Jan 10 2024

Personal Update

I’ve been struggling for many weeks with a respiratory infection. Yesterday, when I went to my new doctor, he immediately ordered me to the emergency room.

I’ve been increasingly fatigued, congested and, as of this weekend, breathless. The ER checked me out, prescribed antibiotics and a medication to reduce coughing (I’d been spending most of my nights getting in and out of bed, due to inability to stop coughing). I am to continue my asthma meds.

I was home last, not coughing so much, which did help me get some sleep. I’m a little less tired.

today, I’m mostly going to rest, try to catch up on household tasks as I can, and heal.

if the new meds work, I should be feeling much better by the weekend.

Jan 10 2024

Good Riddance!

Oh, please, please, please! Release the Epstein files!

Now!

Just GO!

https://x.com/bcele899/status/1736162032943276138?s=20

And, Billy Job?

Don’t forget to take your wife and grifting child with you.

Jan 10 2024

Look Sharp: Narrative Engineering In Progress!

     Beware the narrative engineers in government and the media, the ones who craft fear and suspicion from quite ordinary things. Have an example:

     In December of 2021, the Pentagon furthered the ‘white rage’ narrative, warning that ‘extremism’ within the ranks was on the rise, which would require ‘detailed new rules’ to prohibit service members from engaging in ‘certain activities.’

     The new policy lays out in detail the banned activities, which range from advocating terrorism or supporting the overthrow of the government to fundraising or rallying on behalf of an extremist group or “liking” or reposting extremist views on social media. The rules also specify that commanders must determine two things in order for someone to be held accountable: that the action was an extremist activity, as defined in the rules, and that the service member “actively participated” in that prohibited activity.
     Previous policies banned extremist activities but didn’t go into such great detail, and also did not specify the two step process to determine someone accountable. -AP

     Extremism among men equipped and paid to kill people and break things! OMG!! That’s got to be bad, doesn’t it?

     Well, maybe not. Pull the emphasized portion apart. It cites four “scary” things:

  • Advocating terrorism;
  • Supporting the overthrow of the government;
  • Fundraising or rallying on behalf of an extremist group;
  • “Liking” or reposting extremist views on social media.

     Three of those four things are largely subjective. Two make use of a wholly undefined term: “extremist.” These days, advocating a return to strict Constitutional fidelity is frequently condemned as “extremist.” I know people who’ve been stripped of their right to keep and bear arms for arguing that the Second Amendment means what it says. (Enjoy the irony.)

     But my attention is on the fourth item on the list. Just what does it take to get some emission on Facebook or X/Twitter classified as “extremist?” A handful of shrieking complainers has managed it in times not so distant. Indeed, statements from United states Senators have been labeled “extremist” because they upset some Leftist whiner. And thereafter, is everyone who agrees with the sentiment an “extremist?” A threat to others, or to our “institutions,” or – may God help us – to “our democracy?”

     I’ve written about this practice before:

     That sort of deliberate mixing of immiscible statistics is an important tactic in the Narrative Engineers’ toolkit. Thomas Sowell highlighted it in The Vision of the Anointed:

     One of the common methods of getting alarming statistics is to list a whole string of adverse things, with the strong stuff up front to grab attention and the weak stuff at the end to supply the numbers. A hypothetical model of this kind of reasoning might run as follows: Did you know that 13 million American wives have suffered murder, torture, demoralization, or discomfort at the hands of left-handed husbands? It may be as rare among left-handers as among right-handers for a husband to murder or torture his wife, but if the marriages of southpaws are not pure, unbroken bliss, then their wives must have been at least momentarily discomforted by the usual marital misunderstandings. The number may be even larger than 13 million. Yet one could demonize a whole category of men with statistics showing definitional catastrophes. While this particular example is hypothetical, the pattern is all too real. Whether it is sexual harassment, child abuse, or innumerable other social ills, activists are able to generate alarming statistics by the simple process of listing attention getting horrors at the beginning of a string of phenomena and listing last those marginal things which in fact supply the bulk of their statistics. A Louis Harris poll, for example, showed that 37 percent of married women are “emotionally abused” and 4 million “physically abused.” Both of these include some very serious things–but they also include among “emotional abuse” a husband’s stomping out of the room and among “physical abuse” his grabbing his wife. Yet such statistics provide a backdrop against which people like New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen can speak of wives’ “risk of being beaten bloody” by their husbands. Studies of truly serious violence find numbers less than one-tenth of those being thrown around in the media, in politics, and among radical feminists in academia.

     The prevalence of such deceitful practices argues for a default attitude of distrust. No longer can an American afford to confront any governmental or media emission in a trusting fashion. In particular, the media are not interested in informing us, except as that would conduce to increased circulation. What does, quite reliably, increase circulation, is scare talk – and if nothing truly scary has happened lately, those eagle-eyed blokes in the newsroom will slap something together out of whatever’s lying around the cutting room.

     Samuel Johnson warned us three centuries ago about the “general degradation of human testimony.” He was principally concerned with “falsehoods of convenience.” Today, the falsehoods that matter most are uttered by persons determined upon power. Just now, with a presidential election season about to swing into high gear, remaining alert to such nefarious practices is more important than ever. Tag those who practice them as not to be trusted, and pass on.

Jan 09 2024

Plausible Villains

     “No villain comes in black, screaming obscenities. All evil has children, homes, regard for self, fear of enemies.” – Greg Bear, Anvil of Stars

     A writer straining to produce drama faces several challenges. One that perpetually bedevils me is the construction of a villain in whom the reader can believe.

     There have been writers that write tales without villains. Isaac Asimov is a prominent example. But Asimov’s stories generally pit Man against Nature, rather than Man against Man. He was a master of such counterpositions. I prefer to write about human failings, including human evil.

     So from time to time, I find myself moved to write about an atrocity or an obscenity brought about by human action – deliberate human action. At such times I must ponder the question, “What would move a man to do such a thing? What kind of person would it take?”

     I’m in that mode this morning.

***

     Some of the most important villains in the history of fiction never “step onto the stage.” Their motivations remain behind a shroud. The best example I know of is Tolkien’s Sauron. Sauron’s desire to create worldwide misery and darkness is the key to the entire Lord of the Rings adventure. Without it, and him, there would be no story to tell. Yet Tolkien keeps him entirely offstage; why?

