So the “grin and bear it” movement among the RINOs and Libertarians has begun. “Biden is going to be the next President, so you’d best learn to live with it” is their refrain. “All this talk of a ‘civil war’ is mindless and irresponsible” they tell us.

Because some hills ARE worth dying on….

STOP TELLING ME TO “FOLLOW THE SCIENCE,” PEOPLE!

At least where COVID-19 is concerned. I’m not a science-denier, those who know me well know that I’m almost painfully pragmatic, and I’m better capable of critical thinking than 99% of the rest of the human race (and usually painfully snarky about it). But there is NO MORE SCIENCE in Corona Virus research anymore. It’s become corrupted by politics, nationalism, social agendas, and economics. The agencies and institutions that should have been responsible for conducting competent research and intelligently — truthfully! — informing the public about the virus (I’m looking right at you, WHO and CDC) were co-opted by individuals more interested in self-promotion than in public service. (FYI, the director of the UN’s World Health Organization isn’t even a physician — he’s a career diplomat!) The very people who have offered us “guidance” or “directives” or “instructions” how to best prevent the spread of COVID-19 have been repeatedly shown to not be following their own Olympian pronouncements. If you don’t follow your own rules, Dr. Fauci, why should you expect me to do so?

Meanwhile, elected and unelected politicians issue decrees prescribing and proscribing public behavior and interactions, dictate business policy, and impose “executive orders” limiting the right of citizens to peacefully assemble, all in the name of “preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus,” yet take no action to curb mass demonstrations or halt the rioting and looting in the cities. And they do so all the while bleating loudly that “science has shown…” their measures to be justified and effective. There is no science behind their actions, only personal ambition, lust for power, and the desire to advance the political and social ideas and ideals of one specific political party.

And don’t even get me started on “scientific studies” and “research papers.” They are neither objective nor conclusive. In terms of useful information, we know less today than we did six months ago about the vectors, patterns, and actual mechanisms of infection. Speaking as someone who has been at odds with academia for his entire professional career, I can tell you without fear of contradiction that any form of scientific research or study can be manipulated into producing a predetermined result. (This is WHY I’ve been at odds with academia for decades.) In other words, any given study or research initiative can conclude precisely what the researchers wanted it to conclude before it began, if they so desire. Data manipulation — even data fraud — is far more common, and far more frequently winked at than the scientific community wants you to believe. It’s how they keep the grant money flowing: it’s in the researchers’ best interests to produce the results their sponsors want, rather than the results the data dictates.

More to the point, for every “scientific study” and “research paper” and “reliable source” you point to which presents one conclusion, there’s another out there presenting a diametrically opposed result — it’s a process that repeats ad infinitum ad nauseum. And that’s NOT “how science works.” Science works through systematically eliminating bad data and faulty results to arrive at a conclusion which the existing body of evidence — confirmed data — cannot refute. It’s not a contest of stacking up each side’s papers and reports and deciding “Well, Side A has more paper piled up in its favor than does Side B, therefore Side A must be right.” This IS, however, the game being played within the scientific community at this moment.

Now, don’t get your knickers in a knot imagining that I’m saying that science, even COVID science, should be abandoned. I’m not. Did you hear that? I’M NOT! What I am saying is that every time someone loudly announces “Science proves…!” and trots out an article he or she found in a scientific or medical journal that seems to support their declaration, stop and ask yourself who benefits from that conclusion and why? Who sponsored the research? Who directed it? Then decide how much salt you need to take with that report, study, or article. Skepticism is the bedrock of science, and right now we all need to exercise as much skepticism as we can where “COVID-19 science” is concerned, because right now, COVID research is on the verge of turning science as a whole into nothing more than pseudo-science, which we are expected to take on our faith in the process alone. For all of the wonderful tools science and technology have given us in the past 500 years, humanity is on the verge of — intellectually, at least — returning to the Dark Ages….

And that’s the way it is, because I’m Daniel Allen Butler, and you’re not….

