Memoranda of Congress
Motto : The statement of Senator Dilworthy naturally carried conviction to the minds of the committee. It was close, logical, unanswerable; it bore many internal evidences of its truth. For instance, it is customary in all countries for business men to loan large sums of money in bank bills instead of checks. It is customary for the lender to make no memorandum of the transaction. It is customary, for the borrower to receive the money without making a memorandum of it, or giving a note or a receipt for it's use -- the borrower is not likely to die or forget about it. It is customary to lend nearly anybody money to start a bank with especially if you have not the money to lend him and have to borrow it for the purpose. It is customary to carry large sums of money in bank bills about your person or in your trunk. It is customary to hand a large sum in bank bills to a man you have just been introduced to (if he asks you to do it,) to be conveyed to a distant town and delivered to another party. It is not customary to make a memorandum of this transaction; it is not customary for the conveyor to give a note or a receipt for the money; it is not customary to require that he shall get a note or a receipt from the man he is to convey it to in the distant town. It would be at least singular in you to say to the proposed conveyor, "You might be robbed; I will deposit the money in a bank and send a check for it to my friend through the mail."
As you've perhaps intuited, the motto comes from the utterly excellent The Gilded Age -- A Tale Of Today by SLC & CDW ; a book I very much recommend to the reader not merely as perhaps the closest to an actual novel our decerebrated, aintellectual & culturelessi colonies ever produced, but rather (and principally) as a fine testimony to the early days of the birthing of the pantsuitii.
Since there's apparently all this expectation of public review of private affairs, enough so as to insist on the usage of checks in preference of bills, let us then make a Memorandum right here, as it is apparently right and proper, of all recent enough Congress so as to readily come to mind.
Article I. Most recently, as I lay in bed half awake (awoken, it was established retrospectively, by the need to urinate) I called in the attendant slavegirl to suck my cock, which she did. Her technique is extraordinary, well refined to nigh-perfection, but as I'm not sure I actually even fully understand it, I'll pass the matter in silence. Then I went and had a delicious piss.
Article II. Before that, Congress consisted of fucking the girl where she stood (there's excellent reason for only keeping about the house sluts tall enough to take it standing -- this exactly, you can fuck them where they stand). Do you know that ledge the generous ass of a chick with an ass quite as generous as that makes when you're taking her standing from behind ? You can hold her firmly be the shoulders or upper arms, it's a very pleasantly dominant sister to ye olde military rape (with the belt on the ankles, that we've already discussed).
Article III. Even before that I took a girl from behind while she was kneeling on the bed and eating out another.
Article IV. I took one in the ass at the edge of the bed at some point before this, but the memory is getting fuzzy ; other than that she bled a little and came quite a lot.
There, now that the bills've been all chequed via memoranda it's all regular and proper and everything, is that it ?
Anyway, leaving satire aside : this indeed is the fundamental problem of business, that it doesn't neatly split between public and private, between the forum and the harem. Yet this truth notwithstanding, whining idly about "corruption" is no kind of solutioniii, but mere infantile idiocy typical of the infantile idiots apt to engage in suchiv.
What can you do ?
PS. This article exists because I happened to look over Trilema today and discovered that hey, kinda not very many articles this month ? So I wrote one, deliberately, which is exactly not how I normally do it. In fact, it's the first time in nearly 10`000 pieces that I write one because I want to write one rather than because I perceive something I want to say. Could you tell ?
———- It is rather evident reviewing the extant historical testimony that sometime cca 19th century the dimwits across the ocean discovered that they, unlike mother Europe, had no culture -- and in the fashion specific to the place they did not despair, nor disharten, but rather set themselves industriously to making one, with all the deliberate, clenching square jaws dedication the ungoverned elements of the desolate wilds selected in them. An item fashioned is just as good as the item grown, a truth to which any lame man with a game leg can readily confess. [↩]
- Published 1873, which is to say a mere decade after The Traitor crushed the pre-existing Republic to replace it with the usual Secretariat.
