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Car salesmen are scum.

See, these are the kind of insightful revelations that keep you coming back here (he says to his imaginary reader). How would you have known that car salesmen are scum if you didn't happen in here today?

Everyone who has ever had dealings with a car salesman has a horror story. Since this is my blog I'm going to tell you mine.

We were thinking about trading in our van on a car—thinking about it, just wanting to see if it was worth it or not—and we took it to a car dealer. Okay, you're saying, see, right there's your first mistake.

We talked to the sales person, who happened to be a woman, which does inform the story a little, and we weren't too eager, and we talked for a bit about our options. Then she said she needed the keys to the van, so they could check it out. Sounds reasonable. Okay, I guess. I gave her the keys. Then they needed my driver's license to . . . I don't know what, but they needed to check out something using it.

What's that? Why, yes, I am a moron and an idiot and too stupid to live. In my own defense let me state that my daughter was sick. Throwing up sick. She kept going in to the bathroom to throw up, so I was distracted by that and not thinking. In my further defense let me state that I thought I was dealing with human beings. I thought that a person of the human variety who said they needed to check something said that because they needed to check something. I (in my unimaginable ignorance) didn't understand that everything—every single little thing, no matter how insignificant—that a car dealer tells you is a lie.

So there I sat, no vehicle and no driver's license if I had a vehicle. I asked for my license back, she said they were still processing something, it would be a minute. Then she kept trying to sell me a car.

Did I mention that my young daughter was sick throwing up in the bathroom?

I told the lady that we had to go, my daughter was sick and we had to go, could we please get the van back and my license back?

"Oh, it's almost done."

An hour and a half. That's how long it is from almost done to done.

At this dealership they have a waiting area with a hot chocolate machine. I told my kids they could have some. They had to do something while they waited forever. They spilled chocolate. That gave me an idea. I let them have the run of the place. Get as much chocolate as you want, use all the cups and have your run of the place. I wish I would have thought of having my daughter just throw up on their furniture instead of going to the bathroom.

Didn't faze them a bit. I'm sure my kids at their worst are better than a lot of kids on their best parole behavior. Spilled chocolate as a proportional response to holding a family hostage—not even in the same ballpark.

Anyway . . .

Car dealers are scum. Because she was a lady (and because I am honestly way too nice for my own good—it's my worst trait) I didn't lose my temper. But let me ask you (dear imaginary reader) would I have been that far out of line (had it been a man) grabbing the salesman by the throat and slamming his head on the ground?

You are correct. I would have been completely within my rights (that's the beauty of readers of the imaginary variety). This person was holding me hostage.

ADD Moment:
Sublety is the key to evil. It's the frog in the hot water deal. If a car dealer had snatched my family off the street to drag us into a warehouse it would be pretty clear that we were being taken against our will. And our instinct would have been to incapacitate the bad guy by any means necessary.

Asking you to willingly give up your transportation and your license is still holding you against your will. But there's no instant where the situation suddenly becomes critical and triggers a violent proportionate reaction.

I finally got my license and car back (after literally asking a dozen times) and we left. Obviously we never returned (which they didn't expect—after a half hour it changed from a pressure tactic to a punishment tactic; not trying to coerce us into buying, just punishing us for not).

These "people" are not human. I have no problem with the idea of something bad happening to that woman or anyone in that dealership. None. Someone who is willing to hurt me and my family has no sympathy from me.

Now . . .

Here's the point of the story (and only seventeen paragraphs in!). Had I assaulted someone there I would have gone to jail. Had I kicked over the desk or broken the window or forced my way into the back to get my property I would have gone to jail. The dealership held my family hostage, and that was perfectly legal. Any of the justifiable responses that I mentioned would have been illegal.

That's my point . . . well, almost. You didn't expect me to just blurt out what I was trying to say. The point is that if you don't want me to bust up your dealership, don't hold my family hostage. Simple cause and effect; stimulus/response. But the trouble is they get to cause and I don't get to effect. It's against the law to respond to their stimulus.

I'm talking about the old idea of you responding as a consequence of an offense being worse than the offense. But I'll save that for the next post. I'm sensitive that way.

