The image above was made by a friend as the election loomed and we were sure that Donald Trump was a moby. The “Unicorn Cavalry” is Larry Correia’s term for the Libertarian Party. Or was, when the party adhered to, you know, Libertarianism.

Unfortunately 2016 was when they epically misread the tea leaves, or perhaps consulted the world class brains of college libertarians and decided what libertarianism actually should be is “just like what Bernie Sanders is emitting out of his mouth hole.”

Liberty suddenly meant not liberty to pursue happiness with no hinderance, but liberty to pursue happiness because someone else was paying for your necessities. I.e. your liberty required the enslavement of others. (At least their fractional enslavement for tax payment, but that sort of thing always progresses and places like the Soviet Union had functional enslavement, in which you had to work at that which you were assigned. (For which the slaves rebelled as they always do, by merely pretending to work.) And this they called freedom.

Facebook kicked it up the other day as “a memory” because being designed for grandma’s to show off their photos, or people to post pictures of their lunch, they think it will bring a misty-eyed tear to my eye.

What it did was make me stare at it a long time and go “You know, the Libertarian party isn’t it, but we REALLY are the 16th division of the Unicorn Cavalry, us.”

Let me explain: In 2016, those of us who had had enough stuck our horn up and pierced the contented fundaments of the establishment. Since then they’ve been running around with saws trying to cut the horns off, but only succeeding here and there, temporarily, and causing more unicorns to appear amid the newly woken. Half the time, the left has resorted to tying pillows to their behind (the idiotic barbed wire and guards in DC, etc. But that only shows their fear.

But Sarah…. unicorns? We’re not air dreamers. In fact, we’re the ones who are in touch with reality.

Sure, sure. But imagine how the left feels. Unicorns are supposed to be non-existent or very rare. And suddenly, there they are, everywhere, chasing them with sharpened “let’s go Brandon” horns and with “We don’t believe you won the election, your fraudsters” horns, and with “no, I won’t believe anything you say” horns. (Which in this case is what “horny” means. I suppose it would be better as hornery, but eh. The pun is funny.) And everything they do to make the unicorns rare, only makes them come back in greater numbers.

Worse, unicorns are basically purity detectors. Yes, I know. “Virginity.” Meh. There are a ton of medieval stories in which being a virgin was not the point, being pure/good was.

And yet, we’re rising up against people who consider themselves pure and good.

And we’re the 16th because we started in 2016.

I’m here to make a sincere, heartfelt plea that you — quixotically, to the measure you can do it — join the 16th division of the Unicorn Cavalry, and sharpen your horn to a razor point.

It’s a rhetorical horn, because most of us are indeed “keyboard commandos.” Not — I emphasize this — because we demand we start a war, or that others shed blood on our behalf, but because most of our work is ideas and words.

And it is desperately needed. And yes, we might already be much too late.

Let me explain?

I have said before, (And Bill Whittle, who is at least as depressive as I am) agreed, that we’ve already won the war against the current wave of Marxist globalists.

We have won, because reality fights on our side. As it’s been increasingly obvious, these people don’t understand how anything works, beyond perhaps academic politics, and they keep trying to bring to life models that can’t and won’t work.

The problem is “We” and “Won.”

We, who are not globalists are winning and will ultimately win. A great fracturing is taking place. And the big conglomerate of the left will try very hard to impose their nonsense on us and fail.

But what comes next is not won. In most of the world, it won’t be the American model as it’s supposed to be. They never understood (and don’t wish to understand) our Constitution, for instance.

Will it be a return to a constitutional republic here. Well, one can hope and fight for it, but the chances are actually vanishingly small.

At this point, the overwhelming chance is that we’ll fall to the nationalist empire form. We’d already started to with Woodrow Wilson, accelerated with FDR and the movement that way has continued, slowed down by two notable presidents.

At this point, gut tells me, Starship Troopers is the best case scenario. And that, if you look at it, is ultimately globalist, just not short term. Because a society that oriented towards the military (lip service to other forms of service notwithstanding) will become an empire.

Honestly? I could live in the Starship Troopers universe. (Shrug.) It ain’t wonderful, and it will be war-inclined and tend to ossify and restrict improvement. But it could be much worse and probably will be.

That is the part — not the “they will impose world wide communism” or “The current elites have it all sewn up” — where I’m genuinely pessimistic. Yeah, we might change it, but it will take a miracle, or an army of unicorns.

Why? Because I know the rest of the world. I know Europe, know people in Africa (yes, including tribal members), and have a passing touch and go knowledge of central and South America (look, my cousins there are scary, okay? Mostly I get reports third hand.)

We’re thoroughly penetrated and corrupted by Marxism here. Even people on our side, gaming what happens next tend to default to the models they’ve seen in entertainment and read about in history books…. mostly written by Marxists.

I keep coming across bizarrely weird glitches in people who are otherwise rational. Like, someone will be analyzing the Regency in England and suddenly will say something like “Well, people were being forced to work in these horrible factories and live in horrible conditions in cities.” At which point I want to collectively grab them by scruff and bitch slap the indoctrination out of them.

In fact, if you read books written at the time, not by crazy Marxists like Dickens, or pay attention to the industrialization taking place in real time before our eyes in the third world, you’ll know that the Marxist bullshit about the Dark Satanic Mills was, like everything Marx made much of, basically bullshit and hot air.

People were having trouble holding onto tenants on their land, and servants in their manors, because conditions int he city were better. And working in factories was both less work and less demeaning than being a domestic servant. (Don’t believe me? Read biographies. Even the best make some passing reference to stuff that makes your hair stand on end, like the fact that your employer had a say over who you married.)

Of course the upper class also loved the Dickensinian portrait of cities and mills, because it might convince Millie-maid to stay in the manor, even though she gets up at 4 am to sew the master’s newspaper (trust me on this) and goes to bed at midnight after blacking the stove, and the master’s son is starting to get handsy with her.

But the fact that Marxism has penetrated that thoroughly means everything that the industrial civilization is built on is corrupted. Everywhere. (Yes, Europe too.)

It turns out the horrible things happening to the culture are not the result of decadence, either.

Okay, so Russia/the USSR is only ever good at one thing: propaganda and bullshit.

Mind you, they were never that good, but they had every writer, entertainer, journalist and academic on their side by the early-to-middle twentieth century, each one doing his part, in complete accord (a prospiracy, not a conspiracy) to help sell these narratives. And the narratives are simple. Once you have the outline, you can help build it without any profound understanding. (Which is why it’s also full of contradictions, and at war with reality but if you have enough adherents you can cover that up because none of them want to wake up. Waking up means losing friends, sometimes family, and becoming one of the pariahs. One of the “stupid.”

So, what the propaganda has done is sell the idea that a lot of things are “decadence” when what they actually are is the reaction of an invaded culture to having another culture imposed from above. Remember the idiotic mouse-habitat experiment, in which all these terrible things were the result of overpopulation and abundance? Turns out it was rigged (I know you’re shocked.) What it actually is is the result of individuals losing defined roles in society. Adjusting from mice: The women become whores, the men become thugs, babies become eaten, and adolescents develop all sorts of pathologies.

What you’re seeing, when you complain of our decadence has bloody nothing to do with decadence. It is the result of a foreign and very strange cult imposing its will on us, and therefore causing a loss of “role” for most people in the society.

The left attacked the idea of… well, everything that competed with dictates from the state: religion, marriage, family hierarchy, normal friendship, and on and on and on.

And humans can’t survive without a defined role and a defined purpose. We’re creatures who must see ourselves as part of the story.

The left’s idea was that everyone would buy into the great communist future and our role would be to bring that about.

Except since the USSR fell, most sane people know that’s bullshit, and only the terminal neurotics embrace that shit unironically with the kind of fervor reserved for death cults. (Which it is.)

And that’s the biggest thing we’re fighting against. The left’s grip on the culture is crashing. But there is nothing else for people to embrace. From the bizarre way even some anti-left people embraced masks and not-a-vax you can tell anything will do.

These are drowning people, trying to reach for something, anything.

Well, I don’t know what will happen in the rest of the world. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

But in the US it is imperative that we both mock and deride the left, before they can add more crimes to their toll. The ones they managed during the Covidiocy were enough, thank you so much. (Unless you call mass Gerontocide not a crime. And we won’t mention the cognitive impairment of a generation of babies and toddlers. Again, this is my training. Most of you might not realize that if you don’t form language before three, you never will. For a vast number of these children, the impairment is permanent.)

At the same time we need to push the model that works: The US Constitution.

It’s funny, you know, because in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, the Professor says that the Constitution was for an agrarian society and wouldn’t work for an industrial one. He was wrong, though I could see Heinlein repeating the “wisdom” of his generation. The Constitution would have worked fine, had it not been abandoned for the sexier centralized models of governance from Europe.

More importantly, the Constitution is much better suited than the centralized model (which is what is collapsing now) for a post-mass-manufacturing society. As both information and manufacturing diversify and individualize, the constitution is the answer to what ails us.

The rest of the world won’t embrace it — probably — but you know, not my circus, not my monkeys. We can at least provide a model and be a shiny city upon a hill.

So, what can you do? Be the unicorn cavalry. Be the keyboard commandos.

First of all, keep making what you think and feel known, to the measure of the possible in your position.

Look, even if all you do is show other people they’re not utterly alone by putting a “I did that” sticker on a gas pump, you’ve done good work that day. Steve linked this article in comments, and it made me giggle. Go read it, and then I’ll tell you what’s so funny. I don’t know if that gas station manager is a lefty or just congenitally stupid. (The answer might be both of course.)

Ready? The really funny part is that the writer echoes the managers sentiments without realizing how bloody stupid they are.

First, he says one or two people have “complained about the stickers.” and made his life miserable. But he’s scraping five to six off the pumps every day. Um…. that tells you how sentiment is running, but he doesn’t seem to realize that. (Unless he’s really, really deep.)

Second, he goes on and on about how Biden doesn’t shop there, so why are you doing this.

My giggle became a guffaw at that point. And that’s why I suspect he’s a leftist. He thinks any demonstration must be to attract the attention of and plea with/complain to the person in authority.

In fact, this one? is about letting other people we see what’s happening to the gas prices and we know whose fault it is. Considering the way the Brandon Junta and the mealy mouthed press report it, you’d think the rise in prices is inexplicable and strange, and not the fact of his stopping our oil independence on the first week in office.

It is important for other people to know they’re not the only ones who see it. You are supporting other people, some of them deep embeds who can’t speak. It’s an act of mercy and defiance both.

Defiance? Well, yes, because you’re countering the media narrative. And of course Exxon doesn’t like it and tries to repress it, because they are, of course, convinced that the future is on the other side, and that only hicks are against the globalists.