     Tolkien has gone to his reward, so it’s impossible to ask him. However, I think I have an inkling. Sauron is so extreme a “character,” being so wholly committed to evil, that Tolkien could not find a way to make him plausible. Satan would fail as a fictional character for the same reason. The quote from Anvil of Stars at the head of this piece points in that direction.

     For good or for ill, villains in fiction written for human readers must have human dimensions. They must have “children, homes, regard for self, fear of enemies.” And in the best cases, they’ll have some residuum of human goodness about them.

***

     I’ve been held back from starting my next novel by a villain problem. The degree of villainy I have in mind for the book is quite extreme. Yet it’s already at large in our world. The core of it is the complete commodification of life – human life included.

     Let’s be candid: we already commodify life to some extent. We must. We eat plants and animal flesh. That requires that we treat certain life forms as commodities for our consumption. So a degree of commodification is forced on us by our physical needs.

     (Yes: there are self-hating lunatics who hold that Mankind has a moral duty to go extinct for that reason. I don’t know any such persons, but I’d bet heavily that none of them have completely renounced eating.)

     However, despite our need to consume animal flesh, we strive not to be cruel about it. Animals killed for meat are seldom treated cruelly, even in the largest of meat packing and processing plants. The total commodification of life would dismiss that set of considerations. All that would matter would be production. Moreover, human lives would not escape such treatment.

     Slavery was a form of that evil. We renounced it – the United States was only the second nation ever to do so – but it lasted for a shamefully long time. Some slaveholders never accepted that what they’d done was wrong.

***

     Leave all that to the side. I need a villain who’s willing to embrace that evil in a new form. The slaves of yesteryear were persons born of Man. They owed nothing of their origins or natures to technology. But technology has advanced to a point where it has become plausible that humans can be made to order through genetic engineering and cloning. As Larry Sokoloff noted in Innocents, such humans would be pure commodities:

     “The people who did this,” he said, “did it to turn out a sex slave. Probably by request and to specification, and I’d bet my house that if they haven’t done it before, they’re trying to do it again right now. For that I’m going to send them all to hell. But think about it. Let’s say they were to clone me—produce a baby version of me. That baby would have no parents or other relatives. The people who produced him would have no reason to care for him, or about him, and only they would know he existed. He would be a product for sale. Why would anyone make that product? Why would anyone want that product? Apart from pure altruism?”

     Among human evils, I can think of no degree lower nor more despicable. A man capable of embracing that practice would be more deeply and thoroughly evil than any figure known to history. And it’s my job to envision such a villain and make him plausible to my readers. Hayao Nakahara, the villain of Innocents and Experiences, is only a pale forerunner.

***

     No political blather from me today. The problem delineated above must receive the whole of my attention. The novel to come – working title Ex Nihilo — may be my last. At least, I can’t imagine delving more deeply into evil and the need for heroes than that. And the first step is conceiving of a plausible human being who would embrace the deliberate creation of human lives to be treated as commodities for sale.

     Has a novelist ever solicited your prayers before this, Gentle Reader?

Jan 08 2024

Quarter Pound Opinions

     Yes, I’m still recovering. (I’m told this whatever-it-is can hang on for many weeks. Something to look forward to! 😒) As my energies are low and the news has been both repetitive and monochromatic, a short while ago I decided to page through my archives in search of something worthy that I could repost. Rather than an essay of mine, I’ve selected a piece by another writer: Greg Beatty, who once graced the old Palace of Reason with several short tales and the essay that follows.

     “Quarter Pound Opinions” first appeared at the Palace in 2003. I was powerfully struck by it when Greg first submitted it, and I continue to be impressed by its penetration and implications. Greg, wherever you are today, I hope you’re well and happy, and specifically happy to see this piece republished for the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch in this Year of Our Lord 2024.

     In 1901 Mark Twain wrote an essay called “Corn-Pone Opinions.” It wasn’t published in his lifetime. It’s been published since, in various collections, but I didn’t run into it until I was flipping through the 2000 volume of the best American essays of the past century edited by Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Atwan. “Corn-Pone Opinions” opened the book.

     I can see why the editors chose it. Twain starts with a folksy tone and a marvelous description of a now-distant memory of spectacle. With an openness most would find shocking today, Twain reminisces about the sight of a slave he used to know, some fifty years before, whose knack for impressions kept local boys laughing. The slave mimicked the style and gestures of local preachers, and, when he sensed his master might be listening, the sound of a saw working its way through a board.

     However much Twain clearly relished this memory of a slave who would fool his master with saw sounds, he also loved what the man had to say. In a recognizable move, Twain took the man’s homespun wisdom, and built upon it, a witty brick at a time, until he had moved so far away from the rhetorical harlequin figure he had evoked to begin that he was now talking about the entire human race, and it all seemed just as hypnotically right and charming. Twain repeats one line in particular from this unnamed genius: “You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is.”

     Twain then built an extended argument about how true this is. He argued that the average man “cannot afford views that interfere with his bread and butter” and that if “he would prosper, he must train with the majority.” His argument is, again, classic Twain. The insights he delivers about groupthink and economic determinism are doubly attractive to American readers through their fusion with a frontier anti-establishment attitude, a leavening of wit and an occasional spice of misogyny, and, always, just enough distance so that the average man can replicate this very groupthink experience by saying, “Yes, that’s so true. I know so many people like that.” And never see himself in it at all.

     And I’m no different. As I read it, I said, “Yes, so true,” thinking of the fads I’d seen in my lifetime, substituting leg warmers for hoop skirts, and actresses for princess as fad starters. And then I stopped. It’s been a full century. Is this image still accurate?

     Immediately, the answer came to me. No, it isn’t. Things have changed. For one thing, the domestic economy has changed. Corn pone is no longer the homey dish that Twain eulogizes. In fact, it has become rather exotic, a regional dish enjoyed at bed and breakfasts before antique runs through a series of small towns and back to the suburbs to relax.

     What then is our corn pone? Just as immediately, the answer came to me. The Quarter Pounder. The Quarter Pounder is just as mundane to the citizen of 2002 as corn pone was for the citizen of 1901, but what a difference is summed up in this statement! Corn pone, a cheap form of corn bread made without eggs or milk, is a food of the poor. Like grits or hush puppies, it is a food invented by the working rural poor, but is now traditional. Born of necessity, corn pone is a way to get the maximum amount of food from a minimum of ingredients and financial outlay. And, like Twain, people fond of corn pone remember it with specificity. Their mommas made it one way, their grandmommas another, cousin Stacy never did get it right, and if they ever found a woman who could make real pone here in the city, they’d be happy.

