Category: Valhalla

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/

Change: Start Small

“I’m a man, but I can change.  If I have to.  I guess.” – The Red Green Show

It’s amazing to me how little people change.  It’s the same process, but the clothes are just so tiny.

Change.

It’s inevitable.  The only choice I have is whether change is intentional or whether it’s not intentional.

The reason for wanting to change varies, especially with the change.  In most cases, it’s because something in my life isn’t working.  My plan on only paying for power once every three months?  Turns out the electric company isn’t good with that.

Or, if it is working, it’s awful.  Ever have a job that is awful, that sucks your life out minute by minute and leaves it on a moist puddle on the floor?  Yeah, me too.  And that’s a sign for a change.

For whatever reason, the biggest difficulty most people have with change is starting it.  Scott Adams of Dilbert® fame had this advice – even though it’s written as a quote I’m paraphrasing:  “If you want to do something, just do the very smallest thing.  If you have to move your hand move your finger.  Your smallest finger.  The smallest muscle in the smallest finger.”

People who speak more than one language are considered more attractive.  Unless the language is Klingon.

It’s amazingly good advice.  Once physical movement starts, even the smallest of movements, it’s easier for the chain to start.  I have unconsciously done a variation of this technique for years.  Whenever I have to clean a room, I pick a place.  I almost always start with a corner.

It’s very, very easy to clean out one foot in either direction from a corner.  Then, when the corner is perfect, I move a foot outward from the corner in both directions.  And then further.  And further.  You might ask, “Well, how dirty does John Wilder let a room get that he has to start in a one-foot by one-foot section?”

I live with rodeo clowns.  Okay, now that The Boy is in college, rodeo clown.  Even though the chaos distortion field in our house is down to a single teenager-sized bubble, I’m still amazed that the door isn’t always open with tumbleweeds and vermin-like opossums and Leftists constantly drifting through.

So, yes, I start with a corner and build-out.  It’s the easiest way.  Plus, when the corner looks great it creates a contrast with the rest of the room.  Then all I have to do is make the rest of the room look like the corner.

I never drink when I clean.  I’m a dry cleaner.

So, starting with changing just one thing makes a lot of sense.  Changing just one thing out of your life is easy.  I mean, after O.J. Simpson stopped killing people, well, the world opened right up for him.

I’ll give a personal example.  I generally avoid video games.  I played them (from time to time) when I was younger.  But then I saw an episode of a television show, Dream On.

The secretary, Toby, was horrible.  She generally ignored her job, but on one episode, she spent the entire game playing a video game at work.  It was a virtual supermarket.

She started as a bagboy.  Ten minutes into the episode, she was yelling, “Clean up on aisle three!” and had been promoted to cashier.  A while later, she was manager of the produce department.

The episode was nearly over, and then Toby had beat the game, “I did it!  I’m the manager!  Of,” long pause, voice falling, “a supermarket,” voice moving down to a whisper, and filling with despair, “that doesn’t exist.”

The most common occupation to put a person in the hospital?  Paramedic.

That had a big impact on me.  Winning a video game was, well, hollow.  I gave them up (mostly) for years and years and years.  Then I found one that hooked me.  Yeah.  Sure, when I conquered the world, I was conquering a world that didn’t exist but . . . the complexity.  Good times.

But . . . it was taking six hours of my life a week.  Honestly, life is wrapped so tight that those six hours are straight off the top – I’m swapping sleep for world conquest.  So, I decided in September to stop.  So far I’ve gained about fifty hours of my life back.  Did I sleep during that time?  Sure, some.  But the change was significant.

And it was positive.

It wasn’t a big change, but it was a change.  Will I play the game again?  Sure I will.  It’s really fun.  But I’ll pick and choose when I’m going to give that sleep up.

So, starting a change is one thing.

The next?  Keeping up with it.  There has to be a reason.  Mark Twain said it very well – “Willpower lasts about two weeks, and is soluble in alcohol.”

I hear Shania Twain named her child Choo Choo.

