Category: It Does Werf The Flammen

American Civil War: Four Fates, From Freedom to Soviet Tyranny

“Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?  No!” – Animal House

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On this blog recently someone commented, “When I was a kid, people used to say that ‘It’s a free country,’ but they don’t say that anymore.”  I tried it out the other day.  The response?  “It hasn’t been a free country in a while.”  I turned him into the FBI for that kind of hate think.

Again, this is a repost from back in 2020, partially because I’m going to add it on the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report page, and partially because it seemed a good fit as we keep sliding down.

I was driving around and one of the videos that was in my suggested list was about “America’s Cold Civil War.”  This isn’t a review of the video, but it brought up some interesting points.  The one I want to make clear to every single person that loves freedom in the United States is:  if you’ve ever seen a movie about that rag-tag elements of a group fighting a foe that has nearly utterly defeated them, it’s us.  We are the Wolverines.

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I get to be Charlie Sheen, mainly because he’s still alive.  I think.

I don’t mean to say that to create a feeling of defeat – far from it.  But the first step in dealing with a situation is understanding reality.  And reality is very simple today.  At a minimum, the Left has coopted the following elements of culture in the United States – they have been, over time, “converged” into Leftism:

  • The K-12 educational system.
  • Colleges and Universities.
  • Most Protestant religious organizations.
  • Most Catholic organizations.
  • The psychological establishment.
  • The American Medical Association.
  • All mainstream news media.
  • All mainstream entertainment media.
  • Most departments of the Federal government, absent the armed services.
  • The general officer corps of the armed services.
  • The courts.
  • Silicon Valley tech companies.
  • Many (but not all) Fortune® 500™ companies.

This isn’t an accident, it’s entirely by plan.  And not only by plan, it’s by a plan that was entirely shared.  From Verified Communist Traitor® Herbert Marcuse, in his book Counterrevolution and Revolt (bold added):

To extend the base of the student movement, Rudi Dutschke has proposed the strategy of the long march through the institutions:  working against the established institutions while working within them, but not simply by ‘boring from within’, rather by ‘doing the job’, learning (how to program and read computers, how to teach at all levels of education, how to use the mass media, how to organize production, how to recognize and eschew planned obsolescence, how to design, et cetera), and at the same time preserving one’s own consciousness in working with others.

I could prove all of the above Institutions have been converged through the Long March Through the Institutions and will probably discuss a few of these in the future, because I could do a post on each one.  Heck, maybe it would be a great book, but only if I could figure out how to pair hot chicks and communist propaganda.

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East German girl swimmers bench pressing 300 pounds in 1976 is completely normal.

But if you doubt me, you have Google® (itself converged) and you can easily verify list above even through the Leftist-bias that’s now on that search engine.  I’ll leave you with one more question:  why else would Fortune© 500® corporations sign a manifesto saying profits were less important than social goals if Leftists weren’t in control?  Because there were extra doughnuts in the breakroom and they were feeling generous?

In almost any context, these organizations reflect the values of the Left, not of the Right.  I specifically don’t use the label conservative here – the conservative movement has utterly failed in the United States (to quote absolutely everyone) to conserve anything.  We live a country where adults telling four year old boys that being a girl is okie-dokie (and vice-versa) aren’t thrown directly in prison for a decade or more (after a trial, of course) for child abuse.  The goals of the above organizations would be cause for mass revolt if they had been publicized in 1990, but now, despite no vote, no public acceptance, each point of the Left has been accepted as the new normal.

And telling a boy that he’s a girl?  Oh, wait, that’s brave.  Sorry.

Despite all of that, this is not a post about giving up.  Screw that.  Each day makes me more independent, not less, more wanting to tell the truth.

And if you’re reading this, no one is done here.  Freedom is always the underdog.  I really wish we’d just stop waiting until 2:00 in the fourth quarter to start playing.

I remember seeing a film in Social Studies in High School about the Korean War.  In the black and white film, almost all of Korea had been lost.  The film ended right at what is known as the Pusan Perimeter, right where the North Korean Army was about to kick freedom off of the Korean peninsula, forever.  It was tough watching that film.

But then we learned what happened next:  MacArthur led the naval invasion of Inchon and turned the tide of battle, leading a combined United Nations® force that cut off the North Koreans.  This turned the course of the war, and in the process helped to create the free country of South Korea that is a world leader in technology, bad music videos, and wealth creation today.

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Spoiler alert:  we tied.

Our Pusan Perimeter is now.  I had a great boss once upon a time, he would continually remind me, “John, start with the end in mind,” which is #2 of Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  As I look at the state of the Right back in 2016, we were at the Pusan Perimeter.  As we as a nation blindly stumble toward Civil War II, I can’t predict the outcome, but I can see the full range of outcomes.

We’ll go from best case to worst case for people who love freedom.  Although there are variations, I think I’ve captured all of the big picture end games below.

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I named operation Aesop after the Raconteur Report’s Aesop.  You can read him here (LINK).

Operation Aesop:  Total victory.

What it is:  The Right wins.  Traditional society is restored.  Mothers and fathers in committed relationships are again honored.  A Constitutional republic of limited government replaces the democracy of unlimited power.  The United States is unified.  Think of it as a return to the 1950’s, but with color TV and microwaves.

What it takes:  Oh, not much more than the bloodiest war in the history of the country.  The only way this results in victory is as Von Clausewitz wrote about in On War:   [Accomplishing . . . ] “three broad objectives, which between them cover everything:  destroying the enemy’s armed forces; occupying his country; and breaking his will to continue the struggle.”

That’s what happened in the first Civil War.  That’s what happened to the Germans and Japanese in World War II.  The concept of continuing was even more horrific than the concept of trying to continue to fight.  It’s total capitulation.  This is actual war until the enemy is not capable of continuing.  Not talking heads on a television show.  Not voting.  Not discussion.  Not a “mission accomplished” after five weeks moving across Iraq where the “will to continue the struggle” is still clearly intact.

Outcomes:  Some freedoms we see now would be curtailed.  Political discourse would be constrained.  But teenagers would be pretty polite, again.  And you wouldn’t really have to worry about the border.

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I’m related to Patrick Henry, or so my aunt told me.  I like to imagine Patrick getting a bit tipsy and writing mean letters to Madison about how short Madison was and how Dolly might want to give up on the chew.

Operation Founding Fathers:  50 Independent States. 

What it is:  A return to base principles.  Originally, the United States was conceived as just that, independent free States.  The majority of decisions to be made were to be made at the state, and not the Federal level.  Each state was to be free to make decisions.  Texas could be Texas.  California could be Venezuela.  Vermont could be stoned.  The free decisions of free States was allowed.  The free movement of free peoples was likewise allowed.  This is returning to that state.

