Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, Violence Is On The Menu

“I don’t like violence, Tom. I’m a businessman.” – The Godfather

People say violence is never an option, but when I’m in a room with a Kardashian, well, let’s just say it’s option number one.

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

Volume V, Issue 6

All memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”.

This is a moving situation, and things are changing quickly.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – New Achievement Unlocked:  Acceptable Violence – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Are We At War? Revisited – 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 820 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

New Achievement Unlocked:  Violence Acceptable

One of the hallmarks of the countdown to Civil War 2.0 has always been:  Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.  We’ve debated about where to put it, but it’s been there since the very start of the countdown/index.  This month a Constant Reader sent me a link to American Partisan where the article discussed exactly that (LINK).

When a high government official formerly in charge of extrajudicial executions calls for the extrajudicial execution of an elected official to a national body, you might live in a banana republic.

  • 31% of Trump supporters and 24% of Biden supporters indicated that democracy is no longer viable.
  • 41% of Biden supporters and 38% of Trump supporters thought it was acceptable to use violence to stop their opponents.

Yes, I know that technically we’re not a democracy anyway because the Founding Fathers felt that was little more than mob rule, but it looks like a huge chunk of people are flat done with the idea of voting with ballots and are ready to start voting with fists, clubs, and bullets.

Except against women.  Or people who identify as women.  Or Leftists. But I repeat myself.  

This, sadly, is something that many have expected as the government loses the legitimacy that it enjoyed during most of the history of the country, with only 16% (according to Pew®) trusting the government to do way is right most of the time.

As I’ve mentioned before, some of the best advice I’ve ever heard about divorce was, “If you don’t want a divorce, don’t talk about one.”  Here, large numbers of the population are currently contemplating divorce, and contemplating not using a lawyer to get what they want, since 41% of Trump supporters and 30% of Biden supporters are in favor of secession based on political lines.

Although there is a flaw in the Leftist strategy.

Even when I started this blog, that seemed unlikely.  Although the maps show Red states and Blue states, the reality is that in 2016, many of them were purple – a roughly equal mixture of both.

Now we see that people really are moving from one state to another for purely political reasons.  If you’re on the Right, why live in a state that will criminalize you because you own guns?  If you’re on the Left, why live in a state that won’t let you kill all the babies you want to kill?

Violence and Censorship Update

Hillary Clinton, that bastion of common sense and moderation, noted this month that people who supported Donald Trump need to be “formally deprogrammed”.  If you think the Left is up for a truce and to forgive, that would be a mistake.

Proving that a Leftist is as loyal as a scorpion, well, read the note below.

But, good news for her!  She can update her Tinder® profile.

In a further example that we are at an 8. on the steps to Civil War 2.0 (list above, more story below) Portland has stopped trying to look good for a date, and is now at the stage that they’re eating frosting straight from the plastic container with a spoon.  The cops have given up.

The EU wants Elon Musk to censor comments on X®.  The only problem?  Like taking a woman to a restaurant, the want Elon to figure what they want him to censor without telling him.

Regardless of how you feel about, well, anyone, the First Amendment exists.  Except for certain subjects as the former governor of Mumbai points out below:

And Ron’s not far behind:

Lastly, Canadians seem to enjoy a few freedoms.  At least today:

Biden’s Misery Index

Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .

Yup, up again.  Looks like Biden is going for the record.  Who says he never gets anything done?  I hear he was even on hand to thank one of his financial supporters.

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:

Violence is up again, again slightly – I was expecting more during a long, hot summer.  I’m guessing that people don’t even notice it anymore.  Think San Fran will be paying for cops anytime soon?

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, up.  I expect December to be a time when this starts to head upward, significantly, because, bears.

Economic:

Economic numbers are swinging back down again this month, and a bit more in October – I expected more.  Well, we’ll see.  Maybe there will be a miracle?

Illegal Aliens:

The biggest number, ever, in the history of the country, an unending flood.  Read Enoch Powell’s speech.

Are We At War? Revisited

Last month’s Weather Report topic was a simple question:  Are we at war?  The reason for this is that a Constant Reader said I was obviously stoned, because the war was obviously already going.

Another Constant Reader responded to this response as noted above that I was stoned for thinking we were closer to war than they did, and I thought it was a more than fair assertion that deserved a response:  “Not 8.  Not anywhere close to that.”

Well, as to point 6., where people are avoiding the other side, this is an ongoing process I noted that began years ago.  I have several friends that have specifically decided to move away from Leftist hotbeds for exactly that reason.  My own brother, John Wilder, is currently behind enemy lines in the Reddest area of a very blue state.  He’ll be moving before too long to a very, very Red State where he is no longer considered to be an extremist.

He does, however, have a great lawn.

Next, to point 7.  If anyone doesn’t think that organized violence is occurring regularly, they need to revisit their news sources.  Cities, even in Red States, are being run not by cops, not by commissions, and not by mayors.  Those cities are being run by district attorneys that are not prosecuting criminals and are sanctioning the violence.  It’s bad enough that it’s normalized – the group protests, riots, and mob thefts that are occurring with the tacit approval of the “justice” system takes us to an 8.  Reminder, this Civil War won’t have masses of armed troops to inflict the damage, especially at the start.

To get from 8. to 10. could happen in as little as two weeks – imagine another blatantly stolen election in 2024 . . . that might be the spark.  As shown in the first story, polls indicate that a growing number of people no longer want peace at all costs, and the peace that flows from the barrel of a gun would be quite acceptable.

It’s odd when the Muppet® doesn’t have the silliest hair.

Are we at an 8.?  I think so.  It doesn’t get to a 10. until the Right starts to fight back.  I do appreciate the feedback, since this is a work in progress, and it also nudges me to explain what the heck my reasoning is.  YMMV.

The fact that two readers with valid points make the opposite argument makes me think I’m close to the right answer.  We are very, very near.

LINKS

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

BAD GUYS

https://twitter.com/i/status/1718365747414761547

https://twitter.com/i/status/1720452778508595253

https://twitter.com/i/status/1718594209450480043

https://twitter.com/i/status/1719551215858798957

https://twitter.com/i/status/1715239983911452861

https://twitter.com/i/status/1715236903853691077

https://twitter.com/i/status/1714199598871228535

GOOD GUY?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1716945256804200575

ONE GUY

https://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/1716227124275626374

BODY COUNT

https://citizenfreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/biden-state-illegals.jpg

https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_9d841124-7449-11ee-af4a-af115ad29337.html

https://twitter.com/i/status/1707919466154082771

https://twitter.com/Jeanne2999432/status/1719039832633041054?t=Nd5Phexy5Xh6W1OcG6-yIw&s=19

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/axis.JPG?itok=tZ4zVVGS
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/texas/article-12663663/Venezuelas-worst-gangsters-criminals-cross-border-carrying-orders-dictator-Maduro.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12699675/US-border-China-migrants-caravan.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12666301/Migrants-NYC-costing-taxpayer-5BN.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12484069/US-deaths-mortality-richest-countries.html

https://tnc.news/2023/10/26/assisted-suicide-in-canada-2022-1/

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4289645-bring-back-the-draft-a-divisive-battle-may-loom-over-any-major-war/

VOTE COUNT

https://citizenfreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/emerald-fraud.jpeg

http://onlyinbridgeport.com/wordpress/watch-video-captures-gomes-supporters-absentee-ballot-dumping/

https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/05/10-ways-democrats-are-already-rigging-the-2024-election/

https://www.emerald.tv/p/georgias-election-officials-are-getting

https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fthefederalist.com%2F2023%2F10%2F31%2Franked-choice-voting-is-the-monster-under-the-bed-of-american-elections%2F

https://thefga.org/research/ranked-choice-voting-partisan-plot-to-disrupt-elections/

CIVIL WAR

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12589871/mexico-cartel-texas-invasion-border-war-todd-bensman.html

https://www.newsweek.com/democrat-civil-war-reaching-boiling-point-1840367

https://news.yahoo.com/large-portion-americans-doubt-democracy-160659069.html

https://jonathanturley.org/2023/10/23/americas-crisis-of-faith-new-poll-reveals-more-americans-are-rejecting-the-constitution-and-embracing-violence/

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-10-12/civil-war-5-4-3-2

https://www.governing.com/context/what-would-a-national-divorce-look-like

How The Left Is Changing Society, And How To Fight: Part II

“You know, in certain older civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords.” – Serenity

What do you call a two dead parrots?  Pollygons.