So what you’re doing too is slowly chipping at those assurances implanted by the universities in the minds of educated people. Do it enough and their fear will swing the other way, and they’ll start putting the stickers on themselves, to try to appease the majority of people. Because that’s how craven managers act.

Heck, do it enough and maybe they’ll ignore Brandon, tell him to take a hike, and drill, baby, drill before the children are crying for food in the dark. It’s unlikely, but we can hope.

I need you to be the people who don’t exist: Believers in life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and our Constitution.

I need you to join the Unicorn Cavalry, and explode marxist myths, media narratives, and the evil, dark doings of the global cabal.

I need you to produce pithy sayings, interesting memes, narrative-stopping polemics, and rude gestures.

I need you to step up. Yes, it will take a miracle. (But then we’re only mostly dead.)

And who best to produce a miracle than us, mythical and Odd beasts who aren’t supposed to exist?

Sharpen your horn, lower your head.

Hands comfortably on the keyboard?

It’s time to charge.

This morning I’m having loving thoughts along the lines of Heinlein’s “The Year of the Jackpot” but you know in the end SMOD always leaves us waiting with sandwiches by the phone.

Mostly to be honest I’ve had about enough of pudding heads. It didn’t occur to me till I perused the comments after doing righteous battle with the laundry this morning (Or “why is this so late. Laundry. piles and piles of it. I’ve tried to convince husband to be nudist but he pointed out then we’d have to wash upholstery, and he’s not wrong. Sigh.) that I am in a very weird position, not just because of where I grew up but when I grew up.

As Tom Simon pointed out — and the reason I keep screaming my generation and his are not boomers (never were, regardless of the boomers attempt to integrate us, so they can claim not to be older than dirt.) I remember when boomer stopped at around 56 and the real boomers called MY generation mean things and basically spoke of us as they now speak of millenials.

Look, the boomers by and large fell for the Soviet/commie lies. This was, in no small part the fault of the Greatest Generation (a name bestowed by boomers to appease their memory of how they treated their parents. Sigh.) The boomers were children of veterans who came home in horror at the war and also probably — at least the thinking ones — having trouble justifying our alliance with Russia while putting down the Nazis. (This apparently is because FDR liked the USSR and thought they had great ideas. And before you tell me we couldn’t have won the war without the USSR, let me point out given how communists operate and how effed up the USSR was, you might as well say we couldn’t have won the war without our foot in a bucket of cement.) So they were soft on communism, and allowed our already thoroughly infiltrated universities/Democrats (Heinlein said communists were in control of the Democrats already. I have no reason to doubt him) to indoctrinate their kids with the glories of communism. (Partly because our own CIA believed it. Question, were our intelligence agencies always working for the enemy? Don’t answer that. I like sleeping at night.)

And the boomers (no, not all) grew up with the idea that there was some kind of moral equivalence between us and the communists (at best. Those were the “right wingers” or center right.) And that in the end some kind of soft communism was the answer. Hence shows like Star Trek, which btw is what our idiots are trying to implement with their Great Reset. (The number of idiots on FB saying “Communism could be like Star Trek”. Yeah. Except it never is, because it can’t actually be. And yes, I liked Star Trek as a show, but I choose to believe it was just the military that operated that way. Frankly, until they ran their mouths on stuff like “There is no money” decades later, that’s how the show came across, because even in a show the idiocy in the writers’ minds wouldn’t work.)

No, not all the boomers. But generational culture has its own gravity, and that was the understanding at the back of the boomers’ heads. No big surprise they embraced various forms of chemical escape. Or at least the less moral did. Because I mean, what else were you going to do until perfect communism arrived and you became kind of symbiotic to a universal brain?

Note this is at a the back of a lot sf books of the time, and the only one that has an explicit rejection is Heinlein.

Our kind? We grew up when the summer of love had turned into the winter of STDs, when the pot smokers had turned to the harder stuff and become their families’ tragedies, or the world’s greatest hypocrites, who cleaned up during the week, but were still totes hippies on the weekend. We saw the devastation of collectivism lite, in the US under well, everyone from Kennedy to Carter, and in the rest of the world more so, with boots on.

So, much to the boomers’ shock and disappointment, we cut our hair (or permed it), put on nice clothes and went to work. We laughed at the communes, ignored the sit ins (or in my case once started a riot to end one. Shush you. I told you there were a few of those.) We rejected the leftist philosophy. Some of us were convinced by our teachers and universities that there was a “third way” of a little bit of socialism (akin to just putting the tip in, or perhaps “a little pregnant.) Or at least we pretended to to pass college. And some of us just grew more mullish and tired of the bullsh#t every day.

Add to this that I grew up in Europe. More than that, I grew up in Europe in a country being manipulated by the USSR.

Was the ancien Portuguese regime a horror? Sure. But honestly, most of its crimes were throttling the squid farms on Mars. As in, they destroyed potential and those with potential. (Or mostly they sent those with potential running to other countries.)

Mostly they squatted on the economy, preventing it from getting a breath, encouraged the predominance of the “old families” that were in their pockets, and kept the rest of us very very poor, under the excuse of keeping the foreign influences (and ungodly ones, too) out.

I.e. standard fascism (actually in the FDR mold, without the protections of a US Constitution. I swear to you Salazar cribbed FDR speeches. I know because I found old magazines and papers.) But without a military component and enforced in the usual haphazard Portuguese way.

Mostly we were very, very poor. Appalachia might have looked down on us.

On the other hand, there was worse in Europe, even in the sixties. Like the Soviet prisoners. And the USSR needed control over Portugal.

Oh, not for Portugal. They took a bunch of our stuff, sure, but mostly they wanted the African colonies.

And I watched how they went about it. And I saw how the US fell for the “But the African colonies just want to be free.” Which might have been true, of course. Some surely did. But they weren’t organized, and they had no idea how to be free. So most of the “movement” was by communists who were, yes, agents of the USSR, whether cognizant of being so or not. (And most of the African ones were cognizant.)

So when the USSR succeeded in their revolution (mostly, alas, a revolution by the Portuguese deep state, who were being cut back by Salazar’s successor. Not cut back enough, because that would involve shortening them. The man was no Trump. But he was kinder, gentler, and wanted Europe to like him. And thus the deep state was upset at losing a little bit of power, and hey! Communism. We could be kings. Yeah) in Portugal, it meant that Africa went from being colonies of the Portuguese to being saratrapies of the USSR and Cuba.

The hell of the seventies in Portugal was that Russia didn’t even really want Portugal. They just wanted Africa, and therefore were willing to pervert the Portuguese wish for freedom to get control. I was shot at as a sidebar in the history books. Gives me the warm fuzzies, it does.

But at the time, of course I didn’t understand any of this, partly because no one talked about it. I did understand stuff like science fiction books going up 500x in price. I did understand the store shelves being empty and us being told that it was the fault of hoarders and wreckers. I did understand that. Yes. I also understood forbidding opposition speech, while making speeches about Freedom. I did understand that my teachers worshiped the USSR while talking about internationalism. I did understand that they talked about the US being imperialist while Russia had an actual empire.

And other things, like noticing that the same slogan and even the stupid red carnations were the same in a lot of revolutions around the world. And that Jimmy Carter got his speeches word per word from the same writers that wrote the speeches for Portuguese communists.

Which means I look at Putin and I don’t see some kind of nationalist hero and defender of Christianity, as pudding heads do, but as a KGB man, deploying the same old, same old KGB tactics, and pretending he’s a nationalist and a hero of the faith. DO keep up. Some tanks going into Ukraine flew the old Soviet flag. That tells you where Putin’s heart — as far as he has one — resides. His speeches often let drop his continuing butt-hurt that the Soviet Union lost. Because he imprinted on the Soviet Union as a young monster, and he wants to restore it as an old monster. He’s still and will always be a monster. The closest he comes to loving something bigger than him, it was a corrupt, miserable empire that enslaved half the world.

Now does he deserve a US intervention? Sure, but which US?

Look, we have problems, right here in Libertyville, okay?

Boy, have we got problems. And for once, thank the good Lord, we have these problems in common with the rest of the world.

I’m not thankful that we fell enough for the communist lies to have the same issues. I’m thankful the rest of the world is finally joining us in “No, I won’t.” Sure took them long enough.

But they are, finally joining us. Partly because the communist/socialist/collectivist/centralist lies have finally become florid enough to be obvious.

Partly because they grabbed the US, so the US isn’t helping as much as it used to. And socialism is not self supporting.

Put it another way: They’ve been living in our basement, raiding our fridge, and daydreaming about how great their hippie commune would be if we let them move there.

Only now, we’ve run off to join the hippie commune, the fridge is empty and growing mold, and the basement is starting to look dirty. And they’re starting to wake up.

Or rather, the working class, the people who make things actually work — to the extent they do, in Europe — are starting to wake up. And they want the fricking college professors to shut up and hand back the economy.

It sort of makes you wonder how fixed the elections have been in other places for generations. Not as obviously as here, but I don’t think they needed to fraud as openly as here, because different cultures.

The truth is in most of Europe the normal people can no longer afford to live, and it’s getting worse every day. And the covidiocy revealed that the smile on the face of the tiger is just the better to eat you with.

They might not understand that socialism is a lie, but they do understand that globalism is. And that technocracy is and that “rule by experts” is long on the “rule” and short on real knowledge.

From what I understand even Russia is having problems with the real workers revolting.

Which is what Putin’s jolly war was supposed to help fix. The only provocation he had was thinking he could get away with it now, but maybe not next year. And the reason he thought a short victorious war would fix it all is because he thinks of the USSR past as “glorious” and “everyone was happy then” because he is also a delusional pudding head. Just one cunning enough and evil enough to be in power in the smoldering ruins the USSR left.

And the reason our pudding heads would love us to join in the jolly war against Putin is that this would give them a brilliant chance to stomp on domestic opposition too. (And the same for Europe. At this point there’s a great confluence of Pudding Heads.)

They don’t really give a damn about Ukraine. They don’t like freedom anyway, so why would they want it for anywhere? But a war of the powers would give them an opportunity to stay seated.

Yes, Putin is a horror. Yes, Ukranians should fight him with all their might. They know that. They know his kind. Yes, individual Americans are free to support it as much as they want.

Our pudding head Junta, which is in occupation of DC, should stay the hell out of it, and if they try to join officially should have their snout hit repeatedly with a 2×4. Made of titanium.

“But what if Putin nukes us?” Well, I wish I could say he wouldn’t, however note the Junta’s big worry — they’re honestly Pollonium Pudding Heads — is you keep your mask on in the bomb shelter.

