The Weak

Freedom's Undertakers

“Blessed is he who in the name of charity and goodwill shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.”

—Ezekiel 25:17¹

History Will Not Be Kind…

If there’s one cliché that’s been floating around this platform recently that annoys me the most, it’s “history will not be kind.” I don’t think I can browse Substack or Twitter (yes, I still call it that) for more than five minutes without seeing the phrase “history will not be kind.” “History will not be kind to Donald Trump.” “History will not be kind to JD Vance.” “History will not be kind to Marco Rubio.” “History will not be kind to Lindsey Graham.” “History will not be kind to Mitch McConnell.” “History will not be kind to John Roberts.” I could go on like this for days. I suppose what annoys me the most about this phrase (aside from the fact that it’s a cliché) is the implied passivity. It suggests we’re merely spectators of our own collective fate at the hands of tyrants. It also presumes the restoration of some sort of liberal society in which truth and freedom are valued, and those who strangled them are regarded as the villains of this era.

But how did we get from here to there? Someone must have taken back power eventually from its present usurpers and restored what we’re now rapidly losing—which begs the question: Why aren’t we doing that? Or maybe the implication is that “history” is being compiled in the more distant future in some society built on the rubble of this one.

I admit this is a lot to infer from a cliché. But I don’t think I’m merely seeing shadows on the wall when I suggest the frequent use of this particular cliché reflects a profound collective malaise and paralysis among liberals in the West, and that this collective paralysis is what is at the heart of our present crisis.

Half Measures

In trying to assess why both American and western European liberal elites have been so catastrophically feckless and ineffective in dealing with authoritarians, it’s worth stepping back for a moment and considering the state of modern liberal institutions. For years now we’ve watched the leadership of universities, media companies, publishing houses, and political organizations cede more and more control to activist employees pushing illiberal, mission undermining, woke gobbledygook. Universities have built sprawling DEI bureaucracies that drive up tuition costs and create a climate of fear and recriminations. Newspapers have brought in “sensitivity readers”, who are usually there to screen articles for any transgressions against progressive pieties. And political parties have consistently shirked their responsibility to protect national borders and maintain civic order, while allowing themselves to be pressured into endorsing radical social policies that are electoral kryptonite, all while warning (in some cases accurately) that the future of liberal democracy is at stake.

While some of these phenomena appear to be well past their high-water marks, Western liberal elites continue to demonstrate an almost congenital inability to resist identity-inflected guilt trips, moral blackmail, character assassination, and other weapons of the weak—often wielded by low-level staffers. It’s as if sometime around 2014, the editors of Teen Vogue stormed every newsroom in America, said “Alright, if nobody resists, nobody will get hurt”, and everyone just immediately surrendered².

Theories differ as to how this happened. But it appears that the introduction of viral social media combined with the already risk-averse, legalistic culture of many of these institutions produced a supernova of neuroticism, pettiness, and crippling fear. Leadership positions increasingly involved putting out (or avoiding) fires, minimizing negative publicity, and avoiding being sued. This tended to attract and produce risk-averse, rule following bureaucrats who live in a perpetually defensive posture; small, unserious people consumed with trivialities. Is it any wonder that such “leaders” cannot recognize when defining moments arrive—when half measures must be abandoned in favor of giant historical leaps?

What’s Worth Dying For?

Consider the spectacle of the last few DNC meetings: In the midst of budding fascism they begin events with land acknowledgements, and meticulously document their compliance with official party quotas on the number of people from each marginalized identity group who must be appointed to leadership positions. A party that regards itself as the last bulwark against fascism turns the selection of its leaders into farcical public group therapy sessions that confirm every negative stereotype about Democrats and “the left.” Can dingbats like this who cower in the face of the gender identity lobby rise to the challenge of reversing a process of authoritarian consolidation that is now well past its preliminary stages? Can people who flinch at the prospect of enforcing their own immigration laws or keeping violent criminals off the streets really summon the resolve to compel other people’s children to fight and die? This, I believe, gets to the heart of the crisis of modern liberalism. It has no answer to the following question: What’s worth dying for?