This is part two of the series on social structures and control.

Most (stress on “most”) Western Nations adopted a modified version of a new social order between 1776 and 1920.  It looked like this:

  • Absent or Figurehead Monarch: The idea of absolute rule by King melted away, and was essentially done in the first world by 1920.  I mean, we dudes all still dream about it, but it’s gone.
  • Government Bureaucrats: The core of government power now flowed into an unelected bureaucracy that was, more or less, immune to election.  When governed by a Constitution, this was good.  When governed by avarice, not so much.  Thankfully, most of the bureaucrats in the twentieth century were governed by bad eyesight and a to close the window for lunch, if the DMV is any clue.
  • Elected Leadership: The idea that elected leaders subject to the will of the people would be the ones to run the government was a noble one.  Sadly, we started electing at least some dirtbags from the start.
  • Military Leaders: A professional military, generally subservient to the civilian leaders but still with cool uniforms.
  • Clergy: A strong church presence, though unofficial, was still the backbone of the country’s morality.  Some priests even became lawyers, or what we would call a father-in-law.
  • Constitution: At least in the United States, the Constitution was the basis of civic religion for the majority of the people.  In other countries, there were other things, like Great Britain and the King or Queen or Meghan Markle.  It was a basis for the foundation of the nation (or, country).
  • Big Business: In the twentieth century, big business (including big banking) finally grew to the point that it was able to be a primary force in society, providing products and jobs for the voters, donations for the leadership class, and, apparently, lots of fedoras.
  • Middle Class: This was the engine of prosperity – working to build the economy.  For a large part of the twentieth century government policy was focused on increasing this segment, since they were the spark plugs that both worked the line for GM® as well as ran the plants.
  • Lower Class: The big goal of most first world nations was to shrink this class, through education and sometimes direct payments.  Making them productive, it was felt, would be a win for civilization as a whole.

Although not optimum, this version of civilization was built on a solid structure that focused on the atom:  the family.  It tried to take feedback from voters, protect their rights, and create wealth and happiness for most.  It was an example of what happens when the people and the economy and the government more or less agree on virtue as the basis of society.

If honesty is a virtue, why doesn’t anyone want to hear the truth?

Yes, there were flaws.  But compared to today?

The flaws were miniscule.  It actually worked very, very well.  For a while.  But what was happening when the Left was in charge?  Well, you got a very, very different structure.

That’s not the power structure of most modern-day dictatorships.  That power structure assumes a Dear Leader, secret police, no church, a frightened military, and everyone else shoved into the frightened peasant class.  The culture there has nothing to do with any traditions, has nothing to do with religion, has nothing to do with trust (trust no one is the motto in lands with a secret police) and has nothing to do with Truth, Virtue or Beauty, since those are viciously stamped down if they conflict with the will of Dear Leader.

  • Dear Leader: The top was an individual.  Certainly, there were committees, but the basis was an individual.    Lenin.  Mao.  Kim.  The government didn’t revolve around them:  they were the government.
  • Secret Police: Dear Leader can’t be everywhere, all the time, so the next best thing was a hated and feared secret police.  Is it better to be hated or feared?  If you are Dear Leader, you want both.  You want the people to fear the secret police, but you also want the people to hate the secret police so that they could never govern.
  • Scared, Weak Military: Dear Leader needs a military, but they need to be scared of being replaced or killed.
  • Scared, Weak Bureaucrats: If the guys with tanks are scared, what hope do they have?
  • Scared, Weak Everyone Else: If the guys who assign Boris his Commieflat are scared, what hope does Boris have?

What size soda does Kim order?  A supreme liter.

The atom of a dictatorship isn’t a family, it’s an individual.  The goal of a dictatorship is weak families and no middle class.  The goal is to create distrust and to have parents not trust their children, nor spouses trust each other.  One of the first actions of the commie Spanish Republic was to make abortion legal, and eliminate marriages because they wanted to “make women equal”.

The reality was the Spanish commies wanted to destroy family ties so that the state was the unquestioned leader.  This creates a different kind of stability – one based on constant fear and no trust.  I wonder if that sounds familiar to anyone?

We are watching most of the Western World morphing from their old structure into the structures that Dear Leader would love.

  • Uniparty: Most of the Democrat mainstream and Republican mainstream have the same “values”, with only a variation or two.  The Republicans acted like the neighborhood dog that finally caught the car when the Supreme Court revoked the absolute right of women to kill babies “because it’s Tuesday” and had no real plans.  Abortion was a fundraiser, not a real issue to them.
  • Converged Bureaucrats: Bureaucrats in the FedGov are now out only for themselves and the bureaucracy they serve.  The ATF doesn’t care if you have guns, really.  The ATF just wants to have funding and to be able to shoot the family dog on Tuesdays.
  • Incipient Police State: Don’t think we have a police state that hands out unfair punishments?  Type “January 6” into a search engine sometime . . .
  • A Vanishing Clergy: Church used to be an important touchstone – in the 1950s some banks wouldn’t give a mortgage if the pastor of your church didn’t speak favorably about your character.  Extreme?  Probably not – it kept a place in the community for virtue.  The goal of the Left is that they have the monopoly on defining virtue.  Hey, Live, Laugh, Love, right?
  • A Captive Press: When was the last time anyone in the Mainstream Media actually tried to challenge The Narrative?  Oh, yeah, Tucker Carlson.
  • Twisted Constitution: The Constitution of the United States was written on plain language so the common citizen could understand it.  Now?  Emanations and penumbras and twisting of “thou shalt not” into “thou shalt” has made Constitutional law like a game of limbo – how low can you go?  That the Civil Rights Act is now more important than actual Constitutional protections is all you need to know.
  • Subservient Military: Obama spent a lot of time and effort clearing out high-level officers in the military that weren’t on the Left.  Notice that none of the top brass pushed back against the vaxx mandate?
  • Big Business: Big business has always had inordinate power due to their size and the amount of money they control (this includes big banks).  During the last 40 years big business has dominated and destroyed most profitable small business niches.  This results in a . . .
  • Much Smaller Middle Class: The middle class is smaller and poorer than at any time in my life.  This is getting ready (over the next two years) to get much worse.
  • Everyone else: This is the goal – that 80% plus of the population are stuck, working paycheck to paycheck, unable to accumulate wealth, and having their saved money inflated away.

The values of this brave new world aren’t anchored by any sort of church.  Values in 2023 move around every day at the whim of the Left.  It’s all coordinated, too.  Whatever value that they want is pushed through channels to the public, often with movies and television shows backing it up using emotionally laden content to transmit the message.  Remember those “very special episodes”?  Yup, all of them were propaganda.

But he was such a good boy.  Never hurt anyone.

They had left the Internet and alternative media alone.  Probably, it was left for a safety valve and because most Normies get their news and opinions from Mainstream sources.  In reality, especially in the aftermath of Trump being meme’d into office in 2016, the hammer has started to come down.  Information wants to be free, but the Left has taken the Dear Leader approach to information.

Ever notice that comment segments on news stories went from “nearly every news story has one” to “Comment section?  What’s that?” in a span of just a few years?  The problem was that people in the comment section were making too much sense.  The people in the comment section were exposing the lies in the news stories.  They had to be dealt with.

Websites like mine have been “detuned” from the search algorithms.  This makes it harder for normies to find places that have unapproved ideas.  YouTube® has veered into censorship, having kicked podcasts off the air for simply arguing against the vaxx or agreeing with the very real possibility that the 2020 elections were hijacked.

My computer started to cuss after the processor got too hot.  I had to install a heat censor.

