Category: Reclaiming the Family

Okay, Groomer

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Finally, something being done right on the Right.  When Florida passed an anti-grooming law to protect K-3 students from teachers proselytizing for depravity, the Left went nuts.  They mischaracterized the bill as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and attacked Florida and Ron DeSantis as bigots who would be the cause of uncountable kindergarten suicides over rampant body dysmorphia.  When that didn’t work, they recruited Disney to force Tinkerbell and Cinderella’s fairy godmother to cast a spell on DeSantis to make him change his mind.  No soap.  Then they put billboards on highways that are covered with the word gay.  Meh.  Finally, armies of woke K-3 teachers are protesting and threatening to quit if they can’t talk to little kids about deviant sex.  And finally, finally someone came up with the perfect meme.  Here’s the listing in the Urban Dictionary (for as long as it lasts):

“Okay, groomer”

Definition:  A phrase used to convey disdain with leftists who try to use gay people as a shield to push their pro-pedophile agenda.

Example:

“John, did you hear about the Don’t Say Gay Bill?”

“Oh, you mean the bill that prevents teachers from talking to kindergarteners about sex without parental consent?”

“It’s so bigoted!”

“Okay, groomer.”

by The True Patriot March 29, 2022

 

Andrew Klavan over at the Daily Wire did a long section of his podcast on the whole issue.  He’s a very easy going libertarian so he’s very far from an extremist but he rightly points out the manipulative tactics that the Left uses to get at young children.

There’s an old saying that if you’re getting a lot of flak that means you’re over the target.  Well, this is definitely getting a lot of flak.  Every red state needs to copy this law or even make one even more restrictive.  Instead of K-3 make it K-12.  Why would we ever want teachers preaching sexual depravity to our children?  Opting out of even “normal” sex education should be the default situation in all schools.  None of these people are qualified to talk to your children if you don’t think they are.

Well, anyway, this meme is a winner and makes the perfect answer to anyone who wants to claim to be on the side of reason when advocating for this proselytizing.  Anyone who wants to sexualize kindergarten children is either a complete moron or a pedophile.  Either way shaming them is more than warranted.  It’s everyone’s duty.  I assume that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will immediately suspend anyone who says “Okay groomer.”

What I’m waiting for is Ron DeSantis to yell “Okay groomer!” to some television reporter interviewing him or some Disney flak who tries to shame him into reversing his approval of the law.  He’s lucky.  He’s every Lefty’s dream target.  They’re probably lined up for miles waiting to ask him about the kindergarten suicides.

But I’m kind of jealous.  I don’t have anyone to say it to.  I’m kind of hoping that someone will show up in the comments to take the pro-groomer argument.  I just so badly want to say,

“Okay Groomer!”  Man, that felt good.

A Box of Crayons

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Watching Camera Girl and Princess Sack of Potatoes sitting side by side, each with a piece of paper and sharing a big box of old crayons was inspirational.  In our age where belief in everything has evaporated and where learning has degenerated into a kindergarten struggle session over sexual identity, I’m watching creativity and learning leap frogging a generation and dispensing with computers, tablets, phones and all the other modern clap trap of the hive mind.

The little girl is recovering from a bad cold so she’s not quite as frenetic as she usually is, so sitting still to color for an extended period is a little easier.  But the grandmother still has to expend a considerable amount of skill to keep the activity going.  Discussions about the different colors and their varying subjective value for representing a dog or a tree or a car are conducted.  And plans are made for where and how these masterpieces will be displayed on the refrigerator and what older treasures can now be stored for posterity in the Art Repository (attic).  Learning to draw circles and triangles, squares and stars is mixed in with printing the letters of the alphabet and the numbers from one to a hundred.  All the ancient knowledge is available through a grandmother’s gentle teaching methods.

Eventually art period will end.  Creativity will yield to less cerebral pursuits.  Camera Girl will bring out the blocks or a story book or move the operation to the kitchen where making pizza dough or baking a cake will take center stage.  But what I can see is that the crumbling of our society is an unforced disaster.  We are abandoning our children’s minds to terrible people who have no ability or intention to teach useful skills.  That little girl, barely three years old, will soon have the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic that fifth graders in some inner-city schools will lack at age eleven or even older.  And it has nothing to do with intelligence.  In the nineteenth century even the slowest children were proficient in writing and arithmetic by eighth grade.  That was all the schooling they ever received.  But they were competent to participate in civil life.  They could make change for a sale and correspond with their distant relatives in grammatical and expressive English.  Based on the comments I’ve seen displayed on Twitter and “TikTok” that is a long dead situation.

