Identified Funds: A Citizen Reflects
🧍♂️ A Thoughtful Citizen Reflects on “Identified Funds”
“Trump says administration has ‘identified funds’ to pay troops next week.”
— Actual CNN headline, written with a (I'm guessing mostly) straight face (if the AI had a face)
Well, praise deJebus.
Also:
“We’ve identified oxygen for the ICU. Patients may continue breathing next week. Nobel Prize.”
— No one
🧾 Headline Runners-Up (More Honest Versions):
- “Administration Locates Money in Budget It Already Controls”
- “Funds Mysteriously Appear Exactly When Political Pressure Mounts”
- “We Could’ve Avoided This Entire Situation But Actively Chose Not To”
I'm mostly (well, sometimes — never, actually) a humanist. And as such, I believe the percentage of imbeciles on the “right” and the “left” of anything is more or less equal. The law of averages demands this.
That level of clear-eyed harmony is not typical of me, but trust me: I am sincere in the belief that most people are idiots.
I believe X, you believe something that opposes X. That is called "living with people". It's natural. It's to be navigated, or at least tolerated. Maybe best avoided via complete isolation.
I believe Y strongly enough to die for it, and someone else definitely believes opposite-Y to that extent, too.
In most cases of this, we're probably both morons, because there just isn't that much worth dying for.
Extra Irony Points for the reality that the things in the "this is sane to die for" category are really things all non-psychotic people agree on. We all really agree about what's important, no matter the imaginary "side".
But it's at least a seemly "balanced" position. I believe X, you believe Y. We don't have to be friends, we don't have to be enemies, we don't even have to like each other. We can both thrive without mortal combat.
But here is the least popular thing I'll say today:
A large number of us enjoy being pissed off at someone abstract about something often trivial, due to classic Jungian mental illness combined with being pissed at someone in particular that we can't express that displeasure against.
And disagreement over... whatever... is something our society (species?) uses as rationalization to scratch that insane itch to gain the enjoyment, while also turning the itch into gash with a slow-forming scab.
But it felt so good! That I am right, and especially because you are wrong!
That concept and behavior is one definition of "righteousness", and taken further "absolute certainty" then eventually "fanaticism". In either political/moral direction, as IQ drops, we go further out on the branch of a rhetorical tree, and the branch bends more and more.
The analogy is really solid, I think:
- If you have an OK IQ, you know the branch tends to be more solid/stable when it's close to the trunk of the tree.
- You don't need an understanding of physics, torque, forces, Archimedes to understand this; just maybe climbed/fallen out of a tree once and survived, or tried to balance on a skateboard or anything ever.
- Thought: "I bet I can get out further on this branch in order to, I dunno, see better? To get away from this squirrel in the tree knot that's picking on me."
- Observation: "Huh. It seems that every time I make a move further out, the branch bends more. The rocks rolling around in my head notice this and give me an uncertain feeling."
- Concern: "A feeling that I might fall."
- Conclusion - Low IQ: "Huh. Well, that's an odd, irrelevant observation that seems to be both persisting and getting worse. Time to continue out to the end of this branch, because this feeling is, above all else, enjoyable."
- Conclusion - Higher IQ: "I'll feel safer, and maybe be safer, if I stay on the branch near the trunk and tolerate or kill the fucking squirrel.."
Those with the most inflated egos have the highest risk of spiritual corruption.
- butchery of Carl Jung
The blinding light is more dangerous than the veil of darkness.
- now I'm butchering Sufi
Whether I understand why someone thinks what they think is only relevant if I believe I can do something to change it. If I act that way, with some degree of humility and detachment, I'm not safe, but neither am I dangerous. But if I think, feel and act that way, my only conclusion is that someone who disagrees is either dumb, or their denial to accept my view is an adversarial act.
Death Does Change Minds
I firmly believe that practically all the things that are important and we disagree vehemently on only resolve generationally, when old people die and hopefully young people with better views replace them. It's a useful position for a lazy and arrogant intellectual to take.
I got off track. It was not my intent to illuminate anything today. Sorry. If you know, you know.
But back to this headline, right? My response is about curiosity. A question, more than anything:
What does a true and genuine supporter of the President actually think when they read a headline like this?