But not all is lost.  Elon Musk has made “Community Notes” a thing.  They’re a way to point out the Lies of the Left and those that hate Truth, Beauty, Steak, Families, and Nations.

This is how they’re targeting us, and how they have targeted us over decades.  The wonderful part is that we have Truth, Beauty, Steak, Families and the power of Nations on our side.  And people are waking up – 30% to 40% of all voters (not just those on the Right) believe the 2020 election was illegitimate.  This is despite widespread censorship of this idea.

Keep spreading the Truth.  Practice virtue and push your church (if you have one) to be more virtuous, rather than another Leftist conquest.  Starve Big Business, when you can.  Buying from local farmers gives them more money and keeps the money away from people who hate you.

If your misery is caused by paranoia, I can tell you you’re not alone.

We can’t wait until plate tectonics splits California off into an island, and the good news is that we won’t have to.  As I’ve said before, we will win.

We are inevitable.

How The Left Is Changing Society, And How To Fight: Part I

“Looks like civilization finally caught up with us.” – Firefly

The invention of the shovel was groundbreaking, but everyone was blown away by the invention of the fan.

This is part one of a two-part series, it just got too big. Part two is written and I’ll post on Wednesday.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how and why the wheels are coming off of our civilization. Why? I don’t know – I’ve been worried about it since I was a wee Wilder and became concerned that plate tectonics wouldn’t split California off soon enough.

We see evidence of the collapse all the time but sometimes have a hard time putting our fingers on exactly what is driving it all from a structural standpoint. That’s why I’m here to help. Don’t worry. I’m a trained professional.

The social structure of stable societies isn’t an accident. When people were wandering around in nomadic tribes, I’m not sure exactly how things went down, but I do know that once civilization started taking root (so we could have beer, really, link below), the basic unit of civilization was set as the family in any sort of civilization that produces wealth, has reasonable freedoms, exhibits virtue (Truth, Beauty, Steak) and has any sort of stability.

Beer, Technology, Beer, Tide Pods, Beer, Civilizational Stability, and Beer

Think of a mom, dad, and kids. In a stable society, that’s essentially the atom. Often in the West we’re inundated with the idea of individual rights, and those do exist, but the biggest failing of those rights (in my opinion, and I’m right) is where those rights contradict the stability of the family. Atoms are at their most stable when all of the parts are in place – an atom missing electrons is an ion, and I could explain using hydroxide ions, but that’s pretty basic. And let’s not even get started on isotopes.

Why was 6 afraid? Because she could be discovered by the crew of the Battlestar Galactica at any time. And you thought I was going to say, “because seven ate nine.”

Divorce, for instance, is bad for family stability. Duh. Making divorce easy is thus attacking the core of the structure of civilization. Those on the Left who hate society are always attacking the family, and what better way to shatter it than divorce. Oh, wait, there’s birth control and abortion.

While a man and a woman, married (to each other) constitutes a family, that family is truly completed by children. We’re humans, but we’re also animals – there is an innate drive to reproduce and have offspring and then yell inappropriately at little league games. There has to be something strong about the need to reproduce, because babies are so objectionable and worthless. Really. I mean, I’ve never even seen a toddler I couldn’t trounce in wrestling.

So, the atom of society isn’t the individual – it’s the family. Families, not video games or pantyhose, are why civilization exists – it exists because of us, and it also exists for us. If a civilization doesn’t have children, it ceases to exist.

Once I found out that my pizza was burnt, my beer was frozen, and my wife was pregnant. I guess I’m just not good at taking things out in time.

This has some pretty significant implications, since so much of policy (especially Leftist, but the Right is not clean in this, either) is now actively hostile to the family. Examples:

  • Housing Prices: Leftists import hordes of illegals to increase prices and demand, and also make so many rules that building a house is more expensive.
  • Taxes: Leftists want to punish high earners (but not wealthy folks, there’s a difference) to keep the wife in the workforce to keep her from having kids.
  • Divorce Law: Divorce should be as easy as possible, there should be no requirement for fault (which would make cheaters guilty), there should be no consequences to the woman (who initiate the vast majority of divorce) except for fun and prizes.
  • Custody Law: Children should be part of the fun and prizes for divorce, and used to incentivize divorce for women through child support.
  • Alimony: Let’s make the man pay, even if the woman initiated divorce.
  • Propaganda that Women Must Work: This is deep, and is put into the heads of women that they are somehow “less than” if they aren’t working making PowerPoints®.
  • Propaganda that Women Must Have It All®: This one is the YOLO tag, making women feel unsuccessful if they don’t party away their youth and fertility with many, many men.

There’s more, of course, and I could probably write another 10,000 words about how society is actively hostile to the family and the very concept of parental authority. But you see it every day. You’re swimming in it – starting all the way back to inept fathers being the butt of jokes in sitcoms, and the “single mom don’t need no man” trope that started back in the 1970s.

In the 1980s lots of kids had single moms. Now some even have two.

So, that’s one part of the attack. But society isn’t made up of just random families wandering around – instead, there’s a structure to civilization, just like there’s a structure to, say, a beer bottle or the underwire in a bra. One such structure is kinship. Japanese people are all, on a basic level, related to each other and share the same culture.

This basic “being related to each other” is what distinguishes a nation (nation having the Latin root of natio, meaning “birth, origin, race of people, tribe) from a country. A country is just some random folks living in the same place, like New York City. A nation is a group of people who are all much more closely related, like Modern Mayberry, where if you moved here 15 years ago, you’re still one of those newcomers.

Since The Mrs. has kin here going back into the 1880s, she’s covered, but they’re always going to think I’m a bit sketchy.

Why was the mushroom the life of the party? Because he was giving away cocaine.

But kinship should not be underrated. When you look at the happiest country surveys, at the top are nations that have a disproportionate amount of people that are closely related, genetically. You trust your family more, and you’re less likely to cheat them, except at Thanksgiving while playing Monopoly®. Because of that, countries that are all of one nationality can be higher trust with lower corruption, if they aren’t tribal (looking at you, India and Pakistan and all of Africa).

Want to break up a country? After you’re done with the family, aim for disruption of the nation by introducing unlike people that have virtually nothing in common with the native stock in huge numbers. There’s a reason that nations of generally related people exist: it’s more stable.

If you wake up being chased by a lion while on a horse, and next to you is a giraffe and a hippo, what do you do? Get off the carousel and check into rehab.

Beyond the general nature of the family, there is an importance to the structure of society itself. One of the more stable structures of society in history was the feudal model. It consisted of several different classes of people:

  • Monarchy: Generally, the overall boss (when strong), who kept the whole thing in check. Needed: strong neck muscles to hold a big crown.
  • Lesser Nobles: Lieutenants, who administered smaller areas of varying size to keep those running. Needed: ability to bow.
  • Clergy: Served as an overall legitimacy, and also a diplomatic corps between nations. Needed:
  • Merchants: Made sure people had fish. Needed:
  • Professionals: I’m tossing artisan and guild member in here who had mad skills making stuff that society needed. And bankers. Needed: fluffy shirts.
  • Peasants: Someone has to milk the bull. Needed:

Each of these units played a part, and the power varied from place to place, and time to time. One of the most amusing things is when there were too many nobles, so kings would have to come up with wars to kill them off, because no one likes tons of bored yappy nobles around. Just ask Meghan Markle when King Charles ships her off to fight Argentina. Singlehandedly.

Sometimes the nobles were stronger than the king, thus the Magna Carta. Sometimes the clergy was stronger than the king, thus Cromwell. Sometimes the king was stronger than the clergy, thus the Avignon papacy. Even peasants got into the mix, with Wat Tyler’s Rebellion in England making King Richard II put on his brown pants.

Why do dairy cattle have hooves? Because they lactose.

Each part of the society could (and did) cause difficulty if the power that they shared got too far out of control. The Merchants and Professional classes were mainly in a support role, but they provided administrative and logistical support for everyone, and the bankers especially definitely led to many, many shenanigans.