However, there is a good chance that Russia’s nukes, like the rest of their military equipment is either defective or has walked away, or yes. And any improvised container nukes are likely to not be particularly efficient. (Because, you know, getting containers into our ports might take months. And a container headed for say NYC might end up anywhere else.)

But yea, we might lose a city or two (I wish I could say we won’t.)

Does that mean we should fall in line and go to preventive war?

Question for the class: Would it prevent the nuking or precipitate it. Yeah. Likely the second.

So, if we are nuked? First, if they take off DC (and I wish my friends nearby would work remote for a good long while) remember to send them a thank you note.

Of course, then thank you note should be on the tip of a missile that takes off wherever Putin is. (And if Russians are smart, they should take an extended vacation away from the old monster.)

Our answer to his bluster and screaming about nuking us should be “Don’t start none, won’t be none.” and that has a better chance of stopping the nuking for long enough till he can’t.

Till he can’t? See how the entire industrial world (I know nothing about Africa, but they only marginally fit that definition) is experiencing a workers revolt.

The oligarchs wouldn’t be acting this crazy if they didn’t know they’re in eminent danger of being toppled. And trust me, they have better sources of information than you or I or, of course, our very own pudding heads.

So, there’s a chance that if Ukraine lasts a little longer, the world will change. And very dramatically at that, in a reversal of the centralization of the 20th century.

Now, that means it will become an unholy mess, I grant you, because well, people don’t go rational all of a sudden. (Or often ever.) So lurching to a form of government that works will produce some terrible injustices, some horrors, and some reversals to the leftist model.

Here’s the thing: I hope the US can do this with a minimum of chaos, and that our defense and military will remain operational. I’m very afraid at this point we’re headed — at least temporarily — for a Starship Troopers model.

But I’m hoping we can avoid imposing it on the rest of the world. I’m hoping we can avoid sending our boys off to die for other people’s freedom.

Why?
Because that too is a centralized system. And what it does is give the statists of the world something to point the masses to as the source of their misery that isn’t the true reason they’re miserable. Because they’re not miserable, mark you, because of the US. They’re miserable because of technocracy, “rule by experts”, oligarchy, all under collectivist soft-Marxist philosophies.

The more they can get people to blame us, the less likely it is the whole Marxist illusion will drop into the midden of history. Where it belongs, if we’re to avoid mass dying.

Now, I do realize in a world with nuclear weapons, other people might feel we should intervene, etc. I don’t hate people who claim that. I think they’re wrong, but I do understand their concerns. And heck, I have more in common with them than with the pudding heads who think Putin is our fren. They are about at the level of the people wearing Che shirts, and they should examine who this person is. And realize what they think they know — unexamined — is just good old Soviet agitprop.

As I learned, in the Sad Puppies debacle, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy’s enemy, no more, no less. Unless they share your principles, and your honor, they are in fact more dangerous to you than an honest enemy.

Stop painting Putin in freedom colors, and finding justifications for him. He has entire departments to do that for him. And they send over enough trolls to do that on our blogs. If you pay attention (or have recently read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, you sometimes catch the weird word choice and syntax (though not as obvious as in TMIAHM, of course.) You might also note most of the names doing that are either new, or– Well, let’s say I didn’t approve most of them, which means either they have a work around (unlikely) or they’re part of their troop who changes their name to spew the propaganda du jour.

(Hey there, Gospoda and Gospaza, I hope ten cents an hour you get keep you warm in the coming nuclear winter. May G-d have mercy on your souls.)

Yeah, we have our butts in a trap and no mistake. The only good thing about it is that so do the “elites.” And their butts are likely to be more bruised than ours. It’s small consolation, though, as we head into a few very difficult years.

You know the drill. Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark. And prepare, prepare, prepare.

Sure, as an individual, if you are in a position to and are sure what you’re doing will help them, feel free to help the Ukrainians. Freedom lovers should help people fighting a big tyrant.

But as a nation? Smack the nose of the Junta before they make things unimaginably worse.

Expect the worst and pray for the best.

In the end we win, they lose. And if we’re lucky, we do it with a minimum of blue glass.

May G-d protect fools, drunkards and the United States of America.

He knows we need it.

There are many descriptions for politics, one of them being that it’s what people do, instead of smashing each other’s skulls open with a club.

For the record, I’m instinctively the club (wooden, heavy) kind. Partly because I hate and despise mean girls and their cliques. I think life would be much easier if people who have trouble with other people got in a fist fight.

I’m also aware that’s not the way to run a society, unless you have a codified way to go about fist fights, and their resolution, afterwards. Which societies used to, mind you. But that too is politics.

As much as some of our founding fathers imagined a revolution a year or so, there really is no way to make a society work with that, not in actual functioning.

People like to know the next day will be more or less like today (weirdly, no matter how bad today is, until it gets to the point of no return.) And that dictates all sorts of compromises and accomodations.

I suspect this is a way in which my brain is more hunter-gatherer than settled agricultural person. Besides the ADD, that is.

Which brings us to the fact that bizarrely I’m a politics addict, and follow it way more than is good for my brain and blood pressure.

This is precisely because I don’t fully understand it, and don’t trust those who engage in it. I’m not fond of politics (which is why we’re not at home to anyone insisting that I should run for office in any way shape or form.) I’m just …. um interested in it. Or at least accurately aware that it’s interested in me. I’ve been bitten by revolutions, uprisings and riots before, and now, like someone in an area with unstable weather, I refuse to look away.

I want to have warning to grab that club and or run away, you see?

But the one thing I’ve never done, until very recently, is let politics rule my life or my associations.

In college, where I kept my politics strictly under cover, my friends ranged from the preppy “right wingers” to the communists, and each group was absolutely sure I agreed with them. I was even part of the (in retrospect I think we impressed other people as mildly creepy, but I don’t care) hyper religious group who headed for the nearby church before attending classes. (Usually at 7 am, when the services were.)

Here’s the thing, I was friends with a small number of people in each of those groups, and they were generally people I could trust not to want to — much less do — bash my skull in.

I tried to maintain the same balance and stay in the closet politically, in my career. That didn’t work, because by then it had become absolutely necessary to vocally endorse everything of the left to stay in the good graces of the establishment. Oh, and those things changed. And we were supposed to change with them. We were also supposed to banish anyone who didn’t.

I don’t work that way, which is why I hate politics and politicians.

But because practically everyone on the left whom I’d considered friends banished me when I came out of the political closet (I was on the suspicious list, for insufficient enthusiasm before, mind.) I’ve been worrying lately that I let politics dictate my life.

I do, also, instinctively flinch away from people proclaiming certain politics, because I’ve found I can’t trust them. So I’ve been wondering if I actually have become a political fanatic and the mirror image of the left.

I’m glad to report I haven’t. And I thank the current international situation for doing the clarifying.

There are some of you who are friends as well as fans, and with whom I’ve found in the last week that I have a very significant political disagreement with.

You see, I have — malgre moi — become something of an isolationist. While I think that the US should have a strong defense, and a policy of “Don’t start none, won’t be none” Aka “Touch us and die” aka “So much blue glass.”, I don’t think we should be the world police. I think internationalism, in the form of very strange alliances has been the industrialized world’s bane.

That said, I do recognize the arguments of the other side, including “But they won’t leave us alone.” It’s the mirror image, in fact, of self defense vs. an active and intrusive police protection which can go sour on you.

While this disagreement with some of you is pretty significant, it is also completely irrelevant for the fact I still consider you friends and allies. It doesn’t affect my feelings for you.

While I have decided opinions on it (When don’t I have decided opinions) and am ready to talk your ear off in all conditions, I can see your side of it. I think you’re wrong, but only by a whisker.

The problem I have with the left, is that I can’t be friends with people who wish me dead, despoiled or permanently silenced.

Barring that, I’m open to discussion and argument. Mostly because politics is always interested in me.

But a large portion of the population has decided it’s my way or the highway, and we’re supposed to be obedient widgets, who own nothing and like it (That is to say, slaves. If you own nothing, you’re dependent on others for your very existence, and therefore can be absolutely controlled by government which even at its best is never made of angels.)

And that’s why we’re in mid-fall, waiting for the parachute to engage.

It very well might not. May G-d have mercy on our souls then.

All we can do is wait and see if it does, and then decide appropriately.

I feel a hard crash and the sort of scouring that will make me overnight a hard leftist, without ever changing my positions.

Brace. Times are about to get even more interesting.

It is said that when the going gets weird, the weird go pro.

Well, boys, girls and winged wombats: Hold my Port Wine and watch this!

Let me first register that I’m profoundly uncomfortable living in a time when the difference between conspiracy theory and reality is more or less two weeks and shortening.

Look, I’m in a profession where assembling fantastical patterns of events is my trade, okay? That means I’ve striven my entire life to not bring work home.

Normally the most obvious explanation is the real one. If I come home and there a bunch of white fur on the back rug, the explanation is likely that Havey-cat has been rolling in it again, not that aliens with white fur came in through the back door to steal data from my computer. I mean, the second one is admittedly more fun, and incredibly flattering (The aliens want MY data) but the chances of its being true are very, very low.

Now imagine I come home and there’s the same white fur on the rug. Well, it’s mostly white, but the middle is bright pink and the ends are a beautiful rose gold.

Yes, it is entirely possible that my son lost his mind and dyed the cat strange colors. But it’s probably less likely that this happened than that some creature with fur yet unknown came in through the back door, for purposes unexplained.

Right now, world news (and to an extent national news) wise, I’m sitting here staring at rug with white/bright pink and rose gold fur, and trying really hard not to get carried away.

But the problem is, you see, that once we eliminate the impossible (say son wasn’t home to dye the cat) the improbable, no matter how improbable must be the truth.

I’ve felt this way in the recent past, when the Covidiocy began. I really didn’t want to assume the whole thing was overblown and that a panic was being instigated by our idiot left (in cooperation with the idiot left that is the establishment in the rest of the civilized — no one can call it free — word) for the purpose of unseating Trump (Trump’s going along with, and cooperating still makes me profoundly uneasy.)

But facts are facts. And the fact that the masses of homeless, who were not actually subjected to any restrictions in association, and who — oh boy — were camping all over Denver in big grotesque masses while the tax-payers were subjected to house arrest, weren’t dropping like flies meant this was not the black plague. This was corroborated by the fact that in the Diamond Princess cruise ship, under horrific conditions and with a compromised population (Very old, often very sickly) the death rate was that of a severe flu season (probably less than a severe flu aboard the petri-dish ships.)

