Atlanta, GA
March 4, 2024
"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.”
- George Bernard Shaw
Something’s wrong. Many of us have sensed this instinctively, and suspected it for a while. By now it’s undeniable. Just look around.
In recent years, the world we knew has virtually vanished. Rather, it was ripped away. Superficialities sustain old illusions. But the essence of society is no longer the same.
Each state still has two senators, presidents are inaugurated every fourth year, and (to this point) we hold elections every November. But real power lies behind the scenes.
Elected legislators still vote on laws. Yet most are written by unseen lobbyists, and fleece the sheep they’re ostensibly passed to protect.
For at least a century, the Constitution has been a dead letter. It lends legitimacy to few government actions, many of which are undertaken by stealth bureaus and covert agencies that spy on Americans while waging war on the world.
These shenanigans are funded by fiat currency we still call the “dollar.” But for half a century it’s been cast adrift, a floating abstraction absent an anchor of gold.
On the near horizon, it’s becoming a digital watchdog and an electronic leash. What we spend, where we go, which products we purchase, and how much we buy will be governed and tracked by the surveillance state.
Frayed Fabric
Most ominously, the social fabric seems irreparably frayed. People on either side of the seam have long debated opposing opinions. But they’re now divided by incompatible principles. Where divergent views once evoked vigorous discussion, they now prompt angry disputants to exchange invectives and assume the worst.
Like rhetorical grenades, incendiary (and stupid) epithets such as “traitor”, “fascist”, “phobic”, “denier”, and “white supremacist” are reflexively tossed at those who disagree with (or even doubt) the prescribed opinions. Lifelong friendships and family relationships are ruined because people dare harbor unapproved perspectives.
Unfortunately, most “approved” perspectives are irredeemably insane. Racial grievances and sexual deviances are incessantly contrived and cynically exploited.
Much of this theater is to distract us from reckless wars that rip us off and put us in peril. In recent decades, even outside the combat zones, international travel has become increasingly cumbersome.
But only for law-abiding citizens. For undocumented aliens, the border isn’t merely an open dam; it’s essentially a demolished one.
The US government doesn’t merely allow illegals in; it actively encourages them to come. It orchestrates their arrival and arranges their diffusion.
A flood of unassimilated migrants obviously creates cultural convulsion. But of the undocumented millions pouring in, it takes only a dedicated few to subject America to domestic attacks. Coincidentally, this would enable the entity sponsoring the influx to enhance its power and exert more control.
For similar purposes, the same organization makes a mockery of “Science”, perverting it to bury truth and silence dissent. A trace gas that’s essential to life is blamed for turning fickle weather into a lethal weapon. Respiratory viruses become reasons to restrict movement and medicate the world.
Confidence in “Establishment” institutions has rarely (and deservedly) been so low. In many ways, this is healthy. Cynicism toward the State and its media, academic, and cultural satellites is essential to preserve our rights.
Not that I mind authority; I just don’t like being told what to do. Yet experience, traditions, and standards are indispensable to civilization. If faith in them fades, cultural cohesion can come unglued. Especially when passing fads are the only epoxy.
Peaceful separation is a reasonable solution. With two sides of the country at each other’s throats, it seems the only humane one.
There’s no reason fifty states and a third of a billion people should be unilaterally ruled from a single city. The whole point of a federal republic is that the people of each state make decisions for themselves.
But when politics are winner-take-all with the loser vanquished, competing factions fight to the death, and conscientious objectors should seek saner climes.
Cycles of Time
History is cyclical. There are times to reap, times to sow. Times to be born, times to die. This applies to civilizations and empires as to celestial motion and seasonal cycles.
Crises tend to be most pronounced when people who endured the last crack-up are no longer alive. Lessons that were seared into the survivors are lost on their descendants.
Children of plenty are less acquainted with pain. Inundated with affluence, they take prosperity for granted, and denigrate “systems” where anyone suffers when most people don’t. They seek causes of poverty (the natural condition of mankind), usually by casting the blame on the sources of wealth.
In the Western world, another upheaval is underway. The usual army of ailments is on the march: currency dilution, financial chicanery, military malfeasance, cultural decay.
