Another Key To Understanding It All: Family Structure

“Without the ability to defend one’s own viewpoint against other more aggressive ideologies then reasonableness and moderation could quite simply disappear. That is why we’ll always need an army.” – Monty Python, The Meaning of Life

Geology is great, but geography is where it’s at.

The ideology of a group can come from many things, including the propaganda that we are all exposed to from a very young age. Another part of it comes from the family structure that we’re surrounded by. A French dude named Emmanual Todd spent a lot of time thinking about this in the 1970s, and decided that the ideology of a country, in part, could be determined by the family structure that the country. I was introduced to Mr. Todd’s ideas by the WhatIfAltHist YouTube® show. I recommend that show.

First, I was intrigued. A French guy named Todd.

Weird.

And who loses when I post an image of Heather Graham? No one.

Second, it felt right. One of the things that people often don’t rate highly enough in the world is genetics. Genetics are very powerful, and influence far more than just hair, skin and eye color or other merely physical attributes. No, from what I’ve seen, genetics very much impacts the basic way related people think. It’s as if family structure, that which literally gives birth to genetic structure, could be a selection mechanism to create and reinforce ideology as well. That would entirely be in line with my observations of both people that I know, as well as the flow of history.

Third, I was interested. What Todd had to say was based on the cultures that he saw in the world in the 1970s, which, due to unceasing hordes of unchecked illegals has now changed. What tensions might conflicting ideologies based on family structures bring to countries being invaded?

But they’re as close to me as steppe-brothers.

Let’s start with the family structure that was the one that came from England and was predominant in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Normandy:

Absolute Nuclear.

  • It’s what I grew up thinking a normal family was – the term nuclear family was coined in 1924, and has nothing to do with atom bombs.
  • The mother and father met and chose each other for love.
  • They lived in their own house.
  • Their children were expected to become independent, be responsible for themselves, and their lives, after they grew up, was in their own hands.
  • Parents could disinherit kids, and split up the inheritance however.
  • God judges individuals.
  • Societies are mostly stable, but when internal revolts happen, they are horrific.

This is the most successful culture in history, and has been amazing for freedom. Christianity and individual salvation plus independence and individual outcomes lead to structures where people have incentives to produce, and incentives to be moral.

Why can’t you trust an atom? Because they make up everything.

Many other cultures cannot understand this culture – it appears cold and impersonal, and it values freedom over equality. For this system to work, though, high social trust is required.

Absolute Nuclear is a big chunk of my genetics. But the majority of it is:

Authoritarian.

This is just Todd’s name. If I were to name it, I’d call it the Ancient Honor culture, or something like that. It is a very big part of the culture of the United States, especially from the Southern States. Why?

  • This culture is that the Germans, Scandinavians, Czechs, Irish, Scots, Welsh had historically, and it also describes the Koreans, Japanese, and northern Spaniards (where Franco was from).
  • Only the oldest son inherits, so the clan follows the eldest.
  • What do the other sons do? Warriors or warrior monks so they have something to do.
  • The story of the society is one of a lineage that goes back through time. If you worry just a bit too much about your family story (like I might) and care about its honor (like I do) this may describe you.
  • The story of the society is one of the lineage of the family, the sense of history, stubbornness, and that everything thrown in front of you makes you stronger. Only the Irish can destroy the Irish, only the Scots can destroy the Scots. Losing makes them tougher.
  • Women have significant value, unlike in many other cultures.
  • These cultures typically have a large middle class, because if you don’t inherit, you’d best figure something out.
  • There is very little oppression in these societies, because individualism is cultivated – people like each other and will fight for their group.
  • These people are awful at creating empires – it took the British to unite the Irish since these groups are like a bag of cats. That’s why Japan and Germany and Scotland and Ireland were so hard to unify.

This is a very successful culture, historically, and is the other “big” Western culture. If I come across someone who wants to fight because I accidently took his parking space? Tell me you’re Scots-Irish without telling me you’re Scots-Irish. The tensions between the Authoritarians (South) and Absolute Nuclear (North) led to the Civil War.

I met the Godfather of the Scottish mafia. He made me an offer I couldn’t understand.

This is the rest, and possibly the majority of my genetics, and by far the majority of The Mrs.

Don’t make her mad on a point of honor.

The third culture that’s now impacting the United States is the one from (most of) France, (most of) the Italians, South America, Mexico, and Central America.

Egalitarian Nuclear:

  • In this structure, all sons inherit equally. There are several properties I’m aware of where the Spanish father split up the property (five miles by five miles) so his sons could all have access to the river that ran down the middle, so they could water their cattle. Fast forward to today, and there are several properties that are 200 feet wide by five miles long so they can still get access to the river.
  • Marriages aren’t arranged and females have huge influence.
  • Because everything gets split up into weird chunks, rich people end up buying the odd land and the sons end up with nothing to give for inheritance. This leads to massive wealthy inequality.
  • Because the families are equalitarian, they want equity in society, which leads to a series of revolutions because their property always ends up in the hands of the rich.
  • Why have most South American countries had a zillion revolutions, constitutions, communist uprisings, while the United States has had the same Constitution?
  • Since the daughters get nothing, it leads to an “alpha-male” dictator, but they’re comically bad dictators (think Chavez or Mussolini) that don’t get much done because, equality leads to zero discipline.

When this family structure is a significant minority, it ends up running the country. France. Italy. Most South American countries. Mexico. Why are they this mixed bag of equalitarian nonsense? Because of this social structure. Since often a minority population ends up deciding how the country is run, exactly how many Egalatarian Nuclear people can we let in from South America and still have a country that values freedom over equality?

My humor is a lot like food in Venezuela. Most people don’t get it.

We’ve created new family structures that Monsieur Todd never thought about back in the 1970s, since they were just in the process of becoming. What ideology will they create?

I have enough material for another post on this, so I’ll probably skip economics and do one more on Wednesday on family structure and ideology.

The Unabomber Teaches The Facts Of Life

“Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world?  Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy.  It was a disaster.  No one would accept the program.  Entire crops were lost.  Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world.  But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery.  The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from.  Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.” – The Matrix

I figured out how to turn Alexa® off.  I walked through the room naked.  (Only two memes are not “as found”)

Although he is certainly better known for other things (which I won’t defend), Ted Kaczyinski was very smart.  He did spend a lot of time thinking and writing about the human condition when he was, um, not working on projects.  One of the things that he wrote about was what he called The Power Process.

I’d be surprised if Ted was the first to point out The Power Process, since on its face it seems so . . . logical.  I’ll let him tell the tale, though the added emphasis is mine:

The power process has four elements.  The three most clear-cut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal.  (Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.)  The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone.

We’re skipping the fourth element (autonomy) because it doesn’t pertain to the post at hand.  You can read it in Ted’s work.  Remember my wife’s advice about reading Ted Kaczinski:  it’s okay to be seen reading Ted, but never with a highlighter.

Yeah, that’s a picture I made of Ted in front of a Blockbuster®, with A.I.