This meant that everything, from the initial house arrest, to the ever lengthening two weeks, to the relentless fear propaganda, the bizarre muzzle mandates, the experimental RNA treatment mandates…. all of it, all the entire scruff and ruff and disgusting mess were not needed and were in fact put in place for some reason having absolutely nothing to do with public health.

I won’t lie: I felt like I was going nuts, because it was so obvious. And yet, businesses, churches, schools meekly closed, when the data was available everywhere. And people I was used to considering sane, or at least not complete raving lunatics, were chasing me all over facebook to wish me death on a ventilator. (And btw, my inside knowledge didn’t help here, because most deaths on a ventilator are because of the ventilator settings, which most doctors are iffy on using. Or were at least at the beginning of this. And which btw are always dangerous to the extreme elderly who have fragile tissues.)

Now it’s been two years of two weeks to flatten the curve, and even though my new doctor appointment cautioned me that I have to wear a mask (SUCH nonsense) even the CDC is admitting the muzzles of stupidity do nothing, even when they are the triple muzzles of complete stupidity invented by Mengele Jr Dr. Fauci. And the “Vaccine” is no longer necessary because “We did it, Joe” and the magic of the incoherent zombie has, between one week and the next vanished the dread plague that never was. Of course, dealing with the people who are still freaking out after two years of propaganda is going to take years. Our children have permanent cognitive deficits that might never be made up (no, seriously, the time for formation of language is short, and it does close) because they were unnecessarily barred from seeing human faces for two years. Young men have permanent damage to their hearts from the completely unneeded vaccine. More children and elderly have died from not-a-vax than the virus. People have lost jobs, careers and businesses. And the horrific torture of seniors, who either died alone or fell off he cognitive cliff because of house arrest has scarred the psyches of those of us aware enough to know.

But, hey, it can all be swept away just before the State of the Union, so that maybe the Marxist Spokeszombie’s numbers can be bolstered. (They can’t. And given the origin of those polls I suspect his real approval is in the single digits and confined to those seniors who have been shut in with a television for 2 years, and exquisitely indoctrinated college graduates who because of the lock downs have never held a job.)

So, no. I wasn’t crazy. The massive, nonsensical power grabs truly were gratuitous and for the purpose of stealing an election (Which is why it was a potemkin election, where fraud was always supposed to give them victory. Which tells you how large it was to begin with. The fact it failed and forced them to cheat more at the last minute, in front of G-d and everyone has them in a panic since. Hence the fencing around the capitol, the insanity with Jan 6 and the fact they didn’t immediately let us go back to normal.)

So, not crazy, even if in the grip of disabling-levels of anger.

And isn’t it weird that the moment people stopped wearing masks and communicated clearly they’d had it and also, incidentally, that they were in a rebellious mood by donating to the Canadian trucker convoy, a new thing appeared to suck all the air out of the room? Internationally. Overnight. So that our own convoys (and yes, there are others than the glowing one) disappeared from view, and that talk of a general strike was swept under the rug? And isn’t it weird that the new crisis is of a sort that allows our occupying government to declare a national emergency which allows them to control opposing speech? And to declare any actions — say general strike — in opposition to their genocidal and bizarre agenda “treason” and “comfort to the enemy.” And note, please, that they can apply these tags whether it makes any remote sort of sense or not. See the screams of Trump collusion with Russia, or the accusations that we are all in Russian pay, even though I’ve hated Russian influence and the Russian government since they wore the mask of the Soviet Union. (International socialism was always Russian nationalism, and anyone who pretends otherwise is trying really hard not to see through the gauze-thin mask.)

“But Sarah! You’re insane! I mean Putin just invaded the Ukraine when he did. Why woud you be suspicious?”

Well, why indeed. Considering two years of the rankest lies and propaganda, a jolly new call to arms when we were getting tired of the covidiocy, and “climate change” (Which has brought out new extra alarming predictions, to match all the ones that have never come true) wasn’t getting the traction they really wanted it to get, seems…. uh…. made to order.

And to quote my mom, when the alms are too big, the beggar gets suspicious.

How big is this alms? Well, the incursion into Ukraine is sure to get rid of the evidence of the Biden Crime Family meddling with that sovereign country. Also, in the future, it would make it unlikely that anyone would mention that meddling, because, well, do you want to be accused of being pro-Russia. Because you’d be. Because wars reduce things to binary choices. In addition, see the ability of the current Junta to slam down draconian controls on the populace, a la Woodrow Wilson. Why — that might allow them to impunely steal the 2022 elections. And maybe the 2024. And no one will dare say they were stolen. And the military won’t rebel, because more wars mean more promotions (why twinkle bottom Vanilli Milley lied and disobeyed a sitting president.) Hell, keep the war going long enough, inflict enough damage, and the global “elites” can keep power forever and establish the Great Reset as they meant to! (No, they actually can’t, because the entire idea is the kind of idea only a deranged idiot who has never met a real human being would believe in. But they can, actually and for real, destroy civilization. I am however talking about what a desperate, losing-power largely senile and addled or congenitally stupid group thinks they can do.)

Color this beggar very suspicious.

“But Sarah,” you’ll say. “You’re positing that the Junta is collaborating with Putin. How can that be, when they’re slamming down on Russian accounts and talking about how evil Putin is worldwide.”

Um….. yes. Yes, they are. Now consider that Biden is wholly owned by China, and that China has a treaty with Putin’s Moscow.

Note also that this isn’t necessary, in the sense of a full on cooperation. Putin is an old guard international socialist looking to conquer the world for Russian nationalism, that is. All it would take would be signaling that Biden would be okay with Putin annexing Russia, to get us where we are.

But–

But…. Look, yeah, Russian bombast, but has it ever occurred to you that there are too many lies floating around about the brave and plucky Ukranian resistance? That it’s passingly bizarre that the Russians are losing the part of the war they’re really good at (making up shit and propaganda) to Ukraine? That the left is suddenly very chicken hawky and demanding that we go to war and that of course Putin isn’t going to nuke us? And that Putin has gone from being a cagey and weird corruptocrat to sounding exactly like a Bond Villain? “If I can’t have Ukraine, I’ll nuke you all!”

Uh Uh. Perhaps the same Hollywood that can no longer write anything but remakes is now scripting his speeches? Which would mean, yes, that he is in on it, and looking to– I don’t know, but there are several upsides for him in this:

Even if he “loses” he’s likely to have gained territory, and leaves the door open to gaining more and maybe restoring his dream of a world-powerful Russia. Sure, China is in the way, but China is, has been and will always be, a “Potemkin superpower” and Putin likely knows it. He’ll get rid of young men who are likely to — always — cause trouble. And he can institute draconian measures at home (more than usual) and quell incipient rebellion. He can also divorce from Western bank and work with China which will facilitate further repression, etc.

And honestly, it’s better for that old horror if our “elites” stay in power. Pissed off people in control of their own destiny might give Russians ideas, no?

So, looking at the jolly war going on, it seems to me the international globalists are putting on a show for the peasants.

Sure, Ukrainian people are being killed for real, infrastructure destroyed, and lives ripped to shreds. And of course, yes, Russian young men are all so getting killed.

So? People aren’t real to these would be aristocrats. They never wore. They’re numbers on a paper. Nothing more.

The only question remaining is whether they’ll actually nuke a few American and maybe European cities, just to cow the population and make yet another power grab. (It won’t work, not in the long run. By which I mean a year or two. But one shudders to think what they’ll do when that falls apart.)

Which brings me to where I am: Yes, I hate Putin. He’s KGB. I’ve hated the KGB and the Soviets (Aka Russian imperialists) longer than many of you have been alive, and while the left still though they were their beau ideal. Besides, to be fair, I hate and despise all totalitarian regimes and all regimes that treat humans as markers in a game. (Tiddly winks. None of the current crop is up to chess.)

Yes, I think Ukraine is suffering, and that real people are dying.

But I think our getting involved will just be playing into the plan that started this. And frankly, the longer we delay in getting socialism into the midden of history, the longer and more bizarre their plans will get, and the more people will die.

I feel for the Russian people, losing their sons in this nonsense, but I don’t think anything can be gained by adding our sons and our livelihoods to this.

Russia needs to clean house and get rid of Putin. I don’t even know if that’s possible, because honestly I don’t understand Russian mentality very well. And their press has been controlled so long, there’s nothing to lean on. Not from the 20th century onwards.

So, I more wish and hope than know that they’ll step up.

And we need to clean house. Peacefully, if possible. Which starts with stepping up to the plate and telling the Junta and its machinations “No. And also no. Let me suggest where you can stick it and with how much force.”

And it requires we ignore the distractions thrown at us, and fight for our own freedom. Then and only then can we help others free themselves.

In other words, secure your own oxygen mask, before helping others.

Don’t be distracted. No matter what the sideshow is, the fight remains the same.

Get rid of the would be aristoi, and make sure that government of the people for the people shall not perish from this Earth.

It is the cause of Humanity, and the civilization depends on it.

*I’ve been having trouble keeping my equanimity “in these trying times.” Also I need to finish a Dyce book for a wife (not my wife, one of your wives. And that’s after the Shifter’s book.) Fortunately guest posters come through again – SAH*

State of the Union Bingo — Wrongfun for the Whole Family – by Ellsworth D’Silva

We don’t actually recommend that you subject yourself to the State of the Union address, but if you absolutely must because –say– a mush-head relative insists you must watch it, we suggest you print and distribute these bingo cards. Wrongfun for the whole family.

We also suggest you don’t make it a drinking game. Even Stephen Green doesn’t have a good enough liver to survive that.

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM M.C.A. HOGARTH: Business for the Right-Brained: (A Guide for Artists, Writers, Musicians, Dancers, Crafters, And All the Other Dreamers)

A career as a freelance artist? Not possible, you say? The Three Jaguars beg to differ! In this cartoon and checklist-filled guide, Marketer, Business Manager, and Artist walk you through the challenges of starting and building a creative business. Topics include productizing your work; metrics and tracking; communication and networking strategies; Day Job wrangling; pricing; branding; and even how to market yourself without feeling (*shudder*) slimy! If you’ve been looking for a clear (and humorous!) guide to the philosophy and practicalities of being a professional artist… this is your book. Also, did I mention the cartoons?

FROM JAMES YOUNG: Eagles, Ravens, and Other Birds of Prey: A History of USAF Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) Doctrine, 1973-1991

In January 1973, the United States Air Force (USAF) concluded operations against North Vietnam in seeming disarray. With heavy losses to tactical aircraft and B-52s during Operations Linebacker I and II, the USAF’s conventional capabilities were at their nadir. Instead of a potent sword protecting the West against Communist aggression, the Air Force appeared to be an obsolescent weapon to be shattered by new, potent Soviet air defense weaponry.

