I’m going to be a spoil sport. Fortunately that’s easy. You see, I raised two children, and boys at that. Once you get the mom knack, you never go back.
This is the third post I wrote. In the other two I got impolite and unseemly. I had decided to take time away from all social media, but while having coffee — the stuff to make me sleep yesterday made my head ache this morning, though it had the advantage of amusing younger son who’d never seen me tipsy — it came to me that getting impolite and unseemly was all wrong.
This morning I was faced with the expected gloat from those to the alt.right (not the right, right, you know?) of me, and those to the left of me (because now they can get Hillary) and from those stuck in the middle (hey, when did unrepentant libertarian/classical liberal become the middle?) with me, I met with various flavors of defeatism and “burn it all down.”
I’ll be honest, the last ones are the ones who annoy me the most.
Do let’s suppose there’s nothing we can do. Hillary or Trump there isn’t an ‘aporth of difference between them. (Yes, I know respected people on the right say Trump will be fine. I respectfully disagree. His entire life he’s been a spoiled rich boy with only one interest: onanism. Sometimes he uses others for his sport, but the world is a vast canvas in which only Donald Trump exists. No, the type of business he does, in our current business climate requires neither intelligence nor common sense, only that one be born rich and with the right connections — there’s a whole post on that and the pernicious concept of “winners” and “losers” who are born so — and even then he’s not half as successful as he portrays himself. Now, is it possible that someone like that can turn on a dime and be a great president? Sure. If you believe in miracles. And no one would be more grateful for one than I would. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening and find the firm belief that it will akin to that of the child who closes his eyes and wishes for a pony in the firm belief it will appear.) So, one of them wins and–
What precisely?
Yeah, there is a good chance it will precipitate us into civil war. Because frankly they’re both paranoiacs who will try to crack down on those who dislike them: i.e. most of the country. Yeah, there’s a good chance of an economic crash. Yeah…
So let’s suppose all those happen. They don’t happen the way you think they do. We’ve talked about that before. Even Lebanon at its worst did not revert to the stone age. It’s just slow immiseration and life becoming massively more difficult.
So, life becomes more difficult and the US keeps electing dumb asses. And you’ve given up, because you know they’re dumb asses.
Now what?
Please understand that unless you’re very very very lucky you’re not going to get a glorious martyr’s death. You’re not going to set yourself on fire in front of tank. That’s not how these things work. You might die in a reeducation camp. You might get shot while resisting arrest. Even those are unlikely. The most likely thing to happen is that you live in a world that is increasingly grayer and more despairing, and in which you have less and less of a say. That’s the way Europe has gone, and this election is turning out very European.
So, what are you going to do?
Give up? Giving up is for a long time.
Shoot them up?
And then what? There’s a million insurgences around the country every day that you never hear of. You won’t even be a statistic.
So — I’m looking at you — what are you going to do?
Put away the bottle and the defeatism. Give me the Kalishnakov. Yes, siree, running around the hills with an AK-47 is way more fun than what I’m going to propose. It’s also how you get Cuba. So, put the machine gun down. Take a deep breath and listen to the mom-voice, the voice that tells you that you must do unpalatable things like wash behind your ears, and eat broccoli, not because I’m forcing you to do them, but because you know in the long run you have to.
The country didn’t get where it is in a day. Or a year. Or ten years. Or twenty years. The take over that destroyed our youth’s ability to read, our government’s ability to leave us alone, and our populace’s ability to reason took at least a hundred years. And it was so slow that until about thirty years ago most people were in denial of it.
Yeah, things are pretty bad, sure, but none of the works of Man are permanent, and what others did we can undo.
What it will take is a lot like eating broccoli, but it’s the only thing we can do. The alternatives are death in one form or another. So, here it is a modest program to take back our country. Note I not only don’t expect to see the fruits of it, but my grandchildren might not see them. On the other hand, our great grandchildren might get to live in freedom and prosperity. It’s worth a try. What do you have to lose? (Other than the AK-47, and I’m keeping that safe till you cool down a little.):
1- If you’re out politically, enjoin people not to give up. Provide encouragement and support for those who can’t be out, and who will often be discouraged. Be aware in either case your career is going to take a hit. It’s going to happen.
2- If you’re not out, take a dramamine and infiltrate. Infiltrate the alt.right. Infiltrate the left. Seek positions of power and influence, and start subverting. Remember to take it slowly.
3 – If you’re an artist, create. Particularly if you’re subtle enough to get under people’s shields. Remember Heinlein had thousands of children, some of them overseas, where we read him in translation and his words were so STRANGE. But we kept reading, because the stories were good, and little by little our minds change.
4- If you’re a teacher, teach. Teach as much of the truth as you can. I realize you’re hemmed in, but there are ways.
5- Anywhere else, gird your loins and educate others. Around the coffee machine at work, or in the park, watching the kids — cast doubt on the narrative, and be prepared with facts.
6- Whatever you are and whoever you are, take care of yourself and those you can “carry.” Times are about to get very, very (very) rough. We’ll have to step in and keep things going as well as we can. Sure, monetary help, if you can, but also knowledge and emotional support and… all of it. Find out what you can do and do it. Immiseration from the top down only works if you let it. Find ways to get around destructive regulations and crazy enforcement, and build/create/make it work.
7- If you’re a parent, homeschool if you can, but if you can’t, consider what I did “homeschooling and deprogramming” after school. It can save your child’s sanity, it can save your child’s life, but more importantly, it will assure the work keeps going another generation or three or ten. As long as it’s needed.
This is not the end. This is not even the end of the beginning. We survived Woodrow Wilson, we’ll survive Trumplinton or Clinrump.
Our flag is still there. Teach your children well.
Now go and work.
According To Hoyt 
There are differences between Trump and Hillary that I think might be important. Neither one truely believes that the Rules apply to them, but Trump is accustomed to the notion that they must be finessed. Hillary just does what she damned pleases and expects her Progressive credentals and general halo to make everything OK. Hillry despises the military and consequently will not use it competently where using it is desirable. Hillary is all about proving that she is so much more intelligent and ducated than us peasants. She will foment grandly complicated plans that will be the devil o unravel. Trump is all about sweeping gestures which are much simpler, if no more right.
Also, Trump is a clown while Hillary is a shrew. So Trump will be easier in the nerves.
Some things she says are so thoroughly OFF that I don’t quite know how to take them. Recently she said she knows how hard it is to keep a male from going off the plantation, but it has to be done. She showed no sign of awareness that “off the plantation” is a conservative trope that people on her side deny.
She is getting older, and her cronies insulate her.
But they dare not insolate her, lest she melt.
Nah she’d only melt if you threw water at her…
s/plantation/reservation/
Small but important difference.
Was it off the plantation, or off the reservation? I thought I heard some complaints about the language, and Democrats usually get a pass on “plantation” talk.
This. I think that Trump would be a mediocre-at-best president. He’s far from my first choice as President – I believe that several of the would-bes he beat in the primaries would do a better, quite possibly a far better, job.
But if every one of his policies was identical to those Clinton would chose (doubtful), I’d still, reluctantly, vote for him over her in the general election for two reasons:
1) It would weaken (too much to hope it would eliminate) the dynastic tendencies both parties have shown in the few election cycles. And, specifically, end any hope for a Clinton dynasty for at least a couple of election cycles.
2) Bad as he may be, I think we would get at least marginally better judicial appointments from him than we would from a President Clinton.
This isn’t much, and if I end up voting for him I’ll be holding my nose. But if I think that my vote might make a difference, however slight, I won’t throw it away.
On the other hand, I live in California – if I think my district will be going overwhelmingly for Clinton anyhow, I may well vote Libertarian. Who knows – maybe this year they’ll poll over 3% nationally.
I too live in California, and it looks like, once again, I get an echo, not a choice.
You bring up an important point. Since I live in California (and God help me Maxine Waters’ district) I don’t have to agonizing about voting for Trump, to quote Clinton Regina, “what difference does it make.”
I have heard rumors that, even before going in to Indiana, the Libertarian candidate was polling 11% — the first time it has polled in double digits!
On the one hand, take this news of such a poll with a grain of salt. I can’t even remember where I heard about it.
On the other hand, with the news from Indiana, I’m now wondering how I can actively campaign for the Libertarian candidate, whoever it might be, and I’m sure I’m not the only Conservative doing so. With some luck, Hillary might even come in third in Utah, and who knows? Trump might even take second place as well…
To be sure, Utah might be the only place where such can happen, but who knows what the future will hold…
With some luck, Hillary might even come in third in Utah, and who knows?
It’s certainly happened before. Bill Clinton came in behind Bush and Perot that one year.
Wait, what? The Libertarian Party candidate might sweep in and take the General?!? Did I read that correctly, Alpheus?
Okay, I did hurt myself laughing that time. 🙂
Speaking as someone who used to campaign for the LP in Texas, that’s reaching.
But hey: A creature’s reach must exceed its grasp and all that.
I don’t have much experience with the Libertarian party myself; my biggest turn-off is how little they seem to work to get the smallest of positions — things like mayor, school board, county commissioner, etc — before the Libertarian party can begin to take State and even National positions…
But I’m well aware of the Libertarian Party’s endless hope that pushes them to believe that 11% will push them above the top. (While I’m planning on participating in Libertarian politics this year, I don’t think I’ll have the optimism that Libertarians have…)
By all means. Far be it from me to dissuade you. If you want to get more involved in ground level and grassroots politicking and really see how the sausage is made (or not made as the case may be), the LP is a great place for it.
I was last heavily involved in politics in the LP, back when L. Neil Smith was heavily involved in campaigning for and with them as an Libertarian activist. The end of my association came not too long after George W. Bush stomped Ann Richards flat for the governorship of Texas – an outcome that I was wholly in favor of.
“my biggest turn-off is how little they seem to work to get the smallest of positions — things like mayor, school board, county commissioner, etc — before the Libertarian party can begin to take State and even National positions…”
*nod* That’s basically what caused me to part ways with them. I came to the (justified, I felt) conclusion that the LP really wasn’t interested in accomplishing anything useful, they just liked campaigning and looking like they were accomplishing something. Kind of like the republican Party, now that I think about it.
Them running the Blue Guy for President didn’t help me take them any more seriously. 🙂
BUT – as I said: doing it on the ground level… stuffing envelopes, making phone calls, distributing fliers, organizing and attending rallies, and all of that stuff, is an excellent way to learn how politics works from the ground up. And the LP is a good place to do it.
The Libertarian Party will teach you more about how to do it wrong and ineffectively than any other political organization currently in existence in the U.S..
Invaluable experience.
Had to laugh. Last night I referred to Trump as the Clown Prince and Hillary as the Queen of Corruption 🙂
On the bright side I still have something of sense of humor though I don’t expect any more people to appreciate it than did before.
I’m also heartened by the thought that the next president (whoever it is) will only last for four years. (Economy and various other issues). Maybe by 2020 the Country will be ready for a serious leader who is willing and able to turn the bus around and drive away from the cliff.
You can keep the AK but no way I’m giving up the .45’s. I just don’t sleep as well without them around. (Though the chance of a home invader in this part of the country where there are quite literally more guns than people is very slim).
We’ve *been* ready for a serious leader. The two parties emphatically don’t want such a thing, and they’re the ones who pull the strings of the nominations.
And the media too.
For myself, I was planning on taking your advice anyway.
But the Lee-Enfield’s still getting cleaned.
I’m not out to start violent revolution, although I’m completely open for other types…having said that, we’ll need our guns, in part, because we may need them for self-defense as society slowly crumbles…and in part because we may need them for the next revolution, even if it’s just for self defense from both sides, assuming that neither side is worth joining…
I was only taking the guns for the length of reading the post. Geesh.
My money’s on that last bit.
Which means we’d have to form our own side. Which would be bad. Very, very bad.
I think you have an extra “n” in “onnanism”.
Other than that, I find nothing to disagree with, sadly.
Yeah, I had to look that up… still trying to understand the context.
I couldn’t find how to spell the word. Randy — he’s all for his own pleasure.
Ah… I was trying to figure out how the “interrupt” part applied.
One thing about this blog… it does expand my vocabulary. 🙂
Try “the sin of Onan”
Which isn’t actually what it’s popularly believed to be…
Right. Hebrew doesn’t go in for double letters, even in words transliterated into English. The word “onan” is actually Hebrew for “mourner”, and it can be a bit jarring to be at a Jewish funeral and be referred to as one of the “onanim”.
Onanism has come to mean masturbation, and by extension other forms of useless self-pleasure. However, I suspect if either candidate is elected, there will be a surfeit of onanim across the nation.
Bingo.