---

I remembered that incident (which memory spiked my blood pressure and caused my scalp to tingle—a sign that I'm having those pesky mini-strokes again) in the context of an earlier post. I was thinking about Barack Obama, Satan's mentally challenged younger brother, and that insufferable sea hag Hillary Clinton complaining about people fleeing their oppressive tax policies. They impose obscene tax burdens (did I tell you about the time I paid 100% of my salary in income tax? Good times!) and then the people who implement the reasonable response are unpatriotic.

(Not to mention what the people who keep The List think of me for calling that miserable excuse for a President "the mentally handicapped younger brother of Satan")

Wait, so you do something evil, then I'm somehow the bad person for responding?

You see this all the time—almost as much as you hear me flapping my gums about it. We say that maybe Bill Clinton shouldn't sexually assault young interns in the Oval Office and we're being hateful.

I call Obama a miserable pipsqueak and that's much worse somehow than him being a miserable pipsqueak who appeases our enemies, scroggs up Foreign Policy beyond all recognition, and berates conservatives.

I always go back to that lady on the radio wringing her hands "Oh, I wish people wouldn't say such hateful things about the democrats." Do you wish it as bad as I wish they wouldn't do the vile things that make us point out that they're scumbags?

Well . . . that's it. That's pretty much it. Car dealers and the awful things we can't do to them is the analogy for "If democrats don't want to be called evil, they might consider trying not being evil."

---

Hah! You knew better! That wasn't pretty much it. If there's a dead horse anywhere in the ZIP code I'll find it and beat on it.

The deal with the Clintons and Presidebt Obama is that built-in immunity concept. What they do is so despicable that to accurately describe it comes across as hateful.

This is manifest in a hundred different ways. Pretty much any time someone does something bad, to call them on it sounds bad. Because, duh, you're talking about something bad. Plus, it's a good defense for the person doing the offense. "What? You're spying on me now?" Uh . . . I didn't intent to check your coat pocket, but when the hypodermics fell out I got curious.

More on that later.

(Ugh. Whenever I hear "more on that later" I always think "How long is this going to take?!")

This concept ties in to the Grand Unified Theory of the Universe. "This concept" being the idea that they can torment but you can't respond. The idea is that a sustainable system is designed to stabilize with natural responses. Your restaurant gets popular and busy, you inch your prices up, some people stop coming, you bring your prices back in line . . .

It all happens naturally. The problem happens when you get intervention that counteracts the natural response. Theaters have rules that you can't bring in outside food. Why? Because they charge obscene prices for their concessions. If they charged reasonable prices there would be no need for that constraint. It would happen naturally. Instead, you are forced to pay three times what the snack is worth if you want to have a snack (or just sneak them in like my close personal friend does). The key word if "force." That's how it ties into the Grand Unifying Theory of Liberty that I'm always going on and on about.

So you take your business out of the country because the tax policies are oppressive (Carrier) and a President Trump would "force" you to come back. Ignoring the fact that he can't "force" that (the man can't even comb his hair), if you have to force it screams that you're doing something wrong; forcing isn't a sustainable stable system. Make the policies beneficial . . . you get the idea. (Trump is a blooming idiot.)

Back to my original story, if there weren't those ridiculous laws against smashing plate glass windows in car dealerships, they would rip off a lot less people.

I'm just illustrating a point, you know. I'm not advocating what basically amounts to terrorism . . . (I have no idea why I'm trying to come across as reasonable to an imaginary reader . . . ) Hey, it's a victimless crime. They're just car dealers. It's not like any people get hurt.

People do bad things when they aren't afraid of the consequences of doing they can do bad things. So when the structure prevents natural consequences of bad things, what do you expect? A friend phrased it this way: "An armed society is a polite society."

I swear I thought I came up with this concept first, but I guess Archie Bunker beat me to it.

The car dealer is the terrorist on the plane. They had no fear of anything I could legally do to them. What, spilled chocolate that they don't have to worry about 'cause the cleaning lady gets it later?

And, to wrap up the two concepts I'm dancing around, getting criticized for being evil is a little bit bad consequence, but the game is to turn being a "hater" into a bad consequence for the offense of pointing out bad behavior.

Anyway . . . so . . . yeah.

---

It seems like every concept I explore has a counterfeit. What I was saying with the car dealers and the bashing on demorats is you get what you deserve—you don't like the consequence, don't do the action. And that's a valid doctrine.

But it can be and is counterfeited.

