Well said. I’ve been living in Brussels since the late 70s. My son has moved to Zurich for studies and we visit him from time to time. Last time, as we were wandering through town, clean streets, friendly people, a sense of security, we realised that was exactly what Brussels was like about 30 years ago. Then we went and spent a month visiting Japan. Same sense, young children walking to school on their own, adolescent girls biking home in the evening after study, friendliness, calm and a sense of security everywhere. Just like Brussels 30 years ago. Then we realised what these 2 countries didn’t do for the last 30 years, and we cried inside for the loss. We did it to ourselves, and we keep voting for those destroying our lives. Maybe we deserve it.
Was about to write a similar comment but you beat me to it. Our escape from what we hardly recognise now as Britain is to visit Japan as often as we can - with luck, twice a year. Our Prime Minister is expected to resign today and my response? A shrug of the shoulders. I suspect many shoulders will be shrugged this morning because we know his resignation won’t make a blind bit of difference to what really matters in our lives.
I didn't believe my son this morning when he told me Starmer had resigned. It didn't show up in any of my newsfeeds. I had to explicitly look it up to confirm.
The immediate search for a villain, someone to blame! You don't think humans can't do this to themselves, perhaps even believing they were doing so with good intentions? There is a saying about good intentions that comes to mind.
Many people believe that Trump needs to persecute his opponents like he was persecuted; that will show all of those people the error in their thinking. I think that perpetuates a vicious cycle.
Actually “those people” need to be held accountable for real crimes though, not made up crimes. For example to hear Gavin Newsom whine about being persecuted by Trump when actually the investigation was started under the Biden Admin. He is a liar, but most of the left here find it convenient to blame Trump for whatever their problem is.
Newsom needs to be accountable for his actual policy on homelessness and high speed rail, by voters rejecting him from any office he ever seeks. Good luck with that.
We already recalled him! Because California's elections have been corrupted, the people don't have a voice in the State. Only the NGO's Union heads and Cronies of the Governor, who run the Public Utilities, have a say! This is how it 'looks like' California voted for the mess it is today! The late ballot drops in LA, harvesting from their "Homeless" project, Locking Down its citizens and ushering in Mail-In voting, and re-districting nearly all Republican representation off the map, is how it is "legally" done, though usually, the Legislative steps occure late in the evening and through previously passed Bills, that have been GUTTED, to make way for their actual plan!
California elections are a lost cause, but do realize that there were people who did honestly vote for him. Even without shenigans, he'd still win because of real live voters there.
Exactly. As long as the coast is Deep Blue, nothing will change in California. I don't know to what depth the state will have to sink before my neighbors wake up to the hell they keep championing, but it won't happen any time soon.
There are definitely "Outside Forces" deliberately manipulating culture, directing Nations, or even the world.
In recent years, US culture is being manipulated, which is slowly eroding America.
Wonder if you have noticed that in the 30s, 40s 50s, US movies and music were all about love, kindness, and super patriotism.
Then, started from 1960s, the hippies movement had been created, counter culture movies and music, illegal drugs.... were "cool", and had been pushed onto the US youth.
By 1970s, teens and young adults were already cynical, passive, unhealthy, and/or wacky. Because being good citizens were no longer "cool".
Then, right at the 250 years " 3rd Generation Curse " mark .... when America has been weakened ....
Biden opened our border ... 13+ millions of illegal aliens just walked right in.
Our electrical grids were being destroyed, shipping was being sabotaged both by rail and sea.
Our military men had to march on red high heels (DEI)
Our airplanes were dropping, because we have to hire DEI people.
Thank God, we have Trump now, or else, we won't even have a Nation left !
Other Nations like China, Russian, and India each want to be the world's #1 Nation ? So, all of the disasters during Biden era may be link to these Nations ?
China, Russia and India all have divergent interests. You are the one saying there are "Outside Forces" - now you won't be more specific? I was just guessing if you were some kind of Jew-conspiracy nutcase.
I believe there are perfectly natural reasons for America to decline; the old cycle - hard times make good men, good men make good times, good times make soft men, soft men make hard times. It doesn't take any kind of conspiracy for that to happen, just time and human nature.
I believe you are spectacularly wrong in your assertion. That if you don’t prosecute the perpetrators that persecuted the innocent the persecution will continue and accelerate when they return to power.
It does my heart good to read that Switzerland continues to be beautiful and orderly! We had a trip planned in 2020, that Fauci's PLANDEMIC thwarted. Back in the 1990's, we visited Geneva and the surrounding areas. My only complaint was not being able to taste the food, due to the number of smokers in the restaurants. Beyond that, even in late May, with snow on the ground, every patch of open space in the city had a medallion of flowers, the streets were beautifully paved and there was a noticeable absence of litter!
Your video reminded me of a day-hike my wife and I did with D1 and fiancé into the Little Lakes Valley/Rock Creek Cyn (up the road from Tom’s Place), starting at 11,000 ft, 5 years ago. We took it slow, and now I’m not sure how we’d do (71 next month), but, wow, the Sierra’s really help to erase the “junk” for awhile. Happy Trails.
the reason the late arrivals board works is because crime is the province of the lazy
why hike for miles to snatch a backpack when you could be a porch pirate on your own turf (or if you're really ambitious, open a learing center or a needle exchange program)
there's also a corollary here: those with the energy and passion to hike for miles have better things to do than to make off with somebody else's property
Same idea when books are for sale outside a storefront. The owner doesn't have to worry about theft because criminals don't read, and people who read books don't steal. Only works in small towns though now. Criminals use books as kindling in the big cities.
I co-owned a bookstore, and my partner lived in the hood in Detroit. His van was broken into repeatedly. No books, even the extremely valuable ones, were ever stolen.
lol.....I'm not surprised. You can give people all the money and material possessions in the world, but you cannot give them wisdom, self-respect, or purpose. And that is why large government welfare programs will always fail.
are there glass-doored quasi-birdhouses full of free books where you are? admittedly, most of them are romance novels and such, but they sit there for months on end and nobody takes them
Depends on who “manages” the box. The one nearest my house is managed by a retirement home so the inventory seems to get recycled every couple of months. I was able to get a CS Lewis book from it, and a biography and i’ve placed some science fiction and history in there that seemed to get taken quickly.
gives me the chills. nyc public library continues to empty their collections into those boxes. i did manage to score margaret atwood's latest and henry hazlitt's "economics in one lesson" from those boxes
I think those pining for a different time are doing that with books and a lot of other things. I do paper/pencil writing, both myself and with my kids. Hikes and reading time w/o digital. Planned family meals. We miss the high-trust society. To get it back, we need to connect, and that begins at home.
