Small Hijack: Do you remember that game show? That was a Hoot!
Summary
For those that never saw it… four very minor celebrities would be given some obscure artifact and each would tell a story about what it was. Only one was the truth. Well, me and my sister would watch this at 11 pm. Our dad was a mechanical/agricultural engineer, pilot, general fix-it guy, so it seemed like every episode had stuff that was well known in the house. We would laugh ourselves sick sometimes about the shit the panel would come up with.
I remember the Liar’s Club game show! The only celebrity that I can remember appearing on it was Larry Hovis, of Hogan’s Heroes, who seemed to be on there every week.
That was a right pretty speech. But I ask you, what is a contract? Webster’s defines it as an agreement under the law which is unbreakable…
But then again, I am not Lionel Hutz and Donald Trump is not Homer Simpson (he’s actually much closer to the devil incarnate, except of course that the devil does not exist, while Herr Trump very much does).
Anyway, what we ultimately settled on in my introductory course on contract law was that a contract is a promise (not even an agreement between two parties, mind you, just a promise) that the law will enforce. A promise that the law will enforce.
If the law will not enforce it, ipso facto there is no contract. Easy as that!
I shared Trump’s Easter post with Mom. Her response:
“I’m having a really hard time with this one. I’m going over to Dar’s for dinner, but you can bet I’ll be checking it out later. For sure! Thanks for sending it.”
This is almost the same as an exchange I had with my Dad back in the early 1990s as he & his wife were well down the Rush-Limbaugh slope into becoming total ditto-heads.
Some big news event had happened yesterday. I arrived at their place in the evening and among other conversation happened to mention whatever it was. Which event I don’t now recall, but was generally of some transient political significance.
Anyhow, his response was seared into my mind for the rest of my life: “I don’t know; I haven’t listened to Rush Limbaugh yet.” WTF??/?!!!
He was being utterly sincere and unguarded in what he said and what he meant. Dad had never been a follower. He was rather prouod of marching to his own slightly odd drummer. But now he wanted only to be told what news mattered and what to think of about it. It wasn’t senility; he was just barely 60 and otherwise mentally / psychologically typical. But he’d swallowed the “I’ll let Rush’s propaganda do my thinking for me” hook, line, and sinker.
Scary shit. And the propaganda purveyors are far more sophisticated now than 30+ years ago. And have been spewing their nonsense for the whole 30+ years. The seductive BS is piled very high and very deep.
This reminds me of what I heard a Texas representative in the House say not too long after Trump won the 2024 election. “We have to push President Trump’s agenda through,” as if that was his sole responsiblity as an elected official. Nothing about working with President Trump, what his constituents need, or even our agenda, but his agenda. I’m starting to think a significant number of Republicans have a domination fetish.
