It’s written, memes are freshly baked out of the oven, but I can’t get to a “new post” window on my PC, and it’s too late to figure out how to post off my phone.
Author: John
Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.
Recharge Yourself.
“They recharge? I just keep buying new phones.” – House, M.D.
It’s cool everyone in the world charges their phones with an American Bee. Oh, wait, they call it a USB.
Some things just wear me out faster than the inseam of Oprah’s pants.
Thankfully, some things just make me feel as excited as the Autopsy Club at open Mike night.
Things that wear me out are, thankfully, not so common. Besides, if I listed those, I’d just be whining. Besides, it’s a lot more fun to focus on the positive when I can.
Here are a sampling of things that recharge me:
Learning new things.
The older I get, the more I realize that my ironclad knowledge of youth was . . . wrong.
Not virtue, mind you. What is true and virtuous hasn’t changed. The lessons of morality from my youth from parents and grandparents have been constant guides. So, not that.
But how many things were skipped in history? What’s left to learn in science? Amazing amounts. Heck, I was shocked about some of the things I learned about electricity.
That’s one tough cut of meat.
Writing a post that I like.
When I write a post where I felt that the beginning, middle, and end all work and mesh seamlessly together with the bad jokes and memes? I’m in heaven. I hit the “go” button on the software to schedule the post, and then hit the comments. If it’s a particularly late night, that’s the worst, because I’m excited about what I wrote, but it’s two hours before the alarm goes off.
I took my goldfish to the vet. “He’s having seizures.” The vet responded, “He looks fine to me.” “Sure,” I said, “but wait until I get him out of the bowl.”
It’s worth it even though the two most common synonyms for unemployed are “writer” and “blogger”. One thing to note: some of the posts that I personally like the best aren’t the ones that get the most traction. That’s okay. I’m still learning (see the first point).
Teaching someone something new to them.
When I, with ten minutes and a few hundred words, can change the world view of someone, I cherish that moment. It’s all well and good to go through my daily life just doing my thing, but when I have the opportunity to change the way a human mind works and sees the Universe, forever?
That’s the best. Doing my own thing, I’m limited. The surest way to multiply my impact is to share ideas. I’ll die. If the ideas I taught live on and spread after that?
I still win.
Coming home and sitting down in my chair.
I have a chair upstairs. It’s a nice, soft brown chair, next to a coffee table stacked with too many books. I walk in after a day away, pop my book bag on the floor, and ease down into the chair. From there, I can go anywhere. Most often, The Mrs. will curl up on the couch and we’ll talk about the day. Or if she’s not there? I’ll sit and read. Or sit and sleep. Or . . . whatever.
I told my son that if he’s got a paralyzed girlfriend to take her wheelchair if she wanted to break up. She’ll come crawling back.
Getting up and drinking coffee in my chair in the dark morning in an empty house after everyone but me has headed away.
There is something peaceful about sitting in the chair before the chaos of the day begins. I often turn off all of the lights and sit in a still, quiet house, reading about what happened while I slept. I look at my watch and follow the time until it’s time to go.
A crisp autumn day.
Winter is my favorite time of the year because I love the weather, the colder the better. An autumn day is nice, too. The heat of summer has burned off. The potential for a cool autumn day is endless. Work outside? Sure. Open the windows and paint a room? Sure. Weld up the mailbox supports? Can do. An autumn day gives a last look before winter.
Autumn days are filled with infinite possibility. I guess that makes me a Fall Guy. I got that nickname through the school of hard equinox.
One out of our four cats.
We had one cat, and it is an awful cat. Last November, The Mrs. and Pugsley conspired to bring home a second. I was against it. My reasoning was that atheists own more cats than Christians. Pugsley countered that it’s illegal to own Christians.
But about the cat? Sadly, I was wrong. That cat is a pretty good cat. I like it.
The two cats that showed up afterward? I’ll pass, thank you, and they can stay outside unless the apocalypse comes and we need extra flavor for the ramen.
But I like that one cat quite a bit.
I have the reflexes of a cat. Remember, a dead cat is still a cat.
A full Saturday afternoon reading a good book.
A few weeks ago it was cool during the week, but hot on the weekend. I grabbed a book around 9AM and started reading. I read through the morning (stopping for lunch) and then read until I took a nap.
That was nice. I hadn’t done it in years. There’s a magic in getting lost in a world, letting it open up in your mind. One boss of mine said that, “Books are the only way that one human can talk to another through time.” He was right. But I make it a point to never read a braille horror book – I can always feel when something is coming.
Sleeping in on Saturday but still being the first up.
The stillness of the house in the morning brings possibility. What will happen next? Who will the next person to walk down the hall be?
My friend kisses his wife goodbye every morning. The Mrs. asked me, “Why don’t you do that?” It’s a good question, but I don’t even know my friend’s wife that well.
As I look through the list, there’s a pattern: I seek new knowledge so I can share it. I look for stillness so I can create thoughts, and then put them into action. While I love taking action and making things happen in the real world, I like to think that the knowledge I pick up along the way and share might make any action I take look, over time, quite small.
What charges you up?
The Wilder Manifesto, Complete With Otis
“Okay, whose job was it to feed the butterflies?†– The Venture Brothers
What do you call a unicorn’s dad? Popcorn?
I remember reading a story as a child – I’d give the source if I could remember, but too many years have passed since I read it. I’m at the age where I’m having trouble remembering names – mine for starters. But some stories stick with you, especially when you can relate to them like I relate to batteries. I mean, like batteries I’m not included in anything, either.
In this particular case, a young Japanese girl sat in a classroom. Her desk was near a class project. Inside a terrarium, a caterpillar had spun its cocoon and was slowly turning into a butterfly. Each day, the young girl would watch this metamorphosis. Finally, the butterfly was finally ready to emerge from the cocoon.
It struggled. The little girl watched, sympathetic to the beautiful butterfly that was trying to free itself. She could hardly wait – little kids are like that. Every minute the butterfly tried to escape, she was torn. It worked so hard! Finally, she couldn’t help herself, and helped to tear open the cocoon for the butterfly.
The butterfly fell to the bottom of the terrarium. It walked along the bottom of the terrarium, pitifully. Soon enough, the butterfly died. The little girl saw this happen.
That butterfly knows what it did.
