The other day I witnessed a conversation I could never have imagined. Picture two successful professionals, thoroughly decent people, respected (perhaps even revered) in their fields. Intelligent, moderate individuals, but outside what was once the political mainstream. They relax over glasses of wine, discussing a certain prominent “public health expert.”
They discuss whether prison is too good for said expert, or whether dragging him behind a mule cart, drawing, castrating, quartering, and placing his head on a pike in a public square is more appropriate.
And no, they hadn’t had that much wine.
Both were embarrassed by their own words. Horrified, even. Both rushed to say they’d never condone such, let alone participate. But then they added: if their worst views of said expert are true, if their most dire predictions about his deeds prove accurate, then he’s more villainous than Dr. Mengele. Far more deadly, far more callous toward his fellow human beings.
And what kind of justice can you mete out to a person so vile? What kind of justice can exist in a society fallen so far as to nod placidly and follow men like that? How do you ensure not only his fall from power, but metaphorically “salt the earth” from which such power sprang to ensure such creatures never rise again? You have no personal power. You can’t reach into the high, dark reaches of the Deep State and claw out the evil. But someone, somewhere must. And no one, anywhere, is.
Those were the thoughts these fully functional people were driven to. In a world where the powerful never face any consequences for their actions, and instead grow wealthy and fat and more honored and more arrogant and cruel every day, the fantasies of the powerless grow … desperate.
—–
I hate this. Absolutely hate that we have come to this.
In the past, when others have advocated violence, I’ve taken the position that although mass defensive violence may be necessary, its results would be hellish. I’ve pointed to the gloriously non-violent teardown of the Berlin Wall, to the magical Singing Revolution in Estonia, to the entire non-violent collapse of the Soviet superpower.
I still hope in that direction. My hopes just get thinner every day.
In the present climate of unhinged hatred — hatred from ordinary people to ordinary people — can we ever go sane and tolerate each other again? And where do we go from right here?
—–
The hatred is different between the “sides.”
The woke left has hated ordinary dissenters with homicidal fury for a long time. Question the safety of an experimental inoculation? You deserve to die. Protest what your children are being taught in school? The full might of the federal government should come down on you, you terrorist. Differ from even the smallest aspect of whatever narrative is “true” at the moment? You’re racist, transphobic, homophobic, privileged, etc. and you deserve social, if not actual oblivion. V*te for Trump? You’re subhuman, you’re scum floating in the gene pool, you’re vermin deserving to be forced forever from civic life, if not outright exterminated. Fail to comply with any part of the elite agenda? Then surely when the world’s population is reduced to its proper and subservient numbers, you will not deserve to be one of the survivors.
Left-to-right/libertarian hatred is generalized and applies to anonymous millions.
Until very recently — and by recently I mean in the last few weeks — I haven’t seen that generalized loathing directed from right/libertarian to left. Then my last post drew a comment (which I trashed) from a seemingly rational person who said that we would never have freedom unless we eliminate at least 51% of the world’s population, and better, 70%. That is eliminate the people with the “wrong” views.
Yeah, great understanding of both freedom and history, guy. Not to mention human decency.
I almost approved the comment and followed it with, “Oh, so you’re an acolyte of Bill Gates, are you?” But I decided, even with a snarky response, such monstrousness would never get a hearing here.
What I’ve mostly seen from “our side”* is not hatred, but puzzlement and resentment: “Why the hell do they hate us when we’re perfectly decent people just living our lives and having different opinions?”
Also until recently — and by recently I mean the last few months — I didn’t see much specific advocacy of violence coming from freedomistas and allies. I saw (and no doubt you saw, or said), “We’d better prepare to fight back.” I heard, “What’s wrong with us that we’re not already violently resisting?” I’ve heard, “Lamposts and rope.” I’ve heard, “Our forefathers would be ashamed at our failure to act for liberty.”
But even the loudest mouths calling for violence were obviously looking at political leaders, not their next-door neighbors who happened to have different viewpoints. And for all their talk about wanting violence NOW, they were content to go on being Keyboard Kommandos while waiting for someone else to make specific plans and take specific action — action that when it came would usually be against far-off officials.
That’s changed. Very recently, from what I’ve seen.
But even now, the right/libertarian cries for violence against the left mostly aren’t generalized. We don’t want our neighbors dead or exiled for disagreeing with us (even when they disagree in the most disagreeable ways).
The calls are for specific retaliation against specific acts. I’m hearing — are you also hearing? — things like this:
A school injects children with mRNA without their parents’ consent? Shoot everyone involved.
Thugs arrive to take you to a camp for the unvaxxed? Shoot to preserve liberty against totalitarianism.
Adults conspire to give your pre-pubescent daughter life-altering hormone blockers without your knowledge? If they can’t be caught, stopped, and fired before they do harm, then stop them by any means necessary.
The local D.A. repeatedly releases violent criminals who terrorize your city? Well, you have a right to defend yourself against those responsible — and that’s not just the newly empowered crooks, but those who empower them.
Your business or your entire local economy is destroyed by “smash & grabs” and you know that every one of the street-level crooks will be protected by the office-level crooks? Well … you have to take things into your own hands.
Local “leaders” restrict your freedoms of speech, religion, movement, and trash your ability to provide for your family while they themselves party like it’s 2019? Don’t just try to throw them out of office; they’ll simply be replaced with more of their ilk and your sufferings will continue. Thoughts and talk of guillotines fill the air. Ça Ira, aristos.
Anyhow, I’m hearing a lot like that. Yes, at this point these are still almost entirely the desperate fantasies of desperately powerless people. People who thought they were citizens but now belatedly understand they’re mere serfs. People who are not and do not wish to be terrorists (i.e. villains who kill the helpless to send messages to the powerful). They — we — are only people who’ve lost a lot already and stare into futures in which everything that matters has been ripped away.
But when you’re talking about taking revenge — or acting in self-defense — against a bureaucrat who lives just up the hill from you or even your child’s school nurse, you’re talking a whole new level of seriousness.
The people grumbling that such actions are needed are in a different league than the Keyboard Kommandos who call for some vague war they’re not willing to plan, lead, or perhaps even participate in. However, the people very personally hating very personal people who harm them or their children are still not — yet — acting forcefully on their words.
And darned few of them want to act forcefully on those words.
They’re still hoping, just as I hope, that the worst can be averted by some sort of return to common sense. Or respect for rights. Or functional electoral processes. Or functional legal, medical, and educational systems. If only, if only …
—–
Meanwhile, we’re stuck with this hatred. And on our side at least, it’s growing. (Hard to imagine it growing on the left; wishing death to your neighbors for their opinions is already about as deep as hatred gets.)
And barring an invasion from outer space or some trumped-up “emergency” that temporarily unites us all against a common agreed-upon other, we’re stuck here. We’re stuck with this. But we’re also stuck in inertia.
Once we come unstuck will we be unstuck like an earthquake fault? That is, in the worst possible way?
Seems so, doesn’t it? More about that in Part II, which should be along in a few days. Meanwhile, as always, I look to the individual and collective wisdom of the Commentariat for fresh ideas and insights.
—–
* My personal “side” is and has long been libertarian of the free-market anarchist wing. I am not on the “right,” and don’t believe most of my regular readers are, either. But it’s a simple fact that, with the left having gone both insane and totalitarian, libertarians and the “right” have been thrown together as a more-or-less united-ish opposition wing. If we eventually topple the mad, authoritarian left, we’ll be at each other’s throats again (hopefully only metaphorically). But for now …
Hmmmm… as always I love your thought process weaved into the written word. I look forward to your posts.
I used to consider myself “on the Right” because I thought that stood for Freedom from Tyranny. However, I don’t any more. Probably in the same way people on the Left aren’t going to be a part of a Marxist/Communist takeover of our country. I guess we’re all in the Middle now, call us what you will. I explain to my adult children often: the Republicans and Democrats are really the UniParty – a single entity that works together in corruption, kick-backs, and evil. Basically, they all sold their souls to the devil somewhere along the line. Congress is a joke, on steroids. The Senate is also a joke and I wonder what skeletons are in their closets that would frighten them so much as to go along with the insanity we are seeing? Most regular folks just aren’t that compromised by much. And #LeskoBrandon.
My red line: Anyone who walks on my property with intent to force me to do their bidding will be shot. It’s that simple to me. Anyone who tries to hurt my children or grandchildren, I’ll find a way to make them pay inside or outside the Law. If someone tries to hurt one of my neighbors, I will help them defend themselves. Hell, I’ll hide people in the walls, in the attic, under the floor boards, etc., should it come to that. I guess you have to understand history to get what is required of us. The people who went to church (in Germany for instance) and sang louder so they wouldn’t hear the sounds of people crying out for help from the box cars rolling by are despicable! The people who got together and ferried thousands of Jewish children out of the country are heroes.
It’s like this, in my mind: There is a basic moral code among free people and it’s being violated all over the place. The good news is that brings us all much closer together in “Middle Earth”. I’m not sure we need “Leaders”, organizations, a banner, a political party, etc. I think all decent people should and will come together, or are coming together because things all over have gotten so out of control.
Also, as a Christ follower, I believe in what the Bible has to say about good versus evil – and it says quite a lot. It says that there will come a time when Evil is so prevalent and out of control that God will intervene. The book of Revelations, among many books in the Bible describe that time in gory detail. It also says that God’s people will be taken off the earth and I pray specifically for that. In the meantime, I like the examples that King David gave. He was a warrior!! Not a limp wristed pansy. That’s where I find my, shall we say, justification for taking another life.
Too long, too long, LOL. I think we’re all wondering and discussing whether or not we should admire and act out the dispatching of “Marie Antoinette” – for cause – of course.
To me it’s like running a river.
There are flats parts, there are rapids and there are waterfalls. Waterfalls require you to skirt them or you most likely will not survive, flat parts mean you have to work hard, it may be boring but it is up to you to get to the other side because depending on the river means taking way too much time, we all have some schedule it does seem, then there the rapids, surely not boring and they even have different classes for difficulty.
IMHO we are on that river, it’s called life, you will get to where you are going one way or another however the more effort and thought you put into it has a lot to do with how far you can make it down that river, of course you can just go with the flow but when you hit those rapids you may crash on the rocks if you don’t fight against that river for where it will take you.