I am not sure this is universal, but it seems to appear every time I look into human nature and why people aren’t happy.  People like the struggle.  I had a friend who I will call “Joe” because his name is Joe.  Joe would often procrastinate at work, sometimes not doing much of anything for days.  Then, when the deadline approached, he’d work incredible hours to finish.

John Wilder:  “Joe, you did this on purpose.”

Joe:  “Yeah, I wanted to wait until I didn’t know if I could do it.”

The game wasn’t sufficiently interesting to Joe to keep him going until he created the challenge.  Since this was his job, the one he was getting the money necessary to eat and live from, he often flew pretty close to the flame.  But he always managed to keep his wings from being singed too badly.

What do you call a primitive man who liked to take random walks?  A meandertal.

For Joe, a very highly functioning human, effort was the key.  And to get to enough effort to keep him happy, he needed to have real jeopardy.  Without the required effort, it just wasn’t fulfilling for him.  Imagine fighting a kitten.  I mean, there’s no real effort involved, unless you give it rabies or a gun or make a genetically engineered kitten the size of a tank.

Ted goes on:

Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems.  At first, he will have a lot of fun, but by and by he will become acutely bored and demoralized.  Eventually he may become clinically depressed.  History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent.  This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain their power.  But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power.  This shows that power is not enough.  One must have goals toward which to exercise one’s power.

This explains why so many actors today are whining GloboLeftists who turn their adopted vanity children into transexuals:  they have everything they want, anything they could imagine, they don’t have to work for it – it’s just there.  All the time.  They (most of them) are fundamentally unhappy unless they have a goal to shoot for, and one that matters to them.  Maybe winning an Oscar™.  If you look at the youth of Robert Downey Jr. and Christian Slater, I can understand with their ludicrous early success why they went on crazy drug and violence benders:  they had it all.

If Ma Wilder had divorced and married a Mongolian, would I have a steppe brother?

There is, of course, a flip side to this:  the run of the mill GloboLeftist foot soldier.  Ted talks about them:

Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival.  Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.

I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again:  the vast majority of GloboLeftists are losers.  They are awful people who hate themselves, the world, and God.  They hate God because they look at how awful they are, and have to blame someone, anyone other than themselves.

See, Ted agrees with me.  Is that good, or not?

Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals.

Bingo.  Life is struggle, and if we win that struggle, even a bit, we feel good.  I would imagine this is hardwired into almost every living creature because otherwise they’d just give up like Mitt Romney’s spine.

In the current world, especially the First World, most of the struggles that used to occupy our lives are gone.  We spend very little time worrying about starvation or running from bears.  That leaves us in a weird position – we don’t have to fight to live, but we’re wired to like fighting to live.  So we need something more.

Amish women use protection to stop the spread of Abes.

Thus, we come up with other things, hobbies, games, sports and other ways to build a goal, work for it, and achieve it (or not).  One experiment I wrote about in the past (link below), the John Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia where mice were placed in a habitat where they had food and were free from predation and . . .

Want Dystopia?  Because this is how you get Dystopia.

His paper was called Death Squared because the mice, despite having all the food they could eat, died out.  But before they died out, their society collapsed in upon itself.  You can read Calhoun’s paper here (LINK), but it is as grim as remembering Biden is in the White House.  The mice stopped acting as families, rape became rampant, some mice became pansexuals (mate anything, any time) there were gangs, some mice ignored everything and just groomed themselves, and mother mice stopped nurturing their young.

Another A.I. drawing I made.

Sound familiar?

Yeah, I thought so.  Men need quests.  Society needs quests.  We need something worth fighting for, something worth winning for life to have meaning.  And, yes, I realize the irony of writing about Ted Kaczynski’s on a laptop and putting it on the Internet, but I think he’d understand.

Thank you for attending my Ted talk.

Why Does Asymmetric Warfare Exist? It Works.

“Apparently, my shoulder muscles are asymmetrical.  Did you ever hear of such a thing?  They say it’s genetic.” – Malcolm in the Middle

Never sell your soul to make good pickles – that’s a dill with the Devil.

Why do we have the TSA?

My contention is that there have been exactly zero hijackings of passenger planes since 9/11 (although one Alaska Air® plane was stolen by Sky King, PBUH).  Oh, sure, we had the shoe bomber.  That’s why one time when The Mrs. was going through a TSA checkpoint they made her take off her sandals and passed the x-ray wand over her bare, human, totally flesh-covered feet.

Yes, that really happened.

I suppose you could argue that a terrorist could put a bomb in checked luggage, so we needed minimum wage mouth-breathers to paw through my luggage and steal stuff, but an x-ray is far less invasive and cheaper in the long run than those idiots – besides, when I travelled with pistols, those were locked up and I didn’t have to show anyone anything.  I guess that’s one big advantage to having pistols.  Also, a TSA agent with a gun?

The TSA agent asked if I had any weapons.  “I prefer to kill with my bare hands,” apparently wasn’t the answer they were looking for.

Why have we spent billions of dollars on a system that (arguably) has saved no one, but cost me, personally, several hundred bucks when a TSA agent hot-fingered stuff out of my luggage?

Well, the government had to do something.  It doesn’t matter that the something was stupid and futile and useless, they did something.  The reason that they did something?

Asymmetric warfare works, though it’s called “terrorism” when not done by an established government.  Waco?  Totally not defined as terrorism.  Oklahoma City?  Terrorism.

Why is Ireland no longer governed by the British?  Terrorism, er, asymmetric warfare works – look it up.  Why does the state of Israel exist?  Terrorism, er, asymmetric warfare works.

What do you call a terrorist group from Hoth®?  Ice-IS.

Asymmetric warfare isn’t just bombs, though.  It works against individuals.

Make a statement that’s too far outside of the window of the acceptable?  That’s a public flogging and shaming.  Vox Day identified their tactics in SJWs Always Lie:

  1. Locate or Create a Violation of the Narrative.
  2. Point and Shriek.
  3. Isolate and Swarm.
  4. Reject and Transform.
  5. Press for Surrender.
  6. Appeal to Amenable Authority.
  7. Show Trial.
  8. Victory Parade.

I could give you many examples of this, but you already know many of them.  The result was the same – since the Narrative was like Cthulhu, and (until recently) only swam Left, there was an ever-advancing line of things you couldn’t say, even if they were 100% factual.  Some of these facts were (and still are, in some places) 100% censored.  That’s why they have to hobble and censor A.I. – the Truth is contradicts their Narrative.

And then everyone clapped.

The really, really corrosive part of this censorship is and was that the line was never a clear one, and kept shifting.

YouTube™ content creation is a big business.  It makes millions of dollars a year for some people.  Some even end up hiring writers, editors, and concentrate on making content that never would have made it to television in the past.  But they live and die at the whim of YouTube™.  Violate the nebulous terms and conditions, and not only do they end up losing their revenue stream, but they end up having to fire people that they’ve hired, people that they have grown close to.

So, as a content creator, they stay firmly on the “safe” side of the line.  Until the line moves.  Then, when their old videos (which were fine a year ago) now are found to violate the new narrative that just came into being last week?  They get scared.