The teacher pulled the little girl, who was now crying, aside. “Did you help the butterfly get out of the cocoon?â€
“Yes,†the little girl replied. “It was struggling so! I couldn’t stand watching it fight so hard!â€
“You have to understand,†the teacher responded, “Only by struggling to escape the cocoon does the butterfly build enough strength in its wings to fly.â€
Then he straightened up. “You KILLED IT! You’re so stupid!†screamed the teacher and then sent the little girl to the Japanese PEZ® mines. Okay, in the story I read, the teacher didn’t scream that at the child, but I like my ending better. In my defense, The Mrs. says I’m a high-functioning sociopath.
Butterfly and PEZ© mines aside, a repeated, tragic, repeated lesson of humanity is this: misplaced compassion destroys.
I apologize. John Gruden made me make this meme.
Misplaced Compassion
The median world household income is sort of a guess. In 2013, Gallup® estimated it was about $10,000, and I haven’t seen a more recent number. So, if everyone made the global average income, per capita, we’d each make about $2,900. Per year.
The average family in the world is really, really poor. But, hey, give a poor man a fish and he eats for a day. Give a poor man a poisoned fish? He eats for the rest of his life.
If you needed an explanation of why people are attempting to come to the United States, even the poor people here generally make more than $2,900 per year. Welfare benefits for illegals (in the scale of their home countries) is big bucks, plus they get free schools. The magnet driving the illegals is the wage imbalance (if they want to work, and many do) plus social programs (whether they want to work or not).
Being poor in the first world is better than being above average income in most countries.
Huh. They called that a traitor when I was a kid.
This is not sustainable, because there’s a problem. People rampage across borders in endless waves, yet capital flows freely. Even as people flood the border, and I’ve heard estimates of 3,000,000 this year, industry flows away.
Capital flows freely, it flows without respect to any sort of morality. Add in zero tariffs? It’s a race to the bottom. The economy hollows out even as millions come to partake in it. Heck, if it gets bad enough, Google® might have to lay off some congressmen.
Just kidding. Google™ would have to lay off all the congressmen.
The lure is simple. Short term, we all get to buy lower-cost stuff. Long term, however, it results in a shell of an economy. Supposedly, one of George H.W. Bush’s economic advisors said, “It doesn’t make any difference whether a country makes computer chips or potato chips.â€
That’s true. Unless you live in what we call the real world. Check the wages of people who work at either place. Get back to me and tell me it doesn’t matter. That’s the sort of short-term thinking that leads to long-term poverty and the eventual destruction of a nation.
What do you call a sad Italian parasite? A hopeless Roman tick.
Venezuela Effect
The other problem with the social safety net is that the money and effort spent in creating and maintaining it is money and effort that isn’t spent advancing the economy. Even if we had infinite amounts of money (spoiler alert: we don’t) we have only so much effort.
Socialist giveaways lower motivation and destroy economic productivity. I even made the argument with a Leftist friend that we should delay the implementation of socialism so we end up with better technology. He agreed. But, let’s be fair – in a pure capitalist economy, it’s man exploits man. In a socialist economy, it’s the reverse.
What we are morphing into is a government of the takers and the oligarchy versus those that produce, perhaps the worst possible combination of crony capitalism and socialism combined.
One model of this is Venezuela. The government replaced the leaders of the oil company, PdVSA©, with loyal commies. A company that previously was one of the leading economic winners in the country (heck, the continent) was transformed over a decade into a basketcase that had to import fuel.
Yes, Venezuela is sitting on one of the largest deposits of oil in the world, yet they degraded their economy so they couldn’t make fuel. It’s like Hollywood having to import movies, or Washington, D.C. having to import corruption, or a Biden having to outsource sexual depravity.
Biden met with his cabinet today. And argued with his desk.
Welcome to our future under Brandon, er Biden. Being a tick is a great business model until there are so many of them that they kill the host. But I guess that the reason for that is real socialism has never been tried? From a tick’s point of view, I guess they just need more dogs.
Also, the social safety net isn’t based on any moral concept, either at the source of the money (which is not freely given, but taken) to the recipient, whose only requirement is to fit a category and be breathing. Forced charity isn’t charity. Unworthy recipients are little more than thieves.
I mean, not that I have an opinion.
Potterville
In It’s a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart’s character is shown a world where he didn’t exist. The same thing happened to me, but it was just called “Tuesdayâ€. In Jimmy Stewart’s case, it was Potterville – a town where everything that wasn’t illegal was fair game for capitalists to exploit.
And exploit it the Potterville that was the United States, they have. The “money†monopoly was made possible by the end of the Cold War. With enough nukes, pretty much everyone is going to take your cash. So, the idea was to print money and get stuff. As long as that worked, the party could go on forever.
When I win a journalistic prize for this blog, I’m going stick my finger out to Joe Biden and say, “Pulitzer.â€
This was built on the idea that there was a check on political financial abuse. Bill Clinton was famously quoted as saying, “You mean to tell me that the success of the program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of f*****g bond traders?â€Â In the 1990s, there was a check on the excesses of the Left.
In 2021, apparently, those f*****g bond traders have no real place to invest or are “all in†on Weimerica, so the printing presses go brrr. Why make (spins wheel) tires when you can make them with nearly no labor costs and no safety or environmental regulations right where they grow the rubber trees?
And if a plucky guitar company (Gibson®) wants to make guitars in the United States and they don’t agree with you politically? Why not go after them for a non-crime for “importing wood†from countries that wanted to sell them the wood?
Sounds like Potterville to me.
Another Way
Our choice isn’t only between Potterville and Venezuela, or the strange blend of the two that we are becoming.
First, we have to have a nation. Nations matter. The second thing we have to have is morality and virtue. As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.â€
And he was right.
The choice is the “Lived Experiences†of the Leftist mob creating a new Venezuela combined with Global Capitalism creating a Potterville, or the other way: Mayberry – morals based capitalism, a self-moderating system.
- The failure of Potterville is that something being legal doesn’t mean it’s moral.
- The failure of Venezuela is that universal socialism is jut theft from everyone.
- Combining the two leads to Purdue Pharma® selling poison while the government pays for it.
Rebirth is possible only with morality, not a reversion. 1992 will always turn into 2022 unless the morality changes.
And he likes his martini shaken. Or stirred. Or unmixed. Or still in the bottle. He’s not picky.
Politics is downstream from culture. Culture is downstream from values and morality. What values do we share? What morals do we share?
Who do we serve?
In the end, misguided compassion will destroy more than the economy. It will destroy us all, as will capitalism without morality.
There is another way.
I believe in America. We will find our way. It will not be what came before. Like a butterfly, we will struggle.
Let us hope that struggle builds our strength.
Manufacturing Consent: Say No
“This is a consent form to stick a wire into your brain. It’s important for hospitals to get these signed for procedures that are completely unnecessary.” – House, M.D.
