So Long Fred

One of my most favorite authors is bailing. Fred over at Fred On Everything is pulling the plug, maybe permanently. Says Fred:

People write columns in the (faint) hope of changing things. No, a web site will not alter the majestic course of the planets in their orbits. It was once possible, however, to believe that enough people hollering in the electronic town hall that is the web might push things in a desired direction. In the past, this has worked—not cleanly, nor quickly, nor quite as the senior-civics texts said. But it has sort of worked.

Now it doesn’t. Today the United States is politically and socially constipated. Nothing moves, or at least not in a desirable direction. Crooks, frauds, revivalists, the over-empowered under-brained, believers and mouth-breathers and unabashed lunatics—all of these have so firmly gummed up the gears that improvement founders. Someone seems to have poured glue into the political kaleidoscope. Little point exists in curmudgeing at the bastards.

Well, he's right. Nothing is going to change where we're headed, so yelling about it and getting the attention of the jack-booters is not only a waste of time, but dangerous.

I fully agree with Fred.

Now, where did I put that parachute?