Everything can, will and has gone wrong in every circumstance imaginable. Sometimes things go exactly as planned but the more complicated or numerous any action may be, the higher the odds that something is going to go for a shit. That’s why we have contingency plans. Because we damn well expect something to go off the rails.
And if a person or a country doesn’t have a backup plan, then they aren’t around long as an entity or a dominion or republic, or whatever the fuck a group of people choose to label themselves.
I was reading a quote from Arnie the bodybuilder, terminator, governor. He remarked that the key to his success was not having a backup plan. While I admire the dedication to a purpose or goal, I’ve got to call bullshit. Trying again after an initial failure is a backup plan. It’s a shitty plan though unless you modify your original approach. If Arnie tried to bench press five hundred pounds and was unable, then what the hell was the point of trying again? I’ll wager with some certainty that Arnie failed at five hundred and adjusted his weights to lift a lesser amount until he had the muscle mass to try five hundred again.
Or he needled some steroids into his thigh and then he tried the five hundred again.
Either way, he adjusted his approach but kept his end goals in place. That’s a backup plan whether you acknowledge it or not. It’s called a compromise. Sometimes you compromise with yourself and sometimes you compromise with one of those countries I mentioned a minute ago. Personally, I think a covenant of accommodation is both mature and wise.
But, it looks like I’m in a minority with that thought lately. In fact, it feels to me as if I’m surrounded by a world of people threatening to fall on their sword if they don’t get their way in every instance and in every detail. These people view any compromise as a sell out or an insult to their values. They’re actually being self serving shitbags, but the magic of childish greed is that it effectively blocks logic, and they feel like crusaders of truth instead of the petulant destructive arseholes that they really are.
So, back to what could go wrong. Sadly and obviously, every fucking thing will go wrong in a world with no compromise.
It wasn’t as big a deal to go on a crusade when swords and arrows were the order of the day. It wasn’t as big a deal when a Jihad to kill or convert the infidels involved scimitars and yatagans.
But it is a big deal when apes with a-bombs and shitheads with stealth fighters decide that there’s no reasoning with their protagonist opposites. In fact, it’s a big deal when any modern convenience or invention can be used as a weapon by some disgruntled pin dick who feels like he’s been marginalized or his values have been threatened.
For example, I doubt that the engineers at Chrysler envisioned that the ornament they stick on the hood of a minivan was going to be used as an aiming devise to make certain you ran over as many protesters as possible at some rally of the righteous.
Having said that, I should point out that the engineers that designed the AK-47 and the Ar-15 installed their aiming devices at the end of the barrel for a reason. That reason being the hitting and killing of the people you happen to be pointing the weapon at. Those guns are after all called assault weapons. But hey, it’s a right not a privilege.
Anyway, my point is that we’ve managed to develop our capacity to mangle and mutilate at a much faster rate than our capacity to compromise. Instead of nurturing and promoting a middle ground we’ve chosen to go all in with whatever ism we’re embracing at the moment.
And as a result we’re barreling down a path that is soon going to provide all kinds of examples of what can go wrong.
What’s perplexing to me is our fondness for this particular path. It’s well worn, trampled and trodden from the generations that have preceded us but we give absolutely zero fucks. We’re convinced that regardless of the boot prints of knights and Storm Troopers that for some reason this path is new and we’re the first to walk its length.
We are collectively a depressingly stupid lifeform. It’s probably best that we’re confined to ruining one world at a time when we possess the ability to nuke an entire planet but lack the will and ability to govern without police and an army to impose sane compromise on the unwashed masses.
The fix for this mess is personal. Every goddamn person on this planet has the ability to compromise. Every person on this planet could endure some perceived injustice for the sake of peace and prosperity. But we won’t do it willingly and we much prefer to ram our isms up the anus of our opponents.
It’s sheer madness to think that the anus ramming isn’t creating another injustice and another problem that inevitably will see the anus rammer become the rammed.
But who gives a shit. I’m getting my way at this exact moment and what could go wrong?