It should be pointed out that his actual offense was not masturbation per se, but rather in willfully failing to provide his dead brother with an heir.
Not just denying his brother an heir, but denying his brother an heir while acting like he wasn’t.
Kind of like the difference between not ordering something you’re supposed to because you won’t pay, and acting like you’re ordering when you’re not going to pay.
And it had the side-effect of guaranteeing he would inherit his late brother’s property, under current law.
So wanted the fruits without the labor.
Sounds about right.
“Onanism has come to mean masturbation”
I think that was my confusion above. I wasn’t familiar with the term, and when I looked it up the site said it meant coitus interruptus. Another site mentions masturbation, though, which makes more sense in context.
Useless self-pleasure.
Hmmm, the term seems contradictory to me, in all possible understandings, including, say, buying a new guitar.
What do generators have to do with sin?
They re-Volt?
Well, the power coming out of generators is in a sine wave, isn’t it?
Sigh… and now we’re on a tangent.
Secant ye shall find.
Ogive it up.
These puns are circling the drain.
Why, oh why, do we have so many periodic puns on this blog?
Because they each have one more oxygen atom than iodic puns would have?
Its a form of cath-arsis?
Let’s table the question?
Table for 118, please. Oh, and we’ll be on separate checks. 🙂
They are elemental to who we are.
The table of periodic puns is easy to understand once you realize they are all made up of ironic bonds.
Puns build on one another, increasing exponentially; also, some of us are imaginary. QED.
Some of us just like adding to the pun-fusion.
Some of us like to think we are punny.
Onan the Barbarian. As heroes go you don’t hear a lot about him. He never really got out much.
Not the same, considering, but this election reeks of Onionism. The most absurd possibility is Trump vs. Sanders and the way things have been going it’s starting to look like a not totally insane bet. Quite insane, yes, just not totally.
Oh, YES.
Now, I’m actually hoping for Trump versus Sanders. Neither big party likes the guy with their nod, in that case, and both of them have to look at where they’ve been going wrong in relation to their base. They probably won’t act on it, but there’s a much higher chance that they will, say, .001% instead of 0.
(Yes, I know some Sanders fans. You’d think small business owners would be better with numbers, but I guess they’re golden with running the printing presses or something.)
Also, at that point, we’ve established that Americans are in fact fans of America, since both those guys are running as nationalist/populist types. (Sanders even outright said he was a national socialist, which makes me cringe for the state of education.) Since the guys running the big parties seem to be fans of some imaginary pseudo-eurpoean-globalist state (not actually European, but what they think Europe ought to be), it’d be nice to have their noses rubbed in Americanism. Like anyone doubting America is popular among Americans can’t just check the July issue of Better Homes and Gardens!
> Hillary or Trump there isn’t an ‘aporth of difference between them.
> Because frankly they’re both paranoiacs who will try to crack down
> on those who dislike them: i.e. most of the country.
There are two huge difference between them, and yes, they are both awful, and yes they are another sign post on the road to the dissolution of the United States in one fashion or another.
The difference is that Donald is a old fashioned megalomaniac dictator while Hillary is a straight up fascist. Trump wants to win because at some point he decided he wanted to win. Hillary wants to win because she has an agenda.
That’s one.
The other is that Trump will have few friends in either party and no friends at all in the Bureaucracy. He *will* do egomaniacal stuff and he will piss off almost everyone making it extremely difficult for him to actually get anything done.
Assuming he wants to anyway. After all, America is pretty great,he created it, didn’t he?
> Yeah, there’s a good chance of an economic crash.
Been coming for years.
> Yes, I know respected people on the right say Trump will be fine.
My WAG is that he’ll be impeached in his second year, and found guilty by the senate.
Here’s another difference between the two: whatever damage Trump’s policies do will go on the R side of the ledger. Whatever disasters he causes, the media will pounce on and say, “See? This is what you get when you elect a radical right-winger. Clearly, we can never afford to make another conservative president again!”
I don’t yet know if the small possibility that Trump will be better than Hillary is worth what I see as the very large possibility that he damages conservatism beyond repair.
I keep hearing that yet somehow all of Obama’s damage is either blamed on GOP obstruction or, best case, the fault of both and a pox on both their houses.
So I don’t buy the “Hillary will mean Dems get the blame” meme. If that was true my left testicle could run and be at 80% in the polls over Hillary.
The old “blame Bush” and “blame the Republicans in Congress” has been starting to wear thin and the longer it runs, the weaker it gets. A Trump presidency, with Trump continuing left-wing policies (while having them re-branded by the media as “right wing”) and the continuing disaster unfolding, allows them to “reset” the “Republican President’s fault” button.
I am not arguing against that.
I am arguing about the Dems getting the blame for a Hillary presidency. Hillary will be a reset as well, from “you’re only opposed because you’re racists” to “you’re only opposed because she’s a woman”. I suspect they will annoint a Hispanic to follow her going for 24 years of being able to lay off all problems on racism/sexism.
I bet she picks one of the Castro brothers from San Antonio as her running mate.
THIS. She already has, apparently, just not announced it.
That’s not actually a difference. Any damage done by HRC’s policies will also go on the R side of the ledger. After all, those Evil, Immoral, and Despicable Republicans tied Her Majesty’s hands and kept her from implementing her policies as intended.
if only the republicans and so-called “conservatives” actually HAD, you know, really, actually obstructed Obama, fought smart, overturned his excesses, fought to control immigration, worked to fulfill the promises they made to get themselves elected (even if it cost them the next election), and, I dunno, not run away every time they were called “xxxxxx-ist”
We’d likely have had better choices this election season.
As it is, they barely made token gestures, and even when it was DEMOCRATS afraid of their electorate unwilling to exercise a supermajority in the legislature, still the R’s got the blame.
They HAVE fought.
They just haven’t won.
Which is hardly surprising, when there’s a large portion of their theoretical support sitting it out and going “I’m not going to even try, you guys haven’t done anything for me.”
How do we know that folks have been doing that?
Because we have this argument on this site every three months or so.
I’m not sure what i’m going to be doing when it comes time to vote, but I’m very tempted to respect the supposed principles of the Trump supporters and say “fine. You demand no compromise? You get no compromise.”
Same goes for the other parties– I’m lookin’ at you, guys who declare they’re all about personal rights but that who those rights apply to is just too personal a question to be handled, when it means pissing off someone that might vote for them for someone who cannot.
They HAVE fought.
They just haven’t won.
Which is hardly surprising, when there’s a large portion of their theoretical support sitting it out and going “I’m not going to even try, you guys haven’t done anything for me.”
BS.
OK, they “fought”. Sortof like pro wrestling is “real” fighting.
While the people actually WILLING to fight, were read out. Coulter, etc.
“See, we tried to block Obamacare”… OK, and they did it the stupid way, and most of us no longer care if they gave up because they were tired of Obama asking “why are you shooting yourself in the foot” or because they really ARE the stupid party, but it was years ago I’d seen the expression “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” in relation to the GOPe.
VAWA?
Or immigration, over and over again they promised to do something, and over and over again they’d “compromise” (gang of 8 with Lindsey Ghramnesty and Rubio?)
Diversity is our strength? Bull – not the way it’s used by the left, and by the “conservatives” who bought into that frame.
Over and over again we held our noses and voted. Over and over again we put in “tea party” types who changed their minds when they got to DC, and the grand old pukes didn’t get the hint when and called the tea partier’s hobbits, even when the co-opted politicos were replaced by someone else as the people expressed how sick they were of business as usual.
The frakking party tried to push yet another frakking ¡Bush! our way.
So who do we have? Cruz? OK, on paper he’s good, the best we’d likely get, but that man gives me the creeps. That said, I favored him anyway.
And both he and Ben “I’ll fire someone for badthought” Shapiro – the latter of whom has at least has done far more to fight campus PC – fell for Michelle “serial drama queen” Fields too-good-to-be-true story.
And they, and the media, AND the GOP establishment (who FINALLY found a politician they would unabashedly attack without restraint) got on Trump for the “violence at Trump rallies” without noting who was causing it, who was being violent.
So no, I don’t trust Trump, any more than I trust Cruz. I trust them both than any other repuke out there at this point to do something useful, and to be better than Hillary, and to fight.
It’s worth reading Scott (Dilbert) Adam’s posts on Trump.
BS.
Right back at you.
You can have your own views, but not your own facts.
*shrug* OK, maybe they’re not deliberately play-acting at fighting, but we both agree they lose, and certainly, as in the gang of 8, have even sold out by reaching out in compromise.
Outside of that, what is not true?
I don’t know about that. I’m reminded of Cruz’s Obamacare “filibuster”. It couldn’t have blocked the legislation in the first place, and the only things it accomplished were to distract the public from productive avenues of resistance, allow the Democrats to paint themselves as wronged and the Republicans as pig-headed intransigents, and give Cruz a bunch of publicity. “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing”.
Seriously, GAMERS have done a better job of standing up and fighting than our brave courageous congressmen and senators, and our political pundits that stay in favor as “decent” people.
Somehow, I’m pretty sure that this Gamer would magically not be included.
How so?
Because I paid attention to the manner you interpreted both the events you recounted and what I said; they indicate that the Scotsman will dang well be what he should be.
You are usually far clearer than that
A) yeah. How hard they really tried to fight compared to how they could have is interpretation. We disagree. I employed a bit of license in exaggerating it. We both agree they lost.
B) you said I’m making up facts. I asked you to elaborate, you still haven’t.
C) you’ve stated that somehow “this gamer” would be “magically” excluded, and then implied a no true Scotsman?
And fwiw – I’d almost rather drop this. I don’t think we’ll ever agree on this, and like I implied earlier, you’re one of the people I know and pay attention to here.
Sounds like a good plan, then.
Believe it or not, I don’t like arguing….
(and “neither of us wants to fight it out” without other good reason to go at it seems like a perfectly honorable route)
They HAVE fought.
They just haven’t won.
Which is hardly surprising, when there’s a large portion of their theoretical support sitting it out and going “I’m not going to even try, you guys haven’t done anything for me.”
I live in a state with no state wide elected Democrats. We have a GOP dominated legislature.
This year that legislature sent two down the middle of the uprights conservative bills to the governor:
1. Concealed carry on university campuses pushed after a string of muggings and assaults at GSU and GT, both in downtown Atlanta.
2. A very watered down religious liberty act whose only real teeth would protect ministers from discrimination lawsuits for not performing gay marriages.
Our GOP governor vetoed them. Tuesday, when he vetoed the concealed carry bill, it came out that most of the GOP leadership had hoped he would veto them. They didn’t support them (so much for hopes of seeing them come back next year) but needed cover with the GOP base in an election year.
Why should I support people who see me as an easily manipulated fool who will give them power in exchange for…well, nothing.
*nod* What HerbN said.
I’m lucky in that our Governor and legislatures in Texas and Oklahoma more or less are on the same page that we are here, but even they have spotty records on supporting their voters against the Left once in office.
“Came out” that the leadership did?
What, did a memo get CCed to the wrong people? Or is it more of the same dang thing as every time, where he said/she said and the person who didn’t get what they wanted claims conspiracy?
Totally ignoring that this suggests an issue in who is being chosen by the voters.
Multiple members who were in the vanguard supporting these bills told their supporters not to expect the same support from the legislative leadership next year. This was in the context of everyone talking about “well, next session we’ll just put them on his desk again.” They said getting them through will be a much harder fight. When asked why they replied the leadership was mostly interested in them for political cover.
Given the conventional wisdom going in was the governor could afford to veto one but not both or his legislative agenda for next year would be derailed by the legislature spending all its time on reviving these bills I take it as a reasonable warning. We’ll have to see when it plays out.
Totally ignoring that this suggests an issue in who is being chosen by the voters.
So, which Republican do we vote for next time for governor? Which House members? Which Senate members? Sure, we can primary them and throw them out and replace them but the pattern is that changes nothing. At some point people who play by the rules to effect change only to see it never come either decide their energy is better used elsewhere or decide not to play by the rules. Roughly 30 years working elections, and working them well enough that you get calls about volunteering for the 2016 general election in July of 2015, is time I didn’t spend on things I enjoy much more than politics. At some point you have to evaluate your priorities.
So it didn’t actually ‘come out,’ it was alleged.
So, which Republican do we vote for next time for governor? Which House members? Which Senate members? Sure, we can primary them and throw them out and replace them but the pattern is that changes nothing.
If you believe the guys who are saying that they won’t have the support next year, ask them for names.
A big part of the problem is that you go from asking “which do we get rid of” to looking at the problems with dumping them all– rather than identifying the problem guys and removing them.
