Players:
One Rugged but Lovable Seaman
His clumsy Sidekick
An Indispensable Egghead
Mr & Mrs Moneybags
Hollywood’s undiscovered Starlet (with wardrobe)
and of course everyone’s Girl Next Door

Location: Uncharted South Pacific Studio lot with Lagoon

Objective: Survive until Syndication

And in the face of typhoons, cannibals, exiled dictators, and an odd assortment of guest stars (without basic necessities, everyday conveniences, or wifi connectivity) those wacky castaways weathered the episodes of network television because they never actually tried to vote each other off the island. Not even…

60’s sitcom values: Something else humorless millennials don’t get.

And don’t have to. Not with door-dashing delivery, online shopping, distant learning, contactless banking, web-med, drive thrus, and cliquish social media – getting along with anybody is unnecessary. The socially absent can simply ghost the disagreeable and whoever’s left… just push overboard.

Got pizza? Before the credits roll, one can be summoned by app, delivered by drone, tracked by phone, paid for with crypto, then spied-on by your nosy doorbell cam as it is spirited away by a neighbor’s roaming roomba (along with two liters of caramel-colored high-fructose corn syrup).

…all without ever wiggling your couch-bound fast-asleep butt cheeks.

The Me First generation live in their own little palm-sized world. Nothing exists that ain’t AI, Bi-, or CGI. Reality is digital, faith is unreal, and their god is a genie-like chatbot, which grants high-speed instant gratification to their every heart’s desire.

And she must be obeyed.

Yeah… they preach diversity but demand conformity. So like form-stamped Pringles tumbling from a can, raging and ranting with cellphones and spray cans, they attempt to rid their island of everything that offends them – anything that is not them: Columbus Day, Chick-fil-A, The Dukes of Hazzard.

[Heavy ballpark reverb]  “Now playing… ^{playing… playing…}  in place of… ^{of… of…} Kate Smith’s God Bless America… ^{America… America…} ”

[crickets]

In Survivor: The French Revolution, Robespierre voted with the head-hunting mob to snuff his tribe’s political enemies. In the end, the tribe snuffed Robespierre.

Democracy may be a lot like running the circus from the monkey cage, but… (to ad-lib Mencken) at least monkeys don’t snap selfies while toppling statues of PT Barnum.

Well… what is democracy? Except forcing yourself on your neighbors and making them like it.

Taking their money
Taking their property
Taking their dignity

…and never having to say you’re sorry.

Fortunately we’re not – not a democracy. We are a…

Constitutional Federated Representative Republic

Thank God.

…and not sorry.

Our Constitutional script writers feared the whims of the one – King George, as much as they feared the tyranny of the mob – tribal democracy.

The entire purpose of much-maligned and misunderstood Electoral College was to protect individuals from the stupidity of their neighbors. And in spite of being a bit clunky, it has done just that.

…mostly.

The Presidency cannot be gamed by cobbling together tribes of voters but States, with smaller states given a greater voice (proportionately, mind you) than larger states, protecting the heartland from the coastal concentrations of cannibalism.

An Interstate Compact to quash the Constitution and elect a President by “counting every vote” will result in many votes not counting. If every state but one votes one way, then (according to the Pact) that one odd state must surrender the vote of its people to the will of other people not of their state. Hmmmm… Democracy betrayed in the name of democracy.

“So, this is how liberty dies… in a head-hunter stew.
^{Princess Padmé Amidala meets Robespierre}

Unlike other nations, we were not a previously existing nation later subdivided into islands. The states existed first. Some as colonies of the King, others as territories on the frontier, and one a nation to itself (which still thinks it is).

States are not camps of face-painted spear-toting loin-cloth’d natives dancing around a lurid bonfire. They are geographic regions colored both red and blue, blue and white, white and black …all of whom agree to disagree and live in peace and… well, if not harmony then maybe karaoke.

The states are essential to the United States. Without them, we’d be the United Hm-hmm of America.

Something millennial tribalists would no doubt love. Well… they might love it, if they thought everyone else loved it, too. Funny how the group-think group doesn’t quite know what to think until they find out what the rest of the group-think group thinks.

If democracy is stupid, group-think is stupider.

With democracy you may get popularity but not liberty. Not if individual rights are subject to the approval of everyone else. Not “if” – there are no rights period. Just an equal say in what rights are surrendered to the majority.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to watch re-runs.

Lost on another island, the democratic mob surrendered their guns, fortunes, and freedom to Fidel for the promise of equality. And they got it.

Socialism | noun | (sohʹ-shuh-liz-uhm) The equality of misery

Yeah… be careful what you wish for. To quote a faded sticker peeling off the rusted bumper of an island ‘55 Nomad:

People vote themselves into socialism but they have to shoot their way out.

(…for which they will need republicans.)

At Philadelphia, our fore-fathers told our fore-mothers to go home and make some sandwiches. When the coast was clear, the convention fashioned a very undemocratic constitutional government then protected it with a Bill of Rights to safeguard the republic from the tyranny of the Many: The rule of the mob… the in-a-snit bed-wetters on a walk-out tantrum from their government-funded “We Hate America” warehouses.

Don’t trample what you don’t understand.

There is no virtue in democracy. The majority may win but is rarely ever right. And why does every voice need to be heard? foreigners, felons, friends of Barney – if you wouldn’t trust your “I’m With Her, Stupid” neighbor with a Buick and a beer, why should he pick the leader of the free world?

Opinions are like belly-buttons: Everyone’s got one. And one more than less doesn’t enrich the discussion – it’s just more pee in the lagoon.

The castaways survived three seasons in prime-time (one in black n’white) and years of network syndication before they were finally rescued. Only to discover that their family-style values were no longer welcome in Hollywood’s hip n’edgy adult-oriented fall line-up.

Fortunately for them, they were shipwrecked again – the misguided dreams of the few dashed by the well-intended but iconic clumsiness of the one, the one and only…

“Gilligan, that’s me.”

A Heart like Dixie
They worshiped God, served their fellow man, and offended no one until snowflakes told them to be.

The Odd Couple
Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?