Thread

For @AdamCrigler

How do we hold them accountable?

We become absolutely intolerant of even ONE vote made against our interests.

Take @DanCrenshawTX

As in TAKE him. He needs to be tossed out based on his vote to erase history.

What Crenshaw did is NOT "disappointing," as his supporters say.

IT'S INEXCUSABLE.

He's embracing mob rule. This is Islamic State stuff. Taliban stuff.

I DON'T ABOUT HIS WAR RECORD. What counts is his actions in Congress.

When our politicians betray us, we fire them.

People like Crenshaw USE US. I'm sure he'll jabber out something about his "principles."

HE HAS NONE.

Voting to remove Civil War memorabilia is supporting mob rule. It's immoral.

People know that I'm a fanatical supporter of @realDonaldTrump.

BUT.

It isn't personal. That's how it should be. After his second term, if he invited me out for a Diet Coke, I'd jump at the chance.

And of course I'd go NOW, because he's the president.

But until he leaves office, he's on probation.

I TRUST HIM TOTALLY.

And if he betrayed me, that would be the end of my support.

No bitterness. No disillusionment. No real anger.

A sense of regret, but only regret that HE'D failed HIMSELF.

I used to be obsessed with squandered opportunity.

Musicians and actors who had it all and blew it.

I got very close to the greatest electric bassist who ever lived.

Without prompting, he told me the secret that had destroyed him. And then he hated ME.

He became incredibly physically abusive, and then he started revealing the absolute self-degradation he'd adopted for DECADES.

I cut him loose, and now I don't even listen to his music anymore. His is not a tragic tale. He wallows in and romanticizes his victimhood.

AND.

He became a predator himself.

Today, I instantly write off self-saboteurs and failures.

It's because I finally learned--after 40-odd years of contemplation--that whatever I was, I always wanted to live and be the best person I could.

A hospice chaplain and two psychiatrists told me that I was the strongest person they'd ever met.

I had no idea what they meant.

Now I do:

I'd resisted the tidal pull of corruption. Negativity. Hatred.

Given my history, I should be on death row.

But it was never an option.

I went through a process without knowing it.

"Cognitive empathy" is understanding intellectually how others feel without feeling it yourself.

"Affective empathy" is FEELING what others feel.

Psychiatry--like all sciences--gets things wrong.

The thinking on psychopathy is that psychopaths have no empathy.

WRONG.

They have SUPERHUMAN EMPATHY.

They use it as a weapon. They have cognitive empathy that's off the charts.

Also, psychiatrists say that psychopathy is not curable.

WRONG.

I cured myself of psychopathy and inadequate personality disorder.

Those are the people who become serial killers.

I always knew that certain behaviors would be wrong.

I didn't actually CARE about the people I'd be hurting, but I didn't want to be evil.

It was purely selfish: I knew that being evil would make my life even harder.

Cops, arrests, prison, homelessness.

It was absolutely intellectual. A cost-benefit analysis.

So even though I didn't feel emotions and didn't care about others, I always felt that if I just held on, there was a possibility that things might get better.

I had zero EXPECTATION that things would get better, but I felt that there was a slim possibility.

I had nothing to lose by hanging out. Besides, I always knew that life after death is real, and I was afraid that after I died, NOTHING WOULD CHANGE.

I'd be this psychopathic inadequate madman for all eternity.

I went through the motions; I got jobs, had relationships, became interested in military history, but there was always a sense of unreality.

I spent ten years drunk and high because I'd freak myself out.

"What does it mean to be alive?" I'd ask myself. "How do I KNOW I'm alive?"

I became aware of every physical movement.

"Now my arm goes up. Now my head turns. Now I stand."

So I had to get wasted to make it all stop.

In 1991, at the age of 29, I stood up in my living room, lost my balance, and charged headfirst into the doorframe.

WHAM!

He head left a dent in the wood.

"F*ck this," I said. "It never actually worked, and now
I'm a charging hippo in my own house."

So I quit the booze and drugs that day.

It wasn't hard. That's because it wasn't real.

My life was a dream that was interrupted by nightmares, but then I'd wake up into the regular dream.

The thing that kept happening was that I'd hook up with psychos.

The craziest women who ever lived. Over and over.

So finally I went to a psychiatrist to find out why I did that. When we first met, I told him that since this was going to be total agony anyway, he had to hit me as hard as possible.

We had to make every session count.

I wasn't going to freak out; nothing he said would make me have a breakdown.

But he had to treat me like a science experiment.

And he did!

It was brutal. But not cruel. He always stopped to ask how I was doing.

I sweat bullets every session. But I had to do it.

Boy oh boy, did he rip me apart!

But again, not in a cruel way. Went I went bankrupt, he cut his fee by two-thirds so I could continue.

And then after 18 months of one session a week, he told me that he'd done all he could.

The damage was too great. I could never be normal.

But I could extricate myself faster from terrible relationships, and I could make a rewarding life for myself.

I had one more relationship. A hippie dancer who looked like Audrey Hepburn with frizzy blonde hair and blue eyes.

The worst one yet.

If she could've driven me to suicide, she would've.

So I became a hermit.

And THAT was how I developed affective empathy.

By being alone, away from psychos.

I still don't know what romantic love is, but that's okay.

I had two great friends in my life. Steiv and Nick.

Both sought me out.

I didn't know they knew I was alive.

Staggeringly handsome men.

(These are lookalikes. EXACT lookalikes.)

Our friendships was based on talking.

Both of them were loners with no other friends.

They saw something in me that made them approach me.

Steiv died of asthma in 1997, and Nick killed himself in 2001.

Both came to me in my dreams to tell me that they're fine.

So what it all comes down to is choice.

I refrained from becoming evil, despite not caring about others.

I now believe that ALL PEOPLE--no matter how insane--know right from wrong. It's hardwired into us.

That's why I'm totally unforgiving. Apologies are worthless.

Politicians KNOW that what they're doing is wrong.

They have no excuses. If I was able to refrain, THEY damn well can too.

The way we fix our system is by making the bastards pay EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Politicians use pork to buy off the voters.

If wrongdoers are kept in office, it's the fault of the voters.

I still love the movie Videodrome, but now I totally identify with the villains!

They actually AREN'T villains. They're taking out the garbage.

All we need to do is be strong.

And hard.

And unforgiving.

It's a tough old world. Being hard and unforgiving is an asset.

NOT WHEN IT COMES TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

I suppose.

But definitely when it comes to politicians.

END