I expect Trump to be superior to Clinton for similar but different reasons. Hillary is going to sit down and RULE. She’s going to work at extinguishing every bit of freedom and autonomy a citizen has. Trump… is going to do whatever looks good for Trump at the moment. This probably won’t be good. He’s also not going to have much interest in preserving what previous administrations did, for the sake of using it himself. So he may in fact wreck some things that need wrecking, if only by accident.
I expect he will be reasonably effective at getting some things done. The man does know how to deal. If you don’t believe this, note the RNC is falling into line. Note that he’s managed to make up with Megyn Kelly of all people (if the whole fight wasn’t staged to begin with). And I don’t think he’ll be impeached, for similar reasons. I don’t know what things he’ll decide to do, though. Best case he gets obsessed with his border wall and wastes money on it. Worst case he decides he really can run a command economy like he has his businesses.
What it will do in four years, I don’t know. A Trump election would destroy the leftist orthodoxy which has been in place for years; non-left things will once again be _speakable_, and that’s good. The Republican party will be (is, really) a shambles with no center, and that’s bad; certainly the Democrats going full Sanders commie would be very bad. But I can’t see how a Hillary election would be better.
Anyway, I have no descendants, so my interest is… limited. Y’all can restore the republic, I’m going to do my best for the next 50 or so years.
I suspect Hillary would get much less done, because the Republicans in Congress would be much more likely to oppose her than Trump. Since I don’t see much, if any, difference in their policies (by looking at their records, both have proven themselves to be pathological liars, so one MUST look at their records, which in Trumps case have been serially ignored) I tend to believe Hillary might be the lesser of two evils.
“My WAG is that he’ll be impeached in his second year, and found guilty by the senate.” – William O. B’Livion
Same Senate and Congress that still hasn’t managed to find enough of a pair to impeach Obama in almost eight years? Same Senate and Congress that still hasn’t managed to find enough of a pair to bring a Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee investigative hearing against (former) Secretary of State Clinton for misuse and mishandling of classified data?
Man, that is a Wild *ss Guess. I’m impressed.
Critical difference: Obama and Clinton are both of the political class.
Trump is also a member of the political class, but he doesn’t know his place.
Simply because Congress is a creature of the political class, the probability of impeachment if Trump is president increases tenfold.
If you say so.
So basically, then, we need a new political class? This seems like a good start on that.
“Trump is also a member of the political class, but he doesn’t know his place.”
If your intent was to make me dislike him, it failed.
“If your intent was to make me dislike him, it failed.”
That is not my opinion of The Donald; that is the political classes’ opinion.
I should have made that clearer.
“That is not my opinion of The Donald; that is the political classes’ opinion.
I should have made that clearer.”
Ah. Okay, no problems. No makey no big deal. I’m on the same page now.
Also Trump is not black, which HONEST TO BOG my contacts in the political class say is his best shield. “You can’t impeach the first black president.”
Besides Trump is nominally Republican, and the left is dying to pay us back for Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
“his best shield. “You can’t impeach the first black president.””
The majority Republican congress and senate not having any spines doesn’t hurt Obama any, either.
They simply didn’t have the numbers.
Bill Clinton was the First Black President, and they impeached him.
*by the way, you mind handing me a crowbar so I can pry my tongue out of my cheek now?*
Do you mind if I apply said crowbar to your skull first? You deserve it for that one.
Why yes, I do. Help! Help! I’m being oppressed! 🙂
Seriously, Mrs. Hoyt. I’m past accepting excuses from the Republicans in office for why they refuse to act like Republicans once they’re in office.
Besides. Bill told us that he was The First Black President, and the Left agreed with him. So – nyah.
And it failed. Miserably.
And I’m sure they’ll do it again, only harder. Next time. They promise.
Trump is not black.
*sigh* You Mormon men are all such raciss!s.
C4c
And:
> So, what are you going to do?
Be a pirate. F*k them.
In another web forum I participate in there is the motto “God, Family, Tribe”.
If you’re a democrat you’re not in my tribe. F*k you. If you’re a progressive of any sort you’re not in my tribe, f*k you.
If your car has a Obama or Hillary bumper sticker and it’s upside down in a ditch…I MIGHT stop to get your kids out. Might. But little rats grow up to be big rats, so maybe not.
Harsh? Yeah, you’ve put *MY* children at risk with your policies, so f*k you and your rats.
> 2- If you’re not out, take a dramamine and infiltrate.
Be careful lest you become what you’re trying to change. See “Stockholm Syndrome”.
Silly rabbit. (Or rather, sheepdog.) You’d be getting people out of the car before you noticed the color of its paint, much less trying to read bumper stickers.
But that doesn’t work so well with the angry. 😀
In the past, yes.
Things change.
So, you’re fantasizing about leaving innocent kids to die in a ditch because they might grow up to turn a blind eye to the next Benghazi, and you’d better head that off by willfully abandoning people to die while you’ve got the power. A fantasy you owe to an underlying notion that ideas are genetic and immutable – though you mention having recently changed your mind yourself.
I don’t know what specific policy you’re trying to head off, but I can’t think of a one that makes this a justifiable decision, from a moral or a strategic standpoint.
Well I don’t think he was implying the ideas were genetic, but were rather taught, and assuming that you (metaphorical you) had taught them to your kids, or the likely guardians of your kids if he saved them would have similar ideals and teach them to your kids.
After all the person who pulled the kids out would NOT be the one teaching such kids, in all likely they would never see the kids again.
“Give me the Kalishnakov.”
*clutches rifle to chest* No. It’s my Kalashnikov and I’m keeping it. Nyah.
I prefer design of Keptin Mosin to that of tovarich Kalashinikov. If was good enough for Vassily Zaitsev and Roza Shanina, is good enough for me.
Well, my “Kalashnikov” is actually a Galil 762, which is even more reason why I’m not handing it over.
Nuthin’ at all wrong with the AK design – as long as it’s being manufactured by the Israelis or the Finns.
“My friendsh, you have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency”
— John McCain
That upstart Drumpf is etymologically Of The People! The noive! Short fingers too, IYKWIM.
It’s useful whilst bemoaning the short-fingered vulgarian to remember the Patron Class to which he may offer the ghost of a shadow of an alternative. Thin soup, but some hope is preferable to none, see first para.
He IS the patron class. The establishment can do business with him. He’s the media’s Republican.
Be careful what you wish for.
This is certainly what I wished for.
c4c
When I first read this my response was the Battle Hymn of the Republic (I think in music when I get stressed. I know, wierd.)
Then this one popped into my head and I think it may actually be better:
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil
for you are with me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
I prefer this version:
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil
for I am the meanest SOB in the valley…….
patterico is taking names for those who wish to do something: http://patterico.com/2016/05/04/what-is-to-be-done/, so I signed up.
Ah! I’m on your mailing list and I never knew! Could you send it out to the rest of the lobby team? I’m sure they’re all ears.
One point, also commented on Larry Correia’s Facebook page, has to do with media coverage. Up to now, the media have been very nice to Trump. Given their demonstrated ability to point and shriek, Trump has not suffered nearly as many attacks as he could have, or as many as any other conservative would have suffered if he’d done a tenth as much.
Conclusion: The media have been saving their ammunition for the day when Trump is only running against Her Imperial Majesty. (Tentative minor conclusion: the media are thrilled to have a Republican who lives down to all their favorite stereotypes.)
Now, here’s the big question: Do the media have sufficient “fire discipline” to hold off until after the Republican convention nominates him? Or will the salvos begin now, utterly destroying him in plenty of time for someone whose campaign is not “over” but merely “suspended” to step in?
Given the cunning of the left, I’d guess the former. But given that the media remains a crowd, and the amount of “fire discipline” will follow a bell-curve distribution (thanks to the Law of Large Numbers), I think it’s at least possible someone on the left tail will break ranks, unleash everything they’ve been saving up all year, and trigger a frenzy as everyone else now has to keep up or be left behind in the ratings war.
Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Here’s the truly frightening possibility: they’ve already expended all their ammunition.
I think I’d be willing to bet my house that they haven’t.
At the very least, we haven’t seen the 24/7/every possible outlet saturation bombing we know the media are capable of.
Even if they only have one item, endless repetition in an outraged tone of voice will do the trick. Cf. Romney and “47%”.
Remember “women in binders” turning a GOOD thing into an outrage?
Clinton promised to have 50% women in her cabinet.
The issue of quotas aside, if Romney had said that it would have been spun to mean he was forcing women into the closet.
I thought Hillary was simply storing the bodies of women got in her way in a cabinet – and threatening more of the same if more got in her way.
No, it’s the bodies of the women willing to press charges against her husband.
They have not.
The Democrats also had a bunch of anti-Trump media buys scheduled for June.
If that were so, I wouldn’t have so many relatives insisting that news stories FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES that are pre-cycle are “made up.”
I stopped believing anything from the NYT over a decade ago. Dollar for dollar, you’ll get more fact from the New York Post — a proudly, unapologetic tabloid.
NYT — best used to wrap fish (thanks Dixie!)
You can generally trust those points that are made against interest.
Like when an e-pub author talks about the good points of tradpub.
I wouldn’t use the NYT to wrap fish, some of the smell might get on my fish.
A possibility, indeed – that they have used up all their ammunition — or their credibility. I can also see ordinary people so sick and tired if being misrepresented or outright lied about over the last eight years that they would blow off just about anything they could publish about Trump.
I was to that point with all the grotesque hit-pieces on Ted Cruz. Nope – I know the coverage was biased, and I just didn’t credit any of it.
My take on this is that the left has been repeating “you and yours are racist and evil and wrong and BAD” for so long, to people who know they’re not, that the thought process goes from “I am NOT!” to “what is your problem?” to “meh, whatever” to active…reverse-belief, because I can’t think of a better term right now. So when the left says “racist, evil, wrong and bad” about Trump, the reaction is 1) tribal support because they’ve been hearing it for years about themselves and 2) active disbelief because Why Should I Believe These People?
I really don’t see how Trump got the nomination without the media being blown off by the audience. I mean, it wasn’t all that biased – at bottom, all they did was point a camera at his face and wait for something stupid/scary/both to come out – but that seemed to do little in the way of dissuasion.
The media… supported him. They used only the “right” attacks to make people cling to him. It was cleverly done. Now come the real attacks.
Only used the right attacks to make people like him? Ok. Most of my immediate family are Hill supporters and they hate him worse than Palin.
They’ve brought out the same attacks that worked on damn near every public figure before gamer gate. Racist. Sexist. Misogynist. Etc.
The same people who cropped video of a black guy with an AR so they could talk about white racists showing up armed to protest Obama. Who cherry picked signs at tea party rallies while ignoring the sea of hatred at leftist ones.
That said they will get nastier if they can. Given that they’ve tried rioting, assaulting him, assaulting his supporters, and lying about interactions with him and his staff to drum up false charges… It will not be pretty.
“They used only the ‘right’ attacks to make people cling to him. It was cleverly done.” – ATH
*grin* Okay, now I’m laughing so hard that I may hurt myself. It’s a bad combination with low caffeine to blood ratios.
I’ve been watching our media for thirty years. They’re not that subtle, they’re not that competent, and they’re definitely not that clever. They might like people to think they’re that good at covertly pushing and shaping a narrative, but in practice they’re as obvious as a sledgehammer.
“A possibility, indeed – that they have used up all their ammunition — or their credibility. I can also see ordinary people so sick and tired if being misrepresented or outright lied about over the last eight years that they would blow off just about anything they could publish about Trump. “ – CeliaHayes
^ That.
More than a possibility, I’d say. I’d rank it as a probability.
I gave up on allowing the MSM any credibility going on two decades ago now: my view on it became “if I read it/see it in or on the News, they’re lying to me.” The Left-side alt-media joined them in that during the Bush years.
The only difference in this election cycle is that the Right side commentariat and media has blown their credibility with me and has joined the other groups.
I’m seeing and hearing that sentiment from more and more people in general. If it’s in the media, it’s automatically discounted.
“The only difference in this election cycle is that the Right side commentariat and media has blown their credibility with me and has joined the other groups”
Funny, we came to the same conclusion for opposite reasons. The “Right side commentariat and media” lost all credibility with me by their unending watercarrying for Trump. Their constant “explanations” that what Trump said wasn’t what he really meant and all the excuses they constantly came up with for him forever damaged their credibility with me.
I suspect that we read different ends of the Right side media. That hasn’t been my observation.
All they have to do is run video of Trump himself doing what he did and saying what he said.
The Great Gatsby at least had a happy ending. WE won’t be so lucky.
Every bad thing about Trump is old news… As in hashed out to death 15 or 20 years ago.
They’re going to have to find some new fresh scandal with which to adequately tar and feather him.
