New Civil War Weather Report on Monday.
Category: Civil War
Penultimate Day And 2021 Thoughts
“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
Why did 2020 cross the road? To get to the other cyanide.
This year we didn’t celebrate our traditional Wilder family holiday, Penultimate Day. What does Penultimate Day entail?
Well, you drive south for two hours or so. Then you go to Best Buy® and, under no circumstances do you buy a cell phone. But you must look at cell phones. Then, after not buying a cell phone, you go to Olive Garden® and have some nice pasta.
This celebration started (I think) in 2011 or 2012, I think. The Mrs.’ cell phone (a Blackberry®!) was going south. We drove to the nearest cell phone store that was tied to our carrier, which was a Best Buy™ about two hours from us. We got frustrated attempting to figure out the deals after the phone clerk wheeled out a surgical gurney to take out part of my intestines. I told him, “No way!”
“Really? You need to look at the contract closer. It’s in the appendix.”
We gave up on buying a phone.
Then, frustrated at our lack of being able to find a phone, we gave up and decided to have dinner.
Hobbits always use vibrate on their phones – they don’t want the ring to give them away.
And then we drove home. It was impossibly silly, driving a total of four hours to go to not buy a cell phone. And we did it on December 30. So, I made the joke that since the New Year was a made-up holiday, why not make up our own? Thus Penultimate Day – the next-to-last day of the year – became an official Wilder holiday.
Over the years, we took Penultimate Day seriously. There were one or two exceptions where we skipped Penultimate Day, primarily because Pugsley or The Boy had a sports event. That is, of course, acceptable. The goal of Penultimate Day is to do something fun together as a family.
We stuck to celebrating Penultimate Day. Why? Because it was fun, it was silly, and it was ours.
We didn’t celebrate Penultimate Day this year.
First, traveling into a major metropolitan area didn’t make sense to us – here in Modern Mayberry the case-rate for the WuFlu is relatively low, and we have no idea what the requirements are to even go into Best Buy® in Major Undisclosed Metropolitan Area. Second, while we enjoy going to the Olive Garden™, I’m still convinced that the free breadsticks are some kind of con game. I keep expecting a bill to arrive from them in 2028: “owed to Olive Garden© for “free” breadsticks: $257,065.”
What’s the only pasta you can get during COVID-19 lockdown? Macaroni and sneeze.
Instead, we slept in late, played a few games, and more-or-less relaxed the entire day. Our contribution to the economy of the United States? We had a nice dinner The Mrs. cooked for us at home, used some natural gas to fire our heater, and spent about $3 in electricity for lighting the place. That was it. Our participation in the economy on December 30, 2020 was probably less than $20, total.
That’s the problem if you’re running an economy. No gasoline, no money heading to the Olive Garden©, and no tip to the waitress.
I read that Christmas spending was down this year, to $851 from $976 in 2019. That’s a drop of 13%. But this is Monday, not Wednesday when we talk about economics. On Monday, we talk about the big picture.
But 13% is a huge drop-off. And when you add in all of the activities that people aren’t doing? I imagine it was even more. The big picture? Economic contraction increases instability.
I wrote in 2019’s Penultimate Day that we were entering a period of chaos, where entire edifices that we used to stand behind would crumble. Now, we sit in 2021, and a majority of the people who voted in the national election think it was rigged.
How do you get a baby alien to sleep? Rocket.
Also rigged? The system of justice in the nation. We see Antifa® and BLM© “peacefully” destroy cities. The massive number of unindicted felons? It’s okay to loot.
2020 was a mess, but it looks like we got to get a glimpse of the man behind the curtain.
2021 will certainly start out like a mess. January is going to be chaotic. Regardless, I’m optimistic about 2021 – not because I’m insane, but because I know what starts the upward rise: the upward rise starts after you’ve fallen and hit bottom. While we around the world have fallen and are headed toward the bottom, the biggest lesson is this: bring something back up with you.
That’s the question for today: what can we bring back up with us?
- Understanding that the world can change around you in an instant. One moment, the world was normal. The next? Lockdowns, the destruction of an economy.
- Understanding where your vulnerabilities are. Food? Toilet paper? What can you do to fix them?
- Knowing that your job is not “safe” – the entire economy isn’t safe. Be prepared for more dislocations. What skills are you working on?
These are important realizations. In 2021 and for the foreseeable future, complacency will not be your friend. Constantly question your assumptions. Constantly try to understand your side, but also periodically ask yourself, “What if I’m wrong?” Try to understand the other side of the issue, too.
You may or may not be wrong, but questioning (not doubting, but questioning) yourself is key to deep understanding. Hold your own beliefs up to the same scrutiny you use on opposing beliefs.
Thankfully, hindsight is 2020. Or did I get that backward?
As I wrote on Friday, I’m not sure that 2021 will be a great year, but it will be a birth year for the next phase of what happens to our society. What’s probable this year?
- Unemployment continues, and likely gets worse. Ideas of a quick rebuild will be crushed. People at the bottom end – twentysomethings and service workers – are already hoisting a white flag.
- Society will become even more fractured. Left and Right are guaranteed to be further apart in 2021 – the way this presidential election has gone is sure to inflame both sides, no matter what happens.
- The very mechanisms that we normally see as protecting society will continue to erode. People on the Right who are defending the “thin blue line” will become aware that many (not all!) of the police will do whatever the people signing their checks tell them to do. This is not the year to be a cop in Portland, Oregon.
- People will continue to flee California and large Leftist cities in a locust-like plague. They will not leave their Leftist ideas behind.
- The debt of the United States will continue to climb. My bet? We add another $4-5 trillion this year. That doesn’t include personal debt and business debt. The idea that printing money is better than earning it will continue and probably increase in 2021. This idea will only stop when events force it to stop.
But as I said in the introduction to Friday’s post, I remain weirdly optimistic that, even given all of these trends, this will be a year that we will look back on and say, “That was the year that things changed.” Certainly, 2020 was a year that will likely be looked on as the start of the crisis. 2021 will be looked at as the year that the seeds of the new are planted.
How can I better describe it?
1776 is they year that most people associate with the birth of the United States. What most people forget is that it wasn’t until 1787 that the Constitutional Congress was held. Likewise, it wasn’t until 1789 that George Washington was sworn in as our first President. That was thirteen years after 1776 – thirteen years where there was war, economic failure, and finally a coming together over a very unique document.
Change takes time.
What did Washington say before his men got in the boats to cross the Delaware to attack the British? “Get in the boats.”
So, if I’m right, people will look back on 2021 and say, “That was when things turned around.”
And the good news is, Penultimate Day or not, you’ll be there for it. Again, I never said it was going to be easy. It will likely be the complete opposite of easy.
Freedom rarely is easy. And I’m still pretty sure that the Olive Garden© has a comprehensive spreadsheet somewhere charting my breadstick consumption . . . .
America: Walking The Razor’s Edge
“The pathway to salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor’s edge.” – The Razor’s Edge (1984)
What did the hobbits say as they rode the Ents into battle? “Run, forest, run!”
It was on July 4. I had convinced two of my friends to follow me on a bizarre quest – we were going to climb one of the tallest mountains in North America. By one of them, it’s in the top 50. So, in my book that counts.