I think any healthy and thriving civilization must have an answer to the question: What’s worth dying for? And what answer do Western liberals have? Diversity? Equity? Inclusion? Bidenomics? The Abundance agenda? Maybe we fooled ourselves into thinking that in a world of prosperity and security, that question had become the province of the uncivilized. But it now appears that civilizations that attempt to avoid it decay and eventually lose the collective will to defend themselves. We’ve optimized for convenience, comfort, and safety, but in so doing, we’ve also problematized so much of what is vital and life-affirming. Perhaps fascism can best be conceptualized as a runaway process that begins as an effort to realign society in accordance with certain fundamental human needs that liberalism tends to leave unfulfilled.

Unconditional vs. Reciprocal Liberalism

It’s been said that a liberal is someone who won’t even take their own side in a fight. And in the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk, as I consider my differences with many of the people on this platform with whom I normally agree, I detect a dichotomy between two different kinds of liberals whom I’ll refer to as unconditional liberals and reciprocal liberals. Unconditional liberals believe that they should adhere to liberal norms even when their opponents (or their own governments) do not. More colorful names for them include chickenshit liberals, submissive liberals, and ‘But deep down he really loves me’ liberals.

I don’t mean to sound too dismissive or sarcastic here. Most of my favorite people to read on this platform I would describe as unconditional liberals. Yet there’s a sense in which their approach only seems suited to peace time.

The reason I classified myself as a reciprocal liberal is too emphasize the extent to which liberalism depends on reciprocity. By this I mean implied contracts between individuals, governments, and institutions to adhere to certain norms and rules that allow for cooperation and positive sum competition. Under favorable conditions in which all major parties are, too a first approximation, adhering to these rules, the difference between reciprocal and unconditional liberals may be invisible. But when major contractual breaches occur, particularly on the part of governments, this is when the difference becomes far more apparent.

As I’ve observed the online fallout following the Kirk assassination in recent days, I’ve been struck by how many liberals have reacted to relentlessly bad faith attempts at blood libel by prominent MAGA personalities with efforts to “turn down the temperature”, deescalate, and extend an olive branch. While the liberal impulse to play fair, meet halfway, and be seen as reasonable by your opponents is commendable under many circumstances, at the present moment I believe it’s a disaster. In its terminal stages, this condition is known as John Fetterman syndrome.

I appreciate that vigilance under the present circumstances can be exhausting, tedious, and demoralizing. Yet as one of the great minds in the history of Western civilization once said “The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” And the main thing right now is that the Trump regime is moving to consolidate autocratic power at breakneck speed with the near total compliance of the other two branches of government. So how would a reciprocal liberal recommend we proceed in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder? We shouldn’t rationalize it or celebrate it. But beyond that, we owe those on the right who seek to politically exploit this tragedy absolutely nothing. In fact, not only would I implore liberals not to give an inch, I’d strongly suggest they seize this opportunity to go on offense against the MAGA commentariat and overwhelm them, demoralize them, and bury them in their own feces (metaphorically of course—for now). And if liberals can’t embrace that level of single-minded ruthlessness in a hurry, then they’d better prepare for a future that consists of MAGA’s boot stomping on their face forever.

Through the Looking Glass

Lest anyone think I’m being too harsh in the midst of such a dangerous and fraught moment for the country, I invite you to consider just how far through the looking glass we are at this point: After 1/6 Donald Trump should have been rotting in a prison cell for the rest of his life (if not hanging from a rope). Jair Bolsonaro was just sentenced to 27 years in prison for committing the same crime (Viva Brazil!). Yet instead of suffering his just punishment, Trump is once again president of the United States. Yes, he was duly elected, as grotesque a reality as that is. What has he done with the opportunity his reelection has afforded him? Well his first order of business was to pardon, on day one, every single one of the cop-beating thugs who stormed the capitol to hang Mike Pence and try to prevent the certification of the 2020 election based on Trump’s lies. And let’s be clear: this was not just a backwards looking act. Following 1/6, many Republicans in Congress wanted to vote to convict, and chose not to out of fear for their safety, and that of their families. Given that Trump suffered no long term consequences at all for 1/6, and instead prospered as a result, every member of Congress now lives with a sword of Damocles over their heads, knowing that, potentially, Trump could do the same thing again if they displease him, and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it. Would it be such a stretch to suggest that—just maybe—this is a major factor in the power of a lame duck president with a 43% approval rating to bully Congress into abandoning their Constitutional responsibilities entirely out of deference to him?