In January 1991, the USAF spearheaded the Coalition’s air attack on KARI, the Iraqi Integrated Air Defense System. Considered by contemporary analysts to be the most effective air defense system outside the Soviet Union’s, planners expected KARI to exact heavy casualties. Instead, in less than ten days, Coalition forces shattered KARI and prevented it from overseeing any organized defense. Indeed, so complete was Coalition air forces’ dominance that the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) chose to flee to Iran, their bitter enemy, rather than face certain destruction on the ground.

This journey from near irrelevance to triumph did not occur by accident. Air Force military and civilian leaders made a controversial choice: accept hostile air defenses as priority targets equal in importance to manufacturing centers, military formations, or political leadership. Eagles, Ravens, and Other Birds of Prey examines how this chain of decisions both helped win the Cold War and culminated in the greatest American aerial victory since 1945.

Dr. James Young is an airpower historian, aviation enthusiast and military analyst. His writing credits include the USNI’s 2016 Cyberwarfare Essay Contest, articles in Armor, The Journal of Military History, Marine Corps University Press Expeditions, and USNI Proceedings. In addition to his historical work and the critically acclaimed Usurper’s War-series, he has collaborated with bestselling authors Sarah Hoyt, S.M. Stirling, and David Weber.

FROM J. M. ANJEWIERDEN: Black Salvage (The Black Chronicles Book 4)

Morgan and the crew of STEVE have captured the pirates’ command ship, but can they keep it?
After a harrowing battle on the mining station and in the Black they won an incredibly valuable prize – an armed starship that, once repaired, is capable of subspace jumps without a gate. All Morgan and her skeleton crew need do is make the long journey home and they will be rewarded handsomely.
Unfortunately, not all the pirates are accounted for, and their nimble frigates are still out there somewhere, plotting to take back what Morgan rightfully commandeered…

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: A Gift of Koi

Ancient and wise, the grandfather Koi knows at first sight that this human bears a hidden wound. But how can a mere fish, even one as old as himself, be of any aid to a human?

Astronaut Tyler Lanham had come to Grissom City, first and oldest lunar settlement, in search of the medical expertise he couldn’t find on the far side of the Moon. When he sees the scar on the ancient koi’s side, he knows he’s found a kindred spirit.

But an enemy is stalking these lovely gardens. A danger that will change both man and fish.

A short story of the Grissom timeline.

FROM LIANE ZANE: The Flower & The Blackbird: Book Two in the Elioud Legacy Series

Six months ago Anastasia Fiore, an intelligence officer in Italy’s foreign security service, led an even more secret life on the side. She ran off-the-books missions with her friends Olivia and Beta, American and Czech foreign intelligence officers. The three women shared the same goal: take down predators.

And then Stasia’s life got way more interesting.

After a complicated, surreal mission that went sideways, Stasia learned that she has angel blood, making her an Elioud. She’s seen what Elioud warriors are called to do, and she’s not interested. Stasia can handle herself with a traditional surujin, a British WWII combat knife, or a 9mm handgun. But she prefers crafting a cover identity so compelling she can charm what she needs from her target instead. In fact, she’s so skilled that the Carabinieri’s Art Squad requests her help tracking down a stolen Rembrandt painting.

That’s what she was doing when Miró Kos, a Croatian Elioud she’s already chained, slashed, and drugged, showed up. He was there tracking the buyer, and whether Stasia likes it or not, she’s now inside another surreal mission. One that will make her question what her Elioud blood means. And what the quiet, intense warrior means to her. For his part, Miró cannot let another woman come before his duty. Or near his heart.

As Stasia sets out to recover the Rembrandt, she and Miró discover that there is more than a stolen painting at stake. And more than one Dark Irim stalking Stasia.

FROM MAX BRAND, EDITED BY D. JASON FLEMING: Three Outlaws (Annotated): Three Classic Pulp Western Adventure Novels

iktaPOP brings you three classic Max Brand pulp western novels!

Jerry Peyton’s Notched Inheritance

When Jerry Peyton’s father Hank died, he left him an education, a ranch, enough cattle to grow a real herd — and The Voice of La Paloma, a pistol famous throughout the West from Hank’s outlaw days. Everybody in town knew that Hank had been an outlaw, and everybody knew the son would follow the father’s path. They knew it so well, they started to lynch him for a crime he didn’t commit. It didn’t work.

And once Jerry Peyton recovers, nothing will stand between him and vengeance.

Bandit’s Honor

Leon Porfilo knows the only thing harder to outrun than the law is a bad reputation.

After outwitting and outwaiting the last governor, Leon is ready to present his case to a newly elected man. He’s banking on fresh eyes to see the self-defense shooting that started it all for what it really was.

But the governor’s not the only one who believes the legend instead of the man. Before he can win his freedom, first he has to convince a starry-eyed kid of eighteen not to be “just like” his idol…

Gun Gentlemen

For as long as anyone can remember, Lucky Bill has led a charmed life, but now someone has framed him for a hanging offense. He’s wanted by every tin star in the West and by every greedy gunslinger out for the price they can get for his no-good corpse.

But Bill is no yellowbelly—he’s aiming to clear his name and he’ll take on any bushwhacker who stands in his way!

This iktaPOP Media omnibus includes introductions and afterwords by indie author and editor D. Jason Fleming that give historical and genre context to the novels it contains.

(THANK YOU TO D. JASON FLEMING, FOR KEEPING THE HISTORY OF PULP ALIVE – SAH.)

FROM D. A. BROCK: Texas at the Coronation (Republic of Texas Navy Book 1)

For seventy years after a devastating war, the Republic of Texas kept to itself. But it would be rude not to attend the international naval review celebrating Britain’s new king, George VI. So with war clouds over Europe, Texas sends the elderly armored cruiser, San Antonio, and her new captain, Karl von Stahlberg.

While making new friends and meeting Texas’ ancient foe, can Karl and his men avoid sparking a war?

FROM DAVID COLLINS: Prelude of Fate: The Obsidian Valley

It started as a “normal” commute… He looked down for just a second…

When his eyes returned to the road, everything exploded in blinding white light. An instant of sight and sound saturating and overloading. Every nerve in his body, everything fired at once, pain, hot, cold, sound, pressure, everything.

Then blackness!

FROM C. V. WALTER, ON PRE-ORDER: Pursued by the Alien Pilot

Book description coming soon.

(But, come on, some of you are following the series, so…. -SAH)

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: Crook

*Just so you guys don’t worry. No, unfortunately this isn’t me finishing a novel. It’s family stuff, and it’s not bad, just busy. So Saturday went sideways and I don’t have time to put up the promo post today, so, have a ghost post. Promo post tomorrow. Thank you to Francis for stepping in – SAH*

We Need Non-inflationary Cash

by Francis Turner

This essay makes the case that we are in the process of needing a non-governmental form of cash. This is because governments are busy tracking what we do with the money they print and because they are mostly printing a lot more of it than they should so its purchasing power is going down (inflation). These factors make it a poor store of value and hence an unreliable unit of account and medium of exchange.

Note: readers who didn’t read my essay from about 7 years ago on Money and Cake, should probably do so, and it won’t do any harm for those that did to reread as a refresher. It’s a light-hearted introduction to most of the key concepts of money.

Note. I am not a tax lawyer. Nor do I even play on on TV. Your local tax-gatherers and governments may object to you trying to implement your own non-inflationary cash. This should not necessarily stop you from doing so, but you should plan accordingly.

What’s the problem

The fundamental problem is the governments and large commercial organizations are unkeen on the concept of people exchanging clinking and folding cash money for products and services as opposed to balances of electrons being changed in various locations. There is a global push for going ‘cashless’. I.e. doing what The Register called “Pay by bonk” or possibly pay by QR code or other mechanism. In Sweden the switch away from cash is very well advanced; if I recall correctly, a majority of shops, cafes and the like no longer accept cash at all. Other countries in the developed and developing world are not far behind.

This isn’t just a government thing there are lots of large companies who also like the idea of consumers not using cash. Companies like it because they can take a cut of every transaction. It’s small on a per transaction basis (1-3% usually) and usually taken from the seller, but it adds up enormously over millions of users and billions of transactions. In addition they can often track spending habits and target ads and offers to entice consumers to buy more. In fact it seems to be popular with most of the “bureaucratic-commercial” complex everywhere, particularly in the land of Winnie the Pooh, err West Taiwan.

In Canada Truckistan, the government has declared an emergency which allows it to tell banks to freeze arbitrary bank accounts without any evidence presented to a court or similar (and to let banks do the same thing on their own if they feel like it, with no fear of court order reprisal). So you can put your money into the bank but you may not be able to get it out. Of course they justify this as “temporary” and “only going after the evil REEEE bouncy castle protestors” but

a) this pretty much defines “thin end of the wedge” and
b) how does anyone appeal when they make a mistake (not if, when because they will)?  

Meanwhile in the land of the ‘free’, the ‘Let’s Go, Brandon!’ administration and their buddies in congress are trying to get banks to report all transactions into and out of bank accounts with more than $600 in them.

This is, clearly, a potentially huge problem. It’s a problem two ways. First is the obvious government tracking one. Even if you assume the government is a wonderful organization staffed purely by the most competent and morally pure the chances of them making a mistake and bringing the full force of the law down on some poor housewife buying, say, fertilizer for her garden and a can of kerosene for emergency heating is higher than one might prefer. Given that in the world we live in the government is not staffed purely by ethical angels, the chances for abuse and error are very high indeed. And that doesn’t even get into the government criminalizing transactions that should be perfectly fine and so on.

Then there’s the problems of availability and fraud in a cashless society. If the power goes out you can’t buy a candle in a cashless society. You can’t buy anything if the internet goes down, if your financial provider has a problem and so on. Also if your provider is hacked (or your cash payment token is, or…) then you stand to lose more than just the cash in your wallet.

Fundamentally there’s a centralization and a corresponding lack of local personal control. There are benefits but there are plenty of drawbacks even before you worry that the government might abuse its knowledge of your financial life.

So keeping cash sounds like a good idea. However, there are potential downsides. Any replacement for cash needs to be able to avoid those downsides

The most obvious is to do with the supply of it. Currently there is, as mentioned earlier, a certain upward spring in the prices of things these days if you buy them in dollars (or pounds or euros – though here in Japan, in yen, not so much yet).