Anyone else see a pattern here?
The Mrs. and I were both leaders (once upon a time) in that Paramilitary Organization, Boy Scouts of America®. We were leaders before the lifting on gay membership was removed.
During that time period, we were asked to participate in a (rather) lengthy survey of leaders. One night over a bottle of wine we started and finished the survey, working together. There was question after question, and there was scenario after scenario presented, as well as spots for written answers. In the end, we were firmly against inclusion of LGBTQXYZ children into Scouting™. We were also against LGBTQXYZ leadership.
And, we really, really thought about it, and tried to see the situation from different perspectives other than our own. Regardless, in the end, our feeling was shared and simple: Boy Scouts™ had been doing fine for a hundred years holding the same membership standards, and changing them for 1-2% of the population (that probably wouldn’t join anyway) didn’t make any sense.
One thing that I notice while taking the survey, was that it was quite biased. In question after question, it presented “edge” cases. “A boy, having completed everything required for his Eagle® rank, admits he is gay. Should he become an Eagle™ Scout®?”
Well, how many cases like that would there be? In reality, nearly zero. But scenario after scenario was presented, showing gay Scouts in the most flattering light possible in carefully crafted questions that were designed to evoke positive emotions for poor gay kids who just wanted to hike and have fun, darn it. We didn’t come down against gay Scouts® because we hated gay people. We came down against gay Scouts™ because it violated a basic principle of the program.
Simple as.
Hmmm, another pattern?
It came out that the national Scouting® decision had already been made before the survey. The entire survey was just an attempt to change the opinions of leaders and parents. The purpose of the survey was not to legitimately understand what the adults involved in Scouting® wanted, it was to get them to consent to the preordained change.
The BSA™ was engaged in Manufacturing Consent. The response from the Left after every retreat from principle by the Boy Scouts©? “It’s not enough.” It will never be enough.
Manufacturing Consent is a book by a communist named Edward Herman and the much more famous communist Noam Chomsky. Their primary idea was that the news media was beholden to special interest groups, and would gang up with capitalists to make sure that True Communism© would never be tried.
Those poor communists couldn’t get an even break! I mean, Chomsky and Herman had to get by working in coal mines in cushy professorships, while scoring book deal after book deal and getting fawning reviews from an admiring press. Chomsky and Herman argued that “the man is keeping me down” while, indeed, they were pampered pets continually sucking blood like a parasite from the civilization they were intent on destroying.
That doesn’t mean that they were wrong – the media was quite busy Manufacturing Consent, but the consent they were manufacturing for was Global Leftist State Control, the same people who bribed the Boy Scouts™ into giving up long held positions based on morality in exchange for big bux from corporate sponsors.
We see that today, as well. News is elevated when it serves the purpose of the Global Leftist State Capitalism. News is depressed when it doesn’t. Even news of a sensational nature becomes muted outside of local boundaries when it doesn’t serve the purpose of Global Leftist State Control.
The Mrs. did that. The Mrs. used to be in radio. She got to put together the news, sports, and weather for a regional network. She had fun at the job, but one thing she did that made me laugh was that she wouldn’t cover NBA® scores. Football? Sure. Baseball? Of course. But no the NBA™. When it was winter, she only provided . . . hockey scores. It wasn’t (particularly) a hockey region, but she didn’t like the NBA™.
So, for her news segments, the NBA© didn’t exist.
The news media does that on a national basis. Sensational stories are elevated to cover news stories. There was a missing toddler who apparently lived with wolves during the weekend in Houston and then was found alive and well. Sure, that’s wonderful, but why on Earth was this a national story on the news? A local story, sure.
But national? What story did that take the space of?
It’s not just in news, although certainly you’ve noticed that in “mass shooting” events that the story is very, very quickly covered up if the shooter isn’t a white guy. It has to be both – the reason is that is the group that the Left wants to disarm. If there’s a problem with the shooter, the case quickly disappears from the narrative.
Beyond the news, it’s also on social media. Twitter® and Facebook™ are used on a regular basis to amplify Leftist views. The recent “whistleblower” to Facebook’s© free speech “problem”? She was apparently involved in the decision to censor information from Hunter Biden’s laptop before the election. Her complaint is that Facebook™ doesn’t censor enough viewpoints of the Right.
Bots and/or paid users are used to put up comments that are supportive of whatever narrative is being sold. Of course, the jab is the big one, and the first one to attract those sorts of shills to this blog. Again, the concept is to create a situation where any idea opposed to the narrative is ridiculed.
Where do you think the phrase “conspiracy theorist” came from? It was created in the 1960s to discredit anyone who had a narrative that was counter to the mainstream narrative. It has become especially apparent in the COVID era, since any opinion counter to the narrative as it is known on that day is ridiculed by politicians on the Left and the full might of the news media.
Likewise, Google™ actively suppresses opinions it doesn’t agree with. Google™ used to give this blog about ten times the traffic of DuckDuckGo®. Now? They’re about the same. That was about 10% of my traffic, and when it dropped, I noticed it, since it all happened at once. I’ve since recovered (and then some!) from that suppression.
Additional narrative suppression comes from, surprise, academia. MIT just canceled a speech by a pro-climate change geophysicist because (drumroll) he was against race-based affirmative action. Now, he wasn’t going to talk about affirmative action, he was going to talk about climate change, and follow the Leftist line there. But to allow people who challenged another part of the narrative to talk?
Nope. To be on the Left, understand you’re all in, or you’re out. Will that shut up the next academic with politically unpopular views?
This brings us back to the Scouts®. They had made a choice, and agree or disagree, that was where they were going. The collapse in membership from around 2.9 million when the decision was made to 760,000 or so today (despite adding kindergarteners and girls) is nothing short of catastrophic.
That, in the end, is the problem with manufacturing consent. It isn’t real consent, and it ends up destroying the thing it was trying to influence. The parents and kids voted with their absence – regardless of the attempt to influence them.
The first step in not being manipulated by Manufactured Consent?
Be aware.
The Funniest Article You’ll Read Today About Risk
Wang: “A brave man likes the feel of nature in his face, Jackâ€
Egg Shen: “Yeah? And a wise man has enough sense to get in out of the rain.†– Big Trouble in Little China
Whoever took this photo was having a Kodiak moment.
Fairbanks, Alaska.
One thing about Fairbanks (and Alaska) is that it is rougher around the edges than the lower 48. Everywhere. They’re so tough there that they make the fries out of real Frenchmen. Also, other things are a little different: for example, the Post Office.
