{"id":33836,"date":"2025-07-11T05:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T09:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=33836"},"modified":"2025-07-10T21:08:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T01:08:27","slug":"those-damn-gutians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/11\/those-damn-gutians\/","title":{"rendered":"Those Damn Gutians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DSC00608-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-32925\" src=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DSC00608-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DSC00608-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DSC00608-300x263.jpg 300w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DSC00608-1024x899.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DSC00608-768x674.jpg 768w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DSC00608-1536x1349.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DSC00608-2048x1798.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/DSC00608-400x350.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I was reading an old edition of H. G. Wells\u2019 &#8220;The Outline of History&#8221; today.\u00a0 The book is over a century old but in surprisingly good shape.\u00a0 Well, anyway, Wells speculates that the pattern of nomadic herdsmen invading and conquering settled farming communities goes all the way back to Mesopotamia and the Semitic tribes raiding the Sumerian cities.<\/p>\n<p>From what I remember the Sumerians are believed to be the first farmers.\u00a0 And that goes back at least six thousand years ago.\u00a0 That brings us all the way back to the neolithic.\u00a0 So, for our whole history as \u201ccivilized\u201d creatures we have been battling against the steppe barbarians just to keep the food that we grew ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>And that brings to mind the movie \u201cSeven Samurai\u201d where the farmers pay samurai to fight off the bandits instead of handing over their harvest.\u00a0 The problem is that bandits and samurai are almost indistinguishable depending on the circumstances.\u00a0 If you think about it whether you give your tithe to the church and your \u201crent\u201d to Charlemagne or have it stolen by the Vikings must have been a relative distinction.\u00a0 Now, of course, the king didn\u2019t burn your house, rape your wife and take you all as slaves (speaking by and large) but he did make it awfully difficult to get through a long cold winter.<\/p>\n<p>So maybe we\u2019ve come a long way here in the good old U S of A.\u00a0 But consider.\u00a0 Suppose you have a small retail store in Brooklyn NY and for the last five years every day several street criminals shoplift several hundred dollars\u2019 worth of your stock from your shelves.\u00a0 And the police have even stopped arresting these crooks because the George Soros backed District Attorney won\u2019t prosecute them and won\u2019t keep them behind bars for even a day.\u00a0 In what sense are you any better off than a Sumerian farmer or a French peasant in Charlemagne\u2019s day?\u00a0 On paper you have the backing of the United States military, nuclear ICBMs and the New York State penal code in all its multi-volume grandeur.\u00a0 But in a very real way you\u2019re actually worse off than those ancient examples.<\/p>\n<p>At least the Sumerian and French peasants were allowed to try and resist their marauders.\u00a0 If they could organize around a local king or nobleman, they might successfully fight off their attackers.\u00a0 But in Brooklyn if you took up arms (metaphorically of course, guns are strictly forbidden) and arrested the perps yourself, you\u2019d probably be prosecuted by that same District Attorney for any and every bogus charge he could make up.\u00a0 And God forbid the thieves were injured during the arrest.\u00a0 You\u2019d never see the light of day again.<\/p>\n<p>We are reaching a point where the breakdown of civilization in parts of our country will make it impossible for people in the other parts of the country to do business with them.\u00a0 The risk to life and limb and the losses in capital will make it impossible for people in the safer parts of the country to imagine walking into these death traps.\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s already happening.\u00a0 Chain stores like Rite-Aid and CVS are quickly closing down their branches in places like Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, and Oakland, California and New York City.\u00a0 This will further degrade the environment of these places and hasten the day when anyone with any sense runs away from these hellholes.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll close with the thoughts of the ancient Sumerians when discussing the marauders who afflicted their civilization:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Gutians, people who do not know permanent settlement, with human feelings but the instincts of a dog, body shape like that of a monkey, Enlil sent them from the mountains, like locusts they are covering the entire land.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Well, apparently some things never change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was reading an old edition of H. G. Wells\u2019 &#8220;The Outline of History&#8221; today.\u00a0 The book is over a century old but in surprisingly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4956,462,4955],"class_list":["post-33836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-barbarians-at-the-gates","tag-h-g-wells","tag-sumeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Those Damn Gutians - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/11\/those-damn-gutians\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Those Damn Gutians - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was reading an old edition of H. 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