In the suburbs of California, during the PLANDEMIC, the "Little Free Library's" began popping up in every wealthy neighborhood. Possibly because a few fathers' with woodworking skills, were finally home long enough to build something, and trips to Home Depot were on the list of essential activities. The library concept morphed into 'Free Food Pantries' and "Fruit Stands" to share an over abundance of backyard bounty. Others' worked on the honor system, with a drop box to collect for eggs and veg.
Outdoor movie nights also became a neighborhood event, for those who had large enough drive way to allow for distancing, or one lived in a cul- du- sac.
Or maybe because somebody's else property is just one more damned thing you'd need to carry? Most hikers have fine-tuned their kit and don't need or want anything more.
You are generally correct, but occasionally there is backcountry theft. I’ve backpacked thousands of miles over the years (mostly in NY, NH, CA, CO) and only once was something stolen from me. It was a fleece quarter zip taken from my pack left at a NH backcountry hut when I was out on a day hike. Fortunately, I was okay without it…but it was a shock, because leaving your stuff in a hut is normally so safe.
And yet Pratt lost and Hilton will probably lose as well.
Not just in California, but nationwide we're seeing what happens when people base their votes on envy and greed.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler (Although there's some dispute that Tyler actually said this, it's still a pretty good quote!)
The fact that people use that quote, only helps those who wish to destroy our Nation and remake it into a Marxist Utopia. They have already collected many in their Hive. So many Drone-like workers, harvesting ballots, handing out needles and Narcan, etc.
That quote is only a warning to honest Constitution and Liberty loving Citizens. Those that continually vote themselves largess from their neighbors' are actually routing for the end. They falsely believe they are important and will continue to be useful to their leaders. They have no clue that they are expendable, once the goal has been met!
Maybe I’m missing your point, but I disagree with your assertion that me using this quote “only helps those who wish to destroy our Nation and remake it into a Marxist Utopia.” Quite the opposite.
Hasan Piker tells his followers that shoplifting is cool, because businesses "exploit" their employees, and so why shouldn't we steal from exploiters?
To a moral midget, this apparently makes sense. But what Piker is doing here is taking a sledgehammer to social trust. I think Piker's followers take high-trust culture for granted, just as they take all the fruits of traditional American culture for granted.
In San Francisco if you keep your theft below $950, you’re good to go (figuratively and literally)…
I went into a supermarket in Clearlake a couple of Christmases ago to buy a prime rib roast. There was only one and I needed a bigger one. I asked the guy in the meat department when/if they would get more and he asked me what size I wanted saying they had a bunch in the back…they couldn’t put them out because they’d “walk out” and they weren’t allowed to do anything about it.
This is the reality in California and many other cities in the US. This is not a permissive societal structure, it’s encouragement!
I've predicted for a while now that brick and mortar stores are heading back to the old days when you had to ask a clerk at the counter to fetch whatever you wanted to buy. The supermarket self-service style of rolling a shopping cart down aisles of wares stacked on open shelves is something which presumed exactly that kind of social trust which is disappearing.
... and the clerk will be behind bullet-proof glass. If he hasn't been replaced by a robot servicing a vending-machine like interface.
How you get your purchases home without being robbed will be *your* problem.
It does seem as if the powers that be intend to Detroitify every city in the nation and that the project is well on its way to completion. Unlike, for example, California's high-speed rail system -- which tells you a lot about where their interest and competence lies (if you can call it competence) .
I saw the same shoplifting conversation in an online leftist community I was part of ten years ago. Sounds harmless enough when it's a single poor person vs a gigantic corporation, but if you follow the reasoning to its logical conclusion, then anyone has the right to steal from anyone else they perceive as being wealthier. (And hey, I hear Hasan Piker is a pretty wealthy guy himself...)
They'll be dead when it's completely gone. Taxes are extracted via social trust. Products are created via social trust. Trade exists via social trust. Criminals survive via social trust. When it's gone, humanity reverts to nasty brutish and short, warlords and bunkers.
I say we start with the criminals! Both white and blue collar should be shot on sight for a few years. When the deterrent Effect is restored, we can go back to "presumed innocence" until proven guilty!
After all, they would have a firing squad of their peers, because aren't we all, 'We The People!
Shouldn't take long to restore order. We might even have another upswing in self-deportations!
Part of the Fourth Turning vibe shift is the crackup of the concept of social justice. So many Democrat and leftist failures stem from that seductive but fatally flawed concept, which destroys individual justice and degrades society as a whole. It frees criminals based on distant history and misunderstood statistics. It defers to dangerous immigrants and insane homeless addicts out of guilt. The workable solutions start with rejecting the entire concept. We reject your globalist gay race communism labels and all your double standards. Apply the laws equally or repeal them. Either the police defend citizens or let citizens defend themselves. Sorry, there isn't infinite tax money for all of your failing solutions. You had your chance, and you’ve blown it. It’s time for common sense populist nationalism to clean up the mess.
Is that the reference to a contradiction in terms? Ha ha ha, I worked for 35 years in "military intelligence" it was always a conundrum as in "an intricate and difficult problem." The problem being making a case the operators or "policy makers" would believe. This time around it is making a case for people to wake up.
Jesus went walking in mountains by himself to commune with God. Then he went into the villages to help those who wanted God’s help - the village elites and their sycophants denounced him.
I hope you are still out of down so you miss the toxic cloud from Boyle Heights, just South of where you live. No cause of the fires released yet. LA City Fire Department, that had so many issues with other fires and is over whelmed taking care of homeless fires (46 per day on average), serves that area.
I got a really bad headache when I visited Arcadia on Saturday. The toxic smoke is due to a combination of solar panels and insulation supposedly. And the warehouse was full of frozen food, that now needs to be disposed of. The newer refrigerants are also flammable, but less green house gases. I am surprised the insulation was flammable. I wonder if there is more to the story than has been reported. The usual warehouse is a concrete tilt up, and not a lot of flammable stuff in it. Built in 2018. Massive warehouse at near 491,000 sq ft, about 8 city blocks.
Per USA Today, while the solar panels on the roof were being serviced the fire started.
I’m in the east part of LA County and the smell of burning plastic or whatever the hell is in that warehouse is god awful. Not too much smoke out here, but that cloying burning smell is forcing me to keep my windows closed and run the A/C.
