In the Marine Corps, we have a pretty standard descriptive label whose meaning is 180° from how it's used in the civilian world.
HE/SHE'S A ROCK
When someone earns that not-always-affectionate sobriquet, it's not because they are a bastion of strength in hard times or built like a brick port-a-potty.
It's because they have been judged to be so supremely dense, so sublimely obtuse, so impenetrably stupid that a determination is made that there is nothing between their ears but an inanimate object.
A rock.
It also works as a verb, as most Marine Corps isms do. We don't 'rock the house,' as civilians do, with the world applauding us.
We 'rock' tests or 'rock out' of schools, meaning we have completely failed whatever the challenge was. So utterly bombed that we deserve to be mocked as miserable, brain-dead slackers, groaning as we dog ourselves before anyone else can do it. But they'll do it anyway.
Rocks are the LV-426 of humans - no indigenous sentient lifesigns.
In many cases, while perfectly pleasant human beings, it's also not a temporary thing, but a permanent state of being.
They're rocks.
You come across this quite often in this age of sidewalk spontaneous video as sentient beings interview what turns out to be LV-426s.
Take this earnest fellow from the other day's Venezuelan protests. He wants the 'bombing of the Venezuelan people' to stop.
When asked where he got his information that the United States was conducting a bombing campaign - he saw images of Venezuelans being bombed - he immediately replied, 'Reddit.'
After repeating that he stands 'with the people of Venezuela against the imperialism of the United States,' he's asked what he thought of the hundreds of thousands of happy Venezuelans dancing in the streets.
WHUT? HUH?
Sputtering when it's shown to him, that he doesn't know if it's AI - what are the sources?
I showed a "no war with venzuela" protestor how venezuelans are celebrating in the streets.
— Nate Friedman (@NateFriedman97) January 3, 2026
brain.exe stopped working. pic.twitter.com/V5mfurkVnt
An earnest, progressive young lad who gets his news and takes it as Gospel from Reddit cannot stop chanting the communist protest mantra when shown the celebrations are from multiple reputable news sources.
This cretin is a classic rock - no indigenous sentient lifesigns and no signal will ever penetrate.
It's terribly sad. What a waste of carbon.
Next is an example of a progressive rock who's been elected to office.
Nothing will ever penetrate.
If he wants to believe he can dictate to the World Cup organizers about ticket prices and available seats at venues he doesn't even have in his little kingdom, that's how it will be in his world.
I’m genuinely concerned at this point that he doesn’t know how anything works in the real world. https://t.co/1eS5JD7oUR
— Adele Scalia (@AdeleScalia) January 5, 2026
He's a rock.
Sometimes there are whole boards of elected officials filled with progressive brains, leading to an illustrative lesson in the old 'dumb as a box of rocks' adage.
Such a moment is happening in that cozy corner of progressivism, Washington State, where not only is the City Council progressive, but it also has rocks on the brain.
The possibilities for mirth here are endless.
I will try to restrain myself.
The city of Vancouver, WA, is your classic uber-woke burg of a tad under 200,000 people, just across the border from Oregon. Woke seeps from the very soil.
The City Council allows homeless encampments on the sidewalks of the city and what are called 'drug encampments' on public land.
You're already sizing this up as a progressive paradise, right?
One of the businesses in the city happens to be the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe (BNSF) railway, whose railyard offices have sidewalks. They had had enough of the homeless tents and the homeless mess that comes with those tents in front of their building and decided to be proactive.
The railroad dumped boulders along the sidewalk, forcing the tents to go elsewhere.
Well, to be honest - the homeless didn't go very far. In fact, one homeless woman who is interviewed in this piece put her tent up right next to the boulders, and then complains about how she 'trips' over them all the time.
How? Look at the size of these boulders!
It doesn't matter, though. She's eight ways to pissed off about the rocks.
...Greta Crislip, who has been living near the BNSF railyard on West 11th, northeast of downtown Vancouver, expressed her frustration.
"Our housing options are limited as it is as being one of the unhoused in Vancouver," she said.
Crislip, who has been sleeping next to the boulders for months, added, "I've tripped and fallen over them and, we understand that it's a difficult situation between us and the city and the railroad it, but it's uncalled for."
The rocks running the city council are also pissed off about the rocks, much more so than the homeless. They won't do anything about moving the drug encampments in the public right-of-way, but they have filed a lawsuit against BNSF to?
MOVE THE ROCKS
They've cited the railroad five times for the boulders and demanded their removal - a 'public hazard,' which apparently drug addicts and their paraphernalia are not.
To BNSF's great credit, they dropped more rocks on the pile.
They also suggested politely that the city rocks do something about the real problems, instead of the stupid ones.
...Court documents reveal that a BNSF maintenance manager suggested the city change its municipal code to prevent encampments in the public right-of-way, stating the company will "await to see what the city attorney's office levy's against BNSF."
Witness testimony proves the city council rocks are nowhere near as effective as the railroad rocks, but who is supposed to give in?
I regularly take Amtrak to Vancouver and walk right past this area between the Amtrak station and downtown Vancouver. Before the boulders were placed, tents and trash were blocking the sidewalk. Boulders were effective getting the tents off 11th, but of course the homeless just…
— Brian Manzo (@BrianManzo20) January 5, 2026
...Boulders were effective getting the tents off 11th, but of course the homeless just moved around the corner where there were no boulders.
The area behind the reporter in the story shows newly constructed wider sidewalks and wheelchair curb ramps, so the city spent money improving the sidewalks only for more tents to block them. I cannot imagine any business or resident in this area wanting these tents and trash in their neighborhood. How many ADA violations are in this area due to tents blocking sidewalks?
Why, the railroad, of course.
When you have a box of progressive rocks running your town, that's what you get.
No indigenous sentient lifesigns.
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