And that is a problem for people who like the idea of cash. As Zimbabwe, Venezuela, various other South American nations, Israel and Weimar Germany all can attest to, cash is a complete disaster if the currency is suffering from hyperinflation. In all these cases cash quickly became useless. Indeed even in times and places where inflation is in the 5%-20% per year range (i.e. much of the 1970s and early 1980s for most of the world) cash is a poor store of value although it still works as a method of payment. Cash coins are slightly better than notes though because the metal will have a base value, so much so that at various times people have taken low denomination coins of various countries and melted them down to sell as refined metals.

Plus the other problem with cash as a strictly physical object is that it is hard to pay for things remotely using it. Which is why bearer bonds, letters of credit, cheques/checks, hawala and so on developed all the way back in the 17th/18th centuries (or about a millennium earlier in the case of hawala).

So to sum up, we have a requirement for something that can act as a reasonable store of value and unit of account (in Japan the yen has been amazingly stable for the last three decades but most other currencies have not, and in Japan the cause has been periods of no growth and deflation), be easily exchanged by buyers and sellers for good and services and yet not fall under the control of the government.

Fundamental requirements

Our cash needs to be the following:

Non-inflationary (and non-deflationary).

A ton of things work better if the cost of something is predictable because the currency itself is stable. This doesn’t apply necessarily to every transaction, but the ability to be able to plan investments and calculate expected returns is made far, far easier when the unit of account remains constant over time. In most of the developed world people who are younger than about 40 have no idea what even fairly moderate 5-10% annual inflation does to your financial planning (though in a year or two they will) but it is an important issue. It is worth noting that some currencies have historically been reliable (the pound sterling for the long 19th century up to ~1914, the US dollar for much of the twentieth) while others (the French Franc, the Italian Lira) have not.

As noted in the last 30 some years the Japanese Yen has been amazingly stable in terms of in country pricing. I first came to Tokyo in 1991 and prices for all sorts of things – from soft drinks from vending machines to train tickets to restaurant meals to property prices – have remained very much the same. Some have probably gone down a bit (property in some places, some restaurant deals) but generally speaking things have been stable.

The key seems to be that the money supply should not expand (or contract) in relation to the underlying economy. As we are (re)discovering with all the covidiocy money printing, when you increase the amount of money in circulation without increasing the economy to absorb it, you see prices rise. And, as we will undoubtedly see in the next few years, having got on the inflation train it is very tricky for a national economy/currency to get back off it again. [We know how to do it though. You raise interest rates and cut government spending (and government money printing) and it stops. But it is a painful adjustment as was discovered by all the countries in the 1980s that did it to end their 1970s stagflation.]

For our replacement money we want something that is a good proxy for the underlying economy. An example could be crude oil or the various refined products of it. It is true that the crude oil price varies considerably in dollars or other currencies but crude oil itself has tended to be produced (and consumed) in roughly proportionate amounts to the size of the global economy (see this graph). So if you had a currency of pints of crude then it would not be inflationary or deflationary (also it is worth noting that prior to the end of Bretton Woods and the 1970s oil shock, crude was remarkably consistent in US$ as this graph illustrates)

Independent and Decentralized

Independent means independent from governments. See above note about covidiocy and inflation for reasons why this is bad. It would be nice if it were hard to track by governments so they couldn’t tax you but that’s a nice-to-have, a must-have is that governments (or anyone else) cannot print more of it to suit their own needs.

It would be good if the currency had no single control point but could be replicated by anyone. That makes it hard to shut down if (when) governments get upset about it. They may manage to stamp out Alice’s Spondoolicks, but Bob’s Quatloos (which are readily convertible to/from Spondoolicks) can continue to be used just fine. Also if it turns out that Charlie has been sneakily coining extra Charlicrowns the only people who are impacted are those who have some. Owners of Spondoolicks, Quatloos or Dave’s Doubloons are just fine.

Decentralization also helps with scalability. While it is true that in the past a reference currency (the Thaler, thePound Sterling, the US Dollar) was extremely helpful, in a world where information is easily passed everywhere and where we all have handy dandy massively powerful computers in our pockets, it’s quite not a problem for everyone to have the exchange rates of Doubloons to Quatloos, Quatloos to Spondoolicks and Sponddolicks to Charliecrowns and therefore calcluate how many Doubloons make a Charliecrown.

Based on Something Physical

Actually this may be a nice to have, rather than a must have. But currencies based on actual gold (or wheat or cowrie shells…) have built in warning signs for when they are being inflated because you can do the sums and see that 1 billion ounces of gold probably doesn’t fit in that warehouse over there. Relatedly it is also possible to audit banks etc, and actually count the reserves of gold or wheat or cowrie shells. People can, of course, have fake bars of gold, plastic cowrie shells etc, but it is trickier to do compared to just modifying a few electrons here and there.

Hard to counterfeit or fake

I’d prefer impossible to counterfeit, but I’m prepared to go with hard. Most current cash can be counterfeited but the percentage of counterfeit cash is probably well under 1% of all cash. Again the point here is that someone (a government) cannot simply make more without investment in whatever backs the currency. A currency that can be faked is one that will soon be one that people lack trust in so we need to avoid that. One benefit of a decentralized system is that it should be possible to decouple and deprecate specific instances if they turn out to have been abused without losing trust in the entire currency. There are examples of this working in various places with existing currencies. For example in both Scotland and Hong Kong bank notes can be printed by a number of banks not just the government/central bank. If a particular bank gets into trouble then its notes may end up trading for less than face value.

Functional when the power is off

As you may have noticed significant parts of the world are learning the downsides to “green” energy with respect to its intermittency and general unreliability. The PRC has shot itself in the foot by trying to boycott Australian coal thinking that domestic suppliers and other countries could provide it instead (narrator voice: but they couldn’t). The Europeans have shut most of their coal, some of their nukes and gone for a mix of renewables and gas. And the gas all comes from that beacon of good governance and free-markets: Russia. Parts of the US (California particularly) are doing the same.

If the power flickers on and off that will affect everything that requires electricity including the internet and services based off it, as well as smartphones and so on. It would be really nice if, when push comes to shove, you can pay for that gallon of fuel, roll of toilet paper or loaf of bread in some kind of off-line token. Ideally (see below re remotely transferable) there would be a way to print out tokens, use them and have the recipient scan them back in and destroy them.

Anonymous

We need to not be able to track the origins of cash or who pays whom with it. See above re: governmental oversight. But it isn’t just governments. Any number of large commercial organizations (e.g. Amazon, Walmart or your friendly local supermarket with their loyalty card) love the idea of tracking what you spend your money on so they can target ads and offers to entice you to spend more. All of this tracking has privacy implications. Given that you can’t trust institutions to either hold the data securely or use it ethically, anonymity is a really really good idea.

Remotely transferable

There has to be a way to pay a distant supplier for a product they will ship you that does not involve you, the supplier or a middleman trucking a physical lump of money from point A to point B. It must be noted that systems like Hawala have done this mostly successfully for a thousand years or more so you don’t need an internet (or even a telegram system) to do this. But – obviously – it will be better if it is possible to use the internet if it is available.

Convertible into fiat currencies when required

Paying for things in quatloos, spondoolicks or whatever is fine as long as the other party accepts them. Unfortunately in the near future people you want to pay for goods or services are likely to insist on dollars, euros, pounds, yen etc. so there ought to be a good way to swap quatloos for the required currency. There will also be a need to convert dollars, euros, pounds, yen etc. into quatloos. It is perfectly fine for the conversion process to be costly but it needs to exist.

Usable for small purchases

It seems obvious now but in the past less divisible coins have been a problem. If you get paid 10 spondoolicks a day you probably want to be able to buy things in small fractions of a spondoolick. So the currency needs to be able to support denominations that are small enough. Roughly speaking the current major currencies all have their smallest coin as something that is too small to buy a single thing these days (but you could 40 or so years ago), but where a small number of them can buy say, a single candy or something equally minor.

Why not Bitcoin? or $otherCryptocurrency

Current blockchain based cryptocurrencies don’t work well as quickly transferable cash and have a bunch of other issues. This long blog post covers a fair number of them (you may ignore the glowball wormening part).

A few of the issues: Transactions take a while to be confirmed (minutes to hours) and it is typically complicated to handle fractions of a coin. If you want 1000 widgets to be delivered next Tuesday then a cryptocurrency is fine. If you want to buy an ice-cream or a cup of coffee to eat/drink right now it is not so easy.

Bitcoin is designed to become progressively harder to mine. That’s not stable because it’s not tied to the size of the economy.

No current cryptocurrencies that I am aware of are designed to be turned into physical tokens.

Most cryptocurrencies (bitcoin particularly) are not anonymous either. They are pseudonymous which is similar but not as strong on the identity protection front. It is possible to track every bitcoin transaction back to the origin and people do that, which is why ransomware crooks no longer want bitcoins.

That’s not to say a new cash currency would not use cryptography – in fact it almost certainly will use it for something – but not as the source of the underlying value.

So what do we want?

We want some kind of hard to fake physical token that is based on possession of a physical thing of value.

That physical thing needs to be something that is universally understandable, and available. And it should be reasonably portable at need (think bars of bullion vs say ownership of a plot of land) even if most of the time it doesn’t get transported

That physical thing needs to be (roughly) tied to the size of the economy so that it won’t cause or be subject to inflation or deflation

There should be a mechanism to transfer promises of tokens to distant locations (“I promise to pay the bearer 1oz gold”).

Energy as the fundamental physical base

I think a good thing to base the currency on is energy. That could be just a measure in Joules or BTUs or it could be physical things that have known energy values such as gallons of gasoline or pounds of coal, or it could be both.

I do not claim that an energy based currency will work. But I think it meets most, if not all, of the criteria above. It’s readily understood, readily available, easily transportable and energy usage is tied to economic activity. Its also easy to understand exchanging it, so 1 gallon gasoline == N KwH of electricity == Y lbs of coal and so on.

Tokens

You can print any token you want, but if you add a serial number that includes some crypto validation key that will be helpful for identifying fakes. There probably should be an online “validate this token” thing that can be used to confirm that the serial number is legit.

But it’s you who is on the line to produce the energy if requested. So potentially bank runs could happen but that doesn’t necessarily destabilize the whole system. It would make sense if the people who backed the tokens were people with ownership of energy (e.g. the owners of fracking wells). But you could run an electricity generator and a hydroelectric dam or simply build a load of tanks and store gasoline (or diesel or..) in them if you wanted to. Or people could trust you when you promised to pay for them to refill their car at a gas station. Or… there are lots of options and lots of ways to store energy and use the store to back a currency.

Online resources would be useful to confirm the validity of non-local tokens and some might not be always accepted by everyone. Perhaps you would discover that only special dealers would accept weird Nova Scotian tidal power tokens and then only at a discount to their face energy value. On the other hand the local Stop’n’go tokens would be accepted by everyone and regularly exhangeable for BP tokens from the nearby town or Duke Energy ones….

