The Face Of War

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Hold to the 48 hour rule, on the events this weekend. We don’t know precisely why there were two very strange shootings, both by US Marines. And of course, times we live in, I’m suspicious. You’re suspicious.

Ladies and gentlemen, when Powerline blog, one of the most milksop blogs on the right sounds like wild eyed conspiracy theorists, everyone is suspicious.

Mostly, though, the shootings were weird. As in, it would be hard to divine why those victims were picked, and what in heaven’s name anyone would do that for: anyone, left, right or polka dotted. This by itself is a beat of a feat in an age when the left has tried to — and largely managed — make EVERYTHING political, up to and including the color of your skin (often erroneously) and who you sleep with.

Even given that, the atrocities this weekend beg the question of: What sense does it make?

I want you to consider — other than possible activation by mysterious behind the scenes forces, to change the national conversation, and note I’m not laughing at this, which means “ten years ago Sarah” is staring at me in horror from the back of my mind — that 2020 broke people. It broke people BADLY. I see it in my own family. I see it in my circles. And I see it in myself.

Mind you, a lot of us broke in the sense of “I’m now full blown introvert, and will just glare at people if you take me out, and spit like a cat if I’m forced to be around strangers for a full day.” But other people broke in other ways. And I doubt very much there are any of you out there, who don’t know what I’m talking about. In fact doing impromptu, small mental health adjustments has become a thing in everyone’s friendship circles.

Terms I used for my own mental health management (keeping in mind that I’m a raging depressive) have escaped and are now in the wild, seemingly everywhere “out of spoons.” “Reality testing” and of course “kicking the black dog.”

There are reasons this happened. The lockdown itself was quite literally mind-breaking for many of us. We thought, you see, we had some amount of control over our own lives and that we could prevent catastrophic nonsense like a whole-country lockdown (close enough) from being enacted. We thought/felt “it can’t happen here.” The lockdown stripped that illusion, and unfortunately that was a load bearing illusion, at the bottom of our certainty we could deal with life.

Then it was followed by a train of horrors (which were the real reason for the lockdowns, of course. Starting with the stolen election (any lefty reading this and taking offense can put it where the sun don’t shine. You have to be mathematically illiterate to think those numbers and that spike made sense. Your ignorance and illusion are not our fault) and then the Biden administration heading the plane of the economy straight at the ground and taking off all safety restraints, including borders. (A country without borders is not a country. Culture is not that easily acquired by crossing a border, particularly when you come in bearing the flags of your country of origin. What it was was war with a mass of people being used as weapons.) And then pissing down our necks and telling us it was raining, while even those of us who no longer have kids in the house, and who are doing relatively well were feeling pinched.

Then there is the fact that those of us on the right, religious, whatever form of dissent from the crazy cakes left felt under pressure in various ways, including being afraid of being debanked and/or having our instruments of monetization online taken away at the drop of a hat. Heck, even putting fiction books up on Amazon became a matter of “beat the harassment gauntlet.” (Like when I had to prove I’m myself and wrote my own books (Note not even the pseudonymous ones) including writing a contract with myself. Which they then rejected because the signatures were both the same. (Well, dur.))

And then there were the deaths. Dear Lord, the deaths. Some of this is perhaps because those of us who were “the kids” looked down upon by the boomers are now at a time when it’s not unusual (even if, unlike in the village when I was growing up) to have someone just up and die. Or get some horrendous, galloping cancer. And of course, all of us had boomer friends and/or siblings, not that much older than us.

But there seems to also be a link between the Covid vaccines and cancer. I thought, even five years ago, my friends who kept talking about that were being nuts. I thought the vaccine would be ineffective and disastrous for someone with my bizarre immune system, but I didn’t think it was carcinogenic. I’m now at the point of cautiously saying “Well, perhaps.” And also, of course, there were all the delayed checkups, the postponed routine health stuff so many of us STILL HAVEN’T GOT BACK TO. (We haven’t had a proper full exam that we used to do annually since 2020. Because we’re trying to catch up on all the rest of life.) And the fact that many people who are now working from home are single and live alone, which means less chance of catching “You’re looking odd.”

Oh, maybe it’s been just my experience, but it seems like every other week I lose a friend, a family member, a childhood ducttape relative. To the point I’m now afraid of reaching out to someone I haven’t heard from in a few months.

All of this to say that people who have lost a lot of people, and who have slipped their moorings in real life/community can crack in weird an unexpected ways.

So, yeah, maybe people are being activated. Or maybe they’re just cracking wide and becoming bizarre and lethal in ways that are unfathomable from the outside. And yes, this would seem to apply to the leftwing shooters, including Kirk’s assassin. Yes, we know why he did it, he pretty much told us by engraving the bullet casings (honestly, the decline in literacy from, say, the unabomber, is palpable. I mean, murderous nutcases used to write pages and pages, not goofy one liners.) not to mention his texts to his light o’love. But let’s face it, outside the airless chamber of leftwing insanity, it didn’t make any sense either. Because labeling Kirk an “extremist” should be enough to have you put in a straight jacket. “There’s this “extremist” who insists on politely debating the other side” is not a thing. Not in any sane reality.

That a lot of the people cracking are trans is not a surprise, either, because regardless of the fact that the left makes a concerted effort to convince them we want to kill them (this is bizarre) there is the fact that you don’t get to that point, particularly as a young person, rightly or wrongly, without some fairly traumatic stuff leading you there. So you’ll already be particularly vulnerable. And then transing, let’s face it, will carve a huge slice out of your family and friends support. So you’ll be ripe for cracking wide, and your support net will be gone.

And… It could be that’s all that’s going on with the violent events of the last month. In which case, it’s going to get worse. Much, much worse, because the number of people still holding together with spit and bailing wire that will lose it at one more incident/one more event/one more death is high.

On the other hand, yes, we do know the left is cheering on the violence — sorry, for the lone lefty reading this. Yes, it’s your side. No one on the right cheers when lefties are murdered. I confess to having received the news of some deaths with pleasure, but they were mostly foreign and horrific. The one that comes to mind is Yasser Arafat — and in their groups trying to dare each other to do the unspeakable.

Which means that a lot of the left-violence that can be identified as such is part “they cracked” and part “yes, it’s intentional.” Though of course, the cracking matters because it’s the most vulnerable actually going murderous. (Kind of like Hamass strapping suicide vests to disabled kids.)

But guys, the point I want to make, and please, if you listen to anything I say, listen to THIS: This is what civil war would be like. A very mild form of what civil war would be like, in these United States in 2025.

For the last few weeks, on Twitter I’ve been smacking bots, trolls and people who believe the bots and trolls saying “How long are we going to let them shoot us down before we shoot back?”

And I tell them over and over “you might think you want civil war. You don’t want civil war.”

And they shout back we’re already in a civil war. We’re just not shooting back.

Because in their heads, somehow, there’s “sides” and “one side” is shooting at the other.

Let’s grant that Charlie Kirk was broadly on our side and that his assassin was very much on the left’s side, sure. Let’s also grant that the left has wound up people against, say, Catholics (Anyone remember “rosary extremists?”) for the last five years. Still, what sense does it make to slaughter a bunch of kids at mass? Or to shoot up a religious school? In “political” terms. even with the left making everything political?

Note, I’m not disputing those were terroristic acts by the left. What they weren’t is strictly speaking acts of war. (Excepting killing CK which was done to silence him. But even there the targeting is weird, because there are people on our side that should be more annoying to them. Heck there are a few that are more annoying to me, even if I’d never hurt them.)

I’m also in no way approving of or condoning all of these terroristic acts. Or excusing them.

What I’m saying is “as acts of war, they make no sense.”

Which is the problem of a civil war amid a population where the sides are not just distributed but emulsified, so that one side is penetrated by the other, often by stealth and in silence because the penalty for uncloaking has been cancelling and character assassination for over fifty years. (Meaning our side is distributed among them, btw, not so much the other way around. Yeah, lots of teachers and health professionals being lefty loons, but mind you, we by and large knew who they were.) Oh, and one side — the left — controls the propaganda war and claims vast swaths of people, completely disregarding their actual thoughts and opinions.

I’ve said for decades that the right has lousy targeting, because I’m often regarded as the enemy because I’m tan (depending how whether I’ve been living inside for months), have an accent, and dress like a hippie (or like someone who can’t be arsed to go to the hairdresser, much less wear makeup.) And I have friends who also tend to be miss-assigned for various such ridiculous reasons.

But now I know the left is equally blinkered as to choosing the enemy. Because, frankly, yeah, killing religious-school-children is always wrong. Hell, I believe killing children is always wrong. BUT I also read the messages left in the Catholic school memorial, and they were notable for “let’s get rid of all guns” etc. The left still thinks of the Catholic church of the early twentieth century, not the “penetrated by leftism and liberation theology” Catholic church that often had me going two hours away for mass where I didn’t get CNN repackaged as a sermon.

The thing is, for the type of civil war this would be — kindly remove from your head the idea of two ranks of fighters, and territory falling this way and that. That’s not what the nation looks like, and that’s not what it would look like — this is exactly the type of thing you’d see.

You might be able to tell “which side” the killer thinks he’s on, but you might not be able to tell by the victims he picks, because that might only make sense in his very fractured mental map.

So when you say “they’re shooting at us” — define us — and “we should shoot back” — define at whom.

Even if you go by “those who did us harm” during the lockdowns, and decide, say, to kill all health professionals who told you you should have the vax: do you know how many of them were told they had to do it or lose their license, and be left with life-crippling debt? Do you have any idea? (I’m going to guess off the top of my head at least half. My doctor at the time, in tele health appointments, kept looking like she’d taken up day drinking and refused to mention the vax which I’m sure hurt her career.)