Like when Jennifer Lopez's character in "Enough" showed up to her mother-in-law's house with a black eye. The aforementioned MIL asked her what she did to warrant that.

Bzzzzzzt. Flag on the play. Illegitimate use of the concept.

The implication was that if she had a black eye, she had it coming. Action: Consequence. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. There are consequences—the idea that was so eloquently explained in a blog I recently read. If you don't want the consequences don't do the action (Can't do the time, don't do the crime). And then there are lines; things that are out of bounds.

Obviously the breaking car dealership windows is out of bounds (If I had to tell you that you didn't make it this far) (he says to his imaginary reader). Hitting a woman is another one that lands so clearly out of bounds Helen Keller could be the ref and call it.

Just thought it was interesting that for any valid doctrine there was a "This is not that."

In an interesting spiral around to a bookend, there is a "This IS that" aspect to the of crossing a line—if you don't want to get killed by a psycho father in law, don't hit your wife.

---

Did you hear that? That was the sound of me hitting the wall.

Oh, well. Must . . . press . . . on . . . .

Invading someone's privacy is bad. It's grubby. But protecting someone is different. This is not that. Parents have to do it with their children. In some cases spouses have to do it with their spouse.

If a kid is doing something nefarious he loves the idea of personal privacy. It's a great refuge for him. "I may be doing drugs, but you went into my bedroom without permission! So I get a pass!" Nope. Not while you're living in my house.

But the interesting thing is that the concept of "Sure, I was doing something bad, but you're worse because of how you discovered it!" is part of our culture. It is written into our law because it's part of our culture and it's part of our culture because it's written into our law. Due process. Okay, sure, you found the gun, but you had no warrant, so it's inadmissible.

That's the law and that's the culture that we adhere to even in cases that aren't covered by statute

Free Speech is a doctrine that enshrined in our Constitution. But most of the actual practice of Free Speech principles isn't covered by that particular amendment. But it still informs our culture.

Eh. If you cared about it you already sorted it out for yourself.

But as long as you're imaginary, and imaginary readers can have infinite resistance to boredom, I'll investigate one more aspect. The right/no right to privacy deal, for example, is just like anything else. It can be counterfeited. There are cases where (again) abusive spouses invade privacy under the guise of protection; masquerading as the type of person like parent who is concerned about his child. You have husbands that spy on their wives without cause and . . .

Wall officially hit.

Done.

---

Believe it or not, I have friends who are and have been car dealers. A guy I work with was a car salesman and when I told him the story about being held hostage he said "Yep! That's one of the techniques they trained us to use." Really. Wow.

If I could remember the name of the dealership he worked for, I'd tell you. They are scum.

He also said "I can't believe you fell for that," but I'm not going to tell you part.

Another guy I know has a car dealership. A used car dealership. And he's the most honest and forthright person you will ever meet. He picks up the cars at a bargain, fixes them up, sets a reasonable profit, and sells them.

Here's the deal—the Law of Unintended Consequences kind of deal. Because most car salesmen are sub-human wastes of skin (95% of all car dealers give the rest a bad name), people kind of expect you to be a crook if you're trying to sell them a car. When my friend tells them the price they usually start looking for the catch, trying to figure out how they're being ripped off, and generally make life more complicated than it needs to be because they figure he's lying to them.

I wonder if there's a computer model that shows what the car sales industry would look like if they weren't scum. I mean, do they understand the profits they're losing by being crooked? I know I don't give them any money, but I'm guessing they're crying about that all the way to the bank. All the people they do rip off more than make up for the ones who would rather pull teeth on a wounded bobcat than ever set foot in that ring of Hell known as a car dealership.

---

There's a motion you'll see at my work. It's a gesture like putting a quarter in a machine. The idea is that saying certain triggers to me is like putting a quarter in the jukebox. You put in the quarter, you have to listen to the whole song. So when I get on a roll, someone will grin and make the "putting the quarter in the jukebox" gesture.

As you well know, sometimes that song ends ups being In-a-Gadda-Da-vida (baby).

I guess some new study about spanking just came out or something. I didn't pay attention because I figured it all out a long time ago.

I didn't spank my son for a long time, because I freaking loved that little guy. I couldn't imagine doing anything to cause him pain.

Then he crossed the line and I figured to be a good parent I had to.

I was amazed. It was like magic, got results. I maybe spanked him twice more, then it occurred to me. What am I teaching him?

