When I'm your emperor
Dear T,
Plutarch writes in his Life of Nicias that when Sparta finally crushed Athens the news was slow to travel. In fact the first person to break it to the Athenians was a rando who just arrived in town and went for a haircut first.
He started chatting about the defeat like it was common knowledge; thousands cut to pieces, hordes sold into slavery, etc. Then the barber freaked out and ran off to the market and started telling everyone he could about it.
This of course threw everyone into a panic, and the panic led to an inquiry; and when the archons heard the story came from a random stranger in a barbershop they condemned the barber as a rumormonger, tied him to the wheel, and had him tortured in public.
Of course we know the barber was right and eventually vindicated. But my point is that people always knew — whether in ancient Greece or right now — that when somebody lies and the public goes into a panic and people get hurt, that liar has to pay. The question is, how — and when? And if you do go after the tale-spreaders, could this also shut up the prophets and geniuses? As the story above proves, couldn't the archons be wrong?
These questions are difficult unless the panic is already over and you’re sure somebody lied. In our case it was the scientists and media and hospitals and government. They all colluded (much of them anyway) by telling us COVID was more dangerous than it was. Lying about who died of it. Lying about how many died of it, and how it spread. Lying about how to keep from spreading it. All of which shut people out of jobs, gave crazy powers to all kinds of small-town officials and shitty bosses, made parents guinea pigs for new medications without any legal recourse, gave God-knows-how-many 30 year-olds heart attacks and strokes, locked children out of school until they became failures, let hordes of criminals out of prison, strangled the whole world with inflation, and banned people who asked questions from social media. Doesn't this qualify as a panic? Shouldn't we be able to get out the wheel?
I would say yes; but aside from the Eighth Amendment the main obstacle is public opinion. Lots of Americans stood by the insanity, propagated it, and enforced it. Personally I think they enjoyed it. The New York Times wrote a letter to its subscribers on August 31, 2022, well before the tide turned and even New York City said the vaccine was falsely marketed,
Forty-seven percent of very liberal adults said that they believed Covid presented a “great risk” to their own personal health and well-being. [...] Particularly striking was the level of concern among liberals under age 45, even though the virus’s worst effects have been concentrated among older people. […]
To many liberals, taking Covid seriously — more seriously, at times, than the scientific evidence justified — became an expression of identity and solidarity. As one progressive activist tweeted last year, “The inconvenience of having to wear a mask is more than worth it to have people not think I’m a conservative.”
I would posit that because of these people and the cowards who helped them, the most damaging thing to come out of COVID was a collapse of public trust. In short, we no longer believe most Americans follow facts, or ask questions. We know they don't believe in our rights as American citizens, or in the Geneva Convention. We know they don't care what happens to us when we get in their way for a pet cause, and that many of them will just “do their jobs” no matter what. For many Republicans, this was the first time the police became the enemy.
Regarding this collapse of trust, Tocqueville writes in The Old Regime and Revolution,
Even despots don't deny the merits of freedom. They want to keep it for themselves, claiming no one else is worthy of it. Thus our quarrel isn't about the value of freedom per se, but stems from our opinion of our fellow men, high or low as the case may be. In fact, it's no exaggeration to say that a man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for his countrymen.
So let me be straight with you. I hold my countrymen in contempt. I have a host of laws and plans to put in effect immediately, assuming you elect me dictator for life; and as plans keep piling up with no place to put any of them, I listed them here in the hopes that somebody, some day, will start a campaign for me, or maybe even steal an idea for themselves.
These plans, which many times require an absolute disrespect for the laws and public as they stand, are as follows.
I'm pro-death. There are too many drug dealers, kidnappers, rapists, money launderers, robbers, race-hoax peddlers, and murderers alive — all well fed, and many times housed at public expense. In some instances we're paying for their sex-changes. I propose that going forward, upon conviction, these people be executed immediately.
The obvious Republican stuff. One bill? One subject. No taxes on guns or ammunition. The border will be defended immediately, a giant electric fence will be put up with land mines, and everyone who broke into this country will be sent back. No more funding for any country whose polls indicate they hate us. No more bases all around the entire globe. No more anchor babies. No welfare for immigrants at all. The budget has to be balanced every year, unless war is declared, or the top three legislators in each party get fired. I’ll make exceptions if war is on the horizon.
I'll round up all the street junkies and psychos yearly and send them, via caravan, expenses paid (at great savings!), to Venezuela. Won’t go to Venezuela? Mexico's problem.
I'm a huge fan of the Jewish people, and I believe Anti-Semitism is a real problem in this country. So to protect them from anyone peddling a “Jewish Question” conspiracy theory (see first footnote), I propose to officially limit the number of Jewish executives, especially in Hollywood, banking, the music industry, the media, and all practice of medicine and law, to 10% — a fair proposition, since Jewish people comprise only 2% of Americans. This would allow them massive overrepresentation, and anyone who insists they “run things” can be shouted down quickly. Le chaim.
