Entries tagged “independence”

One of the goals a lot of people have when they become entrepreneurs is to have "fuck you" money: Enough personal wealth to be able to say "fuck you" to whomever you want.

As is probably evident from my little love note to Twitter, I'm enjoying Ev Williams (and his team) having the freedom to experiment with a slightly nicer version of that freedom. Call it "Thank You" money.

The best part about people being independent is that they can tell the truth. And while this is true for other bloggers (Dave Winer, Jason Calacanis, and Mark Cuban come to mind), Ev's probably the most graceful with it. So a rumination a few months ago about Odeo's mistakes sets the stage for an honest appraisal of the challenges faced now that Odeo is for sale.

Pretty much everybody else who'd want to do something like this would have to ask permission from someone else, permission that would likely not be granted. As someone who likes entrepreneurship and working for an independent company, it does my heart good to see others revelling in it as well.

So I got a copy of another extremist "manifesto" today, this one by a bunch of anti-American idiotarians who just don't seem to understand the basic principles that our great country was founded upon. What this piece of Berkeley leftist idiocy needs is a good fisking!

They're already off to a bad start. Leaving aside the fact that this bunch of clowns doesn't even identify who the "we" is, their entire premise is based on the idea that their opinions are "truths" that are "self-evident". "Because I say so" isn't sufficient evidence for anything. Typical liberal tactics.

More multiculturalist bullshit. The fact of the matter is, everyone is not the same. Some people are superior to others, and it's just a fact of life that the inferior people never seem to stop whining about.

Of course, this being a bunch that's half comprised of a bunch of godless atheists, they had to say "Creator", but we know what they mean. They're saying that everyone should have a bunch of special rights, just for being born.

Well, laaa dee da. These people wouldn't know what to do with "Liberty" if they had it. And people are entitled to "the pursuit of Happiness"? Is there some new, stronger stuff that they're smoking in Berkeley these days? Because the reality is, life can suck sometimes and you're going to just have to deal with it. You may even be — gasp! — unhappy sometimes. And there's no government entitlement that will save you from it.

This is the same logic that says that the FBI ought to ask terrorists for permission before they storm their hideouts. If you're an unlawful combatant, it doesn't matter that you didn't give "permission" to your government: They're gonna come kick your ass.

More socialist tripe. Wankers of the world, unite! This says, basically, "if we don't like the government, we're just gonna make a new one!" Why not just accept that your views are a distinct minority, and that they're unpopular, and that it might be worth your while to figure out why, exactly, no one agrees with you. Hint: It's not because you're a far more advanced human being than they are.

That's right, wish it all away. If the Government isn't doing its part to make sure that you're all comfy and happy, you ought to just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist at all. And we wonder why kids today don't have any respect for our institutions?

Seems to me that instead of trotting out all these Manifestos and Declarations, this bunch of impossible-to-please malcontents might want to ask themselves why they're having such trouble accepting a system that seems to be working just fine for everyone else. The job of any true patriot is to support our country, especially in such tumultuous times. Maybe if they spent less time deciding that everything is the fault of the government, and more time realizing that they are the problem and the reason that they're unhappy, they'd be able to start "pursuing the happiness" that they feel they're so entitled to.