Energy tokens are easily printable in small amounts and easily understandable. e.g. 1 KwH would be about a (US) dime. 1 fl oz of gasoline is of similar magnitude. Energy tokens are easily exchangeable from one type to another. Swapping a 1000 KwH of electricity for 20 gallons of gasoline (note I have NOT checked the exchange rate, this is an example) is dead easy and in fact you can have some guy with a gasoline powered generator do it very precisely for you.

Remote transfer

We know how to move energy. We know how to trade ownership in energy. All we need is a way to trust the exchange of physical token to virtual one. This is actually a place where the blockchain becomes useful because it allows everyone to confirm that X tokens have been deposited at store S and store S has transferred the value to user U. At some point later when store S receives a withdrawal request it can also log that transaction in the blockchain. Note that

Works when the power is out

Indeed can be used to get the power back on because you can easily swap 20 gallon tokens for 20 gallons of gasoline right now. etc.

How to set up your cash system

See disclaimer at top of post. Talk to a practising tax lawyer. Pay them for their time. This will help you avoid steps that will bring the wrath of the government down on you. However in general, despite the disclaimer, this is how I would work (and these steps are not particularly ordered).

Start small and local. Use barter and IOUs as the basis of your system. “IOU 5 gallons of diesel” is unlikely to be considered a legal currency. Nor is “IOU 5 lbs of zucchini”. Or even the handing around of actual zucchini (or the traditional cigarettes and bottles of booze).

Code words. Squids, zuchinis, etc. have innocuous meanings that can mean they will be ignored when the authorities read your emails/text messages. Use archaic counting: score, dozen, gross. Use Roman numerals. “I want LIV dozen squids and a score zuchini” is less obviously cash that 648.20 $currencyname and so on.

The key is to keep local commerce working when the national/international stuff is not. So work on blockchains and electronic transfers later. For now having a trusted person at the other end (a la Hawala) will suffice.

If you need to make coins then washers that are engraved would work well. A modern CNC engraving tool could easily engrave the serial number of the coin if you wanted to do that along with a pattern that would be hard for a foger to replicate if he doesn’t have the pattern.

When you get to electronic banking, transfers etc. avoid all the things that have allowed crypto currencies to be insecure, most of which turn out to be stupid software bugs. Even large banks can write insecure code for this kind of thing so try not to need to write software of any sort. Or to have online portals etc. If you have to have an online thing open source the s/w and get someone to review it

Know your customer/trading partner. This reduces the chance of informants and criminals.

Other options

I like the idea of energy. But I’m sure there are other things. Even perhaps cryptobased things that I haven’t thought of. Also I’m sure there are things I’m missing. Don’t be shy. Comment away

Perhaps that title isn’t as reassuring as it should be, because, well…. we all know I use fish for ballistic missiles. (I’d say I mean well, but I know you all have a finely trained bullshit detector, so I won’t.)

I should write a post, I should. I started yesterday, but couldn’t explain why my gut says all this with Russia and China is just something that their execrable leaders and whoever has his hand up Biden’s butt cooked up, before the stolen election. After all, all of them, including those who are — very nominally — our countrymen want to see America destroyed. It’s an absolute conviction, and yea, I could find the bunny trail, but I’m not in the mood to write a ten thousand word post just now, sorry.

Of course there is no reason to expect any of this to turn out better than the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, because there might be honor among thieves, but there isn’t even a thought of honor among authoritarian shitweasels (in the case of no longer our countrymen those shitweasels are, to boot, idiot Marxists, who think that if you destroy America paradise ensues. And actually, Putin is an idiot Marxist his own self variety “if everything collapses, Russia will be glorious, glorious” and by Russia he means himself. I wonder if he knows there are penis enlargement surgeries available? Would save the world so much trouble.)

All of which means…. well…. I DID tell you that the thrashing, dying spasms of international socialism (communism is just the extreme of socialism) which has gripped our world for almost a hundred years and our “educated elites” for longer than that was going to be hell to go through. I remain hopeful — but not certain — that they won’t manage to kill civilization with their stupid, insane hatred of everyone who is happier than they (which is actually everyone. Including some people with terminal illnesses. It’s not just that evil is tedious, but it makes its adherents so uniformly miserable.)

So — who asked for interesting times? Because I certainly didn’t. And honestly, if I find who did, the chinelo is going to do a number on their behind.

In the middle of all this, writing my books seems like the most futile pursuit in the world, except for two things: The last time I lived through interesting times, sometimes the only thing that held me (just barely) this side of sanity was the knowledge that that month a new (to me) Heinlein, or Simak or Bradbury would be released in Portuguese, which meant, between reading and rereading twice (which started as soon as I hit the end) that would give me 10 hours of not waiting for the hammer to fall. (And honestly, right now? No pressure on anyone, but Pratchett is dead, I could kill for a new Dave Freer, a new Ringo, a new Weber (or even better, please, mo’e prince Roger?), a new Correia. I crave this like an addict craves a cigarette, which means when I’m stressed, I need it more.)

The second thing is that once at 33 I faced the certainty (well, everyone who should know said it was inevitable) I would die in hours or at most days. And I hadn’t written the books I’d been dragging around inside my head since I was fourteen. (Yes, No Man’s Land is getting done. This year. There are things I have to do to continue series before I start that one, okay?) I don’t want to face that again, and the weather for the next several years is scary, with a heavy chance of individual death. So I’d best be making with the writing yes?

And then I was looking for something to hide a hole in the wall of my office. (Look, it’s a big round hole, and there’s a bunch of cables in it. I have no clue what the cables are, and left to my own devices, I’d cut them, slap a dry wall patch on it, and call it a day. But I suspect Dan would make that sound he makes when I say “Oh, that weird gizmo? I didn’t know what it was so I put it somewhere in the basement.” It’s like a combination sigh and cry of despair. It’s sad. So, I’m not doing that. ) BUT it bothers me, to have that huge hole right there. So I considered buying one of those “doorbell chime covers” to hide it, except the pretty ones cost the Earth, and I got this thing offering a canvas print for $9 with free shipping. Only what the heck do I put on the canvas? I mean, I could steal someone’s art, but I don’t do that.

So I did a quick render and looked for a Heinlein quote. (The chick, btw, is the woman from Space Magic, which yeah yeah I need to finish. It’s in the queue. Which is why “gone fishing” is actually “gone writing.” But that sounds weird, since this is writing too.)

I’d never seen this one, but you know what? The man was right. And suddenly writing stories in the middle of apocalyptic (hopefully not literal) chaos makes a lot more sense. After all, who knows what will survive? Stories have as good a chance as anything. Maybe a better one, considering we still talk of the tales spun by the blind seer, Homer.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, dragons, pterodactyls and reticulated giraffes, possess your souls in patience, while the writer lays down some words (and maybe finally finishes typesetting and putting up some stuff that’s finished.)

I’ll see you on the flip side.*

*Yes, that IS dating myself, which is illegal in 32 states and iffy in Utah.

This is not a religious post. The title is the title because it’s one of those undeniable bits of wisdom. More important, blessed are those who believe without touching.

It’s not most of us.

Okay, so the posts this week could be entitled in common “An unfortunate series of posts, composed of Sarah having experienced unfortunate things, knowledge of which she dearly hoped would never be needed in America.”

Yet, here we are.

Other than my suspecting that the People’s Convoy glows in the dark, I know there are many other convoys with spread-out start dates. I worry for all of them. I agree that it would be a lot more rational for truckers (and anyone who does real work) to just stay home for a week starting today.

But unfortunately this type of situation isn’t rational. It’s emotional gossamer, composed of feel and see and touch. Because humans aren’t rational about things that matter deeply for survival, like “How can all of us live together? Under what rule?” Or how to make things better when they’ve gone profoundly wrong, like now.

Look, yes, a general strike of truckers or of anyone really would be far more effective in bringing the country to its knees. (It also would make it much easier to demonize people. Bear with me.)

A general strike is usually, for good and sufficient reason, the last step in this type of thing, not the first. You have to know you’re not alone, first. You have to be bonded as a group, first, to be able to say “We’re all staying home” and get any significant buy in. (The left seems to have forgotten this. They knew it in the old days, but now they’ve tried it several times to no effect. And for us, of course, it’s all new.)

Look, a general strike would have done much better than the demonstration at which I almost got shot, back in the seventies. But it probably wouldn’t have rolled tyranny.

And the trucker convoys are more dangerous individually than a general strike — prove any individual person isn’t just staying home because they had a positive COVID TEST (particularly since they have. I mean, if you take fiver tests in a row it’s almost guaranteed one will be positive. Papayas and Mangos can test positive and so can you.) — but it is also far less effective.

Sure we now have the internet, and can know things the media doesn’t show, but there’s still a difference between various podcasts of people staying home, because they’re trying to bring “I can’t believe it’s not socialism” to its knees, and seeing a convoy go by with normal people honking their horns and their trucks plastered with flags and slogans about freedom.

The first is easier to demonize, to believe these are a small fringe, that these people are weird (everyone looks weird on camera on the net) etc. As opposed to seeing people just like you, who have had enough.

This is why the Trudescu regime wanted to take down the bouncy castles and harmless dancing, national anthem singing truckers. Not because they were evil violent nazis, but because they were normal working people. Normal working people opposing the left is like apocalypse for them. It can’t be reconciled with their cosmogony, and therefore it must be destroyed, so they can keep their illusions.

It is why the tea party in the US had to be demonized and destroyed. And the January 6 protesters too. Because unlike the ante-fa with their utter bizarre weirdness (most of them move like aliens, or psychos) and the anger that pours out of them, or beardo the weirdo on the corner, waving his “No blood for oil” sign, the tea parties and the January 6 protesters were bog standard Americans, and usually had all the indications of your nicer family members.

I know, I went to three tea parties. I was probably the weirdest person there, and I’m honestly not weird enough for my own circles. These were nice, middle class people. (Though at least in the springs, there was probably proportional (national) representation of races. Which is amazing because the springs is more white than the rest of the country.)

But it was effective, and though the demonization was effective too, briefly, it didn’t stick. Because almost everyone knew someone in the tea parties, or had driven by one, or seen pictures. It’s very hard to get up there and scream blood murder about neo nazis, when mostly it’s aunt mildred, with her pink pouffy jacket, and a sign that says “Taxed Enough Already.” Because you know aunt Mildred carries little packets of candy to give kids, and never cares what color the kids (or the candy, for that matter) are.