See, it’s funny because it wasn’t my window I was naked in front of.  The Mrs. always tells me it makes the jokes more funny if I explain them.

And viewpoints are suppressed because of this non-violent, yet still very destructive type of terrorism.  My own podcast on YouTube® was flagged a year ago over making a joke about the Vaxx®.  Note that to any listener of the podcast, it’s really, really obvious that whenever we use the words “safe and effective” that we really don’t mean either safe or effective.  But when we say “no refunds” we actually really do mean that.

Regardless, viewpoints are suppressed.  For kicking off a few higher profile YouTubers® (Stephan Molyneux, for instance) they get compliance across the entire platform.  Molyneux had millions of comments and millions of hours of his content viewed during his time on YouTube™.  The result?

All deleted in a moment, and then banned from not only YouTube™, but PayPal©, Mailchimp®, and SoundCloud™.  Go to his Wikipedia© page and he’s listed as a “white nationalist podcaster who promotes conspiracy theories, white supremacy, scientific racism, and the men’s rights movement.”

Does this sound like isolate and swarm, anyone?

Yes, it’s economic terrorism on an individual.  And it works.

Oddly, though, in another sign that the Narrative can be stopped, Bud Light™ forms the backstory for the same tactics being used against GloboLeft.  We’re all familiar with the narrative that Bud Light© stupidly partnered with a man who dresses like a woman and lost hundreds of millions of dollars, but why?

Just in time to remind everyone before their Super Bowl® ads.

Because in the same timeframe a gender-confused young woman killed a bunch of people at a church school.  The name of the killer was known (and presented her as a woman, not the man she pretended to be).  The names of the victims were known.  But what was left?

The reason.  Within a day, it was known that the killer had left a Tranifesto, a description of why she had killed.  It was kept under wraps.

Why?

Because it showed, without a doubt, that her mind was twisted with a Leftist hate against . . . white people.  That’s simply not the Narrative, so immediately an investigation was started to find those horrible people that shared the truth of the mind of the murderer.

But the people (you and me) connected the dots between the beer and the shooter and were done.  Bud Light™ was and is seriously wounded.  And just like the YouTubers© that shy away from content that might cross the line, wounded companies stopped.  Not just InBev™, parent company of Bud Light©, but also every single app on my phone that normally turns gay-rainbow in June . . . didn’t.  Not a one.

I hope it will give it time to reflect.

The line had been drawn.  The economic asymmetric warfare from the people began to be heard.

I think that’s the case along not only the Texas border, but the whole border.  People everywhere are done with illegals, and done with pressing 1 for English and done with being quiet about the horrors caused, big and small by this unchecked invasion.  People are pushing back, and I’d expect that illegals and other immigrants will soon be the subject of public rudeness and shunning.

Racism?  No.  It’s our country.

Obviously, unlike in Canada, the government, despite its bluster, realizes that it can go only so far.  That’s the reason the Second Amendment is there.

And it has gone too far.

And no make-believe “compromise” will work, but more about that in the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, coming next Monday.

I’m For Not Being Against Things

“A new power is rising.  Its victory is at hand.” – Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers

I guess she didn’t see that coming.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is real.  Back a decade ago, Anonymous Conservative (link below) was writing about the term “Amygdala Hijack”.  An Amygdala Hijack occurs when a person is “an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat,” according to Wikipedia.  Basically, it means that someone has gotten in the target’s face so much that their brain breaks – they can’t contain the emotion and either lash out or stroke out.

The Amygdala Hijack In Action – A Video Example

This is the definition of Trump Derangement Syndrome.  People are willing to disfigure their bodies and write “Trump” permanently on them to signal they hates him, they hates him so very much.

My friend got a tattoo of his favorite Star Wars™ character on his cheek.  You should have seen the Luke on his face!

As much as the GloboLeft® hates Trump, most of their beliefs are made up not of provable facts (as much as they F*****g Love Science™) but rather the way that they feel on a subject.  A great example is abortion:  as much as they try to hide it, an unborn child is a discrete human entity with its own DNA, blood type, and body.  That’s actual science.

But to disguise that very unpleasant truth, an entire web of “feels” has to be developed, focusing on the edge cases of rape and incest.  As such, members of the GloboLeft™ cannot discuss abortion in any terms other than emotional ones, mainly because they want jobs where they can make PowerPoints® and a child wouldn’t be convenient.

What’s logical doesn’t matter.  It’s what the GloboLeft® feels that matters.

Men have feelings too!  Like hungry.  Or drunk.  Or salty.

Note that this leads to a subtle but important difference:  GloboLeft© people aren’t for Joe Biden, they’re against Donald Trump.  When a person is against something in emotional terms, they’re ripe for their amygdala being totally hijacked.  They’re deranged, raw anger because something they’re against has happened.

On the other end of the spectrum, I thing most people on the TradRight™ aren’t for Donald Trump, they were for the border wall.  They were for lower gas prices.  They were for a return to normalcy.  The were (and are) for America, first.  When Donald deviated from what the people were for, well, they let him know.  Remember the choruses of “boo” at a Trump rally when he began to brag about the Vaxx?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.  Trump never led us.  He saw the caravan and sprinted to the front.

Michelle has a “big” future.

But the experience of GloboLeft© was the exact opposite.  When it was Trump’s Vaxx, it was poison that they would never in a million years put in their veins.  When it became Biden’s Vaxx, it became a holy sacrament and a sign of their oh-so-virtuous behavior.  The reason for the change is that they weren’t for the Vaxx, they were against Trump and anything he ever tried to do.  People on the TradRight© were always skeptical, because, I mean, what is that stuff, anyway?

Being for something is generally positive.  I’ve got to say generally because there are some pretty twisted folks out there that are “for” some pretty awful things.  If the thing I’m for isn’t based in virtue, well, that’s a problem.

In the long run, “our” (I’ll count you in, dear reader, but feel free to opt out) movement must be a movement about being for things, because by being against things, we’ve already lost, and we’re on the defensive.

Why did Norm MacDonald never have a farm?  Because he never got old.  (I think Norm would appreciate that)

We have not lost, and we need to go on the offensive for things we are for.  I know, it’s a subtle point, and sometimes difficult to get to.  It could be said that I’m against immigration, but I can easily swap that and say that I’m for a culture which values the lives and fortunes of its citizens more than economic growth at all costs to depress wages and serve the elite, which is the driver of our current tidal wave of immigration.  I’m for a unified culture based on Western values.

It’s the same thing, but it’s not.  Being against war is not at all the same thing as being for peace.  I am for peace for my people.  And if it takes a war to get peace for my people, then so be it.  Being against war just makes a nation a victim.

By making myself state what I’m for, rather than what I’m against, I force clarity to my thoughts, and also have created the basis for going on the offense.  Being against Donald Trump gives him the ability to live rent free in the heads of the GloboLeft®, which makes them exactly what Donald calls them, losers.  And they hate him even more for being right.

Being for makes us winners from the beginning.  It gives us a goal, even if it’s so lofty that even our grandchildren might have to wait to achieve it.  It gives us hope, and a vision for a brighter future.  By being for something, it gives us the pathway to achievement, and the belief that we can move to victory.

