In 1968, after Congress passed a gun control bill that was, in the words of the late ABC anchor Frank Reynolds, “emasculated”, Lyndon Baines Johnson asked—to paraphrase—how much more anguish must America endure? Now, before we start going down the gun control rabbit hole—Trust me, we’ll have time for that—I’m choosing to focus on that quote, and another one. You’ll know this one, it’s Patrick Swayze from Roadhouse. “I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.”
I find it hard to not be nice anymore. Here’s another quote for you, Keanu Reeves. “I’m at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you’re right – have fun.” I want to be kind or be silent. I want to get rid of all the drama, go live by the beach somewhere, and just…be.
But I can’t. Because it’s time to ask once again, how much anguish we must endure. It’s time to not be nice.
It’s time that we do not agree with the people that think 1+1=5, and tell them to have fun. All the fivers believe there is an objective reality where this is true. They have people in the alternative and mainstream media that pander to their fivieness, They have politicians that lock on this fivedom and run on it. They post fivist memes on social media to own the twos. Frankly, I’ve had my fill of fives.
It’s time to insist that 1+1=2. Firmly.
It is time to not be nice.
It is not time to reason with the fivers that ask “What about the threes? You don’t mind the people who think 1+1=3?” It is not time to justify a Two who said something nice, or even something atrocious about the fives years ago. It is not time to deal with the fives of bad faith who scream about why you, a two, won’t debate them.
It’s time to insist that 1+1=2. Firmly.
It is time to not be nice.
Fives did not suddenly appear out of thin air. They weren’t created in a vacuum, they weren’t grown in a vat of ooze, they’re people who, in a lot of cases, hopped on board much later. It’s kinda like going clear and then they tell you about Xenu and the Space DC 10’s flying Thetans into volcanos. You, a two, look at these folks and ask HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU BELIEVE THAT? THAT’S CRAZY. That’s easy. 1+1 didn’t equal 5 originally. They found time in 1968 while Mayor Daley was out preserving disorder to just bump it up a little. It equaled 1.1 back then. And little by little, they bumped up just a tad every year until they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar in 1974. Then they had to reset. 1+1=2 all the way through to 1981 when they found a guy who was good at making people believe 1+1 was whatever he wanted to be, and we went along with it, mostly, because whatever 1+1 was at the time, this guy had a way of making us feel really good about it. So much so that we didn’t notice what those incremental little bumps were doing to some of us. These little bumps continued until someone with a uHaul truck and the belief that God told him the answer was 2.5 said the quiet part out loud and blew the front of a building off, and then things quieted down for a bit. But one of those guys who got ejected during the reset of 1974 decided he needed to create a platform for all the folks who knew objectively that 1+1 was whatever we say and if you don’t agree, you’re Two Stupid. They even made up a nickname. Two Stupid. If you’re Being Two Stupid you have mental problems. You might even be what’s destroying this country! And over the years that number has been growing and growing until some guy who deals with more zeroes than anything else got elected President getting people to believe 1+1 is now 5. And now you see how things start small and snowball, and it gets crazier and crazier and the people get more and more zealous and…
It’s time to insist that 1+1=2. Firmly.
It is time to not be nice.
I don’t want to be an asshole, I don’t want to cancel anyone, and I don’t want to belittle anyone. I don’t want to own the fives. As my Dad used to say “You have the right to be wrong. You also have the responsibility of what being wrong means.”, and that’s where the proofing meets the problem, which is twofold. First, the fives believe that there’s no consequence for believing 1+1=5. Second, and this is more important, there are more twos than fives. A lot more.
And it is time to insist that 1+1=2, it has always equaled two, and it will always equal two.
Not maliciously, not condescendingly, but kindly and firmly.
Because, at long last, it is time to not be nice.