Hubris, the drunk that doesn't have the decency to give you a hangover.
Imagine if every time a politician lied or bullshitted their body treated them like they just had a double shot of Jack Daniels. Then I'd watch the election debates.
“Hubris is a kind of intoxication. A kind of madness that overtakes those in power and clouds their judgment.”
— Paraphrased from ancient Greek thought
“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
— Bill Gates
“Hubris, the false presumption that one is somehow exempt from the rules, is always punished. The higher the ego climbs, the harder the fall.”
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
— Lord Acton
“Pride grows in the human heart like lard on a pig.”
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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We all know that hubris—that mix of arrogance, conceit, vanity, and irrational confidence—is like a drug or a double shot of cheap tequila on an empty stomach.
It should make the arrogant, self-deluded, irrationally confident wretch a drunk half-wit babbling nonsense, but it doesn’t happen; God didn’t put that design in; He should have.
Those drunk on their own hubris have endless confidence. And the real danger is that their confidence is contagious. We believe them. We believe in their certainty, and the message is a bit of an afterthought.
But—not to pick on God here—imagine if He’d designed us to react to our hubris the way we do to a triple shot of Jack Daniels on an empty stomach: gagging, belching, and every so often letting loose with a solid blast of projectile vomit.
I’m not claiming to have accomplished much in life, but I can tell you I never hurled directly onto myself.
I hope I can do a little better than this before I assume room temperature so it doesn’t have to end up on my gravestone.
Furthermore, I also never did any vomitous indignities on expensive furniture. Sorry if that sounds like bragging.
I always made it to the bushes or the stall. When I was a late teenager, there was the art of the drunken entry to the house at midnight, my brain utterly consumed with not making noise. Later it often meant turning the taps on full blast in our crappy little bathroom, flushing the toilet, and sometimes using a little bulimic finger assist—to say goodbye a second time to Taco Bell.
Bit of a waste in hindsight.
I’d step out of there acting like I’d just had a heroic bowel movement.
I remember once bragging that I could do two double shots of Everclear—80% grain alcohol—and the next thing I knew, I woke up alone in my dorm with my English Lit anthology thoroughly editorialized in vomit. Sorry, Alexander Pope. Nothing personal. But real alcohol teaches and punishes. Hubris does not.
I’ve seen people sit there and barf all over themselves on a Friday afternoon, back when $1.50 pitchers were a thing at the Trade and Trapper near my college.
If you do that, you can be sure you’re going home alone. I’ve never met a guy who picked up a girl when his shirt was soaked in vomit. Vomit and the libido do not like each other. It is a relationship forever formed in acrimony.
But just imagine—if God, to keep us humble, had wired us to treat hubris like booze. When people started bullshitting, they’d immediately barf a little in their mouth.
And when they dropped the big lies, they’d be sprinting for the bushes—picture political debates with candidates standing beside polished stainless steel barf buckets.
“Oh no—Singh just hurled. That Armani suit is toast.” That Omega crown better be tightened down.
And Carney? He just gave his dreamy speech about high-paying green jobs, and now he’s under the podium, heaving out a stomach full of foie gras and some overpriced wine I’ve never had and probably can’t pronounce.
I’d watch the debates.
I think God needed me in the design studio on this one. No offence, God is omnipotent and perfect, but I don’t think the platypus was also a design masterpiece, and the male junk is not an aesthetic wonder piece.
Maybe the design happened on a Friday, and the angel Gabriel was bugging him to go to the pearly gates and watch a large group of enthusiastic jihadis, excited about their 72, get their entry cards rejected.
But hubris. Have you ever met some overachiever in the art of missing the point so jacked up on himself that he thinks he’s untouchable? That’s hubris—pride so massive it’s like skolling a slab of piss (Australian for drinking a flat of beer) and screaming you’re the king of the world.
It’s not just bad ‘cause it makes you a goose; it’s a full-on mental piss-up. You’re the loudmouth at the bar, three stubbies deep, swearing you’ve penned the next “Waltzing Matilda,” but it’s just “Sweet Caroline” with a belch and a side of spew.