There’s a premise in writing called “Chekov’s Gun.”  In a nutshell, it asserts that every element introduced into a story — character, object, locale, etc. — must be employed in some significant way at some point in the story.  The term “Chekov’s Gun” came to be from a remark made by Anton Chekov, declaring, “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”

Personally, I think Chekhov is full of crap, and people only give credence to the “Chekhov’s gun” concept because “Oh, my God! It was ANTON CHEKHOV who said it — therefore it MUST be truth carved in stone!” The whole premise of “Chekhov’s Gun” is invalid in its very statement — because inherent in the assertion is the implication that every piece of set decoration must meet the same standard. Every picture on the walls, every vase and knick-knack sitting on a side table, the carpet, the table lamps, the dinner service (if the set is a dining room), etc., etc., has to be employed somewhere in the course of the action, otherwise it’s unnecessary. If carried to it’s logical extreme, “Chekhov’s Gun” would have plays performed on totally bare sets, apart from those props which are actually employed in the performance. The problem there is that it leads to predictability — if the audience sees a gun, a knife, a chair, a table, a lamp, etc., it knows that sooner or later those particular items are going to be employed by the actors and will start figuring out when, how, and why. The suspense is lessened, and with it, any impact the performance might have otherwise had.

The same thing applies to writing fiction — and, to a lesser degree, non-fiction — in that if every detail included in a story, novella, or novel exists only to “reveal character, advance plot, or support theme”, as advised by James D. MacDonald, then again the element of predictability creeps in. The reader will wind up subconsciously anticipating or even expecting Chekhov’s gun to show up again and be fired. By the very fact that Chekhov’s Gun — whatever it might actually be, animal, vegetable, or mineral — exists, it draws attention to itself, and in doing so not only lessens dramatic tension in the narrative, but also the emotional impact on the reader when the gun eventually goes off. The last thing any author or writer of fiction wants to have happen is for his or her audience to react with, “Yeah, saw that one coming since Chapter Two….”

But what about misdirection? This is what utterly undermines the “Chekhov’s Gun” concept. What about the idea of having multiple “guns” out there, presented in such a way that none of them stand out or apart from the others in apparent prominence or significance? What if the gun hanging on the wall is never used, but the letter opener that has been lying on the desk in plain sight is snatched up and becomes the murder weapon — or means of self-defense, or whatever? Assuming equal presentation of both, the audience (readers) will, quite understandably, regard the firearm as inherently more dangerous than the letter opener, so that when the opener comes into play, their reaction will be “OK, I didn’t see that one coming!”

The bottom line is this: unless you have specific stylistic or narrative purpose in adhering the concept of “Chekhov’s Gun,” don’t. It’s bullshit. Chekhov was a brilliant playwright, he employed his own writing dicta almost flawlessly, and created some incredible works for the stage. As a consequence — and also in part because he was Russian, and Russian authors are all too often given more credence and stature than they really deserve — he’s become something of a Sacred Cow among writers. The problem with that is that Sacred Cow bullshit is nowhere near as sanctified as the cow or bull that dropped it. So do yourself a favor, and don’t step in it….

OK, I’m probably going to catch flak for this, maybe even damage or end a few acquaintenceships, but I’ve gotta get this off my chest, and I’m going to be very, very blunt doing so. (I know, those are y’all’s “I’m shocked — shocked, I tell you!” faces.) Here goes:

Ninety-five percent of self-proclaimed indy “authors” and their self-published ilk should never be allowed within a half-mile of a word-processing program — or even a typewriter — let alone access to POD capability.

Why? Because that ninety-five percent is a collection of no-talent, low-talent, incompetent, inept amateurs — in the worst sense of the word “amateur.” Through sheer critical mass they are stifling — hell, they’re strangling — the overall level of quality in both current fiction and non-fiction. By their presence alone they set the bar of standards abysmally low, then consistently fail to clear it. Laziness and incompetence have become the new benchmarks.

Case in point — and the trigger for this long-in-building outburst — was a recent request I received from a numpty wanna-be “writer” soliciting people to review his script for a sci-fi pilot. I asked, the better to make sure his story and its setting were internally self-consistent, if he had a world bible to include with the script. You know, the backstory that sets the stage for whatever slice of alternate reality you’re presenting — in writing fiction you must have a backstory, however broad or narrow it might be. Period. The perfect example of attempting to produce a fictional narrative without a backstory is Episode One: The Phantom Menace. And we all know how well that worked out….

