I Wanna Be Loved By You

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

This is not going to be a long post. Look, we had to go to the doctor because my back is blowing up with eczema, and I’m picking up a prescription for prednisone later.

I’m not as bad as most people on prednisone. Or perhaps I’m just naturally nicer or something. I don’t get “raging *sshole syndrome.” It just removes my governor, so if you get on my nerves I will be what Heinlein called a fool or a sadist. (Only a fool or a racist tells the unvarnished truth in social settings – RAH.) But I don’t go out of my way to be mean. I just…. in brain, out of mouth. Most of my fans think I’m incredibly amusing when I’m on pred. Can’t say it’s a shared amusement, but apparently it’s fun from the outside.

And that brings me to the point of this post: People, but particularly women want to be liked by the community. Why do I say particularly women? Because it seems to track across cultures, and I think it’s evolutionary. Teenage to middle age women seem to lose all their self-confidence and just want to fit in to the group. Our idiots try to create self confidence in them, but it does not work.

I think it was designed to integrate women marrying into another band/different family as seems to be the standard in 99% of places, and allowed them to acculturate and be adopted as members.

Anyway, most women are like that but around our mid thirties to early forties, we get psychlogical prednisone, at which point we start being ourselves as hard as we can, and telling the truth and not caring.

I was reminded of all this yesterday when I had to explain to some fans/friends that I actually used to be very quiet and afraid to offend people.

Mind you, I still don’t like offending people.

But I was so quiet and scared of giving offense and “what if they don’t like me?” that I can almost understand the left’s “Politics by fitting in” “I support the current thing.”

And then it shed. First slowly, then all at once.

Do I want to offend people? Well, no. But am I willing to lie not to offend people?

Heck no. Best I can do most of the time, if the confrontation isn’t needed is to zip my lip. (Unless I’m on prednisone.)

If an answer is needed I tell the truth.

I’d like to say I was probably more agreeable before, but now? Now I am more me. And far less neurotic.

Because some people are going to be offended and hate you no matter what you do.

Don’t give them power over you.

Je suis comme je suis, je plais a qui je plais.

241 thoughts on “I Wanna Be Loved By You”

  3. “Je suis comme je suis, je plais a qui je plais.”? On the other hand I like Popeye’s, like it of leave it version better; “I yam what I yam and dat’s all what I yam.”

  4. “Anyway, most women are like that but around our mid thirties to early forties, we get psychlogical prednisone, at which point we start being ourselves as hard as we can, and telling the truth and not caring.” Is this the same phenomenon as “hitting the wall”?

    2. I quit caring when our first child (first, and last) was born. Maybe it was because I was over 30? OTOH I did not give voice to not caring or disagreement (unless affected said child, then gloves were removed). But when I hit 60 😉 😉 😉 … “Oh. That is why grandma got away with …” Just saying.

        1. Me too!
          There’s a lot of advantages to being old enough to do whatever you feel like. Take advantage as much as possible!

        2. Me too!
          There’s a lot of advantages to being old enough to do whatever you feel like. Take advantage as much as possible!

          1. Before I turned 60 I could say “I’ve never flipped anyone off.” Now that I’m 66, I can’t say that anymore. Not something I do lightly. What was the biggest kick out of it was the person going “That is very childish and immature!” My response was “Please! I’d have gotten my ass tanned. It is very mature.” With a big grin. The flip off was in response to someone having a fit because I said “No. She’s on duty”, twice, and moving away, when they were asking if they could pet my service dog … (Hey! I was polite first!)

        3. I made it to 61 before I said the truth about an a-hole customer in an email that ” accidentally” got sent to him. (Hello, Macy’s? Do you have any Freudian slips in stock?) He threatened to sue. My employer wasn’t buying the truth as a defense argument, so I ended up getting kicked to the curb.

    3. It’s more like you realize “Oh, I’m old enough that I don’t have to meekly agree to this anymore.”

      Most women can use this realization without being bitches about it. The ones who can’t are known as Karen.

      1. It also overlaps with not having so much to lose, and having a lot to defend.

        My mom got hella protective of folks, being That Woman who would say stuff, about the time us kids were old enough to take care of ourselves.

        Think like the woman who loudly says what everyone in the line is thinking when some twit is abusing the customer service agent.

  5. I find it hard to complain about other idiots, when I have been such an idiot myself. Most people don’t want to hear the truth. They just want a beer, some pizza and to get laid every now and then. When that’s over they want to be entertained. Lather, rinse, repeat.

        1. Genuine full bloody fecking hell. That comment was supposed to go here, for feck’s sake.

          “Them as have their own still – make lots of friends. ;)”

          1. Of course I don’t have a still, that would violate one of our many, of course righteous and just, laws.

            Nor would I ever ever, except that one time by accident, of course, set some fermented wort outside a -40°, and, bringing it inside and draining the liquid (Alcohol) off the ice find I had over 100 proof.

            I do however have a (again using the word) a righteous brewing system set up producing beer, Sake and country wines & you’re right Wee’, it has led to lots of friends.

            Right now I’ve 5 gallons of strong cider (Very strong, apple wine rather than cider actually. I expect it to be right at 12% ABV.) and around a gallon of Nigori Sake fermenting, if any of you happen to be in the neighborhood in two weeks, feel free to swing by for a sip.

            1. I would love to visit Alaska. There’s no way I’ll do it when there’s a chance of the temperature being the same in Fahrenheit and Celsius.

            2. Thanks for the invite, but the Reader thinks you are safe from drop ins from this crowd. The Reader is going the other way next week – headed to Florida to visit some friends.

              1. My son and my savage teenage granddaughter left for Cancun yesterday.

                Don’t know why on earth they did that, I checked the weather and it’s a sizzling plus 87 degrees there while it’s a comfortable minus 3 degrees right here, right now. 😉

  6. I was at the bottom of the pecking order in grade school. Not a very steep curve, thankfully—the clique head who was typical Mean Girl to me grew up and turned into a fairly decent person, from what I’ve seen—but enough so that I was very happy to be going to a different middle school from the rest of them.

    And you know what? In middle school, because of that elementary school experience, I developed a strong case of “I don’t care what you think just because you think it.” That attitude has served me well.

      1. A 20th century composer name of Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji dedicated one of his works with a quote from a poet MacDairmid: “To the everlasting memory of those few men blessed and sanctified by the curses and execrations of the many whose praise is eternal damnation.” (From memory.)

