“My friend here is trying to convince me that any independent contractors who were working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when it was destroyed by the Rebels.” – Clerks
Where was the Declaration of Independence signed? At the bottom, silly.
Independence Day is just around the corner, and I’ve got the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report scheduled for that day, so I thought I’d give a few thoughts about one of the most cherished ideas in our history: Independence.
Independence was the life blood of our new nation. I think people were genetically (and sometimes judicially) selected for it. The people that came here looked around Britain and said, “You know what, I’d much rather be in a wilderness surrounded by hostile natives. Oh, and I’ll gladly cross an ocean in a dangerous journey that will take forever, and I’ll never see the land of my birth again.”
It’s one thing to do that yourself, but these dudes convinced their wives to come, too.
Leaving everything you know and love is not normal, but Duncan McWilder left Scotland before the Revolutionary War was over to come on over here. I don’t know his story, but as I trace his children across generations, not a one of them settled in a place where life was easy – in fact every one of them headed for the frontier (as it existed in their time) and pushed outwards.
They raised heaven knows what in Virginia and Alabama. They tamed Texas. They built the railroads. The homesteaded in New Mexico. Portions of the family were west of the Rockies in 1860. Not a single day was spent in a life in on easy mode. They built this country with their sweat, their tears, and over the bones of their wives who died in childbirth and their sons who died of fever and war.
None of it was easy. The hard choice was something else:
Independence.
But they had one thing in their mind – they bowed to no man. I feel safe in saying that should my forefathers have met any king or potentate that walked this Earth that not a single one of them would have bowed. They would have stood straight up, looked him in the eye, and thought to themselves, “You’re nothing but a man like me. And no Wilder bows to any man.”
When people mention to me that I am the beneficiary of “white privilege” or any other such nonsense, I laugh. My ancestors fought in Europe, twice, in the last century. They fought here at places like Shiloh and Manassas Junction. They fought at places like Valley Forge when the dark winter nearly doomed a nation yet unborn. I stand at the end of a line of brave men and women who looked on a new and fresh continent, not with fear, but with determination. They wouldn’t bend their knees even to their countrymen. Why?
Independence.
Life was never easy. But I look back onto that line of my ancestors and know – they made the hard choice, the choice to be free. They gave up comfort and, likely, material success to have control of their own destiny. Rather than submit, they pushed farther out – into danger. Wolves aren’t a problem now. Why not?
My ancestors (along with many others) killed them. Grizzly bears used to be in nearly every State. Not now. Why? My ancestors (along many others) killed them. They braved the cold, the heat, the snakes, the (now dead) bears, and the (now dead) wolves. Why?
Independence.
I’m not alone here, either. If you’re reading this, there’s a near certainty that you came from a long line of Big Damn Heroes® yourself. They carved a nation out of their heroism, their success, and, yes, their failure, all chasing the same dream.
Independence.
I’ve met billionaires, movie stars, sports stars, and rock stars. I hold none of them in contempt. And I hold none of them as my better. I had several times that I could have sworn fealty and abandoned my integrity and had greater success.
I never would. To do so would have been shameful to the memories of those that came before me. So, I never will. Why?
Independence.
I am not alone. The United States was a magnet for hard-headed men of principle that were looking for nothing but that chance to be free, to be independent, to live their own lives.
In 1900, my ancestors would interact with the Federal government whenever they got their mail. That might have been infrequent, at best, out on the frontier, out in the places where they might be lucky to see mail once in a month.
From once a month, we’ve moved to all the time. When my alarm goes off in the morning, it’s driven by electricity that comes from power plants regulated by the EPA. I go to the bathroom where I brush my teeth with toothpaste approved by the FDA, and then into the shower where the valve is regulated by the Consumer Protection Agency and water regulated by several government agencies. I then get in the car (approved in different aspects by several government agencies) fueled by gasoline . . . and the number of agencies in that chain just to get gasoline is amazing.
The biggest difference between then and now are the massive cities. Our cities are huge and complex and anonymous. Here in the country, you can configure your life to deal only with the people you see at work and the people that you see at the store, in the city there are people everywhere.
