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I'll let you in on a little secret. I despise Obamacare much the same way I despise other nanny-state laws, but a lot more.

I ride motorcycles. Have done so all my adult life, and for a few years before that. I wear a helmet and other protective gear.

I drive and ride in cars. I wear seat belts.

I use a hands-free set on my cell phone while driving.

I did those things long before the 'law'* required it. Because, though I may not be as smart or progressive as some of you, I wanted to take reasonable precautions. Because it was obviously in my best interests. Not because it was good for society.

Virtue was its own reward. It's called rational self-interest.

When legislators and executives passed 'laws' making those personal choices mandatory, judges upheld them, bureaucrats and police enforced them, and 'society' approved of them, my reaction was: fuck you. Fuck you, legislators. Fuck you, Governor. Fuck you, society. Fuck you all.

Fuck you, if you think 'social costs' give you the right to point guns at me and tell me what to do in order to help reduce them. Take your social costs arguments and stuff them straight up your fucking asses.

You created many of those social costs and forced them on virtuous people by expanding government's role in private matters. You made them worse.

Fuckwads.

You're taking us straight to the Depths of Hell or whatever other form of eternal damnation you care to believe in. And if you don't believe in such a thing, you're taking us town the fucking toilet.

After these 'laws' were passed, I continued wearing helmets and seat belts. I bought cars with airbags (what choice did I have?) I still use hands-free sets on my cell phone while driving. Because I want to take reasonable precautions for myself, my family, for loved ones. Oh, and in some cases, because I don't want to get busted. Not because I'm worried about social costs.

But you statists and progressives killed the joy of doing something because it's smart, because it's safer, because it's obviously beneficial. You turned an act of virtue into mere compliance, and in some cases created yet another tool in the vast and ever-expanding arsenal of victimless crimes.

I have health care insurance. I had it before 'Obamacare' was passed into 'law'. I had health care insurance, even though I am not as smart as President Obama, Ms. Pelosi, and the rest of the petty tyrants who supported this abomination.

I will continue to have health insurance after the abomination known a 'Obamacare' takes effect. Until someday I won't.

All you've done by forcing these 'for your own good' 'laws' down our throats is to put nails in your coffin. People who are virtuous for its own sake will despise you, and you lose their respect and support.

Those people may be a tiny minority, and hence you don't give a shit about them since this is, after all, a de facto democracy** (and swaying the masses is what it's all about, right?)–but eventually all you have left to support you are those without innate virtue–those who want something for nothing, who want someone else to carry them, who are willing to trade their liberties for a little security mess of pottage. Those who need to be told what to do, how to live, how to think. Frankly, I can't think of a worse fate.

That minority of virtuous, productive, self-reliant people are the ones who keep this mess from going straight down the crapper. So go ahead and pass another 'for your own good' 'law'. Pass a thousand more.

Kill virtue. Do it. It's what you want, anyway.

Fuck you. Fuck you, Obama. Fuck you, Pelosi. Fuck you, 'progressives'. Fuck you, society.

Footnotes

* These are not laws -- they are perversions of law. Go read Bastiat, and come back when you are ready to have an adult, intelligent conversation about the proper role (and limits) of the law.

** It's actually a Republic, a federation of States, or, at least it was a long time ago. But we moderne Americans like to think of the late great American Republic as a great democracy; who am I to argue with popular opinion? To all you democracy-cultists: You know what you want, and you deserve to get it good and hard.

I just spent the morning removing BS Footprint's presence from Facebook. It felt good.

I'm weary of helping build monster mega-corp web sites. I think I'll spend my time building my own.

When did Apple and Google stop building things for the fun of it?

Nick Bilton of the New York Times wonders:

Take Apple. When Steven P. Jobs and Steve Wozniak started the company, they were just a couple of guys tinkering with technology. Now Apple is a machine that seems unwilling to stop at anything to win.

Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS, is a prime example. The company has always contended that it puts a lovely manicured walled garden around iOS to protect customers from nefarious individuals out to take their most personal and private information. Apple has refused to list thousands of applications in the App Store — often ones that competed with Apple’s products — based on this premise.

Yet over the last few weeks it has become apparent that Apple hasn’t necessarily been keeping its customers as safe as it has claimed. Last month it came to light that the company was approving apps that were freely taking people’s address books from their phones without permission. An Apple loophole also allows developers to take someone’s entire photo library. To me, that sounds more like a circus tent than a walled garden.

[snip]

Google doesn’t seem to be much fun anymore either. Apps running on its Android software can also snag photos off a phone. The company is so focused on winning that it is force-feeding customers Google Plus, a product that seems slightly unoriginal for a company as original as Google. And of course Google’s privacy policies are about as much fun as leaning back in a dentist’s chair.

For the Internet, No More Innovation for the Fun of It - NYTimes.com

Here's a very good question: If This Is Such a Strong Economy, Why Does This Chart Look Recessionary?

Any answers? Bueller? Bueller?

Sustainable. Sustainability. Those words were rarely used before 1960. Then there was a rapid increase in the use of the word "sustainable".

According to Google Ngrams, we reached peak sustainability sometime around 2004.

It's all downhill from here.

Inspired by xkcd:

Source:xkcd