The trip started using gasoline – we had a borrowed Jeep® that we took as far up the hill as we could, since it was a borrowed Jeep™. My friend who had borrowed the Jeep© didn’t want to wreck it, since it was before YouTube® and we wouldn’t even get likes from a cool video if we wrecked it on the amazingly rough road.
We decided to make this hike a three-day event. On the first day, we’d do nearly a mile gain in elevation while we camped out 1000’ below the summit of the mountain. Then, we’d summit the mountain and spend the next night at our basecamp. Then we’d hike out the next morning.
Of course, it rained.
At the elevation of our basecamp, trees can’t grow, so we boiled filtered water in the rain. It worked, sort of. At that elevation, water boils at less than 190°F. It was enough to reheat a fifteen-year-old dehydrated Mountain House® Chili Mac, even though the beans couldn’t get hot enough to not be crunchy.
After climbing up a mountain, crunchy beans and all, it was the best dinner I’d had in years. I think I ate two.
The chili mac wasn’t red hot, but there was no way I was going to give it away, give it away, give it away now.
The next day morning we were sore – but we could leave our packs at the camp so we’d just be carrying ourselves and our water. It was nearly half of a mile to get to the summit – a half of a mile straight up.
The trip up was a true scramble – a broken field of boulders that we sometimes had to ascend on all fours. It was steep – very steep. As we intersected the ridge that led to the summit of the mountain, I looked forward to seeing what was on the other side of the ridge. I was certain that it must be flatter than the steep boulder field we’d just climbed – there was no way it could be as steep.
I got to the edge of the ridge, and looked down.
Until that moment in time, I had never been afraid of heights. But I was not expecting to see what I saw.
It was a cliff. A sheer drop off – I was looking at a certified Wile E. Coyote precipice.
When I was stuck on that cliff, they told me not to “look down.” So, I smiled.
I don’t know if you’ve ever looked straight down and seen a cliff that went nearly three-quarters of a mile straight down when you weren’t expecting it. For the first time in my life I was experiencing vertigo – it felt like the mountain under me was going to slide off down that cliff.
I moved back down the ridge. But I still had to climb a few hundred feet upward to reach the summit. Up the side of the ridge I went. I assure you, I stayed back from that knife-edge as we crawled up that hill.
Then, finally, tantalizingly close, there was the summit. I was nearly to the top of one of the highest mountains in North America.
There was one little problem.
Between the ridge I was on, and the top of the mountain there was a path. It was about six or eight feet long, and probably a foot wide, and it was flat, like it had been machined.
What’s the difference between Humpty Dumpty and 2020? One of them had a great fall.
On one side of it was, you guessed it, a sheer cliff that bottomed out 3,000 feet or so below me. On the other side of the path it was a lot better. There was only about a 1,000 foot drop.
Wait, was 1,000 feet better? I’d get more time to live if I fell down the 3,000 foot side.
Choices.
But when facing that last few steps, shaky with the first vertigo in my life, I’ll admit those were some of the toughest steps of my life. But, hey, what was I going to tell the folks back home? That I climbed to a spot nearly three miles into the air to stop two feet before I reached the top?
Nope.
But that ridge (to me) was a razor’s edge. On either side was disaster. I took a deep breath. I put one foot in front of the other. And I walked – one step, two steps, three steps – to the top, where my friends were waiting.
What brought this to mind was an email forwarded by frequent commenter, 173dVietVet, where he said (in part) this on discussing where our country is:
“(I’ve) Done a bit of mountain climbing in my Ranger days and I know full well the meaning of knife’s edge, where any wrong step throws you headlong forever into the abyss of death that lies on BOTH sides . . . .”
We are in that zone. In climbing mountains, the knife edge is more than a metaphor – it’s real. On either side is death, and it’s not metaphorical death, it’s mangled into a wadded pile of Wilder by the combined forces of gravity and the sudden stop on the rocky outcropping at the bottom. Sure, Wile E. Coyote could survive, but not me.
Everything went downhill after gravity was invented.
But in life, the knife-edge is a metaphor. We’ve created a financial situation where the economy is horribly broken, and for the last year we’ve survived mainly by printing money and not allowing people to be evicted from houses, despite the questionable legality of that.
A bigger component to our knife edge is that the rule of law has been progressively ignored in the country. Where is the right of the Federal Government to stop evictions of tenants?
Oh, there isn’t one. They just made it up.
That would be (at best) an action by a State, though even then it’s of questionable legality. But then the Patriot Act made spying on American citizens “legal” so who cares about legal, anyway? Then every agency with three letters of an alphabet decided to swallow up all of that online data, and all of the phone calls, despite laws to the contrary.
Of course, Federal employees were put in prison.
Hahahaha!
No.
The NSA: a government agency that actually listens to you!
Despite obviously illegal orders, no one was put in prison, and the only one likely to be put into prison is the whistleblower (Edward Snowden) if he ever shows back up in the United States. It used to be the Constitution that was ignored, but that’s so 1940s.
Now, the government can ignore any inconvenient law it wants to ignore. Of course, the people that can ignore the law are those that are either leaders, government employees, or those favored (think Antifa™) by the government.
Destroy evidence? A felony for most. But when the government does it? It’s “a regrettable incident.”
What people misunderstand is that Trump isn’t at all the cause of our problems today. Trump is a symptom. Without Trump, the answer would have been (yet another) Bush, this time Jeb, versus (yet another) Clinton, this time Hillary. Oh, the excitement for electing ¡Jeb!
The difference between another Clinton and another Bush? Nothing, really. And America didn’t want that – so America elected Trump. If anything, Trump cleared the fog, and made the knife edge we were walking clearer.
Jeb has a perfect place in government, as the Secretary of Low Energy.
And now, we are walking, and the knife-edge is sharper and narrower than the one that I walked to get to the top of that mountain on July 4th a couple of decades ago.
We have left the bounds of Constitutional governance some time ago – people think it’s quaint when I bring the entire idea of the Constitution up. Is there a path back to an actual Constitutional government?
Sure. It’s narrow – a knife-edge. But so was getting that Constitutional government in the first place. But getting that original Constitution depended upon men climbing a mighty steep mountain several hundred years ago. Were they afraid when they saw the cliff’s edge, the price of failure?
I’m sure they were. But yet they continued. And when it was time to thread that final few steps to the summit?
They did, and damn the dangers on either side.
We face the same knife-edge. Where are we going?
Paranoia, Preparation, and Peace of Mind
“Frankly, your lack of paranoia is insane to me.” – Silicon Valley
In our library, I asked The Mrs. where our books on paranoia were, she said, “They’re right behind you.”
The biggest natural disaster The Wilder Family ever rode out was Hurricane Ike – it passed right over our house when we lived in Houston. And it was going pretty strong when it hit our place. We lost power, a tree, siding, and a whole lot of roof. Thankfully, Led Zeppelin was there to sing that one . . . Whole Lot of Roof . . . .
In review, the hurricane wasn’t so bad. At one point, I had to do my Captain Dan impression, walking outside in the middle of the hurricane at the strongest winds and yelling into the wind after the power went out and the laptop battery died so we couldn’t watch the John Adams miniseries we were watching on DVD:
“Is that all that you’ve got?”
