Education Common Sense and Wisdom.

It is utterly staggering how many clueless individuals confidently parrot the phrase, "education doesn’t make you smart," without ever bothering to define what intellect actually means. Usually, these people fall back on the lazy defense of "common sense." Let’s destroy that myth immediately: there is no such thing as common sense. The so-called common sense of the masses is generally absolute garbage, an accumulation of unexamined prejudices, old wives' tales, and intellectual laziness. There is nothing good, reliable, or intelligent about most people's ideas of common sense; it is merely a weapon used by the uneducated to justify their own ignorance. Let’s correct the record: education absolutely builds intelligence by providing the foundational framework of knowledge, but how you apply that knowledge dictates your wisdom. There is a massive, fundamental difference between being educated and being wise, and it is about time the masses learned it. Instead, society is flooded with people possessing so little education and such a microscopic understanding of how the world works that they remain entirely eager to dispense unsolicited advice on subjects they are catastrophically unqualified to address. This is the textbook manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect—the delusion that executing a single, minuscule task passably well once in life suddenly grants someone total comprehension of an entire profession. 

​Furthermore, intelligence requires continuous application; simply earning a degree decades ago means nothing if the knowledge has been left to rot. For instance, I know a house painter who holds a degree in fine art, but he has never used that education since his graduation sixty years ago. If you attempt to discuss fine art with him today, he cannot engage in the conversation because he simply does not know it anymore. You must actively apply what you learn, or the education vanishes. Having a dusty piece of paper on the wall does not grant lifelong expertise if the brain has gone dormant. 

​This Dunning-Kruger delusion reveals a pathetic hierarchy of arrogance completely devoid of intellectual humility. We see it constantly in the business world: the bookkeeper poo-poos the certified accountant because the bookkeeper thinks they are the only one who truly knows what numbers need to be plugged into the system. Then, that very accountant turns around and poo-poos the economist, completely blind to the fact that the economist possesses a vastly superior understanding of macroeconomic systems and economic theory than any accountant ever will. To top it all off, the independent businessman arrives to poo-poo the entire lot of them, arrogantly believing he can run his empire entirely on gut instinct without the advice of any of these experts. It is a comedy of unearned confidence. A person possessing a truly intelligent, humble brain actually recognizes their own limitations and respects the boundaries of specialized expertise, rather than assuming their narrow vantage point grants them universal mastery. 

​Perhaps nowhere is this unearned confidence more terrifying and dangerous than in the realms of health, medicine, and healthcare. The medical profession is a brutal, exceptionally difficult discipline requiring grueling years of specialized study, yet ninety percent of the public knows absolutely nothing about how human physiology or pharmaceuticals actually function. This ignorance does not stop them from playing doctor, nor does it stop unqualified fringe practitioners from overstepping their boundaries. We constantly see chiropractors stepping completely outside their scope to lecture people on complex systemic health issues they are utterly unqualified to treat. Worse yet, naturopaths confidently dispense opinions on pharmaceuticals and pharmacology when they possess zero legitimate biochemical training on the subject. For me to tolerate advice from these charlatans, or to argue with actual medical researchers, would be as utterly absurd as me trying to lecture my father-in-law on woodworking when the man has spent his entire life doing it exceptionally well, or me trying to instruct my mother-in-law on investing and finances when she has successfully managed those systems for the majority of her life. It takes a severe lack of self-awareness to walk up to a lifelong expert and assume your baseline opinion holds equal weight. 

​We see the exact same delusion in discussions around religion and theology. People love to lecture others on faith as if they are biblical scholars simply because they sat through Sunday school, relying on basic, uncritical interpretations. Newsflash: we all went to Sunday school. Real theology is a deeply complex, independent academic discipline, and it becomes outright dangerous when intellectually lazy people start treating nuanced texts as literal truth under the guise of common sense. The same farce occurs in project management; people treat it like an effortless job that anyone can handle based on instinct alone. Sure, anyone can do it—anyone can do it completely wrong and crash an entire operation into the ground. 