Thus endeth ye olde parte the first.

The Field Guide to NPCs

“I had no idea those beer cans were going to blow like that.” – Planes, Trains, & Automobiles

I’m unique – I can always tell when there are groups of lions around.  That fills me with a sense of pride.

(All memes “as found”)

There was a time, back before the rhetoric was so heated, that I would actually seek out to have political discussions with Leftists I knew.  The idea was to try to understand their position from their point of view.  I see now how wrong I was.  In most cases when they were logically cornered, they would get a funny look like they ate a bad PEZ™ on their face and “reset”.  They’d never admit that they were wrong, and would hold on to the same opinion they started with.

I hadn’t changed their worldview at all (which wasn’t my point in the first place) but I did notice the behavior.  It was repeated, again and again.  When the meme showing Leftists as NPCs hit, it started to click.  Leftists talking about politics are NPCs.

NPCs are “Non Player Characters” in video games.  They’re there for exposition, or to assist in a video game task, or even for comic relief.  What they aren’t capable of, is independent thought.  That’s up to the player.

The Left got very, very angry at the NPC memes.  Their angry reaction is how you can tell it hurt them to the core.  That’s how you can tell that there’s truth in a meme – it pulls an emotional reaction from the target.

I can fix the wage gap.  Wagegap.  See?  That wasn’t hard.

But let’s get at the core of what it means to be an NPC.  I would bet that everyone reading this post is a person that’s grounded pretty well in reality.  We observe reality, then we process around it.  An example:  we observe that illegal aliens are more likely to commit additional crimes when they get here, don’t contribute much (if at all) in taxes, cause more complex public service needs (forms in multiple languages), and make little effort to assimilate.  They’re expensive, make the country less safe, and cause it to be less cohesive.

An NPC, however, will just love illegals because they’ve been told to love them.  They don’t observe the world and then adjust their ideas, they just take their ideas from an approved source.

Here’s an example:  The Leftists were told to hate James Comey because he released that the FBI was reviewing Hillary’s email right before the election.  It was programmed into every Leftist that Comey was a bad guy.  Fast forward a few months, and one of the Late Night Funny Joke Men was doing his monologue.  Colbert announced that Comey was fired.

The audience erupted in cheers.

Colbert reprogrammed them, immediately:  “What, are you all Trump fans?”  Within 90 seconds, Colbert switched the old “Comey Bad Man” program into the “Comey Friend” program.

What language is most used in computer programming?  Profanity.

It’s clear – Leftists don’t have the ability to judge between one thing and another.  This is the most basic part of what makes us human – the ability to seek patterns, come to conclusions, and then act on those conclusions.  Leftists can’t tell who is a friend and who is an enemy unless someone tells them.  And who do they trust the most?  Talking heads on television who go out of their way to only send out approved information.

They can’t come to the conclusion that illegals are bad because everyone tells them how good they are and how nice tacos taste and you’re a racist if you don’t want to import absolutely all of Guatemala.

This results in me feeling a bit of epicaricacy every once and a while, when a Leftist fails to see dangers that any person who isn’t spoon fed their ideas would see, yet the first programming put in is that there are things that they’re not supposed to think about.  Their brains shut down when they hit those items where thought is not allowed, and they’ll change the subject as fast as they can – certain inputs are simply not possible.  Certain ideas are forbidden.

Newton’s Third Law of Emotion:  For every male action, there is a female overreaction. 

And a lack of ideas is the problem.  People are reading fewer books, and the Leftists don’t need to burn them (though they censor quite a few) because people aren’t reading them anymore.  Anything challenging or requiring any study is just too hard.

It’s easier to have an emotion, and Facebook™ and CNN® and the rest of the mainstream media are great at popping out emotions and reprogramming and hiding ideas that aren’t approved.  The NPCs can, therefore, not worry about there being any hard thoughts to have or thinking to be done.  They can live their lives never thinking about the news.  They can live their lives aspiring to nothing.  They go to work, eat the things they are told to eat, and feel bad about global warming climate change because they’ve been told to worry about it, even though they only have the vaguest idea what it might be.

Is there a cure?

I once swallowed the cat’s pill.  Don’t ask me-ow.

Only for some, and most don’t want to be cured.  The cure is the Red Pill.  The Red Pill is uncomfortable, but it’s also irreversible.  And when The Narrative is finally questioned in the brain of the NPC, it cascades.  Once the first Big Lie is seen, the process is started.  There’s no going back, if the Red Pill lands with someone who really does want the truth.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Are We At War? and Invaders

“Maybe we’re at war with Norway?” – The Thing

I’m sad, because 6:30 is the best time on a clock.  Hands down.

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

Volume V, Issue 5

All memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”.

This is a moving situation, and things are changing quickly.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – At War Already? – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Invaders – 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 815 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

At War Already?

This month I had a post up titled 14 Signs Of An Unfree Country.  One of the responses I received is below:

It’s a very fair question, and one that deserves some thought and a response.

One of the first issues discussed on the early Civil War 2.0 Weather Reports was the idea that Civil War 2.0 would likely not resemble Civil War 1.0 with opposing armies in uniform moving across open battlefields.  No, in my opinion there might be some military trappings, and some form of “regulars” on either side, but for the most part this Civil War will be very different, and a large part of the action will take place via individual and small, only loosely coordinated groups.

But the question remains – are we at war?

The January 6 prisoners would certainly say so.  The concept of justice for most of them has been a farce, they’ve been sent to prison in some cases for their political beliefs.  The Left fully castigated the GOP for releasing all of the tapes which showed much more of the reality – and causing the ridiculous Buffalo guy to get released immediately.

In some cases (at least!) the prisoners have been treated in conditions that the Left would normally call inhumane.  For the January 6 prisoners?  No indignity has been spared them.

And no indignity has been spared on the heritage Americans.  Our one virtue when it comes to the Left has been our ability to provide the backbone of the United States military.  Now that traditional military families are opting out since, well, the country hates them, the idea of a draft is now embraced by people who ran to Canada to avoid it when it didn’t suit them.

What about the sacred right to vote?  Well, again, that’s a sacred right only if you vote for the Left-approved candidate.  They absolutely oppose voting for anyone not on the Left, and, guess what?  While you were out keeping the economy going or serving our country, they infiltrated the governmental entities that count the vote.  California is even going to ban manual vote counting and mandate only machine counting be legal.

What about the people who are being humiliated by watching the history of their nation erased, statue by statue, name by name, and child by child as they are drip-fed estrogen from the age to three to be turned into weird abominations that will be consigned to a tormented life as neither man nor woman.

So, the legal system is a fiction, and the cultural situation is grim.

Violence is at a high, as well.  I keep warning people to get out of the cities.  The latest murders in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia of Leftist enablers provide a glimpse of the decline of those cities – they weren’t hidden like the everyday horrors of the average father or grandfather or child killed at random by groups of murderers who believe that they won’t be punished because they haven’t been punished for (in some cases) over 50 felonies.

Are we at war already?  If, like me, you live in a Red state?  No, not really.  Here in Modern Mayberry it looks a lot like it did thirty years ago, except for the rot that Leftism and globalism has done to the economy.

If you’re on the Right and live in a Blue state, or if you challenge in any manner the power of those who would rule?

It looks like that answer is, “yes”, they’re at war against you.

Violence and Censorship Update

There is no way on Earth that the United States was more racist in 2015 than it was in 1970.  Zero ways.  I would suggest that in 2008, when the United States voted in a black guy as president that would have ended that forever.  Especially since the 1990s in the United States were probably the least racist decade of any country on the planet, ever.  But the push is in:  everything is racist.  This is used, primarily to shut down actual discussions of actual problems.

Why would a Leftist leave a weapon on the battlefield after they’ve won the battle?  Elon Musk rustled all the jimmies when he bought Twitter®, um, X™.  So what’s the solution?  Stop anything Musk does.

Okay, this didn’t officially happen, but I’m thinking that most of his staff thought it:

Apparently selling soft drinks in Russia is bad:

As is using the word “female”.