Since I’ll probably never be able to walk away from an exploding helicopter without looking back as the flames shot up into the sky, it was just something I thought I had to do: yelling into a hurricane wearing a bathrobe and athletic shorts.
I’ve done a lot of cool things in my life, but I really enjoyed that one. I’d recommend it, but my lawyer, Lazlo, advises me against advising you to try it. Maybe you could talk pleasantly into a warm spring breeze?
The reason I did it? We had hit the toughest part of the storm. We had ridden it out. We were prepared.
Never smoke weed during a hurricane – lightning always strikes the highest object.
In truth, the preparation had started before we ever bought our house. We picked a house that was so far outside the flood zone that Wyoming would be underwater before we were.
Yeah, I checked that before we made an offer. I’m paranoid that way.
In my life, I’ve always tried to go to the idea of, “How bad can it get?” Then I thought, “Well, how could it get worse than that?”
In the middle of the night when I wake up with yet another scenario, the answer always comes back the same: “It really can get worse.”
Reality can get really, awfully bad. And it can do so more quickly than we imagine.
During the hurricane, there wasn’t a lot we could do. Stores were picked clean of essentials about 24 hours before the storm hit. Oh, sure, you could get things like diet cookies and soy milk, but the food actual humans wanted to eat was simply gone. And booze? Forget about it. All of that was sold out.
The first big lesson: Prepare Before Circumstances Force You To Prepare. If you’re moving out of a disaster zone (cough San Francisco cough) it’s better to be five years too early than one day too late. Especially if they’re out of beer.
Why did people hoard all the toilet paper? It’s just how they roll . . . .
But not having the store was okay for us. I went to visit one mainly to amuse myself and learn – what would be left? If more people prepared, then systems wouldn’t be overwhelmed when a crisis strikes.
Thankfully, at that point in our life, our pantry had enough food in it to keep us fully fed for weeks or longer. Water? We had a swimming pool (they come with every house in Houston, like mailboxes or manservants) so we had thousands of gallons of water.
Don’t want to drink swimming pool water? Well, if you had the water filter system I had, you could. But we also had drinking water stored in plastic jugs for weeks of use. We ended up using the swimming pool water for bathing and toilet flushing and never missed a beat.
The food was good. Even though power was out, cold cooked corn and cold Hormel Chili™ tasted okay. It was “camping” bad, but not “a normal Tuesday in Somalia” bad. The worst part was the second day after the hurricane – temperatures and humidity skyrocketed, so it was uncomfortable to do anything other than sit around and sweat. Even sleeping was uncomfortable since the still, hot, humid air was like living inside a whale that’s spending spring break in a crockpot.
Don’t sweat the petty things. And don’t pet the sweaty things.
The hand-crank radio was our link to the outside world. Cell service was wiped out. And then, FEMA helpfully came on the radio and told us to go to their website for emergency locations.
Huh? Website? We had a hand-crank radio.
But, outside of minor discomfort, we were fine. I even had beer, though it was warm.
The one (and only one) hole in my preparations at that point was I was out of propane for my grill. I had to borrow from a neighbor to cook the steaks that were rapidly thawing out. That was okay, I lent him 20 gallons of gasoline for his generator, so we were very quickly even-stevens.
Yet another lesson: Every Detail, No Matter How Small, Matters.
I was planning for a much, much bigger catastrophe. The hurricane that hit us was, due to the preparations The Mrs. and I made, an uncomfortable inconvenience. It was in this case that my paranoia made our lives (relatively) easy.
The biggest lesson I learned is one that we speak of commonly now: No One Is Coming To Save You.
If we had any issues that would have resulted in needing help? We weren’t going to get it. The “First Responders” had gotten themselves into an emergency operations building and had no food or water. The radio broadcast a hilarious plea for people to come save the “First” Responders by bringing them food and water.
When seconds count, First Responders will be there in minutes.
The First Responders are almost always Second Responders – you and I, when we have a crisis, are the real First Responders.
No One Is Coming To Save You. Get that very simple fact through your mind. It was one we lived with each day of my childhood up on Wilder Mountain. If you couldn’t save yourself – you were going to die. If Pa Wilder cut off his left foot with the chainsaw while we were gathering firewood and my brother John (yes, my brother’s name is really John as well) couldn’t save him, he was going to die.
That never happened. But we were prepared for it.
Sometimes events I write about go beyond what will happen. I assure you, not one of the events that I write about goes beyond what could happen. The descent of a society into madness and chaos has happened again and again throughout history. Sure, that descent into madness generally doesn’t happen overnight.
Generally. But sometimes? It does.
So, when I look at the world around me, I let my paranoia run. I encourage it. “How bad could it get?”
That’s a starting point. What are the additional things current me can do now to help future me? How many human needs can I solve? For how long?
Where I live, there are several amazing advantages. Great water. Good soil. Low-ish population density. Grain elevators filled to bursting with food that the population could eat in an emergency. Good neighbors that I’ve known for years who think as I do, mostly.
We didn’t move to a rural area by accident. From every story that was told to me about the Great Depression – people in the country, surrounded by their neighbors, had a much better time than people in the cities.
Think about preparing not as being about stuff, but as a way to buy time. Saving money buys time. Stockpiling food buys time. Living in a low-pressure area buys time. Living in a high resource area buys time.
Most preppers suffer from Stock Home syndrome.
If you prepare for something big, and nothing big happens? Not generally a loss. I can eat the food in my pantry anytime. If I prepare by building a pantry when times are good? I often end up saving money because food prices keep going up.
If you prepare for something big, and something small happens, like (for us) Hurricane Ike?
You can ride it out. You get a few days off of work. You might gain weight, having to eat all of that food that is thawing.
And you would definitely get the chance to go out and yell into the winds:
“Is that all you’ve got?”
See? Paranoia has its advantages. I’ll simply say this: paranoia is the only way that our ancestors survived.
Don’t sell it short. Preparation after paranoia brings peace of mind. Heck, I nearly have a Ph.D. in that – just call me Dr. Prepper.
I guess anyone can be called Dr. nowadays.
Declaration of Independence: Not Just A 1776 Thing?
“I have nothing to declare, my dear man, except my genius!” – Babylon 5
Best breakup letter. Ever.
Despite the common opinion that Thomas Jefferson was a hockey player for the Saskatchewan hockey team, “Saskatoon Blades®” (who was remembered for scoring three hat tricks in one season against the “Prince Albert Raiders™” in 1986) there was another Thomas Jefferson that history also remembers.
This Thomas Jefferson was an author, a president of the United States, a founder of a university, and wrote a really great mandolin solo, which has sadly been ignored since the invention of the guitar. Sadly, this Thomas Jefferson was wholly unable to play hockey at all, probably because he couldn’t skate any better than my kid sister.
Regardless, Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old when he also wrote a document that has been long remarked upon and probably contains some of the most famous sentences in the English language: The Declaration of Independence. In a little bit of history, John Adams had to get Jefferson drunk to convince him to write it because Jefferson was a bit nervous (this is actually true). I’m sure that the next morning, Jefferson said, “I agreed to do what?”
I’m with you, Thomas.
Your eyes aren’t real – they’re just in your head.