I feel as if the western world today is in a class V rapid and it extremely difficult, violence can be found there too, and there are boulders that against which you can crash and burn. The river doesn’t stop, all one can do is hold on, fight it as needed, be level headed, don’t panic, pull to the left or right as required but if one can make it to the other side that is the best that one can hope for. One truth I have found that is of the upmost importance in running a river is that the people you have in your raft must all work together, just one working against the rest can push you into the rocks, so it is important to make sure whoever is in your raft with you are people who will not work against you.
Oh, BTW I also know there’s a waterfall coming that can’t be run at all but first let’s make it through that class V before we start worrying about how to skirt that waterfall.
Making it through that class V will give you a raft full of veterans who now have the confidence that together they can overcome a challenge. IMHO your odds just went up.
For examples of how an otherwise-peaceful individual can move towards active violence against other individuals, look at the history of assassinations of abortionists and clinic bombings in the US.
Few, if any, of those attacks were motivated by revenge, but by a sincere belief that killing would stop greater evil.
I wonder if most folks can’t yet see a clear connection between acts of violence against specific officials and an improvement in social conditions.
Non-violent collapse is mythological; a categorical error of attribution.
The powers behind – and the institutions that do its bidding, rely upon not just the threat of violence, their monopoly on State sanctioned AND unsanctioned violence, but great piles of actual violence.
The soviet union and others did not come down because of the power of velvet gloves nor the extremely well-reasoned arguments by patriots with charts and graphs of capitalism and scrolls of democracy. They collapsed because of all of the previous violence having destroyed its own ability to stand – and of real people risking and sacrificing in the face of that violence.
Now I know your point is the latter part, but it is not pedantic to tabulate the bloodshed antecedent to powers in how we reconcile their inevitable collapse.
The formal communism collapsing in the ‘80’s did so without body-counts of notice only by nature if the millions of bodies already long cold and a people and culture already destroyed.
The lack of those bodies as the kids carved bricks from Berlin is a big part of how we are now in the current year iteration of anti-human death cult tyranny under the banner of progress at all costs liberal democracy. The wall “fell” and we all cheered and yet somehow we all live behind that wall now. Why is that?
Evil must be crushed. The meek carry swords for a reason. Evil ideas and evil people doing the bidding must be removed. By force.
It is merely a matter of being honest about the toll and the timeline. The question is not one of non-violence vs violence in casting off tyranny but rather when those who have been paying with their lives all along will be made whole again by those in the current year picking up that sword in the spiritual battle that continues to rage on.
Consider ye old humble popcorn popper, all oiled up, loaded up, and plunked down on the heat.
One moment you’re looking at it, wondering if it will ever start to pop.
What’s taking the darn thing so long?
Then, one little kernal explodes with a snap!
Then another!
Then two more…then five.
Then so many popcorn kernels are blowing their tops that you can’t count that fast.
Every single kernal that’s going to pop will do just that. A few “culls” will sit things out.
Your job, when the popping stops, is to get that popcorn popper off the heat before the whole load goes up in smoke.
Ghost who walks;
don’t forget the salt!
Great article + lots of food for thought.
Clare + anyone else reading this:
A very honest question; I promise I am all ears;
What non-violent alternative do we have?
How do we move forward into anything other than a totally and completely dystopian, totalitarian future, without violence against those perpetrating it?
Everything going on in today’s world; it’s not “just happening”; no; it is BEING DONE TO US.
By people with names and addresses.
The economy is purposely being crashed, the dollar being destroyed, COVID was released into the world on purpose, by PEOPLE, AFTER they weaponized it / Gain of Function; in part to usher in the enemy’s self-proclaimed
“Great Reset.”
Everything happening IS BEING DONE *TO US* by other people.
What else are we supposed to do?
Vote harderer?
Protest?
Create a social media account to discuss & spread awareness; further utilize our non-existing 1A rights, only to get banned, deleted, de-platformed, and totally cut out of any & every platform where we can post our thoughts?
Maybe take them to court where our kangaroo, banana republic system will bankrupt US; and let THEM go free without even a financial fine?
They have completely stolen and destroyed the soap box, the ballot box and the jury box.
Please; I’ve been racking my brains for years now, especially the past 2 years;
If we want to avoid sheer, utter and total 1984 + Brave New World + Gulag Archipelago; how are we supposed to proceed other than FedEx deliveries for the satanic demons DOING all of this evil stuff TO US?
Look at Cuomo; how many tens of thousands of parents & grandparents did he murder by knowingly – maliciously and intentionally, with eyes wide open – jam infected elderly into nursing homes?
How many did he murder?
How – and why – should we let so much evil flourish in our world, without any penalty whatsoever?
I reject and renounce aggression (initiated force; violence against those who aren’t currently violating anyone) including revenge, but not all violence (physical force used defensively).
Interesting times may be on the horizon. Keep yer powder dry.
I’m thinking it wont take much to light the fuse.Come Lord Jesus!
Sometimes….violence is the answer.
Well, I have been saying this or along the same lines for about 2 years-does that make me an extremist a prophet or just another keyboard Kommando ?
Hmm, I’ve been thinking an awful lot about that lately…We are facing an enemy that is Spiritual and NOT just physical. Do We do warfare on our fellow -man’s, women’s and children’s hearts?
Do we weed out evil wherever it has taken root? What does that look like?
Does Prayer alone bring us out of this? I am a Follower of Christ and for me I don’t know if that is the only action that we might consider taking.
I heard many things like: “The old guard will be activated again and hang Them.”, “Perp-Walks” etc., etc., etc. I have since stopped partaking in Hopium.
Right now the only PEACEFUL method seems to be the Convention of States.
Will that work? I’m willing to try before dialing-in my optics on man-sized targets.
Remember this ALREADY went Kinetic with Rittenhouse and the riots when Lib’s were executing unarmed people in the streets. Why do you think THEY are making every effort to disarm YOU? They know they’re are at least 10 million would be Rittenhouse’s or more. THEY ARE AFRAID of US. and rightly So, We are winning on a lot of fronts.
The Defund the Police movement seems designed to give THEM authority to open the door to UN “peacekeepers” by elevating crime to a level of public outcry.
ALL MSM seems to be Radio-Pravda at this point. Even well-placed and seemingly well-meaning influencers sometimes appear suspect to me.
and now the UN has power to censor YOU on the domain-level (oh wait, BHO gave them that power).
You know hopelessness is a type of Trauma-base programming. THEY want you to feel hopeless, powerless, subject to their every whim. Blown about in the wind, by every political or otherwise change. Even Gandhi said violence wasn’t off the table when considering protests against an EMPIRE.
I think whatever happens, We the People will making a choice very soon.
Some People have already made a choice.
State employees forcibly vaxx your children without consent? That’s rape, and more dangerous than rape when we see how many children have died or suffered crippling injuries from these experimental vaccines..The culprits deserve a drastic comeuppance, but in the US (not most other places) we can file a lawsuit instead of using force and try to make their lives hell in that way (don’t forget to name the individual perps in the suit)…Our kids are grown, thank God, but if one of them had died, or been condemned to death with myocarditis by such a crime, I’m not sure anything could have stayed my hand…
What most of us want is a Nuremberg 2.0 for those who promoted this murderous scam with their lies and fraudulent reports, and those who refused effective treatment to Covid sufferers..If it was thorough, that might heal everyone’s wounds…But reform would require a return to legitimate elections, which doesn’t seem likely when the left would surely by swept out of office by honest elections..
That inertia is HUGE. You hear many marvel that there has not been violence from “our side” already, given how hard we have been pushed and how long. The inertia has slowed the response. That massive inertia is also how we know that what’s coming has already past the point of no return.
“It was not suddenly bred. It will not swiftly abate.”
Stopping this is a fools errand. The only thing left for those who don’t want to play is to ask if there is still a place somewhere to get out of it’s way, and try not to get any on you. A questionable enquiry. 🙂
I am reminded of the quip asking the asking the self defended homeowner if they valued their property and life more than the life of the robber they shot. No, answered the homeowner, the robber did.
The Declaration of Independence also comes to mind. Yes, and the resulting bloodshed.
Kipling’s The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon speaks to this as well.
Mankind was given Free Will that he may choose.
What will we do to prevent evil prospering, for so we must. Perhaps the hardest part is determining what evils cannot or should not be redeemed by anything short of the sword and flame. No, that is the second hardest. The hardest is not becoming the monster we fight.
Claire, once it starts it won’t end until any violence-advocating leftist, Politicians-local or national, and leftist celebrity is either dead or had to flee the country for good. After that local scores will be settled and OCEANS of blood will flow. IRA x Balkans x Rwanda. The more who are killed the more will be killed. The elite understand this and have been setting this up because those who are TRULY at the top won’t be touched and they will have thinned the herd without lifting a finger. Sad and predictable are the horrors to come and come this most certainly will.
Howe (of “Strausse and” fame) offers that the four “turnings” can be seen as the result of the supply and demand for one thing: “order”. (supply, and demand, being two dimensions, create four corners)
I grew up when the supply of order was quite high, and the demand was waning sharply. Being outside the “norm” by nature, society required of me things I eventually concluded were beyond my ability to supply, so I “fought” for freedom and liberty. In that turning, that made me a liberal. (an odd sort of “liberal” as liberty demands personal responsibility, and independence)
Now we have a low and falling supply of order, and a low but sharply rising demand for it. So now my interest in liberty makes me a conservative. Quite disorienting… just ask Bill Maher.
The elites seem to believe they can surf this wave. I believe they intend to push chaos, until the demand for order peaks, then flip sides and push hard for global totalitarian order.
The only fly in the ointment I can see, is that here in the states we are armed enough to supply our own order. I have no guess if we have the will to do so, or if it will matter. I recommend a plan B…. and c,d,q
Interesting times.
hey granny, what are you going to do when the feds show up on your property and there are five or six of these slug sub humans wanting to arrest you for a crime you do not commit , just a mere mention of anything Godly is a crime in there sadistic wicked minds, what will you do then Granny. who will you call on to back you up to eradicate the sub human federal criminal agencies, just don’t say you have a gun, you better have a plan in place or these evil sub humans will remove the air from your lungs and be happy doing it.