​True intelligence requires the humility to recognize your own limitations and respect actual credentials, rather than assuming your baseline intuition is sufficient. For instance, I do not handle finances because I am not good at them, so I leave that specialized work to professionals. I hire experts to manage my taxes and my bookkeeping. Recognizing a personal deficit and choosing not to engage in it does not make someone stupid; it makes them rational. But you will never see me lecturing a professional accountant when I do not hold an accounting degree. People completely lack that basic decency today, especially when it comes to child-rearing. Everyone thinks they have the "common sense" required to raise children simply because they possess the basic biological capacity to breed. Raising a child correctly is not a product of blindly copying your parents or trusting your gut, considering that ninety percent of the time, parents completely screwed it up. People need to find some damn humility and admit that they are at least a little bit damaged by their upbringing, rather than passing those broken patterns down while pretending they hold a degree in parenting. 

​This suffocating, unsolicited advice extends completely into how people choose to live their lives, driven by a herd mentality that people mistake for practical wisdom. Society loves to dictate a rigid, boilerplate checklist for success based on this collective nonsense: you must own a house, a car, and an RRSP. But what if you do not want those specific burdens? What if you would genuinely prefer the freedom of a condo over a house, or simply choose not to own a vehicle? It is your life to live exactly how you see fit. The absolute worst of these critics are the miserable souls who claim traveling is a waste of money and demand that every single penny be hoarded for retirement because "it's just common sense." I refuse to save all my living for when I am dead or almost dead. It is time for people to mind their own business, recognize their profound ignorance, realize their collective instinct is garbage, and stop lecturing others on lives, medical sciences, religions, and professions they know absolutely nothing about. 

The Family

The story of humanity begins not with an empire, but with a single family. In the quiet of the primeval world, Adam and Eve took their first steps, passing the breath of life down to Seth, a lineage that eventually found its way through the rising waters of a global flood inside a wooden vessel commanded by Noah. Out of that restart, the human family expanded across the earth, eventually focusing on a wanderer named Abraham and his wife Sarah. Underneath a canopy of desert stars, a profound promise was whispered to them: from their old age would come a family as numerous as those celestial lights, a lineage carried forward by Isaac, and then by Jacob, who wrestled with the divine and emerged with the name Israel. Jacob’s twelve sons, though fractured by jealousy and hardship, ultimately united in Egypt, where Joseph preserved them from starvation, and Judah received the blessing of a lasting royal future. Generations later, when the family fell into bitter slavery, the brothers Moses and Aaron stepped forward to break the chains, leading the growing tribes through the wilderness toward a promised homeland.

​As the tribes grew into a kingdom, a young shepherd boy named David was anointed king, receiving a divine guarantee that his specific line would produce an eternal ruler. Though David's son Solomon built a magnificent temple, human failures eventually fractured the kingdom, scattering the families into distant foreign exiles. Yet, through centuries of silence and displacement, a stubborn ember of hope remained burning in the darkness. That hope burst into reality in a quiet village called Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph, both descendants of King David's ancient royal house, welcomed a child named Jesus. His birth was heralded by his cousin, John the Baptist, who announced that the ancient promises were finally arriving. Jesus walked the earth, calling together a new group of brothers, including Peter and Andrew, James and John, to form the nucleus of a transformed community.

​This specific Judeo-Christian narrative tracks a deeply influential branch of human history, but it exists as one vital melody within a much larger symphony of global human experience. While this specific lineage was unfolding in the ancient Near East, other massive branches of the human family were simultaneously developing their own profound understandings of the cosmos, from the Vedic traditions of India to the philosophical frameworks of China and the indigenous spiritualities of the Americas. The Jewish tradition grounds this specific narrative in the concrete reality of a chosen people, focusing on historical covenants, a distinct homeland, and a sacred law meant to preserve an ethical way of living in a volatile world. For Jews, the story is a continuous, living testament to enduring identity, resilience, and a specific relationship with the Creator. Christians later inherited this foundational history, accepting it as the essential prologue that prepared the world for a universal expansion through Jesus, transforming a localized tribal covenant into a global spiritual invitation.

