was in her 20’s!)

                      Us loners/spinsters seem very happy (quite a few of us in my family) and a common theme seems to be that we all stay healthy.

            • That’s actually my theory on why we seem to have so many school shootings. Kids are like little pressure cookers these days, being carefully monitored and supervised and scheduled every minute of the day from birth to age 22. Who wouldn’t go nuts in this situation? George Carlin once said if you really love your kids, leave ’em the f##k alone.

              • Well-said, Amy!

                I think you’re on to something important. I remember jumping on my bicycle after school (we sometimes rode them to school – imagine that) and taking off for wherever. It was a way to relieve stress as well as just do something on your own, without some adult directing you.

                I can’t imagine what it must be like to be monitored and controlled from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed… training wheels for adulthood, eh?

                And so sad.

                • Morning Eric,

                  I don’t remember my Mom ever taking us to school, even when it snowed or rained. I’m pretty sure I entered third grade after we moved from Australia to Michigan. Elementary school was 2 blocks from the house and we walked, junior high was about 2 miles away and we rode our bikes. I went to two high schools, the first about 5 miles away, the second about 2 miles away. It was my responsibility to get to school, sometimes I rode my bike, sometimes I got a ride from an older student friend, sometimes I drove myself. This was common, both of my parents worked (this was uncommon at the time) and we were expected to take care of ourselves.

                  Cheers,
                  Jeremy

                • I just had this thought about England’s weapon laws. I looked them up once after some terrorist attack that was way more successful than it should have been and it’s so bad that you can’t even have a screwdriver on you unless you have some work purpose to need one at that particular moment. If the victims had just bull-rushed the terrorists (who they vastly outnumbered) and beat or trampled them to death, Parlia-Mental probably would have ordered everyone to cut off their hands and feet, and replaced them with safety prosthetics to be worn only when “needed” – and most people probably would have obeyed.

                  And then it hit me. Remember those short-bladed, blunt-tipped safety scissors you had to use in elementary school so you didn’t accidentally stab yourself?

                  These kinds of weapon laws are like that. There are good reasons to make young children use them, but as an adult I’d find it quite insulting. The modern administrative state basically forces people to use the kiddie scissors from the cradle to the grave, in a million different ways.

              • Amy, there’s another thing at “play” with kids now. I worked with a kid that was 22 years ago. He was a big boy and rowdy, like all boys.

                The teachers decided to put him on drugs(probably adderal). He took them and became a zombie. He hated it and was at the supper table one day when he was 10 and started lactating.

                He said he had a fit and was more upset than you can imagine. He said he wouldn’t take them anymore no matter what. His mother was a nurse and had no problem with it but she didn’t try to keep him on it. I guess when your shirt gets wet at the supper table there’s not much you can say. Well, she should have said she was sorry.

                He’s not the only kid I know that was drugged going to school….by the school.. Those crazy women that seem to run schools are all high on jacking with little boys to make them little girls.

                A lifetime of taking psych drugs and there is no telling what you’ll get.

                • That’s true. Generation RX, for sure. Kids were never drugged when I was little. There’s was just the “bad kid” or the “class clown.” They got paddled and made to sit in front and other punishments, but never anything pharmaceutical. I guess I would be diagnosed with “oppositional defiance disorder” nowadays, as I was a libertarian from about age 5, a teacher’s nightmare. I hated rules-for-rules-sake and I hated being treated like a child and being talked down to. My parents struck a deal with me. Be a little ant at school and I could be a grasshopper at home. So they pretty much left me alone.

                  • Amy I understand how you feel/felt. I was so well-read I’d take on a teacher when they promulgated some bs. I got lots of bad grades making the highest score on the tests. I even had one teacher who told him, I gave you the grade I thought you deserved.

                    I was a junior then and that pretty much fixed me up with school. I was always having emergencies with some animal, hog, cow, horse and had to leave.

                    Got to the point the principal told me “I don’t care if you don’t come back after lunch, just let somebody know”.

                    Good enough. I’d fairly much be through with classes by 11. A friend and I would go to my house and talk to my mother while she cooked lunch. He’d go back to school and I’d go to the farm.

                    The next day with no homework done I’d go with about half a dozen others upstairs where there were no classes. Each would have done one subject and we’d pass the different subjects around and copy them. Too bad we had no computers. We could have done it all in a few seconds.

                    My favorite classes were Ag where I learned all sorts of things. Choir and band covered the rest of it. Every day at choir the teacher would call me by name and say “give us middle C”. I’d sing it and the piano teacher would then confirm. He’d always laugh his butt off and away we’d go. He never bothered to ask how I did it since he knew I had no idea. You either hear it or you don’t.