His response? “This work…is a future dystopia piece like 1984, A Clockwork Orange, Brave New World, Ape Planet (Did he mean Planet of the Apes?), etc, and for scenarios that are basically an Earth gone terribly wrong, I think that establishing your world rules within the story is sufficient.” (Note, if you will, that all of those works he cited had backstories.)

At that point, I wished him good luck with it and mentally consigned him to the dustbin of obscurity in which he so evidently deserves to live out his days.

The problem is not that this person is an outlier; rather he is typical of most of the indy/self-pub mob that, through sheer mass, is gradually taking overtaking fiction, like some humanoid form of Creeping Borneo Jungle Fungus — specifically, the ones who are unwilling to do the work necessary to become true writers and real authors. “We don’t need to follow the rules of spelling, grammar, and punctuation!” “We don’t need to write multiple drafts or make revisions!” “We don’t need editors!” “We don’t need plot, pacing, and internal consistency in our ‘stories’! We’re artists! Respect us for our artsiness and pretensions, don’t judge us by the lack of quality in our work!”

Let me make sure that you understand me:  this isn’t a problem limited only to fiction, or even just certain genres and sub-genres of fiction.  The same sort of laziness,  combined with a healthy measure of “My ignorance is as valid as your knowledge” attitude is corroding non-fiction as well — just not as rapidly as it’s eating away at fiction.

Just because you’ve put down on paper a few rambling, quasi-coherent paragraphs that to you make some sort of narrative sense, you’re not a writer. You may become one, if you work at it, and it’s true that aptitudes can vary wildly from individual to individual, but there are no guarantees. Likewise there are no shortcuts, magic bullets, secret formulas, or hidden plans to becoming a successful (and hopefully, at the same time, “good”) writer. It’s like any other craft — you have to work at it. The problem of which I’m seeing far, far too much anymore is embodied in that exchange I had with the would-be script-scrivener: the lack of willingness to do the work required to produce a thing of quality.   So, in the end, nine out of ten of them fail, usually miserably so, to succeed in their pipedreams. 

Dear indy author or self-pubbed writer, there’s nothing wrong with or shameful in failing — witness Thomas Edison — but there is something deeply contemptible in the persistent refusal to learn from failure and repeating the same mistakes because you imagine you’re right and everyone who has succeeded via the proven methods and models is wrong.  Worse, you’re stealing valuable oxygen the rest of us genuinely need.

And that’s the way it is, because I’m Daniel Allen Butler… and you’re not….

As you all know by now, or at least, you should know by now, I’m a historian by profession and education, and not just the sort of well-meaning amateur that many people are who call themselves “historians.”  From time to time I’ve had to professionally confront a number of historical conspiracy theories – I say “professionally” because they sometimes intrude on my work and I’m forced to confront them, rather than they being something I pursue of my own volition.  So I’m familiar with coincidence at a depth most people never have the opportunity (or need) to plumb – and the extent to which it exists and genuinely occurs is, frankly, astonishing.  At the same time, conspiracy has to coexist alongside Occam’s Razor, and that’s always an uneasy relationship.  The point at which conspiracy theories fall apart under their own weight is always that point when an act of human intervention intended to bring about a certain event, but which, even if successful, cannot alone guarantee the desired outcome without the successful implementation of still other actions, adds layers of complication which lower the probability of the desired outcome through conspiracy to a level below the probability of that outcome happening through coincidence.  Conspiracy theories always rely on certain specific events taking place (or not taking place, as the case may be) at precise times and in precise manners – and there is never any recognition given or allowance made in the subsequent explanations of them for a “Jesus factor.”  The conspiracies presented by conspiracy theory apologists ALWAYS work out perfectly, first time, every time.  You’ll never find one where the admission is made “So-and-so failed to do this or forgot to do that, so the following corrective actions had to be taken to bring the conspiracy back on track.” Such perfect execution is – and must needs be – in and of itself an object of suspicion, insomuch as it doesn’t recognize that randomness and chaos are always a factor in both nature and human activity.