​Both perspectives, while distinct in their theological destinations, share the same roots in the soil of the ancient Levant. When viewed against the broader backdrop of human history, this Judeo-Christian narrative does not erase the stories of other faiths; rather, it weaves together with them, demonstrating a universal human impulse to seek meaning, structure communities around moral laws, and find hope in something greater than ourselves. Ultimately, recognizing this specific lineage alongside the diverse spiritual journeys of all civilizations reveals a beautifully interconnected tapestry, showing that while our historical stories and sacred texts may differ, the shared human search for belonging and divine connection unites us all into one single human family. ■

The Cult of American Greatness

You know you are in a cult when your group satisfies six primary indicators of total indoctrination. 

The diagnostic reality is glaring. The Trump movement, MAGA, represents the ultimate manifestation of a cult within the political sphere.

​Applied sociological and psychological criteria demonstrate that the MAGA movement exhibits dynamics structurally identical to those of a destructive cult.

​1. Charismatic Authority: Centralization of absolute loyalty around a single individual whose pronouncements are treated by core followers as infallible truth.

​1A. Evidence: Polls show core followers trust Donald Trump's statements over religious leaders, government agencies, and traditional news sources.

​2. Demand for Unquestioned Loyalty: A cultural environment where dissent, criticism, or deviation from the official narrative results in immediate social ostracization or denunciation.

​2A. Evidence: Republican politicians who criticize Donald Trump face immediate primary challenges and systematic excommunication from the party.

​3. Us versus Them Mentality: Rigid polarization that separates society into an enlightened, righteous ingroup and a corrupt, malicious outgroup.

​3A. Evidence: Rhetoric routinely classifies political opponents and mainstream journalists not as rivals, but as existential enemies of the nation.

​4. Exploitation of Grievance: Systematically targeting social alienation and economic anxieties to offer followers a powerful sense of collective identity and purpose.

​4A. Evidence: Rallies focus intensely on reclaiming a lost golden age from perceived cultural elites who allegedly disrespect the working class.

​5. Persecution Complex: Framing legal investigations, media scrutiny, and political opposition as coordinated, existential conspiracies against Donald Trump and the group.

​5A. Evidence: Felony convictions and federal indictments are repackaged into campaign merchandise and framed as personal martyrdom for the base.

​6. Shared Linguistic Codes: The adoption of exclusive jargon, slogans, and symbolic behaviors that reinforce group solidarity and replace nuanced individual analysis.

​6A. Evidence: The uniform use of red hats, coordinated chants like "fake news," and coded acronyms functions to signal absolute group alignment.

Alberta Strong and Forever Exploited

The Miller family lived on a gravel patch at the edge of a neglected trailer park outside of Red Deer, their lives deeply rooted in the cramped, wood-paneled confines of a rusted-out mobile home that smelled permanently of cheap tobacco and stale engine oil. Norm Miller spent his days tinkering beneath the hoods of two decaying, mismatched pickup trucks that sat up on concrete blocks in the weeds, vehicles with rotted floorboards and faded paint jobs that had not seen a paved highway in nearly a decade. To the Millers, these decaying relics of consumerism were symbols of a rugged, blue-collar independence that the distant elites in Ottawa allegedly stole from them. Linda, her hands calloused from years of low-wage retail work, decorated the cracked laminate walls of the trailer not with family photographs or local art, but with a sprawling, sun-bleached collection of imported political memorabilia. The teenage boys, raised on a steady diet of algorithmic grievance and late-night internet forums, wore stained camouflage caps and spoke in an affected, performative Southern drawl that they copied from online videos.

