Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Black Friday: 2021

“Oh, and remember, next Friday is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.” – Idiocracy

When I was a kid, I thought, “This little piggy went to market,” meant the pig went shopping. He did not.

Thanksgiving is over, sadly. We had a great one here. We had eight for dinner, and five under the roof when nightfall hit. Of course, Stately Wilder Mansion has room for more, but this was a good number. After dinner, we played games and enjoyed being with each other until things got rough – I was put in jail and nearly stabbed while I was in there. The family takes Monopoly® pretty seriously.

Other than that, it was a peaceful night. That is why I love Thanksgiving. It’s a space where (around Modern Mayberry) only one store was open today, and that store was only open for a few hours. Not that it mattered – we had everything required for dinner. I thought we were low on cream, so I sent Pugsley to the store on Wednesday. He brought home nonfat half-and-half.

At least he tried. Nonfat half-and-half? That’s like PEZ®-free PEZ™.

Thankfully, The Mrs. already had cream, and we had plenty for the mashed potatoes.

But now it’s time for the Friday after Thanksgiving: Black Friday.

My activities in Black Friday in recent years have mainly been related to not leaving the house. I really love spending time with my family, but spending time with strangers standing in line to buy things I don’t really need?

What’s the best place to find a man who has no arms and no legs? Where you left him.

That’s not my idea of fun. I don’t like shopping, even for shrubs – plant shopping always leaves me bushed.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t look down on people looking to get a bargain on Black Friday. I’ve been fortunate enough in the last two decades of my life that the main shortage in my life isn’t money, it’s time. For those that are experiencing an acute lack of money, well, I can sympathize. To be a few dollars short is tough. Marrying my first wife was like winning the lottery: five years later I was broke.

I’ve been there.

At one time in my life, I was running at the ragged edge. Every dollar that came into my life had a home – it was already spent. That was okay, but it limited my choices. One time I was needing to pay dues to play rugby with the local club, but I was raising two children with help only from my friends. The dues were $75. I didn’t have a spare $75.

So, I had decided I couldn’t play. The next day? A check for $200 showed up (that I had no idea was even owed to me) in the mail. Huh.

I guess I could play (prop), after all.

Why are Jedi® so bad at rugby? Because there is no try.

Regardless I’ve known a life where a spare $20 made the difference in a month. This helps me to understand those that stand in line for deals at Black Friday without looking down on them. Those people are looking to do the best that they can for their family – they’re trading their time to make the lives of their family better, just as everyone who has a job and sells 40 or 60 hours of their life every week does.

The part of Black Friday that has always bothered me, though, isn’t the searching for bargains. The part of Black Friday that bothers me is the willingness of people to abandon rules of civil behavior so they can get $10 off on a toaster that they’ll use once in the next year.

Oh, sure, I love toast enough to keep mine in a cage – then I can say it is bread in captivity. But I don’t love toast enough to engage in wanton violence for cheap consumer goods. I have standards. It would have to at least be moderately priced consumer goods for me to riot for them.

The violence, though, are a signal that the cohesion that made society function so well during most of my life is breaking down. I already know that economy is broken. I think that here, in 2021, the economy is broken more than at any time in my life. That’s the good news.

I got one federal stimulus check on Saint Patrick’s Day. Must be the luck of the IRS.

Why is that good news? Even though it will undoubtedly be difficult and tough, the way forward always brings with it the promise of a new rebirth. This rebirth isn’t unprecedented – at more than one time in history have the eternal guideposts of truth, beauty, and virtue faded.

But they keep coming back. Truth may become dim under the tyranny of oppressors, but the fact that it is being oppressed doesn’t make it any less True. Again, I believe in absolute Truth. I didn’t say that I had it, but I know it exists. One plus one is two – it is never any other number. If you start at the physical, very quickly there are many examples that prove that Truth isn’t relative.

Likewise, beauty. We know what it is, because we see it. The curve and texture and color of a rose petal is elegant. It is something that is beautiful. You can, no doubt, come up with many similar examples. Beauty, though difficult to quantify, is nearly always something that people can agree on.

And virtue? For thousands of years we have known what virtue is. It shows itself in the action and grace of those that walk with it.

TOAST

I keep the toaster on the lowest setting. I am black toast intolerant.

I have spent paragraphs and posts talking about truth, beauty, and virtue. Why? Because truth, beauty and virtue matter. They are timeless and ageless. They will endure.

Humanity cannot be long isolated from them. We keep finding them, again and again, not because we are clever, but because they are eternal concepts.

Happy Thanksgiving 2021, Wilder Style

“Two men are dead! This is not the time for petty sibling squabbles. That’s what Thanksgiving is for.” – Psych

Isn’t it odd the only people who tried to tell you how many people it’s appropriate to have for Thanksgiving dinner are the Centers for Disease Control and Jeffery Dahmer?

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

I would say that it has always been my favorite holiday, but that’s not really so. When I was younger, say between toddler and 12, Christmas was. The reason that Christmas was so important was, well, the stuff. The movie A Christmas Story says it all.

But as I grew older, Thanksgiving kept growing in importance. In part, it grew in importance because it didn’t have the gifts. It had all of the proper things that, in my mind, a good holiday should have:

Time away from the cares of the day,
Time focused on being grateful,
Free from stress, and,
Cold.

The stress of Christmas was from the commercial aspects. Would I get that thing I wanted? The gifts overshadowed the holiday. Of course, each year the presents got less and less important, and the time with loved ones became more important. That’s when Thanksgiving started to win.

