John – Page 68 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

When Times Are Tough, First, Sharpen The Saw

“You have personal habits that would make a monkey blush.” – Red Dwarf

I know a lot of broken pencil jokes, but they’re all pointless.

Stephen Covey made roughly a bazillion dollars with his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which at least makes his marketing pretty effective. I read it back in the early 2000s when I found a copy sitting on a shelf in an office when I started a new job. This was lucky for me, since I could never find the self-help section at the library. The librarian just would say, “Well, if I told you where the self-help section was, that would defeat the purpose.”

I couldn’t name most of the 7 Habits unless I cheated with Duckduckgo®, but I do remember the last one of the seven: Sharpen the Saw.

You might think that this would be a reference to Jason or Michael Meyers, but no. In the book he relates a story about Abraham Lincoln, who, when asked if he were to race to cut a tree down, how he would do it. “Well first, I would sharpen the saw, and then I would hire the neighborhood kid to do it and then I would invade the South,” Lincoln replied.

Talk about a one-trick pony.

How many Amish people does it take to change a light bulb? None.

But Covey picked up on this idea: if you’re not sharp, you’re not at your best. You can look at that through several dimensions, and include things like fitness, but you know how to get in shape. That answer is simple – even if you don’t want to do it.

The dimension of sharpness that I want to write about is mental. I know how to exercise to get fit, but if I’m so burned out that I don’t have the motivation to do it, I simply won’t.

The first level of control I do is to control the intake of my mind.

Around 2016 I went full-stop on listening to NPR® radio. NPR™ had always had a lefty slant, but in 2016 they went Full Throttle Leftist. The conclusion that I came to is that if I felt like shouting at the car radio that the host was wrong, I should probably just stop listening to them.

And I did. The reason I did wasn’t that I was afraid of the facts – no. I embrace finding out when I’m wrong. The reason was that the opinion that had always been in the backseat of the car became the driver. And I don’t like the opinions of Leftist NPR© hosts unless they’re midgets: the midgets always know what’s up.

Cats kill more birds than windmills. Heck, I can’t recall the last time I heard of a cat killing a windmill.

The Mrs. relayed to me that some journalism schools were now teaching that journalists should be, rather than impartial reporters on a story, a good journalist should actively intervene in favor to further Social Justice narratives.

My site isn’t a news site. My site is generally an opinion site – your opinion and my opinion. We can all have them, and as long as we agree to that, it’s fine. But NPR® began peddling opinion as fact, and editorializing during straight news stories, “discredited” and “false” were used as modifiers in news, as in “Fauchi debunks the false and discredited idea that people should wear masks,” a week before Fauchi says you need to wear six masks.

NPR® was harshing my mellow without giving me anything that I couldn’t get elsewhere.

The next level of control is to rest.

If I’m going all out, working and blogging, I might average five hours of sleep Sunday through Friday morning. That’s probably not enough. I play catch-up on weekends, but that’s not quite enough. A few weeks ago I decided I wouldn’t go in to work until after lunch on Friday.

It was glorious. I started the weekend with a full tank and that Friday was amazingly productive.

There are only so many hours in a day, and I have a list of things I have to get done. I do often live with a sleep deficit, but I do try to at least monitor it. I did find a scientific test on sleep deprivation online. It told me how much sleep I needed: just five minutes more.

And Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch. He decides what time it is.

The third thing I like to control is chaos.

Okay, I can’t control chaos. But I can control what I care about. I can prioritize. I can plan. I can make lists.

Make lists? How does that help?

I find that when I’m feeling whelmed, that just making a list turns a chaotic list of things to do into something I can attack. And sometimes, I just pick something I can do, something I can complete from the list, and just do it even if it’s not the most important thing.

A shopping center burned down – nothing left but Kohl’s®.

The best catalyst for action is . . . action. When I start getting things done, more things get done. Then things begin to disappear from the list as I cross them off.

At the end of the day, I feel good. Things are done. Sure, some aren’t, but finishing tasks and crossing them off the list makes me happy.

The fourth thing I do is step away. Turn off the chaos by connecting with other people. By reading. By writing.

There is always the danger in distraction. If done too often, it is simply running away.

But a moment to pull back, reflect, and work with the important connections in my life? That’s keeping the reason I face the chaos in perspective. I do those things for the people I love, for principle, or because it’s virtuous and has meaning.

Reading? That’s how I get ideas. That’s how I hit the reset button by focusing on other ideas.

Writing? That’s how I work through ideas. When I put it in writing, I begin to understand where the holes are in my thinking. Then I research. Then I get closer to the Truth.

Again, done too often, it’s an escape, not a refresh.

When the aquatic mammals escaped from the zoo, it was otter chaos.

Finally? I pray.

YMMV, but prayer does wonders for me. Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards,” except when he said it, it came out more like, “Livet kan kun forstås baglæns, men det skal leves fremad,” and it probably sounded like Søren was gargling a mouthful of small wet frogs.

But Søren was right. Life is tossed by uncertainty and fortune, good and bad, and no one is getting out alive. As I get older, I begin to understand, and see the structure, though I have enough wisdom to know how little I really know.

Prayer brings me peace.

Thanks for sharing in my saw-sharpening. I hope it wasn’t too dull.

Shortages: Welcome To The Post-COVID Reality

“Enjoy it while it lasts, I have a feeling there’s going to be a shortage of cold beer this summer.” – The Stand

Well, well, well.

“Pop, what was your first car?” Pugsley asked.

“Do you mean the first one I owned? Or . . .”

“No, the first one that was, you know, yours. Like how mine is the pickup.” I knew that was the question he was asking, but sometimes dads like to tease.

I replied, “My first car was a 1975 green GMC® truck. Stick shift, just like yours. It had a rubber floor, no A/C, and all the radio you could want, if you liked AM. And it had a vinyl bench seat. Vinyl bench seats were nice. When your date got in, she could slide right over next to you.”

And in college, this one girl said we didn’t have chemistry together.

I smiled, remembering the first time I took a girl on a date. I tried to capture that first date magic with The Mrs. for our last anniversary, but she got mad when I tried to drop her off with her Mom and Dad.

Even though it was only “my” pickup for two years, it was a wonderful little truck with the worst engine that you could imagine. I think it put out at least a dozen horsepower. But it was my first taste of freedom.

“Yeah, weird that there’s a shortage of trucks now,” I said.

“What?” Pugsley laughed. “What’s the joke?”

As most people know, that’s not a joke. Because of a semiconductor shortage, new trucks are in short supply. They can make the rest of the truck, but they can’t make it work without computer chips.

Since people keep their old trucks longer, spare parts for older trucks are in short supply, too.

Shortages tend to build up and have ripple effects.

And my brain is now randomly deleting memory, too.

I started thinking and realized that, with the exception and weirdness of the Great Toilet Paper Famine of 2020, Pugsley has lived in a world of abundance. In his world, people don’t have to line up for products, the products line up for the people and wait for them. Probably the only shortage he’s used to is a shortage of spending money.

That was intentional.

In my life as well I can’t recall any real shortages of anything. I recall (vaguely) my parents talking about a gas shortage. I guess that impacted the people in Flint, Michigan a lot: I heard they had a shortage of unleaded.

The only other shortage I recall was the normal shortage of fruits and vegetables when they weren’t being grown. Strawberries? “Get some frozen ones,” Ma Wilder would say if I wanted strawberries in winter. “Strawberries are out of season.”

I got a strawberry stuck in my ear once. My doctor had cream for that.

