Swamp Stompin’ With Honey Badger: Part 1

I slept the peace of nature…

It has been a long hard um… how does one calculate time? Has it been a tiring week? A tough year? An interminable decade? Hard to say; there is only before and now. The realization hit me long ago and has since trickled to the densest CNN viewer that a Rubicon has been passed. Regardless of how we got here, the society to which we’d return is gone. (That said, I’m optimistic about the road ahead.)

Please forgive the egghead contemplation (and if you don’t why are you reading this blog?) but we must rest when needed. One tends to think “I’ll bust my ass until X and then shit will calm down”. It never works. You finish X but Y and Z have stepped into the ring and are beating your ass during what ought to be your victory lap.

Half the shock of covid was that I’d allocated the months previous to a far more important matter; the care for and loss of my aged dog. I sailed straight into the fog of loyalty and grief and mortality and renewal only to find safe harbors fewer and already crowded with refugees when I emerged. Society went apeshit over a virus! Then it imploded!?! My loss is a tiny molecule in the tidal wave of collateral damage wrought by fools.

I’ve saying “it’s been a hard week” too often. It worries me.

All weeks are hard.

The intellectual half of my mind needs to watch for what the emotional half cannot see. The tendency to endure without rest is an affliction of the strong. A risk as deadly as an inviting couch to the lazy.

So it is that I found myself camping. As always, I was solo. I was not lonely, I was enjoying solitude.

This was the “vacation” I needed and it was months and months overdue. Oh yes, I’ve had “vacations” by common definition. I’m not always clocked into the hamster wheel. Yet if vacation means “spiritual rest” I’ve had little since last September. It was then that I last camped under this particular pine and let it go.

That campout (last year) was the last few days of the fragile ceasefire that came before “the event”. How was I to know what was coming? After all we’d endured, President Biden (who appears to enjoy kicking groups of citizens which don’t meet his standards) put his geriatric crosshairs on me.

(Here, as required by the successor to rule of law, I’ll note that Biden won more votes than any other candidate in history. He won the record vote count. Doubt this infallible dogma and you risk joining America’s newest cohort; domestic political prisoners. Remember I said there was a before time? I once believed my government wouldn’t imprison people for political reasons. President Roosevelt’s domestic concentration camps should have been sufficient warning. I was dense and apparently needed to learn anew.)

Seeking to divert attention from the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, Biden made an angry speech. He would correct the 100 million Americans who’d chosen to remain unvaccinated. His was the will to rule and his “patience had worn thin“.  I hadn’t made the correct choice voluntarily, so it would be made mandatory.

Most speeches are flowery bullshit. This one was angry and judgmental. Biden was ready to use force and outlined the beginning steps in that dangerous march. First he’d hassle you, then he’d get you fired, then “whatever was necessary”. An abusive partner pleads with his victim; “don’t make me hit you!”

These statements weren’t hidden behind walls of soothing fluff, they were sharp nails dragged across a chalkboard. In order to stand against evil, you must first see it. Biden’s speech was without humility or forgiveness; it was about whom he would force to do what and how he’d inflict his will. It straightened my spine and hardened my heart. Presidents aren’t God. The fucker acted above his pay grade!

I reacted viscerally. “If you want to force me to do anything, you’re going to have to actually do the deed. Kick in my door and make it happen or shut up and crawl back to your basement.” I was pissed but also I was resigned to whatever came next. “Ball’s in your court asshole. Are we going to do this thing or not?” I assumed I was doomed. I’d be a single unheard voice shouting ineffectually while bureaucrats steamrolled me. I didn’t care. I would do what was right. Others have been called to do far more. Some have died in battle, the worst I risked was poverty and social pressure. Faced with evil, who is so weak they won’t endure unemployment?

Nine months. That’s all it took. America gave a resounding “fuck you” to the whole thing. The senile monster who confused “elected” office with Godhood is now the wretched punchline of a cosmic joke.

It seems unreal but it really happened. Never forget what was intended. Never forget why it hasn’t (yet?) happened. When a man takes a swing at you and misses, don’t assume he meant to miss.

It was a dark time but the result was the best outcome. Americans (at least some of them) remembered they were Americans! After eating shit for years, a sufficient portion (myself included) finally said “this far and no more”. The mass compliance projected on a Utopian theorist’s spreadsheet evaporated at first contact with stoic free citizens. The house of cards collapsed. It continues to collapse. Such a glorious and horrific collapse that it happens everywhere and all at once and seems to know no bounds.

Biden (he of record breaking vote counts) has become less popular than dogshit. Biden fell even lower than Carter and he’s still dropping in the polls. Everything he touches turns to shit. Every action he takes blows up in his face. The man who’d have subjugated me is the least popular president in 77 years! (Link)

Perhaps God thought the crucible was necessary? It was a teaching moment for every single person. Everyone learned their mettle. Everyone had a choice, everyone did what they did. Those who got the shot as a reasoned choice but wouldn’t dream of the Nuremberg madness of forcing it on others are safely on the sidelines where they belong. Others who got the shot because it was “the cool thing to do” question their decision. Why doesn’t it make them feel immune? If the fourth shot doesn’t help, will the fifth? What after that? Those who were bullied or coerced into it know what made people carry their own luggage onto a boxcar. A few, who’d gleefully someone else onto a boxcar, know their twisted selves too. Every mask wearing Karen knows that she lusts for the burning of a witch.

As for me? No regrets! I never forced my will on another. I’ve never been subjugated. What more is there?

But, I’m tired. I need rest.

Such were the thoughts in my mind. I remained awake late into the night; letting my mind roam the comforting pines. Sitting in the dark by a little fire, the world becomes just that little circle of light.

I found a measure of renewal. I began enjoying the fact that I’m not broken. It was America’s birthday after all! I’d done well. In a time of mass hysteria I held firm. I can look in the mirror without reproach; as a free American citizen should.

My tent and little dirtbike hunkered just out of reach of the firelight. They were for tomorrow. For right then, I was in the moment. I watched the stars above and listened to the owls in the clear warm night air. In nature, all is as it should be.

I gave a last fleeting thought to politics. I’m still here motherfucker! Chuckling, I kicked out the fire and turned in.

Soon I was fast asleep. I’d let it go.

(To be continued.)