​Central to the entire existence of the household was an intense, pseudo-religious devotion to the great god Donald Trump, whose gilded image served as the ultimate spiritual anchor for their profound resentment. A massive, weathered flag bearing the leader's name flew proudly from a makeshift flagpole strapped to the bumper of the rustiest truck, flapping aggressively against the gray Alberta sky. Every family meal became an act of political worship, with Norm preaching about the golden towers of New York and the promised land of Florida while the family nodded in feral agreement. For Norm, achieving this American paradise required a calculated, two-step betrayal of his own country, starting with the immediate realization of Alberta separatism. Cutting ties with Canada was never about true independence, but rather a necessary first step to clear away the federal laws blocking their ultimate goal.

​Once the shackles of Ottawa were broken, the grand design called for a gradual, systematic adoption of the province into the United States, pushing through the political channels until Alberta was officially crowned as the fifty-first state. They genuinely believed that by loudly mimicking the aesthetics of American poverty, adopting the grievances of a foreign electorate, and offering up the provincial oil patch on a silver platter, they could somehow catch the eye of their golden idol and be welcomed as equals. The absolute tragedy of their existence lay in the total blindness to reality, as they threw their meager, desperate loyalty toward a billionaire class that would never look at a rusty Alberta trailer park with anything other than absolute disgust. When the border finally shifted, the Millers discovered that the empire they worshiped viewed them not as proud, liberated patriots, but as second-class territorial outsiders to be ignored and economically exploited. 

Hater Helpers

Before the National Socialist German Workers' Party gained full control of the German state apparatus in 1933, an expansive network of independent, nongovernmental entities distributed propaganda that normalized radical nationalism and anti-democratic sentiment. This grassroots foundation made subsequent state enforcement highly effective. Modern political movements similarly rely on decentralized networks. Under the populist administration of Donald Trump in the United States, political communication mirrors this reliance on non-state actors, using digital platforms and independent influencers to validate political rhetoric from the bottom up. 

​Historical analysis reveals direct structural parallels between the nongovernmental groups of the Weimar era and the decentralized digital media ecosystem supporting modern American populism, illustrating that centralized state control is rarely how radical movements begin:

​The Völkisch Movement (Völkische Bewegung): A loose coalition of nationalist, racist, and cultural organizations that normalized radical fringe ideas into mainstream German society.

​Specific Parallel: Groupings like Moms for Liberty and hyper-partisan online factions that weaponize grievance culture, anti-establishment rhetoric, and reactionary cultural grievances to shift mainstream political dialogue.

​Private Antisemitic Publishers: Independent, profit-driven businesses like Julius Streicher’s Stürmer-Verlag that monetized outrage and turned conspiracy theories into highly profitable media assets.

​Specific Parallel: Alex Jones and his Infowars platform, which systematically converted political paranoia, fringe conspiracy theories, and anti-government rhetoric into a highly lucrative commercial business enterprise before its recent bankruptcy and liquidation proceedings.

​The Alfred Hugenberg Media Network: A massive, privately owned mainstream press and cinema empire that systematically attacked democratic institutions and amplified far-right rhetoric to help validate the Nazi party.

​Specific Parallel: Mainstream right-wing cable enterprises like Fox News along with alternative streaming networks that consistently amplify populist administration narratives, validate populist grievances, and challenge traditional institutional authority.

​The National Socialist German Students' League (NSDStB): Radical student groups that aggressively targeted democratic faculty, dominated university politics, and organized book burnings independently of official state mandates.

​Specific Parallel: Turning Point USA, a heavily funded conservative youth organization that maintains a "Professor Watchlist" to target liberal faculty, trains student politicians, and drives aggressive culture-war messaging across hundreds of high school and college campuses.

​Der Stahlhelm (Steel Helmet): A massive veterans' organization that independently published periodicals promoting aggressive militarism and the "stab-in-the-back" myth regarding the country's political leadership.

​Specific Parallel: Armed civilian groups like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, which maintain independent digital networks to spread election-denial narratives, promote militant patriotism, and frame the political establishment as corrupt traitors. 