Back then, the technology didn’t really exist for the behemoth national chains to manage global logistics to get strawberries in winter. Now? Fresh fruit and vegetables are flown across the globe. I read that one particular species of fish (don’t remember which one) was caught in Chile, flown across the ocean to China for processing, and then flown to the United States for consumption. Teach a man to fish and he has fish for life. Give a man a fish and he’ll create a multinational logistics chain to optimize profitability.

This is efficient. It makes use of low labor prices in China for processing. But, as we’ve discussed, again and again, efficiency is bad. Efficiency is why we have a shortage of electronic chips for trucks to move that fish today. I don’t think the British have this issue – I keep hearing about their fish and chips.

One consequence of efficiency is concentration. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company™ (TSMC) was named with all of the characteristic creativity of a colorblind engineer whose parents were introverted accountants.

“What are we making?”

“Semiconductors.”

“Where are we going to make them?”

“Taiwan.”

“I have an idea. Now you might think it’s crazy . . .”

One thing about excellence is that it brings smart people with similar skills together to work on tough problems. The more they learn, the more smart people show up because as they solve one problem, another one comes up, and, pretty soon (if the solutions are profitable enough) there are lots of smart people around. Give the nerds enough time, and they will solve enough problems that they will know more about the subject than anyone else on the planet. Unless it involves deodorant.

And the movie came out in the early 1980s . . .

That makes for very efficient, centralized production. Detroit sprang up around the auto, New York around money, and Paris around wide, broad avenues that were perfect for a panzer parade.

But these centers of excellence are centers of vulnerability. TSMC™ has recently illustrated the vulnerability of companies all over the world to a single manufacturer. Even going back into the deeper past, during the period of the Roman Empire, most porcelain plates and cups were made in the south of France. When the Empire fell, everyone was stuck eating out of Tupperware™ from that box in the garage with all their college stuff in it for five hundred years.

Another danger from plastic storage tubs? Developing Tupperculosis.

Covid-19 triggered shortages have exposed how precarious an efficient world is. We are often dependent upon single sources of materials and innovation from areas all across the globe to bring us something as simple as the Large Hadron Collider, even though most people think they could construct it from spare parts to a 1993 Buick™ and that old refrigerator that they have in their garage.

Efficiency has made us vulnerable. I have no real reason that while we’re in the midst of the ‘Rona Retreat around the world to think that this will change for the better soon. As freedom collapses, and as efficient markets based on low inflation implode, we aren’t headed for a time of plenty.

Soon we may miss the time when stuff waited for us in the grocery store, and the thought of that might bring a happy memory like the thought of a long-gone 1975 GMC® truck.

With bench seats . . . .

How Single Suburban Soccer Moms Are Killing The Country

“Train yourself to let go . . . of everything you fear to lose.” – Star Wars, Episode III

Childhood is like being drunk. Everyone remembers what you did but you.

I’ve written a lot about fear, and how negative it is. But fear is a very potent persuasion technique. Fear motivates people to action. Heck, I had a fear of elevators, but I took some steps to avoid it.

That’s why it’s used. David Frum (press “S” to spit) recently wrote an article in The Atlantic titled, How to Persuade Americans to Give Up Their Guns. I’m not going to link to it because I don’t want to drive traffic to this screed. That just encourages them to pay Frum to write other crap when he’s not sleeping in the warm chest cavity of the “conservative” money laundering schemes think tanks.

In the end, David takes his Canadian* sensibilities to tell the benighted Americans that they should be horribly afraid of guns. Guns are scary! I believe, in technical terms, they are so scary that they make Frum wee a bit in his pants.

I guess we know Frum’s favorite drink: pop.

Policy Exchange, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, Weasel Hair Added By Wilder

In the end, who, exactly was Frum writing this article to?

Well, let’s eliminate who he wasn’t writing to, first:

He wasn’t writing to you. He wasn’t writing to me. If you’re a regular here, it’s nearly a lock that you’re at least sympathetic to the idea that the Second Amendment provides, in clear language, an individual right to own and carry weapons of war. And we don’t wee our pants about it.
He wasn’t writing to the Left. They don’t need to be convinced. The Second Amendment is probably the biggest single impediment to their plans (see: Australia).
He wasn’t writing to rural folks. We have so many guns that our guns have guns.
He wasn’t writing to urbanites. Most people deep in the hive are already Leftists.
He wasn’t (for the most part) writing to guys. Guys (generally) like guns, and are generally less in favor of restricting them. Women, for instance, are 30% more likely to support restrictions on standard size magazines.

Single Suburban Soccer Moms have such high double standards.

What does that leave? Suburban women, specifically Single Suburban Soccer Moms. Frum even admits as much in the article – he references both Mothers Against Drunk Driving® (MADD©) and Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America™ (MDAFGSIA®). No, I didn’t make that last one up. It’s what happens when the wine aunt tries to come up with a catchy name and everyone is so blitzed on the white zin that they don’t tell her, “Oh, Mabel, that is an awful name.”

But, yeah, the weasel-faced Frum was trying to manipulate the SSSM, because they’re often the swing voter in elections. And, they make decisions based on fear, unlike me. I like my emotions like I like my beer. Bottled.

MADD© and MDAFGSIA™ are an excellent example of fear being used to manipulate Moms. Did MADD™ do some good? Certainly. But even the founder thought they went too far and quit in 1985 because MADD©, founded to stop drunk driving, became (in her words) “neo-prohibitionist”.

That has been the problem: fear drives decisions which then result in laws that take away freedom.

The SSSM has been the most reliable target of the “if it only saves one life!” and the “what about the children?” level of logic. And that’s what has led us to the path we’re on today.

As Yoda taught us: fear leads to hate. Who does the Left hate now?

People who won’t take “the jab”. Not everyone, of course. BIPOC seem to be exempt from this hate, so it’s pretty much people who like freedom and people on the Right. I’m surprised there isn’t a group called Mothers Against Icky Infected People Not Doing What I Say (MAIIPNDWIS).

It’s healthy to eat dried fruit. I’m just raisin awareness.

Really, where we’re at is hysteria. Remember how the ‘Rona crisis started – grainy videos of people walking down the street in Wuhan and collapsing, apartments being welded shut to keep the residents in, and Chinese denials that there was any issue. It was just like the first four minutes of the average Hollywood® “plague destroys mankind” movie that has been made dozens of times since 1950.

Is the ‘Rona real? Certainly. It does have a body count, though I think the one being reported has been artificially inflated.

So it is real. I’ve had it. And it seems to kill people somewhat randomly, though in very, very small numbers as a percentage of those who catch it and are captured in the statistics (I’m not).

And the perfect way to beat the fear drum so that Single Suburban Soccer Moms forget the clown show exit engineered by Biden. The specifics of the “vaccine” mandate don’t matter as much as the process, which never changes:

Suck at leading.
Have bad poll numbers.
Make use of either an existing or contrived “scary” situation.
Come down hard on the “scary” situation: propose something that takes away rights, if possible. The Leftist base will be fine with it, and it will engage the SSSM crowd.

Oh, and I forgot: always pass the buck.

This is what passes for Leftist leadership. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, said the quiet part that you’re not supposed to say out loud: “Never let a crisis go to waste.” If there wasn’t a crisis, the Left would invent one. Drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was one. The Keystone pipeline from Canada is another. These are manufactured to enrage and engage people on the Left.

But the crisis had to be a specific one: a crisis that could engage the SSSM brigade. As the de facto swing voters, political policies are determined by how the fears of this group can be exploited. COVID-19 is just one example. Why do you think images of little kids in cages were trotted out to show how actually enforcing immigration law was mean? Me, I only get upset when I see a hamburger bun in a cage – that means it was bread in captivity.

I bought a knife that can almost slice five baguettes of bread at once – but it’s only a four loaf cleaver.