About 25% of the original draft was deleted in editing. Apparently, Jefferson had gotten carried away and ended up writing several paragraphs about how he loved potatoes. The committee wasn’t pleased. They didn’t like the part where Jefferson waxed poetically about the way they made his chest glisten when they rubbed the buttery mashed potatoes into it.
In the end, Jefferson decided to hit the print button on the sheep the parchment came from, and the document went out.
A girl: “Hey, Stalin, come over tonight, my parents aren’t home.” Stalin replied, “I know.”
It was not at all in small print, like a car lease at a Mercedes® dealership. The Declaration was meant to be read – a copy of it was sent to King George III, though a bunch of sales fliers for hardware stores and Target® were also included, so George might have thrown it out thinking it was all just junk mail again.
The principles of the Declaration were in common discussion at the time in America, so Jefferson wasn’t making stuff up. Likewise, the people who got the Declaration understood what it meant: times were going to get spicy.
It’s been a while since I’ve read the Declaration, so I thought I’d review it. It’s good stuff, so I thought I’d share it.
For no reason. No reason at all.
The downside is that Jefferson didn’t have a good word processor, and that he didn’t have PowerPoint®. If so, he could have had it down to a dozen slides or so. I’ve made a few changes by adding bullet points and capitalizing the word “Earth”. If Boston is capitalized, Earth should be, too.
Stupid Jefferson.
I trained my dog to smell out fruit, but he doesn’t like doing that. He’s a melon collie.
Regardless, here it is:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
- Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
- But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The rest of the Declaration of Independence is an indictment – a listing of reasons why the Declaration had to be written, a “we told you so” section, and the “it’s not me, it’s you” breakup section. There was another section about how Jefferson would really, really, miss Great Britain and keep the big stuffed teddy bear they won him at the arcade, but the committee told him to “not be a wuss” and leave that out.
You never want to reach the end of the Y-axis on a plane.
In reality, when I re-read the Declaration, I was amazed at how, pardon me, revolutionary it was. The United States wasn’t founded by guys doing it “just because” – it was founded by guys who really thought about it, and who couldn’t check up on the Internet and find out about how Cardi B was upset about her hair care products.
They had time to think deeply through these issues. And they came up with this list.
To be clear, I love America. Thomas Jefferson, in 1775 said that he would: “rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation upon Earth, or than on no nation.” Jefferson loved Great Britain, dearly.
The thing that I came away with is these men cared deeply about those around them. But there was a limit to what they would take. That limit was simple: the idea that they couldn’t take part in any fashion in the determination of what happened to their State simply wasn’t acceptable.
- They demanded laws, laws that weren’t arbitrary and capricious. They demanded courts that were free of bias. How are we doing now? We have courts that turn a “thou shalt not” into a “thou shalt” within a half of a dozen decisions.
- They also demanded that their fate not be judged by bureaucrats who were beholden to government, but only be judged by a jury of their peers. How are we doing now? Administrative law puts people at risk of life and property and doesn’t allow jury trials.
- They demanded to be protected by those who would invade the country. How are we doing now? Fine, as long as a complete disregard for our laws is okay with you.
- TL:DR, also a bunch of other stuff.
The Federal government of the United States has crept up in size and power. The charter of the Federal government is (if you actually read the Constitution) very small.
- Foreign policy.
- Make naturalization laws.
- Run part of (not the full part, just part of) the military.
- Make sure there are independent Federal courts.
- Making sure that free commerce could happen between the States.
- Regulate commerce with foreigners.
- Borrow money and collect taxes for the stuff they do.
- Own the post office.
- Make war and all the stuff that goes with making war.
- Coin money and stop counterfeiters.
Anything in there about making sure toilets don’t use too much water? No. Anything in there about regulating what fuels your car uses? That your car must have an airbag? That the toothpaste you use meet FDA standards? That you pay someone a minimum wage?
Nope. Not in there at all.
Hmm. Does this sound like a long chain of usurpations? I could probably think of a few other things. You could, too.
Remember, if you start a revolution, aim for the tsars!
What is the last straw? Is it a tax on tea?
Or is it an election that may have been stolen?
So, think about what the future may hold. Don’t be Wayne Regretzky.
Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: At The Bank Of The Rubicon
“Who the hell is Julius Caesar? You know I don’t follow the NBA.†– Anchorman 2
Good thing it’s not already at 5:56 . . .
- 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.
We remain in the gray zone between step 9. and step 10. I will maintain the clock at 2 minutes to midnight. There is the possibility of a reduction back to step 8. in the future. Post-election, authorities have begun to crack down on Leftist violence, plus the cold weather makes riots less fun, especially since the stores the fuel has all been burned.
Previously, I stated that the only thing keeping the clock from ticking to full midnight is the number of deaths. I put the total at (this is my best approximation, since no one tracks the death toll from rebellion-related violence) 500 out of the 1,000 required for the international civil war definition.
But as close as we are to the precipice of war, be careful. Things could change at any minute.
In this issue: Front Matter – Banks of the Rubicon – Violence And Censorship Update – Maps –  Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Intolerable Acts and the End of the Republic – 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, feel free to subscribe and you’ll get every post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30 Eastern, free of charge.
Banks of the Rubicon
They were going to come after him, he knew, with the full legal apparatus of the state should he give up power. He knew this. They had told him as much. They hated his fame and popularity; they hated his bestselling books where he boasted of his accomplishments.
But it wasn’t just him, it was his family. He knew that they would take legal action against his family, try to take every bit of his money. They meant to ruin him.
He didn’t want to do it, but they had forced his hand. He would call for an insurrection to take power so that his enemies couldn’t pervert the law to use against him, to use against his family. In the end, was there really a choice? He would take unprecedented action, because the politics in his country were ruined as it was.
Gaius Julius Caesar stood at the banks of the Rubicon, and hesitated. To take a Legion across the river under his command would mean civil war. It would break long-standing tradition.
He ordered the troops forward. On to Rome. Caesar reportedly said, “The die is cast.â€
“What does the weather look like, Brutus?â€Â “Hail, Caesar.â€
History doesn’t exactly repeat, but it sometimes rhymes. I’ve been writing about an American Caesar for years. The parallels between the United States in December, 2020 and the Roman Republic on January 10, 49 B.C. are large.
Could Donald Trump seize power and become something different than a President?
Yes, he clearly could.
But that might mean the end of the Republic – which has seen a string of peaceful transfers of power that has gone back through time to George Washington.
Wouldn’t it?
Probably. But one could argue that installing a president in an election where there is overwhelming evidence that fraudulent activities took place similarly would destroy the Republic, but just over time.
Will Don cross the Rubicon? If so, expect it on or before the next Weather Report.
Violence And Censorship Update
As I write this, violence appears to be down. Winter, plus it appears that some of the Leftist leaders have gotten the order to keep the rabble in check now that they are “in control.â€
As part of the “shut it down†theme from the Left continues, I’m getting reports that large numbers of Leftist accounts are now being shut down by Twitter®. Is this the Leftist’s usual playbook that, once they feel they have power, to get rid of the useful idiots?
Possibly.
How do communists spread their propaganda? Using commercials. Meme is as-found on the ‘net.