Brian, we're getting it here too in SGValley, and it smells like rotten food in addition to the other toxic stuff you mentioned. YUCK. This is Day 7 of this nonsense. Geez, can we have just ONE normal day here, in a place constantly touted for its "great weather?"
That sounds similar to the huge Warehouse Fire Friday, June12, in the Westside of Tracy, California, just beyond the SF Bay Area! The fire started on the roof of a Medical Supply Co., that services all area clinics, Hospitals and First Responders! The fire also impacted an Amazon supply hub and destroyed a few of their Semi-Trucks and trailers!
That massive black cloud floated South down the Valley and prompted 'shelter in place' and Evacuations for a few neighboring developments and slowed traffic to a crawl on 2 major commuter freeways during Friday rush hour! The tires on the trucks were exploding and burning for hours.
Thanks for the ref Ray- it seems lots of attorneys are going to be busy trying to figure out the limits of their clients liability...
"At this time, we believe the fire began while testing was being conducted by contractors of the third-party owner of the solar array located on the facility's roof,” company officials said in a late Friday statement."
I assume LADWP or SCE cut the power to building, hope the voltage and frequency fluctuations that must of occurred during the testing of the system didn't cause any issues up the line.
"...while testing was being conducted by contractors of the third-party owner of the solar array..." Weird. Almost verbatim to the recent B-52 crash at Edward's AFB. The B-52 was testing a new, Ai-driven targeting system, the only one of its kind. I wonder if the solar panels utilized a similar system??
The amount of curtailment on CA grid jumped this April and May compared to last year so some of the lines have been under some stress. Our very old string inverter cut out when voltage spiked coming from PG&E's grid. It came back on after 5 minutes if the power quality was within it's operating range.
Why the fire got so bad seems odd as I would of thought the fire suppression system would of kicked on rather quickly after the fire started....
You think LAFD routinely tests fire suppression systems? In the Illinois office buildings i used to work in there were annual fire drills during business hours and every year we’d get a memo about the office being closed on a Saturday so the fire suppression system could be tested. About 20 years ago that frequency changed and the last building I worked in (for 5 years) we had a total of 1 fire drill.
In one building the stairwells were locked for ingress. I asked what would one do if one discovered the fire was in the stairwell? The exact situation happened in a Chicago office building where people died because they were trapped in a stairwell and could not go up the stairs to use the other stairwell. Nothing was done.
In one fire drill a fireman reprimanded me in front of everyone for taking a bottle of water with me. “You could spill it and people could fall.” I immediately responded “In an actual fire the sprinklers should be going off so the floors and stairs will already be wet.” His response “Thats the rules.” I mouthed “fuck you” to him. Several people came iup to me and said “i never thought of that. What a stupid rule.”
Just after the second oil crisis the industrial insurance company I worked for use to require fire suppression systems to be tested annually and the tests were required to be documented. If the paper work wasn't up to stuff when the companies engineers came through the facilities (annually) the premiums could be increased or insurance was dropped all together.
You are right in the fire sprinkler system, 2018 is new enough to require them in a California warehouse and to be in good shape. California Fire departments make money charging for inspections and require certifications.
Regarding your last sentence - that's why I think this fire was deliberately started and kept going. Deep state knows the jig is up, voters are starting to see what they really are up to and it isn't in the best interests of the voters. They know arrests are eminent so they are burning it all down. Just my 2 cents.
The June 12, 2026 Fire at a Medical Supply Warehouse in San Joaquin County,(Tracy, CA), also started on the roof and the Fire SUPPRESSION SYSTEM (Sprinkler system) also did not kick on! This as per the fire Dept!
I'm beginning to wonder how much is GRIFT vs INCOMPETENCE vs PAYOFFS to corrupt Code Enforcement Officials. My mind does not look for the DEEPLY ENTRENCHED outside of the typical Political and MEDIA Circuses!
I totally agree with you about it being grift more than incompetence; I'm in my 70s and have NEVER seen this many fires in my lifetime. This is happening A LOT in California and I spent most of my life there, fires never happened this much. Also this is in cities, so they can't tell us that "wildfires" started this. Add this to the absolutely breakdown of fires in Pacific Palisades and rest of L.A. at that time, also during that time it took Karen Bass 6 days to return to L.A. from her trip to Africa and fire hydrants having no water...
"Inhaling burning refrigerant fumes is extremely dangerous. When refrigerants (like Freon or R-22) are exposed to a heat source or an open flame, they decompose into highly toxic byproducts—most notably phosgene gas, a potent chemical weapon.
Exposure to these fumes can cause sudden cardiac arrest, asphyxiation, severe respiratory tract irritation, and long-term organ or brain damage."
YES, that's it, thanks Chris. I am in mourning; we are in mourning, and have been for awhile. And when you're in mourning the last thing you want to hear or say is "fight, fight, fight." You know? When those disgusting and unimaginative pieces of crap put their repellent heads together and snickered like demons after not even bothering to hide that they and their helpers cheated Spencer Pratt out of his fully-rightful place on the L.A. mayor's ballot ---- a candidate like we've never seen in this town before, by the way, blessed with courage and purpose and intelligence and excitement ----- it was like a HUGE building had fallen on all of us and flattened us. Who knows how long it will take to get out from under it --- or if we ever will. These evil pointless people took away from us something much more than just knocking aside a rival candidate.
Chris, I lived in LA for nearly 65 years (break for UCSC undergrad). Watched the decline, and like many others, chalked it up to inevitability— bigger population, inflation, incompetent pols,
etc). I honestly thought the enshittification was destiny of modernity. Following our son we moved to Miami two years ago. There’s problems here like everywhere else. But… and this literally blows my mind every time: if you go into a restroom in a public park, it’s almost always: clean, smells clean, has TP, has a mirror, is not covered in graffiti. Also, miraculously: gardeners (or, as I like to call them “lawn enforcement”)
don’t routinely have all their gear
stolen off the street the moment they turn their heads— which is absolutely a crime pandemic in LA no one talks about. And, this is crazy, the upper middle class people don’t shit their dogs (and leave it in stinking piles) right outside the fence of their oh-so-desirable, highly rated elementary school, as they do in the “coveted heart of Valley Village.” In other words, the combination of effective local government (which operates at half the cost of LA) and basic citizen respect for the built environment and one’s neighbors, is possible in a large modern city. The govt AND the people of LA are truly sick
Well, the idea that we are in some permanent economic slide is just stupid. There is more wealth now than ever. It’s just accumulating with the stupidest class of people possible.