        I wonder if he was bullied in school?

  7. I just don’t like offending people unintentionally. Which, these days, I’m so fed up with the hate filled society that I live in, means I’m okay with offending a lot of people. From observation, abusive narcissists are the ones most likely to get ahead.

  8. Pred-ator: The Author

    (Sci fi voicemitter/translator)

    ….Snit Happens…..rrrrrttch….

  9. I can lie like a rug.
    But I can’t CONVINCINGLY lie.
    Ergo, no sense in even trying to tell anything but the truth.
    Unless I can keep my trap shut.

  10. In the Today I Learned category: I didn’t know that prednisone had that affect on people.

    Of course I only take it when in the early stages of a gout attack (which I haven’t had for a while), so I guess by comparison to my attitude when my foot is in that much pain, I’m not as big of an A-hole when I take the drug as I could me.

    One advantage of being on disability is that the circle of folks who’s opinion I have to care about and have any concern about offending is very small, and most of them have to put up with me anyway.

    1. Someone here, some time (years) back said that for them or someone known, prednisone was ‘Instant Irish’ in the sense of a the tiniest thing could set off a rather intense argument – or worse.

            1. It’s not the Scots; it’s the Parliament. The same applies to the US Congress, and quite a few other government insane asylums around the world. Once they get a taste of power they turn to Schiffheads. Most of them, anyway; there are a very few exceptions.

    2. It could be worse: you could be one of the people who are sensitive to prednisone. I am. The one time I took it (in an attempt to treat my nonspecific sinus trouble), it gave me a fever, chills, severe fatigue, and a raging thirst. Exactly like having the flu, just without the upper-respiratory symptoms.

      1. Probably has something to do with the simple fact that diabetics can’t really take it because it spikes blood sugar.

    3. I only recall getting prednisone once, and that was after the epinephrine shot that dealt with the major allergic reaction. (“Can I drive to the ER or do I need an ambulance?” level of major. I drove, primarily to get to the good hospital. Didn’t have to wait once I got in the door, one of the reasons for that choice.)

      I was more happy about being still alive and ready to go to bed that any prednisone behavior mods were missed. Never did figure out what triggered the attack, though a wasp might have been the culprit.

        1. I’ve had problems with both bee and wasp stings, and carried an epi-pen for a while. While they differ in the mix and components, there’s enough commonality that my body doesn’t much care which stung me. Either way, it’s trouble. (FWIW, a bee sting leaves a lot more venom behind.)

          It’s been 18-ish years since any encounters, so that my doc decided I didn’t need epi-pens any more, and the last I heard, the price on the pens went to the moon. (Looks at the snippets in the search engine; $400 for the generic 2-pack would be OK if I knew I needed it.)

  11. At least you are not as bad as Jacinda Ardern with the I don’t care what you think… 😛

    Question: If the Global Elite will flee to bunkers in NZ, where do evil NZ dictators flee to?

    1. And isn’t NZ kinda small? So penetrator nukes to deal with ‘Elite’ schmucks might cause significant… erasure? But.. so thoughtful of them to form a nice, concentrated target!

  12. I’m in the middle of my annual, winter eczema attack too so I sympathize. The wife would tell you that I don’t need the steroids to be even more of a curmudgeon than I usually am, the itch does it in spades.

      1. Check out some of Peter Zeihan’s videos on demographics. Some of his political views are a bit flaky from my point of view, but he seems to really have a handle on geopolitics, especially the demographics of major nations. And from what he says both China and Russia are in serious trouble within the next couple of decades.

          1. He seems pretty clear that he takes Chinese data with about a 55-gallon drum of salt, and even that data shows the problem they’re headed for. As for what I think is the real data, I suspect they won’t last until 2030. If that.

              1. It is indeed, with the exception of some third-world and developing areas which still have a reasonable number of children; the demographics there are the “normal” pyramid, not the upside-down one of China, most of Europe and (to a lesser extent) the US. But from the data I’ve seen China is byfar the worst; IIRC the replacement level there is just over 0.5 (2.1 is generally considered to be sustain-level). They’re in deep puckey. And Russia is (again IIRC) in the area of 1.5.

                There’s a half-hour Tube of You interview with Zeihan that has a pretty good discussion of some of the (end of) globalization and demographic issues:

                1. This is the confusion you share with Zeihan.
                  No. Third world and developing areas have no way of counting, and lie like rugs.
                  People on the ground say they’re cratering WORSE because the kids they have they can’t support. And have far fewer kids.
                  Remember they’re net RECIPIENTS of PER CAPITA aid.

                  1. Yeah, valid point. The only data anyone has comes from organizations with an incentive (usually monetary) to either inflate or deflate the numbers (whichever is to their advantage), even when they’re not completely fabricated; think of the reported COVID death counts from hospitals who got a lot of extra money for each one reported. But it’s all anyone has who isn’t “boots on the ground” in the areas of interest, and even they are largely guessing.

                  2. Doesn’t have to be a lie.

                    Seriously, try to figure out “how many people are at my church.”

                    (or random group, or… but churches tend to print out tithing envelopes(

                    It is hard.

          2. A bunch of people really went off on Zeihan on Twitter a couple of days ago. I gather he was on Joe Rogan and they just flipped out over whatever he said. A lot of, “I thought better of him than that.”
            OTOH, some of them seem to regard China as invincible. One guy was huffing, “China had 10 million births last year. That doesn’t sound like a crisis to me.” While I was thinking, “Ah, 10 million births in a population of allegedly 1000 million? That’s a lot to you?”

  13. People are strongly truth adverse. In my 20s and 30s with I would play a game. I would tell someone that for the (time period) I would answer any question or questions completely and truthfully. After several years of no one taking me up on this, I mentioned it to a cousin of mine. She was noted for her not give a rats attitude. She said no one ever took you up on it. I said no and some people started avoiding me. She said wow.
    I said for the next hour I will.answer all questions completel and truthfully for you. She grinned and opened her mouth….and for the next hour she was very careful to not ask a single question.
    People are terrified of the truth.
    What was oddest was that they all apparently assumed I would adhere to the rules (I would have).
    Also in a couple of cases I had played truth or dare with them in a social situation.
    Weird.

