The Forty-Five has an interesting observation:
I too have had such a change in my demeanor. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one. I’m not perfect. I fail to keep quiet at times (I’m a blogger after all) but I’ve generally intended to do so.
For example, earlier eras on my blog included discussion of economic issues which interested me. Now, years later, I see vignettes of brewing coffee by a campfire as more “important”. Why? Because the die is cast. The choice is in the rear view mirror and all that’s left is to adapt to the inevitable effects. If adaptation takes the form of a grouse hunt or campfire coffee who is to say that’s the incorrect path?
Thus, it’s the second part of Forty-Five’s observation that resonates with me. There was a time when this or that policy threatened bad outcomes. That time is over. The policy has been done. What “might” result from unwise potential choices now “must” result from unwise concrete actions.
There’s no point bemoaning the inevitable, unavoidable, obvious, clear, deserved results at hand. Faffing about in 2021 that shortages or inflation “might” be an “unexpected” occurrence is just displaying one’s deliberate (and often feigned) ignorance. Folks that somehow missed the cause are either unreceptive to a discussion about causes or absolutely livid at the suggestion we make our own fate.
Shortages and whatnot were more or less intentionally created. They’re already in evidence. Why discuss it with folks that are still trying to deny that which they created?
That is not to say we’re all doomed. Only that it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness. Do the right thing for your soul and those you love, even if the world burns. I hope to emphasize camping and squirrel stories in the future. It seems so much saner than emulating CNN or Facebook as they fret over newly discovered reasons why shelves are “unexpectedly” empty.
That one bunged me up for week in a semantic poop loop as I argued with myself about it, AC. I got so intellectually constipated, that I was forced into silence myself! HAR HAR HAR!!! That’s probly a good thing.
I’m STILL conflicted as I grunt this one out! But… there is a yes and no component to this. Our world is on fire because we were out fishing and hunting while the loons back at camp were playing with matches. Rather than fight with them or cause a scene, we let them run and hoped that they knew what they were doing. And now, the forest burns. My obvious mental retardation lets me out… but men of intellect and morals like the warrior poet and yourself are partially culpable – of negligence!
😂👍
When guys like us go silent and let the loons run away with the show, bad things are going to happen. At the rate things are going, we are not only going to have to light a candle, we are going to have to load our guns, strap on our pistols and knives… and have that fight we should have had long ago when these monsters were still small and easier to kill. Hindsight is always 20/20.
The shortages and strife aren’t even started yet. When they get dire, CNN, NBC, and the New York Times will go hunting for scapegoats just like You-Know-Who did. And they will find men like us to blame. The preppers will be seen as hoarders that hold out while innocent citizens go without. Off gridders will be seen as terrorists trying to hide away from the govt. other wrong-thinkers will be unmasked and punished. You may not be interested in this fight and the people driving it… but they will be very interested in you.
I won’t stay silent. When I see idiocy I refuse to accept it on the applicable grounds and say so. When the hissy fits start, I shrug and ignore them. My mind is what it is, and if they want to get stupid and fight about it, unless it involves knives and guns, they can just FOAD with their BS because I won’t have it.
We deserve what we tolerate, AC. I love TB, but he and I will hang separately and I will almost certainly swing first. But I will be the author of my own fate, and God willing, I will take a few of them with me before I go. I’ve lived to close to them, they’ve taken too much from me, and when my time comes I intend to meet it well.
May you do the same – if you’re so inclined.
Bring on the squirrels!
I was thinking of another chapter sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. How’s that sound?
If I wind up unemployed the whole rest of the book might come out at warp speed, but that’s a whole can of worms in life disruption so I can’t make any promises.
You left a lot of story lines dangling, so I am more than ready to see where this merry tale leads. I’ll probably have to go back and read the last few previous postings to jog my old, senile mind whenever you start the new postings. Loved the convenience store affair.
I have the intention to pull all the dangly bits into a coherent whole. Do I have the skill? Only time will tell.
Every time I drop my writing and then come back six months later I have to read the whole book again. It’s a bit surprising. First of all, it kills an afternoon at least. Second, I wind up thinking “I wrote that?” Stories really do have a life of their own.
Thank You A.C. you are the light in the darkness for many of us. I am down to only 3 blogs that I read any more and they are just too smile in this dark world as we are now living in the C.M. Cornbluth story ‘The Marching Morons’
Yes, the Marching Morons seems appropriate. People really are tearing up their own cities to get to a place that’s theoretically better but in reality doesn’t exist.
I’m glad my blog makes you smile.
“The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.“
On one hand, silence may be the thing. There’s no use being a “cowboy hat on a stick.” To do or say nothing as the Left-Wing lunacy cartwheels off a cliff though, is to be nothing less than complicit. True, our battles must be picked, but those chosen battles must be fought. I can’t get myself to leave this wreckage for my posterity… I’m with Glen on this one… I’ve HAD IT!…
I’ve personally learned to keep silent about many things but it is not a good thing. On the one hand, hysterical life-destroying punishment would have resulted – Things I cannot subject my family to. On the other, it’s one of the reasons why nothing works: No one with anything real to say has permission to say it in public. Every official statement by every carefully trained apparatchik is bullshit in willful defiance of reality. People far above the lowly station of “mere” {doctors/microbiologists/physicists/anyone-not-financially independent in a way that cannot be wrecked by rabid lawyers in lawless courts} decide how the world is going to work, if we know what is good for us, and impose their narrative wish-casting on “official-truth”. Somehow we were supposed to have been independent professionals, free and duty bound to speak our minds, free men in general! Instead we’re peasants at the bottom of one vast pyramid, or another vast pyramid. Hierarchies always lie. I’ve never worked in a position where I have not been under some nondisclosure agreement or security letter or other code of omerta.