This year is the 400^th anniversary of Thanksgiving. The first one was held (according to a letter) in 1621. It wasn’t held at this time of year, rather, sometime near the end of harvest. The Pilgrims knew that they were going to make it.

April showers, bring . . .

It wasn’t always so clear. The original deal that they drew up was socialist. Everybody worked, and everybody shared equally. That worked as well as it ever has. Nobody worked, so nobody shared anything, except starvation. That was 1620.

Starvation is a tough teacher.

The Pilgrims then came to the good and sensible decision that if you grow it, you own it. The result?

So much food that they wanted to have a party – a party that lasted three days. And history teaches us that the Pilgrims weren’t teetotalers. But this harvest festival was sheer joy: giving thanks for the good sense to give up socialism and allow people individual freedom. There’s a big lesson here, yet we keep trying to repeat the same evils that impoverish men.

Oh well.

The holiday being a direct repudiation of the philosophy that’s killed more people than any other philosophy, well, that’s not the main reason I love the holiday. It’s just whipped cream on the pumpkin pie.

It’s so cold this Thanksgiving I saw a socialist with his hands in his own pockets.

The cold plays into why I love the holiday as well. The work of planting is done. The work of growing is done. The work of the harvest is done. Now is the time to sit, rest, and be thankful. The harvest was good. The food will last us through the winter and spring until the next crops can be grown from a renewed Earth.

It’s that stillness, that preparation. The great woodpile set and prepared against the winter’s cold. The food stocks set against the winter’s hunger. Now is a time of peace.

And that resonates through 400 years.

The life of a man, when faced with 400 years, is but an instant. But the peace of a single Thanksgiving can seem as an eternity. The moments created when family gathers together to celebrate is nearly magical. Overcooked turkey or gravy as lumpy as the Hunter Biden’s thighs? Not a problem.

We are here to give thanks.

I’m pretty sober, but even prettier when I’m not.

A drunken uncle who wants to need Mom about something that happened when they were six? Not a problem. Your team doesn’t win the football game? Not a problem.

We are here to give thanks.

Of course, at this point, the question is, to give thanks to who? Well, in our folks, the dinner will start out with us giving a prayer. That is, over those 400 years, the most common way the feast was held.

Giving thanks is part of being human, whether you are religious or not. Being thankful is a way to be healthier. The mere attitude of being thankful changes the way that people think. It moves them from a spirit of greed for what they don’t have, to a spirit of gratitude, for what they do have.

French tanks have rearview mirrors, mainly so they can see the battlefield.

Studies have proven that being happy about the things you have is about a zillion percent better for your health than being unhappy about things you don’t have.

Duh. This is the equivalent of psychology professors stealing money to do a study, because nothing in the history of humanity has been more obvious since, well, ever. Yet, they studied this. You could look it up, but, why?

You already know that it’s true. To quote it again:

We are here to give thanks. Not complain. Not be upset about any of the day-to-day things that always go wrong. Thanks.

I seemed to figure that out a little each year as I grew older. When I was six, it was all about the stuff. I remember ripping through the wrapping paper like a velociraptor in a room full of Leftists who had been raised on soy since birth. Some of the bits probably reached orbit.

As I got older, the greed waned, and the importance of Thanksgiving increased. Last year when I cooked the turkey upside down? I don’t think anyone but me noticed. But we were together as a family on the 399^th Thanksgiving. Together, in a house filled with the smells of turkey and pumpkin pie and a family that loves each other.

The most frustrated ghost in the world? The one that tried to haunt Helen Keller.

The things that I am thankful for are so numerous I couldn’t list them if I kept writing for the next eight hours. I’d put my list down, but I’m going to (as my textbooks always said) leave this as an exercise for the reader. It’s not what I’m thankful for, it’s what you are thankful for that will help you.

Even in the deepest depths of difficulties, there is a time and a place to stop. And give thanks.

Every minute I think about those things I give thanks for, I feel better. And the crazy thing I’ve learned? I don’t even need a turkey and mashed potatoes to do it. But the gravy? I’m especially thankful for my annual gravy bath. What would Thanksgiving be without it?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Rittenhouse Has Caused More Tears Than Old Yeller

“Ladies and gentleman, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookie from the planet Kashyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about that. That does not make sense.” – South Park

I guess Kyle did have a salt rifle.

The reaction from the Left on the Rittenhouse verdict has been different than I expected – I expected a few riots, sure. Riots are the standard when dealing with Leftists. They want the world to burn, so why not start with a Starbucks®? Or, heck, almost any huge corporate entity. They seem to love it when Leftists burn down their buildings – they immediately respond by vowing to rebuild and then donating to the very groups that . . .

. . . just burned down their store.

But Kyle Rittenhouse bothered them, deeply.

Don’t recognize his two IMDB® credits. Probably wouldn’t be a good dinner guest.

I watched, while not the whole trial, a huge chunk of it. Just after the Prosecution was done, the Defense could have said, “The Defense rests,” and still won.

It was that clear-cut. I don’t know why it took the jury so long, perhaps they were just waiting around to see if they could get those Panera® sandwiches the judge promised them if they were still deliberating on Friday.

The Left, who has never seen a criminal atrocity so bad that they don’t want the criminal to go free, was fixated on this case. The media was on board, mainly. Large numbers of people thought had no real idea of the facts of the case, and some even thought that Rittenhouse had killed multiple black people for no reason other than that they were protesting.

So, what did they have to say? (Some language not safe for all audiences, and all memes today are as-found on the Internet.)

