One of the features of failing systems is the lapse into disconnection: the imperial center that bubbles over with court intrigues and factional power struggles while the villages die.
Earlier, I was in my home town (population approx 1,500) and had the occasion to talk to a guy passing through. He was from Connecticut and was heading somewhere westerly for his job. His car broke down just outside of town.
A tow truck came and got him and parked him next to the auto parts store. While he was in there trying to work out what part he needed a local farmer overheard his troubles.
The auto parts guy told him they’d go to one of their other stores and pick up the part for him and have it in the morning, so he left. While he was gone, the farmer paid for his part.
The cafe next door found him sleeping in his car the next morning and gave him a free breakfast. Then he found out about the guy who paid for his part.
He came back in the cafe, where I was, and loudly and proudly proclaimed that he loved us and our town.
He told his entire tale of woe, along with the blessings he’d received, and said again he loved us. He said he’d never been anywhere like this before. I guess on previous travels he just drive through little one-flashing-light towns like ours. 🙂
🤩! Forever trying hard to be helpful, my mind started playing a tune halfway through the charming recollection: We Shall Overcome 😊 'Walk hand in hand' small-town folks do today, the 'someday' has already arrived (or never left in the first place?). Newly fresh again:
🗨 Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, / We are not afraid today.
We have a big, beautiful country and a small, ugly swamp. Enjoy your road trip. Already dreading the court eunuch purple checks like Richardson, Rather, and Reich posting about their orange man indictment induced orgasms.
Absolutely, Yuri! The photo of that open 2-lane road and the beautiful sky above is glorious! And it reminds me of Chris' great "Go to America in your Freedom Machine" from May. Yep, that's the way forward. Backward into the swamp has to be appealing to... exactly how many human beings?! And why oh why?
I had this thought, too. I'm almost 60 years old, still working full-time, and my parents are both alive and fully sentient, yet I've never called them while meeting with any of my colleagues, not to discuss the weather or anything else.
When you see criminals looting stores with complete indifference to the authority of the state it can be demoralizing, in much the same way as it is watching the corruption and dysfunction in the highest places. Everyone understands that the power of the system is pointed at the otherwise law-abiding who run afoul of their multiplying regulations and degenerate moral signaling. Anarcho-tyranny. But I always feel whitepilled every time I think about what will happen when the system loses its power to punish, when it goes broke and can’t pay the enforcers, when enough state governments say “no more,” when there’s too much simultaneous unrest at once. Then those same law abiding people will slip the leash, and bring a new order into being. This country was built on carving order out of a frontier; our modern wilderness is a spiritual and social Badlands. Perhaps the law can be laid down once more.
As corruption comes to characterize public life, law will become a function of private life. People will turn to those who can solve problems. It’s what the Bible meant with the “judges” in the eponymous book; they were warlords who could settle disputes and offer protection. Instead of bronze swords and Nazarite long hair they’ll have ball-peen hammers and Red Bull.
“Consent of the governed” refers to the idea that a government’s legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented, or agreed to, by the people over which that political power is exercised. Consent is fundamental to social contract accounts of political legitimacy, arising as early as Plato's Crito but most prominently in the 17th-century writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
We may be coming close to seeing what this thing looks like when consent is removed. Don’t think it’s going to be pretty.
Unfortunately, too many people consent to the nonsense we're experiencing. They don't want freedom. They want to be coddled. They want direct deposit of benefits. The political class works overtime to tell them they are victims, and the answer to their victimhood is a never-ending stream of rules and laws to fix things for them.
One of two things has to happen for this to change: We have to have leaders who can genuinely capture the attention of people, warning of the danger of a state that both provides and asks too much. Or, we have to crash and burn, where the consequences of that crash open the eyes of the consenting to the downside of endless government.
As an outsider (I’m from Australia) I didn’t know quite what to expect from Americans when I traveled there. I was pleasantly surprised. You guys are a warm and funny bunch - keen, perhaps a little too keen but nice as pie. Totally at odds with your foreign policy.
One thing I believe is true of most Americans is that we really want to be praised by foreigners, especially foreign tourists we come across in the U.S.
I read the news and wonder how bad the situation is beyond my doorstep. It’s as bad as the people running the place beyond my doorstep. Luckily I live in a remote area of a county with an amazing sheriff who doesn’t tolerate criminals. So, find a safe place with rational people who’ve all taken the red pill.
I have a lot of complaints about this program. I still don't like that it comes with a 4-year college "education" degree, which I can say from experience is useless. I also don't like that it isn't paired with systemic reform of the "cells and bells" model. I also worry that since it's paired with a contract, it's an inching toward indentured servitude.