And if you decide to cull the teachers teaching bad stuff, again, do you know how many of those are our people, embedded with the enemy and just trying to stay hidden, so they can at least make a small difference? Because unless you know these people personally, how would you know? From a game of telephone of “someone said they said?” (Remember the left thinks Charlie Kirk called for dragging gays to death. Because soundbites, highly edited with no context can say whatever you want them to.)

Self-defense is always right, but self-defense means defending yourself against someone attacking you right now, not deciding that your neighbor who is flying a weird flag is “part of them” and therefore I should take him out. (And the flag turns out to be a one-off, custom for his book club which meets at the house.)

The truth — and if you look at histories of civil wars throughout the centuries, it was always like this to an extent, even in civil wars that had territories and armies — is that most such violence will end up being directed at whatever pisses off the shooter and make absolutely no sense outside their own heads.

In the American revolution, there were a lot of people killed and homesteads burned to the ground because someone THOUGHT they might be loyalists/revolutionaries. The civil war was even worse that way.

And in our time, given the multitude of characteristics the left has claimed as “on their side” and the number of people who are completely submerged on the left while being very much on our side, either for professional, personal or even heroic reasons, my guess is that each side would mostly hit their own, or random bystanders.

Now, if you want to live in a country where wearing jeans, say, will cause you to be shot down in cold blood, or attending church is an exercise in courage, or simply BEING slightly tan is reason to be wary, then yeah, maybe you want a civil war.

But if you don’t like any of those scenarios? Maybe consider that the people telling us we have to resort to violence and “shoot back now” are not our friends, or frankly friends of the republic.

At a time when we’re winning, inch by inch, legally (look, there’s a post on that tomorrow. On why we can’t have half assed indictments or arrests because they’re not in our best interests, but progress is being made, slowly) and when we’re dismantling a lot of their finances, the people who think violence is necessary are almost all on the left. Or those who want to incite you to give the left what they want.

Be not afraid, but be not a fool.

And keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

227 thoughts on “The Face Of War”

  1. Spot on Sarah, ive thought about the “emulsified” state of our country/state/county/towns/homes

    yes homes,

    other than opening up on the obvious AnTifA donkeys, it would be more like Northern Ireland where everybody looks the sameish. Not real obvious mostly,

    and yea, just want to be left alone!

    what a mess, truly believe the 4th turning thing

    Liked by 1 person

      1. We have been living in the Northern Ireland scenario for quite a while now.

        Yugoslavia disintegration scenario may be coming.

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          1. bullseye

            Lots and lots of people have shorthands, and for where we are, this civil war and that civil war, and the other civil war are wrong.

            At the closest, we are in a cold phase, of prepping the battle space.

            We are actually much further than that from civil war, because the coalition most able to pull off a victory can sorta compel terms without needing to kill anyone.

            The spree killers are basically baseline normalish, and not something to individually treat as on behalf of any faction but a madman. (They are not normal people, they are unusual people. But they are unusual people whose presence in our society is normal. Maybe mostly drugs and the sexual revolution, but have been our baseline since the nineties.)

            After the civil war, James bros, clantons, mclaurys, etc.

            The fighting broke quite a lot of people, and a very small minority refused to cease violence, and thought they were continuing to wage the war, or prepping for round two, and they were basically somewhat delusional.

            Anyone who is thinking ‘we need reprisal for these acts of war’ is not thinking clearly enough to wage the war as cleanly as we deserve, and if they identify as Christian they need to be praying for healing instead.

            FR, FR, I am sick in my heart, and I need to be seeking fellowship, and Christ’s touch on me.

            Any other conclusion is the heresy of the cult of academia talking. (war or peace now is based on analysis of a reduced order modeling, and basically all of the glowie shit analyses are inheriting from garbage models originally sourced from the universities.)

            Defensive and patient play is still strategically favorable for us.

            Liked by 2 people

          2. So all of the assassinations and assassination attempts do not matter ? And all of the church shooters ? This is not happening ?

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            1. The hell? Did I say it’s not happening. READ WHAT I SAID AND UP YOUR GAME. You must be this fluent in English to play. Compare it specifically to the Irish troubles in intensity. otherwise “there is an assassination” is automatically civil war. Go put your head on ice.

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              2. I’m trying to figure if she was dropped on her head as a baby or if she glows enough to light the neighborhood. I am willing to embrace the power of “and”.

                Liked by 1 person

                    2. Actually, it’s an American commercial about a TexMex product, hence the use of Spanish with English subtitles. TexMex has to project the image of Mexican to feel “authentic” to people who didn’t grow up in California or the American Southwest, where it’s baseline comfort food.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    4. I just put the phrase into DDG and got a translation from a few sites. Missed the commercial. Not that I can eat such Tex/Cali-Mexican. (Gluten-roulette is no fun.)

                      Liked by 1 person

            2. “She won’t light her hair on fire like I have, she must be denying there’s any kind of issue at all, rather than rejecting my characterization of the situation.”

              :Eyeroll:

              Liked by 4 people

          3. I know enough to go looking for numbers when stuff sounds iffy-

            K, the US is about 120 times the population of Ireland in 1970.

            It took 6 years for them to reach 1,000 dead from direct violence claimed politically.

            So if we go from 2017…. we’re two years past that range, and it would be hard to claim a solid thousand, much less 120,000 dead from bombs, attacking protests, etc.

            Liked by 3 people

            1. Our peace time gun death rate is like 10k.

              Which includes suicides and lawful defensive shootings.

              I’ve priced a lot of stuff into my priors, and recent incidents may be a cluster, but are probably expected value for crazies.

              If these shooting were arranged, and if the people doing it screwed up and implicated themselves, then we go ahead from there, after we have proof.

              Acting without the proof is a sucker’s gamble.

              Liked by 3 people

              1. Ooho, I found a soundbite for you, handy because it starts at about when the Troubles are accounted to have started rolling:

                Report Highlights: 
                Nearly 1.9 million Americans have died from firearm-related incidents since 1968.

                1,601,659 men and 285,228 women have died due to firearm-related causes since 1968.

                Suicides account for 54% of all gun-related deaths in the United States.

                Between 2014 and 2023, 15,899 people died during self-defense situations involving firearms.

                Mass shootings have resulted in 1,399 deaths since 1966.

                Police shootings have caused 20,238 deaths since 1968.

                https://ammo.com/research/us-firearms-deaths-per-year

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            2. Foxfier I doubt we’ve even reached the level our most recent spicy times in the late 60’s into the 70’s. Bombings were weekly if not more so with folks Like the Black Panthers and the SDS (and their more radical wings) taking “direct” action. The main difference was the targeting. The bombings (and bomb threats) were mostly at government buildings especially National Guard Armories and Post Office buildings. The assassination of Dr. King folloed by Robert Kennedy were a shock, and the King killing kicked off a series of “peacful but fiery” protests in many Northeast cities. There was also great gnashing of teeth over the election of Nixon over Humphrey and then again over McGovern, which sent the lefter side a little insane.

              This does have a slight feel of history not repeating but rhyming. RFK’s assassination sent some of the more undecided centrists off to the Left. It feels like Charlie Kirk’s assassination is sending quondam centerists (or don’t cares) off to the Right. The fires and rioting in the cities allowed Nixon to push governors hard for tough-on-crime laws. Remember the Northeast is transitioning from Liberal Republican to Liberal Democrat, RFK’s death then followed by Watergate accelerates that trend. The Violence associated with the Antifa groups against ICE is permitting Trump to act as the cities fail to protect the ICE teams. Of course, all the 60’s-70’s mess had hard pushes from the KGB and their friends. This time all we have is A SPECTRE like set of Billionaires and their insane societal goals, manipulating things like a bunch of spiders. I wish the Author would stop cribbing from Ian Fleming. As he created Mr Flemming, I suppose it is not cribbing, but still. Although we’re probably not up to more competent villains, it is not clear if we’ve got these on the run.

              Liked by 2 people

              1. I quite agree– we’re not even up at ’60s and ’70s levels for the US, much less Irish Troubles.

                And this is after decades of the Progs trying really, really hard to get it going again.

                Liked by 3 people

          1. This, folks, is what is known as “gaslighting by detail”: if one specific thing is not common, supposedly the whole analogy fails.

            Are there neighborhoods where wearing the wrong color clothing will get you shot? Oh, Hell yes. It isn’t orange vs green; but red vs blue (aka Bloods vs Crips) has been a thing in any number of areas since the 80s.

            And while hand-grenades may not be a thing, commercial-grade pyrotechnic “mortars” are getting more common.

            Are there areas of town even here in DFW Metroplex I wouldn’t show my lily-white Anglo ass, and it’s preferable to ruin a wheel rather than stop to change a tire? Again, hell yes.

            Is a no-go zone somehow less of a no-go zone when it’s based on skin color or perceived politics rather than religion? Ask the people of Portland. Or LA.

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            1. Or Dearborn Michigan, which has essentially been declared a ‘caliphate’ by its Moslem mayor. “Christians get out!” right in public.

              Or Paris, where the French Army patrols in squads of 4 with battle armor and submachine guns, and even so they know to stay out of certain ‘immigrant’ neighborhoods.

              Of course, the French all ‘just know’ if it’s that bad in Paris, it’s 100 times worse here in the Violent! U.S.

              Liked by 1 person

            2. Gaslighting? Lol. Don’t be absurd. Go tell Irish how much we are mirroring “The Troubles”. Good luck with that.

              C’mon man, at least -try-. That was -lame-.

              Nothing -here-, so far, is as simple or easily described as “North Ireland”. Potatoes and Corn Dogs.

              Do please up your game, eh?

              Liked by 3 people

            3. Steve. That’s not a civil war. Gang war has nothing to do with the factions in the country. PFUI. It’s a crime matter. BY THAT PRINCIPLE WE’VE BEEN IN A CONTINUOUS CIVIL WAR SINCE THE FUNDING.

              Liked by 2 people

  2. “Don’t be a fool”.