Consider this other quote :
Straightway, all the papers were filled with her name, and all the dead walls flamed with it. The papers called down imprecations upon her head; they reviled her without stint; they wondered if all sense of decency was dead in this shameless murderess, this brazen lobbyist, this heartless seducer of the affections of weak and misguided men; they implored the people, for the sake of their pure wives, their sinless daughters, for the sake of decency, for the sake of public morals, to give this wretched creature such a rebuke as should be an all-sufficient evidence to her and to such as her, that there was a limit where the flaunting of their foul acts and opinions before the world must stop; certain of them, with a higher art, and to her a finer cruelty, a sharper torture, uttered no abuse, but always spoke of her in terms of mocking eulogy and ironical admiration. Everybody talked about the new wonder, canvassed the theme of her proposed discourse, and marveled how she would handle it.
Where shall you find better, earlier statement of this the fundamental doctrine of pantsuitism, fully formed and entirely visible ever since the pretenders first constituted in a so-called "papacy" -- that they somehow own the prime mover ; that this ownership is not to be disputed ; that, in other words, "there is a point past which the opposition must be silent" ? Certainly puts in historical perspective certain conceits of contemporary pantsuit in regard to, say, the freedom of speech, and so forth, yes ?
Or consider Beriah Sellers entirely modern discussion of corruption :
December 1--, found Washington Hawkins and Col. Sellers once more at the capitol of the nation, standing guard over the University bill. The former gentleman was despondent, the latter hopeful. Washington's distress of mind was chiefly on Laura's account. The court would soon sit to try her case, he said, and consequently a great deal of ready money would be needed in the engineering of it. The University bill was sure to pass this time, and that would make money plenty, but might not the help come too late? Congress had only just assembled, and delays were to be feared.
“Well,” said the Colonel, “I don't know but you are more or less right, there. Now let's figure up a little on, the preliminaries. I think Congress always tries to do as near right as it can, according to its lights. A man can't ask any fairer than that. The first preliminary it always starts out on, is to clean itself, so to speak. It will arraign two or three dozen of its members, or maybe four or five dozen, for taking bribes to vote for this and that and the other bill last winter.”
“It goes up into the dozens, does it?”
“Well, yes; in a free country likes ours, where any man can run for Congress and anybody can vote for him, you can't expect immortal purity all the time -- it ain't in nature. Sixty or eighty or a hundred and fifty people are bound to get in who are not angels in disguise, as young Hicks the correspondent says; but still it is a very good average; very good indeed. As long as it averages as well as that, I think we can feel very well satisfied. Even in these days, when people growl so much and the newspapers are so out of patience, there is still a very respectable minority of honest men in Congress.”
“Why a respectable minority of honest men can't do any good, Colonel.”
“Oh, yes it can, too”
“Why, how?”
“Oh, in many ways, many ways.”
“But what are the ways?”
“Well -- I don't know -- it is a question that requires time; a body can't answer every question right off-hand. But it does do good. I am satisfied of that.”
“All right, then; grant that it does good; go on with the preliminaries.”
“That is what I am coming to. First, as I said, they will try a lot of members for taking money for votes. That will take four weeks.”
“Yes, that's like last year; and it is a sheer waste of the time for which the nation pays those men to work -- that is what that is. And it pinches when a body's got a bill waiting.”
“A waste of time, to purify the fountain of public law? Well, I never heard anybody express an idea like that before. But if it were, it would still be the fault of the minority, for the majority don't institute these proceedings. There is where that minority becomes an obstruction -- but still one can't say it is on the wrong side. Well, after they have finished the bribery cases, they will take up cases of members who have bought their seats with money. That will take another four weeks.”
“Very good; go on. You have accounted for two-thirds of the session.”
“Next they will try each other for various smaller irregularities, like the sale of appointments to West Point cadetships, and that sort of thing -- mere trifling pocket-money enterprises that might better be passed over in silence, perhaps, but then one of our Congresses can never rest easy till it has thoroughly purified itself of all blemishes -- and that is a thing to be applauded.”
“How long does it take to disinfect itself of these minor impurities?”
“Well, about two weeks, generally.”
“So Congress always lies helpless in quarantine ten weeks of a session. That's encouraging. Colonel, poor Laura will never get any benefit from our bill. Her trial will be over before Congress has half purified itself. And doesn't it occur to you that by the time it has expelled all its impure members there may not be enough members left to do business legally?”
“Why I did not say Congress would expel anybody.”
“Well won't it expel anybody?”
“Not necessarily. Did it last year? It never does. That would not be regular.”