Maybe I have read too much history over the last 40 years, but it seems to me we have a bunch of moronic ‘leaders’ who don’t want to pass the baton to people who can do a better job.
They may not be an aristocracy in a traditional sense, but they are as far as credentials go. And they hate the little people as much as their European ancestors.
“Obviously, the best person to take over for me is the person with my blood, which is what makes me superior” became “Obviously, the best person to take over for me is the person with the same degree, the same social class, and the same beliefs”.
I sat in my parent’s small northern town in Michigan this weekend enjoying as much of it as you can since it became a tourist town, and my niece’s husband (a state cop) explained that the new apartment buildings being built are all going to be low income, section 8 housing, and the population is going to double in just the next couple years.
That comes from on high. The ‘leaders’ in Lansing have decided that a nice little town like that has to be filled up with criminals from down-state.
My brother-in-law pointed out what I have been feeling for 15 years maybe, “Can we just not have a place to go where we can live OUR lives?”
This same thing has been happening in my little exurb near Detroit.
That’s where the populist revolution is. We just want to be able to live without being subjected to the crap we all fled from ten or thirty years ago, and that pisses off the aristocrats who have never had to deal with it in their own lives.
BINGO! The Whiners are the ones that the Democrat Party keeps down as useful idiots! They need a permanent "lower Caste" group, to pretend to care about. Without a poor class to rigg the game against, the Democrat's Socialist policies, designed to steal from the wealthy and Middle Class and give to the NGO's, Unions and Other Cronies, would not be possible!
Those Socialist Policies all require higher taxes and more mandates to Socially Engineer public behavior and gather more power and LIBERTY from the populous!
The Democrats should more accurately called the Bureaucrats. That is the class that they really care about. And it's not because they want people to do productive work or solve the "problems". No, it's all about putting their people in jobs that they don't know how to do properly. Hence, those people then distract attention with fake problems that they need to hire more bureaucrats to study and do nothing about.
Brando Johnson's new Trans Femicide working group is a classic case of this. The "problem" is that in Chicago their is "trans femicide" that amounts to "a genocide". But a look at the statistics shows that not one man claiming to be a woman has been murdered in Chicago during the last year.
Meanwhile, there are real problems that the Mayor and his administration are ignoring.
But the people will be convinced to vote for people such as Johnson because he is so good at providing these distractions. I often get the feeling that the mass of voters now don't actually believe that governments can do the job they are supposed to do. The people have given up on exepcting potholes to be fixed, the fire service to be efficient t, the streets clean and free of graffitti. WHat the people want are more symbolic gestures from their politicians. They want to be told that imaginary problems are threatening their very existence, because then htey can thank their lucky stars that these "problems" aren't actually affecting them, but at the same time they can feel as though "something is being done".
Chris Bray is right. The answer to this problem is not politics, but anti-politics. What Lord Moulton famously labelled the "Third Domain" has to be bolstered against both excessive government on the one hand and excessive individualism on the other.
I think that separatism (de facto if not de jure) is a much more viable solution than institutional capture and reform. I know it pains the disaffected aspiring elites with fancy degrees in the Yarvin/Scott Greer molds, but we probably are best served hunkering down and leaving the blue no-go zones to their own devices for a few generations.
"We’re trying to heal cultural wounds with political tools."
This is the real triumph of the Frankfurt School and it's disciples, we only believe in political process now, and that is quite frankly nothing but power. It will end eventually, but I don't think it will end well. Certainly not until we resolve that power has extremely limited use but I suspect that is one of those difficult lessons for a people to learn.
Well said. I’ve been living in Brussels since the late 70s. My son has moved to Zurich for studies and we visit him from time to time. Last time, as we were wandering through town, clean streets, friendly people, a sense of security, we realised that was exactly what Brussels was like about 30 years ago. Then we went and spent a month visiting Japan. Same sense, young children walking to school on their own, adolescent girls biking home in the evening after study, friendliness, calm and a sense of security everywhere. Just like Brussels 30 years ago. Then we realised what these 2 countries didn’t do for the last 30 years, and we cried inside for the loss. We did it to ourselves, and we keep voting for those destroying our lives. Maybe we deserve it.
Was about to write a similar comment but you beat me to it. Our escape from what we hardly recognise now as Britain is to visit Japan as often as we can - with luck, twice a year. Our Prime Minister is expected to resign today and my response? A shrug of the shoulders. I suspect many shoulders will be shrugged this morning because we know his resignation won’t make a blind bit of difference to what really matters in our lives.
Unfortunately, you’re going to find that his replacement is as bad, or worse.
We know, that’s what makes it so depressing.
I didn't believe my son this morning when he told me Starmer had resigned. It didn't show up in any of my newsfeeds. I had to explicitly look it up to confirm.
There have been so many occasions when he ought to have resigned and didn’t. This seems so much like an anti-climax. I think we’re all numb.
Exactly. It was inevitable.
Maybe our civility has been deliberately eroded ?
The immediate search for a villain, someone to blame! You don't think humans can't do this to themselves, perhaps even believing they were doing so with good intentions? There is a saying about good intentions that comes to mind.
Many people believe that Trump needs to persecute his opponents like he was persecuted; that will show all of those people the error in their thinking. I think that perpetuates a vicious cycle.
Actually “those people” need to be held accountable for real crimes though, not made up crimes. For example to hear Gavin Newsom whine about being persecuted by Trump when actually the investigation was started under the Biden Admin. He is a liar, but most of the left here find it convenient to blame Trump for whatever their problem is.
Newsom needs to be accountable for his actual policy on homelessness and high speed rail, by voters rejecting him from any office he ever seeks. Good luck with that.
We already recalled him! Because California's elections have been corrupted, the people don't have a voice in the State. Only the NGO's Union heads and Cronies of the Governor, who run the Public Utilities, have a say! This is how it 'looks like' California voted for the mess it is today! The late ballot drops in LA, harvesting from their "Homeless" project, Locking Down its citizens and ushering in Mail-In voting, and re-districting nearly all Republican representation off the map, is how it is "legally" done, though usually, the Legislative steps occure late in the evening and through previously passed Bills, that have been GUTTED, to make way for their actual plan!
California elections are a lost cause, but do realize that there were people who did honestly vote for him. Even without shenigans, he'd still win because of real live voters there.
Exactly. As long as the coast is Deep Blue, nothing will change in California. I don't know to what depth the state will have to sink before my neighbors wake up to the hell they keep championing, but it won't happen any time soon.
Trump needs to PROSECUTE the lawbreakers.
Good intentions are a cover for erroneous thinking and don't excuse anything.