But this is an entirely voluntary mental death that is happening.  We don’t have to participate in this societal suicide.  Those of us who care can send our children to good schools or if necessary, home school them.  It’s a hackneyed phrase to say that “children are our most precious possession.”  But that doesn’t make it any less true.  Ultimately, they will be all that will remain of us.

So, anyway, that’s what I have to say.  I had no stomach to talk about Biden today.  I needed something positive to think and talk about and I received inspiration by seeing that small human doing something creative and positive.  Some good was done here today and more will be done tomorrow and the day after.  Hopefully by the time my grandchildren are grown we will have rejected much of the madness currently wreaking havoc in our world.  We must fix this world for our children or there won’t be a world left.  Start small, start local and do something positive.

Reclaiming the Family – Part 9 – Starting a Dialog Between Men and Women

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I poke an enormous amount of fun at Camera Girl.  I accuse her of all kinds of sins against logic.  But she is an excellent wife, mother and grandmother.  Echoing Proverbs 31:10, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.”  Now, I would have gone with star sapphires but that’s a personal choice.  A good wife and mother is the foundation of proper human existence.

But that foundation is crumbling.  Modern life has sought to trivialize the important of a woman raising a family.  Instead, feminism has substituted the working woman as the paradigm that young women should strive to emulate.  If motherhood is discussed it’s always in the vein of how it can be minimized.  It should be pushed off into middle age and its impact mitigated through daycare from birth and television and social media as babysitters.  The result is plummeting birth rates and latchkey children who grow up addicted to their phones.  And worse, now the substitute mothers in our children’s classrooms are brainwashing, mutilating and sterilizing our children to put an end to human life altogether.  It’s hard to imagine anything worse than where we are.

So, how do we get out of this trap?  I can only think that it will require an overt organizing of men and women to build a new foundation for relations between the sexes.  Nothing short of this will solve the problem.  In fact, if something like this doesn’t emerge, I’ll take that as a sign that our civilization is doomed.  We’ll have to wait for someone outside of Western Civilization to take the lead in preserving the human race.

I can’t claim that I’ve worked out all the details of what such an organization would be like.  I’m not even sure how it would begin its work.  I notice that of late there have been a few more women right-wing commentators advocating for traditional female roles.  The name that comes to mind at the moment is Peachy Keenan over at the American Mind, the on-line site of the Claremont Institute.  Maybe it would be possible for a panel of female pundits to engage the female audience on the Right.  And just as important it’s necessary to engage the other side of the equation.  A cross section of men on the Right need to get involved in the discussion.

Initially I don’t envision any quick solutions to these problems.  Society is pushing everything in the wrong direction as hard as it can.  Just getting young men and women in the same room talking about what is wrong with the current set-up would be a distinct improvement.  In fact, I think the opportunity for the young on the Right to mingle socially is part of the solution.  We need to re-socialize people.  They need to get off their phones and meet each other face to face.

As I said, unless this gets addressed in an organized fashion, we’re through.  For that reason, this needs to be pushed at the highest level.  The Republican Party should be addressing this at the national level.  It should be a plank of their platform.  The churches, any of them that aren’t already just arms of the trans-alliance for mutilating children, should be the focuses for this at the local level.  Every parish of the Catholic Church should have a committee of mothers who spend their time thinking of ways to encourage their sons and daughters to have children and raise them themselves.

I’ll say this a third time.  If we don’t get ourselves out of this feminist destruction of the family our civilization will be done.  And it should be.  A society that destroys the family has eliminated the main source of human happiness on this planet deserves to disappear.

