Yeah, sure. We all awoke from the horror in 1989. The Soviet menace quelled, peace and flying ponies reign. Right.

This particular bit has been taking up two slots in my inbox for a while, and it’s time to purge:

From “Sioux Warrior” at 2:54am:

why did you renounce US citizenship? are you fucking insane?

Um, yes… yes, yes I am?

And from “Sioux Warrior” at 3:02am:

ok you burned your ssa card. wow. You could have simply cut it up. You are still on file at SSA. it does not matter that you burned it. I get SSI income, I agree that the SSA really sucks ass. I want them out of my life. If an illegal alien uses your SSN, they won’t do anything.

I hereby disclaim all liability in connection with your use, storage, processing or retransmission of this information.

It is an intellectual battle… one that I have been engaged in for at least the past 25 years.

It is a battle of the real against the unreal, of the accepted versus the virtuous, of the valid against the irrational and of the unrepentantly bad against that which would, perchance, ought be good.

This battle takes place inside me every day. It is a battle where questions are never answered, where truths never come riding, radiant over the horizon to dispel falsehoods. It is a battle which requires that one man, atomized and alone, stands firm against an irresistable tide of lies and insanity. When I face this battle, as the one clinging to the bit of solid ground against the tsunami does, it is pure, it is fine and it is enough to just hold on.

When I look around, sometimes, though, I find ones I value cheering the destruction and insanity which rages around me.

And that really bothers me.

Oh, fuck it. Here, listen to some Exodus, dredged up from memory by the chance linkage of the word “toxic” in the title to the same word appearing in phrases like “toxic debt” in the media this year…

After this, Americans might just want to get right out there and riot like proper victims.

Exodus, “The Toxic Waltz”, from the album Fabulous Disaster:

Here’s a new dance craze that’s sweeping the nation
It’s called the toxic waltz and it’s causing devastation
You’re jumping up and down like a psycho circus clown
Slamming with waltzers all the way around
You get caught up in the whip
You’re thrown into a flip
You aim for someone’s head
To stain the floor red
Give someone a kick
To prove you’re truly sick
Bounce back from some blows
And blood runs out your nose

Flailing round and round
And you’re injury bound
Waltz it up!
The pit is it!
You can take your chance
On this rough new dance
If you dare!
To dive in!
There are some that try
But they won’t survive
They don’t hit!
‘Cause they’re wimps!
And this exercise
Helps you brutalize
With us!
Exodus!

Everybody’s doin’ the toxic waltz
Kick your friend in the head and have a ball
Come on and do the toxic waltz
And slam your partner against the wall
Everybody’s doin’ the toxic waltz
Good friendly violent fun in store for all
Get up off your ass and toxic waltz
If you hit the floor you can always crawl!

Used to do the monkey, but now it’s not cool
The twist and mash potato are no exception to the rule
So don’t be a dunce and dance like a runt
Just throw your elbows with good friendly violent fun
Don’t start to cry
If you get a black eye
Just dive back in
And give another try
But too much action
May leave you in traction
So you better get insurance
No matter your endurance!

Flailing round and round
And you’re injury bound
Waltz it up!
The pit is it!
You can take your chance
On this rough new dance
If you dare!
To dive in!
There are some that try
But they won’t survive
They don’t hit!
‘Cause they’re wimps!
And this exercise
Helps you brutalize
With us!
Exodus!

Everybody’s doin’ the toxic waltz
Kick your friend in the head and have a ball
Come on and do the toxic waltz
And slam your partner against the wall
Everybody’s doin’ the toxic waltz
Good friendly violent fun in store for all
Get up off your ass and toxic waltz
If you hit the floor you can always crawl!

Get up on your feet
Don’t look so obsolete
And thrash like an athlete!
Don’t sit there on your ass
Don’t look like you’ve got too much class
You’ll be harassed!
You know we guarantee
This is the key
So rage or get the third degree!
You begin frontal assaults
And start your somersaults
And do the toxic waltz!
Do the toxic waltz!

One Robert Lindsay, who claims an IQ of 147, responding to some comments of mine at his blog challenging his ridiculous assertion that anarchists and libertarians are racists, writes:

We Commies and socialists are the world’s greatest humanitarians. Stalin set a world record by doubling life expectancy in a country in the shortest period of time, a record that was unbroken until Mao broke it. Stalin and Mao are two of the greatest humanitarians that ever lived. They are life-savers. What kills is capitalism. [emphasis mine]

to which I reply:

Try telling that to the millions they murdered.

and

Yeah, people died under Stalin and Mao, but they both dramatically reduced the death rate. The death rate under Czarism was fully 3 times higher than under Stalin. Anyway, Stalin killed 1.6 million, not 110 million or whatever. Mao also dramatically reduced the death rate. There’s lots of ways to kill people, and the previous capitalist and feudalist regimes were killing far more than Stalin and Mao. These guys were the two greatest lifesavers that ever lived.

to which I responded:

Ah, the shades of evil. Even if we respect the anti-revisionist Stalin/Mao death counts here, to say that Stalin is somehow “better” than the Czarist monarchs for killing “only” 1.6 million people is to fall victim to false choice and forced options, or to adopt a utilitarian position which reduces human lives to mere numbers. Are we to say that Jeffrey Dahmer was “better” than Ted Bundy because he killed fewer people? Hardly. We rightly call both of them monsters. To call Stalin or Mao “humanitarians” for killing fewer millions than those who might have otherwise been in power is not only to twist words beyond all recognition of meaning but also to stand ready to defend the next tyrant intent on launching the next “great leap forward” up the side of a great mountain made of bloody, broken human corpses.

