Okay, let me explain this in the simplest possible way…
you…are…an…idiot.
–Scott Adams, Dilbert
Lately…the Peter Principle has given way to the “Dilbert Principle.” The basic concept of the Dilbert Principle is that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management.
― Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle: A Cubicle’s-Eye View of Bosses, Meetings, Management Fads & Other Workplace Afflictions
You probably know a Pointy-Haired Boss, don’t you? It’s the manager who’s so grossly incapable of anything useful that he’s finally put in charge of everything. Afraid others will recognize his malicious ignorance, he sucks up all authority and delegates all blame. Scott Adams writes a cartoon called Dilbert that highlights these worthless boobs. But Scott gets one thing wrong. When the biggest idiots manage government, they can do the most damage possible.
Not all incompetent boobs work in business. A lot of them, the most incompetent and most malicious ones, work in government. The very worst work in places like Washington, DC and Brussels, Belgium. And these boobs demand the most power, create the most chaos, and punish the most people for even hinting they have spotted the idiot’s stupidity.
These boobs are the Pointy-Haired Bosses of the Universe,** or PHBUs for short**. (Not be confused with the abbreviation for Phenylbenzylurethane, PhBU, though both are highly explosive and very dangerous to handle.)
Last Thursday, voters in the United Kingdom pointed out the stupidity of the idiots who run the European Union by declaring the UK’s independence. Ordinary people all over the world celebrated this bold act of courage and common sense. But the Pointy-Haired Bosses of the Universe are mad as hell, and their uber-matieralistic mininons are scared to death. Now the punishment begins.
**Now the punishment begins. **
When a worker at a company irritates the Pointy-Haired Boss, the worker usually gets humiliated or fired. When an entire country of workers irritates the Pointy-Haired Bosses of the Universe, war might even break out.
The PHBUs at the EU have built cushy lives for themselves, and that cush is paid for with taxes extracted from workers in places like the UK. If the EU and the European Central Bank don’t stop this independence stuff, pretty soon the PHBUs will have to go out and find real jobs–jobs that are far less cushy and jobs that pay a lot less. In these real jobs, they might even be held accountable, God forbid.
Ben Hunt, my favorite economics writer, says the EU and the ECB have no choice but to destroy the British economy.
From a game theory perspective, the EU and ECB need to crush the UK. It’s like the Greek debt negotiations … it was never about Greece, it was always about sending a signal that dissent and departure will not be tolerated to the countries that matter to the survival of the Eurozone (France, Italy, maybe Spain). Now they (and by “they” I mean the status quo politicians throughout the EU, not just Germany) are going to send that same signal to the same countries by hurting the UK any way they can, creating a Narrative that it’s economic death to leave the EU, much less the Eurozone. It’s not spite. It’s purely rational. It’s the smart move.
Since Germany is the richest country in the EU, Germany pretty much runs the EU and the ECB. So the coming war–financial or otherwise–will be between Germany and England. Sort of like the last two big wars.
[UPDATE: EU Foreign Affairs Chief Calls for Creation of EU Army]
You’re probably thinking I think Brexit was a bad idea. Who wants another world war, after all? I don’t. But I applaud Brexit for the same reason I’m glad Thomas Jefferson wrote our own Declaration of Independence 240 years ago.
When the colonies broke with Brittain, there was hell to pay. I’m sure the materialists of the day were pissed at the Continental Congressmen who voted to thumb our red, white, and blue noses at King George, but we ignored those money-grubbing misers. Freedom and liberty meant more to our founders than a few points on His Majesty’s Stock Exchange. Yes, our yankee currency got crushed. Yes, some shoppe keepers had to delay their retirements by a few years. If memory serves, there was even some armed conflict between us and the Brits. But in the end, we won our independence from a tyrannical government full of Pointy-Haired Bosses. The American Dream came true: we owned our own lives. Or at least some of us did. It took until the 13th Amendment for the American Dream to reach everyone. But it did.
Over next 200 years, PHBUs tried to reign us in. And we always fought back. So the PHBUs looked for other people to boss around. Since people in the UK look a lot like us and talk a lot like us and even watch many of the same movies as we do, the PHBUs sucked the Brits into a European Super Government run by the biggest idiots on the planet.
Now after 40 years of this European central government, the Brits have decided they value being British more than the current value of their investment portfolios. They want to live under English law, not Sharia law. They want to speak English, not Arabic. They want to decide what it means to be British and to exclude people who show no signs of accepting their ways.
I feel the same way about America as the Brits feel about the UK. You probably do too.
If anyone calls you a racist for wanting to live free, they’re lying. Those people are liars. Most likely, they’re very materialistic people who think only about money and material things. Materialists hate any “risk” to their material comfort. They only want more More MORE! They want to Have. It. All. And they want it all right now, dammit! And after they get it all, they want more!
If they’re not pure materialists, the people calling you a racist are Pointy-Haired Bosses of the Universe. Or wannabes. PHBUs hate freedom because free people don’t need much from government. Free people just need government to build roads, enforce contracts, and keep out invaders who want to destroy their cultures. And maybe a little social safety net for the truly incapable people–like dethroned PHBUs.
The PHBUs feed off the insatiable materialism of the uber-materialists, promising more and more stuff in exchange for more and more power.
The clear-thinking people, like the ones in the UK who voted to leave the EU, see the pattern in this stuff-for-power swap. While the stuff promised never quite makes it to the insatiable materialists, the power sure as fuck makes it to the government. PHBUs demand power payments in advance and promise to deliver the goods some time in the future. Maybe. And that “some time” never seems to come. There’s always an insolvent mega-bank to bail out or a wave of terrorist-infused refugees to relocate.
There’s nothing racist or xenophobic or ignorant about the Brexit or about Trumpism. We’re just doing what people do when the Pointy-Haired Bosses of the Universe show their incompetence and malicious intent. We dissolve “the political bands which connected” us to the PHBUs and create new governments that reflect our cultures and values. What the UK did is precisely what our founders did in 1776. And for almost identical reasons.
So stop apologizing for wanting to own your own life.
The UK has permission to be British, and you have permission to Trump.