The tea parties were the beginning of the end for the left controlling the image of the right. And so, probably are the trucker convoys in Canada. Here, if they can avoid the glowies doing something stupid, it shoudl be at least the middle of the end.

That’s one side of “why in person?” Because people are social. they need to see, and feel and smell before they believe.

The other side is humans being social. Having a party over zoom is not the same. And having a demonstration long distance is not the same. Sure, you might get a lot of people who say they’re going to strike, but when push comes to shove it’s all “Look I had to go in, because my kid needs shoes, and that day’s pay–“

Because humans are social. There’s a reason when some place is on strike, people are expected to show up for the picket line.

A general strike — and it MIGHT come to that — would be way more effective and have more participation of you say “everyone on general strike go to your neighborhood meeting point. There will be signs to hold.”

Yeah, okay, it is more dangerous, both because of glowies, and because, well…. tyrants still have power, as the Great Asshole of the North proved. They can get you beaten or worse.

But that too works, because it means evil has to remove its mask, and attack completely normal persons, that could be your next door neighbor.

And people will remember that. And the world changes.

So, should we have trucker convoys? We’re going to need a lot of things like. Convoys and marches, and demonstrations.

People out there need to know they’re not alone in resistance. They’re part of a greater whole. The country isn’t happy.

Yes, it’s very dangerous.

It’s also necessary.

Let’s try to avoid the glowies and minimize the butcher’s bill.

Unfortunately it might not be fully avoidable.

And yet, in the list of causes you can give your life for, human liberty is up there (granted below some for me, but not many things.) Because even the Author wrote us with freedom to choose. Who is mere human to take it away.

If the time comes for you to march, or drive, or light a candle in the window (um…..) or whatever is called for to say “I’m here, and I am against tyranny” pray that you have enough strength.

Then do it.

Hi. I am your friendly neighborhood storyteller, and I’m here to remind you of one very important thing: STORIES AREN’T REAL.

Understand I’m not throwing stones here. To an extent, because storytelling and belief in stories is an evolutionary selected for trait, (because if the story teaches you that tigers bite, you don’t go near the tiger and live to have descendants — particularly important in a pre-literate society.) humans have always had trouble confusing story and reality.

The trouble comes with the fact that we are living in a society hyper-saturated in story, from “the news” to the narratives fed to us in education, to stories in songs, to movies, to novels. (Movies are particularly pernicious because they bypass our brain’s “this isn’t real” filter. It is literally “what are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?” The lying eyes win every time. People have done experiments in which things watched in movies get incorporated as real memories.

The trouble is compounded that for the last several decades, the storytelling in all those fields has come exclusively from one side of the political spectrum, and to make things worse that is the side that actually doesn’t know how things and/or people work.

What it means is that in places for things like “what causes a revolution”or “what the future holds” or various other relevant check points, what we have in our head is a complete fabrication.

There are outright lies fostered under “Those who win shape history”. This article is interesting in that sense, he has pierced the lies surrounding early smallpox/polio vaccines, but he still believes the people heading to the cities in the industrial revolution were “economic slaves” and that they lived in appalling conditions compared to the countryside. Because that’s the narrative we’ve all been fed. In fact, we’ve seen industrialization in real time in my lifetime in third world countries, and no, people don’t have to be forced to move to the cities, and no their living conditions in the cities aren’t worse than in the countryside. In fact, if you read stories written at the time of the industrial revolution, all the lords and ladies in the British countryside complained of their servants and tenants escaping them for the greater freedom and better living in the cities.

Now were those conditions wretched compared to ours? Sure. But so were the conditions of kings. And part of what made the spread of disease rampant was that they simply didn’t know what caused it. Having grown up in a society that hadn’t fully integrated the germ theory of disease, I can tell you sometimes the things they assumed made you sick — frequent baths, say — was the diametrical opposite of reality.

So, in the early 21st century, it’s not just that we’re completely soaked in story from waking to going to bed. It’s that so much of it is so absolutely and bizarrely true.

And that’s a danger both ways.

One of the things that had my jaw dropping was all the people going “well, Canada is lost. Game over, man.”

The same people tend to draw an A to B to C line on our own demise. It goes something like “The left does a thing to get martial law. They go door to door and confiscate guns/put people in camps. They control everything forever.”

It makes me want to scream and then line people up so I can slap them all at once. (I need bigger hands.)

That’s not reality. That’s a movie.

That kind of thing works well in movies, because then the credits roll and you know it’s bad forever. “Game over, man, game over.”

It also works well in movies because the filmmakers are steeped in the “ways things work” in movies (but not in reality.) Oh, and because Americans and probably Canadians, have no idea how vast their own country is, or how different from the countries in which this sort of thing has worked.

The only country as vast and complicated as ours (or close to) that has managed unending tyranny is China, and right here I want to put down two caveats. Caveat number one is that we THINK so. From the outside. It’s impossible to know how complete the tyranny is on the door-to-door level. And I’d bet you money it’s far less than we (or Winnie the Xi) think(s). Second, China is a radically different and from our perspective highly weird culture. (I’m sure we’re the same to them, though they might not know it.)

I do firmly believe that if Zhou Bai-den wanted to he could round up every liberal middle class and above urban person in the US, take their guns and put them in camps.

The problem the Junta faces is that those are not the people who they want to do that to. And there are places in flyover country I not only wouldn’t encourage them to invade, I wouldn’t encourage them to look at sideways while considering invading. Because if they go into these nice, bucolic places, nothing will come out, except perhaps deep regrets. And I doubt even that.

They don’t realize that, of course. After all all those people in the hinterlands are stupid. And if they haven’t fired yet, they’ll never fire. Except everyone fights when it comes for them. But that’s not a movie thing, it’s just a people thing.

Movie thing is people being rounded up, by the numbers.

Honestly? WHERE WOULD THEY GET THE MANPOWER NEEDED EVEN? If you think they have enough or they can use random illegals, you’re out of your mind. They don’t begin to have enough people. And they’ll have even less after the first wave disappears. Worse, once people realize what the idiot liberals tried to do, they’ll chase them all over the country and beat them to death with their “in this house we believe” signs.

The left doesn’t realize that, because in their heads is the simplified mind shot of conservatives being rounded up.

And the right doesn’t realize that because in their heads is what happened in Nazi Germany. Only conservatives in this country are a majority. They are also armed to the teeth. In the places where Jews were armed, they put up a fight that had to be beaten back at enormous cost. Here we are armed, thank you so much. The cost if Zhou Bai den wants us in camps will be everything the left has. And in the end we win.

I’ve also been surrounded by people assuring me they’ll “die” in he first wave, when the squads come for them. First of all, are you out of your mind? Second, why would they come for you?

Remember, we’re the majority. They know it, we know it. (Yes, they know it, hence the barbed wire around DC for months.) They can’t and wouldn’t be able to round up everyone who has ever run his mouth on line. Or bought a gun. Or talked about buying a gun. Or joined the NRA. Or– whatever.

Yes, we’re all on lists. So are another 300 million citizens. Excepting babies and toddlers. And those might be on lists because someone misspelled a name. If you’re not on a list, you’re probably on a list for weirdos that aren’t on lists. You really should watch the German Movie The Lives of Others. The DDR with far less data collecting capabilities had data on everyone and everything. What they didn’t have is a way to correlate it. And the first of you that says “computers” gets hit with a carp. Because computers aren’t magic. And AI for that kind of thing sucks. See, for instance the non-malicious errors that Facebook makes. “I might have to kill you for being so sick” counts as “coordinating harm” to an AI that doesn’t get humans.

Like self driving trucks, an AI that can sort these things properly looks simple, and is always around the corner, but might actually be impossible

The best that they can do is gaslight you into believing they can reach and and kill you/stop you because they “know everything.” In fact like most totalitarians they know nothing. And the more data they collect the less they know.

For instance, the Facebook algorithm considers me politically “moderate.” They’re actually right, of course, if the spectrum is conservative to libertarian. But I don’t think that’s what they mean.

In fact, having lived through this before, I assure you that most people who dissent from the regime won’t be bothered. Most people who dissent but are very visible probably won’t be bothered. Even the USSR kept around dissidents “for show”. They kept an eye on them, and of course they didn’t get any perks, but you know, they weren’t killed. (I might be big enough for that, maybe, thanks to instapundit.)

It’s the people in the middle: the small blogger, the little guy like Joe the Plumber who shoots his mouth in front of the cameras (or smiles, embarrassed, like the Covington kids) who get publicly destroyed, with the hope this will keep the rest of the dissidents from going feral. (And these examples aren’t really working very well for the left. Sure, the Jan 6 political prisoners, but they are simultaneously displaying them and hiding them, and mostly pissing everyone off. But they lost the Covington battle. And the Kyle Rittenhouse one, and–)

Most of you will be perfectly safe and live to fight another day.

“But they’ll freeze our bank accounts.” Yeah, that’s a funny once trick that communists like to do. Again, the middle is in greater danger. But here’s the thing: even that is not “game over.” It requires inventiveness and ingenuity, and you might not be wealthy, but there are ways to get around it. (I can think of three that apply in my case, and heck I’m not divulging them, since they’re highly specialized.) Make your own lists. Now might be a good time to figure out how to get fake ID. I bet there’s a way even with “Real ID” TM. (You know, fake birth certificates aren’t even vaguely hard, and you can always claim to have lost your ID in a fire. Or a move. No, really. “I had it packed. It just never arrived. But here, I have my birth certificate.” Now there’s better ways to do this, that they can’t even track, but again, no not laying them out.) Here’s the thing: our government, even when it really tries, can’t prevent illegal immigrants from working. They can’t prevent porn from being paid for.

The only ones they can prevent or incapacitate are the extremely law abiding. So? Don’t be extremely law abiding. if your government goes rogue against you, go fluid.

The left has it in their head that if they just find “this one simple trick” we’ll all obey.

And they’re getting ignored and subverted. And if they continue making us mad, they’re going to get their asses kicked.

And that’s because reality is not a movie. You can’t script it perfectly and write the end.

The other side gets a vote. And our side is just starting to vote in the culture wars.

Hold on tight. It’s going to be a wild ride.

And don’t fall for cheap tricks that solve everything. This one is going to be won in the day to day and the details. In reality. Which is dirty, slow, painful, but has the advantage of existing.

Be not afraid. I doubt even Canada is “Done” (if you believe their polls or don’t remember they got Dominion machines before we did, you’ll only make me snort giggle. Everyone came out to support the truckers. Every Canadian just about. I know. I saw the pictures, and I counted (Joke, but yeah. A lot of them.))

Stop thinking in the stories the left tells, and definitely be not afraid.

In the end we win, they lose.