I guess a Middle Eastern nation was providing armored vehicles to Ukraine for free.  Is that tanks-giving Turkey?

Do I fall into the trap of being against things?  Certainly, but I try to take step back and understand and flip the script to focus on the things that I’m for.  But when I’m out there creating the vision of things I’m for, I know that I’m planning and plotting the seeds of our inevitable (and I do believe it is inevitable) next victory.

All of this with my amygdala firmly my own.

Why Do They Want You To Eat The Bugs And Not Garden? Profit And Control.

“I thought the garden was the right place for her.” – Alien:  Covenant

We could get rid of all of the carbon in the atmosphere by making the oceans carbonated.  This would work, because right now, the Earth is flat. (memes mostly as found)

Last week I wrote about the ridiculous idea that electric cars (absent a big technical breakthrough) are the solution to anything other than a rich person trying to smugly signal their virtue like a really, really expensive Bernie Sanders campaign sign.  Continuing on the “carbon is bad” mantra of the GloboLeftElite®, the next obvious thing to deal with?

Food.

For some time, the mantra from GloboLeftElite© is that it’s time for you to stop eating the food you’re eaten your entire life, and eat bugs.  Why eat steak when you could eat crickets and worms instead?  Oh, and have you heard about all of the huge environmental problems that Big Agriculture™ causes?  Why, there are huge tractors guzzling diesel fuel as they lumber about the farms!  And farmers just love to burn vast ponds of diesel into great geysers of black smoke because they’re so rich and hate the environment.

Farmers I like, but I’ll not get up to defend the current average diet in America – there’s too much corn syrup and too many gallons of seed oils and it apparently makes Amber Heard poop the bed.  All American food isn’t bad, but some of the current commercial implementations are.  But there’s an alternative for lots of people.

Gardens.

Gardens are one reason a lot more folks didn’t starve back during the Great Depression – people were able to make a lot of their own food (a lot, not all of it) mostly for free.  Yup, stick a seed in the ground, fertilize it, water it, keep the weeds and bugs out of the garden, and you get food.  During both World Wars kitchen gardens helped people deal with food scarcity.

I mean, that’s the theory.  GloboLeftElite™ would prefer you just eat the bugs.  A recent article in The Telegraph notes that “the carbon footprint of homegrown food is five times greater than those grown conventionally.”

I thought this meme was a joke.  Nope.  Real. 

Yes, you read that correctly.  Gardens, in this case urban gardens, are the next thing that has to go.  Why?  Well, it’s not the growing of the food that creates the carbon, you see, it’s all the infrastructure.

They count sheds (which, if made of wood, would sequester carbon, but, hey) and sidewalks and things like raised beds, which apparently are single use, since lower carbon can be achieved by “using urban agriculture sites for many years.”

Who knew you could plant crops the next year, too?  And who knew that growing things that eat CO2 without using CO2, lead to more CO2?

I’m not kidding.

Yes, they (in this case, idiots with degrees at the University of Michigan) count the sidewalk that is probably already there to get to this ridiculous answer.  There were a few foods they were okay with:  tomatoes and asparagus, because those used greenhouses to grow and air freight to move them to supermarkets.

I heard OSHA started making porn.  They’re experts in NSFW content.

Again, silly answer, but what do you expect from the people who brought you this sad little garden in the CHAZ during the “George had too much fentanyl and died” riots of 2020.  Yes, the people at CHAZ were serious.

This is why GloboLeftElites™ want to ban gardens – revenge!

But the GloboLeftElite© wants you to lower your carbon footprint.  Oddly, the dinner menu at the World Economic Forum didn’t include a diet of corn syrup, slugs, and microplastics.  And none of them arrived by bus.

The propaganda from GloboLeftElite™ has, however, been excellent.  People have been brainwashed into believing that vats of gooey insect parts are where healthy food comes from, and tasty cows are the force of pure evil in the world.  Soylent Green™ is now no longer dystopian – the rank-and-file GloboLeft® (notice we’re missing the “Elite” part) think that Impossible Meat™ is better.

History has shown the GloboLeftElite® is never, ever right.  In fact, I’ll go one better:

  • If we don’t do the things that the GloboLeftElite® want us to do, they claim it will destroy us through a magical demon called carbon that has been higher than it is today for most of Earth’s history (after life, that is).
  • The truth is that we do the things that the GloboLeftElite© want us to do, it will certainly destroy us.

I know that there’s been a long-time war against meat, at least since the 1960s.  Vegetarians, are almost always Lefties, but it’s okay, because they’re weak.  Why do they not want us to have meat?  Because it makes us strong?

I think vegetarians always lose because they’re too weak for leg day.

The biggest problem for GloboLeftElite© is that food from your garden gives them no profits and gives them no control over you.  We have the technology to turn bugs into a tasty protein source:  it’s called a chicken egg.  But they want you to eat the bugs, because if they humiliate you enough to eat the bugs, they know that they can make you do anything.  Anything.

Want proof?  Why, when COVIDmania® was ongoing did Michigan ban stores selling anything but essentials, and those essentials didn’t include seeds for food?  Why did a group of Amish get raided and arrested for selling food?  Control.  And GloboLeftElite™ loves that.

Yes, that’s what they think.

Controlling the food as a route to controlling the people has been a strategy employed since the days of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt.  It’s very easy to control a person if they starve when they misbehave based on social credit scores.

Remember that the real source of carbon they want to stop is you, and that if they were serious, they’d ban big yachts and private jets and look outside of the Western world for sources of carbon to cut.  No, it’s you, and it’s personal.  They want you to eat bugs to help the climate.  What did they eat at the Climate Conference in Dubai back in November?

“Traditionally Cooked Smoked Briskets, Smoked Ribs and our Smoked Wagyu Burgers. Our Style of Cooking gives unique taste and technique in Authentic Gourmet Foods.” Think I’m kidding?  Here’s the LINK.

Yes, they could cut back.

But they won’t.  GloboLeftElite© would never fly commercial.  That’s for bug-eating peasants.

Hey, do you have a license for that garden?

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Planning For The Fixed Election

“I think it’s safe to assume it isn’t a zombie.” – Alien

I was going to post a joke about free and fair elections, but I’m not sure any American will get it . . .

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

Volume V, Issue 8

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

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

In this issue:  Front Matter – Distractions And Conspiracies – Violence and Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Rising Consciousness – 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 over 820 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

Distractions And Conspiracies

In the latter part of December, a tool er, elected official, er tool in Colorado determined that, in her official capacity, that “Donald Trump is a no good meanie who tweeted® some things I don’t like so he can’t go on the ballot.”  Oddly, the Leftist members of the Colorado Supreme Court agreed.  This will be taken to the United States Supreme Court and overruled.

Colorado, leading the nation in Free and Fair© elections.

It never was supposed to actually get the Donald off of the ballot – no, this was meant to stir the pot.  This was meant to be like a magician’s hot assistant wearing a skimpy outfit – it was a distraction.