    Right, but it’s hard not to be one when there are so many dangerous fools out there. ☹️

    Liked by 1 person

    1. You don’t have to be the fool. All you have to do is be prepared to deal appropriately with the fools that become an immediate threat

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  3. “…many people who are now working from home are single and live alone…”

    Raises hand, but I have my Antiochian Orthodox Church community, and I only came to them because of a friend I made during the fight I helped lead against the Vax mandate where I used to work.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. I did not dance in joy, but I confess (may God forgive me) I did feel some grim satisfaction at the passing of Janet Reno, apparently unrepentant facilitator of the murders of over four score adherents to a schismatic sect of 7th Day Adventists in Waco, TX. Not so much that she was gone, as that she could no longer bring harm to innocents. Of course, she wasn’t assassinated but passed on naturally.

    And 100% concur with being prepared to respond appropriately if attacked, while not feeling licensed to hunt ‘them’ down for retribution.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. And the rabbi looked around to see who might hear the Blessing before he said “far away from us”. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Conversely, the Russian Governor of Alaska (when Russia owned it) noted something like “God is in Heaven and the Tsar is in Moscow, and both are far, far away”.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. “nuts”

    ….

    Nuts are -crazy-

    …..

    Trying to figure out why the nuts do things can make one a bit, well, nuts.

    …..

    The NC incident involved a known Schizophrenic. Since we are hesitant to take away freedoms of mentally ill folk, the price is – they can go off while unsupervised/unmedicated and occasionally while heavily armed. And with USMC capabilities and combat experience, its a miracle the body count isn’t 10x.

    Waiting to hear more about the other one. Again, minimal USMC training is fairly competent in “snuff them” sorts of mayhem. Also, it doesn’t take a +3Sigma IQ to plan a massacre in a large gathering place where most folks go unarmed. Assuming legal to carry in church, many Christians wont because “holy ground” or some such view. This view may change based on recent events. (I do not think such ban is theologically or morally valid. YMMV.)

    Again, sometimes the reason is “nut”, and it will never make sense other than “insane” or “demonic possession”. Any organization should have a plan of what to do if such a horrid thing happens, even if it is “The rugby-player-sized men/decons/ushers apply the Bearhug of Brotherhood while everyone else flees”. (Its a plan. It can actually work. It can lead to better plans that are more likely to work.)

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Given its turbulent early history, you’d think the LDS church would recognize the value of being prepared to defend against attack, but you’d be wrong. Last I heard, their rule was that no one is ever to be armed in their church services and meetinghouses. Utah is a very 2A friendly state, where in general any law-abiding citizen can carry anywhere, but the LDS church got a carveout for applying legal penalties to carrying on church premises (one presumes any religion could invoke it). Anyway, I haven’t paid attention for several years, during which time the state went to constitutional carry, so maybe it’s changed by now; I hope so.

      Mormon deacons are only 12-14 years old, so they’re not likely to be stopping any mayhem. Nothing keeping any given congregation from having ushers that are ready to rumble, though. Every congregation should at least have that, especially in these parlous times.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. When I saw the news Sunday/Monday, I got the impression that the LEOs who sent the perp to his just reward were at the scene to begin with. I might be incredibly wrong; looks like Grand Blanc is close enough to Flint to allow the possibility of fast response, but armed guards just outside (unarmed) church services have been a thing around here.

          Though, in Flyover County, depending on the minister/congregation, the concealed carry percentage in the service can be rather high. At the community church we went to (Friends based, with a minister who was a serious hoplophobe), at least 10% of us were carrying. The succeeding minister, regardless of his myriad other faults (No, T, you’re grifting ways didn’t work.) acknowledged the carry rate and quietly approved. Obvious guards were not in the budget.

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      2. I don’t know about going unarmed to Temple, but the Mormon neighbors I used to have when I lived out in the country were not only prepped with food supplies, but well armed. Used to trade electronic/computer repairs and ham radio tutoring for baked goods and veggies.

        But my cousins on my fathers side that converted were anti-gun and military. Maybe different sects or family choice, don’t know. Never talked much about it as a kid, got cut off from them when I went to boot camp, didn’t hang out much at family funerals.

        Now the rest of the family, the Orthdox, Roman Catholic, hard core LCMS types and the sprinkling of Baptists understand human nature and their deacons are packing. There are a few softy ELCA types that worry more about getting coffee at church than Christ, but we pray for them.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. The general LDS culture is all about preparedness, and that very much includes armed self-defense; individuals may vary considerably, from the proverbial ant to the grasshopper. Anyway… Temples are very much places where the attendees are unarmed; you have to have a recommendation card to get in, most temples you have to sign up for a session in advance, and special clothing is donned inside for the occasion. Meetinghouses are open to anyone who wants to attend. That’s where I think the church authorities are…rather misguided…in their stance on armed self-defense; from what I’ve heard, their self-imposed rules don’t even allow for armed defenders anywhere on the property. Maybe they’ll make some changes after this. It would certainly be prudent.

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      3. Yeah . . . don’t think that we don’t understand the irony of being sitting ducks while our founding prophet literally created the Nauvoo Legion for the defense of the city.

        However, we ALSO have a strongly worded passage or two in our Doctrine and Covenants about how retaliation in kind is not how the Lord wants us to operate. And given our rather fraught history with the military and the government, perhaps our middle management-type bureaucrats decided to err on the side of caution.

        On the other hand, I know for a fact that some congregation members just don’t care what the handbook says, and if they weren’t packing before, they certainly are now.

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        1. I don’t know how the local LDS members worship, but in our area, trying to do a home invasion of a Mormon family is generally considered an elaborate way to commit suicide. The local troublemakers usually look for softer targets. I grin when they guess wrong.

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    2. Thinking 48 hour rule works here. I will note the item that made the most “sense,” for values of sense, was that the Michigan guy had been dating a Mormon girl with the clear inference she broke it off and he turned her rejection into, “Mormons are the Anti-Christ.”

      In other words, crime of passion, non-political. And at least the guy has been sent to a higher Authority for judgement.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. [i]Assuming legal to carry in church, many Christians wont because “holy ground” or some such view.[/i]

      It made sense when you had two different hostile political factions being required to attend mass in the same building at the same time.

      Liked by 2 people

  6. I snarled with regards to the attacks on ICE, “where are the arrests?!” A professional replied, in essence, “happening but these things take TIME”. I’m impatient but this is the very good warning to be sure of our facts and not be led by hysterical rhetoric. And the evil that was 2020 did harm that will take perhaps an entire generation to heal completely.

    Liked by 4 people

    1. And when they are arrested and charged, folks go “Wait, what attack?”

      The network they charged for the attack on ICE that got a cop shot in the neck in July had ten charged in less than four days.

      Utterly memory holed, even when it’s brought up because it was Texas.

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  7. I just came back from a book event at the main public library in the stunningly urban metropolis of … (sarcasm, here) Giddings, Texas. Which, although a hop-skip-and-jump from Austin, is still in the very sane part of Texas. I was constantly aware of the back exit to the library about twenty feet from my table full of books, and that if I had to grab my grandson and leave at speed, there were some nice heavy bookshelves to give cover. I was even gladder to be released quite early in the day from jury duty at the county courthouse annex in downtown San Antonio – because if there ever was a prime location for a potentially dangerous incident in my city, the Bexar County Courthouse would be somewhere in the top ten.

    Sadly, I have to agree with Sarah – that a lot of people were pushed beyond the snapping limit – not just by the covidiocy. It concerns me very much that the two most recent shooters were military veterans. Veterans with combat-related traumas. The waterfront shooter appears to have gone completely off the rails, the LDS shooter seems to have been on the way there … there was also the veteran Nat Guard guy who took his two daughters out into the woods and murdered them, and then killed himself.

    There is an awful lot of suppressed pain among veterans of Iraq and especially Afghanistan. Obama, the Wonderful Magic Negro gave away Iraq to ISIS and chaos, then he and Biden fed a constant stream of military into Afghanistan … all for nothing. The debacle of the Afghan withdrawal just reopened seeping wounds. Oh, and capped by Joe Biden looking repeatedly at his watch, when the Abbey Gate bombing casualties were returned to the States – talk about salt into the bloody wound… I’m also pretty well convinced that Obama and his crew cared little or nothing for the lives of soldiers and Marines. I’ll bet he held a holiday in his heart every time some white southerner or country boy was blown to rags, and the general officers that he promoted (over the real war-fighters) were just pleased as punch to contemplate their retirement jobs with major contractors and think tanks.

    Yes, I’m that cynical. I saw all this before, with Vietnam. But at least this time around, members of the general public weren’t spitting on veterans.

    Liked by 5 people

    1. With any luck, Hegseth’s mass gathering of flag officers will defenestrate enough of those responsible for the Afghanistan debacle to encourage the rest to do their jobs right. A reckoning is past due.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. The Reader is hoping that Hegseth’s meeting goes something like this. ‘Welcome. Half of you are now civilians. Check the tables at the back to see if you are still assigned. And remember, the UCMG applies to retired officers and we will enforce it.’ Meeting over.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Lawdog’s take on it (recreating the Roman decimation experience) was, er, interesting. Groups of 10, nine clubs, and whoever got the wrong-colored marble was going to have a really bad day. Pour encourager les autres indeed.

          Liked by 1 person

      2. Primus Victoria

        Unless and until the whole wretched mess becomes disciples of Victory, we face only more of same.

        Primus Victoria

        “What are our Victory objectives?” – If a general cannot state them in a sentence of two, to where a Private can understand them, fire the General. Either he didn’t understand his orders, or he failed to go apeshit when given defective ones.

        Primus Victoria

        Don’t ever again accept some dipshit telling you war can be described without “Victory”, and meaning “The other sunsabidges quit, and beg loudly to quit”

        Primus Victoria

        “Unconditional Surrender” “Total Victory” “Those bastiches? They aint around anymore.”

