Saturday, January 26, 2019

Plantar Fasciitis

You know how you can tell if you are going deaf? You tend to ask people to repeat themselves a lot.

And you know how you can tell that maybe you have Plantar Fasciitis? You find yourself gazing longingly at those handicap parking spaces when you're at the mall and wondering if maybe it's time to visit your doctor and ask for one of those special privilege certificates.

Oh, and what is this I see?

More designated parking spaces are popping up for designated people. The designated parking area is starting to get crowded, just like the "human rights" area. ("Bad rights drive out good rights." -- Ayn Rand. And they tend to proliferate, just like the quantity of central bank currency. Think of it as "rights inflation." I have a friend who believes all of the problems of the world can be reduced to monetary corruption. I say it goes deeper than that.)

For a couple of years now, I have seen spaces for mothers, pardon me, "parents," with babies at Walmarts and Fortinos. I wonder when the mother spots will have the fine and towing warnings that accompany the handicap spots. (which occasionally sends me off on a tangent wondering about fertility rates and whether or not certain politically significant voting groups are more, or less likely to benefit from such privileges, whether legislated or not. And also, whether or not, the parking spot privileges are likely to change places as the demographics continue to change. Like when the boomers start to die off.)

The other day, I went to Fortino's to buy bread. I noticed a new battery of designated parking spaces. This one was for people with electric cars. I assume these spots double as charging stations. (To fight Global Warming, pardon me, Climate Change.) Of course, they were all empty, just like bicycle lanes, which meant that the proletariat, on average, would have to find parking spots further away from the store entrance.)

"Ahah!" I thought, "the list grows!"

One thing I remember studying in high school was "finite math." I don't know why it was called "finite math," but I do remember that part of the program involved "progressions." 1-2-3-4, what comes next?

And 1-3-5-7 and what comes next again? And on and on to increasingly complicated mathematical designs.

That part of the course impacted my thinking for the rest of my life. I was always trying to detect progressions. That is also why it is so easy for me to recognize the folly spewed forth by people who call themselves "progressives?" The question becomes, progressing to where exactly?

And I notice the same pattern in parking lots.

Handicap parking.
Mother's parking.
My Shit Don't Stink electrical vehicle parking.

What comes next?

Senior's parking? (Updated: Feb 16, 2019)

Fat people's parking?

LGTBQ^n parking?

Indigenous parking?

Indigenous elder parking?

Parking for the mentally ill, or the romantically lonely?

Parking for designated assholes? (No one ever set out in life choosing to be an asshole, yet some people have been sadled with that fate, or designation. For some people, being born an asshole, or more colloquially, an "asswipe" was never a matter of choice, but in some cases it works rather well - just look at Justin Trudeau. But what about all of the other assholes who never get to be Prime Minister? What about the ones that end up working in car washes? Don't they deserve "inclusion?" And what about me?)

The poor? I imagine a time when "parking for the poor" would have been an oxymoron.

Black parking, brown parking, Asian parking, female parking, white parking? White parking? (!) By the time all of the slots have been allocated, white males will be told that they will have to find parking on adjacent side streets. Guilt by birth.

Muslim parking?

Whether the allocation of political spoils involves parking, or designated prayer zones, or smoking zones, though the specific details may differ, the principle remains the same. Do we wish to live in a world where everyone has equal rights? Or do we wish to live in a world where we are categorized and divided, rewarded or punished, ultimately in accordance with statistical voting patterns, or our "identity?" Or upon the number of "social points," we are able to accumulate by swiping our Good Citizen cards? And where wormlike politicians are the ones who are given the power to decide WHO GETS WHAT?

Sorry. There will be no parking for white, Catholic, male, MAGA-hat-wearing, teenaged boys. They are guilty by nature.

They will have to walk or take the bus.

I have to admit. It bothers me.

My ideal, even before I learned to articulate it, was of a world where everyone had equal rights. "My right to beat my drum in your face ends where your face begins. It doesn't mean you have to get out of my way, or kiss my ass, or suck my cock, regardless of our relative ethnic origins, or because I have a designated parking spot in the political heirarchy. (Notice: You don't hear *anyone* talking about EQUAL rights anymore.) The socio-political progression I have observed after I learned to articulate it is in totally the opposite direction.

Our idiot Prime Minister flatulates with his mouth. "Diversity is our strength."

So long as "diversity" implies a legally enforceable hierarchy of rewards and punishments, depending upon the politically assigned relative importance of the plethora of human frailties, from restricted mobility to restricted intellectual capacity, and decided upon by people almost universally recognized as possessing low character, I.E. politicians,

we're fucked.