What it takes:  Leftist thought is built around the universal adoption of their principles.  Individuals in society cannot be left to make decisions, so this is a hateful outcome to the Left.  I recall discussing politics with a Leftist when I was younger.  The Leftist thought I was on the Right.  That, at least they could deal with.  When I identified as a Libertarian®?  The look of disgust was clear – the Left hated Libertarians™ more than they hated the Right.  The Right was merely amused and not threatened by Libertarians©.  Maybe it was the Star Wars® shirts and poorly trimmed beards?

That taught me one thing:  the thing the Left hates the most is  . . . freedom.  Liberty.  In many ways the Left would rather lose a shooting war and be subjugated to the views of the Right than to be allowed to turn Seattle into the Siberia of the PacNorthwest.

The only way this can take place outside of warfare is a Second Constitutional Convention.  I think that alone would lead to a shooting war from the Left and a complete revolt from all of the Leftist institutions shown above.  But we can dream that the Second Constitutional Convention would turn out well.  If we did it, oh, in the next year.  The clock is ticking on this being a viable outcome.  It’s probably time to do it now.  As in, well, now.  Conservatives (not the Right) seem to feel that everything is going to come out fine, so until the wolf is at the door, I don’t think they’ll move an inch.

The problem is that Conservatives (again, not the Right) seem to think that the Left likes the Constitution.  Since the Left gained the institutions I’ve listed above, the Left doesn’t care about the Constitution – the Left cares about power.  Pure, unadulterated, 18 year old with a 12 pack of Coors Light™ behind the wheel of a 1969 Camero® power.

Outcomes:  In many ways this is the best outcome, but in my opinion the most unlikely.  This is the only outcome where we can still have the full freedom of political discourse and the full Bill of Rights.  I’d love to turn over freedom to choose to a California that can choke itself to death on Leftist feelgoodism while a Rightist Arizona can deny admission to every illegal and return them via a trebuchet if they want to.

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I was expecting more girls in bikinis from Bruckheimer, but this is a good start.

Operation Fort Sumter:  Going our separate ways.

What it is:  Secession.  Splitting up.  It’s not you, it’s me Oregon.  The problem is that unlike in 1860, the dividing lines aren’t so clear.  Then there was a line which, if everyone agreed, would have been fine for a split.  The North could be the North, the South could be the South.  Oops.  Now it would be a county by county fight.

What it takes:  Just like a psycho ex-girlfriend, if the Right tried to succeed in Texas, the Left wouldn’t accept it, and would demand tanks on the banks Red River by morning, which would be hilarious because tanks don’t float.  Unless the secession were overwhelming in number of states, numbers of the armed forces, and nearly immediate, I see only a small path to a peaceful secession.  For secession to stick, the Left and Right would have to feel that conquering the other side was more costly than trying to forge a peace.

Outcomes:  If secession happened and was maintained, the United States would be irrevocably broken, unless it was re-stitched by a Caesar sequentially conquering the Balkanized United States.  Maybe Caesar Pugsley Wilder the First?

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Think they need a reason to send you to the Gulag?  Sure they do!  It’s Monday – that’s good enough.

Operation Gulag in The Dakotas:

What it is:  This is the darkest timeline not only for our nation but for our world.  And, amazingly, the only timeline (outside of a Second Constitutional Convention) that we can vote ourselves into.  It is the Leftist takeover of everything.  Although it is sold as a Denmark, in reality Denmark is capitalist with stronger social institutions because Denmark is, well, Danish and I think they put mayo on their fries.  In the United States it will look much more like the U.S.S.R. – but not the basketcase 1988 U.S.S.R., but more like the 1932 “starve to death millions of citizens that Stalin doesn’t like” (In the World Murder Olympics, Communists Take Gold and Silver!) U.S.S.R.

What it takes:  Nothing.  We keep going as it is.  In less than 20 years, we will be in complete tyranny.  The erosion of rights we have seen won’t continue in a linear fashion.  It will accelerate.

Outcomes:  1984.

Now we know the stakes.

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Big Brother is our friend!  And we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.

The Funniest Post About Jevons’ Paradox You’ll Ever Read.

“But seen from out here everything seems different. Time bends. Space is boundless:  it squashes a man’s ego. I feel lonely, that’s about it. Tell me, though, does man, that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars, still make war against his brother?” – Planet of the Apes

I heard she prefers to be called “aoc” because she doesn’t like capitalism.

In 1865, when Joe Biden was barely sniffing at his first hair, English economist William Jevons noticed something:  that Biden’s behavior was really inappropriate.  Besides that, Jevons also noticed that innovations that made coal more efficient to use led not to lower uses of coal, but to the use of more coal.  This became known as Jevons’ Paradox.

When you think about it, this makes a huge amount of sense.  If electricity cost 10 times as much as it does today, we’d use less of it, and The Mrs. would probably (reluctantly) turn the air conditioning up from 62°F to 64°F (23 to 52 megaparsecs/joule-furlong) in summer.  To make it clear:  The Mrs. likes it colder in the house than a college faculty lounge when someone mentions personal responsibility.

The more expensive or more inefficient something is, the less it is used, which probably explains why they keep Kamala Harris in a Tupperware® container when they’re not trotting her out to somehow make even less sense than Hunter Biden after a three-week coke, hooker, and greasy cheeseburger binge.

That’s weird, because I was always under the impression Kamala was the cheap resource.  Who knew?

Hunter Biden on drugs:  “Cocaine use?  I have to draw a line somewhere.”

I was conversing back and forth about various and sundry things with Eaton Rapids Joe (you can find him HERE) on email since he decided to experiment on the tensile strength of his bones (they rarely break in compression) in a kinetic environment and is as mobile as a Ford Pinto™.  That made him bored enough to drop yours truly a line.  As the conversation progressed, I thought of good old Jevons.

The truth is that we swim in a pool of Jevons.  You might want to soap up when you get out.  Seriously, though, we normally adapt our work to use cheap (the non-Kamala kind of cheap) resources.

Here’s an example:  back when I went to college, computing processor and memory time was expensive.  The CPU was the pivot point.  In my programming class, students were actually given an account that charged them per Pelosi-second of processing time.

Last night Pelosi was so drunk she took the train home, which was weird, because it was the first time she ever drove a train.

A Pelosi-second is the amount of time required for Nancy’s liver to absorb a bottle of vodka given to her by a Ukrainian lobbyist, so it’s pretty fast.  Just like in Joe Biden’s brain, memory was rare and expensive, too.  But when the cost of memory went down, we ended up using more of it.

Nowadays, because of Jevons’ Paradox, we find that computing processor power and memory are cheap.  There are two pictures, three Polaroids® and six daguerreotypes of me growing up.  I have more pictures of Pugsley’s first birthday cake.