“Then why waste all the session in that tomfoolery of trying members?”
“It is usual; it is customary; the country requires it.”
“Then the country is a fool, I think.”
“Oh, no. The country thinks somebody is going to be expelled.”
“Well, when nobody is expelled, what does the country think then?”
“By that time, the thing has strung out so long that the country is sick and tired of it and glad to have a change on any terms. But all that inquiry is not lost. It has a good moral effect.”
“Who does it have a good moral effect on?”
“Well -- I don't know. On foreign countries, I think. We have always been under the gaze of foreign countries. There is no country in the world, sir, that pursues corruption as inveterately as we do. There is no country in the world whose representatives try each other as much as ours do, or stick to it as long on a stretch. I think there is something great in being a model for the whole civilized world, Washington.”
“You don't mean a model; you mean an example.”
“Well, it's all the same; it's just the same thing. It shows that a man can't be corrupt in this country without sweating for it, I can tell you that.”
“Hang it, Colonel, you just said we never punish anybody for villainous practices.”
“But good God we try them, don't we! Is it nothing to show a disposition to sift things and bring people to a strict account? I tell you it has its effect.”
“Oh, bother the effect! What is it they do? How do they proceed? You know perfectly well -- and it is all bosh, too. Come, now, how do they proceed?”
“Why they proceed right and regular -- and it ain't bosh, Washington, it ain't bosh. They appoint a committee to investigate, and that committee hears evidence three weeks, and all the witnesses on one side swear that the accused took money or stock or something for his vote. Then the accused stands up and testifies that he may have done it, but he was receiving and handling a good deal of money at the time and he doesn't remember this particular circumstance -- at least with sufficient distinctness to enable him to grasp it tangibly. So of course the thing is not proven -- and that is what they say in the verdict. They don't acquit, they don't condemn. They just say, 'Charge not proven.' It leaves the accused in a kind of a shaky condition before the country, it purifies Congress, it satisfies everybody, and it doesn't seriously hurt anybody. It has taken a long time to perfect our system, but it is the most admirable in the world, now.”
And don't you fucking dare run to ye old relics of "but MP! things have changed!" because you know as well as everyone that they've "changed" only as a defense from change and nothing more. [↩]
- From the logs :
lobbes: this thread puts much in perspective. In all my arguments with socialist aquaintances, it always seems like it boils down to "well, if there's failure that just means we haven't tried xyz magical configuration of policies yet!". I.e. "goal posts" can be moved ad infinitum (in their eyes, that is)
mircea_popescu: very much that exactly. the pantsuit rides on a high and mighty horse of "oh, capitalists don't account for ALL the externalities", hence its trojan horse of "environmentalism", because mind you that people making the civilisation run haven't in their ledger of costs and benefits a line for the obscure pondfish of extinction, and this, while epsilon, IS TILL NOT ZERO!!! concerntrololol. MEANWHILE, however, they have 100% unaccounted for the time externality. so basically it's a contest consisting of a guy without legs going about finding fault with people's fingers. because he's decided "legs don't count", and so as he has much better hands than the rest of those losers he should be captain of the football team. somehow we're asked to forgive the plain fact that pantsuit's socialist paradise will NEVER come, because let's all focus on how some species got extincted for sucking bad enough to need the measure.There's a reason socialism strictly exists as the religion of the stupid -- whether that stupidity is mere infantilism or actual retardation. [↩]
- There are not many natural errors that can quite hold a candle (lol) to the fair and balanced assessment by the sexually innocent boy of the sexual usage his father puts his mother to -- there is no other mode of sexual congress besides rape to the infantile mind specifically because "who in her right mind would want, let alone utterly need the bruises, and the tears, and the marginal asphixia and the sheer exhaustion and all the mixed fluids everywhere". Right ?
The lol is there because the Romanian expression equivalent denotes the (useless in any case, perhaps even unwelcome) act of holding a candle for someone while they're fucking -- the idea being that the act works without any particular need to see anything, it is of nature rather than artifice. In any case, the term "natural" in that context is quite the term of art -- that herding herbivores naturally run upon birth is natural in the sense that the newborn don't need any teaching, and will reproduce the behaviour irrespective of your attempts at "nurture". Natural, that which is of nature. [↩]