No, none of that new age crap that you're always hearing. What I was teaching him was to always choose the course of action that caused the least pain. Is that really what I wanted?

Get that ingrained in you and then when someone is bullying a friend, what do you do? Well, you do what your dad taught you and avoid pain.

Bullcrap. You take on the oxygen thief bully. It's going to hurt, but it's the right thing to do.

That's why I quit spanking.

Seein's how on accounta cuz we're talking about consequences and behavior and all . . .

---

Hillary is all worn out. She sounds like she's on her last leg. Trump said "Hillary is a person who doesn't have the strength or the stamina, in my opinion, to be president,"

When you hear that, what do you think?

Well . . . one interpretation is that you might think that Trump believes Hillary is a person who doesn't have the strength or the stamina to be president. I don't know, I guess that's one crazy way you could interpret it.

This, children, is why we don't listen to KSL.

Somebody on KSL yesterday morning said "Clearly that is code for 'woman.' Without any shred of doubt. That is absolutely certainly a code for her being a woman." He said that. He kept repeating it, always talking about how certain it was.

Uh . . .

Speaking of certainly without a doubt . . . Clearly you are a whack job, Sir. We've seen this all before. Unless your lips were surgically attached to Obama's behind you were a card-carrying racist. Now you're a misogynist if you find anything mortal about Monica's boyfriend's sham wife.

Hey, if you're a pathetic crooked unintelligent lying sack of crap without the strength or the stamina to be President, I guess you have to go with what you can.

---

It's the same old deal. You remember how I had Barack Obama all figured out when Rush and Michael Medved were wrong. I know Barack Obama because in a way I'm just like him. You have the evidence in front of you this instant. I'm typing a useless blah-blah-blog that no one will ever see instead of doing something constructive and productive. I can totally relate to Barack Obama and his juvenile, misguided, amateur approach to everything.

Rush and Michael Medved are driven. They plan. They work. They think things through. They can't conceive of anyone, especially not the Freaking President of the United Freaking States, phoning it in.

But whether or not they can conceive of it, that is Barack Freaking Obama.

Donald Trump is the same way. Look, everyone knows this. But again, Rush is driven. He thinks strategically. He plans, he politics. He thinks.

Is it too early to get to the point?

Rush said that Trump's strategy must be to wait for Cleveland and court all the delegates at once. He said Trump was thinking about efficiency. Why waste time and energy chasing them all down individually like Cruz is doing? Trump was being efficient by waiting until Cleveland where he has them all in one place.

No.

Trump is being Trump. Trump is sloppy and amateur and doesn't have a plan or a strategy. He's just sloppy. That's all. Sloppy. (I'm channeling Trump). He's a disaster, by the way. A Yuuuuuge disaster, I can tell you that right now. A disaster. I can tell you that. A disastah. Sloppy Trump, that's what I call him. Sloppy Trump. Just a disastah.

Trump couldn't be bothered to figure out how the Colorado primary worked. He's not that kind of person. Maybe you figure that because he's rich he's got to be disciplined and focused and organized . . . have you been watching the guy at all?! He doesn't think it's efficient to wait until Cleveland. He doesn't think.

I mean, seriously, his speech on Foreign Policy? Was that the work of someone with a strategy?

So Rush is wrong. Trump is just a shoot from the hip kind of guy. He has no plan, he depends on the force of his personality to take care of everything. In that way he's a lot like Obama.

Okay, so Rush was wrong on that one. But he was right about his caller Sean from Philadelphia, who he said nailed it. The Republicans won't stand up for themselves. They won't fight back.

Trump will. If Trump has anything going for him it's that, and that's why he's doing so well.

I'm done. You're free to go.

(See what I did there?)

---

Barack Obama is a putz. I don't think saying that puts me on any watch lists that I wasn't already on. He's a putz and Hillary is a putz, too.

The particular putzitude I'm talking about on this occasion is where they were both whining about corporate inversions. You know the deal. The demorats raise taxes on you so you can't do business, then you set up shop in a country where the tax burden isn't so onerous. Then Hillary and Obama stomp their little feet and shake their little fists and cry that you are the one that's unpatriotic. You're supposed to just take it, I guess.

These people. *smh. It's like . . . it's like . . . what's a fitting analogy? Oh, wait! I know! It's like they raise the taxes so you can't do business then call you unpatriotic when you don't roll over and take it!