I doubt their ability to do this.
Their criticism/attacks of Trump are all things designed to appeal to what the Left envisions conservatives to be (they were wide of the mark, but close enough that a lot of desperate/frustrated people grabbed on).
This was no accident.
I’m not sure how effective turning on him by the media will be.
Is there anyone in the US who hasn’t known what Trump was for 20+ years. Trump the Boardgame and The Art of the Deal are from the 1980s. He’s been a reality TV star. His ex-wives has been reality TV stars. People who barely know who Hillary is (you know the type, the ones Jay Leno used to ask man on the street questions) know Donald Trump.
I doubt negative ads can define him worse than he already is and will be a waste of money. I’m not saying he doesn’t have negatives just that I don’t think ads can make them worse.
Agree – not anything on the front pages can make him out to be any worse an a-hole that he has already appeared to be. Looking for some comfort in all of this – he doesn’t cringe from owning it.
I don’t think Trump has anything like this in his closet……..partial list..
“90 SUSPICIOUS DEATHS OF INDIVIDUALS CLOSE TO BILL CLINTON, 81 WHILE PRESIDENT
————————————————————————————————
“A trail of Death”
———————————————————————————————–
The following is a list of a number of persons who have died in suspicious circumstances who
had connection to the Clintons or the Clinton’s dealings. The length and breadth of this list is
disconcerting. It is beyond credibility that very many of these cases are coincidences. Forward
any errors or inconsistancies as the list has been compiled from multiple sources:
Name Date Cause Explanation
—- —- —– ———–
Ron Brown’s 04/96 Murdered Drive by shooting, day after Ron Brown’s plane crashed.
Lawyer
Ron Brown 04/96 Plane Crash Commerce Sec. near indictment who alledgedly threatend
Secretary of Clinton with “not going down alone”. U.S. said no black
Commerce box was on this government plane, though Croatian and
French TV showed teams pulling one out. Air Force,
for the first time ever, canceled the safety investigation
of a U.S. government crash on friendly soil.
34 Passengers 04/96 Plane Crash On plane with Brown. A stewardess was rescued
several hours after the crash alive. She died in route to
hospital from blood loss due to a cut femoral artery
sustained in the crash!
Adm. Borda 1996 Suicide Alledgedly shot himself in chest with handgun, disraught with
Chief of Naval questions regarding his medals that he had anwered a year
Operations earlier. He was a combat veteran from Vietnam who received
combat ribbons for some activities while there. Others, were
reclassified later to combat, afterwhich he began wearing these
as well. When questions regarding the latter ribbons arose, he
simply said he would not wear the ones in question if there was
going to be a big deal made of it. This combat veteran, and our
highest ranking naval officer, responsible for a couple of hundred
thousand service men, and always a capable officer and soldier;
now a year after settling the issue, he shoots himself over it?
Others believe that he was eliminated because he refused to
transport Chinese, Eurasian and other forces on U.S. Navy
transports to U.S. and Canadian shores for semi-permanent
“ongoing” training.
Bill Shelton 06/94 Suicide Alledgedly shot himself at gravesite of fiancee, Kathy
Ferguson,who died the month before, also from suicide.
Shelton was an Ark. state trooper who had vocally been
proclaiming that his fiancee had not committed suicide.
Alledgedly shot himself behind the left ear.
Kathy Ferguson 05/94 Suicide Ex of Ark. trooper Danny Ferguson, engaged to trooper
Bill Shelton. Danny Ferguson alledgedly escorted Paula
Jones to Clinton’s hotel room and Kathy was vocal about
her knowledge in the case and was to be a corroborating
witness for Paula Jones in her sexual harrassment case
against Clinton. Alledgedly shot herself behind left ear.”
There’s lots more if you look for it…..
I have wondered if it would be possible to jump-start this frenzy by creating good anti-Hillary ads, and perhaps even going so far as attributing them to Trump…
The media can do nothing to him, because every time they attack him, he gets more votes. The most they could have hurt him is to have quietly ignored his campaign in the first place, but they didn’t have the discipline. Now it’s too late for that. Now they have to catch him with a live boy or a dead (or rather too closely related) girl, and that seems unlikely.
I wonder about that. Up till now, the media have been enjoying the spectacle of Trump. He lives down to the worst stereotypes of Conservatives, and he attacks the other candidates running under the Republican banner.
Now that he’s the only one left standing, he becomes the obstacle for Queen Hillary, and they can’t have that. Now he becomes the target.
And I don’t believe the media have shot their bolt – not by a long shot. For example, when he declared McCain a non-hero and said “I prefer soldiers who don’t get captured”, the media could have flooded the airwaves and internets with weeping wives, children, and grandchildren of POWs crying because “The Donald” doesn’t think their husband/daddy/grandpa is a real hero. Saturation bombing of this topic, 24/7 for a month, and then bring in the next gaffe. “Look at that face”, anyone?
As I say, it’s going to come down to fire discipline. Can the media hold fire until it’s too late to replace him with one of the other candidates?
It’s quite possible they will, but that would give Trump a month or two in which he can fire pot shots at Crooked Hillary. This may be too much to bear.
The other thing the media have done is just cover Trump. I think his coverage has been measured at the same amount everyone else got put together, Maybe a multiple of that. Even when they complain about his latest gaffe (though again, not too shrilly), it boosts name recognition. Now that he’s the nominee apparent, they could just quit covering him. It would be hard work, and they’d have to forego the ratings he brings. I suspect there’d have to be a well-enforced agreement, otherwise some outlets would publicize Trump in order to scoop up the money everyone else is leaving on the table. And then everyone else dives in. (Or the station manager at KFlyspeck wakes up to a horse’s head in his bed.)
I think the next month or two is going to be extremely interesting.
Yeah, I remember the cone of silence that descended on Romney.
“until it’s too late to replace him with one of the other candidates?” – karllembke
It’s already too late for that.
“I think his coverage has been measured at the same amount everyone else got put together, Maybe a multiple of that.” – karllembke
How do you have the same amount and a multiple of that amount at the same time? One of these measures is not the same as the other one.
“Now that he’s the nominee apparent, they could just quit covering him. It would be hard work, and they’d have to forego the ratings he brings.” – karllembke
Won’t happen, and the “why” is contained within your second sentence.
Why?
Now that just looks like hunting for excuses to disagree. I’m giving a range of estimates. I didn’t expect to have to explain measures of dispersion to anyone in this group.
The point is, Trump has had the advantage of coverage to the point of “sucking the oxygen out of the room”. One example is the Republican debates with their “speak of the Devil” rule in which a candidate who is mentioned gets a chance to respond, pretty much regardless of the context. The media have been fascinated by Trump and gravitate toward covering him, for the ratings if nothing else. But when they covered anyone else, that person would likely find himself fielding questions about the latest outrageous Trump statement.
So, depending on how you count up seconds of airtime or column inches of print, I suspect Trump’s total media coverage was anywhere from 100% to 200% of the coverage of everyone else put together.
Now I’m imagining a courtroom scene where the police officer testifies that the suspect in a crime was 150 – 160 pounds, and the lawyer starts badgering him about how the suspect can be 150 pounds and 160 pounds at the same time. Some of the actors who have played stupid bosses could be cast here.
“Why?” – karllembke
He’s effectively won the nomination. Out of a field of seventeen? eighteen? Primary opponents, the last two have dropped out and conceded following Indiana, and he’s currently sitting with 1053, before California, New Jersey, and West Virgina. The GOP establishment is already starting to shrug and eat their losses and consolidate around him as the presumptive nominee and his last two remaining competitors were already numerically eliminated before Indiana. Trump is going to go into the convention in Cleveland with well over the 1237 delegates and clear standing to win on the first vote, as well as an overwhelming ability to state that he’s who the Primary voters wanted.
Who are they going to replace him with? Paul Ryan? Mitt Romney? Cruz? (Cruz has already demonstrated that he can only win Republican voters in the Western States, and even there not all of them and not overwhelmingly, and as much as I’m a Westerner born and bred – the West doesn’t win electoral contests.)
I’m sure that that’ll go over well. If you think that the voters and the electorate is pissed off and in revolt now, just wait and watch.
*shrug* While it’s possible that anything can happen, my bet is that Trump is the Republican nominee.
“Now that just looks like hunting for excuses to disagree. I’m giving a range of estimates. I didn’t expect to have to explain measures of dispersion to anyone in this group.” – karllembke
Snort. You didn’t expect anyone here to call you on it.
“The point is, Trump has had the advantage of coverage to the point of “sucking the oxygen out of the room”. One example is the Republican debates with their “speak of the Devil” rule in which a candidate who is mentioned gets a chance to respond, pretty much regardless of the context. The media have been fascinated by Trump and gravitate toward covering him, for the ratings if nothing else. But when they covered anyone else, that person would likely find himself fielding questions about the latest outrageous Trump statement.
So, depending on how you count up seconds of airtime or column inches of print, I suspect Trump’s total media coverage was anywhere from 100% to 200% of the coverage of everyone else put together.” – karllembke
Sounds to me like you just argued for Trump getting the majority of the media coverage in the Republican, your waffling with the “100% to 200%” at the very end notwithstanding.
“Some of the actors who have played stupid bosses could be cast here.” – karllembke
*blinks lazily* By all means, do please elaborate on that comparison and whom it’s directed at. I’m wondering if you’re tall enough to take this ride as far as I’m willing to go.
All of which is contingent on not being destroyed by intensified media coverage. (Or leaving the race for some other reason, much lower probability.) Right now, everyone’s assuming he’ll remain invulnerable to bad press coverage, and we all know about the word “assume”.
Again, the notion of replacement arises only if Trump somehow becomes unelectable before the Convention. If he gets hit by negative media, or by a truck, the Convention can’t nominate an empty chair. Thus, the careful use of the word “suspend” instead of “end” with respect to campaigns.
As for the rest…..
….whatever.
And if the Sweet Meteor of Death! impacts on California while Trump is holding a rally, why then… !
Whatever.
Keep your hope alive, d00d. It could happen just that way.
The real possibility at this point, and I’ll grant you that it’s a concern, is that some deranged loon could assassinate him before the Convention.
At this point, it’s liable to be someone on the Right.
So we differ on the relative probabilities of events, but now agree it’s possible a replacement might have to be found.
My point exactly.
Yes! You won!
Congratulations, kid. I was pulling for you all the way. 🙂
@foxfier
“claims that the Texan’s father, Rafael Cruz, appeared in a 1963 photograph with John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald – citing a report first published by the National Enquirer.
‘His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being, you know, shot, Trump said on Fox & Friends. ‘Nobody even brings it up; I mean they don’t even talk about that.'”
Yes. And… ?
Ironbear, if you really don’t get the idea Trump was trying to convey, next you’ll be thinking that the smug stoner with the “Investigate 9/11” sign is really just asking questions.
“The real possibility at this point, and I’ll grant you that it’s a concern, is that some deranged loon could assassinate him before the Convention.
At this point, it’s liable to be someone on the Right.”
Yes, of course an assassin would be more likely to come from the Right, the Left would have little to gain from such an act. As is they have two Leftists running for President, if Trump was assassinated he would undoubtedly be replaced by someone farther to the right than himself.
As far as something happening to prevent him getting the nomination, I agree it is very unlikely; but he doesn’t have the nomination yet, so the possibility is out there. The same as it is for Hillary, right now she is pretty much guaranteed the nomination, but if she was to be arrested next Monday, it is very possible, maybe even probable, that she wouldn’t get the nomination.
Trump got less than 40% of the minority party primary vote, WITH open primaries and crossover voters. Do not rely on that for the general election.
Our flag is still there. Teach your children well.
0. Have children. Encourage your children to provide grandchildren.
The left’s greatest success was making sure we don’t have children. Giving up is for a long time but when you’re 50 and childless it doesn’t seem that long especially given the cost in preserving something in whose future you won’t participate.
So by convincing a lot of our generation to not have children either directly or by a variety of circumstance (late marriage, spouse convinced not to have children, etc) they neutered a large section of what would be the vanguard and leadership.
A lot of the methods involved in not having children resulted in walking wounded who– because they hurt, on one or more visceral levels– will lash out at anybody who joggles their wound.
Which those who didn’t do as they do, tend to do, just by existing and not hurting.
Our “side” is more likely to breed (at least through my anecdotal experience) than the other. It’s why they insist on keeping control of the educational/indoctrinational system.
(what, totally a word…)
I gave up on national politics when Obama was re-elected over Romney, who, for all his faults real and imaginary, was clearly more fit for the job. Never mind, when they start arresting people for disobeying executive orders, administrative regulations, and judicial decrees that restrict freedom of religion and speech, I intend to cheerfully go to prison singing the Battle Hymn.
