Just grab an American flag and a MAGA hat and go walk by the ICE center in Portland not being black. Pretty sure cats will figure out what Antifa is real fast.
We are living in a world where no lives matter. Why is that?
Is it because we tossed God out of the public square, so instead of pondering on ideas of how we can Love God, we discard God and Jesus’s two commandments to Love God and Love Others. Those of us who have read the Gospel know that we can not Love God and hate others too.
Yes. As God has been eliminated people turn their object of their affections to other things to worship. Instead of worshiping God they worship money. They worship houses. They worship celebrities. They worship themselves (tattoos, piercings). They worship the Earth, trees and pets. See a pattern here?
Too many people, I'm afraid, no longer have any faith in anything. There is no meaning for them. No reason to improve, to get better, to be more than they are. If they aren't improving they are regressing or they are dying. Their lives are empty, as shallow and meaningless as the hollywood celebs they worship.
We are society that worships death. Women murder their children as a form of birth control. Criminal justice is justice for the criminal, not the victim. Video games, movies, television shows are full of horror and violence. How does this bring joy?
Pornography is rampant because young men are no longer attracted to young women because young women do all within their power to mutilate themselves, tattoo their bodies and become as ugly as they possibly can be (even the pretty ones). So young men look to unrealistic pornography for sexual pleasure. The result? Young men who can't pop a nobber for a woman and an angry woman because she can't find herself a man. So she becomes a lesbian looking for donated sperm to impregnate herself with because, every month, her body tells her she is a woman.
It's all screwed up. All of it. Every nook and cranny of our society is fucked over. Churches have lost their purpose. Government no longer has the confidence of the people. Families no longer have father and mother in charge. Children are angry, scared and addicted to their phones.
All because we gave up on God, gave up on his teachings, and gave him the middle finger. To save this sinking ship known as America people must first correct themselves inwardly. Fix their own homes and their own lives. If that would happen, everything else would fall right in line. I truly believe that.
CP, How do you go about changing the minds of the younger generation to do this required inner work when there is no clear outward incentive in light of everything you so eloquently laid out?
I’m trying with my 37 year old son: to convince him that he needs to go out and get a job, any job, a shit job to support himself, his single atomized self, that will require he put down the THC vaping pipe and the phone to get out there and just do it…I’ve done all that I can for him. He has no debt, has mechanical skills, has a fully paid for condo in a bustling metro area with a tiny monthly fee, so his external pressures are at a minimum. I’ve helped arrange things this way to give him maximum leeway and leveraging space. But he seems to have no drive and wants to walk through life catatonic, possessed by the demon cannibis, and living apathetically in a dystopia. I grieve for him. I despair for him. And now I am cutting him off of financial support hoping this will get him to go out and do SOMETHING, ANYTHING! He has been unemployed for almost a year now. I grieve for him. I pray for him. He’s my son and it’s all I can do now.
First of all, I despise the term "shit job." It kind of reminds me during covid when they were saying some jobs were essential and others were not. All jobs are essential. There is no such thing as a "shit job" IMO. A job is a job. Some jobs are not as fun or high quality as others but for those people working that shit job or for those paying someone to work that shit job, its important. My son got a "shit job" being a whopper flopper at Burger Thing. He worked his ass off and was quickly promoted to manager. He quit and went to school to learn a trade but before he had left he was receiving ticklers from the franchise owner about being a regional manager.
I can't advise you on your child. But at 37? I'd change the locks to my doors and leave his shit in the driveway. Children learn quickly to take advantage of doting parents. Parents who dote on and provide for adult children aren't doing their adult children any favors.
You can't change things in the minds of anyone. They have to have the will to do so themselves. Personally, I think we should let children get jobs. Younger generations today are too entitled, too pampered and too lazy. Perhaps it would be better if a 14 year old to work stocking shelves at the local Albertsons rather than sit around in school or playing video games. I had a paper route when I was 10 all the way up to when I was able to drive when I got a job cleaning toilets and emptying garbage cans at the local high school. It gave me a sense of pride to earn my own money. Today? Most kids can't work many jobs until they are 18 in most states. So what do they do during those mid teen years? Fornicate. Drugs. Nothing. Years wasted.
Again, every aspect of our society is fucked up. Nobody can fix society but people can fix themselves. People are lazy, though. As long as they get their basic needs cared for there is no impetus to change. They will only change when they see a need or are forced to do it. Those who are unable to change will succumb to it.
My first "shit job" at 15 was working for a bricklayer that summer. He introduced me to a large brick-hod, my first day, and he also showed me how to mix cement.
He was building a brick chimney and I had to carry bricks (using the hod), and cement up these makeshift wooden steps and ramps! The bossman had a black man who did his cinderblock work. One day I asked the cinderblock man if he would give me a ride down the River Road a couple of miles. He said he would. I got in his old truck (probably a 1940-50s) model. I was sitting there as he came up to get in the driver's seat, but before he did, he took his old metal water cooler and poured it out on the grill below his windshield. When he got in I asked him what was that all about. He said, it was his air conditioning!
Yeah, I’m sorry about the shit job reference. My bad!
As I myself have worked as a waitress and maintenance worker most of my life, I should know better than to refer to any honest work that way.
I did not mention that my son has several cognitive disabilities since early childhood. Last year, he worked 12 hour days for a year as a mechanic at an EV company. He worked himself to the bone. Before that as a bike mechanic. His BA in business has done nothing for him except add a bit of understanding about the biz world. Water under the bridge. He can be incredibly committed to work projects with laser focus. That is the problem as bosses take advantage of him and expect 12 hour works days six days a week. He works endless hours on his own inventions. They would call him Asperger’s back a few years ago. He does not live at home. I have helped him buy a condo because that costs a lot less than rent.
We are coping and yeah, I have helped him this last year but know that he has to learn his life lessons on his own.
"He can be incredibly committed to work projects with laser focus. That is the problem as bosses take advantage of him and expect 12 hour works days six days a week."
That would make me work-shy! Have you considered suggesting he work part-time?
As Mumford said, there can be no real civilization without leisure. This freaked out so many people who knew him. They would ask him, Isn't there a way to transform society without cutting back on "work"? He realized that they had understood nothing he said, understanding leisure as inactivity or trivial pleasure seeking.
Different cultures view this differently. Here in Germany, it is not that uncommon for kids to stay at home until they are late 20s, some even longer among immigrant families. We know families like this, and the kids contribute a lot to the household.
An alternative point of view: In many parts of the world, families stay together, pooling wealth, much as the elites do. Does the system profit more from families that stay together and support one another? Or does it profit more from sending young kids into the shark tank, and having multiple family members with multiple mortgages, multiple kids in daycare and school, etc.?
You could argue that the Beast System promotes kicking your kids out at 18 in order to keep your familiy down financially and in terms of the powerful relationships within a well-bonded family. Elite families don't really do this in the same way. Some argue that this is also why feminists promote female independence to such an extreme. "Go to work, don't raise kids, pay more taxes, get a divorce at the first sign of unhappiness, etc."
I have been trying to circle the wagons with my family to resist the Beast system. I have taught my children to stay out of debt. But they are still atomized, living alone, and single. On and off lived at home with us, but now out there in different cities. Do I regret this state of affairs? Sometimes, but it is so baked into our culture now. I admire the Old World models immensely.
I so agree with your comment on working early. There used to be summer jobs for most high school kids. Now no one mows the lawn or that type of thing in many neighborhoods. I guess teenagers are indoors playing video games. Many kids don’t really work until college or right after. It is highly beneficial for kids to start working as soon as possible, even if paid by parents. You build up fear if you wait too long and then it has to be a “good” job. Parents, you do your kids a favor if you get them working early in some capacity.
I informed all of our children that Mom and Dad would not fund a useless degree but would pay 100% for a degree with which they could earn a decent living.
One choose RN, one choose Masters in Math, and one choose Chemical Engineering AND......at approx 2 semesters prior to graduation, my wife would have talk with them advising that Dad was not planning on them moving back home and if they did, they would pay rent and if they did not graduate, the small generic vehicle we purchased for them would go away unless they wanted to purchase it from Dad. Tough love is just about as hard on the parent as it is on the kid. I smoked some weed during my university time but soon learned it was making me lazy and my parents did not have the money to help me if I was unemployed so that was not even an option, plus I got married when I was a junior and my wife was 7 months pregnant when I graduated and both of them were expecting 3 meals per day----every day so.....being lazy or lost was not an option. You are in a tough spot and I am not sure what to suggest because there are many possible outcomes which may not turn out well but at some point, they have to get out of the well stocked nest.
My parents took a different approach. They told us, if you want to go to college you'd better get scholarships because they didn't have the money to pay for college for us. So, I worked hard in school to get scholarships and then I worked three jobs while in college to pay for it. I paid for every dime of my college without any assistance from my parents. I was proud of that and it made me a much better student. Afterall, it was my money being wasted if I chose to get drunk on Sunday and miss classes on Monday. Children think a little different when it is their sweat and labor being wasted on frivolity rather than their parents.
Not saying my way is better than yours, but that is how my parents did it. I have taken the same approach with my children. I tell them that if they want an education, they are paying for it. They are and they are working hard to do so.
I also charge my adult children rent if they move home and they are made fully aware that their stay there is temporary.
I like you and your wife's style. We need more of that in this Country. Our youth need more parents being parents rather than being their buddies.
Drugs give far more pleasure than ordinary life ever can - but not joy. And joy is better than pleasure. Many people are hedonists. It's natural. If they get into drugs, it's over for them. They'll always remember that it was better in terms of what they value. The pain of losing everything and living on the streets may drive them to rehab, but they will still remember "the good times".
The Chinese Communists gave their hordes of opium addicts one chance to go straight. If they failed, they went missing.
So we should model our behavior on that of Chinese Communists? Where did I leave my copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book? I need to find it and pick up where I left off in 1968.
You're using the word "drugs" pretty loosely, Lugh. For example, there are many driven, successful people who also enjoy smoking weed. Just sayin', man.
My family was like this and family ties are in tatters. Tough love is a myth. Love is about doing what is right for your kid. And they are not all the same. Some kids can manage the ultimatums, but ultimately they do it because they are scared. And no one respects a tyrant.
Yes, hard as it is for some- cut him loose. He cannot mature, become a man until you let go of your need to fix him. It’s up to him, it’s his life. Give him Man’s Search for meaning to read. Be there to listen & love. God’s Speed. 🙏
I have a friend who’s son was essentially a ‘Failure to Launch’ sort of like yours. He was 35. Had a devastating divorce from his high school sweetheart in his early 20’s and frankly never recovered from it. No real friends (all moved ). An A student in HS and had decent mechanical skills. Dad suggested he take the ASVAB test at a recruiting center. He really didn’t want too, but dad insisted. He got a very high score which surprised himself. He joined the Army National Guard (Montana) and after basic went to Aircraft Powerplant repairer MOS15B. Really likes it. Also now has a civilian certification & full time job repairing aircraft engines with a small carrier there. Steady girlfriend too who works at the carrier.
The military isn’t for everyone, but Do not give up on your son. It is NEVER too late for him to turn things around. Best of luck to you and yours.
Your son may not take advantage of your help, or appreciate what you've done for him. But, though it was not your motivation, you have done something splendid for yourself. Your efforts are noted by your spirit guides on the Other Side, and they must be proud of you. In the big picture no good deed is wasted or disappears.
Thanks for your kind comment. Yes, I got a message from my maternal ancestors that they approve of my paying forward my maternal inheritance entirely to both my adult children to help them get a foothold in this world. It was my earnest desire to help them both to survive in this dystopian society. It’s up to them to do the rest. I’m just hoping to help them feel invested and that they have a chance. My daughter is a bit more functional and she is expanding and starting her own business.
How did you receive the message from your maternal ancestors? Through a medium? Or are you one yourself? That's a serious question. I've been to various mediums and studied psychical research, especially in connection with the afterlife. I expect to be crossing over before too long.
I’m in touch with the unseen planes. In this case, a photo showed up from my sister out of the blue on my phone. It was my grandmother’s sister and I connected the dots.
Difficult issue but seems common. Dr. Phil used to have shows on this topic—he seemed to be interested in young men and their families in this predicament. He used to get them a hard ass coach. He never advocated for the parents to enable the behavior.
Aaah the usual refrain from a mom who will cajole, cater and caress a son for almost any aberration. I dont mean to be critical, but thats ‘how it is’ today. We are driven by our own demons including status, money and appearances, yet we fail to embrace the tenets of the societal structure that made US good citizens, earners and (for the most part) good parents. We have become part of the very accommodating woke philosophy fostered upon us by professors, the media and our own intimidation. The term ‘tough love’ is now more important in in our society than ever.
If you feed a kid a pint of ice cream every day and then wonder after 3 months why he’s fat, it’s your fault.
I’m not woke and I’m not interested in status or money or any of these trappings. I simply was presenting an example from my own family of the challenges faced by this generation and how a parent struggles with these things.
When looking at Scottish professor, Alexander Tytler’s theory of the cycle of democracies, the first part of that cycle that leads us out of tyranny is spirituality. That makes sense because believing in God means anything – even liberty- is possible – especially under the lens of natural law and that our rights come from God, not from any government.
In sociology, anomie or anomy is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization).
Social disorder
Nineteenth-century French sociologist Émile Durkheim borrowed the term anomie from French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau. Durkheim used it in his influential book Suicide (1897) in order to outline the social (and not individual) causes of suicide, characterized by a rapid change of the standards or values of societies (often erroneously referred to as normlessness), and an associated feeling of alienation and purposelessness.
Durkheim believed that anomie is common when the surrounding society has undergone significant changes in its economic fortunes, whether for better or for worse and, more generally, when there is a significant discrepancy between the ideological theories and values commonly professed and what was actually achievable in everyday life. This was contrary to previous theories on suicide which generally maintained that suicide was precipitated by negative events in a person's life and their subsequent depression.
