Category: George Washington

The Wilder Response To Mr. Biden

“It’s perfect. We traded one nuked civilization for another.” – Battlestar Galactica.

Bill Murray wasn’t cast as Thor by Marvel®.  They figured that no one likes an electricity Bill.

I had an utterly different post planned.  It was so funny that the laughing that it would induce would have caused your ribs to exit your body.  It was a post so funny, it was dangerous.  Comedy, as they say, is not always pretty.  I try to do those posts on Fridays.  Why?

I had a boss that gave sage advice:  never give your boss bad news on a Friday afternoon or a Monday morning.  I figure that people need a palate cleanser going into the weekend, and try to provide a bit of fun.  And this post that I had planned?  It would have been banned by the Geneva Convention as a Weapon of Mass Hilarity.

Sadly, that post might now be lost to history, since I have to replace it with this one.  Normally, my posts are created weeks in advance and focus tested against a cross-section of laboratory badgers who have no spleens.  Why no spleens?  They tell me that’s important, something about we don’t need no spleenin’ badgers.

But no, the Occupant-in-Chief decided to make the single most irresponsible statement ever made by someone who was sworn in as President since Richard Nixon said, “What’s the worst that they can do to me?”

I don’t want to be accused of taking Biden out of context (not that there’s much of a chance of that) but here’s his quote, to the most accurate degree I can find:

“Those who say the blood of patriots, you know, and all the stuff about how we’re gonna have to move against the government, if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.”

First, Biden is as articulate as a fourth-grader with fetal alcohol syndrome who’s just smoked a bowl of Hunter Biden’s crack.  And, yes, his Fraudulency has a son who smokes crack with hookers and takes videos of it.  This is a thing that really happens.  Of course, the response from the Left is to say Putin is corrupt.

Sorry.  I’ll try to stick to the topic.

Second, that’s also the same logic as a fourth-grader with an extra chromosome or three who’s just huffed a can of sparkly gold spray paint.  Abraham Lincoln made the obvious response fairly well:

“All the armies of Europe and Asia could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”

Lincoln was wrong about a lot of things.  He was right about a lot of things, too.  He is correct about this:

“As a nation of free men, we will live forever or die by suicide.”

Joe Biden could have the armies of the united States get him a drink by force from any river in this land.  But Joe Biden and all the armies of the united States couldn’t hold the length of the Missouri or the Mississippi for a single day by force.

The armies of the united States number some 1.3 million men oh, wait people oh, wait, xim/xers.  Add in the Reserves?  Let’s round WAY UP and call it three million.  Total.

There are three million males in Missouri.  I pick Missouri only because they recently decided they’re going to tell the Feds to attempt to compact a very large object into a very small space when it comes to firearm laws.

Go, Missouri.

Not all of the three million males in Missouri would be on the side of freedom, since there are always some disgusting gelatinous slugs of humanity that will side with Evil over Truth.  But there are enough.  And don’t tell me that neighboring states wouldn’t flow in.

No, Mr. Biden.  The only one who needs F-15s and nuclear weapons for control is you, you disgusting pile of fake hair, fake teeth, Alzheimer’s degraded brain, who gets his only Father’s Day card encrusted in cocaine dust and whore DNA.

The united States governs only, let me make this clear, only by consent of the governed.  As citizens, we’re generally pretty good.  But we are horrible, horrible at taking instruction from tyrants.  It’s in our DNA.

No, literally.  This is not an exaggeration.  My family line came across an ocean to tame a continent.  That was their resume.  That was their job description as they rocked back and forth on little wooden boats in the midst of Atlantic storms.  We didn’t come here because we were weak.  We came here to fight and die and bleed and make this land our own.

We came here because we were strong.

We came here because we yearned for freedom.

Mr. Biden, your butt-sniffing and shoe-licking parents and your degenerate sons and personal weaknesses are abhorrent to every fiber of my body.  Mr. Biden, you are disgusting.  Mr. Biden, your forefathers were horrible.  Mr. Biden, you and your weaknesses represent everything wrong with this country, and everything that has led to where we are today.

How dare you threaten me?

  • To threaten me is to threaten Duncan MacWilder of the Clan MacWilder, who came here before this was a country.
  • It is to threaten Hans Wilder, who came here to leave tyrants behind in Europe before World War I.
  • It is to threaten my forefathers who died hewing a civilization out of this continent with their blood and sweat and toil and dead babies so lazy writers like me could exist.

The deal we made in 1776 is the same one we have today, Bucko.  We are here because we have certain inalienable rights.

Mr. Biden, you want to threaten me with jet fighters?  Mr. Biden, you want to threaten to use nuclear weapons against your own citizens?

We didn’t come here for that.  We didn’t die here for that.  We didn’t bury our sons and daughters on dusty plains and hills and hallows across this country, building it with our blood for that.

Reparations?  We paid for that in blood in places you have long forgotten, like Manassas Junction.  Everyone I’ve ever been able to research on any part of my family has been someone who made the united States better.

Every.

Single.

One.

We taught Eisenhower (really).  We built farms.  We built bridges 150 years ago that still exist today.  We built infrastructure that serves tens of millions of people – this is not an exaggeration.  We built railroads across mountains that mountain goats couldn’t cross.  We took trains up those mountains when the snow was 20 feet deep.  With our kids.

Just for fun.

We raised and nurtured children and taught them freedom.

Our blood is in this soil.  Our children are buried here as payment from sea to sea.

My blood is in this soil.  My forefathers weren’t evil.  They were Big Damn Heroes.  Odin and Thor and Jesus would be proud of them for their courage.

Did other people build this land as well?  Sure.  But Wilder blood is spread here from the Mayflower to today.

  • I can do no less than to tell you, Mr. Biden, what Duncan MacWilder would have said:
  • I can do no less than to tell you, Mr. Biden, what Patrick Henry would have said (distant relative, according to an aunt):
  • I can do no less than to tell you, Mr. Biden, what Hans Wilder would have said:

No.

And, to mark the first time I have ever used this word on this blog?  Each and every one of them would have added:

Fuck you, Mr. Biden.

Bring your jets.  Bring your nukes.  The only way you have to dislodge us off this continent we conquered with our blood and sweat and buried kin is to kill us all.  We will never give up.  We will never surrender.  This will not die with me.  Or my children.

You will never defeat us.  Never.  Our blood is here.  Here we make our stand.  We can go to no other country for freedom.  We can go no further to a distant frontier.  Despite what you will try to do with us, despite the injustices you will visit on us, we will win.  We will mock you, and your grave will be pulled up and your bones used by our children for their amusement.

We will smile, and nod.

We did not choose this.  We do not want this.

You spiked the ball too soon.  Maybe two generations into the future, they would go gentle onto that goodnight.

Too soon, Bucko.

Fuck you.

Welcome To Being An Outsider

“Now, I didn’t start it, but be sure as Hell I mean to see it through.” – Shooter

If you boil a clown you get laughing stock.

We’re Outsiders.

Well, not all of us.  But when you look at the system, most of the people reading this post are Outsiders.

I happen to live in a place filled with Outsiders.  Here in Modern Mayberry, you’re ten a hundred times as likely to see a Gadsden flag on a flagpole as a Bernie® bumper sticker.  Besides the Bernie supporters around here have now all been kicked out by their roommates, you know, “Mom and Dad”.

That’s why it’s Modern Mayberry.

It’s not paradise.  There are some thefts.  There are some drugs of the most destructive kind.  There’s even a hipster who was an outdoorsman before it was cool – you’d call him a homeless guy.

But yet . . .

People here still remember the United States that was, or at least the United States we remembered from our dreams.  One where the Constitution was the rule.  One where the dream wasn’t one of dependence on handouts.  One where you could ignore it when the government called you at home – you could let freedom ring.

A friend of mine used his stimulus check to buy baby chickens.  Money for nothing and the chicks for free.

Tonight I drove home along Main Street, and I saw people out and about.  In one block I saw six people that I personally knew, and most of them made it off the sidewalk in time.

Yet all of us in Modern Mayberry are really Outsiders, and I think that we know that.  And I think we cherish it, just like the EpiPen® my friend gave me as he was dying – I know I’ll always cherish it.

I watch the news stories of places that seem alien to me.  I know that California in 1980 was overwhelmingly what we now call a Red state.  Now?  It’s alien even to many that were born there.

The politics that created what would have been one of the most prosperous nations in the world have given way to politics that has made California one of the most impoverished states in the United States.  I know Gavin Newsom tried to fight poverty, but he kept losing.  Homeless people can be deceptively strong when you try to wrestle them.

Sure, I’d love to have California back.  I’d love to have Disneyland® back and the American Dream Vacation™, too, with bonus points for stops at the Grand Canyon and Uncle Eddie’s place.  But the beliefs that I believe most readers here have aren’t shared by most voters in California in 2021.

There was a person who saw the California ban coming:  No-Straw-Domus.

I don’t blame the native Californians – they voted against this insanity again and again, but were overruled from activist benches.  We know what sort of trash is on the benches, but what is on the table for the United States?