The biggest thing people worry about is failure.  And it should be a big deal.  But dealing with the consequences of failure?  Get up and start again.  Like Mark Twain also said, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world.  I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”

It’s okay, he eventually got down to smoking just a single cigar a day, but he noted, “it was the size of a crutch.”  Plus?  Every single day of his life, he got to be him.  So, big cigars and being Mark Twain?

Sounds like a win to me.

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.

The Funniest Article You’ll Read Today About Risk

Wang:  “A brave man likes the feel of nature in his face, Jack”
Egg Shen:  “Yeah?  And a wise man has enough sense to get in out of the rain.” – Big Trouble in Little China

Whoever took this photo was having a Kodiak moment.

Fairbanks, Alaska.

One thing about Fairbanks (and Alaska) is that it is rougher around the edges than the lower 48.  Everywhere.  They’re so tough there that they make the fries out of real Frenchmen.  Also, other things are a little different:  for example, the Post Office.

I had an acquaintance that I worked with who had come to my workplace from a previous career in the Post Office.  He told a story of a new Postmaster that showed up in town.  I believe that this particular Postmaster had come from the East Coast.  Don’t know why he was in Fairbanks.  Perhaps he was in the Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program?

Regardless, this new Postmaster was going to make changes.

“From now on, we’re going to deliver packages to the doorstep of anyone who gets one.  The days of leaving packages at the doorstep are over.  And, we’ll knock and let the resident know that the package is there.  We can increase customer service, and we will.”

I wrote a letter today.  I might try a number tomorrow, if I feel up to it. 

That’s a great sentiment.  Heck, here in Modern Mayberry, when a package shows up, the USPS drops it right on my front porch, then rings the doorbell, and scampers off.  It’s a nice touch.  It probably takes an additional minute or so for every house.  It works well here, and the biggest danger most mail carriers see is the random housecat with delusions that it is stalking prey in the veldt.

But in Fairbanks it’s a different story – I’ve described people up there as “very friendly people who will generally leave you the hell alone.”

The new Postmaster from the lower 48 didn’t understand why his carriers were so reluctant to implement the “to the door” service for packages.  He heard grumbling, but didn’t understand it – the carriers would do it in town, but they didn’t want to do it for the remote routes.  So, he got in with a carrier, and they ran a remote route together.  I guess that made him a mail escort.

One of the houses was pretty far out, say, 13 miles from the city, up Chena Hot Springs road.  The Postmaster and carrier got out of the truck to deliver the package.  The Postmaster knocked on the door.

Immediately, the door opened as far as the door chain would allow.

“What the hell do you want?” asked the man opening the door.

Behind him, the Postmaster and carrier could see a man pointing a rifle at them, “Tell me they’re Feds!” yelled the man with the rifle.  He kept repeating that.  “Tell me that they’re Feds!  We’ll end them right here and now!”

I use a .30-06 to hunt deer.  That gives me a lot of bang for my buck.

They left the package.  The “to the door” delivery idea was quickly abandoned.  Likewise, I’m certain that Amazon® will never try drone delivery up there – the locals would just think of that as skeet shooting with instant prizes.

The carriers understood the risk, the Postmaster did not.  They knew that Fairbanks is (in a literal sense) the end of the road.  The people that come to Alaska were adventurers, misfits, and fortune seekers.  And some of that group were people wanted for felonies.  There’s a reason that for many years taking pictures of workers at a construction site was considered bad manners.

So, it was a question of risk.  Many people don’t really understand the risks that they take.  In many cases, some risks are entirely overblown.

Case in point:  at a recent high school football game here in Modern Mayberry, there was lightning during the game.  To be clear, the lightning wasn’t coming down around us, the nearest strikes were miles away – probably 8 or 10 miles.  But then I was shocked . . .

. . . that they stopped the game.  All of the players went into the locker rooms, and The Mrs. and I continued to sit on an elevated aluminum structure.  Yawn.

If lightning only followed the path of least resistance, why doesn’t it only strike in France?

I wasn’t really worried.  In the years between 2006 and 2019, 414 people were killed by lightning in the United States.  My chances of being hit were, oh, nearly zero.  Exactly 12 football players were killed by lightning during that entire period.  As badly as our home team was doing that game, well, they could have used something to charge them up.

