FRIDAY short TAKES.

I don't like politics.  "I’m already tired of the presidential election campaign and it’s just mid-March."  The country's getting older and sicker.  The professional-managerial class stand indicted on both of those counts.  "The experts thought they knew better. The elites wanted 'progress.' Is it any wonder that their failures and the damage they caused have alienated the people who paid the price of those failures -- especially when the experts and elites kept failing, right through the pandemic and the changes they imposed to deal with it, which turned out to be largely unnecessary?"  Freedom never counts as a treatment.  And thus doth the concatenation of failures continue.  Let us brace ourselves to our duties, and turf them out.  "This fake 'new world order' is not making anybody happy, and as people begin thinking for themselves, they are learning to disobey."

We know the Our Democracy^(TM) lie.  Even the brightest among you will benefit by a modicum of repetition.  "If the Democratic Party is willing to disregard democratic norms and processes when they don’t suit their agenda, it erodes the foundation of the 'democracy' they claim to defend. Their willingness to manipulate democratic mechanisms not only undermines public trust in the process but also presents a tangible danger of our nation sliding toward becoming a totalitarian state."

The weekly round-up of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

1.  Stop screwing up.  "I’ve been around a lot of melodramatic, mood-swingy people."

2.  Their incompetence is their diversity.  "Jayapal, by asking that question, managed to make it abundantly clear to the audience that the Democratic narrative was all bunk."  Do you see a pattern?  "You elevated Buckwheat for identity, you can't fire that person because of incompetence."

3.  Sanctimonious leftists.  "Hypocrisy is alive and well amongst these Sanctimonious Leftists. They want you to believe they’re better than you. More virtuous. More decent. But we all know the truth. They lie. They sin."  But they care more.  "The same idea of abstract humanity juxtaposed with concrete callousness towards humans characterizes much of the current leftist agenda."

4.  Leftists and their wordnoise.  "Emotional bullying, relentless whining, and constant badgering over the newest fad word or phrase that best shields them from accountability."

5.  So much ill done with the best of intentions.  "In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor."

6.  Spandex, truck scrota, and Alchian's spear.  "When we finally fix the problem of roadway violence, we are going to need a truth and reconciliation commission."

7.  That rigged advance auction of stolen goods.  "When you have developed a close relationship with a politician 'friend,' who funnels business and favors to you, it becomes very difficult to go against them."  But you can buy off enough constituents, sometimes.  "Democrats sold themselves as a party of government services, entitlements and payouts."

8.  Deny coherent beliefs, enjoy the incoherence.  "A society hostile to truth can’t possibly remain civilized, because it will also be hostile to reality."

9.  Austerity for government means prosperity for people.

10.  Complete the sentence.  "This bill was rapidly rushed to a vote by ????? with almost no public scrutiny—and that's a recipe for unintended consequences."  That might be the point.

11.  Our reality show politics.  "The Tik-Tokking of American politicians is alone reason to ban that miserable Chi-Com app."

12.  Words mean things.  "Illegal alien is the proper term for those not in the country legally."

13.  Confusing cause and effect.  "The doubling of the American higher education system brought in students who should never have been enrolled, much less graduated."

14.  Make the Arches middle-class again!  "McDonald’s prices are up, so lower-income consumers are eating at home."

15.  Delusional FJB, neither FDR nor LBJ, submits a budget request.  "It proposes defense spending as if the world is at peace, entitlement spending that isn’t sustainable, and tax increases that would hurt the economy if they passed, which they won’t."

16.  The case for the jerk.  "Trump may be a jerk, but the Left is destroying our culture and our country."  It's resonating.  "Donald Trump is more popular now than at any point since he left office."

17.  Once the punishment cycles begin, they're not easy to end.  "Democrats have been very outspoken when advocating for the public harassment of politicians with whom they disagree. They're going to have to get used to the fact that everybody can play by their rules."

18.  The population bomb blows up on the Central Committee.  "That China’s downfall stems from its own collectivist policies is no small irony, but it should come as no surprise. It stems from the same flawed thinking that led to the fall of the last communist empire: the Soviet Union."