Sounding the Tocsin

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

I’m sounding the tocsin: This is not a drill. If this were a drill you would be required to do nothing much. But if this were a drill, you wouldn’t be waking up in cold sweats, or having that feeling like you’re living through the last days, or…. Whatever is afflicting you particularly. Now, keep in mind I mostly work with and have contact with people who are in the arts, meaning we’re so high on the neuroticism scale that you can see us vibrate on a clear day with nothing much going on. But never mind that, I think in a way we’re like the alert system. Like people in high Earthquake areas who keep something sturdy balanced so the least tremblor will make it fall onto a metal sheet or something, so they have early warning to get out of the house, in case it’s a foreshock.

Sure, sometimes mini Earthquakes come to nothing, and then you ran out of the house, for a few minutes/an hour and came back in looking sheepish. But sometimes– Sometimes they save our life.

Me and my cohort we’re like that. When we start getting nervous, it’s time to prepare for something. Maybe your preparations will not be needed, but boy oh boy, if they are–

And right now we’re all waking up with the horrors. (I’m relatively calmer, mostly because I’m concentrating on my preparations, my sauve-qui-peut which involves getting the heck out of here and the house sold before– Well, before.

Most definitely not a drill. But what it means and what you need to do might not be what you think you need to do, so let’s go over it in order, shall we.

What’s coming: We don’t know what’s coming. We don’t know if it will be fast or slow. I’ve been betting on fast, because fast has less chance of going in directions we like even left than the leftist dreams, but seriously, we don’t and cant know. We can pray is about it.

And yet it is our duty to prepare.

Keep in mind most of you will be safe. No, seriously. Take it from someone who’s lived through this. You can live and work in dangerous places and still be completely safe. Just for the love of heaven, if you see a group of people behaving like lunatics run/drive/walk the other way.

Now what this situation reminds me of is when half of Colorado was burning, a twelve years back or so. We took ourselves from (more smokey) Colorado Springs to Denver for a weekend with the kids. And we were in the IMAX in the Natural History Museum, when the fire alarms went off, and we could smell the smoke in the air.

As people started getting up, someone came in and announced that while the museum itself was not on fire, and was safe, there was a fire close enough by that it was setting off the fire alarms.

We watched the rest of the movie, but I can’t say I paid much attention, and came out to a sunset made dark and ominous by the smoke, which was thick enough to cut.

We never did get touched by those fires, or event the one that Dan drove by on the way to work, close enough to hear it crackle.

In fact, in my years in CO I’ve been on “Standby for evacuation” three times, but it never came. However for a lot of people in the area, it was destruction of property, loss of life, utter change and horrible mayhem. And even those of us untouched, like me, ended up with health issues that dragged on for a decade or more, from the smoke.

But it wasn’t “we’re going to burn alive.” And in retrospect, had I known it, what we should have done is what a friend recommended and pack up everything and head for TN for six months. But we didn’t want to leave things to burn and well– That is what it is.

So now, before everyone can smell the smoke: get to high ground. Whatever high ground means. Keep in mind even in a blue state most areas will be safe. You’re at higher risk of truly deranged regulations leaving you unemployed/broke/with no electricity. Which is part of the reason for our leaving. Besides the fact I’m so “public” I practically glow in the dark. On top of which — and more urgent — the altitude is killing me by inches. So, moving.

But if you think your area will be a problem, move now. You’re late and it will cost you. I get a feeling we’re about on the last viable train out of danger, but maybe there will be another year grace (what husband thinks. He’s an optimist.)

Most of this are things you know, okay, the same preparation you’d do for a prolonged outage, say in the aftermath of a major Earthquake or hurricane. Freezer. Fill it. Get a backup generator. It’s possible to keep things frozen a long time if you don’t open it, and run your generator a few hours a day.

Other food. You know how hard it is on your dietary needs. I don’t.

Try to move to where medical care is available, and find a sensible doctor (and that will be hard.) Try to take care of any surgical or other needs you have now. If not sooner. If you’re planning on children, now is a great time to get pregnant, provided you’re in an area with medical practitioners. In two or three years…. well… either the structure will be in flux or even weirder. And just in case, find a midwife you’re comfortable with, too.

If you’re medicine dependent investigate how to get it, and how to store it. Also lay in some anti-biotics and pain killers (non opioid. Like massive bottles of tylenol.) because it might help. Oh, and please also vitamins and such.

Establish or polish up your network of like-minded friends you can trust. Local, sure, but also on a line to get from point A to point B if you need to skedaddle. To that end, identify your “will not abandon” possessions and have a plan to get them ready and go. Note this is unlikely for most people, but it could happen, so be ready. Have containers for whatever you’d take. FYI if you have animals have carriers. ALSO FYI if you have cats, small dog kennels with a tiny litter box and food dish work great for multi-hour trips in the car.

Find through your contacts people who can do stuff you will need, like car repair, or house fix ups, in case those networks are hard to reach. Knowing someone who knows someone is the way things are done in most countries going bonkers.

“But Sarah, you said they can’t win.”

Sure. I did. And they can’t. because what they are trying to impose on reality can’t work in reality. They’re kind of like the guy who calls up Cthulhu not realizing that not only will it eat him first, but it can’t survive in our reality.

Again, for the slow of mind: No, America can’t go communist and stay communist forever. Because if it does, the rest of the world starves. And so do we, in double quick time. And we’re too spoiled to take it. Also, the arrant idiots in charge have no clue of how complex and difficult this country is, though I think they’re starting to get a sense for it, as they try to pull their “infallible lockdown” trick twice. Because, yes, they’re that stupid.

WE ARE THE COUNTRY THAT FEEDS THE WORLD. We’re also the “universal buyer.” If we hit even a rough patch, everyone else starves. Which is what’s causing unrest all over. We’re on the verge of a rough patch and they’re getting horribly pinched. (Which is why this fight is global.)

Also we’re too distributed, and enough remains of local rule that the idiots can’t do what they think they can. That they still think they can is obvious as they bark orders that no sane person would expect obeyed. But that’s because they’re stupid and provincial and think the entire country is their tiny neighborhood.

What they can do is create a mess like nothing you’ve ever seen.

They are already largely being ignored. They can’t stand that, so they’re going to kept ratcheting up the crazy, which is going to destroy a lot of our structure.

For instance, several GOP traitors in the house have voted to pass the infrastructure bill which would destroy our voting system, since they folded the For The People bill under it. (Or a lot of its provisions.) What they think will happen but mass unrest, and the splintering of localities, I don’t know.

The problem is that though our institutions are corrupt and buckling, if you destroy the whole thing at once, it’s going to be insane for a while. I’ll remind you they’ve captured everything from certification boards to regulation boards. This means some parts of the country won’t understand the other half, and frankly for a while it will be a time of great terror and opportunity, just on the every day level.

And if you destroy it piece-meal there’s the potential of a just as bad but slightly more viable regime creeping in.

And that’s what we’re looking at you know? Fast or slow?

I’m hoping for fast, because American ingenuity will step in. If slow…. well, look, FDR never got it all his way. But the corruption that crept in we’re dealing with right now. Plus at the level of stupidity these buffons de derriere are pushing, it will only be slow in some areas. Others will collapse hard and fast and possibly on fire. And there’s no telling how difficult that will be for the sane areas. We are linked and interdependent.

I think it’s going to be fast, because these people are not FDR. Frankly, they’re not fit to wipe the coals off FDR in hell. So they’re pushing too far too fast and too divorced from reality. On top of which they’re panicked. And they’re not geniuses when not panicked.

Oh, maybe the museum is just filling with smoke from a nearby fire, and we’ll be fine.

But I’m sounding the tocsin, just in case. This is no ordinary danger. Get serious about getting safe now, if not last Wednesday.

This is the sauve-qui-peut.

In the end we win, they lose, but getting there will entail extreme discomfort for most people and high danger for a few.

Be not afraid. But be not an idiot either.

Go and make everything fast against the Earthquake.

320 thoughts on “Sounding the Tocsin”

      1. Any questions about the vote in Idaho being rigged have been answered in the affirmative.
        (Some things came to light during the tea party, but it was hard to know how deep the rot went. It was obvious the establishment sold out education reform in exchange for the Democrat’s help in fighting off the insurgency. Beyond that, and the population centers of both parties became right unfriendly to the rest of the state, but deep rooted conspiracy was a very fringe belief. WAS.)

        1. It is also rigged in Colorado. How do I know? Because they got in ahead of anyone trying and said there would be no audits, and Colorado has the SAFEST elections.
          In case you wonder, this means Biden lost BIG here.

    2. The bill will be declared a “budget reconciliation”, which allows it to not get filibustered.

      The main thing right now is to encourage Senators Sinema and Manchin to hold the line, and make sure that the usual RINO squishes know that they’ll never be able to show their faces in public again if they vote for it.

      1. No, if they had any shame at all it would have stopped them long, long ago.

      2. There are limits on what can be in a reconciliation bill. Changing elections laws doesn’t fit within them. They could override the Parliamentarian, but that’s equivalent to nuking the filibuster, and there are a bunch of Senators on both sides of the aisle that don’t want that. Manchin and Sinema are just the ones willing to take the heat for it on the Democrat side.

        1. Ultimately the parliamentarian has no more direct power than any other member. If Speaker Pelosi or VP Harris rules from the chair that you can do that in a reconciliation bill, the only recourse would be “I appeal the ruling of the chair!” which requires a 2/3 vote. So the Democrats would get their way.

          Beyond that I don’t think anybody knows what various members of the public would be willing to do. But the enactment of S 1/HR 1, if not overturned by the Supreme Court, would guarantee that the next transfer of power — if there is any, ever — will not be peaceful, because as long as that bill is in force it’s impossible to transfer it peacefully.

          1. Pretty much. And a decade ago, Sen. Reid claimed that a health insurance bill was “budget reconciliation”. It’s not as if the Dems haven’t already done this sort of thing.

    3. If the Democrats can keep their minions in line, Commie La Whorish will be the tiebreaker. That also assumes the Republican will hold fast and that is in no way guaranteed: Who know what kompromat the FBI or Big Tech have on the Squishy Senators.

      Never forget politics is about power and those who seek power almost always fight dirty. Even when they don’t have to.

      1. So far, the Dems have *not* been able to keep Sinema and Manchin in line. Both have been digging their feet in against a number of high profile Dem bills.

        1. Well so far so good, but having to depend on those two is a little like having to depend on a risce paper condom…

        2. Sinema’s against it is my understanding, which tells you that AZ business is against it…

    4. If it does, as it is, I will not be able to comply.

      As bad as the voting provisions are, we can fight them in court and what not. But, compelling me to find abortions makes me immediately a participant in unjust killing.

      I’m not going to do that. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I’m not going to do that.

      Sort of thinking the only appropriate response if it passes, is to show up at the House and protest until they reinstate it. I know that will bring the world down on my head, but I feel like, I could not live with my self if I did anything other. What was the saying? “Here I stand. I can do no other.” I so see who said that,

      1. I am with you. It was Martin Luther i believe.
        When I saw what they were once again trying to do with something the VAST majority of Americans agree is a horrible idea, I immediately googled how to not pay any taxes. Not at an age or wealth status that I can not work, but will grind my gourd every single minute.

        I have personally known 6 woman who have had abortions. Including ex wife (after) and not a single one did not regret it in their very soul. They knew and in two cases never ended up having children so that one was their only chance. I believe that part of what is going on now is in payback for 60+ MILLION abortions.

        On another note what is driving them to keep pushing sooo hard on all the levers we normal s feel strongly about. Is it really as our Host says that they just do not GET us?

        1. Yeah, it was Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms. The Church was trying to get him to recant his statements that were true. So he said FU.

          And they have been programmed to not only not “get” us, they have been programmed for disinterest about and even approval of violence against us. That’s what the legacy media does–propagandizes us as the “other” and then creates laws to isolate, exclude, and eliminate the dangerous “other”. As a way to “restore order,” dontcha know.

