Category: Complacency

When Times Are Tough, First, Sharpen The Saw

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

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

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

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

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

Talk about a one-trick pony.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next level of control is to rest.

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

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

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

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

The third thing I like to control is chaos.

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

Make lists? How does that help?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally? I pray.

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

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

Prayer brings me peace.

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

How Single Suburban Soccer Moms Are Killing The Country

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Single Suburban Soccer Moms have such high double standards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, and I forgot:  always pass the buck.

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

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

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

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

Perhaps, though, there is an alternative?

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

Mothers Engaged Against Tyrant Politicians Exploiting Everyone (MEATPEE)

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

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

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

Bikini Economics And The Money Supply

“What do you know about gold, Moneypenny?” – Goldfinger

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

On April 5, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order that made the owning of more than trivial amounts of gold by individuals illegal. Owning gold wouldn’t be legal again until Gerald Ford signed a bill into law that reversed that abomination of a policy.

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

In 1933, the price of gold was fixed: $20.67 per ounce. It didn’t vary, because the value of the dollar was pegged to the price of gold. The Fed© couldn’t print dollars unless they had at least 40% of that value in gold to back it up.

Pro tip: If you have a balloon elephant that won’t fit in your backseat, you can always pop the trunk.

What did the government then do?

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

The penalty for “hoarding” gold was a big one: a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years in the slammer. I guess the government didn’t (and doesn’t) like competition when it comes to stealing.

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

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

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

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

But that isn’t enough to feed the beast.

The (metaphorical) printing presses have been shoveling money into the economy under the mistaken assumption that all we need is additional debt to keep the engine going. It’s like a demented congressman who doesn’t understand engines deciding to open up the hood of an F-150® to just pour gasoline on it using the dim understanding of a toddler that, “gasoline makes engines go, so if I pour enough gasoline on the engine, it will be as fast as a spaceship.”

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

I swear, AOC couldn’t spell “cat” if you spotted her the “C” and the “T”.

See, economics can be interesting!

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

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

And people are happy. “Hey, I sold Ma’s old house after she passed away for twice what she paid for it in 2000! I made out like a bandit.”

It’s not all bad. Thankfully, the velocity of money is down.

What’s the velocity of money?

That’s how fast a dollar gets spent. Poor people move money the fastest – a dollar comes in and, poof, out it goes again. They have to spend it because they don’t have any spare money. They get paid on Friday and on Saturday it’s turned into rent payments and insurance payments and Cheetos® from Target™.

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

But the velocity of money is now slower than Joe Biden when he’s asked difficult questions, like, “What is the year, Joe? Hey, we’re talking to you. Dammit, he’s gone catatonic again. Someone get those squeaky toys he likes. And keep Kamala out of the vodka.”

Things would be far worse if the velocity of money hadn’t dropped so far that it was moving as slow as Oprah trying to get off of a couch. Since poor people slosh it around so much, that means it’s exactly where the Fed® put it: with the rich people.

So, if the money supply has gone vertical, then why hasn’t the price of everything doubled?

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

I’m not against capitalism – but this isn’t capitalism. It’s a rigged card game where your money evaporates – first slowly, and then all at once.

The engine of debt isn’t driving economic growth anymore. What the debt is doing is papering over the holes in the system so that it keeps going another week, another month, and hopefully another year.

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

Why did Princess Diana cross the road? Inertia.

The economy has inertia, though. Even though it’s working on the most significant collapse in the history of the United States, people still believe. They take dollars because they believe. They believe the rules aren’t going to change.

They will.

Since we’ve seen this game before – we can take at least some steps to protect ourselves. I suppose it’s time to buy PEZ® before the rush . . . .

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

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

I love really large clocks.  Big time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Front Matter

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

The Enemy Is You

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

  • Opposition to COVID Measures.

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

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

The second point was this:

  • Claims of Election Fraud, Belief Trump can be Reinstated

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

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

Yeah.  Still no explanation for that one.

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

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

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

Violence And Censorship Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, shut down.

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

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

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

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

Feels like the fix is in . . .

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

Hundreds of men protest for freedom?

Silence.

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

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

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

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

Political Instability:

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

Economic:

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

Illegal Aliens:

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

A Long Way Down

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

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

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

What could go wrong?

