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I've been thinking about time this morning. How just a little of it can make a world of difference.

When I was a wee little kid, David Allen Coe put out a song called If That Ain't Country. The song's got nothing to do with race but somewhere in it there's the phrase "workin' like a nigger for my room and board". That phrase, and the change in its meaning over the years, is a particularly interesting example.

The song was released in 1977, so forty years and change ago. Back when it was released, there was no question in anyone's minds that "workin' like a nigger" meant working your entire ass off. Say precisely the same words today and (aside from getting screeched at by social justice types, physically attacked by any black folks in earshot, and receiving disgusted looks and head shakes by pretty much everyone else) it's going to convey the exact opposite sentiment. I find that intriguing. And, frankly, quite depressing.

Depressing because of the way the change in meaning came about. Let's talk about that for a bit.

An adult black man black in 1977 expected to have to work his entire ass off if he wanted anything other than ghetto life for his family. Make note of that entire sentence there; every word and clause of it is extremely important.

Essentially not one bit of that applies to an average adult black man in 2018.

The prevailing wisdom in the black community in 2018 is that no matter how hard you work, "institutional racism" will keep you from ever getting ahead in life if you follow the rules. The quotes around that phrase are there because, while it is said on a remarkably frequent basis, it is a fundamentally disingenuous concept. "Institutional <type of discrimination>" essentially means "we need something to blame for <group>'s lack of success but lack any proof of actual <type of discrimination>, so we're going to call it institutional and eliminate the need to back up our claim".

Why do they believe that? Because it's all they've been told since MLK was murdered. Anyone claiming to support the black community and spouting anything except "oppression, oppression, oppression" has been vilified and cast out. Non-black people not toeing the party line are called racists and black people who dare disagree are called Uncle Toms. After several decades of this, the black community has almost entirely lost what MLK was essentially the last one to be allowed to preach: Hope.

Let's be real clear on this, no group or individual is ever going to succeed at anything in life without hope. If you do not have hope, you will not even try, which guarantees that you are not going to succeed. Making no effort to succeed does not go unnoticed by those around you either, thus the change in assumption regarding the work ethic of a generic black man.

Thus also my utter contempt for those who profess the loudest to support the black community while nothing but doom and hopelessness passes their lips when speaking to said community. They have robbed entire generations of a race of the hope of a better life that should be their birthright as Americans. And they've done it while lining their own pockets.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of a large group of, let's call them fools for kindness's sake, who genuinely believe the black man is oppressed to the point of hopelessness. I have nothing to say to them, because trying to convince a fool that they are foolish is itself foolish. I really wish they could be made to see that taking someone's hope away absolutely ensures their failure though.

That's pretty much all I have to say about the changes in conventional wisdom on their work ethic but do you remember that sentence I told you to remember? I'd like to address another part of it while I'm at it. Specifically the bit that said "if he wanted anything other than ghetto life for his family".

Unfortunately, that desire no longer exists on average. Primarily because it is based on the assumption that he has or even desires a family. This is not in fact the case anymore. Of the black babies that dodge Planned Parenthood's stated anti-black eugenics agenda long enough to be born (and in NYC one year this decade (I forget which and can't be arsed to look it up), that was less than half of them) , over three quarters of them are abandoned by their fathers.

Being raised in a single parent household is the single largest predictor of future poverty in the US. So, unlike imagined oppression, this actually does put future generations of black children at a factual and serious disadvantage in life.

And, no, the absent black fathers are not all victims of the justice system and in prison. Factual, verifiable numbers call you an idiot for even thinking that.

Now, I don't know precisely why most black fathers are not living in a traditional nuclear family with their children and children's mother. I believe that a good chunk of it is their self-destructive culture but I can't honestly say how much. I can say it's a fucking tragedy regardless of why it's occurring though.

What does all of the above boil down to? That the black man was objectively better off when he was actively, openly, and legally discriminated against than he is now. And that there are a whole lot of people in this world that are in desperate need of a good ass-whooping.

It's half past nine and, as enjoyable as schooling you lot is, I've got other things to do today. If I don't have tons and tons of messages when I get the time and inclination to argue some more, I'll try and get everything that warrants it a response. If there are too many though, I'm probably just going to mass delete them and watch some anime instead.

[ Update: You folks really didn't want replies, I take it. ]

I think I won it today. I managed to single-handedly fend off the communist and socialist hordes with logic and reason, only garnering a very few disagreements remotely based in reason and none that could not be refuted.

I'm done with that article now though. I can't be spending all day educating the ignorant. That and it's nap time.

You know what's fun? Making regressive looter shitheads lose their entire mind by asking them to rationally and logically explain their position without trying to claim "muh feelz" as a valid argument. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them won't be able to do it and will lose their shit on the spot. The one left over will be able to but more than half the time they'll have some foundational assumption that cannot be chalked up to anything but feelz.

Back in the days when phones still had cords, they had twelve buttons; ten numbers, *-star, and #-pound. Owen Benjamin was kind enough to point this out in relation to pronouncing the #MeToo hashtag. You lot being the fine connoisseurs of comedy that you are, I felt the need to share it along to you.

So, I went and saw Episode VIII today at noon. I figured, screw opening night; I'll catch it Saturday in the daytime so I don't have to stand in line, fight for elbow room, or listen to a bunch of shitheads talk through it.

tl;dr: I wish I'd just given up on the franchise.

I'm not going to bore you with a lot of detailed analysis because that's not how you watch a movie for enjoyment. I'm just going to tell you it wasn't good and boil the "why" down to the most crucial bit: the dialogue.

If you ripped out the voice track from the movie, rewrote it, and re-recorded it, VIII could have been about as good as VI. As it stands, the dialogue was worse than I or II. Yes, even considering Jar-Jar. After mostly enjoying VII and the much better Rogue One, this was to me the biggest let-down in franchise history.

The sausage is made. You may now officially commence the bitching that you prepared long before you knew what was in the bill.

CNN ran an article yesterday full of butthurt that Cheeto Jesus has been keeping too many of his campaign promises. I figured I'd share it with you lot so the regressive progtards among you could share in the butthurt too.

A politician who actually does what he told voters he would do seems almost unfathomable in Washington, a town of broken promises. For Donald Trump, being a president who delivers is especially crucial, since it's one of the golden keys to his so far unbreakable bond with supporters.

The need to live up to that image helps explain why Trump, who is under ever-increasing pressure from the Russia investigation, on Wednesday recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital despite the widely acknowledged risks.

It was just the latest instance of the President obstinately honoring the bumper-sticker vows he made to his ultra-loyal supporters -- even those that horrify the political and foreign policy establishment, media critics and allied leaders.

Have a nice weekend argument. I may or may not have time to step in and egg things on further, we'll just have to wait and see.

Growing up, check cashing policy was always one of the following. Cash it at your bank, cash it at the bank it was drawn on, or pay someone to cash it for you. This arrangement worked well enough for me for several decades.

Fast forward to my move a few years ago to TN. Now you'd expect that banks are banks and they're really not going to change all that much, yeah? Turns out banks in TN (at least some of them) will charge you to cash a check drawn on an account with them. You heard that right; they literally refuse to honor checks written by their account holders for the full amount.

Now me, I don't do the whole banking thing, so I can't go up and chew them a new ass as an account holder. I think I'm instead going to have The Roomie write me a check for twenty bucks and call the police when they refuse to honor it in full then take them to small claims court when the police ask me to leave. Repeating that once a week sound about right?

Some shit you just can't make up. I'd say more but I'm too busy laughing.