      1. That’s why I hang out here, with the normal folk. You know, like minotaurs and kitsune.

  14. I really despise prednisone. I was on a high dose as part of a treatment (Look up R-CHOP if you want the messy details). Two largish doses each day. It made me feel like a squirrel on Meth. No ability to focus on anything, and yes easily annoyed. Daughters are both ADD diagnosed and asthmatic so end up on it from time to time. For them it takes their ADD and magnifies it by 100X, even on the lower taper doses the use for that treatment.

      1. Interesting I have noticed a similar result. For the first 1-2 hours my coding got quicker and more focused. It was kind of like a drug induced manic phase. But somewhere along the way the physical effects (I got jitters and hungry as heck, but then again my response to nearly anything is to get hungry, I really am a Hobbit at heart) would kick in AND the focus issues would increase. At that point in the day I had to throw in the towel as I was just sitting there effectively vibrating.

          1. At some level maybe 🙂 . The vibration is is not an actual physical thing, it is not alcoholic’s DT’s it is more vacillating over a 1000 different options at some very high rate. It indeed did make me utterly ineffectual and ineffective.

        3. Not the same pattern, but my coding could be intense and extremely productive to sitting there staring at the screen. I could power through the latter because we always had simple easy work that needed to be done (add a field option to a report, sort options, changing script on a custom form, etc.) Whip through some easy stuff and then the more complicated stuff worked itself through, most the time. Ah, but the times when something complicated starts to come together? Do miss that.

  15. Years ago, a priest friend of mine used to end conversations with really nasty people by smiling and saying, May God love you, as only He can. One of those statements that could be taken in several ways. :o) Hope the prednisone helps a lot.

    2. @ J > “One of those statements that could be taken in several ways.”

      One of the early Latter-day Saint leaders, J. Golden Kimball, had worked as a mule teamster in his younger days, and often came out with statements that were, to say the least, not usually heard from the pulpit. He was frequently chided by the other authorities for that propensity (“Cut me off from the Church? They can’t do that! I repent too damn fast!”), but the members were generally very fond of having him address their meetings, for the entertainment as well as the spiritual edification.

      On one occasion, the following is reputed to have occurred:
      The first speaker began his sermon by noting that he had prayed about the topic of his talk, and that God alone knew what he was going to tell them.
      When Elder Kimball arose, he began his remarks similarly.
      “I too have prayed about what to tell you folks today, and God only knows what I’ll say!”

      Another popular saying of his, apropos of today’s post: “I am ready to confess that I am keyed up to a pretty high tension, and the only thing I am afraid of is that I will say just what I think, which would be unwise, no doubt.”

      https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._Golden_Kimball
      (These are some of his milder remarks; other stories are readily available on the internet, as J Golden is somewhat of a folk hero among the Mormons.)

  17. Sarah, while I’m not certain we’d storm the Bastille on your command, I do know most folks here like you enough to donate blood if you need it.

    Hope that helps.

    1. I’m not storming the Bastille. I know how that business turned out…and France took 80 years to get a semi-stable government.

  19. > “I WANNA BE LOVED BY YOU”

    That’s sweet, but that husband of yours would object.

    > “and allowed them to acculturate and be adopted as members.”

    Speaking of young women trying to fit in with a new culture – yes, I’m segueing with a sledgehammer here – anyone heard from ladyeleanorceltic lately? I know she rarely shows up for anything but the Sunday writing prompt on account of being busy, but I don’t recall seeing her even there for about a month.

    I’m getting in one of those moods where I start wondering about people who’ve been absent for a while.

      1. I still miss Shadowdancer and RES sometimes, but at least I know why they’re not still around.

        2. Praying sorts should consider sending up a prayer, Shadow’s having some weird health issues (…k, not really news there, but I mean for her even) and feels like utter crud.

          2. Damn. Not a praying sort, but I’ll do the secular equivalent and hope for her recovery.

  20. The search engines seem to have 12/5/22 as her last post on ATH (Qwant and DDG–Bing is weird), but I thought she had done something a week or two ago. Might have been on MGC, which I didn’t try to search. The “site:foobar.com” qualifier helps.

    1. Last I recall of her was the writing prompt thread on 12/20/22, when she dropped that “Descartes before the horse” pun on us. Then TXRed hit her with an ICBCarp and I’m not sure she’s been seen since.

      1. The thing that comes to mind is intersession break. When U of Redacted went to the early calendar, the last final was 12/23 and the next semester didn’t start until almost 2/1.

        1. Yeah, I noticed that too; I figured she’d come hang out more during the break.
          Normally I wouldn’t worry so much about someone not checking in for long periods of time – I’ve done it myself several times – but the fact that she was so enthusiastic when she first joined us has always made it seem odd that she’s hardly ever here.

          I hope I’m just worrying over nothing.

  21. I hope the eczema goes away quickly. I confess I’d like to see a troll get an epic beatdown by Sarah On Fire, but mostly I hope for good health and many more books and essays.

    1. Very true. There are always those foolish people who decide to get involved in a war of words with a highly trained professional. Bless their hearts…

  23. > “But I don’t go out of my way to be mean. I just…. in brain, out of mouth. Most of my fans think I’m incredibly amusing when I’m on pred. Can’t say it’s a shared amusement, but apparently it’s fun from the outside.”

    Heh. I’ve noticed that the people I pay attention to for news and commentary tend to be the ones who are willing to bluntly state what they think even – or perhaps especially – when the position they’re taking would be considered controversial.

    For example, I just discovered (and binged on) videos by a certain talking utensil with a fancy British accent. In the video I just watched he openly argues that women shouldn’t have the vote:

    His humor doesn’t show much in this one, but he can be quite funny when he goes off. He just joined Razor and Styx as someone I’ll be checking regularly for video content.

    1. Great. Reminds me this is something else I have to re-analyze. It also means, if true, that we can no longer analyze older cultures as being anti-woman simply if they don’t provide women with the vote, or allow them to become rulers. There would have to be some other way to determine whether women were sharing fairly in the distribution of power / rights / whatever.

      I have been prone to think that female participation in certain forms of government might should be something relegated to the post-menapausal widow. Which doesn’t agree with this guy’s premise. But I also hesitate to see other women the way he describes them. And yet, it is undeniably true, even to me, that the social environment among women is much more complex than that of men.

      1. The biggest issue I have with various “women shouldn’t have the vote” folks is the utter smack against a wall blindness about unmarried men who aren’t over 40.