  • Individual Rights – these are being replaced by group rights. Reparations for crimes committed nearly two hundred years ago?  By the descendants of people who moved here from Germany in 1880?
  • Freedom of Choice – this is being replaced by coercion, explicit and implicit. Want to do business?  You can have whatever opinion you want – as long as it’s the right one.
  • Due Process – this is being replaced by guilt by inference. Red flag laws, anyone?
  • Right to Keep and Bear Arms – this is being replaced by the right of approved people to potentially be allowed to purchase a limited number of weapons and keep them locked in a safe at home. As long as we know the weapons are kitten-safe.

Propaganda for collectivism has long been in the offing.  For all of my life the programming has been in place to change attitudes to accept this – Leftists have monopolized the major networks since I was a kid.  Society has changed in ways that promote collectivism.  People move from location to location or live in monolithic cities or sterile suburbs that actively discourage people from acting together in the spirit of real community.

What is it replaced with?  City governments.  Homeowners’ Associations. Neither of those build community – those are, in larger cities, the expression of power and control.  The Mayor of Chicago holds more power than governors of many states.  That’s not any semblance of community – when is the last time you heard of anyone holding up Chicago for the face of election fairness?

What part of the mayor of Chicago weighs the most?  The scales.

That’s the downside.  But it gets better from here.

The first part of winning as an Outsider comes from knowing that you are an Outsider.  There is power in being an outsider – it only took a dozen Outsiders to eventually change the entire Roman Empire from people who worshiped Funko Pop® figurines to Christians.  Well, a dozen people and a few years.

Ideas are powerful.

Likewise, Outsiders are powerful.  Once a person realizes that they’re an Outsider, entire routes open to them.  This is a special type of freedom:

  • Freedom from the system. The system was built not to reward me, but to keep me in line, to keep me fearful.  To keep me compliant.  Recognizing that is everything.
  • Freedom from caring about the opinions of the world. Do I care about what France thinks about me?  Do I care about what Google® thinks about me?  Most (not all, but most) of the people whose opinions matter to me know it, and they all have excellent posture and dental hygiene.
  • Freedom to set my own goals. What is it that I value?  What is it that I want to accomplish?  This is mine, and mine alone.  Oh, wait, except for trash day.  I have to remember trash day.
  • Freedom to not apologize. When I make a mistake and I agree I’ve made a mistake, I own up to it, proudly.  When I don’t, I don’t apologize.  And I won’t.  Especially not for the bad jokes.
  • Freedom to change the world. And I will.  I’m going to keep going so I can inject my ideas so deeply into the Outsider psyche that the mRNA shot from Pfizer® will seem like a non-invasive procedure.

Kamala Harris is very concerned about COVID.  She heard that super-spreaders were the problem.

One piece of the puzzle, interestingly enough, came to me from crappy Star Wars® movie, The Force Awakens™.  The movie was horrible.  One thing that I couldn’t figure out was why, after killing the Emperor®, that the Rebels™ were . . . the Resistance©?

The movie was awful, partially because it was poorly written and choked with social justice.  But it revealed the mind of the Left in ways that I hadn’t realized before:

  • The Left wanted to identify with the Resistance© because they rely on powerlessness. Powerlessness is necessary to recruit Leftists – the core of Leftism is self-hate.
  • The Left is about power, but it refuses to admit it has it. That’s why Leftist professors from Leftist colleges complain about insufficient Leftism from Leftist politicians and Leftist media.  And vice versa – it becomes self-reinforcing.

Leftists rely on powerlessness as a route to power.  It is their foundational myth; it is their unifying element.  They are downtrodden, even as they control every major corporation.  They are disenfranchised, even though they control nearly every major media outlet – if there’s a cure for that, it’s unTweetable.

Twitter® is like a Leftist bank account – after you enter the wrong opinion five times, you’re locked out.

Given all of that, why am I so happy?

Because I’m free.  I’m free of my illusions.  I’m free to be an Outsider.

I’ll enjoy seeing the Gadsden flag tomorrow.  After all, there were another group of Outsiders a few years ago who seemed to like that flag.

And you remember where the Gadsden flag first flew?

On a pole.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Standing At The Brink

“Treat the cause, not the symptom!” – The Rocky Horror Picture Show

No change this month.  We’ll see what January brings . . .

  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.

We remain in the gray zone between step 9. and step 10.  I will maintain the clock at 2 minutes to midnight.  Last month I indicated that there was a chance to move the clock back if authorities took Leftist violence seriously.

Looks like I was too optimistic.

Previously, I stated that the only thing keeping the clock from ticking to full midnight is the number of deaths.  I put the total at (this is my best approximation, since no one tracks the death toll from rebellion-related violence) 600 out of the 1,000 required for the international civil war definition.

But as close as we are to the precipice of war, be careful.  Things could change at any minute.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Symptom, Not The Cause – Violence And Censorship Update – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Harper’s Ferry 2.0 – Links

Front Matter

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

Symptom, Not The Cause

The Left has many errors in perception.  Many of these errors are ‘own goals’ – the Left doesn’t know what the Right is thinking because they’ve managed to short-circuit the feedback mechanisms created by the Founding Fathers.  As Sarah Hoyt puts it so eloquently (LINK):

For years I’ve told the left that when they used fraud to win, they’d broken the feedback mechanism.  It didn’t mean their ideas were winning, that people agreed with them, or that they were safe. It was the equivalent of breaking the fire alarm and thinking they were safe from fires.

This is similar to my commentary in this post (Four Boxes: Soap, Jury, Ballot, and Ammo).

If you asked the average Leftist, I think most of them would say that Trump was the cause of the situation that we as a nation find ourselves in.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Trump is a symptom.  Trump is, in many ways, a skilled communicator.  He uses media to bypass gatekeepers and those that would interpret him to speak directly to the people.  Could he have had tens of thousands of people chanting “Build The Wall” or “Lock Her Up” if those people didn’t believe that in the first place?

Of course not.

Trump found the messages that resonated with a very large group of Americans that had been bypassed by both the media and the political process for decades and gave them a voice.  Does he believe in those messages?

I have no idea.  I am not a mind reader.  But Trump became a mirror of a large group of voters to show them that, yes, he heard them.  And, yes, he’d fight for them.  The degree that he actually followed through is debatable.

But back to the voice of the voters:  People wanted to “Build The Wall” not because they hated the people coming across the border, but because borders matter.  If everyone from Japan (for instance) moved to California, you wouldn’t have Californians:  you’d just have more Japan.  Americans, rightly, want to live in America.  They’re not afraid of change, they just want the inevitable changes to be American, and not Japanese (for example).

“Lock Her Up” wasn’t just about Hillary – it was about the groups of politicians that served themselves and the state instead of voters.  Why are the Clintons swimming in hundreds of millions in cash when they came into office as thousandaires?  Why are the Obama family wondering which mansion to stay in each week rather than budgeting for a once a year family vacation?

Corruption.  It wasn’t just Hillary, it was (and is) virtually every politician in Washington.

That’s what Leftists don’t understand – the movement Trump gave a voice to won’t go away regardless of what happens to Trump.  The underlying causes aren’t getting better, they’re festering because the feedback mechanism is broken.

Violence And Censorship Update

The Capitol was stormed, but you know the details on that one.  December had numerous violent protests by the Left, but only the Capitol having unscheduled visitors received major press coverage.  Rationale?

Censorship.

This month has been, by far, the biggest outpouring of censorship of any month of my lifetime.  The sitting President of the United States has been banned from essentially every online social media outlet.  Even the store that sells merchandise related to Trump, Shopify©, has banned him.  I’m certain that stopping the sale of red MAGA hats will solve all of the world’s problems.

Twitter® was, by far, the biggest way that Trump evaded the mainstream media lock on news selection and interpretation.  Trump could speak directly to the American people without being a newscaster using the words “unfounded” every other word.  He had sent 57,000 Tweets™ since he was on the service.

Not only was Trump censored, but I heard that the top 35% of his supporters were also censored.  Journalist John Robb put it very well:

Bottom line:  expect more, much more, censorship in the coming year.

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Up is more violent.  The public perception of violence dropped drastically during November, and dropped again in December.  January?  Too soon to tell.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable.  Instability dropped significantly in December.  January – will it bring conclusion, or more tension?

Economic:

The economic measures took a small setback this month.  I’d expect January to show a minor uptick.

Illegal Aliens:

Down is good, in theory.  This is a statistic showing border apprehensions by the Border Patrol.  Numbers of illegals being caught is rising again from a record November to a record December – the floodgates are opening.

Harper’s Ferry 2.0

In October of 1859, ever photogenic John Brown and 22 of his best friends decided that the time was right to trigger a slave uprising in the South.  Their idea was to capture the Harper’s Ferry Arsenal and then –  well, the “and then” part wasn’t exactly clear to anyone but Brown.  His plan was that he would kidnap slaves locally, and then give them guns as part of a great army.

The slaves he kidnapped ran away from Brown, having no desire to take part in his plan.  In the end, most of John Brown’s men were either shot by the United States Marines that retook the Harper’s Ferry Arsenal or were executed after a trial.  Ironically, it was the actions of Robert E. Lee that stopped the locals from hanging Brown on the spot and allowing him to be taken for a trial.

This was the last major incident that happened before Civil War 1.0, and greatly divided the country:  half saw John Brown as a (sort of insane) leader that was working for good even though people died in the raid.  The other half saw him as a treasonous criminal and a threat to their way of life.

