Category: Civil War

You’re Not Alone

Got home late, and feeling a bit under the weather.  Got 90% through a new post, but then the tired hit.  The good news?  I’m way ahead on next Friday’s post!

“Théoden King stands alone.” – Lord of the Rings

GOOGLE

Google® is so biased they only ranked our Solar System one star.

Originally this was going to be an economic post (as is usual for Wednesday) about Crisis Capitalism and how this particular Crisis, like many others in the past will be used to concentrate wealth even more, perhaps with bikini graphs.  Maybe the bikinis get smaller as the economy shrinks?  At least that would bring some good out of the current crisis.  Plus I’ll always be known as “the guy who made economics interesting at last.”

That post will have to wait until next Wednesday.

What hit me today was an onslaught of news.  Not one story, but nearly every story I read was about deplatforming or attempting to silence alternative viewpoints to the conventional narrative as seen on TV.  In rapid-fire, I saw stories about deplatforming of news and opinion outlets, deplatforming of individuals and doxing (making private personal information public of non-public figures) of pre-teens(!) for thoughtcrime.

Heck, there was even a Serbian soccer player (playing soccer for an American pro soccer team) that was fired (after he was made to apologize) for comments his wife made on social media.  And his wife made those comments in Serbian.  I guess that he should have done his manly best and kept her home without access to electronic media devices?  Is the message that athletes should take away from this is that they should keep their women on a shorter leash?

Is this the Left telling men that they need to be more patriarchal and tell their women to be seen and not heard?

SERBIA

But his wife wanted to go anyway.

But the seemingly disjointed activities all had one purpose:  to make you feel alone.

The biggest story is that Zero Hedge® was cut off from Google® advertising revenue.  Since ZH™ is a for-profit company, this will hurt them.  Why was it cut off?  The story I saw indicated that it was because people commenting on the site were being less than politically correct.  And, yes, Google® has the legal right to do this, unless they did it because Zero Hedge© is transgender.

No, I don’t have examples, but these are commenters, not ZH© staff.  I jumped in to see the comment section on a typical post that I thought might be incendiary.  Would all the comments be safe to repeat at work?  No.  Have I seen worse comments on Twitter®?  Yeah, a lot worse.  I’ve seen worse commentary on Yahoo® news stories.

Zero Hedge™ has already been banned “permanently” once by Twitter©, and then reactivated.  The reason given was that Zero Hedge® had “doxed” a Chinese researcher . . . by publishing information that was already on the Wuhan Institute for Creating COVID Virology’s website.  As of now?  They’re unbanned.  Twitter© called it “an error.”

But it’s clear that they have made someone angry.

How much will it Google’s deplatforming cost Zero Hedge©?

I have no idea.

SECOND

Google® did give a four star rating to Chernobyl.  They would have given it five, but the locals ran out of fingers.

I do know that The Federalist™, another website was threatened with Google® demonetization due to comments on articles like this one (LINK).  The Federalist© just shut off comments entirely.

And that just might be the point.

Comments here are (generally) fairly unmoderated.  I think that outside of auto-moderated comments, I’ve nuked only one or two comments out of thousands during the life of this blog.  I am blessed with some of the smartest, most well read, and politest commenters on the planet.  You’re also probably the most physically attractive commenters on any website in existence, and I bet you all have impeccable armpit hygiene to boot.  But the comment section gives people a chance to talk to each other, bounce ideas off each other, and get to know each other.  It also is a little light on a dark Internet letting you know that you’re not alone.

Even the people who don’t comment benefit from the comments section.  For each person who comments, at least 100 other readers don’t comment.  But they read what you say.  And it’s important to them, and lets them know that they’re not alone, either.

Then there’s Laura Towler.

Laura is a British YouTuber® who is on the Right.  On June 6, she sent the following Tweet® and got the reply that follows it:

laura

“Chuffed” is slang that means “happy as a poodle with a pudding pop.”

This all went international.  The idea that a company would be so “brave” as to come out in favor of a group that is only supported to the tune of tens of millions of dollars by the largest tech companies and most of the largest news companies is really risky.

To boot, Yorkshire Tea© then picked on a (nearly) unknown individual citizen.  Brave, indeed – I’m sure that Laura is quite the power to be reckoned with given her 50,000 or so YouTube™ subscribers.  And Yorkshire Tea® is so small, being the biggest selling tea in Great Britain (which made 5.5 billion tea bags last year).

It’s like Coca-Cola® decided to pick on some kid going to prom.

But it led me to ask this question:  Did any of the companies that sponsor BLM even bother to go to the BLM website?

Outside of the cringing references to “comrades” and “collectivism” on the BLM website, they note that BLM wishes to:

  • “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family” and “collectively” care for one another.
  • They also want to [free themselves] “from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.”

This is not the language of a civil rights program, it’s the language of a communist front masquerading as a civil rights program.  And it’s not even Halloween yet, and I think that all of the cosplay conventions are on Coronahold.

JUICE

What’s the best way to kill communists?  Communism.

We’ve seen that at C.H.A.Z. and virtually every other protest activity that BLM is tied tightly to Antifa.  Imagine that C.H.A.Z. wasn’t six blocks being held by armed Leftists, and instead was being held by a militia from the Right.  I’d imagine we’d see National Guard Apache helicopters and the Seattle mayor calling for a neutron bomb strike to make the Hug Box of Seattle safe again.

I’m sure someone will bring up the Wildlife Refuge seizure by members of the Right in 2016.  But 26 of the occupiers of the Wildlife Refuge were charged with felonies.  Care to take bets on if the C.H.A.Z. occupiers will face any criminal charges?  Any of them?

Ms. Towler was able to handle the media storm that followed, and not apologize.  Heck, her Twitter® feed now cheekily shows “Disavowed by Yorkshire Tea©” as the lead line.  That takes style.

But Laura knew she wasn’t alone, and has weathered international condemnation.

It doesn’t stop there.

CENSOR

Russians call their website censoring the Inter-nyet.

The classic (and very boring) movie Gone With The Wind, the television shows of COPS®, Live PD™, and an episode of (the very funny) Fawlty Towers that first aired on October 24, 1975 have since been either hidden or cancelled.  Just like statues, these works of art define who we are as a people.  And removing them makes us not more, but less.

Every person who has a statue made out of him has something in common with those works of art – they have faults, especially when viewed through the lens of the 2020s.  And removing them or hiding them or tearing them down with mob violence is meant to make you feel alone.

If you’re against police corruption and militarization?  You’re not alone.

If you’re against excessive use of force by police?  You’re not alone.

If you’re against rioting and mob violence?  You’re not alone.

If you mock companies that virtue signal popular causes while avoiding tough issues like the near slave labor they use to produce goods that they offshored from American production?   You’re not alone.

If you’re against globalism and collectivism?  You’re not alone.

