I'm not trolling (I think Freddie, etc. know that much), and I'm not coming from the right, left, center, whatever.

I'm coming from a long line of proudly industrious individualists who didn't thank god or goddamn luck for nothing. I spent a lot of time as a kid in the small but sturdy home of my maternal great grandfather, for instance, a house he built with his own hands (having next to no building experience) during the Depression. He lived in a little shack while it was going up, trading chickens for construction supplies while simultaneously working part time in a factory. He harvested a small vegetable garden for extra food. That same garden flourishes to this day, eight decades later. He dug out a gooddamn pond in his back yard, threw up a dam with stones harvested from the woods behind his plot, and (in his later years, mind you) made a long wooden bridge across the dam. My clan is full of such stories.

Look, I'm not saying luck and chance have nothing to do with who we are. Sometimes you get an absolutely miserable hand, one so rotten that there's simply no coming back. That's a shame, but it's certainly not usual, at least in a free and dynamic society like our own. (And, by the way, Freddie's original example was not a victim of forces beyond her control, not really. She was just chronically irresponsible: Using condoms and finishing high school are not difficult decisions to make and follow through with.)

In the end, a person has an amazing degree of control over his life. We make our own fates. If a guy has a basic education, a degree of liberty, a strong spirit, and a powerful will, he's damn near indomitable as far as I'm concerned, fortune be damned.

QED, foo'.

"lots and lots of not-successful people do keep moving, and remain not-successful through no fault of their own"

It's not about moving, it's about excelling in motion.

For example, anyone can run, right? (Or nearly anyone, let's leave the cripples out of this; there fate is at work, but the heavy hand of fate breeds exceptions, not standard cases.)

Now then, why do many people, after a couple hard laps on the track, slow to a walk, clutching their stomachs and gasping loudly, while others continue to zoom along, picking up steam as they go? The former lack discipline, will, and skill (which is achieved through discipline and will), while the latter possess all three in great quantities because they have dedicated themselves to the pursuit of success.

There's been an insane amount of snowfall here this year. Granted, New England isn't Arizona, but in these southern parts, we're not used to day after day of white outs. This winter has been the worst in decades. Certainly the worst I can remember. Nice for the kids, though.

Freddo, you ever heard of Christian Death? Not a big fan in general, but they have one truly inspired song that is reminiscent of vintage Misfits, but a bit more serious and well composed. These are live versions, so they;re a little rough, but if you like the feel, consider downloading the real deal.

Without further ado, "Romeo's Distress," by Christian Death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8TTVAQU4oA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLfZ0hw323Y&feature=related

(Two versions, the second minus the original singer, but of better quality besides that.)

Good time to mention that fucking goddamn "Viva La Vida" is "Song of the Year."

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/02/song-of-the-yea.html

What I'd give to see Glenn Danzig assault Chris Martin -- brutally! And not Danzig in his prime. Like, I'm imaginging fat, burnt-out GD open palm slapping that pompous d-bag across the face in front of MTV nation, and then maybe pissing on him or chewing on his fingers.

Melt his face!

Yeah, in my anti-Freddie rage last night, I accidentally (that word...) posted the Conrad Hilton bit here. Oops.

And I can remember when I saw her last
We were running all around and having a blast
But the back seat of the drive-in
Is so lonely without you
I know when you're home
I was thinking about you,
There was was something I forgot to say
I was crying on a Saturday night
I was out cruising without you,
They were playing our song
Crying on Saturday night

Retouched "Hybrid Moments"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP7wHOHYCdc&feature=related

God, they were awesome. "Saturday Night" is one of the greatest love songs ever written. Also swell: "Little Angelfuck" and "Last Carress" (possibly the greatest anti-love song ever written).

What is it about contemporary liberalism that causes its adherents to so doubt and despise the awesome potential of the individual?

“Success seems to be connected to action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” –Conrad Hilton, great grandfather of Paris.

And, it should be added, a man nearly destroyed by the Depression. He was mere inches from losing everything. Everything. But he persevered and went on to accumulate great wealth.

It wasn’t luck that got him through the bad times, nor saw him explode in the good ones . . . not mostly, at least. It was the power of his will, the quality of his mind, the mettle of his spirit.

(Dude was also a vocal Republican.)

"Success seems to be connected to action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit." --Conrad Hilton, great grandfather of Paris.

And, it should be added, a man nearly destroyed by the Depression. He was mere inches from losing everything. But he persevered and went on to accumulate great wealth. It wasn't luck that got him through the bad times; it wasn't luck that saw him explode in the good ones, not mostly, at least. It was the power of his mind and spirit and will.

"Upward ascent." Heh. Add that to "wet water," I guess.

All this talk of chance and accident: What trash! What a nasty, sneaky way to sully the achievements of fine men.

I'll be sure to tell my rough-handed, tough-minded pop that he should thank "crass casualty" for his success, not sharp wits, keen vision, and 12-14 hour work days. "Crass what," he'll probably say, "I'm tired. I have worked hard today. Let me rest." And so I will. (If he's had a couple beers, though, I'd rather you tell him that yourself.)

"Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men," wrote E.B. White, and said Thomas Jefferson, "I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." Two rather thoughtless fellows, eh?

Anyway, we're talking about something quite simple here: Social and economic mobility, the possibility and reality of it. (Let's leave Paris out of it; she's rich because she comes from a long line of excellent capitalists. She deserves, through that blood link, every dime she possesses.)

Now, you believe that upward ascent is dependent upon cosmic whims or titanic cultural forces, typical postgrad postmodern nonsense. You would like to take the wind from the sails of those (like myself) who know otherwise, those who know that a man steers his own life. There're curve balls, sure, but a man deals with the surprises and the clever snares of the larger world. If he is strong and worthy, he can conquer them, even as lesser men who're red with jealousy try to excuse away their inferiority.

"I’m sorry, Phil, but that’s just utterly at odds with real life, and believing it disqualifies you from the ranks of the thoughtful."

"Real life" as perceived by the narrow, ideologically colored perspective of Freddie dB. Oh noes, faith based community, blah blah blah.

"“…liberals for shamelessly championing of a culture without judgment,"

Freddie's post is a great example. The irresponsible skank isn't a cautionary tale, a public drain to be condemned. No, she's a victim of some tragedy beyond her making who cannot be held accountable for her lazy, brainless actions. What a joke.

As the son of a dude who's pretty much the American dream incarnate (single parent family, lots of siblings with little money, barely graduated high school, no college, now a well established businessman, but only by working 70+ hours a week), yeah, I think it's bullshit that you're calling bullshit on our country's ancient promise. America was built on the shoulders of millions of poor bastards with little education and families split by disease and alcohol and abuse. Get over it. Enough of the sob stories. The pathos is disgusting. There're winners and there're losers, and the category in which you end up is largely in your own hands.

Well, I suppose the father ... fathers, probably ... are also to blame, but they're probably equally pitiful failures who've shot themselves in the feet so many times that they can no longer walk, either.

Really, how funny is it that Freddie thinks that a woman with two kids, no husband, no high school diploma, and a booze problem has been victimized by anyone save herself?

"My point exactly: Philip Primeau does not know of what he speaks.

It’s easy for everyone who’s not in it and hard for everyone who is. Funny about that."

How do I not know of what I speak? How hard would it have been for that woman to buy condoms, skate through Ghetto High, cop a steady (if ill paying) job, and use that money in combination with loans to attend community college? And so on and so on. Plenty of people do it. But plenty don't. The ones who don't are the losers. They've always existed, the unrepentant wretches, and they always will. Boo hoo.

America doesn't promise a fortune for every man. But it does promise that every man has a shot at one. That many are too stupid or lazy to do so is a pity, but no surprise.

Both conservatives and liberals are responsible for the destruction of the American dream (or its transubstantiation into a fiction): Conservatives (and their neoliberal bedfellows) for allowing the dramatic exit of American industry, that foundation of the middle class; liberals for shamelessly championing of a culture without judgment, a culture wherein a single mom with two children and a booze problem and no HS diploma is somehow - hah! - a victim.

Additionally, doing the bare minimum is not "working hard." I don't want to hear about "hard working" Wal-Mart cashiers, unless they're like twelve years old. To be "hard working" is to go above and beyond, to be entrepreneurial and intrepid; to start one's own business or actively climb the ladder of an established one; to (ding ding!) CAPITALIZE on those fortunes afforded all Americans by virtue of their birth in this find land, namely access to a democratic and dynamic market system that can be manipulated through intelligence and diligence to produce untold riches.

"I would dearly love these guys, or Andrew, to step into the body of a single black mother from Hartford with two children, no high school diploma, an alcohol addiction and no background of being properly parented. "

Why did she not take elementary precautions against getting pregnant? Why did she have such poor choice in judgment in her lover? And, hell, even if she screwed up once, why in God's name TWICE? Why didn't she graduate from high school? Why does she abuse alcohol?

Seems to me that her destitution is well deserved and hard earned.

Succeeding in life means more than being a diligent 9-5 worker. You need LIFE ETHICS, not just a WORK ETHIC. That reality once constituted the heart of the "American fiction" of which you speak so sneeringly.

Empire builders have always labored under the (not totally false) belief that they are engaging in a sort of humanitarian venture. You know, civilizing the barbarians and all that jazz. As I said, it's not 100-percent bunk, but it allows them to ignore or excuse away the massive evils inherent with engineering foreign peoples. "We might have destroyed 1,000 years of traditional culture, but we gave them roads and hospitals!" Maybe it can be worth it, but too often the imperialists, not the imperialized, are the ones who judge whether or not it is.

Sonny comes off every bit as venomous as those he ridicules, if not more. If he believes turnabout is fair plays, etc., then everyone should be free to cuss and curse, since politics has always been infused with nasty commentary. So what gives? If the only way to break the cycle is to turn the other cheek, he should be pulling a true Jesus H. Christ right about now, instead of going into pit bull mode.

Not to say he thinks very highly of his profession, which ultimately amounts of a distinguished form of whining.