Umair Haque is a grifter, and a fairly successful grifter. Does he bring up valid issues? Certainly, from time to time. And, if his solution is commies leaving the United States? I will personally help buy tickets if they promise to never come back.

Ayanna apparently has a keyboard that doesn’t allow her to type a capital “W”. Also? She takes her love of Jean-Luc Picard a bit too far.

Does “Prince Jellyfish” describe his arm?

Possibly fake. But funny.

Take a breath and come up for some Umair, Umair.

If you had any doubts about who we are dealing with . . .

You can find plenty of salt for yourself on Twitter® or Reddit©. Might as well bid goodbye to the trial with some memes:

That explains everything! Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: “What does this have to do with this case?” Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me, I’m a lawyer defending a major record company, and I’m talkin’ about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you’re in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation… does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

Okay, the real testimony was even worse than the South Park® quote above.

Why can’t Gaige point to Kyle?

Oh, yeah, that. The ol’ Spicey Bicep.

A moment of silence, please.

Huh, yeah, I wonder what would happen if they let clinically insane socialists out on the street?

And the only people that Kyle shot ended up being felons? What are the odds??

The prosecutor will probably never end up living this one down . . .

And, for of course people could see the next round of trouble coming:

The Mrs. really laughed at this one.

And then The Bee® stings.

Who knows what the future will bring?

Reminder that it might be time for Leftists to change their password . . .

Rittenhouse: Not Guilty

Open comments post.

What Is Truth?

“She’s always hungry. She always needs to feed. She must eat. All she gets is nasty Orcses.” – LOTR, Return of the King

I saw a wanted poster for Schrodinger’s cat. It said, “Wanted Dead And Alive.”

I have a general routine that I start before I write. I interact with my family because they seem to want me to do so. I then retire to the Wilder Tub of Genius where I smoke a cigar the size of a crutch that Tom Cruise might use. It’s not a huge cigar, since Tom isn’t that tall. But it is a mighty cigar nonetheless.

Then I generally enjoy life. Unfortunately, sometimes the muse hits me while I’m happily hanging out in the hot tub, and it pulls me away from the three pages (yes, it was that many) of notes I had prepared for you. Whenever that happens, I always, and I repeat always, go for the muse.

The idea of a muse is simple: it is creation. It’s an untamed force that hits you and takes over. It’s not exactly like The Mrs. hitting me in the face with a raw chicken covered in Ranch® dressing, but it’s close.

That’s tonight. Fridays are often that night where I go where the muse hits me

What hit me tonight?

Tonight it was this simple idea: controlling what goes into your mind is the key.

https://youtu.be/VYEU-12U32A

Except the dormouse. I hate that guy.

I start every post with a quote. There’s a reason why I do this – it sets the mind of the reader into a familiar idea. If the reader (you) doesn’t recognize the quote, it’s okay. The quote isn’t necessary for the magic that follows, but if you know the quote, you are nearly instantly transported into the ideas that will follow.

It’s like a subtle form of hypnosis, but one in which I don’t require you to pretend you’re a duck who has just created an egg out of chocolate and plutonium. Well, not more than once. As far as you know.

I use that because I want to create a mental space where the ideas that follow will sit well. If you’re already on familiar ground, the ideas will flow more smoothly. It’s a stupid idea, but it’s grounded in reality. Besides, I like movie quotes.

The reason I chose movie quotes is because they are the most shared of our experiences. Millions have seen, say, Ghostbusters®, while only hundreds of thousands have read Dostoevsky. Heck, I told my buddy who was an Orthodox priest that I was reading Dostoevsky and he shook his head and said, “John, that’s a little heavy, don’t you think?”

There was a really bad joke about ghosts. It still haunts me.

When a guy in a Russian cassock tells you that Dostoevsky is a bit heavy, well, it’s probably not the best way to reach people. By the way, spoiler alert: It’s Russian literature, so everyone dies. And then it gets worse. It’s almost as bad as reading a German instruction manual for a chainsaw – I tried reading one once all it gave me was a longing to invade Poland.

Or a British cookbook. Good heavens. The British have ruined pudding for me forever. Well, maybe Cosby beat them to that, but, still.

So, here I am, admitting that I want to manipulate the emotions of my readers so that they are more receptive of the ideas of crazy people like Plato or Seneca or Aristotle or Twain (Shania, not Mark) and the message that follows will sound crazy.

Be careful of what goes inside your head.

You don’t think that color scheme was an accident, do you?

I’ve tried again and again to show this very simple point: in 1900, the only regular contact any American would have had with the Federal government was the postman bringing letters. Now? When I get up in the morning I have nearly a dozen interactions with the Federal government before I leave my front door. The alarm goes off, and

The lights (subject to Federal emissions standards at the power plant) come one and
I go to the shower (subject to both EPA water standards and EPA waste disposal requirements) and
Brush my teeth with toothpaste (subject to FDA requirements) and
Put on my clothes (subject to The Mrs. wanting me to not look too cool in public) and
Go into the Wilder Morning Den and drink a cup of (USDA approved) coffee and
Have some (USDA approved) bacon and
Pick up my (Federal Highway Administration Approved) keys and
Check my (FCC approved) cellphone for messages and
Walk upon my (Building Code Approved) floor and
Open my door (which is made of lead and plutonium) and
Start my (Insert a zillion Federal regulations here) car and drive to work.

Oddly, this little demonstration undersells the impact of government in my life. There are dozens of regulations that I skipped because, well, I’ve been drinking. Blame Jim Beam®.

This is just the setup, however.

What goes in your head?