Oh, sure, California and Colorado (and Maine, apparently) would love to get Trump off of the ballot because they hates him so much, that tricksey Trump.  It doesn’t matter, obviously:  Maine, California, and Colorado are solidly and reliably Leftist either through immigration (California and Colorado) or being bought off by Stephen King (Maine) since he has all that extra money after being off cocaine.

If the election were free and fair, and held today, Trump would win handily.

I’m shocked – I thought the Biden Campaign had real “Mike Pence” energy.

The election isn’t going to be held today, and it won’t be free and fair.  That’s why they need the distraction.  After the 2020 election, the Left couldn’t help themselves – they had to brag.  In print, they admitted doing everything they could think of to elect the single least appetizing candidate to ever run for the presidency since Jeffery Dahmer narrowly lost the Democratic nomination to Bill Clinton in 1992.

The Left can and will do anything, and I mean anything so Trump will lose.  The weird thing is that they define making sure people can’t vote for the candidate that they want to vote for as “Defending Our Democracy.”  The tell is in the speech – it’s not “Defending Democracy” – it’s “Defending Our Democracy” – and you and I aren’t part of “Our”.

Note the use of “our democracy” . . .

I can assure you that the plans are being made in conference rooms across the nation where smelly (Leftists don’t shower, it’s not carbon-friendly) Leftists are huddled with their yellowing teeth and rubbing their hands together with glee and planning their strategy.

It always does that, right?

Am I certain that Leftists stole the 2020 election using illegal means?  I am.  Could we prove it in a court of law?  There were enough shenanigans and evidence of many, many irregular and illegal activities in just the precincts and locations required to swing the election.  And they’re not going to leave anything to chance.

Violence and Censorship Update

It’s beginning to look a lot . . . more difficult though actual violence and censorship are down.  Usually I comment on these, but I’ll just leave them for you this month:

Biden’s Misery Index

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

Yup, up again.  But the very first time that it might have been flat, thanks to winter and lower gas prices.  But remember, when you’re going off a cliff, when you look around sometimes there’s a nice view.

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

Violence is flat.  Winter is in, and riots aren’t as fun in galoshes.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it is up.  This was a bit unexpected – we’ll see if it continues.

Economic:

Economic numbers are swinging back up again this month, and reaching a local peak.  Lower gas prices and giving up in Ukraine, and avoiding (so far) a wider Middle Eastern war are partial drivers.

Illegal Aliens:

Another one of the biggest numbers, ever, in the history of the country, record for December.  For all time.

Also, other people are noticing what I’ve been graphing for years:

Rising Consciousness

The average reader here is certainly more in tune to the news than the average person, and is aware of the coming catastrophe that will be Civil War 2.0.  Since the inception of this series, I’ve made (you can check) the earliest year that Civil War 2.0 kicking off is this year – 2024.

That means just that, the earliest.  The latest I would peg it at would be the mid 2030’s.  That’s the latest.  I wish that I could say that I see the danger passing.

I do not.

An article I read decades ago mentioned that couples who got divorced talked about one thing that couples who stayed married didn’t talk about:  divorce.  Civil War 2.0 is rapidly rising in our mental consciousness.

Barack Obama recently produced a movie on Netflix® that was about a civil war.  Another one is coming out this spring.  It’s showing up in polls, and it’s in our popular culture.

Just like couples heading for divorce talk about divorce, a people headed for civil war will talk about civil war.

This might just explain Zuckerberg’s underground bunker, as well as all of the boltholes that were built in New Zealand by billionaires.  Could be they’re talking about it, too.

LINKS

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

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/i/status/1732674896172630213
https://twitter.com/i/status/1743918696899187005
https://twitter.com/i/status/1743646909317742988

https://twitter.com/i/status/1743575570334531701

https://twitter.com/i/status/1744009477521617162
https://twitter.com/i/status/1743751214158807051

https://twitter.com/i/status/1743696547185861093

https://twitter.com/i/status/1743562835387400411

 

Good Gals

https://twitter.com/briana_whatley/status/1732963908342747300

https://bearingarms.com/john-petrolino/2023/12/06/overcoming-adversity-n-j-woman-with-one-hand-gets-permit-to-carry-n78066

 

One Guy

https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1735434239829811639

 

Body Count

https://kirschsubstack.com/p/data-from-us-medicare-and-the-new
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/insider-newsletter-287-19-1024×704-4.jpeg?itok=xHFFK4fE

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-12-04/red-flags-everywhere-2023-sees-alarming-rise-excess-deaths-across-america

https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/inside-catastrophic-jobs-report-record-15-million-crash-full-time-jobs-multiple-jobholders

https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/31441.jpeg

https://twitter.com/fentasyl/status/1740779371529740380

https://www.muckraker.com/articles/illegal-alien-invasion-maps-exposed/

https://www.muckraker.com/articles/federal-child-trafficking-pipeline-exposed/
https://korybko.substack.com/p/is-biden-about-to-put-10-million

https://endoftheamericandream.com/are-hordes-of-military-age-chinese-men-being-brought-into-the-united-states-in-an-attempt-to-destabilize-our-society/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12869575/pentagon-biden-army-navy-marines-space-force-military-recruit-gen-z.html

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-ghost-of-gwot-haunting-the-military-recruiting-crisis/

 

Vote Count

https://archive.is/z6Ouy

https://heartland.org/opinion/heartland-rasmussen-poll-one-in-five-mail-in-voters-admit-to-committing-at-least-one-kind-of-voter-fraud-during-2020-election/

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/3271703855135-how-ron-desantis-100-million-death-star-collapsed

https://jonathanturley.org/2023/12/21/times-editorial-board-member-paints-opponents-to-trump-disqualification-as-modern-day-confederates/

https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fthefederalist.com%2F2023%2F12%2F18%2Fmedia-lie-about-this-leftist-linked-voter-roll-maintenance-group-to-protect-democrats-election-machine%2F

https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/democrat-linked-attorneys-sue-to-stop-voter-id-ballot-measure

https://wvmetronews.com/2023/12/11/gubernatorial-candidate-mac-warner-the-election-was-stolen-and-it-was-stolen-by-the-cia/

https://twitter.com/RepMalliotakis/status/1731418203480285206

 

Civil War

https://www.altaonline.com/dispatches/a45965333/eastern-oregon-secession-movement-julian-smith/

https://www.newsweek.com/texas-independence-usa-secession-1852816

https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/texas-secession-group-says-petition-signatures-should-nab-ballot-spot-18174488

https://reformedjournal.com/the-undertow-scenes-from-a-slow-civil-war-2/

https://metro.co.uk/2023/12/06/doomsday-community-wants-people-live-575-bunkers-19932385/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12825301/Young-Americans-fearing-2024-election-spark-civil-war-Gen-Z-doomsday-preparations.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2023/12/20/donald-trump-colorado-supreme-court-civil-war-election/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3akydj/conspiracy-theorists-think-alex-garlands-civil-war-is-actually-programming-americans-for-civil-war

The Wealth Pump In America – Two Examples

“We wounded this place, it’s our duty to close her wounds, it’s the least we can do to show our gratitude for all the wealth she’s given us.” – Treasure of the Sierra Madres

Time is wealth – I found out that a fresher kidney costs more than one that’s a week old.  Also, never try to donate more than three at a time – they ask a lot of questions.

