Commentary, Punditry, and More
Since I got guest poster River’s posting order wrong, I thought I should do a quick post to make it easy for you to read them in the proper order.
The proper first post is here.
The proper second post is here.
There is some good food for thought here, and I highly recommend you not only read River’s posts, but read them in the right order.
Today features another guest post by “River” and it really should have been the first one up. So, when you finish reading it, go read The Happy Warrior Lives in All of Us. Sorry about that River…
Whether you believe the American Republic died on January 6th or January 20th (and I believe a case can be made for the death date being when the Roberts court failed to strike down Obamacare as unconstitutional), the Republic as we knew it is gone.
All that remains is to see what we—you and I—are going to do about it.
We believe in American Exceptionalism. But we also believed it couldn’t happen here. Yet all around us we see our countryman content with grotesque erosions of our freedoms. So we see that yes, indeed, it can happen here. (I refer you to Dennis Prager’s excellent essay “The Good German.”)
But American Exceptionalism isn’t some magic force that’s going to save us. American Exceptionalism is how we respond to tyranny.
Trump proved he was not the despot he was made out to be. Oh, not because he couldn’t have been—because it was clear, he could have been a Caesar, returning the country to a republican form of government by decree. But for better or worse, he declined to be that guy. Did not want to be remembered as that person. Instead, he insisted that we citizens use the forms of government and law laid down by the Founding Fathers to restore the Republic. We failed.
So Donald Trump will be remembered as the last lawfully elected President of the Republic, Joe Biden its first Socialist “Beloved Leader,” propped up by all the force of a corrupt bureaucracy, and with the collusion of Big Tech and other large “private” industries that need the protection of a government enforced monopoly to exist.
So we failed to overthrow a blatantly stolen presidential (and then senatorial) election. That’s on us. It’s going to be that much harder now to succeed. They think they’ve run the table, that there’s not stopping their every country-destroying move. But the one good piece of news is that we now can see, without a doubt, exactly where the enemy of the Republic lies, how deep the corruption is. Not just a few crazy representatives and Senators, but the FBI, local district attorneys, secretaries of state, election boards, the Supreme Court, the rulers of Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, CNN, and beyond. All those calling for purges, for jail time for the exercise of free speech and assembly.
It’s a big task. And the cockroaches are all over the kitchen. (Not an anti-Semitic metaphor—just and anti-Socialist one!)
How do we clean house?
Well, we won’t do it with despair in our hearts. We know—and Trump’s 4 years proved—that if you return to first principles, you win. You can place America’s interests first, have a strong defense, peace from your enemies, a thriving economy, and freedom for your citizens. So we must go forward knowing that the only reason the other side was driven to cheating is because they’d lost the war of ideas. Oh, they won the war of rhetoric, big time. But they didn’t win the war of reality. And reality counts.
We must go forward knowing that if we hold true to the Christian principles this country was founded on—and I say this as a nonbeliever—we will win over those who only have hatred to carry them through. Hatred of human life, hatred of Trump, fear of freedom, fear of making their own choices. We must love our neighbor, even as he is willing to betray us and our cause. Not an easy task. But as my brother reminds me—we hate the sin, not the sinner. We have to help them to the light.
And each one of us will have a part in this. Some of us will be writing under our own names. Others using pseudonyms. We will take our business away from those who would hurt us, and create new networks of those who adhere to the principles of freedom of conscience. We will do without—sometimes, and that’s okay.
And we must reform the only political party we can influence. About which more, next time.
Today I’m glad to host what I hope will be the first of many posts by “River.” Enjoy and share!
Despite the failure to convict Trump, the news has been relentlessly bad since January 6th. The powers of totalitarianism have run the table. They control all three branches of the Federal government, the Army, the cities, the Federal intelligence forces, Big Tech, Big Media, and your local school board.
Hard to keep up a smile in those circumstances. Things will only get worse. We know from history the next steps. First, the economic geniuses making our fiscal policy decisions have led us to a point where either runaway inflation or a simple economic collapse are inevitable. You can only keep writing checks against future income so long as your creditors believe you are good for it. No one thinks that anymore. (Hamiliton knew that; these are not new problems.) My prediction is that this will start within the next 6-18 months.
What do totalitarians do when that happens? They confiscate resources. Henry the VIII took the monasteries, the French took the artistos’ land, Hitler took the Jews’ . Our Democracy ™ if I may use a term from Michael Anton’s piece here: https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/23/why-do-the-elections-defenders-require-my-agreement/, is already telling us who they will target: businesses that are “racist.” How do they know you are racist? If you didn’t vote for them, or donate to them, q.e.d, you are a racist. Or they may target health care deniers—people who refuse to get vaccinations, wear masks, whatever the latest decree is that is for the good of Our Democracy TM. Or both. Why think small?