I’m not saying that the position of the Right is always the right position.  There are times the Right has been wrong.  But the positions of the Right aren’t based in hate – they’re based in a love of freedom, or family, or tradition, or nation, or a healthy desire to be religious.

If those things are important to you?

You’re not alone.

DRIVER

And if you suffer from paranoia, you’re not alone.  There’s someone behind you.

If you want this nonsense to stop so you can see economic graphs featuring bikinis?

You’re not alone.

Why Leftists Hate You

“Well, I don’t care if he’s a Liberal or an ax murderer, I want you two boys to stay clear of him, understood? – Eerie, Indiana

I hear that Greta loves this blog – she knows most of my jokes are recycled.

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone.  To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ – this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” – Aldous Huxley

Regardless of whether or not you like Huxley, he certainly hit the mark with this comment.  This has certainly been the case with the reaction of the “vaxxed” crowd to those that have chosen to avoid having themselves subjected to more-or-less experimental-level mRNA manipulation.  I hear the lead scientist was Gene Hackman.

If you’re a coward, the FDA has just approved a new drug.  Ask your doctor if Growacet® is right for you.

Though Huxley tapped into a universal weakness, this is a reaction that is far more common on the Left than on the Right.  Leftism is built on weakness.  If people can take care of themselves, if they are confident, if they respect themselves, it is much less likely that they will become Leftists.

Leftists, at the core of their being, feel inferior.  This is observable in the ways that they protest – they constantly put themselves in danger.  They lie down in front of cars.  They block highways.

The reason is that, due to their feelings of inferiority, they actually long to be either punished or to have their existence ended.  And the data shows that Leftists are much more likely to suffer from a mental issue.  Much more likely.  Here’s a thread where data scientist Zach Goldberg breaks down a Pew® study (LINK).

If you didn’t click on the link, here is just one fact that says it all:  56.3% of white female Leftists between the ages of 18-29 have been diagnosed by a mental health professional with a mental health condition.  White “conservative” men in the same age group?  16.3%.  Leftist men in the same age group?  33.6%.

Do insane accountants hear strange and threatening invoices?

If you are talking to a young Leftist woman, it is more likely that she has a mental health issue than not.  If you are talking to a young Leftist man, you are talking with someone who has a greater chance of having been diagnosed with a mental health issue than any age/sex group on the Right.

So, Leftists feel inferior and lead the league in diagnosed mental issues.

What else?

This sense of inferiority coupled with mental illness makes Leftists especially brittle mentally.  They cannot even listen to ideas that they disagree with.  Ideas that they find distasteful, no matter how true, are psychologically devastating to them.  When they say that they are “literally shaking” it’s probable that’s correct.  Me?  I only “literally shake” when I make James Bond® a martini.

We know the true villains the Left wants to stop . . .

This leads to the Great Counterfactual Gambit of facts that Leftists have to ignore to live on a day to day basis:

  • Men (on average) will always be much stronger than women. When a high school boy beats a woman’s world record time in swimming practice, it’s normal.  Yet some people (weirdly) say there’s no physical difference between women and men.
  • This brings us to trans- people. Any suggestion that the latest mantra of “trans women are women” is against all manner of biological facts, well, is unacceptable.  If that were the case, we wouldn’t need to have a word for “trans women”.  Likewise, “trans women” wouldn’t be upset that they often can only get dates from other “trans” people.
  • We aren’t all born with equal abilities, temperaments, or physical characteristics. We are actually not even remotely the same in many respects.  Sure, we’re human, but some populations have extremely different DNA, with great degrees of differing abilities based solely on that.  Intelligence is (studies suggest) at least 60% heritable, and maybe higher.  The trend is that, in 2020, people segregate themselves by I.Q. before they marry – we’re mobile and smart people end up (mostly) marrying other smart people.  This increases the number of very smart people, and it’s not random.  (And, perhaps a reason that autism is on the rise.)

I could go on and on.  The difficulty is that Leftism requires that people ignore reality when reality gives them results they don’t like.  I read one article where a Leftist was writing a hand-wringing piece about how disappointed that he was that artificial intelligence could determine the race of the patient being x-rayed with a high degree of accuracy.  This bothered him because the researchers intentionally took the data and degraded it.

The A.I. could still easily determine accurately the races of most of the people being x-rayed.  This bothered the scientist because it violated his belief that race was just a social construct, yet here a robot was dismantling that very belief.

If you make a device that’s good at noticing patterns, you can either accept that patterns exist, or you can make the machine ignore reality and thus make it useless, and Congress can’t stand the competition.

If an A.I. takes a picture of itself, will that be considered selfie-aware?

This reflects outward in the art that Leftists love.  They hate the world, so they like art that is to a sane mind repugnant is what they seek.  They see themselves as afraid of any sort of competition, so they want to practice inversion:

  • Weakness is strength.
  • Cowardice is courage.
  • Ugliness is beauty.
  • Defeat is victory.

Oops, forgot!  Slavery is freedom.

The result of an inverted Leftist utopia is a burned world, cleansed of all that they despise.

The philosophy of the Left is similarly bankrupt.  The ideas are based on another rejection of reality:

  • All cultures are equal.
  • Scientific analysis is led by philosophy, and valid only when it backs Leftist talking points.
  • Classification of things – good and bad, smart and dumb, fat and thin is inherently wrong.

Remember, the best way to win an argument is to silence anyone who has a different opinion!

The granddaddy of all of these is this:

  • All truth is relative.

This one is especially insidious – it takes a True statement (we cannot know everything) and thus takes it to the idea of the general:  we can know nothing for certain.  Start with mathematics:  if you believe that 1+1=2, then you believe that there is Truth.  Gravity always pulls down.  Truth.

Do I see every event from every angle?  Can I know the position of every atom inside of every person in a play?  If I watch the play from a different seat, do I get a different meaning?

Sure, I’ll buy that I can’t know everything.  But if I jump in front of a semi that’s traveling down the highway at 120 miles per hour (4 liters per second) I will die and what’s left of me will look like someone dropped a bag of vegetable soup.  Unless the semi is made of Nerf® material, but that’s fairly unlikely since it absorbs vegetable soup.

Lastly, the Left feels they have no power.  Ever argue with someone in real life who has never had any real power?  Whatever they have, they will use until it’s nearly abuse – the average DMV will prove my case.  Power is the end product.  They feel that they are inferior, reject reality, and wish to have power so that they can have revenge against those that they feel have slighted them.

A Leftist won a contest – he would get $100,000, but $200,000 would go to the person he hated most.  I wonder what he’s going to do with $300,000?

Together, these ideas explain the absolute hatred that the Left feels for those who have refused to take “the jab.”  These are based on the idea that, at last, they are superior.  What would they do to get and keep that power?  Would they put people into camps?  Would they gladly watch them die?

Yes, yes they would.

Rittenhouse Has Caused More Tears Than Old Yeller

“Ladies and gentleman, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookie from the planet Kashyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about that. That does not make sense.” – South Park

I guess Kyle did have a salt rifle.

