A royal proclamation from the king
Photo by Bret Kavanaugh on UnsplashThis is: A weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.
Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — A Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering. Viewing with a tablet or a monitor is highly recommended for maximum enjoyment.
"Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination."
-George Benard Shaw
{Artificial hallucination?}
Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),
If one goes a googlin' and enters the aphorism fake it till you make it, a plethora of contradictory hits pop up. There are believers, nonbelievers, and a Wikipedia entry that will inform you that there's a band and a tv series named same.
"Fake it till you make it" (or "Fake it until you make it") is an English aphorism which suggests that by imitating confidence, competence, and an optimistic mindset, a person can realize those qualities in their real life and achieve the results they seek." -Wikipedia
{What's an aphorism, a type of astigmatism?}
"An aphorism is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. ...The concept is distinct from those of an adage, brocard, chiasmus, epigram, maxim (legal or philosophical), principle, proverb, and saying; some of these concepts are types of aphorism." -Wikipedia
{There's something really, really wrong with you, you know that?}
As you know, Dana, while others ran for president last year I ran for king. Although I pledged to be a benevolent monarch who would submit himself to a He Stays or He Goes Referendum after two years in office, my campaign failed.
My obvious mistake was the promise of a referendum. People with actual lives who are not obsessed with politics and/or who resist the current trend to politicize everdamnthing are already tired of hearing about next year's midterm election.
{Yeah... that must be it. I'm already tired of hearing about the election of 2024. Are you sneaking up on an actual point of some sort?}
Certainly. My point is that I've decided to start issuing royal proclamations, acting as if I'm America's monarch. I'm faking it till I make it.
By way of review, in the past, I've mentioned that if I were king: America would be closed on Sundays, I would impose federal term limits on Congress, federal elections would take place over the course of a four day weekend holiday (Saturday thru Tuesday) and that early voting is gone, absentee voting highly restricted.
Also: impose a radically simplified tax code with a sorta/kinda flat tax of two or three tiers and few if any deductions, restrict abortions to 12 weeks (possibly 15 in the unlikely event the Supremes rule that the new Mississippi law is cool), and the phrase have a nice day will officially be changed to have an OK day.
My first official proclamation as the king who is faking it till he makes it concerns bringing back the use of stocks (but not pillories, a bridge too far).
{What on Earth are you...}
Henceforth let it be known throughout the Republic that the king has reinstituted the use of stocks but forbids the use of the pillories. Stocks will be installed in an appropriate location. Public buildings with large, ornate lobbies are highly recommended.
A convicted blackguard/ne'er do well/jagoff, at the discretion of a judge, may be sentenced to serve time in indoor, publicly visible stocks, but never overnight.
Stock time may be in addition to incarceration but must be served first. Stock time after serving time would be like kicking an H. sapien when he/she/they are already down. Stock time is encouraged for crimes that involve one citizen deliberately victimizing another via fraud, bullying resulting in measurable damage, physical violence, etc.
Please note: Speech is not a form of violence.
The use of the stocks is encouraged for minor offenses that don't merit incarceration but clearly merit attempting to get the offender's attention. The stocks are highly recommended for attempting to steer adolescents back onto the straight and narrow.
Royal Proclamation 1a., On Hate Crimes. Henceforth, all hate crime statutes are repealed. A crime is a crime.
H. sapiens are incapable of reading each other's thoughts. H. sapiens aren't very good at guessing each other's motivations. Actions speak louder than thoughts or words (you may have heard this). If there's a crime it's in the action, attempting to apply thoughts as aggravating factors is politically correct nonsense.
Trying to suss out thoughts and motivations should be left to judges and juries, not virtue signaling legislators.
Speaking of virtue signaling, please note that I not only don't refer to myself as we, I deliberately don't/won't capitalize king so as to show solidarity with all the little people.
Addendum: On a related note...
Until recently, my take on publicly active and taxpayer-supported royal families was that they were, at best, parasitic anachronisms. Case in point, not so bonny Prince Harry, a product of royal privilege, calling our First Amendment "bonkers."
Proving, once again, the importance of immigration restrictions.
However, thanks to the wit and wisdom of polymath Stephen Fry, my position has softened. We were having a drink down at the pub and he pointed out that in a constitutional monarchy the Crown serves to remind people that they share in a common tradition, and provides the pomp, circumstance, and ceremonies that many people find both uniting and enjoyable.
Rather like people standing for the National Anthem before they realized America is the work of the devil.
Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day
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