Much of the "unpunished behavior" wasn't actually illegal, just unethical.
If you're speaking about the weaponization of the DOJ, it certainly is illegal.
What specific law was broken, in which instance?
This by the way is perfectly corollary to Chris' point - that the solution is NOT the application of government power, via prosecution.
If the employees of the DOJ are unethical, there is no limit to the damage they can do without ever crossing a legal boundary.
There are definitely "Outside Forces" deliberately manipulating culture, directing Nations, or even the world.
In recent years, US culture is being manipulated, which is slowly eroding America.
Wonder if you have noticed that in the 30s, 40s 50s, US movies and music were all about love, kindness, and super patriotism.
Then, started from 1960s, the hippies movement had been created, counter culture movies and music, illegal drugs.... were "cool", and had been pushed onto the US youth.
By 1970s, teens and young adults were already cynical, passive, unhealthy, and/or wacky. Because being good citizens were no longer "cool".
Then, right at the 250 years " 3rd Generation Curse " mark .... when America has been weakened ....
Biden opened our border ... 13+ millions of illegal aliens just walked right in.
Our electrical grids were being destroyed, shipping was being sabotaged both by rail and sea.
Our military men had to march on red high heels (DEI)
Our airplanes were dropping, because we have to hire DEI people.
Thank God, we have Trump now, or else, we won't even have a Nation left !
Oooohhh, scary. Are those perfidious Jews to blame? If not, who are these "Outside Forces"?
Why are you so hyper sensitive and so focusing on pointing at Jews ? Do you have something against Jews ?
I am FOR whoever whatever Make America Great Again !
So, let us just do our part to help America Shine Again ! USA is at that 250 years juncture, we can ALL help to renew America !
https://thenationaldesk.com/news/politics/the-average-empire-survives-for-250-years-is-america-at-deaths-door
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Other Nations like China, Russian, and India each want to be the world's #1 Nation ? So, all of the disasters during Biden era may be link to these Nations ?
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/04/28/which-countries-do-americans-consider-global-superpowers-and-how-many-are-there/
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About your comments on Jews:
You don't know Trump's long time supporters are: Miriam Adelson, Robert Kraft?
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Also, Trump's second Administration include:
Adam Boehler Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs
Stephen Feinberg Deputy Secretary of Defense
Josh Gruenbaum Senior Advisor to the Board of Peace; Former Commissioner of FAS GSA
Jacob Helberg Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
Jared Isaacman Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Yehuda Kaploun Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism
Charles Kushner Ambassador to France
Howard Lutnick Secretary of Commerce
Martin Marks White House Liaison to the Jewish Community
Stephen Miller Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
Morgan Ortagus* Deputy Special Envoy to the Middle East
Tom Rose United States Ambassador to Poland
David Sacks White House AI & Crypto Czar
Will Scharf White House Staff Secretary
Jacob Roses Chief of Staff to the Vice President
Eric Trager National Security Council Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa
Kevin Warsh Chair of the Federal Reserve
Steve Witkoff Special Envoy to the Middle East
Lee Zeldin Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Jared Kushner Peace Envoy
------------------------
China, Russia and India all have divergent interests. You are the one saying there are "Outside Forces" - now you won't be more specific? I was just guessing if you were some kind of Jew-conspiracy nutcase.
I believe there are perfectly natural reasons for America to decline; the old cycle - hard times make good men, good men make good times, good times make soft men, soft men make hard times. It doesn't take any kind of conspiracy for that to happen, just time and human nature.
I believe you are spectacularly wrong in your assertion. That if you don’t prosecute the perpetrators that persecuted the innocent the persecution will continue and accelerate when they return to power.
I'll concede that is a risk. In that case we, as a people (of all parties) are simply doomed.
It does my heart good to read that Switzerland continues to be beautiful and orderly! We had a trip planned in 2020, that Fauci's PLANDEMIC thwarted. Back in the 1990's, we visited Geneva and the surrounding areas. My only complaint was not being able to taste the food, due to the number of smokers in the restaurants. Beyond that, even in late May, with snow on the ground, every patch of open space in the city had a medallion of flowers, the streets were beautifully paved and there was a noticeable absence of litter!
Japan is amazing and S.A.F.E.
I'm not sure voting matters, it's the positioning of those seeking the votes that really matters.
Your video reminded me of a day-hike my wife and I did with D1 and fiancé into the Little Lakes Valley/Rock Creek Cyn (up the road from Tom’s Place), starting at 11,000 ft, 5 years ago. We took it slow, and now I’m not sure how we’d do (71 next month), but, wow, the Sierra’s really help to erase the “junk” for awhile. Happy Trails.
the reason the late arrivals board works is because crime is the province of the lazy
why hike for miles to snatch a backpack when you could be a porch pirate on your own turf (or if you're really ambitious, open a learing center or a needle exchange program)
there's also a corollary here: those with the energy and passion to hike for miles have better things to do than to make off with somebody else's property
Same idea when books are for sale outside a storefront. The owner doesn't have to worry about theft because criminals don't read, and people who read books don't steal. Only works in small towns though now. Criminals use books as kindling in the big cities.
I co-owned a bookstore, and my partner lived in the hood in Detroit. His van was broken into repeatedly. No books, even the extremely valuable ones, were ever stolen.
lol.....I'm not surprised. You can give people all the money and material possessions in the world, but you cannot give them wisdom, self-respect, or purpose. And that is why large government welfare programs will always fail.
are there glass-doored quasi-birdhouses full of free books where you are? admittedly, most of them are romance novels and such, but they sit there for months on end and nobody takes them
Depends on who “manages” the box. The one nearest my house is managed by a retirement home so the inventory seems to get recycled every couple of months. I was able to get a CS Lewis book from it, and a biography and i’ve placed some science fiction and history in there that seemed to get taken quickly.
Yes, it is mostly romance novels and children's books. They mostly sit, but it still warms my heart to see it.
gives me the chills. nyc public library continues to empty their collections into those boxes. i did manage to score margaret atwood's latest and henry hazlitt's "economics in one lesson" from those boxes
Yeah, there are some books I'll never part with. My kids will be so annoyed when I die and they see the back shelf of my closet!
I think those pining for a different time are doing that with books and a lot of other things. I do paper/pencil writing, both myself and with my kids. Hikes and reading time w/o digital. Planned family meals. We miss the high-trust society. To get it back, we need to connect, and that begins at home.