​Historical perspective reveals that long before the Nazi regime seized power in 1933, independent publishers, veteran groups like Der Stahlhelm, and student leagues did the heavy lifting by normalizing fringe conspiracy theories and turning public resentment into profitable, mainstream content. Fast forward to today, and the structural mechanics of populism look strikingly familiar. Under the populist administration of Donald Trump, the political movement relies on a decentralized digital ecosystem rather than traditional government channels. Organizations like Turning Point USA, commercial outlets like Infowars, and activist networks like Moms for Liberty validate political rhetoric from the bottom up. The parallel is not necessarily in the specific ideology, but in the reliance on nongovernmental voices to reshape public opinion, making centralized state censorship completely unnecessary when a decentralized network can control the narrative. #History #MediaPolitics #ModernPopulism #DigitalAge 

Maine

The forest rots where rusted iron binds

The broken spruce beneath the heavy winds,

A sullen man pulls down his grease-stained cap,

And swears at maps upon his steering lap,

While gears grind hard within his swelling truck,

Where empty cans of cheap malt liquor muck

The floorboards deep with stale and bitter beer,

While beside him sits his wife with frozen sneer. 

​This line of loggers stripped the valleys bare,

Now spitting curses at the freezing air,

While further down the coast, their kin awake

To harvest what the freezing waters make.

These fishing cousins drink their ale and swear,

With left-wing slogans screamed into the glare,

Who vote for change but keep the ancient spite,

And cast their nets into the blackest night. 

​No picket fences guard these broken lawns,

Where engine parts rust green through foggy dawns,

Yet down the road, the wealthy cousins dwell

Behind white pickets in a silent hell,

Where clean neat borders hide the family shame,

And manicured lawns play a deadlier game. 

​Above this rot, the clever leaders peer,

With razor smiles that mask a quiet fear,

As politicians weave their modern laws,

To trap the common man in unseen claws.

Another brother stands in khaki, stern,

A ranger sworn to watch the brushwood burn,

Who guards with crazed and dark, obsessive zeal

The wild green dandelions beneath his heel;

He tracks the poachers through the stagnant bog,

To shield a weed within the freezing fog. 

​The neighbors curse the state's eternal chill,

As heavy blizzards choke the pine-clad hill,

Yet mock the tourists buying maple sweets

And plastic lobsters on the coastal streets.

They hate the mud, they hate the summer fly,

And curse the grayness of the weeping sky,

Deeming the bitter frost a cruel curse,

Though gentle spring would only bring much worse. 

​The timber cracks, the coastal waters boil,

As dark, intelligent, and heavy toil

Consumes the lineage of this wooded trap,

Where nature snaps the human like a sap.

The screen doors slam, and bitter venom flies

Beneath the weight of gray and heavy skies. 

​The husband roars, a fist upon the hood,

And curses years of harvesting the wood,

While she hurls back a sharp and jagged scream,

To shatter every false and pleasant dream.

The combat spills onto the gravel road,

Where years of silent hatred now unload;

Crushed aluminum cans of cheap warm beer

Are flung through fog to strike the asphalt near. 

​They turn their rage toward the lawn next door,

Where plastic banners signal tribal war,

And spit their insults at the neighbor's sign,

A faded flag of Trump along the line,

Reviling both the symbol and the man,

With every filthy word a drunkard can.

The cold rain falls to wash the gutter clean,

But cannot rinse the dark, domestic spleen. 

​This jagged coast of three thousand long miles

Is choked with rocky cliffs and barren isles,

Where salt mists rise to rot the ancient wood,

And drown the places where old towns once stood.

The Wabanaki ghosts still haunt the stream,

While modern children break the historic dream,

And old Acadian fiddles weep and groan

To mimic winter winds that scrape the bone. 

​From cold Aroostook down to Portland's bay,

A heavy shadow eats the light of day;

The historic Rossini Club may sing its song,

But cannot right a heritage gone wrong.

The independent spirit turns to hate,

Within the borders of this frozen state,

Where isolation breeds a brilliant spite,

And holds the people in a permanent night.

The pine trees groan, the ocean eats the shore,

A dark land waits for what has gone before. 

New England.

