Divemedic

Walking Away From Omelas

In a short story written in 1974, Ursula LeGuin wrote about a Utopian society located in a nation called Omelas titled The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Everything there is simply perfect. No kings, no poverty, no misery. There being no poverty, there is no need for money, for crime, it is the ideal society. Life there consists of a daily, never ending carnival celebrating the summer solstice.

Life in Omelas is perfect. In fact, there is only one flaw: In order for Omelas to remain in this condition, one child must be kept in darkness, misery, and utter despair. This fact is kept from everyone in Omelas until they reach a certain age of maturity, when they are shown this child and told the secret.

Once they are old enough to know the truth, most are initially shocked and disgusted. The person is then offered a choice:

  • they can accept things the way that they are and continue their comfortable life
  • they can offer to take the child’s place
  • they can rescue the child, thus destroying the perfect society
  • or they can leave the society and take their chances elsewhere

Most elect to stay and perpetuate the perfect society. The ones who elect to leave are never seen or heard from again. Of the ones who leave, no one knows what happens to the ones who walk away from Omelas.

This powerful story contains many parallels with today. We are watching our children being groomed for sexual predation. We are watching our wealth being stolen, wars fought with our young people and wealth. All manner of atrocities are being carried out. We are faced with a choice:

  • we can allow this to continue to perpetuate our comfortable life
  • we can offer to suffer pain and misery ourselves with the hope that we can change things by risking our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor
  • or we can leave, but where will we go?

Indeed, no one knows what will happen if we walk away from Omelas.

By Divemedic, ago

Targeting

Communists are still committing violence against the right. A staffer for Marco Rubio suffered serious injuries late Sunday night while knocking on doors as a campaign worker.

“Last night one of our canvassers wearing my T-shirt and a DeSantis hat was brutally attacked by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood in Hialeah, Florida”

By Divemedic, ago

Gaslighting

Those partisan hacks on the View are denying that the left engages in political violence right after they and their studio audience engage in their two minutes of hate on Ted Cruz:

They could just do a search on this blog for violence, or perhaps simply look at the incidents linked on this page.

By Divemedic, ago

Slow Progress

Went to see the grandson today. Right after I got there, the Infectious Disease Doctor and Physical Therapy showed up. Things were a good bit better today.

When I got there, he was writhing in pain and crying. I saw that he was flat on his back, so we raised the head of the bed. The crying stopped. I played with him for awhile (piggies, fart jokes, silly child games that 6 year olds find funny). He made the first sounds other than crying that anyone has heard from him in 9 days. He laughed. It was the greatest sound in the world.

Then the ID doctor showed up with physical therapy. They got him out of bed, and he took his first steps in 8 days. They were awkward, assisted by the PT people, but they were steps. 4 of them. He needs a little help holding up his own head, he barely moves his arms, and it will be weeks or even months before he walks again without assistance, but it is progress.

It doesn’t look like he will have permanent, full paralysis. He may or may not have permanent weakness, but only time will tell. For a child who was on his deathbed seven days days ago, this is nothing short of a miracle.

The culprit, according to the ID doctor? An infection by enterovirus that somehow infected his brain and caused massive amounts of swelling. In other words, viral meningitis.

He is still in the ICU, and we continue to wait and watch.

By Divemedic, ago

Message for Selected People

This is a confirmation message for select people who received an email from me this morning. The confirmation phrase is “Autumn is my favorite holiday season, but I hate pumpkin flavored coffee.”

You may confirm my email address in the contact link below.

Thanks,

Divemedic

By Divemedic, ago

First Amendment

If the government pays a burglar to break into your house to see what you have, then the police use that evidence to arrest you, they have just violated your right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

If the government pays a private contractor to burn down your church, or throw you in prison, or even prevent you from publishing books, your rights have been violated. It doesn’t matter if a business did it, especially if they did it at the behest of the government. If the government and businesses work together to deprive their citizens of rights, that is fascism. In fact, that is EXACTLY what Mussolini did.

With all that being said, the Biden administration has passed a regulation that bans the sale or distribution of books written by certain people, and they are getting the world’s largest book seller to enforce it.

This is a clear violation of the First Amendment, and was even used as an example during oral arguments in the Heller case. It was Chief Justice Roberts who asked “Would it be constitutionally acceptable for a municipality to ban books as long as newspapers—a viable substitute source of expression—were still legal?” The answer is no, of course.

How far we have come since then.

By Divemedic, ago

Again with the Coercion

Last week, I did a post on the left forcefully depriving people of things by gluing themselves to the floor of places. This time, the morons have glued themselves to the floor of VW’s headquarters to protest the fact that VW’s products contribute to some sort of climate nonsense. That is stupid enough, but now they are demanding that VW provide them with food, water, chamber pots, and that VW heat the building at night and on the weekends for the protester’s comfort. So I guess their hatred of using energy only goes so far.

They are occupying VW’s property by force with the stated goal of forcing VW to modify their policies. Isn’t that the very definition of terrorism?

They do that on your property, you close the curtains and beat them to a pulp with bats. Repeat until people leave you the fuck alone.

By Divemedic, ago

Warehousing

The leftists in NY state are blaming landlords for refusing to rent out apartments under the terms of rent control, and when they do rent them out, they fail to pay to maintain and renovate them. Landlords claim that the 2019 rent restrictions make it more cost-effective to keep an apartment vacant by keeping rents too low to cover the cost of repairs.

When a government enacts any sort of price control, they are setting the price at which a given product or service must be sold. If that price isn’t high enough to entice those who provide the product or service to sell, then there won’t be any available at that price. That’s why price controls don’t work.

That is true for anything that can be bought or sold- whether it’s widgets, oil, generators, or even housing. That’s what rent is- a person who can afford to purchase residential property buys that property, then rents it out at a profit to someone who can’t afford to purchase that property for whatever reason.

If a local government then sets the rent that may be charged for a residential property and that price is not sufficient to cover the cost of purchasing, maintaining, and administering the property, then there is no point in renting it out. This article paints landlords to look like they are hoarding because they are refusing to rent out apartments at the same rates that they were rented out for 20 years ago. It also attempts to blame landlords for not maintaining the apartments at these absurdly low rates.

Normally I wouldn’t care what happens in New York. They made the mess, they can deal with it. The problem here is that the idea is gaining traction in Central Florida. The Orlando area has managed to put rent control on the ballot. While I am not in the area affected by this measure, there are indications that it may catch on.

By Divemedic, ago