Of course, this censorship doesn’t come from government – nope. This censorship now comes from private companies. I’ve been meaning to write a post about how evil that is, but hadn’t gotten around to it. Thankfully, Alexander Macris wrote it well (LINK) so I didn’t have to.
From the article (but RTWT):
This essay has only scratched the surface of a very deep topic. The mechanisms by which tyranny is outsourced are ubiquitous. And it’s not just bypassing the Bill of Rights. Outsourcing of tyranny is used everywhere to bypass the checks and balances placed on our government. Whether it’s accepting control over our currency from the Treasury, offering private mercenaries unconcerned about the laws of war, or monitoring and recording all of your private data, Tyranny Inc. is ready to do the dirty job that government isn’t supposed . . . but really wants . . . to do.
Maps
I’ve seen dozens of maps that describe a hypothetical Civil War 2.0. This one I found interesting for several reasons – it shows the approximate physical extent of Leftist demographics in the country, but also encapsulates a factor that most people don’t consider when dealing with Civil War 2.0 – outside forces.
Found this map on the web – don’t have a person to give credit to. We’ll just call them Anon.
Yes, we know that while Civil War (Beta Version) was fought with Great Britain across an ocean, Civil War 1.0 was fought between states, Civil War 2.0 will be street to street – perhaps with dozens of Stalingrad-type conflicts across the nation.
But while I was watching some movie that involved narco-gangs, I ended up doing research. The fourth-largest (behind 1. American Citizens, 2. American Armed Forces, and 3. American Police Forces) armed group in America are likely the drug cartels.
Civil War 2.0 would be an opportunity for them. But it would also be an opportunity for China. I didn’t put the map together, but you can certainly see that Anon put time into thinking which nations might help which side in the event of a Civil War in the near term. I had several that I could argue with, but I thought I’d present it for what it was – another take on the way an uncertain world might shake out.
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 lead to the index. On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.
Violence:
Up is more violent. The public “perception†of violence dropped drastically during November. I expect that this number will drop once again.
Political Instability:
Up is more unstable. Instability dropped slightly. December – will it bring a conclusion or more tension?
Economic:
The economic measures are strongly up this month, even as lockdowns continue. Is the vaccine a real cure, or is it a false hope?
Illegal Aliens:
Down is good, in theory. This is a statistic showing border apprehensions by the Border Patrol. Numbers of illegals being caught is rising again to a record November.
The Intolerable Acts and the End of the Republic
At last count, over 50% of voters thought the election was rigged, which includes Leftists. Since they felt that Orange Man was literally the most evil and fascist person ever (rather than the mid-1990s moderate his policies showed him to be) cheating to Leftists is justified. The ends always justify the means to the Left. They’re happy the election was rigged.
Then, there’s the middle. They mostly don’t think about it. Whatever news readers on television say, well, that probably works for them.
I hope you’re not reading this in 2021, since all these memes will be outdated Biden.
There are some people who are stunned at the idea that we might have a fraudulently elected president. I am in that category. Why? The idea that one of the last bastions against tyranny, the ballot box, is gone leaves Americans with few methods to redress their grievances. What are we supposed to do next time, vote harder?
But the idea that the presidency, the crown jewel of political power in the world can be sold is intolerable to many. Intolerable means simply that – cannot be tolerated. If the office can be openly stolen once, it can be openly stolen in the future.
This is inherently destabilizing – and if not corrected, will certainly be more destabilizing than Trump’s term in office. Does it end the Republic? Just like Trump’s crossing the Rubicon, it likely does – though the big question is “when?â€
LINKS
As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky. Thanks so much!!
2020 ELECTION FRAUD EVIDENCE OVERVIEW
https://hereistheevidence.com/
https://thomisticthinker.com/skeptical-of-voter-fraud-in-2020-heres-your-evidence/
https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/23/5-more-ways-joe-biden-magically-outperformed-election-norms/
https://theredelephants.com/there-is-undeniable-mathematical-evidence-the-election-is-being-stolen/
https://stonecoldtruth.com/2020-election-fraud-evidence-compiled/
MATT BRAYNARD – VOTER INTEGRITY PROJECT
https://twitter.com/MattBraynard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atkp6fnwk9w&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH9ihoLi1NA&feature=youtu.be
GEORGIA ELECTION MALARKEY
In a hurry? Go to 9:00…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbTSUkA8xgI&feature=youtu.be
Explanation?
Or Not?
https://www.libertariannews.org/2020/12/03/cctv-captures-ga-ballot-fraud-after-fake-pipe-leak/
INFIGHTING
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/11/pelosi-floats-above-democrats-war-435799
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/03/maga-georgia-civil-war-trump-senate-republicans-442776
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/12/georgia-senate-runoff-republicans-civil-war.html
ON THE EDGE
https://internationalman.com/articles/winding-up-americans/
https://chicagocrusader.com/cold-civil-war-in-america/
OVER THE EDGE
https://straightlinelogic.com/2020/11/08/its-perfectly-clear-by-robert-gore/
https://americanmind.org/features/a-house-dividing/2020-a-retrospective-from-2025/
The United States And The Road From Abundance To Bondage
“Is life in bondage better than death?†– The Ten Commandments
I heard Leftists can’t find tasty mushrooms: someone said they lost their Morel compass.
Henning W. Prentis, Jr., presented a speech at the mid-year graduation of the University of Pennsylvania in 1943. Mr. Prentis was the President of the Armstrong Cork Company. Now, you might think that a cork company would only be of interest to the Swiss Army, but Armstrong was a different breed: during World War II Mr. Prentis had Armstrong Cork making .50 caliber ammo, tips for warplane wings, sound insulation for submarines, and camouflage.
If your wife can fix a car, fix dinner, and then set a broken bone? You have a Swiss Army Wife.
Eventually, several divisions were spun off, and it’s certain that you’ve walked on Armstrong Flooring and sat on furniture that was made by yet another Armstrong subsidiary underneath ceiling grids and ceiling tiles that were made by yet another Armstrong company. All of this was started in a little Pennsylvania cork company way before Pennsylvania’s voting fraud made Kim Jong-un consider moving to Philadelphia.
Anyway, Mr. Prentis seemed to have an awful lot to say – his commencement speech clocked in at 4,953 words. At 125 spoken words a minute, that’s nearly 40 minutes of straight talking, with zero memes or bikini graphs – looks like he didn’t know how to put a cork in it. And all of those speeches were before the long lines of diplomas.
Graduation must have taken six days back then. If you want to read the whole address, it’s here (LINK).
Mr. Henning Prentis’ essay has some very relevant content to today – I’ve posted just a few bits of it below. I’ve fixed some punctuation, but the words are still Henning’s. But I still haven’t found the answer to the most important question:  Who the heck names their kid Henning?
The historical cycle seems to be: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more.
At the stage between apathy and dependency, men always turn in fear to economic and political panaceas. New conditions, it is claimed, require new remedies. Under such circumstances, the competent citizen is certainly not a fool if he insists upon using the compass of history when forced to sail uncharted seas.
Usually, so-called new remedies are not new at all. Compulsory planned economy, for example, was tried by the Chinese some three millenniums ago, and by the Romans in the early centuries of the Christian era. It was applied in Germany, Italy and Russia long before the present war broke out.