Because I don’t think the average U.S. citizen — of any political leaning — would actually believe that “not paying the military” is a thing that could plausibly happen. Not next week. Not ever. 1
What does someone who supports PotUS, is sane, and sees this headline, think and feel? 2
So when that headline drops, my response is... pretty simple:
- “Ha.”
- “That's a lame trick, because not paying the military is impossible.”
- “But everyone knows that...”
- “...so why present the idea of doing it — or not doing it — as an achievement, or a potential for further crisis?”
- “Even during a shutdown, paying the military is the bare minimum your government does.3.”
- “So why give yourself a trophy for tying your own shoes?”
At that point the questions get darker depending on my current level of ego inflation. Let's squeeze out the degenerate case, first:
- "You're making this statement, in this manner, because you want to look like fucking idiots, by treating your constituents like a bag of hammers."
No, of course not. Moving on:
- “Is the goal to educate a part of your base that never realized this was never in doubt?” If so, congratulations - you are a great teacher. Like Ghandi.
- “Is this some kind of attaboy headline meant to energize the genuinely, through no fault of their own, temporarily under-informed? Perhaps those trapped in a crevasse with their arm in a crack for the last 27 hours?” If so, you have provided great service to quickly get the People caught back up to speed. They probably didn't need any help with that, but keeping everyone informed is laudable. We still pay the Military, which is good, because pissing off the trained killers with access to weapons and mental health problems cause by the job is short-sighted.
- "Is the goal to, via demonstration of this virtuous, far-sighted, just and laudable act of paying our citizens who die for our freedom, to win people to your side/cause/view?"
- If so… ehr, don't bother. It probably won't work. Presenting the obvious as achievement does't win anyone over, because it's too effective being insulting.
- “So who is this performance really for?”
Because that’s what this is. Not a policy move. Not a safeguard.
Just bad theater.
I know very little about politics4. If you read that and believe it in some degree, congratulations-you now know what I do.
So what make an absurd and ironic statement that winds up looking like a B-grade (minimum) Onion News Headline. ex.:
“Trump says administration has ‘identified funds’ to pay troops next week.”
Based on my presented framework, and the question of why it happens/what is going on with the ones making the statement, I feel like this is all that shakes out:
- Speaker thinks audience is stupid and it needs to be said for Speaker's benefit, as base reinforcement.
- Speaker knows audience is stupid and exploits that by making a statement that is known to energize audience via emotion/aggravation/self-righteousness.
- Speaker literally doesn't know the statement is absurd.
- Speaker doesn't perceive the statement is absurd because of dementia.
- Speaker doesn't perceive the statement is absurd because of having a stroke at that moment.
- Speaker doesn't perceive that statement is absurd because they're being glamoured by a Succubus.
- Speaker doesn't perceive the statement is absurd because their ego inflation lets them believe self-congratulations over a non-achievement is, legitimately, laudable, therefore contradicting psychological reality.
- Speaker wants to piss an opponent off, leading them to err.
- Speaker wishes to distract/confuse.
We are human-beautiful and terrible. rds
b) "realpolitik" means "avoiding mistaking theater for statecraft, because it will ruin you., and it's a good way for those with power and a delusion that popularity is more important than power is to give it away. Leave it to the professionals who are willing to see things as they are, and do what is required. Be popular when you're the last one standing, if it comes to that. c) that is all.
In general we shit all over our soldiers and vets — but not next week. We at least wait until they get home.↩
The "you can't be sane and support PotUS" argument is off limits here. Someone, somewhere, meets this definition and has an opinion.↩
...so that your country doesn't get *stabbed in the eyeball by any foreign paramilitary force with the training of a pack (pod? platoon? squadron?) of ambitious Girl Scouts.↩
a) the most powerful group is the "hegemon." It's not you? Oh, I'm sorry. You, like everyone else, has two choices: get on the Team Hegemon as a junior partner and pray for benevolence, or join with others to attack them with the intent of wiping them out, thereby risking your own obliteration and/or assimilation. The concept of cold wars (nothing new; talk later) is nothing new, just replacing Khan/Napoleonic/capacity-for-cruelty rape-and-pilliage with slow burn, long game undermining.↩