Since there is nothing a SSSM loves more than safety, they’ll vote for it every time. And it doesn’t matter if liberty is on the line – the SSSM essentially views government as her spouse and protector.

Perhaps, though, there is an alternative?

Maybe we could convince the SSSMs that, historically, governments have committed murder on the wholesale level. Maybe we could get them up in arms about that? Heck, I even have a name for it if they want to use it:

Mothers Engaged Against Tyrant Politicians Exploiting Everyone (MEATPEE)

Which is weird, because that’s exactly what I think David Frum probably smells like.

*Technically Frum got American citizenship in 2007 or so, but I think it should be revoked because he’s a tool

The Mrs. went to a lot of trouble to create an advertisement for the livestream on Wednesday at 9 Eastern. Here it is:

Biden’s Big Bluff

“You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em . . . .” – The Gambler

I bought dice, but they didn’t have the 2, 4, or 6 one either one. They are very odd.

This was originally going to be a post on another topic, but events have overtaken it. Again. Instead of getting a sidesplitting romp about a lighthearted subject, you’ll get sidesplitting romp about Biden’s (latest) Big Blunder.

I’ve never been that dedicated of a poker player, though my friends and I played quite a bit when I was in high school. I do recall one game way back then where I won a bayonet (an M8A1 with matching scabbard for you knife nerds) but lost a hand where I wagered a girlfriend.

Oh, and I also won $6.48, mainly in pennies.

I still have the bayonet.

One thing I did notice was that when I was winning, it became easier to bluff. I could bet on junk, but only if I’d won most of my hands up to the point I started bluffing with strong cards.

None of us were experienced poker players, so it was trial and error. I found that the bigger, more confident bet that I had made (after I was winning) the faster my friends would fold their hands, and the fewer bayonets and girlfriends I could win (or lose). But if I wanted to end a hand quickly, a big bet was what I would try to bluff my opponents into folding so I could win the pot.

Never trust a cheetah. They always try to pull a fast one.

Even with that small amount of experience, I can tell you that former vice-president Joseph Robinette (I guess his parents couldn’t afford a real Robin) Biden is bluffing.

And Biden is scared.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan was so poorly managed that it would be enough to charge Captain America® with treason. And that’s probably the best thing that happened to Biden in the last month, even though his recollection of the evacuation of Kabul might be dim and confused until they bring the flashcards out.

As bad as it was, Biden managed to make that national shame even worse. How much respect does he get from the American people when he checks his watch every time the coffin of a soldier goes by? Maybe he thinks there’s something on it, since he obviously doesn’t know what “not on my watch” means.

No, things have not been going well for the kid-toucher in chief.

This string of decisions so bad it makes Johnny Depp on a three-day drunk look as lucky as a chipmunk at a peanut convention. It’s bad enough that I imagine most of the senior White House staff are looking for jobs, or in some cases, countries that don’t extradite back to the United States.

I guess El Chapo would be used to high officials.

Through the art of remote viewing and making things up, I have an exact transcript from discussions among some of the members of Biden’s political strategy team last week:

Soulless Political Drone 1 (SPD1): “Okay, we’re down in the polls. What do we do?”

Soulless Political Drone 2 (SPD2): “It’s not so bad.”

SPD1: “No, it really is. Biden is now less popular than,” checks list, “having leprosy . . . on your genitals.”

SPD2: “Well, people kind of like leprosy nowadays. It grows on you. Besides, we know that there’s a floor to the number of people that will support him, though. The voters . . . .”

SPD1: “Voters? You do realize that most of those voters are copier machines we rented at Kinkos®, right? No. He’s lost the suburban soccer moms.”

SPD2: (shocked) “You mean he’s lost the support of the SSM? That’s a disaster! Our focus groups say they used to think of him,” checks focus data, “as category 74-b: ‘befuddled elderly relative that mostly means well but you wouldn’t leave alone with girls between the ages of six and twelve.’ What do the focus groups of Suburban Soccer Moms say now?”

SPD1: “Now they have him as a 93-w: ‘Creepy old man with degenerative brain disease who probably smells like week-old urine.’ Also, that he doesn’t care about Americans stuck in foreign countries and is . . . weak.”

SPD2: “Ouch. SSMs don’t like weak. Remember when all of them were having romantic dreams about Trump and Trump supporters?”

SPD1: “So, what do we do?”

SPD2: “Let’s do what we always do: trot out the kids. Let’s make a big fuss about COVID-19 not being safe for children, blame the unvaccinated.”

SPD1: “We’ve done that already. It’s getting a big yawn. We have to spice it up.”

SPD2: “We could have him do push-ups, maybe beat someone up? Think we could dig up Corn Pop?”

SPD1: “Do you even hear what you’re saying? You sound like Kamala when she’s off the sauce for a day. This is serious.”

SPD2: “Ok, serious face on. Ohhh, we could have a vaccine mandate. We could threaten the jobs of 100,000,000 or so people if they didn’t comply.”

SPD1: “What? How is that remotely Constitutional?”

(Both laugh. And laugh. And laugh.)

SPD1: “Whew. Constitutional. Still funny. But 100,000,000 people? How many of them are Biden voters?”

SPD2: (checks website) “2,113,210.”

SPD1: “Only 2,113,210? Out of 100,000,000?”

SPD2: “Well, after we were done with the counting.”

(Both laugh.)

Okay, that might not have been exactly the conversation, but it was close. Biden’s political advisors see that he’s as weak as vegan housecat. They have to think of something to distract the voting public and bring his poll numbers up.

His economic policies appear to consist of burning money to keep his supporters warm while importing future voters as fast as he can. Can’t use those.
It’s pretty certain that there are approximately seven people left that want to go bomb foreign countries for a distraction. Sending cruise missiles to blow up people in (spins board) Denmark is out.
Can’t get tough on trade with China – they have too much information on where Joe’s bank balance came from.

That leaves . . . the ‘Rona.

Thanks to Biden, a lot of people are going to be back on their feet again, since they can’t afford cars anymore.

I think the idea was to craft policies that appeal to the Suburban Soccer Mom while not impacting the SJW base. So, go after people with jobs and force them to take “the jab.” Suburban Soccer Moms will love it because it will leave little Cody or Colby or Colbee or Codi “safer” because the TV and Facebook® said so. SJWs are all about injectibles, and this has the added bonus of forcing people to do their will, which makes it just that easier to order them onto the trains.

A hospital in Houston fired 150 for not taking “the jab” – and every private business with over 100 employees will be forced to do the same. ~~Yet Biden is exempting 600,000 Post Office employees. Why?~~

~~To lose the mail system would hurt his poll numbers.~~

Looks like everyone knew this was going to be a popular speech.

This is his big bluff. He’s nearly out of chips. All he has is one chance to try to redeem himself.

I guess it makes sense. I mean, nobody is going to accept Jill as collateral.

What to do?

Huh. I’ll see your bluff, and raise you “the loss of consent of the governed.”

Is that sweat?

Bikini Economics And The Money Supply

â€œWhat do you know about gold, Moneypenny?â€ â€“ Goldfinger

One of the few things that Pa Wilder left me in his will was his bed. I guess you could call it an heir mattress.

On April 5, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order that made the owning of more than trivial amounts of gold by individuals illegal. Owning gold wouldnâ€™t be legal again until Gerald Ford signed a bill into law that reversed that abomination of a policy.

That law went into effect on December 31, 1974, and people could once again buy gold.

In 1933, the price of gold was fixed: $20.67 per ounce. It didnâ€™t vary, because the value of the dollar was pegged to the price of gold. The FedÂ© couldnâ€™t print dollars unless they had at least 40% of that value in gold to back it up.