I’ve told you how I try to make a post better by increasing your receptiveness to it. My motives are simple – I am not trying to sell you anything except ideas. And those Ideas are (mostly) the ideas of the most brilliant people who have ever lived on Earth. I try to sneak a few of mine in, because, hey, my beard is awesome, so I might have built up some wisdom.

But who is trying to manipulate the ideas that go inside your head?

The Mrs. had a complement the other day. She couldn’t listen to mainstream media coverage on a certain topic because Truth that I shared with her had infiltrated her brain. Every Single Time the media tried to lie to her, she reacted in revulsion because . . . the Truth had set her free.

What goes in your head?

What do you feel that is real? Why is that you feel that thing?

Those are very, very difficult questions, and are not for the weak of heart – what if you understood that most things you felt were truth were instead, lies?

This is a devastating lens. What lies do you believe in because they are pretty little lies? The more you examine them, the more they fall apart.

Communism sounds good on paper. Unless you’re reading a history book.

I promise you that I have done my best to make every word as Truthful as I can make it. But I ask of you this, can you understand the immense amount of propaganda you have been fed nearly every day of your life?

Step back.

What, really, is the Truth?

There is an entire industry made of tens of thousands who want to feed your head. They want to bring their ideas into yours. There is an amazing amount of money being spent to try to influence you.

What, then will you choose?

The pretty little lies, or the Truth that you know exists underneath?

The “Take This Job And Shove It” Economy

“Sure. Grab it, store it, shove it.” – Babylon 5

My parents always called me a gifted child. Turned out I was abandoned in a box on the front step.

I was at the store the other day with The Mrs. and Pugsley. We saw a retail clerk we knew and were discussing life with him. Normally, the retail clerk is very opinionated but upbeat. I’ll admit, it has been over six months since I’ve seen him, but his transformation was amazing.

He’s “retired” but spends his time selling things that he likes to sell. He’s probably one of the biggest experts in town, and a job like his is (more or less) being paid for talking to people about his hobby. He doesn’t have to work, but he wants to. Thankfully it wasn’t a weird hobby, like taking pictures of trout wearing cute outfits. That’s like shooting fish in apparel.

This visit to the store was different. Like I mentioned above, he’s normally upbeat. Now? Not at all. He was angry. He railed against management that didn’t care. He railed against customers that treated low-wage retail employees as if it was their fault that the store didn’t have their particular brand of banana mist spray. The store employee sounded as angry as Darth Vader – I mean he was really venting.

The clerk we talked with wasn’t quitting. Yet. But he was done. He’s done taking crap from management. He’s done taking crap from customers.

I got fired for asking a customer “rare or well done?” The funeral home said that wasn’t the right way to ask, “burial or cremation?”

One more customer screaming at him because something wasn’t on the shelf? He might take off the company shirt and step outside with the customer. After he’s finished the business with the customer he would probably just keep walking.

And this is in Modern Mayberry, where we’ve been essentially untouched by the ‘Rona crisis and mandates and masks. He’s done.

In society at large, I see the very same pattern.

Keep in mind, the retail worker that I described above was nearly at the sour cream stage on his taco because of the rude customers. Why were the customers so rude?

They’re done, too.

They’re done with an economy where they have been abandoned.
They’re done with shortages they don’t understand.
They’re done with rising prices to feed their family.
They’re done with expensive gasoline.
Oh, and they’re done with masks and mandates, too.

Voters on the Right are done, too. The idea of compromise is hateful – the positions are crystallized:

Vax mandate for the greater good versus basic human rights.
Collective guilt over crimes committed hundreds of years in the past versus meritocracy.
Five million other things. I’d list them, but you know them. You see them every day, and it boils down to the violence of the collective mob versus the rights of a constitutional republic.

In my adult life, the high point of our country being cohesive was on 9/12/2001. In that moment, we tried, really hard, to come together as a country. The result? Two of the longest wars in United States history, trillions in debt, the Patriot Act, and Obama.

What do you call Bill Gates’ divorce? An unplanned update.

The lowest point?

Right now.

This has significant political implications, but also economic implications. People like the retail employee, working because they want to, can leave anytime. But it’s more than just that one retail employee. How many other people are just walking away? How many are one rude customer away from wadding up the company smock, and walking out the front door for the last time?

How many firefighters will quit rather than get the jab? How many EMTs will simply walk away rather than submit to it? By my count, the number is not insignificant, and these are crucial jobs if you like keeping your house not burned up like and would like granny to get to the emergency room in some other fashion than you tossing her into the bed of the pickup after you move the Purina® Lion Chow™ out.

Often, the people who run the services that keep the economy running are paid at the lowest levels. What happens when they decide they are done with the nonsense, too? What happens when they look around and see that they could work at McDonalds® for 10% of the stress and 90% of the pay?

No matter how often I ask for a large fry, they keep giving me lots of small ones.

We hear about an economy where jobs are plentiful, and takers are few. From what I see here, it’s true. Except the jobs that are plentiful are at the lowest levels of pay and prestige, and the people are simply not interested in taking them.

We have shortages of everything. Inflation is wonderful at creating that: inflation pulls demand forward. Why buy a window tomorrow when the price will be up. Buy the window now. Buy everything that that you can, now. This is a rational reaction, but when everyone does it, it feeds inflation.

Tensions are high. People who make $30,000 a year have seen themselves take a $3,000 pay cut, simply through the government’s printing of money. The cause may not be apparent, but at the gas station they see it. At the grocery store they see it. When the time to pay the rent comes?

They see it.

