California Dreamin'

Greetings loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader returned to the Villainous Compound a little early tonight, and put the little Villainettes to bed and decided to blog a little.

First, allow your Maximum Leader to state for the record that he really likes the new Villainmobile. It is 302 horsepower fun on the highway. Your Maximum Leader enjoys the fact that he can now pass people doing 85 mph in the middle lane of the interstate and not have the tachometer crest 2500 rpms. Ahhhh sweet premium gas-guzzling American power!

To move things along... Your Maximum Leader is glad that he does not reside in California. However, if things continue the way they are going he is going to have to visit and pretend to live there so he may vote in the upcoming gubernatorial recall election. As you may have guessed, your Maximum Leader tends to skew rightwards on the old political spectrum. So many of his inner circle think that he should be so happy that it looks like the idiot Gray Davis will be recalled. Indeed, your Maximum Leader is enjoying the spectacle of the recall, but it saddens him as well.

Your Maximum Leader is saddened, for one that the whole recall is being played out. Becoming governor of the largest US State (population-wise - your Maximum Leader loves you Alaska!), and the 5th largest economy in the world, via the flawed recall process built into the California constitution was part of his way of launching the MWO. (Fear not, your Maximum Leader has other plans...)

BTW, your Maximum Leader is getting pretty tired of hearing that California is the world's fifth largest economy. One would think that with such a large and robust economy California wouldn't be in such a wretched mess. Alas when you dabble in the energy market with state funds, and grossly over expand public spending boondoggles, and change labour laws to make people "feel" better while driving their employers out of business, economic ruin is just around the corner. How many times does your Maximum Leader need to tell you - elected Democrats (and for the sake of fair and honest disclosure, a significant number of elected Republicans) are not capitalists and shouldn't be entrusted to play in the market economy. Frankly, most political types can't be trusted to play with taxpayer money at all, but I digress...

Another matter concerning the recall saddens your Maximum Leader. Everyone's persistent whining about the whole process is getting on your Maximum Leader's last nerve. Gray Davis is whining because he can't be on the ballot. Democrats are whining because they have been told not to run. Republicans are whining because there are soooo many candidates. Conservatives are whining because the conservatives running don't seem to stand a snowball's chance in hell of wining. Liberals are whining because they fear that the glorious socialist republic they hope to build in the Golden State will be ruined by the interference of Enron in the energy market to start the whole problem. All in all there is just too much whining going on. Frankly, your Maximum Leader would have most of these whining people dragged out and shot. (Except Arianna Huffington. She amuses your Maximum Leader, although he doesn't like her at all. She is such an evil little social climber. She believes in only one thing, herself. Perhaps this is the reason your Maximum Leader doesn't like her? She shall be publicly humiliated and then dragged out and shot.)

All this whining comes down to one persistent problem in the United States right now. The belief that "things aren't fair." Your Maximum Leader is well aware that this field has been plowed many times before. Call it the "Victim Mentality," or an "infantile disorder," or whatever you like. If there is one thing that prompts your Maximum Leader to draw out his Ruger .45 long Colt pistol and want to kill someone it is the high-pitched whine of "its not fair." We all know that life isn't fair. We (by this I mean all the sensible people of the world - of which there are tragically few) all understand that sometimes one meets with a bad break, or things don't go your way. All this whininess and the constant push to make things "fair" for everyone is just too much.

One of your Maximum Leader's favourite philosophers (not Hobbes), Robert Nozick wrote a wonderful little book called "Anarchy, State, and Utopia." In it he addressed the idea of equality when approached from the position of fairness. When people say things aren't fair, they generally mean that they feel (feeling, it is always feeling!) that they aren't being given equal treatment because they receive an outcome they don't like. Oftentimes claims of things "not being fair" are immediately followed by a request for compensation.