Pro tip: If you have a balloon elephant that wonâ€™t fit in your backseat, you can always pop the trunk.

What did the government then do?

It defaulted on the dollar. A dollar had been worth (around) 1/20^th of an ounce of gold. After the government stole it all, they decided that a dollar was now only worth 1/35^th of an ounce of gold. Poof. Immediately, and with the stroke of a pen, the government stole 43% of the value of every dollar in existence.

The penalty for â€œhoardingâ€ gold was a big one: a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years in the slammer. I guess the government didnâ€™t (and doesnâ€™t) like competition when it comes to stealing.

It was the biggest heist in history â€“ until Nixon severed the link between the gold and the dollar completely. After that, people could own gold again. There was no real reason for the government to not allow them to own it: they had now stolen the rest of the value of the dollar.

If you rob a vape store, is that a JuulÂ® heist?

And it only took 41 years from 1933 to 1974 to convince people that was acceptable.

Since Nixon removed all gold connection, a dollar is worth (today) about 1/1800^th of an ounce of gold.

But that isnâ€™t enough to feed the beast.

The (metaphorical) printing presses have been shoveling money into the economy under the mistaken assumption that all we need is additional debt to keep the engine going. Itâ€™s like a demented congressman who doesnâ€™t understand engines deciding to open up the hood of an F-150Â® to just pour gasoline on it using the dim understanding of a toddler that, â€œgasoline makes engines go, so if I pour enough gasoline on the engine, it will be as fast as a spaceship.â€

Thatâ€™s really what passes as logic in Washington, D.C. now. I keep writing about the economy in the slim hope that whatever passes for an intellect in the halls of congress will get distracted enough to spend at least a minute or two learning before returning to the concept of, â€œUgh, free stuff good. Grug pay for stuff easy because all money free. Wonder why Grugâ€™s armpitâ€™s stink?â€

I swear, AOC couldnâ€™t spell â€œcatâ€ if you spotted her the â€œCâ€ and the â€œTâ€.

See, economics can be interesting!

The FedÂ® has gone all-in on this economic shadow puppet theater, shoving pools of money toward banks to shore up their balance sheets. Some of the people who are on the winning side of this great wave of money being sloshed around have even spent some.

BlackrockÂ® buying up all the houses for sale? Yup. They see whatâ€™s coming. All the rich and powerful buying farmland that will never produce enough via crops or cattle to justify the price? They see whatâ€™s coming. Theyâ€™re moving as quickly as possible to use this money to buy everything they can.

And people are happy. â€œHey, I sold Maâ€™s old house after she passed away for twice what she paid for it in 2000! I made out like a bandit.â€

Itâ€™s not all bad. Thankfully, the velocity of money is down.

Whatâ€™s the velocity of money?

Thatâ€™s how fast a dollar gets spent. Poor people move money the fastest â€“ a dollar comes in and, poof, out it goes again. They have to spend it because they donâ€™t have any spare money. They get paid on Friday and on Saturday itâ€™s turned into rent payments and insurance payments and CheetosÂ® from Targetâ„¢.

Roses are red, roses are blue, depending upon their velocity relative to you.

But the velocity of money is now slower than Joe Biden when heâ€™s asked difficult questions, like, â€œWhat is the year, Joe? Hey, weâ€™re talking to you. Dammit, heâ€™s gone catatonic again. Someone get those squeaky toys he likes. And keep Kamala out of the vodka.â€

Things would be far worse if the velocity of money hadnâ€™t dropped so far that it was moving as slow as Oprah trying to get off of a couch. Since poor people slosh it around so much, that means itâ€™s exactly where the FedÂ® put it: with the rich people.

So, if the money supply has gone vertical, then why hasnâ€™t the price of everything doubled?

And most of it is sitting in pools right now. Except for the early adopters who are looking for something, anything to buy so that when the dust clears out of the coming inflation that they are richer than ever and Oprah has even more TwinkiesÂ®.

Iâ€™m not against capitalism â€“ but this isnâ€™t capitalism. Itâ€™s a rigged card game where your money evaporates â€“ first slowly, and then all at once.

The engine of debt isnâ€™t driving economic growth anymore. What the debt is doing is papering over the holes in the system so that it keeps going another week, another month, and hopefully another year.

But the downside to this is the longer a failing system is kept going by speeding it up, the more energy it stores, the bigger the crash, the bigger the collapse.

Why did Princess Diana cross the road? Inertia.

The economy has inertia, though. Even though itâ€™s working on the most significant collapse in the history of the United States, people still believe. They take dollars because they believe. They believe the rules arenâ€™t going to change.

They will.

Since weâ€™ve seen this game before â€“ we can take at least some steps to protect ourselves. I suppose itâ€™s time to buy PEZÂ® before the rush . . . .

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: It’s A Long Way To The Bottom

“The stars are veiled. Something stirs in the East. A sleepless malice. The eye of the enemy is moving. He is here.” – Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

I love really large clocks. Big time.

Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
Open War.

Violence and open crime are still being encouraged by the Left. In Chicago, the murder rate looks like a tote-board for a telethon. “Only three more hours for killing, folks, let’s get those numbers up!”

I’m holding August at 9 out of 10, but it’s getting closer. That’s still two minutes to midnight, but there is absolutely no movement away from the precipice – we keep edging toward the abyss.

I currently put the total at (this is my best approximation since no one tracks the death toll from rebellion-related violence) hanging in at around 950 out of the 1,000 required for the international definition of civil war.

As close as we are to the precipice of war, be careful. Things could change at any minute. Avoid crowds. Get out of cities. Now. A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue: Front Matter – The Enemy Is You – Violence And Censorship Update –– Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – It’s A Long Way Down – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 550 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

The Enemy Is You

If you’re reading this, the Federal government has decided who the enemy is: you. The Department of Homeland Security has put up a listing of potential terror threats. The first?

Opposition to COVID Measures.

Regardless of your political bent, opposition to COVID measures is a valid political or religious position. But in 2021, we live in an era where the Justice (?) Department thinks that burning down Minneapolis is to be encouraged, but where a group of people just wanting to live their lives are . . . potential terror threats when the most extreme thing they’ve ever done in their lives is to not be willing to accept the imposition of tyrannical controls on their lives.

If the United States saw what the government of the United States was doing to the people of the United States, then the United States would invade the United States to stop it.

The second point was this:

Claims of Election Fraud, Belief Trump can be Reinstated

Starting with the first part, I think it’s been well proven that there was election fraud. All signs point to it being pervasive and large enough to have swung the election. Again, the conspirators openly shared their techniques in Time® magazine while gloating that it worked. But maybe we should believe the Democrats when they say there was no election fraud – after all they’re the ones who have the most experience.

Trump being reinstated? Nah. That won’t happen. But the idea that there is fraud is also a valid reaction to the data and the way the elections was held. Remember them blocking out the press and covering the windows so people couldn’t look in?

Yeah. Still no explanation for that one.

The third point isn’t really a point, so we’ll skip it.

In the end, what the DHS is really saying is that this is the actual profile of their prime terror suspects:

Why, with red flags like that, I bet they even deny that they’re racist!

Violence And Censorship Update

Violence is endemic now in major cities, and much of it is politically motivated, so we’ll skip that this month.

The big story continues to be Censorship. Where else to start but Lt. General (Ret.) Michael Flynn?

Flynn had been a supporter of Trump, and had been confirmed as National Security Advisor and had spent all of two weeks in the job before resigning. He was the victim of the FBI’s initial witch hunt in the Trump administration. Oh, and the appointing of Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate, well, whatever.