One result of this is that computer code is no longer (really) optimized.  Because CPU and memory is cheap, industry has decided that they can be sloppy programmers.  If we have overflow in the 32GB of RAM, well, we can reboot once a month.  Unless you’re in a Boeing®.  Oops.

Sorry if those jokes were boeing.

That’s computer stuff.  What other things have Jevons’ Paradox impacted?

Energy.

Food.

Money.

“Holy cow, John Wilder,” you’re saying, “that’s nearly as important as the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial!”  Let’s start with . . .

Energy.

Yup.  And in energy, especially, the Paradox has been our friend.  What energy does is, essentially, provide us with amazing amounts of prosperity.  It moves important stuff like fidget spinners from China to Stately Wilder Mansion for pennies.  It moves less important stuff like life-saving medicine and PEZ® for unimaginably small amounts of cash.

Ubiquitous energy has made the world small.  It has made huge efforts, like moving Bill Gates’ ego from place to place, inexpensive.  But as we see Russian energy cut off, and Biden doing his best to make the United States energy inefficient, perhaps so the only source of energy would be AOC’s thighs rubbing together.

Is the Hooters® home delivery service called Knockers™?

Regardless, we face a future where all the inefficiency that we’ve allowed into the system due to cheap energy will have to unwind.

Next on the tour is . . .

Food.

In my early life, food has always been worth a commercial or two showing starving kids covered in flies from some hellhole where they use sharp sticks for money as well as kitchen appliances.  I think it was Baltimore.  Regardless, in the last decade, world hunger was solved.  We had enough food so we could pave roads with Pizza Rolls® and stripe them with Hidden Valley Ranch™ dressing.

Yup.  Totally solved.  More than enough calories for everyone on the planet to use Oreos™ for deodorant and bathe in Coca-Cola©.  Sure, sometimes people starved, but not very many, and mainly in communist hellholes where the local warlord still hasn’t gotten over his devotion to U2® and Bono comes by to make public appearances to show how much he cares.  Or Baltimore.

Were people hungry?

Certainly, but they were generally fat while they were hungry.  But the problem was solved.

Broccoli is a great thing to eat when you’re hungry and want to stay hungry.

In a world where Ukraine and Russia aren’t exporting grain and fertilizer, however, this changes.  Sure, in the United States we can probably count on food for everyone, just expensive food.  But that world hunger thing?  Yeah, it’s back in play.

What’s left?

Money.

Huh?  I thought we were awash in money, so much so that gasoline was more expensive than supporting the Ukraine for an afternoon?  Well, no.  Money is the one thing that is getting more expensive.

The reason is simple – we’ve had nearly zero percent interest since 2008.  The Fed® has been shoving it down the throat of banks.  Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden have been printing it as fast as they can, since it didn’t seem to matter.

They also make cameras, the Go-Provolone®.

Until it did.  And now interest rates are higher.  But who needs money?  The same people paying record-high prices to try to extract Energy.  The same people who need to borrow cash to fertilize fields and plant seeds and harvest them.

Yup.  Expensive money means less energy and less food.

Oops.

Well, there must be a bright side?

Yes, thankfully there is.

Faculty lounges all over the continent will heat on up.  And maybe personal responsibility will make a reappearance.  Or maybe AOC will see her shadow, but that’s scary.

That means six more weeks of communism.

Russia And The End Of The Dollar

“I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure you can inflate construction costs and launder money through it.” – Ozark

I wonder if everyone can figure out why China built their own Internet now?

Biden has miscalculated.  Again.  As he has his entire life.  He has moved from one miscalculation in his life to the next.  So, it’s not surprising that perhaps the greatest failure in the history of the United States has shown up on his watch.  Let’s go, Brandon, indeed.

To be fair, it’s not entirely Brandon’s fault.  The United States economy, as I’ve gone to great pains to show over my posts, has been hollowed out over the years.  We have gone from one that manufactures things and exports goods to one that mainly manufactures movies (we’re very good at that) and consulting and intellectual property and Starbucks™.

The thing that we’ve been best at is printing and then exporting dollars.  For decades now, we have been exporting dollars that we printed and then importing stuff like fidget spinners and PEZ®.  It was a great deal for us.  People used those dollars and we got stuff, but it was essentially a global tax on the rest of the world.

That ability to tax, however, only works as long as people believe that the dollar is worth something, and that the holder of that economic power won’t bend the rules.  Just like the bank runs up in Canada started when Trudeau broke the promise that the banks won’t steal people’s money, so the same principle applies to international affairs.

What could go wrong, stealing cash from random people?

When Russia attacked Ukraine, Biden declared sanctions.  Sure that’s a fine idea when dealing with a tiny random country, but Russia isn’t tiny.  And Russia isn’t any random country.

See, one silver lining!

Russia is of huge importance to world commerce.  Russia exports the stuff that makes modern economies go:

  • Food
  • Steel
  • Fertilizer
  • Titanium
  • Nickel
  • Oil
  • Refined Fuels
  • Natural Gas
  • Coal
  • Gold

In almost every commodity listed above, Russia is in the top five exporting nations.  In several commodities, it is the world’s largest exporter.  Check out the graphs on energy and wheat when the market gets disrupted:

What does Russia import?

  • Telephones
  • Car Parts
  • Computers
  • Medicine

Russia also exports nearly double what it imports.  If there is a country that is nearly self-sufficient in this world, it’s Russia.  There is an economic concept called “autarky” – or a nationwide independence from imports.  Looking at the list of companies that are leaving Russia, well, could it be that Russia is better off without them?

Yes, Pornhub® and OnlyFans™ are on the list.  I wonder what the effects will be?  21-year-old girls will have to find jobs that involve wearing clothes?

Russia isn’t independent.  But it’s close enough.  Most things that it is missing can be bought from either India or China.  No iPhones®?  China has a bunch of other kinds of phones.  And all those businesses that left?  It’s not like the Russians don’t know how to make hamburger and buns, so McPutins™ could open up tomorrow, though I’d skip the polonium sauce.

Russians are talking about nationalizing all of the assets of companies that have abandoned them.  Why wouldn’t a country do that?  Well, other countries could seize the overseas Russian assets.

Oops.  Too late.  So what’s stopping the Russians?

What is the threat from the West?  That Russian audiences won’t have Netflix®?  The things that Russia has been denied are, frankly, not very scary.  They won’t get to see the next Marvel© movie?  Oh, yeah, they also went after Russia’s money and tried to cut it off from the dollar-based economic system and . . . entertainment.

The Babylon Bee has the real impact figured out.

What happens when that bluff is called, when Russia and China decide that they don’t need dollars?  What happens when Russia will sell natural gas to Europe only in yuan?  Or for gold?  Or that they won’t trade their commodities for anything at all?

The tent collapses, and by that tent I mean the dollar.