But it's a part of the same pattern: the officials in the highest ivory tower of the Ministry of Learning are so secluded from reality, that even when they pay lip service to the "teacher shortage", they have no real ideas besides "give us more money." Because people are tired of giving them money that never leads to real improvements, the rest of the world is starting to just ignore them and move on. Little by little, the MoL's control of teacher credentials will crumble, and while not every change will be good, a lot of it will. And change there will be.
So does the disconnect between "education" and learning account, perhaps, for the dramatic growth, in recent years, of charter schools, private schools, religious schools, and home schooling? Is it possible that the real people; the ones who grow our food, and drive our trucks and make things and fix things; the folks who live in flyover country have already begun to take steps to ensure that THEIR children are equipped with basic literacy and numeracy skills?
And as you point out - we are approaching a tipping point. A point perhaps, when real people decline to continue to pay, ever more exorbitantly, for meaningless credentials. A point when the ability to provide a roof over one's head, and food on the plate, becomes of much greater significance that a meaningless piece of paper?
I'm from a small town and can confirm these kind of encounters as commented on here. When I look at the news it seems like a different planet. We do not see the kinds of racism and hatred they speak of (it's all hype anyway). I suppose the cities are crappy and I feel bad for people who are stuck there, and when I hear how our "betters" want everyone to live in a 15 minute city, it makes me cringe. But I don't want all the city people coming here either!
I picked up a book on the Aztecs this week. The author says Montezuma created a courtier-type palace culture and expanded his personal power ("elaborate obeisances and expressions of extreme respect") at the expense of creating deep bitterness among the people he ruled. Then the Spanish came, and his power disintegrated very rapidly.
And with the least concern for appearances. They no longer even seem to be hiding it. When you're charging your political opponent with crimes every other day that amount to, "You said some stuff we disagree with!!!" you know you're near the end.
Love this. I’ve been oddly stressed out this week about how John-the-witless-wonder-Kerry has been out and about signing us up to effectively reduce our food production or...people will...starve? Our world leaders are seriously too stupid to be actually real people.
A drive through the agricultural heart of America sounds incredibly refreshing. Thanks for sharing it.
You're right. As others have stated, we'll have to hit rock bottom -- which will not be clean -- before we get out our tools and start building again. I was going to say, "build back better," but that's been taken, I think 😂
Part of me wishes that it would have started a couple of years ago when the country was shown the extent of the corruption and lawlessness within our “highest authorities” before they do more damage than they already have done. The other part of me dreads the the start of it - in Clownworld, things may not work out as people expect…
I do believe, though, that the end of corruption probably has to be like the end of alcoholism--you really have to hit rock bottom before you can start to crawl out of the bottle. Hopefully, we're there now. Hopefully, enough people have reached a point where the talking heads can't talk them out of what they're seeing right in front of their face.
Sure hope so. My metaphor of choice for this 20 years ago was that part of Steinbeck’s novel Sweet Thursday where the Cannery Row bums were gifted with an expensive hunting dog puppy. They were too lazy and uninformed to train the dog, but it was so well bred that it eventually trained itself - after tearing up a lot of things. I used to see this as the “wisdom of the common people, raised in freedom” coming to the rescue the country when the corruption and dysfunction got bad enough for them to notice that it was ruining their lives. But that was before the Great Dumbing Down and self-hatred schtick was two generations deep. Maybe it’s still there, inderneath the surface of Clownworld. We’ll see.
Earlier, I was in my home town (population approx 1,500) and had the occasion to talk to a guy passing through. He was from Connecticut and was heading somewhere westerly for his job. His car broke down just outside of town.
A tow truck came and got him and parked him next to the auto parts store. While he was in there trying to work out what part he needed a local farmer overheard his troubles.
The auto parts guy told him they’d go to one of their other stores and pick up the part for him and have it in the morning, so he left. While he was gone, the farmer paid for his part.
The cafe next door found him sleeping in his car the next morning and gave him a free breakfast. Then he found out about the guy who paid for his part.
He came back in the cafe, where I was, and loudly and proudly proclaimed that he loved us and our town.
He told his entire tale of woe, along with the blessings he’d received, and said again he loved us. He said he’d never been anywhere like this before. I guess on previous travels he just drive through little one-flashing-light towns like ours. 🙂
Made me proud of our people. 💞
Love this.
That is so sweet of the people in your town to help a stranger. Because unbeknownst to them, they could be entertaining angels.
Made me smile big and even tear up a little♥️ Wonderful story - so glad you shared it here thank you!
The other half of “Try That in a Small Town”. As yet still unreleased.
I live in a (very) rural town of some 17000 people, and if the right people were in the store at the time, it could easily have happened here.