Or you're the guy at karaoke singing Roxanne, but you don’t know the words and just intermittently scream, “Roxanne.” But you are hoping there is a record agent in the room.
Christopher Hitchens nailed it: “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Hubris is that loud-arse claim with no proof, just Trudeau and Carney staggering about, slurring. In their minds, they’ve given themselves all the credit for saving the planet while the emissions pile up like empties on the bar.
Bill Gates reckoned, “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
I remember my coworker who suddenly decided she needed to be in Mensa (I had to google how to spell it; that does not speak much to my intelligence, I suppose).
She got a question right, and I asked how she’d figure it out, and she said she guessed, but that revelation didn’t dampen her genius; the strut was still there.
George Carlin’d say, “I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.” Hubris is that self-crowned bullshit, a boozy high that leaves you blind as a bat in a blackout, chucking up your dignity.
Trudeau’s Green Dream: Puking Up a Plan
Take Justin Trudeau, Canada’s PM since 2015. He’s all carbon taxes and net-zero rubbish—like a stoner who’s hit the bong too hard and reckons he’s solved climate change between tokes. Emissions? Climbing faster than a pissed Aussie up a gum tree, says CBC News.
Trump did a better job reducing C02 than Trudeau without glueing himself to artwork, blocking traffic or cutting back on Diet Coke. Hitchens smirks, “The only thing worse than a liar is a liar who believes his lies.”
Trudeau’s not fibbing—he’s just too smashed on his ego to clock the stats, face-first, lip on the bowl, muttering, “I’m a bloody legend.”
Trudeau’s like, “I love the planet, man!” then wakes up to a carbon tax that’s hurt the poor and left the planet still coughing like a two-pack-a-day trucker.
Bill Burr’d rip in: “You’re taxing us to breathe, ya knob, acting like Captain Planet, but the planet’s like, ‘Mate, I’m still choking—pass the Ventolin!’” It’s not just shit policy—it’s thinking you’re Einstein while hacking up a bit of lunch onto a cocktail napkin that already smells like regret and Jäger.
Carney’s Green Cash Grab: High as a Kite, Sick as a Dog
Then there’s Mark Carney, ex-Bank of England hotshot, now Canada’s PM since March 2025. He’s ditched the consumer carbon tax for a “polluters pay” stitch-up, peddling the green economy like a guy at a Leafs tailgate trying to sell solar panels made of crushed Club beer cans.
”The Narwhal says emissions are still through the roof—China and India aren’t RSVP-ing to his eco-shindig. He’s pissed on his financial wizardry, yelling, “I’ve got this!” while the joint’s ablaze. Hitchens’d jab, “Many are called, but few are chosen—and even fewer have a fucking clue what they’re doing.”
Hubris isn’t just reckless—it’s reckonin’ your half-arsed speech is Shakespeare when it’s no better than a flirty, slurry request for your bar tab. Normal piss-ups end with you spewing your guts, head pounding, swearing off the grog ‘til next Saturday.
Hubris? No hangover, no lesson—too bad these pretentious green monologues don’t leave Carney sprawled on the bed, window open, yelling, “Stop the Arctic experiments!” while the room spins.
Jim Gaffigan adds, “Drinking’s like, ‘I’m gonna dance!’ Then you’re like, ‘Why am I on the floor covered in salsa?’” Hubris means people are more taken in by the dancing spirit and ignore the salsa.
The Hangover That Never Hits: Deluded Wankers
Here’s the twist: these pricks mightn’t be lying—they’re just shitfaced on power.
David Owen and Jonathan Davidson call it “hubris syndrome”—a brain fart that kicks in when you’ve been boss too long. Too much confidence, ignoring the bloody obvious, acting like you’re bulletproof.
It’s no shrink’s manual job, just a pattern—like a piss-up that rewires your skull. Trudeau and Carney aren’t evil masterminds; they’re true believers, pissed as newts on their hype, seeing gold where we see a steaming pile.
Social Psychology Quarterly says confidence, even bullshit confidence, hooks people ‘cause it screams, “I know shit.” That’s why we swallow their crap—they’re so sure, we figure they’ve got it sorted. Hitchens’d growl, “The believer is happy; the doubter is wise.”