                  • YOU can’t discipline YOUR kids….but those on whom badges and guns (and taxpayer-funded paychecks) are bestowed can discipline other adults, via “pain compliance”, tazing, shooting, killing, locking away in cages and stealing their possessions and ruining their lives……..

              • I agree Amy, but would add that it seems to me most of the ‘shooters’ are young men, early to mid 20’s.
                My added theory is most youth today are being told they are winners in everything they do. The so-called participation trophy. Then real life hits in the early 20’s, and they don’t automatically win anymore, t hey can’t process it, and they crack. Or some of them do.

                • For ‘mass’ shooters it’s the drugs. Such violence is a known side effect. Put millions of people on the drugs and it will happen a few times a year.

                  As to other issues, well it’s much more complex. Society has broken the social contract. The social contract for men was to be upstanding and productive and society would have a place for you. That’s been broken. Society now demands the productivity and takes it but returns nothing.

                  • I’d agree it’s mainly the drugs but it’s not having a father figure too and the education system is geared now to make every kid female. The soy boys are that because they’ve been made into that.

                    And in west Texas you don’t need to take any drugs, they come to you from the wind via airplanes spraying crops and massive amounts of rare metal spewing out the back of KC 135’s to the tune of 100 tons every flight.

                    • 8, don’t forget “the service”! Seems more than half of these mass shooters have been former military douches. Train a guiy to hate and kill on command; give him a screwed up conscience and PTSD by making do unspeakable things to innocent people who were not his enemies; give him some psychotropic drugs…..and you got a guy who wants top play armymen with real people!

                  • ****”Society now demands the productivity and takes it but returns nothing.”****

                    “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. That seems to be the creed they’ve adopted….for us.

                    • But they only recognize certain things, almost entirely economic things, as needs.

                      It create a society where large numbers of creative and productive people are left with nothing to bargain their way through life with. The state takes it all and redistributes it. So what does society need to provide them in return? Nothing it takes what it wants.

                      Then it turns to the people it strip mines and shames and insults them for walking away from society.

  13. I’d like to see them legislate against using touch screen displays to control so many car functions. HVAC, Nav, audio, suspension and wifi adjustments, etc…..all require you to look away from the road to manipulate a flat, screen that usually provides no tactile feedback.

    To me, this is every bit as dangerous as texting while driving. But this is one case where they don’t seem to care at all.

    • Hi Mike!

      You’re right, of course… but it won’t happen. Because the whole point of those touchscreens and so on is to acclimate people to not driving at all. To make the automated car agreeable. Wait and see.

    • Back when screens started showing up in cars, a screen the driver could see was not legal. Next thing I know they’re putting the damn things in every vehicle. I’ve been with older drivers that couldn’t even adjust the climate control or the radio.

      • Same with high-beams. Before, leaving them on was a legitimate safety concern, thereby making it illegal for obvious reasons.

        Now, we get LED headlamps that fry your retinas if you happen to even glimpse them for a fraction of a second. Shows how much Uncle really cares about our “safety”.

        • Uncle thinks that’s safer. It’s caused by the upward light requirement. It’s always been an annoyance but with the poor light quality of LEDs and the brightness it is much worse. Anyway Uncle thinks that without shining light in the eyes of other motorists nobody would be able to read the overhead signs.

          • I know those blue lights are hell in more than one way. They blind oncoming motorists and don’t create enough contrast so the people using them hate them and the people being blinded by them hate them too. I hope they’re going away. It appears they are.

        • Don’t even get me started on those blinding-from-a-mile red and blue LED cop lights. If the gestapo actually cared about their own safety they wouldn’t use them. Not only do they blind approaching traffic from both directions they may well trigger epileptics into seizures. I know they trigger me into paroxysms of rage.

          • New Texas DPS cars have them inside at the top of the back glass and windshield. It’s not near as blinding. Still, there’s nothing like being up all night, driving in the dark with not much traffic and your eyes are adjusted to the dark and then those things go off.

            Some of the strobe lights on big rigs are too bright too. The only people they don’t blind is the operator of said rig.

    • No shit! I like knobs, buttons, and switches for stuff I’m going to use all the time, such as HVAC or the radio! WTF thought it was a good idea to bury this stuff in some arcane menu accessible only via the screen?

      I remember having an early Casio graphing calculator in college. Do you know that I had to go through 2-3 menus to access the Pi function? Here’s something that, if you’re doing any STEM stuff, you’ll need all the time; so many formulae have Pi in them. Ergo, it makes sense to have a dedicated Pi key. I never used the calculator because of that, either.

      I don’t want a car with basic, oft used functions buried in the screen; I want a dedicated, accessible, and easy to use control, TYVM! I don’t want to f*ck with some touch screen and go through multiple menus to change something basic like the radio or HVAC…

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