Reclaiming the Family – Part 8 – The Future Belongs to the Active

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Average Americans have been passive participants in the troubling events that have surrounded them for decades.  We have watched in silent horror as all the bedrock axioms of normal life have been upended and crazy people have been encouraged by those in authority to destroy the fabric of our lives.   And it’s accelerating.  Previously, various forms of degeneracy were the innovations that the powers that be were foisting on us.  But now crime and chaos have been added to the list of activities that are being sanctioned by the governing powers in charge of our society.  The George Floyd riots are the signal that functional civil society has been abandoned by, at least, the Blue State establishment.

During the decades that this devolution has been progressing there have been attempts by the saner members of our leadership to resist this madness.  I guess the Reagan presidency was a reaction against it.  The Trump election in 2016 was also a reaction to it.  These were attempts to claw back control of the country as a whole from the progressives who have slowly but surely taken control of almost all the levers of power in the United States.  There may be another breakthrough in 2024.  If the Republicans can keep the Congress and capture the presidency there is some hope that they can at least temporarily reverse the damage being done in this country by the forces of chaos that are intent on tearing the whole thing down.

But I don’t think it’s wise to depend on some hypothetical permanent victory of the Right over the Left.  Even if it does happen at some point, it may be too late to benefit you or even your descendants.  I think it’s incumbent on each of us to look at what services and benefits are no longer available form our government or communities and find substitutes and work arounds on our own.

I think the most important service we have to address is educating our children.  The public schools are worse than useless.  They are in fact a detriment to the education and socialization of children.  I won’t go through the litany of failings and problems with public schools.  Suffice it to say that outside of a few communities the education children get in public schools is worse than useless.  It’s poison.   It is the responsibility of parents to provide for the future of their children as best they can.  Providing them with the chance to thrive in society is crucial and not only is the public-school environment failing to provide them with the rudiments of education but all of the schools from pre-K through graduate schools indoctrinate young people with propaganda that is wildly anti-survival.  Students are fed anti-human lies that encourage them to reject normal goals such as business success and family formation because of nonsense about “saving the planet” and developing their individuality.  What they need is basic survival skills like math and language skills followed by practical training in a profession or a trade.  That is what parents should be selecting for in a school.  And you’re going to have to pay for it.

The next service that we all have to be selecting for is public safety.  Living in an American city is now a very risky proposition.  There may be some large cities that are reasonably safe.  But finding them will require careful research.  Even suburbs and towns may be afflicted with the scourge of organized and disorganized criminality.  What we have to do is evaluate the areas we are considering as long-term homes and determine if our families will be safe and free from constant anxiety while moving around their extended circle of destinations.  Crime statistics are one research tool.  Another will be the political support both major parties get in the area.  Look very carefully at where you decide to live.  Moving is expensive and painful.

Employment is another important area where an active approach is very important.  If your profession is already established then you are to a large extent tied into the locations that you can set up a home base.  Of course, lately remote work has taken hold in a number of companies and professions.  But for others this isn’t a practical choice.  For many professions, American industry has severely limited the opportunities for employment inside the country.  Whole industries have been transplanted to Asia leaving careers in engineering and management severely reduced in the numbers of positions available.  For some people becoming an ex-patriot employee is an important option.

For the young who don’t currently have a profession or for those willing to change professions choosing a trade or profession that allows you to work outside of the “woke” corporations is an attractive feature.  Self-employment as a craftsman or small business owner provides flexibility and protection against being brow-beaten and even fired for not displaying the requisite amount of social justice fervor on the job.  It has to be admitted that the choice of avoiding the corporate hierarchy means you will probably never be a multi-millionaire or travel in the corporate Lear jet to Davos to hobnob with Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.  But that may be one of the advantages too.  You’ll still have some self-respect and time to spend with your family.  Look at the areas of the country you want to live in and see what are the best opportunities for employment that fit your skill set.  You may have to be a little flexible with what you do for a living to live where you want to live.

The other thing you will want to be active about is participating in local government.  Find out who runs your town.  Go to town meetings.  Find out who the local Republicans are and find out if they’re useful or useless.  You might even have to run for dogcatcher just to get something useful done in your area.  Find out about your local police department.  Find out if your town is embarking on any kind of radical “affordable” housing project.  Often that is code for bringing in deadbeats and illegal aliens into the suburbs.