        Primus Victoria

        Liked by 2 people

    2. The nice thing about dead tree books is they do a very good job of stopping bullets. Merriam-Webster hardcover dictionary will stop just about every small caliber round out there. S.M. Stirling’s novels in paperback (1.5 to 2 inch thick) will stop a .357 FMJ fired from 10 feet away. (That wasn’t the one I used for testing, but the one I just happen to be looking at.)

      Liked by 1 person

      1. If I remember correctly, the British defending the besieged Residency in Lucknow during the Sepoy Rebellion, discovered that the tightly-packed shelves of books in the Residency library made that room particularly secure against bullets and shells aimed at the place.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. When I saw “Castro Dead” as the headline of the Black Friday edition of the local paper some years ago, the first word out of my mouth was “good.” I was a little shocked at myself, because I was raised not to speak ill of the newly dead.

      Liked by 2 people

  10. Sarah, I have been following you for many years, maybe ten now? I do not understand where you are getting that people on the right see you as the enemy because you are tan.

    What?!?!

    You seriously see the right as racist?? I do not understand this at all, where is it coming from because it doesn’t sound like you and it certainly isn’t reality.

    Yes, there are racists in every group, but I do not know ANY folks on the right that are racist. Not one. None of the stuff I read from the right is racist, nobody posts any videos that are racist, etc, etc… Just where is this coming from??

    Like

    1. Not people online. People locally. They view me as LEFTIST. Not racist. But they assume I’m on the left, because the left claims me.
      TBF it goes with the whole artsy/female look.

      Like

        1. Yes, well, you know, when I went to get my driver’s license and the lady asked which one I wanted to register to vote in primaries as, seeing I came from Colorado, she was justifiably unsettled. While I was unsettled, because well, she was a black female.
          Turned out when I said, “Well Republican because they’re both insane, but the Democrats are pox” she gave me this bright smile and said, “Yeah, it’s like that.”

          Liked by 3 people

    2. NOT racist. It’s the general look. The tan is part of it. My kids are often assumed to be left because they look (more than I) Latin and are young. People tend to make assumptions like that at one look, then are surprised when it’s not true.
      No, I don’t think the right is racist. I think we tend to buy the left’s “All of these people are ours” though.
      And then there’s the groypers, though I argue they’re not “right.”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Hmm. I also do the artsy/hippie look, (without the tan, I’m mostly Scottish so extremely pale), so I do get what you mean.

        I was just concerned about the mention of the skin tone because I don’t assume people are lefty just because of their skin. I don’t assume anything about anyone because of their skin, except that they have more melanin, lol.

        I understand what you mean now, I just seriously hope the majority doesn’t think there are default politics just by how we look.

        Welllll… Mayyybe if someone has pink hair, nose rings and tattoos … Ok, ok, LOL. We are humans and just can’t help ourselves, can we? :)

        Like

        1. I don’t tend to assume that people are bad/evil by skin color, But I tend to assume that they are lefty if they look Hispanic. And when I caught myself doing it, I was sincerely upset with myself. I mean, I own a mirror.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I grew up in Texas mostly on farms and have hispanic cousins, so I never had that issue. Also played football and did the military thing, which were all integrated. Had a string of hispanic girl friends before I met my spouse. Almost all their families were conservative.

            Most of the open lefty idiots I know are either white females or white male trust funders.

            Liked by 1 person

            2. This is me, 20 plus years in the military so I am far more likely to assume Hispanic male = Conservative. Now I work in a clinic with a large (and often indifferently legal) Hispanic patient base and nothing has disabused me of that notion. Even the cough guest workers cough prefer the current administration.

              Less true of females but it’s also less true of females in general.

              Liked by 1 person

          2. something like 90% of Indians in America — sub continental — identify as left wing. By a large margin the highest among all groups and Indians have only half the proportion of republicans that blacks do. So ….. yeah.

            if you wondered about H1B ….

            Liked by 1 person

        2. We’re, well dad’s side of the family, are Scottish too. Not the pale red headed type, but the dark black hair who tan dark really easily. To the point where dad and his brothers got stopped coming back in from the Mexican border, regularly. Two younger brothers regularly given one was a farmer, the other construction. Both learned to keep the “farmers tan” lines. Of coarse part of the problem might have been the “Lovelace plantation” effect. After all don’t know enough about that line to know if actual family or “pale enough to pass get off plantation after the war” effect (4 – 5 generations back, seriously, no clue).

          Interesting conversations on our last trip. We’ve learned to be carefully on how we word things. After all “our lovely governor” can be taken multiple ways. Anyone here who knows my handle, except maybe the feds here, especially my fellow Oregonians are not going to take this as a complement (to be clear, it isn’t). But a new acquaintance might think we were left of center. It was interesting to watch that dance unfold. We did not leave them hanging. Conservatives (duh, we did) also go to our national parks and use hotels (instead of camp). Doesn’t mean they weren’t out there but we did not run into any TDS Biden supporters (did we just get lucky?)

          Like

          1. I like the “our lovely governor”. I can drip sarcasm at will, but have been reluctant to use “the unfortunately named Tina Kotek”. “Despicable Kate Brown” was easier to use, and widely agreed with in Flyover County.

            Like

        3. “…pink hair, nose rings and tattoos…”

          Interesting how much sense there is, video-logically speaking, in assorted people meeting some or all of that description on today’s Internet. (Yes, it’s still very much correlated with lefty-ism and woker-ism and so forth; but not even nearly 100% — especially since, um, certain recent events have shaken the old certainties and categories up somewhat.)

          It’s almost as if Someone wants us to be more discriminating and careful about our own personal version of Identification Friend or Foe.

          Like

    3. Is the general point on IFF that she makes.

      If you examine me in real life, off of a subset of info, and explicitly exclude any knowledge of me as online under a handle, you might easily estimate me as some sort of leftwing wackjob.

      I’m in a lot of places where there may be a strong correlation to leftwing wackjobbery. You would maybe need to pay close attention to me, adn look for silences, for a more accurate or braoder guess.

      Suppose her model of election fraud is correct, and represents actual votes, and people are looking for left votes in their area that are actually purely fraud. They would overpredict leftists, and overpredict them more among people they they are further from and know less well.

      Like

      1. “If you examine me in real life… you might easily estimate me as some sort of leftwing wackjob. I’m in a lot of places where there may be a strong correlation to leftwing wackjoberry”

        That could apply to me as well. I could easily be mistaken for a lefty because: 1. I am a woman who has been the breadwinner of the family for our entire 30+ year marriage. 2. I have only one child, who is autistic. 3. I live in AND work for the evil, corrupt and leftist state of Illinois. 4. I used to be a newspaper reporter/freelance journalist (aka “stringer”) before that (and we all know “you can’t hate the media enough”). 5. I’m rather nerdy, overweight and not conventionally attractive; the older I get (60+) the more I see the 1985-ish version of my dad when I look in the mirror (a few years ago it was mostly the early/mid 1980s version of my mom that I saw).

        Now, you would have to dig deeper to discover that:

        1. My journalism career was spent primarily at small weekly newspapers, one of which was a Catholic diocesan newspaper devoted to church-related news (during the JPII era and under a bishop then known as a conservative) and the others of which were small town tomes devoted to mundane stuff like city council meetings, street projects, high school sports and the like. I enjoyed that and had NO desire to go work for the Chicago Tribune or the WaPo or NYT. I was not out on any kind of crusade to Change The World, I just liked listening to people tell their stories and learn why they did what they did.

        2. My husband grew up in a relatively large family (5 siblings) and already had young nieces and nephews when he was in 1st grade. I was the younger of 2 kids and had no cousins or any other relatives younger than me, and knew little or nothing about caring for babies and toddlers, so he became the stay at home or “anchor” parent. Later in life he had 3 hernia operations in 3 years, which put the kibosh on his ability to work. So it kinda made sense for me to bring home the bacon. And we did, in the beginning, want at least 2 more kids but that did not happen for reasons that I won’t get into here.

        3. The job I have with the state of Illinois is rather unique. I work for a legislative committee that reviews proposed state regulations to ensure that they conform to the statutory authority of the agency and meet other criteria specified in our Administrative Procedure Act. The committee itself is comprised of 12 members, and must be evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans and members of the House and Senate. It was intentionally set up that way in the 1970s so that one party, or one chamber, could never have complete control and any attempt to stop “bad” regulations from taking effect would have to have the backing of both parties. So we are not under the authority of the governor or of any one political party, we are NOT unionized, and at least now and then, we actually do some good. In fact, Republican members of the committee have told us that this is the ONLY place in which they have any significant influence at all, since both House and Senate now have veto proof Dem supermajorities and all other committees are majority Democrat. Also, our staff does have significant ideological diversity, from yellow dog Dems to hardcore conservatives, and they all get along just fine!

        All that said, I still worry about being on the wrong side of Civil War 2.0 because it’s a matter of record that OUR lovely governor doesn’t want people who think like me or my husband and daughter living in our state. At the same time, among the right leaners there are people who constantly rave about state workers all being rabid lefties and burdening the taxpayers with their “lavish” pensions, etc. If some of the commenters at Insty had their way, I wouldn’t be allowed to vote because I’m female (and we all *know* that giving women the vote ushered in Big Daddy Government) and because I am a government dependent parasite with an “imaginary” paycheck (that still manages to pay all our bills). Sorry for the long rant but I definitely hear what Sarah is saying here.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Have you seen what I write? I just put out a book with hermaphrodite characters. you don’t have to go further than insty comments to find out I am actually a cultural marxist corrupting morals. (Rolls eyes.)

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Yeah, as much as I like Insty some of their commenters get under my skin. I hesitate to ask and you don’t have to give any details if you would rather not, but what’s the deal with the Insty commenter who was constantly accusing you of something about “stolen valor”? I could never make hide nor hair of that.