With Big Tech’s help, you are easy to identify.
What this means for anyone who actually remembers freedom—and this is people over 40, by the way; most of the younger generation has no problem philosophically with any of these measures—is that we will be fighting a guerilla civil war. We will be the “Underground” in our own country. And we won’t be getting support from outside the borders, like the successful undergrounds did in WWII and like we provided for people of Eastern Europe under the Soviets.
It’s going to get ugly, and it’s going to get ugly fast. The freedom lovers are completely unprepared for this. We don’t have the parallel systems in place we need to organize. We don’t have the banks, the server farms, the shadow government ready to take over.
This is going to take generations. And our children’s children are going to curse us for not heading this off before it came to bloodshed.
Where does the happy part come in? Don’t judge your freedom lovers. Most of us are going to have to conform, or lose everything. Especially the young people, who are trying to build careers, trying to raise children, who do not have a nest egg or the means to retreat to a more free State. People who need access to what remaining health care there is. They will have to knuckle under.
If anyone is to fight back, we will need many within the system to provide cover for them, to be an Underground Railroad, to keep them supplied, to provide havens.
Max Morton goes into more detail here: https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/23/the-last-stop-before-thermopylae/ about what is needed.
But my happy warrior message: don’t beat up on the people who agree with you,but must stay legal. And for those of us who can’t, either because their previous work makes them anathema, or who just can’t stand the tyrant, cut them some slack, too. The purges are coming. Let’s try to connect with and support each other as much as possible before that happens.
First, I agree with Sarah A. Hoyt in this post, and several previous posts, about what steps to take. Further, I agree with her and others that I see a rather high butcher’s bill unless some of the so-called leaders of the establishment class wake up and face reality. I pray that such a day does not come, but I see no way to avoid it unless people wake up and taste reality. I do not want it, and want to do as much as possible to avoid it.
That said, what else can I do? Borrowing from others as well as my own early thoughts, there is much we can do.
First, start local. Pick the party of your choice and get active. Push out the establishment types that look down their noses at “the rabble” and put some spine into the local organization. Most of all, get involved with your local voting organization, and work to ensure free and fair elections. Notice that a lot of the problems with this last election were local (county) election boards. Yes, state boards/institutions were questionable in some cases, but what allowed them to make interesting decisions were what happened on the local level. If you take steps to make sure that the local rolls are cleaned up and maintained; that only people qualified to vote do so; eliminate vote harvesting; and, otherwise ensure a free, fair, and transparent election, you can be more sure of making a real difference on the local, state, and even national stage.
As a part of this, organize. Find others like yourself and band together. Beware of those who are not what they claim. That said, there are a lot of voters out there who are tired of the establishment politicians and the corruption. There is power in numbers. That said, consider having a cellular organization as a backup.
Second, set up means of contact and information dissemenation outside of big tech, as many as possible. Big Tech is just getting started, and will do all it can — with the help of the progressive left — to destroy alternate platforms. It may not hurt to set up cells both locally and nationally, that can pass along information using low-tech means. While I know amateur radio has been discussed as an option, read/listen to this and then think on what they can call a crime or have made into a crime. Multiple redundancies people, you can’t have enough options in place.
Third, do everything you can legally do to deprive them of your money. A company goes woke, or is woke, doesn’t need your money. Find red companies and support them. Do your business, as much possible in cash, with local small independent businesses. There are more options, take full advantage of them. Find ways to legally pay as little tax as possible. Starve them.
Fourth, ignore and ridicule. The progressive left and the incoming leadership can’t stand either, and the more you ignore and ridicule, the madder they will get. Angry people make stupid decisions, which can be used against them. Make them show their true faces and take ridiculous actions.
Fifth, prepare for the worst. Keep as much cash on hand as you can. Set up non-cash options, such as gold or other valuables, as well. Stock up on food and other supplies, suplements being but one example, and don’t make it easy for anyone to find out that you are stockpiling. Such can be seized “for the good of the people.” There are other things that need stockpiling as well — do it. As Sarah points out, famine and deliberate starvation have been used by socialists (by any other name) as a weapon against the common people as well as adversaries, every time and to good effect. Take what steps you can to avoid anything you lawfully own under current laws from being seized for any reason. Remember that bartering is an option, and should be used to full effect.
There is more, but that’s all the time I have this morning. Get involved on the local level. Ignore edicts and the propaganda, and ridicule the powerful as well as what they are trying to do. Prepare for the worst. Also, please don’t be stupid. Don’t give them a pretext by not fighting smart. Remember, use political aikido as much as possible by not being where the blow falls, and using their own efforts against them. If there is to be a butcher’s bill, let them initiate.
Some blogs I recommend, in no particular order.
More to come in future posts.