But that’s okay, kids should be taken from their parents for any old reason.

And the press should just ignore the “why” of a story.

And also the “who” of a story.

Biden’s Misery Index

Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .

Yup, up again.  Looks like Biden is going for the record.  Who says he never gets anything done?

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:

Violence is up again, again slightly – I was expecting more during a long, hot summer.  I’m guessing that people don’t even notice it anymore.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, up.  I expect December to be a time when this starts to head upward, significantly.

Economic:

Economic numbers are swinging back down again this month, but I expect October will be a bit more interesting after earnings reports.

Illegal Aliens:

The border numbers are up only slightly, and I think that (shockingly) the government may just be lying or that the Border Patrol is being told to leave the illegals alone.  Why would I think that?  That’s what the next story is about.

Invaders

It is now abundantly clear that the people in Washington and New York now view heritage Americans as I view an infestation of rabid squirrels.  We’re pests.

The idea is to replace us with people who will work cheaply forever and are okay with living in a repressive regime as long as they have ramen and soccer on TV.  They want slaves.

The other part of this plan is increasing taxes and injecting feminism (and LGBT) directly into the brains of the youth to slow down birth rates.  They really don’t care what this does.  The elites can live anywhere that is nice.  They’ll live in the most favorable places with all the stuff they could imagine needing.

It’s also interesting that everywhere except for Europe and the United States that booting illegals out is considered “Tuesday”.  Even before Hamas went kinetic on Israel, they were getting ready to boot out any black people.  Probably to Europe, sure, but they were getting ready to boot them.  Can we have the same illegal immigrant (invader) policy as Israel?

Well, not with Biden.  They cut the razor wire because . . . ?  Who cares what the reason was.  The Border Patrol now just wants to get more immigrants in.  I call this the “Biden Plan”, but really it was also the Bush plan and the Clinton plan, too.

How bad is it?  A developer has created a base for over 75,000 illegals.  They live there, have gangs there, and sell drugs from there.  We know where this is.  If any administration was serious about this, the developer would be in prison, and the deportations would start . . . last week.  Instead?  We have a place where the laws of the United States don’t really apply and any illegal can settle.

We know where they are.  We’re doing nothing.  We are the carbon the globalists want to reduce, since we keep asking such inconvenient questions as our country is invaded.

And it’s not just Hispanics.  It appears that all of Africa is streaming across the border.

And why not?  Africa is growing at an astonishing rate despite having exactly the same ability to feed itself as a drunken toddler.

The upshot is that this will be the last generation of heritage Americans, ever, unless the tide changes.

But, it looks like Blue state people are (finally) waking up:

Which way, America?  The solution is, still, very simple.  When will we adopt it?

LINKS

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

BAD GUYS

https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1703658363542700433

https://twitter.com/i/status/1701238979557761319

https://twitter.com/i/status/1707364236077277309

https://twitter.com/i/status/1705460875472052712

https://twitter.com/i/status/1703043847037587892

https://twitter.com/NewportBeachNBT/status/1702853152276717830

https://twitter.com/i/status/1705623045254057994

https://twitter.com/i/status/1700257920112644268

https://tvpworld.com/73183231/us-three-leftist-activists-killed-in-separate-incidents-in-one-week

 

ONE GAL

https://twitter.com/k0ssed/status/1709252993512861804

https://nypost.com/2023/10/02/philly-motorcyclist-stomps-on-back-windshield-of-nikki-bullocks-car-video/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12588897/I-just-wanted-protect-kids-Fearless-mom-bravely-faced-biker-thugs-one-stomped-car-smashed-rear-window-children-5-2-backseat-speaks-out.html

 

GOOD GUYS

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12594639/Cody-Heron-motorcyclist-smash-windshield-Philadelphia-arrested.html

 

BODY COUNT

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4218666-ai-girlfriends-are-ruining-an-entire-generation-of-men/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12437519/Gender-affirming-surgeries-US-nearly-tripled-pandemic-dip-study-finds.html

https://admin.americanaddictioncenters.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Substance-Abuse-Estimates-by-City.jpg

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12484069/US-deaths-mortality-richest-countries.html

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/covid-vaccines-causally-linked-to-increased-mortality-resulting-in-17-million-deaths-scientific-report-5499001?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=CFP&src_src=epochHG&src_cmp=CFP

https://twitter.com/dpinsen/status/1703540571598368901

https://twitter.com/i/status/1702400933928304652

https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1706442804258296082
https://news.yahoo.com/many-people-mexican-drug-cartels-180057725.html

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/773022b3-8b34-4da0-850b-bfcaa8e7a28a_867x449.jpg?itok=ExPuHvoW

https://twitter.com/PaulHook_em/status/1706832820033692084

https://citizenfreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/border-birth.jpg

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/14/1199417599/immigrant-population-us-foreign-born-census-bureau

https://www.dailywire.com/news/inside-colony-ridge-the-fastest-growing-development-in-the-u-s-is-a-magnet-for-illegal-immigrants

 

VOTE COUNT

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fjustthenews.com%2Fpolitics-policy%2Felections%2Ffbi-denies-foia-request-docs-investigation-possible-nationwide-voter

https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/09/22/google-search-engine-sways-millions-of-voters-in-one-direction/

https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/09/25/whos-responsible-for-georgias-disastrous-2020-election/

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/bias-or-bad-search-engine-optimization-biden-challengers-nearly

https://amgreatness.com/2023/10/05/zuck-bucks-grift-was-born-in-wisconsin-voters-must-ban-it-in-2024/

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/now-we-have-proof-tgp-exclusive-massive-2020/

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fthemessenger.com%2Fopinion%2Fdemocrats-2024-magic-bullet-mass-mail-in-voting

 

CIVIL WAR

https://academic.oup.com/publius/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/publius/pjad035/7271459?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/9/7/sorry-trumpers-there-wont-be-a-us-civil-war-for-2024

https://thewire.in/world/america-is-on-the-brink-of-another-civil-war-this-one-fuelled-by-donald-trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/03/the-only-us-civil-war-will-be-a-war-on-democracy/51c6e488-4a54-11ee-bfca-04e0ac43f9e4_story.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-second-american-civil-war-has-begun/ar-AA1dS2tp

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4187490-republicans-just-cant-stop-calling-for-civil-war/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ray-dalio-says-mccarthy-ouster-another-step-away-from-democracy-and-toward-civil-war/ar-AA1hO2PG

https://news.yahoo.com/fox-news-greg-gutfeld-suggests-190456184.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/who-are-the-americans-who-support-secession/ar-AA1h4qrE

https://studyfinds.org/dont-trust-us-government-doomsday/

https://twitter.com/ScooterCasterNY/status/1699596057678606451
https://twitter.com/FordFischer/status/1700996328799773109

Maybe The Kids Are Alright?

“We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.” – Fight Club

The French love my generation.  They say it has a certain Gen X sais quoi.

I can see what’s going on, I really can.  To be fair, there are dozens of things, each day that I see that are signs of The Change.  In many ways, The Change has been coming for decades, and has hit us harder than old age has hit Madonna.

Many of the changes we’ve seen are negative.  I generally write about them on Mondays and Wednesdays.  But Fridays?  No.  Because despite of all of the negatives that I see, I am as certain as the outcome of a vote if a Leftist is counting it that we will win.

What does winning mean?  Well, it doesn’t mean that things will go back to “the way they were” – whatever that was.  We won’t see that because those times are gone.  The new good times will be different in many ways.  Some I can guess because they’re inevitable, and some I can’t even fathom.

No, winning means a place for freedom and families and the things we associate with virtue.  It doesn’t mean endless wealth, and it doesn’t mean endless amusement.

Why is Michael Jackson bad at bowling?  He’s dead.

The big reason that this cannot last is because the current trend is the most unnatural and unstable in the history of humanity, with a few potential exceptions here and there that only lasted for a few decades.

This instability is in our favor.  We can already see that the current boys in high school are fed up with Leftism and everything Woke.  They’re done with it.  They see that Leftism is poison.  They’re rejecting it.