I had an acquaintance that I worked with who had come to my workplace from a previous career in the Post Office. He told a story of a new Postmaster that showed up in town. I believe that this particular Postmaster had come from the East Coast. Don’t know why he was in Fairbanks. Perhaps he was in the Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program?
Regardless, this new Postmaster was going to make changes.
“From now on, we’re going to deliver packages to the doorstep of anyone who gets one. The days of leaving packages at the doorstep are over. And, we’ll knock and let the resident know that the package is there. We can increase customer service, and we will.â€
I wrote a letter today. I might try a number tomorrow, if I feel up to it.Â
That’s a great sentiment. Heck, here in Modern Mayberry, when a package shows up, the USPS drops it right on my front porch, then rings the doorbell, and scampers off. It’s a nice touch. It probably takes an additional minute or so for every house. It works well here, and the biggest danger most mail carriers see is the random housecat with delusions that it is stalking prey in the veldt.
But in Fairbanks it’s a different story – I’ve described people up there as “very friendly people who will generally leave you the hell alone.â€
The new Postmaster from the lower 48 didn’t understand why his carriers were so reluctant to implement the “to the door†service for packages. He heard grumbling, but didn’t understand it – the carriers would do it in town, but they didn’t want to do it for the remote routes. So, he got in with a carrier, and they ran a remote route together. I guess that made him a mail escort.
One of the houses was pretty far out, say, 13 miles from the city, up Chena Hot Springs road. The Postmaster and carrier got out of the truck to deliver the package. The Postmaster knocked on the door.
Immediately, the door opened as far as the door chain would allow.
“What the hell do you want?†asked the man opening the door.
Behind him, the Postmaster and carrier could see a man pointing a rifle at them, “Tell me they’re Feds!†yelled the man with the rifle. He kept repeating that. “Tell me that they’re Feds! We’ll end them right here and now!â€
I use a .30-06 to hunt deer. That gives me a lot of bang for my buck.
They left the package. The “to the door†delivery idea was quickly abandoned.  Likewise, I’m certain that Amazon® will never try drone delivery up there – the locals would just think of that as skeet shooting with instant prizes.
The carriers understood the risk, the Postmaster did not. They knew that Fairbanks is (in a literal sense) the end of the road. The people that come to Alaska were adventurers, misfits, and fortune seekers. And some of that group were people wanted for felonies. There’s a reason that for many years taking pictures of workers at a construction site was considered bad manners.
So, it was a question of risk. Many people don’t really understand the risks that they take. In many cases, some risks are entirely overblown.
Case in point: at a recent high school football game here in Modern Mayberry, there was lightning during the game. To be clear, the lightning wasn’t coming down around us, the nearest strikes were miles away – probably 8 or 10 miles. But then I was shocked . . .
. . . that they stopped the game. All of the players went into the locker rooms, and The Mrs. and I continued to sit on an elevated aluminum structure. Yawn.
If lightning only followed the path of least resistance, why doesn’t it only strike in France?
I wasn’t really worried. In the years between 2006 and 2019, 414 people were killed by lightning in the United States. My chances of being hit were, oh, nearly zero. Exactly 12 football players were killed by lightning during that entire period. As badly as our home team was doing that game, well, they could have used something to charge them up.
But lightning? It is estimated that 243 people are injured each year in the United States by lighting, and 27 killed, on average. And 1/3 of those killed? They were inside.
Yes, lightning kills. How many? Hardly anyone.
But yet I’m sure that every school district in the country has a lightning policy that says something to the effect of, “If there’s any lightning any nearer than, say, Poland, shut it all down.â€Â The policy was probably written by lawyers that want to take the danger out of anything and everything.
“Let’s go Brandonâ€
People rarely understand risks.
The biggest risks for someone dying when they’re young are car accidents. By far. The human organism is pretty strong when young. The main cause of death is, well, being old. Of the top 10 causes of death in the United States (those top 10 cover over 74% of deaths) all of them but one are things that mainly happen to old people.
Of the top 10, only “unintentional deaths†(6%) are more likely to happen to young people than old. In Modern Mayberry, those deaths often involve a motorcycle, a ramp, a cow, road flares, super glue, and the phrase, “hold my beer.â€
So, risk number one to avoid is getting old, which can be done using only some beer, a motorcycle, a ramp, a cow, road flares, and some super glue.
A Mexican movie stuntman died recently. I guess Jesus died for your scenes.
I think the reason we focus on some of these risks that are ludicrously low probability is simple:Â it is much easier to focus on them, rather than on real risks.
The question I ask myself is this: What is it that I know, that I’m avoiding?
It’s a powerful question. A Twinkie® is a much greater danger to my life than a lightning storm. Do I avoid thinking that? Do I try to rationalize big risks and run scared from small risks?
What am I trying to hide from myself?
When I answer that question, then I know what the real risks are. The biggest risk, perhaps is if I become a Postmaster. Then people would expect me, John Wilder, to be funny, and I’m not sure I could do it.
After all, it’s all in the delivery.
Gresham’s Law, Bad Money, And Trillion Dollar Coins
“The money in your account. It didn’t do too well, it’s gone.” – South Park
You can always tell if a coin is fresh: it smells like the mint.
As I’ve mentioned before, Pa Wilder was a banker. There are certain advantages to being a banker, and back in the late 1970s, he took advantage of one of them. It’s nice that being a banker has some advantages, because so many of them are loaners.
What Pa did was go through the change that came into the bank drawers. Pa would then take a quarter and replace it with another quarter. Okay, that just makes him sound crazy. Isn’t one 25₵ piece just like another?
Well, no, not in the 1970s.
In this case, Pa was taking a 90% silver quarter and replacing it with a 0% silver quarter. Prior to 1965, dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and dollar coins had been made from 90% silver. Eventually after details, blah, blah, (this isn’t a coin collecting blog) the value of silver in the coins went to zero. It’s virtually certain that all of the coins you receive as change in 2021 are of the 0% silver variety.
Why? Well, people like Pa.
Pa had the coin flow for an entire small farm bank, so he could pick and choose. He replaced 90% silver quarters with 0% silver quarters. On the balance sheet, there was no change, so he wasn’t stealing from the bank. The bank had a quarter, and then after Pa swapped it out, the bank still had a quarter.
It wasn’t the same quarter, mind you, but the cost to the bank was zero. If you’re looking for a perfect heist, this is it.
Pa walked away with hundreds of dollars in 90% silver quarters, all just by leafing through someone else’s drawers.
I saw a werewolf at work. Or maybe it was a hairy guy. Regardless, the silver bullets worked.