Anyway, in perhaps his biggest sin, Flynn remained loyal to Trump. Though he agreed to a plea deal, Trump later pardoned him. So, story over, right?

No. Flynn is still speaking openly about things the Left doesn’t like. I don’t think Flynn is really on the Right, but he really irritates the Left. How much does he irritate them?

Chase Bank may have denied him credit, but Flynn can still borrow from Cheese Bank in Utah – I think they call it a Provo-loan.

Yup, they canceled his credit cards. Not due to non-payment, just because they don’t like the things that Flynn is saying. Again, the push to unperson people the Left doesn’t like carries on. And now you know where Chase® sits.

Unpersoning is one way to censor – it certainly gives the rest of the people speaking out pause. But there’s still old reliable: shutting off access. Censorship has been the usual ongoing mess. The big name censored in August was . . . Vox Day.

Vox Day is a writer/game developer/social commentator/etc./etc. and has been needling the SJWs and the Left for, well, forever. It used to be considered to be sporting fun jousting with the Left, but now any deviation from their norms are grounds for immediate attacks.

Vox has proven himself pretty much immune to the attacks, as long as they spell his name right. In this case, Blogger® (a division of Google™) took down his blog. Blogger© was his web home for many years. Right now, if you go to his old website, you find a note that “This blog is under review due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations and is open to authors only.”

So, shut down.

I had regularly been a reader of his site. I can’t recall any of the commentaries that couldn’t have been read aloud on nearly any radio station in the country, legally. But Vox has been more or less invulnerable to damage from the Left, which seems to infuriate them even more.

Another voice silenced. Well, not silenced. Two hours later, he was up and running, and within a day he had everything moved over to voxday.net. As I said, he’s been pretty much immune to their attacks.

But governments can silence not just a single individual, but a whole class of people:

On Friday, I wrote about the Aussie trucker’s strike. It has had an impact, but the government did its very best to shut down cell phones, social media, and any other electronic communications from the truckers. The government even shut down video cameras that might have been used for people to observe the parked trucks.

Feels like the fix is in . . .

Oddly, the only way you could observe the strike in real-time was on Google® maps by the drive time delays. And, yes, of course, the press was complicit in not covering it. Two Leftists show up to protest the Leftist cause of the day? Dozens of news cameras show up.

Hundreds of men protest for freedom?

Silence.

That’s to be expected. The major news outlets are all working together with the major tech websites to coordinate what is true. They also coordinate who has the opportunity to speak.

Twitter®: will give people who say “death to America” a say on Twitter™, but not a former president. That says it all.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real-time. They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings. As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index. On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Up is more violent, and our perception of violence is down in August, again. I guess we’ve just lowered our standards.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it dropped again this month. Unless there’s a crisis, I expect political instability to remain low until at least September. Weirdly, it seems like June-July-August have the lowest levels of instability. I guess that’s due to it being fresh vodka season in Washington D.C.?

Economic:

Economic measures showed another uptick last month. Are people becoming used to inflation? What about when the shortages hit?

Illegal Aliens:

This data was at record levels last month, but we beat the record again. Coming soon to a town near you, ready or not.

A Long Way Down

Right now the military of the United States is being filtered. How?

Through the use of indoctrination/separation techniques like Critical Race Theory. CRT was designed to create racial division. Truth and Reconciliation efforts always are a blame game, whose main technique is constructed to not heal, but to reopen wounds. In the United States the idea of CRT is to blame those who were uninvolved to benefit those who were unborn when the original injury occurred.

Hey, let’s take that idea to the military, where functional cohesion is dependent upon esprit de corps and camaraderie!

What could go wrong?

The entire thing, really.

I don’t like some races. The 400 meter always made me want to puke. It’s not a sprint, it’s not distance, what is it??? Sorry, I guess I’m critical of that race.

So, the military is cratering. What about government? It is nearly certain that our government is the stupidest it has ever been. Really.

Seriously, does anyone think her IQ would even be a warm day in Houston?

We have a vice president putting flowers down at a memorial to the people who shot down John McCain after the “successful” withdrawal strategy that Alzheimer-in-Chief Biden approved and then forgot about. Now, I’m no John McCain fan by any stretch, but this is incompetence at the level of the Three Stooges®.

Yes. The military is being driven to incompetence. Biden and Harris are in a race to see which is worse: stupidity or dementia.

That leaves the economy. At least it’s doing well, right?

The Fed should take my lead and just start showing bikini models in their graphs. Oh, wait, they don’t want people to read them.

No. When the Fed stops publishing a model because it shows the GDP has collapsed (as shown to be mathematically certain by this author several months ago), you know it’s very, very bad.

And we have yet to hit bottom. When I started publishing these, in several comments folks noted that we wouldn’t have Civil War 2.0 when we had such a good economy. Full bellies don’t start revolutions.

As the shortages develop and inflation takes hold, remember these things:

It’s a long, long way to the bottom. We are actually right now in the “false hope” section I wrote about back in spring of 2020.
Stay away from crowds. 72 hours can change everything about your life.
Get out of the cities. Really.
Better to be a year early in preparing than a day late.

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky. Thanks so much, Ricky!!

Film At Eleven

NYC : https://twitter.com/i/status/1427789149986246663

LA: https://twitter.com/i/status/1425839855037210624

Oakland : https://twitter.com/i/status/1424776126115635201

San Francisco: https://twitter.com/i/status/1428774094145613826

Colorado Springs: https://youtu.be/L2fGVbMYp54

Last Word From San Diego: https://twitter.com/i/status/1427849481551106056

Coming In Hot – Brace For Impact

https://uncoverdc.com/2021/09/03/true-the-vote-update-videos-show-evidence-of-ballot-harvesting/

https://rumble.com/vm1ln1-all-hell-is-about-to-break-loose-in-georgia.html

https://www.truethevote.org/news-posts/the-breitbart-article-true-the-vote-update

https://georgiastarnews.com/2021/08/30/43000-absentee-ballot-votes-counted-in-dekalb-county-2020-election-violated-chain-of-custody-rule/

https://uncoverdc.com/2021/08/09/pennsylvania-134-year-old-man-voted-in-2020-election/

https://www.propublica.org/article/heeding-steve-bannons-call-election-deniers-organize-to-seize-control-of-the-gop-and-reshape-americas-elections

Woke World

Woke World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZChpvvLhmI&t=135s

Cue applause (!?!) : https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/status/1427144687740141570

Mr and Mrs : https://twitter.com/i/status/1428363839205122050

Public Education : https://twitter.com/i/status/1427337084591874055

Almighty Dollar (see 0:30): https://twitter.com/i/status/1430851901239795712

Inauguration Party : https://twitter.com/i/status/1428365941222477834

Pledge of Allegiance: https://twitter.com/i/status/1431375675903053829

American Citizen : https://twitter.com/i/status/1428031497785810954

Miscellaneous Mayhem

https://buchanan.org/blog/is-america-becoming-a-failed-state-149897

https://floridaphoenix.com/2021/08/24/is-america-experiencing-a-different-kind-of-civil-war-opinion/

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/virginia-militia-bedford-campbell-county/

https://www.axios.com/diversity-majority-minority-white-american-census-bd181b53-f170-40b2-9913-dd43363e1aaf.html

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1425794735889866752.html

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2021/09/beyond-culture-wars

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/majority-registered-democratic-voters-prefer-socialism-to-capitalism-fox-news-poll

http://themostimportantnews.com/archives/they-have-come-up-with-some-ominous-new-definitions-for-what-constitutes-domestic-terrorism

https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/counterterrorism/al-qaeda-tells-parties-civil-war-to-find-what-they-need-in-islamist-terror-guides/

