On Hoplodementia

      On Hoplodementia

The suffix “hoplo-” means “weapon”. This suggests words; “hoplophobia”, meaning fear of weapons; “hoplophilia”, meaning love of weapons; and “hoplodementia”, meaning mindlessness about weapons.

          Our plague of armed murderous beta-males is a clear instance of such mindlessness, but I think the mindlessness is far more widespread that that. Consider for instance Ben Carson’s lame-o brag that we all should rush the next shooter, for that is what he would do. Except that when he was stuck-up at a Popeyes, he said, “I believe you want that man behind the counter”. Many have mocked his cravenness at that moment, but I don’t mind; it was a rational cowardice; what I object to was his idiotic braggadocio.

          The thing is, not only is hoplophobia rational; not only does it obey natural instincts honed by megayears of evolution; on top of that, hoplophobia respects the purpose of weapons! You are supposed to be scared of weapons! That’s the point of weapons; inspiring fear is what they’re for! (Or failing that, leaving behind a pile of corpses.) To fail to express hoplophobia is to express hoplodementia! Carson managed to do both.

          The open-carry people also express hoplodementia. They don’t get why most people react to their strutting with horror and revulsion. They say, we just want people to get used to the sight of weapons. Used to them?! If the open-carry clowns were death-cult terror gangsters lording it over cringing disposable untermenchen, then they’d be making sense. Evil sense, but sense. But as is, they are not even aware of the vile figure that they cut.

          Or how about the nukes? Including specifically the nuclear power plants. The original bomb-makers passed over the thorium cycle for the plutonium cycle, precisely because the thorium cycle is useless for building devices that can kill a million people in a fraction of a second. (The resulting plutonium is inevitably contaminated with a gamma-emitter; this is hazardous to work with, it messes up electronics, and reveals its presence to the enemy.) So the existing ‘civilian’ nukes were weapons-feeders from the beginning. The nuclear technicians are well aware of this, yet they are miffed that the civilian populace is scared of their nuclear power plants. They blame Greenpeace, superstition, technophobia... everything but whom they see in the mirror.

          And as for the bombs themselves; the entire Cold War was hoplodemented. It was thermonuclear superpower state terrorism, designed to remind everyone at all times that our lives were worthless, meaningless, disposable at a moment’s notice. It was a crime against humanity, a crime against the very idea of humanity. Under the Cold War, nobody was any better than a speck of dirt; and that was the foundation of world order!

          Luckily for us all, Gorby was slightly saner than Ronnie, so he walked away from that cozy arrangement. The nukes remain, and with them their moral rot, but they are seen as an embarrassment; a vulgar explicit admission of the insane nature of state power; its unworthiness to exist, for look what it relies upon.

          With the end of the Cold War, all that slave-conditioning had to go somewhere. It did not escape my notice that the World Trade Center site was called “Ground Zero” after 9/11; but frankly I find a crotch-bomber to be unimpressive compared to Stalin’s 10,000 hell-bombs.

          And now the nation’s having a fit of gun dementia. There’s the beta-boyz; and also there’s the shoot-first cops. But I’ll give the Blue Gang this much self-awareness; they’re defensive about their crimes because they know that they’re in the wrong.

Addendum: Hoplodemented Foreign Policy

America’s foreign policy is also hoplodemented, at least amongst the so-called hawks. Dropping bombs is their first, second and last solution to any overseas problem, large or small. But their actual record of solving those problems is slim to none; in fact their bomb-dropping generally makes the problems bigger, so of course that requires more bomb-dropping. A positive feedback loop; hoplodementia in action.