We’ve had some discussions where I’ve referred to our current money system (fiatbux?) as money. More than one person in the comments has said, “No, that’s not money.”
Well, it is. I can take a $100 bill and go and buy some beer and cigars and PEZ®. I could also do that with a gun, but the fact that everyone will go along with the deal means that the dollar really is money.
But it isn’t good money. I’d gladly swap out that $100 fiatbux for $100 in 1965 silver quarters. The $100 in 1965 silver quarters (checks Internet) could be bought on the open market for $2100 or so. That shows that the silver coins are 21 times better money than our current fiatbux.
This little story is an example of Gresham’s Law. Sir Thomas Gresham is an old, dead English dude who made massive amounts of money back when the style of the day was to wear fluffy black pancakes on your head while hoping that Queen Elizabeth didn’t have a bad day and order your execution because (spins wheel) “she was not amused and really wanted pudding for dessert.”
Okay, it’s really Sir Thomas Gresham on the left, and George R.R. Martin on the right. Notice I didn’t say write, because I don’t think George remembers how to do that.
Stated simply, Gresham’s Law is: “Bad money drives out good.” In my example, the bad money was the 0% silver quarters, the good money was the 90% silver quarters.
Why would I take bad money when I could get good money?
You wouldn’t. No one does.
During the Zimbabwe hyperinflation, people would take United States dollars as payment, but they’d give you never-ending stacks of Zimbabwe cash as change. The bad money (Zimbabwebux) was driving out the good. The dollar, though not “good money” was still better than the wrapping paper that the Zimbabweans scrawled zeros across like an eight-year-old with a pen.
The brain is the most important organ in the body. According to the brain.
Why is that important? Because in 2021, the government of the United States has fully embraced the Zimbabwean concept of “we’ll just print more money.” The reasoning is simple: if a football game can’t run out of points, well, why could a government run out of money? We can just print more.
That’s the sign that the Left half of the bell curve has finally taken the reins of power. The short-bus pity graduates have decided that the phrase “we don’t have enough money” will cease to be an impediment to their wishes.
This year we’ll spend more money than ever in the history of our country. It’s bad. How bad? In order to avoid a debt default because the Democrats are insisting that they have Republican assistance since they don’t want to go solo. The Republicans are resisting spending money because that’s what they pretend to do whenever a Republican isn’t president.
I went to an Irish mechanic the other day. He couldn’t fix my engine, but he could blow up my tires.
The current idea of the Washington set is to make a coin that says “one trillion dollars” on it and deposit it with the treasury. I’m not making this up. This is their actual plan.
This is the plan of people who are not serious. They’re looking for pretend loopholes to evade the law. The bright side is that they are at least pretending that the law exists. Regardless, the goal is to take a chunk of metal, write $1,000,000,000,000 on the side, and keep the spending party going.
Woo! More sangria!
The one thing that is sacrosanct in the world of 2021 is this: thou shalt keep thy government debt whole and multiply it.
Strangely, this is exactly (really, exactly) the same thinking that the leader of Zimbabwe had: “Dude, we have more paper, so we can totally print more money.” We laughed when Zimbabwe printed trillion-dollar notes. People in the government of the United States are ready and willing to create a trillion-dollar coin.
At least this one is (according to the news) platinum.
If this keeps up, JCPenny® will have to change its name to JCTrillion©. And the smell? It’s nearly certain the coin didn’t poop its pants.
The excuse to pull the silver out of money was that “it is costing too much money” to make the coins. A quarter (last article I read) now costs over 12₵ to make – but that article was nearly a decade old. Given inflation, I’d bet that it costs nearly 20₵ to make 25₵, and probably costs at least 3₵ to make a penny.
Looks like over time, the value of bad money begins to match what it cost to make. Beware: it only costs about 14₵ to make a $100 note. That trillion-dollar coin? It will probably cost $1000 or so to make.
Wonder what Pa Wilder would have done if he would have stumbled across a trillion-dollar coin in the bank’s drawers?
Probably, he would have thought it was a fake.
Which, of course, it is. I guess the government is going through our drawers, driving out good money with bad.
Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Making The Call?
“The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed. But in the year of the Shadow War, it became something greater: our last, best hope for victory. The year is 2260. The place: Babylon 5.” – Babylon 5
Midnight?
- 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.
I’ve bolded both 9. and 10. That’s the lead story (below).
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 – Making The Call? – Violence And Censorship Update –– Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Calling It Quits – 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 over 570 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.
Note: Except for the first, all images in this post are “as found.”
Making The Call?
If you’ve read these for some time, I’ve been using the internationally accepted standard for declaring a civil war. It’s one that academics used to make a description. In that sense, it’s arbitrary, but it sets some standard. Most importantly, it isn’t a standard I made up. It exists outside of this report, and you can go and check it for yourself. I want (as much as possible) to be factual when I say something about the emerging Civil War 2.0 as it is certainly the most consequential event that will occur during my lifetime. So, as a starter, I adopted the international standard.
I believe that we have met that standard.
From that academic standpoint, the United States would be classified as a nation in a Civil War. I’ll provide the reasoning: since the George Floyd riots started, there has been epidemic violence in the nation. I had been tracking that increase, using several sources of hot-spot political violence and tabulating them. Data, as you could imagine, isn’t tabulated that way, so my methods were an estimate.
I tried to be conservative with it. This isn’t a Civil War where Johnny Reb fights with Billy Yank on a battlefield under banners. Nope. It’s a more brutal version where it’s fought on the streets in one-on-one encounters, complete a corrupt District Attorney system that lets half of the players back on the street with no punishment.
One (very fair) criticism from Ricky (who graciously provides the Links) is that this is an extraordinary claim, so it should require extraordinary proof. He suggested a (curated, my add) spreadsheet showing each victim by name, and linking to the details? We could all easily agree about Ashli Babbitt and those killed in Kenosha, as well as dozens of others (mainly) killed by Antifa®.
That’s a very worthy idea, but not one I would be the best candidate to maintain. Perhaps someone will pick up that idea.
What I do have are raw statistics that back up my attempt to quantify the current body count. Here’s a graph, from Steve Sailer’s work (LINK).
The increase in murder deaths from 2019 to 2020 was nearly 5,000. Extrapolate that into the first three-quarters of 2021? You get over 8,000. If only 1/8 of those deaths are politically related, we’re there at the international standard. Again, I don’t have a list of 1,000 names. For perspective, even those 1,000 are just a small fraction of the people that have died from either COVID or the “jab”, yet they are categorically different: we are killing each other over politics.