I think that the way that people think of the storming of the Capitol last week has exactly the same polarity.  They went to go protest at the Capitol, found that they could (more or less) waltz in and claim the place.  Having done so, they were like a terrier that caught a Ford F-150® pickup.  “What the heck do I do now?”

Some see it as a (sort of silly) show to our government that the government exists at our pleasure, and that even the walls of the Congress, located in one of the most Leftist strongholds in the nation, is not safe.  They see a group of people protesting an election that they feel was decided by fraud.  They feel this way honestly and sincerely.

Others see it as treason against the nation and actions to prevent a president from being confirmed.  They feel that their cause is just, since, even though there might have been irregularities in voting (50% of Biden voters think the election was stolen) that it’s okay.  They think:  “Trump will be gone, and the Electoral College is silly, since popular votes are what democracies do, anyway.”

Regardless, this is an action that won’t be repeated.  The State is scared that it was tested and found to be so vulnerable.  They won’t make this mistake again – even now thousands of troops are pouring into Washington D.C.

LINKS

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

From Ricky:  “My self-imposed cut off for this batch of links is the GA Senate Race and the Congressional acceptance of the Electoral votes.  Who the hell knows what is about to happen next.”

ON THE EVE OF DECIDING CONTROL FOR THE SENATE AND PRESIDENCY:

QUESTIONS:

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/blog/do-black-lives-matter-in-the-white-elite-s-civil-war-/

https://www.creators.com/read/pat-buchanan/12/20/is-our-second-civil-war-also-a-forever-war

http://www.sfltimes.com/opinion/is-there-a-civil-war-in-america

https://www.independent.com/2020/06/14/an-american-civil-war/

 

ASSERTIONS:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/the_new_phony_war.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-trumps-final-days-lines-are-drawn-for-a-republican-civil-war-11609772298

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/a-new-civil-war-its-here-the-rights-grievance-politics-is-killing-thousands-every-day/ar-BB1bOXoE

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-gop-elections-mcconnell/

https://www.pantagraph.com/opinion/letters/letter-country-close-to-civil-war/article_e99472ac-6b83-5509-aa93-3f03f2c92382.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/12/democrats-civil-war-cease-fire-georgia-senate-runoffs-election-444633

https://www.salon.com/2020/12/12/psycho-secession-texas-lost-cause-lawsuit-was-the-first-shot-in-a-new-civil-war/

 

CALLS TO ARMS:

AZ: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/arizona-republican-party-now-calling-on-voters-to-die-for-trumps-election-fight/

MI: https://www.icbps.org/make-them-pay-michigan-lawmaker-calls-on-leftist-soldiers-to-attack-trumpers/

GA: https://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-supporters-refuse-to-accept-biden-presidency-in-gobsmacking-cnn-report-could-be-a-civil-war-you-never-know/

TX: https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2021/01/watch-texas-gop-congressman-threatens-civil-war-if-democrats-win-georgia-runoff-elections/

TX : https://www.foxnews.com/politics/georgia-runoffs-senate-chip-roy-congress

 

CALLS FOR CALM:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/louie-gohmerts-talk-of-violence-and-civil-war-is-despicable

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/civil-war-united-states-unlikely-violence/2020/10/29/3a143936-0f0f-11eb-8074-0e943a91bf08_story.html

https://www.indianagazette.com/opinion/the-civil-war-that-fizzled-out/article_4ad57e5a-3968-11eb-9be6-9ff5ee8e14a2.html

https://news.yahoo.com/constitution-answer-seditious-members-congress-113001597.html

https://news.yahoo.com/civil-war-212148092.html

 

CALLS TO SPLIT:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/529609-rush-limbaugh-says-us-trending-toward-seccession

https://americanmind.org/features/a-house-dividing/a-common-sense-solution/

https://mises.org/wire/red-and-blue-states-its-time-multistate-solution

 

A WAKE-UP CALL:

https://strongnation.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/1243/2e0396bc-8bc1-40f6-ba07-9b94a079b7d5.pdf?1608225594&inline;%20filename=%22Letter%20to%20Acting%20Secretary%20Defense%20Christopher%20Miller.pdf%22

https://www.strongnation.org/articles/737-unhealthy-and-unprepared

Penultimate Day And 2021 Thoughts

“The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace.  It failed.  But in the year of the Shadow War, it became something greater: our last, best hope for victory.  The year is 2260. The place: Babylon 5.” – Babylon 5

Why did 2020 cross the road?  To get to the other cyanide.

This year we didn’t celebrate our traditional Wilder family holiday, Penultimate Day.  What does Penultimate Day entail?

Well, you drive south for two hours or so.  Then you go to Best Buy® and, under no circumstances do you buy a cell phone.  But you must look at cell phones.  Then, after not buying a cell phone, you go to Olive Garden® and have some nice pasta.

This celebration started (I think) in 2011 or 2012, I think.  The Mrs.’ cell phone (a Blackberry®!) was going south.  We drove to the nearest cell phone store that was tied to our carrier, which was a Best Buy™ about two hours from us.  We got frustrated attempting to figure out the deals after the phone clerk wheeled out a surgical gurney to take out part of my intestines.  I told him, “No way!”

“Really?  You need to look at the contract closer.  It’s in the appendix.”

We gave up on buying a phone.

Then, frustrated at our lack of being able to find a phone, we gave up and decided to have dinner.

Hobbits always use vibrate on their phones – they don’t want the ring to give them away.

And then we drove home.  It was impossibly silly, driving a total of four hours to go to not buy a cell phone.  And we did it on December 30.  So, I made the joke that since the New Year was a made-up holiday, why not make up our own?  Thus Penultimate Day – the next-to-last day of the year – became an official Wilder holiday.

Over the years, we took Penultimate Day seriously.  There were one or two exceptions where we skipped Penultimate Day, primarily because Pugsley or The Boy had a sports event.  That is, of course, acceptable.  The goal of Penultimate Day is to do something fun together as a family.

We stuck to celebrating Penultimate Day.  Why?   Because it was fun, it was silly, and it was ours.

We didn’t celebrate Penultimate Day this year.

First, traveling into a major metropolitan area didn’t make sense to us – here in Modern Mayberry the case-rate for the WuFlu is relatively low, and we have no idea what the requirements are to even go into Best Buy® in Major Undisclosed Metropolitan Area.  Second, while we enjoy going to the Olive Garden™, I’m still convinced that the free breadsticks are some kind of con game.  I keep expecting a bill to arrive from them in 2028:  “owed to Olive Garden© for “free” breadsticks:  $257,065.”

What’s the only pasta you can get during COVID-19 lockdown?  Macaroni and sneeze.

Instead, we slept in late, played a few games, and more-or-less relaxed the entire day.  Our contribution to the economy of the United States?  We had a nice dinner The Mrs. cooked for us at home, used some natural gas to fire our heater, and spent about $3 in electricity for lighting the place.  That was it.  Our participation in the economy on December 30, 2020 was probably less than $20, total.

That’s the problem if you’re running an economy.  No gasoline, no money heading to the Olive Garden©, and no tip to the waitress.

I read that Christmas spending was down this year, to $851 from $976 in 2019.  That’s a drop of 13%.  But this is Monday, not Wednesday when we talk about economics.  On Monday, we talk about the big picture.

But 13% is a huge drop-off.  And when you add in all of the activities that people aren’t doing?  I imagine it was even more.  The big picture?  Economic contraction increases instability.

I wrote in 2019’s Penultimate Day that we were entering a period of chaos, where entire edifices that we used to stand behind would crumble.  Now, we sit in 2021, and a majority of the people who voted in the national election think it was rigged.

How do you get a baby alien to sleep?  Rocket.

Also rigged?  The system of justice in the nation.  We see Antifa® and BLM© “peacefully” destroy cities.  The massive number of unindicted felons?  It’s okay to loot.

2020 was a mess, but it looks like we got to get a glimpse of the man behind the curtain.

2021 will certainly start out like a mess.  January is going to be chaotic.  Regardless, I’m optimistic about 2021 – not because I’m insane, but because I know what starts the upward rise:  the upward rise starts after you’ve fallen and hit bottom.  While we around the world have fallen and are headed toward the bottom, the biggest lesson is this:  bring something back up with you.

That’s the question for today:  what can we bring back up with us?

  • Understanding that the world can change around you in an instant. One moment, the world was normal.  The next?  Lockdowns, the destruction of an economy.
  • Understanding where your vulnerabilities are. Food?  Toilet paper?  What can you do to fix them?
  • Knowing that your job is not “safe” – the entire economy isn’t safe. Be prepared for more dislocations.  What skills are you working on?

These are important realizations.  In 2021 and for the foreseeable future, complacency will not be your friend.  Constantly question your assumptions.  Constantly try to understand your side, but also periodically ask yourself, “What if I’m wrong?”  Try to understand the other side of the issue, too.

You may or may not be wrong, but questioning (not doubting, but questioning) yourself is key to deep understanding.  Hold your own beliefs up to the same scrutiny you use on opposing beliefs.

Thankfully, hindsight is 2020.  Or did I get that backward?