I may say more if I decide the risks are worth it. There are so many things that are important to say, that only people forbidden from saying would have reason to know well. It makes me ill that what we are *supposed* to do (our duty to speak from our knowledge and experience, to avert disaster) requires martyrdom: poverty and jail. Whistleblower laws are a sick joke. Saccharine pieties about how things are supposed to work are fairy tale bait for idiots. The world is perishing from cowardice, but courage is suicide. I’ve kept silent before outside of “official channels and the chain of command”, and I’m not at all sure it was the right thing to do. Silence is probably how our civilization got here. It seems crazy with the endless public noise, but the people who needed to speak were threatened into holding their peace.
AC – Thank you so much for the referral. I am glad I am not the only one that is having this sort of thought process.
And as you say (and I agree with), it is not necessarily that we have become silent, just selectively so. There are still important things to write on (coffee falls into this category, of course). And other things to of course. It is just whom I write and discuss them with.
And yes, Glen and I have an ongoing discussion on this which, quite likely, will never be settled until – as he says – we both swing or we both come into a very changed world. And Glen certainly has a point, that not confronting the issues directly allows them to increase. At the same time, to continue to shout into the face of a hurricane does not change its course; it only puts you at risk. Far better to let the hurricane blow by – in my opinion – and pick up the pieces afterwards.
Ya’ll are pretty smart folks. I’m a few clicks below Glenfilthie in the tard class, but I’ve managed to live long enough to notice a few problems. My fear is that the Evilfuckers will hang on long enough to win in a war of attrition with their control of all institutions, through rules, regs, Karen’s, brain washed sheep, dedicated narcissistic socio/psychopaths, chem/electo magnetic, frequency warfare, etc. My hope is that there are enough red pilled folks out here to remove consent, refuse to comply, be active/passive monkey wrenches or at least sand in the gears. I’m in a good area of Tennessee(not too worried about op/sec, They know all), so I’m fortunate, lots of red neck hunters around here(snipers). Lots of plane folk Christians also, so food situation is better than urban areas.
I think TPTB are going to have a big problem with the vast number of combat vets They have created over the last 2 decades and screwed over. I remember when I finally figured out that US war/foreign policy was run by and for the rich corporate oligarchs, that was the red pill that took me down the rabbit hole that Satan is CFO of all the bureaucracies. My hope is that They are off enough that They don’t “get” us enough to predict us good enough to win. So I travel between optimistic and not so optimistic. There’s things a lot worse than dying, They aren’t taking me to crime scene B. I’ll fight it out wherever I have to. I’m pretty sure the fewshun center algore rhythms have lowered me way down the priority lists because of all the pissed off red pillers coming out of the wood work over the last year and a half.
Wish I had the bucks to send the many fine blogs that inform and entertain me, but alas I wasn’t smart enough to dig my ass out of the ’08-’09 disaster. Thank you all for being out there, speaking out and giving us old farts hope.
We’re not voting our way out of this. No one is coming to save us. Stay away from crowds(RIP ol’ Remus) and watch yer six. End of obligatory cliches.
Retarded old guy out.
I was involved with the Libertarian Party in WA in the late ’70s. It fizzed.
I moved on, got on with my life, made lots of mistakes.
Started a dial-up BBS some time later, dedicated to talk, mostly about films and philosophy. Finally that computer died, and I couldn’t afford another, so again I got on with my life.
Since then, I’ve not bothered to talk politics with anyone except my friends – who are mostly left-leaning, well-meaning and pretty clueless.
Flapping my metaphorical gums didn’t seem to make a bit of difference. That’s the main reason I’m not a blogger.
Kurt
I once wondered why Libertarian thoughts got no traction. I have a homestead and do many fulfilling things and thought “why doesn’t anyone want to join me in this?” Then Z-Man said something that made sense; “Libertarianism only makes sense for hardworking, contentious, 120 IQ people… which is why it never goes anywhere”. (I’m paraphrasing.) He was right, I’ve come to see it as a personal choice that’s simply beyond most people and therefore shouldn’t be forced upon their weak cringing shoulders. I note that Libertarian party in reality gained traction over “legal weed” and nothing else. It’s a shame.
You’re more rational than me staying out of blogging. You’re absolutely right that no blogger has any impact whatsoever on the big picture events of our time. I’ve lowered my expectations. I think to myself “hopefully I can make some folks laugh or feel better” and if it turns from fun to a slog I start sauntering for the door. I notice there are fewer and fewer bloggers every year. Eventually there will be none. It is simply the way of things.
Keeping quiet, indeed. I blog and comment under my own name, so… well, certain topics have been off limits for me since before blogs were even a thing. I’ll make snarky remarks about easy political targets, yes, but nothing beyond casual and obvious snark. And there are various not-really-political topics of interest that might lead to trouble with family or with various former associates, or that might draw the unwelcome attentions of some future minions of the State sniffing out signs of terroristic tendencies (usually with the level of understanding that holds that, since Hollywood bombs commonly have blinking lights on them, any object with blinking lights on it must necessarily be a bomb).
The current climate is intimidating indeed for those who would engage in public discourse, taking a position outside the rapidly-moving Overton Window (now defined not by the mainstream population but by the Elect).