{"id":10759,"date":"2009-12-31T13:12:40","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T20:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=10759"},"modified":"2010-06-26T10:00:36","modified_gmt":"2010-06-26T17:00:36","slug":"you-know-what-despite-everything-happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10759\/you-know-what-despite-everything-happy-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"You know what? Despite everything: Happy New Year!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote this last night in a comment to a post:<\/p>\n

The United States is being run as a kleptocracy, but instead of plundering the treasury and the accumulated wealth of the nation in behalf of a small criminal conspiracy, we rob from a rapidly-diminishing productive sector in behalf of a vast and ever-burgeoning population of moochers — at all strata of society.<\/p>\n

You can’t flip on the television without running across a cipher for your own grandmother proudly announcing how some politically-connected vendor has taught her how to rape the taxpayers — which is to say you and your kids, her own great-grandchildren — in her own behalf. This will be the real triumph of Obamacare — to turn every last resident of this once-proud nation into sniveling beggars, each one trying to snap up more benefits than his neighbor.<\/p>\n

We don’t have to eat each others’ flesh to be cannibals, and it seems plausible to me that we will not be suffered to live a life of freedom and independence, in the very near future. The entitlement mentality is such a shameful thing that the people who use it as a means of enslaving each other will not suffer the contradiction of an objective renunciation of their creed. In any case, once you’ve eaten a meal taken by theft, you’re not as apt to make noises about law and order, property rights, all that sanctimonious nonsense. Who am I do judge, once I’ve drunk my neighbor’s blood?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s dour, but I’m afraid it’s much too exact. Yes, I know that things are always worse than they seem, that the doppler effect of the noise that is the news makes the onrushing crisis sound more ominous even as receding events seem to race away harmlessly. But I fear we are at a tipping point, a place where the grasshoppers so far outnumber the ants that there really is no hope, going forward, for a life based on self-reliance, on philosophical egoism, political individualism and economic free enterprise. The United States has resolved to resolve the contradiction of chattel slavery by making slaves of Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote this last night in a comment to a post: The United States is being run as a kleptocracy, but instead of plundering the treasury and the accumulated wealth of the nation in behalf of a small criminal conspiracy, we rob from a rapidly-diminishing productive sector in behalf of a vast and ever-burgeoning population […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,24,212,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10759","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-big-mother","7":"category-egoism-in-action","8":"category-flourishing","9":"category-group-therapy","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11858,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/11858\/it-looks-like-the-dam-is-finally-bursting-on-politicaly-correct-self-censorship-in-behalf-of-islamofascist-rageaholics\/","url_meta":{"origin":10759,"position":0},"title":"It looks like the dam is finally bursting on politicaly-correct self-censorship in behalf of Islamofascist rageaholics.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"You bastards! The essence of Political Correctness is to get people to volunteer for their own self-imprisonment. In fear of offending some perpetually-offended jackass, the victims of Political Correctness come to be stunted, stilted, stifled -- and ultimately silenced. But, alas, they never, ever manage to escape the snide, sneering\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15835,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15835\/from-man-alive-youre-in-this-all-alone\/","url_meta":{"origin":10759,"position":1},"title":"From Man Alive! – “You’re in this all alone.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind. Extract from Chapter 1. You\u2019re in this all alone. Each individual human being is his own first and best philosopher, like it or don\u2019t, for this simple reason: You are not born knowing how to stay alive, and, absent some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11367,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/11367\/uvex-missses-the-cluetrain\/","url_meta":{"origin":10759,"position":2},"title":"UVEX missses the Cluetrain","author":"John Rowles","date":"February 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"\"... learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about \"listening to customers.\" They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.\" -- The Cluetrain Manifesto, Chapter 1 Until\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":979,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/979\/russell-shaw-interview-exploring-the-mind-of-a-mega-producer\/","url_meta":{"origin":10759,"position":3},"title":"Russell Shaw interview: Exploring the mind of a mega-producer . . .","author":"Russell Shaw","date":"February 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This is Greg Swann writing in Russell Shaw's behalf: Appended below you will find an hour-long interview by Tim Harris with mega-producing Phoenix Realtor Russell Shaw. The interview covers a lot of ground, but focuses particular attention on Russell's hard-scrabbble climb from persistent debt to selling over $100 million worth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interview"","block_context":{"text":"Interview","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/interview\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":363,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/363\/buying-a-new-built-home-how-much-is-your-agent-getting-paid\/","url_meta":{"origin":10759,"position":4},"title":"Buying a new-built home? How much is your agent getting paid?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me from this morning's Arizona Republic (permanent link). \u00a0Protect yourself from agent bonus fees by builders Are you buying a home? How much is your agent getting paid? If you're buying resale, the answer is probably 3 percent, and possibly even less, although there may be buyer's agent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14628,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/14628\/if-there-really-were-a-real-estate-agents-union\/","url_meta":{"origin":10759,"position":5},"title":"If There Really Were A Real Estate Agents’ Union…","author":"Brian Brady","date":"May 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"...this is how business might be done: You (a willing home seller) would look for a real estate agent and discover that the government mandates that you hire, its delegated agent, to market and negotiate on your behalf.\u00a0 That chosen agent will be the only one who can deal with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10759"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12435,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10759\/revisions\/12435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}