And the chances you’ll see a random individual again in a context so that you’d recognize them?
Nearly zero.
Thus, cities are an environment where people are anonymous. Anonymous people aren’t responsible for their actions – they exist outside of the constraint of society. Be rude to someone because your day isn’t going well? Whatever. You’ll never see them again. They’re not a part of your group, your tribe.
That anonymity might sound like Independence, but it’s not – it actually leads to the worst of tyranny – rule after rule because poor manners in an anonymous setting lead to rules about how tall a lawn can be. And if you don’t follow that rule, and don’t pay the fines associated with breaking it?
People with guns will take you to a concrete box and keep you there. So, cities don’t sound very free to someone like me.
On the other side of the equation, small towns provide accountability without resorting to the law.
A city slicker moved to Modern Mayberry and didn’t pay a plumber because of a disagreement. What are the odds any other plumber will even return his calls when something goes wrong? Or any contractor? Heck, even I know the story, so I’m giggling thinking about them making phone calls when they need to get their septic tank pumped.
Without anonymity, there is responsibility. It will be a tough lesson for the city slicker to learn. I remember that lesson every time I go to dinner and see the same waitress for the twentieth time. They are responsible to me as a waitress, and I am responsibility to them as a customer.
In my small town, I have responsibility. My forefathers had independence, but they also had responsibility. If they succeeded, they succeeded. If they failed, they failed. If they died because of their foolishness? They died.
The lesson is simple: independence isn’t freedom from consequences. Independence is being free to choose. Living with those consequences is the result.
We sit here at the edge of a new world that is struggling to be born out of the old world that we lived in. Will we choose independence and responsibility?
I know what my ancestors would choose.
God never wanted man to live in a city, it’s why He scrambled the language at Babel. He knew that put enough sinners with a particular bend and they would make it legal, then good. He was right! San Fransisco says so.
There’s a post about the Internet that I might make in the future with a similar point. It sometimes isn’t helpful when people who are divergent begin to think that’s normal.
Still the best deal going and I don’t see people risking life and limb to get into North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, or some other socialist chithole.
The Constitution is the first document in human history to put the brakes on government and that is badassery of by and for the people.
Don’t cue the opera singer just yet Benjamin because we might yet keep it.
Fingers crossed – it’s a great document, but plenty of folks want to ignore it.
I’m thinking about the women who threw their lot in with the soon-to-be Americans.
What a lot of guts they had! To travel to a new country, far from family, knowing that your mother would not be available for the birth of your children. To have to tend the fires, make the soap, kill the snakes and other predators, manage to keep your family safe and alive. Often in the absence of a husband who was hunting for food, traveling for provisions, or helping out another settler at some distance. One such of my ancestors saw his mother and infant killed right before him. Her husband was temporarily gone for business.
They had guts. American women of today are wimps, by comparison.
And that’s what independence requires – guts. Because independence without the consequences isn’t independence – it’s a larp.
Let’s do some more math. Math is fun.
Let’s talk about an 18 wheel truck hauling a load of that all-American breakfast cereal corn flakes (https://www.kelloggs.com/content/dam/NorthAmerica/kelloggs/en_US/images/articles/how-is-your-cereal-made/CornFlakesInfographic.pdf) from Kellogg’s production plant in Memphis to, say, homeless people food kitchens in San Francisco 2100 miles away. Why not, everybody likes corn flakes and Kellogg’s has been in the news lately ( https://www.columbian.com/news/2022/mar/30/kelloggs-workers-win-big-raises-after-spate-of-strikes/ ).