I actually think that Joe’s head is so far up . . . well, I’ll be kind and guess that he has Alzheimer’s rather than being this stupid.  Oddly, this is viewed as an ideological opportunity by the Leftist henchxirs in Washington.  They hate fossil fuels to the point of not caring about the relative plight of the American consumer.  Don’t believe me?  Listen to them:

Why would we want to solve problems?

Let them eat electric cars?

And Joe’s responsible for the invasion, too.

Leaked pictures from Joe’s energy briefing.

The goal.  No matter what it costs.

There are even well-meaning Lefties starting to write articles to cope with the failure:

But here’s a sign:  Joe tried to get meetings with the Saudis and the very friendly folks over at the United Arab Emirates.  They wouldn’t return his calls.  Imagine:  a foreign leader refusing to even talk with the President* of the United States.  It’s almost like he’s a fraud?

I wonder if he’s going to drunk-text the Emir tonight?

One person sums it up . . . .

Beyond that, the price of wheat is getting ready to go even higher.  Together, Russia and Ukraine produce over 25% of the wheat exported in the world.  A quarter.  Ukraine’s planting season has been slightly impacted by current events, and Russian exports might be diverted to feed Ukraine.

The United States is certainly self-sufficient in wheat, but the prices of wheat are like oil:  they’re tied to the international price.  What happens when a loaf of bread is six dollars?  Nothing good.  But if there are price controls?  Bread will be priced at two dollars.  There just won’t be any in stores.

Domestic inflation is bad enough, but what happens when the Saudis start taking gold for oil from the Chinese?  Or start paying for Russian wheat with the gold they got from the Chinese?  The dollar, once indispensable, is done as the international currency.

The message is loud and clear – the end of the dollar is near.  Why is gold up over $2,000?  My question is why is gold only up to $2,000?  I fully expect that, should Russia succeed, 90% of the dollar’s purchasing power will be gone in the next 14 months.

That will lead to massive changes in our economy, political unrest, and, potentially, the dissolution of the United States as we know it.

Thanks, Joe!  Where is ¡Jeb! when we need him?

The Funniest Post You’ll Read Today About Ukraine And Impending Global War

“Now me, I’m overweight. My underwear has to be made specially at a factory in the Ukraine. They call me Daddy Round-Round. They send me a postcard every year.” – The Simpsons

Looks like the Democrats are changing focus!  Haven’t they heard about the huge rolling ball that is the economy?

I had three posts planned that would couple the main themes I write about, and they were planned to start today.  Meh.  It’s okay, I can write about that topic anytime, and I have the feeling that what most people want to talk about is Russia.  This will be shorter than most, because I have a collection of dank memes that will carry most of the narrative.  I’ve tweaked one or two, but most are “as found” on the ‘net.

In Soviet Russia, Internet brings cat to you!

I will admit to being wrong about the invasion – I thought that Putin would get what he wanted without using actual force.  Of course, being Russian, they typically use a chain, a tractor from Soviet Tractor Factory Collective No. 348, and an acetylene torch for wart removal, so I should have known.  Subtle is not in the typical playbook.  Some say the Russians play chess, but if they do, they use a shotgun.

Hello . . . Vindman.

I have some very strong feelings about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  I don’t care.  It’s not that I like the idea of a sovereign nation invading another one, but let’s face it:  these are two countries that both use wrapping paper for money and have languages that sound like someone is strangling a duck.  And?  We have zero national interests in Ukraine.

Silly old bear.  Everyone knows that, just like Piglet said, whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

I mean, unless Hunter is still taking tons of cash from them.  That would certainly be a casus belli.  Or a reason to scratch Putin’s belly.  Wait, I just channeled Joe Biden.  Who knew pants could be so wet, sticky, warm and uncomfortable?

If we don’t do something, Mexico might invade.  Oh, wait . . . .

I am not alone in not caring.  I saw an AP® poll that indicated only 26% of folks in the United States thought we should play a major role in the conflict.  About half thought we should have an uncredited walk-on cameo, and the rest just wanted to be left alone to polish their ARs in private.

I just wanted to add some things to my shirt.  Arts and crafts, really.

It’s the 26% that I find intriguing:  this 26% is mainly, but not all, Leftists.  I have no particular idea why Leftists hate Russia so much, but they really, really do.  I think it goes back to the 2016 election, where they think that Russia tipped the election for Trump.  It certainly had nothing to do with Hillary being as electable as the hind-end of a roadkill skunk.

I sure will be happy when they manage to un-Super Glue® his hands so he doesn’t have to sit like that.  I think Trump left all those bottles of glue around the White House as a prank.

So, here are the dank memes that describe the week.  They create their own narrative, sort of, but I’ll add in a word or two myself.

The First Rule of Leftism is You Don’t Deviate From The Narrative:

The Second Rule of Leftism is You Don’t Deviate From The Narrative:

The Leftists (and a Neocon) were out in force, setting up the New Narrative and letting you know exactly what they think about you:

Of course, I didn’t create this retort, but I thought it fit pretty well here:

An actual, frightening comment from a committed Lefty who knows the “Adults in Washington”:

And political opponents chimed in:

Then the even more schizoid side of the Left just had to chime in, letting us know what the real and important issues are:

And, when it’s time for lies, you know that the media will be there:

Of course, the US Armed Forces were there for a show of strength:

But of course, there is a war on, so sometimes navigational errors happen:

And India definitely wants in, sending their passenger jet alone into the no-fly war zone:

Leftists wonder why the Right isn’t on board:

Someone figured out that combat bridges are a thing and that Sam Hyde was with the Russians:

So, if this blows over, maybe I’ll just watch a movie this weekend:

Predictions On The Supreme Court COVID Decision

“Did having a girl on the team ruin the Supreme Court?” – King of the Hill

Ginsburg used to steal food at diners.  They called her Booth Raider Ginsburg.

Normally, Wednesday is for topics related to the economy or money.  Given that tomorrow is a big day for the Supreme Court which will announce at least one mandate decision, I thought I’d break from the usual.

Several of the Supreme Court Justices showed that they have all of the cultural awareness of a Hollywood gerbil.  They utterly flunked Current Events.  Justice Grimace Elena Kagan seemed to think that “jabbed” people couldn’t give the ‘Rona to other people, even though the vax doesn’t stop people from getting COVID, and doesn’t stop people from spreading it.  Oops.

But Justice Kagan looked like a genius compared to blithering idiot, Elmer’s Glue® eating Sotomayor.  The “Wise Latina” has zero understanding of the difference the powers of a State and the powers of the Federal government.  Sotomayor also seemed to think that 100,000 kids were in the hospital with the ‘Rona, “many on ventilators.”

No.  Just over 3,000.  And that includes kids in the hospital with COVID, not necessarily because of COVID.