A second set of great thoughts came from Eaton Rapids Joe (LINK). He brought up two ideas: the first is normalization. The United States has a population of over three hundred million. Most countries that have had civil wars are much, much smaller. Rwanda had a population of only about 7,000,000 when they decided to kill off about 1,700,000 of each other. To cross the 1,000 threshold (proportionally to population size) would require 43,000 dead.
That’s a good point. He further went on to note that some cities of the United States have already crossed a proportionate threshold. In a heat map, you’d see that most places are quite cold, but lots of Blue cities were clearly far beyond any reasonable threshold and are clearly in civil war already.
These are good points.
Because of that perspective, I can not say that we are fully at Open War, rather I can say that every element is in place. I can say with reasonable certainty that we have crossed an important psychological threshold. Whether we come back from the brink?
That’s one that time will tell. As of this writing, I am only seeing signs of additional deterioration in the political landscape. It’s getting worse daily.
Violence And Censorship Update
I think violence is pretty well covered up above. Censorship, sadly, hasn’t ramped down, but rather increased.
Let’s start with YouTube®, which is the modern equivalent of the Ministry of Truth. Who did they muzzle this month?
Probably the most important is a change in policy. Now, any video that claims that “vaccines are ineffective or dangerous” will be banned. Different opinions aren’t tolerated. As much as I don’t agree that lies are good public policy, keep in mind that science doesn’t work that way. Science works when free and open debate and inquiry are allowed to find the truth. As we learn more, we discover that we didn’t understand the world quite as well as we thought. Well, not on YouTube®. Only thoughts approved by Ministry of Truth are allowed in 1984 2021.
This has a very significant impact on other YouTube™ channels. Because they don’t know exactly where “the line” is they avoid the subject entirely. As more people ditch mainstream media, it looks like alternatives have to be co-opted. A case in point:
MiniTru, er, YouTube© also banned one of Ron Paul’s channels. Why? They won’t tell him.
But don’t worry! The Fed.Gov folks are hard at work. They’re monitoring your social media and ProtonMail® accounts.
Thankfully, they can still make sure our children are being properly educated:
And that we are not using bullying language:
And while murders are up by 30%, ClubFed® is hanging out at Right rallies in Washington, D.C. so that you and I can feel safe. Big Benneton® is watching you.
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 September, again.
Political Instability:
Up is more unstable, and it ticked up this month, mainly on inflation fears.
Economic:
Economic measures held steady, but I expect a huge drop in October if trends continue. And, the Fed® decided to not show the bad news on something I’ve long predicted . . .
Illegal Aliens:
This data was at record levels last month, and only dropped slightly this month. Perspective: this rate is 4x the rate from any previous year in the last four.
Calling It Quits
Calls for divorce in the United States increased in September. Don’t believe me?
This call is showing up in pretty much every aspect of life. We have gone from a single nation that fought about the center to one where people on the Right feel that people on the Left are a danger. Not someone they disagree with: a danger.
If you disagree with someone, we can talk it out. If I consider them a danger? That means the time for talking is over. And if both of these polls are correct, America is pretty well done talking. Well, at least constructive talking:
And that’s just NASCAR®. What about Texas?
What’s the biggest cause of divorces? Cheating. Has there been any of that?
Of course the Left has fought tooth and nail against looking at the most statistically improbable election in American history. Why? They cheated. So, given that, pretty much everyone is done. The Left, and the Right.
LINK
As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky. Thanks so much, Ricky!!
Hold Up
Providence, RI: https://twitter.com/i/status/1441931138432385024
Olympic WA: https://twitter.com/i/status/1436355179675152391
Washington DC: https://twitter.com/i/status/1434291759169871874
Philadelphia, PA: https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1434579991853948932
Portland, OR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYwRztl0mVs
Chicago, IL: https://twitter.com/CPD1617Scanner/status/1442575822565556226
New York, NY: https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/09/20/tiktok-devious-licks-viral-challenge-vandalism-stealing-in-schools/
Break Up
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/09/16/is-the-us-headed-for-another-civil-war/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/10/claremont-ryan-williams-trump/620252/
https://www.yaf.org/news/student-senator-caught-throwing-away-flags-from-9-11-memorial-at-washu/
https://twitter.com/i/status/1437236890885754880
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1444333097810546690
Majority of Trump voters believe it’s ‘time to split the country’ in two, new poll finds (msn.com)
https://nypost.com/2021/09/27/sorry-but-a-national-split-up-just-wont-work/
What’s Up?
https://uncoverdc.com/2021/09/08/arizona-canvass-update-299493-votes-impacted/
https://uncoverdc.com/2021/09/24/maricopa-county-audit-report-over-57k-votes-in-question/
https://twitter.com/Shae_1776/status/1435624703658446848
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1441008337882071048
Upward And Onward…
https://thefederalist.com/2021/09/08/the-top-reason-i-hate-masks-is-they-force-me-to-live-by-lies/
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/09/20/its-a-fourth-turning-what-did-you-expect/
https://tomluongo.me/2021/09/10/quietly-say-no-to-joe-bidens-call-for-civil-war/
https://americanmind.org/salvo/americas-intersectional-caste-system/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE7nkiFOB-U
https://alt-market.us/organizing-patriots-in-the-face-of-government-informants-and-false-flags/
Friday: Things I’m Thankful For
“He’s like the hard-working, grateful employee we never had. Wish he would wear underwear, though.” – Bob’s Burgers
I don’t need coffee to wake up, I wake up to drink coffee.
It’s Friday. Time for a happy post. We’ll need one, because (brace yourselves) I think Monday’s post is going to be grimmer than a crab bake with Paris Hilton or father’s day with Woody Allen.
But we have today. And when I am feeling down, a step back to realize and think about what I’m grateful for always brightens my day like a big old gravitationally contained spherical continual thermonuclear explosion.
Here goes.
- I am thankful for you, readers near and far. I’m happy for the one-time visitors, and happy for the faithful weekly visitors to Modern Mayberry. I had written thousands of words in a journal before I ever put a single word down on a blog. This is better, and it’s because of you.
- I am thankful for the really great fried potatoes The Mrs. made last night. They were very crispy on the outside, yet buttery-smooth on the inside. A dash of ketchup to taste?
I couldn’t find the thingy that peels the potatoes so I asked Pugsley. It turns out she’d gone off to the store.