But lightning?  It is estimated that 243 people are injured each year in the United States by lighting, and 27 killed, on average.  And 1/3 of those killed?  They were inside.

Yes, lightning kills.  How many?  Hardly anyone.

But yet I’m sure that every school district in the country has a lightning policy that says something to the effect of, “If there’s any lightning any nearer than, say, Poland, shut it all down.”  The policy was probably written by lawyers that want to take the danger out of anything and everything.

“Let’s go Brandon”

People rarely understand risks.

The biggest risks for someone dying when they’re young are car accidents.  By far.  The human organism is pretty strong when young.  The main cause of death is, well, being old.  Of the top 10 causes of death in the United States (those top 10 cover over 74% of deaths) all of them but one are things that mainly happen to old people.

Of the top 10, only “unintentional deaths” (6%) are more likely to happen to young people than old.  In Modern Mayberry, those deaths often involve a motorcycle, a ramp, a cow, road flares, super glue, and the phrase, “hold my beer.”

So, risk number one to avoid is getting old, which can be done using only some beer, a motorcycle, a ramp, a cow, road flares, and some super glue.

A Mexican movie stuntman died recently.  I guess Jesus died for your scenes.

I think the reason we focus on some of these risks that are ludicrously low probability is simple:  it is much easier to focus on them, rather than on real risks.

The question I ask myself is this:  What is it that I know, that I’m avoiding?

It’s a powerful question.  A Twinkie® is a much greater danger to my life than a lightning storm.  Do I avoid thinking that?  Do I try to rationalize big risks and run scared from small risks?

What am I trying to hide from myself?

When I answer that question, then I know what the real risks are.  The biggest risk, perhaps is if I become a Postmaster.  Then people would expect me, John Wilder, to be funny, and I’m not sure I could do it.

After all, it’s all in the delivery.

Time: It’s The Only Thing You Have

“I didn’t invent the time machine to win at gambling. I invented a time machine to travel through time.” – Back to the Future 2

I have two dogs, Rolex® and Timex™.  They are watchdogs.

Time.

Of things that have long fascinated me, time is at the top of the list.  Even when I was a little kid, time fascinated me.

The idea that time, of all of the physical parameters of the world there was the one that we couldn’t control.  Humanity has mastered the power of the atom, at least partially.  We haven’t tamed fusion, but we can create it, and have several fewer islands in the Pacific because of it.

Humanity has dammed the largest of rivers, giving us power.  We have used technology to shrink the world.  The first recorded circumnavigation of the world took 1082 days.  Magellan didn’t quite make the whole trip, but he still gets the credit on a technicality.

Now?  The International Space Station does an orbit in 90 minutes or so at 17,150 miles per hour, which is nearly as fast as Haitians are entering Texas.

Humanity has conquered the riddle of steel – we’ve made steel buildings that reach upwards into the sky to please Crom.  We have conquered climate – people live at the South Pole in perfect comfort, as well as managing to live in Houston without melting into puddles of sweat.

Batman® couldn’t solve the riddle of steel, but he could name the worst riddle:  being riddled with bullets.

We can see at night.  We can talk, nearly instantly, with people a continent away.

My phone buzzes every time there is motion outside my front door – it’s like having a superpower of sensing where and when there is activity at a distance.  Another superpower is being able to access obscure facts anywhere on the planet that can reach a cell signal.

But time remains fixed.  It flows only one way.  And it is the most subjective of our senses.  Even Pugsley notices it:  “This summer was so short!”

He’s in high school.  That’s when the transition from the endless summers of childhood begin to transform into the fleeting, never-ending carousel of years that is adulthood.

Best thing about being in Antifa® is that you never have to take off work to protest.

I’ve long felt that I understood why this was.  Let me give it a shot.

For a newborn, the second day it’s outside and breathing is 50% of its entire life.  For a six-year-old, half of their life is three years – much more.  It’s not a big percentage, but it’s much smaller than 50%.  For a sixteen-year-old, half their life is eight years.

If you’re forty – half your life is twenty years.  1/8 versus 1/20?  It’s amazingly different.  We don’t perceive life as a line.  We’re living inside of it – we compare our lives to the only thing we have . . . our lives.  Each day you live is smaller than the last.