Breyer is fast at math.  He’s not right, but he’s fast.

Justice Skeletor Breyer, though, invented people to have cases.  He said there were 750,000,000 cases, causing our hospitals to fill up.  If correct, everyone in the country has at least two cases right now.  Some poor people would have to have three cases.  Thankfully, Breyer has a driver, or otherwise he wouldn’t be able to find his way home.

Yes.  This is the level of basic life competence that you get when you restrain Clarence Thomas from giving them the occasional sleeper hold and throwing Kagan over the top rope.  Let’s face it:  life would be better if he smashed a chair over Sotomayor’s head once in a while.  It wouldn’t increase her stupidity.

What does Clarence Thomas wear to work?  A lawsuit.

I tend to think the Supreme Court, especially Chief Justice Roberts, is compromised.  Are they told what to rule on every case?  No.  But on some?  Yeah, I think so.  But that might mean something different when it comes to the mandate.

Back in September when Biden first announced his mandate, I posted my take on the situation:  Biden’s Big Bluff (LINK).  I thought then that this was nothing more than a naked ploy to increase his popularity.  As Biden has spent the next five months becoming less popular than back acne, he still needs the mandate.

But now he needs it to lose.

I’m not sure that he ever thought it would have gotten this far.  I think he was (internally) jubilant when it was struck down and put on hold by the Circuit Court.  This is the politician’s best scenario:  “I tried to fix the problem but [INSERT GROUP HERE] won’t let me.”  The politician gets to show that he cared, “but, gosh darn it, our enemies just want to use baby rabbit tongues to lick envelopes for fascist junk mail.”

Losing on the mandate gives Biden the ultimate out.

At least if you have dementia, all of my jokes sound new.

What happens if the mandate is upheld?

  • The economy still is a mess.
  • A group of millions of people are now being forced to choose between having a vaccine that looks more and more to have the effectiveness against COVID of a voodoo spell (except it’s great, apparently, at causing heart inflammation) or to lose a job.
  • OSHA has been weaponized for future Republican use. Illegal aliens have higher rates of COVID or measles or mumps or the flu?  Verify them to make sure they’re legal, because it’s for health and safety.
  • If the adverse effects from the various “jabs” keep getting worse at the current rate? Biden owns it.

Lots of times politicians are like dogs chasing cars.  They love to make noise and run around, but have no idea what they’d do if they caught the car.  ANWAR in Alaska and abortion are two of those issues, and Biden has no idea what he’ll do if he catches this particular car.

Joe was in two states today – confusion and disorientation.

But what happens if the mandate is overturned?

  • The Supreme Court can be blamed, and then threatened with either packing the Court, or not allowing Clarence Thomas to lift weights and maintain his Thor-like physique.
  • The economy gets better and the labor shortage doesn’t get worse. COVID fizzles into irrelevance when omicron gives everyone immunity and the ‘Rona is “solved”.  Biden then claims it was his leadership that did that.
  • The Republicans can be blamed for being evil. Pressure to end the “undemocratic” filibuster will increase on the Left, so the Lefties can push through voting rights “reforms” that allow individual bacteria to vote.
  • Lefties run in the midterm election against the “regressive” Republicans. They still lose horrifically, but not quite as badly as the massacre that’s currently in the making.

As Yogi Berra said, “Prediction is hard, especially about the future.”  And, I didn’t say this was a great outcome for Biden.  In less than a year, Biden and his administration has managed to take a bad situation and make it worse in every single way, and this is just about all Biden has.

Of course, Thursday will tell if I’m right or not.  Whatever happens, don’t make Justice Thomas mad.  You won’t like him when he’s angry.

The Winds Of War?

“I admire your ethics. But right now, a little violence might help.” – Star Trek:  Enterprise

Is an inconsistency in a Cheech and Chong movie a pothole?

War in 2021 has much the same objective as war throughout human history – make the enemy do something that they otherwise wouldn’t do.  It’s never been pretty.  In the end, though, the old adage that violence doesn’t solve anything is wrong – ultimately violence solves quite a few things, as Heinlein notes in Starship Troopers:

“. . . I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice I shall always follow.  Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that `violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it.  The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon.  Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst.  Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms. . . .”

Our current military is ready to fight a war.  It’s just that the war in question is World War II.  Our armed forces absorbed the lessons of the Wehrmacht and now could totally defeat the Germans and the Japanese much more quickly than the first time.  Even I got caught into that mindset when I displayed dismay that the bomber fleet of the United States was down to just over 100 bombers.

Okay, not that kind of bomber . . .

My mind was locked into old paradigms:  1,000 bomber raids.  Those days are gone.  There is no real reason to send slow, crewed planes on missions where a much faster missile can do the job.  Big bomber raids are a thing that you only do against people who can’t shoot the bombers down which every significant near-peer enemy of the United States can.

And if you want to destroy a city?  You use a nuke – if I had a nuke, I’d call it Dr. W.  You know, W, M.D.?

Likewise, our aircraft carrier fleet is great when used against an enemy that can’t really fight back.  Use them against Iraq?  Sure.  Use aircraft carriers against China?

Ummm, that’s probably silly, since if a carrier is within fighter range of China, it’s probably in Chinese missile range, too.  American aircraft carriers are just targets preloaded with casualties.

Why am I writing about this today?

There are rumblings of war.  Putin looking to take over part of Ukraine?  China looking to take over Taiwan?  An American senator talking about a first strike against Russia?

I know when I yawned in physics class it set off a chain reaction.

To the extent the United States isn’t involved in either of these conflicts, things probably remain nice and boring.  If Putin wants the Donbas, I’m not sure that I care.  I have no idea why he might want it, but it seems like a lot of Russians live there.  I can certainly understand why he wants to keep the Crimean Peninsula, since that’s where he keeps his ships.

Again, I’m not sure that I care.  At all.

Taiwan is a different situation.  Its shore is as close as 81 miles to the Chinese mainland.  For the people in Taiwan, this is unfortunate.  From the standpoint of the United States – what, exactly would we do to help Taiwan if the Chinese invaded?

I don’t know.

I’m not sure that the United States could do anything.  In report after report, the United States loses, and loses quickly when China attempts to take Taiwan every time we wargame the situation.  Taiwan is 81 miles from China.  Taiwan is 5,000 miles from Hawaii.  To the extent that Taiwan isn’t prepared to defend itself, I’m pretty sure the United States has limited options in responding quickly.

I heard the Dalai Lama has a gambling problem.  He loves Tibet.

Which brings us to the face of war in 2021.  The Chinese have been thinking for a very long time about war with the United States.  To be sure, I’m willing to bet some very, very smart people in the United States have been thinking about just the same thing, when they weren’t distracted by Afghanistan or Iraq.