- I am thankful for the people that I have a chance to impact in meatspace. Hmm, that’s poorly worded, it makes it sound like I’m as bad a driver as a blind Antifa® member late to get his estrogen shots. Let me rephrase: I’m happy to help people in real life. Times are tough, and they’re even tougher when people are tools on purpose, so if I can make someone’s life a little better? Many times all it takes is real empathy and a single word.
- I’m thankful that Pugsley forgot to take the trash out to the curb this week, so I can needle him about it (playfully) all week. Seriously, though, I’m really thankful because I haven’t had to remind him in the last six months, and he’s only missed trash day twice.
- I’m thankful that The Boy will be down from Big State University this weekend. It’s always nice to have him around.
- I’m thankful that sunny-side eggs taste so good. And I’m thankful that the crisp taste of a fresh tomato exploding as I bite into a cool slice on a hot day exists. I’m grateful for the knowledge that a tomato is a fruit, and the wisdom to not put it on fruit salad.
- I’m thankful The Mrs. We have saved each other from being very horrible spouses for other people. After being married so long we’re like good lawyers: we never ask a question we don’t already know the answer to.
I hear that insane people are driving trains in Mexico. I guess they have loco-motives.
- I’m thankful that I have had the good fortune to have had great bosses in most of my jobs. A good boss covers your back. A great boss pulls more out of you than you ever knew you had. One boss made the mistake of telling me to have a good day, because then I went home.
- I’m thankful for being granted the maturity to (mostly) know when I was wrong, and to look at those times not as a personal attack, but as a hint on ways to get better.
- I’m thankful for books. One of those great bosses that I had said, “Books are the only real way that you can talk to the greatest minds in history.” He and I got along very well.
- I’m thankful for the troubles I’ve had in life. Most of those troubles were like the chisel of a sculptor – they knocked off bits of me that I didn’t need, and left me better after the trouble passed. As dead Danish dude Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” After I learned this lesson, every time in life I encountered difficulty, I asked myself: “What am I supposed to learn from this?” Life got way better after I realized that what started out as a difficulty could be the greatest gift ever.
The French donated the Statue of Liberty to the United States because they had no use for a statue with only one hand up.
- I am thankful for fuzzy slippers in winter, electric fans in summer, and good cigars all year round. Protip: if you look up “how to light a cigar” on the Internet, you will get 80 million matches.
- I am thankful for the innocence I had. I am thankful for the experiences that removed it.
- I am thankful for the valor of strong men who have defined bravery and given us heroes and heroic stories to the ages. I am stronger because of Leonidas. I am stronger because of Seneca. I am stronger because of a certain carpenter who lived and died and rose again some 2,000 years ago.
- I am thankful for history, and the ability to gather vast amounts of scholarship to understand the past in ways that would have been impossible for all but the most dedicated scholars until recently. What do the “good parts” of American history and common sense have in common? They’re both being wiped from existence.
- I am thankful for PEZ®, because now I can honestly say that I’m the man who developed the PEZ®/Anti-PEZ™ space drive (PEZ Spaceship Secrets).
- I am thankful that the heat of summer has given way to the cool nights of autumn. I won’t miss summer.
- I am thankful for the way a perfect ride on a motorcycle feels as the gears shift smoothly upward under full acceleration, which, for a moment, is like riding the wind.
- I am thankful for a hot cup of coffee on a cool fall morning, on the deck, with a book, a breeze, and nothing else in the world to do.
Pugsley called me, “Severely ignorant.” I said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
- I am thankful for the things I don’t know.
- I am thankful for one of our cats, not so much for the rest of them. Of course, the cat I like is the cat I wanted least.
- I am thankful for all of my children – each of them in their own way.
- I am thankful for a night of good sleep, and a morning where I have something exciting that pulls my head from the pillow. The Mrs. likes to lightly rub my back while I sleep, which is an amazing expression of gentleness. Unless you’re in prison.
- I am thankful for work.
- I am also thankful for time off.
- I am thankful for the way my shirt smells the day after a campfire. It’s not uncommon for people to die in campfires – I mean, it’s not common, either. I guess it’s medium rare.
What are you thankful for?
The Corruption Based Economy
“Look, you’re corrupt, we’re corrupt. There’s one difference. We’re honest about it.” – Get the Gringo
A hitman makes people nervous people past tense.
News came out this week that high officials of the Federal Reserve® were allegedly caught front-running trades. I use the word “allegedly” because that’s the word you use when you are dealing with people who might be allegedly low-life allegedly stinking allegedly thieves.
What’s front-running? Well, if you know that a client is going to buy a LOT of stock, you buy at the price before the big news. Why? Well, when the price goes up, you benefit from the price increase. Duh.
Why was the Fed™ buying stock (or bonds), anyway?
The quote was that the Fed® was buying securities to “help markets function smoothly.”
Huh. I thought, you know, actual people buying and selling stuff was supposed to do that. Silly me. I missed that part in Econ 101 where the professor said, “Oh, and if the market doesn’t do what the government wants it to do, it can cheat on a massive scale with money it printed just because.”
If you hear someone scream in space, does that mean the vacuum is broken?
When the “Plunge Protection Team” was originally formed by Federal Reserve® in the late 1980s, it was secret. It would (in theory) see a down day on the stock markets and swoop in late in the day with well-timed purchases to keep the market from going down.
We can argue all day about the morality of that. My take is that it’s about as moral as Joe and Hunter Biden teaching in a pre-school. The market serves a function – to give prices. Prices provide real-time data and information. To distort prices creates artificial winners and losers.
To be clear, a stock going down in price can be a very good thing. Bad companies should die. If they serve a purpose, someone else will do it. For the Fed© to purchase stocks (or bonds, or debt) to prop up companies isn’t helping them, it is rewarding financial morons by giving them more money.
Regardless, because it’s 2021, the Fed™ is out there buying stuff willy-nilly on a regular basis to manipulate markets. And the big dogs at the Fed© know what the Fed® is buying. So, for one of them to buy stocks in a company whose assets the Fed® is purchasing?
That’s what is normally called criminal.
There’s a show for criminal Democrats who go fishing. It’s called, “Off The Hook.”
But why single out the Fed®? I mean, it’s not like Federal Judges are doing it, too, right?
Sorry to disappoint you if you thought the judiciary was clean.
In the last decade, 131 Federal Judges took part in 685 lawsuits where they had a financial stake in a company that was a party to the lawsuit. This is a violation of Federal law. My bet? In the world of corruption that is 2021, this will be ignored. At most, the Federal Judges will get a slap on the wrist, perhaps a memo to their file.