But that’s not everything.

As we age, novelty decreases.  When we’re young, experiences and knowledge are coming at us so quickly that we are presented with novel (new and unique) information daily.  New words.  New thoughts.  New ideas.  That’s why babies keep falling for that stupid “got your nose” thing.  They don’t realize that I can reattach it.

Three clowns were eating a cannibal.  One clown says, “I think we started this joke wrong.”

Over time, though, novelty decreases, as does the percentage of your life that each day represents.  Ever drive a new route somewhere?  When I do it, I have to focus my attention.  It seems like it takes longer because I’m having to deal with novelty.

I’ve had my “new” laptop nearly seven years.  I had my old laptop for longer than that, yet my “new” laptop still seems like it’s temporary.

There are only so many routes I can drive to work, so much novelty that I can find in a daily drive.  Even a commute of an hour begins to fade into a brief moment in time if it’s the same commute, day after day.

Work is similar.  Over time, we gain experience.  Experience shows us how to fix problems (and sometimes how not to fix them).  But that experience of taking a solution and modifying it to fix the next problem isn’t as hard as fixing the first problem.

The fact that each day is a smaller portion of my life, combined with the fact that as I get older, the possibility that I see something new dims.  I’ve solved a bunch of problems in my life.  Finding a new one is . . . difficult.

Life goes faster, day by day for me.  Every endless summer day of youth is in my rearview mirror.

And yet . . .

Each day is still 24 hours.  I can still use each day and live it with all of the gusto of a 10-year-old fishing for trout after building a tree fort, playing with his dog, and building a model of a Phantom F-4 to dogfight with the MiG 21-PF already hanging from the ceiling.

They did not see that coming.

Even though those 24 hours seem shorter now than at any time in my life, they are relentless in their exact sameness.  I get to choose how I spend those moments in my life.  I get to choose what I want to produce, and how hard I work to make it happen.

Humanity may never have the ability to crack time – it appears that even today, outside of sands falling from an hourglass, we can only describe time as a fundamental entity, something we measure against.

Does the flow of time vary?  Certainly.  But only if we’re moving at large fractions of the speed of light or are caught in a huge gravity well, but let’s leave your mother out of this.

Gravity is just a social construct invented by an English Christian to keep you down.

I have come to the conclusion that I will likely never understand what, exactly, time is, outside of this:

Time is all we have – it is what makes up life.  We measure our lives in it, because no man can buy an extra hour of life.  We have the hours we have.  The only difference is what we do with that time.

I mentioned in a previous post that (during the week) I often get by on scant hours of sleep.  That’s because I have more things that I want to do in my life than I can fit in a day that’s less than 20 or 22 hours some days.

I choose to try to do more, to try to make use of this time, because each moment is a gift.

Maybe I can settle for that definition of time:  a gift.  Each moment is a gift.

Don’t beg for more, or live in fear of losing them.  Just make each moment count.

Perhaps that’s the secret and precious nature of time.  It is the one thing we should never waste, and never wish away.

Biden’s Big Bluff

“You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em . . . .” – The Gambler

I bought dice, but they didn’t have the 2, 4, or 6 one either one. They are very odd.

This was originally going to be a post on another topic, but events have overtaken it. Again. Instead of getting a sidesplitting romp about a lighthearted subject, you’ll get sidesplitting romp about Biden’s (latest) Big Blunder.

I’ve never been that dedicated of a poker player, though my friends and I played quite a bit when I was in high school. I do recall one game way back then where I won a bayonet (an M8A1 with matching scabbard for you knife nerds) but lost a hand where I wagered a girlfriend.

Oh, and I also won $6.48, mainly in pennies.

I still have the bayonet.

One thing I did notice was that when I was winning, it became easier to bluff. I could bet on junk, but only if I’d won most of my hands up to the point I started bluffing with strong cards.

None of us were experienced poker players, so it was trial and error. I found that the bigger, more confident bet that I had made (after I was winning) the faster my friends would fold their hands, and the fewer bayonets and girlfriends I could win (or lose). But if I wanted to end a hand quickly, a big bet was what I would try to bluff my opponents into folding so I could win the pot.