In Durkheim's view, traditional religions often provided the basis for the shared values which the anomic individual lacks. Furthermore, he argued that the division of labor that had been prevalent in economic life since the Industrial Revolution led individuals to pursue egoistic ends rather than seeking the good of a larger community. Robert King Merton also adopted the idea of anomie to develop strain theory, defining it as the discrepancy between common social goals and the legitimate means to attain those goals. In other words, an individual suffering from anomie would strive to attain the common goals of a specific society yet would not be able to reach these goals legitimately because of the structural limitations in society. As a result, the individual would exhibit deviant behavior. Friedrich Hayek notably uses the word anomie with this meaning.
The modern environment, particularly the structure of American suburbia and the shift towards remote work, is identified as a significant generator of both anomie and ennui. The isolation and lack of meaningful social interaction fostered by suburban life, combined with the removal of workplace social norms, contribute to a pervasive sense of disconnection and purposelessness This societal shift creates conditions where individuals feel adrift, lacking anchoring social norms and a sense of belonging, which are central to anomie, while also experiencing a deep, persistent boredom and detachment characteristic of ennui.
Anomie is generated by a breakdown in social integration and normative regulation, often stemming from a mismatch between societal goals (like economic success) and the legitimate means available to achieve them, especially for marginalized groups The removal of structured social environments, such as the workplace, which provides its own set of norms and routines, can amplify this feeling of being adrift and disconnected This state of normlessness, where individuals lack clear societal rules and values, is linked to increased rates of depression and suicide.
Ennui is generated by a profound sense of boredom, world-weariness, and detachment from society, often arising from stagnation, a lack of meaning, or a failure to find purpose in life It is described as a persistent, deep-seated boredom that goes beyond temporary tedium The modern world, with its relentless demands, consumer culture, and the psychological impact of living in environments like American suburbia, is seen as a key contributor to this state of existential malaise.
I'm an old man. It is amazing to me how many women in 21st century America have tattoos! Growing up and as a young man, I don't believe I ever knew one woman with tattoos. Now, maybe there were some with hidden ones, but I never saw one up close and personal, and not to brag but the girls were fond of me ;)
I almost believe that more women have tattoos than men now.
I think you are right. I still see a lot of dudes with the tats but the majority of women that I see now are tatted up. And it isn't just the thin pretty ones. The fat ones get the tats. I see Moms with tats. I see older, more mature women that have tats on flabby arms. I see plain jane girls with tats. It is truly bizarre. Men do it to look tough. I get it. But women? I just don't get it.
I do have to say, however, in my observations at the gym, that there are women who are not usually bearing tattoos all over their arms and legs. Latina women.
Las Mexicanas las parecen que ellas no quieren poner tattoos sobre sus cuerpos. Mexican women do not appear to be as eager to cover their bodies with tattoos as the crazy white American women are.
Me going to HS in the mid 70's boys were boys and girls were girls.The only thing on W/E's we thought about was finding girls and girls the same thing looking for boys.It was alot of fun back then and with or HotRods even funner.I say CP it was the early 70's we started to walk away from God as Nation we got off the "Gold Standard"(God uses Gold/Silver all through the Bible)and to the petro dollar.The next thing was abortion became legal life had no meaning!The third thing which feel it hard today China got most favored Trade Status that started or decline of manufacturing.The last killer of the manufacturing was the NAFTA what a crock of BS we were sold.I truly do not feel all is lost by No Means after CK's death a revival has started among the youth.
I hate tattoos especially on women. People have told me it helps them remember something. I said, get a notebook. They can also be incredibly unhealthy. It is bad enough that college students were mandated to get worthless vaccines but they also have tattoos with heavy metal dyes. I think if any of the writers here want to explore that topic, it is worthwhile as many kids are not aware that these dyes can be a problem.
bo, in the 1980s a doctor who ran a substance abuse ward in a hospital told a group of us students that if a man had six or more tattoos (excluding tats done in the military), he might well be an alcoholic. It was a quick and dirty kneejerk diagnosis (subject to adjustment) back in the day. Now--people are covered with tats. One thing the kids might not know yet is that tats don't look good when they're old. Have to keep touching them up. ;-)
Mr. Cankerpuss-----I think that to most of these misfits, politics becomes their religion and they are 100% committed to the marxists because it gives them a reason to get up every morning. Maybe they tried going to church once but most of the mainline churches do not reality stand for much today and in order to increase their Sunday numbers never want to tell people that any of the perverted lifestyles are the wrong path and if the Bible is read at all, it is only a few verses that if they are twisted enough seem to allow anyone to do whatever they want to do regardless of whether Christ or any of the prophets or disciples spoke against certain lifestyles or behaviors. I feel sorry for these people that are clearly on the wrong path but trying to reason with them or even speak to them can be a ticket to extreme danger making me quite glad that the state I live in totally approves of Constitutional Carry. Life is truly hard and if you expect the gov't to help, you are dreaming unless you want to be 100% dependent for the rest of your life. And......many of the institutions that used to provide good guidance or are totally taken over by the super-woke. Should any sane individual expect the Education, University, Medical, Media or Pharma, or Corporate worlds provide any realistic / honest guidance to our young who may be looking for answers to how to navigate our current world ? Not hardly. Quite sad our country has gotten so screwed up over the last 50 or 60 years. Sorry I do not have any quick and cheap answers but.......believing anything the deep state gov't tells us is risking being 100% wrong. Maybe just pull a Constanza and just do the exact opposite of what these groups tells you would be a good path ?
"Maybe they tried going to church once but most of the mainline churches do not reality stand for much today"
Mr. Neff, I was at one time an active Mormon. Born and raised in Mormon country in south east Idaho, raised in Mormon country in Arizona and now reside in Mormon country Utah. I'm no longer an active, practicing Mormon. Why? Because the LDS church at one time used to stand for something. Whether you agreed with them or not, the Church was pretty sound against homosexuality, divorce, abortion, female priests, debt and so forth. One would go to church and leave knowing that certain things were wrong and certain things were good.
I recall as a youth being taught that homosexuality in all of its forms was a sin and was a perversion of the holy union between man and woman, a mockery of it, if you will. That is no longer taught in the LDS church. Today they are apologetic stating things like "its okay to be homosexual, as long as you don't act upon it." Things like transgenderism are not discussed. Abortion is never uttered across the pulpit. Mormons are no longer encouraged to live in modest homes, stay out of debt and live on less than their income.
Meetings today don't even focus on Jesus Christ, for whom the church is named. Instead Bishops and Stake Presidents pat each other on the back for being "called" to prominent roles and then congratulate each other as being "men of God" and "foreordained for greatness." It is mind numbing to sit in a pew hoping to hear talk of Christ only to hear that "brother so and so is a Man of God!"
One day as I was sitting in the pew being told that my Bishop was a Man of God and that I should be thankful for him and all he does for me when it dawned on me that the Mormon church has gone the way of the world. Man worship. Instead of sitting there and worshiping my Bishop I said to hell with this and left. Haven't been back for years and do not intend to.
That is why churches are failing today. You clearly understand!
When their god repented and said Blacks were equal, Mitt Romney drove to the side of the road and wept. Then he went home and adopted a little Black kid.
Fact is, Brigham Young didn't like black people, thought Utah should be a slave state, even had a black man as a personal servant. Took them over a hundred years to change that one.
GK Chesterton is widely quoted as having said, "When a man stops believing in God, he doesn't believe in nothing; he'll believe in anything" or a similar variation.
"As God has been eliminated people turn their object of their affections to other things to worship. Instead of worshiping God they worship money. They worship houses. They worship celebrities. They worship themselves (tattoos, piercings)."
Agreed, with a couple of caveats.
Instead of worshiping God they may worship a concept of God, like a religious creed.
Those who tattoo their skin like New Guinea headhunters and stick metal rings through their nose cartilage do not worship themselves. Usually they don't even like themselves.
(Wow I'm going sixteen to the dozen today. Calm down, Veeg!}
VS, you make some valid points and I acknowledge them.
Tattoos were usually seen only on hardened soldiers. Now even the most beautiful among us clutter up their skin with nasty looking blobs of color.
I am a gym rat. I'm at the gym for at least 2 hours per day. I do so for many reasons but mainly because I enjoy weight training and the way it helps me keep my moods under control. I also enjoy being around the positive energy that is prevalent in a place where people are trying to improve themselves. At the gym I see a lot of amazing physical bodies, male and female. However, what always makes me shake my head in disgust is when I see a beautiful young woman training and her beautiful female form is marred and scarred by unrecognizeable tattoos. Why does she feel a need to adorn herself with graffiti that resembles the side of a Pacific Union rail car?
A chiseled and "en forma" human body is an amazing specimen. I will never understand the need of these people, young women especially, to cover themselves and hide.
Tattooing is similar to self-harm, like cutting. Pain is a feeling, and there are many unhappy women whose pain is apparent on their arms and bodies. Being touched by someone, (anyone!) even with pain, is a substitute for intimacy, and a tattoo is just an outward manifestation of inner misery. The girls I came across as a detective who cut themselves or burned themselves were by and large incest survivors crying for help.
I couldn't agree more with you. I've never liked tattoos on anyone and never had one myself. I don't understand why some people see the need to cover much if not most of their bodies with tattoos. I like your description of "graffiti that resembles the side of a Pacific Union rail car".
Love Goes First: Reaching Others in an Age of Anxiety and Division by Andrew Forrest releases on October 7th. His desire is to help us consider how to speak Jesus to those who hate us. While those who loved Jesus followed Him in crowds of thousands, He also confronted those who hated him--and won some.
I don't believe in a Jesus that is all encompassing love regardless of what a person does or behaves. I believe in a Jesus that gets pissed off and has no tolerance for perversion or sin. There is such a thing as righteous anger.
Take the story of the adulteress. It is famous because Jesus says "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." It's timeless wisdom to be sure. But most people don't focus on the most important part of that story that is after the accusers had left their stones and departed. Christ asked her where her accusers went. The adulteress mentioned they had all departed. Chris then tells her that he won't condemn her but he also tells her to "GO AND SIN NO MORE." In other words he told her to knock the shit off and start behaving herself. He didn't pat her on the head and tell her it was okay that she was an adulteress because her husband was a dick. He didn't tell her that she was special and that it was okay for her to commit that sin. He didn't say she had no choice because her parents were mean to her. No. He told her in a kind way to knock it off and get her shit together.
Christ loves the sinner but he despises and hates sin. People forget that.
Of course, nothing comes from nothing and we reap what we sew. What scares me watching from afar and seeing the same mindset in the UK is that the essence of the revolt is to be 'anti' - it cannot build anything new, beautiful or just but can only destroy what is already there in a giant tantrum or rage and resentment.
Nope, a Zen saying, meaning be present. Focus on what you are doing. In other words, when chopping wood, chop wood. Do not be distracted with thoughts of carrying water. Excepting, when carrying water, carry water.
You keep thinking the rest of the country is like the west coast and the northeast / Chicago / Minneapolis. We're nothing like them. The urban areas are the problems here.
On election night when you see the entire country swathed in red from coast to coast other than a few ugly blue blob like zits on an arse, it is indeed the urban areas that are the ruin in virtually every single state to the detriment of the rural areas
It’s ok to say the, Democrat Run States and Cities.
However the Leftist Media, our Public Schools and Colleges have reached into every corner of our country with their divisive rhetoric and policies that the sheep don’t want to recognize that the wolf is eating them alive!
His caricature of the state of our nation is illuminating and not altogether untrue.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the crowded northeast and felt the crush of demoralizing modernity. However, I can assure you that the spirit of country is resilient in flyover country and restoration is not out of reach.
I live in beautiful Utah, the land of the conservative Mormons and the most Republican state in the Union and let me tell you, things are amiss here as well. What JHK described is rampant here. I used to think Utah had the most beautiful women. Not anymore. Everywhere I turn I see purple haired cows with bull rings in their noses and their arms and legs covered with unrecognizeable tattoos. Even the LDS church no longer stands for principles. Their conferences and meetings are full of boring cliches about "being nice" or "enduring one's trials." They don't talk about abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, drugs, debt and all of the many other perversions that permeate our society and destroy families.
Republicans have shown themselves over the last 20+ years to be nothing more than a bunch of shameless cowards, if not outright aiders and abettors of evil. The entire party needs a massive overhaul.
Democrats are filthy but at least they tell you who they are and what they want. Republicans are worse. Far worse. Republicans are hypocrites. Remember the disdain Christ had for the hypocrites in the New Testament? Republicans pretend to be conservative but then act and behave like a Democrat. I loathe Republicans more than Democrats and that says a lot.
Mr. Cankerpuss----Utah exudes a sense that they are conservative to the core BUT.....they elect Mitt Romney and a RINO guv. I live in Arkansas which is about as red as you can get but we have 2 Senators who are either sold out to the MIC or -----only interested to paying attention to the big donors and......have no backbone to get on the soapbox and fight back tooth and nail against the Marxists. Sad that in a state that voted approx 65% for Trump (in my country approx 85% voted for Trump) that our Senators still have no spine to do what is needed to help save this country. I would like to see some fighters rather than get along and go along. Neither of the Senators did anything real to support Trump when he needed it after his 2020 election was stolen.
"Utah exudes a sense that they are conservative to the core BUT.....they elect Mitt Romney and a RINO guv"
Both these guys got elected because of their positions in the predominant religion in the state. Utah Mormons tend to vote that way. Doesn't matter what they believe as a politician, as long as they are Mormons, that's all that matters.
Some of the worst human beings to ever hold a seat in the Senate were active members of the LDS church. Harry Reid from Nevada. Orrin Hatch from Pennsylvania (used Utah to get his Senate seat). Mitt Romney from Massachusetts.
I live in Utah too. Until recently I lived in Wyoming, which I believe is actually the most Republican state in the union.