As I wrote on Friday, I’m not sure that 2021 will be a great year, but it will be a birth year for the next phase of what happens to our society.  What’s probable this year?

  • Unemployment continues, and likely gets worse. Ideas of a quick rebuild will be crushed.  People at the bottom end – twentysomethings and service workers – are already hoisting a white flag.
  • Society will become even more fractured. Left and Right are guaranteed to be further apart in 2021 – the way this presidential election has gone is sure to inflame both sides, no matter what happens.
  • The very mechanisms that we normally see as protecting society will continue to erode. People on the Right who are defending the “thin blue line” will become aware that many (not all!) of the police will do whatever the people signing their checks tell them to do.  This is not the year to be a cop in Portland, Oregon.
  • People will continue to flee California and large Leftist cities in a locust-like plague. They will not leave their Leftist ideas behind.
  • The debt of the United States will continue to climb. My bet?  We add another $4-5 trillion this year.  That doesn’t include personal debt and business debt.  The idea that printing money is better than earning it will continue and probably increase in 2021.  This idea will only stop when events force it to stop.

But as I said in the introduction to Friday’s post, I remain weirdly optimistic that, even given all of these trends, this will be a year that we will look back on and say, “That was the year that things changed.”  Certainly, 2020 was a year that will likely be looked on as the start of the crisis.  2021 will be looked at as the year that the seeds of the new are planted.

How can I better describe it?

1776 is they year that most people associate with the birth of the United States.  What most people forget is that it wasn’t until 1787 that the Constitutional Congress was held.  Likewise, it wasn’t until 1789 that George Washington was sworn in as our first President.  That was thirteen years after 1776 – thirteen years where there was war, economic failure, and finally a coming together over a very unique document.

Change takes time.

What did Washington say before his men got in the boats to cross the Delaware to attack the British?  “Get in the boats.”

So, if I’m right, people will look back on 2021 and say, “That was when things turned around.”

And the good news is, Penultimate Day or not, you’ll be there for it.  Again, I never said it was going to be easy.  It will likely be the complete opposite of easy.

Freedom rarely is easy.  And I’m still pretty sure that the Olive Garden© has a comprehensive spreadsheet somewhere charting my breadstick consumption . . . .

Declaration of Independence: Not Just A 1776 Thing?

“I have nothing to declare, my dear man, except my genius!” – Babylon 5

Best breakup letter.  Ever.

Despite the common opinion that Thomas Jefferson was a hockey player for the Saskatchewan hockey team, “Saskatoon Blades®” (who was remembered for scoring three hat tricks in one season against the “Prince Albert Raiders™” in 1986) there was another Thomas Jefferson that history also remembers.

This Thomas Jefferson was an author, a president of the United States, a founder of a university, and wrote a really great mandolin solo, which has sadly been ignored since the invention of the guitar.  Sadly, this Thomas Jefferson was wholly unable to play hockey at all, probably because he couldn’t skate any better than my kid sister.

Regardless, Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old when he also wrote a document that has been long remarked upon and probably contains some of the most famous sentences in the English language:  The Declaration of Independence.   In a little bit of history, John Adams had to get Jefferson drunk to convince him to write it because Jefferson was a bit nervous (this is actually true).  I’m sure that the next morning, Jefferson said, “I agreed to do what?”

I’m with you, Thomas.

Your eyes aren’t real – they’re just in your head.

About 25% of the original draft was deleted in editing.  Apparently, Jefferson had gotten carried away and ended up writing several paragraphs about how he loved potatoes.  The committee wasn’t pleased.  They didn’t like the part where Jefferson waxed poetically about the way they made his chest glisten when they rubbed the buttery mashed potatoes into it.

In the end, Jefferson decided to hit the print button on the sheep the parchment came from, and the document went out.

A girl:  “Hey, Stalin, come over tonight, my parents aren’t home.”  Stalin replied, “I know.”

It was not at all in small print, like a car lease at a Mercedes® dealership.  The Declaration was meant to be read – a copy of it was sent to King George III, though a bunch of sales fliers for hardware stores and Target® were also included, so George might have thrown it out thinking it was all just junk mail again.

The principles of the Declaration were in common discussion at the time in America, so Jefferson wasn’t making stuff up.  Likewise, the people who got the Declaration understood what it meant:  times were going to get spicy.

It’s been a while since I’ve read the Declaration, so I thought I’d review it.  It’s good stuff, so I thought I’d share it.

For no reason.  No reason at all.

The downside is that Jefferson didn’t have a good word processor, and that he didn’t have PowerPoint®.  If so, he could have had it down to a dozen slides or so.  I’ve made a few changes by adding bullet points and capitalizing the word “Earth”.  If Boston is capitalized, Earth should be, too.

Stupid Jefferson.

I trained my dog to smell out fruit, but he doesn’t like doing that.  He’s a melon collie.

Regardless, here it is:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

  • That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
  • That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
  • Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
  • But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
  • Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

The rest of the Declaration of Independence is an indictment – a listing of reasons why the Declaration had to be written, a “we told you so” section, and the “it’s not me, it’s you” breakup section.  There was another section about how Jefferson would really, really, miss Great Britain and keep the big stuffed teddy bear they won him at the arcade, but the committee told him to “not be a wuss” and leave that out.

You never want to reach the end of the Y-axis on a plane.

In reality, when I re-read the Declaration, I was amazed at how, pardon me, revolutionary it was.  The United States wasn’t founded by guys doing it “just because” – it was founded by guys who really thought about it, and who couldn’t check up on the Internet and find out about how Cardi B was upset about her hair care products.

They had time to think deeply through these issues.  And they came up with this list.

To be clear, I love America.  Thomas Jefferson, in 1775 said that he would:  “rather be in dependence on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any nation upon Earth, or than on no nation.”  Jefferson loved Great Britain, dearly.

The thing that I came away with is these men cared deeply about those around them.  But there was a limit to what they would take.  That limit was simple:  the idea that they couldn’t take part in any fashion in the determination of what happened to their State simply wasn’t acceptable.

  • They demanded laws, laws that weren’t arbitrary and capricious. They demanded courts that were free of bias.  How are we doing now?  We have courts that turn a “thou shalt not” into a “thou shalt” within a half of a dozen decisions.
  • They also demanded that their fate not be judged by bureaucrats who were beholden to government, but only be judged by a jury of their peers. How are we doing now?  Administrative law puts people at risk of life and property and doesn’t allow jury trials.
  • They demanded to be protected by those who would invade the country. How are we doing now?  Fine, as long as a complete disregard for our laws is okay with you.
  • TL:DR, also a bunch of other stuff.

The Federal government of the United States has crept up in size and power.  The charter of the Federal government is (if you actually read the Constitution) very small.

  • Foreign policy.
  • Make naturalization laws.
  • Run part of (not the full part, just part of) the military.
  • Make sure there are independent Federal courts.
  • Making sure that free commerce could happen between the States.
  • Regulate commerce with foreigners.
  • Borrow money and collect taxes for the stuff they do.
  • Own the post office.
  • Make war and all the stuff that goes with making war.
  • Coin money and stop counterfeiters.

Anything in there about making sure toilets don’t use too much water?  No.  Anything in there about regulating what fuels your car uses?  That your car must have an airbag?  That the toothpaste you use meet FDA standards?  That you pay someone a minimum wage?

Nope.  Not in there at all.

Hmm.  Does this sound like a long chain of usurpations?  I could probably think of a few other things.  You could, too.

Remember, if you start a revolution, aim for the tsars!

What is the last straw?  Is it a tax on tea?

Or is it an election that may have been stolen?

So, think about what the future may hold.  Don’t be Wayne Regretzky.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: A Year Down The Road

Count de Monet: “It is said that the people are revolting.”
King Louis XVI: “You said it! They stink on ice.”
–History of the World, Part I

CLOCK

When I copy in these big clocks into my posts, it’s a huge paste of time.

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

We are at step 9. Step 9. is, of course, two minutes to midnight. I didn’t move to step 9. last month because last month, violence was just happening. This month? Violence is being commonly justified by local and state authorities. When protesters a mob tore down a gate to access private property in St. Louis, which set the stage. When the Modern Sporting Lawyer™ and his wife pulled out firearms to protect themselves, the sane world cheered.

MSL

Yes, I recycled this one. Couldn’t resist.

That’s why a District Attorney vowed to find something, anything to charge this couple with. The one thing the mob cannot stand is decent, armed people standing up to the mob. The politicians have made the mob and know that it must be fed.

The fact that CHAZ/CHOP was allowed to exist, with the rampant lawlessness of the mob in charge for weeks was another sign. We are very, very close to open warfare.

I stole the clock metaphor from the (Leftist) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists©. It’s a good metaphor, because it creates an immediacy. And I can and will go backwards if events justify it, though at this point it seems like no one wants to go backwards.

In this issue: Front Matter – A Year Down The Road – Violence and Censorship Update – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Links

Welcome to Issue 12 of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, feel free to subscribe and you’ll get every post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30 Eastern.

A Year Down The Road

I started the Weather Reports a little over a year ago because I could see the changes coming faster and faster. I’ve been concerned about the economy since I read The Fourth Turning (The Economy, The Fourth Turning, Kondratieff, and You.) back around the year 2000. When you look at all of the trends – social, economic, political – I could see trouble on the horizon. If you want some in-depth thought on how The Fourth Turning is progressing, Jim over at The Burning Platform (LINK) is your man.