Peace takes a desire and commitment for peaceful coexistence from all involved parties.
Real Trad Heritage America does not have that commitment from Marxist/Moslem/illegal alien ‘america’.
Peace to Marxist/Moslem America means the total victory over, and elimination of, Real Trad Heritage America.
You cannot peacefully coexist with those that want to murder you and steal all you have – and that is the reality of the situation we are in and what they want to do to us.
Real Trad Heritage America has been thrown to the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Those that threw us down here are enjoying the top of the pyramid.
The above reality is sinking in and changing paradigms. Anger is a natural byproduct of the acceptance of that reality (one of the stages of grief).
Life or death struggles illicit a fight or flight response. There is nowhere for Real Heritage Trad Americans to flee to.
That leaves a survival response of ‘fight’. It’s hardwiring.
I too hope and pray for a peaceful divorce. I just wish we had a reasonable side in Marxist/Moslem ‘america’ that would reciprocate. We don’t have that.
That makes the fight they seem absolutely intent on having more realistic as every day passes and Real Trad Heritage America’s desperation grows.
God help us.
Even God will only permit evil for so long before he uses the ultimate violence to stop it. The Bible shows us that good men have to fight evil or they will be wiped out. This is part of the human condition and no history has shown otherwise.
Kent, Remember that The Non Aggression Principle only condemns THREE things. The “initiation” of force, the “authorization” of initiating force and the “delegation” of initiating force. Is not righteous self defense allowed against all 3 equally?.
Definition – “leftoxenomorph” a previously human that degenerated so much to the left as to have become a different species from Homo Sapiens, a poisonous leftist sub-human maggot and an irrecoverable danger to human life.
Definition – “leftoxenomorphism” the religious dogma of leftoxenomorphs. An utterly aggressive and messianic religion that seeks to subjugate willing humans into leftoxenomorph serfs of a neo-feudal wokeraty ant-hill with a one-wokeraty-hive-mind and genocide the unwilling.
Definition – “being on the right” or “being a rightist” non-leftoxenomorph 100% opposed to leftoxenomorphism and leftoxenomorphs. An American patriot bent on re-founding and Making America Great Again as the Founding Fathers created it.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the Founding Fathers would have been stacking up leftoxenomorph corpses by now.
In fact, they would have started about twenty years ago.
1776 was not a game of Monopoly of a “safe space” session of finger painting or lesbian dance therapy and it wasn’t an attempt to “understand the other side point of view”
Each side’s point of view was clear enough and the matter, as it had been done back to the beginning of human history and even before that by Homo Sapiens ancestor species, was going to be defined by the old tradition of doing your worst to spill your opposition entrails on the ground and watch them die screaming.
Leftoxenomorphism as any totalitarianism / collectivism has an internal logic that leads to genocide.
The Venezuerican “Wannsee Conference” has been carried out in leftoxenomorph Venezuerican academia and the right has been found wanting and declared the neo-Jews of our time and a “Final Solution to the right problem” is clearly in the offing for all of those unwilling to submit to leftoxenomorphism.
If American Patriots are going to stop leftoxenomorphs in time or leftoxenomorphs are going to get away with a modern day Holocaust of the right remains to be seen.
But the means and the tools and the methods are clear enough and that’s not going to change no matter how much dreams and hopes are involved.
The time to talk has come and gone long ago.
Dream all you want. Hope all you want. You are dealing with nazis. And they are already in government and control about 95% of all Venezuerican organization. And they are as unreachable by human persuasion as any nazi in history has been since way before the Persian emperor of 480 BC had to be stopped at Thermopylae.
Things don’t really change all that much.
Are we gonna or are we not gonna? That’s all there is to it. All the rest is BS.
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. Sounds like good is starting to see the issue a little more clearly after communing with the ancestors who didn’t harbor silly notions that the defense of liberty was someone else’s job.
it’ll blow when people figure out what they want and find out they’ll be refused it no matter what, No peaceful revolution. You know the rest.
And no, unless it gets really really bad it won’t be just revenge. As Mike Hendrix over at Cold Fury put it
Revenge T’ain’t much, certainly. But t’ain’t nothing, either.”
What it means is it isn’t as yet, enough.
In any case any being with a three digit IQ could have figured this would happen. People knew aeons ago, I think there are some memory holed Aristotle quotes about how bad diversity is. When your leaders become detached foreigners, aren’t looking out for the nation and flood it with other foreigners for their own ends, its an engineered holocaust and a moral crime equivalent to the Holodomor.
Now to what GR21 said, it won’t happen. There are too many purple states and the elite won’t respect or allow it . It will come to force or a USSR style collapse if we are very very lucky
And Phyrrus while you are correct , its far deeper than just Nuremberg 2.0. That’s needful to many but its also putting an entire elite on trial for dereliction of duties and as its a revolutionary trial, no niceties like due process or rights, You will answer.
I’d rather not go down that route but if it happens , it will be that. Any future revolution will be very how shall we say French in flavor.
All of us hope against hope we just get revival or collapse but large amounts religious, political, ethnic and cultural diversity make it difficult if not impossible.
Now whatever happens getting to a place you can grow your own food among like minded is the first peaceful thing you need to do.
It won’t be very long before California produces no crops do to its ongoing drought. And no its not the fish, its lack of rain and cramming 40 million people in a desert .
Less food means chaos.
After that is done and you actually know people, come up with an ideology. No one will lift a finger of they don’t know what they are fighting for . And with apologies to our hostess, it won’t be leave me alone or muh freedom. It will be “You are not teaching or promoting that, stop being a degenerate, no you can’t make that in China we need jobs here.” Best would be social conservatism and economic nationalism IMO.
Other good minded folk may disagree of course and its no up to me but no ideology, no action.
Roguesovereignmind I think you hit the nail on the head.
Doesn’t Agenda 2030 (World Economic Forum and all those pukes who attend) call for reducing the world’s population to $500 million? They think that’s somehow a manageable number for them to control under the guise of saving the planet. Throw in some transhumanism and space/planet exploration/population and they sit in their ivory towers like Dr. Evil. God will surely intervene. The thing about People is – we are all important to the Almighty – no matter our status, race, religion, gender, politics, or foibles. We all matter to the Creator. I can’t see Him sitting this one out. But, then again, I’m not God.
Steve S. – Great, thoughtful reply and all too true. All of it.
Ive been a casual reader, very intellectual site, so much so that I believe great is the victim of good. I mean getting the point of where we are and where you need to be is good enough, quit trying to get perfect, your past that. I will always take the 85% solution that is actionable, than the lets keep convening on a 100% solution. As the samurai told the student, “too much mind” yep from the movie, but I can tell as a former-many things too much mind will get you killed. I fought wars, battles and skirmishes all over the world, been in a lot of capacities, some known and some unknown. If any of this is now troubling and you are trying to find footing, change your paradigm. You are stuck in your OODA loop. It happens to me in dreams, where I get what I call “vaporlocked”, or to the trainees, you’re getting wrapped around the axle so to speak, and cant figure out the problem set, but then I force myself to wake up, cause vaporlock is torment. That is not how I live, and used to operate. I operated resolutely, which requires planning, but adaptability and infinite flexibility. Whoo. Gotta stop there on that. No, not necessarily talking about moral flexibility, although, yeah its part of it. I gather most of you haven’t been tested, in many ways that you will be, get your minds right cause you may be. Talk is talk, it isnt visualization, it isn’t OODA looping, so much is just mental masturbation and you need to stop now, unless you are discussing plans and logistics. The time for it is done. Be resolute. Any special service/force selection isnt won by the toughest, strongest, fastest, but two things: teamwork and mental attitude, as physical as all selections are, that is not what wins it. You are all silver, fixing to be refined in the fire if you haven’t been already. Know your place, know your capabilities, know the times, otherwise you are lost. Dont get caught flat-footed, a victim of perfect when you had good. One last thing, not to go down the survival Philosophy, knowledge path, but if it is hope you seek, you will perish, take the reality, you’ll be better for it.
Are “Brass catchers” still in stock?
I don’t know what it will take to get the ball rolling. I would think that my child dying of the jab would be enough to get mom and dad to start lopping off the heads of politicians and bureaucrats. it ain’t happening, as far as I can see. The wild card will always be the Orcs and Orcettes with badges and handguns and/or BDUs and M-4s. These corrupt, syphilitic-thinking hacks need their enforcers to do anything.
We all saw what happened to parents and school board meetings across Amerika when they: “…dared to protest” the tranny/porno/curriculum policies of the Karens and their Beta Male cucks. I have no illusions about how the “Thin Blue Line” will react. I share my ideas with no one, as I live in cop-worshipping North Idaho. Plan accordingly. Bleib ubrig.
Claire – It has been troubling to me for some time now that call for violence have been rising – but not only calls; actual violence has been rising as well. To your point, it appears that the “left” will execute it not only in the quest for authoritarianism for for anything they disagree with – and the “right”, more frequently, has been calling for vigorous armed response – and not small ones.
I would argue that Lawrence has a valid point above: the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Soviet Bloc was not the first time its citizens had risen against its conquerors (The Russian Civil War, 1956 Hungary, 1968 Czechoslovakia), but it was the first time that the citizens had risen against a system that been demonstrated to be failing miserably to the point that even its own governments did not believe in it. 1989 Soviet Russia was not 1930 Soviet Russia, nor was the1989 Warsaw Pact the 1956 or 1968 Warsaw Pact. We have neither experienced the vast force of the government making war on its own citizens nor the awakening where no-one no longer believes that the government is effective.
I have never served in any military arm, but everything that I have read and heard is that you do not want to start one – once the proverbial “balloon” goes up there is not telling how events will actually go (“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy” ). And to your point, such things rapidly turn away from the abstract “official” or bureaucrat and quickly become friends, neighbors, associates. And then the killing to revenge the killing. And on it goes. And this ignores the complete and utter ruin to an economy and even a culture that such an event engenders – it would make 2020-2021 Plague “New Normal” appear as a picnic.