"As of August 2025, Utah has a strong Republican lean, having voted Republican in every presidential election since 2000, while Wyoming is the most Republican state, with 77% of its voters registered as Republicans. In contrast, both states have significantly fewer registered Democrats, with Wyoming having a very small percentage of Democratic voters." (DuckDuckGo AI)
I live in a southern state where 94% voted for Trump; in the county I live in 97% voted for him. Same stats apply to also being Republican. We kicked out almost all the illegals 2 yrs ago.
No but Charlie Kirk talked about abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, drugs, debt, etc. He was the hero that many young men were waiting for. Turning Point has only grown more powerful while the church & state flail about in their death throes.
Will they march on Iran chanting, Charlie, Charlie? Onwards Judeo-Christian soldiers - an idea created by Jews for Christians? They certainly don't believe it.
"restore an economy based on producing things of value, rather than financial flimflams"
This^1000. A Really Long Time Ago, when I first heard that we were moving to a "service economy," my -- literally -- immediate response was, "Service what?" To this day, I've not received an answer. One of many naked emperors I've spotted but been unable to effectively call out. But this one should have been obvious to SOMEBODY else!
I have been making this point quietly. If you produce goods, you add value, or at least preserve some. If I buy a couch or a chair or a car, I can usually re-sell it later.
I can't re-sell the memories of my vacation or trip to the escape room. Everything is consumed immediately. This is not to say we should not have those things (your groceries and electricity are consumed immediately, too, but those are essentials!) -- but they cannot be the ONLY things, or even the majority of things. When they are, nothing adds up anymore - except debt and inflation.
When man-hours are the measure of wealth, everyone is invested and have faith in money exchange. When film-flam is the basis, not so much. When economic exchange becomes meaningless, think Weimar, “saviors” arise that will fix all things. Uh-huh!
Obama was the creator of the “service sector” fashioned to resemble the European models. The real cause was the AGW, Climate Change scares being put out by the global PTB that Obama bought into. All those dirty smoke stacks and chemical discharges were moved to Asia to pollute them leaving the USA with a workforce of computer nerds and wait persons. It is just starting to catch up to us today as artificial wage controls are starting to destroy retail, restaurants and the computer industry as the last vestiges of an economy are thwarted by AI.
Enter Trump, stage right. Can he undo the damage? Encouraging AI seems the opposite we should be moving? I wonder if the re-admission of Musk is an indication of where Trump’s mind is. Musk is afraid of where the current nerd class wants to take AI. It is why he left Open AI, to drive things in the direction he believes in.
It goes MUCH further back then that. I watched the machines being shipped off first to Mexico (NAFTA, anyone?) in the '70s and later to China (simple greed). This is a fact that does not lack demons.
I remember one of my university professors cheering offshoring of “dirty” industry back in the 80s. I thought to myself about my blue collar friends from high school: “What are they supposed to do?”. Learn to code? My BS degree program was computer science. When I started in 1983, there were at least twice as many people with that major as two years later. Anything that involves mathematics (not just basic arithmetic) filters people out pretty quickly. That leaves working with your hands (which we need!), “leadership”, or woke nonsense degrees.
Moving industry to Asia during the Obama years, particularly China, was a key component of the WEF plan for a Great Reset. At least half of US leadership is doing Davos's bidding, in Europe I'd say even more.
The climate change narrative goes hand in hand with this action, as it deindustrializes the West and allows the setup of a digital control grid for physical and financial control. China is the technocratic digital slave-state model (something Schwab himself has said) for the West, and the new seat of power in the New Normal.
The free-ish Western democracies are to be deindustralized and controlled.
You understand some of the problems, but not necessarily what the endgame is.
Oh, NO, I know what they want!!!! So does BRICS+, who are starting to put up a fight. We do not disagree at all on this.
I am for Trump over any Democrat because he is America First, and recognizes that the Western ideal is at risk today. The Dems are soldiers for Davos and BRICS+. MAGA represents what is left of the post WW2 nationalism in the USA.
I remember you and Alba arguing about it. She was defending it and you kept asking why China and India were allowed to have coal plants but not us. She had no answer except screeching.
Night Owl----not only was gov't all in on sending everything to China or India but all of the Corp class cannot make a move without asking for help from Consultants even tho the Corp class makes millions per year and are certainly not worth what they are paid if they have not original thoughts themselves.
wkenn---- that was my experience as well. I was mostly talking to myself when I told people they should be really careful about this guy because he was not at all what he told people he was about.
I am certainly not a Romney fan but.......that is an example of why the Rs should never nominate a guy who just wants to get along and be a Democrat-lite so the MSM will maybe say nice things about you.
And....I 100% agree that he was just the messenger/ front man. He is not nearly as smart as he likes to tell everyone and the MSM want to constantly remind us about.
Gustav Feder's economic plan for Germany worked magnificently. People could afford to have kids and even menial workers were given paid vacations. You people had to crush it before other nations kicked out their International Bankers too.
My question at the time that Bill Clinton said it...and what about the middle class? What about them? You have to have a middle class in order to have a democracy. Destroying it was the goal.
Compare to Russia which has a growing middle class. Compare Russia then and now...
Trump and Putin...two nationalists demonized by globalists.
Yeah yeah yeah...I don't quibble about the words democracy and republic....it's all about the middle class...the lack of a middle class is what destroys both...it's too complicated to start the "democracy"/"republic" sentences...when most people do not think generically and, as was shown in spades in the 2016 election, most people in the United States think that we live in a "democracy" and, as has been shown since covid, prefer "rule by mob"...
Democracy destroys the middle class. Nothing is more important than to make the distinction. As Mencius said, reform can only begin with "the rectification of names".
You reminded me of this sneer, kindly dredged up by Copilot: 'The quote “You mean we are all going to be cutting each other’s hair?” is widely attributed to Michael Boskin, who served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H. W. Bush—not Ronald Reagan. Boskin reportedly made this remark in the early 1990s during a discussion about the shift from manufacturing to a service-based economy, reflecting skepticism about the viability of a purely service-driven model.
'While it’s often misattributed to Reagan-era officials, the sentiment aligns with the broader neoliberal economic policies that gained traction during Reagan’s presidency, including deregulation, free trade, and the offshoring of industrial jobs. Boskin’s comment became emblematic of elite indifference to the erosion of domestic manufacturing and the rise of precarious service work.'
Will future historians not marvel at this economic suicide, or perhaps attempt to uncover a rational explanation behind shipping all the jobs to a historical adversary? (Psst, hey there, future historians: There is no rationale, apart from greed trumping patriotism.)
History is written by the victors. It is far more likely that future historians will write of these glorious leaders who saved America from its despicable greedy middle-class.
It all makes sense within the Capitalist ethos. Profit is all. This made money for the Corporations. End of story. Who cares about the unwashed losers? If you're not rich, you're not human.
Mr. Black, I vividly remember discussing this with my co-workers and customers during this period of time and my comment was that it appears we will all be selling each other insurance and shining each others shoes. You have to produce something or make something of value or our national worth will stagnate to spiral downward.
Right now, the economy is largely based on various forms of "financial flimflammery".
We now have two camps: those who don’t understand finance at all, and those who do. The tragedy is that government is run by the first group and demonizes the second. To policymakers, deficits aren’t chains on the next generation—they’re abstract math problems. Rounding errors. In reality, they’re shackles. Sadly, the American public is just as clueless as the political elites. Together they form a feedback loop of stupidity.
Washington runs on accounting tricks that would land anyone else in prison. It’s the same playbook as a pyramid scheme: hide the real obligations off the books and pretend the system is stable. These “unfunded liabilities”—Medicare, Social Security, pensions, benefits—aren’t numbers on a page. They’re promises coming due, and they dwarf the “official” debt. Depending on the estimate, they run $75 to $200 trillion, stacked on top of the $37 trillion already owed.
The math is merciless. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is 125%—meaning the debt is bigger than the entire economy. And GDP itself is a rigged scoreboard—one where the refs change the rules mid-game. It lumps building a factory in with cutting stimulus checks or paying interest on old debt. By that logic, decay gets tallied as “growth.”
Factor in the off-book liabilities, and the picture goes from bad to impossible. This is the intersection of a “service economy” and financial stupidity; they’ve merged into a tidal wave of destruction.
A so-called “service economy”? That’s just a coat of plaster on a rotten frame.
The upshot of it is we're trapped in a failing country ruled by corrupted leaders who have made sure their nests are feathered while they sell hardship to their people as progress.
There will always be a NEED for service. We'll always need mechanics, plumbers, electricians, custodians and guys that build roads and lay pipe. But these professions, as great and noble as they are, do not produce goods. There needs to be a balance between service and production and we no longer have that. Greed and capitalism have run amok leaving a terrible imbalance in favor of service jobs.
What I see in today's economy are people who don't even produce service and still make a ton of money. Sports athletes, celebrities and financial planners like Fidelity and Charles Schwab are some that come to mind. My financial planner gets paid even when my 401 K loses money. How is that service?
I'm going off on a tangent beyond the point of this essay but I was taken by the suburbia comment and will share some of my experience. My primary home is on 26 acres in a small hamlet in Vermont. When we moved here I quickly got to know my neighbors, got invited to events and became best friends with a couple of them. Of the 4 homes that I can see from mine, three of us have keys to each other's homes so that we can respond to "can you go over to my house and..." type requests when one of us is away.
Two years ago we bought a 2nd home in suburban North Carolina in a new subdivision on tiny lots 1/8 to 1/4 acres each. This was to be near grandkids. The community fits the bill of what most consider perfect suburbia, yet after two years I do not even know the names of all of my immediate neighbors. For one household sort of diagonally across the way I have never even seen who lives there. This is a middle income subdivision. My daughter lives in a high end subdivision and has been there for about 15 years. She does not know most of her neighbors.
In a true emergency where FEMA or others aren't coming to the rescue, I know the people in my hamlet will coordinate with and help each other. In my suburban home, we would not have a history with each other to know our relative strengths and weaknesses or even who could be trusted. A few years back the old couple across the way from me in VT were not well. The husband was sick and the wife couldn't fully care for him. They mostly kept to themselves and didn't ask for help but others of us just stepped in and did so. Women took turns making them a nice lunch every day. One guy mowed their lawn, another plowed their driveway in the winter. I brought their newspaper and mail in for them every day and shoveled from the front door to the garage so as to maintain a path if they needed to leave or emergency workers needed to get in.
There is far more wrong with suburbia than just the sprawl and destruction of any semblance of history or community as nothing gets in the way of building more of the same.
This was pointed out decades ago...many decades ago...the design of houses with the advent of AC meant that they were not positioned to catch the wind directions with open windows and porches were eliminated. It had nothing to do with drive-by shootings. That's a city thing allowed by the residents of the cities. If they wanted safe cities, they would vote differently.
So you conclude that people do not want safe cities. Are you a Dem? Do you buy the BS being generated by these city governments that they do not have crime problems? No drug economies, no gang activity, no violence, no killings? Are we really at the point that city people will vote “Gimme” issues and tolerate the criminal element? Are they afraid of the criminals?
Another issue, how come the city governments to a man tell the story that they do not have crime problems? Is the truth the fact that they are on the dole from the crime cartels? Is it possible that they know that without crime, their cities turn to crap. Is crime the main employer in the cities? Are the mayors and AGs afraid of the crime gangs? Would the urban hordes erupt if gangs would not be able to supply their contraband?
I know one thing. The Deep State invested much effort in loading up the cities with criminals and other illegal immigrants. Why? To create a perpetual voting base to maintain power in DC? The Dems are going to fight to the end to maintain the illegals in place.
It takes a minimum of 5-20 years to fit into a “neighborhood”. In today’s suburban America, suburbs are transient zones where people are not in a place long enough to form networks.
One comment, the people are more transient because they can be. I wonder how many moves are the result of boredom and Mid-Life crises?
You are right with your last, we have been fortunate to fight for our beliefs overseas and not here. We are also the first to fight for liberty and American values, rather than land or religion.
"But one is less isolated in an apartment in Athens or Madrid, in a city "full of strangers", than one is in Long Island or Cary, NC."
Soc, this may come as news to you, but some people actually prefer a certain amount of isolation from their neighbors. Why should they be forced to live inside walls that are sounding boards for others' stereos, TVs, shouting kids, arguments, and washer/dryers?
I guess for you private space like front or back yards is wasted when you could shoehorn more neighbors into it. And unreliable, inflexible, sometimes dangerous public transportation is wonderful if it frees you from the terrible convenience of a car you can use to go where you want when you want.
Vegan----count me as one of the people who prefer some isolation. We live on 200 acres and my neighbors which I cannot see from our home sit on 200 acres, 120 acres, and 800-1000 acres. WE know each other and get along but like our own lives.
And..... I wish I had more property. I used to have a great uncle that said he did not want a lot of land----he only wanted what was his and what adjoined his.
My parting comment on this thread is, different people like different living environments and the goal should be to enable them, as far as practicable, to find places that meet their preferences.
There should be cities (but better cities). There should be suburbs (but better suburbs). And further options.
Addendum: I've relied on public transportation when living in New York, Boston, Washington DC, and San Francisco. I've used public transportation on visits to London, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere I can't recall at the moment. All of these have one thing in common: they suck green weenies.
The cans -- sorry, I mean buses, trolleys, and metro cars -- are perishingly crowded at rush hours, scarce at other times. To get anyplace that isn't on a main route you have to transfer, maybe twice or thrice. They may (or may not) be fast between stations but stop dead at them to let passengers in and out. When jammed you have to push your way through a crowd to the exit like an (American) football player. They break down often enough that you learn how to say, "We are experiencing difficulties, please be patient" in various local languages.
In fairness, some riders do enjoy public transportation. It's especially popular among pickpockets.
