I was driving down the road today on the way back to our hotel from the pediatrician's office. The radio quietly droned out NPR's take on the Trump impeachment inquiry while my wife sat in the back seat, holding my phone up to expose the baby to some Huxleyan conditioning videos on YouTube. An animated mother and son sang to one another about preparing for bed in the video:

"Little baby boy, will you brush your teeth?"
"Why yes, of course! I love to brush my teeth."
"Taking a bath is good for you."
"It is so good for me, and I like it."

NPR explained that the impeachment was expected to fail in the senate, but that's OK, because Dems really just wanted to get the message out there about what Trump did and they think this was the best way to expose all that.

"The people deserve to know."

I got to thinking about what the implications of a partisan impeachment really are. I hear pretty often nowadays that the nation is becoming polarized, and it's not good for the country.

The way I see it, a strictly partisan impeachment can only mean one of two things:

1. The president is guilty of a crime, and the defending party is complicit in political crimes which threaten to destroy rule of law in our nation.
2. The president is not guilty of a crime, and the impeaching party is abusing the means at their disposal to overthrow our democratic elections.

Knowing that political parties are not homogeneous, I think that the "evil motive" implied by the above statements can, in the case of persons with "good motives", be readily replaced by an assumption of stupidity.

Are there any other alternatives?

If the Dems really expected this impeachment to fail along party lines, then this action on their part is really very shocking. Whether or not the president is guilty, they've driven a wedge between the parties which will not be easily mended. Now, loyal partisans must see the other side as a collection criminal and destructive revolutionaries -- which wouldn't be so bad if our country's politically interested population wasn't split so evenly between left and right. Hillary won the popular vote by a very slim margin; the party lines are drawn right down the middle, really.

Can't we all just recognize that most humans are genuinely rational and have good intentions for their country? We all want to improve our living situation, and we have different ideas about the way to proceed, but the slow pace of change in the government and the frequent changing of the guard effectively enforce that the country will modulate near a politically safe zone. It will stay that way as long as we continue to trust the system. Confidence in the system is really the only thing that protects a country from revolution.

Where's this going to go?

What world will my children live in?

I see nations moving in slow motion. This army's field manual is written across 66 books. Jesus, if you strengthen your church, we can do anything.

"I use hands to help my fellow man. I use hands to do just what I can. And when I'm faced with unjust injury, then I change my hands to fists of fury."

Got AI dungeon on my phone -- so much fun. Speaking of which,  this blog is being written on my phone,  so excuse the typos.

I have been putting some more effort into my anthropological project lately. It's nowhere near complete, but I think that of all my projects, that one has the clearest milestones,  and is most likely to actually ever be completed -- God willing,  of course.

All this being unable to live in my own stinking house is making me wish I had my own personal laptop, instead of the work laptop. I'd like to install some games on it.

Speaking of which, did I mention my house is broken again and we aren't living in it again?

At least this time we have a hotel room, but Chowon wants to switch to another hotel. The thought of packing up and moving to another hotel kinda makes me nauseous.

I had a nasty cold that lasted from about Thanksgiving to about January 10th(?). I think it's now finally just a cough... but my chest still kinda hurts.

It seems like a good life is within reach,  but I'm not sure I'm allowed to grasp it. There are a few things that haven't lined up yet and I'm anxious that things will end way worse than they are now.

I'm in a no-win situation again, and I'm beginning to think that "no-win" is a lifestyle that I've received in exchange for something better than winning,  and that my goal must be to "count it all joy". In some sense,  I've always hated winning. It makes me feel guilty, like i know winning wasn't a big deal to me and i know that my competitors would have been happier than I am if they won.  The net increase in world happiness is greater when i lose than when i win,  because I'm not that competitive. Several times in my life,  I chose second place in order to avoid that feeling. Even for single player games,  I like "rogue" games,  where losing is part of the game.  The game instantly becomes uninteresting to me when I finally win. Maybe being in a lose-lose situation is exactly the kind of life I enjoy.  Maybe I'm thrilled by the prospect of choosing the more advantageous of two losses, and life is a big RTS of compromises.  Can I end my life,  having compromised as little as possible of the values that impassioned my youth?

I remember the  feeling of being infuriated by the state of the world. In high school,  I was constantly rolling the question over in my head,"how did things get this bad,  and why aren't we doing anything about it?". The conclusion I eventually came to was this: that a better world can only come about by individual decisions to live in that world. Individuals must choose to be generous to all those asking, to act motivated by kindness, to strive at performing well in their role and assume that others will do likewise,  so when things go bad there is no room to pass blame -- everyone did their best,  so a better outcome was impossible -- and to trust one another enough for the above.

So I tried that,  and I've been called naive by people who harm one another in order to protect themselves from others who may or may not be doing anything wrong,  but just because we don't trust those "other" people.  I've been called a doormat -- someone who is regularly taken advantage of -- but nobody can take advantage of me if I know they're doing it.  If I'm not deceived about the situation, then I am in control,  and am at liberty to cut the other person off from whatever resource they expect to receive from me at any time; and I would do ( / have done) that to anyone who told me to my face that they were taking advantage of me; but until that time it is not my right to read their minds,  and I must trust others to express their needs with integrity,  because I want them to trust me too.

No-win is possibly the best and only way to really test the merits of that world that I've chosen to live in,  (in spite of common wisdom which shouts to me that such a world does not exist).  Even Satan will not be punished before his trial in God's court.

"Let that day be stricken from the calendar."