In the suburbs of California, during the PLANDEMIC, the "Little Free Library's" began popping up in every wealthy neighborhood. Possibly because a few fathers' with woodworking skills, were finally home long enough to build something, and trips to Home Depot were on the list of essential activities. The library concept morphed into 'Free Food Pantries' and "Fruit Stands" to share an over abundance of backyard bounty. Others' worked on the honor system, with a drop box to collect for eggs and veg.
Outdoor movie nights also became a neighborhood event, for those who had large enough drive way to allow for distancing, or one lived in a cul- du- sac.
Or maybe because somebody's else property is just one more damned thing you'd need to carry? Most hikers have fine-tuned their kit and don't need or want anything more.
Well, they might need and want quite a lot, they just don’t want to carry it. Acquisition is self limiting that way.
You are generally correct, but occasionally there is backcountry theft. I’ve backpacked thousands of miles over the years (mostly in NY, NH, CA, CO) and only once was something stolen from me. It was a fleece quarter zip taken from my pack left at a NH backcountry hut when I was out on a day hike. Fortunately, I was okay without it…but it was a shock, because leaving your stuff in a hut is normally so safe.
Good point. Consider how often killers bury their victims in a shallow grave.
And yet Pratt lost and Hilton will probably lose as well.
Not just in California, but nationwide we're seeing what happens when people base their votes on envy and greed.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler (Although there's some dispute that Tyler actually said this, it's still a pretty good quote!)
The fact that people use that quote, only helps those who wish to destroy our Nation and remake it into a Marxist Utopia. They have already collected many in their Hive. So many Drone-like workers, harvesting ballots, handing out needles and Narcan, etc.
That quote is only a warning to honest Constitution and Liberty loving Citizens. Those that continually vote themselves largess from their neighbors' are actually routing for the end. They falsely believe they are important and will continue to be useful to their leaders. They have no clue that they are expendable, once the goal has been met!
Maybe I’m missing your point, but I disagree with your assertion that me using this quote “only helps those who wish to destroy our Nation and remake it into a Marxist Utopia.” Quite the opposite.
Hilton will absolutely lose. 40% of the vote would be a major moral victory.
Spot-on.
Hasan Piker tells his followers that shoplifting is cool, because businesses "exploit" their employees, and so why shouldn't we steal from exploiters?
To a moral midget, this apparently makes sense. But what Piker is doing here is taking a sledgehammer to social trust. I think Piker's followers take high-trust culture for granted, just as they take all the fruits of traditional American culture for granted.
They will miss it when it's completely gone.
I was in law enforcement for 48 years. Worked for local, state and federal agencies. Never did I witness anyone steal to feed their family.
It happens as often as abortion occurs to save the life of the mother.
In San Francisco if you keep your theft below $950, you’re good to go (figuratively and literally)…
I went into a supermarket in Clearlake a couple of Christmases ago to buy a prime rib roast. There was only one and I needed a bigger one. I asked the guy in the meat department when/if they would get more and he asked me what size I wanted saying they had a bunch in the back…they couldn’t put them out because they’d “walk out” and they weren’t allowed to do anything about it.
This is the reality in California and many other cities in the US. This is not a permissive societal structure, it’s encouragement!
I've predicted for a while now that brick and mortar stores are heading back to the old days when you had to ask a clerk at the counter to fetch whatever you wanted to buy. The supermarket self-service style of rolling a shopping cart down aisles of wares stacked on open shelves is something which presumed exactly that kind of social trust which is disappearing.
... and the clerk will be behind bullet-proof glass. If he hasn't been replaced by a robot servicing a vending-machine like interface.
How you get your purchases home without being robbed will be *your* problem.
the oligarchs' game plan is to eliminate retail with drone delivery from amazon
suspect that prime rib will not be on the menu
Service Merchandise for the win...
It was already like that in downtown Detroit in the late 1980s
It does seem as if the powers that be intend to Detroitify every city in the nation and that the project is well on its way to completion. Unlike, for example, California's high-speed rail system -- which tells you a lot about where their interest and competence lies (if you can call it competence) .
Clearlake is a surprising slum.
It's had a huge meth problem for generations now.
Drug addiction is always a surprise
That's sad. I spent a year living in the mountains above Clearlake, which was our closest grocery store, and it was a nice little town. That was 1972.
I saw the same shoplifting conversation in an online leftist community I was part of ten years ago. Sounds harmless enough when it's a single poor person vs a gigantic corporation, but if you follow the reasoning to its logical conclusion, then anyone has the right to steal from anyone else they perceive as being wealthier. (And hey, I hear Hasan Piker is a pretty wealthy guy himself...)
why do nyc bodegas keep all the candy behind the counter?
They'll be dead when it's completely gone. Taxes are extracted via social trust. Products are created via social trust. Trade exists via social trust. Criminals survive via social trust. When it's gone, humanity reverts to nasty brutish and short, warlords and bunkers.
I say we start with the criminals! Both white and blue collar should be shot on sight for a few years. When the deterrent Effect is restored, we can go back to "presumed innocence" until proven guilty!
After all, they would have a firing squad of their peers, because aren't we all, 'We The People!
Shouldn't take long to restore order. We might even have another upswing in self-deportations!
Obama: “If I had a son, he would look, act, smell and shit disturb, just like Hasan Piker.”
Part of the Fourth Turning vibe shift is the crackup of the concept of social justice. So many Democrat and leftist failures stem from that seductive but fatally flawed concept, which destroys individual justice and degrades society as a whole. It frees criminals based on distant history and misunderstood statistics. It defers to dangerous immigrants and insane homeless addicts out of guilt. The workable solutions start with rejecting the entire concept. We reject your globalist gay race communism labels and all your double standards. Apply the laws equally or repeal them. Either the police defend citizens or let citizens defend themselves. Sorry, there isn't infinite tax money for all of your failing solutions. You had your chance, and you’ve blown it. It’s time for common sense populist nationalism to clean up the mess.
👏👏👏 This is the way. 🏆
"common sense populist nationalism"
So, military intelligence it is. And, this is still a political "solution", to a problem beyond the scope of politics.
Funny, I only registered the Citizen Defending themselves! "When in the course of human events.. it becomes necessary...."
Is that the reference to a contradiction in terms? Ha ha ha, I worked for 35 years in "military intelligence" it was always a conundrum as in "an intricate and difficult problem." The problem being making a case the operators or "policy makers" would believe. This time around it is making a case for people to wake up.
Jesus went walking in mountains by himself to commune with God. Then he went into the villages to help those who wanted God’s help - the village elites and their sycophants denounced him.
Same as it ever was.