It’s not just that. At the voting booth, they look back at the 2020 election.

They see the fraud.

I will say this, he’s certainly given himself an incentive to not slip . . .

This is, to say the least, a very, very chaotic situation. As I said, we have shortages of everything. In 2018, the economy was working because the people in it were working. Now, in addition to the shortage of “stuff” we have shortages of the people who make things go, as well.

What does that lead to?

Increasing dysfunction. Worse services. Longer waits on EMT calls.

Why?

I call it the IDGAF economy. People are done. How many folks simply don’t care? How many have been crossed out of the economy and have the attitude, “screw ‘em all, I didn’t need this job anyway”?

A lot. In the 1977 as inflation hit there were similar sentiments – Johnny Paycheck scored a big hit with Take This Job and Shove It. This is where we are in 2021. People are done. People are sick of it all. They know the economy isn’t right.

I got some extra money this Halloween. I went into a haunted house and on the way out they handed me a paycheck.

Economies consist of more than companies and procedures and policies. Each of those things depends on: people. Lose a foreman? The crew may or may not do as well. If it was a good foreman, it’s likely that they don’t do as well. Lose an EMT, and you’re one shy for a full shift? Which heart attack do they skip out on?

Who makes that ambulance run? Who gives time off to the weekend dispatcher? Who runs the window at the DMV? Who makes the PEZ®?

The reactions I’ve seen so far are discouraging. The idea from at least some management is that, “Well, isn’t that a part of their job?” which is technically correct. But if they can do another job for a dollar less an hour that doesn’t cause a sacrifice?

They’re gone.

That’s the difficulty. An economy isn’t Nike® or Amazon™ or Netflix©. An economy is made of the people that run it. We’ve seen that truckers can paralyze an economy. Now imagine the economy when all the people that make it go say, “IDGAF”.

We’re close.

The Five Laws Of Human Stupidity

â€œDonâ€™t call me stupid.â€Â – A Fish Called Wanda

I hear of you hold a pistol like that, you can hear the Rittenhouse.Â Alternatively, this might be an Alec Baldwin gun safety video.Â

Carlo M. Cipolla is a dead Italian economic historian.Â So, not a dead economist, because we know that a dead economist was at least right one time.Â I donâ€™t know much about him, outside of:

He has ceased to be. Heâ€™s expired and gone to meet his maker.Â Heâ€™s a stiff. Â Bereft of life, he rests in peace. Â If you hadn’t nailed him to the perch he’d be pushing up the daisies.Â His metabolic processes are now history. Â He’s off the twig.Â He’s kicked the bucket, he’s shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible.Â This is an ex-economic historian!

Sorry, I went full Monty Python on you.Â Never go full Python, unless of course, youâ€™re pining for the fjords.

But, Dr. Cipolla is dead, as I think I have abundantly established.

About the only other thing besides his condition of demise is that Dr. Cipolla is most known for writing a goofy little essay called The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.Â He wrote this essay originally in 1976, which proves that he might have had time to meet Joe Biden before writing it.

What do you get when you cross an economist with the Godfather?Â An offer you canâ€™t understand.

Text in italics (and those in quotes) beyond this point are direct quotes from the former Dr. Cipolla, except the snarky things I say underneath the memes I have handcrafted in the Wilder Meme Lab.

The First Law:Â Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

Tongue in cheek, Cipolla notes that â€œany numerical estimate would turn out to be an underestimate.â€Â So, itâ€™s clear that there exists a nearly infinite and inexhaustible supply of stupidity in the Universe. Â I have observed this in action:Â I have been to the DMV.

The Second Law:Â The probability that a certain person will be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. Â

Cipolla felt strongly that stupid people werenâ€™t made stupid, they were born stupid.Â And, just like the First Law would predict, they are numerous and everywhere.Â They inhabit colleges (I think Harvardâ„¢ is full of them) the government, and the Pentagon.Â Stupidity can also be found at McDonaldsÂ®, but thatâ€™s excusable.Â If When someone is stupid at McDonaldsÂ©, an order gets screwed up and I get not a Sausage McMuffinÂ® without the muffin, but just a warm muffin (this happened) at the price of a Sausage McMuffinÂ©.

When someone is stupid at the Pentagon?Â They get promoted after the cover-up.

It has also been my experience that if you ask the right questions and listen to the answers, itâ€™s amazing where you will find intelligent people.Â Just like there is no bound on where you will find stupid people, there is no bound on where you will find intelligent ones.

Roses are red, violets are blue; no one in Washington cares about you.

One personal example is that every time (not occasionally, but every time) I felt full of myself, soon enough an intelligent person from a place Iâ€™d least expect would correct me.Â The lesson I learned?Â Listen.Â Ask questions.Â Just as idiocy hides everywhere, gems of wisdom are often when you donâ€™t expect.

Great stuff.Â But what, exactly, is stupid?Â Thatâ€™s what the Third Law is for.

The Third (and Golden) Law:Â A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

The third law is what really caught my attention.Â Here, Cipolla defines what stupid is â€“ and this is an especially interesting definition:Â a stupid person screws something up, and doesnâ€™t get any benefit.Â At all.Â Here Cipolla constructs a chart to define it:

One of my girlfriends in high school was arrested for bank robbery.Â She made out like a bandit.

Cipolla dices up the world into two parameters: do they help or hurt society, or do they help or hurt themselves?