---

(He says to his imaginary reader)

You know the apt analogy. Whenever you're dealing with a demorat, the model is an abusive relationship. This is like that long and boring and impossible-to-read (but ever so insightful) parable I told you about the abusive husband. You remember the one (that you didn't read), where the husband was a total hot water bottle, but when the wife refused to take it and left, he made sure everyone heard about how it was all her fault.

It takes two to make a marriage. But it only takes one to wreck it.

So Obama and Hillary (that insufferable sea hag) have no one to blame but themselves for their alimony payments. Treat me right and I'll stick around. Is that so hard to understand?

---

You didn't miss anything. Nothing big has been in the news recently about them flapping their gums on this particular depravity of theirs. Just a passing mention of it when Hilary was trying to pander to some group or another.

I'm have very efficient insulation in my resentment vessel. It takes a looooong time for any of it to leak out.

---

It's the same old deal. Rape hoax, race hoax, boy who cried wolf. Same old deal I'm constantly flapping my gums about. You could call it the Law of Unanticipated Consequences . . . or you could call it the same ol' deal.

There's a cartoon here somewhere. What is it? Are we in a canoe together and you're . . .

ADD Moment—I realize it sounds pretty insulting. Every time I need a role player for an indefensible absurd viewpoint it has to be you. "How come you always get to be the cowboy? Why do I always have to be the Indian?!"

. . . Okay. So, we're in a canoe together facing each other and you have your back to the waterfall. I'm rowing backward away from the waterfall as hard as I can to save us and you're berating me for fighting you on this.

Whenever you hear about someone getting something racist painted on their door, it always turns out that the "victim" did it to himself. So what are you going to think next time you hear about a cross getting painted on a black college kid's dorm? Exactly.

The people who pretend to advocate for rape victims inflate the numbers. They count all the girls who had consensual sex and then regretted it, then they add all the girls who went into dicey situations and were uncomfortable, and then that's not enough so they just plain make up another number that's ridiculous.

Okay, here's why I use this. Rape is the most horrific crime I can think of to use. I'm not going to say that someone who rapes a woman should be taken out and shot. I don't believe that. I believe they should be tortured to death in a basement for weeks, knowing the whole time they will die and that there is nothing they can do about it. They should feel the way their victims felt; that someone else is in control of them.

Do we understand each other? Rape is an unspeakably horrible indefensible act.

So when you expand what "rape" is to include things that aren't rape, you dilute the whole thing. You damage the thing you're pretending to be saving.

Again, I use rape because it's so deplorable, but I'm talking about a host of things that liberals (typically) (ab)use. When they get caught exaggerating the numbers of actual rapes they say "Well, is it a bad thing to bring attention to it?'

That's where they're stupid. It has the exact opposite effect. They are undermining the very thing they purport to defend.

Wow, we've idled this engine long enough to warm up . . . time to get to the point.

Feelings. That's a very important thing. People struggle. They put on a front, but everyone is battling demons. As fellow human beings we should be allies with each other in this constant struggle that is life.

So when you create "safe spaces" for delicate college kids to be free from being offended you make me dismiss the whole idea of feelings. The whole incredibly important vital idea that I should be sympathetic to a fellow human being. Screw it. Not falling for you crying wolf. Same thing on environment, "war on women," racism—all those sacred things that liberals hijack to try to corner more power.

Same thing with the transgender hoax. If a personal is genuinely confused about his or her sexually identity, that person has a serious problem. They need help. When you start opening the door (so to speak) for perverts to go in the bathroom with my daughter, the tiny fraction of sick people who need help end up being the victims. Because they get lost; dismissed. When 95% of the people who take advantage of insane bathroom policies are perverts, I'm not at all concerned about the fraction of people who should be using the bathroom in the hospital room wherever they are getting help.

---

You remember that waste of skin who advocates rape who cancelled the meetup in Provo? Here's one for Alanis Morrissette's irony.

He was worried about "the safety or privacy" of his fellow rapists.

That degenerate ought to spend the rest of his life feeling like an unarmed women in a dark parking lot in a bad neighborhood.

And . . .

When you're reading a book you skip over the title fonts. They don't mean anything to you, and they break up the story. If something is in the text in a slightly larger bold font it gets your attention, but once the font gets too big your brain paradoxically tells you to ignore it.