Applying limit theory we end up in a hut with a dirt floor ala some remote areas of Africa.
People who live in that environment seem happy with their life as they don't know they need the "things" which they are not even aware of. The worst they have to deal with is the weather and the wild animals which eat their gardens.
I happen to love owning cars. And yes, owning, not some silly car-share scheme, as they are pushing these days.
The time I've spent living in Europe has only made me appreciate cars more. Public transportation has its place, but there are many places I'd never have been able to see without a car. And my life would have been and would now be far more difficult.
I can't even imagine trying to get to my current office using public transportation, and I spent 10 years commuting by bike (but it was doable back then). Take cars away and you are on the 15-minute-city slave plantation.
Mood? I'd call it more of a depraved sickness, Snowman. We all know it but for reasons I can't figure out or understand our people refuse to take the necessary steps to actually fix it.
The "Trump is Hitler!" and a "Fascist!" rhetoric isn't going away. The Deep State (understandably) wants him dead--as if that would somehow reverse their demise. It's going to be one HELL of a year.
That is because everyone that doesn't join the technocratic revolution (which many joiners also do not actually understand) is labeled in this manner. Here in Germany, there is only "pro EU" and "far right."
A very simple playbook that has worked well so far.
Looking at the man's demeanor on short video clips, I suspect that he's finally getting worn down. He'd have to be superhuman not to suffer wear and tear from the wave of relentless attacks - and he's nearly 80. No one has accused him of being superman.
Valid observations...but the Kirk assassination, like all American political hits, is not remotely what it appears to be, or even by the parties whose toes it has been laid at.
Their deluded, wicked cackling and celebration aside.
Dunno, Ben. But even if her dodgy past had not come to light, her complete lack of grief and that half-time show they put on as a memorial service would have me questioning things anyways.
I'd hope that if I got shot in the neck, my wife would need longer than a few days to be starting up the cash machine again.
I have seen people take years to finally deal with someone being gone.
It can also spring out of nowhere years later induced by a smell, or a song, or allowing it to be triggered.
My wife was glued to the teevee and what we both saw was a women holding it together in front of the cameras but clearly still in shock as she had not processed the reality she was raising two kids alone.
It seemed Charlie really believed in what he was doing, and she was going to continue the cause of turning brainwashed kids around by holding up mirror and showing them their ugly selves.
Nothing about American politics — left, right, or center — is sane or coherent. And that’s because the country has almost no “community” of any kind outside the sphere of “politics.” Every aspect of human relations has been reduced to “politics,” which is America’s dominant “religion.” Add to that more than half a century of the rape of the American mind in the name of power politics, and you have today’s America: a grotesque world about nothing so much as excessive “consumption.”
For one thing, front porches used to help bind neighborhoods. Now people hide inside with AC and gadgets, if there is even a front porch on the house.
Churches now form the basis of communities but they preclude those who are not into organized religions but need avenues for human socialization. We are, after all, social animals.
America, as all multi-ethnic attempts, is being swallowed up by ethnocentrism. Who IS the boss, the cultural leader. History shows many wars started to set the agendas of nations or even empires. History also shows how many were successful at subduing ethnocentrism.
None, America will be the next victim of the Art of Balkanism.
"the mentally ill swallow it because they are desperate for meaning." They are desperate for something to hate and kill, as you reference later (rage). It is a simple-minded belief that they can use force and murder to solve deeper problems, as they have been conditioned with a paranoid delusion that all their problems are caused by other people that, if simply annihilated in genocidal "social justice" retribution, would solve all the problems. It is the same old Marxism in new race, gender, orientation, marginalization bottles.
John, they feed on the hatred promulgated by the “leading class” that promise they will “Take from the rich and give to the poor”. It is as old as humanity is. Robin Hood has been redone as the Democratic Party with one exception, he really did care.
As with welfare, people need meaning and purpose in their lives. This return to God in younger people gives them meaning and, hopefully, a road to positive purpose.
Whites have been ruthlessly oppressed for generations. Anyone who denies oppression is evil incarnate. Look at all the people who deny the genocide in Gaza. Think they are our friends? They don't care about us either.
"Because the mind-scrambling language of Marxian revolt has persuaded the Antifas that the illegal migrants are their “marginalized intersectional allies.” It’s bullshit, of course...
Education has become a failure, surely. Rigorous training and standards have been scrapped as too "triggering" for fragile egos, too imperious and forbidding for those who can't keep up, and demonized as "racist" or "sexist" or some other kind of "--ist." Catchy yet deceitful slogans push aside thinking and logic, Us vs Them prevails: "Four Legs Good Two Legs Bad."
All these mind-cancers in the nation's psyche will not be so easy to eradicate. Centuries of liberal thinking, which ushered in much that was good, also reflexively and unthinkingly welcomes all kinds of poison and insanity that can kill it. Maybe we will catch it in time--if we wake up ... and act decisively: No More Bullshit. The buck stops here. Children should be seen but not heard ... all that old-fashioned stuff that is now out of fashion.
A lot of truth in this part of the post, but one thing that got left out is that entirely sane but sensitive/emphathetic people are also attracted to this thinking, because it can be very difficult for them to accept that even in a relatively functional and free society, there are horrors in daily life that can be quite traumatizing.
This is why young 20-somethings go to decrepit, lawless Middle Eastern countries on backpacking tours and end up decapitated in their tents.
I can sympathize with them, too, as I also found it hard to accept a lot of the evil in our oh-so wonderful "liberal democracies." At some pointm, however, you learn that the alternatives are often far worse.
IMHO, the powers that be today are the latest to use Christianity’s dictum to “Care for your Brother”. The rub is that they do not care for anyone except their own drive for power. Politicians are power creatures and do not care about anyone except themselves. The great foible of the 20-21st centuries is the fooling of the America public that their political leaders care about them. It has created the dependence of the Gimme class.
Christ gave humanity a roadmap for spiritual behavior. He gave us the rules of the road too. Mankind had its chance and blew it. Just watch the patterns of “traffic” today to see how far Man has gone off the road.
Re your second paragraph: What was going through the minds of their parents that they didn't stop them? Are they all so unaware of what is going on in the world?
I agree, but will say this: My wife's parents (German) let her fly all over the place when she was 16 years old. She was in multiple countries in South America and elsewhere, and she was quite attractive and fairly naive.
Her parents were not bad parents, but they are very trusting Christian types who want to see the best in people. Stupid IMO, yes, but since I know them, I understand it to a degree.
Most Christians are normies, which is the opposite of the way things should be. They have a Bible describing the history of the battle between good and evil since the beginning of time and they still think people everywhere are 'nice'. If anyone should understand existential evil, it should be Christians, but many prefer the Santa Claus version, which is why they fall for the 'conspiracy theory' trope like everyone else.
I think a lot of people have trouble understanding that many other people don't share their values, and that many might as well be on another metaphorical planet in this regard.
Jul 31, 2018 · Lauren Geoghegan and her partner Jay Austin were the two Americans killed on July 29, according to a statement from her family.
HIS TWEET [CANT FIND] WAS SO STUPID.
It was a worldview as diametrically opposed as imaginable to the one Austin and Geoghegan were trying to live by. Throughout their travels, the couple wrote a blog together and shared Instagram posts about the openheartedness they wanted to embody and the acts of kindness reciprocated by strangers
Mothers need to back off coddling their children and toughen them up. What other animal species prepares their offspring for life out of the nest by making them weak and unable to survive on their own? Children need to learn self-discipline and mothers are failing to give them that. Life is tough. No one ever said it was easy. You're born, you find purpose in life to make it meaningful, you die. In a nutshell.
Of course....and that is what is wrong with welfare and the state support...As I was once asked: "Is this it?" And responded: "we are born, we live and try to find purpose and meaning in our lives, and then we die." End of story.
Well said. Welfare states rot their people from the inside.
BRICS+ is just watching the USA rot from within, knowing they do not need to do much of anything to tear us down. I wonder when the DNC declares they are joining BRICS+.
Exactly why young people needed Charlie Kirk’s message: get married, have children, have faith. My heart bleeds for the young women killing themselves by overdosing on acetaminophen in a TDS response to Trump’s caution against its use. We’re truly living in an idiocracy orchestrated by evil, evil people.
“Whose bodies and minds are ravaged by junk food and pharma products.” Bingo!
The dirty secret that nobody wants to acknowledge is how many of these mass murdering crazies are hopped up on antidepressants and other psychotic drugs!
Exactly! Marijuana must be eradicated from our society if anything is to change. As a graduate of University of Colorado-Boulder—(Boston, Boulder, Berkeley the big 3 hippie schools in my college days) I was disgusted by the greasy, befuddled, lazy pot heads. You didn’t see potheads in Engineering, physics, journalism—majors that required you produce. I find the lame acceptance of drug use by our youth, our culture, elders as a milepost on the road to absolute ruin.
As a Boomer and a former user of weed I had many friends of the same ilk, many college grads who are quite successful today. I quit smoking long before it became legal and can only wonder what chemical 'enhancements' are being added to 'legal marijuana'? They didn't legalize it for nothing.
Desperation last second long touchdown pass. Even if your team catches it, you are still going to lose. Politicians lie, cheat, steal, and could care less about your team and their honest, God-loving, moral, legitimate teammates. You can't win this war. Escape the Matrix system and its corrupt fake fiat Ponzi scheme money. Bitcoin brings you Peace, Truth, Freedom, Hope and Abundance. #FixTheBrokenMoney #FixTheBrokenWorld #OnlyBitcoin
The grid goes down, your crypto goes poof. Crypto is only viable in a secure, functioning civilization without continuous threats to the grid and cyber hacking from every direction. Why would one imagine these same swine will not set their sights on looting crypto?
And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.
And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.
And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again -- again -- again--
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number--
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you--
Ye are many -- they are few.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Anyone who quotes Shelley gets my vote, even though Shelley is a few rungs below John Keats in Romantic brilliance.
Not a time to quibble
Tho' the poetry of Shelley and Keats
can no longer be achieved, at least
We yet can quibble 'bout the poet
for, when we read him, we will know it
It was Keats who said: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."
Unfortunately after caring for his 19 year old brother dying of TB, he himself succumbed to the same disease at only age 25. What a tragic loss.
As I read this, I wondered when it was written and by whom. Plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose.
Y'all stop already. You're forcing me to go bust out & read great poetry. Actually, all joking aside, thanks for sharing. It's inspiring.
Just grab an American flag and a MAGA hat and go walk by the ICE center in Portland not being black. Pretty sure cats will figure out what Antifa is real fast.
https://torrancestephensphd.substack.com/p/when-you-dont-know-what-antifa-or
We are living in a world where no lives matter. Why is that?
Is it because we tossed God out of the public square, so instead of pondering on ideas of how we can Love God, we discard God and Jesus’s two commandments to Love God and Love Others. Those of us who have read the Gospel know that we can not Love God and hate others too.
Imagine if the “nihilists” read the Gospel and pondered on the idea to Love our Enemies: https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/no-lives-matter-anymore-what-happened?r=76q58
Yes. As God has been eliminated people turn their object of their affections to other things to worship. Instead of worshiping God they worship money. They worship houses. They worship celebrities. They worship themselves (tattoos, piercings). They worship the Earth, trees and pets. See a pattern here?
Too many people, I'm afraid, no longer have any faith in anything. There is no meaning for them. No reason to improve, to get better, to be more than they are. If they aren't improving they are regressing or they are dying. Their lives are empty, as shallow and meaningless as the hollywood celebs they worship.
We are society that worships death. Women murder their children as a form of birth control. Criminal justice is justice for the criminal, not the victim. Video games, movies, television shows are full of horror and violence. How does this bring joy?
Pornography is rampant because young men are no longer attracted to young women because young women do all within their power to mutilate themselves, tattoo their bodies and become as ugly as they possibly can be (even the pretty ones). So young men look to unrealistic pornography for sexual pleasure. The result? Young men who can't pop a nobber for a woman and an angry woman because she can't find herself a man. So she becomes a lesbian looking for donated sperm to impregnate herself with because, every month, her body tells her she is a woman.
It's all screwed up. All of it. Every nook and cranny of our society is fucked over. Churches have lost their purpose. Government no longer has the confidence of the people. Families no longer have father and mother in charge. Children are angry, scared and addicted to their phones.
All because we gave up on God, gave up on his teachings, and gave him the middle finger. To save this sinking ship known as America people must first correct themselves inwardly. Fix their own homes and their own lives. If that would happen, everything else would fall right in line. I truly believe that.
CP, How do you go about changing the minds of the younger generation to do this required inner work when there is no clear outward incentive in light of everything you so eloquently laid out?
I’m trying with my 37 year old son: to convince him that he needs to go out and get a job, any job, a shit job to support himself, his single atomized self, that will require he put down the THC vaping pipe and the phone to get out there and just do it…I’ve done all that I can for him. He has no debt, has mechanical skills, has a fully paid for condo in a bustling metro area with a tiny monthly fee, so his external pressures are at a minimum. I’ve helped arrange things this way to give him maximum leeway and leveraging space. But he seems to have no drive and wants to walk through life catatonic, possessed by the demon cannibis, and living apathetically in a dystopia. I grieve for him. I despair for him. And now I am cutting him off of financial support hoping this will get him to go out and do SOMETHING, ANYTHING! He has been unemployed for almost a year now. I grieve for him. I pray for him. He’s my son and it’s all I can do now.
Sorry to use these comments to vent!
First of all, I despise the term "shit job." It kind of reminds me during covid when they were saying some jobs were essential and others were not. All jobs are essential. There is no such thing as a "shit job" IMO. A job is a job. Some jobs are not as fun or high quality as others but for those people working that shit job or for those paying someone to work that shit job, its important. My son got a "shit job" being a whopper flopper at Burger Thing. He worked his ass off and was quickly promoted to manager. He quit and went to school to learn a trade but before he had left he was receiving ticklers from the franchise owner about being a regional manager.