      3. Morally speaking, it puts you the position of a victim of carjacking whose vehicle is then used in a suicide attack.

        Rather like that nice Polish gentleman with the attack in Nice.

        He did everything he could– they killed him, but in the process he so damaged his attackers that they couldn’t do nearly what they had planned to do.

        I suspect this is also why they are so desperate to get people to “voluntarily” take the vaccines.

        1. I suspect this is also why they are so desperate to get people to “voluntarily” take the vaccines.

          Getting the victim to think they wanted it is paydirt for abusers.

          1. Seeing it as roughly, morally the same as choosing to eat human flesh when it is not even a major threat of death is more the angle.
            Not “want it” but “are brow beaten into doing it.”

            Great excuse to target the same religious Jews that New York’s unspeakable was so obvious about targeting last year, too.

          1. Remember that truck that plowed into the crowds at the beach town in Nice, France?

            They got the truck by hijacking.

            It was supposed to be a two pronged attack. Guy in truck, and guys running amok on foot.

            Unarmed Polish truckdriver, Lukasz Urban. They tried to beat him to death, stabbed him, and then had to shoot him, and he STILL injured the blankers enough at first the cops thought he’d been alive just before the crash and had yanked the wheel at the last moment, because of how jacked up the whole crew was.

            He’d been dead for hours, he just fought like…well, made his ancestors proud.

      4. Martin Luther is alleged to have said that, recorded response at Diet of Wurms was this as far as we can tell

        Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen

        It’s possible he said “Here I stand I can do no other, May God help me” but like many things attributed to famous people it gets expanded/garbled/reinterpreted.

        1. Strong words – and as a stiff-necked Lutheran, they are practically embossed on my heart.
          The most stirring and magnificent FY in western history, practically.
          And he fully expected to be executed for saying them. Only that his friends and allies effected a “kidnapping” on his way home. He was in hiding for a couple of years, in the castle of a noble ally, where he worked on the German-language translation of the Bible.

            1. I don’t know Galileo’s retort is good but a bit on the whiny side. Say what you will about Martin Luther, but there is a serious Dirty Harry vibe, kind of ” Well Punk was that 94 or 95 theses, I don’t quite remember. Go ahead punk make my day”.

  2. I am staring with amazement at the ‘vaccinated people can carry and transmit the terrifying delta variant’ news that’s now mainstream.

  3. Why I had my gallbladder out in April.
    But if you’re right that’s another reason to avoid my cousins-in-law’s reunion in MA. (Were going to anyway, they sincerely believe the South is going up in flames from the dreaded Delta Variant, and we are sweet summer children for not realizing it. This is from people who, so far as I know, have not left the Northeast for at least a year, while we have been in 10 states, so far. But we are ignorant).

    1. Yep. Sounds about par-for-the-course. My brother and soon-to-be-SIL are in MA. They still believe the Kung Flu is practically an automatic death sentence and anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are right up there with the NSDAP and the KKK in terms of evil and depravity.

            1. had to take southwest on a 24 hour round trip couple days ago. first leg – must wear masks. 2nd leg – and they must be CLOTH.! surgical masks were not aloud to board. now that is crazy

    2. Oh, gawd, yes. I visited my son back up on Long Island in NY this spring and despite my driving +/- 730 miles each way to and from SC…they would not let me visit my grandsons in the house. I had to visit them outside and stay elsewhere. It was a huge concession given me to even use the rest room, masked and hand-sanitized afterward. The dreaded Delta variant was all they talked about. I’d HAD a (due to weight loss and D3 supplements) a mild case of Covid in early march of 2020 and been vaccinated. But I was the reckless one, now an idiot southerner. *eyeroll* PS – they cut one of my two visits to 45 minutes when it rained.

  4. I think they overplayed their hand last year. Between the draconian overreach and the ever-changing, usually contradictory proclamations, declarations, and regulations, all but the most committed Kool-Aid Drinkers (because there are none so blind as those who refuse to see) are a) realizing that it’s all a bunch of porcine feces and b) deciding that they’re done complying.

    Back during ‘Ronapocalypse Round 1, there was near-total compliance, enforced ruthlessly by our governor and Cousin It, his Health Minister (apologies for inflicting s/him on the rest of the country). And people were scared. But now, a ‘Ronapocalypse II: The Delta Farce kicks off, there’s minimal compliance. Der Obergrupperfuhrer and his party got their collective ass handed to them in the last election (including multiple ballot initiatives stripping him of his ability to perpetuate states of emergency indefinitely and bypass the Legislature), and almost nobody is masking up in public. The vaccination percentage has practically flatlined too. The fearmongering from the Legacy Media and outright threats from the State Gov and State Police, are back in spades, but a lot of folks – including local governments – are starting to crank up Twisted Sister and sing along as loud as they can.

    1. In the vein of ‘Merry Kulturkampf and a Happy New Boog’, Twisted Sister has a cover that goes:

      “Come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant…”

          1. I can’t find it now, but Bimbi Of Plastic Brain fluttered at Dee Snider about how can a Jew sing Christmas songs with such oomph, and he did an amazingly polite variation of the “well, why wouldn’t I sing about a Jew’s birthday?” thing.

            Impressed me. I mean, yeah, that they’re still alive decades after they started means they have SOME sense, but still. 😀

            1. Twisted Sister always struck me as pretty level-headed. The extreme looks were an act. His testimony in Congress showed me that he was a smart guy, and songs like this one that he can actually sing, too.

  6. “I get a feeling we’re about on the last viable train out of danger, but maybe there will be another year grace.”

    You’re far enough along that in your case, “grace” consists of some da*n fool coming along who is terrified of the rednecks and looking to live in the more-enlightened city, to purchase your house. There’s still quite a few of those, so you’re probably fine.

  7. Totally agree with all of the above. Have managed to move from big blue state to a nice cozy red state. The occasional insularity we experience is usually squashed with a chuckle in answer to the inevitable “Why did you move here?” because with the corresponding answer being, “we could not live behind enemy lines any longer” some level of understanding is achieved.

    That our fearless leaders do not get it (reality) is brought home to me daily as the manager of a large retail store. My customers are pissed off, quiet about it generally but there is a seething anger that is very hard to miss. This cuts across all races and income levels.

    Oddly enough though you cannot prepare for every eventuality. Though there is significant overlap regarding general preparedness, the complete societal breakdown scenario is difficult to wrap the head around. Do I put away the classics as well as reference books, how about clothing patterns, how much food is enough, will my town and neighborhood survive. All valid concerns and questions but how much can you do and what if you have to completely bug out. Skill sets even more important.

    1. I think that’s one reason why I don’t travel outside of Texas much. My birth state, Illinois, is pretty much enemy territory due to the Chicago machine. I don’t want to go there, even if large swath’s of my mother’s side of the family (plus my prog brother and my nieces) live up there. Though most of Mom’s family lives in SW Illinois which has always been a bit… annoyed at Chicago’s influence on the state.

        1. You have no idea how much such things mean to me. My ancestors ferried their grain across the river to be milled at an establishment that employed a clerk by the name of Abraham Lincoln. I left that place because my ancestors squandered the riches they were bequeathed, and it was no longer a place in which a man’s talents could find gainful employment.

      2. I think MOST of Illinois is irritated with Chicago. And maybe Springfield.

        1. I dimly remember some movement in the 70s-80s where SW Illinois threatened to separate and form a new state, though not all the details. I lived in central Illinois from 1980-1986 (basically my junior high and early high school years) so I definitely wouldn’t have gotten all the details.

          1. I was hearing rumbling about the non-Chicago-Metro counties either leaving Illinois or trying to force the metro section out. Sounds a lot like Oregon, I fear.

            Have a fair amount of family there, with some strong impediments to moving out of the free-fire zone. I think most know the situation, but I’m not in a position to hear nor influence pre-catastrophic planning.

            We’re in a very red section of Oregon, and I think it’s safe to stay planted. Between geography and a bunch of pissed off Deplorables, the woke brigades would have a hard time getting here and would get an enthusiastic welcome. A rather noisy one.

          2. Born in northwest Illinois and spent first half of my life there. State is mostly small town, rural, farming oriented, and somewhat conservative. Trouble is they have a huge malignant growth on their neck, Cook County, aka the Greater Chicago area, with tendrils run deep into Springfield. Residents of those environs look down on the rest of the population as “down state” and at best treated us as poor cousins good for little other than being the butts of their ever so more sophisticated jokes.
            Chicago built a new expressway every couple of years off of our gas taxes while we drove on gravel roads.
            Chicago erected yet another massive public building while we conducted official business in prefabs and quonset huts.
            Chicago demanded strict gun control, in many ways stricter than California, and our people mostly complied or simply chose to ignore the laws that prohibited self defense with a firearm.
            Illinois was the last state in the Union to allow any sort of concealed carry permit.
            They were the first state to require the infamous FOID card, Firearm Owner Identification, required before one could as much as touch a gun, and renewable every five years.
            Side note, none of the vast number of weekend murders constantly reported out of Chicago are done with legally acquired firearms. Traffic in black market guns and illegal drugs is a closely intertwined system.

            1. It looks like the cancer is spreading to the surrounding counties, too. When I was of voting age in the early 1970s, suburban Cook county was a fair ballast for Chicago, but sometime after I left in ’74, the county went full Dem. I assume it was a combination of progtards moving from Chicago to the ‘burbs and old fashioned votor fraud.

              1. It’s just fraud. Again, if Biden didn’t win Colorado — and he didn’t, because look at the squawking about how they won’t let anyone audit — it’s a bet it’s all fraud.

      3. Yes, the fake votes in Chicago, many of them on the South Side, have allowed the machine to completely control a State that largely hates them…The coin flip back in 2000 for redistricting finished off the Republicans…

    2. I’m in Texas – lamentably in a city which is tinged slightly blue, but the outskirts where I am are balanced by the presence of a great many military retirees. I like my little suburban cottage, and spent a great deal of my future income in getting it right, tight, and ship-shape for the next couple of years, with new siding, windows, and paint – this while such work is still affordable…

    3. I really wish my state would stop importing California techies. Nothing I can do about it though and I do love Utah. Also all my family but one brother is here so … lift where I stand I guess.

    4. It won’t collapse that far. The collapse will not be a total or everywhere. It’s just going to be…. inconvenient. Very inconvenient. But we’re not losing tech.

  8. As I offered before, if anyone needs to/wants to/is considering a move to east Tennessee, I’ll be happy to help as I can. Contact Sarah privately, she know how to get in touch with me.

    1. Tennessee is actually a place I’ve been considering and it’s probably my most realistic and economical option from where I am now (NW GA) so I’d definitely be interested in learning more from you about that. I’ve never really thought of GA as home and now that Atlanta is just one more act of fraud away from turning the whole state blue I want to get out while the getting is good.

      1. This part of the state, at least, seems to be in pretty good shape. And given our history, I don’t expect anything the feds or even the state gov’t tries to impede our freedom will be followed.

        1. Sounds like a nice place for sure and a good place to dig in against whatever unpleasantness ends up happening. We’ll definitely have to talk about this more. 🙂

  9. I’m….. as far moved as I can be, which is still in the same city.

    OTOH I’m about as far from the side of town where trouble could start as it is possible to be (besides nothing ever happens here, even during the summer of peace there was a little trouble which didn’t spread0. And Sangamon County went red this time.

    So it is pretty much batten down the hatches and hope for the best.

    1. Yup. In the end, “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”

  10. Let’s see…
    Heating oil. Yep, check.
    Small standby generator. Check and tested.
    Enough wood felled and bucked to get through the winter if electric needed to run the oil furnace fails. Check.
    Enough gasoline to get two trucks and a boat to the sparsely inhabited seafood rich coast if necessary. Check.
    Over 3 months of food stored. Check.
    Clothing bundles suitable for -50° weather stored in 3 places well away from the house. Check.
    Blades and spades. Check.
    Projectiles and projectile projectors. Check
    Massive trauma kit. One, need to get another and store remote.
    Got things pretty well covered, with a bit more effort, we’ll be right, mate.