Do I have an answer? No. It would be helpful if people felt empowered to make changes and believed that their opinions and voices mattered; we do not seem to be there. It would also help if people accepted that, on the whole, Our Political And Social Betters (OPASB) are simply not with us and we learned to ignore them and go on about our lives – nothing deprives a thing of power like it being ignored and devalued. And finally, it would simply help if, in the course of all of this, people actually learned to build bridges and make alliances and underground economies and overground economies and anything else that allows us to find and deal with others that, although we may disagree on a great many things, agree on the most fundamental things.
I’m a bit confused I guess. I understand what is happening plenty well, but for supposedly being the elites, their end game just doesn’t make sense.
If “they” are pushing the people on their side to get the vax, and the theories about Mengele are true and the vax kills or sterilizes, won’t they be killing off all their own supporters?
And won’t it be “our” side that holds the new super majority?
To mitigate this possibility, once vax maxes out, I’m sure there’s next phase, where knowing their own side isn’t long for the world they’ll stir them into enough frenzy to start taking as many of us as they can with them. “It’s all their fault. They didn’t get vaxxed”. We’ve already seen the fighting.
If it goes hot war, what’s left of the country will crumble, and elite will become a meaningless status.
I just can’t fathom there are that many who are striving to start the fire so they can rule the pile of ashes.
Make lists, keep them updated. All have names, addresses, and routines. Do your homework now. You will know when its time. Once this fire starts there will be no putting it out, it must burn its self out. There will be no winners, only survivors. Get on your knees and pray for guidance. But in the mean time, make your lists, make your plans, and be ready to act.
Saber 7
In the meantime, FEMA/DHS being their evil selves. Get the shot or no help. No water. Nothing. Hopefully Beshear, the KY governor, will kick them out and help his people.
https://bestnewshere.com/fema-arrives-in-tornado-stricken-kentucky-with-vaccinations/
Your commenter might be more prescient than opinionated. I keep getting dark visions of the future powered by just a few connecting facts. Yes the hatred is already gurgling under our feet like Ghostbusters. Also, more new gun owners than ever have been buying in. They are not skeet shooting, or hunting, or steel plate plinking or even black powder cowboy shootists. No, they bought guns because they went from thinking they were not going to be doing the killing in the near future themselves- to just the opposite. They bought the guns knowing that killings were comming and that they would have to do it.
So…when the shooting starts, when does it stop! And I mean think about that. We are leaderless because the money of the globalists can buy nearly anyone. And those they cant buy can be destroyed from the inside by the FBI. But leaderless is a relative term. Smart, motivated people can achieve incredible feats without overt direction – but who will be the leader that says Stop? There won’t be one.
So when does the shooting stop? Well you know the progs will kill every last one of us. The have lists. But freedom loving sites have been encouraging people to make “accountability lists.” Where do the politicians live in your area, the judges, the cops, the media, the academia,the pedo’s? I have read advice to just download the voter registration list from your secretary of state. And we have all read Bill Clontons targeting orders for Bosnia. You might as well play by the rules, eh?
So the opposite from the progs winning? I keep seeing a guy standing on a burned out car in front of a crowd. Calling out zip plus fours. Whenever somebody says yes, the man on the car tears a page out of the voter list and says take care of any of these that are left.
Or in more simple terms, how does a leaderless movement know it has killed enough of it’s enemies?
When every – last- one is dead.
I told you, dark. Now myself, I am just an old fat man who needs a nap – but …
Console yourself with these words from Lincoln.
“No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or the other of us. The fiery journey through which we pass shall light us, for good or for evil, to the latest generations.”
@”Just Waiting”
“If “they” are pushing the people on their side to get the vax, and the theories about Mengele are true and the vax kills or sterilizes, won’t they be killing off all their own supporters?
And won’t it be “our” side that holds the new super majority?”
That’s what they’ve *always* done. Once their agent’s chaos foments massive widespread demand for order, they flip sides and use “our” side to bring in full totalitarian control, now with popular support, and their former agents, the “useful idots” are first against the wall, then they come for the “counter revolutionaries” (freedomistas). Very old playbook.
This time it appears they want *everyone* dead, or at least sterilized and fully dependant.
“We’re stuck.” Yes, we are; but we will also be stuck with the results. In my own anger, I have been rereading your 100 things to do.
These little revolutions in local school board meetings are having an impact. Look at Virginia. Look at the increasing number of state boards of education that are leaving the national collective. The teachers’ union has tremendous power, but local and state school boards have power too. Perhaps we don’t have to go violent after all.
Matthew 10:16
In sending out the Twelve, Jesus said to them, “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves”
Everyone has their own charge. Take it seriously.
It has Already started.
Faith without works is dead : James
Libertarianism is the self pleasuring crowd who won’t get their hands dirty. Mental mastrubation.
In response to Just Waiting and Fido, the Globalists do not care who they kill because they are neither Left nor Right – they wish to be the Supreme Leaders of Planet Earth and the Solar System/Universe. Part of their plan is to pit us against one another and save them the trouble. That is why, I think, we must show restraint and use wisdom in our decision making.
When you combine pure arrogance and power, you get a nasty combination that is nothing short of Satanic – after all that’s why Satan was thrown out of Heaven – he went up against God Almighty because he thought he was better. Ever since then, he/they/she/it has been trying to deceive people and turn them away from God.
They consider the “ash heap” something they can remedy after all the pesky populations are pared down to their manageable dream size. They’re discussing populating other planets (seriously they are), and that 500 million world population number came from somewhere in their evil little collective heads. With technology and transhumanism they believe they can create (like God) whatever their wicked little hearts desire (childlike sex slaves, robotic workers with problem solving skills, etc. It’s truly dark.)
Personally, I don’t think there is human understanding of the spiritual realm and the potential wickedness in some people’s hearts. Yesterday I watched a documentary put on by the Holocaust Museum. They were discussing how segments of the German population became killers, some absolute sadists (women, in fact). I like to remind myself every once in awhile what humans are capable of. I don’t think a normal person can imagine the horrors some people will inflict upon other people. I call it demon possession. Call it what you will.
Just waiting has asked a very valid question IMHO.
Could the answer (or at least part of it) be related to those streaming over the border unjabbed?
Most creatures we can get along with, in a “live and let live” manner, regardless of the number of legs those creatures may have (0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 100, or whatever). But sometimes those creatures decide to attack us, whether to repel us, enslave us, do us other harm, or even kill us. And sometimes, once they have made that decision and begun the attack, they cannot be reasoned with and escape is not a viable option. These are the self defense situations most of us have considered at length. And most of us have come to some conclusions about what is an acceptable response in those situations. In the case of the bipedal creatures, our acceptable response is usually to defend ourselves as necessary, and then, in order to reduce the chance of a repeat attack (or to eliminate that possibility altogether) we decide that the attacker should be closely monitored, imprisoned, or sometimes even killed.
But what about the situations when a person only does us a very slight harm? Maybe only slightly infringes upon or restricts our rights, or makes it inconvenient, difficult or costly to exercise our rights? What about the situations when a person does us dozens, hundreds, or thousands of these very slight harms? What about when a person does dozens, hundreds, or thousands of very slight harms, but does them to hundreds, thousands, millions, or even billions of us? What about when these people cannot be reasoned with, and escape is not a viable option? What then? These are also situations that most of us have considered at length, but for some reason most of us have come to very different (from the above) conclusions about what responses are appropriate. Thus far, most of our responses have been limited to voting, organizing (unions, political parties, NGOs, etc), protesting (sometimes peacefully, sometimes not so much), writing books, making speeches, etc. It seems that many of us are rethinking these situations, and some of us are coming to some new conclusions about what responses are appropriate.
I will now quote the always observant and insightful kentmcmanigal, because I think his words bear repeating: “Interesting times may be on the horizon. Keep yer powder dry.”
If I am accosted with violence, I will respond with enough violence to defend myself as long as I last. If by some amazing chance I survive the encounter, I won’t go hunt down the thugs’ neighbors and children. I have neighbors, otherwise fine people, who get all their opinions from the TV and who have lately become less pleasant to visit with than they used to be. I don’t plot their deaths.
When I was young I used to dream and pine and sort-of train for the revolution, which I thought must be coming any time now. Planned and announced by somebody else, of course, because I was a Keyboard Commando before keyboards were cool. Happily I don’t have an embarrassing ‘social media’ history to live down. Now that I am old I think that the people who believe there’s a political OR a paramilitary way out of the current situation are dreaming.
More and more I think of freedomistas as a quiet minority, a remnant, that hopefully will find ways to keep a candle burning through the crazy times in which we increasingly find ourselves. It’s not a new or unique thought. I don’t know what the future holds, I don’t know any solution or even generally what form the solution would take if there were one. I hold to a motto, “The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet but a belly laugh,” and an ending line from an old poem, “We seek out quiet lanes on which to go our way.” If I’m wrong, it’ll only bring evil on myself.
On the other hand my powder is dry and well-stocked, and if I die by violence I won’t die alone. Because of course.
@Joe Blow – Why yes. Yes, they certainly are in stock & widely available.
Suggest everyone get several – they’re cheap & backups / spares are critical.
Also consider wearing gloves anytime you handle any ammunition. Leave no trace + all that…
@Saber 7 = 1,000,000% yes.
This is the next step, is people with this info, need to start releasing it.
Intel is as critical as kinetics.
@Claire / Everyone:
I too have been pretty surprised by several normies who – without me sparking it – have said similar things; “we ought to start shooting politicians / I can’t believe nobody has shot some” / etc….
Further, open, serious, unironin, non-joking talk of civil war, violence is everywhere; even in the MSM.
Please understand; we do NOT need a “civil war”
That’s exactly what [they] want.
We need to carefully eliminate the small group of evil elite who are doing all this to us.
No more, no less.
Your fellow man, even tho you might disagree with him, is not the enemy. Those in power, those funding it; they are the ones who need to go.
@Simon Templar
…” monitored, imprisoned, or sometimes even killed.”
Monitoring and imprisoning are a long-term tax, with long-term risks.
Killing is a one time fee, with risk only of blowback.