The reaction from the Left on the Rittenhouse verdict has been different than I expected – I expected a few riots, sure.  Riots are the standard when dealing with Leftists.  They want the world to burn, so why not start with a Starbucks®?  Or, heck, almost any huge corporate entity.  They seem to love it when Leftists burn down their buildings – they immediately respond by vowing to rebuild and then donating to the very groups that . . .

. . . just burned down their store.

But Kyle Rittenhouse bothered them, deeply.

Don’t recognize his two IMDB® credits.  Probably wouldn’t be a good dinner guest.

I watched, while not the whole trial, a huge chunk of it.  Just after the Prosecution was done, the Defense could have said, “The Defense rests,” and still won.

It was that clear-cut.  I don’t know why it took the jury so long, perhaps they were just waiting around to see if they could get those Panera® sandwiches the judge promised them if they were still deliberating on Friday.

The Left, who has never seen a criminal atrocity so bad that they don’t want the criminal to go free, was fixated on this case.  The media was on board, mainly.  Large numbers of people thought had no real idea of the facts of the case, and some even thought that Rittenhouse had killed multiple black people for no reason other than that they were protesting.

So, what did they have to say?  (Some language not safe for all audiences, and all memes today are as-found on the Internet.)

Umair Haque is a grifter, and a fairly successful grifter.  Does he bring up valid issues?  Certainly, from time to time.  And, if his solution is commies leaving the United States?  I will personally help buy tickets if they promise to never come back.

Ayanna apparently has a keyboard that doesn’t allow her to type a capital “W”.  Also?  She takes her love of Jean-Luc Picard a bit too far.

Does “Prince Jellyfish” describe his arm?

Possibly fake.  But funny.

Take a breath and come up for some Umair, Umair. 

If you had any doubts about who we are dealing with . . .

You can find plenty of salt for yourself on Twitter® or Reddit©.  Might as well bid goodbye to the trial with some memes:

That explains everything!  Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: “What does this have to do with this case?” Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me, I’m a lawyer defending a major record company, and I’m talkin’ about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you’re in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation… does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

Okay, the real testimony was even worse than the South Park® quote above.

Why can’t Gaige point to Kyle?

Oh, yeah, that.  The ol’ Spicey Bicep.

A moment of silence, please.

Huh, yeah, I wonder what would happen if they let clinically insane socialists out on the street?

And the only people that Kyle shot ended up being felons?  What are the odds??

The prosecutor will probably never end up living this one down . . .

And, for of course people could see the next round of trouble coming:

The Mrs. really laughed at this one.

And then The Bee® stings.

Who knows what the future will bring?

Reminder that it might be time for Leftists to change their password . . .

What Is Truth?

“She’s always hungry. She always needs to feed. She must eat. All she gets is nasty Orcses.” – LOTR, Return of the King

I saw a wanted poster for Schrodinger’s cat.  It said, “Wanted Dead And Alive.”

I have a general routine that I start before I write.  I interact with my family because they seem to want me to do so.  I then retire to the Wilder Tub of Genius where I smoke a cigar the size of a crutch that Tom Cruise might use.  It’s not a huge cigar, since Tom isn’t that tall.  But it is a mighty cigar nonetheless.

Then I generally enjoy life.  Unfortunately, sometimes the muse hits me while I’m happily hanging out in the hot tub, and it pulls me away from the three pages (yes, it was that many) of notes I had prepared for you.  Whenever that happens, I always, and I repeat always, go for the muse.

The idea of a muse is simple:  it is creation.  It’s an untamed force that hits you and takes over.  It’s not exactly like The Mrs. hitting me in the face with a raw chicken covered in Ranch® dressing, but it’s close.

That’s tonight.  Fridays are often that night where I go where the muse hits me

What hit me tonight?

Tonight it was this simple idea:  controlling what goes into your mind is the key.

https://youtu.be/VYEU-12U32A

Except the dormouse. I hate that guy.

I start every post with a quote.  There’s a reason why I do this – it sets the mind of the reader into a familiar idea.  If the reader (you) doesn’t recognize the quote, it’s okay.  The quote isn’t necessary for the magic that follows, but if you know the quote, you are nearly instantly transported into the ideas that will follow.

It’s like a subtle form of hypnosis, but one in which I don’t require you to pretend you’re a duck who has just created an egg out of chocolate and plutonium.  Well, not more than once.  As far as you know.

I use that because I want to create a mental space where the ideas that follow will sit well.  If you’re already on familiar ground, the ideas will flow more smoothly.  It’s a stupid idea, but it’s grounded in reality.  Besides, I like movie quotes.

The reason I chose movie quotes is because they are the most shared of our experiences.  Millions have seen, say, Ghostbusters®, while only hundreds of thousands have read Dostoevsky.  Heck, I told my buddy who was an Orthodox priest that I was reading Dostoevsky and he shook his head and said, “John, that’s a little heavy, don’t you think?”

There was a really bad joke about ghosts.  It still haunts me.

When a guy in a Russian cassock tells you that Dostoevsky is a bit heavy, well, it’s probably not the best way to reach people.  By the way, spoiler alert:  It’s Russian literature, so everyone dies.  And then it gets worse.  It’s almost as bad as reading a German instruction manual for a chainsaw – I tried reading one once all it gave me was a longing to invade Poland.

Or a British cookbook.  Good heavens.  The British have ruined pudding for me forever.  Well, maybe Cosby beat them to that, but, still.

So, here I am, admitting that I want to manipulate the emotions of my readers so that they are more receptive of the ideas of crazy people like Plato or Seneca or Aristotle or Twain (Shania, not Mark) and the message that follows will sound crazy.

Be careful of what goes inside your head.

You don’t think that color scheme was an accident, do you?

I’ve tried again and again to show this very simple point:  in 1900, the only regular contact any American would have had with the Federal government was the postman bringing letters.  Now?  When I get up in the morning I have nearly a dozen interactions with the Federal government before I leave my front door.  The alarm goes off, and

  • The lights (subject to Federal emissions standards at the power plant) come one and
  • I go to the shower (subject to both EPA water standards and EPA waste disposal requirements) and
  • Brush my teeth with toothpaste (subject to FDA requirements) and
  • Put on my clothes (subject to The Mrs. wanting me to not look too cool in public) and
  • Go into the Wilder Morning Den and drink a cup of (USDA approved) coffee and
  • Have some (USDA approved) bacon and
  • Pick up my (Federal Highway Administration Approved) keys and
  • Check my (FCC approved) cellphone for messages and
  • Walk upon my (Building Code Approved) floor and
  • Open my door (which is made of lead and plutonium) and
  • Start my (Insert a zillion Federal regulations here) car and drive to work.

Oddly, this little demonstration undersells the impact of government in my life.  There are dozens of regulations that I skipped because, well, I’ve been drinking.  Blame Jim Beam®.