        1. At least you don’t have mosquitoes! Not at all interested in moving back to the cold North.

              1. In the Alaskan interior they’re more like four-engined long-range strategic mosquitos.

              2. With afterburners! 😛

                “Nah, the skeeters around here only carry off a few small children a year. Reports of ’em carrying off adults are just shamelessly exaggerated tall tales; sensible folks don’t pay ’em no mind.”

    2. One last trip to the local stores to see if there’s any last minute stuff that I can stick in a odd spot.

      Also more peanut butter for the squirrel traps.

  11. We live about mumble miles from a large blue city with several major military facilities. Don’t know which set of assholes will be stampeded first…

  12. The Arizona audit is grinding to its inevitable conclusion, and there are moves to audit the vote in enough “swing” states to change the outcome. There are moves to audit the vote in enough “Red” states to put conservative politicians in control of both Houses of Congress next year. Therefore, between now and October, The Party will do something gobsmackingly a) stupid and b) evil. It’s over-determined.

      1. Even before outright manufacturing fraudulent ballots, Democrats are going to coordinate with big tech and big finance to deprive opposing candidates of any sort of platform and ability to raise funds. They already did that to some targets like Laura Loomer in 2020, expect them to engage in a widespread effort to do so for 2022; indeed even more than “getting Trump” the current Stalinist show-trial Pelosi is conducting is meant to create a pretext to declare the entirety of the Republican Party to be “violent extremists” and “domestic terrorists” to be banned across the board by the oligarchs.

        1. Yes, but declaring their political opponents en-masse to be either or both of those things would fall under the category of ‘gobsmackingly stupid.’ 😀

          Not they might not do that. But it won’t work the way they think it will.

          1. They have already been doing it for a while right now, including a now erased “tweet” by one of their NY Times mouthpieces declaring every singple person who voted for Trump to be “an enemy of the state”. Pelosi herself called Republicans “enemies of the state”. They simply do not care how much they anger people in their campaign to demonize all opposition. Yes, they are being stupid, but simply pointing that out isn’t going to stop their power grab.

            1. That’s just the point, though: they may still attempt the power grab, and it may cause some widespread suckage for a period of time, but it isn’t going to succeed. Because people ARE pointing out the stupid of it, and people are noticing. Nonpolitical types are noticing. People are angry about it.

              Just because the switch hasn’t been flipped yet does NOT mean the lefties are winning. They are, in fact, NOT, which is why we get increasingly stupid behavior from them. They’re desperate to hold onto power–but all their old tactics are not working because they’re still stuck in 1990, when there wasn’t much of an internet and all the actual-conservatives still thought they were in the minority and kept quiet. They’re still quiet–but they (we) know more than ever they (we) are NOT alone.

              1. Maybe Pelosi and company are stuck in t the 1990s, but the oligarchs who rung Google, Twitter and Facebook are not. And they, as much as the Democrats in office, are driving the push for single party CCP style rule, with accompanying social credit systems, etc. A

                From what i have seen, there are still a lot of people who may be angry at what is going on but are still trying to be the last person eaten by the alligator rather than actually try to stop the alligator.

                1. Dude. Stop. Despairing. Honestly. It’s not gonna help you, and will actually hinder you hugely. There is a reason many religions consider despair to be a sin.

                  1. Despair in the ultimate is a sin. Despair in temporal realities may be a duty.

                    OTOH, the ultimate hope requires that we soldier on in temporal impossibilities.

                    1. It is not despair. It is simply recognizing the possibility that we can lose (even if they lose also). There are a lot of people who hate what the left is doing but are of the “but what can i do about it” mindset, or even worse “there is nothing I can do but try to get on” mindset. Maybe in your states or areas where you live, not as much. Where I live, it is rampant, even among people who should know better.

                2. I have no problem with letting the alligator eat Democrats…

                  ….while I go find my alligator cannon.

                  1. Wait, is that an “alligator cannon” like an elephant gun, or like a potato gun?

                    2. Commercial gator hunters generally catch the beasties on baited hooks then dispatch them with a .22 long rifle shot to the kill spot between and just back of the eyes. They might use a centerfire rifle to nail one out in the open on occasion, but the goal is to harvest the animal with minimal damage to that very expensive hide.

              2. And even the non-political couldn’t help but notice when the price of gasoline doubled (or in some areas, near-tripled) almost overnight. That sort of direct pain means more to most people than all the political machinations combined.

              3. In the long run it won’t succeed, because communism doesn’t work, but that doesn’t mean we win either. Both sides can lose, and there will likely be A LOT of bloodshed in the process.

                Also, the minute people think it can happen here (them winning short-medium term) is the moment it can and likely WILL happen here. Jews in Germany thought it couldn’t happen there either, some of them even as they were being loaded on cattle-cars to be sent to the concentration camps and gas chambers.

                The Nazi’s were a minority of the German populace. The Bolsheviks were a minority of the Russian populace. Because both of them had no lines they would not cross in the pursuit of power, and those opposing them did have lines, even in trying to stop them, those small ruthless groups won; again in the short term. And yes, our aspiring mass murdering tyrants are a lot dumber than those were. There are still too many people willing to try to hand on the creature comforts until its too late so as to make the stupid aspiring totalitarians win. And again, not ALL of them are dumb., The tech oligarchs certainly aren’t. Assume their inability to succeed at risk of your own life.

                1. The only way we lose is if all Americans quit. Americans aren’t Germans or Russians, the latter two never had much history of a representative government prior to the end of WWII (and the Russians still haven’t). America is a self-similar nation, zoom in and you find the same basic structure and expectations. Even the cities aren’t a Progressive as the election results would lead you to believe. They’re just left-leaning enough to support a fraud machine that takes it from there. If the Democrats running the federal government – or Facebook – go too far Americans will simply stop paying attention to them. They might try to force the issue, but remember that they’re pretty much incompetent at anything outside of election fraud (and even then their abilities are suffering). Our system works in the real world, theirs doesn’t. That means as time goes on we get stronger and they get weaker and more desperate.

                2. Americans are not Germans or Russians. Americans have not spent their entire history in a top-down social, political, and cultural system. We have never had hereditary-by-law rulers. We have VERY DIFFERENT expectations of our government and that is not a minor thing. We know and expect things to run differently than Europeans expect. Especially pre-WWII Europeans. Our reactions to government craziness has been and will continue to be very different than European reactions.

              4. There’s the still and quiet of a rabbit watching a fox — and then there’s the still and quiet of a leopard watching a gazelle.

          2. Yes, but declaring their political opponents en-masse to be either or both of those things would fall under the category of ‘gobsmackingly stupid.’

            So what you are saying is that there is no question in any possible universe that they will do it.

              1. Yup the Democrats seem to be reaching for Larry Correia’s switch to flip it from “Its Fine” to “Shoot everyone and let G*d sort it out”. I’m not sure they understand how pissed of even the folks in the redder suburbs in the Blue States are getting. They’re happy to let folks do stupid stuff inside the cities but pushing that crap out to the exurbs is not going to fly for too long…

                  1. They’re slightly more devious about getting the switch flipped, but that’s because they misjudge the potential scale of the reaction. They expect a limited response that can be broadcast to the world as an example of deplorable villainy, granting them more sway with the less radicalized masses. Think the Harpers Ferry raid during the lead-up to the Civil War. The raid accomplished nothing (aside from providing early words for a bit of music that would go on to become the glorious Battle Hymn of the Republic), and the slave owners were subsequently able to use it to build sympathy, and to keep their supporters and allies in line.

                  2. Like the fellow at our Christmas party many years ago who found and pressed the panic button for the alarm system because of course if you’re playing D&D and find something you use it to find out what it is.
                    Fortunately the police were understanding.

                    1. I personally will never forgive the idiots who pulled the fire alarm 3 times on the same very cold night in the dorms – a February, I think. We’re talking breath frosting in the air and snow and ice underfoot when everyone’s piled out in nightclothes because it was late enough sane students had already showered and hit bed. Ugh.

                2. Red states often have blue enclaves. Hopefully this new unpleasantness won’t be as bloody as it was before.

                  Anyone here from South Arkansas?

                  1. Before there were two largely homogeneous and contiguous areas that each side could use as a base of operations against the other. One of the main strategies of both sides was to break their opponent’s area up in to smaller pieces. The Union managed it with the Mississippi Campaign and Sherman’s March to the Sea. Lee tried several times but was never able to pull it off.

                    In the current climate the Blue areas would find themselves in the same situation as the Confederacy at the beginning of 1865, but worse. They might have a base of operations in the New England-DC axis and another one along the I-5/US-101 corridor, but outside of that it’s Redistan speckled with isolated islands of bluish.

                    1. The water, the food, the fuel, and the electricity all comes from those red areas. Look what happened when one pipeline got shut down for a week.

                      The Blues have their heads stuck in a guillotine, Red America is holding the rope, and the Leftroids don’t have a clue. All they’d have to do is let go.

                    2. That’s why I don’t think it will actually get to a war. The Left simply doesn’t have the ability to project power beyond a short walk from the last bus stop.

                    3. Not exactly. In the current climate, the blue areas would indeed find themselves cut off from each other. But unlike in 1865, the blue areas would probably have higher manpower densities, with large numbers of individuals concentrated around each major metropolitan area. How much that would mean, I can’t say.

                    4. Not much. Those metropolitan areas would be unable to feed their populations, much less turn them into effective fighting forces. For one thing, they just don’t have access to that kind of weaponry.

                    5. And while the gentry/political class in the cities isn’t armed, the street gangs/criminal gangs are armed to the teeth, notwithstanding all the gun control laws they simply ignore. Some of them even have things like Uzi’s.

                    6. Sure thing. Card, take a powder. They’d rather kill each other. Only democrats believe they’re disciplined fighting forces, but you’re not forced to believe that bullshit.

                    8. “Only democrats believe they’re disciplined fighting forces,”

                      Of course, neither are we. Have you checked in to forming / joining a neighborhood watch, let alone a militia? Try it sometime, and let them know you’re a licensed CHL The police liaison is sure to ask. Frowns, and hints that maybe you shouldn’t join, are normal, because they know what the criminal and civil liability climate is, even in places like Plano TX.

                      It got worse after the ascension of St Trayvon of the Blessed Hoodie. Ask me how I know.

                    11. They don’t need to act as an organized fighting force for Democrats. They just need to do what they have been doing for years in New Jersey; taking stolen cars out to the burbs so they can carjack people, rob malls, do home invasions, etc., THAT activity of the street gangs is fairly organized, like the way La Cosa Nostra used to steal freight out of what is now Kennedy Airport back in the day.

                    12. You don’t win civil wars that way.

                      And that’s nothing that can’t be stopped by good road blocks, once the war gets going, which would be needed anyway to starve them out.

                    13. That’ll work a couple of times. Then the stolen cars will stop coming back.

                3. On some level I hope the Democrats do flip that switch. Because if they manage to convince us to sit placidly in the hot water while it finishes heating all the way to boiling, we’re ruined. There has to be a point before then that we actually get to fight. And if it does happen, I’d much rather see them be the ones to shoot first, for the same reason that Lincoln patiently waited for Fort Sumter to take place.

                  This also relieves everyone on our side of the need to issue a call to arms, which would certainly be stopped by Fed infiltrators or used against us by provocateurs. When there is explicit enough provocation, red state governors and sheriffs will issue the call themselves.

  13. Have recently realized that the adversarial forces just about can’t win, because their victory condition requires winning some information campaigns with conflicting objectives, in some very difficult ‘terrain’.

    The Russians can’t avoid using hacking to screw around with us, because Putin is not an improvement over the soviets, is angry about the Magnitsky act, can’t get traction with US politicians, and thinks a little immiseration will cause us to /self-destruct/ in a civil war.

    PRC can’t refrain from trying to sock puppet their US agents of influence, because of security concerns preventing them from being able to tolerate external dissent. Largely because of the fact that a communist regime is inherently a bandit gang, so the Republic of China is the only actual government to succeed the Qing.