In addition to the 1/6 pardons, Trump regularly uses his platform to put a target on the back of any public figure who challenges him. In some cases, this has involved pulling secret service protection from critics and announcing it publicly. In the case of John Bolton, this was in the midst of his being targeted for assassination by the Iranian government in retaliation for his work for the first Trump administration! He’s also publicly instructed DOJ to investigate figures from his first administration (e.g. Chris Krebbs) who thwarted (or merely refused to cooperate with) his attempt to steal the 2020 election. On top of this, the Republican Congress is now establishing a committee to investigate the 1/6 committee! ICE, which has been enlarged dramatically, now operates as an unaccountable militia designed to do Trump’s personal bidding. Masked, unidentified thugs grab people off the street, while Tom Homan, the head of the agency, announces there are “no limits” to how far the president can go to “protect” the American people. Bribes are delivered to the WH right out in the open, and corporations, news agencies, universities, and law firms have been made to understand that displeasing the autocrat in the WH will bring the full weight of the federal government down upon them.

Let’s call this what it is: Over the course of the past eight months the United States has been transformed from a nation of laws (however imperfect) into a gangster government in which status under the law is determined by proximity to arbitrary power. In response to those who’ve attempted to point this out, Trump’s supporters and apologists have invariably giggled and chanted “TDS.” Yet in the wake of the Kirk killing, I’ve been astonished at just how easily unconditional liberals can be cowed into seemingly forgetting all of this and adopting a defensive posture in which they respond to absurd, bad-faith allegations that they’re responsible for Kirk’s killing with pathetic half-ass appeals like “Political violence is a problem on both sides and it is never acceptable.”

In response to some of these arguments, I think those whom I’d classify as unconditional liberals would argue a couple of things: They’d likely claim that what I call reciprocal liberalism could better be classified as tit-for-tat liberalism (if not illiberalism), and that embracing the idea that you can break rules just because your opponents do, will lead (and has lead) to a race to the bottom where liberalism devours itself. And they might be right—up to a point. Yet liberalism without a limiting principle makes itself fish food for the first budding autocrat who tears up the rules while unconditional liberals continue to uphold their end of a contract that’s been voided a million times over. And that pretty much seems to be where we are.

The 10 Million Pound Elephant

In recent days, a flurry of Substack articles have appeared, calling for a concerted effort to end the recriminations and restore norms of civility across the West in order to avoid the sort of violent escalation following the Kirk murder that could potentially spiral into some sort of civil war (see below). While eloquent and noble in intent, I consider some of these efforts to be deeply misguided (at least in the American context).

How to Stop the Cycle of Recriminations

Civil war is for idiots and losers

Why the West must double down on civil discourse

And to be clear, these 👆are among my very favorite Substack accounts. They contain half of my paid subscriptions! And they’re thoughtful articles that I recommend everyone read. Yet I still feel that on some level they all elide the idea that liberalism requires reciprocity. As does reconciliation. And attempting to achieve it in the face of an opponent who wants nothing of the kind is a fool’s errand.

Over the past ten years, Western liberals have forfeited one game of chicken after another to the world’s authoritarians. Over and over again, tyrants who are willing to push their societies to the edge of the abyss have extracted concessions from risk averse liberals prioritizing deescalation. The absence of an answer to the question “what’s worth dying for?” has brought global liberalism to its knees. At each juncture, tyrants like Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump advance by offering their opponents two unappealing options: Cave or escalate. And with every concession, the noose tightens and the stakes go up. Ronald Reagan spoke to this precise dynamic over sixty years ago in his “A Time for Choosing” speech (see below). Yet it’s a lesson liberals across the West appear to have forgotten.