     But until they do find that woman, these modern, urbanized workers eat at McDonald’s, our contemporary provider of cheap food for the worker. And where they once could recognize if their momma had been distracted by the burned edges, or if their little sisters were learning how to cook by the uneven texture of the pone, they relax instead at knowing that their Quarter Pounders will be, within statistical deviation dependent on worker distraction and slippage in training practices, exactly the same. Variations will be minor, will mean nothing, and will be immediately forgotten.

     But take the analogy further. Twain was concerned about conformity in a small and local way; Twain was concerned with corn pone conformity. For all that he made points about our larger society, Twain’s analysis was grounded in his original image. In Twain’s analysis, people, especially Americans with their divided allegiances to God, democracy, and the dollar, were likely to accept the opinions of those around them. Just as the corn in their pone was grown in nearby fields, ground by a miller they knew, bagged by another of the string of entertaining slaves Twain wrote about, and then baked by those who loved them, the opinions Twain was concerned about were handed to his fellows by the members of their church, their families, their townsmen. Just as the seasonings that made individual batches of pone distinctive indicated the geographical and economic limits on the cooks, the shared opinions upon which Twain heaps such scorn were often circulating over and over because there was simply nothing else available. And the speed with which fashions swept through his society was fed by the same taste for spectacle that made Twain cling to those memories of a capering slave for fifty years until they found a place in his writing. We accept Twain as one of our greats because he is one of us. Twain is a corn pone philosopher.

     And except in quaint, residual pockets, none of that is true today. In fact, you could say I celebrate the same things that concern Twain because I am concerned with Quarter Pound opinions, not corn pone opinions. I am concerned with conformity on a global scale, with the way Quarter Pounder culture is driving corn pone from our plates.

—

     What was the first line that Twain’s dark genius preached? “You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is.” Well, where a man gets his Quarter Pounder isn’t the issue. He can get it from the spotless McDonald’s with the cheerful Pakistani manager I visited in Greensboro North Carolina. He can get it from the incredibly filthy McDonald’s in Charlottesville Virginia. This McDonald’s was staffed by Black, white, and Hispanic women who could barely understand one another’s words, but who slouched behind the cash register with exactly the same lack of hope. In short, he could get his Quarter Pounder from any of the more than 28,000 McDonald’s in more than 120 countries, and it wouldn’t matter. Maybe it mattered whar a man got his corn pone, but it doesn’t matter where he gets his Quarter Pounder.

     In place of local meal and downhome opinions, what does today’s hungry man receive with his food? Trends. Trends that are planned, merchandised, and promoted with cyclic regularity. These trends do not sweep through our towns like fads. Instead, they provide the basic fabric for them. Each year, we can judge when the summer movies come out by the annual emergence of the latest plastic toys at McDonald’s. However, unlike popular songs, McDonald’s promotions are not so striking that we date our lives by them in memory. We remember the year that Vanilla Ice came out, or the year that Brittany versus Christina was the big debate but we don’t remember which year we got the Monopoly game pieces or Atlantis submersibles. These promotions, like the McDonald’s wrappers, are disposable. Like the playground equipment outside so many McD’s, they offer safe stimulation, providing just enough managed excitement to race our psychic engines and get us through the day. Not enough to hurt or change us.

     Twain never says so directly, but his scorn for the trends that swept through his society gave the impression that he found them stupid, and that he felt himself distant from them. Not me. I don’t find my fellow citizens stupid, and I know I’m all tangled up with them. But I find them produced, processed, and managed like the McDonald’s workstaff. McDonald’s is infinitely flexible. It can absorb changes in education level, age, or ethnicity of its employees without blinking. McDonald’s don’t fundamentally care if the beef used in quarter pound of hamburger came from disease free local cows, from cows that were grazed on what until recently was irreplaceable rain forest land (as was the case in Costa Rica), or if it was raised in Iowa. Beef is beef. Employees are employees.

     Twain’s essay has a logical flaw. He assumes that exposing conformity matters. That if his readers recognized that they were circulating opinions that they hadn’t produced themselves, they would spontaneously break free, powered by a self-pride that would- somehow!- allow them to overcome their economic positioning. This message can be found in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” and in new family sitcoms every fall. Every seventeen year old who figures out how the world “really works” believes that he can get the rest of society to throw off the corn pone chains of public opinion which had been thrust upon them through accident of birth or a biased media. And then we’ll all be free! Hurray!

     However, a funny thing has been happening in recent years. As Americans across the political spectrum start their magazines, newsletters, television and radio talk shows, listservs and websites, they haven’t gotten any freer. In fact, at the same time that access to a free market of ideas has flourished, and that choices have multiplied, certain other things have also happened. To name one, Americans have gotten fatter. They’ve gotten fatter when information about what constitutes a healthy diet is more readily available than ever. And an ever growing percentage of the American diet is made up of processed foods- processed, packaged, measured, and in all ways regularized for ease of consumption.

     Recall, if you will, Twain’s corollaries of his slave performer’s corn pone text. He said that the average man “cannot afford views that interfere with his bread and butter.” In the world of the Quarter Pound opinion, it is become clear that a man, a woman, or a transgendered individual can hold any opinion he, she or s/he wishes, so long as that individual does not interfere with the flow of beef and bread. Oh, s/he can choose. Choose a Whopper, over a Quarter Pounder. Choose a Vegie Burger over a Quarter Pounder. Be daring, and choose a (vegetarian) Boca Burger over a Quarter Pounder! In 1901, a man had to “train with the majority” in order to prosper. In 2002, one can choose from a nearly infinite menu of meals/opinions. You don’t have to think like the majority, so long as you shop like the majority. Eat like the majority. Grow fat and apathetic like the majority.

     And relax. It won’t be unpleasant. In fact, it’ll be fun. You’ll never have to choose between conforming like Twain’s good neighbors or laughing at subversive wit like Twain with his slave. No matter what you choose, there will be a performer to entice you into the checkout line with greater wit and originality than Twain’s old friend. Like a retro feel? McD’s offers Ronald McDonald, the classic clown. More fond of cutting edge humor and ethnic backlash? Try the “Yo quiero Taco Bell” dog. Masculine culture and radio drama scripting? The Budweiser lizards. And in each case, the dancing bear/ talking dog / capering clown of the franchise will be as charming as the spectacle-loving Twain could wish, but, rather like the slave Twain converted into a rhetorical prophet of individual freedom, will serve to make us at ease in our servitude.