When something falls too far outside the norm you tend to ignore it.

The link is to an article called "Why too much evidence can be a bad thing." It's kinda' like the Hugo Chavez thing—he gets elected by 92% and nobody thinks "He must be very popular!" Everybody knows that something that dramatic means that it's total bullcrap.

You get the connection (he says to his imaginary reader).

---

What I was trying to say about the imaginary canoe cartoon and the Law of Unanticipated Consequences is that these things have effects that people don't understand. People think about 3mm deep and about two seconds out.

Okay, great, so we got rid of those stale ideas about separate bathrooms. Glad that's in our past. Couldn't see the reason we ever did it that way in the first place.

You don't understand (there I go making you play the bad guy again). There are spinoffs that you don't imagine.

Here's an example. Henry Ford instituted the $5 day. That was a great thing. It also created the inner city slums in Detroit.

Just saying . . . be careful what you wish for. The most common thing in the world is not thinking things through. Unanticipated consequences.

---

(He says to his imaginary reader)

The chick's crazy.

You remember back when Bill Clinton (pardon my language) was sending his people out to trash and destroy women he had sexually assaulted? Okay, loyalty is one thing, but a lot of people defending that waste of skin were women. Women. Helping Bill Clinton (pml) undermine a woman's right to not be sexually assaulted.

One of the most ridiculous things ever said in the history of Ever was when that one idiot said she'd give Clinton a . . . you know . . . herself in appreciation for his keeping abortion legal. Ignoring the fact that the President of the United States can't decree that abortion remain legal, we can agree that exchanging sexual favors in return for something is the very definition of prostitution.

You remember that. Good times. Right on the front lines calling out these people was none other than Ann Coulter.

Now that same Ann Coulter . . . I guess it's the same person. Maybe Ann's on vacation and turned her column over to a crazy person while she's gone . . . is defending serial misogynist Donald Trump against the only conservative in the race. I'm not going to beg you to click on the link. I don't care if you read it. It's a waste of time. Plus, it's not pleasant watching someone you once cared about spiral into the depths of insanity.

That particular column isn't about Trump's misogynist behavior, but in past columns Ann's done exactly what Clinton's little minions did, trashing women who had been abused by their man. She trashed Michelle Fields, the Breitbart reporter who was manhandled by Trump's piece of crap handler.

That particular column is about Trump being a sore loser in Colorado

Maybe Ann Coulter and Donald Trump are right. Maybe once you're President you don't have to understand how the game is played and nobody opposes you and you get everything you want.

We don't expect a candidate to be able to demonstrate that he can figure out how a system works and get things done within it. We're pretty much happy if he keeps saying "I'm the best, I can tell you that right now."

It's just like in sports. You're always hearing about how awful the officiating was, but you never hear that from the side that won.

Before you get all high and mighty and say "So, are you calling Ann Coulter a prostitute?!" let me remind you that . . . well, I guess I'm reminding me. The only readers I have are imaginary. If I were posting a column on Townhall or something I might expect a comment, but here? Yeah. I could hide the plans for building nuclear weapons here and it would be more invisible than in the sturdiest vault in the deepest cave in the side of a mountain.

---

(He says to his imaginary reader)

The "transgender" man taking pictures in the girl's bathroom didn't notice the wide-eyed young girl hurrying out of the bathroom. Suddenly, he heard the bathroom door crash open and the girl returned, towing her very angry father.

When the amateur photographer regained consciousness he found himself in a woodshed. He tried to move, but felt a terrible pain in his groin. He realized to his horror that a very delicate part of his body was firmly clamped in a vise. Frantically he tried to open the vise, but the handle had been removed. As he struggled to somehow free himself he became aware of a noise. He looked around the shed and saw Angry Dad sharpening a knife on the grinder.

"Wait!" the man cried. "You're not going to cut it off, are you?!"

The man turned off the grinder and walked over to him. "No, I'm not going to do that."

Before the man could enjoy his relief, the dad continued. "I'm going to leave the knife on this table and walk out and set this shed on fire."

---

You know about Phil Hendrie. He's the guy on the radio who invents these fake characters and people call in to argue with them thinking they're real. One time G. Gordon Liddy cited Steve Bosell (A Phil Hendrie character. A fabrication. A ridiculous made up character for entertainment purposes only.) as ironclad proof of how litigious our society was becoming.