I appreciate the desire among many to avoid catastrophic scenarios since they’re, well, catastrophic. But liberals who prioritize risk mitigation above all else are again failing to appreciate the basic logic of force. If there’s no concession you won’t make to avoid a possible escalation into a nuclear conflict, then NATO is gone. If there’s no concession you won’t make in order to avoid a Constitutional crisis, then the law is gone. And if there’s no concession you won’t make to avoid a civil war, then democracy is gone. And to those who would argue that “turning down the temperature” and prioritizing civility aren’t concessions, I’d warn that it depends on the terms. While there’s no value in hostility for its own sake, when it comes to the issue of inflammatory rhetoric and political violence, to offer an olive branch to a party who’s turned the most divisive and malign demagogue in the history of American politics into a dictator in all but name is a concession to madness. Even Spencer Cox, someone I genuinely like—and who appears to be about the best the GOP has to offer—can’t clear the most basic hurdle. When asked the other day if Trump’s referring to all Democrats as scum was contributing to the dangerous level of polarization, he excused it as “President Trump is very angry.” And that’s what makes his appeal to “find a better angel”, as well as the far less magnanimous words from many GOP malcontents, thoroughly bankrupt. To treat them as equals in this conversation requires that we join them in pretending not to see the ten million pound elephant—the singular source of concentrated hate residing in the WH whom they worship as a deity and insist must be made exempt from all legal and ethical rules that constrain mere mortals. It requires, in other words, that the grotesque fantasy world that they’ve carved out of reality via selective blindness be accommodated. And that we cannot allow.

Ever since Donald Trump was reelected, I’ve believed the moment would one day come when we would face the final ultimatum: Total submission to a post-constitutional dictatorship or civil war. Whether it comes soon as a direct outcome of the current mess, in 2026 after an attempt to steal or cancel an election, or in 2028 when the issue of term limits becomes a live one—I don’t think there’s any avoiding it. And as I’ve watched unconditional liberals elevate peace and reconciliation above freedom as ideals in recent days while nearly the entire online right is attempting to turn the Kirk killing into their very own Reichstag fire, I can’t help thinking that whether they know it or not, they’re making their peace with opting for submission. I just hope there are enough of us left who select the other option.

When the Structures Fail You

So far, I’ve spoken in broad generalities about what I think Democrats should do. I’ve implored them to “not give an inch”, “go on offense”, and liberate themselves from liberal norms which their opponents abandoned long ago. But without specifics, this really isn’t actionable. What does “liberate themselves from liberal norms” mean? As I’ve said, it does not mean celebrating or justifying the murder of Charlie Kirk. Nor do I mean that liberals should abandon liberalism entirely and start lying like Trump or turning politics into a massive extortion racket. What it means is selecting certain rules that tie Democrat’s hands in their ability to fight back in defense of their most basic rights, and setting them aside. Accordingly, the remainder of this essay will be focused on the Supreme Court.

A couple months ago Tom Homan, the head of ICE, said “There are no limits to how far President Trump can go to protect the American people.” Trump has, of course, said some version of this many times. And to be clear, the word “protect” in this sentence is meant to mean whatever he says it does. He now has an administration of hacks and loyalists committed to making this autocratic vision of the presidency a reality. And they’re doing exactly that. While Congress reduces itself to a useless appendage and the six “conservatives” on the Supreme Court beclown themselves in order to sanction a ludicrous interpretation of executive power that would even make Aileen Cannon do a double take, Trump now largely governs around the Constitution by declaring phony national emergencies. The military is selectively redeployed to blue cities for domestic law enforcement purposes based on a so-called “crime emergency.” Trade policy is dictated from the oval office, upended on a whim, and altered in exchange for personal bribes that nobody is even bothering to conceal at this point—all predicated on the idea that it’s an “emergency.” The regime’s rationale for their ongoing unconstitutional crackdown on free speech—which they’re now escalating dramatically in the wake of the Kirk killing—is again justified on the basis of a so-called “national emergency.” There’s a name for this form of government, and it isn’t democracy—regardless of what the credulous Mr. Fetterman may believe.

Remarkably—starting with the outrageous immunity decision—the six monarchists on the court have sanctioned this anti-constitutional farce, and in so doing, have unleashed a bloodthirsty predator on the nation, completely unbound by law and empowered to use the military, the FBI, and every other part of the federal government to pursue his revenge fantasies against domestic enemies—be they individuals, corporations, or entire states. The monarchist majority has over the last 18 months, in effect, cancelled the Constitution in service to Donald Trump’s will to power and told those seeking their relief that their rights no longer apply when they collide with his royal prerogatives. Under these extraordinary circumstances that the court has created, it is time for Democrats to reject the cautious half-measures favored by unconditional liberals, accept that the monarchist majority has breached the social contract in abandoning their oaths, and embrace a bold new doctrine: There are *no limits* to how far blue state governors and legislatures can go to protect their citizens and their elections from the autocrat in the White House.