     In 1901, Twain, that grand and witty prophet of clear thought, ended his essay by reviewing a recent controversy that not one person in a hundred could now identify, the argument over free silver. Twain suggested that not one person in ten on either side had rational backing for his position, and suggested that we all “do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.”

     In 2003, I’d like to close by weeping for Twain’s lost innocence. I grant that not one person in ten has rational support for his or her position in the free silver argument, but I’m afraid that far more terrifying is the realization that we can be perfectly reasonable, and, like Twain’s shackled Socrates, not be able to use our reason to gain freedom. What’s worse, Twain’s cherished slave knew where his master was, when to pretend to be working to keep punishment at bay, where his shackles ended and his flesh began, and where he could run if he wanted to risk it all for freedom. I don’t. I don’t really know where my Quarter Pounder comes from. I don’t know where the processing of the Quarter Pounder ends and I begin. I don’t know if boycotting McDonald’s will free my mind (though admittedly, it might shrink my ass), or simply serve to nudge McDonald’s into a better market position. I don’t know if publishing this will be taken as evidence that the press is freer than ever, or if my despair will convince others that there are no options, and that conformity is the best option available.

     I do know one thing. What corn pone was in 1901, the Quarter Pounder is in 2003.

Jan 07 2024

Why would Biden talk to anyone?

He isn’t in charge of his own bowel movements, much less anything that’s happening on the world stage.

Let’s think about this for a minute. Joe Biden, who is supposed to be the commander in chief, didn’t know for four days that his own defense secretary, a member of his cabinet, was in the hospital. Now, considering what’s going on in the world right now—the Israel-Hamas war, the Houthi attacks on container ships in the Red Sea, and many other things—how is it possible that Biden isn’t talking to his defense secretary daily? Sure, he has time to give speeches about how Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, but he didn’t even know his defense secretary was incapacitated for days?

Joe Biden can barely read from a teleprompter these days, and even when he CAN read from the teleprompter he can’t even enunciate the words that are being fed to him. Joe Biden is a drooling Chinese hand puppet, a senile dementia patient being led around by Obama’s staffers and told where to go and what to do. OF COURSE nobody told Biden about Lloyd “I fuck the troops over for lunch” Austin. Biden isn’t making any decisions, he’s being told what to do, just like Lloyd “I’m a political whore” Austin. They’re BOTH tools.

And I still want to know what the surgery was. I’m betting on lipo.

Jan 07 2024

Desecrating A ‘Sacred Space?’

     Happy Feast of the Epiphany / Theophany / “Little Christmas,” Gentle Reader. It’s a big day for Christians worldwide, on which we commemorate the visit of the Magi to the newborn Christ Child. I’ve written at length about it, if you’d like a detailed rumination over it. However, for this morning I have something else in mind: an obscenity of a contemporary sort that needs to be squashed hard and at once:

     [T]he President of the Navajo Nation, Buu Nygren, has filed a formal objection with NASA and the U.S. Department of Transportation over what he calls an act of desecration. “It is crucial to emphasize that the moon holds a sacred position in many Indigenous cultures, including ours,” Nygren wrote in a letter dated Dec. 21. “The act of depositing human remains and other materials, which could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space.” Nygren has asked NASA to delay the mission until the Navajo Nation’s objections are addressed.

     “Sacred position!” “Sacred space!” “Indigenous cultures!” Indigenous to what or where? Not to the Moon, which remains – as far as I know – unoccupied. This “President of the Navajo Nation” hasn’t been there; I’d have heard about it. But he condemns the ULA’s Peregrine mission as “desecration.” And to be fair, the Amerind nations and other “indigenous cultures” have been granted a wholly unwarranted degree of deference in the past, so there was a fair chance he’d get it this time around as well.

     Apparently, in responding to this…person’s demand, NASA has tried to “square the circle:”

     Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration at the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, acknowledged that these commercial missions could lead to further controversies.

     “With these new opportunities and new ways of doing business, we recognize that some non-NASA commercial payloads can be a cause for concern to some communities,” Kearns said. “And those communities may not understand that these missions are commercial and they’re not US government missions, like the ones that we’re talking about.”

     Kearns is saying that Nygren has complained to the wrong department – that he should have addressed the Astrobiotic / Celestis / Elysium Space firms that are the commercial forces behind the Peregrine launch. That invites Nygren to infer that if the launch were purely a NASA affair, NASA would have addressed and prevented the “desecration.” And who knows? Perhaps NASA has become so lily-livered that it would bend over backwards to avoid “offending” an “indigenous culture.” Given how little NASA has achieved since the decommissioning of the Space Shuttles, it isn’t hard to believe.

     Amerinds have been playing the victim card for decades. This is not a departure for them. But it should be dismissed with open disdain, rather than being treated with respect as so many victimist initiatives have been.

     “You say the Moon is ‘sacred’ to your ‘culture,’ Mr. Nygren? Pray tell, where on the Moon is your most important shrine? What’s that? No Amerind has ever been there? Only white Christian men? Well, in that case give us a buzz when the first Amerind expedition plants its flag on the lunar surface. Then we’ll talk about how ‘sacred’ it is to you and yours. Not before.”

     What I would give for a NASA spokesman to deliver such an edict — and to slap down the ‘Native American’ BS in the same breath. It’s high time.

Jan 06 2024

SecDef hospitalized for days?

Apparently from a complication after a “minor elective surgery”.

I’d like to know what the surgery was. Was he trying to get a spine implanted? Or a set of balls to cover his lack thereof? Or maybe he was getting some liposuction. Who knows? Nobody’s talking, which means that whatever we might think, it’s probably worse.

Although if I may posit a theory as to why they kept it a secret, it could be because the people up top know that if the rank and file knew that Lloyd “I’m a political piece of crap” Austin was ill, the rank and file would be cheering for his condition to worsen. Believe me when I say that I cannot wait to piss on Lloyd Austin’s grave, and I’m going to be somewhere in the middle of a miles-long line in order to do it.. My only sorrow is that he’ll die a natural death rather than the hanging that he deserves, along with Mark Milley and a whole host of the Perfumed Princes of the Puzzle Palace.

