If a narrow, two-lane country road could be called seductive, this is it. Arrow straight into the horizon, it lies flat, bisecting rich, gently rolling farmland. Mile after mile of soybean, cotton, and corn planted three yards from the edges of asphalt ribbon — a lush agricultural tunnel. You nudge the accelerator. The road is yours. Deserted. Nothing moving under the late August morning sun. Not man. Not beast. The 535i shares your love of the place, humming almost gratefully as it gracefully settles on 90. Your right palm rests casually at five o’clock, eyes fixated just above the horizon, at once seeing everything and nothing, out of body, dreamlike. There’s something spiritual about speed. Are you gliding on a blacktop or floating on a cloud? Or, like an F-18, lifting skyward near the end of a land-based carrier deck, speeding toward….toward what?

Even a self-induced hypnosis has nowhere to go without an eventual slap in the face. Two hundred yards ahead, the Peterbilt Semi rumbles past a slight bend, refusing to be ignored as it roars past. The morning seduction is over, but not forgotten. Past the runway, you decel to 70. Exceeding the limit by 15 mph won’t land you in lockup but satisfyingly challenges you on the serpentine segments of backroad. This is driving as it should be, requiring hand/eye coordination, a tidbit of risk and a large helping of joy. Unfortunately, the future frowns on the joys of human proficiency, the joys of owning the road.

Well, better buckle up; the future is now. Vehicles already park, reduce speed and brake automatically, ushering in the arrival of the automatic pilot — your driverless car. As always, the changes are surreptitiously incremental. At first, you have the option of manual and automatic operation. In time, manual goes away. You become a full-time passenger. Your vehicle mandates speed control. Combustion vehicles disappear. All vehicles are electric and conform to standard design. Artificial Intelligence (AI) takes over and you take a back seat.

Not today, though, as you and Gladys Knight and her Pips (Midnight Train to Georgia)happily straighten out a nifty “S” curve. Sweet.

Truth is AI has been here in one form or another since the 50’s. You remember Hal 9000. (He) had a mind of (his) own in the 1968 flick: 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fifty five years later, AI knows your bathroom habits through a bevy of tech companies. It surrounds you with smart devices, controlling household utilities and security, ordering groceries, analyzing preferences and behaviors and predicting what you will say and how you will say it. Eventually, AI replaces the need for true, unassisted human endeavor. It penetrates all business sectors and all skilled disciplines. Optimists rightly claim that brilliant human brains are responsible for machines that think. Yes. Humans store the data, humans write the code and humans develop algorithms. Human brains give the instructions; machines listen and learn. Smart machines save time, make your data more useful, curtail errors, expedite decisions, make predictions, continuously evolve and minimize risk — 24-7. All these benefits arguably make the world a better place.

But at what cost?

In the wrong hands, pessimists and at least one realist suggest: AI technology is a weapon — destined to invade privacy, cheat, steal and completely subjugate a populace. Given recent history, AI is exactly poised to accelerate Huxley’s Brave New World, where an “oligarchy of big government and big business” threatens individual freedom — where “standardization and conformity in everyday life . . . becomes inevitable,” (and) where “brainwashing techniques influence people to conform to approved ways of thinking.” Sound familiar, Matilda? Hell, U.S. lefties  would nod pridefully. Even in the right hands, AI crushes critical thinking. History and history’s geniuses are irrelevant. Reading and writing are passe. And profoundly lost is respect for the architecture and artistry of the English language. But all isn’t lost for the GenX and GenZ congregation. Need a piece of knowledge? Grab your cell, enter or verbalize a few keywords and instantly you become educated. How sweet is that, comrades?

Not as sweet as this country road and this lusty machine that loves and depends on you and your touch alone. You have a biker friend who understands.

www.conventionofstates.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bad news almost always outweighs good news. By a lot.

Media loves bad news. Bad news makes the front page. Broadcast news almost always leads with death, disaster, destruction, deception, depravity, etc. Every now and then, good news does show a welcome face. Gas prices drop a dime/gal. Your favorite team wins a game. Your blood work is unremarkable. A black GenZ male student says law enforcement should be the key issue in the 2024 election. Anyway you cut it, to be trite, your frustration with doom and gloom is your fault, because it’s easy enough to dump the garbage. Just tune out, Matilda. Begin with TV, the mesmeric machine designed to sway behavior, condition thinking and shape opinion. Whatever “innocent” television entertainment you may enjoy, it is nothing less than a remorseless narcotic, keeping you addicted and numbing you to suffocating content. Speaking of which, what can be more negative than the deluge of pharmaceutical advertising that smashes listeners in the face with visions of disease and death. Not that many years ago, drug ads occupied very little air time. But Covid changed all that. The immediate and orchestrated fear of death changed all that. Shrewdly, Pharma marketing execs jumped at the opportunity to cash in on all-consuming fear and the preoccupation with all things health. Hour by hour, day and night, every day, dozen of drug ads entertain you with news of impending disease. All of it wrapped in song and dance, happy families and smiling faces, as you hear the litany of terrifying disclaimers. But don’t think Big Pharma is alone in the fear game. All kinds of insurance companies have you wrapped in a bubble of apprehension. So you surround your home in electronic surveillance, and you buy plumbing protection through American Home Shield, appliance coverage through Home Service Club, auto maintenance through Car Shield, identity protection through LifeLock and digital privacy through Norton, to name just a few of the most visible fear mongers. Meanwhile, as you obsess over personal health and security, the U.S. government makes certain that serious fear is your ever-present bedfellow. The swamp dwellers of both political parties threaten you with felonious policies that have a predictable outcome — the weakening of individual freedom. If they could read that last allegation, millions of Americans would howl “Baloney.” Yep, these would be the nitwits who entrust their children to annual Covid jabs. Who believe Covid is a bat virus. Who believe Anthony Fauci is an ethical public servant. Who believe healthcare is a natural right. Who believe national debt is an irrelevant number. Who think open borders have nothing to do with Democrat votes. Who believe drug cartels and child sex trafficking are overblown. Who believe climate change is doomsday. Who believe electric cars will save the planet. Who believe wind turbines will save the planet. Who believe solar panels will save the planet. Who believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Who believe the Clinton body count is right wing conspiracy. Who believe Hillary is guileless. Who believe the 2020 election was on the level. Who believe American foreign policy is noble. Who believe Government leaders put the American people ahead of themselves. On that last note, the good news is — you can dump the damn garbage. And remember that you live in God’s country — a good country with good people, generous people who do good things every single day.  Everyone of them needs to bury fear. Bury it now. This very minute. And remember what it means to be an American.