T

he salt air burns the lungs with brilliant spite, as awful logic guides the coastal night. The intellect of madness rules the shore, where stinky sweat seeps through the station door. They wear their argyle sweaters, torn and crude, and dance with wild, erratic fortitude. The rhythm rocks through every rotting limb, a powerful, chaotic, joyful hymn. The poor folk howl their unintelligible tunes, beneath the glare of twin, demonic moons. They praise the grand American decay, and laugh as coastal blackness eats the day. 

​The Chevy engine roars, a metal beast, that rushes blindly to the spectral feast. The iron train tracks rattle, shake, and groan, as midnight buses pierce the danger zone. The darkness thickens, heavy with the scent, of ancient fish and lives entirely spent. Each human limb is twitching to the beat, of crazy engines and oppressive heat. The music screams, a sharp, cerebral knife, that cuts the throat of proud American life. The loony laughter echoes from the pier, where happy phantoms conquer every fear. 

​This brilliant, blind damnation never stops, it rocks through buses, trains, and soda shops. The intellect of poverty is clear, they celebrate the shadows drawing near. The checkered woolen patterns flash and spin, above the sweaty, rotting coastal skin. With broken limbs they stomp the muddy ground, and praise the awful darkness they have found. The endless highway stretches to the deep, where loony sailors smile within their sleep. The cycle rolls, the heavy engines roar, and blackness reigns supreme upon the shore. 

Florida

The heavy, humid air of Florida clings,

Where turquoise skies do beam a sweaty blue!

While buzzing bugs do fly on shiny wings,

A spectral beard of green drifts into view! 

​The happy swain arrives with grease and oil,

A laughing fellow caked in mud so bright,

While Castro’s ghost glides o'er Floridian soil,

To watch these playful hearts in pure delight! 

​Through thick, mosquitoed air they do proceed,

And hand in hand they let their bodies slide,

As phantoms puff cigars amidst the weed,

They share a jolly laugh with breathless pride! 

​They dance and sing in hot and sticky sweat,

While swampy fragrance mixes with decay,

A ghostly shadow turns them violet,

And sends their giggles winding on their way! 

​A little chest holds moldy Limburger,

Beside a puppy with a pirate’s crest,

A Marxist spirit watches in a blur,

And bounces on the sheets where they did rest! 

​Then Donald Trump leaps wildly on the bed,

With orange glow and windswept, yellow hair,

While El Comandante floats overhead,

And yells out "Tariffs! Tariffs!" in the air! 

​The door flies open for a jolly guest,

An artist dressed in blue and tight Speedo,

With Cuba's specter watching what's expressed,

Who sings a bright mariachi with a glow! 

​He tosses hats into the heavy air,

While outside, salt-spiced winds begin to rise,

The military ghost stands floating there,

And brings a splash of gulf-stream to their eyes! 

​The tropical gales blow and spin the cheese,

The swimming pup, the happy lovers' plight,

The phantom drifts past singers on their knees,

In swirling, blue, and most amusing night! 

​Now see the tempest suddenly recede,

As softer winds let go their playful might,

The floating ghost applauds the backward deed,

To bring a hush upon the blue-tinged night! 

​The bouncing leader leaves his tariff song,

The happy artist packs his final hat,

The green fatigue-clad shadow glides along,

To leave a quiet chamber where they sat! 

​The sneezing whelp does find a cozy rest,

No longer swimming in a watery grave,

While Castro blesses cheese of foul protest,

Within the broken chest that silence gave! 

​A deeper warmth returns to sticky skin,

As spectral revolutions fade from view,

Banishing all the chaos that had been

With majestic peace inside the azure room! 

​The joyous swain, now cleansed of mud and oil,

Clasps tight his love in ultimate embrace,

No longer watched by ghosts of foreign soil,

Rejoicing in this calm and sacred space! 

​And now, beneath the glorious midnight hour,

With hearts that soar above the wind and rain,

A brilliant splendor floods the azure bower,

Forever safe from storm and hurricane!