Thus I recognize human beings as being more “cooperative” than “conspiratorial” in nature, even when malevolent ends are the objective of that cooperation. By this I mean that it is much easier to arrange for incidents that are specific and limited – but independent of one another – which in and of themselves cannot decide the outcome of a larger event, but which in aggregate have the potential to significantly influence the outcome of that larger event. This is the disturbing submotif about which I’m wondering in this recent rash of firearms-related incidents. It seems as if there is now one occurring every day, and in the fevered media climate –fueled by liberals, progressives, Democrats, and their allies in the media, all of whom have no qualms about admitting that they are tossing gasoline on a fire they’ve willingly lit – too many people are getting caught up in the emotional responses to these incidents, too few of them stopping to think, “Hey, wait a minute, this is all a little TOO convenient…”

Of course, the other side of the coin, which said liberals, progressives, Democrats, and their allies in the media fail to recognize, is that more often than it breeds contempt, familiarity spawns indifference. There is a distinct possibility – perhaps even a probability – that if these firearms-related incidents occur with too much frequency and apparent regularity, the great majority of the population will become inured and eventually indifferent to them, as they will be seen as something akin to “business as usual.” It happens, we’ve seen it happen – witness Detroit in the 1990s and 2000s, or Chicago today; most people in Michigan outside of Wayne County came to a point where their reaction to the gun-violence in Detroit was to dismiss it with a shrug, saying “Well, that’s Detroit for you.” The same dynamic is in play in Illinois outside of Cook County today.

What I’m waiting for is to see how long it will take for the average American to comprehend just how he or she is being played by those same liberals, progressives, Democrats, and their allies in the media, and once they do – if they do – what will be their reaction…

Just remember, while you ponder as to just how right I am in this, that I’m Daniel Allen Butler…and you’re not.

Interesting development. Google Chrome now includes an ad-blocker that automatically blocks what Google terms the “most intrusive” ads. Their public criteria for that are ads which make noise, block the screen, or don’t have a “close” option — and all pop-ups (are those still a thing?) are also automatically blocked. Here’s the kicker — ads with a density of over 30% (that is, they take up 30% or more of the screen when they appear) are also automatically blocked, regardless of whether or not they comply with all of the other blocking restrictions. This means that a lot of news and blogging sites are going to be arbitrarily banned. It also raises the question of what other restrictions are in place but buried somewhere in the ultra-fine print. Then there’s the whole issue of whether or not Google ads will be given exemptions or some other sort of preferential treatment.

This isn’t a trivial matter, because it’s a unilateral action on Google’s part, no choice to accept it or opt out, no way to deactivate it. It’s another small step in the general online trend to take choice out of the hands of the consumer/user/viewer and place it solely with what I term the content intermediary — in this case Google. We’ve all seen how small encroachments on viewing choices led to Facebook eventually taking what is for all practical purposes total control of what we see on Facebook, often in spite of our explicit, expressed desires otherwise. (Which is why a significant exodus from Facebook began last year and continues unabated — and not the least of reasons why I recently left Facebook, never to return.) Google is not simply climbing onto that bandwagon, it’s firmly settling its cyber-arse in the driver’s seat. We’ve already had more than a convincing number of demonstrations as to how Google deliberately skews search results — now the Big G has taken it upon itself to begin making decisions for you as to what you can and cannot see.

This is how it starts, with something small that hardly anyone can find objectionable — after all, who LIKES to be bombarded with loud, annoying, and persistent ads? But it’s not at all a huge step from “it’s for your convenience” to “it’s for your own good,” with all the manipulation, compulsion, and control that phrase implies, as we’ve seen demonstrated on Facebook over the past seven or eight years.

Firefox is beginning to look awfully purty right about now….

Here’s a question for you to think about — and I mean THINK about it, don’t just knee-jerk in your reaction. What happens when the anti-Confederacy revisionism — the (disturbingly successful) efforts being made to ban any display of a Confederate flag, remove Confederate memorials, forbid identitying Confederate soldiers’ graves as such, etc. — the movement to demonize anything and everything that has any connection to the Confederacy because of its perceived ties to the institution of slavery — reaches the point where so little evidence of the Confederacy’s existence remains that people start to ask, “So, what’s the big deal?” where the American Civil War is concerned?