One reason is simple – it’s in the nature of youth to rebel.  And, the Leftists having won so many battles are now The Man.  They’re the ones the boys are rebelling against, and it’s glorious.  The Leftists thought that when they took over and had the ability to control what went in the minds, that was the end of the story.

Yet, the Leftists still think they’re rebels working against the system when they manifestly are the system.  The boys in school can see that, and they react accordingly, completely making those Leftists spitting out the propaganda go crazy.  The Leftists are like like that guy who is in his forties and still is wearing his letter jacket because he wants the kids to think he’s cool.  Now, based on every picture I’ve seen of every Leftist, the word “cool” isn’t remotely the first word I’d use to describe them.  It’s not in the top 100.  In reality, they fall somewhere lower than “turd stooge”.

The Three Stooges can do anything.  They have Moementum.

This turns off the boys.  Now, the girls are another subject altogether because the feminist imperative to teach the gospel of avoiding consequences of actions at all costs seems to resonate with them.  In the turmoil to come, it’s the views of the boys that will matter the most.

The youth has also seen the fruits of Peak Leftism and are disgusted by it.  Just like Gen X was shaped by the time they grew up in, being latchkey kids that learned from an early age to be independent, Gen Z is learning lessons about not trusting the government.

Their pivotal moment (so far) was the insane combination of COVID plus the Fentanyl Floyd riots.  They see that their concept of “equal justice for all” has been tainted by racial politics to twist a system where punishment is based not on the crimes committed, but rather by the victim status of the alleged criminal.

Over three years, drug free!

How will that manifest?  I think it will manifest in a deep distrust of the justice system, and I think that it will lead to, ahem, extrajudicial endings to criminal cases.

They’re also viewing the world and seeing it fall apart with cops that are prevented from arresting mobs looting stores week after week.  As I believe white Gen Xers were propagandized to be the least racist generation in the history of humanity, I believe that white Gen Z kids will view race the same way black Gen Z kids will, with huge distrust.

The next thing in the mix is what hasn’t happened yet – the economic changes that are due.  Just as there is a distrust being built up in the justice and governmental systems, there will be a distrust of money being created out of nothing.  The system is going to, very soon, fail them in a spectacular way.

The economic changes will change them.  We’ll still be able to send billions to the Ukraine, but it won’t matter because a billion won’t buy a Happy Meal®.

In the Ukraine it’s called corruption.  In the United States we don’t talk about it.

Gen X was cynical.  Gen Z will likely be a force of nature.  If they aren’t the hard men, Gen Alpha will be.  We’re that close, folks.

The pendulum is swinging back, and will swing back with a vengeance.  We really have reached Peak Woke or Peak Clown World (honk honk!) and it’s here.  I’ll see the start of The Change, but likely won’t live to see the next Golden Age.

That’s okay.  I know it will be back, and I know this – there will be free men living on this world as long as there are men living on this world.  There are ups and downs, but nothing is finished, this isn’t over.

We will win because we are strong.  And we will win because for thousands of years we’ve been winning, and that won’t stop anytime soon, no matter how dark it looks outside right now.

Enjoy your day.  It’s dark out, but the ending to this story will be glorious.

Opinions. A Small Book Review. Bad Jokes.

“That’s right. And if I think that Kirk is a Denebian slime devil, well, that’s my opinion, too.” – Star Trek, TOS

I’ve found that telling pizza jokes is all in the delivery.

Opinions.

Marcus Aurelius (dead stoic guy with a crappy son) said, “It never ceases to amaze me: we love ourselves more than we love other people, yet care more about their opinion than our own.”

I was talking with a friend about opinions today. Which opinions matter?

Well, if a toddler had an opinion, I’d generally disregard it because, like Joe Biden, they poop themselves and can barely string a coherent sentence together, even if you spot them a verb.

Toddler opinions generally don’t matter to me. And I never feel bad making fun of toddlers because, just like students in Baltimore government schools, toddlers can’t read.

Are chubby babies heavy infantry?

Okay, toddlers are out. Not that toddlers are always wrong, even they can see that I’m bald, for instance. Bald, however, is not an opinion. But try explaining that to a toddler, those drooling idiots with their Cheerio® encrusted fingers.

When I hear an opinion, I generally don’t accept it at face value. I try to filter it.

First, does it matter? Most people have opinions about most things. And most of those opinions don’t matter, really, to anyone. I don’t care about what anyone’s favorite color is. When The Mrs. wanted to paint my study, I didn’t really care about what color The Mrs. picked, as long as it’s not purple – I hate purple more than blue and red combined.

I don’t, however, let The Mrs. pick my cigars. My opinion on them matters, really, only to me and the company that I buy them from. I mean, when I looked up “how to light a cigar” on a search engine, I got 70 million matches. I might be interested in your opinion on good cigars, and might even try one, but it won’t change my world.

Can a cigar box? No, but a tin can.

The second filter is whether I can do anything about the opinion. If it passes the first filter, of “it matters” then I ask if I can do anything about it. This is a bigger question – I do have opinions on things I can’t do anything about. But as I go through life, I’m finding that often I have the ability to do things I never thought possible, like live in a country at the edge of civil and nuclear war with a president that has a dementia patient meth addicted son. So, there’s that.

I often find that, when I really try, that things I thought impossible were, in reality, really not that hard if I put my mind to it and dedicate myself to them. Of course, to really dedicate myself, then I face the risk of failure. Failing is tough, but it’s worth it on something that really matters.

I wonder why Ma Wilder always said “Embrace failure,” when she gave me hugs.

So those are the two big filters on whether an opinion matters to me.

The other opinions are opinions about me. I’d like to say that the opinions of people about me don’t matter, but I’d be a liar. I actually enjoy it when I troll people Leftists on X™ and they start frothing at the mouth. I guess you could call X© my troll booth.

I keep seeing Cthulhu memes, but I’m disappointed because all I ever see are the Old Ones.

But when people I respect share that opinion, well, I listen. And I run it through the filters.

This was a short one, and it’s also time to mention I just finished reading Hans Schantz’s latest book, The Wise of Heart. Full disclosure, I did get a review copy. I enjoyed it, as I have the other works of Mr. Schantz – especially the first book of his trilogy, The Hidden Truth.

This particular book was fully funded on Kickstarter®. When Kickstarter™ found out that it was a take on Leftist sex politics that didn’t follow the Leftist line, they kicked Hans off. He was fully funded (and then some) on FundMyComic©. Reminder – the people who run most tech companies hate you. Anyway, if you want, you can buy it at Amazon© (LINK) or other places. I get no compensation either way.

Like I said, I enjoyed it. But that’s my opinion.

14 Signs Of An Unfree Country

“Keep working on the window if we’re ever going to regain our freedom.” – Star Trek TOS

The homeless voted for Obama.  They heard he’d bring change.

I hadn’t heard of Benjamin Carlson until today.  I had another post that I was planning on doing, but when the perfect content presents itself I become as flexible as a Romanian Olympic® gymnast whose parents are watching from the GULAG breakroom.

Carlson wrote about his time living in China as a journalist.  The title for his X® thread is, “What can an unfree society teach you about freedom?”  In it there are 14 lessons that he learned in China.  He’s now warning us about them, for, I guess, reasons.

All the bolded bits are Mr. Carlson’s words.  The other bits are mine, since I want to give Mr. Carlson credit, but don’t want anyone to think he endorses any of my interpretations, opinions, or bad jokes.

  1. People will adapt to oppression sooner than they will rebel.

That is true of a compliant people.  The makeup of heritage Americans is anything but compliant – to come across an ocean to hack a life from trackless wilderness is mostly the opposite of compliant.  Different people came here for different reasons, but the big takeaway is a lot of us have oppositional defiant disorder, but the good kind.

But that doesn’t get them into Congress (except for a handful) and it doesn’t get people invited into fancy parties and offered media access.  But still, many people reject petty oppression, and are willing to stand up against it.  New Mexico’s recent utter rejection of a wine-aunt governor blatantly violating all the Constitutions she said she’d uphold made me smile.