The entire thing, really.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LINKS

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

Film At Eleven

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Coming In Hot – Brace For Impact

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Woke World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Miscellaneous Mayhem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

The S-word

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

The Fall Of Freedom In Australia In 16 Memes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does that mean?

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

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

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

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

No, a real plan:

Yup, that’s closer.

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

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

What did they do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Australians are still free, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What luck!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I only make AOC jokes Ocasio-nally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We knew COVID was dangerous right off the bat.

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

Taiwan gets in trouble because it has a Taipei personality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t cry for the civilization we lost.

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

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

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

Fear: Don’t.

“The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.” – Star Wars™

It’s hard not to stop and stair when you’re on an escalator.

On most Fridays, I try to get away from the heavy topics – the ‘Rona and Afghanistan will be there next week.  And, probably the week after.  And the week after.  I believe we are in now week 70 of “two weeks to stop the spread.”

There is probably more similarity to both of these failures than most might imagine, but that’s probably fodder for another post.  That would make a good topic for a Monday.  We’ll save the coming economic collapse for Wednesday.  By Friday, though, I’m getting ready for the weekend and figuring out ways to best spend time with family.

I do have an issue, though:

One particular problem I have is, well, I think.  Give me a potshard and I’ll try to reconstruct the political and economic history of the Mayan civilization that created it.  When I find out it was from a $1.99 plate from Wal-Mart that broke when Pugsley was experimenting with motor oil, aluminum foil, and topsoil in the microwave, I can just start on a new theory.

“I wonder how the Mayans got aluminum foil?”

Back in 2012 people were making Mayan jokes like it was the end of the world.

Part of thinking is that I often think about things that can go wrong.  I have accurately predicted four of the last two recessions.  I know where my house sits relative to former ash deposition related to the past eruptions of the Yellowstone supervolcano.  I have a (fairly) accurate caloric inventory of the food I have stored “just in case.”

Thinking is not quite a superpower, but it’s close.

One of my friends says he has the superpower to talk to dead people.  It would be amazing, but they can’t talk back.

But it doesn’t help me sleep at night.  It’s like looking up the disease that you might have on the Internet when you have three symptoms.  “Hmm, it could be the common cold, or it could be a rare form of Dengue fever that would cause my bones to rubberize and my intestines to liquify.  Heck, then I’d be spineless and gutless, just like Joe Biden.”  Then I’d worry.

So, I don’t look up symptoms anymore.

The ability to predict bad things is important.  It is something that’s so hardwired into all living things that even the lowly slime mold reacts to predictably changing conditions by anticipating them.  If only Joe Biden could do that!

Lately, though, I’ve been a bit concerned when I make my rounds on the ‘net that there seems to be a consensus that something is now really, really wrong.  Again, I generally predict that things will be much worse than they end up being, and therefore I am happily surprised when things turn out much better than I expected.

This is normally the case.  My bones have yet to turn into a gelatinous mess.

Looking on just the bad things that can happen is limiting.  It’s no way to live a life.  It’s a weakness.

If you lose a Dalmatian puppy, don’t worry.  They’ll always be spotted.

My solution?

I’ve learned how to turn it off.  To just stop worrying about everything.  Sure, I can see horrible things that might happen.  In reality, seeing more of the downside than of the upside has probably cost me an opportunity or two.

That’s okay.  I’ve avoided enough bad things that I think they balance out, at least so far.

One of the things I noticed from Pa Wilder as he got older was that he got more afraid as he aged.  He had seen more of the world.  He had seen things that could go wrong.  Often, years will do that to you.  Even though I’d never seen him wanting, he could see many different ways things could get tough.

I’m not sure that it impacted the quality of his life, but I decided that I’d take a different route.  I could live with a lot of things, but I decided that fear wouldn’t be one of them.

So, what did I do?

I decided that, whenever possible, I would face my fear, head on.  Okay, that’s easier said than done if I have a fear of walking into traffic.  But when I developed a fear, I decided to not let it sit (G. Gordon Liddy Post).

Fear debilitates.  It creates a barrier to rational action.  Fear is one of the ultimate enemies because it leads to despair.  When we look at the biggest tool used to turn good men bad, it’s generally this one:

Fear.

And if a giant trips on a volcano, does he Krakatoa?

If we look at the way fear of the ‘Rona has been used in the last year, it has been masterful.  Create pictures of people dropping dead on the street in China.  Use fear to create a fear of gatherings, to create a fear of the most basic of human interactions.