I don't want to be the G. Gordon Liddy here. Please don't think that I've fallen for this really funny hoax that's being played on us. I get it. I am hip and/or with it. I'm not fooled.

Transgenderism isn't real. Somebody in a late-night pizza fueled nightmare came up with a concept so absurd that no one would take it seriously. What if we have people pretend that they are a different gender than they really are?

So I get it. I know it's not real. It's an internet age counter-culture joke/game that everybody giggles about and some old not hip and/or with it fogies are all outraged 'cause they don't understand it's not real. Which is part of the game and fuels the fire. So people pretend like they're all "transgender" then laugh their androgynous tushes off when people take the bait.

Just so you know. I'm not G. Gordon Liddy erecting a counter-attack against something that doesn't exist.

If it were real . . .

I'm more like Trump than Michael Medved. When people are stupid I like just calling them childish names. I find that a better use of my time than the futile endeavor of factually countering their position point by point. This is my freaking blog and I can be irrational and illogical if I want to (he says to his imaginary reader).

But as a matter of policy, it's a losing strategy to dismiss the other side's viewpoint, no matter how absurd it is. (And you can't get more absurd than this. Don't take that as a challenge!) If you're serious about taking on an opposing viewpoint, it's a good idea to understand where they're coming from. Otherwise you're setting yourself up to be blindsided.

So let's look over some of the points they make. "They" being people who think men should be allowed in women's bathrooms and locker rooms.

(I really can't believe I'm talking about something so ridiculous).

1.

Okay, let's look at the underlying fundamental premise as I understand it. Certain people feel like they're not the gender of their genitals. People's feelings are important. We need to protect those feelings and not put them in a situation where they're uncomfortable, like going into the bathroom of the gender they don't feel comfortable with.

Well, you're being pretty selective about whose feelings get to be protected. What percentage of the population is "transgender?" In round numbers: zero. Nobody is; the whole g-d thing is a fraud, but give me a number. One in a thousand? One in ten thousand? And what percentage of the population is female who prefers to do activities in the bathroom without having men present. That's an easier one to nail down. One out of two.

For every one person that is "transgender" there are 100 perverts who think it's a great opportunity to get their jollies.

2.

Subset of the first point. "Why are bathrooms such a violent place? Why is it such a big deal if we allow a biological man in there?"

I'm glad you see it my way! You're right. It's not a big deal. So let the "transgender" guy go in the men's bathroom. You make a great case, he has no reason to feel threatened in there. It's not a big deal.

That way the millions of women who are irrationally uncomfortable with a man in their bathroom are all nice and comfy and the man can overcome his irrational fears and go in a men's bathroom.

Everybody's happy!

3.

As a society we've progressed beyond these meaningless labels. This idea of separate spaces for human beings just based on what nature randomly put between their legs is so archaic.

Wait. Who is applying meaningless labels? You're the one who is saying "He feels like a woman."

Transgenderism (I mean if it were real and not a silly hoax being played to see how far we can get silly, gullible people to bite) is based on an intolerant, narrow-minded view of gender. You like Barry Manilow? You cry in movies? Dude, you're really a woman.

The perpetrators of this silly hoax are the ones that say the labels don't define. But they are pushing you into a label. The open-minded and tolerant view is that you can have a very wide variety of views and feelings, including those that overlap with those of women's, and still be a man.

4.

But it's a meaningless label.

Fine. Let's go with that. Your genitals don't define you.

ADD Moment: One of the battle cries of the "transgender" hoax people is "My genitals don't define my gender!"
Uh . . . actually, that's exactly what your genitals define.

So you can be whatever you want. You think your genitals aren't important, that's great (I have a very different view of the importance of mine). So if they're not important, why are you so caught up in them? Just for the purposes of certain function of that (unimportant) part of your body comes into play. Be a woman. What do I care? But when it comes time to . . . geez, you know . . . there are certain places for certain flavors.

You drive a Ford. You don't have to say it defines you. But you do have to recognize it for certain purposes, like when you get parts. No matter how much you pretend you drive a Dodge you're going to feel pretty foolish trying to bailing wire a Dodge tie-rod end onto your Ford. For the narrow part of your life that has to do with your car you have to understand you drive a Ford.