(which is also present in the other two, perhaps in differing degree)
Some things are not worth living with, so there are things worth dying for.
These are very personal matters, so math won’t help here.
Ethics aside, you WILL NOT pay what you CAN NOT afford.
One must do the math, and always choose what’s so, over what “should be”.
@Joel
Neighbors are primates. Primates are dangerous and unpredictable. We
must always plot their deaths. That’s not plan A, that’s plan Q or later.
They will do the same.
There is no way out, but if we are prepared, we have a ticket in the lottery.
If we are LUCKY, there could be a way THROUGH.
Plan A is always to be productive and generous, and make your
neighbors see you as an asset to be protected.
woof
Historical Observation: The Right (libertarian or paleo) is always slower to anger because, by it’s nature it wants to let people be people. Anger on the Right is a reaction. Once the switch is flipped, though, the difference in brutality drops to zero, and continents burn.
Just a lone voice in the wilderness, but…who decides who is “Evil” and who must die? I don’t have that power. If someone attacks me, head-on, I know what to do, but if someone 1500 miles away says something, who will tell me true?
Why worry about someone 1,500 mile away?
When it comes to personal survival is it not really about three things?
local, local, & local
in that order
I won’t pretend to have any ideas of answers.
I have nothing.
But what I do know is that my garden spaces are getting bigger, my ammo is stocked, and we’re building as many new spaces for food animals as we possibly can.
It’s a mess out there and it’s only going to get worse.
I don’t know how to stop it, how to slow it, how to do anything but be as ready to keep my family going through it as I can possibly be.
And hopefully we all survive it.
It might be all in vain, I don’t know.
But the only thing I can do is worry about those immediate to me and let the rest of the world burn, if that’s what it’s going to do.
🤷♀️
So… I do this periodically. I watch as many documentaries as I can stomach regarding the Holocaust. The horror was ongoing until the Allied forces stepped in, primarily the United States and Great Britain. As my mother and grandmother told me, back then Americans had no idea to what extent people were being outright exterminated/murdered by the Nazi’s. The news apparently wasn’t getting out, and the World Wars were affecting everyone. It wasn’t until Allied forces went to the camps that they discovered the horrors and then it was front page news. The entire world went into shock over the news and that is why fourth graders, when I was young, were shown the documentary films with the naked bodies piled in mass graves. I remember watching that and becoming physically sick and having nightmares for many months. But, it stuck with me, and that was the point. I don’t believe today’s children are given the same information that we were given in public education. I made sure my children understood that time period. Man’s inhumanity to man knows no bounds.
And that is why, I think, I have a more realistic view of the turn our country has taken. So many young people have been educated in Marxist/Socialist/Communist ideals where whole classes of people, for whatever reason, are demonized – just a remake of Nazism (and they call us the Fascists??!!). This is something we’ve all worked towards stamping out for generations now. To see a resurgence of destructive, very bad, old, failed ideas is shocking. In America, we believed, that we are born free and have inalienable rights, no matter race, religion, creed, and now gender or sexual orientation. To watch, hear, or read about huge swaths of our society who would actually put a fellow citizen in a quarantine camp because they’re afraid, is no different than demonizing any segment of the population and treating them as less than human. This type of thinking is rampant in the U.S. Congress for gosh sakes! I recall the history lessons on how/why Japanese Americans were put in camps after Pearl Harbor was bombed. I’ve heard recently that people have vilified Chinese Americans, Muslim Americans, etc. Attitudes have really changed!
In my generation, it was seared into our minds that to vilify a group of people because they are different or have different beliefs is the worst of all sins. The last few years we’ve watched how “conservatives”, “christians”, people on the “right”, have been vilified, censored, called “white supremacists” and every dirty name in the book. Most Americans, used to reject this type of divisiveness. So, *they* need some method to ramp up the divisiveness and they used the pandemic. In Australia they have and are carting people off to camps “for the common good”, “for public safety”, etc., and that’s exactly how the Nazi’s sold a country on Nazism. The populace, in general, in Germany, did not stand up and defend their fellow citizens. If they had, the holocaust could have never happened. Looking at how the governments in Germany and Austria RIGHT NOW are treating their citizens over the plandemic makes me shudder. Did these people not go through the World Wars?? Boggles the mind.
So, (sorry I’m rambling), this is my dilemma. I’d like to stay in my hidey hole until either Christ returns or I die, whichever comes first. Does that make me similar to a German citizen who just wanted to avoid trouble and keep some semblance of normalcy???? That’s apparently a common reason why Germans went along with the demonization of their fellow citizens and why most didn’t intervene. I think this is why many of us are trying to muscle our way through the mental mayhem of how things are going.
Don’t we have the responsibility to defend and protect our fellow citizens?
Curious what others think. Please forgive if you feel I’m hijacking the conversation Claire.
I have a hard time believing that violence could improve things. I understand why many turn that way when other options are unworkable. It’s too late to fix the system, without massive changes in education and public attitude for a few generations. If a collapse doesn’t happen first. And the nation has been going in the wrong direction for decades now.
Suppose someone did the Thanos finger snap and all the “wrong” politicians simply disappeared. What would happen? The voters would elect new representatives who behave the same. Violence against the leadership is pointless because the system would simply replace them. The system cannot be repaired so the desperate think of violence. Defense is essential, but striking out is a choice. That choice will have consequences, but could not produce positive results.
I recall a line (I believe from World War Z by Max Brooks) that people don’t fight for freedom. They have to want something else, and then desire the freedom to fight for it. Problem is, half the people in this nation are not fighting for freedom, but fighting for free handouts. They elect the politician who promises the most, and oppose any who expect them to take personal responsibility. The rest of us are badly outnumbered.
Those ignorant masses are not the enemy to be attacked, yet they will continue to oppose freedom, fighting for “justice” in the form of handouts. Even if the system collapsed and created an opportunity to rebuild from scratch, those masses would demand rebuilding an even more powerful government. We all know politicians who would relish the opportunity to get the pesky Constitution and Supreme Court “out of the way” in the name of “progress.”
Moving in a new direction (opposite of the direction we’ve been going) would take several lifetimes. So there is no fix for this system. But violence won’t fix it either. The only option I envision is the eventual collapse, likely financial. Some in power might stay in power, as when the Soviet Union collapsed (bureaucrats became oligarchs). But we hope their reach will be lessened.
Once the powers that be lose the ability to appease (control) the population through the public treasury, violence may occur. Ask Robespierre how things turn out when the mob becomes fickle. For me, I hope to be in a strong enough position to live without the system. Preaching self-sufficiency here is preaching to the choir. But I don’t expect the dependent masses to fare well without the system. We may have to defend what we have, but I do not believe there could ever be a time for a pre-emptive strike. Aside from the moral questions covered in previous post here… it simply wouldn’t produce improvements.
I’ve pointed to the gloriously non-violent teardown of the Berlin Wall
I remember when that happened. I believed at the time, and continue to believe, that the main reason the USSR imploded instead of exploded was Ronald Reagan. When empires fall there is a great temptation to start a war, trying to unite the dissidents against a common enemy. But the Soviet PTB didn’t want to risk that against a “Cowboy” president.
Unfortunately, our present POTUS is about as far from RR as anyone can get.
IMHO November 2022 is going to be very interesting.
Down here in Texas lifelong Democrat politicians are switching parties, and there’s a massive shift of Hispanics to the Republican Party. I hear the same is happening in Florida.
I taught a Texas License to Carry class Saturday. I had a student who had just moved from California, and another from New York. Both are new gun owners. Just before moving, both had discovered that Texans tend to be pretty friendly, and not at all racist-militia types. They reported that said revelation is spreading in their respective former states.
The pendulum is swinging.
On one hand, those are hopeful signs. On the other hand:
The woke left has hated ordinary dissenters with homicidal fury for a long time.
The only critters more dangerous than those who hate, are those who hate and know they are about to lose the power they have over others.
Granny – Regarding the last two paragraphs of your last reply – You ask some hard questions. I won’t pretend to know the answers, but I am reminded of Burton’s poem:
“Do what thy manhood bid thee do.
From none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies.
Who makes and keeps his self made laws.”
Best I can do.
@Dagr
“I have a hard time believing that violence could improve things.”
In my hitchhiking youth, I encountered a “jailhouse” mentality called “punking”.
It starts with “you got a cigarette?” and moves on to “gimme two bucks” and beyond.
If you comply it escalates. If you don’t, there’s a cost.
The thing is, it never stops. It escalates UNTIL you stop it. And the longer you comply, the more invested the perpetrator becomes, so the cost just gets higher when you stop it. Say no to the cigarette, and you get a dirty look, name calling, maybe spat at. Wait too long and it’s a beating, getting rolled, or shived. If you don’t stop it by force, you’ll be bent over in the showers.
WE ARE BEING PUNKED
Violence will improve things by making them a lot worse, and then ENDING it.
I’m a pacifist by nature and have no tollerance for violence. When it cannot be avoided, it must END.
NOW. BY ALL MEANS. SIMULTANEOUSLY. My death would be just one more way it can end, but end it must.
Thank you Val E. Forge. Yes, I will go with my conscience and how I see things, come what may.
@Fido
In the scenario as you’ve described, striking back early can prevent escalation. I should clarify my statement “I have a hard time believing that violence could improve things” was a reference to going on offense against political leadership.
Things will continue to escalate and deteriorate. But the political response to threats has usually been more government, more power, more control. When the perpetrators are elected and would be replaced with others of similar ilk, offense doesn’t feel like a solution. Perhaps I’m missing something. I wish I knew the path to prevent these United States from ending up like Venezuela. Staying on defense won’t prevent it.
Hypothetically, if offense was a solution, who would be the targets? And would removing those targets create positive change? Or would the masses vote in someone who promises to crack down on “domestic terrorists”? I agree with @stryderoftheuplands “who decides who is “Evil” and who must die? I don’t have that power. If someone attacks me, head-on, I know what to do, but if someone 1500 miles away says something, who will tell me true?”
We agree that violence would make things worse for an undetermined period of time. But how much worse? And for how long? We may end up like Venezuela, but I wonder if the outcome of offense may look similar to the outcome of a monetary collapse – just preceded by violence and increased oppression.