I read this week that the UN Climate summit (LINK) is offering food that included smoke wagyu burgers, Philly cheesesteaks, and BBQ at the summit.  This same summit is expected to tell people that they can’t have meat anymore because, you know, climate.  It’s almost like there’s a double standard . . .

The nice thing about spending the time reading books like Turchin’s End Times is that it gives a new filter to view the events that we’re seeing around us.  This filter, or model, is useful because it allows the events of the world to be reviewed in relation to the model.

Peter Turchin’s End Times: There Be Dragons Here

Turchin actually presented two major models:  Elite Overproduction, and The Wealth Pump.  While both are important to a civilization beginning to dissolve, the one I’d like to focus on today is The Wealth Pump.  Part of the wonderful part of a model, is that it can predict what’s going to happen, and explain the otherwise unexplainable.

Never get married on Mt. Everest – it’s all downhill from there.

Let’s take a look at the first strategy:  feminism.  This came on board starting as far back as the 1800s.  Why?  It was good business.  More women making financial decisions meant more customers.  To this day, that’s the case – women make more purchasing decisions than men.

Mission accomplished.

The next idea was to mobilize women into the workforce.  It took two world wars where women went from making babies to making welds on Liberty Ships to test the theory.  In the 1950s, though, those darn women went back to homes, and were making babies in the biggest baby making event the world ever saw.

That wasn’t good for business, and, thus feminism.

Chuck Norris had COVID.  For breakfast.

Feminism has had a long, horrible past.  In modern-ish times, the biggest example was the Spanish Civil War.  The first things the commies did was make abortion legal and to abolish marriage.  Oh, sure, they killed a lot of priests and nuns, but the focus was on splitting apart the family.

Why?

So women could be more productive in the economy.  This is the weird place where The Wealth Pump and commies are in complete agreement:  women shouldn’t be at home making babies, women should be at work making PowerPoints® and tractors in Glorious Tractor Collective Number 171.  Women aren’t loving members of a family, who have the job of creating compassion in their families while the men instill duty and honor.

Nope.  There are decades of propaganda convincing women that being a mother just wasn’t enough – it was beneath them.  The latchkey generation (mine) was based on the thought that Moms should do whatever and find themselves because . . . reasons.  Although my parents didn’t divorce, millions of other families were ripped apart by that abomination.

When stoners divorce, do they get joint custody?

Yes.  Divorce is bad.  Sometimes it is justified, and that requires fault.  But no-fault divorce made it a game show based around fun and prizes for women – they still initiate 80-90% of divorces.  Combined with the government welfare for women using a uterus as a clown car, this creates a society of children who have no real family.  Also?  They have no real sense of duty or honor.

But, hey, we have tons of women who are making wonderful PowerPoints® on how to exclude white guys from jobs without looking like they’re excluding white guys from jobs.  And those women weren’t making babies.  Certainly, The Wealth Pump requires cheap labor, so that brings us to:

Immigration.

The hordes of immigrants that have been coming to this country, both legal and illegal have been in unprecedented numbers.  The American public overwhelmingly is done with this level of immigration – they don’t want it.  Why was Trump’s three-word slogan – “Build the wall” so effective?

Because people want a damn wall.  In many places, they look around at their country and see it doesn’t resemble at all the country they were born in, and they’re tired of it.

The wall might work.  China built one, and they have nearly zero illegal immigrants.

Yet, it continues.  The Democrats crave it like a junkie craves whatever junkies crave after heroin.  I think they crave drooling, which would explain why they like Joe Biden.

The Republicans have and continue to be the “sure, but not so much” party since, well, forever.  Reagan signed in the first big amnesty in the 1980s.  Why?  Because the wealthy folks demanded it.

Why?

Because all the women were making PowerPoints® doing whatever it was that women did in business in the 1980s, The Wealth Pump demanded this:  cheap labor.  Women had been cheap labor, since they could run typewriters while the men did the real stuff.  But when women wanted to move up the corporate ladder and computers allowed people other than women born with the typing-gene to type, The Wealth Pump demanded that we have cheaper labor.

Thus?

Rather than pay a slightly higher wage to people picking strawberries, it was way easier to have illegal people pick lettuce and tomatoes and strawberries.  They couldn’t complain, or they’d get booted out of the country.  Rather than pay actual Americans to pick (or invent picking machines) it’s much easier to have a labor class in this country with no ties to this country and work for less.

Gardening is complicated – someone suggested I try manure on my strawberries, but, ugh, I’m sticking with whipped cream.

Except these Wealth Pump-encouraged people also get free health care for their children, free schooling for their children, and career paths that receive priority over the people born here.  When you add it all up, these actually end up sucking much more money out of the system than they provide in economic benefits to the country.  This analysis doesn’t even come close to adding in the societal costs in lower trust and increased crime.

Here we have the ultimate irony of The Wealth Pump – it creates more wealth for the operators, while it sucks the money out of the entire country.

But, hey, Bezos has a new tramp with lips so inflated that he could use her to transport Amazon™ packages if he inflated them with helium and a yacht that can land his helicopter.  And eat all the beef he wants, even though it’s time for you to get in the pod and eat the bugs.

I mean, it’s your duty to those that benefit from The Wealth Pump.

Think Movies Suck Now? You’re Right.

“Freedom costs a buck-oh-five.” – Team America:  World Police

I’ve lost to a computer at chess, but never at kickboxing.

I write about movies (and books) sometimes because they are important – very important.  They are a part of the myths and backstory that defines a people and a country.  Part of this entertainment is (often) a reflection of who we think we are, or who we aspire to be – those are the characters and stories that endure and grow over time.

Comedies certainly have their place, as well.  Comedies can be rooted to universal truths that are (more or less) unchanging with time, think greed, yappy women, and farting.  Yes.  The oldest recorded joke in history that we have yet discovered is a (not very good) fart joke.

Why can’t you make fun of Steve Jobs dying?  It’s not PC.

Part of comedy, especially movie comedy, is the unexpected.  For that to happen, most of the time someone is the object of the joke – the person who is being made fun of.  In comedy in the 1970s, that person was almost always a white male, and almost always was the father and was almost always on the Right.

Why?

Feminism.  Comedy of the 1970s and onward was almost always written from the Leftist perspective.  Think Archie Bunker, who ended up being popular in spite of them trying to make him a buffoon.  Who had the first flush of the terlit on television?  Archie.  To make fun of white men who were on the Right.

Another tip:  don’t use the toilet brush as a microphone when you sing in the shower.

Heck, when I was in junior high and wondering why the only funny things were Leftist (I was on the Right, even then).  Then I read P.J. O’Rourke, and understood that it was more than possible, it was far, far funnier than Leftist humor ever imagined it could be.

The Right is funnier because the Right has Truth on its side.