Thus proving the old adage that there is no concept so complex that it cannot be explained with an automotive analogy.

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I could have broken that up into readable amounts (he says to his imaginary reader), but I have that 30,000 minimum word count for a standard Leany on Life post that I have to deal with.

This is why any of this matters. The perpetrators of the transgender hoax would have you believe that we are entering a Brave New World, and that all the silly arcane dumb morays that we've clung to in the past are keeping us from progressing and it's time to open our minds and move on.

Years ago I worked with some engineers from France (Yeah, that's not a phrase you hear a lot) and one of them was chuckling about how backwards we are here in the states. He said that "The breast isn't sexualized in Europe."

Uh . . . you're proud of that? (I won't add "You homo")

I love breasts. I love women's bodies. That's the very reason I don't want to see them on display everywhere. Once it becomes commonplace it loses all the mystery and magic. If every car were a Corvette it wouldn't be anything special.

Women and men share their bodies with whom they chose under conditions they choose, and that makes is special. Sacred even. You really want to take that away?

I want no part of it.

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Because I'm hip and/or with it.

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These people are freaking moronic hypocrites. Just idiots. On so many levels.

Complain that we live in a "rape culture"
    Or
Advocate that men use women's bathrooms.

You only get to choose one.

(You moron)

So they get all bent out of shape because states pass laws saying use the bathroom that corresponds to your gender. (We have to pass a law for that?!) But they are totally cool with any other violation of their stupid little misplaced morality.

Morons (I can only deal with logical counters to arguments for so long)

Idiots like Bruce Springsteen

Click on that link. Read it. (He says to his imaginary reader.) Idiots.

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And you thought all the humor you were going to get today was that lighthearted jocularity about a human having to decide between amputation and death by fire.

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The title of this says it all. When Did it Become Controversial to Keep Men out of Women's Bathrooms?

When I say "The title says it all" I don't mean don't click on the link. Click on the link. Read it.

You'll get nuggets like this:

"But I will tell you what: the first man that walks in my daughter’s bathroom, he ain’t going to have to worry about surgery.”
-- Lt. Gen. (ret.) William “Jerry” Boykin

I'm totally with General Boykin.

Two things:

First, why are we even discussing this? This is beyond crazy.

I've been messing with a kind of a square of opposition that I call the Persuasion Matrix. The top row is right (correct) and the bottom row is wrong. The left column is obvious or unexamined, and the right column is analyzed. Like I said, it's still very nascent (I did say that, right?), but the idea is to chart out where ideas or mindsets fall . . . I guess I'm not sure what the idea is.

But . . . sometimes when you really look at things--cut it with Phaedrus's knife in a different way--you see things that aren't obvious to people. You hear me flapping my gums all the time about Moneyball. That sort of deal. Where most people see things in an obvious way, but actually, when you drill down and look at the numbers, there are secrets that you didn't see and you were thinking about it all wrong. You know, Moneyball.

But sometimes you take an unconventional look at things and come up with an alternate, and you're just freaking wrong. You see this all the time. "People think that Obama has wrecked the economy, but actually, when you look at the unemployment numbers . . . " Yeah, when you look at the unemployment numbers you're getting lied to.

That was a bit of an aside. To the point, it's pretty obvious that men don't belong in women's bathrooms. But somebody, following the unconventional "Moneyball" way of examining things, says "Well, let's just open our mind and think this from a different way." That's the problem with having small brains--They open their minds, and their little brains fall out.

Nope. Examine it any way you want. Men don't belong in women's bathrooms.

One more example. Bernie Sanders said (look it up. You are NOT going to believe me) that people think bread lines are bad. But if you really think about it--I mean really open up your mind and examine it-- they are a good thing. Seriously. he said that. Something about when there are no bread lines only the rich get bread.

Bernie Sanders is a complete moron. He is the King of Morons.

Okay. Second point.

General Boykin is talking about committing violence on a person. I am totally 100% behind him. Not 99% yea and 1% wait, he's a person, let's think about it. I'm totally with him, and . . . here's my point . . . I'm glad a high-profile person is saying what I think even when it's so . . . what? Outrageous?

That's the appeal of Trump. You get it. He doesn't take the crap. Trump is crazy, don't get me wrong. There are 320 million people in America, and 300 million of them are better suited to be President than he is.

But you can understand the appeal.

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