Yet, it is being seriously advocated today as a solution of our economic problems in the United States. Its proponents confidently assert that government can successfully plan and control all major business activity in the nation, and still not interfere with our political freedom and our hard-won civil and religious liberties. The lessons of history all point in exactly the reverse direction.
Prentis’ quote can, thankfully, be summed up in a single chart that won’t take you 40 minutes to read:
Let’s not be like Russia circa 1917, okay? (Source for base: Wikimedia, CC-BY-SA-4.0, J4lambert)
In the United States, we were (mostly) blessed by abundance for decades at a time. The Great Depression wasn’t the normal condition for the United States – it was an aberration of a fairly prosperous place. But the Great Depression really was bad – Bob The Builder® was just called Bob then.
Inertia has a quality all of its own, but luck always helps. After World War II, Europe was mostly devastated by the war. Half of a decade of bombs and artillery shells and tanks and armies had killed millions, but also destroyed a majority of European and Asian governments plus much of the productive infrastructure.
America, meanwhile, had been untouched. It had the oil, the steel mills, the agriculture, and the workforce. It created consumer goods for itself and products for the world. There was little competition.
Last time I bought land it was in Egypt. Turns out I fell for a Pyramid scheme.
Oh, sure you could buy the Soviet version of Chevy Camaro® called the Lada Latitude©. The Latitude™ was modeled on the Soviet T-34 Tank (500 horsepower diesel engine) that went zero to 32 mph in 45 seconds, and sported a stunning 1.17 miles per gallon in the base model.   It was also available with optional dual jet engines from a MiG-21. Sadly those engines didn’t allow the tank to move, but did allow the wolf to blow down that pesky brick house, along with those capitalist swine.
There are many things you can call Soviet engineering. Subtle is not one of them.
But post World War II gave the United States, and then, gradually the world, abundance, leading to selfishness. Selfishness was probably best showcased in the 1970s and 1980s. Tom Wolfe even titled the 1970s “The Me Decade.â€Â The 1980s followed suit – the pursuit of wealth was seen by many as the goal. Morality? The market (and leisure suits) were the definition of morality.
The 1980s bled into complacency, and finally into apathy. The Grunge movement was a reaction to materialism. What did it all mean? What does any of this matter? Pure apathy, so let’s not bathe and get a bunch of piercings and tattoos.
Now we are in a nation where citizens aren’t seeking freedom – they’re actively seeking dependence on the government – free money (guaranteed basic income), free healthcare (Medicare for all), and all manner of other support systems. To quote one Mr. Harvard McClain (1950s?):  “If your government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away from you everything you have.â€
Sure, I want everything for nothing from the State, but in every single time that’s been tried in human society, it always ends the same way – with the people becoming the enemy of the State.
And that’s how you get to Mr. Prentis’ last stage: bondage.
For a guy dealing with cork, Mr. Prentis has some pretty good vision.
Oh, and I don’t have to yell to get The Mrs. to come downstairs – she can hear a cork pop all the way across the house . . . .
The Four Best Stocks For After The Death Of The Last Human On Earth
“You kids change partners more than square dancers.” – That 70’s Show
Marie Antoinette should have known the time was right for a revolution in France – she had a Coup Coup clock.
Okay, the title is clickbait. We all know the Four Best Stocks For After The Death Of The Last Human On Earth are Rock, Paper, and Scissors. Oops. I think the real answer is Rock, Rock, and Rock. I mean, who is going to make the paper and the scissors?
Oh, wait, I said four.
Add Google®, I guess.
One constant theme of this blog since I started writing it is that I want to convince everyone I can that tomorrow may not look like today. I think this is important, because too often we start to think that our lives of today are the lives that people will live forever.
Why?
That’s the way we’re wired, to think that tomorrow will look like today. It’s complacency.
Dozens of my ancestors lived as kings, having all the food they wanted and the choice of the peasant maidens in the dozen miles (metric conversion of one deciliter) around the mud hovel they lived in. It may sound dreary, but it’s still better than Netflix®.
Genghis Khan is far better known than his brother, Gingivitis Khan.
My ancestors lived every day of their life just like that, until they died at age 32 after they got a nasty infection because they were sharpening their bronze and flint nosehair trimmer, and accidentally conquered China. That seems to keep happening. I blame . . . well, all the people that conquered China.
For 100,000 years our brains, as wrinkly and wonderful as they are, grew up in a world where yesterday was mostly like today, and today is mostly like tomorrow. Except for you people who have wonderful smooth brains. I think I have some Bernie Sanders™ coloring books for you.
There’s a danger to thinking that tomorrow will be just like today.
Let’s pretend you’re a turkey on a farm. There’s a nice farmer that feeds you every day. What a nice guy! You keep gaining weight, and getting bigger.
What a nice farmer! Farmers must love turkeys.
Then, one November near Thanksgiving the impossible happens: the farmer fires the turkey due to the COVID-19 outbreak and his turkey 401k drops 90% and his turkey wife tells him that . . . all those eggs? Not his.
That turkey has found a fate worse than being roasted at 350°F for three hours (6.02×1023 Watts for six fortnights). Turkey alimony.
The point remains: life changes in an instant, never to return to the way things were.
I shot my first turkey this year. Scared everyone in the meat aisle, and now I’m banned from Wal-Mart.
Here’s another one (I’ve used this example before): I’m quite sure that there was a British guy at the dock watching as the last Roman Legion left Britain in 407 A.D. What was he thinking?
“The Romans have been in Britain since 43 A.D. They’ll be back. Why wouldn’t they?”
It’s nearly a 100% chance that was exactly what he was thinking. Our hypothetical British dude had never lived a single day when Roman troops weren’t controlling Britain. They have to come back, right?
Well, not really.
There are reasons that hordes of Roman coins are found buried in Britain.
When Rome was strong, a Denarius (Roman coin) contained about $4.00 worth of silver at today’s prices. As Rome continued, successive Caesars trading in Rome’s military might, reduced the amount of precious metals in the Denarius until it hardly contained a whiff of silver.
I hear there are extraterrestrials living in Rome – someone said that there were Italiens there.
Then one November near Thanksgiving, the impossible happens: the guy in Britain gets fired and the Roman 401k drops 90% and his British wife tells him that Joe Biden (who was only 35 in 407 A.D.) was elected. The worst part?
Joe Biden is carrying the British woman’s baby.
Our Roman’s world collapses. Everything that he knew changes overnight.
When archeologists go digging in old British trash piles, they find something interesting. The trash at the bottom of the pile (when Rome left) contains really cool broken plates. Archeologists love plates.
Why?
Because angry wives break them all the time, so they make it easy to date a culture by the number of wives that go crazy and start throwing plates. Apparently, the number of mad wives that throw plates is a scientific constant like the speed of light, so trash pickers archeologists can date the change in a culture based on broken plates.
The archeologists determined this: the broken dishes at the time the last Roman Legions pulled out of Britain were awesome. They were great dishes. And everyone had them. It turns out that dishes in the Roman Empire were mass-produced in southern France and shipped everywhere in the Roman Empire. Southern France was the Wal-Mart® of quality dishware.
You can plainly see that Indiana Jones’ least favorite band is the Rolling Stones.