        Seriously, none of the issues work if you aren’t averaging guys out past the “I will kill myself by dumb, also was that a tit? I now lost half my IQ points” level.

        Great, you identified that females are SLIGHTLY more predictable than males.

        And your conclusion is… uh… rule out females?

        Are you freaking stupid?

        1. And now you just keep building up the groups of people who shouldn’t vote / rule. Add unmarried men under 40. Now, do we want to add a property owner rule? Pretty soon, we’ll be back to where we were when the USA was founded.

          1. > “Pretty soon, we’ll be back to where we were when the USA was founded.”

            …And? Some of those rules have merit. Having to own land, for example, meant you had to have an investment in the country and it’s future (since you can’t just pack up your land and take it with you).

          2. And now you just keep building up the groups of people who shouldn’t vote / rule.

            And the reasoning gets more flimsy, or selective, as you go.

            Biggest thing is that you MUST apply rules to all involved….which boots the unmarried guys under 40.

            Both, not one or the other. Not married at 55? Bugger off, dude.

          4. The relevance is, if X argument is valid, the remove sex selection– oh, wait, that knocked out a crapton of Presumed Always Valid.

            The arguments are…not inherently bad.
            The selection method is.

            1. First of all, it’s nice to be allowed to talk about this in the first place, without having to explain that I don’t think women are inferior to men.

              Second, one of the arguments for allowing women to lead is that we did have a woman leader like Margaret Thatcher. It can be done.

              The argument against women per se, to me, revolves around toxic femininity or the “mean girl” effect, which is not mentioned in this video, but which seems to be exactly what we’re seeing now in cancel culture and wokism. Maybe it is Marxism dressed up, but it does look an awful lot to me like what women do.

              Which makes me think this may also be related to the sexual revolution, which has led to environments, like college, and dating, where only a small subset of the men have access to most of the women. It appears to me that this MUST exacerbate the already existing competition among women, and the mean girl effect.

              I could see a system that restricts the vote to married people of 25 years old or above as a possible improvement. If there are toxic effects to women voting, it might counter them. Also, it would counter the irresponsibility of young, unattached men.

              I don’t know what I think about property ownership.

              And this doesn’t answer the clearly disastrous leaders we got after women got the vote. Although I don’t know whether this can be blamed on women, per se. And even if it can, perhaps there’s a way to avoid a similar effect?

              3. Some ‘voters’ seem not to have a body at all. Like dozens of ‘voters’ registered at the address of an abandoned warehouse. Ballots mailed to tenants that moved out 10 years ago.

                1. Speaking of citations, I’ve had this one for a while. Things haven’t improved.

                  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/voter-fraud-california-man-finds-dozens-of-ballots-stacked-outside-home

                  “The 83 ballots, each unused, were addressed to different people, all supposedly living in his elderly neighbor’s two-bedroom apartment.

                  “I think this is spooky,” Mosna said. “All the different names, none we recognize, all at one address.”

                  His wife, Madalena Mosna, noted their 89-year-old neighbor lives by herself, and, “Eighty people can’t fit in that apartment.”
                  ”

                  Ian’s had all the citations needed.

          6. Well, what we had when the Republic was founded WORKED. The vote was restricted to free men (liable to military service), 21 or older (adult), with either property or income (which kept the lest wealthy 30% from voting). Which might not have been “fair”, but it produced leaders like Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin – wise, far-sighted men.

            Dropping the property/income restriction produced leaders like Lincoln and Davis…good men, but not as far-sighted as their predecessors. More liable to make expensive mistakes.

            Then women were allowed to vote…and we got Woodrow Wilson and Fascist Franklin. Bad men, poor leaders. Letting 18-year-olds vote aggravated the problem, giving us the parade of fools and morons that we have suffered under for the last 60 years.

            Maybe it’s time to stop doubling down on failure.

            1. Let’s see how things work with purple finger-paper ballot voting. All same day, same site as cast counted. We might still have problems with immature voters. But the magnitude might be manageable if everyone voting there is a citizen breathing the air there.

              Because this is one of the problems with a fraudulent vote system. We don’t know what our fellow -citizens- actually think. How many people agree, and how many we have still to persuade. This leads to thinking that since all reasonable people would agree with me on position x, and since supposedly the people in group A disagree with me, the entire group A ought not to be voting since they are unreasonable. Maybe it’s the fraud?

              Fix fraud first.

                1. I really get the idea. I also have been working as an Election Judge, so I see some of the problems. First, it makes countywide voting completely impractical. Second, it will seriously add to the wait times. Third, what about people who must work? The Fire Department can’t take a day off. Neither can a lot of medical professionals. The bus drivers can’t either, people who don’t have a car still need to get to a polling place. I don’t think the tens of millions of non-citizens can take all of their places.

                  1. The people who can’t take time off are more disenfranchised by election altering fraud by all the varied routes than by working on election day.
                    We all lose most by having a system so open to being gamed. Instead of not knowing what the small proportion of essential workers on duty want, we can’t say confidently what the majority of citizens prefer. And then we end up with an “elected elite class” operating with increasing perversity because voting no longer is a lever we can use on them.

                    Fix the fraud, first priority.

                    1. For the edge cases, why not set up a voting station at area hospitals? Or on that day only essential workers may only work a half shift? We’re creative, and can work out solutions. But I am not willing to make working out, agreeing, and implementing solutions for edge cases a barrier to fixing other problems.

                    2. Look, I first voted on the first Bush election. (After Reagan.)
                      That year — I didn’t think I’d have citizenship — I had booked a trip to Portugal. Non-refundable.
                      We went to city hall with the tickets. They gave me a slip to go vote early, I no longer remember where.
                      That’s how they did it for firefighters, doctors, etc.
                      It was just ONE step.
                      Yes, the lines were around the block. So?
                      Inconvenience or your vote being diluted by millions fake ones.
                      WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE?

                    4. The Reader thinks that virtually all of the edge cases could be handled by having the polls open 24 continuous hours. And for national elections, have the continuous period line up in all timezones so that the polls opened and closed nationally at the same time.

                  2. Don’t know why not. Just look at CA.

                    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2023/01/18/foreign-nationals-can-now-become-law-enforcement-officers-in-california-n1662862

                    China needed to get it’s cops enforcement authority somehow.

                    And for those who were pooh poohing the idea they could get significant troops here, contemplate “pre-positioned equipment”, “joint federal – state task force” and “program 1033 allows state law enforcement to access military hardware”.