Anywho, if there’s any people out there shocked that this administration is less than transparent, those people need help, and possibly medications. It’s like being shocked that water is wet, or that fire will burn you.

It’s the Feast of the Epiphany today. Three Kings Day. In a lot of the world, the celebration of Christmas is rather minor, and Three Kings Day is the big celebration. I can recall one country that instead of putting up stockings for Christmas, the kids would put a box of hay under their bed for the king’s camels. It’s also the start of Mardi Gras here in the states. So to that end, I made a King Cake, the wife is making the Queen’s Soup, and we’re having a bonfire tonight where we burn the greens left over from Christmas, The trees/wreaths/etcetera that people had in their houses. A few people will be attending. Should be a good time. If not, well, we still have king cake.

Jan 06 2024

Dismissal Through Diagnosis

     The old rhetorical gambit called argumentum ad hominem is most often deployed by advocates for a shaky proposition. If Smith has a better case for his position, such that the preponderance of the evidence and the logic it supports appear to have won the day, his adversary Jones will be powerfully tempted to “attack the messenger.” Jones’s hope is that delegitimizing Smith personally will undermine Smith’s arguments, leaving Jones alone on the field. It’s an old technique, well known to those who study argumentative and rhetorical methods. Nor is it always fallacious.

     Many years ago, I wrote about two prongs of this method as used by the Left. At the time, those essays seemed sufficient. Today, no longer. The Left has “branched out” to other rationales for dismissing or silencing the Right. John Hinderaker cites one below:

     Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign policy, warns that migration fears could send political shockwaves across Europe.

     Borrell, 76, a Spanish Socialist and former foreign minister, was referring to the fact that illegal immigration has hit its highest level since Europe’s last migration crisis in 2016, which drove a political backlash including contributing to Brexit. It comes at a time when Europe is braced for terror attacks linked to Hamas and a resurgent Islamist threat in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

     He suggested that “fear in the face of the unknown and uncertainty generates a hormone that calls for a security response’, he said, theorising that populism has an irrational biological basis. “We will enter a survival mode based on fear and that may promote the ascent, or strengthening, of the extreme right,” he said.

     Conservatism as mental illness, a favorite trope of the left. But why is it “irrational” to oppose mass illegal immigration, or to want to prevent terror attacks?

     Why indeed? That answer, of course, is that those fears are perfectly rational. Europeans don’t want to be victimized by savages, nor do they want their nations to be “transformed” by the savages’ “culture.” But the Left, which has orchestrated the mass invasion of Europe by savages from Africa and the Middle East, doesn’t want to hear it. More, the media barons of Europe, who are as wholly owned by the European left as American media moguls are by the American Left, want their readers to feel ashamed of fearing the invaders.

     The old tropes of “racism,” “xenophobia,” and “Islamophobia” have been overused. They’ve lost their punch as ordinary people have noticed that those invading and abusing them are overwhelmingly black, Muslims, and violent. No sane, emotionally healthy man will view a declaration such as this as “something we just have to get used to.” So the argumentum must be “tuned.” The new melody is “irrational fear.”

     If Jones can convince Smith that he’s being “irrational,” Smith might back off. If Jones can convince the audience listening to their exchange that Smith is “overreacting,” he might manage to carry the day. It certainly sounds less harsh than “Smith is either stupid or evil,” especially since the statistics are all on Smith’s side.

     No one wants to be thought “irrational,” or – God forbid – “hysterical.” It takes a fair degree of self-confidence to withstand those attacks. A lot of people lack that asset, and thus can be cowed by the “irrational” label. But the willingness to stand one’s ground, confident that the facts are exactly as he perceives them, is a winning posture:

     If you’re secure in your possession of the facts, take confidence from them. Stand firm on them. It took me decades before I could do so in the face of massed disapproval from others. Here are the results.

     Be not afraid…of rhetorical gambits that attack your rationality, that is. Feel free to fear and resent invaders who threaten your safety and that of your loved ones. That’s perfectly rational.

Jan 05 2024

Muh Democracy

If I have to listen to another Democrat hue and cry about “our democracy”, I’m going to puke.

Political Correctness image number 0

There’s a reason we’re not a democracy. We are a Republic, although at this point I would say we’re post republic and post-constitution based on how the government acts. Democracy is mob rule. Our founding fathers knew this. They weren’t dumb or ignorant, unlike your average college student these days. They had studied history, and knew that every single democracy in history had failed.

So they didn’t give us a democracy. They gave us a republic, if we could keep it. Based on what I see coming out of D.C., I think we failed. But that just makes us a corrupt oligarchy, not a democracy.\

In any case, when you hear a Democrat wailing about “our democracy”, you can rest assured that actual democracy is the last thing that they want. Kind of like how they have to save democracy by imprisoning their political enemies. You know, like the USSR did. So democratic!

Jan 04 2024

Closing The Escapes, Defiling the Heroes

     The Totalitarian Prime Directive is simple: Permit no escape. After all, the evidence is copious that oppressed and subjugated people will flee if they can. Therefore, the totalitarian must block all escape routes, station men with guns at each of them, and shoot those who attempt to breach them as an example to others. Stories of such events at the borders of Communist countries are many. Survivors of those regimes often tell stories of aborted escapes. If the regime can keep its subjects despite their enormous desire to escape, its power will be secure against anything but invasion and conquest by a stronger power.

     In our era, escape has come to mean something more than physical removal from oppressive circumstances. It often refers to a mental refuge from such conditions. Large industries have grown highly profitable by supplying people with such escapes. Fantasy and science fiction, superhero comics, movies made from such tales, video games and conventions for fans are all examples thereof. They provide a dollop of relief to those who need it…and a fanciful kind of hope, as well.

     Today’s mental oppressors march under the flag of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” This has been called “woke” doctrine. Like “physical” totalitarians, they seek to close off all escape, such that there’s nowhere for anyone to turn for a respite from their demands. But the task is difficult, for it involves combatting market forces whose heft is measured in tens of billions of dollars. So rather than destroy those mental refuges, the dictators of “woke” have striven to pollute them.

     I wrote about this some time ago, in connection with the “woke” assault on video gaming. But it’s also present in fantasy and science fiction, in comic books, and in the movies:

     As you may have heard from our own Lincoln Brown or our friends at Twitchy and Hot Air, a new Star Wars movie is in the works, featuring everyone’s “favorite” Mary Sue, Rey ‘Skywalker’ Palpatine (poor Daisy Ridley, having to play such a hated character).