Help Self, Help Society:Â This is the quadrant that Cipolla reserves for the intelligent.Â They end up creating a harmony where they help not only society, but end up helping themselves in the process.Â Take the makers of PEZÂ®, for instance.Â They make money by selling the sweet, sweet PEZâ„¢, and society benefits, because, PEZÂ©.Â In this instance itâ€™s a win-win.Â Society wins, and the makers of the product win.

These are the people that create the upward drive for society.Â They make things better, and they make the people around them better, too.Â This is SpaceXÂ® Elon Musk.Â Heâ€™s revolutionizing space transport and making it cheap to hit orbit ($25 a pound within 10 years???) while raking in piles of cash.

What next?Â The helpless.Â Helpless people, by Cipollaâ€™s definition, are those that make bad deals.Â The bad deals end up helping someone else (even society at large) but end up hurting the people making the deals.Â Note:Â this wouldnâ€™t be people who help others and get joy from it â€“ theyâ€™re getting a benefit.

The biggest group I can think of that represents the Helpless group in 2021 are Biden voters.Â Man, Iâ€™m thinking theyâ€™d take that back if they could.

Joe Bidenâ€™s press staff is mainly women, I guess because he doesnâ€™t have to pay them as much.

So, thatâ€™s two out of three.Â That leaves most politicians bandits.Â Bandits, according to Cipolla, come in two flavors.Â The first is the net zero bandit.Â A net zero bandit just takes $20 from one person and keeps it to spend on themselves.Â Bernie Madoff and most conmen are net zero bandits.Â They take money and then enjoy it themselves.Â Society as a whole (outside of the trust and breaking the law things) isnâ€™t hurt.

Bernie Madoff may make a lot of rich people angry, but heâ€™s not going to create the fall of western civilization because his clients canâ€™t afford to donate money to HarvardÂ© so Harvardâ„¢ will let their third-rate children in.

The worst kind of bandits are the asymmetric (my term) bandits.Â These bandits cause an outsized amount of trouble for a small gain for themselves.Â I canâ€™t think of any real-life examples, but what if some politicians subverted the monetary system just so they could buy votes for themselves while causing massive inflation?Â Of course, something that crazy could never happen, right?

That, of course, leaves the subject of the essay:

Stupid People.

Most people do not act consistently. Under certain circumstances a given person acts intelligently and under different circumstances the same person will act helplessly. The only important exception to the rule is represented by the stupid people who normally show a strong proclivity toward perfect consistency in all fields of human endeavors.

Stupid people, Cipolla opines, are even more dangerous than bandits, because they screw everything up.Â Stupid people take wonderful ideas, destroy them, and then hurt themselves in the process.Â Theyâ€™re the equivalent of a six-year-old sticking a knife in a toaster and getting knocked out, and then doing it again. Â Repeatedly.

Think of it as evolution in action . . .

Again, from Cipolla:

Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behavior. An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit’s actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality. The bandit wants a plus on his account. Since he is not intelligent enough to devise ways of obtaining the plus as well as providing you with a plus, he will produce his plus by causing a minus to appear on your account. All this is bad, but it is rational and if you are rational you can predict it. You can foresee a bandit’s actions, his nasty maneuvers and ugly aspirations and often can build up your defenses.

With a stupid person all this is absolutely impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places. You have no rational way of telling if and when and how and why the stupid creature attacks. When confronted with a stupid individual you are completely at his mercy.

And because thereâ€™s no rationality to the attack itâ€™s impossible to defend.Â How do you defend against a naked person covered in sex lube attacking you with a rubber chicken?Â No, really, how do you do that?Â I donâ€™t ever want to be in that place again.

This takes us to . . .

The Fourth Law:Â Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

This should be called the Rittenhouse Law.

Kyle was attempting to help society.Â And, perhaps he did because I donâ€™t think the world is a worse place off after he was done, but stupid people managed to ruin his night.

And, remember that stupid people vote.

Stupid that night, stupid on the stand.

The Fifth Law:Â A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.Â Corollary:Â A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

Here is where Dr. Cipolla might have lost me, but only because, perhaps, he never imagined that bandits could operate on the scale that they do in 2021.Â What if you could steal from everyone at once?Â Just print money, and you can.

What if you could get yourself two (or six!) more years at a job in Washington, D.C. and all you had to do was bankrupt the country?Â Thatâ€™s banditry that, perhaps, aspires to stupidity.Â The end of the system will end up being the end of their banditry.

See?Â Stupid.Â So, maybe he was right after all?

Demoralization? No. Remoralization.

“Hold them back! Do not give in to fear! Stand to your posts! Fight!” – LOTR, Return of the King

Chuck Norris threw a boomerang. It’s afraid to come back.

It’s Friday. Thankfully.

On Monday and Wednesday, we have heavy topics. On Friday? It used to be health focused. But then after a year or so I had most of my health topics (things I wanted to say) completed. Sure, more will show up over time, but most of health is either really, really simple or so blisteringly complex that it’s not solvable.

That’s why on Friday (in most recent posts) I have had the ability to focus on: remoralization.

Life has a known beginning. It has a known ending. For religious folks there is a promise of a lot more.

Demoralization is simple: the idea is to make you feel that you’ve lost. Put into context, demoralization is fear. The idea is to make you afraid. And what does fear do? Fear sells products. Fear sells politicians. Fear sells. Heck, even suicide bombers have a fear: dying alone.

When I look at a scene like this, I expect that a coyote and a roadrunner were involved.

Fear is also the basis of almost every negative action. The proof of this is left to the reader, as many of my textbooks in college said. My proof is this: whenever I’ve acted in a manner that was in some way against my values, I can look back and see those actions were based in fear.