            Like

            1. He’s an idiot who was here, trying to incite “burn it all down” got slapped by my commenters who said he was not a Marine (He identified as a “former marine”) I found his email being used by an Egyptian account on x (Note that doesn’t mean it was him, but…)
              Since then he has been running around accusing me of “stolen valor” and “hating marines.” This is not stolen valor. One can deny someone is a serviceman. It’s claiming to have served and not have done it that’s stolen valor. Among the many things he doesn’t seem to get, that’s one.
              Note this is COMPLETELY performative. Like I have TWO semi-public and one public email address. He keeps asking people to show me his discharge form, but has never emailed.
              He also makes death (and worse) threats on the regular.
              He could be crazy, but the longer this goes on, the more I think it’s not a “he” at all, but an operation.
              He’s an operation to drive me off the net and silence me, basically. They’re up against the wrong person.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Is that the guy who is convinced that Sarah’s fund raiser a few years back for unexpected moving expenses was for updating their game room, and thought that they should give the excess back?

                And is that Clamps, or another crazy person?

                Like

                1. From things in the back panel, he seems to be an incarnation of Clamps.
                  Also, apparently the game room was supposed to be or implied to be, pace Snelson who ran across that drivel a sex dungeon.
                  Guys, it’s to laugh.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. I haven’t blocked him, simply because the incoherent rambling is something else. And it’s a good idea to keep an eye out on stalker types, JIC they go actually dangerous. (I know your location is undisclosed for a reason.)

                    Like

                2. He emailed madmike telling him to cancel my invitation to guest at confinement, or he’d bring police to arrest me…. for doubting that his online handle was a veteran?
                  I have no idea what Mike answered, but it must have been colorful.

                  Liked by 1 person

                3. Oh, oh, you missed the MOST FREAKING EPIC upgrade he made to that– he declared it’s for a sex dungeon.

                  Like… what?!

                  But yes, although I agree it seems to be several people, evidence suggests it is also the Clamps / Yama the space fish/ various STDs ‘nym using identity.

                  Like

            2. Was it the guy with the John Wayne icon?

              That’s the one who insists that if it’s by a female name, it’s woke; if there’s a woman on teh cover, it’s grrlpower, and if there’s no woman on the cover it’s gay.

              He also, memorably, declared that C. Chancy’s Net of Dawn and Bones was a sexed up urban fantasy grrl power trip.

              …the female lead is a nun, basically. Doesn’t appear to have any of those impulses.

              Oh, he sometimes goes for covers being “ugly,” too, that’s why I suggested Sarah link Net of Dawn and Bones, because the cover is so pretty.

              He’s crazy.

              Like

  11. To be fair, the PTB in the general culture have been working feverishly to get us all to reflexively judge each other by the color of our skin and not the content of our character. Which is why virtue signaling is such a thing, I believe.

    Fight the programming people! Fight! Fight! Fight!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The problem with attempting to make skin color into a uniform is that it confuses their IFF as badly as they wish it would ours. Morons.

      https://twitchy.com/samj/2025/09/29/black-man-american-flag-portland-n2419666

      If he were some evil white man, it would be easy; they’d physically attack him.

      But a black guy? This is problematic for idiots who hide their own hate, racism, and bigotry behind the Antifa flag. That being said, it didn’t stop them from yelling at this man who keeps his cool no matter how crazy, frothy, and hateful they get:

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Yeah, bringing up Trump’s popularity among the Hispanic portion of the population causes lefty brains to short-circuit.

        Like

            1. Then you’re not a racist, just a… hate…ist? Most days, I’m with you. The problem isn’t white or black or any other shade, it’s people. People suck.

              Like

              3. Research has been done which indicates that high levels of galactic radiation can make massive changes in mood and behavior. I keep thinking of the magnetic field of Earth being currently reduced to almost nothing, allowing in far more radiation, and how that might affect those who never learned to control their own emotions.

                If this idea is correct, look for increasing levels of illogical violence as the magnetic field decreases further.

                Liked by 1 person

      2. I still most fondly remember a picture from the anti-gun-grab protest in Virginia, during that mercifully-brief interlude where Virginia was (legislatively) taken over by a well-funded and very lefty campign to mount such a takeover, then (apparently) test-drive a no-guns, no-zoning, social engineering rabid-left sort of agenda. (This was the one motivating much of the state to take a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary County” stand not to enforce any such unconstitutionality.)

        A youngish trucker, photographed wearing a T-shirt that said “Black Guns Matter” underneath a very genuine slung long-gun concrete illustration of same. One of the most pleasantly hillarious things to come out of all that semi-dark time.

        And mostly because of the way it would so obviously bend “their” stereotypes into a pretzel.

        Like

        1. Even better one, from one of the early Tea Party rallies IIRC: picture of a very carefully cropped picture showing a guy in a dress shirt with an AR open-carried muzzle down on his back…..

          Much vapors were had about all those gun nuts…. until the uncropped photo was released, showing a young black guy in the dress shirt with otherwise unruffled white guys and gals all around him.

          Like

  12. I observed that Covid cracked more marriages among the people I knew. People that were away from the house and each other 40 or more hours a week had to deal with each other 24/7.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. And as to “why?”

    Copycats are a thing.

    = Crazy killers are often copycats.

    = And of course, presstitutes often copy whatever drama worked yesterday, so hypehypehype whatever bleeds.

    And those two categories synergize.

    Like

    1. Yeah, basically among students of the phenomena, it has been understood for a while that the media amplification of the spree killings is a major influence on the copycat spree killers.

      There are literally songs complaining that that the media give too much coverage to the killers, and put too much weight on them. (Or, rather, one that I knew about and could recall off the top of my head.)

      I definitely do not know that I was in the most relevant category of metnally not well. But, conservative politics and Christian religion did have a stabilizing effect on me.

      There are some politics specific aspects of people not being well, and not creating a healthier mental environment for their confederates.

      But, on top of the lockdown, we also have the fact that youngsters are being told that the computers will be able to do entry level jobs instead of them. The people telling them that may well be clearly nuts, but if one is young enough one will not have the background for sorting that.

      Liked by 1 person

  14. “Maybe consider that the people telling us we have to resort to violence and “shoot back now” are not our friends, or frankly friends of the republic.”

    Yeah.

    Remember that the people reporting all this are THE SAME ONES who told us we all had to stay home for Covid, and we all had to take the #MadScienceJab because it was #SafeAndEffective(TM), and #LetsGoBrandon was sharp as a tack…

    Bottom line, nobody tells me “shoot back now.” That’s not a thing.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Some folks who pretend to be on our side whisper “despair” or “boog”, as if either are valid options in the here and now.

      No. -We- ain’t overthrowing the Republic.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. I look at it this way:

        There’s a reason why the whole Lefty-centric entertainment industry from print to film went full post-apocalyptic grimdark by roughly 2010. It isn’t like I imagined that the movies are all crap and there’s nothing to read.

        They’re trying to make us freak out.

        Sorry, it’ll take more than that. I can tell sh1t from shinola.

        Liked by 3 people

  15. Civil Wars aren’t Civil.

    As for today’s environment:

    Rule Number One: Carry concealed, if you can, all the time.
    Rule Number Two: Know how to use that ccw and practice at least once a month at the range with it.
    Rule Number Three: Avoid situations and locations where you have to use that ccw, if at all possible.
    Rule Number Four: If the shooting starts and you don’t immediately see the shooters, duck and cover until you know who’s shooting, and either escape to safety or it’s safe to return fire.
    Rule Number Five: Aim, shoot, repeat until you are SURE you’ve stopped the shooters.
    Rule Number Six: When the cops show up, put your gun down and obey every order they give you.

    Every healthcare professional whose business received federal or state reimbursements (Medicare/Medicaid) was MANDATED to get the jab and push it on everyone who came through the doors. And most of those healthcare professionals didn’t have a clue as to the effectiveness or danger of those jabs.

    I have to disagree with you on the teachers saying egregiously bad stuff and getting fired for it are not ‘our’ folks embedded in the system and trying to stay hidden. ‘Our’ people keep their traps shut, period. We’ve got several here in NH and they are definitely Leftist Loonies of the vilest variety.

    Like

      1. TL;DR: Many docs were under pressure for COVID. My previous one applied that pressuure.

        I’ve been willing to give many medical practitioners a pass over Covidiocy rules. When Despicable Kate Brown misgoverned Oregon, she had OHA (“health” authority) and OR-OSHA goons going through businesses ensuring mask and other rules.

        However, my (now former) primary care doc embraced the rules. I got the WuFlu in March, 2020, shortly before TPTB declared emergency powers. Dr Mengele proudly stated that he was appointed to be the lead COVID person. Not sure if clinic or the whole compex. Fairly likely the latter. When the not-vaxx came out, he applied much pressure to get me to take it. I was willing to consider it upon official release, but then I was starting to see the articles on mRNA catastrophes. Nope.

        I talked to another doctor (still ain’t gonna name him) who recommended that I pass on the shot. Dr Mengele was quite upset at this news and wanted to know who said that. Wouldn’t tell him. Then Mengle said I could not have had COVID since the first official case in county happened in April. OTOH, I knew ferom the testing doc (after failing flu tests in March) that the state wouldn’t provide test kits to Flyover County in March because we didn’t count enough at the time. That doc is at the clinic I now use…

        When the adverse consequences of the not-vaxx came to the mainstream, Dr Mengele went radio silent on COVID. Not. One. Word. Earlier this year, the other clinic in the complex was soliciting new patients and I put in for a transfer. Mengele got word (two months before my new-patient visit–that other clinic is popular) and he “accidentally” listed me as having no primary care doc, thus disabling new prescription refill requests. I politely complained, they claimed “computer error”, but I suspect it’s another brick through Mengele’s reputational window. He got some grief earlier when he didn’t want me to stop taking Warfarin before a medical procedure. Really bad idea. I think his boss has a target on him. I’m glad to make it a bit bigger.