It’s your job to shape your environment.  It’s what humans have done from time immemorial.  As Americans we had a century of living under the umbrella of a powerful, mostly competent government that improved the lives of its citizens.  That time is over.  We live under a rapacious oligarchy that is trying to hold onto the shrinking resources of a declining global empire.  Finding pockets of prosperity and sanity in the crumbling American Empire will be a challenge for those who don’t want to just give up.  That’s your challenge.  And if by some miracle we, the people, manage to wrest control of America away from the oligarchs and reestablish this country as a sane and prosperous nation, you’ll be ahead of the curve if you’ve already set yourself up by being an active agent of your own happiness.

How Do We Last Until 2025?

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A single day doesn’t seem to go by without some new Biden caused or related disaster occurring.  War, famine, pestilence, financial collapse, you name it.  The only thing missing from the list is an asteroid strike and I’m sure that the Biden team has their stupidest man working on it right now.

But seriously, these are going to be trying times.  Like everyone else I’m counting the pennies and figuring out how to reduce costs and pay for growing bills with shrinking assets.  It’s going to be extremely difficult in the weeks and months ahead.  And let’s face it, regardless of what kind of blowout the Democrats suffer in November there will be a Democrat in the White House torturing us until early in 2025.  That’s a very long time.  We won’t get through it by trying to hold our breath all the way through.

We’re going to have to be protect ourselves from all the nonsense they’ll do to break us down.  Each of us will have to do the best we can to roll with the punches and avoid being ground down by the myriad of problems these people create; money problems, crime waves, propaganda aimed at our children, more COVID fascism possibly.  We’ll have to be smart and strong.

But just as important as all these things is maintaining morale.  Your spiritual health is just as important as your physical health.  You’ve got to make time to be happy.  And that’s especially true if you are working harder to keep from falling behind.  Take some time out every day and do something that nourishes the mind and soul.  Call up an old friend and find out how he’s doing.  Visit an aged relative and bring a little joy into her day.  Buy a good book and take twenty minutes out of your day to read it.  Take a course in something you’ve always wanted to learn.  It doesn’t have to be at a college.  It could be an on-line course.  If you’re isolated by circumstances then join some activity at a local club.

Of course, if you have a young family, then make time each day to help your kids with all the things they are doing.  Make sure you know what they are thinking about.  Find out what problems they are dealing with.  With the COVID masking still going on at schools make sure they’re dealing with the stress reasonably well and let them know things will be getting better very soon.  Talk at the dinner table and try to keep their morale high too.  Find other families that you can plan outings and events with that don’t cost an arm and a leg.

And plan for the future.  Look forward to better times.  Make a list of improvements you want for your future and then start to figure out a plan to accomplish one of them first.  Don’t start with the one where you become a billionaire.  Figure out the one where you lose twenty pounds or replace the kitchen floor or get a promotion at work.

All of this is a plan to keep a positive attitude and get yourself and your loved ones through some tough times that are coming up.  And most importantly get out of the house and feel the sun on your face once in a while.  Cabin fever is a real thing especially in the cold latitudes but everywhere else too to some extent.  And of course, I’m part of the problem, but get away from the computer once in a while.

One day Joe Biden will be in the rear-view mirror.  But until then maintain your sanity and nourish your soul by balancing the stress with some fun.  Doctor’s orders.

America Needs a Prophet

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America has lost its way.  Those under forty are dispirited and directionless.  The older people are confused and frightened.   Only the fanatics of the Left are energized.  And their only impulse is to destroy what is normal.

William Butler Yeats in his poem, “The Second Coming” characterized the problem of modernity thus:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity …”

I think what he is saying is that we’ve lost our way utterly.  Those running our civilization have disconnected from what is essential to human life.  They’ve cut away the roots that nourished our culture and our people.  And maybe they’ve done it purposefully.  Maybe they think they should get rid of most of us.  Or maybe they want to end humanity altogether including themselves.  I’m not sure which.

It may be that the western world and America in particular will needs a revival.  It has happened several times in America’s history that a religious revival has swept across large areas of the country to restore purpose and energy to the communities here.  It might coincide with a financial crisis or a war.  Usually religious leaders would declare a “crusade” to attack a spiritual problem like alcoholism or gambling.