     And of course, its new director, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, is a perfect example of DEI: a Pakistani woman who proudly wants to “make men uncomfortable” and somehow forgot several of the most pivotal characters in the Star Wars saga were female (Leia, her mother Padme Amidala, Ahsoka Tano, just to name a few).

     As Lincoln said, Disney isn’t trying anymore, just reanimating the corpse of a beloved IP they killed. Not even for the money (every movie they’ve been putting out in the past few years seems to be getting more and more woke, and they flopped harder than FIFA players), but seemingly out of sadism.

     It’s not pure sadism. It’s an attempt to pollute the refuge the quintessentially escapist “Star Wars” movies offer to their fans. If the dictators of “woke” can render such hiding-places for our minds as unappetizing as the increasingly oppressive reality around us, they will be better enabled to impose their creed on us. We won’t have a redoubt from which to resist them.

     The counter-agent to such invasions is the loss of revenue. Disney has already suffered greatly for its prior sins…but apparently not enough to force its masters to correct their course. Whether Disney will break before “Star Wars’s” fans, we must wait to see.

     I could go on, for the examples of this sort of infiltration of heroic and escapist entertainment are many. But the point will stand as it is.

     Fortunately, my chosen perch – independently-produced and published fiction – cannot be subverted this way. Indie writers and artists still make escapism and heroism available in quantity to anyone who seeks them. There’s also a steadily increasing community of indie moviemakers, who purvey their offerings largely through the Web. Whatever other sins may lie at Amazon’s doorstep, we have those outlets for relief. Pray that the dictators of “woke” don’t find an effective weapon against them.

Jan 04 2024

I have another funeral tomorrow.

This one is going to be a hard one, since I know the family. The deceased and my father were friends. They lived relatively close to us. I went to school with his kids. I can’t say I stayed in touch with any of them after I graduated, but still, there’s a personal connection there.

Military funerals have a couple of points in them where it’s hard to keep your composure. The first is the twenty-one gun salute. You can see the family jolt when the first shots ring out, even if they’re expecting it. You can hear the rifle team commands being shouted in the distance, so you know what’s coming. That’s normally waterworks #1.

The second is Taps, after the salute. The single bugle in the distance, playing a song that we all know by heart. If they’re not crying after the salute, they’re typically crying after Taps plays. To this day it gets me when I hear it. On active duty bases, it’s typically played basewide at the end of the evening. When I first got in I didn’t quite understand why so many people stopped in listened, shutting down any and all conversation around them. I understand now.

And the last, even if the family has managed to keep their composure, is when the senior member of the team carries the flag to the next of kin. You kneel in front of them, holding that cloth as if it’s the most precious thing in the world. You hand it to them, and you say, reverently, “On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Army (or their branch of service) and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation to your loved one’s faithful service and dedication.”

I’ve always managed to keep myself under control until I’ve left the family and I’m out of sight. I’m hoping that I’m not asked to present the flag tomorrow because I don’t know if I can keep a straight face on this one.

Jan 03 2024

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

The Kung Flu Plandemic by the numbers. A.K.A. you were lied to, repeatedly.

As we can see, Covid-19 presented no more threat of death than flu to those aged under 75. In point of fact, there is a greater risk to the young in falling over and breaking their necks than dying from Covid-19.

Conclusion: Influenza and Covid-19 have a similar infection fatality rate and similar symptoms. Both cause respiratory death via pneumonia. Respiratory deaths were broadly similar in 2020 and 2019. Somewhat mysteriously, they were slightly lower in the year of the pandemic. Influenza miraculously disappeared in 2020. Could such an unprecedented event (or non-event) be even remotely possible? Of course not. Flu deaths were simply re-labelled as Covid-19 deaths. Genius.

The Kung Flu scamdemic was one of the greatest powergrabs by the tyrannical Left, and it worked.

Yeah. It worked. How many people meekly did was the government told them to do, despite all the evidence proving that the Kung Flu wasn’t any worse than the normal flu, and that the jab was a clot-shot with no health benefits? As plenty of people pointed out, if you wanted to know who would have collaborated with the Nazis in 1930’s Germany, now you know. All you have to do is look around and see who bent the knee to the clot-shot and government shutdowns.

And it was all based on a lie.

Jan 03 2024

The Method Remains Unspecified

     This recent column from Victor Davis Hanson nicely sets out the major indicators of impending national collapse. He’s also candid about the absence of an evenhanded rule of law when political questions or prominent politicians are involved in a controversy. He leaves no question about the international consequences of such a collapse. I read it thinking throughout that “this is all ‘previous work.’” I hoped Dr. Hanson, an intelligent and insightful commentator, would have an original set of recommendations for Us the People. However, he concluded this way:

     Will we meet these challenges or ensure the ongoing decline?

     If what we saw after October 7, or the wild and out-of-control reign of weaponized local and state prosecutors, or what we watch nightly on television at the border, or the paralyses we witness abroad of our military, or the breezy way in which our officials promise groups here and abroad billions of dollars in easy money, continues into 2024, then the country as we knew it will become unrecognizable.

     Well, ah, yes…but what are “we” to do about it? When several recent, high-profile elections, including one for the presidency, have been blatantly stolen, is it sane to look to the next set of elections as a corrective? Leaving that to the side, what have the Republicans elected to Congress actually done to halt or reverse the flood of damage? Have we any objective reason to believe that replacing all the Democrats in Congress, plus the president and vice-president, with Republicans would bring about the swift and radical changes required to avert the disaster Dr. Hanson foresees?

     Dr. Hanson might understand that the policies and initiatives of the Usurper Regime are deliberate moves to weaken the country. However, he never says so. To do so would lay bare the true challenge before us: the removal of an illegitimate government intent on the destruction of American sovereignty. That regime will not reverse course on its own initiative. Neither will it surrender power peacefully, regardless of the outcome of the November elections.

     As it has been to date, our true challenge is to find a method that doesn’t throw the United States into bloody convulsions. So far, no one has proposed any such. Given decent persons’ aversion to confrontation and violence, the search is likely to continue long beyond the point where our slide into domestic chaos and international impotence becomes irreversible.

Jan 02 2024

They’re not even hiding it

The sheer amount of corruption at the Federal level can’t be hidden anymore, so they just “ignore” it.

The charges that are dropped relate to bribery of politicians and illegal campaign contributions.