As a society it’s almost like we’ve become addicted to that fear.  We have the choice to not let it win.

We head together into an uncertain future.  Many of the news stories that I read don’t give me hope that much of what we have become used to will long hold together.

That’s okay.  In some cases that will be good.  In others, well, not so good.

Much of the future is beyond our ability to project.  As Pa Wilder would have said, “Don’t pay interest on money you haven’t borrowed.”  Our future is not set, so spending our lives worrying about it gives us nothing.

What is the proper way to recognize someone who stopped bleeding?  “Coagulations!”

Certainly, we should think.  Absolutely we should prepare.  But do it without fear.  When you’re afraid, face that fear.

It’s a lot more fun that way.

And, it’s Friday.  Have a good time this weekend.

Efficiency: Not Always Our Friend

“Practical, Captain? Perhaps. But not desirable. Computers make excellent and efficient servants; but I have no wish to serve under them. Captain, a starship also runs on loyalty to one man, and nothing can replace it, or him.” – Star Trek (TOS)

I’d tell you a German knock-knock joke but they already have AI-enabled sensing that lets them know who it is.

Let’s pretend that you had to break a big rock.  A really big one, say the size of your mother-in-law’s butt.

Okay, that’s a big ask.  The last time I had to break a big rock that big was . . . never.  That’s a big rock.

Big rocks, mothers-in-law?  You’re thinking, have you had too much ale, John Wilder?  Bear with me, this will make as much sense as Joe Biden’s economic policies.

So, we’re back to breaking a stupid rock in our mind because John Wilder asked us to.  What’s the most direct way to do it?

What does a member of the Southern Buddhist Church say when they die?  “What in the reintarnation is going on here?”

You might think you could use a sledgehammer, but not so fast, Thor.  That’s not the most direct way, and Disney® will probably sue me for mentioning Thor because they now have the intellectual property rights on all things Norse.   Ignore Disney®, since they don’t have (yet) a copyright on hammers.  But I don’t want to give them ideas, because soon enough they’ll have a copyright on interstellar space.

To have a steel hammer, you’d have to make one.  That would involve having a mine for iron ore.  Then the ore would have to be processed into steel.  After you figured out how to do that, you’d have to forge the head of the hammer (it has to be strong, right?).

Even then you’re not done.  You have to find a tree, get some wood suitable for a handle, invent an entire industry to just get the knife to carve the handle, and finally mate the handle to the hammer head.

Nope.  A hammer isn’t that direct. To have a hammer, you have to have a functioning civilization.

Thor’s enemies never get drunk:  they just get hammered.

For the most direct way, you’d have to grab a stone or something hard nearby and just start thwacking the rock.

That’s not very efficient.

A hammer is more efficient.  But how about you build a piece of high-strength steel to use as a drill?  That’s faster.  But the drill requires advances in metallurgy even greater than the hammer head.

Okay, what’s the most efficient way to break rock?

How about you blow it up?

Note to the ATF, this is economics, not a suggestion.

That’s a really good way to make a big rock a bunch of tiny rocks, quickly.  But in addition to making your hammer and drill, you have to also create an entire industry dedicated to making explosives.

This points out a lesson from the (dead) Austrian economics dude, Ludwig Von Mises:  the most efficient way to do something is the most indirect.

To break a rock more efficiently, you have to look for increasingly more indirect methods.  That requires time.  It requires effort.  And, it requires resources that might be hundreds of miles (around 7 kilometers) away.

We have a really efficient society.  We can have fresh strawberries delivered to us (cheaply) in January because they grow them in Peru or some other country that rarely visits here.  We can have fresh roses for Valentine’s Day® because we have airplanes that deliver them directly from the cocaine fields.  Or something like that.  I’m not a botanist.

Efficient is better, right?

Well, no.  I’d like to put forward as Wilder’s Exhibit A the human body.  Nobody needs two kidneys, at least that’s what the girl in the motel in Vegas told me before I woke up in the bathtub.  Yet we have (on average) two.  We have two lungs.  Everywhere that having a spare part might make it easier for you to pass along your genetic information, the parts are paired.  I’ll leave the other locations of other paired organs as an exercise for the reader.  I mean, everyone has six toes on their left foot, right?