This following is from the 1999 treatise “Unrestricted Warfare” by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. (LINK):

. . . if the attacking side secretly musters large amounts of capital without the enemy nation being aware of this at all and launches a sneak attack against its financial markets, then after causing a financial crisis, buries a computer virus and hacker detachment in the opponent’s computer system in 146 advance, while at the same time carrying out a network attack against the enemy so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network, and mass media network are completely paralyzed, this will cause the enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis. There is finally the forceful bearing down by the army, and military means are utilized in gradual stages until the enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty. This admittedly does not attain to the domain spoken of by Sun Zi, wherein “the other army is subdued without fighting.”

The idea is simple – warfare encompasses absolutely every facet of the life of the enemy.  Destabilize the government.  Force their economy into chaos.  Starve them.  Own their communications systems.  In other words, it’s just like a Biden presidency.

The hippies tried to get to Afghanistan – they heard that smoking weed there got you stoned to death.

None of this is really new – destruction of civilian cohesion is a tactic that’s been used again and again.  At the end of World War I, the Allies kept a food blockade on Germany from 1914 until months after the November 1918 Armistice – the blockade lasted until July of 1919 to force Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles.  Over 100,000 German civilians died during the famine after the Armistice was signed.

The war envisioned by the Chinese (if it happens) won’t be the antiseptic thing that most civilians in the United States have dealt with since 9/11/2001.  It will involve the systems around us failing.  Imagine the utter loss of every modern convenience, including food being available and plentiful.  Then imagine there is no information on when (or even if) the help is coming.  Alone.  No food.  No power.  In the dark.

That’s what unrestricted warfare looks like.

After going through Hurricane Ike (a small one, by destructiveness standards) it was enlightening to watch the systems go down.  After four days, Home Despot® opened up, and was selling limited amounts.  How limited?  As I recall only 8 customers were allowed in the store at a time.  Purchases were done, as I recall, with cash only.  I went by to purchase a battery-operated fan, and was actually in and out fairly quickly – the Hurricane might have been a small one, virtually all services stopped.

Recovery was fairly quick because the damage was regional.  All of the surrounding areas pitched in and within a week, most power was back on in the city.  We had radio, so we were listening to the city come back to life in real-time.

I think when the astronauts saw this storm they said, “Houston, you have a problem.”

The interconnected, wired, and powered world has created an unparalleled ability to create wealth, to create comfort, and create convenience.  But it has added a great degree of fragility.  In 1919, if you had taken out the electricity to the United States, the result would have been inconvenient, but not fatal.  Some water systems might have failed, and people would have had to switch back to candles.  Abandoning the top floors of buildings that were inconvenient to reach except via elevator would be bad, but there would be no fundamental reason we couldn’t fix the systems:  this failure would hurt, but not paralyze us.

Today, it creates a system where unrestricted warfare could result in a conflict that would be over in minutes, and end with a country so devastated that it might never be rebuilt.

So, have a happy Monday!

This post was inspired in part by email with a reader – I’ll let them bring it up if they so choose.

Energy in 2022? I Hope So . . .

“No, Jonny. It consumes them. It eats energy – sunlight, electricity, the energy in a living body – anything it can get.” – Jonny Quest

I went into a room with a negative person in it, and then there were no people in it.

Energy is freedom.

Energy allows one person to do the work of hundreds or thousands.  I sit here typing this in Stately Wilder Mansion, it’s near freezing outside, yet a nice and toasty 61°F (43 and 2/3°kiloPEZ®) inside due to natural gas piped directly to my heater.  I like it cold in the house, just like my heart.

My computer is running, the television is running, and because I am apparently the only person in the house who knows how to use a light switch, at least 32 lights are on in the house are on.  It’s winter, so a light left on is (at worst) a little inefficient heater, so all is not lost.  I will tell you that when I die, though, I will walk to the light.  And turn it off.

Our energy costs aren’t all that high in winter, especially since I can keep warm by rubbing my thighs together like a cricket.  I go and fill my gas tank about every two months, so gasoline isn’t even that much of an issue.  When your commute is four miles a day (two miles each way) and takes four minutes (if I get caught at the one traffic light), well, it’s hard to use a lot of gas unless I pour it all over the truck and ignite it to look like a cool meteor while I’m driving.  Again.

But energy is freedom.

I started bench pressing again.  That’s a huge weight off my chest.

When energy prices are low around the globe, freedom increases.  As I’ve discussed in previous posts, high energy costs act like a tax on nearly all physical goods.  Sure, it won’t make the cost of a Kindle® e-book go up much, but it will increase the cost of a physical book – that has to be manufactured using energy, moved using energy, and delivered using energy.

So, what’s up?  Why are prices where they are?  Where are prices going?

I’ll start with “what’s up?”

We can’t create additional energy just by turning a knob:  the process is a bit more complicated than one of Joe Biden’s coloring books.

Let’s take oil.  In the 1930s, oil in Texas was so plentiful that it crashed the price.  Pools of the stuff would show up if you stuck a McDonalds straw too deep into the ground in East Texas.  Oil was so plentiful that people could barely tell the difference between water and gasoline.  Of course, in Flint, Michigan, you can get the gasoline unleaded.

I hear their swimmers are always in the lead.

What happened then is the Texas Railroad Commission decided it was in charge, and it limited the amount of oil that could be produced.  It was OPEC® before OPEC™ was even thought of – their idea was to stabilize the price of a seemingly limitless resource.

It worked.

But the era of oil abundance in the United States ended in 1973, and the Texas Railroad Commission (which still exists but no longer regulates railroads, seriously) ended allocations.  Texas could no longer control the price of oil in the United States by restricting sales.  The hunt for the next big oilfield was on.

We had then to hunt for oil in more and more distant places.

  • Alaska.
  • The Middle East.
  • Deepwater offshore.
  • Johnny Depp’s hair.

Also?  When exposed to pollen, bees develop hives.

Then we hit the jackpot – fracking.  Fracked oil is different than conventional crude.  It’s hidden in tight rocks that aren’t as porous.  That’s where the fracking comes in – the rock has to be fractured to let the oil out.  To keep the cracks open, high-pressure water and sand (and chemicals) are forced into the cracks.  The grains of sand remain and keep the cracks open.  There are so many jokes I’m not going to do here.

When this process started, it was inefficient.  But smart people spending billions of dollars will tend to make progress over time.  Dumb people with billions of dollars?  We call that the opposite of progress:  Congress.

There are three problems with fracking:

One – fracked wells are most productive in their first year of production.  Oil companies often run a rejuvenation process that increases flow after a few years, but mostly the later years are just a trickle in comparison to the initial years of production.  So, to have a continuous supply, you have to keep drilling, which is not boring.