I hope you are still out of down so you miss the toxic cloud from Boyle Heights, just South of where you live. No cause of the fires released yet. LA City Fire Department, that had so many issues with other fires and is over whelmed taking care of homeless fires (46 per day on average), serves that area.
I got a really bad headache when I visited Arcadia on Saturday. The toxic smoke is due to a combination of solar panels and insulation supposedly. And the warehouse was full of frozen food, that now needs to be disposed of. The newer refrigerants are also flammable, but less green house gases. I am surprised the insulation was flammable. I wonder if there is more to the story than has been reported. The usual warehouse is a concrete tilt up, and not a lot of flammable stuff in it. Built in 2018. Massive warehouse at near 491,000 sq ft, about 8 city blocks.
Per USA Today, while the solar panels on the roof were being serviced the fire started.
I’m in the east part of LA County and the smell of burning plastic or whatever the hell is in that warehouse is god awful. Not too much smoke out here, but that cloying burning smell is forcing me to keep my windows closed and run the A/C.
Makes you wonder whats in there Brian . 🧐
Brian, we're getting it here too in SGValley, and it smells like rotten food in addition to the other toxic stuff you mentioned. YUCK. This is Day 7 of this nonsense. Geez, can we have just ONE normal day here, in a place constantly touted for its "great weather?"
Conclusion: California government causes cancer.
That sounds similar to the huge Warehouse Fire Friday, June12, in the Westside of Tracy, California, just beyond the SF Bay Area! The fire started on the roof of a Medical Supply Co., that services all area clinics, Hospitals and First Responders! The fire also impacted an Amazon supply hub and destroyed a few of their Semi-Trucks and trailers!
That massive black cloud floated South down the Valley and prompted 'shelter in place' and Evacuations for a few neighboring developments and slowed traffic to a crawl on 2 major commuter freeways during Friday rush hour! The tires on the trucks were exploding and burning for hours.
There was a fire, same storage company, in Washington in 2024. 525,000 sq ft warehouse. And it lasted two months. https://www.nwpb.org/nw-news/2025-02-26/finley-residents-hire-attorneys-to-investigate-cold-storage-warehouse-fire
Thanks for the ref Ray- it seems lots of attorneys are going to be busy trying to figure out the limits of their clients liability...
"At this time, we believe the fire began while testing was being conducted by contractors of the third-party owner of the solar array located on the facility's roof,” company officials said in a late Friday statement."
I assume LADWP or SCE cut the power to building, hope the voltage and frequency fluctuations that must of occurred during the testing of the system didn't cause any issues up the line.
"...while testing was being conducted by contractors of the third-party owner of the solar array..." Weird. Almost verbatim to the recent B-52 crash at Edward's AFB. The B-52 was testing a new, Ai-driven targeting system, the only one of its kind. I wonder if the solar panels utilized a similar system??
Lots of AI is being integrated into the grid these days.
https://www.latimes.com/b2b/ai-technology/story/2026-01-08/thinklabs-sce-microsoft-ai-grid-partnership
The amount of curtailment on CA grid jumped this April and May compared to last year so some of the lines have been under some stress. Our very old string inverter cut out when voltage spiked coming from PG&E's grid. It came back on after 5 minutes if the power quality was within it's operating range.
Why the fire got so bad seems odd as I would of thought the fire suppression system would of kicked on rather quickly after the fire started....
You think LAFD routinely tests fire suppression systems? In the Illinois office buildings i used to work in there were annual fire drills during business hours and every year we’d get a memo about the office being closed on a Saturday so the fire suppression system could be tested. About 20 years ago that frequency changed and the last building I worked in (for 5 years) we had a total of 1 fire drill.
In one building the stairwells were locked for ingress. I asked what would one do if one discovered the fire was in the stairwell? The exact situation happened in a Chicago office building where people died because they were trapped in a stairwell and could not go up the stairs to use the other stairwell. Nothing was done.
In one fire drill a fireman reprimanded me in front of everyone for taking a bottle of water with me. “You could spill it and people could fall.” I immediately responded “In an actual fire the sprinklers should be going off so the floors and stairs will already be wet.” His response “Thats the rules.” I mouthed “fuck you” to him. Several people came iup to me and said “i never thought of that. What a stupid rule.”
Just after the second oil crisis the industrial insurance company I worked for use to require fire suppression systems to be tested annually and the tests were required to be documented. If the paper work wasn't up to stuff when the companies engineers came through the facilities (annually) the premiums could be increased or insurance was dropped all together.
You are right in the fire sprinkler system, 2018 is new enough to require them in a California warehouse and to be in good shape. California Fire departments make money charging for inspections and require certifications.
Regarding your last sentence - that's why I think this fire was deliberately started and kept going. Deep state knows the jig is up, voters are starting to see what they really are up to and it isn't in the best interests of the voters. They know arrests are eminent so they are burning it all down. Just my 2 cents.
The June 12, 2026 Fire at a Medical Supply Warehouse in San Joaquin County,(Tracy, CA), also started on the roof and the Fire SUPPRESSION SYSTEM (Sprinkler system) also did not kick on! This as per the fire Dept!
I'm beginning to wonder how much is GRIFT vs INCOMPETENCE vs PAYOFFS to corrupt Code Enforcement Officials. My mind does not look for the DEEPLY ENTRENCHED outside of the typical Political and MEDIA Circuses!
I totally agree with you about it being grift more than incompetence; I'm in my 70s and have NEVER seen this many fires in my lifetime. This is happening A LOT in California and I spent most of my life there, fires never happened this much. Also this is in cities, so they can't tell us that "wildfires" started this. Add this to the absolutely breakdown of fires in Pacific Palisades and rest of L.A. at that time, also during that time it took Karen Bass 6 days to return to L.A. from her trip to Africa and fire hydrants having no water...
I just saw this comment here re: article about this fire in L.A., now burning for 6 days:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/06/video-los-angeles-warehouse-fire-rages-sixth-day/
landofbrave:
"Inhaling burning refrigerant fumes is extremely dangerous. When refrigerants (like Freon or R-22) are exposed to a heat source or an open flame, they decompose into highly toxic byproducts—most notably phosgene gas, a potent chemical weapon.
Exposure to these fumes can cause sudden cardiac arrest, asphyxiation, severe respiratory tract irritation, and long-term organ or brain damage."
Nothing to see here, move on...
My votes for incompetence with a bit of corruption.