Wow.  Looks like Chee-toes® instead of actual toes.

Not everything is paired.  We each have (on average) one brain, though I think my ex-wife had six or so brains, one for each personality and species of venomous snake that she would normally impersonate.

But that single brain is armored as well as it could be.  Likewise, physics says that having two hearts works as well as having a man living with two women living under the same roof.  Thankfully, we have a solution that’s the next best thing – death.

Two eyes.  Two ears.  I could go on and on.  It appears that humans are designed based on the philosophy that “two is one, and one is none.”  Huh.

Efficient designs are vulnerable.

From experience, I can say that any business that has any spare capacity will do anything to use that capacity.  Wall Street doesn’t want 90% utilization – Wall Street wants 99%.  They want . . . efficiency.  They don’t want profits for the next decade, they want profits this year.

Just like I have two lungs, I’ll say this again:  Efficient designs are vulnerable.

How many of the semiconductor chips in your life came from Taiwan?

A lot.  Here’s what the Financial Times noted:

“Yes, the industry is incredibly dependent on TSMC, especially as you get to the bleeding edge, and it is quite risky,” says Peter Hanbury, a partner at Bain & Company in San Francisco. “Twenty years ago there were 20 foundries, and now the most cutting-edge stuff is sitting on a single campus in Taiwan.”

So, most of the best information and knowledge in making computer chips that define the very essence of your life are built at one factory in a country that the Chinese now know that Joe Biden will defend with all of the force of . . . a strongly worded speech.

The Chinese word for Asia is the same as their word for Taiwan:  China.

It’s efficient.

I can’t help wondering how many of the current shortages of “stuff” that we’re seeing is just China messing with us.  “Hey, if we turn this lever, what happens to the United States?  Oh, man, that was funny.  Did you expect to see used car prices go up?  And those pickles and baking soda?  That was a hoot.”

Outsourcing and internationalizing is efficient.  Having no surplus production stored in warehouses is efficient.  Having no redundant capacity is efficient.

When efficiency works, it means everyone has more stuff.  The factories are working at 100%.  The people are consoooming apps and video games and pantyhose and PEZ®.

Did I mention that efficiency is vulnerable?

What happens when an efficient process gets disrupted?

Shortages.  Price increases.  Business failures.  Revolutions.

Maybe the question that we should ask is what can we do to make life less efficient?

I guess I have stock-home syndrome.

More efficiency means empty warehouses.  Do you have food storage?  Do you have ammo storage?  What happens if you lose the grid for an hour?  A week?  A month?

What happens if you lose the efficiency of modern life for a day?  For a week?  For a month?

What happens if you lose it for the rest of your life?

What happens if you have to live a life that’s less efficient?

I guess there are always more rocks, right?

Remember: Your Mission Isn’t Done

“Santa Maria! Captain, you cannot punish the crew like this. They will mutiny!” – Sealab 2021

The big problem with the French Revolution is that lots of folks lost their heads.

One winter, while hunting elk up on Wilder Mountain, we had, well, an issue.  We were about fifteen or twenty miles in from the nearest pavement, and headed home.

It was overcast.  It was lazily spitting snow, with a breeze that was slowly picking up.  Looking to the west, where there should be a resplendent sunset, the sky was dark, heavy, and pendulous with brooding storm clouds that blotted out even a hint of the winter Sun.

That was when the problem hit.  Pa Wilder, while driving over a “road” that was little more than a common path cut by four-wheel-drive vehicles over the course of decades of hunting and firewood gathering, drove over a small branch that had fallen in the road.  Not a problem, right?

Well, it was a problem.  In this case, the branch had the stem of a broken off limb, sticking straight up.  Pa drove the GMC Jimmy® right over that sharp shard of limb.

In the span of a dozen or so feet, we had lost not one, but two tires.  It penetrated the center of each tire, poking a hole the size of a half-dollar coin in each.

Amazingly, we had lost another tire already that day, already.

Ahhh, I remember this trip.  Those were the Goodyears®.

We now had a four-wheel drive with five tires and three flats.  In winter.  As a blizzard approached and night was setting in.  And all of this was in country where it could easily hit -40°F as night descended.

I bring this up to say that we had a mission.  Our mission at that point in time was to get home.  There were several challenges, and I’m pretty sure if most people were in the backcountry as a blizzard was descending that the last person they would choose would be a 12-year-old boy to be a guy on the team.