Those shopping carts left around? Prohibited by law. All acts of extreme laziness and disregard for the public cleanliness will be looked into by a committee, and new laws will be set up to punish the worst and most flagrant offenders.
I would make housing affordable immediately. In my quasi-rural neighborhood alone there are homes owned by companies based in China. Idaho Press reports that one out of every five homes in the US are owned by investors. Of this one-fifth in Boise — 400 homes — the vast majority are owned by one publicly-traded company, American Homes 4 Rent, based in California. The question isn’t whether people should be able to do what they want with their property. At this rate it’s whether you want your grandchildren to own property at all.
How would I fix this? Taxing the hell out of everyone who owns more than two residential properties (apartment complexes will be exempt).** Banning the sale of residential properties to companies or corporations. Banning the sale of any American land to foreigners. Limiting the amount of acreage owned by any one man. Limiting the amount of farmland owned by any one man, company, or its subsidiaries.
All farmland must remain farmland, unless a special permit is granted, proving national benefit. This is to ensure our long-term food supply, since the population keeps growing while farms keep disappearing.
I would break up monopolies left and right. No more ownership of a hundred news channels by one company. No more Comcast investing in pornography. No more buying another company with your company and still calling it another company. The American public needs to know who owns what and where the money is going.
Blackrock, according to Medium Magazine, is in the top 3 shareholders for almost every major publicly-traded company in the entire world. They also control more capital than the GDP of every country except the US and China. I would end this immediately by forcing all publicly-traded companies to go private. You heard me right: I would reset the whole goddamned stock market.
American discourse is at an embarrassing level because people can’t run a successful business and publicly hold anti-liberal views. So I’m going to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and allow businessmen to hire and say what they want. However, noting that this country is dominated by larger companies, and their hiring practices are getting pretty invasive, I’m also going to allow employees to say what they want outside of business, making it illegal for an employer to discriminate along political or religious lines. Tech companies being up to 98% Democrat, for instance, would welcome lawsuits.
I’m going to repeal the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 so we can pick where we import from (I get first pick for five years). I would also remove that stupid poem from the Statue of Liberty and give her a giant cigar.
All social media and apps will require either a flat fee or a minimum subscription rate of $5 a month. Why? Right now social media companies survive by harvesting and selling our information. Can they sell it to foreign countries? Political enemies? The CIA or FBI? Yes — and I’m going to make both harvesting and selling that information illegal. No more corporate surveillance state.
No food stamps for people over 250lbs. You already ate your share. Free gym memberships though!
No medical insurance for anybody over 250lbs (unless muscle-to-fat ratio can be proved “adequate”). This would encourage people to lose weight, and drop the costs of insurance drastically. It would also eliminate the COVID issue.
Nationalization of the Proud Boys and other such groups, with certain immunities in the location of a riot. I quote, A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State. They were the only militias that showed up during the riots, so now they're the militias.
The schools and colleges have to be politically balanced. Within my six year plan, at least half of all faculties (excepting science and technology) will have to be registered Republicans. The six year timetable will allow Republicans to go into education and get degrees for it. To prevent fraud, all people professing to be Republicans have to be members of the party for at least five years previous. All people found lying on this issue will go to jail.
Gay pride parades held to the same laws of public decency as everybody else. Children not allowed to attend or perform in drag shows. People who perform transgender surgeries will go to jail for false advertising. Teachers who approve anal sex or gender changes must declare it in order to teach children, and their preferences have to be registered with the school so parents can see it. The term “bro” will be acceptable address to anyone at any time, excluding parents and the Governor of Florida. Until 2035 the latter will be addressed as your excellence.
Nobody will be allowed to own any patents on biological organisms. This will keep companies like Monsanto from suing poor farmers, and keep the world from running out of good seeds. A list of toxic chemicals will also be procured, and many foods and products will be banned or cleaned up. Subsidies will be provided to anyone starting a home garden.
Our medical pricing will be revised to eliminate price gouging. An app will tell you what each hospital, urgent care, and clinic charges for which services.
January 6th set up as a national holiday — the day Republicans set the record for the safest and dumbest riot of all time.
No bans or shadowbans for any political speech protected by the first Amendment. On the other hand, obscenity laws harshly enforced. Twerking punished with tarring and feathering. Anyone who wear G-strings in public will be forced to wear a burkha for a year.
Getting paid to have sex on camera? Sounds like prostitution to me. Ownership and distribution of pornography will land steep fines, and depending on the kind of porn, jail time. Soft-core pornography, the mimicking of sex acts on television, will be prosecuted as well.
To keep our military functional, all women will be honorably discharged, with full retirement benefits and a thank-you ceremony. Eligible women can join the National Guard if they pass boot camp. No more diversity training.
Following China’s lead, no effeminate men on TV.