This is just the setup, however.

What goes in your head?

I’ve told you how I try to make a post better by increasing your receptiveness to it.  My motives are simple – I am not trying to sell you anything except ideas.  And those Ideas are (mostly) the ideas of the most brilliant people who have ever lived on Earth.  I try to sneak a few of mine in, because, hey, my beard is awesome, so I might have built up some wisdom.

But who is trying to manipulate the ideas that go inside your head?

The Mrs. had a complement the other day.  She couldn’t listen to mainstream media coverage on a certain topic because Truth that I shared with her had infiltrated her brain.  Every Single Time the media tried to lie to her, she reacted in revulsion because . . . the Truth had set her free.

What goes in your head?

What do you feel that is real?  Why is that you feel that thing?

Those are very, very difficult questions, and are not for the weak of heart – what if you understood that most things you felt were truth were instead, lies?

This is a devastating lens.  What lies do you believe in because they are pretty little lies?  The more you examine them, the more they fall apart.

Communism sounds good on paper.  Unless you’re reading a history book.

I promise you that I have done my best to make every word as Truthful as I can make it.  But I ask of you this, can you understand the immense amount of propaganda you have been fed nearly every day of your life?

Step back.

What, really, is the Truth?

There is an entire industry made of tens of thousands who want to feed your head.  They want to bring their ideas into yours.  There is an amazing amount of money being spent to try to influence you.

What, then will you choose?

The pretty little lies, or the Truth that you know exists underneath?

The “Take This Job And Shove It” Economy

“Sure. Grab it, store it, shove it.” – Babylon 5

My parents always called me a gifted child. Turned out I was abandoned in a box on the front step.

I was at the store the other day with The Mrs. and Pugsley. We saw a retail clerk we knew and were discussing life with him. Normally, the retail clerk is very opinionated but upbeat. I’ll admit, it has been over six months since I’ve seen him, but his transformation was amazing.

He’s “retired” but spends his time selling things that he likes to sell. He’s probably one of the biggest experts in town, and a job like his is (more or less) being paid for talking to people about his hobby. He doesn’t have to work, but he wants to. Thankfully it wasn’t a weird hobby, like taking pictures of trout wearing cute outfits. That’s like shooting fish in apparel.

This visit to the store was different. Like I mentioned above, he’s normally upbeat. Now? Not at all. He was angry. He railed against management that didn’t care. He railed against customers that treated low-wage retail employees as if it was their fault that the store didn’t have their particular brand of banana mist spray. The store employee sounded as angry as Darth Vader – I mean he was really venting.

The clerk we talked with wasn’t quitting. Yet. But he was done. He’s done taking crap from management. He’s done taking crap from customers.

I got fired for asking a customer “rare or well done?” The funeral home said that wasn’t the right way to ask, “burial or cremation?”

One more customer screaming at him because something wasn’t on the shelf? He might take off the company shirt and step outside with the customer. After he’s finished the business with the customer he would probably just keep walking.

And this is in Modern Mayberry, where we’ve been essentially untouched by the ‘Rona crisis and mandates and masks. He’s done.

In society at large, I see the very same pattern.

Keep in mind, the retail worker that I described above was nearly at the sour cream stage on his taco because of the rude customers. Why were the customers so rude?

They’re done, too.

  • They’re done with an economy where they have been abandoned.
  • They’re done with shortages they don’t understand.
  • They’re done with rising prices to feed their family.
  • They’re done with expensive gasoline.
  • Oh, and they’re done with masks and mandates, too.

Voters on the Right are done, too. The idea of compromise is hateful – the positions are crystallized:

  • Vax mandate for the greater good versus basic human rights.
  • Collective guilt over crimes committed hundreds of years in the past versus meritocracy.
  • Five million other things. I’d list them, but you know them. You see them every day, and it boils down to the violence of the collective mob versus the rights of a constitutional republic.

In my adult life, the high point of our country being cohesive was on 9/12/2001. In that moment, we tried, really hard, to come together as a country. The result? Two of the longest wars in United States history, trillions in debt, the Patriot Act, and Obama.

What do you call Bill Gates’ divorce? An unplanned update.

The lowest point?

Right now.

This has significant political implications, but also economic implications. People like the retail employee, working because they want to, can leave anytime. But it’s more than just that one retail employee. How many other people are just walking away? How many are one rude customer away from wadding up the company smock, and walking out the front door for the last time?

How many firefighters will quit rather than get the jab? How many EMTs will simply walk away rather than submit to it? By my count, the number is not insignificant, and these are crucial jobs if you like keeping your house not burned up like and would like granny to get to the emergency room in some other fashion than you tossing her into the bed of the pickup after you move the Purina® Lion Chow™ out.

Often, the people who run the services that keep the economy running are paid at the lowest levels. What happens when they decide they are done with the nonsense, too? What happens when they look around and see that they could work at McDonalds® for 10% of the stress and 90% of the pay?

No matter how often I ask for a large fry, they keep giving me lots of small ones.

We hear about an economy where jobs are plentiful, and takers are few. From what I see here, it’s true. Except the jobs that are plentiful are at the lowest levels of pay and prestige, and the people are simply not interested in taking them.

We have shortages of everything. Inflation is wonderful at creating that: inflation pulls demand forward. Why buy a window tomorrow when the price will be up. Buy the window now. Buy everything that that you can, now. This is a rational reaction, but when everyone does it, it feeds inflation.

Tensions are high. People who make $30,000 a year have seen themselves take a $3,000 pay cut, simply through the government’s printing of money. The cause may not be apparent, but at the gas station they see it. At the grocery store they see it. When the time to pay the rent comes?

They see it.

It’s not just that. At the voting booth, they look back at the 2020 election.

They see the fraud.

I will say this, he’s certainly given himself an incentive to not slip . . .

This is, to say the least, a very, very chaotic situation. As I said, we have shortages of everything. In 2018, the economy was working because the people in it were working. Now, in addition to the shortage of “stuff” we have shortages of the people who make things go, as well.

What does that lead to?

Increasing dysfunction. Worse services. Longer waits on EMT calls.

Why?

I call it the IDGAF economy. People are done. How many folks simply don’t care? How many have been crossed out of the economy and have the attitude, “screw ‘em all, I didn’t need this job anyway”?

A lot. In the 1977 as inflation hit there were similar sentiments – Johnny Paycheck scored a big hit with Take This Job and Shove It. This is where we are in 2021. People are done. People are sick of it all. They know the economy isn’t right.

I got some extra money this Halloween. I went into a haunted house and on the way out they handed me a paycheck.

Economies consist of more than companies and procedures and policies. Each of those things depends on: people. Lose a foreman? The crew may or may not do as well. If it was a good foreman, it’s likely that they don’t do as well. Lose an EMT, and you’re one shy for a full shift? Which heart attack do they skip out on?