I don’t know if there are any religious leaders in the mainline churches who aren’t already coopted by the Left.  I guess it could be anyone coming from any background.  Maybe it won’t even be a religious man.  But it will have to be someone who can speak eloquently and to the point.  That man must preach against the Left in all its various forms.

What is needed is someone who can confidently and convincingly attack the Left and all it stands for.  He will need to provide a coherent and comprehensive plan to reestablish Western Civilization as it flourished a hundred years ago.  He will have to be a Moses to lead the people back into the promised land.  He will have to cast down the golden calf and provide the people with the commandments they need to restore order to their lives.  What does that metaphor equate to in our current world?  So many things.  Probably the most fundamental commandment will be return to living in functional families.  And that means abandoning the feminist model of working women who produce one child sometime in their late thirties or early forties.  It means stay at home moms who raise their children themselves.  And men who work to support those families.  And spend the rest of their time at home with their wives and children and in their communities.  That is the central theme of a revival.

Next, the schools need to be reformed.  All the leftist propaganda must be stripped away from kindergarten to graduate school.  All of the intersectional studies programs must be eliminated.  No good ever came from Women’s Studies or Queer Studies or Africana Studies.  Ever.  Schools must return to their original purpose; vocational training.  Whether it’s advanced physics or carpentry teaching a valid skill as a means to making a living is what we pay colleges to teach our children.  If they don’t accomplish that then shut them down.

And last but not least we have to reform our federal government.  And this is the most difficult reform of all.  The managerial state has become our master.  It dictates to us how we must live in excruciating detail; what we must do and what is forbidden.  The prophet we need must have laws to reform the government and cast out the masters who have made us slaves.

That is what we need; someone of gigantic stature to reform our society.  It’s an almost impossible task.  But if no one appears we are surely doomed.  We will sink into serfdom and even our elites will be pushed aside by abler cultures that maintained their understanding of what makes a healthy culture.  Where is our Moses?

Playing With Three-Year-Old’s Is Not Child’s Play

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Men of my generation generally have very little practical experience raising children.  Being born in the Silurian Epoch meant that back then wives were stay at home moms who raised their children and only complained if the paychecks stopped appearing on time.  Sure, on weekends and at night we would meet up with the next generation and attempt to play with them to some extent but we always had their moms there to mediate any difficult situations.  And at night the toddlers were already winding down toward sleep and on the weekends, we could bring them outside where our longer legs meant that just by virtue of walking, we could burn off their excess energy.

But here I am forty years later and generation two of Camera Girl’s great science experiment is winding down and I find myself at the mercy of Princess Sack of Potatoes and her edict that she must be amused.  Currently this involves me portraying an Angry Polar Bear (racist stereotyping some might say) by growling feebly and chasing her in a circle between the kitchen, dining room, foyer, hallway and back again.  Now this doesn’t sound particularly strenuous.  And so, I believed for the first five minutes.  But she has stamina.  I can get a one-minute reprieve every five minutes or so.  But she can keep this up for half an hour.  And even at the end of this ordeal I felt I had acquitted myself admirably and survived the experience unscathed.  But after lunch I suddenly found myself lapsing into unconsciousness.  Even the addition of caffeine seemed powerless to restore my flagging energy.

In my defense I have to assure you that I make an effort to remain active.  I will spend thirty minutes a day on the rowing machine and also work out on a lat-machine and do some calisthenics.  And even right after these exertions I feel fine, even invigorated.  I was forced to admit something unthinkable, raising little kids is harder than real work.  I even admitted this to Camera Girl.  I could see the look of scorn in her eyes.  She had probably been waiting most of her life for this moment.

But after a little reflection I’ve gained a new insight on this phenomenon.  God and nature had shaped men and women to fulfill their differing destinies.  Men were made heroically strong and courageous to fight off saber-tooth tigers and repo men while women were given the patience and stamina it requires to cook the saber-tooth tigers and repo men we provide and also to run in circles after three-year-old’s for hours at a time.  This newfound insight calmed me and restored my sense of balance in this topsy turvy world we live in.  I quickly explained this new theory to Camera Girl and how this meant that my fatigue was just the universe’s way of saying that I should save up my titanic strength for the next zombie apocalypse or asteroid strike that was sure to be coming around the bend anytime.  It’s funny, that look still seemed to be in her eye.  Probably my imagination.