The 2007 housing price collapse wasn’t a surprise to me. When I bought my house, I was (fortunately) in the position to negotiate with my employer that they’d cover any loss on sale if I moved for them. As house prices were going up, up, up . . . they agreed. And why not? It wouldn’t cost them a dime.

It did. My house dropped 20% in price between when I bought it and when it finally sold two years after I moved out. I don’t give myself genius points for this, but when they offered me a loan that was nearly ten times my salary? With no income verification?

Yikes.

The tensions we face aren’t going away anytime soon, in fact they’re not anywhere near their peak. Those same social, economic, and political factors have gotten worse, not better in the last 20 years.

AUGUST

Is anything out of the question?

Will one more year down the road have as much change as we have seen in the last year?

Why wouldn’t it?

Are you ready for that?

Violence and Censorship Update

In the previous posts, it has been either violence or censorship that’s shown up in a month. This month? We get both. I’ll start with censorship.

What’s out? Statues. Toppling statues is censorship – censorship of the past. George Orwell described it well in his book, 1984:

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute.”

No bit of American history is safe, from George Washington to Thomas Jefferson to Teddy Roosevelt to “American Pioneers”, Spanish explorers, and black abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Yup. All have to go. And not by vote, not by decision, but by the raw power of the mob.

An episode of the British television classic Fawlty Towers has been removed because of offensive language, and the wind has done gone with Gone With The Wind, which had to be shuttered “temporarily” so that (pulls answer from hat) people won’t be offended.

So, history has been judged to be insufficiently woke.

WOKE

Right now the media is so woke, it’s like they took NoDoze® with coffee and meth to get ready for their Gender Studies final.

YouTube® just concluded its next round of purges. Dozens of large channels with millions of views are now gone. The biggest personality banned was Stefan Molyneaux, philosopher and badthinker. His crime? Not sure. People think it’s because he has had guests (scientists) on in the past that indicate that there might be group differences in cognitive ability. Oops – can’t discuss that idea in 2020.

Among other channels that YouTube® suggested for me and that I listened to from time to time was The Iconoclast, a British guy on the Right who advocated for lower immigration into Great Britain. Now? Gone. Plus? A major newspaper published a story on The Iconoclast’s identity. In 2020, having the wrong views means going without a job.

But that’s not violence, right?

On Reddit®, I heard that over 2000 subreddits were banned. I had been to several of the banned subreddits in the past, and was a bit surprised. One of them, r/consoomers was specifically set up for self-improvement and rejection of globalist commercialism. A little politically incorrect?

Yup.

Now gone. Another dead subreddit is r/The_Donald. It’s crime? Can’t be sure. I think it was too popular, with over a million subscribers. And a group of a million people who like Donald Trump? Triggered!

Reddit™ made rule changes as well. They initially rolled out this new rule for commenting:

“While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority….”

After someone got on Wikipedia and figured out that, for instance, men are in the minority since there are more women in the world, the rule on protecting people from hate wouldn’t apply to people who were misogynist. Oops. They changed that rule.

But it sure showed what they were intending.

This is the biggest month of censorship against the Right in, well, ever. I expect it to get worse. The idea that Donald Trump could be re-elected is mind poison for the Left. Leftist fetishize politics as a religion – Trump is the ultimate demon. They will do everything and anything so that he isn’t re-elected.

KRAMER

Share this meme and help a Leftist lose sleep so they can stay woke.

I’d spend more time updating you on the violence of the past month, but it’s probably easier to update you on the places that weren’t violent. Modern Mayberry was one. Here, we watch the news and see the world falling apart, and it’s like there’s another country out there.

There is. It’s just waiting to be born.

Updated Civil War II Index

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

June has been the worst month so far – economic, violence, and political instability are all in bad shape. It’s so bad that even the illegals don’t want to sneak across the border.

Violence:

VIOLF

Up is more violent. Violence had been down because everyone was stuck in the basement. I predicted that May would be mellow, and then we’d see the uptick in June. I was almost right, and now June has pegged the scale. This measure because the way it’s constructed, doesn’t go higher than 300. Yes, the Y-axis label shows 350, but that’s because I didn’t notice until I’d put the graph together and it’s 3AM.

Political Instability:

POLI

Up is more unstable. Instability is up only slightly, which might seem weird, but the system is still stable overall. I may look into another graph next month to measure political change, because it sure feels like we crossed over into a regime where big political changes are more likely – and this graph was meant more about the overthrow of a sitting president, hence the peak in December. I expect more instability heading into November, and may make some changes to the inputs next month.

Economic:

ECONF

Down indicates worse economic conditions, and it’s down yet again. I’m hoping this is the worst that we’ll see, but I expect a market crash this month (July) or next.

Illegal Aliens:

BORD

Down is good, in theory. This is a statistic showing border apprehensions by the Border Patrol. Down, probably related to WuFlu, unemployment, and riots. This is at a five year low for this time of year.

LINKS

LINKS

These are from Ricky this month:

Although the US Government has FINALLY stopped paying for the First Civil War…

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/last-person-receive-civil-war-pension-dies-180975049/

…worries about the Second Civil War continue to build….

https://www.theday.com/article/20200616/OP04/200619472

https://prospect.org/politics/americas-civil-war/

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-avoid-second-american-civil-war-163096

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/345640-darren-aquino-says-its-time-to-pick-a-side-in-coming-civil-war

https://www.thetrace.org/2020/07/gun-background-checks-june-record/

https://www.thetrace.org/2020/06/boogaloo-gun-ammunition-marketing-facebook-instagram/

…which many think can be stopped just by not talking about it…

https://www.omaha.com/opinion/clarence-page-the-current-civil-war-is-fought-on-cultural-territory/article_1661faef-ef9d-5622-88d6-d3308d9fbb88.html

https://www.ocregister.com/2020/06/05/lets-knock-off-the-blithe-talk-of-a-coming-civil-war/

https://goducks.com/news/2020/6/26/general-uo-osu-series-no-longer-to-reference-civil-war.aspx

MSM says Antifa is not a national problem….

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/google-top-stories-featured-false-news-rumored-antifa-civil-war

https://prospect.org/civil-rights/antifa-all-around-trump-media-fox-news-fear-protests/

https://time.com/5008829/antifa-november-4-rumors/

…it’s the Boogaloo Bois that are the threat…

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/style/boogaloo-hawaiian-shirt.html

https://theintercept.com/2020/06/10/boogaloo-boys-george-floyd-protests/

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/boogaloo-movement-recent-violent-attacks/story?id=71295536

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/boogaloo-extremist-protests-invs/index.html

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/06/04/armed-white-men-milwaukee-protests-could-far-right-boogaloo/3147128001/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/19/what-is-boogaloo-movement/3204899001/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethcohen/2020/06/16/civil-war-20-the-boogaloo-movement-is-a-wake-up-call-for-america/#3d9f1cb071ab

https://www.voanews.com/usa/race-america/boogaloo-boys-aim-provoke-2nd-us-civil-war

…but Facebook will save us….

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53244339

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-instagram-profit-boogaloo-ads

https://www.inventiva.co.in/stories/priyadharshini/facebooks-boogaloo-ban-is-it-too-late/

…meanwhile, Small Town America simmers….

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/07/01/three-groups-plan-gather/

https://www.gazettenet.com/Sanger-letter-34596978

…and maybe there are investing strategies for the Civil War?

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2020-07-03/trading-and-investing-americas-second-civil-war

Your one job? Be a good person.

“Mr. Towns, you behave as if stupidity were a virtue. Why is that?” – Flight of the Phoenix

GOOD

Well, at least someone gave this post two thumbs up.

My older brother, John Wilder (our parents were notoriously uncreative), got a job at a motel when he was in college.  His duty was to sleep in the apartment above the front desk, and if anyone wanted a room late at night, to get up out of bed and check them in.  Technically, he got paid to sleep on the job.  When I try to explain that’s what I’m doing to my employer, they seem to think it’s a violation of company rules.  They won’t even listen when I explain I won’t be sleepy on the job if I just sleep on the job.

Go figure.

One day the owner of the motel was looking for someone to do an extremely important job: sweep the parking lot every Sunday.  As I had heard of a broom, my brother put in a good word for me, and I ended up with my first official job.  As I don’t recall quitting, they might be irritated at me because I haven’t been in to work in decades.

This was a job that I was well suited for, since I was willing to work for the one-ish hour a week (on Sunday) sweeping up the parking lot.  I even had a time card, and got paid minimum wage.  So early each Sunday morning I’d get on my ten speed and bike down to the motel and sweep the parking lot.

BIKE

My bike kept trying to kill me, though.  It was a vicious cycle.

The best part wasn’t the few bucks after tax that I made, but rather sitting down with my older brother and having breakfast in the office.  I timed it so that I’d be done sweeping so we could watch a television show on TBS® together:  The Wild, Wild West.  I’m pretty sure I saw my first episode ever in that motel office.