Who makes that ambulance run? Who gives time off to the weekend dispatcher? Who runs the window at the DMV? Who makes the PEZ®?

The reactions I’ve seen so far are discouraging. The idea from at least some management is that, “Well, isn’t that a part of their job?” which is technically correct. But if they can do another job for a dollar less an hour that doesn’t cause a sacrifice?

They’re gone.

That’s the difficulty. An economy isn’t Nike® or Amazon™ or Netflix©. An economy is made of the people that run it. We’ve seen that truckers can paralyze an economy. Now imagine the economy when all the people that make it go say, “IDGAF”.

We’re close.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, Special Wednesday Edition: Are We There Yet, Part III

“Yes, I shall certainly choose revolutionary France for my holiday again next year.” – Blackadder the Third

There are two types of people:  those that can extrapolate from incomplete data.

Generally, I plan my posts in advance, sometimes weeks ahead of time.  I try to research the topics, and, quite often I’m surprised by the thing that I thought that were true that simply weren’t true.  Things that are “common knowledge” are often incorrect.  Who knew that telling an upset woman to “calm down” would have the opposite effect . . . every single time I’ve ever tried it?

That being said, the comments from the last Civil War 2.0 Weather Report pulled me off of my schedule.  As usual, the commenters at this site are generally at least one to two standard deviations of intelligence above the norm.  It’s a smart room, and a tough one.  When I make an error, even a grammatical error, I get called on it.  I hate to think that I make one grammatical error and then my post is urined.

Oddly, I really appreciate when people point out those errors.  Even though  I will eventually die.  My chances for a legacy on this planet are:

  • my children,
  • the things that I have done (think, work),
  • my PEZ® dispenser collection,
  • the lives that I have touched,
  • and the ideas I was able to share or spread.

Truth, with a capital T, is more important to than me “being right”.

By my reckoning, I’ve popped down in excess of 65,000 words on the conflict in American that is coming to be called Civil War 2.0 over the span of years.  I keep writing about it because it has hit a nerve:  these are some of the most viewed posts that I have written.  People are interested because, like me, they feel something big coming.

Does a nurse need to carry a red pen in case they want to draw blood?

The comments on the November edition of the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, though, are special.  There is a great division in what we even consider the ongoing conflict.  Is it even a war?  Will it ever be a war?

When I think about this I look to analogies from the past.  When Germany decided to take a fall vacation in Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on them.  And then, after Poland was gobbled up by the Germans and the Soviets in September 1939?

Nothing, or, mostly nothing.

For about eight months, the largest armies in Europe did (mostly) zilch.  Newspapers have to have something to write about, so they wrote about the war that just wasn’t happening.  This no-war version of war was called names like Sitzkreig, and the British started calling it the Bore War.  The name “Phoney War” finally stuck.

Well, at least the French won that war.

Then?  On May 10, 1940 the Germans attacked realized that the French were sitting on a lot of stuff that they wanted (mainly, France).  By the middle of June, Germans were having wine in Parisian cafés.  By the end of June, the jokes about French military, um, “prowess” started.

I bring this up because I wonder if we’re in a lull like that right now.

In an attempt to catalog the progress to a war, I tried to use existing international standards to codify the steps towards war.  On my ten-point scale, last six points were:

  1. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
  2. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  3. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  4. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  5. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  6. Open War.

Point 5. is beyond dispute.  Point 6. is ongoing, right now.  I have had dozens of people in real life and on the site talking about moving away simply because they did not want to be in Leftist-controlled state.

I’d tell more jokes about the Civil War, but I keep getting Stonewalled.

Point 7. was very common.  Violence has, to a certain extent, dropped backwards due to rioting becoming “so 2020”, although societal violence levels are still increasing.

But Aesop had this gem in his comment:

“And those 1000 casualties? In a 12-month period? That rolling criteria is rolling backwards, not forward. We’re currently back at maybe 6½, not 10.

In the way I thought about my model, these were ratchets – point 6. supported point 7., and so on.

But Aesop is right.  Violence (especially of the riot-y kind) has decreased.  At least for now.  I’ll state that point 8. has happened and can’t be undone.  The structures are far better organized on the Left – Charles Péguy said it well:  “Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.”  But when faced with real, proximate threats the Right has shown that it can organize thousands in a week.

Point 9.?  I would say that this level of terror continues in American cities, right now.  Leftist violence (though not always pointed against the Right) continues and isn’t punished.  Leftists can commit a huge variety of crimes and be walking the streets in the new “no bond” world the next morning.

Non-violent people who walked unopposed into the Capitol building on January 6, 2021 are being held in conditions that approximate a Soviet GULAG.  Don’t take my word for it, you can read a letter from an inmate here (LINK).  So, is number 9. happening?  It clearly is.

Aesop continues:

But the most obvious reason it’s not midnight, nor anywhere close, is because you’re even asking the question.

No one had to tell the ship’s band on the Titanic that the sh*tfestivus had begun. They knew the minute they sat down to play that the performance would end with their shoes getting cold and wet, before they even sat down.

I don’t think we’re taking on water, and I don’t even think we’ve even hit the iceberg yet. I do think we’re barreling towards it blind in the night, at flank speed, in a fog.

But that’s a far cry from taking on water, and doomed to sink.
Yet.

Those are good points.  It’s sort of like the definition of drowning.  If have the breath to ask, you’re not drowning.  At least I told my kids that when I taught them how to swim.  You can’t have a Civil War if nobody comes.

And yet . . . we’ve been in a cultural war since long before most people ever realized we were.  And one thing we’re good at (as humans) is normalizing life.  We get complacent, and behavior that would have led to social ostracism becomes almost acceptable in a few years.  We can get used to that level of violence, too.  If you look at the Google® trend for the term “riot” it spikes with the first Floyd riot, but goes back to the same level of interest after only a few weeks, despite riots being prevalent all summer long.

We get used to things, even bad things, very quickly.

One or two people might get this one, but they’ll really enjoy it.

Various other comments –

McChuck:  “The cultural, political, economic, legal, and demographic war has been waged against US for generations, and we are losing badly. If we don’t fight now (or very soon), we lose by default.

When only one side shows up for a war, it’s called genocide. That’s where we are now, even if it’s being done slowly.”

The Docent:  “We have a fight between factions for control of the government. So I would suggest that the issue is whether it rises to more than “civil disturbance.” This is where the minimum yearly body count of 1,000 (with at least 100 per side) comes into play. If we are only looking at the BLM/Antifa riots, we are at a civil disturbance level. If we consider COVID jabs for the kill count, we get over the 1,000 minimum, but because it is unilateral it is a genocide rather than a civil war.”

jojo:  “Yup. Wilder – throw away your charts. Look at what’s going on. It’s on already. And has been for more than a little while. Add in political prisoners locked up in D.C. for trespassing with no bail – you got a chart for that?”