Then archeologists looked at dishes that were 100 years later in the trash pile. They knew this particular trash pile was a king’s trash. The dishes in the king’s trash were something that a kind parent would have congratulated a mildly retarded child for because the mildly retarded child tried really hard.
But these Roman plates weren’t widely available – only a king could afford them.
History happens one day at a time. People lived it, the hard way. Let me give you some examples that might add some perspective:
- A French girl born at the start of the French Revolution would have been 26 and had multiple children when Napoleon finally lost at Waterloo.
- A German girl born at the end of World War I would have been 27 and had multiple children before the end of World War II.
- An American girl born at the end of the Clinton administration already has 43 earrings, sixteen tattoos, and herpes.
What I’m trying to explain that there are two types of changes the first one is fast, really fast, like the turkey’s bad November day. The second type seems fast only when viewed from 200 years in the future. Remember, love can last for a lifetime, but herpes is forever.
In my estimation (for what it’s worth) we are in an atmosphere where both types of change will happen. We will have sudden changes, like the turkey, or like Marie Antoinette. These will be changes we cannot go back from. If you burn a receipt from Arby’s©, there’s no going back to get those curly fries if they shorted you.
We all burn our receipts from Arby’s™ as soon as we get home, right? Otherwise The Man would know how much we like Horsey Sauce®, and you where that leads:
Tyranny.
I digress.
But I will* note that I had a conversation with a friend over a year ago. He and I were talking about investing and other things. During this conversation, I had an epiphany. Where was my money? Mainly in a single bank (this has now changed).
Where does the Federal Reserve hide its economic failures? In debasement.
My question to my friend then was this: “How much of your money is diversified?”
His response was, “Well, it’s in mutual funds, and in a wide variety of stocks and bonds. So it’s diversified.”
I followed up: “No, I mean how much of all of that is in dollars?”
There was a long pause. “All of it.”
I guess this post is mainly to point out that just like we don’t buy things in 2020 with a pocketful Roman coins, and we don’t buy things with French Francs from before their Revolution, and we can’t buy things with Soviet Rubles, how long will we be able to buy things with Dollars?
Just asking.
I’m not even suggesting any particular path, though I will disclose that if everything goes well, my kids might inherit some silver and gold when The Mrs. and I pass on. Like any turkey, I know one thing: tomorrow generally looks like today.
Until it doesn’t.
*Standard I’m Not A Financial Wizard Blah Blah Blah And If You Listen To Me For Financial Advice You’re Insane Differently Mental Disclaimer.
Equity And Equality – Why Leftists Cheat At Elections
“Equal, but not even.” – Die Another Day
What did the Frenchman yell as he went down the slide? “YES!”
On Wednesday after the election, I consciously decided to sleep in – I had taken a vacation day from work. I slept in. It was luxurious. Like a Roman soldier, I really enjoy resting on my pila-case. At a time that was later than I’ll admit to, I rolled over in bed and picked up my phone.
Substantial leads for Trump from the night before had evaporated. For whatever reason, this reminded me of the story of the Fox and the Scorpion.
Fox and the Scorpion both wanted to cross a river. Why? Probably a decent discount on quality unpainted furniture on the other side. Scorpion wants to ride on the back of Fox. Fox, not being stupid, says, “Dude, you’re a scorpion, you’re going to sting and kill me!”
Scorpion, logically, responds, “C’mon, man! Let me tell you what my dead son Beau would say. You know the thing. But if I sting you while we’re crossing the river, I’ll die, too.” Scorpion paused, ”Just like I died when I fought Corn Pop.”
Fox, remembering his mandatory training on systematic speciesism, agrees and apologizes for his microagression and his foxist privilege. Fox says, “Hop on.”
Fox begins swimming through the river. Halfway to the other side, Scorpion stings Fox.
Fox, through the haze of pain and spreading paralysis as Scorpion’s neurotoxin spreads through his system says, “Scorpion! You’ve killed us both!”
Scorpion responds, “C’mon man! You knew I was a scorpion when I got on your back.”
I pushed the fable out of my mind as I slowly scrolled through all the data. I then turned off my phone. I went into the front room and sat down to read for a while. Pugsley and The Mrs. were off at school and work, respectively. It has been as rare as late-night TV show hosts with a sense of humor since 2016 that I’ve had the opportunity to just sit in silence without any work or a blog deadline hanging over my head. I decided to grab a burger and a beer.
How many vegans does it take to eat a Double Quarter Pounder® with cheese? One, if no one is watching.
In Modern Mayberry, we have five fast-food restaurants. The day was perfect in temperature, which means it was on the cold side for most people. I got to the speaker and ordered. I then drove home, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and ate my burger. I tried to remember what my doctor said. I think it was “Don’t eat anything fatty.”
It was good – cheesy and greasy and just the right amount of pickles. I then remembered what my doctor had really said, “Don’t eat anything, fatty.”
For me, Wednesday was about balance. It’s easy enough to fall into the trap of getting so wound up about politics that you lose perspective. Honestly, one of the nicest things about living in Alaska was that Lower 48 politics was thousands of miles away. You could nearly ignore it. I’ve found that turning off my phone works almost as well.
On Thursday, it was back to work, and back to writing. Of course, I have thoughts about the election, and you can probably guess what many of them are. But the big thing that comes to mind with the 2020 election is fraud. It’s easy enough to look for fraud, heck, when that psychic told me she’d take my check I knew she was a fraud.
These ballots are from Seattle, so they definitely got mac n’ cheese.
Honestly, if you look at nearly any election, you can find things that look like fraud if you look hard enough. The exception, of course, is my election to LOCAL OFFICE, where I estimate I had 335.33% more votes than the nearest competitor.
Hmmm, that sounds suspicious. 33533 is the same backwards as forward. And it’s all 3’s with one five. Normal numbers never look that way . . . except . . . I was running unopposed for a job that no one else seemed to want.
You can confirm your bias that I stole the election – that 335.33% just looks too perfect.
From an ideological perspective, stealing an election is the last thing I’d do. What ideology says that? The ideology of the Right
The ideology of the Right is very different than that of the Left. The Right is focused on Equality. The Left is focused on Equity. It’s really the fight between Equality and Equity that best defines the split between thinking on the Right and thinking on the Left.
A Marine with a salt and pepper beard is likely a seasoned veteran.
Western Civilization has always been a civilization of Equality and the philosophy of the Right. You are born. If you make your peace with God? You can go to Heaven. It’s up to you. No one will drag you across the line. If you want to create a business? Be a glorious hero? Sure, class may have come into it, but there was always room for the barbarian to make it to king.
The Right is Equality.
Equality is a 100 yard (3450 meters) dash. I line up on the same line with my opponent. When the starter pistol goes off, we start running. If I’m running against a moderately athletic high school-aged boy who doesn’t have tularemia, tuberculosis, typhus, and tetanus, he’s going to make it to the finish line first. If it’s a fat kid? Okay, I might dust him.
As long as he has typhus.
Equality is about having the same opportunities. The opportunity, in this case, is the open track. It’s the same for both of us. The opportunity includes the starter pistol. We’ll hear it at the same time. Each of us have the same conditions.