And Mr. Lindsay winds things up:

Wait a minute. You don’t get it. Stalin and Mao saved lives. They probably saved more lives than anyone in history. Lowering the death rate in your country is very important. They did this not be “killing fewer people” but by actually saving millions of lives though higher standard of living, improved diet, sanitation, health care, etc. Indian capitalism killed 170 million since 1949 by not going with the Chinese model of Communism. We’re not talking about “killing fewer people”. We’re talking about saving lives and giving the gift of life – time.

[...]

And some of those people Stalin killed got what they deserved! And a lot of those killed by Mao were the big landlords, and they were almost all horrible criminals. Mao didn’t kill them anyway, he just said that the villagers could put them on trial. The peasants hated them so much that they put many of them on trial, and in many cases, voted to convict and to execute them. Then the party carried out the peoples’ wishes. It’s pure people’s democracy – it’s not beaurocratic state murder or any of that.

Well, neat-o! I guess if the people wish it, that makes it okay, right? Yay, democracy!

For the sake of brevity, and in line with my inherent laziness, I’ll close simply with an observation that Mr. Lindsay reacted to by threatening expulsion from his blog-o-land. Politeness in the face of evil be damned.

(ignorance + flawed assumptions + ludicrous beliefs) x (your vaunted 147 IQ) = rank insanity

You’d think there are limits and ways to break people out of insanity and things they’ve gotten used to being normal because of everything they’ve been through, but if even your own crying child can’t do it, what can?

Unfortunately, when it comes to the evils we’ve been indoctrinated with and inured to — be it by parents, religion, society, culture or states — breaking out of insanity is something that precious few of us manage to do.

Day of Reckoning? Super Rich Tax Cheats Outed by Bank Clerk

Technician in Liechtenstein Turns Over Names of Americans With Secret Bank Accounts

Heinrich Kieber, fuckface extraordinaire

Hundreds of super-rich American tax cheats have, in effect, turned themselves in to the IRS after a bank computer technician in the tiny European country of Liechtenstein came forward with the names of US citizens who had set up secret accounts there, according to Washington lawyers investigating the scheme.

The bank clerk, Heinrich Kieber, has been branded a thief by the government of Liechtenstein for violating the country’s bank secrecy laws.

[...]

Kieber reportedly sold three CD’s full of names and data to tax authorities to 12 countries including Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States.

Nice going, fuckface.

Let’s be clear on one thing. There is no such thing as a “tax cheat”.

“Cheating” on your taxes is the moral equivalent of telling a mugger you have no more money than what’s in your wallet when you’ve got a wad of currency crammed between your ass cheeks.

Kieber’s Washington lawyer, Jack Blum, says Kieber should be considered a whistleblower and a hero, not a thief, for revealing how the super rich hid billions of dollars using the Liechtenstein bank.

So let’s see… steal from your employer, violate the privacy of your customers, turn the data over to the biggest and most ruthless gangs of muggers the world has ever known, and you can count on at least one jackass lawyer to call you a hero.

The persistent inversion of all human values continues unabated in the comments on the article:

every person and I mean every person, should be prosecuted and made to pay all back taxes on those sums in offshore banks. I am sick and tired of the rich getting richer by not paying their fair share of taxes

Fair share? A fair share would be a capitation.

The criminals are those who choose to live in this country and run their vast corporations here, yet violate this country’s tax codes in order to add millions on top of their billions. The hero is the guy who blew the whistle. Only the self-serving elite would attempt to blur the distinction

Consider me one of the self-serving elite, then, but just you go ahead and try to locate my billions, buster.

Too often the only way corrupt behavior can be exposed is by the brave actions of a whistle-blower.

Tax is corruption. “Brave”? Ha! The guy stole from his employer and sold the data. We have things to call that, but “brave” isn’t one of them.

Why don’t we make it illegal for US citizens to have accounts in Liechtenstein and with the Swiss for that matter until they make public the account information to the IRS. We should sanction these governments just as we want to do with any rogue nation such as The Sudan. there is no way these rich CRIMINALS should have a safe place to hide their money.

Why don’t we make being a dumbass illegal? And who said anything about CRIMINALS anyway, other than Mr. Fuckface who sold out his customers? Ah that’s right, if someone has more than you do, they’re a criminal. I done gone and forgot the whole “Robin Hood” ethic.

Where can I send a small check to this guy to help him out?

You can address it to me, and I’ll forward it to him. Promise.

Karma works!

That’s right. And I have a flying pony.

I hope that the IRS does something with the information. Tax cheats really irk me- these are the true non-productive members of our society.

Oh, someone, STOP THE INSANITY!!!