I have a guess that at least part of the desire to import the unending hordes of illegal aliens at a breakneck pace is related to the desire to have a much more compliant people – people who come here for the give-me-that’s and whose idea of America has nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with a parasitical relationship where they benefit.  They’re used to oppression and okay with it, they just want to be comfortable.

What’s ET short for?  So he can fit in the spaceship.

  1. The most effective censorship is first legal, then social, then internal.

Legal censorship is difficult in the United States, though the government has several cases against Trump that rely on him having opinions they find “problematic”.  Social censorship means that certain ideas can’t really be expressed.  Ever wonder why the comment section of the online newspapers mostly disappeared?  The last thing they want is people realizing they’re not alone.  This causes social censorship to fail.  At least among people who can read.

Lastly is internal censorship, when the Truth is so obvious that everyone sees it, yet everyone is afraid to say anything.  Not that I’d mention an election or anything . . . .

  1. A repressive system makes selfish behavior rational.

Look at the looting that is pervasive across Leftist cities.  Why?  Because laws are only to be enforced against people on the Right.  Therefore?  Free Air Jordans™.

I heard he was going to take another stab at marriage.

  1. Ruining 1 person who threatens the regime sends a message that will be heard by 10,000.

People broke stuff on January 6, and some used violence.  But the vast majority were just dudes walking around the Capitol Building.  Yet the harshest penalties are being used against them, including inhumane conditions in prison.

Why?  See point 4. above.

  1. If you can limit the words people use, you can limit the thoughts they think.

Why do you think they demand that calling someone an illegal alien be banned?  Why do you think they want to call a baby a fetus?  Why do you think they want to call anything “gender affirming” care?

They want to change the dialogue, and that means making the words you use socially unacceptable.  This is never ending, and will continue until the word “bad” is replaced by “double-plus-ungood”.

What is the most macho musical instrument?  The MANdolin.

  1. Even decent people will choose to be blind if seeing injustice would hurt their interests.

Why do most cops go-along to get-along?  Yeah, this, but it’s not just cops – any location where people close ranks to avoid scrutiny is suspect.  What happens when the entire country looks that way because there are people you can’t criticize?

  1. If the government lies, many will still accept it as true because of the authority of the office.

This is becoming less true in the United States – look at the pushback on COVID.  I think the trust level has dropped.  Yet, still, 20%-40% of the citizens of the country will believe whatever they’re told by Joe Biden and Stephen Colbert.

  1. Destroying a people’s cultural & religious identity, severing them from their history, punishing their defenders, and making them ashamed of who they are, is a brutally effective way to annihilate a threat.

When Thomas Jefferson’s statue is removed by New York City, and they’re thinking of bringing down all of the George Washington statues and the people who founded the United States are being vilified?  Yeah.  It’s already in full swing

  1. The goal of an unfree system is to protect itself by transferring your distrust of the state to fellow citizens.

According to the Left, Catholics and “White Supremacist” groups are the greatest threats to the United States, despite being responsible for fewer deaths than a Chicago Labor Day weekend.

If only they would have played the national anthem, everyone at the BLM® riots would have sat down.

  1. In an unfree society, the wealth and privileges amassed by politicians become state secrets.

Elizabeth Warren makes $174,000 a year, but her total earnings were $1.36 million last year.  Bill Clinton was broke in 2000, but has at least $90 million today, excluding his Foundation.  Why don’t people know this or care?

  1. If the government shows it has your interest at heart, many are happy to trade freedoms for it.

I’m sure everyone can give plenty of examples.  One lesson I learned is that when people want to give you something, that’s generally because they want something in return.  To be clear, this doesn’t always have to be manipulative, since if after I feed Pugsley, I typically want him to take the trash out after I remind him three times to do it.  I think the three times is just because he wants me to feel like I’m part of the process.

When the government gives, it wants control.

  1. Corruption corrupts everything.

If 10% for the Big Guy is the norm, why shouldn’t everyone take a cut?  Corruption corrupts, and it takes time and relentless effort to root it out.

  1. Even politicians who fight like dogs will protect one another against the people.

The Clintons and Obamas sure look cozy with the Bush family.

My doctor told me I had a healthy prostate.  I was deeply touched.

  1. History must continually be rewritten to serve the purposes of the present.

I’ve touched on this on countless posts and touched on this above.  The history has to be changed from the glorious story of a proud people taming a continent.  The truth has to be replaced with a cursed and infected lie so that the political needs of the Left can be met.  It has to be universal – on television, movies, the Internet, YouTube®, and anywhere people go.

Orwell saw many of these and they’re in his books, 1984 and Animal Farm.  Carlson, I’m sure, has read these and also experienced them.

Just like we are beginning to experience them now.

I could have written much more, but I think I’ll leave it up to you to add in comments about Mr. Carlson’s points.  The good news is you don’t have to be a gymnast to appreciate it.  Besides, I’ve heard that the Eastern Europeans are now into Olympic® boating events.  I guess they’re in row-mania.

The Invisible Recession

“1000 points of light . . . recession bad, recovery good . . . I think I’ve got that.” – The Naked Gun 2 ½:  The Smell of Fear

If Dodge® makes an electric car, will they sell Dodge© Chargers™?

Inflation has really started to bite here in Modern Mayberry.  I’m not sure about the Big Cities, but I’ve begun to notice it around here.  Today at lunch I made a trip to McDonald’s®.  It’s rare, most of the time (if I eat lunch at all) I eat at home.  It’s more convenient, and I really, really hate lines, but this was a late lunch and I could drive straight to the window.  But hey, for me, it’s the McChicken®.

The prices at McDonald’s® have gotten silly.  Whereas there used to be enough value in a Big Mac™ to make one of them (occasionally) worth it, it’s just not the case nowadays.  I didn’t spend too much time pondering the price on any of the burgers, since I could get nearly a pound of steak for the price of the average burger-fries-drink combos.  But again, for me, it’s the McChicken™.

What a fun, cool, happening place, if you can get 3-for-free!

Why are people not going out?

The prices are silly.

I think (and I might be wrong) that our local McDonald’s™ just has to match the prices that are (more or less) nationally set by some sweaty accountant in Chicago wearing a Grimace™ costume and questioning the life choices that led him to have to report every day to Stacy, who is forced to wear a Hamburgler© costume.  I can’t see the labor around Modern Mayberry costing nearly as much as in a bigger city.  The food, I would imagine, costs exactly the same as in the bigger cities.

The result?  I’ve noticed that the lines are much shorter at the local fast-food restaurants, even at peak hours.  One of the regional chains hasn’t raised their prices, since all of their restaurants are just scattered around Upper Lower Midwestia and they don’t have to worry about the price of a Quarter Pounder™ in Manhattan.  Their lines are the longest in town, so I follow Yogi Berra’s advice, “Nobody goes there anymore, that place is too crowded.”

Since COVID, my favorite local restaurant has closed.  It was a bona fide restaurant, great service, great food.  Supply chain issues coupled with labor oddities and lower business slowly torpedoed them.  They liquidated before they lost a lot of money – they saw what was coming and wanted to go out on their terms.

I’ve been told that McDonald’s™ was sued once for bugs in their food.  They won the case – no one on the jury believed they used any natural ingredients.

And our world got a little bit smaller, so we now have dinner somewhere else.  It’s cheaper, but I notice that both of the places that we normally go aren’t very busy anymore.  And the waitresses that work there aren’t changing jobs anymore – the good ones are keeping their jobs now.  Something tells me they’re a little harder to get now.

So, if you’re counting restaurants and the people who work there (and those that used to own them) Modern Mayberry definitely has fewer restaurants.  The revenue in the town might be the same, but there are (my guess) 20% fewer customers.

This is the invisible recession.

I always carry some McDonald’s® fries when I walk the dogs in winter.  Fries go great with chilly dogs.