It’s clear that there is some feeling that we’re not seeing any sort of war – just flat-out genocide.  And that’s the reason for the charts.  People who are invested in the system, who feel that they have something to lose are generally willing to put their heads down and keep quiet.  I will keep the graphs going.  I’m plotting something.

Well, that’s one way to properly fill out a ballot in Georgia.

So, are we there yet?  Ask some folks, it’s clearly a yes.  Ask others, it’s clearly a no.  It’s also, clearly, likely to be the biggest event that we’ll see in our lifetimes.

And in places like Modern Mayberry, I imagine that there is a good possibility that we may never see any direct violence related to this, except on YouTube® reports.

But, I can see spending time to review the markers – these are two and a half years old now.  I might even stay with them, but recalibrate them with some objective markers.  We’ll see – I’ll give it some thought.

It is clear.  We will never be able to return to the nation that was, and what we will become will be born from the next few years.

Who will we become?  We all have a stake in that.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Are We There Yet? (Part II)

“Brandon, come on, let’s go . . . Brandon?” – Brightburn

Midnight?

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

I’ve bolded both 9. and 10.  That’s the lead story.

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, Part II? – Violence And Censorship Update – Models For The Future, It’s Personal – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – After Virginia – 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 600 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

https://wilderwealthywise.com/civil-war-weather-report-previous-posts/

Making The Call, Part II?

Last month we spent time discussing whether or not the United States has met the international criteria for being in a civil war.  The answer (in my opinion) is that we are close enough that it’s hard to tell.  Some people are solidly on the “it’s already going” and some are not.  One bit of criteria that was sent to me by a faithful reader – thank you 173d VietVet.  Mike Shelby (Forward Observer) wrote up a short missive on this question (LINK) and came out on the “no” side.

That’s fair.  He put forward some criteria, and I thought they’d be worth discussing this month.  These four bullet points are direct quotes:

  • domestic military action (i.e., not just police)
  • government involvement as a belligerent (i.e., not just a tribal war between citizens)
  • capable fighting on both sides of the conflict (i.e., not just a genocide)
  • at least 1,000 combat-related deaths in a 12-month period (i.e., sustained fighting)

My responses are in bold:

  • domestic military action (i.e., not just police) – Have you seen the police recently? They have equipment that most world militaries would love to have.  Heck, our police even have stuff we didn’t leave for the Taliban.  To require military action seems irrelevant. 
  • government involvement as a belligerent (i.e., not just a tribal war between citizens) – The trend in our current generation of warfare explicitly uses the citizen as a belligerent, if not the main belligerent. In my mind, it is more than enough that the government aids and abets citizens to kill others.  This is indisputably happening right now.
  • capable fighting on both sides of the conflict (i.e., not just a genocide) – This is the best point of the bunch. The violence (at some point) must go both ways.  Right now, it is observably one-sided, and is looks much more like a genocide.
  • at least 1,000 combat-related deaths in a 12-month period (i.e., sustained fighting) – Another valid point, but remember, in dirty wars, state sponsored combat looks like . . . crime. I do hope the violence level drops, but there is no sign of it now. 

Again, I have nothing but respect for Mr. Shelby, but the reliance on his past military background provides an analysis lens that I do not share and he perhaps parses the terminology a bit more finely than I would.  Thankfully, there’s room for both of us to be right.

If A is for apple and B is for banana, what is C for?  Explosives.

I’m not going to (besides the notes above) belabor the point.  I don’t care if the gun that shoots me belongs to a private from Louisiana or a cop or a Mexican cartel gunman.  I’m still dead.  And if the government is encouraging, it’s either genocide or, if the fighting goes both ways, it’s civil war.

There is more from Mr. Shelby a bit later in this edition of the Weather Report.

Violence And Censorship Update

Not a lot to add to violence this month.

Censorship, continues in full force.  At the beginning of the month, Congress had a Facebook® “whistleblower” as the main witness at hearings where . . . she said the big problem with Facebook© is that they don’t censor nearly enough.

What does the “p” in Facebook© stand for?  Privacy.

Yup.  That was the story.  But then it came out that that the “whistleblower” spent last October making sure that information that could damage Joe Biden was censored from Facebook™.  She was on the team that made sure that information related to Hunter Biden’s laptop was suppressed.

I’m shocked, shocked that she was wanting yet more censorship from Facebook.

Applying for work at Facebook® is easy.  They already have your details.

Since it’s November, I thought I’d remind everyone of a picture from last year.  Consider it a stroll down memory-hole lane.

There was more fraud in the 2020 election than in a Thanksgiving Wilder Family Monopoly® game.

Again, if you want free and fair elections, it’s absolutely certain that you block windows so the public can’t view the vote counting in any way.  Stalin said it well:  “Those who vote decide nothing.  Those who count the vote decide everything.”

Models For The Future – It’s Personal

I mentioned above that we’d see more from the Forward Observer, and here’s an excellent article where he discusses the model of the Irish Troubles as a model for potential future difficulties.  You can read it here (LINK).

Similarly, Mary Christine put forward a fictional piece at The Burning Platform in 2019.  Those set as a fiction, it describes how conflict escalated from the political to a guerilla war in Missouri during the Civil War.  You can read it here (LINK).

A third model to think about would be the Second Boer War, where the British defeated the Boer Republics and forcefully integrated them into British South Africa.  Like the other two, this conflict was based on guerilla tactics.   To defeat them, the British finally just started putting Boer civilians (women and children) into concentration camps with all the expected brutality and tragedy that is implied by that.  Tens of thousands of civilians died in the camps.

These models all have several things in common, but what strikes me is the utter brutality in each of them and the sometimes-targeted attacks on non-combatants.  Conflict of this type is marked by tragedy in a way that lasts for generations – it becomes and remains personal.

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 holding steady.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it ticked up this month again, mainly on inflation fears.

Economic:

Economic measures ticked upwards in October – despite my prediction that they’d drop.

Illegal Aliens:

This data was at record levels last three months, and this rate is 4x the rate from any previous year in the last four.

After Virginia

Virginia has scared the Left, badly.  In their minds, Virginia had become a permanent Blue state – a Leftist outpost where statues could be taken down and Critical Race Theory could start along with hormone treatments for kindergartners.

Then they lost.  Big time.  And it wasn’t just a loss, it was a loss that was a psychological blow.  Biden is in political free-fall, and is less popular than COVID-19.

The Left is realizing the hard truth:  they won’t sweep into a victory, everywhere and forever.  The comments section in Leftist areas?

Calling for a peaceful split.  Previously, when winning, they wanted it all – they were sure they were going to win and establish a socialist paradise from sea to shining sea.

This was a sea change.  They realize that the attitude of the Right is changing, and they realize that they’re managing to make Trump look good to the swing voters.  Is a consensus building for a split?

Is this where we might beheaded?