Two – you have to keep drilling.  If the price drops and drilling stops, then the quantity of oil available drops quickly.  Then the price goes up.  Then everyone drills.  Because everyone is drilling, then the prices drops again.  And everyone stops drilling.  This acts like a “crack the whip” on the economy, since, as mentioned above, high oil prices act as a tax.

Why fracking?  Because I hear drilling is rigged.

Three – there’s more than profitability at stake.  Let me give an example:  if I have to walk to the grocery store to get food, and then I walk back home, that sounds healthy, right?  Sure.  I’m burning energy to go to the store.

But what happens if I burn more energy to go to the store than is contained in the food that I buy at the store?

I lose weight.  I’m actually spending more energy to get food than the energy in the food I’m consuming.  Plus, I’m rubbing my thighs together so I can stay warm.

What might be good for me is devastating as an economy.  At some point, it will be so difficult to get energy from oil, that, just like my trip to the store, we’ll be spending more energy to get the oil than the oil will provide us.  The energy return on energy invested will actually deplete the amount of energy available for us to use.

The more energy we use?  The faster we run out of energy.

I spent an hour on the treadmill yesterday.  Tomorrow?  I might turn it on.

Our primary energy source is that thermonuclear reactor that shows up every morning.  Our secondary source is tens of millions of years of stored sunlight from that same reactor, which just happens to show up in the form of oil, natural gas, and coal.  But the sunlight striking us every day has a problem:  it’s so diffuse that it’s difficult to make profitable use of it.  Sure, it warms us, it tans us, it makes the wind for our turbines, the photosynthesis for our corn, and the rain for our hydroelectric.  Energy is only useful when it becomes concentrated in some way.

You can’t generate energy with a tan.  Unless it’s a really, really good tan.

Are we at the point where it takes more energy than it’s worth to get energy?  A wind turbine in a good location will return 10 to 20 times the energy it took to make it, though that’s over the course of 20 years.  In a bad location?  A wind turbine will never return that energy, though I hear they love music:  they’re huge metal fans.

So, are we there yet, where the production of energy costs more than the energy we get?

I don’t think so.  Not quite yet.  When we do get there, it will become a cascading failure – every bit of energy we produce will actually dig us deeper into a hole.  Just like the Red Queen I mentioned last week:

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Never take a racing snail’s shell.  That makes it sluggish.

To keep a world of 8 billion people alive and with enough energy to consume Doritos® and Disney™ and Facebook© takes an ever increasing amount of energy.  2020 was an aberration – people stopped driving and energy prices (temporarily) went down faster than Kamala Harris’ . . . approval rating.

The last question was “what happens next?”

Currently (today) oil is about $70 per barrel.  The analysts that JPMorgan® have chained up in the basement of their skyscraper say that oil will jump to an average price of $125 per barrel in 2022, and then pop up further to $150 per barrel in 2023.

Double today’s prices.  Yikes!

What about the Energy Information Agency (EIA, a .gov that seems to be actually interested in energy)?  They say that in 2022, oil will average about . . . $72 per barrel – nearly the same as today.

It’s funny, because to know the price of oil, you have to know what is happening with economic growth, oil demand, and inflation.  If any of us know any of those things with certainty, we could make bets and double our money or better in six months.

Why did Biden win the golf tournament?  Because he finished it with one big stroke.

If JPMorgan™ has that genie in a bottle, they certainly wouldn’t be sharing it with mere mortals like you and I on the Internet – they’d make private trades and be zillionaires.  The fine folks at the EIA probably don’t make nearly as much as the analysts at JPMorgan©, but they do have the abject despair of working at a government job every single day.

My prediction?

  • If the economy crashes and the stock market implodes, oil will follow. People who aren’t working don’t need to go to jobs.  Will oil hit $40?    Depends on how low the stock market goes.
  • But! If inflation spikes and the government keeps shoveling cash like coal into a train firebox, well, $150 per barrel oil might seem like a bargain that would be cheap enough to take a shower in.

Crappy prediction, right?

It is.  Because with all of the difficult issues we simply don’t know.  The easiest bet is that oil will be more expensive because once inflation is unleashed, it’s hard to put back into the bottle.  The 1970s looked like this, so that would be my best bet.

Regardless, expensive energy has almost always been the enemy of freedom.

Prepare accordingly.

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

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

Midnight?

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

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

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

In this issue:  Front Matter – Making The Call, Part II? – Violence And Censorship Update – Models For The Future, It’s Personal – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – After Virginia – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 600 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

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

Making The Call, Part II?

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

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

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

My responses are in bold:

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

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

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

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

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

Violence And Censorship Update

Not a lot to add to violence this month.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Models For The Future – It’s Personal

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

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

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

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

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Up is more violent, and our perception of violence is holding steady.

Political Instability:

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

Economic:

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

Illegal Aliens:

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

After Virginia

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

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

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

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

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

Is this where we might beheaded?

LINKS

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

From Sea To Shining  Sea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Bad Guys…Guns…Good Gals

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Election Tidbits

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

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

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

https://www.defendflorida.org/canvassing

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

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

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

 

Secession – Thinking Nationally

https://link.medium.com/yNzD8Sxhzkb

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

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

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

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

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

 

Secession – Acting Locally

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Secession – Everybody Calm Down

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Secession – The Least Of Our Worries?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Wilder Manifesto, Complete With Otis

“Okay, whose job was it to feed the butterflies?” – The Venture Brothers

What do you call a unicorn’s dad?  Popcorn?

I remember reading a story as a child – I’d give the source if I could remember, but too many years have passed since I read it.  I’m at the age where I’m having trouble remembering names – mine for starters.  But some stories stick with you, especially when you can relate to them like I relate to batteries.  I mean, like batteries I’m not included in anything, either.

In this particular case, a young Japanese girl sat in a classroom.  Her desk was near a class project.  Inside a terrarium, a caterpillar had spun its cocoon and was slowly turning into a butterfly.  Each day, the young girl would watch this metamorphosis.  Finally, the butterfly was finally ready to emerge from the cocoon.

It struggled.  The little girl watched, sympathetic to the beautiful butterfly that was trying to free itself.  She could hardly wait – little kids are like that.  Every minute the butterfly tried to escape, she was torn.  It worked so hard!  Finally, she couldn’t help herself, and helped to tear open the cocoon for the butterfly.

The butterfly fell to the bottom of the terrarium.  It walked along the bottom of the terrarium, pitifully.  Soon enough, the butterfly died.  The little girl saw this happen.

That butterfly knows what it did.

The teacher pulled the little girl, who was now crying, aside.  “Did you help the butterfly get out of the cocoon?”

“Yes,” the little girl replied.  “It was struggling so!  I couldn’t stand watching it fight so hard!”

“You have to understand,” the teacher responded, “Only by struggling to escape the cocoon does the butterfly build enough strength in its wings to fly.”