If lawmakers take your freedom, would offense improve that, or would it generate demands to take more freedoms? Things get worse before they get better. This is not to argue for sitting idle until all remaining freedoms are lost. But I don’t know the point at which going on offense would be both morally justified and effective in bringing positive change within a reasonable time period.
Don’t become the road kill squirrel that couldn’t decide which way to jump.
Unintended Consequences by John Ross is thought provoking and pertinent to some of the comments.
@ Dagr > Or would the masses vote in someone who promises to crack down on “domestic terrorists”?
I think this would be a very serious possibility / probability. There are plenty of wanna-be dictators who would definitely try to not let that crisis go to waste.
Claire, I love you, I love your blog – I even love many of the bums that post here. But I kind feel slapped in the face with this. I am a dissident conservative and it bothers me when you say you equate my mindset and stances and growing militancy with that of my adversaries on the left. A few points of order:
I will not try and sexualize your children, or prey on them in elementary school. I would never shred your vote or subvert your ballot in an official election. I would never encourage your women to hate their men, your kids to hate their race and ancestors, or foreign immigrants to hate you. I would never burn or loot or riot or rape in your neighborhood. If I saw that in your neighborhood I would come to your assistance. I would never run over you or your grannies at a Christmas parade. If you think I am a thoughtless hater with no cause to be that way, say so and I will leave and darken your door no more. For me, I want the kids to be kids. I want them to learn their lessons, to love their elders and develop skills. I want them to get jobs and start their own families and build their own future.
Every week those people accuse me of something. If I put a rope on my garage door and some black idiot thinks it looks like a noose, I get taken to jail. A steady succession of companies have taken to accusing me too. Millionaire football players claim that I oppressed them. Gillette accused me of rape. Coca Cola tells me I’m too white. The Salvation Army just told me I was a racist again, and wonders why I won’t put coins in the pot.
I grew up on the left side of the culture war. I spent the greater part of my life trying to talk to those people and understand them, and trying to be heard. If you want to know what that’s like, go on Twitter and see if you can have a discussion with the blue haired lesbian social justice warriors. See how far you get. In short order you will find they hate you as much as me.
Every day now there is a small prod. Or even an act of war. For 50 years these guys have won every culture battle they’ve fought, and we haven’t fired a shot. But things can’t keep going like this. Unless something changes, something is going to fail catastrophically. It’s probably too late to prevent it… but the people that led us to this have to be removed. And yeah, they have to be punished as a warning to their fellows and anyone else that might be tempted to do what they did. That isn’t hate, that’s common sense. You can’t run a country like this anymore.
There is a time and a place to fight. Right now, I don’t think the moral high ground is on the sidelines, sniping at both sides. There is a pronounced difference to the two sides, so let us at least stop pretending there isn’t.
I’ve read this blog for a fair bit but never commented. This latest post of yours was quite insightful and thought-provoking. One solution that comes to mind is that we should get to know said local bureaucrats, police, etc. who live up the road from us and who would be the implementers of any policy or law that would impact us directly. That way, they can be influenced and may be less inclined to take action against a fellow community member. It’s hard to do ill to someone with whom you’ve broken bread, etc. They also know that you know where they live, who their children are, etc. That kind of familiarity breeds a kind of mutual respect and understanding…
That, and simply saying ‘no’ to illegal, immoral, or plain stupid things is very important at this juncture. We have a county-wide mask mandate currently in force where I live, but I refuse to comply. Very few people have asked me to wear a mask, and I’ve only been refused service at one location. Saying no is a great way to protest and will definitely empower others to do the same. There are millions of us out here – sometimes all it takes is one person standing up to start a deluge.
@Dagr
“political response to threats … more government, power, control”
True enough, but as we agree things are going to escalate, all that was going to happen anyway. By fighting we make it happen sooner, and get it over with sooner. We avoid the boiiing frogs scenario.
repeat: All the things you fear from fighting will happen even if you don’t, but slower, drawing more to tire and submit.
We agree that politicians are a symptom, not the problem, attacking them directly is silly. Revenge is silly, but it’s a thing. The people are the problem, not because of who they vote for, as it is now quite clear that voting is not how politicians are elected. The people are the problem because of what they will tolerate.
If we can learn anything from the socialist regimes of Germany and Russia, it’s “don’t get in the boxcars”.
We can wonder if it’s time to fight back, but as Solzhenitsyn makes clear, the time to fight back is while you still *can*, before you get on the bus, before you are handcuffed.
We’ve seen how the political prisoners in this country have been beaten and tortured. How long before anyone who objects to tyranny can no longer safely submit to a traffic stop? … can no longer call 911 for any reason? (Hunter Thompson had a desk placard to that effect)
I don’t know what people will do. Maybe they’ll get in the boxcars. If they fight, they won’t be fighting politicians, elite, or TPTB. They’ll be fighting their agents with boots on the ground. Solzhenitsyn asks how things might have been different if those boots, and their families, had to recalculate the odds of coming home from work each day.
When it becomes clear to many what will happen to them when they submit, some will just kill themselves. (many already have) Some have learned that there are things worth dying for, and most things worth dying for, are worth killing for. They may conclude that they don’t actually have a choice anymore. Some will conclude that it is immoral to let them prosper from their crimes, that though we must die, me must ensure our death costs them more than they gain.
Fido – You are straight up on the “punk” mindset. I spent well over 30 years teaching in a government school in the ‘hood and I begged my administrators to see that was what the little thugs were doing to us. I nearly lost my job for it.
Glenfilthie — I appreciate all the love. Thank you. If I in any way equated conservative mindset and stances (or specifically YOUR mindset and stances) or growing militancy with that of the left, I deeply apologize. My intention was more to differentiate conservative and libertarian mindset, stances, and militancy FROM that of the left.
The left seems to hate all of us merely because they believe their own propaganda, with little or no evidence. The left seems to hate all of us, no matter how innocent or guilty we are. The left seems to specialize in hating harmless little people. The left wants literally everyone on earth but itself dead. NONE of this is true of “our side” and I would never want to imply that it is. I acknowledge: Our side’s anger arises from the deeds we’re seeing, the rights we’re losing, the freedom being stolen, the children being abused, etc. etc. etc (as I hardly need to say to this crowd).
If I ever implied otherwise, I grovel in apology.
—–
Everybody: This may be the single best comment section that’s ever appeared on this blog (which specializes in great comments). I don’t have time to respond to all the wisdom I’m seeing here. But … wow, yeah.
Glenfilthie
But I kind feel slapped in the face with this. I am a dissident conservative and it bothers me when you say you equate my mindset and stances and growing militancy with that of my adversaries on the left.
First, Claire distinguished between the two sides and their responses to the present troubles, so I don’t think “equate” is in play here.
OTOH, there are those on the conservative side who are equatable. Westboro Baptist Church springs to mind. They are certainly an outlier, well beyond the pale, but there are those, some with influence, who would gladly purge “true conservatism” of anyone not heterosexual.
Texas recently passed a law saying that anyone who learns of an abortion after a fetal heartbeat can sue anyone involved in civil court, with a presumptive prize of $10,000 per suit. This law essentially deputizes civil law vigilantes to enforce what is currently an unconstitutional law, thus making the thing harder to strike down. Whatever you think of abortion, this sets a hugely dangerous precedent that California’s governor is already talking about using for gun control.
I’m sure that many conservatives are far more reasonable than those positions, and we’re seeing that more and more liberals are turning from the progressive platform and leaving the party espousing it. Unfortunately, our current voting process doesn’t allow for middle of the ground positions.
@Steve S.
“road kill squirrel that couldn’t decide which way to jump”
@larryarnold
“current voting process doesn’t allow for middle of the ground”
Once “everyone” has “picked a side”, anyone sitting on middle ground will be seen by both sides as the other side, and a target.
If you’re going to be a “moderate”, you must not be visible, or you must see yourself as a martyr and plan accordingly. Moderates usually like to see themselves as calm and dispassionate. If that’s you, hide (stop commenting in public). Otherwise, you are a militant moderate…. now there’s an inquiry. I think I like it…
@LarryArnold: “I’m sure that many conservatives are far more reasonable than those positions, and we’re seeing that more and more liberals are turning from the progressive platform and leaving the party espousing it.”
This is an important note. I think people on both sides are looking for somewhere to go. There might not have a political party to send them to (maybe ever), but there should be a place for them to go, be it a local group of folks or a distant group like this commentariat.
T.B. – There might not be a political party to send them to…” – That’s a good thing. Most of the Founders never wanted political parties and were disappointed when they were formed.
Well Claire I shouldn’t snap.
Larry wants to bring up abortion. What do you know about the abortion issue, Larry? What are your credentials that make you say those laws are unconstitutional? And that the intent behind them is what you say it is? I ask because I no longer trust the media anymore, and neither should you. If that is where you got your facts and opinions on the issue, I will just remind you that the mass media actively lies now, has a political agenda, and an interest in influencing the way you think. I would rather speak to my own constitutional experts and ethicists rather than the talking heads on CNN, if you catch my drift. I would need to see their credentials and particulars too. Odds are 50/50 they’re fake. The media institutions have collapsed.
The courts have fallen. If you have a beef with unconstitutional laws – you have a tall pile of cans of worms to open before you get to abortion. The law enforcement agencies have fallen too. If you get robbed or mugged the cops will take your report but nothing ever gets done. If you stand your ground and DO defend yourself – those cops will be right there to take you to jail to await your trial – where the judiciary will try to ruin you and punish you.
We are at war right now, folks. The people responsible are not going to stop. They aren’t going to listen to you, they are not going to give you a break or a fair shake. They see your liberty as a threat to their morality.
Something stupid this way comes.
For the record, I have this very strong feeling; Larry opinions ain’t influence by nobody on CNN.
@Val E. Forge – Fair, but the reality of all political systems is that power comes from some sort of association (party is one, I suppose). And that group with an association of some sort would be in a more organized position than those that are not.
I concur the Founders would have abhorred the political system that has been created, although like many things, it worked at that time because of a number of factors – the people involved, the commonality of education and understanding of how a system should work, etc. I fear we have none of that now.