                    1. And for the inevitable chants of “blackpilled”, I’ll say this:

                      Do I think they’ll be able to put those together secretly? No, probably not. What they WILL be able to do is give it enough of a fig-leaf of legality to allow the “any way for a paycheck” crowd to salve their consciences enough to keep doing their jobs while the Praetorians do the real work.

                  3. Yes, it will add to wait times, but dude, this was the way it was till the mid eighties.
                    The people who can’t take the day off, or who have fly or whatever, bring paperwork to the SINGLE voting place.
                    And vote. But no one without that gets early voting.
                    Yes, some people will be in the hospital or whatever.
                    Too bad so sad. It will never be perfect. BUT it is what it is.

                    1. Hubby didn’t vote in the 2004 election cycle. While he stayed registered in Oregon at our primary residence, and never changed his driver’s license, technically he was no longer an Oregon resident. So in his moral judgement he shouldn’t vote and didn’t.

                      (Note, to any Washington state Karen’s monitoring for illegal activity … the ambiguity about his official residence, drivers licensing, or licensing vehicles in Washington, or lack thereof, note: Vehicles/RV were still in my name too. I was then and am a legal Oregon resident. That is MY moral argument. I put my foot down. Big deal with both the RV and his commute vehicle. RV’s require an Use Tax no matter how long you’ve own the RV. The commute vehicle we bought after he got transferred up there so would have to pay Use tax regardless. Then we’d had to have to pay to re license in Oregon when he was transferred back or retired. No, and Hell No.)

            2. > “Lincoln and Davis…good men, but not as far-sighted as their predecessors.”

              If you think Lincoln was a good man, you should watch Razorfist’s latest video:

              1. Waggles hand. Lincoln the demon is a theory that has gone around.
                I’ve done a deep dive.
                Lincoln was a flawed man that struck a horrible bargain in order to keep us one country. Was it wrong? Likely.
                It was what it was. You don’t get to judge the past from our POV any more than than the left does.
                NO

                1. > “It was what it was. You don’t get to judge the past from our POV any more than than the left does.”

                  I’m judging in large part from the fact that the founders gave Lincoln no authority to do what he did.

                  But I know how this goes: if I try to defend myself you’ll shut me down for breaking the “no debating the civil war” rule. Hence, my simply linking to the video and leaving it at that.

                  1. But I know how this goes: if I try to defend myself you’ll shut me down for breaking the “no debating the civil war” rule

                    Dude, you freaking BROKE THAT buy your pronouncement of “zomga lincoln eeebil.”

                    She was polite thus far.

                    And now that you got push back, you’re going to point at the rule you broke and weren’t punished for?

                    1. > “Dude, you freaking BROKE THAT buy your pronouncement of “zomga lincoln eeebil.””

                      But Mike M. didn’t break it FIRST when he called Lincoln a good man?

                      This is something I’ve noticed repeatedly: others here get to express sentiments like “Lincoln was a hero” and “God is necessary for the universe to be rational” and don’t get any grief for it, but when I say anything to the contrary I’m the one accused of breaking the rules.

                      I don’t mind disagreement and pushback. Hell, there are times when I’d love to have those discussions. But I DO resent that only one side is allowed to speak on such matters.

                    2. He gave a broad, offhanded statement.

                      You, repeatedly, gave a specific statement, with video argument.

                      Hell, if you’d stuck to “eh, not so good, video link” would be fine– but instead you kept butting head AND then you went all auto-martyr.

                    4. I actually don’t have a cut and dried opinion on Lincoln, and I tend to give people ONE bite. Or two But if you start screaming at each other over ACW, I’ll bring out the ax. Or at least the clue bat.

                    5. > “Also, FFS, she basically agreed with you.”

                      She assumed – wrongly – that I was judging Lincoln entirely by modern standards. That’s the part I was responding to, not her opinion of the man.

                    7. > “I did not.”

                      [raised eyebrow]

                      You said the following:

                      > “You don’t get to judge the past from our POV any more than than the left does.
                      NO”

                      That certainly SOUNDS like you were assuming it (and chastising me for it with the capitalized “NO”).

                    8. You know damn well you have to judge the past from our POV.
                      You weren’t there. And THEY didn’t know how things would turn out
                      Right now capitalization is random. Deal. I’m exhausted.

                  2. I’m not shutting you down. And I’ve heard arguments from both sides.
                    I’m just saying it’s not cut and dry from either side.
                    I can make a case for his being a demon. I can make a case for his being a deep flawed man making the best of a horrible time.
                    It’s not cut and dry. Anyone who thinks it is are only looking at one side.

                    5. > “I’m just saying it’s not cut and dry from either side.”

                      Sure. But as I just said to Fox, I’m not getting salty because people disagree with me. I’m getting salty because I’m effectively not allowed to even have the conversation.

                      It’s your blog and I recognize your right to set whatever rules you want. But it often feels like I have to keep my mouth shut while the people I disagree with are free to speak their minds, and that does rankle me a bit from time to time.

                    11. > “I got tired of fights.”

                      Yeah, I get that. And I’m not mad at you personally over it.

                      But it’s still a frustrating position to be in, so don’t hold it against me if I vent a little once or twice a year.

                    12. > “At least now you’ll know what’s going on when somebody asks you if your three axes are Fender, Gibson and Rickenbacker.”

                      Was ANYONE going to ask that other than you? 😛

        2. For the record, I didn’t say I agreed with what he was saying. I just respect his willingness to speak his mind and try to give a rational defense of it.

          As for young males being idiots, I’ve long thought the voting age is way too low. I’d have set it to 25 at an absolute minimum, and I could easily see making it much higher. Other conditions – like being married or being a landowner (as in the olden days) – are also not out of the question for me.

          2. The argument for dropping the voting age to 18 was (as I remember) “if they are old enough to be drafted, they are old enough to vote.” Granted with the draft gone, even if 18 year old males still have to register for selective service that argument is gone. But still holds if one at 18 is old enough to serve, they are old enough to vote, whether they actually put on a uniform and take the oath. So, yes, upping the age to 25 is agreeable. But then up the age where one can take the oath off service, whether as enlisted or an officer. The latter is never going to happen. (IMO)

            1. Yes, I know the argument, but it was wrong. The solution wasn’t to give 18 year olds the vote in exchange for being enslaved; the solution was to not let the government enslave them in the first place.