Never trust a cheetah. They always try to pull a fast one.

Even with that small amount of experience, I can tell you that former vice-president Joseph Robinette (I guess his parents couldn’t afford a real Robin) Biden is bluffing.

And Biden is scared.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan was so poorly managed that it would be enough to charge Captain America® with treason. And that’s probably the best thing that happened to Biden in the last month, even though his recollection of the evacuation of Kabul might be dim and confused until they bring the flashcards out.

As bad as it was, Biden managed to make that national shame even worse. How much respect does he get from the American people when he checks his watch every time the coffin of a soldier goes by? Maybe he thinks there’s something on it, since he obviously doesn’t know what “not on my watch” means.

No, things have not been going well for the kid-toucher in chief.

This string of decisions so bad it makes Johnny Depp on a three-day drunk look as lucky as a chipmunk at a peanut convention. It’s bad enough that I imagine most of the senior White House staff are looking for jobs, or in some cases, countries that don’t extradite back to the United States.

I guess El Chapo would be used to high officials.

Through the art of remote viewing and making things up, I have an exact transcript from discussions among some of the members of Biden’s political strategy team last week:

Soulless Political Drone 1 (SPD1): “Okay, we’re down in the polls. What do we do?”

Soulless Political Drone 2 (SPD2): “It’s not so bad.”

SPD1: “No, it really is. Biden is now less popular than,” checks list, “having leprosy . . . on your genitals.”

SPD2: “Well, people kind of like leprosy nowadays. It grows on you. Besides, we know that there’s a floor to the number of people that will support him, though. The voters . . . .”

SPD1: “Voters? You do realize that most of those voters are copier machines we rented at Kinkos®, right? No. He’s lost the suburban soccer moms.”

SPD2: (shocked) “You mean he’s lost the support of the SSM? That’s a disaster! Our focus groups say they used to think of him,” checks focus data, “as category 74-b: ‘befuddled elderly relative that mostly means well but you wouldn’t leave alone with girls between the ages of six and twelve.’ What do the focus groups of Suburban Soccer Moms say now?”

SPD1: “Now they have him as a 93-w: ‘Creepy old man with degenerative brain disease who probably smells like week-old urine.’ Also, that he doesn’t care about Americans stuck in foreign countries and is . . . weak.”

SPD2: “Ouch. SSMs don’t like weak. Remember when all of them were having romantic dreams about Trump and Trump supporters?”

SPD1: “So, what do we do?”

SPD2: “Let’s do what we always do: trot out the kids. Let’s make a big fuss about COVID-19 not being safe for children, blame the unvaccinated.”

SPD1: “We’ve done that already. It’s getting a big yawn. We have to spice it up.”

SPD2: “We could have him do push-ups, maybe beat someone up? Think we could dig up Corn Pop?”

SPD1: “Do you even hear what you’re saying? You sound like Kamala when she’s off the sauce for a day. This is serious.”

SPD2: “Ok, serious face on. Ohhh, we could have a vaccine mandate. We could threaten the jobs of 100,000,000 or so people if they didn’t comply.”

SPD1: “What? How is that remotely Constitutional?”

(Both laugh. And laugh. And laugh.)

SPD1: “Whew. Constitutional. Still funny. But 100,000,000 people? How many of them are Biden voters?”

SPD2: (checks website) “2,113,210.”

SPD1: “Only 2,113,210? Out of 100,000,000?”

SPD2: “Well, after we were done with the counting.”

(Both laugh.)

Okay, that might not have been exactly the conversation, but it was close. Biden’s political advisors see that he’s as weak as vegan housecat. They have to think of something to distract the voting public and bring his poll numbers up.

  • His economic policies appear to consist of burning money to keep his supporters warm while importing future voters as fast as he can. Can’t use those.
  • It’s pretty certain that there are approximately seven people left that want to go bomb foreign countries for a distraction. Sending cruise missiles to blow up people in (spins board) Denmark is out.
  • Can’t get tough on trade with China – they have too much information on where Joe’s bank balance came from.

That leaves . . . the ‘Rona.

Thanks to Biden, a lot of people are going to be back on their feet again, since they can’t afford cars anymore.