Which is sad.

Children can have missions.  Children can face danger.  Children can do important things.  We forget that because we’re in a society that doesn’t give children important things to do, mostly.  Midshipmen in the Royal Navy were as young as 14.

I hear the Russians just canceled their Penguin Army program.  Now all they have left is Navy Seals.

To be clear:  Midshipmen in the Royal Navy were 14.  A midshipman is an officer.  If you were unaware, the Royal Navy wasn’t a social club, and often those boys fought in wars.  As officers.

So we forgot that boys can be given real, substantial responsibility.  But there’s also the chance that we forget something else:  that each of us is on a mission.  And each of us has a role to play.

We currently are in a place where freedom is an increasingly precious and rare commodity.  It’s not just in the United States – Trump may have said, “Make America Great Again” but down under they seem to be following the “Make Australia A Prison Again” plan.  And Canada?

I love our Canadabros that come by regularly (Canada is the second-largest readership here), but Canada seems to be determined to become the Soviet Above the 49th Parallel, led by that Tundra Trotsky, Trudeau.

Pictured in background:  the only two Canadians Justin’s mother didn’t have sex with.

It seems like in this day and age we all have a mission.  Just like 12 isn’t too young, 80 isn’t too old.

Frankly, we need all hands on deck.  The size of the mission is the largest on the North American continent since 1774.  I almost wrote that the idea was to preserve the Constitution and the Republic.  Seriously, I’d love nothing more than to write that.

I’d love for that to happen.  I’d love for us to come together.  I’d settle for the laws to look like they did 90 years ago.  Heck, even 70 years ago.  That would be preferable to today.

A reversion, sadly, is impossible.

Whatever will come from tomorrow will not look like the past.  It may be a shadow.  The Holy Roman Emperors weren’t Roman.  And the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t the Roman Empire.

And I hear that soon enough he’ll be sending ambassadors to the Ottoman Empire, too.  Can’t you just sniff the leadership?

Or it may be something entirely different.

I think it will be entirely different.

And that’s where you come in.  Yes, you.

You have a mission to create a new nation here.  It won’t look like what we have today – it simply cannot, since we have created a situation that is at the far end of stability, but more on that Wednesday.

I assure you, you play a part.    The initial conditions of what happens are crucial to the final outcome.  If George Washington had wanted to be King?  If Thomas Jefferson had been a Martian Terminator Robot like the one that keeps triggering my motion detector lights at night even though the sheriff won’t believe me?

Things would be entirely different.

And you are important.  Your actions in the next decade are critical to the creation of what will come after.  Do we want a nation that will be based on slavery, control, and that eternal boot stamping on a human face?

I’d vote no.  If you’re a regular here, I’m betting that’s your vote, too.

I think everything he wrote was Orwellian.

If so, let me shout as loudly as I can:  You Are Not Done.  This is Not Over.  What is it that you can do to create a world where freedom beats slavery?  What can you do to create a world where children can run free from the indoctrination of an all-powerful, all-regulating state?

There’s a lot.

Our nation was, thankfully, built on the consent of the governed.  Most things that local government provides, we want.  To quote Python, Monty:

But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

To be clear:  the Federal government does very little to make anything in the list above better, and often does a lot to make them worse.  Except for the interstate highways.  Those are actually pretty cool.

But I will tell you – you are the seed of the future of this country.  You are the seed of the future of this continent.

Never cross a Scrabble® player.  They’ll send you threatening letters.

You are the seed of the future of this world.  It doesn’t matter how old you are.  The time is coming, and coming quickly where great injustices will be attempted.  And you are the seed to make what comes after better for humanity.  Would the world rather live in 1950’s America or 1930’s U.S.S.R.?

The choice is stark.

Your mission is clear.  How will you act to make your county, your state, your country one where free men can walk?

It’s up to you.

Back to the mountain.

For me, it was a game.  That’s the advantage of being 12.  Pa Wilder and my older brother (also named John due to a typographical error) and I wheeled the tires so we had two good ones in front.  We locked in the hubs on the four-wheel drive.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to drive up a mountain path in a car with only two tires in a snowstorm as it got darker every minute.  It doesn’t work very well.  The flat back wheels couldn’t push the Jimmy® up the hill.

