My wish for 2023

Photo by Ron Lach

Well, hello Barflies, on this penultimate day of 2022.

What a year, eh? One cannot say that the previous 363 days have been a barrel of laughs. A land war in Europe. Economic disruption. Society fraying. And the ever-present pandemic. It's been a rough go, that's for sure.

But, it's not all bad. 

We had the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. In the coming years, it will absolutely overturn all we know about the cosmos and our place in it. It will even help determine if technological life exists beyond our world. We've also come closer to solving the most pressing problem facing humanity: that of securing cheap, clean, and inexhaustible energy by beginning to crack the nut which is nuclear fusion. And the lessons learned from developing mRNA vaccines for Covid are leading to using the same technique to vanquish other diseases, like cancer. 

And the year is closing out with a bang.

We all saw Greta Thunberg roast alive vile fascist misogynist Andrew Tate on Twitter. Oh, how little we knew how quickly this would spiral.

Tate, being emasculated online, clapped back in the most pathetic fashion. But in doing so, he revealed that he was currently in Romania. He and his brother Tristan had been under investigation for human sex trafficking; the Romanian authorities needed confirmation that they were in the country to move on them. And, in his fragility, he posted his clapback video in which he showed that he had pizza from a restaurant which operated only in Romania. Yesterday, the Brothers Tate were arrested by Romanian special police, charged with human trafficking, kidnap, and rape. All because an alpha male of no accomplishment was made to look a fool by a nineteen year old woman who has done more in those few years than Tate will ever do in his entire miserable life. My schadenfreude gene is very dominant—"alpha", one might say—and I look forward with grim anticipation to the fate that awaits him in a Romanian prison. 

Then we have the case of George Santos. If that's even his name. His farrago of lies is undoing him. No one knows who he really is—or if he's even a citizen of the US. Diverse prosecutors have him in their sights, from the Republican DA of Nassau County on Long Island, to New York attorney general Tish James, to the US Attorney of the Eastern District of New York. "Santos" is the epitome of the modern Republican Party: a ball of lies wrapped in human flesh. Kevin "Steve" McCarthy can't afford to lose any seat if he has any hope of being elected Speaker of the House. It seems his already-slim majority might go down by one. 

But today's coup de grâce will be the release of Donald Trump's taxes. Trump fought tooth and nail to prevent the Democrats in the House from obtaining those records. He refused to release them as a candidate in either 2016 or 2020, in contravention of tradition going back decades. What's in those taxes? We'll find out today. But the fact that he exerted such efforts to block their release is telling enough. It may be as embarrassing as that they will reveal he is nowhere near being a "billionaire", all the way to revealing criminality. We shall see.

These three incidents encapsulate my wish for the coming year: Comeuppance. Justice. I want those who have traduced this Republic, who have made humanity cheaper and more violent, to face consequences. I want them to suffer their just deserts. I want penalties and judgments to rain down on these people and suffocate them. I want retribution for all that we've gone through for the past seven years. I want punishment fitting their crimes. I want them to feel the wrath of an angry God, and have all that they stole taken away from them. I want them to suffer the way they've made everyone else suffer. I want revenge. And I want this to be done strictly within the bounds of the law. I want them to be held accountable just like you or I would be. I want them to reap and eat the poisoned harvest they have sown. 

And I think I shall have my wish. I believe 2023 will be the year that justice delayed will finally be justice achieved. Human civilization is a race between wisdom and stupidity, with wisdom feverishly trying to outpace stupidity and keep this fragile edifice upright. I truly believe wisdom will win out this year. And then after that? The sky is the limit.

Happy new year, my dear friends. We have much important work to do.

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