What happens when there’s nothing apart from a handful of museums dedicated to the history of slavery in America, and those museums are dismissed as propaganda because there’s no outside validation of the reality of that experience? What happens when the people who try to maintain the integrity of the narrative are marginalized and ignored because they’re perceived as over-stating their case — because there is no evidence for it apart from their own institutions and archives? “Because I said so!” isn’t “proof” of anything, whether the venue is a court of law or the chronicles of history. So then “It was beyond terrible — because I said so!” isn’t “proof” of the nature of slavery. It’s the outside evidence, evidence which can’t be controlled or manipulated by someone who is trying to shape a narrative, that provides that proof. Remove — don’t just discard, but destroy — that evidence, and the proof vanishes. Fact and opinion become interchangeable, and in the process both become equally meaningless.

There is already a legion of people who deny that the Holocaust ever happened, despite the avalanche of evidence that it did. So tell me, then, what happens when the time comes that someone says, “Dude, you’re just making this up — it couldn’t have been all that bad!” because every trace of the Confederacy’s existence has been wiped away?

Those who know me know that I subscribe to the “states’ rights” interpretation of the origin of the American Civil War, or, as I prefer to call it, The War of Northern Aggression. In my not-at-all-humble opinion, slavery was only one of a list of grievances that existed between the North and South in the mid-19th Century that both sides felt could only be resolved by violence, and not the most important one at that. But the North, in its victory, wrote the narrative of the war and made the (self-) righteous cause of abolishing slavery the shining beacon of the Union’s moral rectitude. But what happens to that narrative, that self-righteous self-congratulation when no one takes it seriously anymore because all evidence that the enemy ever existed has been eradicated?

Am I overstating the issue? Hardly. I’m not inventing this concept or this phenomenon. In 2015 and 2016, there were Second World War historical re-enactments in Great Britain that were cancelled because people were upset by the fact that some of the re-enactors dressed as German soldiers with swastikas on their uniforms. The “German” re-enactors were actually banned from coming onto the venue if they were in uniform. These people actually thought they could have a re-enactment with only one side being allowed to show up. No, I’m not making this up. If you’re willing to take the time and make the effort, you’ll find the news stories that covered these incidents.

You know, it’s kind of hard to have the Second World War without the Germans in it — without the Germans keeping the French and British occupied in Europe, the Japanse would have been forced to limit their own war to the one they already had with China. No Pearl Harbor, no American involvment, no “bright flashie-big boomie” things over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And yet that’s what some people tried to pretend they could do — they could have World War Two without any Germans in it. Now THAT is an absurd idea, isn’t it? Without the Germans, aggressive little devils that they are, running around trying to seize everyone else’s lebensraum and sending people with the wrong genetics up the chimney, there’s no cause for a war, is there? But there WAS a war, because the Germans WERE there….

And that is exactly my point. When one side eliminates — obliterates — the institutions and agencies that empowered and enabled the cause it opposed, its own cause suddenly loses validity. When you pretend the other side never existed and then try to erase any evidence that it did, you’re calling into question the legitimacy of your own beliefs and values. It’s an admission that your own motivations are so weak that they can’t even sustain themselves in a confrontation with the past.

Trying to pretend that an ugly chapter of our past never happened by trying to wipe out any evidence that it did is a fool’s errand. Ultimately that’s what these people want to do, however, whether they consciously realize it or not. Because they can’t make the distinction between slavery and the Confederacy, in their attempt to efface anything that proves the existence of the latter, they trivialize the former. You see, it goes like this: Slavery was a big enough deal that nations went to war over it. But wait, to have a war, you have to have an enemy. And if you can’t prove that there WAS an enemy, because you can’t prove that enemy ever existed, well, then, without an enemy, it couldn’t have been much of a war, could it? And if the war wasn’t all that big a deal, well, then, slavery really wasn’t that big a deal after all, was it?

And that is exactly where we’re headed….

And that’s the way it is…because I’m Daniel Allen Butler…and you’re not….

OK, let me make something perfectly clear, and at the same time take responsibility for something that has made a lot of people unhappy.

I’m the one who elected Donald Trump President of the United States.