        Liked by 2 people

  16. a) customs about lawful defensive use of force

    b) In an ideal world, there would not be a situation where I am proved wise and sane to go “Okay, I am much much too insane to be doing the go/no-go, targeting list, and direct action decisions for a civil war. So I am not going to make those decisions, and hence I do not need advantages of obscurity, and can afford to throw some of that advantage away.”

    It seems like we may be in such a non-ideal world.

    Like

    1. “It seems like we may be in such a non-ideal world.”

      Nope. Not even close.

      I do agree that there seem to be a lot of guys out there who would very much like us to be in that place, and there does seem to be a larger than usual number of fruitbats losing their schlitz lately, but overall? Nope.

      I mean, I just spent the whole day riding around on my bike, being a scarlet menace to society. (It’s a red bike. It goes like hell.) If the world was “Direct Action!!!” would I be able to run around at will and menace SmartCars?

      So look out the window. If you see tanks and stuff blowing up, then you have my permission to break out your target list. Otherwise, no.

      Like

      1. I think I may have worded it badly.

        The mixture of ideas I was trying for maybe can be broken into four pieces.

        1. My false alarm rate for ‘something must be done’ has been at times verifiably pretty large.

        2. My ability to judge how sane functioning Americans would call things, in the heat of the moment, is known by me to be poor.

        3. If 2 and 3 are a significant impairment, then I should in advance refuse to assign myself any direct action tasks, nor should I prepare targeting lists, etc.

        4. Decision three maybe should not be unusually good. In an ideal world, many people would be sane enough that they would just filter thigns correctly, and not have to worry about their own dumbassery.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. “I think I may have worded it badly.”

          No, I get it. Internal uproar, can’t be relied upon to get things right. Me too. I have no freaking idea what Normies think. Or if they ever think at all, for that matter.

          That’s why we do External Reality Check. Is there a tank outside? No? We’re good.

          Just be sure all your own bullsh1t is battened down and it’ll probably be okay. ~:D

          Liked by 2 people

  17. I don’t know how many actually became raging introverts, as opposed to still needing the same amount of human contact, but having you’re baseline trust so thoroughly shattered that one can no longer function around strangers or unknown entities.

    Liked by 4 people

    1. That’s a good way to put it. My default has changed from “you’re probably OK, let’s chat and find out” to “you’re probably a lunatic, let’s nod and pass by”.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. I have never been great at chit chat or even having the courage to greet someone I don’t know. But hubby is quite the social butterfly.

        He is just now getting back to chatting with strangers like he used to.

        The one thing I have noticed is the leftist is very comfortable sharing their opinion on everything at first meeting. Because, obviously, you couldn’t possibly disagree with their virtuous thoughts. Like “ethical vegans” they can’t help themselves.

        Normal people are much more circumspect. They generally need a sign of some sort that you care about their opinion.

        There definitely used to be more normal people for hubby to talk to than their are nowadays.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. “never been great at chit chat or even having the courage to greet someone I don’t know. But hubby is quite the social butterfly.”

          Same.

          Liked by 1 person

      2. “you’re probably a lunatic, let’s nod and pass by”.

        Yes. I’ve stopped short of ‘actively hostile’ and landed on “militantly disinterested.” The polite nod pretty much captures it. “Yes, I see you. Now get off my lawn.”

        Liked by 3 people

  19. A minor point, but thank you for using the correct word “atrocity” instead of the pretty word “tragedy “. I think you are the only one I have seen do that in months.

    Liked by 1 person

      2. Lol.

        Was “useful”

        Still “idiot”.

        His own kind have said “Seriously? You are a creep.”

        Anyone else noticing how bat-guano-crazy-hard they have to work to make the Left seem smart and inevitable, and how childishly easy it is sometimes to just … not act out … dont freak, and we make things better.

        Be of good cheer. Go about your lawful business. Scorn bad advice. Prosper. See your foes defeat their own goals with their hystrionics. Build a better world one day at a time.

        Our system was -designed- for -us-. That is why the enemies of the USA want you to help change it, radically, for the worse. For -them-, not you.

        Left, Right, and BatGuano.

        Liked by 3 people

          1. Not sure if that was the one I’m thinking off. Terry Gilliam, “History of flight”. with subjects getting kicked off a cliff and being told to fly. The “modern day” version was similar, though the [strike]victim[/strike] passenger bought a ticket before being kicked off the cliff.

            It’s been a number of decades since I saw it–the local PBS did Monty Python in the mid ’70s, and I don’t recall seeing that one more than once.

            Like

  21. Yeah the idiots with Civil War fantasies annoy me all across the political spectrum. It’s an ugly thing guys and your side -whichever one that may be- isn’t guaranteed to win. Do not desire it, miss Dashwood.

    Liked by 4 people

    1. “It’s an ugly thing guys and your side -whichever one that may be- isn’t guaranteed to win.”

      Nobody wins those things. Everybody suffers, and they suffer for -nothing- because it is bullsh1t right from the top all the way down.

      Who’s “winning” in Yugoslavia these days?

      Liked by 4 people

      3. Am i missing something? Because my understanding was that once the artificial construct of Yugoslavia (boo hiss Serbia) broke down into its component atoms, and got recognized as separate entities, the fighting slowly ground to a halt, leaving a bunch of impoverished microstates behind. It’s not a good state of affairs, but I am not at all convinced they were better off as Yugoslavia, and some of the comments in this chain make it sound like they are still fighting today.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Just an example. My point was “impoverished microstates” was the result, where everybody is worse off but the hate hasn’t gone away. It just cooled. For now.

          We could go with Rwanda for an example. Civil war, huge numbers slain, what’s happening down there these days? Not much, would be my guess.

          Syria? Same same.

          Nobody wins, everybody loses. I could do without seeing that happen here.

          Liked by 3 people

            1. You know, we could see the same exact thing happen here in Canaduh.

              Currently the Federal #Lieberals are doing everything they can to irritate Alberta and Saskatchewan, where all the oil is. While slavishly pandering to Quebec at the same time.

              Canada as a whole thing is a substantial country. Alber/Sask, Ontario and Quebec as three different nations? That’s three impoverished microstates.

              Or, as #OrangeManBad keeps saying, the 51st, 52nd and 53rd States of America. That would be the best outcome for us, maybe not the best for the USA given how STUPID my fellow countrymen are. Seriously, sheep are geniuses in comparison.

              Elbows up!

              Liked by 1 person

                1. AlberSask is a landlocked oil, coal and wheat producing area, it has zero local steel production, or any manufacturing to speak of, really. But I am also not an expert. ~:D

                  Call it Cold Arabia, more or less. Also surrounded by hostile socialists on two sides and tundra to the north. They could make out okay as an American state, becoming their own nation could be tough.

                  But they may anyway, given what’s going down in Ottawa these days.

                  Liked by 2 people

                    2. Yeah, the refinery thing is a sore point with me.

                      You’re sitting on more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia (like, way more) and all you do is dig it up and ship it raw? That’s literally the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.

                      The smart thing is refine it and sell finished product to the entire world. But do they do that? No, they do not. And WHY don’t they? Because Ottawa, that’s why.

                      It’s more complicated than that, but it is also that simple. Nobody can build a refinery or a pipeline because Ottawa said so, and they’ve said it for 10 years. Nobody can build a liquid natural gas terminal to sell gas to Europe because Ottawa. Straight up.

                      To the point where TransCanada Pipeline changed their name to TC Energy and moved to Texas. Where they are building new pipelines and makin’ money doing it.

                      Liked by 1 person

                  2. They have to become independent state before they ask to become an US state. But, does there have to be a delay? As in “independent”, minutes later, apply for statehood? IDK

                    Liked by 2 people

                    1. “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

                      Generally, Congress establishes a territory, the citizens of the territory launch a petition for admission, they also have to draw up and approve a state constitution, and then Congress grants admission and the President signs it. The shortest time for this was Alabama, which took two years.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    2. I’ll have check more fully, but it appears that Texas was an independent nation when it applied for annexation to the US.

                      It was never a US Territory.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    3. California wasn’t a territory either, because it was acquired directly by treaty. The Canadian provinces might be able to persuade Ottawa to admit defeat….

                      Liked by 1 person

  22. I’m reminded of something that I saw last week (I think) on X, about the American Civil War (sorry!). According to the person putting up the post, many of the Southerners who before the war were the loudest in calling for secession turned out to be the ones least likely to make sacrifices in order to succeed. Meanwhile, people like Lee who had not been in favor of secession ended up doing much of the work of trying to lead and secure the defense of the Confederacy.

    I’ve a suspicion that many of those calling for the right to start shooting back are similar… assuming that they aren’t bots, or foreign instigators.

    Liked by 4 people

    3. I’m somewhat a loudmouth.

      If I seriously consider what running my lips does for me in a legal proceeding, I might tend to shut myself up.

      I think the left has found that their crazies are bad PR for them, and wants to have some crazies on the right as an example in support of the future careers of leftwing politicians.

      I’m basically very sure that ‘shoot back’ shows a serious lack of thought about ‘in what way’, and ‘what would the consequences of that be’.

      ‘shoot back’ thinking based perhaps in academic garbage, and hollywood theory, not any effort at first principles analysis.

      Like

  23. Okay, late to the party as usual, but here goes.

    Yesterday, shortly after hearing about the event in Michigan, in a “What in the Hell is going on?” moment, a thought occurred to me. What we’ve experienced in civil unrest, the height of that Bell Curve being civil war, isn’t too different than what this nation went through in ’60’s and ’70’s.

    Kennedy, King, Kennedy, Wallace. The Weather Underground, The Symbionese Liberation Army. Watts, Attica, Chicago, Kent State.

    There were plenty of other examples of that time, where I can remember my father uttering the same, “What the Hell is going on?” Honestly, he knew better. He knew what was going on. Members of the SLA and the Marin County Courthouse shootout were familiar to him. Angela Davis was a dirty word in our house.

