Month: May 2024

Pick a Province, Any Province

photog Current Events , ,

The United States of America is not the Roman Empire.  I repeat, it is not the Roman Empire.  Regardless of iconography, colonnades in front of classically designed buildings and a Latin phrase or two on our currency this is a different empire.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that parallels can’t be drawn.  I’m sure if I consulted Gibbons, I could find several emperors that were old, depraved, demented and soiled themselves in public like our current commander in chief.

And one of those parallels is that in a declining empire, the uniformity of institutions and way of life begins to break down.  Famously, the Eastern Roman Empire managed to avoid the downfall that overwhelmed the West in the 5th century A.D.  There were various reasons for these differences in fate.  The eastern provinces were for the most part shielded by distance from the full brunt of the Germanic incursions.  The climate itself might have been somewhat responsible.  German tribesmen probably would have found the weather in Egypt and Judea a trifle warm and dry for cattle herding.

So, it should be expected that the intentional destruction of the American nation by its mad rulers will have a disparate effect on different regions and states.  For instance, California has embraced the self-destructive agenda of the Left with great gusto.  Look at how they’ve dismantled their electrical generation infrastructure and the water reservoir system that they depend on for agriculture and human consumption.  They have willingly dismantled their criminal justice system and sanctioned dysfunctional lifestyles like drug addiction and homelessness.  With such an incredible head start few other areas of the country will be able to disappear into neolithic conditions as quickly as California.  Eventually a large part of the state will return to a pre-human state with Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes becoming the dominant lifeform.

But other areas, maybe the Midwest or the South may endeavor to hold onto the forms and trappings of the past.  Just as the Byzantines long maintained Latin as the court language and calling themselves Romans in Constantinople long after their “empire” was just the Hellenized provinces of Asia Minor and Greece, so too these areas may maintain the polite fiction that America still exists long after many of the regions begin to diverge into their new cultures and ways of governing.

For someone looking ahead to what their family will be faced with in the next decade or two, there is real importance in either figuring out ahead of time which areas will provide the best places to live or alternatively, adopting a way of life that will allow you to “jump” successfully when the time comes to make that move.

Personally, I think making a choice of where to live is probably the best way.  Not that I have a foolproof method for picking the winner.  But I think I have a pretty good idea where the losing areas will be.  As stated above, California looks like ground zero for catastrophe.  Similarly, I think the east coast is also a bad bet.  Perhaps looking for places where population density is low and where natural resources like plentiful water, forest cover and a decent climate might be a winning strategy.  As far as population density, I wouldn’t count out a whole state just because there happened to be a large city in that state.  As long as the distance to where you planned to live was several hundred miles away it might make perfect sense.  After all, state boundaries won’t mean much in the future.  Geographic boundaries like rivers and mountains will.  Western New York has very little to do with New York City.  Northern Nevada and Las Vegas are a world apart.

Who knows!  Possibly an unexpected victory by patriots will completely reverse the current decline and fall of the American Empire.  And then places like New York City and Philadelphia will once again become great centers of culture and commerce instead of squalid dung heaps filled with murderous savages.  But in the meantime, consider choosing where you want your family to build their lives.  Choose carefully.

America’s Descent Into Banana Republic Status Complete

photog Current Events , ,

That’s that.

Update – Well, I’ve had an hour or two to think about this.  I guess it should be intersting to see how the country reacts to this kangaroo court decision.  I know how anyone on the Right feels.  But it should be interesting to see if anyone reveals himself as a RINO.  If any of the primary candidates tries to use this conviction to get back in the spotlight that should be a wonderful disqualification from ever getting Republican votes again. 

If nothing else, this should boost Trump’s fundraising asymptotically.  Listening to that fat piece of crap Alvin Bragg talking was nauseating.  Hopefully he and the judge are both sucked down into the lowest levels of Hell by Satan as soon as he gets the chance.  I’m sure he wouldn’t want to let their talents go to waste.  That kind of human filth needs to be recognized.

 

Can I Get a Hallelujah

photog Current Events , ,

Well, what shall I write tonight?  Nothing too down tonight.  There’s plenty to cry about but let’s raise our spirits instead.  You know I talk about how a leader is what we are missing.  But maybe a Caesar is not what we need.  Maybe we need a Preacher.  The churches have mostly rotted away and it shows.  People are empty and bitter and alone.

A man of the spirit might be exactly what this country; even this world needs.  Someone who could speak to us about how to fill up the void with meaning.  Give people hope.  I don’t think it will be someone who talks only about the hereafter.  It will need to be someone who has practical advice for this world.  And he can’t be a televangelist, at least not at first and never only.  This will have to be a hands-on man who builds his flock around him and builds some kind of community that helps people in the here and now.