A box of corn flakes is roughly 12x8x2= 192 cubic inches or 0.1 cubic foot. An 18 wheeler trailer has a volume of 2100 cubic feet and so can carry a max of 21,000 boxes of corn flakes. A single box of corn flakes contains around 9 servings at 1.5 cups per serving and each serving is 150 food calories so a total of 1330 food calories per box and 21,000 * 1,330 = call it 28 million FOOD calories on the truck to nourish the homeless. There’s 8000 homeless in SF so in 30 days they need 240,000 servings of corn flakes for breakfast. There’s 21,000 * 9 = 189,000 servings on the truck, or enough to feed the SF homeless not for the whole month but for only 23.5 days. So on the 24 th day, there’s a food riot when the corn flakes run out…and somebody else has gotta produce three weeks of milk for the corn flakes…and you need 2000/150 = 13 MORE TRUCKS to provide the SF homeless their lunch and dinner calories to get them to that corn flakes food riot on Day 24…details, details, we are ignoring so many details…
But anyway, our Kellogg’s truck averages 6.5 miles per gallon of $5 diesel oil. The trip from Memphis to SF uses 2100/6.5 = 323 gallons of diesel costing $1600+ dollars, adding around 8 cents per box of fuel cost to each box of cornflakes. Forget the driver pay and truck depreciation, this was a mercy mission, right?
Here comes the kicker. A gallon of diesel has 35 million CHEMICAL calories of fuel energy. Important conversion factor – by some silly convention there’s 1000 food calories in a chemical calorie to keep the average joe from having to lug around a lot of zeros. We burned 323*35 million = 11,300 million fuel chemical calories of energy to deliver 28,000 million food calories of corn flakes to SF homeless. That’s an delivery energy tax of 11/28 = 40%. And there’s also the energy tax to deliver the corn to the factory in Memphis. And to drive the factory workers to work. And to power the coal plant that provides electricity to the plant. ETc, etc, etc. Bottom line, in our modern civilization we gotta burn at least half as much fuel energy as we burn food energy in our bodies to get that food to us. This “tax” is never really considered consciously when we are at the grocery store, but buddy, if the oil gets too expensive to buy, the food calories are gonna get too expensive to eat.
It may be Independence Day, but not just the SF homeless but all of us are co-dependent on the machines with our current modern lifestyle. Enjoy your breakfast.
Well, then the solution would appear to be to re-engineer humans to drink diesel fuel and cut out the middleman. /sarc
Please don’t try to confuse the handwringers, professional protestors and other villainous scum with facts and logic as it makes them angrier and even more prone to doubling their daily dose of stupid pills.
No sweat. Soon we’ll all drive electric cars and trucks because the electricity is free in a lot of places. I even heard the EU is going to equip their army with electric tanks. That should be a big improvement too. [/s off]
You’ve overlooked the diesel calories needed to produce the corn in the first place. There was a tractor that tilled (or no-tilled but planted) the field, delivered the fertilizer (from natural gas), burned off the weeds, maybe a diesel-powered irrigation pump, and then the diesel-powered harvester piling corn into a diesel-powered truck. If the corn wasn’t dry enough for storage when they brought it in, a natural-gas-fired grain dryer took care of that. There’s oil and gas in everything we buy.
I have a hunch that winter squash are going to be a big part of my families diet, once they get ripe. That’s one thing that I can grow by the pound here in a region infested with squirrels, raccoons, groundhogs, and deer. They remain edible for months in a cool, dry, basement.
Lathechuck think on the positive side. It’s hunting over bait for wild protein 🙂
That’s my thoughts when deer visit the gardens. I’ve roasted a couple of ground hogs over the last few years. Tasty with garlic sauce. Just get those glands out carefully.
You are of course correct. As I said, “Details, details….Etc, etc, etc.” Another rushed morning curtailing the details to get James off to his theatre camp, where around noon he recited good Disney propaganda on stage to his beaming parents with all the other 9 year olds like he was supposed to during the Final Day Friday show. I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut and not rock the boat or my wife frowns. Thank goodness I’ve got a stage here on Wilder to recite MY lines.
Technology and energy have a place in creating space for freedom – historically, the more expensive energy is, the greater the threat to freedom.
Ack! Shoulda said 1000 CHEMICAL calories in a FOOD calorie…
LOL you’re a Troublemaker Ricky but I love reading your posts.
Reality, a troublesome word for leftists and more than a few others.
God plenty of food, safe water and trusted friends? You’re a rich man in times of trouble.