I think the idea was to craft policies that appeal to the Suburban Soccer Mom while not impacting the SJW base. So, go after people with jobs and force them to take “the jab.” Suburban Soccer Moms will love it because it will leave little Cody or Colby or Colbee or Codi “safer” because the TV and Facebook® said so. SJWs are all about injectibles, and this has the added bonus of forcing people to do their will, which makes it just that easier to order them onto the trains.

A hospital in Houston fired 150 for not taking “the jab” – and every private business with over 100 employees will be forced to do the same. Yet Biden is exempting 600,000 Post Office employees. Why?

To lose the mail system would hurt his poll numbers.

Looks like everyone knew this was going to be a popular speech.

This is his big bluff. He’s nearly out of chips. All he has is one chance to try to redeem himself.

I guess it makes sense. I mean, nobody is going to accept Jill as collateral.

What to do?

Huh. I’ll see your bluff, and raise you “the loss of consent of the governed.”

Is that sweat?

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

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

I love really large clocks.  Big time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Front Matter

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

The Enemy Is You

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

  • Opposition to COVID Measures.

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

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

The second point was this:

  • Claims of Election Fraud, Belief Trump can be Reinstated

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

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

Yeah.  Still no explanation for that one.

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

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

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

Violence And Censorship Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, shut down.

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

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

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

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

Feels like the fix is in . . .

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

Hundreds of men protest for freedom?

Silence.

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

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

Updated Civil War II Index

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

Violence:

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

Political Instability:

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

Economic:

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

Illegal Aliens:

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

A Long Way Down

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

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

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

What could go wrong?

The entire thing, really.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LINKS

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

Film At Eleven

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Coming In Hot – Brace For Impact

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Woke World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Miscellaneous Mayhem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

The S-word

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What luck!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I only make AOC jokes Ocasio-nally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We knew COVID was dangerous right off the bat.

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

Taiwan gets in trouble because it has a Taipei personality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t cry for the civilization we lost.

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

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

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

Fear And The Consent Of The Governed, 2021

“This is a consent form to stick a wire into your brain. It’s important for hospitals to get these signed for procedures that are completely unnecessary.” – House, M.D.

When a dentist makes a mistake, it’s always acci-dental.

What I’ve seen from the Federal government recently is something unusual: fear.

The January 6 demonstration at the Capitol is exhibit A. A group of (mainly) unarmed civilians decided that they’d like to wander over to the Capitol to express their displeasure on what many feel is an election that was largely fraudulent. With the early ballots in California, I guess transvestites can commit mail fraud and male fraud.

Elections are supposed to be the safety valve in a society that has them. You voted, and if it goes your way, great. If it doesn’t, well, we’ll vote harder next time.

In theory, it’s a good system. Elections give the loser the thought that, “if we do better next time, we’ll beat ‘em.” That transfers emotions tied to losing into building a party to win the next time.

That assumes that the election is a fair one. Certainly, there have been elections in the past have been manipulated. There’s a reason that people make jokes about corruption and Chicago politics: over 150 Chicago politicians, employees and contractors have been convicted over the last 50 years. While you might think that Chicago would be dangerous with all of the graft and corruption, my friend says it’s not, and he should know. He’s a tailgunner on a Chicago school bus.

I had a friend who started drinking when the kids finally were back at school. Worst teacher ever.

One of the large benefits of the Electoral College system is putting up a firewall against fraud. Chicago could vote 100% for whatever Democrat was running for president, but the corruption would be isolated because it didn’t change the outcome except for that single state.

2020 was different. An unelected cabal worked to get states to change voting systems so that fraud was easier. They worked to get hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for their objectives. They distorted the public debate. And then they bragged about it (LINK).

For whatever reason, 2020 was the year that they decided that they had to win, whatever the costs, whatever the consequences. They weren’t going to let anything stop them.

There are claims the “no significant voter fraud has ever been found” but I couldn’t find my butt if I never looked for it. And, it really, neither of them have been looked for. The idea that people are too stupid to be able to get an ID to allow them to vote, yet are required to get one to eat in a Burger King® in “post-jab” America is nonsense. Yet, it is the basis of Leftist philosophy: 100% control of the people the Left hates, and 100% acceptance of any conduct from the people the Left mines for votes.