@Steve S
“The hardest part is not becoming the monster we fight.”
THIS. by far.
@Tahn
“[NAP] condemns THREE things. The “initiation” of force, the “authorization” of initiating force and the “delegation” of initiating force. Is not righteous self defense allowed against all 3 equally?.”
That’s a mighty target rich environment. I’m not finding a counter argument…
@Dagr
“people don’t fight for freedom. They have to want something else”
we just want to be left alone.
@DWEEZIL THE WEASEL
“child dying of the jab would be enough to get mom and dad to start”
Revenge is a thing. This could reach critical mass soon… or not, we’ll see, I suppose. Lamposts? Pikes? dunno. Everyone’s just waiting for the bell to ring, for the “brave penguin”. it *will* be something.
@Trumpeter
“So when does the shooting stop?”
Strauss and Howe: “one side will be vanquished.”
Rwanda may be unavoidable now, try not to get any of *that* on ya.
These things happen because those who remember the last time are dead.
Don’t kill yourself. Where your risk assessment permits, share what you know.
@Roguesovereignmind
“those who are TRULY at the top won’t be touched and they will have thinned the herd without lifting a finger”
@Granny
“Globalists do not care who they kill because they are neither Left nor Right”
Yeah, the elite likely escape, sux, but they lose their say over you. They where never the problem anyway, their power came from us, so ultimately:
@Joel
“The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet but a belly laugh,” and an ending line from an old poem, “We seek out quiet lanes on which to go our way.”
we must physically (violently) deny them access to our trusted free market enclaves, or they will cease to be trusted.
@Granny
“Don’t we have the responsibility to defend and protect our fellow citizens?”
We need permission to act on someone elses behalf. To protect someone from himself declares him to be a child, and more: *your* child. Isn’t that what we fault them for doing to us?
Claire – Some great (Yes, maybe even the best) comments. You got that right.
You want to stop what’s happening? You want to fight back? You feel helpless?
For any men and women reading this and that call themselves a Christian, this is your chance.
Fight in the spirit (for our weapons are not carnal but spiritual…).
Basic Training
Confess your Sins
Don’t think you have any? Sincerely ask God to show you what *He* sees. Go into your prayer closet and you’d better bring some paper and a pen. It’s going to be a while.
You can confess directly to God if you don’t have anyone you can trust.
Here are a few examples to help you get started.
Father, please forgive me. I’m a terrible Christian. I’m not a good husband/wife. I’m a bad parent. I’m a bad son/daughter. I’m a bad friend. I’m a bad manager/employee.
You can ask God to show you on a scale of 1-10 just how you rate in any particular area. If you are sincere and willing to face the truth then He will show you. Buckle up! It’s not for the faint of heart.
Repent, Repent, and Repent
No good at repenting? Ask God to help you. Repenting should be done several times a day. Make it a habit. The same with confessing.
Ask for Forgiveness
Don’t think you need to be forgiven of anything? Ask God to show His list! Again, get some pen and paper. Another daily habit.
Humble Yourself
Get low. I mean the go down into the basement and lie on the floor because it’s the lowest spot in your house kind of low. Don’t think you have any reason to get humble? Again, ask God to show you all the pride in your life and all the times you took credit instead of giving praise to Him.
God brings down the proud and raises up the humble. If you try to do His job then He will do your job.
Keep Holy the Sabbath
That doesn’t mean checking the box that says I went to Church on Sunday. It means no work. Six days you shall labor but on the seventh you shall rest.
Prepare for Battle
If after you’ve done that and you still want to fight then ask God to help your prepare for battle.
Forgiveness
Forgive us our sins/debts as we …
Ask God to help you forgive everyone who has ever done you wrong. I mean complete and total forgiveness. Ask Him to help you write a list and go through it.
Clean House
Ask our Father to cut out anything in your life that He doesn’t want in it (porn, foul language, coarse humor, mockery/sarcasm, friends/family/people/whoever that are bad influences, TV, books, movies, websites, music, etc). And, yes, those semi-nude pics (e.g., FFF) are porn! Romance novels too.
This will hurt and it takes a long, long time.
Clean Your Heart
Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it are the issues of life.
Ask Him to help you search out your heart and clean it up.
Watch on your Tongue
Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! Ask God to help you with everything you say and write.
For example, before clicking the send/post button, ask Him if there’s anything you’ve written that He wants you to change/delete.
Staying Clean
Be ye holy; for I am holy.
Ask God to help you to see with His eyes and hear with His ears so you can lead a more holy/clean life.
Fighting
After you get done with that then you can ask God to help you fight.
The prayers of a righteous man are mighty …
If my people, who are called by my name …
Fast
It doesn’t have to be just food. It can be all kinds of things (e.g., sugar, caffeine, smokes, music, internet, etc). When you fast, do as the Bible instructs us, don’t let people know. The pain of fasting is supposed to help you keep your mind on God and whatever issue you are praying about. Each hunger pang helps to remind you to stay focused.
Sackcloth/Burlap and Ashes
Yeah, put it on. That’s how the Assyrians averted God’s wrath when Jonah prophesied the destruction of Nineveh. Jonah specifically tried to go in the opposite direction because he knew God would forgive them if they repented and he hated the Assyrians.
BTW, the burlap goes against the skin and not over some other garment. It’s supposed to chafe and itch. That’s to remind you to stay humble, repentant, and submissive to God.
Just think how different things might be and what supernatural action God, the Father, might take if every adult Christian fasted and put on sackcloth and ashes for three days!!!
Tongues
Pray in tongues.
That’s your spiritual guide to fighting evil. Notice how it’s all about you and not the “bad guys.” Amen!
Abel Charles
+100
As CX reminds us, it’s all local. 1st is being a defensible location, with locals willing to defend it.
Having a fellow Commentariatian settle in just down the road is reaffirming of your choice of location, and it’s reassuring that there’s at least one like minded person to talk to/stand shoulder to shoulder with if things get bad.
I’ve found becoming a Mole to be strangely satisfying and fulfilling. I’m pretty overt about my intent to tear down the local ptb, and reminded them of such often as they were inviting me in. But now that I am in (the best/strangest part is that they can’t fire me), I’m taking extra effort endearing myself to those of like or malleable mind, those who will helpful to rebuild our area the way I/you/we/us want it to be along the way. I’d hate to see things continue on the same, so I want to make sure at least someone from our side is at pretty close to the head of the table for whatever happens and whatever follows.
@Glenfilthie
“The media institutions have collapsed.” – no need to defend that statement.
“The courts have fallen.”
Also clear since last December 20th., Though we’re thrown a bone occasionally, usually via jury. Bet they fix that something like the way they fixed elections. (can they tweak how jurys are selected?) They’ve certainly killed all mention of jury nulification. (FIJA anywone?)
“If you have a beef with unconstitutional laws – you have a tall pile of cans of worms to open before you get to abortion.”
Now *there’s* an understatment. The “commerce clause” does not apply to fourth order derivatives of commerce, and everything that smells like it might reference or support commerce. The tenth ammendment is clear enough. The vast majority of government by head count, funding, or count of laws, is unconstitutional. When the total body of “law” exceeds what a six year old can memorize, much less expanding daily faster than a full-time lawyer can keep up with, we are not under the rule of law.
Something stupider this way keeps coming. They’re jumping the shark jumping, and most don’t notice because they’ve been doing so longer than we’ve been alive.
—
Go Galt:
Produce. You can’t go to market without a product. Don’t ask for permission, don’t get a license, don’t get a permit.
Trade with others who produce. Be discreet; we are at war. Don’t talk to police. Don’t snitch. Deny the enemy access. Try not to use their money, it will be worthless soon enough anyway.
“The mountain is high and the emperor is far away.”
Or if not, consider moving. A might late for that, but weigh your risks.
This is a process, even though it means things get worse, try to speed it up.
“When you’re going through hell, keep moving.”
Brave Penguin… guess this might be obscure enough to tell the story… hope I get it right…
Every year penguins amass in Antarctica to breed. They breed, lay eggs, hatch them, and raise them to sea worthyness, all in an environment void of food. First the girls, then the boys, so that each can make a mad dash back to the oceans before starving to death.
Problem is they all arrive at the beach at the same time….. every year…. and all the ocean’s penguin eaters know this, and sit off shore waiting… That first penguin is toast. So they must all dive in AT ONCE, and overwhelm the predators…. only… somebody *has* to go first… so they all sit there en mass, starving to death, waiting for someone *else* to go first. The brave penguin.
Larry wants to bring up abortion. What do you know about the abortion issue, Larry? What are your credentials that make you say those laws are unconstitutional? And that the intent behind them is what you say it is?
First, abortion is not an issue I pursue. I have other issues I work on. However, I did spend a couple of decades working with sexual assault and family violence agencies, and that angle on the abortion issue I do know a bit about.
Abortion is probably the most divisive and intractable issue because there’s no place for compromise. If a person believes life begins at conception, with the fetus having right to life, abortion is murder. If a person does not believe life begins at conception, then it’s a medical procedure, with the mother’s rights paramount. That leaves little gray area between.
Actually, I went and read the law. (Texas bills are online.) A civil lawsuit constitutionally requires the plaintiff to show standing, that he or she has been harmed. This law enables anyone to file a suit against the physician, the parents, the nurses, and anyone else connected with the procedure, even though the plaintiff is none of the above, with a payout set by the Legislature. Even though the plaintiff has not been harmed in any way, other than he or she is anti-abortion.
(Thank you, Comrade X.)
As for the intent behind the law, I relied on the actual published statements produced by the politicians who wrote and passed it, like YouTube videos and emails from their offices, which are unfiltered by media sources.
That said, Glenfilthie, I’m not getting into a food-fight on Claire’s platform. Let’s agree to disagree.
I am not here to have a food fight either, Larry. But if we are going to have an exchange, let it at least be honest. If you want to complain about frivolous lawfare… again… the neoliberals have been far, far more abusive in the courts this regard than the conservatives. To them the courts are a weapon to be wielded just like the media. In fact… that is all the ADL and ‘activist’ organizations like it, do. To conservatives, those courts were set up to protect our God given rights and freedoms and enforce the constitutional laws of the republic.