That’s where I came in.  It was my job to take the winch cable, run up the hill, and loop the cable up the base of a tree.  Pa would then use the combination of the winch and the two front tires to pull the Jimmy© up.

Tree by tree, cable length by cable length, we worked pretty flawlessly as a team to get the Jimmy™ to the top of the hill.  Thankfully, for the most part it was downhill from there.  Although Pa was driving on the rims, we got it home.

Don’t let the jack slip on your foot when you’re changing a tire.  You might need a toe.

Was there danger?  Certainly, there always is.  We had snow, so we had water.  Ma would have called the Sheriff not too long after dusk, and even though the mountains were a labyrinth of roads, people had seen us.  We also had matches, hatchets, wool blankets, gasoline, and a mountain’s worth of firewood to keep us warm.

But we also had a mission.  Each of us served our purpose, and we got home.

Pa was a bit raw about having to buy two new rims and three new tires for a day’s worth of not seeing any elk, though.  For the record, I never saw a single elk when hunting with Pa.  I’m telling you, that man knew how to hunt.  Finding?  Sometimes I think he just wanted a good drive in the woods and hike with his boys, teaching them about living.  Teaching them about missions, and the part that they play, whether they know it or not.

In this life, we all have a mission, and we all play a part in it.  I can assure you that your part is not done, because you’re above ground, breathing, and reading this.

I hate to repeat something so trite, but in this case, it’s true:  you are not done.  This is not over.  And the whole world depends . . . on you.

It’s up to you.  You will create the future.

So, go do it.

Bread and Circuses, 2021 Version

“We soon forgot the taste of bread, the sound of wind in the trees.  We even forgot our name.” – Lord of the Rings

I promise I won’t make too many bread jokes; I’m not a gluten for punishment.

One of the reasons I keep mentioning the Roman Republic and Roman Empire is that they were an amazing civilization.  Many of the things that we take for granted as being a part of our civilization were a part of Rome 2000 or so years ago.  They invented the Slap Chop® and Sham-Wow™ even before it was cool.

I recall reading Letters from a Stoic – which were the collected letters of Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (whose wife said, when she was mad, “Lucius, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!”) to one of his friends.  I recommend it.  Some of the details Seneca mentioned in his life were stunningly similar to life today:

  • Seneca wrote about government regulations.
  • Seneca wrote about stopping overnight at a hotel.
  • And, while at that same hotel, his room looked out over the weight room where men were pumping iron and working out.
  • I’d joke that he complained about the free continental breakfast, but, hey, everyone knows you’ve got to get there early to get the good waffles.

What a Roman hotel might have looked like.

The Romans, it seems, are not so different than we are.  In some ways, their technology has outlasted time in ways that many of today’s structures won’t:

  • They had concrete that was objectively better than almost anything we could produce until the 1950s.
  • They built aqueducts that brought clean, fresh, water to hundreds of thousands. Some of these are still in use today (though some have been reconstructed).
  • Roman roads and bridges are still in use today.
  • Romans invented algebra, but, sadly, X was always equal to 10.

One of the earlier mistakes was in 140 B.C. when Rome was still a republic:  it was called the cura annonae, which was just welfare in the form of grain, or, later, bread.  Why bread?  I assume the Romans had yet to master Hot Pocket® technology.

Regardless of what you call it, it was Roman welfare.

Why?

Why do politicians create welfare?  For votes.  Duh.

Just like Goldilocks, I wondered if a food could be hot, cold, and just right at the same time.  Then I remembered Hot Pockets™ exist.

Don’t get me wrong – just like there is a proper time to have a roll of duct tape, rope, a sharp knife, and garbage bags in the trunk, there is a proper time and place to have welfare.  Sometimes people are too old, too unwell, or too mentally deficient to work.  But enough about Joe Biden.

Eventually, though, public welfare always proves to be corrosive to freedom.  It creates a class that votes for sustenance instead of working.  And since it’s a government program, the only way that it can be administered is if (eventually) everyone is caught in the snare.

So, that’s the bread.

What are the circuses?

Entertainment.  Generally, entertainment of the lowest common denominator type.  It’s an amusement for the masses.  Why focus on learning?  Why focus on things that are difficult?  Don’t study physics, it’s hard.  Study gender studies.  They have cookies after class.