🤩! Forever trying hard to be helpful, my mind started playing a tune halfway through the charming recollection: We Shall Overcome 😊 'Walk hand in hand' small-town folks do today, the 'someday' has already arrived (or never left in the first place?). Newly fresh again:
🗨 Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, / We are not afraid today.
🎶 youtu.be/nM39QUiAsoM
We have a big, beautiful country and a small, ugly swamp. Enjoy your road trip. Already dreading the court eunuch purple checks like Richardson, Rather, and Reich posting about their orange man indictment induced orgasms.
Absolutely, Yuri! The photo of that open 2-lane road and the beautiful sky above is glorious! And it reminds me of Chris' great "Go to America in your Freedom Machine" from May. Yep, that's the way forward. Backward into the swamp has to be appealing to... exactly how many human beings?! And why oh why?
I worked today at my law office for 8 hours. I did not call my Dad to participate in any of my business calls. LOL!
See, you only call your dad in the presence of your clients if you want to discuss the weather. I saw this important explanation on CNN.
Traitor Joe's weather report:
Tonight calls for pissing on your shoes and telling you it's raining.
And shitting in your hat and it's a mudslide because climate change
Perhaps that's why you actually had to work for 8 hours...
🎯
LoL
I had this thought, too. I'm almost 60 years old, still working full-time, and my parents are both alive and fully sentient, yet I've never called them while meeting with any of my colleagues, not to discuss the weather or anything else.
😂😂😂
When you see criminals looting stores with complete indifference to the authority of the state it can be demoralizing, in much the same way as it is watching the corruption and dysfunction in the highest places. Everyone understands that the power of the system is pointed at the otherwise law-abiding who run afoul of their multiplying regulations and degenerate moral signaling. Anarcho-tyranny. But I always feel whitepilled every time I think about what will happen when the system loses its power to punish, when it goes broke and can’t pay the enforcers, when enough state governments say “no more,” when there’s too much simultaneous unrest at once. Then those same law abiding people will slip the leash, and bring a new order into being. This country was built on carving order out of a frontier; our modern wilderness is a spiritual and social Badlands. Perhaps the law can be laid down once more.
But see also:
https://www.kfyrtv.com/content/news/Dickinson-protest-stays-peaceful-with-help-of-biker-gang-570985441.html
As corruption comes to characterize public life, law will become a function of private life. People will turn to those who can solve problems. It’s what the Bible meant with the “judges” in the eponymous book; they were warlords who could settle disputes and offer protection. Instead of bronze swords and Nazarite long hair they’ll have ball-peen hammers and Red Bull.
Why is law a priority? Examine that imperative, why ?
Now that we see it, feel it.
Why fight to reestablish a more perfect tyranny?
Which we show no sign of doing anyway.
I have been thinking about this lately:
“Consent of the governed” refers to the idea that a government’s legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented, or agreed to, by the people over which that political power is exercised. Consent is fundamental to social contract accounts of political legitimacy, arising as early as Plato's Crito but most prominently in the 17th-century writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
We may be coming close to seeing what this thing looks like when consent is removed. Don’t think it’s going to be pretty.
Randy, I think about that concept, too.
Unfortunately, too many people consent to the nonsense we're experiencing. They don't want freedom. They want to be coddled. They want direct deposit of benefits. The political class works overtime to tell them they are victims, and the answer to their victimhood is a never-ending stream of rules and laws to fix things for them.
One of two things has to happen for this to change: We have to have leaders who can genuinely capture the attention of people, warning of the danger of a state that both provides and asks too much. Or, we have to crash and burn, where the consequences of that crash open the eyes of the consenting to the downside of endless government.
What we get is more of the same until we are extinct if we wait on those leaders- who can and must ask; Lead WHO?
As an outsider (I’m from Australia) I didn’t know quite what to expect from Americans when I traveled there. I was pleasantly surprised. You guys are a warm and funny bunch - keen, perhaps a little too keen but nice as pie. Totally at odds with your foreign policy.
That's okay, most of us are at odds with our foreign policy, too! Welcome, my friend from the other side of the world, and enjoy your stay 😊
"perhaps a little too keen" - Ah, the American Overshare. I like them for that as well. I also like them for coining words like 'overshare'.
One thing I believe is true of most Americans is that we really want to be praised by foreigners, especially foreign tourists we come across in the U.S.
Who don't, of whatever nationality? 😏
Thanks! That's basically because we have little to no input in our foreign policy, as our politicians do whatever they want.
So are we my friend.
100% agree! America feels good, it's just the DC and MSM elites that stink up the place.
I read the news and wonder how bad the situation is beyond my doorstep. It’s as bad as the people running the place beyond my doorstep. Luckily I live in a remote area of a county with an amazing sheriff who doesn’t tolerate criminals. So, find a safe place with rational people who’ve all taken the red pill.