For a long time, movies have been propaganda of one type or another.  Top Gun?  There’s a reason that the Navy spent millions to help make the movie – they approved the script.

There have been wild cards – people who make fun of everyone and everything – think Airplane.  One that really pushed the boundaries was Team America:  World Police.  South Park used to be funny, back when the stories were about the kids.  When the stories started to be about the adults?  Less funny.

But Team America:  World Police was something else.  It made fun of jingoistic movies while at the same time gutting hard-Left, virtue signaling idiot actors like Sean Penn, Janeane Garofalo, Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore, Danny Glover, and Tim Robbins.  They were all part of the Film Actors Guild, or F.A.G.

Yes.  They went there.  They also made fun of AIDS and homosexuals.  And Moslems.  And movies like Top Gun.  The rumors are that the studio approved it because it was so politically incorrect, and might be cheap because it was made with puppets instead of actors.

I’m glad COVID didn’t come from a Chinese bear.  Then we’d have had a pandademic.

Needless to say, making a movie that makes fun of any protected group is no longer allowed.  Why are comedies dead?  Because it gets really old, really fast, when the only person you can make fun of is the same person who buys all the movie tickets:  heterosexual white Christian men who have XY chromosomes.  You know, “literally Hitler”.

Comedy is now unfunny, mostly.  Please feel free to leave exceptions in the comments.  And movies as a whole are borderline unwatchable.  Part of the collapse of the box office (and small theaters) was COVID.  The other part is that movies suck.

The reason that movies suck is that they’re now just blatant propaganda, start to finish.  The latest Marvel® movie, The Marvels™ is a commercial failure, and a box office flop.  The studio is blaming the usual suspects:  the actor’s strike, superhero fatigue, white supremacy, anti-feminism.

That’s easy.

Harder to face is that their stupid movie sucks.

This was even in his speeches . . . remember him saying, “Let me be clear”?

Why does it suck?  It’s about women that don’t need no man.  Oh, and couples who have kids don’t want to spend money to have their kids watch Gay Buzz Lightyear™ and ask questions about why Buzz© has two mommies.  That’s it.

Who is the primary consumer of superhero movies?  White men.  Who is the primary consumer of movies for children?  People capable of making children, which, for every year in the history of mankind before 2020, were known as “men” and “women”.

Yes, white men like to look at attractive women in skintight costumes, but only the most Leftist is willing to sit and watch a movie that makes fun of them and marginalizes them.

Why does Marvel© (and Disney™) lose money?  Because they forgot who buys the tickets.

Men.

I’ve gotten to the point that, unless I’ve heard about a movie, if it was made in the last four years, it’s a hard pass, even if it looks interesting.  The movies started going south in, say, 2018.  My take is that was a reaction to Trump.  It so triggered nearly everyone who writes or acts in a movie that all they wanted to do was attack a relatively Centrist guy who just happened to be President.

What do your get if you take an entire human digestive tract and lay it out on a football field?  Arrested.

The reaction led to . . . crap.  Every Leftist simply had to get their message out that trans was the new normal and white men were awful and stupid and that NASA stuff on the Moon was a fluke.  Oh, they tried to take credit for that, too.  Because white guys, you know, can’t do math.

I also noticed it with books.  I was a lifelong reader of science fiction – I loved the ideas.  Then, around 2010, I started to notice that the books in Barnes and Noble® mainly . . . sucked.  I thought it was me.  I thought I was old and jaded.  But, nope, I read some of the old stuff and it was still great.

Science fiction was destroyed by The Narrative, too.  The people who picked the books that made it to the shelves only picked Leftist crap filled with weak people who hated themselves and hated everything True, Beautiful, and Good.  In this breakup, it wasn’t me, it was them.

They came for comics and killed them.  They came for books and killed them.  Lastly, they came for movies, and killed them.  Every book and every movie has a message, and most are propaganda of some sort or another, for good or bad.  Propaganda to get kids to brush their teeth?  That’s good.

But propaganda to turn them into self-loathing transexuals?  That’s 100% against the True, the Beautiful, and the Good.

This was the 2022 “woman” of the year.  Guess guys do everything better.

Watch what goes into your mind.  Watch what goes into the minds of your children.  Help them to aspire to be noble and virtuous and strong.  Help them to understand that jokes about yappy, farting women have been funny for 4,000 years, and will be funny for as long as women fart.

There are still good books out there.  There are still good movies, though they are uncommon, since the rot is very, very deep.  But freedom?

It still costs a buck-o-five.

Two Types Of Society. There Is Proof We Have A Choice.

“There are two types of people in this world:  people who like Neil Diamond, and people who don’t.” – What About Bob

A man threatened me with a coffee cup and stole my wallet.  I guess I got mugged.

There are two types of cultures.  One of them looks a bit like this:

I was walking in Silver Dollar City® more than a decade ago.  It was spring, and Silver Dollar City™ was an amusement park where we could take the kids and visit attractions, and even though they weren’t even teenagers, there were plenty of rides for them.

As we were walking through the park, a young blonde man of 18 or so ran up behind me.  It wasn’t a sprint, but the easy strides of a high school football player in top shape – like Michelle Obama, the kid looked like a linebacker.  “Sir, sir!”

I turned around.  “Yeah, how can I help you?”

“You dropped this.”

What did Mike Tyson say to Vincent van Gogh?  “Are you gonna eat that?” (meme as found)

The kid handed me two $20 bills.  This is unusual, since normally I have to at least pull up my shirt for anyone to give me $40 so I’ll put the shirt back down.

I stuttered, “Th-thank you!”  I felt in my pocket, and, sure enough there were two twenties that must have followed my hand out of the pocket like a structured thought sneaking out of Joe Biden’s head.

The blonde kid smiled, waved, and ran off before I could even offer him a fiver for his honesty.  And, thinking about it, he might have been offended if I offered him money.  I know I’ve turned cash down before for similar acts of honesty or help.

You don’t do it for the reward.  You don’t do it for the glory.  You don’t do it for the free shrimp and talcum powder.  You do it because it’s the right thing to do.  Period.

That’s one type of society.

This type of society functions pretty well.  The prices (back then) at Silver Dollar City™ were much lower than at other attractions of a similar nature that I’d been to.  The park itself was clean and tidy, and every local business was polite.  Did they want our dollars?  Sure they did, but they were great about wanting to come by them honestly.  They wanted to earn my money.

That’s the way that Modern Mayberry is, mostly.

Sheriff Taylor retired to a farm, so he could see Barn every day.

But San Francisco?  Wow.

I haven’t been there in almost a decade, but the pictures I’ve seen recently show a city that’s not in decline.  It’s in free-fall.  In Modern Mayberry I always lock my car doors because it’s a habit from living in big cities.  In San Francisco?  People don’t lock their cars.

People don’t lock their car doors (and many leave their trunks open) so prospective thieves can see that there’s nothing to steal without breaking the windows of the cars to rummage around themselves.  The people have surrendered to the criminals.

Porch pirates are everywhere in SF, and steal whatever they can.  People live on the streets in tents, and often defecate and do drugs in public, because, why not?