    And the brain dead Democrat morons are trying to use a senile pedophile as a spokesman, and to support him with a bunch of unlettered imbeciles in the media. They have to bitch about the Russian hacking to avoid alienating some of what little domestic support remains. They cannot be articulate enough to complain about Russian hacking without raising concerns about Chinese or German meddling with the ‘secure’ electronic voting machines.

    They interfere in each other’s fights, and to win have to be able to run an information campaign that has certain properties across a number of cultures and populations.

    Putin knows a little about fooling Russians, Pooh maybe a lot less about fooling Chinese, and the Democrat leaders have surrounded themselves with yes-men.

    So, they are screwed.

    The thing that isn’t very visible is the opposition supporters slipping off the battle field, or looking for a way out.

    There is a fundamental implication to Bill Reader’s Brahamandarin model. These effers rest their social identity in the idea that academics, bureaucrats, etc., of all nations have more in common than not. When the centers of evil like DC, Germany, Iran, Russia, PRC, etc., screw over each other’s fundamental positions, it hurts that feeling of commonality.

    The federal bureaucracy is Americans, deep state Brahamandarins, deep state political hacks, and some actual ideologues within the deep state. The deep state is necessary to prevent loss of morale by the regime tolerant, and the deep state itself should be facing morale erosion.

    Flip side of the equation, most Americans are not political junkies, and so have been slow to realize that we can’t simply wait the regime out. They are only going to be persuaded by the gu jar’s actions that the gu jar of vicious morons is a bunch of crazy, lying, would be mass murderers. Which has actually come very far in only six months.

      1. Putin really, really wants to be Tsar. Which, I concede, was what Stalin and the later Party leaders basically were. Frankly, it’s a miracle Yeltsin was honest enough to dismantle the USSR…

        1. Better Putin than some of the crazy alternatives (last time I looked, I wound up terrified that Putin would lose his position). Partly because he’s been a stabilizer, but more because under everything else, he’s a patriot, who also understands that his own survival is tied to Russia’s well-being.

          Russia is in the unenviable position of having non-defensible borders, especially to the west, and a justifiable historical paranoia of invasion. (We do not truly understand how lucky we are that America is protected by surrounding oceans.) One way to prevent your enemies from packing up and attacking you en masse is to sow dissent among their ranks. The less they can agree on, the less likely they are to attack you. Or so goes the old soviet’s mindset. But they’re no longer in much of a position to sow military and political dissent, so internet trolls and Clinton conspiracies it is.

          1. Russia also shares a lengthy border with CCP controlled China, and Xi has already declared that he wants back those parts of “Greater China” that are currently part of Russia. Those nukes and that military build-up by the CCP aren’t just for the Pacific and for the USA-a lot of it is intended for Russia.

            1. Exactly. Russia would (quite sensibly) much rather China was Busy Elsewhere. And I would bet that more old Soviet nukes are aimed at Beijing than at America. (Whether any still (ever?) work is a different argument.) Putin is old enough to remember that communism wants to rule the whole world.

              Tho I admit to some irritated muttering about how people get the government they deserve… latest irk is video of a swarm of Chinese villagers being cowed by a small troop of official types there to bust open their levee (and flood the whole area, supposedly to save some dam elsewhere). Now would have been the time to rush the officials (already too close for guns to be effective) and toss them into the roaring waters, head first.

              But everyone is too afraid to be the nail that not only sticks up, but does so pointy-end-first.

          2. The case you make is one for exterminating the Russians, not one for praising Putin in any way shape or form.

            You are not accounting for the people he removes from the political picture.

            You could have made that same argument in support of Tojo.

            I think we shifted Japan back to domestic rule in something like 1955. I’m pretty sure that those Japanese politicians had been adults in 1945. But the 1944 estimate would have been pretty heavily biased by the number of absolute frothing lunatics who had been promoted to high positions.

            If it truly is Russian culture, extermination might be the only answer. If, on the other hand, Putin finds it convenient to have frothing lunatics in power, that situation may be quite a bit more temporary.

          3. Putin is not a patriot. He’s a self-interested mafia don who uses his contacts both inside and outside Russia from his KGB days to further his current power structure. He’s the head of a kleptocracy, the sole raison d’etre of which is the continued enriching of Vlad and his cronies. Any voicing of patriotism on behalf of Mother Russia is purely for selfish purposes. Read Karen Dawisha “Putin’s Kleptocracy” for a real inside baseball look. It will change your view of Putin’s actions and policies.

    2. Putin has done a remarkable job of revitalizing a nearly destroyed Russia, and its armed forces, but has avoided war ..GDP up by factor of 12 in real terms…Wish America had a leader one quarter as good…

      2. He is so insecure that he has people murdered, in other countries, using exotic means that are difficult to plausibly attribute to private actors.

        He is a Russian Obama, with a slightly more realistic world view, and a slightly more realistic understanding of how he compares to others.

        Also, dictatorship is a shitty, fragile form of government. For a person of ability to concentrate all decisions into their own hands, to effectively require a minimum level of competence in their successor, and to fail to develop everyone they can develop, is unwise and very bad for the organization. A leader that really improves the country is going to make their own position easier to do, devolve some of the power and decision making, and turn their new position over to someone who can handle the new duties.

        Biden may still be better able to apply his intelligence, and effectively better educated, than Obama. The real issue with Biden and Obama is that they are evil. Clinton and Carter were also evil. For situations where power in America is not concentrated in a dictator’s hands, the effective aggregate leadership quality is much superior to Russia’s, even in the case that the PotUS is a literal turnip.

        Also, you can go on to your final reward in Russia. I mean two things by that. One, that Russia is the afterlife where the souls of evil men are. Two, that you can hurry on to the afterlife where the souls of evil men go. Note: I mean both of these metaphorically, I would not tell you to kill yourself.

        1. I disbelieve the story of the guy supposedly poisoned by Putin’s minions whilst in Britain (or wherever he was, I forget) … because he’d been openly in Russia not long before, and could have been quietly eliminated at any time with no one the wiser, and no bad press. Further, he was no innocent; he’d been convicted of IIRC embezzlement among other things (he was on some sort of parole, which apparently was not being enforced).

          However, I quite believe that it might have been the Ukrainian criminal faction that is still annoyed because Putin put a halt to their corruption robbing Russia blind, and is still trying to get rid of him so they can go back to doing what they do best. Per some sources, the whole “Russian collusion” debacle actually started there, as an attempt to discredit Putin by painting him as Trump’s puppet; using it to attack Trump was merely collateral damage.

          1. Alexander Litvinenko. I believe that. Why? Because the FSB/KGB is enamored of James Bond type spy killings. They don’t want the quiet, unnoticed death (see Nemtsov). The former KGB and his daughter in the UK, and the list goes on. There are some lower level ones that were likely taken out more quietly, but the bigger names who were making a bigger splash most assuredly got taken out in very public, very dramatic fashion.

            1. Also, Litvinenko had been to a meeting with the Russian ambassador to the UK the day before he got sick. Not your average parolee’s behavior or invitation.

            2. Akshully, Ian Fleming was something to do with British intelligence during WWII.

              Bond villains are somewhat inspired by actual soviet/communist activists. Smersh was apparently a real organization!

        2. ‘Nother Obligatory Joke:

          Russian Jew sits on a park bench, reading. Russian cop notices the book is in some foreign language.

          Cop: “Old man! What are you doing?”

          Old Man: “I am studying Hebrew.”

          Cop: “Why you do that?”

          Old Man: “I am old. Soon I will die. I wish to learn the language of Heaven before it is too late.”

          Cop: [jeering] “Yaaah, what if you go to Hell?”

          Old Man: [big shrug] “Heh. I already know Russian.”

        1. I watch a lot of private video out of Russia, so have a running impression from on the ground. While it’s still largely a very poor country, with huge swaths that are economically depressed or even in ruins, it’s sure doing better than it used to. There’s been a lot of urban renovation (tho maintenance is still hit-or-miss), and the average car is no longer a decrepit Lada.

          So very likely Russia’s GDP is indeed several times better than it was under Soviet rule and shortly thereafter, but that’s still a pretty small number compared to the U.S. (And I just read somewhere that about 2/3rds of Russia’s GDP is oil exports, which account for nearly all the growth. Not exactly a diverse economy.)

          Here’s a long-term chart; don’t know where the data comes from.
          https://www.worldeconomics.com/GrossDomesticProduct/Russia.gdp

          Per their data, about 1/5th of the U.S. GDP. That might be a wee bit optimistic; not long ago I saw something like 1/10th.

            1. I’d say it depends mostly on the world oil market. While oil prices were depressed, Russia’s GDP dropped to nothing-much; hence all the panic from foreign quarters.

              Their farming sector has been recovering under Putin too; they’re finally to where they export some wheat. Which along with arms, oil and gas seems to be the sum total of their export market. (When did you last see “Made in Russia”??)

              1/10th is probably close enough for relative estimates.

              One should also remember that the U.S. GPD is inflated by (wasn’t it Clinton?) adding the service industries as “product”. No, services are a cost, not a product. So subtract all that to get more realistic numbers.

              1. Our current numbers are also being grossly distorted upwards by the printing of money non-stop as well. There is a crash and stagflation coming and it is going to be fugly.

  14. I moved to a rural/agricultural area five years ago. An ideal distance from an Interstate or major city where rioting has happened – not too near, not too far. And I’m in a largish area which could be interdicted by road blocks on a few state and country roads. Also lots of grain and bean silos around.
    There are still houses in some of the micro-communities around for quite reasonable prices – but can’t expect that to last much longer.

  15. I am already bugged out. I am about as bugged out as you can get and still be near civilization if a couple of small towns 30 minutes away and the nearest interstate, big city or major airport is 3 hours away civilization. As far as literal fire goes we are pretty safe since we have a conservation department that doesn’t have their head up the greens ass. Most of the neighbors are prepared for something and want to be left alone too but will help if you help them. Almost what you would expect of a community that is half way bugged out and believing the outside world has gone to hell. Socially/politically or any other way if things get bad here it’s too late. There isn’t really anywhere else to go. We only want to be left alone but it is looking like that may not be possible here in the future. The climate is fairly mild here either way so if you are looking to bug out but be varying levels of hood adjacent to civilization the Ozarks might be a good choice. A few people I know are making the switch.

    1. Not quite so far from cities; the nearest interstate is 2 hours away, and the 20K population city is 40 minutes in good weather. (The 1000 resident towns, maybe 20-30 minutes.) We also have some nice mountain roads (those living above 6000 feet can laugh), with a 5000′ pass that has some nice blockable roadway. Finally, we have a bunch of pissed off Deplorables who’ve had it with the woke brigades.

      We have sufficient food (can’t count on weekly trips mid-winter) and some offgrid power. Solar for the main and/or backup, gasoline gensets for the second level. If propane got short, we’d shift to the building that’s got wood heat and take it from there.

      As far as fire, the huge one in Oregon started* a few miles from us; we’ve got the quiet part of the fire now.

      (*) The official word is lightning. I think that’s correct.

      If things go pearshaped, we’re in the right place to be. Can’t say the same for relatives in blue areas of blue states (not all, but enough), but they’re adults and it’s their decision. Mostly. If I get panicked phone calls, we’ll play it by ear. OTOH, we’re a long way aways for them.

  16. Keep in mind most of you will be safe. No, seriously. Take it from someone who’s lived through this. You can live and work in dangerous places and still be completely safe. Just for the love of heaven, if you see a group of people behaving like lunatics run/drive/walk the other way.

    If you have a Bad Feeling about somewhere, or someone, and are beating yourself up about how you’re being silly– do it AFTER you left the area, OK?

    It’s a trope, but the guy sitting there muttering “this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening” is real.

    1. ^THIS. Or if you get a bad feeling/uneasy/prickling nagging that something is Wrong with someone–even if it’s someone you’ve known awhile–do NOT ignore that feeling in favor of “oh, but I don’t want to be rude.” And mind you, I am someone who qualifies as ‘supernaturally polite to nearly everyone’ saying this. DO NOT IGNORE THOSE SIGNALS. It is better to be thought rude than to be dead/imprisoned/something equally bad.