And the Swamp and MSM have never been on the real America. And every day they prove they don’t give a shit.
I've been having been following a similar train of thought lately, although I rather like your framing of the problem (and the solution better). One Texas school is apparently now using an apprenticeship program to train and recruit its teachers, including high school students: https://www.the74million.org/article/this-texas-school-is-training-its-own-teachers-the-program-might-become-a-model/
I have a lot of complaints about this program. I still don't like that it comes with a 4-year college "education" degree, which I can say from experience is useless. I also don't like that it isn't paired with systemic reform of the "cells and bells" model. I also worry that since it's paired with a contract, it's an inching toward indentured servitude.
But it's a part of the same pattern: the officials in the highest ivory tower of the Ministry of Learning are so secluded from reality, that even when they pay lip service to the "teacher shortage", they have no real ideas besides "give us more money." Because people are tired of giving them money that never leads to real improvements, the rest of the world is starting to just ignore them and move on. Little by little, the MoL's control of teacher credentials will crumble, and while not every change will be good, a lot of it will. And change there will be.
Agreed! Change there will be!
So does the disconnect between "education" and learning account, perhaps, for the dramatic growth, in recent years, of charter schools, private schools, religious schools, and home schooling? Is it possible that the real people; the ones who grow our food, and drive our trucks and make things and fix things; the folks who live in flyover country have already begun to take steps to ensure that THEIR children are equipped with basic literacy and numeracy skills?
And as you point out - we are approaching a tipping point. A point perhaps, when real people decline to continue to pay, ever more exorbitantly, for meaningless credentials. A point when the ability to provide a roof over one's head, and food on the plate, becomes of much greater significance that a meaningless piece of paper?
I'm from a small town and can confirm these kind of encounters as commented on here. When I look at the news it seems like a different planet. We do not see the kinds of racism and hatred they speak of (it's all hype anyway). I suppose the cities are crappy and I feel bad for people who are stuck there, and when I hear how our "betters" want everyone to live in a 15 minute city, it makes me cringe. But I don't want all the city people coming here either!
I picked up a book on the Aztecs this week. The author says Montezuma created a courtier-type palace culture and expanded his personal power ("elaborate obeisances and expressions of extreme respect") at the expense of creating deep bitterness among the people he ruled. Then the Spanish came, and his power disintegrated very rapidly.
But he still gets his revenge.
they fight hardest near the end
And with the least concern for appearances. They no longer even seem to be hiding it. When you're charging your political opponent with crimes every other day that amount to, "You said some stuff we disagree with!!!" you know you're near the end.
Excellent, yes. They openly show their contempt for the American people, our laws and the constitution
Love this. I’ve been oddly stressed out this week about how John-the-witless-wonder-Kerry has been out and about signing us up to effectively reduce our food production or...people will...starve? Our world leaders are seriously too stupid to be actually real people.
A drive through the agricultural heart of America sounds incredibly refreshing. Thanks for sharing it.
So it sounds like we just need to keep our hands and feet inside the ferris wheel as the Amusement-to-Death Park disintegrates all around us, yes?
I mean, I hope so. It won't be that clean, but wouldn't it be pleasant?
You're right. As others have stated, we'll have to hit rock bottom -- which will not be clean -- before we get out our tools and start building again. I was going to say, "build back better," but that's been taken, I think 😂
Part of me wishes that it would have started a couple of years ago when the country was shown the extent of the corruption and lawlessness within our “highest authorities” before they do more damage than they already have done. The other part of me dreads the the start of it - in Clownworld, things may not work out as people expect…
I do believe, though, that the end of corruption probably has to be like the end of alcoholism--you really have to hit rock bottom before you can start to crawl out of the bottle. Hopefully, we're there now. Hopefully, enough people have reached a point where the talking heads can't talk them out of what they're seeing right in front of their face.
Sure hope so. My metaphor of choice for this 20 years ago was that part of Steinbeck’s novel Sweet Thursday where the Cannery Row bums were gifted with an expensive hunting dog puppy. They were too lazy and uninformed to train the dog, but it was so well bred that it eventually trained itself - after tearing up a lot of things. I used to see this as the “wisdom of the common people, raised in freedom” coming to the rescue the country when the corruption and dysfunction got bad enough for them to notice that it was ruining their lives. But that was before the Great Dumbing Down and self-hatred schtick was two generations deep. Maybe it’s still there, inderneath the surface of Clownworld. We’ll see.
Great metaphor! 🤞
That cloud looks like it's flipping you the bird. Just saying.
Didn't notice until you mentioned it, and now I will never not notice.
You could see it as giving you a thumbs up. 👍
The power of (re)framing! Do we stop at these two versions? 😂
It really does look like that lol