I hear a chopper is the best way to get the aristocracy out of France as well as the best way to get commies out of the United States.

That’s what the circus brought to Rome.  The Roman citizens wanted action now.  They wanted the gladiators spilling blood in the Coliseum.  They wanted plays performed on the streets.  And Senators (and Senator wannabees) and Emperors alike provided games and carnivals and distractions.

Generally, what distracts and amuses one generation isn’t enough for the next, so the idea is that the amusement has to get progressively edgier – more violent.  More degenerate.  It’s all fun, right?

After the fall of the Republic and the rise of Empire, a humor author named John Wilder no, Zeus Ferocior (I expect certain people, cough, cough to fix my poor translation of John Wilder into Latin, but Zeus Ferocier just sounds so cool, as long as no one calls me Dr. Zeus), no.  The guy’s name was Decimus Junius Juvenalis, (but folks just call him Juvenal) and he made this wonderful observation:

 . . . the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.

Actually, it looks like a picture of a person drawn by someone who has never seen a person.

Think about that.  After a period of hundreds of years where civic virtue was defined by participation and improving the public welfare, civic virtue became defined by being good at getting free stuff.  Hard times, of course, caused the politicians to multiply the amount of bread and circuses given to the people.

Why?

The leaders were smart.  The easiest way to keep the citizens quiet is to keep them well-fed with glazed eyes – something people who own sheep already know.

The object was simple:  to keep the sheep citizens thinking, not of the Republic, but of themselves.  Bread and circuses wasn’t an appeal to the strongest and best parts of man, bread and circuses was an appeal to the lowest and weakest parts of man.  Rather than think of what a wonderful civilization we could create, how about we think about the greatest pleasure we could create for ourselves, right this minute?

Want to hear a sheep joke?  Stop me if you’ve herd this one . . .

COVID has been our multiplier.  It’s pushed the people to their most dependent, and pushed the bacon-wrapped-shrimp class to their most manipulative.

What is beyond the Federal government now?

  • Landlords in the several states can be forced to provide property for free. Forever, apparently.  Depravation of property without due process?  That’s rookie talk.
  • Entire economic sectors can be shut down at will. The final victory of large corporations over small owners can be enshrined forever.
  • Mandates can be issued that people can be forced to take experimental injections of a dubious nature that appear to have limited benefits and unknown side effects. Because?  Because we said so.
  • Coordinated public/private attacks on speech have become the norm. Have an unpopular idea?  Have facts that contradict the narrative?  Shhh, comrade.

So, nothing is beyond them.  Property isn’t protected.  Livelihood isn’t protected.  Bodily autonomy isn’t protected.  I’d say that Netflix® is still there to account for “the pursuit of happiness” but have you seen the shows on Netflix™ recently?

Ugh.

Momma always said life is like Netflix®.  It has a monthly price and hates you.

I guess that’s a wrap.  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are out.  Bread and circuses are in.  Give me freedom or give me Doritos® and Hulu Plus©.

The end result is a difficult one.  Collapses in liberty lead to collapses in economic systems.  And vice versa.  When the economic freedom drops out, the Doritos™ and Hulu Plus© become gruel and occasional candles at the GULAG.  If you’re lucky.

When a culture is young and vibrant, economic liberty leads to prosperity.  That freedom to create results in economic winners and losers.  Winners are rewarded, losers drop out, or join the winning team.  That’s in a free market.

Unlike real communism, real free markets have been tried.  And they’ve resulted in the greatest prosperity and freedom that the world has ever seen.

We have reached the intersection of economic system collapse, collapse in the faith of the governance structure of the nation, and collapse in our trust for each other.

I stopped burning bridges in life.  They’re made of steel now.

How long can that go on?

Well, Juvenal was writing not from the period of the Republic, but from the period of the Emperors.  As I’ve written before – the choice that will exist is far larger than the ‘Rona ever was:  the choice between dissolution of our country and a new Emperor, whatever he may be called.  Czar Wilder sounds nice, but hey, I could stand being a silly old king.

And I can assure you, that Juvenal’s observation of (panem et circensenes) bread and circuses, will be on the mind of whatever new Emperor might emerge.

It worked for the Romans for a few hundred years, after all.

I wonder who will be writing about us in 2000 years?

I hope he’s a steely-eyed blonde dude by the name of Zeus.  Or, John.