I wouldn’t vote for Gary Johnson because the last thing the US and the world needs right now is an isolationist president.

I refused to vote for Comrade Clinton because…well, because she’s Hillary Clinton and that’s pretty much self-explanatory.

So I voted for Donald Trump. I saw him as having the potential to be this Republic’s Lucius Cornelius Sulla or Gaius Julius Caesar. I was hoping for a Caesar, because right now this country needs a Julius Caesar. He hasn’t proven to be Julian material yet, but so far he’s been no Lucius Cornelius. As far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out, so don’t look to find any cheerleading for the Donald coming from my corner. I will say that he’s showing signs of growing into the office, and that is encouraging. Time will tell….

But, you see, that’s the thing — it was me who elected Donald Trump, me and almost 63,000,000 Americans like me.

It wasn’t the Russians.

It was me.

And that’s the way it is — because I’m Daniel Allen Butler, and you’re not….

There just isn’t enough popcorn for all of this….

You know how difficult it is to look away from a train wreck as it’s happening? Well, the Democratic Party has been a continuously ongoing train wreck for the past eight months, and now it looks as though the locomotive just exploded.

The wreck began, of course, in July of last year when Debbie Wasserperson Schultz (she prefers “Wasserperson” to her actual name of “Wasserman”, lest she be accused of gender bias) resigned as Chairman (“Chairperson”) of the Democratic National Committee after she was perceived by the rank-and-file of the Party to have cooked the campaign rules in favor of Hillary “You’re a Dead Man” Clinton and against Bernie “Come on Over for the Weekend” Sanders. (Whether she actually did or not is still being debated — it’s a matter of interpretation and personal bias.) Then there was the little incident of Donna “I Love Sergio Mendes” Brazile passing along to Hillary questions that would be asked in the candidates’ debates BEFORE the debate — that this was a clear-cut violation of ethics nobody tried to pretend was otherwise.

Then there was November 8, 2016. No need to say more about that….

Now, here’s where the locomotive goes “ka-BLOOIE!”

Last night, here in Atlanta, the Democratic National Committee elected a new chairman, Tom “Things Ain’t Exactly Rosey” Perez. He defeated the presumed front-runner, Keith “Mohammed is My Main Man!” Ellison by a wide margin. (This sort of result — presumed front-runner gets his/her bahookie kicked) seems to be a trend now in elections involving Democrats.) So what do Ellison’s supporters do when the results are announced? They get up and stalk out of the convention all but chanting “Not OUR Chairman!”

Can it get any better than this?

Watching these bottom-feeders now feeding on themselves is political farce at its best. That river in Egypt has developed a massive tributary in the United States: when the “Progressives” don’t get their way, they pretend that they can ignore the outcome they didn’t want. Don’t like the outcome of the Presidential election? “Not MY President!” Don’t like the outcome of the chairmanship election? “Not OUR Chairman!” The only “progress” I see “Progressives” making is that they are becoming progressively more stupid every day.

Otto von Bismarck, probably the most accomplished practical politician who ever lived, once remarked to Friedrich von Waldau that “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.” The “Progressives,” a collection of imbeciles within a larger collection of imbeciles, seem to have forgotten that sage observation. Then again, these are the same imbeciles who, in their rush to dismiss all of history as irrelevant — the only thing that matters to them is “the future,” as if “the future” is somehow not a product of the past via the present — have abandoned the collected and collective wisdom that could actually make them relevant and possibly even effective. Instead, they pout, whine, scream, and cry like spoilt children as they throw tantrum after tantrum, never seeing the expressions of disbelief, disgust, and dismissal on the faces of the adults who won’t be coerced or intimidated into giving in to the infants’ infantile behavior. In the process, those infants are destroying the only instrument to which they have access that could effect the changes they claim to so desperately desire.

I couldn’t make this stuff up, people — it’s like the Titanic: if I presented it as fiction, no one would buy it, because it would seem utterly implausible.

I just wish I could figure out a way to charge admission to watch this train wreck happen. I’d retire a very wealthy man.

Meanwhile, I gotta go make some more popcorn.

And that’s the way it is…because I’m Daniel Allen Butler, and you’re not….