It’s My Party, I’ll Cry (Out) If I Want To

https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2021/09/01/leonard-pitts-right-wing/

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/31/fellow-republican-rips-freshman-gop-rep-madison-cawthorn-over-insane-threat-of-bloodshed/

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/08/madison-cawthorn-is-openly-talking-about-civil-war-at-this-point

https://www.foxnews.com/media/what-war-liberal-media-find-a-new-target-madison-cawthorn-and-civil-war

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/03/nevada-gop-griped-by-civil-war-as-far-right-proud-boys-attempt-takeover_partner/

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/09/maga-civil-war-why-trumpworld-is-suddenly-lashing-out-fox-news-and-dan-bongino/

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2021/aug/02/in-the-republican-partys-civil-war-its-moderates-v/

https://newrepublic.com/article/163285/andrew-torba-gab-white-christian-internet

The S-word

https://www.foxnews.com/media/former-trump-aide-makes-case-for-red-counties-seeking-blue-state-secession-to-do-so-mistreated-and-overtaxed

https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/zocalos-connecting-california/joe-mathews-california-pluralism-secession

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/08/06/opinion-imagining-a-realistic-calexit-scenario/

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19485812.california-secessionist-campaigner-louis-marinelli-set-calexit-comeback/

https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/news/2021-07-26/greater-idaho-push-reignites-longtime-secessionist-movement

https://madison.com/ct/opinion/mailbag/robert-reid-secessionists-raise-risk-of-second-civil-war/article_28fe613c-f133-5664-b252-950c01daaf8e.html

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/18/college-republicans-in-disarray-after-stolen-election–texas-chapter-may-even-secede_partner/

(From M*A*S*H): Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/assabiya-lee-smith

The Fall Of Freedom In Australia In 16 Memes

“Your planet doesn’t deserve freedom until it learns what it is not to have freedom. It’s a lesson, I say!” – Futurama

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – Ben Franklin

Note: Memes tonight aren’t original. Normally, Friday is less political. Tonight? Not so much. Events in Australia are moving quickly, so, here it is.

The reaction to COVID-19 by the Australian government has been about as rational and lucid as Joe Biden is in the morning. Or the afternoon. Or, well, anytime.

It’s that bad, it’s all of the logic of a sugar-addled toddler with a machete and a police force in a tank running over a disarmed people.

Australia has been the test case for total social control. You’d think that the independent Aussie spirit would make them resist.

No, not really. They gave the government ludicrous control. So, what did the government do? Jumped the shark. Or crocodile. Or whatever other poisonous or deadly animal that Australian Fonzie jumped over.

Yup, that’s right. The good ol’ government wants to have full access to everything Aussies say and do online. For safety, of course. There’s no way that they could abuse that, right?

Oh, wait, once you give them that control, it never stops. Here’s the next bit:

What does that mean?

This is a scene directly out of Orwell’s guidebook novel 1984. Forced to have an app. Forced to prove where you are so the government can track you. Only 15 minutes to comply, or the police will show up.

I can see the Democrats taking notes in the back . . .

It’s not all bad. If you spend enough time in your cell, you get privileges:

An hour!!! So generous. Perhaps they’ll let them make pruno and give them commissary privileges so they can buy some smokes. Until they ban smokes. I’m sure they have a plan if people rebel:

No, a real plan:

Yup, that’s closer.

But you might think that’s bad enough. It’s not even close.

Yup, things can get worse. Truckers wanted to protest the outrageous bans, rules, and mask mandate.

What did they do?

The truckers did it. But if you were an Australian, they tried to make it so you’d never know. The government shut down the traffic cams so you couldn’t see it. They shut down the truckers’ phones. They shut down their social media. They censored, in real-time, a revolt against the rules.

Well, if you want to know what I really think, I think [THIS CONTENT IS CENSORED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF AUSTRALIA].

Thankfully they haven’t designed concentration camps . . . oh.

My apologies. These aren’t concentration camps at all. They’re quarantine camps. (PM me if you want a larger copy, I have a 1.6MB version.)

As usual, /pol/ has a take on it:

When even a magazine as far Left as The Atlantic says you’ve gone too far, well, you may have gone too far:

Well, that’s bad. It gets worse. Even the Canadians are piling on:

Strangely, it’s almost like the world has been here before. When might that have been? Hmmm.

But Australians are still free, right?

What’s To Worry? Only 11 Major Emergencies Right Now.

A question. What exactly is “total systems failure”? – Star Trek, TNG

Joe Biden doesn’t know the meaning of the word “failure” – dementia already got to that one.

Over my life, I’ve seen some things go well, and I’ve seen some things go bad. In many cases, I’ve seen them go spectacularly bad. In one particular example a zillion years ago, the ground was muddy.

Mud wasn’t that bad, right? Except that the railroad ties the diesel tank was sitting on sank in a bit too much. The 500 gallon diesel tank then tipped right over. Okay, you can clean diesel up, right?

But the tank nozzle fell on onto a hard object, which snapped it right off. The diesel began to pour out of the tank. What had the diesel tank fallen on? An oxygen cylinder from a welding rig. Snapped that nozzle off, too.

What luck!

So, now, I’m 40 feet away from pure oxygen being slammed into diesel fuel, and creating a fine mist of oxygen and diesel in the air.

That’s what’s generally known as a fuel-air bomb, if only it had an ignition source. Oh, and there was a red-hot air compressor exhaust pipe not 20 feet away.

I always stop my microwave at 0:01, so I feel like a bomb defusing expert.

It was weird, standing there in the mud as the diesel mist spread out. Everyone just stopped and stared. I didn’t.

I’ve always had this weird thing – whenever there’s an emergency my emotions shut down and I become focused on one thing only: the emergency. No fear, no hesitation, just action. It’s like the world becomes exceptionally clear. Time slows down. My mind focuses.

I yelled and pointed, “Turn off that air compressor. NOW!”

I’m not sure I’ve ever yelled louder before or since. The spell was broken. The guy near the compressor heard me above the engine and the hissing, and shut the compressor off.

Thankfully, the high-pressure oxygen wasn’t just pushing the diesel – it was also pushing the mud and water into the air, too. So it wasn’t just a thin mist of atomized diesel – it was a thin mist of atomized diesel, water, and mud.

That small bit of luck (which caused the problem in the first place) might have saved us all.

After the tank stopped hissing, they started cleaning up. Then, the emotions came to the forefront. I went back to my office and took a deep, deep breath, and let it out very slowly and cleaned the oil the thin mist had deposited on my glasses.

I had nearly become thin mist myself, but even then I still would have been more coherent than AOC’s understanding of economics.

I only make AOC jokes Ocasio-nally.

Often, there’s just a single path to success. It takes a lot of work to get everything working, all at the same time.

Failure isn’t that way. Often, just a single failure when almost everything is going right can cause a cascade of failure.

But we’re beyond that as a nation, and we’re beyond that as a world.

In my list, the items are sometimes causes, and sometimes effects of other causes on the list. It’s probably not as relevant today as to what caused the crisis, but what the effects of the crisis are. In many cases, the effects are wildly larger than the initial cause was. I mean, all she did was ask me if those pants made her butt look big.

For example, I think we can all agree that COVID is bad, but the loss of freedom caused by COVID has the potential to be much, much worse.

COVID – this is the grand-daddy of the current crisis, or more accurately, the spark that lit the fire of 2020. Many of the following issues are the result not of the virus, but from our reaction to it. At every step, it seems like the official response has been misguided, and has created innumerable knock-on effects. Just like eliminating warts with a welding torch, the cure has been much, much worse than the disease.

We knew COVID was dangerous right off the bat.