              1. As you probably know for quite a while 18 year olds were old enough to drink, age had been lowered through some of the same reasoning that was used to get the 18 year old vote, old enough to serve old enough to drink. Eventually was raised back up to 21 on the theory that the 18 year olds were often high school seniors and were supplying their buddies. As far as I can tell it didn’t fix anything high school kids still get in trouble with alcohol, of course so do many 22+ year olds. Currently the prevailing tendency seems to back towards the view of the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) that got us the idiocy of prohibition, somehow they don’t seem to remember how that turned out.

                  1. Perhaps Foxfier, perhaps. Having attended an engineering school with a 7:1 Male to Female ratio there was a tendency of the attendees to gravitate to high school age (or any age for that matter) women. Luckily two women’s colleges, a secretarial college (gave out associates degrees) and a nursing school as well two regular colleges provided a bit more balance to the male/ female ratio of the city. And dating the townies meant you might have to deal with Dad or worse yet an irate boyfriend who was far tougher than any nerdy engineer. I will note that as a freshman I dated a high school senior from a neighboring town. It came out fine in the end, she ended up coming to the engineering school, and we’ll have been married 39 years in June.

                    1. My total involvement was watching guys doing stupid stuff because it gave them access to 16 year old girls.

                      But lots of trustfund kids, dad usually wasn’t even in the same state.

                2. Underage HS drinking has always and still is a problem. Whether the underage is < 18 or < 21. Oregon never lowered the drinking age to 18. HS drinking still occurs at hidden locations throughout the state.

              2. Actually the drinking age varies from state to state. Some states where under 21 drinking isn’t allowed, is allowed with military ID. I think over the last few decades that has been changing and states have voted to increase the drinking age. But when the voting age changed, it was that way. Law changed just in time for me to vote at 18 (I was 18 by just over two weeks). My judgement? Asked my parents what they thought and followed their lead (not that I disagreed, but I did ask).

                1. Indeed drinking age varies, the 21st amendment returned control to the states with the annulment of the 18th amendment. There was a strong push to return to a 21 drinking age in the Federal Government in the late 70s early 80s. They used the carrot and stick of federal highway funds to drive this and most states have complied although. In general in the US the age is now 21 with some exceptions (religious use, i.e. communion, drinking at ones home under parental supervision, drinking if ones spouse is over 21, very state dependent)
                  Even down to 7th and 8th grade drinking can be an issue, the change in drinking age seems to have had little effect.

                  1. Some kids are responsible and mature at age 12. Some are still irresponsible, immature jackasses at age 52. Raising the legal drinking age doesn’t make them any less irresponsible.

                    I was 19 when they raised the drinking age in Michigan. One day I could walk into a bar and have a beer. The next day I couldn’t. It was all bullshit.

                    I am opposed to treating everybody like idiots to protect the idiots from their own idiocy. Take reasonable precautions, and then let the Darwin Awards fall where they may.
                    ———————————
                    Some folks can be taught. Others can learn by example. The rest have to piss on the electric fence for themselves.

                    2. The nature of the drinking age conundrum as well as the voting age one is something that gives Liberals/SJWs/Brahmandarins fits. Everything doesn’t have an easy answer, many things don’t even have a good or even a locally optimal answer. But their world has to have an answer and they have to know it.

                      As our Hostess notes in one of the comments many places didn’t have an official drinking age, at least anecdotally that seems to lead to better overall behavior. Meanwhile people like some of my ancestresses (WCTU types I’m afraid) pushed for the failure that was the 18th amendment as a solution. As per usual trying to ban an easily created substance failed horribly with some seriously ugly side effects. Not to say there weren’t some ugly things related to the excessive consumption of alcohol, but the method of solution was unworkable.

                  2. ’70s and ’80s would have been when I was aware of the issue, and the arguments. While I was pressured to drink (essentially not 21 until ’78; very late 77). Not a problem for me to either “fake” (yea that worked, … sarcasm JIC, just getting a little bit on my lips made me sick for three (3) days, learned that lesson), make plants drunk, or just carry around not drinking the beer/drink. I don’t like most alcohol. What I do like is one and done, and I am not driving. I have no tolerance.

                    We did worry about our son (I mean who wouldn’t) but the reality check was his 12 year old playmate (cousin once removed) was murdered by a hit and run driver who (although couldn’t prove legally), given the facts, family, and I mean huge extended family (this is the Applegate clan side, remember related to at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the PNW, and that didn’t count her mothers family), were very vocal that he had to been drunk, buzzed, or probably both. Son turned 11 a week after the funeral (which was church service, then school memorial, then internment at the private family historical cemetery). To say it made an impression is to say water is wet. When he got his drivers license the insurance we had, had a requirement to have the agent talk to him. Lecture was essentially if he screws up he’ll ruin his parents fiances. When he was done. We turned to son and said “If you screw up you could kill someone like Katie.” The agent knew the story. Did not know she was family.

                    (The driver, caught, convicted, sentenced to the service camp, and lost his drivers license for 14 years. Since getting his drivers license back, he has been in the papers for at least 3 DUI. When Aunt was asked about this, her reply was “Duh. Stupid. No comment.” Question is “How many other times, where he hasn’t gotten caught?” Not that it will make it better, but he does what he did to Katie to someone else, he is going to serve under what the sentence is for DUI even if hit and run and can’t be proven. Which at minimum, is a step above involuntary manslaughter. Given these times, that depends on whether the prosecutor follows through … That law wasn’t on the books when Katie was murdered.)

          3. I don’t want to raise it to 25; I want to demand more responsibility of 18 year olds.
            Right now, far too many people think that their children must go to college to be adults, and that they shouldn’t be counted as adult, or treated as such, until they graduate. They also push the age of graduation back with heavy encouragement to devalue all 2-year degrees and encouragement to take “fun” classes that don’t produce a degree that will actually result in being marketable, so it’s 5-year degree minimum…

            Whereas if you started kicking them out the door at 18, and raising them to be kicked out the door at 18, and held accountable as adults at that age… People sink to rise to the standard you hold them to. Expect them to be soft, clueless, and irresponsible while loading them up with $80K in debt? They’ll live down to your expectation. Expect them to move out with 4 friends into a ratty apartment while working on their welding or diesel mechanic or plumbing certs, and make the same stupid mistakes over the first 3 years instead of 7 years? They’ll rise to your expectations.

