THREAD. One of most frequent & ridiculous responses to my complaint that WE ARE NOW LED BY OCTOGENARIANS DYING IN OFFICE is some variation on “age doesn’t matter”, proud pronouncements about how “their age doesn’t bother me”, & accusation that my tweets were “ageist.”

Bullshit.
1) If you think that (outside of some outlying exceptions) it’s good & normal to work in a demanding & important position of authority until you die you need to get examine yourself. This is a kind of sickness of soul—a repugnant, selfish grasping. These are gaping maws of ego.
What should happen is a conscious transition of power. You start to decline—part of the work of a great leader is to then prepare for exit from the stage. This means getting your things in order after training and mentoring those who can potentially take your place.
A leader not looking to replace themselves or their role in an any organization or culture is usually selfish asshole. Holding onto power until you die is usually a kind of abuse of office & power. It disrespects the office & those you serve. It makes clear it was all about you.
2) The claim that people are still able to perform all facets of their jobs equally well at any age is laughably false. It’s unconscionable that so many out there think it’s somehow bigoted to point out scientific, biological truth:
No, we don’t perform as well in our LATE 80s as we do when younger. Deal with it. What’s wrong w/you people? You think these senile old power-drunk ancients of days haven’t lost a step? Watch ACB hearing. This isn’t worth arguing. How anyone cld claim such a dumb thing is, tho.
My suspicion is that boomer understanding of individual freedom includes notion that we must not be bound or constrained by nature, including the natural aging process. So we deny it exists. And therefore deny our differing roles and responsibilities as we age. But it gets worse:
Another reason they work until they die w/no thought to future or the common good is that this is all they have. They cannot transition to transferring power to a new gen b/c they never mentored one & don’t care. Their job & status is their identity. So they dare not leave it.
A health soul would look forward to setting their affairs in order: writing, reading, & teaching after stepping down from the burden of office (and for good people it is a burden). They would want to spend time with family. They would want to rest, recreate, & prepare for death.
But these doddering fools can’t do any of that—terrified of death, & perhaps terrified & guilty in their private lives, they’ve no inner life & no reading/writing to do. They want no rest, no preparation. Like vampires, addicted to office/status to stay alive. Drink young blood.
So. @InezFeltscher and all the rest of you: it’s unprecedented & historic. There’s *never* been a time in which there were this many old people in proportion to the rest of the population. If we want to get through this era without collapse we must make this an explicit issue.
Chris Caldwell has been recently and wisely making this point about the unprecedented proportions, @InezFeltscher.
He made me realize how important this dynamic is—& how rhetorically hidden. Unlocked some levels. Re Gen X tho—or anyone else—problem is barriers as much as anything else. You can’t get power unless you take it. There’ no plan on any side to transition & skill up younger leaders.
In conclusion, let me suggest that a large part of why our institutions are failing is b/c they are elderly & top heavy: they have failed to pass anything on. They have no transition plan. They have no younger replacement leadership. Their vision fades. And so they will die out.

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More from @docMJP

14 Oct
THREAD-O on the dictionary...

The Modern Nightmare: where all words and meaning expressed by the individual, no matter how jarring or contrary, are absorbed or deconstructed and inexorably incorporated into The Narrative.
The Hyperreal Nightmare: The Narrative is that there is no narrative, as each individual produces his own #fakenews, and no matter how common or harmonious, their words and meaning vanish into the winds of Babel.
Either way, the self is the most secure of prisons, and to be trapped within it the most torturous form of isolation.
Read 10 tweets
25 Sep
Thread.

The new revelations this week—the FBI agent text messages, the fact that FBI knew Steele memo was based in large part on a suspected Russian spy—aren’t really new. They just document, in a more direct and detailed way, what was happening at the time.
Broad outline’s been clear for yrs. What’s wild is how successful the operation was w/half the nation, especially among professional classes & upper middles, many of whom still believe Trump was a Russian agent—& now believe he is prepping to refuse to transfer power if he loses.
I was leaving DC years ago when enough of the fact pattern had been revealed/I’d spoken w/enough people to make the reality clear to me—what the intelligence community had done for political reasons against a domestic political opponent, etc. As the plane took off I felt sick.
Read 7 tweets
25 Sep
The mind reels at how easy it would be for Trump and a Trump aligned deep state to gin up excuses for using national security powers to spy on Biden and cook up a “Chinese collision” narrative using the same techniques Obama’s crew used to create the Russian collusion narrative.
Would not be a good thing, obviously. & not possible given the still entrenched bureaucracy & media, etc. But it wld be far, far easier in principle. China wields exponentially more power over our elections than Russia. Bidens, like everyone else, have way more China connections.
There is far more actual justification one could bring out. Lots of $ flow. And China is a far greater threat and Biden has been an advocate for China on free trade, etc. for decades. Their influence on US elections makes Russian ops look like a joke...
Read 4 tweets
24 Sep
You should talk to all those in your party who are telling Biden not to concede even if he loses, @JillFilipovic.
"While the sheer number of groups and volunteers involved in the effort has given organizers hope...Inside the coalition, there is dispute over whether Biden should even concede if he wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College, à la Clinton in 2016 and Gore in 2000."
"But the Transition Integrity Project noted that there would be immense pressure on Biden to fight it out if, for the third time in 20 years, the Democratic candidate won the popular vote but didn’t take office."
Read 5 tweets
23 Sep
Louisville, eh? I've some big news for every glib apologist & coiffed tankie on the miserably compliant Left: You built this. You refused to condemn & stop it. You asked for this. You don’t get to take the high ground now. You own this. You paid for it.

americanmind.org/post/the-democ…
Among political parties, only the Democrats allowed and tacitly encouraged the destruction of our cities. Of our businesses. Of our way of life. They’ve consistently tried to hide and downplay what has actually occurred.
Every drop of blood that is being spilled, every assault, every cent of the untold billions in property damage perpetrated this summer—all is on you.
Read 5 tweets
23 Sep
What's interesting is how easily the pseudo- or intellectual-ish, writerly class slips into totalitarianism & advocates violence & persecution of all dissent. I know, like academics, they're all cheap dates & keenly sensitive to/easily swayed by whoever writes the checks, but...
...it's still wild to me how easily they embrace hatred & persecution of their enemies. It's natural to fear their overlords, who are very, very angry right now at Bad Orange Man and fighting an existential fight. So I get it. They sense the coming purge & must signal rightly.
But they don't HAVE to jump this high. Stop pretending any of this has anything to do with anything intellectual, at least—it is all just performative wrangling to cancel the other. None of these people will substantively address Anton's article which went viral and drew blood.
Read 6 tweets

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