Following Ron DeSantis’ example, all children will study communist and socialist hell-holes, the collapse of cities like Detroit, and what happened to white farmers in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
All parents can choose where their kids go to school. Vouchers will be given if private schools are chosen. Parents who homeschool will have their property taxes, in large part, refunded to them.
No video gaming for more than 1 hour a day. A timer will be installed on every new system, with a warning signal that lets you know you've got ten minutes left, after which the video games turn off. Only two tv shows or one movie can be watched daily. Men wearing anime shirts will go to jail.
To encourage literacy, a list of my favorite books will be published for everyone to see, and steep discounts will be given to anyone who buys them. I'll have a talk show to discuss and argue about them. If you’re 35 and you haven’t read any of them, I’ll give a televised speech once a year about what a clown you are.
The FBI will be arrested. Thorough reorganization along party lines, just like the schooling system.
No electronic voting machines. No mail-in voting. No voting without a valid ID. A paid federal holiday so everyone can vote if they want to. You have to pass a test in order to vote. No multiple choice. It covers the Federalist Papers, state (where you live) and federal constitutions, Locke's Second Treatise of Government, and basic civics. In that particular order of importance.
But this brings up a serious point. What kind of dictator allows voting? The kind of dictator who doesn’t actually run things. In fact, I plan on leaving the machinery of government and the Constitution largely intact, reserving for myself the right to make or change any one law when I’m pissed off.
There will be two rules. The first, to keep personal safety and stability in this country, is that I don't create any laws ex post facto. The second is that once I get pissed off, I have to wait ten days for my new law to be proposed and enforced. That way I can talk to the opposition and cool off and keep from committing any “atrocities”.
Elections for Presidents in the meantime can continue as they have been, and I’ll just override the President if I feel like it. They’ll get their full powers back when I die, which leads me to my last law.
31. You’re not allowed to kill me.
Yours,
-J
*How could limiting the number of Jewish executives protect the Jewish people? I'll let the L.A. Times answer. The following article, titled “Who runs Hollywood? C'mon,” was written on December 19, 2008, by a proud Jew named Joel Stein. You won’t believe me if I summarize it, so you can read it here yourself.
I have never been so upset by a poll in my life. Only 22% of Americans now believe “the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews,” down from nearly 50% in 1964. The Anti-Defamation League, which released the poll results last month, sees in these numbers a victory against stereotyping. Actually, it just shows how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run Hollywood.
How deeply Jewish is Hollywood? When the studio chiefs took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago to demand that the Screen Actors Guild settle its contract, the open letter was signed by: News Corp. President Peter Chernin (Jewish), Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey (Jewish), Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger (Jewish), Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton (surprise, Dutch Jew), Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer (Jewish), CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves (so Jewish his great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel), MGM Chairman Harry Sloan (Jewish) and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker (mega-Jewish). If either of the Weinstein brothers had signed, this group would have not only the power to shut down all film production but to form a minyan with enough Fiji water on hand to fill a mikvah.
The person they were yelling at in that ad was SAG President Alan Rosenberg (take a guess). The scathing rebuttal to the ad was written by entertainment super-agent Ari Emanuel (Jew with Israeli parents) on the Huffington Post, which is owned by Arianna Huffington (not Jewish and has never worked in Hollywood.)
The Jews are so dominant, I had to scour the trades to come up with six Gentiles in high positions at entertainment companies. When I called them to talk about their incredible advancement, five of them refused to talk to me, apparently out of fear of insulting Jews. The sixth, AMC President Charlie Collier, turned out to be Jewish.
As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood.
Joel Stein writes, further, about talking to ADL Chairman Abe Foxman,
He dismissed my whole proposition, saying that the number of people who think Jews run Hollywood is still too high. The ADL poll, he pointed out, showed that 59% of Americans think Hollywood execs “do not share the religious and moral values of most Americans,” and 43% think the entertainment industry is waging an organized campaign to “weaken the influence of religious values in this country.”
[...] “That’s a very dangerous phrase, ‘Jews control Hollywood.’ What is true is that there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood,” he said. Instead of “control,” Foxman would prefer people say that many executives in the industry “happen to be Jewish,” as in “all eight major film studios are run by men who happen to be Jewish.”
In other words, Americans know what Hollywood's doing, and they hate it. But the most important thing to the ADL isn't cleaning Hollywood up. It's that Americans don’t find out who Hollywood is.
**Why am I so interested in land socialism? Why not just tax the rich and take their other stuff too? I answer with a quote from James Madison in Federalist #10:
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.
In short, the hope to equalize people in wealth is about as crazy as the hope to equalize them in brains. But rich men don't have to own our land, and the idea that every one of us, no matter how poor, can possibly own the house he lives in, no matter how small, is enough to keep the underclasses at bay while allowing our best men to build us up. A law supposedly proposed by God in Leviticus 25, delivered by Moses, and never followed anywhere in Christendom.