By the time my brother and I watched it on the 12” screen in the office, The Wild, Wild West was decades old.  And yet it was better than anything on prime time television.  The Wild, Wild West, if you haven’t seen it, was Robert Conrad starring as secret agent James West in the 1870’s Western United States, complete with science fiction gadgets.

The villains were ludicrous.  One episode featured obviously rubber cobras.  And in one fight scene, Robert Conrad’s pants split wide open and they just kept filming – they were on a schedule, you know.  On top of that, the costumes resembled nothing ever worn by an actual human in any place and during any period in human history.

Silly?   Certainly.  But why was the show good enough that I planned getting up early to watch it?

It’s because the character James West (and his fellow secret agent, Artemus Gordon) were good.  West was a hero.  He was smart.  He could fight.  He had wit.  He laughed in the face of death.  And if he had a weakness, it was for a lovely lady.

JIMWEST

We’ll pretend that Will Smith took 1999 off.  There can be only one Jim West.

Why was James West’s contemporary, Captain Kirk so popular?  He was a cut from the same mold as West.

A boy needs a hero to look up to, who models virtue and strength.  And you could do much, much worse than either James West or Captain Kirk.  For some reason, the values of the networks changed, and The Wild, Wild West was cancelled (like Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies) in 1970 even though they did great in the ratings.  Hmm.

It was like there was a social agenda . . . .

As time has gone on, many of the “heroes” in movies and television are given “depth” cheaply by making them either morally weak or having the system they work for be compromised in some way.  When a hero sneaks by like Mal Reynolds on Firefly, well, the system takes care of him pretty quickly.

MAL

Captain Tightpants aims to misbehave.

Culture is, of course, upstream from politics.  Culture is in part created by those heroes we are given to worship.  Where do those heroes come from?  Well, I mentioned James West, but I recall being pretty psyched about the Founding Fathers when I was a kid.  Dad got pretty mad after the third cherry tree.

Our political reality is therefore created in part by media (now a tool of the Left) and academia (also a tool of the Left).  And now the Founding Fathers are, instead of being revered for attempting to create a whole new type of country are regularly bashed in schools.

This attempt of the Left to steer culture obscures the real message.  As a human, we have one (and only one) job.

That job is to be a good person.

It’s that easy.  We waste a lot of time and effort wondering what it is we should be doing, when the answer is laughingly simple.  You can’t control your height.  You can’t control your intelligence.  You can’t even control society.  What can you control?  Your actions and attitudes.

So, be a good person.  That’s it.

The Left tries to obscure that simple truth because it has to.  The Left doesn’t want you to be a good person.  The Left wants you to be a Leftist.  When I look at the memes from the Left, I’m astonished by two things:

  • They’re horribly unfunny, and
  • They’re based on a big wall of text.

LEFTMEME

No editing required.

The Lefty memes aren’t funny because funny requires truth.  I wrote about that recently in The Leftist War on Culture: Comedy Edition.  When truth is strangled, humor disappears which is why tyrants will kill comedians before they kill dissidents.  Humor is one of the most potent weapons of truth.

The Lefty memes have to rely on a large blocks of text because half of the meme is required to try to refute reality and re-define it.  If you’ve ever heard an actual Leftist talk, half of it is redefining terms:  boy used to mean boy, but now it’s an entire spectrum which might indicate that boy means boy on Monday, but when it’s time for the state track meet, boy means girl.  Sometimes.

If you want to watch real Olympic®-level verbal gymnastics, watch a Leftist try to define “racism” – it’s a hoot.  For bonus points, see if you can get them to read the dictionary definition.

That’s the good news.  Your job, being a good person, is so simple it’s hard for even the Left to mess up.  But I bet they could come up with a 600 word meme to describe that “good” is only “good” if it results in more Leftist votes and the abolition of private property.

I wish that I could promise to you that if you were a good person, you’d be rewarded.  That would be a lie.  Being good doesn’t guarantee a tangible reward, or even that you will succeed, or even be liked and admired in your time.

PANCAKE

I’m not sure I can promise a leprechaun will deliver them, though.

Likewise, being bad doesn’t guarantee punishment.  Heck, some research indicates that 4% of Chief Executive Officers of companies are psychopaths.  If you think long enough, you can come up with several names of people who are downright evil, but seem to be thriving.

The other bad news is that being good is hard work.  First, you have to figure out what good is.  Society isn’t necessarily a help here.  As I write this, The Boy is watching livestreaming rioting and property destruction across multiple cities.  When I try to calibrate the whole good/bad thing, I’m not sure that looting a Target® or burning a Hyundai© serves much of a purpose.

Being good isn’t about being good for today, either.  I could easily ruin a child by making life too easy, or not holding them to high standards.  Would it result in a happy child now?  Sure.  But every parent knows that short term success builds children into monsters who end up burning a Target™ or a Hyundai®.

RIOT

Brought to you by the Minnesota Vistor and Tourism Bureau.

To be good, a moral code and the courage to follow it is required.  Christianity is the one that built the West, and you could do worse – you rarely hear of Amish drive-by shootings, since everyone can hear the clip clop of the horses from pretty far away.

The Romans (Roman Virtues and Western Civilization, Complete with Monty Python) had a well-developed system of virtue thousands of years ago and spent a lot of time working to figure out how to be good – that’s pretty close to the basis of the Stoics.  Making it up your own individual code as you go can lead to rationalization and relativism.  If it feels good, it may not be good – a lot of bad things feel very good at the time.

But generally, if it feels bad, it nearly always is.

Be a good person.  Ask yourself:  WW(JW)D?  No, not John Wilder.

Jim West.

But make sure you get your sweeping done first.

Erasing the West: Step by Step

Groucho:  Now, Columbus sailed from Spain to India, looking for a shortcut.  Chico:  Oh, you mean strawberry shortcut? – Monkey Business

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Columbus sailed his ships, the Niñteñdo, the Piña Colada, and the Santa Fe to the new world and then bravely tried to repel the landing Pilgrims.  Or so I seem to remember.

Christopher Columbus was one of the first that they came for.  Columbus was easy pickings, really.

Columbus lived and died five hundred years ago, nearly as long as it seems the Democrats have been trying to get Trump out of office.  Columbus was an Italian before Italy was a nation, so getting support for Columbus isn’t all that easy.  Besides, Columbus was an Italian working for the Spanish, which I imagine involved enough hand gestures to make eye protection necessary as far away as France.

But Columbus was the first hero that they came for because he represented something that the Left hates:  Western Civilization.

In reading through several columns on why Columbus is bad, none of them focused on things that Columbus did, with the exception that he was too harsh to Spanish colonists, and some of the worst allegations were probably written by his mortal enemy, Agent Smith.  No, most of the things that the writers blame on Columbus were based on events that were a result of the clash between Western Culture and the culture that previously existed in the Americas.

None of the articles noted that the people living in the Americas at the time were far more barbaric than anything brought to them by Europe – the Aztecs and Mayans and other tribes enslaved, murdered, and exploited each other on a scale that almost puts Sesame Street® to shame.  The only real crime Columbus was guilty of was showing Europe how to get to a continent that was so technologically backward and immunologically compromised that it could be captured by half a dozen guys with swords and horses.  It was like a flock of kittens in a room full of metal-bladed box fans, except the kittens had a better chance.

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I want to resurrect the Aztec religion and start sacrificing vegans.  That’s not a typo.

The war against Columbus isn’t about Columbus – it’s about a hatred for Western Civilization as a whole.  The war is a desire to erase culture.  Each time it occurs, it follows a similar path:

  • Choose someone who is a cultural hero, preferably a primary face of the development of Western Culture. The person should be, ideally, revered.  I mean, not as revered as me, but revered.
  • Pick the worst things that they ever did, even if their life was otherwise a paragon of virtue. Note that it’s okay if what they did was socially acceptable back in the time and place it was done – the worst thing they ever did should be the only thing used to characterize the person.  Jefferson founded a University, wrote the Declaration of Independence, and was President?  You know he got caught double parking his buggy once?
  • Never let up. Even if it comes out that (like in the case of Columbus) nearly every bad thing said about the guy was written by his mortal enemy, ignore it.  Keep vilifying him, and blame him for every single consequence of everything he ever did, even if it happened after he died.  It’s like blaming George Washington for Mount St. Helens because it erupted in the state of Washington.

One particular consequence of Columbus making his journey is that the United States exists.  Yeah, he never made it to any part of what makes up the United States today, but he showed the Europeans who finally got around to colonizing what eventually became the United States the way to get here.  Western Culture came, and expressed itself in a unique way:  American Culture.

washington

If George Washington were alive today, he would probably spend most of his time scratching at his coffin lid.

In the case of the United States today, one common claim by Leftists is that there is “no American Culture.”  I’m certain that fish don’t know that they’re swimming in water, either.  But that is certainly a lie.  American Culture doesn’t seem like it exists because it is all around us in the United States, and happens to be one of our biggest exports while also being our biggest draw.

Overall, American Culture has been responsible for creating more technology and prosperity than most cultures that have ever existed.  Has it done stupid things, things with negative consequences for millions of people around the world like set loose Adam Sandler or Bruce Springsteen?  Certainly.  But on balance, the world has been made much, much better by Western Civilization and the United States.