Like a Rottweiler at our hem, an election year is upon us (whee!). Notwithstanding the quadrennial cliché, this election (assuming it happens) really does seem as consequential as any in memory.
Not so much because of who might win (for various reasons, we still can’t be certain who’s even going to run), but because of the viciousness before the vote and the acrimony afterward. Whoever loses will claim the other side cheated (and will probably be right).
But the final results likely won’t matter. Elected officials are mostly ornamental. Whatever the outcome, the Administrative State always seems to win. Yet more than any time in recent memory, the American people continue to lose.
We seem to be entering a period reminiscent of the early 1930s…a time of economic dislocation, political disorientation, and social dysfunction. With the onset of the Depression, President Hoover poured the slab for what his successor called the “New Deal.” Then, with the foundation in place, FDR erected the framing, installed the plumbing, and applied the paint.
But he also demolished the structure of the prior republic. Among the wrecking balls were his executive orders confiscating gold, and the Emergency Banking Act that shifted wealth to favored institutions. He then used make-work schemes and “insurance” scams to bribe those he’d recently robbed.
By these acts (among others), the US government looted Americans of what was rightfully theirs. The rule of law sufficiently shredded, Executive authority reigned supreme.
The Cycle Turns
Trust was violated, and faith breached. In the course of a decade, the old order was overturned.
Ninety years later, it’s happening again. The sledgehammers are swinging. And we’re being hit from every direction.
As happened nine decades ago, military misadventures accompany economic idiocy. Debt soars as purchasing power sinks.
Around the world, the banking cartel and munitions complex cook up endless servings of noxious wars. It’s only a matter of time before the pot boils over and the kitchen catches fire.
Where does this lead? Any number of assumptions are conceivable. Travel may be limited and capital controls emplaced. Central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and digital IDs are on the way. Crime and disorder could be incited and financial assets taken. Supply constraints are likely to continue. A major war is probably inevitable.
Or not. We don’t know. We hope we’re wrong, but it’s wise to prepare.
Much of what we’re enduring today is psychological manipulation. Most of what we consume online or thru the media is information we’re supposed to see.
Few narratives are accidental. Neither are the accounts or ads we receive on our feeds. Even what you’re reading here warrants suspicion. Trust nothing; verify everything.
But don’t take too much time making decisions or laying plans. Like Pascal’s wager, we’re better off mitigating risk while hoping for the best. Besides, the first thing most people do in dire situations is panic. So if nothing else, we’d be doing it in the right order!
The Rising Storm
Change per se isn’t inherently “bad” or “good”. But revolutionary change is cause for concern. And in our current condition, it’s fairly obvious we’re well off the rails.
Actually, it’s worse than that. Like T.E. Lawrence thwarting Turkish trains or Colonel Nicholson blowing up The Bridge on the River Kwai, it’s as if someone’s intentionally destroying the track.
To mix metaphors, the decade after the 2008 Financial Crisis seemed to be the eye of a storm. Like the period between the Great War and the Great Depression, things were (relatively) calm, despite rising conflict and pockets of unease. But a few years ago, the wind rose and waves kicked up.
In response to an exaggerated germ, ostensibly free people were ordered away from each other. By arbitrary edicts, schools, churches, parks, beaches, and (small) businesses were closed.
Family gatherings were frowned upon. Travel was prohibited, masks were mandated, medication coerced. Elders were left to wither in rest homes. Then they were deprived of funerals after they died alone.
Anyone who questioned these outrages was discredited and vilified. In many places, those who didn’t comply were sullied and shunned…banned from public venues and private businesses. “Public health” became the pretense for a police state pandemic.
Superficially, the storm subsided. But it hasn’t gone away. The sorts of (and many of the same) psychopaths who inflicted these atrocities remain in power, and the people under their thumb have let down their guard. Indeed, most never resisted at all.
Wherever we turn, the world we knew and the way we live are under attack. Cultural contempt for traditional values, individual liberty, and parental prerogatives is no longer disguised. If anything, it’s becoming compulsory.
Whether in government, entertainment, academia, or the media, the Revolution abides no resistance. Veritable Jacobins control every major Establishment institution. Dissidents…even proponents of what till about ten minutes ago almost everyone considered “common sense” …are demonized, ostracized, fined, or fired.