With all respect to our esteemed blog hostess and her fans… many of us conservatives have been trying to talk and reason with the left longer than some of you have been alive. Suffice it to say they are not going to hear us. In the last ten years, they have upped their game: they have started cancelling people, censoring them, ostracizing them, doxxing them and harassing people in public for having the wrong politics. They’ve taken to burning, looting, rioting and thuggery. In short – they aren’t Americans or Canadians anymore. They are, for all intents and purposes, becoming domestic enemies.
There are two camps of thought in conservative circles. We can match Lefty, dirty trick for dirty trick. If the neoliberals corrupt the courts with frivolous lawfare, and beats people up in the streets… maybe we should too? I am in the other camp: North American justice and law enforcement used to be the envy of the world. Now they are carrying on like those of third world banana republics. They’ve been doing it for decades. The liberals that have subverted the courts, and the people in the judiciary that went along with it – need to be removed and replaced. The corrupt need to be punished, and people need to see it being done. That’s the only way forward. It’s time to grow up and put on our Big Boy pants. No, Lefty, America is not a democracy, it’s a republic. If you want to change the laws, fine – but you do it with the proper procedures and not through activist judges and new legislation that essentially contradicts old laws.
@Glenfilthie
“They see your liberty as a threat to their morality.”
Great summary. A few quotes from great minds shows that you are in good company.
First, from C.S. Lewis:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Second, from Thomas Sowell (tweeted just last year):
“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”
THE COMMENTS!!! This is truly great!
I missed a comment by “Bill”, I think. Something to the effect of, if I read it right, “if all you’ve got is a gun, that’s not a plan”. So, it’s like this Bill. I don’t have a posse. I don’t belong to any militia. All I think I was trying to say is, that my property boundary is my red line. If you can get through my dogs (I’ve been told by my law enforcement family members that the first thing they do is shoot your dogs if deemed a threat…), and into my house with intent to do harm to me, I will shoot at the threat – whomever or whatever it is until I run out of bullets and guns. I will shoot until I can’t. I will most likely die trying fairly quickly. You see, for me, survival is not the goal. For me, not complying to things I consider wrong is the goal; not being “captured” is the goal. If I die in my efforts, then so be it. No one will put me in a box car willingly. I think that’s all I meant to communicate.
P.S. And yes, I will shoot “law enforcement” if they breach my property line uninvited, and yes, I have law enforcement in my family. We are all clear. LOL.
I’ll have to come back later to really digest a lot of the comments. So much good stuff here! I love that we can respectfully share our opinions. Thank you Claire!
Glenfilthie
There are two camps of thought in conservative circles. We can match Lefty, dirty trick for dirty trick. If the neoliberals corrupt the courts with frivolous lawfare, and beats people up in the streets… maybe we should too? I am in the other camp: North American justice and law enforcement used to be the envy of the world.
Amen! We agree 100 percent on that.
If you want to complain about frivolous lawfare… again… the neoliberals have been far, far more abusive in the courts this regard than the conservatives. To them the courts are a weapon to be wielded just like the media. … In the last ten years, they have upped their game: they have started cancelling people, censoring them, ostracizing them, doxing them and harassing people in public for having the wrong politics. They’ve taken to burning, looting, rioting and thuggery.
True, but IMHO it’s because they have been in charge of the institutions they used to do so. They own social media, and control almost all academia and most of the press. Nearly all the looting and burning have been in cities they’ve been running for a half-century or more. (Chicago has had an unbroken stream of Democratic mayors since 1931.) Democrat-run states are still stuck in Covid-2020-land.
My point, originally, was that after a 2022 “Red Tsunami” too many conservative Powers That Be might be heading for your first camp. Bless their hearts, I’ve seen too many calls on both sides for censoring and cancelling the other side. The two parties are playing to their base, paying no attention to those of us who just want to be left alone.
The pendulum of society in the U.S. is currently way too far Left. How far will it swing Right? And what reaction (because the pendulum always swings back) will the 2022-2024 swing bring in 2026?
I have two 10-year-old grandkids. All I want for Christmas 😉 is Congressional leadership that says “Enough! Lord have mercy! Forgive and let’s be about ‘Making America Great Again’.”
“I will most likely die trying fairly quickly. You see, for me, survival is not the goal. For me, not complying to things I consider wrong is the goal; not being “captured” is the goal. If I die in my efforts, then so be it. No one will put me in a box car willingly.”
Well said Granny, I completely concur. I have never been self-indulgent enough or hubristically delusional enough to believe I could prevail through ‘defeating’ my enemies who have always vastly outnumbered me. All that I can control is myself. No one is getting out of this world alive. A few will die free; the majority will die slaves. I am clear on my choice.
@R R Schoettker
With proper planning and the home court advantage, I think one could expect to survive at least the first wave or two.
@Larry Arnold, RRS, Granny, and Fido re: the immediately preceding three comments: Well said all.
@larryarnold
I cannot imagine a future in which I will ever again concern myself with “congressional leadership”, unless most states return to hand counted paper ballots.
Until and unless that happens, there will be no elections in this country, only kabuki theatre.
oh… and every aspect of the counting will have to be video recorded and publish by the general public.
Nothing short of this can ever regain our trust in voting.
@Fido. Trust has been lost in our voting system, in our “leaders”, in our healthcare system. I cannot see how they can regain trust, at least for now.
How bad is it? It depends on how bad you want it to be. A lot of people want it to be bad, and can give you all the evidence to support it.
I’m old enough to remember when the global, World-Wide internet was going to be what united and saved us. The promise of all the world’s literature, art, and accumulated knowledge was going to bring a new golden age to humanity. I remember my first real interaction with the internet in the late 1980s, via Usenet. Even then you could find wonderful gems of lore and information, but you had to slog through a lot of sewage to get them. It’s gotten worse and worse. Back then we assumed ignorance as the cause, and that’s true of some of it. But so much more is intentional–the systematic, deliberate creation and dissemination of the most outrageous Pravda (and worse still, subtle lies) designed to create tribes and create division. It has been successful beyond what any propagandist could have ever possibly hoped. We have even gotten to the point where photographs and video can create anyone saying or doing anything, no matter how crazy. And at least half of the “information” available is pornography.
We are not rational creatures. We are sacks of meat motivated by adrenaline and dopamine. Our perceptions are just wide enough to avoid being eaten by predators on the African savanna, so we live long enough to mate. The most perceptive word of the 21st Century so far is “Truthiness”. Truthiness refers to the quality of seeming to be true but not necessarily or actually true according to known facts. Every one of your readers can point to a news source they see as being the most truthful and accurate; completely coincidentally, of course, it’s also the one that lines up closest to their own beliefs. In general I don’t trust most news sources, but the ones I trust least are the ones that line up with my viewpoints and desires. Meanwhile, there are still people on Dealey Plaza waiting for the return of JFK, Jr, so he can be the running mate of a recently deposed President in 2024. They know in their guts it’s going to happen. It is true, and nothing will convince them otherwise.
Who is behind it? We all participate, because it’s the biggest and most important game in history, and everyone wants to play it. It could be foreign governments trying to destroy us. It could be multibillionaires and New World Order commandants. It could even be AIs running some sort of simulations or competitions to dispatch us or just to bring us under their control. Maybe that’s crazy, but it’s no crazier than a resurrected dead Kennedy making stump speeches for DJT.
And let’s not even discuss the 24/7 “2 minutes of hate” brought by Twitter and every other anti-social network competing for eyeballs, hearts, and minds. It’s too depressing to think about. With instantaneous access to every single happening, someone doing something stupid/outrageous/evil will provide more evidence that what you already know to be true is even truer than you knew.
I’m so tired of pointing fingers, Claire. I have come to the conclusion that I am an AGKNOWSTIC: I am an irrational meatsack that feels certain things are true, but am just barely self-aware enough to realize I’m probably wrong. I share in the blame for this mess, as do all of you.
this response is all coffee talk until it’s not. check out Bison Preppers latest blog post. I believe “they” want a bloody civil conflict. can you really convince me that there is a way to negotiate our way back from the ledge?
Tetra — I know of nobody here who believes it’s possible to negotiate. Not if you mean “negotiate with the evil bastards who are destroying freedom and western civilization and hope millions of us die.”
But there are paths other than negotiation, surrender, or bloody war. For instance, all manner of resistance/non-cooperation, secession, alternative community building, monkeywrenching, etc. If you read back a ways in this blog you’ll hear many of them discussed.
I do agree that bloody civil war is looking more likely every day. And if it comes to us, then it comes to us and we must respond. But as half-dead and bankrupt (morally and financially) as TPTB are, we may outlast them and revive freedom without having to rebuild from blood-soaked ashes. It’s a possibility, however unlikely.
Datos, ne quisquam seruiat, enses.
(The sword was given for this, that none need live a slave.) – Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Strip away all the fancy words … all the ‘reasoning’ and the petitioning … and your choice is revealed.
Fight, or submit. Choose.
I am reminded of Heinlein’s discussion of violence between the History of Moral Philosophy professor and one of his students in “Starship Troopers”- “Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.”
The Left, having seized control of the mechanisms of governmental power, are initiating and using force against any who disagree with the Narrative. Excuses, rationalizations or attempts at justification are all beside the point, and irrelevant. That fact is not reasonably debatable. The pace and tempo of such violations of individual rights is increasing. Also likewise not reasonably debateable. So. This is where we are.
As Kevin from the Smallest Minority said, there are only two ways to get any person to change their opinions and actions- Persuasion, and Force. If the Left, and the autocracy that backs them, refuses to be persuaded, if reasonable debate is ruled out, then what is left?
With regard to all who seek the Light,
Historian
Historian … there is a third way. Deception.
Consent. Force. Deception. Seems to me that these are the 3 mechanisms behind every interaction you ever had; be it with friend, lover, enemy, or animal.
The Regime has largely lost its ability to Deceive, leaving it only the options of ‘gaining your co-operation by persuasion’ or of using Compulsion.
Perhaps the two ways are “reason” and “other than reason”, with the latter being force, including the forces of emotion (confusion, fear, shame,anger, etc). And of course:
You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reason himself into.