Inflation – This was going to happen even if COVID never showed up. In the last fifty years, the national debt has doubled just about every eight or nine years. Doubling is a great thing if it’s my bank balance. Doubling is not a great thing if it’s how much I owe, especially if I’m not doubling how much I make. But to add ten or so trillion dollars in six months? Yeah, that’s going to show up somewhere. And it’s now.
Supply Chain Issues – This was started by COVID, but is now exacerbated by inflation and international issues. Who knew that the United States manufacturing economy was almost entirely dependent upon chips from Taiwan? Who knew we could make trucks and tractors but we couldn’t make them run without those chips? Oh, and the cost of those chips is going to go up by at least 20%. Why? Because they can, and because they want to have a good cash balance in their accounts when they flee after China is done measuring the island to see if their stuff fits.

Taiwan gets in trouble because it has a Taipei personality.

Reserve Currency Status – As I’ve established before, the ability of the United States to just print money at will and have people in the Ukraine take it and send us steel slabs is like alchemy. We’ve even turned it more modern – we don’t bother to print the money, we just electronically wave it into existence. We send those digits to Ukrainians, and they give us stuff. If the Ukrainians and everyone else decide they don’t believe in magic? You know what they call a magician without magic: Ian.
Loss of Freedom in the “West” – I look at the news out of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia and think, “Seriously? You’re putting up with that?” And they do, mostly. The Aussies use drones to find people camping far from anyone so they can arrest them for not being under lockdown. I could go on and on about this topic (and will in the future) but Claire has a great summary here (LINK). This is especially weird to me, since here in Modern Mayberry life is, more or less, exactly like pre-‘Rona life. High school football game? Zero masks. Except for my duck. I bought him one. It fits the bill.
International Breakdown – Afghanistan is a sign to the world – the United States has no military ability, or at least no military ability that it’s able to use effectively. Leaving bases (and the main airport) under the cover of darkness while abandoning American citizens to the Taliban? What does Biden call that? I’d hate to see his version of failure, since it would likely involve him somehow figuring out how to crack the crust of the world open so he could sniff a little girl’s hair.

At least we know one group that Joe is willing to fight for.

Immigration – Millions of illegals have streamed over the borders like there was a Black Friday sale on. Does the Left require COVID vaccination for them? It’s not only illegal immigration, it’s legal immigration. In 2021 the United States has the largest proportion of newly arrived (first generation) citizens in history. Ever – as near as I can tell (based on things like MIT studies) something like 17% of the people in the United States weren’t born here. Some, I assume, are nice people. But how many can we take in before the United States ceases to be the United States?
Loss of Social Cohesion – This is an effect, but it’s got tons of causes. Changes in technology. Changes in demographics. Changes in beliefs. A group believing what nearly every (90%+) American did in 1990 or 1890 or 1790 would be considered a “potential domestic terrorist” today.
Increased Polarity – Partially a result of the Loss of Social Cohesion, but also a result of decades of indoctrination of teachers by Leftists.
Demoralization – I’ve sensed a greater degree of resignation that it’s “over”. It’s not over. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Moral Collapse – It seems like the current worldview is, “if it isn’t illegal, it’s moral.” And anything that was illegal? There’s a group trying to make it legal. Shoplifting? It’s fine in San Francisco.

In the fall of 2021, the situation for the world is dire. Some of the threads of this web were woven over 100 years ago, some this year. Together, though, they form a pattern that will be hard to escape.

Back when NASA® had a countdown that didn’t go . . . 6…5…4…3…2…1…LUNCH!

When the diesel tank fell on the oxygen cylinder, in most normal worlds I would have become a diffuse cloud of Wilder paste. Not that time. Even though the world would never be the same as it was before the diesel tank fell, my world didn’t end.

Life will be different. Some of the chaos listed above cannot be avoided: many bills will have to finally be paid.

Don’t cry for the civilization we lost.

Times of change like this have come before. Collapses have occurred. People carry on, and in some cases produce better, stronger civilizations than ever went before.

The world that emerges will be a new one. Let us make it a great one.

FYI: This will be the topic of a livestream with Mark and The Mrs. on September 1, 2021 at 9pm Eastern. It will be here: (Bombs and Bants Livestream).

The Coming Reaction To Leftist Religion

“Every ancient religion has its own myth about the end of the world.” – Ghostbusters

I guess communism doesn’t work on paper, either, if that paper is in a history book.

This week I finally got a copy of the novel The Three Body Problem by Chinese author Cixin Liu. It won the Hugo® award for best novel in 2015. I consider winning the Hugo® faint praise.

Mainstream science fiction has long since ceased being a genre about the interplay of science and humanity. Today, it has become a way that woke Leftist editors can select Leftist authors to present a Leftist viewpoint. So, it’s like being a freshman in college, but with extra steps.

There are notable exceptions (John C. Wright comes to mind), but most of the books I see on bookstore shelves today are far inferior to the product of 20 or 30 years ago in every respect. Heck, they even took the hot chicks in bikinis off of the covers.

Conan would often swing his sword at his opponent’s ankles. That way they were de-feeted.

I did sit down and devour (I got it on Saturday and finished three-quarters of it that day) The Three Body Problem. I didn’t get a chance to finish it today, but I’ll have to say I’ve enjoyed very much what I’ve read so far.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I certainly wasn’t expecting Cixin’s first scene to confront a painful era in China’s past. The opening few chapters took a very difficult look at the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was when, after being pushed aside for a bit, Chairman Mao decided to pour gasoline all over China and set it ablaze.

Cixin’s didn’t spare detail, showing the brutality and unthinking violence of the Cultural Revolution.

What was the Cultural Revolution?

Mao used youth groups to rebel against the communist leaders that were insufficiently Maoist. What was Maoist? It varied. The results, however, didn’t. It was a reign of internal terror that started in 1966 and reached a peak in 1969. The only thing that finally ended it was Mao’s death.

The leader of China put out a little red book, just like Mao’s “Quotations from Chairman Mao”. It’s called, “That’s what Xi said.”

The Cultural Revolution was a religious war. How was it religious, since the commies were officially atheist?

Because Leftism had become their religion. Mao was their savior. And by burning and destroying the past, they were bringing about a cleansing fire that would destroy the world.

As many as (high estimate) 20 million Chinese died one way or another in Cultural Revolution. They died in all the usual ways: via massacres, struggle sessions, or cannibalism.

Children turned in their parents. Anyone objecting was, of course, a dangerous counter-revolutionary and was either killed or imprisoned or forced to watch re-runs of The Jimmy Kimmel Show.

Cixin’s book brings all of this home with stark reality. Sometimes it takes fiction to turn the cruel sterility of a Wikipedia article into something a human can relate to. This confirms, though, several basic thoughts:

Leftism is a religion.
The goal of Leftism isn’t the betterment of man: the goal is an apocalypse where everything impure is burned away. The goal is to immanentize the eschaton to lead to the final worker’s paradise.
The number of victims is irrelevant. Everything and everyone is fair game.
The rules in play are the rules of today, there is no consistency as definitions always change.
I like pizza.

Leftist Catechism: Thy jab and thy booster, they comfort me, they maketh me to deny statistics and seek peace in the Pfizer.

As I’ve written about before, Leftism is also a religion built upon self-loathing. They actually hate themselves. Why throw themselves in front of cars? Their life is pain. They want to die. At least then they could stop watching Stephen Colbert, which makes the sweet release of death sound good.

Leftism isn’t really a political movement. Leftism is a religion. That alone makes it very strong. In most cases, if a religious fanatic is prosecuted, what will be the outcome? The fanaticism is, in their minds, justified – the purification of mankind has become their religion.