    Growing up in California, my default was the Left. I was ambitious and worked for myself. I gravitated to the Right. the last time the republican Party was worth a damn, Newt Gingrich was Speaker. Somewhere during Bill Clinton, I became a Conservative Libertarian.

    This division is nothing new. So ask, who benefits? If we truly want to head off civil conflict, cutting off the head of the snake defangs it. For the last 30 some years, my advice has been thus. Take every member of congress and line them up on the steps of the Capital. Three Ma deuces, with interlocking fields of fire are let loose. Leave them where they fall. hire new ones. make them step over who they replaced every day as a reminder that We The People are not to be trifled with. Got it? No more trifling.

    Would that solve everything? No. But a bunch of the rhetoric and hyperbole would disappear. A lot less us and them. Our side and there side. And remind the other two Branches we ain’t out of ammo. It’d be the work of an afternoon and cost a lot less lives.

    Like

      1. Not at all. One of the tenets this nation was founded upon was the Government should fear The People, not the other way round. how’d that work out for us during Covid?

        The Left/Democrats are embracing the very ideals that are in direct opposition to what this nation once stood for. It’s not accidental and it’s been the work of a number of decades.

        The Right/Republicans have been castrated since Reagan. They get elected promising opposition to the other side of the aisle, but the moment it’s time to do so, they roll over and piss themselves submissively. Doubt it? Tell me, is the ACA still the law of the land?

        The head of the snake. Those that deal in soundbite rhetoric. The only way they keep their jobs is by keeping us at each others throats.

        The pendulum shifts, but the entire structure has shifted so far Left that JFK couldn’t get elected as a Democrat. someone like Trump, who honestly I didn’t trust until well into ’17, would have been considered center/right in 1965. Today, extremist is the kindest thing he’s been called and there is still plenty of opposition in the Republican Party.

        When the storm is building, drop the damn sails. If left untreated, the illness that resides in our government will devour the nation. an ouroboros to be sure. Look at the resistance to DOGE. And still we got The Big Beautiful Bill. Or, we could nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

        I’m not keen on shooting the folks across town that call me a Nazi. But those telling them I’m a Nazi and not fit to live? that’s a threat I can be comfortable confronting.

        And no, voting them out isn’t gonna happen. that’s as naïve as believing they’re “public servants”. When rehabbing a structure, demolition is necessary. sometimes extensive demolition. same with treating infections. the rot must be removed before it kills the patient. Sometimes amputation is necessary.

        Like

        1. no. Because once your solution is enacted, the Dogs of War are truly let slip. No one will dare to lose power, since the precedent has been set that to lose the favor of the mob leads to destruction.

          Down that road lies nothing but tears, and outsiders getting involved. Because they will, even more than they already are. No.

          Liked by 4 people

          2. What TXRED said. No. No. and No.

            While Oregon is deep blue by mob, the whole state isn’t.

            Portland has problems, in spots.

            Heck bring the National Guard to Eugene to protect federal ICE lock up. I live in Eugene (theoretically, because technically still county despite address). I won’t see a single national guard unit. All the problems are downtown. The idiots (this is not the national guard) know better than to swarm to the suburbs of either Eugene or Springfield, let alone outlying areas.

            Yes, Oregon needs it’s voter roles cleaned. The US DOJ is working on that. So are the locals loud and clear. (See NextDoor.)

            Liked by 1 person

          1. “Break the rules of CIVILIZATION and the dogs of war bite YOUR ass.”

            The left breaks “the rules of CIVILIZATION” on a daily basis. The “dogs of war” SHOULD “bite [their] ass” at least once in a while.

            It would be horrible… I’m just not convinced that it would be any MORE horrible than what we already have. Decent chance it would be less.

            Like

            1. The left breaks “the rules of CIVILIZATION” on a daily basis. The “dogs of war” SHOULD “bite [their] ass” at least once in a while.

              If you were paying attention to what actually happens, instead of drinking the ink, you’d notice they do get bitten.

              A lot.

              …but that would require paying attention for more than ten minutes while you light your hair on fire and demand we go all be stupid.

              I do not get why so many folks insist on ignoring, downplaying, or flat out denying every freaking win.

              Liked by 1 person

        4. One of the tenets this nation was founded upon was the Government should fear The People, not the other way round. how’d that work out for us during Covid?

          Extremely well.

          Tell me you weren’t paying attention to how bad the rest of the world got without telling me.

          They very worst places in the deepest blue hellholes here approached some of the mildest European restrictions. We did have to make pointed displays of potential force a few times to make sure they remembered, but even without shooting the guns deterred a lot.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Yes, this. Underlined. How soon people forget (with or without intent to).

            “Vaccine passports” just to go out and buy food. Drone flights in Britain, to spy out people who left their houses to walk alone in the woods far from anyone else. And who could forget the Australian state that declared the only reason for “unvaccinated” to leave their houses was to get The Shots? (No, not to work to get money to buy food; no, not to buy food with the money you had left. There was and almost certainly still is video evidence of all that, the high-level gov’t speaker is one step short of frothing at the mouth like a mad dog.)

            Starmer of today’s UK seems to be in the process of kicking a similar hornet’s nest there, with his “mandatory universal digital ID” to go anywhere, buy anything, earn or deposit or withdraw money. Popcorn futures here on the Revolutionary side of the Atlantic are looking up.

            Liked by 2 people

          2. Aye. Despicable Kate Brown’s OR-OSHA and OHA (“health” authority) brownshirts never came to $TINY_TOWN because the town’s reputation for being a tiny bit homicidal is well deserved. Just a tiny bit, but raiding the general store? Ain’t gonna drive out, not with 4 flat tires and an unruly crowd.

            That was the only store that had neither a mask mandate or occupancy limits. They did fairly well compared to similar stores in Flyover Falls.

            Liked by 1 person

        5. Hello,

          You appear to have badly misread the character of the folks here.

          No, we are not boogiemen. No boog. Nope.

          We are the folks who are going to preserve this republic, and its ways an means. Its processes. We will argue exactly how, but there is no “revolution” to be had here. No “ballistic reset”. We had a successful American Revolution ~250 years ago, and are not so foolish to think rolling the revolutionary dice again would serve a good purpose.

          No, you will not machinegun our Congress. No, you will not provoke anyone here to do or advocate such as foolish thing. (OK, maybe envisioning karo syrup and feathers, but I am an old school hooligan. And that is obviously absurd hyperbole, so chill.)

          No. And if that wasn’t understood. No.

          Liked by 3 people

          1. “No, you will not machinegun our Congress.”

            There are indeed reasons not to do that. Even good ones.

            But his argument that it would improve several things isn’t wrong, either. At least, *if it was done as he said*, with no favoritism.

            Like

      2. That, and more. (Cold War theorists would call the above ‘plan’ a “decapitation strike” which is usually an enabling prelude to worse.)

        To me, this is really “how to tell us you want to wreck civilization without honestly saying ‘let’s wreck civilization’.”

        Like

    2. Dang it, man…five feet short of the finish line, and you dropped the baton. I have been known to wish on occasion for some “disaster” to obliterate certain buildings in DC while Congress is in session, which I guess is not much different from your proposal — but it’s not any kind of a solution. Not only would it not solve everything, it would solve less than nothing.

      Who would actually do this, and how would we protect our elected representatives from them if they got a sudden hankering to do it again? If the answer to who they’d be is “us,” how do you know that that particular us is the same us as us, and what’s to stop that us from deciding one day that some of us are no longer us, but them and going bang-bang-bang again, on our doorsteps instead of the Capitol steps this time?

      Liked by 3 people

      1. I did not claim there weren’t several points not addressed. What I know for certain it took four passenger jets and 20 jihadi hijackers to make “common cause” a thing in America again. Everyone’s got a plan till they get punched in the mouth and the enemy always gets a vote. What I’m getting at is that I don’t believe the blue haired, gender studies major, 22 miles asway is my enemy. I definitely don’t agree with her motivations, but I believe she’s been lied to. A lifelong gaslight.

        Since the mid 2000’s, I’ve cautioned everyone I knew that wanted to burn it all down and start over, and those folks were the polar opposite of those I described in the paragraph above, in doing so, you’d never get anything like what we started with in the late 1700’s. Sure, the intentions would be there, but like with the structural demolition I mentioned before, some things need drastic alteration. Waiting, praying, hoping, only allows the rot, the infection to grow.

        I guess the real question is, who’s the real enemy?

        Is it the generation or two that have endured indoctrination and have no idea of the absolute gift and opportunity they’ve been born into?

        Is those who look up from their back breaking jobs that surely lead to substance abuse, divorce and an innate understanding that it wasn’t supposed to be this way?

        Or maybe it’s the grifters that abuse their positions, steal our money and goodwill and continue to promise everything from Hope & Change, to Draining The Swamp, while never intending to deliver on anything but what keep themselves at the public trough.

        I don’t have the answers, but I do understand that doing nothing only leads to it all getting worse. We’re definitely headed for something. A cliff, a brick wall at excessive speed, a spectacular crash and burn. I can’t say. I only know that left untreated, the patient dies. While the, ahem, doctors, quibble over which course of treatment’s best, the patient withers and dies.

        “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

        “Kill them all and let God sort them out.”

        Somewhere between those two thoughts, a solution might be found. What it looks like and how that comes about have yet to be realized. But waiting, wishing, and watching, only ensure it gets worse.

        Like

        1. “OK Doomer”

          Perhaps I have been around a tad bit longer. We have overcome far worse messes. The trend is solidly pro Liberty. Sure, the path of Liberty is contested. Always is. (heck, its usually mined)

          We are doing fine and getting better, and the foes of Liberty are the ones screaming loudest it is all falling down. Because first they have to induce despair.

          Nope.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. This.