Around the world, sovereign, independent thinkers are a distinct (and despised) minority. For anyone who wants to protect his family, preserve his wealth, or improve his lot, politics is worst than pointless. It’s poisonous. Like a toxic spill on a fertile farm, its ruinous effect is evident on the ground.
California Case Study
A glance at California makes the point. This is a place with all conceivable advantages. It offers every topographic amenity and geologic feature. Agriculture is unmatched and minerals abound. The state is blessed with whatever weather anyone could want, and often within a day’s drive of wherever he is.
In the Golden State, education, innovation, entertainment, and entrepreneurship were the envy of the world. And this wasn’t that long ago. At the turn of the century…even at the turn of this decade!…San Francisco was among the great cities on the globe.
Today many who once loved it now assiduously avoid it…even those who live there. A couple years after California’s horrific covid response, the City is a crime-infested, feces-laden sh*thole with boarded-up buildings and blocks of downtown tents sheltering drug-addled derelicts.
For decades, people flocked to California to be a part of its bounty. Now, they flow the other way. U-Hauls head east, while most “migrants” come as an incessant invasion from the south (or wherever they originated). For the first time in history, California’s (documented) population is falling.
How could this have happened? For California to thrive, all that’s needed is for pernicious politicians (and whoever pulls their strings) to leave it alone. The only way to destroy it is by intentional design. Yet that’s what its “leaders” have managed to do.
They’re far from finished. Their blueprint isn’t confined to California. What happens there is an often harbinger for the rest of America (and what remains of “the West”). San Francisco isn’t alone. Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle have suffered similar (and swift) declines, as have “Red State” regions that are thoroughly hollowed out.
The degradation is accelerating. Aggressive taxation and a counterfeit currency rip us off. Crime is everywhere, committed with impunity by private assailants and “public servants”. With increasing severity, its victims are snooped, surveilled, constrained, and confined by the political entities that allegedly protect them.
The Fallacy of “the Greater Good”
As the net widens and the noose tightens, it feels like the walls close as the ground opens. For “the greater good”, liberties we always took for granted are steadily stripped. “Safety” and “security” are the rhetorical crowbars used to pry away rights.
For these illusions, many Westerners are more than willing to forgo their freedoms. Most Americans have gone along. And many have gone further… assuming the role of eager Stasi, scolding anyone who doesn’t comply.
They’ve come to believe no one can be free unless everyone is “safe”. But with that attitude, no one will be.
The Good News
“America” was a unique notion, a federal republic guided by the enlightened principles in the Declaration of Independence: sovereign people free to pursue happiness unmolested by meddlers from an omnipotent government.
But that’s what the United States has become. Over the last century, it’s evolved into an empire. And empires always end.
That’s the good news.
Of course, we don’t know the exact timing, sequence, extent, or consequence of imperial decline. It’s usually more a process than an event.
Because something is inevitable doesn’t mean its imminent. But as chaos and disorder continue to mount, it seems the mayhem is being given a push.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get out of the way. But it’s tough to prepare for the quake after the ground starts shaking. Now’s the time to strengthen structures, or get out before they collapse.
We obviously hope they don’t. But precaution is wise even if dire predictions don’t pan out.
Even if they do, there’s no reason not to flourish as crisis unfolds. We can learn practical skills, nourish new perspectives, embrace privacy, explore entrepreneurial opportunities, and create supportive communities to protect wealth and preserve health.
Challenging times offer opportunity, and perspective. They shed light on the superfluous while illuminating what matters. Most material possessions we worry about losing we probably wouldn’t miss.
The bright side of dark times is they remind us what makes us truly happy. It isn’t much, but amounts to everything.
My wife, our sons. Extended family, a few friends. Sufficient shelter, some cases of wine, supplies of food. A bed, a book, a candle…
and a kiss.
What more could we possibly need?
JD
You are GOOD!!
Being willing to look at it was what saved so many of us from the deepest ravages of the Covid regime. Being willing to look at this now will provide some fortitude for what's to come. Being useful, and being human; it's the best I can do.