I can't advise you on your child. But at 37? I'd change the locks to my doors and leave his shit in the driveway. Children learn quickly to take advantage of doting parents. Parents who dote on and provide for adult children aren't doing their adult children any favors.
You can't change things in the minds of anyone. They have to have the will to do so themselves. Personally, I think we should let children get jobs. Younger generations today are too entitled, too pampered and too lazy. Perhaps it would be better if a 14 year old to work stocking shelves at the local Albertsons rather than sit around in school or playing video games. I had a paper route when I was 10 all the way up to when I was able to drive when I got a job cleaning toilets and emptying garbage cans at the local high school. It gave me a sense of pride to earn my own money. Today? Most kids can't work many jobs until they are 18 in most states. So what do they do during those mid teen years? Fornicate. Drugs. Nothing. Years wasted.
Again, every aspect of our society is fucked up. Nobody can fix society but people can fix themselves. People are lazy, though. As long as they get their basic needs cared for there is no impetus to change. They will only change when they see a need or are forced to do it. Those who are unable to change will succumb to it.
Yeah, it's a problem.
My first "shit job" at 15 was working for a bricklayer that summer. He introduced me to a large brick-hod, my first day, and he also showed me how to mix cement.
He was building a brick chimney and I had to carry bricks (using the hod), and cement up these makeshift wooden steps and ramps! The bossman had a black man who did his cinderblock work. One day I asked the cinderblock man if he would give me a ride down the River Road a couple of miles. He said he would. I got in his old truck (probably a 1940-50s) model. I was sitting there as he came up to get in the driver's seat, but before he did, he took his old metal water cooler and poured it out on the grill below his windshield. When he got in I asked him what was that all about. He said, it was his air conditioning!
Those were the days!
Yeah, I’m sorry about the shit job reference. My bad!
As I myself have worked as a waitress and maintenance worker most of my life, I should know better than to refer to any honest work that way.
I did not mention that my son has several cognitive disabilities since early childhood. Last year, he worked 12 hour days for a year as a mechanic at an EV company. He worked himself to the bone. Before that as a bike mechanic. His BA in business has done nothing for him except add a bit of understanding about the biz world. Water under the bridge. He can be incredibly committed to work projects with laser focus. That is the problem as bosses take advantage of him and expect 12 hour works days six days a week. He works endless hours on his own inventions. They would call him Asperger’s back a few years ago. He does not live at home. I have helped him buy a condo because that costs a lot less than rent.
We are coping and yeah, I have helped him this last year but know that he has to learn his life lessons on his own.
I must have mis-understood. I thought you said your son was living WITH you.
"He can be incredibly committed to work projects with laser focus. That is the problem as bosses take advantage of him and expect 12 hour works days six days a week."
That would make me work-shy! Have you considered suggesting he work part-time?
As Mumford said, there can be no real civilization without leisure. This freaked out so many people who knew him. They would ask him, Isn't there a way to transform society without cutting back on "work"? He realized that they had understood nothing he said, understanding leisure as inactivity or trivial pleasure seeking.
ENABLED! You allow it mom! A twelve hour day didn’t kill me! Tell him to man-up!
Different cultures view this differently. Here in Germany, it is not that uncommon for kids to stay at home until they are late 20s, some even longer among immigrant families. We know families like this, and the kids contribute a lot to the household.
An alternative point of view: In many parts of the world, families stay together, pooling wealth, much as the elites do. Does the system profit more from families that stay together and support one another? Or does it profit more from sending young kids into the shark tank, and having multiple family members with multiple mortgages, multiple kids in daycare and school, etc.?
You could argue that the Beast System promotes kicking your kids out at 18 in order to keep your familiy down financially and in terms of the powerful relationships within a well-bonded family. Elite families don't really do this in the same way. Some argue that this is also why feminists promote female independence to such an extreme. "Go to work, don't raise kids, pay more taxes, get a divorce at the first sign of unhappiness, etc."
Very interesting perspective. Thanks for that.
Absolutely spot on!
I have been trying to circle the wagons with my family to resist the Beast system. I have taught my children to stay out of debt. But they are still atomized, living alone, and single. On and off lived at home with us, but now out there in different cities. Do I regret this state of affairs? Sometimes, but it is so baked into our culture now. I admire the Old World models immensely.
I so agree with your comment on working early. There used to be summer jobs for most high school kids. Now no one mows the lawn or that type of thing in many neighborhoods. I guess teenagers are indoors playing video games. Many kids don’t really work until college or right after. It is highly beneficial for kids to start working as soon as possible, even if paid by parents. You build up fear if you wait too long and then it has to be a “good” job. Parents, you do your kids a favor if you get them working early in some capacity.
"’I've done all that I can for him"
--------
That's the problem. He is acclimatized to that.
I informed all of our children that Mom and Dad would not fund a useless degree but would pay 100% for a degree with which they could earn a decent living.
One choose RN, one choose Masters in Math, and one choose Chemical Engineering AND......at approx 2 semesters prior to graduation, my wife would have talk with them advising that Dad was not planning on them moving back home and if they did, they would pay rent and if they did not graduate, the small generic vehicle we purchased for them would go away unless they wanted to purchase it from Dad. Tough love is just about as hard on the parent as it is on the kid. I smoked some weed during my university time but soon learned it was making me lazy and my parents did not have the money to help me if I was unemployed so that was not even an option, plus I got married when I was a junior and my wife was 7 months pregnant when I graduated and both of them were expecting 3 meals per day----every day so.....being lazy or lost was not an option. You are in a tough spot and I am not sure what to suggest because there are many possible outcomes which may not turn out well but at some point, they have to get out of the well stocked nest.
My parents took a different approach. They told us, if you want to go to college you'd better get scholarships because they didn't have the money to pay for college for us. So, I worked hard in school to get scholarships and then I worked three jobs while in college to pay for it. I paid for every dime of my college without any assistance from my parents. I was proud of that and it made me a much better student. Afterall, it was my money being wasted if I chose to get drunk on Sunday and miss classes on Monday. Children think a little different when it is their sweat and labor being wasted on frivolity rather than their parents.
Not saying my way is better than yours, but that is how my parents did it. I have taken the same approach with my children. I tell them that if they want an education, they are paying for it. They are and they are working hard to do so.
I also charge my adult children rent if they move home and they are made fully aware that their stay there is temporary.
I like you and your wife's style. We need more of that in this Country. Our youth need more parents being parents rather than being their buddies.
Drugs give far more pleasure than ordinary life ever can - but not joy. And joy is better than pleasure. Many people are hedonists. It's natural. If they get into drugs, it's over for them. They'll always remember that it was better in terms of what they value. The pain of losing everything and living on the streets may drive them to rehab, but they will still remember "the good times".
The Chinese Communists gave their hordes of opium addicts one chance to go straight. If they failed, they went missing.
So we should model our behavior on that of Chinese Communists? Where did I leave my copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book? I need to find it and pick up where I left off in 1968.
You're a Santa Fe leftist, so it fits.
You're using the word "drugs" pretty loosely, Lugh. For example, there are many driven, successful people who also enjoy smoking weed. Just sayin', man.
Careful, man. It can alter your genes. Remember Bobby B.
My family was like this and family ties are in tatters. Tough love is a myth. Love is about doing what is right for your kid. And they are not all the same. Some kids can manage the ultimatums, but ultimately they do it because they are scared. And no one respects a tyrant.
Yes, hard as it is for some- cut him loose. He cannot mature, become a man until you let go of your need to fix him. It’s up to him, it’s his life. Give him Man’s Search for meaning to read. Be there to listen & love. God’s Speed. 🙏
Nonsense. About as real as the half-time show that was Kirk's memorial.
He matures when you help him by giving him what he needs, which is not going to be putting his stuff on the driveway and changing the locks.
I have a friend who’s son was essentially a ‘Failure to Launch’ sort of like yours. He was 35. Had a devastating divorce from his high school sweetheart in his early 20’s and frankly never recovered from it. No real friends (all moved ). An A student in HS and had decent mechanical skills. Dad suggested he take the ASVAB test at a recruiting center. He really didn’t want too, but dad insisted. He got a very high score which surprised himself. He joined the Army National Guard (Montana) and after basic went to Aircraft Powerplant repairer MOS15B. Really likes it. Also now has a civilian certification & full time job repairing aircraft engines with a small carrier there. Steady girlfriend too who works at the carrier.
The military isn’t for everyone, but Do not give up on your son. It is NEVER too late for him to turn things around. Best of luck to you and yours.
Your son may not take advantage of your help, or appreciate what you've done for him. But, though it was not your motivation, you have done something splendid for yourself. Your efforts are noted by your spirit guides on the Other Side, and they must be proud of you. In the big picture no good deed is wasted or disappears.
Thanks for your kind comment. Yes, I got a message from my maternal ancestors that they approve of my paying forward my maternal inheritance entirely to both my adult children to help them get a foothold in this world. It was my earnest desire to help them both to survive in this dystopian society. It’s up to them to do the rest. I’m just hoping to help them feel invested and that they have a chance. My daughter is a bit more functional and she is expanding and starting her own business.
How did you receive the message from your maternal ancestors? Through a medium? Or are you one yourself? That's a serious question. I've been to various mediums and studied psychical research, especially in connection with the afterlife. I expect to be crossing over before too long.
I’m in touch with the unseen planes. In this case, a photo showed up from my sister out of the blue on my phone. It was my grandmother’s sister and I connected the dots.
Difficult issue but seems common. Dr. Phil used to have shows on this topic—he seemed to be interested in young men and their families in this predicament. He used to get them a hard ass coach. He never advocated for the parents to enable the behavior.
Aaah the usual refrain from a mom who will cajole, cater and caress a son for almost any aberration. I dont mean to be critical, but thats ‘how it is’ today. We are driven by our own demons including status, money and appearances, yet we fail to embrace the tenets of the societal structure that made US good citizens, earners and (for the most part) good parents. We have become part of the very accommodating woke philosophy fostered upon us by professors, the media and our own intimidation. The term ‘tough love’ is now more important in in our society than ever.
If you feed a kid a pint of ice cream every day and then wonder after 3 months why he’s fat, it’s your fault.
I’m not woke and I’m not interested in status or money or any of these trappings. I simply was presenting an example from my own family of the challenges faced by this generation and how a parent struggles with these things.
Responding to Kunstler’s article.
Dude.
Some 37 year old dopers with their rent paid will bestir themselves to seek employment.
Some 37 year old dopers with a full bag of weed will bestir themselves to seek employment.
But no 37 year old doper with a full bag of weed and his rent paid will bestir himself to seek employment.
Agreed – it’s starts with us.
When looking at Scottish professor, Alexander Tytler’s theory of the cycle of democracies, the first part of that cycle that leads us out of tyranny is spirituality. That makes sense because believing in God means anything – even liberty- is possible – especially under the lens of natural law and that our rights come from God, not from any government.
Anomie and Ennui Definition and Causes
In sociology, anomie or anomy is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization).
Social disorder
Nineteenth-century French sociologist Émile Durkheim borrowed the term anomie from French philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau. Durkheim used it in his influential book Suicide (1897) in order to outline the social (and not individual) causes of suicide, characterized by a rapid change of the standards or values of societies (often erroneously referred to as normlessness), and an associated feeling of alienation and purposelessness.
Durkheim believed that anomie is common when the surrounding society has undergone significant changes in its economic fortunes, whether for better or for worse and, more generally, when there is a significant discrepancy between the ideological theories and values commonly professed and what was actually achievable in everyday life. This was contrary to previous theories on suicide which generally maintained that suicide was precipitated by negative events in a person's life and their subsequent depression.
In Durkheim's view, traditional religions often provided the basis for the shared values which the anomic individual lacks. Furthermore, he argued that the division of labor that had been prevalent in economic life since the Industrial Revolution led individuals to pursue egoistic ends rather than seeking the good of a larger community. Robert King Merton also adopted the idea of anomie to develop strain theory, defining it as the discrepancy between common social goals and the legitimate means to attain those goals. In other words, an individual suffering from anomie would strive to attain the common goals of a specific society yet would not be able to reach these goals legitimately because of the structural limitations in society. As a result, the individual would exhibit deviant behavior. Friedrich Hayek notably uses the word anomie with this meaning.
The modern environment, particularly the structure of American suburbia and the shift towards remote work, is identified as a significant generator of both anomie and ennui. The isolation and lack of meaningful social interaction fostered by suburban life, combined with the removal of workplace social norms, contribute to a pervasive sense of disconnection and purposelessness This societal shift creates conditions where individuals feel adrift, lacking anchoring social norms and a sense of belonging, which are central to anomie, while also experiencing a deep, persistent boredom and detachment characteristic of ennui.
Anomie is generated by a breakdown in social integration and normative regulation, often stemming from a mismatch between societal goals (like economic success) and the legitimate means available to achieve them, especially for marginalized groups The removal of structured social environments, such as the workplace, which provides its own set of norms and routines, can amplify this feeling of being adrift and disconnected This state of normlessness, where individuals lack clear societal rules and values, is linked to increased rates of depression and suicide.
Ennui is generated by a profound sense of boredom, world-weariness, and detachment from society, often arising from stagnation, a lack of meaning, or a failure to find purpose in life It is described as a persistent, deep-seated boredom that goes beyond temporary tedium The modern world, with its relentless demands, consumer culture, and the psychological impact of living in environments like American suburbia, is seen as a key contributor to this state of existential malaise.
I'm an old man. It is amazing to me how many women in 21st century America have tattoos! Growing up and as a young man, I don't believe I ever knew one woman with tattoos. Now, maybe there were some with hidden ones, but I never saw one up close and personal, and not to brag but the girls were fond of me ;)
I almost believe that more women have tattoos than men now.
Not good, in my opinion.