If we get to that stage, I don’t plan on going to prison.
I know a number of people who took oaths including defending America agains “all enemies, foreign and domestic” who have noted that they were never released from that oath.
Heinlein’s “sixth column of patriots” are all about you; they’re the angry old men with the thousand-yard stares and nothing left to lose.
Not all men. I took that oath as part of my citizenship ceremony.
I think every American should take it when they reach legal adulthood.
If nothing else, it would be a rite of passage. Something I used to think was a mark of a primitive society, but I’ve revised my opinion there.
I took the oath, meant it, and still do.
https://www.oathkeepers.org
amen.
There are a lot of us there.
Not just those who served, either– I’ve heard a lot of folks married to shipmates who consider themselves bound to their husband’s oath, even if they didn’t take it.
I know that my mom didn’t swear in, but she’s bound on all sides just as sure as if she had.
There will be a lot more of us holding the line, whatever that line may be, I think that most people realize.
*nod* Variation on your point about people loving their family– husband, sons, daughters, on out there.
The radical individualists from both directions tend to forget that it’s useful for organizing principles, not for predicting actions.
I strongly suspect that a lot of us have our own lines in the sand, whatever those might be. The tripwires get set differently for different people, along with the color of the canaries in the coal mine that we watch for.
Me too. I took it again – at a Tea Party event were one of the Oathkeeper founders was a featured speaker.
I’ve never sworn the oath.
But I hope I’m there.
+1
There are ways to undermine the educational beast. Encouraging students to be aware that the book (and other experts) may not be correct, and may have an agenda, is a great start, and not terribly overt, depending on how you pitch it. “Recent research has revealed a slightly different chain of events,” or “There is a different understanding among some historians [scientists] about . . .” But you really, really have to know your stuff, and have the other sources on hand, and pick what you are correcting.
And students are picking up that if you are not [group-of-the-day] you may not get into college at all. And they’re p*ssed.
Well, since in my current age and condition armed rebellion for me would basically consists of climbing (slowly) an available piece of high ground with a can of ammo and a thermos of chicken soup and shooting til one or the other ran out, I’ll probably stick to political organization and activism for a while yet.
Don’t underestimate psychological warfare. When the front door of the Office of Administrative Affairs is ‘enhanced’ with a bullet hole, everyone who works there will freak out for weeks and require a constant security presence. One bullet hole in an empty police car will encourage a whole department to spend more time at Dunkin Donuts and less time kicking in doors. While we “Remember the Alamo’ here is Texas, it’s not a recommended tactical plan.
Just remember–all that ammunition bought by the various federal agencies has been concentrated in convenient resupply dumps for the citizenry once the flag goes up. 🙂
So, what are you going to do?
0. Missed that one which is why I’m advising other on it…I know how much it destroys.
1. Been there, done that, been stabbed in the back by my “allies” and those I supported one too many times (thank you Governor Deal).
2. I would say I’m in the alt-right but I hang out there.
3 & 4. NA
5. I do what I can but I admit not as much as I did. When I do it is more practical than political…I’m alarmed at how many people can’t do their own brakes, require an appliance, etc. When the “collapse” comes it won’t be Mad Max but it will be “damn, I can’t get into or afford to go to Precission Tune-up to get my brakes done” and “damn, this fan’s cord is broken and Walmart still has bare shelves”. I might be able to teach people how to make a better world but I can help them keep this one running a few extra days.
6. 30 days of dry goods rotated, ability to filter water, two propane tanks to cook when electricity is down, 3 months of meds, and a list of who is allowed access to the above.
7 . NA
8. Middle class anarchy/Irish Democracy/whatever you want to call it
If the rules are optional and the only thing that matters is “how far can I go without getting caught” then in taking care of me and mine I will treat them as such.
“When the “collapse” comes it won’t be Mad Max but it will be “damn, I can’t get into or afford to go to Precission Tune-up to get my brakes done” and “damn, this fan’s cord is broken and Walmart still has bare shelves”.”
See, that’s the hard thing to convince people about. I’ve got acquaintances who think this’ll be Mad Max and all that craziness. I cannot convince them that the decline and fall will not look anything like that. Look, I’m young enough, crazy enough and adrenaline-loving enough that I could find my way about in a Mad Max world.
But when we become North America’s answer to Venezuela? Nope. That’s a type of ugly that nobody is going to like.
I draw inspiration from the ability of Cubans, despite really stupid government policies, to keep 1950s American cars running (for some definition of running) over 50 years later.
I think for a lot of people Mad Max appeals because, “well, I can’t survive that so it’s okay to give up and die”, applies.
Venezuela? Well, in many ways it’ll mean living like your grandparents or great-grandparents and on that one you have no excuses. They did it and build the world you had. You have no excuse to not be able to do the same.
If I think there is anything that differentiates the right from the left that we must preserve is this “keep the lights on attitude” (Objectivist will condemn me for it) even more than the abstract principles of freedom. The abstract principles are embedded in the self-discipline and sense of responsibility needed to make the world run. If the abstracts are lost the principles can be drawn out of the yeomanry who first produced them. We let those yeomen die and be replaced by dependent serfs and all is lost.
“They did it and build the world you had. You have no excuse to not be able to do the same.”
True. But part of the problem with countries that have spiraled downward like Venezuela is not just the empty shelves or the need to look after one’s self – it’s the endemic violence, it’s people coming out and stealing car tires right in your front yard, it’s areas that were once safe now becoming violence-ridden cesspits. My grandparents and great-grandparents had to work hard, make do and sacrifice – and I hope to God that I could do the same – but they lived in relative safety while making ends meet.
Let’s also not forget that my grandparents and great-grandparents were largely left alone by the government to do what they had to do. They didn’t have socialism getting all up in their business, hijacking their efforts and stymieing their attempts to better their lives.
“What did socialists use for light before candles?”
“Electricity.”
I’m stealing that (with attribution).
Oh, I stole it from a meme.
I won’t steal it . . . I’ll be a socialist leader and redistribute it to myself.
Exactly. We are now pretty much officially a nation of men, notlaws. Failure to comply with malum prohibitum laws is not a vice. Especially when it is obvious that enforcement is down to your politics.
> I’m alarmed at how many people can’t
…and sneer at the people who can.
They’ll be begging later.
I will freely admit to looking forward to charging several chickens and a whole case of canned tomatoes for doing some of those “any idiot can learn to do that” jobs like changing tires (not swapping wheels, but mounting and static balancing a tire), swapping spark plugs, fixing broken cords, and so on for those who couldn’t be bothered to learn it when how to do those jobs when it didn’t matter.
And if they complain about how much I’m charging for a job “any idiot can do” I’ll merely ask them why they don’t even rise to the level of idiot then.
It will be entertaining to see the pay scale flip flop.
When I look at the choices we have I keep thinking of Wilford Brimley in Absence of Malice, ” This is the damned mess I have ever seen. “
I just wish that, like Brimley, we had someone’s ass in our briefcase when this is all over.
Hillary or Trump there isn’t an ‘aporth of difference between them.
I’m still thinking Trump is doing this to help her get in office, although his ego will require that he try to win.
Win/win for him.
Consider the hidden health problem model. Hillary might not be up to campaigning against a young and determined opponent. Trump is old, and unlikely to want to outpace Clinton.
Trump also claims to have weird sleep patterns, something to conducive to heart problems among older folks.
Might still want to hang onto the AK-47, just in case.
confess, you just like it.
Decently sized cartridge, reliable, easy to field strip and repair in the event it actually needs it… other than accurizing (which is fixable), what’s not to like?
“Hillary or Trump there isn’t an ‘aporth of difference between them.”
As a rabid libertarian, I am naturally no fan of either, but I think they are somewhat different kinds of problems. In particular, Trump as president wouldn’t automatically inherit the services of Instapundit’s “Democratic operatives with bylines [and civil service positions, and professorships, et cetera]” the way that Clinton would. More generally, Trump is not hated by quite the same groups as Clinton is, which I think is a difference in external forces sufficient to cause the two to behave differently even if it turns out that internally they are precisely equivalent clones of exactly the same alien parasitic entity wearing superficially different human disguises.
So, e.g., if Clinton becomes president I think we will naturally see the tide of enthusiasm for a sinuously unpredictable living Constitution continue to run strong among the great and the good, while if Trump becomes president there might well be a certain amount of airbrushing of previously held principled opinions on the subject, more or less the way that upstanding settled principled opinions about eliminating the filibuster or blocking judicial nominations can be overcome with the need to writhe like lampreys OD’ing on bad catnip when new election results come in.
I think you’re wrong. I think the media treats them both the same. He IS a democrat, remember?
I disagree Sarah.
Not that I think you’re wrong about Trump himself but IMO the News Media is working to portray Trump as this “Evil Fascist”.
Of course, I think the News Media is “dancing to Trump’s tune” without realizing it.
No, Trump is tapping into the hatred that many feel toward Liberals and the News Media (without realizing it) is helping him do so.
No, if Trump becomes President and is bad for the US as the Liberals claim to believe, then Liberals deserve the blame.
Mind you, I don’t “excuse” the Trump supporters in any way and I voted for Cruz in the Illinois Primary.
“Mind you, I don’t ‘excuse’ the Trump supporters in any way and I voted for Cruz in the Illinois Primary.”
S’right, ‘Drak. I don’t need nor expect “excusing.” I appreciate the thought, though.
I agree with you on the media, on both counts. They haven’t kept the kid gloves on to date regarding Trump, and I don’t expect them to lighten up any. I’ve also seen them being played like a fiddle and hating it even while milking it for all the ratings they can, and I expect that to continue as well.
As for media, I saw that CNN’s numbers started rising as they went after Trump while Fox’s have been dropping as their talking heads started shilling for Trump.
*shrug* We shall see, Oldgriz.
I’ve been watching all of the pontifications on Trump be proven wrong all the way down the line since last August, both professional prognosticators and amateur alike. I’m prepared to kick back and watch the same trend play out from here on in, as all of the ongoing speculations about what he’ll do and what’ll happen crash and burn just like the previous ones.
I got beer, I got popcorn, and I’m finding it all hella entertaining. I expect to continue being massively entertained on through into the fall and for the next four years at least.
The most entertaining thing of all has been watching the Right and conservative commentariat lose their sh*t over the guy with the comb over. That just keeps not getting old. 🙂
I expect that for good and for ill, the speculation here on what Trump will and won’t do and how he’ll perform will be just as accurate as all of the other speculation regarding him to date.
But again: *shrug* We’ll see what we see when we see it.
If you believe in miracles.
I believe in miracles. I neither expect them and I certainly won’t bet on them.
But I’ll keep praying for them. Whatever form they may take.
Amen.
Politics and the national election are a distraction; hardship will soon arrive via runaway inflation, but it will not bring civil war or gulags. We will be battling a latent disease that has been festering for at least a half century and guns of any sort will be of no use. Redemption lies in the understanding that you can only improve yourself, and very occasionally have a positive influence on a few others. Embrace this hardship as a curative and persevere. The free lunch is about to come to an end.
I (truly) hope and (mostly) believe that you’re right. But then I look at the hate being obliviously spewed by my liberal friends and wonder.
The free lunch is about to come to an end.
You are expecting people to be rational, logical and well informed.
There will be a rising demand for free lunch as times get harder and the ability of the government to deliver them becomes less likely. Consider the voters who are actively embracing Bernie Sanders and his openly nationalist socialist proposals. This indicates that there are a substantial number of people who are participating in the system whose view of what is possible enters into the fantastic.
I put on Mike and the Mechanics as I read that. Thank you for some good advice – I particularly like the bit about infiltrating. As an aspiring (one day) professor, I sometimes feel as though I am drowning in a sea of insanity. Sure, the people are friendly (at least the ones I’m around), but it all gets too weird some days. And then I think that what I’m doing will not make one iota of difference. But then, the world has been changed by people quietly doing what is right. It doesn’t happen in an instant, but it does happen.
“Silent Running” was in your playlist, wasn’t it?
Yep. 🙂
It may be time to put on my “war” playlist again My name for my playlist of “motivational music” for hard times. Things like Citadel, Winterborn, Bound for Glory (Hammerfall), and, yes, Silent Running.
You might want to haul in some Sabaton and Turisas as well.
“Resist and Bite” and “Stand Up and Fight” are particularly relevant.
Try some Five Finger Death Punch. (Especially the album War is the Answer). It’s my go to workout soundtrack and I find it oddly soothing 🙂
Love “War is the Answer” – also has the best d*mned version of “Bad Company” ever. (No, not a fan of the original song, or the band).