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All scams depend on two human weaknesses — either greed or hate, and sometimes both. Following WWI, the suffering German people deeply resented a treaty that stripped their defeated nation of territory and economic resources. For Hitler, that resentment meant the German people were ripe for a scam. Adolph promised them retribution and instead gave them genocide. Closer to home, America’s angry black community deeply resented what it claimed was racist domination by the white community. For B. Obama and later J.Biden, that resentment meant that the African American community was ripe for a scam. Barak and Joe promised them the moon and instead gave them Marxism. In short order, the Democrat Party embraced Marxism and rebranded it as WOKE-ISM — an anti-America movement based on hate and greed. If you dismiss this conclusion, at least be honest enough to pay close attention to Marxist infiltration throughout all of America’s major institutions. In particular, examine the DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) mandated policies of public schools, of universities, of large corporations, of media, of healthcare,  of the church, of the military, of federal, state and local governments. For instance, your alma mater’s medical school made news recently by adopting Critical Race Theory, making it  a mandatory study in social justice and anti-racism .*** This same university’s head BB coach led her national championship women’s team to showcase BLM tee shirts during games, as she used and still uses occasions to speak of “social injustice.” But get this: The only place you won’t find a millimeter of DEI is in college and professional sport. The one place you won’t find a socialist economic system is on college and professional playing fields and arenas. Only one attribute drives the sporting world — MERIT. In other words, coaches recruit the best players based on documented performance —  period. When head coach and BLM advocate Dawn Staley (at South Carolina) is on the recruiting trail, she leaves DEI in a dark closet. And occasionally she will sign a token white player to prove she’s not racist. Nobody buys DEI on professional circuits. Affirmative action has no place on the PGA tour. Equal pay has no place in the NFL. The LA Dodgers pay Mookie Betts $188,000 (before taxes)for every game he plays, or doesn’t play. NYY pays Aaron Judge $246,000 per game ($40MM/year). No “equity” here. Yes, Matilda, the world of sport is America’s model for pure capitalism, the engine of individual freedom and prosperity. And nobody messes with it. Ironically, irrationally, shamefully, stupidly, unethically and criminally, America’s major public and private sectors — government, business, education, places of worship and healthcare — are neck deep in DEI pathology. The last time you looked, the CEOs, Legislators, Educators, Pastors and Administrators — the leaders — push WOKE pathology to curry favor under the boot of Federal extortion. But please don’t think the elite ruling class actually lives the WOKE lie. WOKE is strictly for the minions of the world, the doormats, the 2023 version of slaves. They are corporate employees who toe the line to keep their jobs. They are the obtuse, ungrateful millennials and Gen Z’s, who wrap themselves in hedonistic affluence. They are the minorities who prosper, based not on merit, but on skin color and/or  gender. They are America’s dependents who sell their self worth and self respect to the Democrat Party for a handout. Essentially, WOKE is saying to these minorities: “You need help because you are inferior, inadequate, unworthy and lack the brainpower or work ethic to take care of yourself; but always remember, you can count on us.” It’s the same message the Carpetbaggers had for freed slaves in 1865: “We’re going to give you one acre and a mule — just remember who should get your vote.” One hundred fifty eight years later,  little has changed. Slavery still exists. You don’t have to be owned as chattel to be “owned. ” History is the undisputed teacher on this judgment. Until 1776, history was (and still is) an unending repetition  of dictatorship under kings, queens, emperors, czars, oligarchs — under fascist tyrants.  Under monarchies, or under communism today, “free” people exist with chains. America was an astonishing attempt to limit aristocratic rule by announcing that “all men are created equal . . . . ” Eventually, at great human cost, those words and that promise were fulfilled. Sovereign individuals were free to chart their own lives and elect their own leaders who were bound to a moral code and limited power. Unfortunately, both the code and the limitations have fallen to tyranny.  Frankly, without a reawakening of the American Principle, the USA is destined to take its place in the long line of dictatorships like Marxism, in this case cloaked in euphemisms like DEI. And future generations may exclaim, “Why in the world did the people let that happen?” There’s only one answer. They just did, as countless generations of people before them.

*** https://www.foxnews.com/politics/university-south-carolina-education-courses-centered-social-justice-anti-racism

*** https://donoharmmedicine.org/2022/12/26/we-found-out-how-woke-the-university-of-south-carolina-school-of-medicine-really-is/

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