            But then, I watch coworkers raise their children not to be good citizens, but instead to be nice kids. There’s no teaching “how to adult” in there, and there’s a vague expectation that somehow outsourcing that to college administrators without holding them to any accountability will produce adults out of their kids.

            Guarantee you, if you raised the voting age to 25, the helicopter parents of the world would start agitating to keep their kids on their apron strings and their medical insurance and only getting juvie sentences until 28. Then 30.

            2. Right?
              My parents were “responsible adults” before they got out of high school. Expectations mean a lot in the development of a human being.

            3. “nice kids” vs “good citizens” Amen, sister. Sometimes I wonder whether this idea that our brains are only mature at 25 is because kids aren’t acting like adults until then. Heck, maybe the final bit of brain maturing is supposed to happen through having your own kids.

              1. I believe we, and our children, were raised to be both “nice, good citizens, but not a patsy either”. Not an “Or” situation. Granted our methods, while some overlap, were different than our parents. Are we friends with our children? Well. Yes. NOW. Just like we are now friends with our parents. Growing up? Not the parents role to be their children friend. So, No.

            4. I have literally seen someone defend college as a place where one can practice being an adult in a safe space.

              Didn’t have an answer when I asked why it was therefore for the smarter, not the dumber, who presumably would have more trouble.

        3. I suspect the current movement is merely a side effect of the current battle of the sexes, which seems to have settled into an especially nasty form of cyclic vendettas.

          Whatifalthist posted a video on his theories on why modern dating is broken: https://youtu.be/HdakU_fourM

          I think he’s a bit off on the mouse utopia, but the core problems line up with what I’ve seen; the social interaction system is broken and we are hyper atomized, which ends up pushing people into the least social modes of interaction, which means everyone involved basically gets taken advantage of to the maximum extent possible, and everyone ends up miserable.

          I just don’t see ways to fix that either, at least ones that don’t require magic pixie dust (and I suspect even that would go horribly sideways if attempted.)

          1. I suspect the current movement is merely a side effect of the current battle of the sexes, which seems to have settled into an especially nasty form of cyclic vendettas.

            Oh, definitely, which is why I don’t have much patience for it at all.

            But an argument can be met with more than “grumble, grow up” so I try to do that…which is actually on subject, because that is a solution for the atomization.
            Build a social network, and date there.

            1. I’m not sure the current generation has the tools or basic skillsets to do that though. Apparently a majority of the 20-30 something age group reports having zero friends at all.

              So building a social network is not just finding people, its about figuring out an entire social structure for you and everyone else in the network.

              I sort of wonder if it’s really more up to the old farts to build and manage the structures social networks can form in, and recruit young folks into them so they even have the opportunity to form those networks.

              God, that sounds like a thankless job that will only end in lawsuits :/

              1. :wry smile:
                I went through high school that way, and still ended up finding my husband.

                It is a group activity. Yes, a lot of it is up to the theoretical grownups– and always has been. Instead, since at least the 60s, the social builders have instead been breaking things down for power.

                There’s only so much seed corn before it’s all eaten.

                And yet…. :waves hand: Here we are. This is a social network.

                1. True, but recall none of us here are even remotely average.

                  Of the folks I know who paired up in the current market, the only one who did not end up paired through a non-US cultural network, was the one who left college to become a professional pilot. He met his girlfriend through gaming and because he flies planes professionally, he can expense a 300 mile trip.

                  But none of these are sustainable ways to build families on a large scale. I look at my grandparents, one set met at their local mixer dance, that was literally set up for boys and girls to meet. The other one, the one who married late, her coworkers decided she needed a husband and started setting her up with guys.

                  Thinking of the people I have direct contact with, I cannot think of a single person age 40 or younger who married someone they met in highschool or college.

                  1. Nieces, 4 of the 6, have met their significant other via dating app. One met hers while looking to buy a vehicle after her divorce. He too was on a rebound from a divorce.

                    Out of the three of us girls, sisters & I, I met my husband at college through a club. One sister met hers at a bar, girls night out with a 2nd cousin. The other met hers at her work place (different divisions).

                    All the options above have the current perils if not outright not recommended to forbidden (co-workers, even if not working in same division for some).

                    1. Right now, college is a toxic place to meet and date people, because it has deliberately set up a toxic atmosphere between men and women.

                      Dating apps are mostly broken, but they can work. I know several Catholic couples who met that way. Tinder is crap because of the way it’s set up. You don’t have to set up a dating app around hacking biology to maximize sexual contacts. You can set it up to maximize marriages, and provide stats on its success in doing that.

                      I think that means that the most successful dating apps for marriage are going to be religious, because religious groups seem to be the only ones that have a clue of what is required for marriage, not to mention value it. Not all religious groups, of course. And I’m not saying it couldn’t work for non-religious groups. I just don’t see where there’s even a beginning of that working there.

                      Besides dating apps, there are multiple ways to meet online and then in person that were being developed before Covid and could continue, but I don’t know how successful they are.

                      But whatever we develop, probably a combination of online and in person, there must be social norms and vetting, somehow. We had to do it before even in person, and we must certainly do it online as well.

                      Honestly, I don’t know anyone who married someone they knew in high school. I’m not sure I even know anyone who met in college, and that includes my brother and sisters. They mostly met at work, I think. Which means we have to re-establish social standards for dating at work, instead of “anyone can do anything he or she wants, until someone feels hurt, and then fire people.”

                    2. A lot of my classmates have married people they met while in HS. Not always the same HS. May not have dated in HS, but later.

                      In my case. We met at college. Never had classes together (he was at least two years ahead). Same program. We met through the school club (of which small percentage of the school degrees participated in). And the fact we gathered within an even smaller subset as a social group. For 3 or more years before we even started dating. Even then the first “date” I was a plus one for his bosses retirement. My dating him probably had something to do with me changing work sites (USFS districts) but reality it was another of the group had been pushing me to do so. The crew at the new district, same type of crew as the old district, was head hunting. Also not the same crew as future hubby, or even the friend recruiting. Hubby and I did eventually work for the same company, doing the same job, sometimes same location, for 3 years. We didn’t start the job until we’d been married 3 months (we were married between my last two terms of school, he was looking for work). Yes, company knew we were married. Their response to his answer of his preference for work area (where I had seasonal work lined up) was “Wait. Your wife is a forester too? Would she apply here?” (Then St Helen blew, and the owl … He survived the seniority game, barely, the rest of us, over 100 more, didn’t).