I’d have to dig up a link as to why they named the album, but it boils down to “peace is an illusion”
The only country song I can stand is “Copperhead Road.”
Don’t like the rest of the album? Devil’s Right Hand always stands my hair on end.
“Silent Running” was the first thing I thought of last night, when the news broke that Cruz was dropping his campaign. And I actually cross-posted it to another forum.
That said, perhaps this song by Disturbed is more in tune with the spirit of Sarah’s post:
“When you think all is forsaken
Listen to me now
You need never feel broken again
Sometimes darkness can show you the light.”
“March of the Cambreadth” “Our Solemn Hour” “The Wrong Side” “Dare” (from the Transformers movie).
YMMV
On May 1st, 1776 the Pennsylvania held elections for their representatives to the assembly at the State House. They elected a reconciliationist government, keeping John Dickinson in firm control.
On May 5th, 1776 British ships of the line blockading Delaware Bay were running short on water and began to sail up the Delaware River towards the city of Philadelphia.
The Halifax Resolves had been passed, making the NC the first delegation to the Continental Congress authorized to discuss, even to vote, for independence. (It stopped short of authorizing them to introduce a petition for independence.) The news had apparently not yet reached Philadelphia.
Things were looking rather grim 240 years ago.
I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress! And by God, I have had this Congress! For ten years, Emperor Obama and his Parliament have gulled, cullied, and diddled these states with their illegal taxes! Obamacare Acts, Title VII Acts, Environmental Acts, DACA Acts! And when we dared stand up like men, they have stopped our trade, seized our ships, blockaded our ports, burned our towns, and spilled our BLOOD! And still, this Congress refuses to grant ANY of my proposals on independence, even so much as the courtesy of open debate! Good God, what in hell are you waiting for?
A second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere, or a cataclysmic earthquake, I’d accept with some despair. But no, You sent us Congress! Good God, Sir, was that fair?
My heroine! Perfectly said!
You may store my AK-47 – so long as you don’t plan to have it in Fluffy’s room. It would be safe there, but I shudder at what being kept around dragon ordure would do to it. And I’ll need it back if they do manage to burn my house down – although I’m planning to use it not on the torch throwers, but on those behind them, egging them on.
As I told the children last night, there is 2018, there is 2020. (Here, there is still this year – we need to boot some County apparatchiks down the road.)
I already wash behind the ears, ma’am – and the back of the neck. Mama taught me well.
You will only get broccoli into me, though, by prying open my cold dead mouth…
I really need to get some sort of semi-automatic rifle…
AR – it’s not just for pirates, matey.
Yeah, but there’s something satisfying about the quiet *snick* of a well-maintained bolt action that cannot be replaced. Savage makes some reasonably priced models in nearly every caliber you could want…
The price of new bolt action rifles has dropped noticeably in the last few years. I don’t know what the driving factor is, but you can get a lot of rifle for your money now.
Now that the US consumer and hobbyist market has vacuumed up available inventories of ex-Combloc AKs and components with nary a burp, the price of AKs has climbed until they’re no bargain any more. But although I will freely admit the Stoner design wins on technical grounds, Mikhail Timofeyovich’s design “just works” for me. Which is why I have so many of them…
🙂
Simo Häyhä. If he could do what he could do with what he had…
Practice. Just practice. A lot.
*nod* And Dan Lane’s right: good bolties are getting down in price. My roomie’s 7mm Mag Browning X-bolt is sweet and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg.
And it’ll consistently put five into less than a half inch off of a bench at 100 meters…
Simo Häyhä, 800 confirmed kills, with a Mosin-Nagant, using only the iron sights…
Even Vasily Zaitsev and Roza Shanina had scopes.
Might I suggest the SKS pattern rifle/carbine? Same round as the AK, non-detachable magazine fairly easily fed via ”stripper clips’ (though it can be modified to take detachable mags) and wood no-pistol grip stock so not as likely to be anathemized as an EEEEEVILLL ‘assault weapon’, better inherent accuracy, and generally less expensive than the AK (if you can find it).
Second the SKS. Wonderful rifle. Does not crack like the AR round. That sound really hurts my ears. Can be found cheaply with quite attractive wood.
I don’t drink so I think I’ll take the fanged beastie/beautiful misunderstood bird dog for a nice long walk.
I have long been arguing that the way to get back is not to find some magical third-party candidate who will magically give us all back our freedom magically in a single election. And been scorned and called names by the Paulbots and other “Big ‘L'” types (an interesting take on “win friends and influence people” but there you are).
The same tactics of look for someone who has a reasonable chance of winning, who gives you at least a little bit of what you want who might even give up a bit in one area to gain in another so long as you can get a net gain that the Left has been using against us can be used right back at them.
In 2008 I could point out that McCain had a history of voting “pro gun” twice as often as Obama (Out of 4 votes on gun issues Obama voted “pro gun” once–yeah, surprised me too. McCain voted “pro gun” about half the time). He also had a history of supporting more conservative picks for judges. Just a couple of examples that come to mind. Thus, there were actual areas where McCain for all his faults–and they were legion–was better than Obama.
In 2012, I could point out that 11th Article of Faith (statement of some of the core beliefs of the LDS religion) that’s basically a statement of freedom of religion and that unlike, say, Reid, he actually seems to follow his religion. We would, therefore, expect him to support freedom of religion, unlike Obama. Just one example that comes to mind. So there, too, I could point to actual areas where Romney for all his faults–and they were legion–was better than Obama.
Now it’s 2016 and we’ve got Trump (or are about to get him but nothing can stop him now). Um. Well, there’s some campaign rhetoric most of which he’s already walked back but his actual history of supporting positions and politicians… Um. Sorry. Coming up blank here. In the past I could admit to a lot of overlap between the two parties–has to be; they both want a majority so they have to compete for at least some of the same voters, but I could also point to differences. Now? Hillary with a combover. I can’t think of a single policy position where I can expect Trump to be better than Hillary on anything.
At the moment, I’m probably going Libertarian, not because I expect it to help but because while we really do have “Hillary” vs. “Hillary with a combover” there is absolutely nothing to be gained by voting either of the main parties. Eventually it is my hope that either the GOP will break up and a new “major” party will emerge and I can get some difference even if only a little bit, or, it will get its head out of its collective rear and I can start working on the “get even a little net gain, then build on that to get a little more” that has worked so well for the opposition. Otherwise, well, I’ll be marking time to the final collapse of this Grand Experiment.
Couple of on-the-way things.
1) I’ve always been “out” politically. I can never be otherwise. Entirely too forthright. So, I guess I’m at least one of your tripwires. Use it well. 😉
2) Not giving up my guns. Not turning them in. No way. No how. If Hillary does manage to “get the NRA shut down” (First Amendment? What First Amendment?) and get handguns (among others, I’m sure) banned? Not gonna comply. Decision already made. Let the chips on that fall where they may.
Will we succeed or not in the end? Don’t know. Like to think we will but feeling very discouraged at the moment. Still doesn’t mean quitting. If it means going down fighting well, I’m good with that.
On the 2A thing, Obama has done a world of good – there are a heck of a lot more people out there with firearms than there were eight years ago…
“On the 2A thing, Obama has done a world of good – there are a heck of a lot more people out there with firearms than there were eight years ago…” – Reality Observer
Yup. Barack Obama. Best gun salesman ever!
Back in the early 90s, it looked like gun ownership was declining, heading towards being a ‘rural and old guys’ hobby. Thanks to Bill Clinton, Bloomberg, and Obama, there are now a s***-ton of gun owners, many in their 20s and 30s, many of them women, and lots of city/suburb dwellers. The demographics of people at local gun ranges is dramatically different (for the better) than 20 years ago. No intellectual 2A argument is a powerful as buying your first gun, learning that shooting is fun, and then listening to what the Left says about you (evil, baby-killing gun owners). I have become LESS worried about gun rights after the antics of the gun-grabbers above.
When I can buy a Solothurn or Lahti 20mm from an ad in the back of a gun magazine, and have it delivered through the mail, or walk into a hardware store and buy a full auto Thompson sub-machinegun or equivalent without a background check or even showing ID, then I’ll concede that we’re winning the gun rights battle.
When the Republicans in Congress and the Senate seriously propose repealing the GCA ’68 and NFA ’34 and actually introduce bills to begin the process of doing so, then I’ll believe that Republicans are seriously on the side of gun owners.
Until then… yeah: we’re making progress in gaining back some ground a bit faster than we’re losing new ground.
Anyone counting on the Republican PARTY being committed to the 2A is delusional (despite the fact that some individual congresscritters are pro 2A). The sheer number of gun owners, and the growing fraction that will not bend the knee to authority is what gives me optimism.
You get a few, yeah.
What gives me a bit more optimism are the state pols who come out on our side, like Governor Abbot in Texas on the Open Carry and the campus carry things. And the various Sheriff’s across the nation who have come out on the side of the Sheriff’s First movement, or who have flat told the Fed that they’re not going to enforce Federal Gun control in their counties, and they’re not going to order their deputies to go door to door confiscating firearms. It tells me that at least on the state and local levels, there’s a few people who get it.
Sheer non-compliance on our parts (and the millions of gun people across the country) will make any ban and confiscate efforts wishful thinking. But having governors and sheriffs refuse to comply sets them back on their heels a bit harder and sends a stiffer message.
Some of it is secondary-because.
There were two guys executed on the freeway, in their car, while it was in motion, about a year ago; it was up north of Seattle, near where that bridge collapsed a while back.
A ton of sort of vaguely, reflexively liberal family friends suddenly wanted guns, and were really upset to find out about the rules involved in concealed carry.
They also got an eye-opening when my mom sent them to talk to me, and they found out that my diaper bag isn’t closely controlled just because OTC meds can be deadly.
Oh, my– well said.
Bookmarking this. 😀
Hm. I guess I’ll make that a blog post then. 😉
And, blog post made: http://thewriterinblack.blogspot.com/2016/05/on-recent-meltdown-of-republican-party.html
I see you already made a blog post of it, but still wanted to add in a second (or third, or fourth, or nth) vote of agreement on the notion that the country can’t be won back in a single election cycle.
The United States is too big and too open to be run as a prison. While it seems clear that totalitarianism is the goal of some very wealthy and influential groups in this country, there are simply not enough police to arrest everyone who breaks the increasing number of laws and regulations.
What’s more, the ruling class cannot enforce all of the rules they have made without seriously impacting their own standard of living. If they shoot all the farmers, they starve.
The main advantage that conservatives have right now is that we tend to be a lot more important to keeping food on the shelves and water running from the tap. The US can’t go to subsistence farming without–at a minimum–tens of millions of people starving. There are too many cars and too many good roads to run the kind of managed famines that the USSR did–if people start getting hungry, they will go to where the food is and trample anyone who gets in their way.
The ruling class needs to maintain the nation’s infrastructure. To do that, they need a lot of skilled labor. Like the Dynastic Egyptians or the Romans or the Persians, or any number of old empires, the ruling class needs the slave class more than the slave class needs the ruling class, and the slaves know it. Unlike most of the old empires, however, the American ruling class seems hell-bent on alienating their military and police power base.
We don’t need to overthrow anybody. We just have to wait until their checks start bouncing, and then just ignore them.
> The United States is too big and too open to be run as a prison.
—
That’s what a lot of people thought about Russia after the October Revolution, or Eastern Europe after 1945.
They were wrong.
True, but they had neither an interstate highway system nor a vast number of automobiles.
Or a vast number of armed peasants…
Yes, exactly. I suspect that any attempt to subjugate the US population by force, by either foreign or domestic forces, will work out as well as the subjugation of Afghanistan, which has been tried and failed by every empire on the planet. Small, well-armed mobile forces that are able to live off the land with minimal resupply are damned near impossible to control.
But I don’t believe that it will go that far. My point is that there simply aren’t the resources for the government to implement either the dreams of the left or the fears of the right. From a logistics standpoint alone, if for no other reason, the United States can only be governed with the active consent of the governed. As Sarah said in her OP, the economy is likely to continue to get worse, but there comes a point where you’ve got more people outside the system than than inside it.
LOL. I wonder if that’s what cash for clunkers was about. It seems ridiculous, but think Fast and Furious.
Something to consider: how effective would that transportation network be in the face of another “oil crisis”? Those highways don’t do much without vehicles on them, and vehicles don’t do much without fuel.
Not sure about fuel injected vehicles but carborated ones are easy to convert to alcohol which is easy to make, especially if you don’t care about drinkability (both in terms of taste and not going blind).