What does “no limits” mean? It can mean many things depending on how far the regime chooses to go themselves. Currently, officials in Chicago have arranged to have ICE officials followed and monitored to ensure they do not violate the rights of citizens. This is a good start. But it leaves a lot of open questions such as—What happens if/when federal officials cross the line? The monarchist majority on the Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that they’re worse than useless, and that they now view their jobs not as interpreting the law, but rather as serving as six glorified notaries who rubber stamp Donald Trump’s anti-Constitutional revenge presidency. So when such a confrontation occurs—and it will—whichever Democratic governor or mayor is in charge will have a critical decision to make—cave or escalate? Should they hang their citizens out to dry out of deference towards a Court who has shredded the social contract, doesn’t even respect itself, and can’t even be bothered to come to the defense of lower court judges who’ve been under siege and subjected to constant violent threats as a result of the regime’s rhetoric and behavior? If “no limits” is to have any meaning, then the answer has to be no. And if you’re thinking that this sounds a lot like Supreme Court nullification, then you thought right.

You Can Just do Stuff

One of the things that the first eights months of Trump’s second term has really brought home is that the phrase “you can’t do that” doesn’t mean much of anything if there’s nobody willing or able to stop you. In some recent instances, I’ve seen this new modus operandi described as “You can just do stuff.” Accordingly, Democrats must resurrect a modus operandi of their own:

And if the monarchist majority—or the Trump regime to whom they submit—attempt to tell blue states that they cannot have ICE officials who refuse to remove their masks and violate the rights of citizens forcibly removed from their states, Democrats and the leaders of those states must simply respond with 👆. If they’re told that they cannot assemble state defense forces, or that they can’t disregard federal restrictions on weapons procurement for those forces, they once again must respond with 👆. If they’re told they cannot seize federal military assets located in their states in response to federal aggression, they must respond 👆. If they’re told they can’t offer early parole to those serving prison time in exchange for service in these state defense forces, they must once again respond with 👆. And if they’re told that they cannot hold back tax revenue and reinvest it in service to hardening their states to protect them from a lawless and unchained executive, they must respond with 👇.

https://youtube.com/shorts/faqQeCx98LE?si=dUaYjWtXkoFacqad

A plan like the one outlined above would likely require an interstate compact, as well as significant preparation. It would also require blue state leadership to jettison their preference for baby steps in favor of cosmic leaps that have the potential to lead to some very dark places. They’re unlikely to adopt such a dramatic change in strategy and approach on their own. Instead, it will require enormous public pressure. For all of these reasons, the target date for initiating this effort shouldn’t be right now. Instead, it should be in November. Why November? Because that’s when the monarchist majority will be hearing the case on the Trump regime’s tariff policy. Needless to say, this one really shouldn’t be a hard call. The regime’s position, which is transparently absurd even to a first year law student, is that the Constitution’s provision that requires tariffs to be imposed by congress can be suspended in the case of a national emergency, and that a national emergency is whatever Donald Trump says it is. This of course isn’t really meant as a legal argument. It’s merely a request that the Court further sanction the dissolution of the Constitutional order to coronate a monarch. And if they can’t get this right, then there’s no reason to think they will stand up to this autocratic regime on a single solitary matter—including the 22nd Amendment. If this threshold is crossed, the response cannot be that of the unconditional liberal—“Aw shucks. History will not be kind to this court. Now let’s focus on restoring civility!” Instead, America’s blue state governors should have some version of the following letter ready to send:

Dear Justices:

Samuel A. Alito,

Amey Coney Barrett,

Brett M. Kavanaugh,

Neil M. Gorsuch,

John G. Roberts, and

Clarence Thomas,

For hundreds of years into the future, historians are likely to be asking one question: Why? Why did six distinguished justices on the highest court in the land choose to dissolve a 250 year old Constitutional order so they could coronate a mad king? Was it avarice or was it fear? We may never know. What we do know, however, are the consequences. Starting with your ludicrous immunity decision, and extending right up to this most recent decision to give the president dictatorial control over trade policy in contravention to even the most far fetched interpretation of the Constitution, you have committed the most astonishing, reckless, craven series of capitulations to executive power in the history of American jurisprudence. In so doing, you have helped to turn America into an international laughing stock, exposed yourselves as servile political hacks whom nobody outside of the president’s cult could possibly view as neutral, good-faith stewards of justice, and placed a tyrannical buffoon above the law—free to turn the entire US government into an arm of the Trump corporation.