                  2. But none of these are sustainable ways to build families on a large scale

                    Have we EVER actually had A One True Path?

                    Looking back over my family– there’s only one guy who married someone he knew in high school, out of a few hundred.

                    1. Sure there never had been a one true path, but right now the majority of the successful pairs I am aware of come from people who either went out of country, or wildly out of the main culture.

                      And that may be the way it works out in the end: the independent cultures that actually support and encourage pair bonding end up replacing the mainstream culture by default in a generation or so.

                      Given that seems to mostly be the vigorously traditionalist Christian denominations, that may not be a bad thing.

                2. They (we — I was part of it) were breaking down the social structure with known rules because “rules = bad”, forgetting that without defined rules only the most socially adept know how to manage the system. Because there is ALWAYS a system. The problem with rules is not that they exist — it’s whether they are working right.

                  And yeah, the grown-ups need to help the kids. But the kids can’t lay down and wait while they’re waiting. Maybe we need some, you know, intergenerational stuff?

                  And yes, this is a social network right here. And I’ve seen other stuff that works too.

                  1. I agree this is a social network, I just don’t think this is the type of network that would generate pair bonds. For one, I’ve come to the conclusion that those types on networks must be in person networks.

                    But I think this may be the sort of network were we could generate the seeds for those types of networks. Or at least start thinking through the forms those sort of networks could take.

                    I mean, what else is Science Fiction by trying to envision how future societies deal with technology? And given this seemed to be an undesirable side effect of the Internet, that seems like it would be right up our collective alley.

                    3. Did they meet through here? Or are we talking about other, but related online networks?

                      I know it does happen, it seems to be about the only place it can happen now. It just doesn’t seem to work well at all. Right now less than half of all US adults are married, and a full third of them have never been married.

                      https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/marital-status-in-united-states.html

                      Haven’t tracked down the raw source on the ‘activity’ stats, but it is not that everyone is cohabing either. A very large fraction of them simply have no interactions or relations of any sort at all.

                    4. One via here.
                      One via older routes, because they’ve been married almost as long as I have.

                      Those are the ones I have details on.

                      This is something to worry about, yes, and we need to act to pull folks into “I think you will like them” situations.

                      ….K, going to share my folks’ story, mom and dad married because a friend set mom up with a guy she thought she’d like.
                      HE IS THE MOST HORRIBLY BORING PERSON EVER MY MOM AGREED TO DANCE WITH SOME RANDOM DUDE TO ESCAPE.

                      Because gnawing her arm off wasn’t an option.

                      (I grew up with a child of the guy, he’s… bland. Like, vanilla is offended if you call him vanilla……)

                1. “Professional” matchmakers are almost alway just scam artists these days. Their success rate is so low as to be little better than random chance. The dating and mating scene has degenerated into being totally non-functional. I really wanted to have children, but that’s not a decision that a man can make.

        4. I have enough of a sense of humor that I can appreciate calls to repeal the nineteenth amendment. On the gripping hand, I am firmly against revising the Constitution so that my leftwing brothers could vote and I could not.

  27. I suppose that a middle aged woman hasn’t as much need to fit into her “new clan” because, historically speaking, her MIL has died off by then, her SILs have moved on to new clans, and she is now the Matriarch of her own clan and therefore her DILs had best be about getting along with HER.

    I was unmercifully bullied as a kid and learned very early on not to care what anyone who didn’t have my best interests at heart said or thought. And I also learned how to tell if someone had my best interests at heart.

    This has served me very well in the last couple of years in particular.

    2. Have heard a horror story from Africa. Woman left her village to marry a man from another village (they didn’t say, but likely another tribe). He died. Her in-laws said, “Too bad, you are NOT one of us and we owe you nothing.” This included his kids. Thanks to American charity she was given a treadle sewing machine before she had to start earning a living on her back and built up a mending/dressmaking business. Her son came here for college and told how he’d managed it.

  28. Middle Age has its uses. When I was young and said a truth that someone didn’t want to hear, people often dismissed it, and me.

    Now that I’m on the high side of 40, when I drop my voice and hit the note of “I don’t care that you don’t like it, you idiot. If you ignore me. I’m going to stand back and watch you die.”…
    People pay attention.

    When I was shiny and new and still had an eggtooth, I noted the way old bush pilots wouldn’t argue or try to convince. They’d just say things like “That’s a fine idea. It’ll kill you, but it’s a fine idea.”

    Now having seen enough deaths from Bright Ideas, I find my sense of humour… leads to me watching a student argue with me, because they want the world to work this way, and being too tired to bother arguing with them. Instead, I open my mouth, and my old instructor’s dry black humour and exhaustion at the idiocy of humanity and especially student pilots falls out.

  29. Actually, while I have never particularly liked confrontation, I was much less likely to avoid confrontation when I was a girl and then through college. I am much less confrontational now than then. My earlier views have not been proven correct.

  30. “Because some people are going to be offended and hate you no matter what you do.”

    Yup. I learned a long time ago that there are people who hate me simply for existing. So I don’t let it bother me. I’ll try to be tactful…mostly because I’d rather not bother with the paperwork involved if I go kinetic.

    1. Yeah. Paperwork. Yuck.

      There’s always, Shoot. Shovel. Shut up.

      I’m too blind to shoot straight. Too old to shovel. And incapable of shutting up.

      So, tactful it is. For certain values of tact.

      1. I’m too blind to shoot straight. Too old to shovel. And incapable of shutting up.
        So, tactful it is. For certain values of tact.
        ….

        Ditto. I’ve never been very good at the Triple S either.

  31. I just thought of another fiscal disaster the Democrats are dragging us into:

    Social Security ‘cost of living adjustments’

    Bidenflation is going to drive up Social Security costs. It’s already 1/3 of the federal budget, so any increase is going to have a huge impact. Medicare is another 1/3, and that will be affected, too.

    Democrats have driven the train off a cliff, and they’re pretending everything is OK because it hasn’t hit the bottom yet.
    ———————————
    Governments can only print money; they can’t make it worth anything. They can make it worth nothing.

    2. I noticed Janet Yellin’ is threatening to not pay federal retirement unless more money appears. How about not paying Congress until we get a balanced budget? Oh, and make them get insurance and use regular doctors, too?

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