In one sense, the failure in Afghanistan isn’t really a surprise because of just this principle. The United States spent 20 years trying to convince a group of religious people that their religion and tribal affiliations weren’t important, and that they should replace it with BLM®, fast food, Dancing With The Stars™ and a good credit score.

No Afghani soldier wants to die for the latest Xbox® release.
No Afghani soldier wants to die for the Afghani teen girl robotic team.

Come on down to Hakim’s discount emporium! The best prices on gently-used weapons in the tri-nation area.

Why did Afghani soldiers disappear? They really weren’t fighting for Afghanistan, they were fighting to make Afghanistan more like, oh, a mall in the suburbs in Indiana.

It’s just that sort of mismatch that occurs when we look at Leftism. Sure, some Leftists are basket cases that couldn’t exist outside of their mom’s basement and her boyfriend supplying xim/xir unlimited Cheetos®. But there is a dedicated core that believes in Leftism with all of their hearts, and are fully committed to it.

Is it possible to have that level of dedication on the Right?

It is. In fact, I believe it will be inevitable. Is there an apathetic center? Yes, but there’s never been a time when the center really mattered, outside paying so little attention to the issues that they make elections exciting.

The Leftists use the term “reactionary” to describe opposition to their atrocities. That’s what the Cultural Revolutionaries called those they killed: Reactionaries.

The Reaction will take place and will have all of the fervor of the Left, and twice the guns. If it comes down to an attempted Cultural Revolution in the United States, the Left will find we’ve seen this movie before.

A crusader walks into a bar, the bartender says, “What do you want?” The crusader: “Jerusalem!”

This is a repeat of history: every time the Left has gained power, in the end, it has lost it. In Paris, eventually, the communists gave way to Napoleon. In Russia, it lasted longer but eventually proved itself to be bankrupt. In China, after Mao died, it was transformed, bit by bit. Maoist China would have executed Cixin Liu for writing The Three Body Problem. The state-socialist-market economy that’s replaced Mao is okay with it.

I am likewise certain that the United States will be changed by the coming crusade against Leftism. It certainly won’t look the same after it’s over.

It won’t have Leftists, for one thing.

Now Is When We Need Heroes. And Secondhand Lions.

“Well, a man’s body may grow old, but inside, his spirit can still be as young and restless as ever. And him? In his day he had more spirit than twenty men.” – Secondhand Lions

In England, they don’t have a kidney bank. But they do have a Liverpool.

What is life?

It’s the sum of your experiences. One experience I sadly missed until this week was the movie Secondhand Lions.

It came out in 2003, and I’d missed it until this week. Amazon® seemed to think I needed to see it, and with a movie starring Robert Duvall and Michael Frigging Caine? Well, how could I turn that down?

It’s about a boy named Walter. Walter is a boy who was dropped off by his mother with his crazy uncles who believe that life is an adventure and don’t take crap from, well, anyone.

This particular movie hit home.

I’ll explain, and this will clear up at least some of the mystery regarding my origin story. (Hint: in the end I make a mechanical suit to escape from the clutches of terrorists and found a multinational empire based on funny stories written from the Right.)

It’s funny because he’s a liar.

Despite what you might believe, I didn’t spring fully grown from the loins of some Olympian goddess who had nice, um, bazoongas and was married to Zeus. No, my origin was much more The World According to Garp.

My biological mother decided she really, really liked a guy when she was in college. Why did she like him? Because she thought he had an amazing way with words and was the smartest guy she’d ever met. What was a 23-year-old divorcee to do?

Lure an 18-year old into bed.

Can you get a woman in a “family way” the first time out? Well, I’m certainly not the product of virginity, but I am the product of virginity cunningly snared from a poor 18-year-old boy by a 23-year-old woman who wanted to have his baby.

Yup. Me.

But I can say that I was born a virgin.

You can see that her decision-making was both amazing (I exist) and utterly flawed. I am the result of a genetic experiment conducted by a woman who just decided to have a kid. No plan. Just wanted a kid.

Me.

Surprisingly, that’s not a long-term plan that has success written on it. In that time and era, her parents sent her away to have a child far away to avoid the family shame of an unwed mother. So, I was born.

Ta-da!

About four years later, however, the world decided that perhaps a woman of such skill and foresight might not be able to raise a child with the cunning and sophistication of your author. The court decided I should be tossed out for adoption.

A nice family was set to adopt me. They were worth (at that time) millions. They wanted a wonderful blonde baby boy, and I was the one. The papers were set. I was going to be the heir to thousands of acres of prime land.

Then Ma and Pa Wilder stepped in. They were my biological mother’s parents (sort of – that’s an even longer story that involves a world war, horses, and a Mormon polygamy cult in Mexico, and I’m not exaggerating or making up any of those things, either). I’d throw in aliens, but I have no proof of that.

I am exceedingly improbable.

So Ma and Pa Wilder got a lawyer and stopped the adoption to those millionaire folks. I’m good with that. They later found an inferior version to adopt. Why inferior?

I have to admit I slept with my third cousin. My friend told me to stop counting them.

Well, that’s an even longer story, but here is the Cliff Notes® version: I was a senior on the varsity wrestling in high school, and one week the coach sent me to wrestle with the JV against a school for a duel. Why? There was a state champion at my weight, even though his school had only AA while mine had AAA. I beat him, soundly.

Yup. It was the guy who got adopted by the childless millionaires instead of me.

No, his name wasn’t John.

But my adoptive brother (who was my uncle) was also named John. And, so it’s true. My brother’s name is . . . John Wilder. And, he’s older, so he owned it first. But he went by his middle name, so, it all worked out.

Sharks never eat clownfish. They taste funny.

To me, though, Secondhand Lions was a wonderful story to view my own life. The power of myth is important. Also from the movie:

Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage and virtue mean everything. That power and money, money and power mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil. And I want you to remember this: that love, true love never dies. Remember that boy, remember that. Doesn’t matter if it is true or not, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing. Got that?

If there were words a man should believe outside of religion, here they are.

And it doesn’t matter if these things are true. Because they are worth believing. We live not for today, but to have the spirit of lions, to conduct amazing adventures out of improbable lives.

We need to fight battles against overwhelming odds. We need to save the lives of others, countlessly. We should avoid the tame, and embrace the outrageous.

We should be big damn heroes.

We should share our adventures and inspire others to follow us.

Why else is life worth living?

I’ve shared a lot this post that I never had before. I owe so many for who and what I am. I want to help create a world where this adventure never ceases. Where men live and create. Where fortunes are won and lost, where the individuality of man is celebrated, and where improbable men can exist.

Thor never gets drunk, but he sometimes gets hammered.

I’m improbable because my life was helped by those that took me in when they had no reason to. They taught me that honor, virtue and courage mean everything, and that money and power mean nothing. They taught me that heroes exist. That’s who I am. They taught me that these things never die. Again, from the movie:

I’m Hub McCann, I fought in two world wars and countless smaller ones on three continents. I led thousands of men into battle with everything from horses and swords to artillery and tanks. I’ve seen the headwaters of the Nile, and tribes of natives no white man had ever seen before. I’ve won and lost a dozen fortunes, killed many men, and loved only one woman, with a passion a flea like you could never begin to understand.

We need heroes. We need to be heroes.

We need to believe things that are worth believing.

Why?

The world needs it. The world needs us.

The world needs you.

Let us go forth now, and create the world where heroes exist. Let us create a world worthy of such heroes.

It won’t do it by itself.

I do believe this world will exist, because of people just like you and me.

No matter how old you are, or where you are, the adventure is just beginning.

Go on. It’s never too late.

Ever.