Sure, I’d like to place myself in the category of fearless, but I’m human. Or at least I can pass for human in dim light, according to The Mrs. But as I looked back and realized that nearly every action I had ever taken that I regretted was due to fear, I decided to get rid of fear. Thankfully overcoming my fear of escalators was a one-step program.

Does just deciding to not be afraid anymore work?

Well, mostly. Fear is (amazingly) just another choice. I discovered I don’t have to feel fear at all. The decision was simple – I stopped focusing on outcomes. If I worked every minute at my best, and worked according to my values, well, if it turned out wrong? It turned out wrong. Heck, I’m even slowly getting over my fear of speedbumps.

What do you call a chicken crossing the road with no legs? A speedbump.

I discovered something weird. People hate it when you’re not afraid. People want you to focus on fear, especially bosses. I had one conversation where my boss said, “John, do you realize that (my great, great, great grandboss) would be upset about that?”

My response was simple, “Well, I’d love to tell them my story. Have them call me.”

His response was, “Whoa! Why did you bring them (great, great, great grandboss) into it?”

Me: “I didn’t. You did.”

Strangely, that implied threat . . . disappeared. And was never used again.

As I said, people hate that. Especially bosses.

My boss asked me to make fewer mistakes at work. That means I get to come in later!

Another example was when I was working at a company that was experiencing significant financial difficulty. My boss came up to me, and said, “John, do you know what kind of difficulty this company is facing? How can you walk around so happy all the time?”

Weirdly, I have never understood how being unhappy and worrying about impending doom has helped, well, anyone. I explained that to my boss. I told him I would try to appear less happy around the office. And, while I make a lot of jokes in my posts, this isn’t one. This really happened.

I really had a boss upset with me for having too good of an attitude. Go figure.

Being happy is a weird superpower.

It makes people uncomfortable. A salesman makes a joke that, “Hey, I bet you’re overworked and underpaid,” and when I respond, “No, the work is fairly interesting and I’m satisfied with my compensation,” the look I get is priceless.

I love my couch, it makes me feel regal. I am “Sofa King” happy!

I also look at most of my choices like I look at a menu. It’s a choice of something good or something better. “Do I want the ribeye or do I want the . . . of course I want the ribeye.” Seriously, if there’s steak on the menu, all of the other pages are wasted.

To be honest, this superpower wasn’t because I was born on a far-distant planet named Krypton® that orbited a red star. Even though that’s true (I told you I was adopted but wasn’t too specific for, well, reasons) the reason I came to this Truth was the way that I think nearly everyone comes to Truth: the long, dark night of the soul.

As I have found it, this is the Truth. There is no aspect of character that comes without scars. This may be personal, but in my life I recall a very simple pattern:

Something awful happens. It may or may not be related to my actions. Often it is not.
There is a decision for me to make. It is a moral decision.
I think about it. Often (if time allows) I consult people I trust – people of moral character.
I take action.

The important bullet point is the last one. And when I decided to do whatever was right, regardless of the consequences?

Freedom ensued. When I stopped focusing on the outcome, and started focusing on what is good, True, and beautiful? I stopped caring about the outcome. When I became the embodiment of those things?

I ceased being myself. I was working for a higher purpose. The phrase, “let the chips fall where they may” comes to mind. Oddly, the more I act in accordance with my principles, the better the (average) outcome is. Not that I care.

I’m disappointed. I went into the restaurant restroom and waited for hours. Despite the sign, no employees came to wash my hands.

This is freedom, acting upon principles, regardless of outcome. The secret is a simple one: each of us is capable of doing this. It’s a choice.

Freedom isn’t a document. Freedom isn’t what someone gives us. Freedom is what we take. Freedom is a choice. And the most good and True freedom is acting upon moral principles.

And then? Not caring what happens.

There is a word for that. Courage.

So, there’s a choice, and it’s a choice we face every day. Courage or fear.

When you give in to fear, you have that stain for life. Courage? It outlives us all.

The better news? We all have the seeds of courage inside of us.

The very best news?

We can all let those seeds grow.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, Special Wednesday Edition: Are We There Yet, Part III

“Yes, I shall certainly choose revolutionary France for my holiday again next year.” – Blackadder the Third

There are two types of people: those that can extrapolate from incomplete data.

Generally, I plan my posts in advance, sometimes weeks ahead of time. I try to research the topics, and, quite often I’m surprised by the thing that I thought that were true that simply weren’t true. Things that are “common knowledge” are often incorrect. Who knew that telling an upset woman to “calm down” would have the opposite effect . . . every single time I’ve ever tried it?

That being said, the comments from the last Civil War 2.0 Weather Report pulled me off of my schedule. As usual, the commenters at this site are generally at least one to two standard deviations of intelligence above the norm. It’s a smart room, and a tough one. When I make an error, even a grammatical error, I get called on it. I hate to think that I make one grammatical error and then my post is urined.

Oddly, I really appreciate when people point out those errors. Even though I will eventually die. My chances for a legacy on this planet are:

my children,
the things that I have done (think, work),
my PEZ® dispenser collection,
the lives that I have touched,
and the ideas I was able to share or spread.

Truth, with a capital T, is more important to than me “being right”.

By my reckoning, I’ve popped down in excess of 65,000 words on the conflict in American that is coming to be called Civil War 2.0 over the span of years. I keep writing about it because it has hit a nerve: these are some of the most viewed posts that I have written. People are interested because, like me, they feel something big coming.

Does a nurse need to carry a red pen in case they want to draw blood?