            Over the last few years, I’ve said more than once that we’re about to revisit the ’70s, with all of the political turmoil and domestic terrorism (which was worse the first time around; we’ve got rioters out on the streets in some areas, but no bombs going off at government buildings). But this time we’ve got the updated version of Reagan in the White House instead of the squishy Nixon. And the Veep, i.e. the guy who will likely run at the top of the ticket after Trump’s second term ends, isn’t an establishment type like Bush the Elder.

            Liked by 3 people

            1. To be fair. Bit harder to get the bombs, etc., into government buildings these days, because of those days. Have you tried going into government buildings? City, not bad. But county on up? Gate Keepers on staff. Federal? Not only gate keep but show Real ID.

              Like

              1. That’s true.

                One thing I forgot to note – the FBI is still pulling shady crap, though of a different style, and aimed at the conservatives instead of the domestic terrorists.

                Like

          1. Not gonna lie. I find myself abrasive most days, but my wife and my dog love me.

            Definitely not a Lefty, a bot, or many of the other derogative sputum tossed my way.

            Not advocating, inciting, or telling anyone I’m right. I mean I am Right. More than most people I know, but we need to be focused on the actual problem instead of bickering amongst ourselves. Nothing changes until you change it and the one trying has been shot, impeached, twice, once while not even in office. Been subjected to lawfare and had his family and his businesses damaged.

            You get the most flak when you’re over the target. Trump is over the target. has been for some time.

            Guess I’m just a decoy. Ineffective, but ruffling feathers none the less.

            Like

    4. Your proposal has several unstated assumptions, a few of which I’ll list here.
      1. It assumes, without stating, that an successful armed insurrection has happened.
      2. It assumes, like a leftist, that killing people will kill ideas, changing hearts and minds.
      3. It assumes, like a leftist, that televising the event will induce terror and produce compliance.
      4. It assumes, like a leftist, that once the terrorists achieve this limited aim, they will withdraw to their farms like Cincinattus and enjoy the fruit of utopia, rather than seeking further terrorism.
      6. It assumes, like a leftist, that no consequences except the predicted will happen, ignoring the obvious opportunity for external enemies to attack.
      In short, it assumes, like a leftist, that the only principle is naked power and violence.
      It is clickFed politics: use this one weird trick to achieve instant swamp drain and societal harmony.

      Liked by 3 people

        1. It doesn’t have to actually be *successful*, just momentarily able to do what is needed. After that, all the people involved can (and almost certainly should) be arrested and never see freedom again.
        2. No, that’s not the point at all. The only thing that needs to change about their “ideas” is that they are afraid to try the bad/unconstitutional ones.
        3. With the people that we care about, at least a large subset of them will fear it could happen to them if they do the same BS. That’s the entire and only point. “Don’t DO this horrible crap. Think and advocate for what you like.”
        4. No, as I said, they would all need to go to prison at the very least, and most of them would probably be executed. That would be just.
        5. Um, you listed no 5?
        6. This is your only even vaguely accurate complaint. Timing would need to be done well – after an election and before the next Congress would be least disruptive, but still, there could indeed be other unfortunate side effects.

        I personally think it could be done with an even lower body count than killing all of Congress, but in every vaguely plausible scenario, the people DOING it also would be killed or at least imprisoned for life…

        You know that old saying about “the tree of liberty”? All the plans that might actually work involve that cost, because “getting away with it” makes it not work, for multiple reasons! Even trying to “get away with it” would make it less likely to work. For an extreme solution anything like this, those doing it must pay the extreme price, or it’s guaranteed to turn out bad in the medium term at the latest.

        Like

    5. Your common sense and history is marginal, if it even exists. What’s left is the chemiluminescence like the largest rave in the world with Muzak circus music instead of techno.

      You claim to be Libertarian, but I smell cynical nihilist poser.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. Or for those who’ve seen “Person of Interest” episodes enough: “bad code.”

          insidious, but still yet treatable, given patient consent.

          Liked by 1 person

    6. “Would that solve everything? No. But a bunch of the rhetoric and hyperbole would disappear. A lot less us and them. Our side and there side. And remind the other two Branches we ain’t out of ammo. It’d be the work of an afternoon and cost a lot less lives.”

      That last bit is the real clincher.

      And for bonus points, a higher percentage of them than usual would actually deserve it.

      Still horrible, of course… but arguably “less horrible than what we’re already going through.

      Like

  25. If you like this kind of stuff (and a request for forgiveness if you don’t):

    “… I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.”
    — 2 Tim 1:12b

    I wish I could sit down over a seasonally-appropriate office beverage (or three) with each of you and tell my survivorship story; but Sarah’s probably already warming up The Look for me…

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “The light shines in the darkness, and the dark has not overcome it” has been running through my head a lot lately. It gives me hope, and it applies to our situation on many levels. “Overcome” is probably the most accurate translation, but the original Greek word can also mean to comprehend/understand or to grasp/take hold of. “And the darkness comprehendeth it not.”

      Whether or not one chooses to illustrate it with a Bible verse, it’s clear to me that the left fundamentally fails to understand this nation. In their benighted thinking, they cannot comprehend what actually drives the rest of us. Faith (a new thing for me), love of family, love of this great country, love of liberty, the principles our founders held, adherence to the Constitution they created, respect for the right of each individual to choose what to believe in and strive for…somehow they’ve lost the thread. Not just the left, but some on the right who unthinkingly invert what leftists *say* they want and only end up as mirror-image monsters. Many of them will never find it, but I hope enough of them will.

      Liked by 2 people

  26. Pingback: Instapundit » Blog Archive » STOP, DROP AND THINK:  The Face Of War. Running around with your hair on fire can kill you. And

  27. “But other people broke in other ways.”

    Yes, and just as noted in the OP, it’s still happening. One example from only this morning:

    These last few months, it has grown increasingly more difficult to feel positive about the state of affairs in the world.

    Politics used to bring me joy. Now it just brings me chaos.

    I have grown to really dislike socializing with people & find attending events to be a burden.

    Sounds like a card-carrying introvert, right? This is Laura Loomer of eX-Twitter and “Loomered” — not some “highly sensitive person” or lifelong seeker of inward sanctuary (i.e., one of “us”). And note also how it’s not “these last few weeks” so what she’s describing there didn’t just start with the murders of Iryna and Charlie (raises hand).

    https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1972936592961519988

    Self-understanding and self-healing, or a cooperative version of same, might just be the next go-to superpower.

    Like

  28. Somewhat off topic (except, perhaps, in the “and the dark does not overcome it” sense): now we have a target date and mission profile for SpaceX’s next Starship flight.

    October 13, about 7 PM EDT.

    Another borderline-orbital test, with pseudo Starlink deployments and an in-orbit engine relight, followed by water landing in the Indian Ocean. The booster (which is a reflight) will not be caught at the tower, but land offshore, testing a 5-engine burn in between the 13-engine braking and the 3-engine landing/hover phases. This is evidently what the new Version 3 booster will routinely do.

    And since this is the last prototype before the new Version 3 booster and Version 3 orbiter, there will likely be an extended delay between this Flight 11 and the following Flight 12.

    For more see: https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-11

    Liked by 1 person

  29. Finally! Hooah! Someone spoke the Words of Power!

    “the era of the Department of Defense is over.”

    “Those who long for peace must prepare for war” — which he said dated to fourth-century Rome and was echoed by the nation’s first commander in chief, George Washington, said the phrase “captures a simple yet profound truth.”

    “From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting, preparing for war, and preparing to win,” he said. “Not because we want war. No one here wants war, but it’s because we love peace. We love peace for our fellow citizens. They deserve peace, and they rightfully expect us to deliver it.”

    “Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the War Department,” he said. “In other words, to our enemies, F-A-F-O. If necessary, our troops can translate that for you.”

    – SecWar Hegseth

    Primum Victoria!

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Yes, that was quite a… gathering, the SoW and POTUS just hosted. One could do far worse with an available hour and a half or so, than watch both speeches straight through.

      Of course assorted Vindmans will likely still be with us for awhile; but it’s a very different country now from the one that he and Schiffty Schiff and all the rest tried to sell ‘Russia Russia Russia.’

      Liked by 1 person

  30. The problem is, we’re not at war with them, but they are at war with us. 😡

    They’re screeching about Trump sending the National Guard to deal with rioting criminals. Swalwell the Flatulent threatened to send the Army and Air Force against ordinary citizens who disagreed with the Leftroid agenda. We are not the same.

    Like

    1. They’re no REALLY a war. They are at rebellion and sedition. And ineffective with it. They’ve BEEN there. They’re just screaming louder. Remember the touchstone for judging if they’re winning: The left is LOUDEST and most deranged when LOSING.
      Ride right through them. They’re demoralized as hell.
      (And yes, we’ll lose some people. I’m willing, and I’m sure I’m not alone. We all owe G-d a death.)

      Liked by 1 person

      1. “They’re just screaming louder.”

        Yes they are.

        And have you noticed that for the first time since forever, violent “protesters” are being picked off and arrested? That’s a beautiful thing.

        This is the other side of the arresting people thing. When you let rent-a-mobs get away with blocking roads and accosting people, they do it more.

        So, if ICE is driving and rent-a-mob materializes and blocks their car, the correct course of action is detain and charge every single one of them that blocks the car. Let none escape. Let them wait for their bail hearing for a couple days too.

        When the fun of blocking traffic is replaced by fines, court appearances and being in boring jail, they’ll stop doing it.

        Broken Windows. Nick them for loitering and noise complaints, watch the rate of serious crimes plummet to nothing.

        The more the authorities do the obvious and apply the law at the most fundamental level, aka shoplifting, being a nuisance, petty vandalism, obstructing other people, etc. the more the Lefties freak out and scream.

        Because if all that petty stuff gets squashed, the crimes the Lefties are doing will stand out in neon red. That’s why they hated Mayor Rudy. He was making them look bad.

        Liked by 2 people

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