As governors, we strive both to protect the rights of our citizens, while also doing so in a way that is consistent with the Constitution—as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. Sadly, your dereliction of duty over the past eighteen months in abandoning the Constitution in service to Donald Trump’s personal will to power has made that impossible. We therefore write to inform you that we will no longer be seeking your relief, asking your permission, or honoring your rulings when it comes to deciding how best to protect our citizens, and our elections, from the post-Constitutional rogue regime in Washington that your shocking negligence has helped to create

Needless to say, we wish it had not come to this. Even under a president who attempted to steal an election and pardoned everyone involved, we sought to honor the outcome of the 2024 race, and arbitrate our conflicts with the new administration through the proper legal channels. But since you’ve now effectively nullified the Constitution, and therefore yourselves, that approach is no longer viable. But make no mistake: We will never, ever abandon our citizens to the predations of a vindictive tyrant just to honor the fiction that you continue to serve the Constitution, and not his personal whims.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

Sincerely, Governors:

Bob Ferguson (Washington)

Josh Green (Hawaii)

Maura Healey (Massachusetts)

Kathy Hochul (New York)

Tina Kotek (Oregon)

Ned Lamont (Connecticut)

Michelle Lujan Grisham (New Mexico)

Dan McKee (Rhode Island)

Matt Meyer (Delaware)

Janet Mills (Maine)

Wes Moore (Maryland)

Phil Murphy (New Jersey)

Gavin Newsom (California)

Jared Polis (Colorado)

JB Pritzker (Illinois)

All Bets are Off

As I discussed in my last essay Force and Freedom, part of what undergirds the preservation of liberty in a society that’s divided into two rival political factions is the implicit common understanding that when those in power discard the rules in order to make that power permanent and absolute, all bets are off in terms of how they are to be dealt with. In this regard, the Second Amendment can be thought of as a societal suicide pact that says: We either live together under this Constitution or we kill each other. I don’t think the murder of Charlie Kirk is a legitimate application of this principle from either a moral or strategic perspective. If liberalism is to retain any of its integrity at all, the extra-judicial murder of a private citizen for noxious political speech is not something liberals can ever abide. But by embarking on a fascist takeover and courting an “all bets are off” moment, the MAGA cult—if they wish to blame anyone for the murder other than the killer himself—must be treated as principally responsible. And as I’ve watched many unconditional liberals call for the restoration of civility in recent days and mouth platitudes like—“Political violence is never acceptable”—I’m reminded that this is all part of the same problem: liberals in the West simply cannot bring themselves to get their hands dirty, no matter who they’re dealing with. Borders can’t be enforced. Criminals can’t be prosecuted. Radical activists pushing center-left parties to commit to electoral oblivion can’t be told to pound sand. NATO can’t accept that it’s at war with Russia. And unconditional liberals can’t embrace the idea that peace at any price is appeasement, and that America’s founding and Constitution both stand as monuments to the principle that in extreme cases political violence *is* acceptable—and maybe even advisable. And unless liberals in the West awaken from their slumber in a hurry, the future will belong to those who are far less squeamish, and all of us will live by their rules.

Returning to history—I don’t know how it will regard Donald Trump and his enablers. I suppose it will depend a lot on who’s writing it (if there’s anyone left to do so). But what I’m more confident of is that history—no matter who writes it—will record that liberals in the West were simply too soft, too passive, too timid, too weak, too risk-averse, too unserious, too insular, and too removed from the world of atoms and ensconced in the world of bits—to hold and use power to protect basic freedoms in a frictionless world. In essence, it will record that liberalism gave up without even putting up a fight. That is, unless a critical mass can rise up and say—“What the fuck!”

1. This is not in fact a direct quote from Ezekiel 25:17. Rather, it’s the Pulp Fiction adaptation of Ezekiel 25:17, which is (in my opinion) far superior to the original.

2. This line is not original. I remember reading it somewhere on social media a number of years ago and it stuck in my head. I left out the quotes, since I have no idea who wrote it. But in case they crawl out from under a rock, this footnote is my insurance policy.