Wood gasifiers were used in Finland during the wars when gas was starting to run out. I think you need older type car for that, one with carburetor etc, but they haven’t exactly disappeared yet. There are a few hobbyists who have build their own during the last ten years or so, I am under the impression that it’s not particularly difficult (or at least one of the guys whose youtube video I watched claimed it wasn’t).
If internet stays up the instructions are even easy to find. And if it doesn’t, I doubt it will all go black – or restricted or whatever – all in one moment (or you’d lose electricity in one moment either) there will be time to find and print (or even hand copy) all kinds of stuff if things start to look iffy.
Just in my commute, I use about a two gallons a day (longish commute and the Explorer is not the most fuel efficient vehicle).
How easy is it to keep producing at that level, day after day, week after week, year after year. How much does the yeast and source of sugar (grain, fruit, whatever) do you need and how much does that cost?
Perhaps this is more of a challenge than you are implying.
I thought the purpose of Cash for Clunkers was to reduce the supply of old conversion vans so it took more effort and more money to buy one than it would have cost me a couple years previously. This was back when I was finishing my degree while working full-time, so time was precious and money was short. (Then I read your remarks regarding Robert, or comments by Cedar, and feel like I was a lazy slacker.) I’ve been given to understand that before Cash for Clunkers, I would have spent about $1000-$1500 less and it wouldn’t have taken four weeks to find a decent used conversion van. Ouch. Thank you, President Obama.
It was actually cheaper for us to buy a new minivan than to buy a used one, when you figured in financing.
Between Obama and the Seattle blob’s various “pollution” schemes…..
It had a very nasty impact on the used car business for and between dealers. They were forced to destroy the vehicles.
The guys who work at scrap yards that I know are *still* screaming.
“And here we have a functional engine. Do we take the parts and use them to make another car run better? HECK NO! We DESTROY IT!!!!” *sounds of metal shattering*
Cash for Clunkers is actually a darn near perfect example of Leftist Dumb-assery (totally a word). Subsidize folks with the money to buy a new car in order to ‘pull-forward’ sales from the future into the present.
Penalize poorer folks (who can only afford a used car) by reducing supply and increasing prices. Basically stealing from the poor and giving to the rich (and the UAW).
IMHO, it was just another piece of the Progressive agenda to put us all unarmed and afoot, by raising the cost of transportation.
Given its single biggest effect was the decimating of the used car market at every tier due to a huge, multi-year supply disruption you may be onto something. In three years the price of “look, it drives and will get you to work” car went from about $500 to about $1200 here. For the people in that market that is a nearly unsustainable increase.
And if my parents hadn’t helped with the boys’ cars, it would have put us in the bind of driving them to school EVERY day.
I’m glad you still have faith Sarah, I’m not so sure. But I wish you the best of luck. I’m thinking it’s time to start stocking up on supplies.
Being prepared is one thing. Irrevocably pulling triggers that cannot be unpulled is something else.
As the guy said at Lexington: “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have war, let it begin here.”
Let them choose for it to be war. Stubborn resistance until then.
THIS.
I haven’t seen Jerry Pournelle stop by yet, so I’ll say it for him.
“Despair is a sin.”
Amen.
Agreed
Absotively. Strangely, I’ve actually been less downbeat today, despite allergies keeping me up most of the night.
I think it’s a function of now knowing the amount and velocity of the carp that’s incoming. Easier to deal with the known than it is with the unknown.
OT – Sarah, I did apologize for my stupid of the other day, but you may have missed it, as I didn’t get back to the blog for a couple of days. Ah well, it makes a fine blog post in the future about stupid (or “smart”) assumptions…
RO — I don’t remember your stupid… never mind.
“I haven’t seen Jerry Pournelle stop by yet, so I’ll say it for him.
‘Despair is a sin.'”
Pournelle on Trump and the neo-conservative press:
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/word-trump-a-new-em-drive-and-other-matters/
Pournelle on Peggy Noonan, Trump, and Republicans:
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/noonan-on-trump-trump-and-america-first-conservatism-on-immigration-and-other-matters/
Peggy Noonan, Obama supporter. Yeah…
I know. And Dr. Pournelle’s been drummed out of the True Conservative Movement, too.
I find his position a triumph of hope over experience. It’s not for me to judge him. I’d have hope too, if I could.
I don’t check in there as often as I should.
I’m reminded of a joke, apparently from at least the WWII era. A man walks in to a government building and asks the receptionist, “What side is the press office on?”
The receptionist answers, “Hopefully, ours.”
I’m reminded of a joke, apparently from at least the WWII era. A man walks in to a government building and asks the receptionist, ‘What side is the press office on?’
The receptionist answers, ‘Hopefully, ours.’ – karllembke
*grin* I’ve heard that joke, and the punchline.
The receptionists hope was forlorn. Since then, the Press has been proven to be Fifth Columnists and Democrats with bylines, except for the handful that are Fifth Columnists and Republicans with bylines.
Despair in the ultimate is a sin. Despair in the temporal is often common sense and indeed may be a duty, if circumstances change enough to change your duty.
My personal standard for ammunition supplies is The Administration.
Used to be a 4 year supply, but later raised to 8 years.
Maaaaan. All this and I got hit by another Alexi story this afternoon. (It will go in the omnibus volume for later this summer). I need a beer.
Yeah. The issues, they’re multiplying like dust bunnies (Casa de Lane has it’s own, too). Drink virtual beer, it’s cheaper.
I’m reliably told Himself gives us no problems greater than the width of our shoulders to bear- but it don’t hurt to lean together sometimes. We’ll all of us muddle through somehow.
And, knowing the huns, cause no end of chaos to their maddening schemes, ‘cuz we’re Odd that way. Chirrup, folks, we’ve still got a goodly number of arms and legs among us and the will and brainpower to use ’em to best effect. Not least among Despair’s faults is the time it wastes. Let’s get busy doing what we all do best.
*Hoists virtual beer in Dan’s direction* Prost!
Well, maybe if the EmDrive pans out, the question of which authoritarian gets elected will become irrelevant.
“Because frankly they’re both paranoiacs who will try to crack down on those who dislike them: i.e. most of the country.”
Clinton for sure. Trump, I doubt. Trump does not give a damn whether you agree with him or not. Clinton will try to reeducate you.
Not that I’m a Trumpkin, but it seems clear to me that you don’t have a good grasp of American history. We have survived Trumpish presidents – and worse – in the past. Andrew Jackson comes to mind. The problem is that Clinton will be affirmatively dangerous – she has shown herself to be utterly incompetent, since she first tried to write Hillarycare into law. Clinton is a guaranteed dangerous person to be president. Trump might also be dangerous, but it’s not guaranteed.
Of course Trump doesn’t care about whether you hold his policy poisiions; he doesn’t hold to them himself. But Trump does care a great deal whether you respect him, personally, and he’s already threatened the press with libel lawsuits on that matter.
He will peep and mutter, and the night shall bring
Watchers ‘neath our window, lest we mock the king.
Ego is not a big step up over ideology, there.
Thing is, it’s a lot easier to deal with the occasional Jackson or Trump when they don’t have so many levers of power available.
H**l, we could deal just fine with Hillary or Bernie, if we just still had a limited government. (Which is why that is the real goal of most of us – fix the root problem, not the symptoms of the day.)
Good LORD. I don’t have a good graps… Head desk. DID YOU READ THE POST?
We’ve also survived mobsters like Hillary. LBJ comes to mind.
Yes, we can survive them. I’d still like the problems to happen under a democrat.
Yep. Part of that for me is that most people (whatever their ideology, or lack of same) think “Well, it almost worked last time…” We may be in for a “decade of demagogues.” (Optimistic, there – Athens, IIRC without consulting Thucydides, went quite a while longer than a decade rallying around the loudest.)
Not convinced that we actually survived LBJ. He was the father of the Unitary Budget, whereby Congress got to spend Social Security receipts today and leave IOUs for future obligations. Now that the Baby Boomers have started retiring, that future has arrived with a $210 trillion shortfall. LBJ left the USA with a ticking bomb, and the ticking has ominously just stopped.
“Not convinced that we actually survived LBJ. “
We survived LBJ.
America didn’t.
I’ve always found “we survived X so we can survive Y” when we’re still reeling from “X” to be a very silly argument. It’s analogous to saying “You’ve survived bleeding two quarts onto the ground, you can survive bleeding a third.”
I’m not sure if you’re agreeing or rebutting, so *shrug* As I said: America didn’t survive LBJ as a culture or a country, not in the long run.
Look. All in all, kibbitizing over disparate opinions on Trump aside, I agree with Mrs. Hoyt’s central premise:
I’ve been stating for a long time exactly the gist of her theme: there are no political solutions to the problems created by politics. We can’t vote our way out of the mess we voted our way into. There’s no political saviors.
The solutions are going to come through bypassing politics and the political, and making them irrelevant.
You’re not going to rebuild or recreate an America that’s past by electing the right Republican or the right (or wrong) Democrat or the right Anything. You’ll have to do it the same way the Left destroyed it: by marching back through the institutions, rooting out the Left whole hog and eliminating them from infiltrating again, and building something to replace what you’ve razed in the process. You have to do it by recreating Americans to form the basis of America… and there’s been almost a hundred years now of dedicated effort to destroy the mechanisms for doing that that has to be overcome first.
I don’t see it happening.
I see us going one of three directions from here: Balkanization, Yugoslavia/Civil War, or full Imperial.
Trump isn’t going to destroy or save us.
Hillary isn’t going to destroy us – but she may just accelerate kicking us over into one of the first two options.
If, IF, we can survive the next thirty years without going one of three, then we might have a chance at the seventy plus years it’ll take for “solutions other than the political” to take root and work.
I’ll probably be dead before I can see that happen.
*shrug* If you see a major error in my calculations, lay it one me, by all means. I’d like a bit of optimism here.
Meantime, I’m going to take a break so I can start working on fixing lunch for Casa ‘Bear over here. We’re having pork chops, gravy and trimmings. See ya in a bit.
More “springboarding”. I’ve heard so many people telling me “We survived eight years of Obama; we can survive four of (Hillary or Hillary with a combover)”.
Maybe. Then again, maybe not for the reason I gave.
This subthread just brought that to mind.
Ah. Cool. And hey, not like THAT ever happens around here! 🙂
Hold that thought. I have gravy simmering.
All righty. *burp!* S’cuse me!
The problem with those statements, WriterInBlack, is that they’re too broad based to have any real meaning. They’re platitudes.
For them to have any practical meaning, first you have to define “survive” and “survival”, and second, you have to determine and define just which “we” are being discussed.
Sure. A lot of us survived the first President Clinton. I was one of them.
The Branch Davidians didn’t survive him.
I’m not sure that LBJ actually killed anyone directly. Well…except through his orders if I have my dates right – was Kent State et al in LBJ’s administration, or after it? So yeah: nearly everyone who was a citizen of the U.S. at the time survived him, one way or another.
The country and the culture didn’t. Elements of the Constitution didn’t.
So my response to those “but we survived… ” such and such statements, when I bother to make one, is always, “Define it.”
“we can survive four of (Hillary or Hillary with a combover)’.”
*grin* Oh, I’m looking forward to President Trump. The next four years are gonna be hella entertaining! 🙂
An adventure!
You know what “adventure” is don’t you? Someone else having a hell of a tough time a thousand miles away.
Ayup. 🙂
And yeah. Been there and done that a couple of times – I’ve been the poor S.O.B. having a tough time while someone else kicked back in the easy chair.
But hey, I’ve been entertained by all this as all get out since last August. This is my quadrennial reality TV marathon.
Bestest election season ever!
“That which does not kill me leaves me wounded and vulnerable to attack until I recover.”
Good point. You might be able to survive that third quart if you have a few days to replenish your blood supply first…
*pats ample tummy* Or years, if you aren’t able to totally stop for recovery.
Took three pregnancies with c-sections(first one emergency) before I was anemic, and now I have a hell of a time beating it even when I’m not.
Ugh. I was diagnosed anemic as a kid, so I feel for you. In my case, they determined that it was a problem with my spleen, and removed it when I was in the fourth grade.
I can’t even imagine– anemia bites, especially if one is use to being very, very much the opposite direction.
*shrug* Fourth grade, remember?
I barely remember it. I recall being a bit of a sickly kid, but I recovered and grew up to be fairly athletic and robust by the time I hit Junior High and early adulthood, so it couldn’t have damaged me too badly. The thing I remember making the most impact on me was my parent’s being scared when they were told that if my spleen wasn’t removed before it ruptured that it could kill me.
Seeing your parents get freaked out and scared, especially your dad, makes an impression at a young age.