      1. My mom gave us blanket permission to use her as An Excuse when we need to run off places.
        “Oh, hell, my mom just throws a FIT if I don’t call when she says I will, I gotta go….”

      2. One of our cats, about 10 years ago, out of the blue started taking VIOLENT exception to someone who was part of our inner circle (Foxfier knows who.) The other cats let him pick them up and pet him, but this one would fight like a banshee, for no reason we could determine.
        I had a dream that night where the cat told me “Can’t you see it’s not really person, anymore? It’s a demon wearing the person.”
        I couldn’t get it out of my head. In retrospect we got off lightly. We should have listened to the cat. Which in the dream I think was my subconscious warning me.

        1. And the opposite. Before I married, I and the cat were living in New Jersey. I had a visit from an insurance agent. Tammi, normally rather shy, was all over him. Rubbing his ankles, in his lap….it was as if he was wearing Eau de Catnip.
          Several months later I was home miserably sick with the ‘flu and the phone rang. It was the salesman. Now in Jersey, bugging the sick woman until she buys something to get rid of you is just good sales technique. But after a couple of minutes talk he said, “You’re feeling lousy, aren’t you?” And when I admitted it, he said, “Then I’ll call back later,” and hung up.
          I totally used Tammi as a barometer after that. (She was quite fond of my future husband, too).

        2. >> “One of our cats, about 10 years ago, out of the blue started taking VIOLENT exception to someone who was part of our inner circle”

          Let me guess: Greebo or Pixie.

          Animals can get false positives, though. I seem to have a problem with some larger dogs, but I’m harmless unless provoked. I think I also have this effect on a lot of people as I have a “resting thug” face. I just don’t seem to read right to many. I’m pretty convinced I’m an aspie, though, which might explain it.

          That said, your four-legged friends are probably right WAY more often than not and I don’t blame anyone for not taking chances.

    2. Absolutely. Instincts exist because they’re (mostly) pro-survival. Your ancestors paid attention to their bad feelings, and took them seriously. The ones who ignored or explained away their bad feelings left no descendants.

      Experiments testing such intuitions found they’re right up to something like 88% of the time, especially with regard to picking out dangerous perps (well, yeah. In my observation, most hazardous lowlife wear a sort of fuck-you expression that makes their attitude obvious.)

      So if you have a Bad Feeling and an Urge to Flee, you’re not being silly; you’re being observant, and exercising a desire to be around for your descendants.

        1. Heh. After watching the true crime series “Evil Lives Here” me and the parents decided that, really, the series was a community service: you got shown ALL THE RED FLAGS, so hopefully, you’d know what to look for BEFORE letting the psycho killer move in/marry you/become your roommate. (Though the ones where it was a parent were sadder–the kids didn’t exactly get a say in it. But. All the boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse where “Oh wow, my significant other suddenly turned into a raging monster. I mean, okay, he/she killed our dog, and acts really creepy and weird around certain other people, but how could I ever have seen them trying to kill me/my kids/etc coming?? It was just so unlike them!” :p

    3. One of the best things I did in college was get involved with the improv group. Seriously, improv done right is full of life skills, the primary one in this case being the short-circuiting of “this isn’t what/where I expected” into “this is what it is; where do I go from here?”

      When September 11th happened, I really noticed it with my coworkers. They (largely young) were mostly still trying to wrap their heads around what had happened, and I’d already moved on to “nobody who wasn’t involved will take credit for this” (remember when terrorist groups would take credit for anything?) and “we’re going to war as soon as we have a target.”

  17. So now, before everyone can smell the smoke: get to high ground.

    *facepalms*

    I know exactly what you’re saying, but I was thinking about the fires my folks had over their back fence a decade-ish ago and my INSTANT gut reaction was “NO NO NO NO, FIRE GOES UP HILL!”

    …which is actually a *good* idea if you’re going up a hill when it’s not even at the top of the hill across the way. And I know THAT, too, but the thing that was pounded into my head for when I can’t think is: “I see fire.
    Run away from fire by going down hill.”

    Just amused me what training will do.

    1. Add to that: fire travels with the wind. As much as possible, flee against the wind.

      There’s video of a brush fire in Australia moving at ~60mph, driven by wind and its own ignition front. It’s not the burning material that makes it move so fast; rather, it’s the leading heat front igniting combustibles.

      1. Sometimes the right thing to do is start a fire ahead of you. Then you cower in the ashes while the big one goes around you.

        2. The burn-out operations, aka “Backfire” used in wildland fire fighting is the professional version of the same. Knew one guy (independent contractor) who did such to save himself.

      2. The Bootleg fire didn’t read that memo. Downhill, upwind, still advancing. Bone dry fuels will do that. The only safe bet for dealing with that fire was not to be there. Spotting 1/2 to 1 mile with extreme behavior as soon as it the brand hits makes for interesting times. I hate interesting times.

        We were never quite in an evacuation zone, though at the begining, the ranch just across the highway was in a Level 2 “Be ready to leave at a moment’s notice” alert. The fire stayed away and never got closeer than 8 miles to our place or the population 400 $TINY_TOWN. The town east of us had to evacuate thier evacuation/relieft supply center when the fire got to 4 miles away. Stayed that far, mercifully.

        1. We were out by Crater Lake in 2018 and were told if the rangers came by and said to leave, leave. Now. That fire was about eight miles away. It was like living in the bottom of a brass jar.

          1. Cedar Flats, Deerhorn Road, and Thurstan, Springfield Oregon, were all on evacuation orders, for the Holiday Fire, last fall … the fire lines were still 20 miles east. It was moving that fast. Never got that close before the first fall rains started damping it down.

        2. Yeah, once you get a really hot ignition front going, it doesn’t matter if it’s downhill or against the wind; whatever is dry and in range of the heat will burn so fast your hair will curl from miles away.

          There’s video from a Texas wildfire that shows the ignition front — dry stuff just pops into flame several feet before the ground fire gets there, so it accelerates as it goes. Looks like magic.

          1. Fire can “run” faster uphill or down, faster you can run. When it is running that hot, a couple widths of dozer passes is not going to stop it. In 2003 the fire on the PCT jumped Hwy 126, at the top of the pass. Where there is 3 lanes and wide pull offs for semis to test brakes before heading down either side of the pass.

            1. Yeah, the recent big fire north of Santa Clarita (which burned down the place I first lived in SoCal… karma to my bitch landlady from hell) jumped the highway in numerous places, and IIRC also one spot along the freeway. When it gets to where it creates its own wind, look out!

  18. My sweet, beautiful sister, who teaches children to sing, told me on the phone today: “I’m ready to go Red Wedding on all of them.”

    It’s the second mask mandate, the ridiculous and unbelievable “delta variant,” the massive invasion at the border, and the general all around arrogance and stupidity of the so-called ruling class. We’re about to go into the dog days of August, and I think it’s going to get hot.

    2. Mandates based on a study that failed peer review, sampled only 100 patients, the vaccinated ones of whom had taken a vaccine developed and made in India that is not in use or approved in the USA. The other study, the British one as to mortality, based there fatality percentage on patients with not one, not two, not even three, but FIVE comorbidities. It’s as if they are simply making up whatever they can to justify imposing more draconian measures, just as they are trying to ram their “fundamental transformation of America” through Congress.

      1. Apparently another study they using involved a bunch of gay guys having “Bear Weekend,” which, ahem, involves indiscriminate imtimacy.

        1. I’m sure there was a lot of that going on, too, but the whole Bear Weekend thing as relates to Covid was mostly about people packing into bars wall-to-wall, literally SRO. Like con crud but even more so.

  19. *sigh* We’re working on it. It’s a bit more complicated than I’d like it to be but we are in the process of getting somewhere safe. I think the statement that I’m not happy with how much we’re leaving exposed is rather obvious.

  20. I think we’ll be ok, but I’m not sure. My household is squishy and some members have swallowed the regime’s propaganda whole. I also am beholden to the government through two jobs. On the other hand, I have extended family and friends I can trust in the area and a fallback location, though it’s several days drive. And I’m in a reddish area if a purple state that I doubt is as purple as it seems. We should be fine.

    1. Maybe get a small storage unit there and start loading it with a set of tools, supplies, cold weather gear, etc. If you later need it elsewhere, rent a trailer and move it. John in Indy

  21. Best defense is a good offense. What follows is my plan. As this is America, you are encouraged and essentially required to build your own. And remember that “armies fight like they train,” so get up off your “comfy chair.”

    A. Put On The Whole Armor Of God (Ephesians 6:10-20)
    Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

    B. If My People Pray (2 Chronicles 7:11-14)
    Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house he successfully accomplished. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.

    C. My Refuge And My Fortress (Psalm 91:1-10)
    He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
    I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”
    For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
    and from the deadly pestilence.
    He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
    You will not fear the terror of the night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
    nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
    nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
    A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
    You will only look with your eyes
    and see the recompense of the wicked.
    Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
    the Most High, who is my refuge—
    no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
    no plague come near your tent.

    1. Well, “no evil shall befall you” doesn’t mean you won’t be offered fabulous prizes like an all-expenses-paid trip to Heaven, with a direct flight by Martyrdom Airways.

      I mean, in the long term that’s fine, but in the short term things can get uncomfy.

      “Pray that you won’t have to flee on the Sabbath or in winter” is also advice from Himself.

      1. We moved from a blue city / state to a much better place. Trying to prepare. But struggling with depression and anxiety. Some days I would be happy to take the martyrdom route … at least it tends to be quick.

        1. A; No, make the other poor bastard die for his beliefs, don’t make their lives easier by removing yourself.

          B; If you have moved to a better place, walk around it, talk to your new neighbors. The exercise will do you good, body and soul, and you need to make new connections.

        2. Take a deep breath and relax. You’ve done the hardest part–getting out of the area where the trouble will start. Now just keep an eye open for ways to stock up for a possibly difficult year.

        3. I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble, I’ll pray for you. But this is not the time for martyrs–they won’t be honored, they’ll be reviled. And the left will use anyone who tries it to inflict great misery on the rest of us. You, along with the rest of us, have to stand fast with our fingers off the trigger. As cool as Captain Parker on Lexington Green. In most cases, the redcoats will just march on by.

          1. Thank you, all, for the encouragement and @neilthelesser for the prayers. I have been connections, slowly, though more at church than in the neighborhood. The anxiety just makes everything harder.

          2. Or like gggrandmother when French came to town. Stand at the door of your house, wood-chopping ax in hand. Say nothing. Probably helped that she was built like a brick sh*thouse, but….

  22. I moved out of the city about 6 years ago. I am a good 40 min drive from the nearest major city. It takes me 25 minutes to get to my closest Walmart. I moved out here after reading an article by Matt Bracken called When the music stops. It drove home how cities are death traps. Seeing how the left is running things now made me glad I am out of the cities. Too bad I work in said city though. I have been stocking my deep freezer, have 6 months of freeze-dried food. Been buying more cat food than I usually need so I have a surplus. Also buying freedom seeds when I have the money and can find them. I am ready and took an oath to defend the Consitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. I have already been label a Domestic Terrorist just because I am a Combat Vet.

  24. Speaking of fire, I ran into someone on Tuesday who mentioned that the previous week, her Cub Scout (plus other parent) had arrived and set up at camp, they went to flags—and everybody was told that sorry, they were going to have to pack up and go home, because the Dixie Fire, while not exactly close, was getting closer, and they’d rather have a nice orderly evacuation than a panicked one in the middle of the night. They did get dinner, though, before having to pack up and go home.

    The fire line is currently a mile or two from that camp. And that’s really not good, because the council finally (finally!) actually owns the property, and has the ability to build on it without the yards of interference that, say, the camp I worked at has to go through, as it is on Forest Service land. As an example, there was no medical building while I was there, because it took four years of permits and bringing in building materials to replace the prior one, so we had A TENT. But anyway, the council is not made of money and really needs that facility to stay nice.

    So prayers for containment would be appreciated for there and for the other structures threatened by this fire.