If he gets enough across, he doesn’t even have to manufacture votes!

The childhood meme of “majority rules” isn’t correct, however. The idea of a Constitutional Republic was based on the idea that the majority is really often quite wrong and should be walled off from power like a four-year-old going for a wall outlet with a fork. The rights in the Bill of Rights were built on the idea of restricting the power of both the government and the majority.

Those restrictions were based on experience. The Founders had been through a war to overthrow a government that they felt had overstepped its bounds, and their reaction was one based on keeping all kinds of tyranny at bay.

It was a good idea. The idea of sovereign states was also a winner. It allowed the most control to take place locally, not nationally. Ideally, the Federal government was a weak creation. Of course, good things never last. The Federal government accrued power, but was still kept in check.

When the patriots told jokes, was that star spangled banter?

In part, this was due to the mathematics of violence. An individual American marksman with a Brown Bess rifle was the equal to (and sometimes better than) the typical British soldier or Hessian mercenary. They were, after all, fighting for their country. Couple that with the long supply lines of the British, and the American Revolution was the equivalent of their Afghanistan. Well, at least until they made it to the real Afghanistan.

This pointed out that any government of armed men exists only by the consent of the governed. That was a direct consequence of those mathematics of violence. In one well-documented case, the citizens of Athens, Tennessee took up arms in 1946 to stop an election from being stolen.

They relied on the ballot box.

Nah, just kidding. They brought machine guns and service rifles and threw Molotov cocktails and dynamite at the jail that was holding the ballots to prevent fraud. They won the election, and the fraud was so evident that I believe everyone just looked around and whistled and pretended that it never happened. I can’t find a record of any person going to trial for making sure the law was followed. Using dynamite.

If you date a girl from the zoo, be careful. She might be a keeper.

How would that play out in 2021? Don’t know. I’ll tell you after Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial.

But in 2021 we live in a society that was originally based on the idea of freedom and fair play.

I had a thought a few weeks ago. It nearly died of loneliness. It went, however, something like this: what percentage of a population would it take to simply stop society by withdrawing their consent?

I picked Modern Mayberry for the start, since it’s always best to start small. Let’s assume there are 10,000 people here for round numbers. 10% of the population would be 1,000. That’s certainly more than enough. 1% is 100. Is that enough?

It certainly outnumbers the police and sheriff’s department. So, yes.

Tyranny can’t stand 1% noncompliance, locally. How about nationally? If there were 80,000,000 on the Right (a number I think is low) then 1% is 800,000. Initially, I would have said that wasn’t enough. But last week we saw 70,000 some-odd Taliban roll up the 300,000 strong Afghani army in less time than it takes Leonardo DiCaprio to dump his starlet of the week.

Is 1% enough? Maybe. Is 5%? Certainly.

I do know this: the Taliban’s victory shows that the mathematics of violence haven’t changed much since 1776 or 1946. Despite the massive investment in tech and the ability of superpower-level tech to own a battlefield, the war isn’t conducted on battlefields anymore. It’s conducted street by street. House by house.

I hear that place was a Messerschmitt.

Perhaps the final piece of the puzzle is that “the jab” is being rejected by up to 30% or so of the armed forces. Will the military blink, or will the individual soldiers blink?

I don’t think the military will back off.

The Joint Chiefs have shown themselves to (mostly) be completely compliant with whatever Resident Biden wants. I imagine that many of those that will be subject to being drummed out will be some of the most skilled members of the military, and most committed to the cause of freedom.

The jab just might be the cleansing of the military for the Left, a final mechanism to find those who will follow whatever orders come down.

Why do this?

Because they’re afraid

What are they afraid of?

Losing the consent of the governed.

How far are they away from that?

Bread and Circuses, 2021 Version

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

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

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

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

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

What a Roman hotel might have looked like.

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

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

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

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

Why?

Why do politicians create welfare?  For votes.  Duh.

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

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

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

So, that’s the bread.

What are the circuses?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

What is beyond the Federal government now?

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

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

Ugh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How long can that go on?

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

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

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

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

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