I think you are right. I still see a lot of dudes with the tats but the majority of women that I see now are tatted up. And it isn't just the thin pretty ones. The fat ones get the tats. I see Moms with tats. I see older, more mature women that have tats on flabby arms. I see plain jane girls with tats. It is truly bizarre. Men do it to look tough. I get it. But women? I just don't get it.
I do have to say, however, in my observations at the gym, that there are women who are not usually bearing tattoos all over their arms and legs. Latina women.
Las Mexicanas las parecen que ellas no quieren poner tattoos sobre sus cuerpos. Mexican women do not appear to be as eager to cover their bodies with tattoos as the crazy white American women are.
Me going to HS in the mid 70's boys were boys and girls were girls.The only thing on W/E's we thought about was finding girls and girls the same thing looking for boys.It was alot of fun back then and with or HotRods even funner.I say CP it was the early 70's we started to walk away from God as Nation we got off the "Gold Standard"(God uses Gold/Silver all through the Bible)and to the petro dollar.The next thing was abortion became legal life had no meaning!The third thing which feel it hard today China got most favored Trade Status that started or decline of manufacturing.The last killer of the manufacturing was the NAFTA what a crock of BS we were sold.I truly do not feel all is lost by No Means after CK's death a revival has started among the youth.
And rarely does the tattoo enhance the attractiveness of these women. It makes the vast majority of them look the exact opposite.
Hopefully future generations of girls will figure it out, and stop it!
I hate tattoos especially on women. People have told me it helps them remember something. I said, get a notebook. They can also be incredibly unhealthy. It is bad enough that college students were mandated to get worthless vaccines but they also have tattoos with heavy metal dyes. I think if any of the writers here want to explore that topic, it is worthwhile as many kids are not aware that these dyes can be a problem.
bo, in the 1980s a doctor who ran a substance abuse ward in a hospital told a group of us students that if a man had six or more tattoos (excluding tats done in the military), he might well be an alcoholic. It was a quick and dirty kneejerk diagnosis (subject to adjustment) back in the day. Now--people are covered with tats. One thing the kids might not know yet is that tats don't look good when they're old. Have to keep touching them up. ;-)
Mr. Cankerpuss-----I think that to most of these misfits, politics becomes their religion and they are 100% committed to the marxists because it gives them a reason to get up every morning. Maybe they tried going to church once but most of the mainline churches do not reality stand for much today and in order to increase their Sunday numbers never want to tell people that any of the perverted lifestyles are the wrong path and if the Bible is read at all, it is only a few verses that if they are twisted enough seem to allow anyone to do whatever they want to do regardless of whether Christ or any of the prophets or disciples spoke against certain lifestyles or behaviors. I feel sorry for these people that are clearly on the wrong path but trying to reason with them or even speak to them can be a ticket to extreme danger making me quite glad that the state I live in totally approves of Constitutional Carry. Life is truly hard and if you expect the gov't to help, you are dreaming unless you want to be 100% dependent for the rest of your life. And......many of the institutions that used to provide good guidance or are totally taken over by the super-woke. Should any sane individual expect the Education, University, Medical, Media or Pharma, or Corporate worlds provide any realistic / honest guidance to our young who may be looking for answers to how to navigate our current world ? Not hardly. Quite sad our country has gotten so screwed up over the last 50 or 60 years. Sorry I do not have any quick and cheap answers but.......believing anything the deep state gov't tells us is risking being 100% wrong. Maybe just pull a Constanza and just do the exact opposite of what these groups tells you would be a good path ?
"Maybe they tried going to church once but most of the mainline churches do not reality stand for much today"
Mr. Neff, I was at one time an active Mormon. Born and raised in Mormon country in south east Idaho, raised in Mormon country in Arizona and now reside in Mormon country Utah. I'm no longer an active, practicing Mormon. Why? Because the LDS church at one time used to stand for something. Whether you agreed with them or not, the Church was pretty sound against homosexuality, divorce, abortion, female priests, debt and so forth. One would go to church and leave knowing that certain things were wrong and certain things were good.
I recall as a youth being taught that homosexuality in all of its forms was a sin and was a perversion of the holy union between man and woman, a mockery of it, if you will. That is no longer taught in the LDS church. Today they are apologetic stating things like "its okay to be homosexual, as long as you don't act upon it." Things like transgenderism are not discussed. Abortion is never uttered across the pulpit. Mormons are no longer encouraged to live in modest homes, stay out of debt and live on less than their income.
Meetings today don't even focus on Jesus Christ, for whom the church is named. Instead Bishops and Stake Presidents pat each other on the back for being "called" to prominent roles and then congratulate each other as being "men of God" and "foreordained for greatness." It is mind numbing to sit in a pew hoping to hear talk of Christ only to hear that "brother so and so is a Man of God!"
One day as I was sitting in the pew being told that my Bishop was a Man of God and that I should be thankful for him and all he does for me when it dawned on me that the Mormon church has gone the way of the world. Man worship. Instead of sitting there and worshiping my Bishop I said to hell with this and left. Haven't been back for years and do not intend to.
That is why churches are failing today. You clearly understand!
When their god repented and said Blacks were equal, Mitt Romney drove to the side of the road and wept. Then he went home and adopted a little Black kid.
Fact is, Brigham Young didn't like black people, thought Utah should be a slave state, even had a black man as a personal servant. Took them over a hundred years to change that one.
GK Chesterton is widely quoted as having said, "When a man stops believing in God, he doesn't believe in nothing; he'll believe in anything" or a similar variation.
Not every nook and cranny. Have you been to church lately? There are many places in our country that are broken, sure, but not corrupt.
"As God has been eliminated people turn their object of their affections to other things to worship. Instead of worshiping God they worship money. They worship houses. They worship celebrities. They worship themselves (tattoos, piercings)."
Agreed, with a couple of caveats.
Instead of worshiping God they may worship a concept of God, like a religious creed.
Those who tattoo their skin like New Guinea headhunters and stick metal rings through their nose cartilage do not worship themselves. Usually they don't even like themselves.
(Wow I'm going sixteen to the dozen today. Calm down, Veeg!}
VS, you make some valid points and I acknowledge them.
Tattoos were usually seen only on hardened soldiers. Now even the most beautiful among us clutter up their skin with nasty looking blobs of color.
I am a gym rat. I'm at the gym for at least 2 hours per day. I do so for many reasons but mainly because I enjoy weight training and the way it helps me keep my moods under control. I also enjoy being around the positive energy that is prevalent in a place where people are trying to improve themselves. At the gym I see a lot of amazing physical bodies, male and female. However, what always makes me shake my head in disgust is when I see a beautiful young woman training and her beautiful female form is marred and scarred by unrecognizeable tattoos. Why does she feel a need to adorn herself with graffiti that resembles the side of a Pacific Union rail car?
A chiseled and "en forma" human body is an amazing specimen. I will never understand the need of these people, young women especially, to cover themselves and hide.
Tattooing is similar to self-harm, like cutting. Pain is a feeling, and there are many unhappy women whose pain is apparent on their arms and bodies. Being touched by someone, (anyone!) even with pain, is a substitute for intimacy, and a tattoo is just an outward manifestation of inner misery. The girls I came across as a detective who cut themselves or burned themselves were by and large incest survivors crying for help.
someone got AIDS from a tatt needle.
I always wondered why cutting happened, thank you for your last sentence re: incest survivors, it answers a lot of questions for me.
I couldn't agree more with you. I've never liked tattoos on anyone and never had one myself. I don't understand why some people see the need to cover much if not most of their bodies with tattoos. I like your description of "graffiti that resembles the side of a Pacific Union rail car".
Aye, the God-shaped hole. And so few of even Our People want to hear about it.
"There is a hole in all our hearts, that is the size of God." Thanks for reminding us.
Who said that, besides tom clark?
Love Goes First: Reaching Others in an Age of Anxiety and Division by Andrew Forrest releases on October 7th. His desire is to help us consider how to speak Jesus to those who hate us. While those who loved Jesus followed Him in crowds of thousands, He also confronted those who hated him--and won some.
Even Jesus would have a hard time loving some of these screeching harpies.
I don't believe in a Jesus that is all encompassing love regardless of what a person does or behaves. I believe in a Jesus that gets pissed off and has no tolerance for perversion or sin. There is such a thing as righteous anger.
Take the story of the adulteress. It is famous because Jesus says "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." It's timeless wisdom to be sure. But most people don't focus on the most important part of that story that is after the accusers had left their stones and departed. Christ asked her where her accusers went. The adulteress mentioned they had all departed. Chris then tells her that he won't condemn her but he also tells her to "GO AND SIN NO MORE." In other words he told her to knock the shit off and start behaving herself. He didn't pat her on the head and tell her it was okay that she was an adulteress because her husband was a dick. He didn't tell her that she was special and that it was okay for her to commit that sin. He didn't say she had no choice because her parents were mean to her. No. He told her in a kind way to knock it off and get her shit together.
Christ loves the sinner but he despises and hates sin. People forget that.
“If God does not exist then everything is permitted.”
-Dostoevsky
Of course, nothing comes from nothing and we reap what we sew. What scares me watching from afar and seeing the same mindset in the UK is that the essence of the revolt is to be 'anti' - it cannot build anything new, beautiful or just but can only destroy what is already there in a giant tantrum or rage and resentment.
Chop wood. Carry water.
Ah, when chopping wood, chop wood.
Chuck wood?
Nope, a Zen saying, meaning be present. Focus on what you are doing. In other words, when chopping wood, chop wood. Do not be distracted with thoughts of carrying water. Excepting, when carrying water, carry water.
Quoting from memory, so I may not have it quite right:
"When you sit, just sit. When you stand, just stand. Above all, don't wobble."
You keep thinking the rest of the country is like the west coast and the northeast / Chicago / Minneapolis. We're nothing like them. The urban areas are the problems here.
On election night when you see the entire country swathed in red from coast to coast other than a few ugly blue blob like zits on an arse, it is indeed the urban areas that are the ruin in virtually every single state to the detriment of the rural areas
And who lives in the city core?
It’s ok to say the, Democrat Run States and Cities.
However the Leftist Media, our Public Schools and Colleges have reached into every corner of our country with their divisive rhetoric and policies that the sheep don’t want to recognize that the wolf is eating them alive!
No the wolf is our friend!
Jim leaves a lot to unpack!
His caricature of the state of our nation is illuminating and not altogether untrue.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the crowded northeast and felt the crush of demoralizing modernity. However, I can assure you that the spirit of country is resilient in flyover country and restoration is not out of reach.
I'm been holding hope but behold how the DES MOINES school board handled its... problem.
And Minnesota!! Whoo man! That place is a rancid sewer, except for a few tiny pockets of sanity.
I live in beautiful Utah, the land of the conservative Mormons and the most Republican state in the Union and let me tell you, things are amiss here as well. What JHK described is rampant here. I used to think Utah had the most beautiful women. Not anymore. Everywhere I turn I see purple haired cows with bull rings in their noses and their arms and legs covered with unrecognizeable tattoos. Even the LDS church no longer stands for principles. Their conferences and meetings are full of boring cliches about "being nice" or "enduring one's trials." They don't talk about abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, drugs, debt and all of the many other perversions that permeate our society and destroy families.
Republicans have shown themselves over the last 20+ years to be nothing more than a bunch of shameless cowards, if not outright aiders and abettors of evil. The entire party needs a massive overhaul.
Democrats are filthy but at least they tell you who they are and what they want. Republicans are worse. Far worse. Republicans are hypocrites. Remember the disdain Christ had for the hypocrites in the New Testament? Republicans pretend to be conservative but then act and behave like a Democrat. I loathe Republicans more than Democrats and that says a lot.
Bullsh#7. You must agree with the democrap 100%.
Politicians floatind with the tide. No leaders. Except for Trump.
Mr. Cankerpuss----Utah exudes a sense that they are conservative to the core BUT.....they elect Mitt Romney and a RINO guv. I live in Arkansas which is about as red as you can get but we have 2 Senators who are either sold out to the MIC or -----only interested to paying attention to the big donors and......have no backbone to get on the soapbox and fight back tooth and nail against the Marxists. Sad that in a state that voted approx 65% for Trump (in my country approx 85% voted for Trump) that our Senators still have no spine to do what is needed to help save this country. I would like to see some fighters rather than get along and go along. Neither of the Senators did anything real to support Trump when he needed it after his 2020 election was stolen.
"Utah exudes a sense that they are conservative to the core BUT.....they elect Mitt Romney and a RINO guv"
Both these guys got elected because of their positions in the predominant religion in the state. Utah Mormons tend to vote that way. Doesn't matter what they believe as a politician, as long as they are Mormons, that's all that matters.
Some of the worst human beings to ever hold a seat in the Senate were active members of the LDS church. Harry Reid from Nevada. Orrin Hatch from Pennsylvania (used Utah to get his Senate seat). Mitt Romney from Massachusetts.
How is "baby dog" doing?
They sold their souls to fit into the United States. Gave up polygamy and and the White Priesthood. The sky (the pit) is the limit now. What next?
I live in Utah too. Until recently I lived in Wyoming, which I believe is actually the most Republican state in the union.
"As of August 2025, Utah has a strong Republican lean, having voted Republican in every presidential election since 2000, while Wyoming is the most Republican state, with 77% of its voters registered as Republicans. In contrast, both states have significantly fewer registered Democrats, with Wyoming having a very small percentage of Democratic voters." (DuckDuckGo AI)
That does not surprise me about Wyoming. Thanks for the info.
I live in a southern state where 94% voted for Trump; in the county I live in 97% voted for him. Same stats apply to also being Republican. We kicked out almost all the illegals 2 yrs ago.
No but Charlie Kirk talked about abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, drugs, debt, etc. He was the hero that many young men were waiting for. Turning Point has only grown more powerful while the church & state flail about in their death throes.