The comments on the November edition of the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, though, are special. There is a great division in what we even consider the ongoing conflict. Is it even a war? Will it ever be a war?

When I think about this I look to analogies from the past. When Germany decided to take a fall vacation in Poland, Great Britain and France declared war on them. And then, after Poland was gobbled up by the Germans and the Soviets in September 1939?

Nothing, or, mostly nothing.

For about eight months, the largest armies in Europe did (mostly) zilch. Newspapers have to have something to write about, so they wrote about the war that just wasn’t happening. This no-war version of war was called names like Sitzkreig, and the British started calling it the Bore War. The name “Phoney War” finally stuck.

Well, at least the French won that war.

Then? On May 10, 1940 the Germans attacked realized that the French were sitting on a lot of stuff that they wanted (mainly, France). By the middle of June, Germans were having wine in Parisian cafés. By the end of June, the jokes about French military, um, “prowess” started.

I bring this up because I wonder if we’re in a lull like that right now.

In an attempt to catalog the progress to a war, I tried to use existing international standards to codify the steps towards war. On my ten-point scale, last six points were:

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

Point 5. is beyond dispute. Point 6. is ongoing, right now. I have had dozens of people in real life and on the site talking about moving away simply because they did not want to be in Leftist-controlled state.

I’d tell more jokes about the Civil War, but I keep getting Stonewalled.

Point 7. was very common. Violence has, to a certain extent, dropped backwards due to rioting becoming “so 2020”, although societal violence levels are still increasing.

But Aesop had this gem in his comment:

“And those 1000 casualties? In a 12-month period? That rolling criteria is rolling backwards, not forward. We’re currently back at maybe 6½, not 10.

In the way I thought about my model, these were ratchets – point 6. supported point 7., and so on.

But Aesop is right. Violence (especially of the riot-y kind) has decreased. At least for now. I’ll state that point 8. has happened and can’t be undone. The structures are far better organized on the Left – Charles Péguy said it well: “Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.” But when faced with real, proximate threats the Right has shown that it can organize thousands in a week.

Point 9.? I would say that this level of terror continues in American cities, right now. Leftist violence (though not always pointed against the Right) continues and isn’t punished. Leftists can commit a huge variety of crimes and be walking the streets in the new “no bond” world the next morning.

Non-violent people who walked unopposed into the Capitol building on January 6, 2021 are being held in conditions that approximate a Soviet GULAG. Don’t take my word for it, you can read a letter from an inmate here (LINK). So, is number 9. happening? It clearly is.

Aesop continues:

But the most obvious reason it’s not midnight, nor anywhere close, is because you’re even asking the question.

No one had to tell the ship’s band on the Titanic that the sh*tfestivus had begun. They knew the minute they sat down to play that the performance would end with their shoes getting cold and wet, before they even sat down.

I don’t think we’re taking on water, and I don’t even think we’ve even hit the iceberg yet. I do think we’re barreling towards it blind in the night, at flank speed, in a fog.

But that’s a far cry from taking on water, and doomed to sink.
Yet.

Those are good points. It’s sort of like the definition of drowning. If have the breath to ask, you’re not drowning. At least I told my kids that when I taught them how to swim. You can’t have a Civil War if nobody comes.

And yet . . . we’ve been in a cultural war since long before most people ever realized we were. And one thing we’re good at (as humans) is normalizing life. We get complacent, and behavior that would have led to social ostracism becomes almost acceptable in a few years. We can get used to that level of violence, too. If you look at the Google® trend for the term “riot” it spikes with the first Floyd riot, but goes back to the same level of interest after only a few weeks, despite riots being prevalent all summer long.

We get used to things, even bad things, very quickly.

One or two people might get this one, but they’ll really enjoy it.

Various other comments –

McChuck: “The cultural, political, economic, legal, and demographic war has been waged against US for generations, and we are losing badly. If we don’t fight now (or very soon), we lose by default.

When only one side shows up for a war, it’s called genocide. That’s where we are now, even if it’s being done slowly.”

The Docent: “We have a fight between factions for control of the government. So I would suggest that the issue is whether it rises to more than “civil disturbance.” This is where the minimum yearly body count of 1,000 (with at least 100 per side) comes into play. If we are only looking at the BLM/Antifa riots, we are at a civil disturbance level. If we consider COVID jabs for the kill count, we get over the 1,000 minimum, but because it is unilateral it is a genocide rather than a civil war.”

jojo: “Yup. Wilder – throw away your charts. Look at what’s going on. It’s on already. And has been for more than a little while. Add in political prisoners locked up in D.C. for trespassing with no bail – you got a chart for that?”

It’s clear that there is some feeling that we’re not seeing any sort of war – just flat-out genocide. And that’s the reason for the charts. People who are invested in the system, who feel that they have something to lose are generally willing to put their heads down and keep quiet. I will keep the graphs going. I’m plotting something.

Well, that’s one way to properly fill out a ballot in Georgia.

So, are we there yet? Ask some folks, it’s clearly a yes. Ask others, it’s clearly a no. It’s also, clearly, likely to be the biggest event that we’ll see in our lifetimes.

And in places like Modern Mayberry, I imagine that there is a good possibility that we may never see any direct violence related to this, except on YouTube® reports.

But, I can see spending time to review the markers – these are two and a half years old now. I might even stay with them, but recalibrate them with some objective markers. We’ll see – I’ll give it some thought.

It is clear. We will never be able to return to the nation that was, and what we will become will be born from the next few years.

Who will we become? We all have a stake in that.

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

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

Midnight?

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

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?