LINKS

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

From Sea To Shining  Sea

Brooklyn 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1NR_DWUeKI

Brooklyn 2: https://twitter.com/i/status/1454903434046578688

Lancaster PA: https://youtu.be/-Ch2q0Gw5Vg

Washington DC: https://twitter.com/i/status/1447913542674522117

Chicago 1: https://twitter.com/i/status/1445784277807890436

Chicago 2:https://twitter.com/i/status/1445483216475885576

Minneapolis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_6hA9PgICc

Mobile AL:https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1449214856138305536

Berkeley Campus: https://youtu.be/dYB9-o5QklE

Army Boot Camp: https://twitter.com/i/status/1449910120364879880

Marine Field Exercise: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10159949/Royal-Marines-commandos-force-troops-humiliating-surrender-training-exercise.html

 

Bad Guys…Guns…Good Gals

https://alphanews.org/78-instances-of-fully-automatic-gunfire-in-minneapolis-so-far-this-year/

https://buchanan.org/blog/who-is-killing-10000-black-americans-every-year-158601

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls

https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article255162407.html

https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/more-women-especially-black-women-are-becoming-gun-owners-ownership-firearms/531-49622eec-5ac8-4793-ab89-cfa0213ebff4

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republican-winsome-sears-becomes-virginias-first-female-lieutenant-governor

 

Election Tidbits

https://twitter.com/GlennYoungkin/status/1448396312098050048

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/10/breaking-fulton-county-georgia-ordered-one-million-absentee-ballots-printer-days-2020-election-knowing-no-time-mail/

https://www.wtnh.com/news/politics/emails-released-to-news-8-show-a-flurry-of-confusion-over-mass-absentee-ballots-mailed-to-guilford-voters/

https://www.defendflorida.org/canvassing

https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/secretary_raffensperger_calls_on_department_of_justice_to_investigate_allegations_of_fulton_county_shredding_applications

https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/gbi-chief-not-enough-evidence-to-pursue-gop-s-ballot-fraud-claim/article_edd11901-b7a1-524f-9815-6bedbdd4bc98.html

https://thenationalpulse.com/analysis/kline-zucks-bucks-were-illegal/

 

Secession – Thinking Nationally

https://link.medium.com/yNzD8Sxhzkb

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/columnists/dan-rodricks/bs-md-rodricks-1010-civil-war-20211008-sy33rtzmind5vnsawrshjh2tw4-story.html

https://www.thedailybeast.com/he-saw-americas-crackup-coming-in-2011he-says-its-worse-now

https://alt-market.us/in-a-civil-war-the-authoritarian-left-would-be-easily-beaten-but-it-wont-end-there/

https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/new-initiative-explores-deep-persistent-divides-between-biden-and-trump-voters/

https://www.salon.com/2021/10/09/a-new-confederacy-and-the-have-already-seceded/

 

Secession – Acting Locally

https://mises.org/wire/three-reasons-start-taking-secession-seriously

https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/california-secede-one-group-got-a-key-approval-last-week-to-try/

https://www.axios.com/atlantas-whitest-neighborhood-may-secede-7ae8755d-d378-4aa1-8534-f90faf029356.html

https://dnyuz.com/2021/10/22/bye-maryland-lawmakers-in-3-counties-float-a-plan-to-secede-from-the-state/

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-canada-health-public-health-idaho-0d2015c826bb01a2cd04b31254c870c5

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2021/10/10/civil-war-trending-on-twitter-after-comment-made-by-trump-supporter/?sh=3c6d9b0b1853

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news/state/lawmaker-wants-new-hampshire-to-declare-independence/article_d2717e73-5b7b-55b8-a8b3-aa7a45da9bf2.html

https://www.unionleader.com/news/politics/voters/should-the-2022-ballot-include-a-vote-on-new-hampshire-seceding-from-the-united-states/poll_fc16f69e-161c-11ec-8c39-b318093e8de3.html

https://www.amazon.com/Break-Up-Secession-Division-Imperfect-ebook/dp/B07X9PWSVG

https://www.amazon.com/American-Secession-Looming-National-Breakup-ebook/dp/B07N94RL11

 

Secession – Everybody Calm Down

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/no-were-not-more-divided-than-we-were-during-the-civil-war/

https://www.governing.com/now/is-america-in-a-cold-civil-war-not-at-all

https://www.sunjournal.com/2021/10/10/rich-lowry-national-divorce-is-a-poisonously-stupid-idea/

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/06/americans-national-divorse-theyre-wrong-515443

https://www.silive.com/news/2021/10/its-dangerous-for-pro-trumpers-or-anybody-else-to-want-to-secede-from-the-united-states-opinion.html

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043401926/russia-expert-fiona-hill-there-is-nothing-for-you-here

 

Secession – The Least Of Our Worries?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10154745/The-pace-China-moving-stunning-Americas-No-2-ranking-military-officer-said.html

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/moment-biden-casually-committed-ww3-over-taiwan-last-nights-town-hall

https://www.revolver.news/2021/10/secret-chinese-philosopher-lessons-for-america/

https://palladiummag.com/2021/10/11/the-triumph-and-terror-of-wang-huning/

https://dokumen.pub/america-against-america.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/

I’m Back. Also? The Economy Is A Mess.

“Good. Then climb up, get inside, and make it spin.” – Cobra Kai

Oh, wait, then she couldn’t circle back?

JW Note:  Monday was the third day (I think) that I had to skip a scheduled post since 2017.  It’s nice to be back.  Thanks for waiting.

I was driving down the road.  It was Christmas Day, back a zillion years ago.  There had been a fresh few inches of snow on the paved road.  I was going to see my parents.  The day was overcast, and cold, with temperatures hovering around 0°F (101.325 kPa).

My car was going around 70 miles per hour.  There wasn’t another car on the road, and I could see for miles.  Little did I know that I would soon have an auto-body experience.

Instead of snowplows, the county had used road graders to scrape the snow off the asphalt.  One result of that was that there was a continuous tiny hill of snow in the center of the road where the yellow line would be.

As I drove along, I reached to change the cassette tape.  Perhaps a switch to AC/DC® from the Crüe?  I wandered off just a little bit toward the center onto that little hill as I reached into the tape box.  It slowed my car.  On one side.  Just a little.

The result wasn’t little.  A force applied to one side of the car led to the other side going forward faster, a result most people call . . . spinning.

Or in this case, Tyrannosaurus Rexth. 

The car went into a very fast spin as the car’s forward energy was transferred into angular momentum.  I could probably describe the amount of energy in math, but I was concentrating right then and there on not being reduced to my personal lowest common denominator.  But you can think about it this way:  how fast would a car going 70 miles per hour spin if all the forward energy went into spin?

Fast.

This spin forced the weight of the car onto the driver’s side wheels as the car bled linear energy into rotational.  As the car spun, out of control, there was no real way to do anything.  Everything was happening far too fast.

The spinning car spun up a small tornado cloud of snow from the road.  Finally, the car tilted up on the driver’s side tires, and tilted up, 30 degrees from horizontal.  It stopped rotating.