What’s needed is a church that harnesses the people to help each other and builds something where everyone gets a sense of belonging to something worthwhile and true.  I think someone who could make that happen would rebuild this country.  It would have a place for all the parts of the community.  There will be things for the young, the mature and the old to do.  The young will learn, the old will teach and the grown-ups will support it with their time and money.  Eventually there will need to be a school to teach children the lessons they can’t learn in the public school.  Ideally, one day there should be a university too.  There should be youth organizations and sports teams.  There should be fraternal and sorority organizations for the kids and grown-ups.  Something will be needed to replace things like the Boy Scouts.  And the adults need their clubs too.  And the church should have charitable functions.  But these need to require that those who have been helped pay it forward by contributing their efforts to the community.

And what creed will this be?  Well, it will be Christianity but it will be non-denominational.  It won’t require that you have a required doctrine on the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception or Limbo.  If Jesus runs the Heaven you are trying to get in then you fit under this tent.

Well, that’s what I think we need.  People need to belong to something that provides a way to organize with their neighbors in a way that gives them a sense of community and fulfills their desire to belong to something constructive and adheres to what they believe is the good.

But how do you order up a holy man?  They only show up once every five hundred years.  The last one was Martin Luther (which was about five hundred years ago!).  They say that God provides what is needed.  Well, I think we are beyond need.  We’re desperate.

So, whether he calls himself Brother or Father, Padre or Reverend; it’s exactly the right time for a revival.  In fact, it may be the only thing that can save us.

Eleven to One

photog Current Events , ,

Everybody talks about the polarization between the Left and the Right in this country.  I don’t think it’s overstated.  The Trump hush money trial in Manhattan is the perfect litmus test for this polarization.  If you can believe that he is getting a fair trial then you are living in a separate reality.  The degree to which the judge has put his thumb on the scales of justice is pretty breathtaking.  He has managed to instruct the jury that beyond a reasonable doubt is no longer the criterion for conviction.  In fact, he is allowing the jurors to decide what exactly the underlying crime is without recourse to any particular part of the penal code.

But I guess I’m curious what percentage of the population in this country is okay with this.  Because even if it’s as low as forty five percent then that’s a really big problem.  The Left is about a third of the populace.  If there is another twelve percent of the people who are completely on board with a court railroading a presidential candidate just because they don’t like the way he parts his hair then we’re already past the point where things can be fixed.  There has to be two thirds or at least three fifths of the people who are relatively sane to protect us all from the crazies.  We can’t expect to just squeak past every one of the forks in the road where the insane are pushing us to ride off a cliff.  It can’t always be 51-49.  One of these days we will go over the edge.

Many years ago, I served on a jury where the prosecution was trying to railroad a guy on a charge of making a death threat against his ex-wife.    After the trial the judge shared with us that there was an underlying custody battle going on and this charge was a part of that struggle.  But the only person who supposedly had heard the threat was the couple’s two-year-old daughter.  Her mother claimed that the girl had told her of the threat that her father had made in front of her during a visit with him.  But every time they tried to put the two-year-old on the witness stand she burst into tears and then we were sequestered while the prosecution attempted to bolster the little girl for the next attempt at questioning.  After the third attempt the judge put an end to this charade and we were sent into the jury room to deliberate.  Well, I’ll tell you it was 11-1 and I don’t suppose you have to wonder who was one.  Eventually they tried to talk me into splitting the decision by voting guilty to one of the lesser charges.  You know, split the difference.  So, I asked them what part of beyond a reasonable doubt didn’t apply to any of the charges.

Now that day I had gone into the courtroom determined to hang’em high.  No namby-pamby bleeding-heart nonsense for me.  The guilty must pay.  And this guy didn’t look like me or lived his life as I did.  But suddenly all these other people who looked and lived like me were exposing their real feelings about unbiased justice.  They were just picking the side they liked.  To hell with the facts or the lack of facts.  They were willing to send this man to prison for five years without proof.  It was monstrous.

Three hours later they called it a hung jury and the judge talked to us and admitted that using a two-year-old as a witness was ludicrous and a little cruel.  But my fellow jurors were very angry with me.  They wanted to send a message regardless of the facts; “believe the woman.”  Going home that night I had a sickening feeling about what justice in this country had become.  Imagine your fate is decided not by the evidence but by what you look like.  That was a chilling discovery.

Now I know it’s a forlorn hope, but I admit I’d love to see an 11-1 hung jury.  That would send a powerful message that there are still a few honest men left.  And we really do need that message.  Because otherwise there isn’t any way that we can go forward together.  If the truth is just an inconvenience that we have to shrug off to get what we want then we’re doomed.

Update – 30MAY2024 – Yep, we’re doomed.