They’re happy as pigs in shit while we’re mopping up the spew. Louis C.K.’d moan, “They’re like, ‘I’m a bloody genius!’ and we’re like, ‘Yeah, a genius at fucking us sideways.’”
The Fallout: Chucking Up More Than Lunch
This ain’t just a laugh—it’s a gut punch. Trudeau’s carbon tax hikes the cost of living, and Reuters links that shit to more suicides, depression, and blokes smacking their wives. Carney’s green crusade might tank industries, says National Observer. It’s not just swapping Starbucks for a flat white at Timmy’s—that’s not a bloody tragedy—it’s real hurt.
Hubris policies hit like a hangover from hell: you were a rockstar last night, and now you’re broke, spewing, and the room’s doing cartwheels.
Why We Buy It: Charisma’s a Piss-Weak Excuse
Why do we clap like seals? ‘Certainty is as hot as a microwaved gas station burrito at 3 a.m.—dangerous, questionable, and probably ruining your day. Trudeau’s pretty-boy charm and Carney’s big-dog swagger reel us in, even when the facts yell “fuckwit!”
Hitchens snarls, “The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.” A decision is “capricious” if it is not based on evidence or sound reasoning, is erratic or inconsistent, or is made without regard to facts or fairness.
But who checks facts anymore? We just like to hear things that sound “fact-like.”
It’s like fangirling an Instagram influencer—you don’t want their tips, you want their life. Voting for charm over results? That’s democracy spewing its guts out back.
The Dream Debate: Barf Buckets and Bullshit Blowouts
Imagine if hubris worked like a proper piss-up—politicians on these ego-binges waking up with a hangover so bad they’re puking mid-debate.
Picture it: Lizzy May’s up there, spouting green gospel, when her guts churn from last night’s hubris shots. We all know the look, the goldfish regret pose – mouth gaping open and closed like they’re trying to say something but forgot how words work, nostrils flaring, cheeks puffed out like they just swallowed a bee.
And—BAM—she spews a bit into a barf bucket they’ve got parked on stage.
Carney’s next, tripping over his bullshit, face-planting like a drunk on a curb, and then it hits: one more lie, one more “we’ve got this,” and he’s Mr. Creosote from Monty Python, exploding in a technicolour yak-fest—no wafer-thin mint, just pure, steaming crap.
Polievre would lie about how he’s just a simple, down-to-earth guy who “doesn’t even own a comb” and then spew a 42-minute monologue about freedom, crypto, and how buying eggs is government tyranny—while casually dry-heaving into a Tim Hortons cup labelled “Accountability.”
Bullshitters are the real danger; liars are easier to spot.
Harry Frankfurt, in On Bullshit, said, “The bullshitter… does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose,” unlike a liar who knows the truth and twists it.
These pricks bullshit ‘til they’re swaying like they’ve skolled a keg, and the crowd’s dodging chunks as the stage turns into a spew-soaked shitshow. Full speeches?
Nah, mate—halfway through, they’re blowing chunks so hard the front row bolts, and the moderator’s yelling, “Janitor, commercial break, the teleprompter will never work anymore, Jagmeet!”
God, if only hubris came with a hurl clause—we’d see these wankers for the sloppy drunks they are.
Sober Up, Ya Muppets
Hubris ain’t just pride—it’s a piss-up that makes leaders think they’re poets when they’re barfing gibberish. Trudeau and Carney might mean well, but their green gospel’s a dodgy draft they’re too smashed to fix.
Hitchens splashes us with, “The cure for poverty has a name: the empowerment of the individual.” Less strut, more proof.
Carlin’d growl, “Don’t just teach your kids to read—teach ‘em to question the shit they read.” Let’s sober up before these hubris-drunk dickheads chuck us into the next shitstorm, face-first in the bog, yelling, “Party’s over!”
Are you telling me if every time they bullshitted, they didn’t let a spew fly, you wouldn’t watch the debates? I would. But I’d never take a seat in the first three rows.