The late Dr. Nozick wrote a wonderful little passage about this. He pointed out that people are not equally attractive. Because of this, people who are not particularly comely may not be able to marry a beautiful (but perhaps superficial) person. To paraphrase Nozick's argument for the sake of brevity, let us say that your Maximum Leader were to pitch a little woo at Miss Jennifer Love Hewitt. In addition, let us suppose that Miss Hewitt succumbed to your Maximum Leader's charms. She is quite comely. Moreover, while your Maximum Leader is certainly not Quasimodo, he is not Hollywood good-looking. If the Poet Laureate were also a suitor of "Love" he could claim it wasn't fair that she chose your Maximum Leader over him. He could also claim that he required compensation to right the unfairness of the situation. His claim would be baseless. We don't compensate people for unfair outcomes in love. Why on earth would we compensate people for every other perceived unfairness? Nozick (who is much more eloquent on this point that is your Maximum Leader in this space) posits that so long as one person or group doesn't have a government sanctioned advantage over another person or group, nature dictates that outcomes will often be unequal. And thus they will also be perceived as unfair.

Forgive me, I digress again...

You may now be saying to yourself, "Self, is there anything about the California recall situation that my Maximum Leader does like?" Indeed there is...

Your Maximum Leader, as he said before, is amused by the spectacle of it all. He remembers that it was once said that people deserve what they get in a democracy, and they deserve it hard. The good people of California are getting what they deserve and hard.

Your Maximum Leader reads the different news sources that tell him that there are more that 150 candidates to replace Gray Davis. That amuses your Maximum Leader. I would like to see some of those hippies in Berkley try to get through that ballot.

Does your Maximum Leader prefer a particular candidate? Not really. Ah-nold is mildly appealing. He appears to be a moderate Republican. Sort of squishy on social issues, but seemingly conservative on economic ones. Your Maximum Leader doesn't trust economic conservatives who are socially liberal to stay economically conservative for long. It all boils down to the fact that if you are truly liberal socially, you can't think of a convincing reason (at least convincing to the socially and fiscally liberal people) why one should maintain a fiscally conservative position. There is something to social liberalism that lends itself to government paternalism. That doesn't appeal to your Maximum Leader.

Who are the other major candidates? There are no other major candidates. They are all minor candidates. They all amuse your Maximum Leader. Gary Coleman. Arianna Huffington. That Simon fellow who was defeated by Gray Davis last year. And then there are the "Adult" entertainment candidates. Larry Flynt and Mary Carey. Your Maximum Leader is conflicted by the porn industry. On the one hand, he believes it is wrong to make sex a commodity and to objectify men and women (women mostly). He also believes that porn is ultimately coarsening our civilization and is helping to break down the civil code and eliminate public shame and taboo - which are powerful tools for keeping society together. But, on the other hand, porn is not objectionable to so many people, and it is relatively easy to insulate yourself from it. (Yes it is. Really. Your Maximum Leader firmly believes that if you don't want to expose yourself (ahem) to porn you don't have to.) He is not sure where this is going... So back to...

Larry Flynt calls himself a "smut peddler who cares." How touching. Your Maximum Leader isn't too sure what he cares about, but he is sure that someone will find out between now and Election Day. Flynt says he will expand gambling, legalize prostitution, and give illegal immigrants amnesty. These steps will eliminate the budget crisis facing the state. Larry, Larry, Larry. Your Maximum Leader needs to tell you that these items are tired and have already been overused by too many old free-love hippie-types. Think of something novel and new. Like "adult film star" Mary Carey did in her platform. Her platform calls for a "Porn for Pistols" swap. Bring in your guns and we give you porn! What an idea! At least it is new. (N.B.: your Maximum Leader doesn't have the heart to tell Ms. Carey that Guns for anything proposals around the country are big frauds. They wind up getting the old rusty can't-be-shot pistols out of old drawers in garages. They do not have young Crips and Bloods lining up outside courthouses to trade their Mac-10's and Uzi's for a copy of whatever films Ms. Carey has starred in.) One platform position Ms. Carey offers is to tax breast implant surgery. Now THAT idea can raise some revenue. Why not tax Botox too? And tummy tucks, thigh trims, collagen injections, and facelifts? Humm... Very interesting.

Well, your Maximum Leader has rambled on quite enough for now. He is sure the California race will become more exciting. He will watch it carefully.

Carry on my minions!