Quelle surprise.

What is so infuriating about this is obvious: it’s not that SBF is getting off on these charges–how much time he spends in jail likely would not change much or at all; it’s that all those bribed politicians and the ones who got illegal campaign contributions will completely avoid the public scrutiny that a trial of SBF would have brought.

As with the Hunter Biden scandals, everything is out in the open and the so-called prosecutors at the Federal level just don’t care. The corruption is blatant, offensive and in our faces. As Ann Barnhardt likes to point out, Diabolical Narcissists enjoy flaunting their crimes in other people’s faces. They get off knowing that they’re getting away with it and everyone can see them get away with it.

Knowing that God will judge them is truly the only thing that keeps good people from stringing them up and hanging them en–masse.

Jan 01 2024

The New Year

If I could give you a graphic representation of my farewell to 2023, it would be me, middle fingers upraised, mouth foaming as I spit curses at the passing year and telling it to go straight to hell and spend eternity choking on the barbed cock of Satan.

Sadly, I don’t think that 2024 is going to be any better. Call me a pessimist if you must. I prefer to call myself a realist. I’m looking forward to some cataract surgery this year, the end result of a life lived outside and in full exposure of the sun, not often with sunglasses. Add in some genetic components, and it’s amazing that I haven’t needed it before now. Mom had it when she was 40. but she spent her entire childhood in the ocean, surfing and swimming. She spent more time outside than I did at my age.

As for any predictions I have for the future, well…

Very precious indeed.

Jan 01 2024

Happy New Year 2024

     Mine is looking up. Yes, I’m still a wee bit under the weather, but I’m much better than I was a few days ago. So I thought it might be time to set the tone for the New Year in terms that are clear and specific. Bullet points, really, though I detest the notion that anything of real importance could be put across in a PowerPoint presentation.

     (I once gave a presentation on “how to give a presentation.” My objective was to destroy certain practices that reduce a notionally willing audience to a roomful of semisomnolents struggling to keep their eyes open and desperate for a bathroom break. Chief among those practices was the PowerPoint presentation. I think I opened a few eyes, but I haven’t been back to check since then.)

     First, a few political fundamentals:

  • If you don’t have the right to speak your mind as you please, regardless of others’ feelings or opinions, you are not free.
  • If you don’t have the right to acquire any weapon of your choice, regardless of who thinks it’s “too dangerous” for a civilian to own, you are not free.
  • If you don’t have the uncontested and unabridged right to the security of your honestly acquired property, and an equal right to acquire still more property through honorable homesteading or trade, you are not free.
  • Rights are not permissions granted by a government. They are your property as a human being, the crown of God’s creation. Give thanks for them and be supremely vigilant in guarding them.
  • Always grant to everyone else every right you claim for yourself (Thomas Paine).

     Now, some social fundamentals:

  • You are not responsible for others’ opinions of you. A good thing, too, as it’s guaranteed that not everyone you meet will like you.
  • In social matters, proximity determines significance. The people closest to you are more important than those further from you. Corollary: It’s vital to be on good terms with your neighbors. Not to be so is to teeter perpetually on the edge of calamity.
  • Groups are a trap. They can submerge the individual and nullify his personal morals and ethics. Keep your distance.
  • People will forget the good things you do, but no one ever forgets an offense, a slight, or a rebuff.
  • Live as if you were being continually recorded from all sides, and you will have nothing to fear.

     And now, a few economic fundamentals:

  • You are entitled to nothing purely by dint of your existence.
  • The road to prosperity is mile-marked with hard decisions and paved with sweat.
  • Whatever the bounds on your talents, there are no bounds to your ability to commit yourself to a course of action. Be judicious.
  • Promise only what you can deliver. Deliver what you promise.
  • There is no economic asset superior to a stainless reputation for honesty and reliability.

     These were once considered “home truths,” learned at mother’s knee. Sadly, few parents take the time and trouble to inculcate them in today’s youth. Yet they’re just as true, just as trustworthy today as they were a century ago. They prove their worth every day. Only tyrants, misanthropes, and parasites fail to respect them – and who wants or needs their good opinion?

     If you’ve not yet made any New Year’s resolutions, perhaps keeping mindful of those fifteen points (“Le bon Dieu n’en avait que dix!” – Georges Clemenceau) will prove sufficient.

     And once again, Happy New Year 2024, and all my best to you wherever you are.

Dec 31 2023

Last Day

12/31/23

Or, 123123.

I am proud of myself for what I’ve accomplished this year. I provided care for family members, recovered from asthma attacks after the poor air quality this spring, bounced back from a very painful broken arm, and survived a challenging Annual Enrollment Season.

And, I treated myself. I read a lot of ‘unimportant’ books – books that were not intended to improve my mind, but that were the book equivalent of ‘comfort food’.

I spent time with family and friends. I planned a 75th birthday for my husband. I got ALL the Christmas shopping done before the last days.

My husband and I are working to integrate the stuff of two households into one, learn to work together without the buffer of time spent apart in jobs, and reconcile our disparate decorating tastes.

I did something I’ve wanted to do for ages – I signed up for an online course to learn Morse code (called CW by radio operators). I bought a dual-paddle key (not cheap, but I have a Radio Fund savings account), tested it out with my radio, and was able to get it operational. I’m excited to get started – my first Zoom class is next Thursday.

I didn’t lose weight, but I maintained. Didn’t improve my fitness, but maintained. So, not progress, but not backsliding.

Most importantly, I detached from excessive focus on national politics. While I strongly DON’T want certain candidates to win the nomination, I’m prepared to accept who does manage to survive the best efforts of the Dems/Left to sabotage the front-runners and install one of the RINOs.

I will be watching very carefully who is running for various local, county, and state offices, as those are the ones that will affect me the most. I will continue my prep, starting with getting my garden in shape, and using indoor space to start the plants.

So, unlike all those online who are saying “Good riddance to 2023!”, I’m savoring every day. Life is too short and precious to wish away a single hour of it.

And, may 2024 be your Best Year Ever!

Dec 31 2023

The Closing Of The Year

     Yes, I’m still sick. Pretty seriously sick, if you must know. But I wouldn’t feel right about letting 2023 go without a column. It won’t be a “round-up,” just a few thoughts that have congealed around a disastrous year: arguably the worst yet for America under the Usurper Regime.