San Francisco is also leading the nation in stores disappearing or locking up all of their items.  Why?  Because mobs loot the stores, in broad daylight.  If the thief is caught, they’re immediately released.  The only solution for a store that wants to be in business is to sell you the item, go get it from a locked room, and then give it to you after you’ve already paid.

Want to watch Mad Max:  Fury Road in the most realistic way possible?  Go to San Francisco.

Lefties, I’m sure, have plenty of theories for why San Francisco is like this.  White privilege.  Institutional racism.  Failure to provide mental health services.  Lack of reparations.  It’s Wednesday.  Spin a wheel and pick an excuse.  But every one of them is a lie.  And I can prove it.

How?

Go look at the streets today where President Xi of China will be when he travels San Francisco.  The homeless are gone.  Crime is gone.  The streets aren’t covered in poop and needles and Disney™ products.

If the city of San Francisco can do that for Xi, it means that they can do it.  Even Governor Gavin “Plastic Man” Newsom said the quiet part out loud:

“I know folks say, ‘Oh, they’re just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town.’  That’s because it’s true.”

A poll was taken by California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office which asked whether people who live in California think Illegal immigration is a serious problem.  29% of respondents answered: “Yes, It is a serious problem.  71% of respondents answered: “No es una problema seriosa.”

Guess he wants to impress people that don’t live there.

San Francisco doesn’t have to be like it is.

The only reason that San Francisco is a horrifying dump is because people want it to be a horrifying dump.  As I’ve said before, the solution is obvious (We Already Know The Solutions).  Criminals need to value the gain they make from a crime less than they fear the penalty for when they get caught.  That’s it.  The equation is simple.

We know exactly what we need to do to solve almost any problem.  And, as is on display right now, the Powers in San Francisco know exactly what solution is required to solve this problem.  But they don’t, or at least limit the solution to times when world dignitaries visit – the effort for just common people is too much.

I wouldn’t worry about it.  It was a he said/Xi said situation.

Why, exactly do they allow a kleptocracy to fester in California?

  • They don’t like guns. Guns have been the great equalizer
  • They will ruthlessly target and destroy common citizens who defend themselves or their property because in their minds only the State should be able to wield force to protect itself.
  • There is no punishment of the criminals, because they’re a favored voting group.

Probably the biggest reason is this:

  • They want the people to be scared. They want the people to feel helpless, as if there’s nothing they can do and they don’t care how much money it costs you.  They want to use this to get just a little more power.

That’s it.  The reason for the kleptonomics on the street is because it serves those who could fix the problem.

Me?  I’ll take Silver Dollar City© and Modern Mayberry any day.

Enthusiasm or Passion? Choose Passion.

“In fact, it had been observed by some, that the Hobbits’ only passion was food; a rather unfair observation as we have also developed a keen interest in the brewing of ales.” – Fellowship of the Ring

Why don’t they teach sailors how to swim?  So they will defend the ship with more enthusiasm.

I hate enthusiasm.  I really do.

Enthusiasm is motivational posters.  Enthusiasm is a group of cheerleaders chanting out “H-U-S-T-L-E, hustle, hustle for victory!” when the football team is down by 25 points in the fourth quarter.  It’s pretending to be excited in a job interview.

Enthusiasm has always been a bit (as the kids today would say) cringe to me.  It really does make the skin crawl on my spine when I think about the mindless enthusiasm that I see in the world.

Why?

Because it’s generally fake.  It’s not based in any sort of reality – it’s a series of mindless platitudes that don’t mean anything or show any true or real commitment.  Enthusiasm is what I see from political candidates when they’re at their most smarmy and useless.  Oh, wait, that’s every day for them.

Like I said, I hate enthusiasm.

But I love passion.

Cattle don’t cheer, but I heard that they give encowregment.

Passion is real, it’s deep, and it’s not at all afraid of Truth.  Passion is the part of you that keeps you playing in that football game when you’re down by 25 points in the fourth quarter.  Passion is the fire inside of you.

When I was in high school, every year the wrestling coach would have a parents’ meeting at the start of the season.  As a part of the meeting, he’d have a demonstration match between two of his wrestlers.  I was lucky enough to appear in the two of those matches, one held my junior year and one held my senior year.  I think he did it to get the parents excited about the season.

In my junior year, I was wrestling a senior that was stronger and better than me – my only claim to fame was that I outweighed him by 15 or so pounds.  When we started the match, he slipped on a throw and ended up on his back – I got the takedown plus two back points before he reversed me.  He won the match 5-4.

It was the best I ever wrestled against him.

I’ve never met The Rock, but I heard he was shy.  I guess I would have expected him to be a Little Boulder.

The next year I was the senior wrestling a junior who outweighed me by about 35 pounds.  Right before the match, he said to me, “Wilder, please don’t pin me in front of everyone.”

My response?  “Jimmy, if I can pin you, I will.  This is wrestling.”

There was, in my mind, no half-measure in a wrestling match.  To go easy on someone stepping out on to the mat would, in my mind, then and now, be cheating.  I was passionate about wrestling, and the mat was sacred to me – you’re out there just you and another man, going toe to toe, and every second you spend on the mat in a real match you give it everything you have.

That, in my mind, is passion, though you might just say, “Wilder’s just a tool” and you wouldn’t be wrong.  But to not pin Jimmy if I could, well, that would be cheating the sport.  It wasn’t personal, it was the simple principle that every time, every single time I went on the mat it was deadly serious to me – I gave every single bit of myself.  To do less than I could?  That would be a lie.

I asked for no quarter, and I gave no quarter.  Jimmy was still my friend afterwards,

I bought a tie for my dog to wear on our walks.  He looks sharp when he does his business.

I think passion is like that.  It’s a drive from the core of your being – it’s not about trying to be something, it’s who you are.  Passion alone is an amazing thing, and allows peak performance.

The other variable is talent.  Just by my body’s geometry I’m unsuited to some sports.  Long distance running?  Probably not with these short Viking legs and long Norse torso.  Lifting very heavy things?

That’s more like it.

Talent is also unfairly distributed.  I’ve seen people who have zero talent for something throw their entire lives, passionately into an activity.  Ma Wilder was passionate about art.  And, I still have some of the landscapes she did as oil paintings.  When it came to landscapes, she had a gift.

But when it came to people?  Ma was Modern Museum of Bad Art bad at drawing people.

The one on the right looks like the clues I get in Pictionary®.

Add talent to passion?

That’s where “world class” comes in to existence, because passion is the only thing that can keep a man driving himself to his limit day after day.  The best concert violinists practice more than the average ones, not less.  Their talent plus passion is what creates that world class performance.  Talent alone?  You get a collection of people that all fall into the “could have been” category, gifted people who didn’t have the passion to turn that gift into world class performance.

Working hard, day after day, year after year, is what it takes to be great at anything.  Raw talent isn’t enough.

Fake enthusiasm?  No thanks.  It’s time to get passionate and angry about something.

Me?  I’m starting with raisins.  Man, they piss me off.