    2. Eek. Local council has a couple summer camps. Camp Baker on Hwy 101, south of Florence is owned by the Council. The other Camp Melakwa is on USFS property south of Hwy 126. Too far east to get scorched by the Holiday fire. But it was scorched by the Scott Fire a few years ago, after the last camp session. What is really scary is that the fire wasn’t long after the last Melakwa camp session and the church program that also uses the facility for a summer camp. Didn’t take out any of the few infrastructure buildings available, but did destroy some campsites. Also scared more than a few people. The area the fire destroyed was the route for camp participants and staff to evacuate (hike out) when the main, and only road is blocked by fire. Also brought home their evacuation procedures. Not the least of them were if your vehicle was sitting in “the parking lot”, you were to have your keys on you at all times. Every troop on site was required to have enough seat belts in the vehicles onsite to load up every scout and adult should evacuation be required, which increases the Adult to youth ratio from that required.

    3. Yikes! Dixie is doing what the Bootleg fire is doing, complete with nasty spot fires. (Throw a brand 1.2 to a mile, and have an immediate extreme fire. Some of these have been hard to catch.) Similar (actually rougher) terrain that makes it hard-to-impossible to get to a useful spot, and they drew the short straw in the monsoonal storms that helped Bootleg earlier this week. They got dry lightning while the west section of Bootleg got a quarter inch of rain–put out the fine fuels, though the logs and trees are still going.

      Arggh; according to the current update, it grew about 10% between the 29th and 30th.

      OTOH, they have plenty of people, and the conditions have been reasonably favorable for air support.

      FWIW, for information on the fire, here’s the inciweb link. https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7690/

      1. I’ve been using the SF Chronicle Fire Tracker, which is actually more useful in many ways. It shows the perimeter, but it also uses satellite data to show current hotspots. So there’s a bit of relief this morning to see that while the burn perimeter is close, the hotspots are currently away from the closest approach.

    1. Why be on Facebook or Twitter anymore? Check out Gab, BitChute, Rumble, and LBRY/Odysee. (You might also want to be on Parler and Gettr but they’re not as reliable yet.)

      1. You might also want to check out the browser extension TubeShift, which is available for Firefox, Chrome, and Brave browsers. TubeShift helps you evade YouTube removal decisions by providing links from any video they’ve removed to the same video on BitChute, Rumble, and/or Odysee.

      2. Too many family members stuck on it. Having a rough time convincing them to move to MeWe or suggest another free speech friendly site. Of course most of the wife’s side of the family, are Connecticut communist, and at least a quarter of my high school class, and both my kids, are Democrat-socialists.

        And it’s the only way to reach a large portion of the voting population of the town; which is essential when running for office. I did wipe my history but it took about 6 months to clear it from all but very serious hacking to recover any of it.

        1. I’m in CT, as you say, surrounded by communists. At least the eastern part of the state tends to be ignored by the rest of it, or as one fellow town republican committee member put it, “We’re the armpit of Connecticut”.

          1. I’ve seen a number of interesting flags and bumperstickers in the center of the state.

            1. Hell, six months ago there were still Trump banners in the outer, rural, farming/dairy reaches of King County.

            2. I’ve seen a few around here too, as well as heard some interesting conversations in parking lots. It probably doesn’t hurt that our area is heavily navy based, so we’re a little further behind in the rush to wokeness,
              but we’re definitely moving that way. 😦

        2. As much as I enjoy MeWe one big reason I’m hesitant to suggest my offline friends move there is how utterly awful they are when it comes to scammer, spammer, and bot control. Not that Faceplant is much better but they like to present “MeWe recommends open groups” as a way for people to get plugged in there and those groups are nothing but scammer, spammer, and bot nests – and quite a few of them are for things of an…adult nature, shall we say. They’re not exactly putting their best foot forward for people fed up with Faceplant’s special types of duplicitous and stupid (and the data mining that’s their real business line) with this. Plus what you said about running for office applies to things like creative work, like ILOH pointed out on his blog after his most recent Faceplant Jail sentence, and also for things like a cat rescue I really need to get back into helping out at.

          Something’s got to give with that site sooner or later… As far as I can tell nobody really likes Faceplant itself and Lizardberg is one of the most hated men in America. It’s got a hell of a lot of inertia behind it, though, and owning things like Instagram, which as far as I can tell people actually like, looks to be what’s keeping it afloat. I’m just not sure how people would go about hitting its weak points and relegating it to niche status at best.

  26. I figure 3 months, maybe 5-6. No longer. The next big national event is Labor Day weekend, about 5 weeks, when everyone will be distracted. If we make it past that, the “holiday season” seems like a likely target – from about Nov 10 everyone is thinking Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, business activity is looking at beginning the “year end wind down,”etc. so a lot of people are focused elsewhere.

    Prescriptions, refill and get extra; medical/dental procedures, do them now; vehicle repairs and reliability improvements; you should already have the basics – food, water, first aid/trauma, clothing (winter and summer), heating, defense tools (and training in their use, cleaning supplies for them, ammunition of course, and is everything you have been recently checked for zero? 200 meters (218 yards) is a good distance for that (5.56 zeroed at 200M has a point-blank range of about 320 yards (nope, you’re wrong, look up the CORRECT definition of “point-blank range,” not what Hollywood calls it), and having a rise and drop table for 100, 300 and 400 yards is useful, and zero handguns at 25 yards and get a drop table out to 75 yards) etc. either nearly complete (it’s never fully complete….) or quite well underway, so start on the Tier 2 and Tier 3 stuff. Tools, especially unique or specialty tools for whatever stuff you have that may require them (you may not know how to repair a Frammistan using a Snorkmord wrench, but having the tool allows employing the skills of someone who does), spare parts, esp. for vehicles – hoses, belts, fluids, etc., and a fresh set of tires, depending, or at least a set of 2 (or 4…) good spare wheels with tires mounted (FYI, you could always stack a set of 4 tires in the living room, put a painter’s tarp over them and call it a coffee table – if you have the tires there are ways to get them mounted, but if you don’t have them….), some lumber, nails, screws, and non-electric ways to cut/nail or drive them.
    Liquid fuel is a toughie, but a means of extracting it, carrying it and storing it can be useful (ex: with no power there will be fuel in underground gas station tanks but no way to get it out…unless you have a 12 volt fuel pump, some gas-resistant hose, and gas cans – back in the 1973 gas crisis people were leaving their cars overnight in service stations (back when gas stations had mechanics) with a note to “give it a tune up and please fill the tank” so everyone got used to seeing vehicles parked overnight in gas stations some bright folks parked vans in the stations over the tank connections, cut the locks on the caps, dropped in a hose, and filled a couple 55 gallon drums in the van. Don’t forget alternate transportation modes – small motorcycles don’t use much gas, bicycles don’t use any. Make friends with “country folk” if you know any, offer labor in exchange for access to what they may be or wind up growing on their property. During WWII empty lots in cities were used for “victory gardens;” the public attitude is very different now, so growing anything food-like where you don’t have control or security over it means you’ll lose it before you can harvest it.

    It’s an endless list so do a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), which actually should have been done when you saw what happened to Trump starting in January 2017, but today is better than tomorrow. It’ll take some time, a lot of concentration, and you need to be realistic, but it’ll give you an outline to plan around and work toward.

  27. Ooo… latest claim is there’s a SUPER MUTANT variant of Covid that might arise… if it finds the milk of human kindness we’re screwed… 😮

  28. We finally got a house well outside the big city.
    Now to move, ten unload the house.
    And I do think it will be a liberal that buys it.

      1. Hopefully we are far enough out to avoid a good bit of the coming festivities. No avoiding the packing/unpacking/lost items festivities though!

  29. My guess is that the Mediacrat party will keep dredging up variants and trumpeting panic porn until next year’s election. I don’t think that will work, because fewer and fewer ordinary Americans are even reading the news these days. I cut the cable years ago. I don’t even read the Wall Street Journal anymore, and I had it delivered to my driveway for 15 years, When people realize a month or two from now that nobody they know has caught the Delta variant, they’re going to start calling bullshit on a lot of things.

    I’m less worried about violent uprisings in city centers than determined interference with the democratic process. I’ve been through the whole list of what ifs — I’m an SF writer, after all — and I think we’re set to survive the worst. What I worry about is slavery by a thousand cuts, like we’re seeing in Canada and the UK. Criminalizing “misinformation”, which is anything the current regime wants it to be, is terrifying. And that’s what the Canadians are doing. I made the Canadians the world-ruling bad guys in my first novel almost 25 years ago, and this business shakes me to the core. I was writing satire! Nobody will ever believe that the Canadians can go full Stalin…but crap, they are! I’m an SF writer. I don’t want to be a prophet.

    These days, the best thing about Arizona are its summers. People used to perfect California weather find 112 degree temps a pretty strong deterrent. I’ll sit it out. Que sera, sera.

    1. Or they will realize they do know people who had it, and all of them tell them, “it was like a real bad cold.”

    2. I think one of the reasons they slammed the mask guidance back so quickly and sloppily is that they’re pretty sure the delta variant peak is going to come in the next 2-3 weeks and they want to be able to say that the quick and decisive action by FICUS is what saved the day.

      1. It has more to do with the fact that all of “CARES Act” stuff ends between now and the Labor Day, and the Democrats are deternined to use the virus as a mechanism for not only extending it but piggybacking there multi-trillion fundamental transformation package on top of it.

      2. No one here is paying any attention to Governor Fumb Duck insisting we mask back up right away.
        I mean they can enforce it in public buildings. It’s going to finish killing the museums and zoo, but– ah well.

    3. The Delta Variant should have been the name of a Ludlum novel.

      I really think Delta is the last gasp of COVID. It is very contagious and spreads quickly. In India from February 8 to May 3 COVID cases increased more than 30-fold, then began declining quickly. I’ve read that about 68% of India now carries antibodies for COVID. That gives an indication of how close we are to herd immunity, with about 50% vaccinated and an unknown percentage carrying antibodies from having had the disease already.

      That doesn’t mean our “leaders” won’t continue to push the narrative as far as they can, but I expect COVID cases to drop rapidly, and pretty soon.

    4. ” What I worry about is slavery by a thousand cuts, ”

      And based on the last 20 years, we’re about 500 cuts in.

  30. I’ve got three vacant houses next to my property, that I need to decide what to do with if the SHTF and police are rare…

    Do we allow random squatters? Do we chase people out? Do we fill them with good people? Or do we clear them from our site lines?

    I know one of the property owners, so I’ll call him tomorrow. The other two are owned by asshole speculators/semi-slum lords.

    1. You may not want to be That Asshole, but — find something that doesn’t meet code and call the building inspector.

    2. Fill them with good people. If you have a church, start with the young couples.

  31. You will be happy to know that that Karens are all going ballistic because the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally is next week, because—-reeeeee, Coviiiiiiid. I hope some of them are stupid enough to go up there and scream their idiocy at the biker crowd.

    1. Obligatory joke:

      Q: Why don’t animal-rights activists protest against leather?

      A: Hassling little old ladies in fur coats is a lot safer than pissing off bikers.

      1. TINS: Fur protesters were interviewed on NPR about the problems they had with a fur salon in D.C. It was patronized mostly by Women of Color. The activists opposed wearing fur, but couldn’t oppose black ladies wanting to enjoy their saved income by spending it on luxury goods. It was fun to listen to the activists twitch.

      1. I recall the panic porn and a few cases were described as “See, I told you”, but as superspreader events go, the Texas Fleebaggers have it beat hands down.

        1. A couple of the folks who were attributed to Sturgis had driven past the town without stopping, and weren’t shy about saying so. 😀

        2. The Democrats/left have not only made it clear but have outright openly boasted that actual facts don’t matter, only “The Narrative”. Like all religious fanatics, they believe they serve a higher cause that excuses any conduct in pursuit of “the goal” no matter how reprehensible. In essence, they are Marxism’s equivalent of Jihadists.

    3. The latest COVID panic study was based on the Provincetown RI population during “Bear* Week” earlier in July. Which is why it skewed to a sample of 85% male. No fuss, no issue. I guess they figure “bears” vote Democrat and bikers don’t.