CK had a great message and it resounded well with young men who in todays feminized and depraved America have very few heroes.
Will they march on Iran chanting, Charlie, Charlie? Onwards Judeo-Christian soldiers - an idea created by Jews for Christians? They certainly don't believe it.
gals w mormon mulatto kids or......
Hey, I grew up in Sunfish lake. It WAS NOT and wont ever be a rancid chabad sewer like NYC.
So watch yr stupid fingers.
Enclaves of liberals controlling conservative balance of state.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_WDZ3FVTqAk/W4dGMeDhyAI/AAAAAAAAV6c/t7YxqN5pjUcM8CdGzSZDaIrI58eCh2tEQCLcBGAs/s1600/minnesota-by-county-1.jpg
That is soo instructive and true of way too many states.
Once give an inch to Democrats they will metastasize into a malignant cell killing its host.
What's up with the very blue northeast corner of the state?
Scandinavian and Eastern European immigrant heritage, the Farm-Labor Party, mining, unions.
Iowa is a weird place, anyway.
I suppose. There's that caucus thingee too.
Blacks routinely stomp Whites at Iowa Country Fairs. The huge White Steers don't know what to do so they do nothing.
"restore an economy based on producing things of value, rather than financial flimflams"
This^1000. A Really Long Time Ago, when I first heard that we were moving to a "service economy," my -- literally -- immediate response was, "Service what?" To this day, I've not received an answer. One of many naked emperors I've spotted but been unable to effectively call out. But this one should have been obvious to SOMEBODY else!
I have been making this point quietly. If you produce goods, you add value, or at least preserve some. If I buy a couch or a chair or a car, I can usually re-sell it later.
I can't re-sell the memories of my vacation or trip to the escape room. Everything is consumed immediately. This is not to say we should not have those things (your groceries and electricity are consumed immediately, too, but those are essentials!) -- but they cannot be the ONLY things, or even the majority of things. When they are, nothing adds up anymore - except debt and inflation.
Engineering Things produces or preserves value. Engineering Money destroys value.
When man-hours are the measure of wealth, everyone is invested and have faith in money exchange. When film-flam is the basis, not so much. When economic exchange becomes meaningless, think Weimar, “saviors” arise that will fix all things. Uh-huh!
Obama was the creator of the “service sector” fashioned to resemble the European models. The real cause was the AGW, Climate Change scares being put out by the global PTB that Obama bought into. All those dirty smoke stacks and chemical discharges were moved to Asia to pollute them leaving the USA with a workforce of computer nerds and wait persons. It is just starting to catch up to us today as artificial wage controls are starting to destroy retail, restaurants and the computer industry as the last vestiges of an economy are thwarted by AI.
Enter Trump, stage right. Can he undo the damage? Encouraging AI seems the opposite we should be moving? I wonder if the re-admission of Musk is an indication of where Trump’s mind is. Musk is afraid of where the current nerd class wants to take AI. It is why he left Open AI, to drive things in the direction he believes in.
It goes MUCH further back then that. I watched the machines being shipped off first to Mexico (NAFTA, anyone?) in the '70s and later to China (simple greed). This is a fact that does not lack demons.
I remember one of my university professors cheering offshoring of “dirty” industry back in the 80s. I thought to myself about my blue collar friends from high school: “What are they supposed to do?”. Learn to code? My BS degree program was computer science. When I started in 1983, there were at least twice as many people with that major as two years later. Anything that involves mathematics (not just basic arithmetic) filters people out pretty quickly. That leaves working with your hands (which we need!), “leadership”, or woke nonsense degrees.
"demons" they appear to be getting a lot of attention of late.
Moving industry to Asia during the Obama years, particularly China, was a key component of the WEF plan for a Great Reset. At least half of US leadership is doing Davos's bidding, in Europe I'd say even more.
The climate change narrative goes hand in hand with this action, as it deindustrializes the West and allows the setup of a digital control grid for physical and financial control. China is the technocratic digital slave-state model (something Schwab himself has said) for the West, and the new seat of power in the New Normal.
The free-ish Western democracies are to be deindustralized and controlled.
You understand some of the problems, but not necessarily what the endgame is.
Oh, NO, I know what they want!!!! So does BRICS+, who are starting to put up a fight. We do not disagree at all on this.
I am for Trump over any Democrat because he is America First, and recognizes that the Western ideal is at risk today. The Dems are soldiers for Davos and BRICS+. MAGA represents what is left of the post WW2 nationalism in the USA.
I remember you and Alba arguing about it. She was defending it and you kept asking why China and India were allowed to have coal plants but not us. She had no answer except screeching.
Night Owl----not only was gov't all in on sending everything to China or India but all of the Corp class cannot make a move without asking for help from Consultants even tho the Corp class makes millions per year and are certainly not worth what they are paid if they have not original thoughts themselves.
Rather than " Obama bought into" I think he was the front man.
'Fundamentally change America...' from the 2008 campaign, caught my attention in a huge (and not in a good) way.
wkenn---- that was my experience as well. I was mostly talking to myself when I told people they should be really careful about this guy because he was not at all what he told people he was about.
I am certainly not a Romney fan but.......that is an example of why the Rs should never nominate a guy who just wants to get along and be a Democrat-lite so the MSM will maybe say nice things about you.
And....I 100% agree that he was just the messenger/ front man. He is not nearly as smart as he likes to tell everyone and the MSM want to constantly remind us about.
Right on. All presidents are fronts.
Gustav Feder's economic plan for Germany worked magnificently. People could afford to have kids and even menial workers were given paid vacations. You people had to crush it before other nations kicked out their International Bankers too.
My question at the time that Bill Clinton said it...and what about the middle class? What about them? You have to have a middle class in order to have a democracy. Destroying it was the goal.
Compare to Russia which has a growing middle class. Compare Russia then and now...
Trump and Putin...two nationalists demonized by globalists.
We weren't supposed to be a democracy. The Founders loathed Democracy. Everyone getting to vote is a non-starter.
Yeah yeah yeah...I don't quibble about the words democracy and republic....it's all about the middle class...the lack of a middle class is what destroys both...it's too complicated to start the "democracy"/"republic" sentences...when most people do not think generically and, as was shown in spades in the 2016 election, most people in the United States think that we live in a "democracy" and, as has been shown since covid, prefer "rule by mob"...
Democracy destroys the middle class. Nothing is more important than to make the distinction. As Mencius said, reform can only begin with "the rectification of names".
You reminded me of this sneer, kindly dredged up by Copilot: 'The quote “You mean we are all going to be cutting each other’s hair?” is widely attributed to Michael Boskin, who served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H. W. Bush—not Ronald Reagan. Boskin reportedly made this remark in the early 1990s during a discussion about the shift from manufacturing to a service-based economy, reflecting skepticism about the viability of a purely service-driven model.
'While it’s often misattributed to Reagan-era officials, the sentiment aligns with the broader neoliberal economic policies that gained traction during Reagan’s presidency, including deregulation, free trade, and the offshoring of industrial jobs. Boskin’s comment became emblematic of elite indifference to the erosion of domestic manufacturing and the rise of precarious service work.'
Will future historians not marvel at this economic suicide, or perhaps attempt to uncover a rational explanation behind shipping all the jobs to a historical adversary? (Psst, hey there, future historians: There is no rationale, apart from greed trumping patriotism.)
History is written by the victors. It is far more likely that future historians will write of these glorious leaders who saved America from its despicable greedy middle-class.
It all makes sense within the Capitalist ethos. Profit is all. This made money for the Corporations. End of story. Who cares about the unwashed losers? If you're not rich, you're not human.
Mr. Black, I vividly remember discussing this with my co-workers and customers during this period of time and my comment was that it appears we will all be selling each other insurance and shining each others shoes. You have to produce something or make something of value or our national worth will stagnate to spiral downward.
As a corollary, someone else said, "You can't get your hair cut in China".
“service” = slave
Those who PRODUCE THINGS should have dibs on the THINGS which are PRODUCED.
It was a 1974 Scientific American article. My response was, "Service Economy, huh? So we're gonna get rich by jerking each other off?"
😁
Right now, the economy is largely based on various forms of "financial flimflammery".
We now have two camps: those who don’t understand finance at all, and those who do. The tragedy is that government is run by the first group and demonizes the second. To policymakers, deficits aren’t chains on the next generation—they’re abstract math problems. Rounding errors. In reality, they’re shackles. Sadly, the American public is just as clueless as the political elites. Together they form a feedback loop of stupidity.
Washington runs on accounting tricks that would land anyone else in prison. It’s the same playbook as a pyramid scheme: hide the real obligations off the books and pretend the system is stable. These “unfunded liabilities”—Medicare, Social Security, pensions, benefits—aren’t numbers on a page. They’re promises coming due, and they dwarf the “official” debt. Depending on the estimate, they run $75 to $200 trillion, stacked on top of the $37 trillion already owed.
The math is merciless. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is 125%—meaning the debt is bigger than the entire economy. And GDP itself is a rigged scoreboard—one where the refs change the rules mid-game. It lumps building a factory in with cutting stimulus checks or paying interest on old debt. By that logic, decay gets tallied as “growth.”
Factor in the off-book liabilities, and the picture goes from bad to impossible. This is the intersection of a “service economy” and financial stupidity; they’ve merged into a tidal wave of destruction.
A so-called “service economy”? That’s just a coat of plaster on a rotten frame.
The upshot of it is we're trapped in a failing country ruled by corrupted leaders who have made sure their nests are feathered while they sell hardship to their people as progress.
As Bibi says, America can dry and blow away once we have gotten what we need from it.
A rising tide lifts all boats. Let the riff raff die on the streets like the Indians do. They have no boat!
There will always be a NEED for service. We'll always need mechanics, plumbers, electricians, custodians and guys that build roads and lay pipe. But these professions, as great and noble as they are, do not produce goods. There needs to be a balance between service and production and we no longer have that. Greed and capitalism have run amok leaving a terrible imbalance in favor of service jobs.
What I see in today's economy are people who don't even produce service and still make a ton of money. Sports athletes, celebrities and financial planners like Fidelity and Charles Schwab are some that come to mind. My financial planner gets paid even when my 401 K loses money. How is that service?
Whites are greedy and want a living wage. Let these lazies compete with foreign coolies - even in their own country!
There's nothing our betters hate more than paying another White man a living wage.
I think that you know what was meant.
Yes sir.
Like the "GDP" of NYC or SF. What do they actually produce?
Chuck----they produce wealthy bankers and people who manipulate money. Not much of real value that you can touch.
OH----they also produce many, many crazy politicians.
Bingo.
Yup. The quaintly named meat packing district. There MIGHT be ONE small butcher still there.
I'm going off on a tangent beyond the point of this essay but I was taken by the suburbia comment and will share some of my experience. My primary home is on 26 acres in a small hamlet in Vermont. When we moved here I quickly got to know my neighbors, got invited to events and became best friends with a couple of them. Of the 4 homes that I can see from mine, three of us have keys to each other's homes so that we can respond to "can you go over to my house and..." type requests when one of us is away.
Two years ago we bought a 2nd home in suburban North Carolina in a new subdivision on tiny lots 1/8 to 1/4 acres each. This was to be near grandkids. The community fits the bill of what most consider perfect suburbia, yet after two years I do not even know the names of all of my immediate neighbors. For one household sort of diagonally across the way I have never even seen who lives there. This is a middle income subdivision. My daughter lives in a high end subdivision and has been there for about 15 years. She does not know most of her neighbors.
In a true emergency where FEMA or others aren't coming to the rescue, I know the people in my hamlet will coordinate with and help each other. In my suburban home, we would not have a history with each other to know our relative strengths and weaknesses or even who could be trusted. A few years back the old couple across the way from me in VT were not well. The husband was sick and the wife couldn't fully care for him. They mostly kept to themselves and didn't ask for help but others of us just stepped in and did so. Women took turns making them a nice lunch every day. One guy mowed their lawn, another plowed their driveway in the winter. I brought their newspaper and mail in for them every day and shoveled from the front door to the garage so as to maintain a path if they needed to leave or emergency workers needed to get in.
There is far more wrong with suburbia than just the sprawl and destruction of any semblance of history or community as nothing gets in the way of building more of the same.
No porches with people sitting on them.
Maybe because of the drive-by shooters?
This was pointed out decades ago...many decades ago...the design of houses with the advent of AC meant that they were not positioned to catch the wind directions with open windows and porches were eliminated. It had nothing to do with drive-by shootings. That's a city thing allowed by the residents of the cities. If they wanted safe cities, they would vote differently.
So you conclude that people do not want safe cities. Are you a Dem? Do you buy the BS being generated by these city governments that they do not have crime problems? No drug economies, no gang activity, no violence, no killings? Are we really at the point that city people will vote “Gimme” issues and tolerate the criminal element? Are they afraid of the criminals?
Another issue, how come the city governments to a man tell the story that they do not have crime problems? Is the truth the fact that they are on the dole from the crime cartels? Is it possible that they know that without crime, their cities turn to crap. Is crime the main employer in the cities? Are the mayors and AGs afraid of the crime gangs? Would the urban hordes erupt if gangs would not be able to supply their contraband?
I know one thing. The Deep State invested much effort in loading up the cities with criminals and other illegal immigrants. Why? To create a perpetual voting base to maintain power in DC? The Dems are going to fight to the end to maintain the illegals in place.
Read what I wrote.
It takes a minimum of 5-20 years to fit into a “neighborhood”. In today’s suburban America, suburbs are transient zones where people are not in a place long enough to form networks.
Fighting for the Bankers in foreign lands is the essence of being an American.
One comment, the people are more transient because they can be. I wonder how many moves are the result of boredom and Mid-Life crises?
You are right with your last, we have been fortunate to fight for our beliefs overseas and not here. We are also the first to fight for liberty and American values, rather than land or religion.