But the Left cannot abide by nations like the United States or, especially, Western Civilization.  Both of these stand in the way of the Left – they are structures that impede the ability of the Left to control every aspect of your life, to create a logic and history that only agrees with what the Left says.  It’s because they exist, they want to destroy them.  Very directly they want to destroy your culture.  They hold your values as obstructions.  They want to disintegrate your family so your loyalty belongs to the Left.  And they want to see you dead so that your ideas will die with you.

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Stalin:  There is no “I” in team, but there is “U” in gulag.

All of that starts with values and culture.  To attack that, not only do they attack the culture of today though the infiltration of Leftist ideas (How To Spot Propaganda In 2020, Featuring Stonks) but also through the vilification of the past.  What has been attacked?

  • Statues – of Columbus, of Civil War leaders, of Lewis and Clark. They will not be done until every traditional American Hero is gone.
  • The National Anthem – Bouncy© (that’s her name, right?) and Jay C™ were at the Superbowl® on Sunday. They sat during the National Anthem to protest the unfair nation that provided Jay C© with his meager billion dollar fortune.  Heck, you can’t even raise a private navy with that pittance.
  • Borders – Chants of “No Border, No Wall, No USA at All” are fairly subtle. I just wish I could figure out what they meant.

There are steps in the cultural erosion that we’ve seen so far, and the biggest attack has been against the Idyllic Decade, the 1950’s.  The 1950’s were the last decade before everything went wrong.

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Followed by the Jell-O® salad course, naturally.

It’s been attempted by the media, by movies, to re-write the 1950’s, just as the attempt to tear down Columbus started.  Why attack the 1950’s?  Because it was the high point in the life of the American family.  Things were good:

  • Postwar prosperity led to nearly universal employment.
  • The wages of a single man were enough to support a family and raise children.
  • Less than three percent of children were born to single mothers.
  • Violent crime was less than half of today’s crime rate.
  • The salary gap between a high school graduate and a college graduate has tripled since 1965.
  • Boy Scout participation is half of 1950’s – and that was before the BSA folded to political correctness and saw a free-fall in membership.
  • Kiwanis membership is half of 1950’s numbers.
  • Church attendance in the 1950’s was nearly 90%. Now?  Less than 40%.

Thank heavens Netflix® subscription numbers are up, since today 41% of children are born to unmarried mothers.  Or there might be a correlation here . . . .

But what can you expect when reality is inverted in just the same way that the legacy of Columbus, skilled navigator, was inverted?

Family is now seen as bad.  Rather than being a supporting structure that helps a child learn right from wrong via loving parental support and instruction television and movies would have you believe that family is  a stifling, controlling, patriarchy that just doesn’t want you to be the individual snowflake you were meant to be.  I mean, that’s what you’d think if you got your information by watching television or movies.

cats

The best part?  No limit on cats!

And churches?  They’re evil.  They’ve gone from places where you meet and discuss and learn about God to places where you learn nothing but intolerance from sweaty red-faced pastors and priests who don’t really believe in God.  Oh, and these intolerant pastors and priests are all secretly sexually twisted, since anyone who believes in God and values must be, deep down, a deviant.

They pick the best features of the Leftists to showcase.  They pick the best features of the civilizations that Leftists created, and then claim that it really work next time, while sweeping the bodies under the rug.  They then pick the worst of their opponents and often stereotype them using their own worst tendencies.  They want you to feel guilt for the things your ancestors did, when living by the standards of the day, while feeling no guilt themselves for the direct pain caused by their actions and ideas in the world today.

But, despite hardship, Columbus had a dream.  He sailed west.

Statue or not – he was a hero.

Civil War Weather Report #7: All Eyes on Virginia

“Who do you favor in the Virginia Slims tournament?” – Top Secret

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Don’t put in extra hours at the clock factory – they hate that.

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

I didn’t expect to move the clock up this month, but yet, here we are, and it’s all due to Virginia.  More on that below.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Violence and Censorship Update – Flashpoint Virginia –Updated Civil War II Index – Virginia and Rallies and Aesop – Links

Welcome to Issue Eight 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 II, on the first or second Monday of every month.  Issue One is here (LINK), Issue Two is here (LINK), Issue Three is here (LINK), Issue Four is here (LINK), Issue Five is here (LINK), Issue Six is here (LINK), and Issue Seven is here (LINK).

Violence and Censorship Update

Organized violence seems to be lower this month, as you’d expect in winter.  Or perhaps AntiFa® is just on a snowboarding trip to Colorado so they can get some dank weed?  Societal violence tends to drop as it gets colder, because people look stupid rioting in knit hats and parkas.  Well, people look stupid rioting in any weather, except for the South Koreans who have rioting down to a spectator sport.  South Koreans riot about, well, anything.  It’s like living in San Francisco, but with less poop.

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The Korean beef riots?  Udder madness.

YouTube® announced a change in the terms and conditions for video creators that would go into effect December 10, 2019.  The major change (of concern) was that YouTube© announced that they would delete accounts that, in YouTube’s™ sole opinion, weren’t commercially valuable.  There were several creators that I watch on a semi-regular basis that were quite upset – this was proof that YouTube™ was coming after them.  Several refuse to put controversial videos on YouTube® at all now – they save those videos for other sites, like Bitchute©.

As far as I can tell, most of these channels are still up and running.  Several that had been demonetized for political content even had monetization restored.  Like the end of the world in 2012, the dread YouTube® apocalypse is currently overdue.

Switching to Twitter©:  their most notorious purge in the last period was Danielle Stella, a candidate for congress running against that paragon of virtue, Ilhan Omar.  Stella’s offense?  She tweeted:

“If it is proven @IlhanMN [Ilhan Omar] passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged” – I agree with Ms. Stella, that hanging people who collaborate against the United States with foreign governments is a good thing.

But I will never trust her because of sage advice that my brother gave to me one afternoon while driving:  “Never trust a person who has two first names.  Like Scott George.  Or George Scott.”  He was proven right when George C. Scott stopped by our house and ate all of our mayonnaise.  Man, that man loved his mayo.

ilhan.jpg

I guess the decided they should see other siblings.

Twitter® has also admitted a practice they had long denied, but was obvious:  they shadow ban people – you can type away all you want, but no one is really going to see your Tweet™.  How better to control a populace than to let them think that “bad” opinions are ignored?

Flashpoint Virginia

Since Virginia has been changed from state controlled by the Right to a state where Leftists hold all major offices and control the legislature, the Left has had a great desire to spike the ball and exert complete control.  That control is focused on Leftist goals.  The first Leftist goal mentioned?

Elimination of many Second Amendment rights, including banning ownership, with no grandfather provision, of “assault” weapons.

It also goes much further, and bans parts of rifles the same way an entire rifle would be banned.  Outside of cloning Stalin, elimination of private gun ownership is a primary goal of the Left.  It is also a trigger on the Right, and this legislation couldn’t be more tailored to antagonize the Right if Rosie O’Donnell read it as an alarm clock message.

As political battles go, this gun ban is an uphill one, even for the Left.

What is unusual here is the reaction from localities.  More than 98 bodies (counties, cities, towns) as of this writing have declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries” – and have vowed to not cooperate.

The Attorney General (a Leftist) has issued an opinion that the counties can’t just ignore state law, they have to follow it.  Therefore?  The Governor (a Leftist) has requested $100 million extra for incarceration and $4 million for an 18 person gun ban team.

It’s not enough.

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Sometimes you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.  Like me in my first marriage. 

The Left owns all of the levers of government.  So what do the people that want to keep their rights do?

Form an opposing governmental structure.  Those are the Second Amendment sanctuaries.  Like it or not, these declarations are the first step towards a unified governing structure that opposes the Leftist government in Virginia.  For a civil war to occur, you have to have civil structures.  I had expected them to form along the lines of opposing state governments.

But the societal divisions in 2019 exist more along the rural/urban divide than the old northern/southern divide.  In my home state, it’s very (from a combined vote total) far Right, so my entire state would likely pitch in.  Given this new circumstance in Civil War 2.0, renegade counties make sense in a state like Virginia.  And despite anything the Attorney General might say, should a significant (20%?) percentage of Virginia’s population – an armed 20% of the population – decide a law isn’t valid?

The law won’t be valid.

Laws exist in the United States because we generally agree with them as a group.  Does everyone agree to all laws that are on the books?  Certainly not.  But when there is determined opposition to a law or group of laws (marijuana legalization, illegal alien sanctuaries, Second Amendment sanctuaries) an attempt to enforce the law will nearly instantly make the government look weak, ineffectual, and illegitimate.  And when that determined group takes over a legitimate arm of government?

We’re one step closer to war, and this is why I moved the clock.  The Left is moving quickly, and in Virginia, I think it’s still a very dangerous game of chicken.

I think they’ll end up blinking, and swerving off at the last minute.

Updated Civil War II Index

More graphs, with full bikini treatment.

Violence:

Violence.jpg

Up is more violent.  Violence dropped a bit, and I imagine it will remain low for the winter, though it edged up a bit in December.  April and May will likely see increased incidents, assuming we end up okay in Virginia.  And assuming we don’t run out of suntan lotion.

Political Instability:

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Up is more unstable.  It skyrocketed this month.  Tension was high in the first place, but impeachment increased it significantly.  Don’t expect it to go down soon.