     One of my favorite cynical aphorisms, whose origin I’ve lost, runs thus:

When all the errors are in the bank’s favor, you can be forgiven for thinking that there’s more at work than sloppy arithmetic.

     I don’t think any of the deleterious political decisions we’ve seen this past year – or in the years that preceded it, frankly – had the good of anyone other than the Usurpers and their favored clients in mind. Everything points to a design: a program intended to keep the Usurpers in power by acquiring as many boughten allies as it’s possible to purchase with legislation, regulation, and outright bribes. Note that their spokesmen tend to deflect questions to that effect. What honest man, whose intentions are good, does that?

     Supposedly, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been increasing. At least, we’re provided with government-approved figures to that effect. But are they trustworthy? Were they computed in “constant dollars,” or in the seriously degraded dollars of 2022? And what items were included, or omitted, to distort the picture?

     We’re edging ever closer to direct involvement in the Russia – Ukraine war. Failing regimes love war, as it gives them a rationale for suppressing dissent and commanding that we “form ranks” and “move together.” The Usurpers must realize that their grip on power is slipping. Nothing else is consistent with their furious attempts to prevent Donald Trump from running for the presidency in 2024. While there’s a question to be answered about state-level attempts to deny Trump ballot access, there’s also a group of plausible answers. I illustrated one in this novel:

     Roland Wriston set down the handset of his phone and looked back over each of his shoulders in turn. “Gentlemen, may I have a few minutes to myself, please?”
     The state troopers who’d flanked him for nearly three months departed the governor’s office without speaking. Wriston rose, closed the door gently so as not to attract the attention of his office staff, returned to his seat and lifted the handset again.
     “I take it this conversation is intended to remain private?”
     “Quite private, Governor. I assume you’ve been following your erstwhile lieutenant governor’s campaign for the presidency?”
     Wriston’s hands balled into fists. “I have.”
     “My guess would be that it hasn’t pleased you to see him get so much respectful attention. So much…adulation.”
     “I must admit,” Wriston said carefully, “that the trends have surprised me somewhat.”
     “Indeed. If I might place a personal inquiry, Governor, have you ever entertained the possibility of serving your country at the federal level?”
     “What? No, uh…” Wriston paused to regather his thoughts. “The national party hierarchy has never thought all that much of me, sir. I’d been given to understand that New York was my proper sphere.”
     “Opinions vary, Governor. The Secretary of Commerce will not be accompanying me into my second term. Declining health will be the reason. Given your success at placating and managing the major commercial interests of your state at a time of rising taxes and intensifying regulation, you appear to be a good fit for the post.”
     Wriston forced himself to remain still.
     “Governor? Still there?”
     “Yes, sir. Thank you for the compliment. Would I have to switch party registrations to qualify for the appointment?”
     “Not at all, Governor. It’s traditional for a cabinet to include at least one secretary from the, ah, loyal opposition. Always assuming the appointee can be counted on to be and remain loyal, of course.”
     “I, ah…that wouldn’t be a problem, sir.” Wriston struggled for calm. “For the present, is there any service the State of New York can render to your administration?”
     A deep chuckle came down the line.
     “Why, Governor Wriston, however did you guess?”

     Don’t imagine that it hasn’t occurred to secretaries of state nationwide.

     There is one moderately bright spot in all the gloom: Americans are pushing back hard to reclaim their right to keep and bear arms. Court decisions at the state and federal level have reasserted those rights. Unfortunately, the executive administrations of the most anti-gun states have adopted a tactic of disheartening efficacy: They’ve largely ignored pro-2A court opinions and have carried on with blatantly unConstitutional legislation and regulation. As the courts have no enforcement arm, this thumbing-of-the-nose tactic could enable the suppression of their residents’ rights to persist for a long time.

     That’s all I have for the present. Try to enjoy your New Year’s Eve celebration, whatever form it may take, and keep your spirits up. And as this is a Sunday as well as New Year’s Eve, may God bless and keep you all.

Dec 30 2023

It’s going to get worse, before it gets worse

Someone points out that we’re already in a recession, even if nobody wants to admit it.

Let’s take a look at three key areas.

If honest numbers were being used, they would show that GDP growth has been negative for almost the entire time that Joe Biden has been in the White House. That would indicate that we are at least experiencing a recession.

And if honest numbers were being used, they would show that the unemployment rate in this country is sitting at about 25 percent right now.

Needless to say, that is absolutely horrible. And if the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would still be in double digit territory even though it has come down a bit. The official numbers that the government gives us are designed to make us feel good about things. But at this point things are so bad that the charade is falling apart.

Food costs are up. Energy costs are up. Housing costs are through the damn roof. If I didn’t already own property up where I live I’d be screwed because I couldn’t afford to purchase it today, and I made far more in my last year of military service than I did when I purchased the property back in the early 2000’s.

And the people with their hands on the levers of power are either in denial about everything, or they’re just flat out lying to you and shoving as much lucre into their bank accounts as they can before it all comes apart. You know it, I know it.

Just on housing costs alone I don’t see how we come out of this without some sort of massive collapse. When the average family cannot afford a home, there’s no incentive to keep pushing forward.

“If you look back to the Great Depression, the house was only three times the average salary. Now, it is eight times the average salary,” Smith said. “The car was 46% of the salary, the car today is 85% of the salary. And here’s the craziest part, the rent was 16% of the average salary, it is now 42% of the average salary.”

You have to make six figures to be able to afford a home in today’s economy. How many jobs out there make six figures? And if you were one of the kids who got suckered into taking on tons of student debt? You’re screwed. And yes, I said it exactly like I wanted to say it: SUCKERED. Most degrees aren’t worth the paper that they’re printed on, and people are taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans in order to get them.

These people are generationally screwed, saddled with debt that they will be paying for decades, all for a degree that has prepared them to cook fries at McDonalds at best. Most likely, it’s indoctrinated them with a mindset that will cripple their chances for success in the future, and twisted their minds so that they’ll never even question why everything they believe keeps turning into shit.

Do I have any answers? Buy emergency food. Buy ammo. Buy silver rounds, so that when the economy collapses you’ll have at least some sort of currency that you can use. You can buy gold if you wish, but when you want to trade your shiny metal for a bushel of food, how are you going to break that gold into small enough pieces to buy what you want?

Prepare yourself locally to weather the storm that’s coming. Whatever form America wears on the other side of the storm isn’t going to be what it is today. And I think that’s probably a good thing.

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