A lotta bit of corruption
YES, that's it, thanks Chris. I am in mourning; we are in mourning, and have been for awhile. And when you're in mourning the last thing you want to hear or say is "fight, fight, fight." You know? When those disgusting and unimaginative pieces of crap put their repellent heads together and snickered like demons after not even bothering to hide that they and their helpers cheated Spencer Pratt out of his fully-rightful place on the L.A. mayor's ballot ---- a candidate like we've never seen in this town before, by the way, blessed with courage and purpose and intelligence and excitement ----- it was like a HUGE building had fallen on all of us and flattened us. Who knows how long it will take to get out from under it --- or if we ever will. These evil pointless people took away from us something much more than just knocking aside a rival candidate.
Chris, I lived in LA for nearly 65 years (break for UCSC undergrad). Watched the decline, and like many others, chalked it up to inevitability— bigger population, inflation, incompetent pols,
etc). I honestly thought the enshittification was destiny of modernity. Following our son we moved to Miami two years ago. There’s problems here like everywhere else. But… and this literally blows my mind every time: if you go into a restroom in a public park, it’s almost always: clean, smells clean, has TP, has a mirror, is not covered in graffiti. Also, miraculously: gardeners (or, as I like to call them “lawn enforcement”)
don’t routinely have all their gear
stolen off the street the moment they turn their heads— which is absolutely a crime pandemic in LA no one talks about. And, this is crazy, the upper middle class people don’t shit their dogs (and leave it in stinking piles) right outside the fence of their oh-so-desirable, highly rated elementary school, as they do in the “coveted heart of Valley Village.” In other words, the combination of effective local government (which operates at half the cost of LA) and basic citizen respect for the built environment and one’s neighbors, is possible in a large modern city. The govt AND the people of LA are truly sick
Same experience. Except we went from San Diego to Sarasota region.
It felt like deliverance
Same here, but we moved from Torrance, CA to Sarasota.
Thanks for this piece - a lovely tonic. Solvitur ambulando!
For what it's worth, Nietzsche believed you couldn't think well without walking.
I would add Gardening and Cleaning to that list. Activities that use the bodies energy, thus leaving the mind to focus, think and file!
Well, the idea that we are in some permanent economic slide is just stupid. There is more wealth now than ever. It’s just accumulating with the stupidest class of people possible.
Maybe I have read too much history over the last 40 years, but it seems to me we have a bunch of moronic ‘leaders’ who don’t want to pass the baton to people who can do a better job.
They may not be an aristocracy in a traditional sense, but they are as far as credentials go. And they hate the little people as much as their European ancestors.
“Obviously, the best person to take over for me is the person with my blood, which is what makes me superior” became “Obviously, the best person to take over for me is the person with the same degree, the same social class, and the same beliefs”.
I sat in my parent’s small northern town in Michigan this weekend enjoying as much of it as you can since it became a tourist town, and my niece’s husband (a state cop) explained that the new apartment buildings being built are all going to be low income, section 8 housing, and the population is going to double in just the next couple years.
That comes from on high. The ‘leaders’ in Lansing have decided that a nice little town like that has to be filled up with criminals from down-state.
My brother-in-law pointed out what I have been feeling for 15 years maybe, “Can we just not have a place to go where we can live OUR lives?”
This same thing has been happening in my little exurb near Detroit.
That’s where the populist revolution is. We just want to be able to live without being subjected to the crap we all fled from ten or thirty years ago, and that pisses off the aristocrats who have never had to deal with it in their own lives.
Define wealth
The wealth isn't accruing to the stupidest people - those are the ones screaming about the wealth growing and them not getting it.
If wealth was power, Tom Steyer would be the next governor of California.
BINGO! The Whiners are the ones that the Democrat Party keeps down as useful idiots! They need a permanent "lower Caste" group, to pretend to care about. Without a poor class to rigg the game against, the Democrat's Socialist policies, designed to steal from the wealthy and Middle Class and give to the NGO's, Unions and Other Cronies, would not be possible!
Those Socialist Policies all require higher taxes and more mandates to Socially Engineer public behavior and gather more power and LIBERTY from the populous!
The Democrats should more accurately called the Bureaucrats. That is the class that they really care about. And it's not because they want people to do productive work or solve the "problems". No, it's all about putting their people in jobs that they don't know how to do properly. Hence, those people then distract attention with fake problems that they need to hire more bureaucrats to study and do nothing about.
Brando Johnson's new Trans Femicide working group is a classic case of this. The "problem" is that in Chicago their is "trans femicide" that amounts to "a genocide". But a look at the statistics shows that not one man claiming to be a woman has been murdered in Chicago during the last year.
Meanwhile, there are real problems that the Mayor and his administration are ignoring.
But the people will be convinced to vote for people such as Johnson because he is so good at providing these distractions. I often get the feeling that the mass of voters now don't actually believe that governments can do the job they are supposed to do. The people have given up on exepcting potholes to be fixed, the fire service to be efficient t, the streets clean and free of graffitti. WHat the people want are more symbolic gestures from their politicians. They want to be told that imaginary problems are threatening their very existence, because then htey can thank their lucky stars that these "problems" aren't actually affecting them, but at the same time they can feel as though "something is being done".
Chris Bray is right. The answer to this problem is not politics, but anti-politics. What Lord Moulton famously labelled the "Third Domain" has to be bolstered against both excessive government on the one hand and excessive individualism on the other.
Demoralize. Desensitize. Crisis. Acceptance.
This is California politics and policy today.
Meanwhile, out in the mountains, forests, and wilderness, a humane, egalitarian system is in place, unspoken, respected, peaceful.
An incredible contrast.
My favorite line: Walking is good for you, get outdoors. Chris, another home run!
Right on the money.
We all mourn the death of high trust society.
And those in power are beavering away at destroying even the scraps that remain...
I can agree that many in power here in California seek to destroy Societal Trust and divide us into waring factions.
Divide and conquer. It works. :-(
When I'm in the fields and forests, I'm ungovernable.
“Going Mobile”
(Hippie...)
I think that separatism (de facto if not de jure) is a much more viable solution than institutional capture and reform. I know it pains the disaffected aspiring elites with fancy degrees in the Yarvin/Scott Greer molds, but we probably are best served hunkering down and leaving the blue no-go zones to their own devices for a few generations.
"We’re trying to heal cultural wounds with political tools."
This is the real triumph of the Frankfurt School and it's disciples, we only believe in political process now, and that is quite frankly nothing but power. It will end eventually, but I don't think it will end well. Certainly not until we resolve that power has extremely limited use but I suspect that is one of those difficult lessons for a people to learn.