I have had many of the same opportunities in my life as Elon Musk. I’m thrilled that he’s doing so well. We had an equal shot at the world, and he ended up with billions. I’m good with that. He ran the race very, very well. His running allows us to win, and in the end, makes us all wealthier.
If Musk flew his Tesla® through a black hole, because of tidal gravity forces, he’d be Elon-gated.
Equality is obsessed with fairness. One person, one vote. In Modern Mayberry, I think that getting the local officials to bend the rules during voting would have a penalty worse than speaking loudly in the local library.
The rules matter, and we follow them. When The Mrs. had to get her license when we moved to Modern Mayberry, you could see the gleam in the DMV clerk’s eye as she ticked off the things The Mrs. had to produce to get her license.
- Birth certificate?
- Proof of address?
- Current electrocardiogram?
- Head of John the Baptist?
- Marriage certificate?
Yup. She was denied because she couldn’t prove that I’d married her. Ha! You can bet that The Mrs. wasn’t very happy when I drove her home singing, “Guess you are my property, doo-dah, doo-dah; my wife’s my chattel property all the doo-dah day.” Of course, as I said this I had a brand-new Upper-Lower-Midwestia license in my wallet.
The Mrs. was not amused.
But the DMV clerk was 100% being fair. The rules are the rules, no matter how stupid they might be. The rules are the rules, no matter who you are. And DMV clerks should follow them.
To the letter.
That’s Equality. No matter who you are, when you walk into the DMV office, you’re all equally dirt in their eyes. I think the DMV clerk even shed a tear when I had every single document she requested. Getting through on the first time was like cheating to her.
Never get behind the Devil at the DMV if you need to do paperwork – the Devil can take many forms.
Believing in Equality is why people on the Right don’t steal votes. They want to see the race run fairly. If you don’t have the right paperwork?
No license for you. I will say that when I got my license, the DMV clerk tried to get me to be an organ donor. That was a girl after my own heart.
The DMV, at least here, is Equal. Equity is different.
Equity is the belief that fairness isn’t measured on the starting conditions but on the outcome. If a 100 yard (.31 centimeter) race was run on Equity measures, I would only have to run, say, 50 yards if I was running against someone twice as fast as me. The goal of Equity isn’t to see who is fastest, it’s to structure the race so that people finish the way you want them to finish.
Given that Leftists are focused on Equity, or the outcome of the race, does it make sense that they’d try to steal an election?
Certainly.
Leftist focus only on the outcomes. If a process like the 100 yard (34 milliKelvins) dash produces results where someone is faster, it’s the process that’s wrong. If the process consistently produces a race where the fastest person wins?
To a Leftist, that’s unfair.
Not mine. Second time I’ve used this recently. The main problem is that the Equity in Reality panel is missing the pile of skulls that Leftism always, inevitably produces. And the Easter Bunny doesn’t exist, either.
Equity, in the mind of the Leftist, isn’t in the casting of ballots. Equity is in the counting of them. Your favored candidate is losing? What’s a few hundred thousand extra ballots? They can punch them with a hammer or a sickle.
Why do Leftists cheat?
C’mon man, it’s because they’re Leftists. What did you expect?
Election Day 2020: Liveblogging Post
“No thank you, Delmar. A third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without beddin’ ‘er back down.” – O Brother, Where Art Thou?
How many Russians does it take for Hillary Clinton to lose an election? None.
Front Matter: I will start liveblogging (in the comments of this post) the election results when they come in. I expect this will be about 8pm Eastern Standard Time. I’ll stop when the mood strikes me – there isn’t a set end time. I will say this – Standard Time Rules, and I really, really hate Daylight Savings Time.
2020 marks the most momentous election of our lifetimes. Why?
Trump 2020?
No.
Wilder 2020. Yes, I am an official candidate. I can explain.
I’m a skilled professional.
During the state primary season in Modern Mayberry, in Upper-Lower Midwestia, I got a text message from The Boy.
“I put you in as a write-in candidate for NAMELESS OFFICE.”
Immediately I texted The Mrs. “Hey, honey, please vote for me for NAMELESS OFFICE.” She didn’t respond. That’s normal.
I made my own way to the polls, and proudly wrote “John Wilder” in for NAMELESS OFFICE. It turns out that The Mrs. did, too.
I had three votes.
What does one do with three votes in an insurgent write-in candidacy for NAMELESS OFFICE? You call the County Clerk the day after to see if you won.
I did that.
“A write in? Umm, call us next week, sweetie.”
I forgot to call them back. But then a few weeks later when The Boy was down from State College, he got the mail one Saturday, and brought it into the living room.
I sent a guitar back to the factory once. I marked it “return to Fender®.”
“Hey, Pop, it’s a letter from the County. Are you still burning tires and diesel fuel in the backyard?” The Boy handed me a big letter – one that might have held the x-ray of bigfoot’s prostate exam.
I opened it. Nope – not a prostate exam. It was an official certificate saying that I was an official candidate for election in the 2020 election. How many of those do you have?
I am running unopposed in the general election. Since I was running unopposed, I decided on a sneaky campaign: not let anyone know I was running. The idea I had was simple – if anyone knew I was running, they would have time to oppose me. Ha! I’m too sneaky for that.
But now it’s too late. There will be one name to vote for: mine. I think my chances are good, since I’m sure I’ll get more than the three votes that propelled me on this political odyssey. I’m hoping for at least a solid dozen votes.
If your refrigerator is running? I know some people in New Mexico that would vote for it.
You may ask, what does the elected office require me to do? I won’t give you most of the specifics. But I did check online and researched the state statutes that describe what I’m being elected to do. In one, very old book (1883?) I found that I was responsible for the control of underground burrowing rodents. In none of the modern laws does it mention that I’m responsible for that, but, hey:
The law is the law.
I think I’ll make that the signature of my administration. I’ll become John Wilder, licensed to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. A man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit.
Ever.
If A is for Apple, and B is for Banana, what is C for? Explosives.
I’m pretty sure that this will entitle me to a badge and unlimited access to fully automatic weapons, rocket propelled grenades, and plastic explosives. Okay, maybe not. But I’m also sure that there are absolutely zero laws in my state that prohibit me from making my own badge. I think I might design my badge to be a big “W” with lightning bolts hitting an underground rodent.
Maybe it will all be over the top of a nuclear mushroom cloud?
Does my badge allow me to do anything special, like turn into a werewolf and roam the countryside naked in the cool autumn nights looking for a safe spaceship flight. Well, no. But thankfully it doesn’t prohibit that, either.
Does my badge allow me to requisition nuclear weapons from the Federal government to control subterranean rodents? Well, no. But it does make the requisition request for fully automatic weapons, an old M-60 Patton tank, three F-16 fighters and 53,000 pounds of Compound C seem reasonable.
I mean, how else would you deal with gophers? You wouldn’t. That’s why you need a cold-blooded rodent killer like me. Badgers? You don’t need no stinking badgers!
My son said he got awarded the Leslie Neilson badge at school. I asked him, “What’s that?” He said it’s a big building filled with kids.
Here’s my campaign slogan:
“Wilder 2020, because you want John Wilder to have access to a badge and enough weapons to overthrow Brazil, even though he only got three primary votes.”
See you in the comments tonight!