So, I have initiated a new game with Princess Sack of Potatoes.  Instead of chasing her in circles I pretend to be sleeping on the floor.  And if she gets too close, I grab her by the shin, pull her down, growl at her and tickle her mercilessly for twenty seconds and then release her to run away.  I find I can keep up this game for any number of cycles without the least effort.  These women are so inefficient.

Ending Off 2021 Right

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2020 was a nightmare from beginning to end and 2021 didn’t begin any better.  2021 started off as pure poison.  But the naked fraud and inexcusable subverting of the law has disgusted and radicalized whole segments of the population that up until now were sleep walking through the coup.  And what we’ve seen for the last five months is the chickens finally coming home to roost.  The combination of economic disaster, naked cronyism in the legislature and incompetence in multiple departments of the executive branch has turned the voting public against Dementia Joe and his lackeys.  And 2022 promises to be even worse for these crooks and weirdos.  It promises to be a disaster from beginning to end.  And all of this bad news for the bad guys has given me the opportunity to sendoff 2021 in style.

I just finished off the Christmas holiday exactly as I had hoped it would go.  All of my grandkids were over today and after having a Camera Girl feast that included roast beast and all the fixings, I basked in the bright light of all that youthful energy.  Most of the energy was dissipated shooting nerf projectiles at each other and the surroundings.  But there were some proceedings that I was qualified to join in.  And there was a fun toy that they brought along.  I bought the boys an Oculus virtual reality (VR) headset about two years ago.  I asked them about it recently and they talked about a fun module that they could run on the headset and I asked them to bring it over for me to try.  It’s a simulation of a rollercoaster.  Now it wouldn’t occur to me that wearing a visor over my eyes would in some way simulate the sensation of motion that happens when you ride on a rollercoaster but so help me it does!  The visual stimuli of riding around on a fast-moving car that is constantly changing direction and speed even convinces the pit of your stomach that you’re climbing and plunging on the tracks of a coaster.  I convinced Camera Girl to put it on but she has such extreme motion sickness that she yanked the headset off her face after barely ten seconds.  She told me she would have been violently ill if she had waited any more time at all.  Such a big baby!

Then I convinced my little granddaughter to watch the old Disney movie Dumbo.  She was very hesitant because she is marvelously sensitive to cinematic sadness.  When the baby elephant was separated from his mother, I thought Princess Sack of Potatoes was going to burst out crying.  I had to convince her to hang in there because there would be a reunion.  Sure enough, once that occurred, she was enthralled by the song the mother elephant cooed to her child.  Unfortunately, she had to go home before she got to see the happily ever after ending but she’ll be back next week to finish it off.

And the sum total of all the human interactions between kids, parents and grandparents over the course of two days of feasting, playing and talking was the perfect ending to a holiday that is the perfect ending to a year.  With the kids off until after the New Year we’ll get a chance to spend more time together to talk about high school and college decisions and their day-to-day doings.  I recently sent the older boys a bunch of science fiction novels and apparently, they’re were very favorably impressed with the stories so I’ll get their feedback on these.  And we’ll play few games of pool now that they’ve mastered the fundamentals of holding the cue and lining up a shot.  And we’ll spend the next week finishing off the leftovers from the feast.  And they promised they’d help me to figure out if there is an easy and inexpensive way to play Doom 2 on the Oculus VR system.  I’ve always wanted to revisit that video game without the restriction of having to use a joystick or keyboard to look behind my back for the monster that is always sneaking up on me in that game.

So, all this will recharge my batteries to endure the colossal amounts of dishonesty and stupidity that will be on display by all the politicians who will make 2022 a veritable marathon of evil.  After the fact, I see now what I missed during the COVID crisis.  I was isolated from the things that make life worth living.  Spending time with the people in your life that count is several orders of magnitude more important than all the other things you do with your time.  Making sure there are people left who care about the things you care about is the justification for fighting against the Left.  If we prevailed over the Left but those people were lost to us then none of it would personally benefit us.  It would be at best an intellectual exercise and personally meaningless.  So, I intend to enjoy my time off with loved ones and prioritize those activities right now.  Later on, I’ll get back to ranting about the losers who are out there mucking up this beautiful world.