"But one is less isolated in an apartment in Athens or Madrid, in a city "full of strangers", than one is in Long Island or Cary, NC."
Soc, this may come as news to you, but some people actually prefer a certain amount of isolation from their neighbors. Why should they be forced to live inside walls that are sounding boards for others' stereos, TVs, shouting kids, arguments, and washer/dryers?
I guess for you private space like front or back yards is wasted when you could shoehorn more neighbors into it. And unreliable, inflexible, sometimes dangerous public transportation is wonderful if it frees you from the terrible convenience of a car you can use to go where you want when you want.
Vegan----count me as one of the people who prefer some isolation. We live on 200 acres and my neighbors which I cannot see from our home sit on 200 acres, 120 acres, and 800-1000 acres. WE know each other and get along but like our own lives.
And..... I wish I had more property. I used to have a great uncle that said he did not want a lot of land----he only wanted what was his and what adjoined his.
Cheers
My parting comment on this thread is, different people like different living environments and the goal should be to enable them, as far as practicable, to find places that meet their preferences.
There should be cities (but better cities). There should be suburbs (but better suburbs). And further options.
Zuckerberg bought the palacial homes on either side of him just for the privacy.
I know of an entire city block bought by a guy on the beach in Del MAR.
Only one small house exists and he built his estate all around them.
Huge walls and stolen thai art statues.
Where are the "monuments men" when you need them? Thai commandoes need to deal with this.
Addendum: I've relied on public transportation when living in New York, Boston, Washington DC, and San Francisco. I've used public transportation on visits to London, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere I can't recall at the moment. All of these have one thing in common: they suck green weenies.
The cans -- sorry, I mean buses, trolleys, and metro cars -- are perishingly crowded at rush hours, scarce at other times. To get anyplace that isn't on a main route you have to transfer, maybe twice or thrice. They may (or may not) be fast between stations but stop dead at them to let passengers in and out. When jammed you have to push your way through a crowd to the exit like an (American) football player. They break down often enough that you learn how to say, "We are experiencing difficulties, please be patient" in various local languages.
In fairness, some riders do enjoy public transportation. It's especially popular among pickpockets.
Applying limit theory we end up in a hut with a dirt floor ala some remote areas of Africa.
People who live in that environment seem happy with their life as they don't know they need the "things" which they are not even aware of. The worst they have to deal with is the weather and the wild animals which eat their gardens.
I happen to love owning cars. And yes, owning, not some silly car-share scheme, as they are pushing these days.
The time I've spent living in Europe has only made me appreciate cars more. Public transportation has its place, but there are many places I'd never have been able to see without a car. And my life would have been and would now be far more difficult.
I can't even imagine trying to get to my current office using public transportation, and I spent 10 years commuting by bike (but it was doable back then). Take cars away and you are on the 15-minute-city slave plantation.
I’ve already forwarded this to 6 people. This post perfectly encapsulates the mood of the country.
Mood? I'd call it more of a depraved sickness, Snowman. We all know it but for reasons I can't figure out or understand our people refuse to take the necessary steps to actually fix it.
You know why, CP - easy says, hard does.
The "Trump is Hitler!" and a "Fascist!" rhetoric isn't going away. The Deep State (understandably) wants him dead--as if that would somehow reverse their demise. It's going to be one HELL of a year.
That is because everyone that doesn't join the technocratic revolution (which many joiners also do not actually understand) is labeled in this manner. Here in Germany, there is only "pro EU" and "far right."
A very simple playbook that has worked well so far.
It satisfies the little guys like John Az. And most people are little guys.
You might want to go look in a mirror.
Looking at the man's demeanor on short video clips, I suspect that he's finally getting worn down. He'd have to be superhuman not to suffer wear and tear from the wave of relentless attacks - and he's nearly 80. No one has accused him of being superman.
Valid observations...but the Kirk assassination, like all American political hits, is not remotely what it appears to be, or even by the parties whose toes it has been laid at.
Their deluded, wicked cackling and celebration aside.
Agree entirely. The Kirk assassination stinks of a larger conspiracy on multiple levels. One that I suspect even his wife may be involved in.
Based on?
Her past, her connections, and her behavior.
I'm going to call bullshit on that one.
Dunno, Ben. But even if her dodgy past had not come to light, her complete lack of grief and that half-time show they put on as a memorial service would have me questioning things anyways.
I'd hope that if I got shot in the neck, my wife would need longer than a few days to be starting up the cash machine again.
Everyone deals with grief differently.
I have seen people take years to finally deal with someone being gone.
It can also spring out of nowhere years later induced by a smell, or a song, or allowing it to be triggered.
My wife was glued to the teevee and what we both saw was a women holding it together in front of the cameras but clearly still in shock as she had not processed the reality she was raising two kids alone.
It seemed Charlie really believed in what he was doing, and she was going to continue the cause of turning brainwashed kids around by holding up mirror and showing them their ugly selves.
There are reasons to doubt the official narrative - his invisible rifle for instance - but the way his widow grieved isn't one of them.
Do some research. There definitely IS something fishy about Kirk's demise.
I have.
The issue when doing research is not going down conspiracy rabbit holes.
Nothing about American politics — left, right, or center — is sane or coherent. And that’s because the country has almost no “community” of any kind outside the sphere of “politics.” Every aspect of human relations has been reduced to “politics,” which is America’s dominant “religion.” Add to that more than half a century of the rape of the American mind in the name of power politics, and you have today’s America: a grotesque world about nothing so much as excessive “consumption.”
For one thing, front porches used to help bind neighborhoods. Now people hide inside with AC and gadgets, if there is even a front porch on the house.
Churches now form the basis of communities but they preclude those who are not into organized religions but need avenues for human socialization. We are, after all, social animals.
They don't build them with porches anymore. Haven't for years.
America, as all multi-ethnic attempts, is being swallowed up by ethnocentrism. Who IS the boss, the cultural leader. History shows many wars started to set the agendas of nations or even empires. History also shows how many were successful at subduing ethnocentrism.
None, America will be the next victim of the Art of Balkanism.
"the mentally ill swallow it because they are desperate for meaning." They are desperate for something to hate and kill, as you reference later (rage). It is a simple-minded belief that they can use force and murder to solve deeper problems, as they have been conditioned with a paranoid delusion that all their problems are caused by other people that, if simply annihilated in genocidal "social justice" retribution, would solve all the problems. It is the same old Marxism in new race, gender, orientation, marginalization bottles.
John, they feed on the hatred promulgated by the “leading class” that promise they will “Take from the rich and give to the poor”. It is as old as humanity is. Robin Hood has been redone as the Democratic Party with one exception, he really did care.
As with welfare, people need meaning and purpose in their lives. This return to God in younger people gives them meaning and, hopefully, a road to positive purpose.
Whites have been ruthlessly oppressed for generations. Anyone who denies oppression is evil incarnate. Look at all the people who deny the genocide in Gaza. Think they are our friends? They don't care about us either.
"Because the mind-scrambling language of Marxian revolt has persuaded the Antifas that the illegal migrants are their “marginalized intersectional allies.” It’s bullshit, of course...
Education has become a failure, surely. Rigorous training and standards have been scrapped as too "triggering" for fragile egos, too imperious and forbidding for those who can't keep up, and demonized as "racist" or "sexist" or some other kind of "--ist." Catchy yet deceitful slogans push aside thinking and logic, Us vs Them prevails: "Four Legs Good Two Legs Bad."
All these mind-cancers in the nation's psyche will not be so easy to eradicate. Centuries of liberal thinking, which ushered in much that was good, also reflexively and unthinkingly welcomes all kinds of poison and insanity that can kill it. Maybe we will catch it in time--if we wake up ... and act decisively: No More Bullshit. The buck stops here. Children should be seen but not heard ... all that old-fashioned stuff that is now out of fashion.
Yet necessity is the Mother ...
A lot of truth in this part of the post, but one thing that got left out is that entirely sane but sensitive/emphathetic people are also attracted to this thinking, because it can be very difficult for them to accept that even in a relatively functional and free society, there are horrors in daily life that can be quite traumatizing.
This is why young 20-somethings go to decrepit, lawless Middle Eastern countries on backpacking tours and end up decapitated in their tents.
I can sympathize with them, too, as I also found it hard to accept a lot of the evil in our oh-so wonderful "liberal democracies." At some pointm, however, you learn that the alternatives are often far worse.
NO,
IMHO, the powers that be today are the latest to use Christianity’s dictum to “Care for your Brother”. The rub is that they do not care for anyone except their own drive for power. Politicians are power creatures and do not care about anyone except themselves. The great foible of the 20-21st centuries is the fooling of the America public that their political leaders care about them. It has created the dependence of the Gimme class.
It's not even about Christianity for me. I think there are just far too many grifters and assholes in the world.
Can think of quite a few self-proclaimed Christians who act the same, unfortunately.
Oh yes nothing worse than the chest thumping bible humper that does not actually understand being truly Christlike is impossible for a mere mortal.
They ignore so much of what it is really all about.
Christ gave humanity a roadmap for spiritual behavior. He gave us the rules of the road too. Mankind had its chance and blew it. Just watch the patterns of “traffic” today to see how far Man has gone off the road.
Re your second paragraph: What was going through the minds of their parents that they didn't stop them? Are they all so unaware of what is going on in the world?
I agree, but will say this: My wife's parents (German) let her fly all over the place when she was 16 years old. She was in multiple countries in South America and elsewhere, and she was quite attractive and fairly naive.
Her parents were not bad parents, but they are very trusting Christian types who want to see the best in people. Stupid IMO, yes, but since I know them, I understand it to a degree.
Do you know of the 2 dutch girls...lost never found. some bones found.
kris n lissanne in boqute--panama.
Most Christians are normies, which is the opposite of the way things should be. They have a Bible describing the history of the battle between good and evil since the beginning of time and they still think people everywhere are 'nice'. If anyone should understand existential evil, it should be Christians, but many prefer the Santa Claus version, which is why they fall for the 'conspiracy theory' trope like everyone else.
I think a lot of people have trouble understanding that many other people don't share their values, and that many might as well be on another metaphorical planet in this regard.
No kidding...but that is the norm...no matter who it is...people always think that other people think and would act the way that they would...
the pair went for adventure.
American cyclist couple victims in ISIS attack …
Jul 31, 2018 · Lauren Geoghegan and her partner Jay Austin were the two Americans killed on July 29, according to a statement from her family.
HIS TWEET [CANT FIND] WAS SO STUPID.
It was a worldview as diametrically opposed as imaginable to the one Austin and Geoghegan were trying to live by. Throughout their travels, the couple wrote a blog together and shared Instagram posts about the openheartedness they wanted to embody and the acts of kindness reciprocated by strangers
Mothers need to back off coddling their children and toughen them up. What other animal species prepares their offspring for life out of the nest by making them weak and unable to survive on their own? Children need to learn self-discipline and mothers are failing to give them that. Life is tough. No one ever said it was easy. You're born, you find purpose in life to make it meaningful, you die. In a nutshell.
Many, many people never find their “purpose in life”. It is why they use drugs, etc. or look to false messiahs to tell them what the purpose is.
Of course....and that is what is wrong with welfare and the state support...As I was once asked: "Is this it?" And responded: "we are born, we live and try to find purpose and meaning in our lives, and then we die." End of story.
Well said. Welfare states rot their people from the inside.
BRICS+ is just watching the USA rot from within, knowing they do not need to do much of anything to tear us down. I wonder when the DNC declares they are joining BRICS+.
Exactly why young people needed Charlie Kirk’s message: get married, have children, have faith. My heart bleeds for the young women killing themselves by overdosing on acetaminophen in a TDS response to Trump’s caution against its use. We’re truly living in an idiocracy orchestrated by evil, evil people.
Why can’t Big medicine truly evaluate the effects of what they do to the public? Look at the treatment Joe Average gets:
I have a problem here.
Okay, test, test, test then prescribe.
No follow-up, no checking for the results of the change for 6 months to a year.
The Vaxx was just the worst example of this, but it is exposing the evil of Big Medicine.
And its sibling, Big Pharma.
Profit isn't everything. It's the only thing. Consumers are supposed to consume not talk back. Whose side are you on? You're talking like a Commie.
“Whose bodies and minds are ravaged by junk food and pharma products.” Bingo!
The dirty secret that nobody wants to acknowledge is how many of these mass murdering crazies are hopped up on antidepressants and other psychotic drugs!
Exactly! Marijuana must be eradicated from our society if anything is to change. As a graduate of University of Colorado-Boulder—(Boston, Boulder, Berkeley the big 3 hippie schools in my college days) I was disgusted by the greasy, befuddled, lazy pot heads. You didn’t see potheads in Engineering, physics, journalism—majors that required you produce. I find the lame acceptance of drug use by our youth, our culture, elders as a milepost on the road to absolute ruin.
As a Boomer and a former user of weed I had many friends of the same ilk, many college grads who are quite successful today. I quit smoking long before it became legal and can only wonder what chemical 'enhancements' are being added to 'legal marijuana'? They didn't legalize it for nothing.
On the other hand, it's a great time to be a gold miner in Alaska!
Desperation last second long touchdown pass. Even if your team catches it, you are still going to lose. Politicians lie, cheat, steal, and could care less about your team and their honest, God-loving, moral, legitimate teammates. You can't win this war. Escape the Matrix system and its corrupt fake fiat Ponzi scheme money. Bitcoin brings you Peace, Truth, Freedom, Hope and Abundance. #FixTheBrokenMoney #FixTheBrokenWorld #OnlyBitcoin
So you worship at the First Church of Crypto. Nice, Jeff.
The grid goes down, your crypto goes poof. Crypto is only viable in a secure, functioning civilization without continuous threats to the grid and cyber hacking from every direction. Why would one imagine these same swine will not set their sights on looting crypto?
It doesn't go poof. It just becomes inaccessible until some part of the internet somewhere comes back on line.