But not long after that I was falling out of trees and crashing my bike again at the end of dozen trashcan jumps, so it couldn’t have been that bad. 🙂
I can give you details about what it felt like to be in Kindergarten, up to and including that the teacher had HORRIBLE breath and that the daughter of the lady judging the race “won” when the finish-line ribbon was wrapped around my waist.
Names, I can’tr help you with, but stuff like that? If I try to focus on it, I’m accurate enough that I’d think I was making it up, if I didn’t have writings from the time to compare it to.
The thing with anemia is that it’s so sneaky– telling it from “I just worked too hard yesterday” or “I didn’t get enough sleep” or just “oh, I’m feeling a little low” is hard.
“I can give you details about what it felt like to be in Kindergarten, up to and including that the teacher had HORRIBLE breath and that the daughter of the lady judging the race ‘won’ when the finish-line ribbon was wrapped around my waist. “ – Foxfier
I’m old, remember? I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday – but I can remember what my first girlfriend sounded like in the back seat when I was sixteen. *grin*
My memories from before I was, oh… say, nine or ten-ish are spotty. I can remember learning how to read sitting on my dad’s lap with him reading from the World Book Encyclopedia when I was four, what our huge white German Shepherd and our big Persian cat looked like when I was six, the little Boston Terrier that he had that liked beer, and odds and ends of things like that. I can remember Kennedy being shot because they interrupted As The World Turns with a breaking News cast, and my mom started crying in the middle of the day, and my dad came home from work because the hotel sent everyone except a bare skeleton staff home in mourning.
Other things? If I hadn’t seen them in family photo albums from those years, I couldn’t swear to them.
*shrug*
My more vividly remembered life starts when I was around eleven or so.
I get flashes of other stuff from a lot earlier, and then it often takes me a few minutes to place the memory and fit it in somewhere.
Curious – Neo-neocon once wrote a post about early childhood memories. My earliest one was from when I must have been about a year and a half old – but I can remember quite a lot of things from the age of three onward. We moved several times from the time that we lived in that particular house, and I can remember quite a lot about all of them.
I can effectively trace mine to five months old by a song that was sung to me back then.
My earliest is with my grandfather, who died when I was three.
We played cowboy and indians at some point before that; my grandma moved the dish washer out of the cubby, and that hole was my indian hut.
I can almost– not quite, but almost— feel the wood, and I can see him, but that’s it.
He was dead when I was three and a half, and hospitalized when I was three, so….
My (full, biological) sister says she remembers us being together before our mother took off and she was only about six months at that point. I was twenty months and have no memory of her (or our mother for that matter) from that time.
My first concrete memory is of sitting on my father’s lap watching the Apollo 11 landing, and I would have been just shy of four.
I have one memory from two years old. We went to visit the new house we were moving to. Thing was it was only framed in. We are wandering around and Mom says “This is your room.” I remember being totally confused. I look up and see blue sky then walk through the studs to where Dad was standing.
This did not fit my two year old definition of room.
@Sarah – I’m not sure I can go back that far, it is jumbled in with memories from toddlerhood. But it might be close; I have the distinct memory of listening to the train whistles at night as they went through town.
Trains have long disappeared from my little home town, but I live now not too far north of the main line from El Paso to points west. I hear a whistle now, and all is right with the world for a couple of minutes…
Wow. I kicked off a major subthread here and had no idea that I was about to. Cool. 🙂
Or the sister argument: “Everyone was complaining about [Obamacare/television/the New Deal/the Sexual Revolution] but it’s been a while and in case you haven’t noticed, the world hasn’t ended yet.” Like, there are no markers of effect on society lying between “a change for the better” and “incineration of the planet.”
Clearly this is a case of “the worse the better” — only as the Federal government becomes o’erweening shall political will for the states to seize back power manifest.
The bastions of centralized power are eroding like an ice berg in June. Neither Trump nor Hillary will hold the White House with any semblance of broad political support; either would act in ways that make Nixon appear moderate. Each can be predicted to over-reach and discredit the Federal government, either by abusing power, making undeliverable promises or both. The MSM will sink ever deeper into its swamps of irrelevancy and disrepute (NY Times continues to see advertising revenue shrink, television news is watched by ever fewer people.)
Have faith and hold true to principles. We do not assert our liberty because it is easy, we do so because it is necessary.
There is a delicate medium here. On the one hand, the frog has to notice the heat differential. On the other, it can’t be a sufficient differential to scald the poor thing to death. But this delicate medium is known as “evil overplaying its hand”, and happens rather often, all told.
Nailed it. Good news : There is almost 100% certainty that everything the Left touches turns to sh**, so reality will win. Bad news : it’s going to have to get even worse (particularly in the deep-Blue states) before die-hard Lefty voters throw in the towel and vote differently. Maybe Texas can build a Northern fence to stem the tide of Blue state refugees.
Ayup. We need our big beautiful wall at the Appalachians and the Sierra Nevadas.
(Waggles hand)
Eh.
Build one wall west from just north of Norfolk, cut north to encompass DC and Baltimore, go northeast to take in Philly, New York, CT, RI, and MA. End that wall at the Atlantic, just south of Portsmouth.
Build another around Milwaukee-Chicago-Detroit.
Then build one down the Sierra Nevadas.
*nod* I’m easy. The exact boundaries are negotiable.
Can we shoot anything trying to escape across the border into the U.S. once we get it built?
So anyone who realizes they do not agree with or fit in to what is going on within the walled areas would best remain there and suffer, as an escape would lead to being shot?
Let’em in, but if they start to whine about the lack of government support for their lifestyle, toss’em back over the wall.
“So anyone who realizes they do not agree with or fit in to what is going on within the walled areas would best remain there and suffer, as an escape would lead to being shot?” – CACS
As an alternative to the Californication of the remaining Western, Southern, and Middle American states as has been done to Colorado and Washington/Oregon?
Emigrate now and let the West and Upper East Coast and Great Lakes Region sink into the fetid Leftist miasma that it’s already working on.
Alternately, consider it incentive for them to start taking back their own governments from the Left, and rebuilding those states into something that vaguely resembles America.
I might sound a bit hard boiled on this, but the “Turn Texas Blue!” meme from the Left makes my back teeth itch. If you think I’m being cold and extreme…
So. Be. It.
On the other hand, as I said, I’m easy: set up an immigration policy for the non-Leftist states and allow the worthwhile people to emigrate out, and only shoot the Leftists.
A vast improvement over hanging every last Democrat from the lampposts. (Never forgetting that you said that seriously.)
But no, this is a good plan. In fact, if it comes to national fragmentation, and frankly that seems increasingly likely by the week, then it’s really the only sane thing we can do. Plus, it’s strictly an enforcement of natural consequence. You live with the policies you vote for. I am very down with that.
Shooting is noisy, smelly and leaves a terrible waste disposal problem.
Put anybody “coming over” to work, to earn their citizenship. Until they can demonstrate a conceptual grasp of the responsibilities of membership in a democratic republic they don’t get to vote and any “benefits” from the state are rock-bottom subsistence.
I could go for that, RES. Like I said: have an immigration policy that discourages Californication.
“Shooting is noisy, smelly and leaves a terrible waste disposal problem.”
It’s time to feed the hogs. Problem? What disposal problem?
Not funny Mycroft. Not even once.
Who’s being funny?
“It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”
— Declaration of Arbroath, 1320
Sarah, you wrote: “(Yes, I know respected people on the right say Trump will be fine. I respectfully disagree.”
There is one, and only one, thing that gives me some faint trace of hope that Trump might not be an absolute disaster in the Oval Office: 20 years ago, he was a supporter of Ross Perot’s Reform Party. He actually ran for the Reform Party presidential nomination in 2000, but pulled out early on because that was the year Patrick Buchanan hijacked the party, and Trump wanted nothing to do with Pitchfork Pat.
It’s largely forgotten now, but the Reform Party was a genuine, honest, well-organized attempt to give the American electorate a third choice besides the Democratic Party and the Democratic-Lite Party. And it achieved more success in its few short years than any other third party in recent American history. If Trump’s real loyalties still lie with Reform Party concepts, then maybe, just maybe….
But I doubt it. I think you’ve got him pegged: a con man interested only in his own pleasure. And this campaign will be the King of the Sting versus the Bitch Queen. Those few of us who are neither leftist parasites nor gullible rubes will have nowhere else to go.
Nowhere else to go, except back to work. I still have three County Supervisors to work on having their walking papers issued this year. Life goes on…
Trump’s wanted to be president a long time. He’s written about it.
The thing being president can give Trump that he hasn’t got already is a place in the history books. So the questions then are, what sort of place does he want? And is he smart enough to get it?
Yes, we have records of the last emperor of Rome, but darned if I remember who it is off the top of my head, except that it was some poor misbegotten kid. (And I have a kid doing that history this year, and one as did it last, so it’s fresher in my mind than most folks, I reckon.) We remember Julius Caesar, Constantine, Nero . . .
I expect Trump hopes his name will join Washington’s and Lincoln’s. Whether or not he can pull it off, I’m more doubtful, but I think he’s at least going to try. He certainly picked a time to go for it when the Republic looks likely to need a man of that caliber.
Romulus Augustulus, I do believe. A puffed up name for a ruler of very questionable ability.
Part of why people didn’t take his commitment seriously is that he has been floating political campaigns for years, then backing out before he might be tainted as a loser.
He stuck with it now because a) he could blame failure on evil GOP cheating b) a very high profile Democrat mocked his heritage as an orangeskin from Kappa Tucanae A.
It will be sad.
No, no, he’s going in with a country worth mentioning. I’m thinking one of the juvenile sociopaths. Elagabalus, maybe.
Obama was, of course, Honorius.
You sure about Honorius ? Whenever Obama speaks, I always think about Caligula’s horse (well, at least half of it).
Alcibiades.
A Grachus, not sure if Tiberius or Gaius.
actually I always figured him for Little Boots.
Thirty years? From what I can tell, the vast majority of the population is *still* in denial.
When do we start cutting flags into small easily concealable pieces?
I think not far behind. For now, I suggest we use LITTLE flags.
Yeah, it’s not like they’re at a premium.
YET.
Snort. You guys are behind the times. Way behind.
It’s already been a bad idea for well over a decade and a half to carry a pocket sized Constitution or Declaration of Independence if there’s any remote chance that you’re going to have to deal with cops in some states, or Federal officers just about anywhere. Ditto for anything identifying you as a Sovereign Citizens. Having a Gadsden Flag sticker on your car, similarly.
(Regardless of what you think of the Sov Citizen movement: just being a member shouldn’t subject one to Federal harassment or being on Federal watch lists.)
Being a Tea Party member or activist got you audited and harassed by the IRS as far back as six years ago.
Being a member of any group classifiable as a “militia” could get you a visit from some nice FBI and BATFE agents back in the 90s – and maybe even celebrity attention from Lon Horiuchi. If you were lucky, they might throw a bar-b-que for you.
Being a gun collector or a Class III dealer and collector could get you invited to a midnight party with the BATFE. Hope your kid wasn’t too attached to that kitten they just stomped. Eww.
Ask Corey Mayes what living at the wrong address while black does for you.
Don’t complain about the nice people from the BLM and EPA. Nice herd of cattle you got there. Be a darned shame if anything happened to them.
Don’t be an independent Cherokee or Choctaw rancher in the Indian Territories and come to the negative attention of the BIA, or be an activist with the wrong party affiliation. Sovereignty? What’s that?
You may not have been at war with them, but they’ve been at war with you for decades now. If you’re just now starting to think about hiding your flags on your person…
You’re probably already on their lists.
Eh. The longer and more remarkable the list, the better. Can’t keep my head down anyway.
Quick question: which states?
I have my own notions to which ones these are, but I’m not sure if those comport with reality.
I could have lined that entire list with an webcyclopedia of links, but as WP in Sarah’s comment fields throws a comment into moderation with more than one url in it, I didn’t care to play that game. Screw it.
I’ve spent twenty plus years on line watching all of this and logging things, seven to ten of them when I was running RFI. You probably can’t duplicate that with a cursory search, but links to examples of everything that I stated are out there and available.
Google might not be your best bet for this. I’ve noticed Google’s indexing has dropped a lot of things from search results that I know good and well are still out there.
I’ve been at war for a long, long time. I don’t carry insignia, and I’m not going to stick a piece of a flag in my pocket. I’m not affiliated with anyone or anything.
I do know who the enemy is, though, and where my personal lines in the sand are.
I’m not affiliated with anyone or anything.
I do know who the enemy is, though[.]
Therein lies the problem. You have a list of barbarians to vanquish, but you have no fortress to defend, and no purpose in mind to the war you wage. This is how a he-who-fights-monsters is made.