Government employees are never punished unless they’re not acting in the interest of the system. They can ignore work. I have a friend who had been a Federal bank examiner. His job was to go in and evaluate the systems at banks to make sure they were good. He told me, point-blank, “If I were to get a smaller bank and find a violation, it would be okay, but a big bank? They just wanted good results for a big bank.”
Why? Corruption is rampant in every part of the financial system. It’s rigged.
In Soviet Russia you rob bank. In United States, bank rob you.
The stock market is rigged. The Federal Reserve© has a bias that stocks should go up, just like the value of the money that you worked for should always go down.
Does gold always go down?
No. But the value of a dollar should always decrease.
The reason for this is fairly simple. The Federal Government has taxes on wages. It has taxes on imports. It has taxes on death, it has taxes on (checks list) tanning. I’ll repeat: there are Federal taxes on tanning.
Inflation is nothing more and nothing less than a tax on money, or, more properly, a tax on productive people who saved and earned that money.
A is for apples. B is for bananas. What is C for? A plastic explosive.
So, what is it that we know, without a doubt, is corrupt?
- The Federal Reserve®.
- Federal Judges.
- Financial regulators.
- Money.
I’ll add one more: the overall justice system. George Soros has bought election after election for District Attorneys that allow Leftists committing crimes to walk free. As I’ve written before, this is the final poison for Western judicial systems. Without the promise of a fair and impartial trial, without the certainty that we are a nation of laws rather than men, justice will fall to the hands of ordinary men.
Unlike Batman®, ordinary men will use guns.
We live in an amazingly risky time. The problem with corrupt systems is that they fail when trust erodes. If citizens don’t trust that the outcomes are fair? I mean, what if the elections were fraudulent?
Failure. Corruption breeds more corruption. Injustice? It breeds more injustice.
A society based on corruption and injustice will devolve into anarchy or totalitarianism.
I have some candy canes that are in mint condition.
Saving our systems requires justice. Justice requires a moral people.
Hmmm. However do we get that?
I wouldn’t ask a Federal Reserve® governor or a Federal Judge. After all, Pa Wilder told me not to hang around with people of poor character.
Operation Keelhaul
“You’re the coach. Coach them so they’re as good as the dead team was. Or, I’ll have you killed, okay?” – The Death of Stalin
If you want some fun, read the Zaporozhian Cossacks’ letter to Sultan Mehmed IV. It’s not family-friendly.
Pa Wilder was over during his 1942-1945 all-expense-paid trip to Europe, and only occasionally talked about his experiences. One thing I remember him talking about was seeing the prisoners of war. Mind you, he wasn’t telling me these stories, he was telling his buddies after a snifter or two of bourbon and branch water, as Pa called it.
What Pa mentioned was the ratio of guards to prisoners. The Germans, Pa said, had a “guard for every 100 or so prisoners. And the rifles were unloaded.” The message I took away from this was: for the Germans, the war was over.
The Soviets, Pa said, were different. There was a guard for every three men, and they had machine gun emplacements continually manned watching the perimeter of the camps.
The first thing that puzzled me was this: if they were on the same side, why did the Americans have prison camps filled with Soviets? Why not just let them loose? The second was: why were the Soviets so dangerous?
The answer to these questions (which I discovered last week) is simple but horrifying.
The end of a war, any war, is messy. That’s when massacres and atrocities happen: the victorious troops decide that taking prisoners is optional, and the losers don’t have any way to fight back. Of course, the looting and worse on now defenseless cities turn the tragedy of war even darker.
Sure, massacres occur during war, and throughout history, it’s been a bit of a risk to be taken prisoner – wars stress the systems that produce and distribute food. The last people a country is interested in feeding are those who were fighting against it. This has always been true. It is the rule, rather than the exception, that horrible things happen to POWs.
At the end of World War II, however, there was a horror that I was unaware of, namely the forced repatriation of both Soviet and Russian citizens during and after the War. Note that I wrote Soviet and Russian citizens, that distinction was on purpose.
The losers in the Russian Revolution, many of the White Russians and Cossacks left Russia twenty or more years before World War II, and were never, at any time, Soviet citizens. Stalin desperately wanted these people back. Why?
Because he couldn’t stand having anyone who opposed him breathing.
These force “repatriations” consisted of at least, (the numbers are fuzzy) tens of thousands of people who had never been Soviets to the Soviets. Millions of prisoners of war held by the Germans, Soviet soldiers, were likewise sent back, though many didn’t want to return. Why? Many had put on German uniform and had fought alongside the Germans.
Stalin probably wouldn’t have approved of that.
At the Yalta conference, Stalin demanded every Soviet citizen, and every former Russian citizen be returned to him. All of them. And Churchill and Truman let him get his way. Possibly that was due to revenge. Stalin had executed generals for surrendering unless they were gravely injured. What would he have cared for a common boy from Siberia who, surrounded by Germans, surrendered?
So, we have tens of thousands of Cossacks that were involuntarily repatriated. How many others?
Probably millions. These Soviet soldiers had seen the relative wealth of the West, and wanted to stay. Obviously, the ones that fought in German uniform were especially keen not to head back East. But it wasn’t just them – hundreds of thousands of regular folks fled to the West during the war, too.
It is likely that at least 2,000,000 if not more (I saw a number as large as 5,000,000) people were tossed back to the Soviets at the end of the war.
Many of these people didn’t want to go back. At least 200,000 of these people went straight to the GULAG, and there is evidence that thousands of these people were summarily executed as soon as they ended up in Soviet hands.
This is a war crime – not a figurative war crime, but a “by the letter of the law” war crime. People in the government of the United States went along with this. Knowingly.
My takeaway is this:
Government is, at best, neutral. In the United States, we intentionally formed our government to protect the individual. George Washington said, “A government is like fire, a handy servant, but a fearful master.” So, government was supposed to help the people.
Oops. Guess that went off track. And if you look at the manner in which the government interferes in your life today, it goes far beyond what it did in 1945. It goes far, far beyond “the jab”.
We are living in a world where government teachers teach children that are forced to be there that:
- government is the solution to all of their problems,
- that Antifa® is good,
- sexuality is the greatest god, and
- the biggest problem is that government isn’t solving more of their problems through “charity” enforced by the barrel of a gun.
We are in a time which will be named by future historians. If they are honest, they will call this period, “the Crazy Years,” or “the Turmoil,” or “the Years of Lies.”
The “jab” is the latest insanity. Despite amazing amounts of growing evidence that the mRNA treatment is likely far more deadly than the ‘Rona in young people, the government is pushing it – mandating it.
But certainly government wouldn’t do something that wasn’t in the best interest of the people.
Right?
H/T TIC