This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it -- that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
November 1972
I’ve heard it said that these days are like being trapped in the dark, unable to adjust your eyes to your dim surroundings, tunneled, even. Clever but inapt. Rather, there’s too much light these days. It’s the vision you can’t adjust to, not the blindness. A man can see as far as he may endure, which presents its own problems.
What good is value without consequence? It’s time to look in the mirror and face facts: You live in an irrational nation. If you don’t know the answer, the question must not be important. If you don’t see the hole, you can’t fall in it. If you don’t hear the cries, someone must be laughing. If you kill a man, you must have had a good reason. You live in a void.
Furthermore, it turns out the unexamined life may be the only one worth living. Pick the right enemy, and you’ll do just fine. You’ve two choices: the fools or the failures. Both convinced they’re right, but one stronger because they don’t heave the burden of evidence before them. Either way, clean up your blast-beruffled feathers and fling your ass into the growing gloom.
So, partner, I don’t know what to tell you. We’re all loaded to the gills with righteousness and half of us are armed to the teeth. Everybody’s got the safety off. Eyeball your neighbor straight. If he asks your opinion on anything other than of men with numbers on their backs, be wary.
Roll Tide.