It’s invisible because I’d imagine that, even though McDonald’s® is (visually) selling less McFood©, they’re charging more.  So, higher prices times lower volume is probably about even.  But the value created to the consumer is far, far less even though revenues might be neutral.  Unless you count eating healthier food than McDonald’s™ makes as value.  Heck, Ronald has killed more people than Pennywise.

I suspect this is going on everywhere.  Wages are certainly not keeping up with daily expenses, and those who are less fortunate haven’t had raises that have kept up with inflation.  And why should employers pay more?  In a recent month, a net 1.2 million jobs were “created” but 600,000 Americans lost their jobs.  They were replaced by immigrants (illegal or legal).

Thankfully, corporate profits were saved!

It’s better than when he ran the farm using Artificial Intelligence and had to reboot it all before the power outage – AI, AI, Oh.

Interest rates are up, and I expect they will continue to go up because there is no semblance of any fiscal adulthood in Washington, D.C. on either side of the ball.  The Democrat mantra of “spend more” is always followed by the Republican response of, “Well, okay, but not quite that much” as the dance of the destruction of the currency continues.

I hope I’m wrong, but this is based on the bet that politicians will continue to be weak and craven, and that 2024 is an election year.  What do politicians like during an election year?  A good economy with low inflation.  Failing that, politicians like distractions and spreading money out like AOC on a Saturday night.  If you can’t make a good economy, fake one.

More money floating around means . . . more inflation.  But if wages aren’t going up because there’s a massive influx of illegals?

Just more misery, especially for those at the lower end of the pay scale.  All of the typical Leftist voting blocks will be rewarded, of course.  The standard Leftie professor at the average Leftie college (but I mostly repeat myself) will get raises because the Left takes care of itself and funds itself.  The Left believes in the state and uses it as a propaganda and funding arm.  Why do drama programs get special federal funds?

Because they vote Left.

I guess the finale was shot before a live audience.

But real Americans that aren’t tied into the ecosystem of government gimmes are seeing their difficulties multiply.  Me?  I’ll still mainly skip McDonald’s© and save a few bucks and have more steaks and fewer fries.  But the invisible recession is already here, at least in Modern Mayberry.

But, hey, for me?  It’s the McChicken™.

Mechanisms of Control: Information

“He who controls information controls the world.” – Babylon 5

I was trying to finish a puzzle.  I asked The Mrs., “Can you help me finish this one?  It’s supposed to be a bird.”  The Mrs.:  “Put the Froot Loops back in the box, John.”

Last Wednesday I wanted to write about the mechanisms of financial control.  Of course, there’s always more to write – that post was less than 2,000 words, but if I took the time I could probably write another 20,000 or 80,000 words.

It’s the same with this post.  Even beyond propaganda, a big part of the game is information control.  What information do we get, and where does it come from?

For quite a long time (I haven’t put any effort into going back in time, but it’s been here a while) the control of information has been used to actually create the news that Mainstream Media® uses.  Sure, an earthquake is true and fair news.  But 90% of the news that we are presented with in any given day isn’t news.  Just like “processed cheese spread” or “buttery sauce” don’t contain anything resembling actual cheese or butter, most of the news we have is “manufactured news product” and doesn’t contain much news at all.

Have you heard of Karl’s sister, Onya?  She invented the starter pistol.

A perfect example is George Floyd.  He was a felon and junkie who died of an overdose.  He wasn’t choked.  George Floyd died because he had enough fentanyl in his system to kill Ecuador.  The “news” created by his death was used and amplified for a purpose.  In a normal world, Floyd’s death would have been ignored because “junkie dies of overdose” is another name for “Tuesday”.

Likewise, any sort of violence perpetrated by a white guy against (generally) black people is amplified, often to a national level.  But the reverse?  It’s suppressed and ignored to the point where black people think (really!) that they are the ones who are the victims, despite the fact that in 2021, 87% of violent crimes between black and whites were committed by blacks on whites.

But if black people watch TV or read the media, they’d be shocked and think that white people were the ones hurting blacks, and not the other way around.  Why?  The story that they’re selling is that white people are awful, and they’re willing to bend the language on a whim to make it so.

I bet they ADL® really hates pandas.  They’re black, white, and Asian.

Racism used to mean that someone felt a race was superior.  Now?  According to the (rapidly disintegrating) ADL® it’s an explanation of why white people are bad and can never be not-bad no matter what they do.

My thought is that the Floyd death was amplified to put out a trap for Trump.  Trump’s media coverage was uniquely and pervasively negative for a president.  Remember when it was national news that Trump got an extra scoop of ice cream?  Pepperidge Farms® remembers.  And I do, too.  Anything, and I mean anything Trump did became the big complaint of the media.

The Mainstream Media® always has an agenda.  But who feeds them news?  The Left.  The organizations on the Left are the primary news sources.  Like scriptwriters on Disney® movies, they create news stories that meet what they need for their organization’s goals regardless of reality.  Also, like scriptwriters, people doing the news don’t really have any need for the Truth if it gets in the way of what they want you to think.

Other things are not very truthful, either.  Global Warming® is one of the stories I just can’t escape when I watch the news.  But how have they twisted the truth in . . . the weather?  Here’s an example:

I enjoyed all four seasons of that weather show on Netflix®.

I’ve seen others.  In the span of only ten years, those that want to sell fear to bring viewers have taken the same temperatures and cloaked them in a dangerous red color.  Is it hot in summer?  Yes!  And that’s why the stories about Global Warming Climate Change™ all show up then.  And they will every summer, even if it gets colder.

So, news is created by Leftist organizations, which include:

  • The Media (including entertainment),
  • Most of the Fortune® 500,
  • Most Schools,
  • The ADL®,
  • The SPLC,
  • Most Colleges,
  • Military General Officer Corps,
  • Most Religions, and
  • Almost Every Government Agency.

These organizations pump out press releases daily which feed the news cycle.  Who fact checks them?  Why, a compliant media!  Snopes® is run by Leftists, and expecting the Washington Post® to correctly fact check Joe Biden?  You’d have better luck pulling out your teeth and leaving them under your pillow for the ADL® to bring you a shiny new quarter.

I’m a racist.  I just hate the 440-yard dash.  Too long for a sprint, too short for distance.  And turning it into the 400 meters didn’t help.

This news is then pumped into the heads of Leftists, nonstop.  Places like Google® and Facebook™ and YouTube© where alternative viewpoints aren’t allowed.  Think that the Vaxx® was a big mistake?  YouTube™ is still censoring that one.

Leftists, for the most part, I’m not concerned with.  If they ever stumble upon these posts, they won’t be able to read them.  They may be smelly virgins without a hope of ever having babies, but they’re not illiterate.  If I say the sky is blue, they’ll immediately ask for a source because the Right to them is worse than Satan.

When no one laughed at Neil Armstrong’s Moon landing jokes, he’d just say, “Well, I guess you had to be there.”

They don’t want to think, in fact can’t think, about some of the concepts that I write about here because their amygdala will stop them from listening.  Literally, a Leftist can’t read one of my typical posts without getting so angry that they can’t read it.

No, I write for the Right, and I write for the middle.  The Right is self-explanatory, since I’m on the Right.  The Middle have been the people the Left is targeting.  I’m sure that they believe that they can convince the Middle if they deprive them of any other viewpoint.

The Left is excellent at that.  They want to tighten down Twitter, er, X®, Facebook™, Instasnap©, MySpace©, and any other place that the Right can disagree with the Leftist narrative.  Wonder why the newspapers eliminated the comments sections?  The Right was (and is!) amazing at getting points out that countered the information goals of the Left.

Quite simply, from their standpoint, that had to be stopped.

AOC had to write an essay in college about genocides.  Took her a long time to decide if she was for or against them.

Again, remember that the “news” you get from the Mainstream Media™ is simply not news, but a product, like “buttery spread”.  It isn’t news.  Have some fun with it – count the number of stories in a day that you come across, and see how the Left is trying to manipulate you.

When you see it, you’re free to make your own opinions.  And free to wake others up.