Then he straightened up.  “You KILLED IT!  You’re so stupid!” screamed the teacher and then sent the little girl to the Japanese PEZ® mines.  Okay, in the story I read, the teacher didn’t scream that at the child, but I like my ending better.  In my defense, The Mrs. says I’m a high-functioning sociopath.

Butterfly and PEZ© mines aside, a repeated, tragic, repeated lesson of humanity is this:  misplaced compassion destroys.

I apologize.  John Gruden made me make this meme.

Misplaced Compassion

The median world household income is sort of a guess.  In 2013, Gallup® estimated it was about $10,000, and I haven’t seen a more recent number.  So, if everyone made the global average income, per capita, we’d each make about $2,900.  Per year.

The average family in the world is really, really poor.  But, hey, give a poor man a fish and he eats for a day.  Give a poor man a poisoned fish?  He eats for the rest of his life.

If you needed an explanation of why people are attempting to come to the United States, even the poor people here generally make more than $2,900 per year.  Welfare benefits for illegals (in the scale of their home countries) is big bucks, plus they get free schools.  The magnet driving the illegals is the wage imbalance (if they want to work, and many do) plus social programs (whether they want to work or not).

Being poor in the first world is better than being above average income in most countries.

Huh.  They called that a traitor when I was a kid.

This is not sustainable, because there’s a problem.  People rampage across borders in endless waves, yet capital flows freely.  Even as people flood the border, and I’ve heard estimates of 3,000,000 this year, industry flows away.

Capital flows freely, it flows without respect to any sort of morality.  Add in zero tariffs?  It’s a race to the bottom.  The economy hollows out even as millions come to partake in it.  Heck, if it gets bad enough, Google® might have to lay off some congressmen.

Just kidding.  Google™ would have to lay off all the congressmen.

The lure is simple.  Short term, we all get to buy lower-cost stuff.  Long term, however, it results in a shell of an economy.  Supposedly, one of George H.W. Bush’s economic advisors said, “It doesn’t make any difference whether a country makes computer chips or potato chips.”

That’s true.  Unless you live in what we call the real world.  Check the wages of people who work at either place.  Get back to me and tell me it doesn’t matter.  That’s the sort of short-term thinking that leads to long-term poverty and the eventual destruction of a nation.

What do you call a sad Italian parasite?  A hopeless Roman tick.

Venezuela Effect

The other problem with the social safety net is that the money and effort spent in creating and maintaining it is money and effort that isn’t spent advancing the economy.  Even if we had infinite amounts of money (spoiler alert:  we don’t) we have only so much effort.

Socialist giveaways lower motivation and destroy economic productivity.  I even made the argument with a Leftist friend that we should delay the implementation of socialism so we end up with better technology.  He agreed.  But, let’s be fair – in a pure capitalist economy, it’s man exploits man.  In a socialist economy, it’s the reverse.

What we are morphing into is a government of the takers and the oligarchy versus those that produce, perhaps the worst possible combination of crony capitalism and socialism combined.

One model of this is Venezuela.  The government replaced the leaders of the oil company, PdVSA©, with loyal commies.  A company that previously was one of the leading economic winners in the country (heck, the continent) was transformed over a decade into a basketcase that had to import fuel.

Yes, Venezuela is sitting on one of the largest deposits of oil in the world, yet they degraded their economy so they couldn’t make fuel.  It’s like Hollywood having to import movies, or Washington, D.C. having to import corruption, or a Biden having to outsource sexual depravity.

Biden met with his cabinet today.  And argued with his desk.

Welcome to our future under Brandon, er Biden.  Being a tick is a great business model until there are so many of them that they kill the host.  But I guess that the reason for that is real socialism has never been tried?  From a tick’s point of view, I guess they just need more dogs.

Also, the social safety net isn’t based on any moral concept, either at the source of the money (which is not freely given, but taken) to the recipient, whose only requirement is to fit a category and be breathing.  Forced charity isn’t charity.  Unworthy recipients are little more than thieves.

I mean, not that I have an opinion.

Potterville

In It’s a Wonderful Life, Jimmy Stewart’s character is shown a world where he didn’t exist.  The same thing happened to me, but it was just called “Tuesday”.  In Jimmy Stewart’s case, it was Potterville – a town where everything that wasn’t illegal was fair game for capitalists to exploit.

And exploit it the Potterville that was the United States, they have.  The “money” monopoly was made possible by the end of the Cold War.  With enough nukes, pretty much everyone is going to take your cash.  So, the idea was to print money and get stuff.  As long as that worked, the party could go on forever.

When I win a journalistic prize for this blog, I’m going stick my finger out to Joe Biden and say, “Pulitzer.”

This was built on the idea that there was a check on political financial abuse.  Bill Clinton was famously quoted as saying, “You mean to tell me that the success of the program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of f*****g bond traders?”  In the 1990s, there was a check on the excesses of the Left.

In 2021, apparently, those f*****g bond traders have no real place to invest or are “all in” on Weimerica, so the printing presses go brrr.  Why make (spins wheel) tires when you can make them with nearly no labor costs and no safety or environmental regulations right where they grow the rubber trees?

And if a plucky guitar company (Gibson®) wants to make guitars in the United States and they don’t agree with you politically?  Why not go after them for a non-crime for “importing wood” from countries that wanted to sell them the wood?

Sounds like Potterville to me.

Another Way

Our choice isn’t only between Potterville and Venezuela, or the strange blend of the two that we are becoming.

First, we have to have a nation.  Nations matter.  The second thing we have to have is morality and virtue.  As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

And he was right.

The choice is the “Lived Experiences” of the Leftist mob creating a new Venezuela combined with Global Capitalism creating a Potterville, or the other way:  Mayberry – morals based capitalism, a self-moderating system.

  • The failure of Potterville is that something being legal doesn’t mean it’s moral.
  • The failure of Venezuela is that universal socialism is jut theft from everyone.
  • Combining the two leads to Purdue Pharma® selling poison while the government pays for it.

Rebirth is possible only with morality, not a reversion.  1992 will always turn into 2022 unless the morality changes.

And he likes his martini shaken.  Or stirred.  Or unmixed.  Or still in the bottle.  He’s not picky.

Politics is downstream from culture.  Culture is downstream from values and morality.  What values do we share?  What morals do we share?

Who do we serve?

In the end, misguided compassion will destroy more than the economy.  It will destroy us all, as will capitalism without morality.

There is another way.

I believe in America.  We will find our way.  It will not be what came before.  Like a butterfly, we will struggle.

Let us hope that struggle builds our strength.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What luck!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I only make AOC jokes Ocasio-nally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We knew COVID was dangerous right off the bat.

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

Taiwan gets in trouble because it has a Taipei personality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t cry for the civilization we lost.

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

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

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