Economic:

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Down indicates worse economic conditions.  The economic indicators all were positive, and strongly so, in November.  It was a one month recovery.

Illegal Aliens:

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Down is good, since (in theory) ICE is catching fewer aliens because there are fewer people trying to get in.  The numbers are down this month, and if you put them in context, winter is normally a lower time for illegal immigration, which will pick up in the spring.

Virginia and Rallies and Aesop

There is a large pro-Second Amendment rally planned in January 20, 2020 in Richmond.  Since I started paying attention to such things, I’ve noticed something – that people on the Right don’t live in Washington, D.C.  Why we would go to protest there escaped me.  Statistics back this up – in 2016, nearly 95% of voters voted for Leftist candidates.

For a group of citizens that support the Right to try to protest in D.C. is silly.  Protestors in D.C. are in hostile territory.  From observation, cities attract Leftists.  The larger the city, generally the farther Left it is.  Richmond, Virginia is no different.  It voted nearly 80% for Leftists in 2016.  Richmond is hostile territory for the Right.

But yet the rally is planned.  Aesop over at The Raconteur Report has covered why this rally is a bad idea, in detail here (LINK) and here (LINK).  Read the comments, and also the links to previous posts that he suggests.

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Read it all before you attend – or before you organize.

Links

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Please leave links either in the comments below, or feel free to send me an email if you’re shy.  If you email me, I won’t say that the link is from you unless I get permission.

From McChuck.

From Glenda.

From Bob.

From Vote Harder, over at The Burning Platform:

From Ricky:

 

A Texas Church, Aesop, and the Future of Freedom

“I’m the plumber.  I’m just hanging around in case something goes wrong with her pipes.  (to audience) That’s the first time I’ve used that joke in twenty years.” – Horsefeathers

groucho.jpg

“Why a four-year-old child could understand this report.  Run out and find me a four-year-old child.  I can’t make head or tail out of it.”

In a Texas church this weekend, the worst nightmare of the Left happened.  The only thing that could have been worse for the Left would have been a video of Bernie Sanders spending his own money.  A good guy with a gun (Jack Wilson) stopped a bad guy with a gun.  Part of what made it bad for the Left:  clear video evidence showed a good guy taking down a bad guy with a single shot.  To make it even worse for the Left:  the bad guy was a killer, shooting a pair of grandfatherly looking men in a room filled with grandma and grandpa types.

It was quick.  From the time the bad guy pulled his gun to the time the bad guy ceasing to . . . be was five seconds.  Five short seconds.  This was, perhaps, a final blow for the Left.  The idea that the police, who arrived very quickly (four minutes or less) should be the only ones with guns evaporated, especially since two church members were dead within three seconds.  A very well-trained citizen saved lives – how many we’ll thankfully not know, since he acted.

Not a cop.  A citizen.

Every Leftist commenter on the web that was trying to justify gun control in the wake of this tragedy couldn’t do so without defending the shooter as being somehow justified in wanting to rob the church.  The biggest problem in the eyes of the Left, perhaps, is that the churchgoers weren’t sufficiently Christian enough to quietly line up to be shot.  Texas is probably not the state for that.

What made the difference is that the good guy was able to ignore disbelief at the situation occurring right in front of him, and was able to react.  How could Jack Wilson do this?  He didn’t know exactly what threat he was going to face.  He didn’t even know if there ever was even going to be a threat.  But yet, he trained.  Dare I say it?  He was prepped.

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Ok, Zoomer.  (For the record, I’m neither.  I just like stirring things up.)

Jack Wilson scanned the churchgoers.  He was looking for data points.  He saw them and acted.

This week, Aesop over at The Raconteur Report posted his 2019 Quincy Adams Wagstaff Lecture.  It’s here (LINK).  RTWT.  As usual, Aesop writes excellent material – not only to ponder upon, but to act upon.  There are many wonderful points in it, and here is the opening:

Wherever you’re reading this, you’ve had unmistakable evidence that things aren’t going to go all rosy.  Perhaps ever again.  Perhaps just for a long dark winter of the soul, and/or of the entire civilization. There has been more than one Dark Age period in human history, and they will happen again.  You may very well get to see this firsthand, and experience life amidst it.  Howsoever long or briefly.

You’ve had a respite of some 37 months to get your metaphysical crap together in one bag, and use the time prudently.

If you’ve squandered that lead time, woe unto you.

This post made me think, which is dangerous.  At least that’s what my therapist says.  My therapist who says I’m “mentally creative” and “reality impaired.”  Thankfully, she’s imaginary, which really lowers her billing rate.  But what that post made me think most about was:

Mindset.

pirate.jpg

This is what would happen if my imaginary therapist talked to The Mrs.  It’s funnier if you read the whole thing in a pirate voice, really.

Aesop mentions mental readiness, and that’s key.  The last 37 months have been, to put it mildly, an indication that we are headed towards a very uncertain future as the culture around us continues to polarize, as the monetary debt we face (all over the world) continues to mount, as soccer is still taken seriously as an international sport rather than a game for attention challenged three-year-olds, and as the international stability that was so hard won with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War dissolves.

I’m not trying to sell you on any one future, on any one fate, unless there’s money in it.  But I am trying to emphasize the start of your salvation:  your mindset.  If you believe that the world will continue in an unbroken, linear stream, I can assure you that you’re wrong.  We’ve had the precursor warnings of 9/11 and the Great Recession.  If I am correct, this decade will bring tumult of a similar, if not greater magnitude.

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Evacuate the women and children first!  Then we can solve this in silence.

You should believe this, too.  Not on a surface level.  This is a mindset.  Your daily decisions should take these future unknown and unknowable calamities into account.  Why?

Because if I’m right, and you’re prepared a week, a month, or five years before you need to be, you win.  Also?  Society wins, because the more people that are prepared, the better we come through the next crisis/shock.  If we were all prepared, a hurricane could hit the shore and the stores would still be full.  When we prepare, we manage to make sure there will be less stress on the system during an emergency.

The other way to help is with skills, and the longer the crisis, the more important those skills will be.  And, no, your experience in saving the Princess® in Super Mario Brothers™ doesn’t count.  At least my therapist says it won’t.  Real skills provide for a basic human need, like food.  During the Great Depression, people gardened and farms weren’t big factory affairs – they were much smaller Mom and Pop style farms.  Even though there was significant malnutrition, starvation deaths in the United States were minimal.

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He said his New Year’s resolution was 1920×1080.

More evidence?

One of the biggest enemies of seeing reality is seeing the world you think should be, not the world as it really is.  People look at Antifa® rioting and think, “They should be arrested.”  They aren’t.  What does that data point tell you?

The government of Virginia is threatening to take semi-automatic guns, dedicate a team to confiscating guns and the government should allow honest, law abiding citizens to exercise the right to self-protection.  But the government wants to take it away and make honest people felons.  What does that data point tell you?

Government debt today is at 106% of GDP.  During the worst of the Great Depression, debt was less than 50% of the GDP.  During the height of the Vietnam War?  Debt was less than 40%.  What does that data point tell you?

I can’t promise the cause of the next crisis.  But I can promise that it’s coming.  Cultivate the mindset.  It’s the first step.

The key is to avoid despair even though you see the world as it really is.

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.  I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet.  I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.” – Marcus Aurelius Groucho Marx

I have been accused of being too cheerful from time to time throughout my life.  And I plead guilty – with a smile on my face.  Why?

First – I’m naturally an optimist.  I want to achieve the best, but I also know that there’s no fixed way the world should be.  There is just the way that the world really is today.  If I don’t let myself get upset at the difference between an ideal and reality, I sleep a lot better.  Does that mean I’m satisfied?  No.  I work with every fiber to change some things for the better, but I don’t let it wreck my life like a pink-hatted blue-haired creature of fluid gender when confronted with a person who had to ask what their gender pronouns are.

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The first two hours are rough.  Caffeine is my best morning friend.

Second – Life has been awesome for me.  I can think of a LOT of times that I thought it was ruined.  But each of those times resulted in a situation that was pretty good for me.  Am I worth $30 million dollars?  No.  But that’s probably for the better.  If I had that kind of scratch I’d probably make Elon Musk look like the model of public restraint.

Third – I’ll admit, there was a time (about a year ago) where I got a little gloomy myself. But as I looked around me, I looked at what we have done.  I realized that freedom has won here in the United States for hundreds of years against all odds.

There were 2.5 million people living in the 13 colonies in 1776.  That’s less than the population of Utah.  In that 2.5 million we had a Washington, a Franklin, a Jefferson.  Sure, Franklin in 1789 might have drank more than the state of Utah in 1989 all by himself, but there are men that are the equal to our founders, and they exist in every state.  You know they exist, too.  The tricorn hats and powdered wigs are a dead giveaway.

Always remember that there is a line.  If you look at them standing along the church pews, scanning the congregation to keep them safe, they look nice.

Heck, they are nice.  Until they cross the line.

Then they’re not nice.  Then they become good men.

So, to gently change Groucho:  The past we wish to cling to is dead.  The present that we have is generally not so bad.  And we have a future, even if we can only see it dimly now, even if its golden age is years or decades away.

Let us go and make it.