I watched the stampede created by Hurricane Rita. Houston tried to empty, and it was proven a direct strike by Rita would have found hundreds of thousands trapped on the highways without food, water, gasoline and hope. Grocery shelves were empty for days, yet the city was mostly spared of the severe damage found in my little section of the world. There was little independence for those that fled, since they gave most of that up by living in a writhing mass of humans without any survival skills, or resources.
It is what it is. Too many gave up their independence for the safety promised by those that had no such thoughts on their minds. Like many great civilizations of the past, failing to understand the limitations of resources compared to the wants of the masses is always folly. We’re regulated, licensed, and tyrannized by the usually most weak that find functioning as a government flunky requires little more than a pulse. The pursuit of liberty is the only driving force to keep this monstrosity working, and the cost of fuel is now at the point there will be little driving to be had. While the overlords of disaster were thinking their efforts would send us all to the cities, the opposite happened, and they never realized the looming disaster was the design of those that they are so willing to follow for a pocket full of something that is ultimately less useful than a handful of fertile soil.
Safety is, everywhere, an illusion, and the magicians that try to control use it as a lure . . .
Sorry incomplete post. Excellent Article, Wilder. Should be mandatory reading at all 4th of July parties along with the Declaration of Independence.
You said it so well why I choose to live on a small gentleman’s farm in a tiny New Hampshire town instead of a rented apartment in Los Angeles. People and interactions are NOT anonymous, so you best be on good behavior around them.
I really LOL’ed about the city slicker story as it happened about three years ago in my neighborhood and he *Still* has to import handyman services and everything from Boston. He NEVER Learns as he continues to piss off folks complaining how nobody will “Help” him or even plow out his driveway.
I agree w Michael- in fact copied a few paragraphs to send to my immigrant wife away on business for another 2 weeks just prior to hitting these comments..
I trained up in my profession in NYC planning on a Park Ave life (or rather life-style)… my career plans made a U turn when I took a temporary job in a small farming town in eastern WA and was, in retrospect, jealous of the beautiful life these “hicks” had. My choices “somehow” kept pulling me further and further away from cities – rural WA, then Fairbanks (you havent lived until drunk at The Mecca bar there), rural Maine and now a gentleman farmer hunting a coral snake on the property and hoping that the local bear stays by the lake and does not meander up to the home in Florida. The vague feeling that kept pushing me further and further from cities now makes sense and is no longer this vague feeling inside after reading “The lesson is simple: independence isn’t freedom from consequences. Independence is being free to choose. Living with those consequences is the result.” I hope I make my life better by making the right choices.
Meanwhile, off to re-zero my EBR after finally getting my tax stamp and screwed on my suppressor because never far enough from cities where “people aren’t responsible for their actions”. Since they cannot eat calorie-rich diesel and can eat my chickens, a poor choice may lead to a poorer outcome as the economy tanks as they quickly learn about responsibility and calorie deprivation. Hmmm, maybe get a few Jacob Sheep for the visual.
Even I try to use the wall switch to turn the light on when the power’s out. It’s habit. Wonder what they’ll think if the supermarket is empty? Where does that food come from?
Yup, city folk moving to the country lead to some great stories. Roots matter, people matter. But not in cities . . .
I wish people well that desire to live in a city, I just wish they would stop trying to tell us what to do and expecting us to subsidize their craphole.
The funny thing is they think they subsidize us, since their economy is mainly based on being a parasite on actual production.
Your best yet! Thank you!
Thank you!!!
Excellent review of what “freedom” actually means. I prefer the small town, where one’s
reputation (being responsible) is the ticket to (some) freedom.
Thank you! There is always a tradeoff, and freedom is never absolute . . .
Nothing to disagree with here, John. We currently live in a large urban area and somehow the large urban area does now question all of their “stuff” comes from and assumes it should always be coming to them – after all, it is a “Big Urban Area”. The amusing thing to me is that without the outlands to supply food, water, energy, and virtually everything actually needed for life, the Big Urban Area would last something like maybe a week, tops.
Exactly – freedom seeks those who are responsible. Funny formula, right?