Some Observations

• • Knowing only one language is like having only one eye.  You can still see everything, but you miss out on the depth.
• • Some people, it is said, see retirement as the end of a meaningful life.  I see it as the end of a meaningless life.  No more spending eight hours a day doing things so inane and irritating that they literally need to pay me to do them.  Retirement is the time to bloom.  Most jobs wilt you.
• • Gangster "leaders" always underestimate the strength and resolve of democracies.  The Kaiser did, Hitler did, Tojo did, Saddam Hussein did, and now Putin is doing it.  They never seem to learn.
• • Toddlers (of whatever chronological age) go on the internet to show how performatively cynical they can be.  Adults grapple with the detail and complexity of difficult problems in the real world.
• • There is money to be made by telling people what they want to hear, and what stupid people want to hear is that smart people actually aren't so smart after all.  That's why, for example, the junk media so often report new scientific discoveries as showing that "scientists were wrong about such-and-such", even though usually the new discovery fits into existing theories quite well.
• • If somebody uses words like "sheeple" or "herd" to refer to those who disagree with him, he's probably in some kind of cult.
• • People who claim to not care about good manners have probably never had to deal with somebody who's really rude.  That gets tiresome fast.
• • Saying "it's a republic, not a democracy" is like saying "it's a beagle, not a dog".  A republic is a type of democracy, and the only type workable for a really large population.  Every democracy in the world today is a republic (well, some are technically constitutional monarchies, but they function as republics, with elected representatives holding power).  People who use this slogan aren't basing it on some clear distinction between the two — they're just rationalizing a claim that they should get their way even if they don't win majority support.
• • Angry people are usually easy to manipulate.  That's why would-be manipulators try to keep their audience in a state of constant outrage.
• • Better my own road to Hell than someone else's road to Heaven.

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