American Poker and a crate of rifles? The residents of Rinkeby looked about that satisfied with their bargain. As for redistributing material things, all societies do it. But mostly they keep it in the family. I’ve got one already, and one’s enough. Anyway, a modern government is not a family, not even metaphorically. Imagine a family where the kids and the dogs could vote. What would the food be like? Depends on the number of dogs. It might be reindeer tongue. All this taking and giving back puts enormous power in the hands of government. Thus the Swedish Model also assumes that the government is good, that the government won’t decide that what Sweden really needs is to conquer Denmark. And since Sweden is a democracy, the voters must be good, too, and not decide to support that government in return for free wedges of looted Jarlsberg. World history is not full of good governments, or of good voters, either. One of the great things about the U.S. Constitution is that it outlines a republic limited in scope and able to operate in spite of damnable officials and a chowderhead electorate—as 222 years of American history prove. And what about the fairness so dear to the Swedish heart? Is it fair? Should we all get the same pay and privileges? Then why shouldn’t we all get the same love and respect, the same health and happiness, the same cute little butt and big boobs? Secure and lagom though Sweden may be, there is nonetheless something frightening about socialism, something that scared me as much as a close look at capitalism had. And the last time I walked through Gamla Stan, I didn’t wonder where the crazy people were. In Sweden the craziness is redistributed fairly. They’re all a little crazy. †† Let such names stand as a warning to writers who try to be “hep” by making pop culture references. Who the hell were these people? Yanni’s god-awful “new age” music is apparently still at large. If you’re listening to it, I hope you’ve found your bliss—and that your bliss is as far away from me as possible. Sportscaster Marv Albert was, at the time, charged with sexual assault. He bit a woman in what was either a bizarre unwanted sexual advance or an even more bizarre and even less wanted attempt at cannibalism. Today society would have bitten him back—hard. In those days Albert managed to get the charges reduced to misdemeanor assault and battery. His career suffered. Briefly. Somewhat. In 2014 he was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame anyway. Why Jenny McCarthy merited odium I can’t recall. I had to Google her to make sure she didn’t have something to do with McCarthyism. Probably I was just using her as an example of an over-exposed and under-talented celebrity of the day. I do discover from her Wikipedia page that in 2006 she would be given three Razzie Awards—Worst Actress, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Picture—for her romantic comedy Dirty Love . ‡‡ Note author’s early and prescient dis of DJT.
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