      For those who don’t know: “bear” = male, large, hairy, and homosexual, tending older.

      https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/464897/

      1. 40,000 gay guys crammed into a small town, indoors in bad weather, and lots of making out and such. Couldn’t have made a more productive culturing environment for spreading. And 5!!!! people were hospitalized. Oh dear! Where are my smelling salts? (For that matter, where did my eyes go?)

  32. Wonder if this kind of feeling is why, even though it’s faded a bit thanks to the fuzzies, the gloom’s been pretty consistent lately and last night’s sleep attempt being one of the worst I’ve ever had. Some of the things Cardshark (the power of Big Tech in particular) and Jeff (continued messing with the electoral process, which is a huge worry for me considering how much the Atlanta machine has gotten away with already this past year) mentioned have been weighing on me, along with the feeling that the general public is going to disappoint us yet again once the government and Big Business start shoving the kabuki theater down our collective throat again by just going along with it. That there are reports of non-compliance and resistance out there is encouraging, but just how much of it is reaching people, I wonder? And are they even listening? Still way behind on, well…pretty much all preparation and I’m still waiting for the friend who usually helps me out to get enough time to start on one of the big things for decluttering and getting the house ready to go. I really hope I can get out of here, but if I have to stay in the area it’s not the worst part of the state to be in for that. I could do better location-wise, though… Still, hopefully a better night’s rest with the furballs will drive more of this gloom away.

    1. Hard to do sometimes, but try not to digest too much negativity. It screws with the see-saw of brain balance.
      There are worse places to be than where you’re located. But if you do want to relocate, east Tenn may be the best and most convenient place to check out.

      1. A lot of this is already in my head from past reading and observations and as a depressive it’s hard to not trip over them. It’s happening less frequently than before, granted, but it’s still a drain. On the move, even if Georgia turning into the State of Fraudlanta wasn’t a concern I had been wanting to do that for a while anyway for personal reasons and if some truly horrendous bad luck hadn’t been an issue I’d have left years ago. Then again Arizona was a place I had been considering back then and now they’re in the same boat we are so maybe it worked out.

        Tennessee is the easiest choice for sure but I’ve also considered other places. Florida is one with some of the pluses being a consistently good economy, DeSantis doing such a good job pushing back against idiocy (especially Covidiocy) and fraud, it having a reputation in some circles as being a good place for Odds, and for a more shallow reason lots of very attractive women there (hey, I’m single, I have to consider that >_>). Of course it’s still more purple than red and who knows if DeSantis is going to have a legacy that shifts it more to the right, plus worse humidity and heat, hurricanes, more and worse wildlife, I don’t know anybody there at all, and it’s probably out of my price range unless some of this stuff I’m considering selling is worth serious money.

        Also, like a lot of people I’ve looked at Texas, too, for more or less the same reasons even if it’s taken Abbott a while to get his butt in gear on Winnie the Flu crap. It helps that I know people around Dallas and Houston, too, including some Huns and Hoydens, though the city that caught my attention first was Corpus Christi. The Shining Jewel by the Sea sounds like a pretty auspicious place to start over, though I know my odds of getting a good job would be better around Dallas or Houston thanks to their economies and knowing a few people there. Still, I’m pretty sure Texas is out of my price range, too, and I’m definitely getting worried about how much weight the blue spots (Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso) seem to be gaining (which was another thing that caught my attention about Corpus Christi, it looks to be trending red rather than blue last I checked). Of course if it all goes to Hell anyway not like much of this is going to matter.

        1. I’ve lived in NY, VA, GA, and am now in FL (Brevard County/Space Coast).
          I experienced my area in VA go from conservative to liberal very quickly in the dot com era. Western part of VA is still pretty conservative and really nice. I went to school at JMU many moons ago.
          It’s going to be interesting to see how FL goes. On one hand the left wants to get in power very badly. On the other hand the biggest population center (Miami) is heavy with Hispanics that seem to be favoring right more than left ideologies lately.
          I tolerate warm weather better than cold. A/C and water keeps May-Sep tolerable. Oct-Apr are perfect for me. DeSantis is great so far. The county sheriff says buy a gun, if someone break into your home, shoot.
          Everything is very casual.
          Areas of Texas show a lot of promise as long as you’re not at the border! But you wouldn’t have Stacey Abrams!

          1. It sounds nice down there too and I have heard good things about the Space Coast. That political uncertainty is definitely a hard thing for me to work with, though… It seems like all it takes is one bad run of GOP candidates to give the Dems a chance to get in and stack the deck with their favorite dirty tricks, turning the state blue. Ugh. On Texas I plan on staying far away from the border, no worries, and damn right I want to be well clear of Stacey Abrams and her crap! If she was just running her mouth and continuing to make a fool of herself without the usual Democrat f-ery behind her I’d be less worried about Georgia’s future since she’d be a walking campaign ad for the state GOP but she got herself a nice machine going and the state GOP isn’t giving me much reason to believe they’ll be able to actually dismantle it. Maybe I’m being more pessimistic than is warranted but I’m sure that the voting law that gave Coke and Delta the vapors is going to get thrown out in court, and even if it doesn’t it’s just going to end up being words on a page when Atlanta and Savannah fraud the vote anyway and the Republicans in office let them get away with it. I hope I’m wrong about this but the Democrats have yet to give any indication that they’re going to stop cheating and the Republicans have yet to give any indication that they’re going to respond with anything other than “Thank you, xir, may I have another?”

    2. Don’t forget, all the places we abandon now we’ll have to take back later. 😮

      1. In this case I consider being born here another bit of perverse humor on Himself’s part so I’ll happily leave reclaiming the area to others. 🙂

          1. Well you could hardly do well or have credibility as a Speaker of Sanity if you hadn’t got a good up close look at socialism growing up.

            There were much worse options than Protugal……..

          2. Like you said, He needs a writer’s group, though Ian does make a fair point. Actually seeing this crap firsthand has made you a strong, eloquent voice against it that I wish more people knew about and listened to.

            1. We’re INSIDIOUS like that.
              I didn’t realize how early the bug had bit me or how unreasonable I was until my older nephew mentioned I’d made him read and discuss the Constitution when he was like 8…. 😛

  34. No matter what happens, I fear we’re going to need a Constitutional Convention, and a new Constitution. The Democrats have folded, spindled and mutilated the old one until we can’t recognize it any longer.

    The new Constitution should be about 95% identical to the existing one, with a few changes:

    The term ‘Government’, unless made more specific, applies to both the United States government, and all State governments. If the Feds are prohibited from doing something, so are the States in most cases.

    Strip out all the language that permitted slavery. This allows us to eliminate the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Make clear that The People includes all United States citizens, making the 19th Amendment redundant.

    Implement an anti-16th Amendment clause denying the United States government any power to directly tax citizens or their property. The Federal government must derive all its income from the States and international trade. States may decide how much they are willing to pay for Federal services, and which ‘services’ they wish to receive, or do without. Never more may the Fed take money from one state’s citizens and give it to another’s, or hold a State ransom with ‘Federal money’ extorted from the State’s own citizens. Government funding flows from the bottom up, not the top down.

    That alone would cut WAY down on corruption.

    Article 3 should explicitly fix the Supreme Court at 9 Justices.

    Add Article VIII:

    If any of the temporarily elected or appointed Officials charged with administering the Government and its Laws shall abuse their power, betray the Trust placed in them, and pervert their Offices, leading to violations of the Sovereign Rights of American Citizens, unequal Application of Laws, or conditions of Tyranny imposed in Our Nation, it shall be the Right, and the Duty, of the People to oppose such Tyrants by whatever means prove necessary.

    2nd Amendment:

    The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed.

    3rd Amendment:

    The Government shall not quarter soldiers or other persons on private property without the Owners consent.

    10th Amendment:

    The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

    The Government shall neither induce nor coerce any private entity to abridge the Sovereign Rights of any Citizen guaranteed under these Amendments.

    1. Some good ideas there, and I urge support for ConventionOfStates.com, which is making it happen.

      Comments on specifics:

      Article I: Make explicit the interpretations in the Federalist Papers (for example, that “interstate commerce” does not include just about everything, and that the necessary-and-proper and general-welfare clauses do not grant wide ranging powers by themselves).

      Limit members of Congress to two terms in each House.

      Add language near Sec. 4 directing that Congress must require adequate precautions against election fraud (written open-ended enough so that SCOTUS may mandate precautions or prevent their repeal). In particular there should be a requirement that election dates be set so that a full forensic audit is possible in the time available.

      Article III: Agree with fixing the Supreme Court at 9 members.

      Also give the Supreme Court the right to remove any executive branch official who violates someone’s rights in defiance of one of the court’s orders. (example: Andrew Jackson carrying out the Indian Removal Act)

      And require that the Court must hear any case where it has original jurisdiction.

      Bill of Rights additions:

      Give the people an explicit right to resist by force, alone or in militia groups, any unconstitutional law or order, and to organize for that purpose whenever they consider it advisable.

      Give victims of and those harmed or intimidated by any crime the right to prosecute it themselves if officials won’t.

      Double jeopardy expanded to preclude federal vs state prosecution of same act.

      Remove all immunity from officials who violate the constitution or engage in corrupt behavior. Judges, prosecutors, legislators, even a president or governor. And no sovereign immunity.

      Anyone harmed even indirectly by police use of force would have automatic right to compensation, just as if the persons doing it were unauthorized civilians — unless he is subsequently convicted of a crime serious enough to justify the police’s action. This compensation would have first call on the police dept’s budget. The department, like other employers, would foot the bill for its employees’ behavior.

      Juries should have the right to know during deliberations, or set an upper limit on, the sentence that the judge intends to impose after a finding of guilty. Also, defendants should have an absolute right to tell the jury anything they think will help them during closing argument, including such things as sovereign-citizen beliefs and any unfair maneuvering the police or courts may have engaged in.

      Ban all plea bargaining, because in practice it has meant that most of the time, a prosecutor filing charges is as good as a conviction (because they can threaten you with much worse, un-called-for charges if you refuse, and can concentrate their resources to make good on the threat). “Traffic tickets” can still exist where the punishment is limited to a small fine, but no bargaining.

      Give juries the express right to draw reasonable inferences about the intentions of persons accused of terrorist crimes (crimes such as a lynching, where some group like KKK wants to scare everybody by “making examples” of persons who have defied them).

      The rule of lenity must be absolute, and any law that leaves it up to an officer’s judgment whether or not you are guilty of a crime is null and void. Police officers are not judges and are not entitled to do any judging.

      Add teeth to Eighth Amendment: If anyone is kept imprisoned pre-trial for longer than the minimum possible sentence for the crime accused, they have a right to immediate permanent release and dismissal of the charges.

      Any fine, bail amount, registration requirement, or order to pay anything that would have the effect of rendering the defendant homeless is automatically excessive and must be nullified. This includes divorce and child support awards.

      Give every adult the right, good against all levels of govt, to create, use, and obtain any drug or medical treatment he wants. State and local govt. could still regulate in-person sales and public venues that allow use.

      Civil War amendments: I would leave the 13th and maybe the 15th intact. But the 14th needs at least a rewrite. It should not grant group rights to groups that the writers of the 14th would not have treated it as including when it was written. It should not block states from introducing merit- or interest-based qualifications for voting such as property ownership or military service.

      1. The problem with removing immunity is that criminals already make of specious claims of harm. If they might get something from it, what have they got to lose?

        The courts would be clogged.

        1. That’s a real problem but unnecessary force by police is a worse one. Courts do have the power to punish frivolous filings, and they should use it more.

          1. If he is already in jail and has no assets, how can you punish him?

            One experiment with police bodycams found they decreased complaints about police violence much more than police self reports of using force, and did so for the control group as well as the group with cams. Lying crooks is not a little problem.

            1. Which is why all the activists who were screaming for body cams are screaming for their removal: They show too many times that actual crimes are being committed by both perps and bystanders.

