What's wrong with Blackface?

This week in culture war news, Justin Trudeau, liberal prime minister of Canada, wore black-face 20 years ago.

He looks proud

While conservatives are twisting the knife over what they see as liberal hypocrisy (without recognizing that if they don't defend Trudeau they're being hypocrites too), liberals seem split over whether they should accept Trudeau's public apology or cancel him the same way they did with this guy, this girl, this guy, this guy, this girl, this girl, this guy, and many others.

What are you, Gay?

Let me tell you about a time when I was the worst person in the world.

I was with some friends (I don't have any friends. You can already tell I'm making this story up...)

I was with some acquaintances when someone we all knew walked in carrying his girlfriend's purse. I squinted my eyes, lowered my voice, and asked, "what are you, gay?"

I had said that in other social situations and people around me understood that I wasn't mocking gay people, I was mocking the mockers. One time it even started a conversation with someone about how people actually used to say that sort of thing, and how much the world is better now.

What if Everybody Voted!

After reading my post against voting, I suspect some people would still have a hard time trashing the image of how much better the world would be if everyone voted. Because we know that non-voters skew leftward, and the Republican Party would basically never win if everyone voted.

This seems wrong to me for at least three reasons.

What if Nobody Voted?

When I tell people I don't vote, after the other person calms down they always ask the same gotcha question. "what if everybody did that?"

This is a really strange response since I don't make other decisions in my life based on the consequences if everybody made that same decision.

What should I want? (The Ethos)

My entire youth alleged authorities dispensed the same advice. "Go after what you want." They thought they were bestowing their guidance upon an aimless young person who lacked the courage to grasp what he valued. Aimless, yes, but courage wasn't my most pressing issue. I distinctly remember feeling dominated by the paralyzing question, "what should I want?"

Activist Vs. Dogmatist

Activists have causes that they hope to resolve. They have ends they hope to achieve and they rally effort toward those goals. Dogmatists subscribe to a whole catalog of holy affirmations. They're a club bound together by a list of articles of faith.


At first glance, the sacred affirmations of dogmatist might seem to achieve the ends of a self-proclaimed activist. This makes it hard to tell the difference between the two. Is a women's rights activist really trying to achieve women's rights? or are they part of a sort of church with the stated goal of achieving women's rights, but they're actually trying to find the same purpose and community of a religious believer?

The Enemy's Leader is always Satan

"Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship."   

-David Foster Wallace

“A person will worship something, have no doubt about that."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Thou shalt not worship any other gods before me."

-God 

One way to mark political tribes is by what they sacralize. Conservatives sacralize things like the constitution, the military and America, while liberals sacralize things like Democracy, the environment, and select minority groups.

An Uninterrupted Present

I wish I was born on February 29th so I can be 8 again. I would change a lot of things. Status quo bias aside, I would make several different decisions.

Sometimes when we're trapped in an elevator or waiting for work to start or hanging out at a bar, we ask each other, "if you could go back in time, what would you change?" There are a lot of good answers, but the worst answer is one I hear more than 50% of the time.