The car then slammed down, at a complete stop, engine stalled, and every light on the dashboard on.  The defroster was blowing snowflakes into the car, and every window was covered with white flakes of snow, outside and inside.

There is only one thing I could do.  I got out of the car and stared down the asphalt at the path I had been on.  It all happened so fast that had little time to feel any fear.  Besides, who can be afraid when Bonn Scott was busy telling me all about Rosie?

How does he like his eggs in the morning?  Ohhhhhmmmmlette.

I had been going due east, facing right into the ditch.  I was now pointing due south.  The entire time, not a tire had left the narrow two lane asphalt road.  I looked back on the track the wheels had made, and it looked like the path of a figure skater doing a pirouette.  I got wiped off the car windows, got back in, backed up, and headed east again.

Much more slowly.

Back when the ‘Rona first started, the long-term implications (to me) were clear.  The immediate shutdown of large segments of the global economy would be disastrous.  It was certain to leave a mark.

The toilet paper binge was signal one.  When people panic, they feel that they have to do . . . something.  Buying toilet paper wasn’t rational.

Here at Casa Wilder we actually had a relatively ludicrous amount on hand before the whole mess hit.  It was (sort of) a prepping situation.  We kept buying more than we needed, and it kept adding up.  And up.  Before too awful long, we had the basement bathroom stacked pretty high with the stuff.

I hear that two guys stole a calendar from Capitol Hill.  Each of them got six months.

When the storm hit?  Well, let’s say that we were squeaky clean.  And we didn’t buy a single sheet.  We weren’t part of the problem, but part of the solution.

But the economy wasn’t.  Every bit of initial distortion from the economic dislocation was amplified.  It echoed down the system.  What kinds of shocks?

  • Initial runs on supplies.
  • Federal stimulus.
  • Initial lowered consumption of fuels.
  • More Federal stimulus.
  • Lower demand for office space.
  • More Federal stimulus, which increased unemployment benefits, distorting labor incentives.
  • Eviction moratoriums, distorting housing costs and lowering profits of building owners.
  • More Federal stimulus.
  • Spiking stock markets with contracting GDP.

I’m thinking that, in retrospect, Federal “aid” was probably the worst thing we could have done.  It provided the greatest expansion of government powers since FDR nearly destroyed the economy with the New Deal.  If the Federal government could tell a landlord in Podunk, Iowa that he couldn’t kick out people that refused to pay, it’s only a tiny step to saying that the landlord should let people move into his guest bedroom and feed them pancakes when they demand them.

French pancakes give me the crepes.

That might be the worst.  But the economic situation has all the charm of a pitbull that just quit smoking, and it will be the spark.

Wilder’s Law (might as well grab one when I can) says that Federal debt doubles every eight years.  The debt is right now at $29 trillion.  That means that (on average) the debt will rise by $3.5 trillion each year.  That’s a lot of money.  Some people work a whole year and don’t make that much!

I think we’re on track to more than double it in the next eight years, regardless of who is in the White House.  The end state of any exponential curve is, well, exponential.  The headwinds we are now facing are strong.

  • Medical costs, which are growing faster than Germany between 1939 and 1941.
  • Infinite Leftist “free” programs to see who will be trained to be the poet in Collective Farm #8675309 (I bet it will be Jenny).
  • Whipsawing energy availability. I promised Lord Bison I’d do an energy post again sometime soon, and we need to review where we’re at.  Is energy expensive because of political reasons, or because of physical reasons?  We need to have a great documentary about oil.  We can save it under non-friction.
  • Political division that mirrors only a few times in our history. Hint:  all of those ended in historic levels of bloodshed.  I’m sure this time will be different.
  • The man is a potato.
  • Lashing waves of inflation and shortage, as I predicted back in July. Heck, I priced cheap electric outlets the other day.  They were shocking!
  • China and Russia seeing their moment. Why didn’t anyone Xi that coming?
  • Joe Biden’s America? Borders are open, no jab required.  Oh, wait, have a job?  Jab required.

I wish that I could tell you that things will get better soon in the economy.  It is certain that they won’t.  The economy is shifting in unpredictable ways.  When you have a system that is working at its limits every single day and then subject it to amazing levels of stress?

It will fail.  No chips for new cars.  No drivers for trucks.  Chicago getting ready to lose a big chunk of cops.  The worst dislocations are yet to arrive.

The government solution will certainly make things worse.  How can I tell that?  It already has.  The dreams of those who assume that prosperity can be bought at the price of new law or regulation or printing more cash has always failed.

Second place winner, Collective Farm BR-549 poet competition.

Prosperity is hard.  Really hard.  The natural state of humanity has been one where starvation was always a possibility, where actually consequential diseases (see:  The Black Death or The Justinian Plague) was inevitable from time to time.  It was so bad that episodes of that show you love were on the streaming service that you don’t have and you’re not going to buy another one.

We live in a world that has become just like my car on that Christmas Day so many years ago.  It was moving down the road at full speed.  One tiny two-inch hill of snow caused it to spin.

I assure you we haven’t been anywhere close to the worst that this downturn will bring.  Prepare.  Stay away from crowds.  And if you and all you love all still there when all four wheels drop back on the ground?

Say a prayer.

Of thanks.

We can’t have too many of those.

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.

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?

  1. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  2. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  3. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  4. 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

Keiser, OR: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9965833/Shoplifters-steal-thousands-dollars-worth-electrical-wires-Lowes-Oregon.html

New York, NY: https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/09/20/tiktok-devious-licks-viral-challenge-vandalism-stealing-in-schools/

 

Break Up

https://www.mediaite.com/podcasts/one-of-the-worst-times-ever-in-american-history-ken-burns-says-current-times-equal-to-civil-war/

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.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/navy-seal-who-shot-bin-laden-says-internal-division-now-biggest-threat-to-america_3992743.html?

https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/national-archives-places-harmful-language-alert-on-u-s-constitution-page/

https://www.yaf.org/news/student-senator-caught-throwing-away-flags-from-9-11-memorial-at-washu/

https://mynorthwest.com/3141211/rantz-high-school-cancels-9-11-tribute-says-it-could-offend-some-students/?

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://cleverjourneys.com/2021/09/30/how-does-the-voter-ballot-printing-company-fit-into-the-arizona-audit-results/

https://twitter.com/Shae_1776/status/1435624703658446848

https://www.ajc.com/politics/ballot-inspection-seeks-elusive-proof-of-fraud-in-georgia-election/OEQEOPIY4FDC3KPN3W47MNMKEU/

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.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/09/12/its_time_to_acknowledge_anti-white_racism_146391.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE7nkiFOB-U

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/571806-reaffirm-who-we-hope-to-be-instead-of-reimagining-our-history

https://alt-market.us/organizing-patriots-in-the-face-of-government-informants-and-false-flags/