              1. Well, toughski shitski for them. Truth hurts for the guilty, don’t it?

                Corruption and evil fester in the dark. Bring everything out into the light, out of the back rooms and secret meetings. Government works for us; they have no right to hide what they’re doing. That they are so desperate to do so proves they’re up to no good.
                ———————————
                Biden: “The filibuster is a relic of the Jim Crow Era.”
                Audience: “SO ARE YOU!!”

      2. Also we need to make it clear that private citizens’ right to fee association trumps discrimination claims. We have got to the point where the Left pushes rape on the grounds it is discrimination to not screw Trans people.

        1. Totally agree. Approximately all discrimination claims today are bogus, by people gaming the system, so there is no reason for anyone except government to be forbidden to discriminate any longer.

      3. And the 14th must spell out, in detail, the requirements to become a citizen. And citizen because expelled on magic dirt expressly forbidden.

    2. “The term ‘Government’, unless made more specific, applies to both the United States government, and all State governments.”

      Better expand that to “if it is chartered as a government, or requires ANY form of permission or assistance to operate, it is considered a government.”

      And yes, that shall include counties, cities, villages, banks, anything requiring a business license, health certificate, professional license, or any other form of government permission slip.

      Otherwise, as we’ve seen, the cities will impose all manner of restrictions, and government at all levels will use those licenses to coerce behavior.

      1. On the other hand, it is the government that decides whether you need a license to operate. Health inspections mean you have to bake the cake?

        1. Requiring health inspections not allowed. Let a free people choose where to shop, and caveat emptor.

          1. Health inspections are a necessary thing.

            But the bill of rights should do something to put a stop to any government entity funding itself mostly through fine revenue, because it leads to predatory use of law enforcement powers. Maybe just direct all fine revenue or property seizure to the national treasury, so the enforcing agency or officer can’t benefit from it.

            1. Health inspections are a necessary thing.

              Yes, but it doesn’t have to be the government that does it.

              I can rely on the fire extinguisher under my kitchen sink because it has a stamp of approval on it, but it’s a UL stamp, not a WA State stamp.

              “Certified healthy by the American Association of Health Inspections” (if there were such a thing) would be just fine by me. It would be subject to infiltration by restaurateur organizations, but no more so than local health departments are subject to infiltration (read: bribery).

              2. I didn’t want to spend time in the post making that point.
                I’m actually NOT sure health inspections ARE a necessary thing. But it’s like fleas. We won’t get rid of them, and the f*cking government will just stop us being able to buy and let things rot, rather than letting us buy and eat at our risk. (I’m not sure — well, we didn’t have them where I came from, and worst thing that happened was watered down milk. Sinclair made up the whole “jungle” bullshit. He was a socialist. THey always lie.)
                Sorry, if I didn’t make that clear. The problem is not not getting inspections, and not having professional organizations. It’s that the beast will retain just enough power to stop evertyhing and try to make us starve in the dark, rather than be free.

                    1. Amen on credentialism, which has been one of the biggest barriers I’ve had to figuring out a decent career. Sad but true on us being radicals, though, which has been playing into a lot of my worries about which way the normies are going to break lately.

                    2. Horribly. The anger and barely held seething I sense means our main issue will be not getting swept up and killed for not looking “normal.”
                      The left is pucked.

                    3. As always I hope you’re right, but unfortunately what I’m seeing around me is resignation to masks and lockdowns coming back and go along to get along behavior. Most people where I am know this is all a bunch of crap but for whatever reason there’s very little will to resist those parts at least. As of right now the jab is a line people are hesitant to cross but this behavior is leaving me very pessimistic in that regard.

                  2. Same solution: UL for Services. They can publish reviews (with evidence!), but they can’t shut down the business.

      2. I already added that to the 10th Amendment:

        “The Government shall neither induce nor coerce any private entity to abridge the Sovereign Rights of any Citizen guaranteed under these Amendments.”

    3. I’ve also been thinking about what a re-written constitution should look like and I agree with most of the ideas already mentioned. I disagree with this one though:

      >> “Article 3 should explicitly fix the Supreme Court at 9 Justices.”

      I’d say to fix it at a much larger number – say, 21 – so that individual justices matter less. Also, in each each presidential election let each candidate name up to 2 justices to be automatically removed from the bench if that candidate wins. This gives the voters a way to vote at least some of the bastards out and provides the justices themselves with motivation to not be the worst (or second worst). Require the candidate to finalize his choices no later than 60 days before the election so the voters have time to debate it.

      Other ideas (assume they apply to all levels of government unless noted otherwise):

      Term limits for all elected and judicial positions, including the SCOTUS.

      You must have supported yourself in the private sector for at least 5 years before you are eligible for any bureaucratic position. You have a lifetime limit of 10 years in all bureaucratic jobs combined, then you’re expected to go back to the private sector (or run for something).

      Multiple levels of U.S. citizenship. Newborns or immigrants begin with only basic citizenship and can’t vote, hold office or serve on juries. To rise above the basic level and gain these privileges you must do all of the following:

      1) live in the U.S. legally for at least 15 years,

      2) read the constitution aloud, unaided and in English before witnesses,

      3) take an oath to uphold and defend it before those witnesses, and

      4) renounce citizenship in all other nations.

      Nullification shall be an explicit power of juries and the accused shall be allowed to argue for it in court.

      Police, courts and prosecutors must prioritize enforcing the law against members of government over pursuing private citizens for the same infractions.

      If legal or constitutional protections for the accused are ignored it shall be legal for ANYONE to tell the public about it. This protection shall override any legal requirement for secrecy.

      The government must pay for the legal defense of the accused even if the accused provides his own lawyers. The amount payed must be proportional to the time and resources spent attempting to convict him, such that an innocent would have a reasonable chance of prevailing without needing to spend additional money of his own. The amount paid by the government for the defense of the accused must be disclosed to the public.

      The right to defend oneself, others or property shall be explicit. Government shall have first right of refusal to act on a threat to its citizens where time permits such a delay, but if it is unwilling and/or unable to do so then it MUST stand aside and allow the citizenry to take any steps necessary to defend themselves.

      The government may not conscript anyone – even convicted criminals – to work for it in any capacity, even in a time of war or other emergency. Attempting to enforce such conscription shall entitle the conscripts or anyone who wishes to come to their rescue to use any degree of force – up to and including deadly force – necessary to stop the government and free the victims.

      Each taxpayer may decide for himself which government programs his tax dollars shall be used to support. If the people are not willing to fund a program then it must be discontinued. Government may not combine unrelated functions into a single program to avoid this.

      No money taken by coercion may be used by the government as revenue, unless it is explicitly declared a tax by the legislature imposing it and is paid directly by the individual or organization the tax is being collected from. Money acquired by other means – such as fees or fines – must be disposed of in a way that does not benefit the government or anyone in it (such as by giving it to randomly selected charities).

      Government may not prevent citizens from disclosing what they have paid in taxes or what harm they have suffered from laws and other government edicts.

      No legislative body may delegate its power to make laws. No rule made under the imprimatur of a legislature shall have force of law behind it unless voted into law directly by the legislature.

      All statutes must be submitted for review by the public for at least 30 days since they were last changed before they may be voted into law, unless they are declared to be emergency measures. Statutes passed as emergency measures shall automatically sunset no later that 7 days after being passed or last renewed. Other statutes shall last 10 years before sunsetting instead. No omnibus renewal bills are allowed; to renew a statute in must be individually submitted to the public for consideration again.

      The government may not have secret laws. Any statute which contained them is null and void.

      No action shall be considered a crime when committed against a legislator unless it is likewise considered a crime when performed against private citizens as well. No crime against a legislator shall carry a higher penalty than when it is committed against private citizens. Exceptions shall be made only when the crime involves the legislator’s job and there is no private-sector equivalent.

      Government may only ban someone from working in a private field after it has proven incompetence or malice. It may not preemptively require private citizens to get a license, join a union or otherwise obtain permission to work in a private field.

      Government shall not make itself or any third party a gatekeeper for any essential of life. Essentials of life shall be considered to include – but not be limited to – the following: food, drink or other sustenance; medicine or medical care; the acquisition of arms, munitions and proper training in their use; energy, communication, transportation and gainful employment.

      The federal government shall not engage in any form of welfare except as compensation for federal employees injured or killed in the line of duty. States have broader powers to establish welfare.

      No one who willingly accepts any form of government welfare or works in government – at ANY level of government – may vote until after they have quit doing so and at least one general election has intervened. No one may be forced to accept welfare or work in government against their will. Exceptions shall be made only when one is placed in a situation where one must choose between losing his vote or allowing the government to harm him (for example, letting the government pay for your defense when it’s prosecuting you).

      It shall be the right of a child’s parents or guardians to homeschool or arrange for other private education.

      1. Sorry, that should have been 25 years in the country to go beyond basic citizenship, not 15.

        Also, I forgot this one: if the accused was trapped between contradictory laws and/or government edicts through no fault of his own and did not attempt to maliciously exploit the situation, he must be exonerated. If the government wants to be obeyed, it must make sure that its orders CAN be consistently obeyed.

  35. These suggestions as to how to improve the Constitution and Bill of Rights sound great. Unfortunately, they founder on the logically necessary fact, which is now extremely obvious to everyone who is paying attention, that it is impossible to make any government follow its own rules; if you could do that, YOU would be the government.

    IOW, there’s no government like NO government.

    1. And that is an absolutely unworkable proposition, simply because there is always a government, even if it’s just the alpha ape and his henchapes being stronger and willing to kill any ape that resists.

      1. Whether there is “always a government” mostly depends on whether you have a non-circular definition of the word.

        But his point is absolutely correct: a Constitution no matter how well conceived carries exactly the same force as an Order of Protection. We mock those who think the later is worth anything without the individual being armed and ready to enforce it at all times. I see no reason to not mock the same kind of person when the subject is a constitution.

        1. Ian, government is force by definition. “Do this or I will hit you.” Doesn’t matter what the level. All that any set of rules, call it a Constitution, or a family, does is to define when someone may be, and should expect to be, hit. When those rules are ignored, there are no rules until the ruled, whether other family members, or the citizenry, decide that the one who ignores the rules is killed and replaced by someone who will establish rules and abide by them.

          And I don’t ignore the Evil part, I simply say that the Necessary part requires vigilance watching for the Evil part, and the fortitude to remove Evil from the Necessary. That’s been too long ignored.

    2. Government is a necessary evil. Unfortunately, some folks ignore the ‘Evil’ part, and others ignore the ‘Necessary’.

    3. Yes and no. Before about 1845, the civilian population of the US always had the government outgunned — partly because there was no standing army, only civilian militia. It needs to be that way again.

      1. For the anti-gun zealots’ claims that ‘The Founders didn’t mean machine guns, only flintlocks!’ — many of the cannons used in the Revolutionary War were privately owned. Citizens brought their own rifles to the war, and their own cannons.

        I don’t think many people are going to go out and buy B-52’s, though. In the world as it is, we need a national
        Army, and Navy. Would you want us to give up our aircraft carrier strike groups?

        On the other hand, I know Sarah is in favor of Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority. 😀

  36. Apparently the Democrats are outraged that Texas wants to impose restrictions on movement of unvaccinated illegal aliens while at the same time floating a national vaccine mandate. The Democrats claim only the Feds can make immigration policy….after having spend four years during the Trump administration of openly flouting federal immigration law and actively promoting “sanctuary cities” that expressly thwarted the enforcement of immigration law.

    You can’t make this stuff up. There is simply no limit to their hypocrisy.

    1. And because there is no limit, you can’t live in the same country with them. If they weren’t obviously untrustworthy in everything, that wouldn’t be true.

  38. This is why I left Long Island NY: my county there had the population of the entire state I’m in now (SC) and you had to go through NYC or use a boat to leave. Had the operations. Worked on my health (lost 90 lbs so far). We’re as ready as we can be.

    1. We’re working on getting out of Philly. I’ve been mapping out routes out if worse comes to worse. We’re bounded by rivers in the east and west. First hurdle will be getting across the Schuylkill. That will at least get us out of the city.

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