Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
America is a third world country, it’s just not ready to accept that reality yet. Politically it is thoroughly corrupted, economically it is too deeply indebted to ever extricate itself, morally it is without direction, rudderless in dangerous seas and heading for the rocks.
The divides between the wealthy and the impoverished too wide to ever cross, the races and generations set against one another deliberately, provoked hourly by the very people who should be doing everything possible to unite them, armed to the teeth, seething with rage, neutered or enraged by pharmaceuticals, depending upon the age and gender, divided by sex, generations of fatherless children at every level raising up children who have no connection to anything that isn’t coming from a glowing screen- and all the while deliberately it seems, provoking hostility with every nation, every race, every people and persuasion in order to stir up a seething cauldron of slights and revenge for the coming reckoning.
Those once magnificent buildings will burn and the swarms that dwelt there will fan out, like flames across the face of the old nation looking to settle the score, imagined or real.
Last night I had a dream. One of the last things I did before I called it quits just after dark was to feed the hogs. I stood on the tailgate of the truck and emptied bags of watermelon rinds and soft mangoes, wilted heads of lettuce, bunches of carrots, apples, sweet yellow hothouse peppers imported from Holland, strawberries by the gallon, string beans, potatoes, cabbages and onions. The sows stood up on the fence rails and lifted their snouts to me to pet, their way of thanking me for the meal although they’d waited all day long for it.
When I finished I broke down the cardboard boxes and rolled up the empty plastic bags and then filled their troughs with fifty gallons of fresh, cool water. The Moon wasn’t quite full and Mars just beneath it, glowing like a jewel, and in the distance the large thunderheads were tipped pink from the last rays of the distant Sun, barn swallows streaking across the top of the orchard feasting on the mosquitoes that came to life in the cooling air.
I thought about these hogs, always hungry, always anticipating the next feeding and how easy they have become to manage since I discovered that simple secret. They will sit patiently waiting for me to bring them food rather than try and escape and find something to eat on their own. They are spoiled by their good fortune, fattening themselves on the food I bring them until they produce the things we require of them- piglets to sell and sausage and bacon to eat. I cannot imagine that the people who have managed to gain control of the levers of power in this world have not only learned from these kinds of lessons, but perfected the intricacies of human manipulation; psychological, pharmaceutical, social and spiritual.
I dreamed that the reasons that government checks and benefits were doled out monthly was no different than the reason I feed the pigs only once a day in large quantities. They grow dependent upon it, it is just large enough to make them feel for the moment like they have something substantial and to be excited about it and so remain close to the source of that disbursement, but it is not enough for them to ever be able to put away for the future so they might have the chance to escape that perpetual bondage, and by the end of their waiting there is only the hunger for the next allotment. No one would choose to live that way voluntarily and so they are led there, like the farmer with his bucket of slops, tapping the edge with a stick as he walks back to the enclosure, every head tilted in his direction, every eye glued to the pail.
The people who run the show know what they’re doing in such minute detail that the exact dollar figure of public assistance must have been studied to the last cent. This much and no more. How they slowly altered the values one at a time to make the unthinkable the new reality. Who could possibly father children and then abandon them? Who could accept from another the sustenance of life while never trying to participate in your own? At each step they added another rail, a new line of wire to the enclosure that is the life of the human livestock. And how many so readily accepted their own confinement and subjugation.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/lawmaker-murder-suspect-says-name-is-death-to-traitors-freedom-for-britain/ar-AAhfVrV?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=iehp
Yes. Brilliant comparison I’ve seen done before but not so well.
By the way, I LOVED the reading of the chapter at the end. It brought to mind all the hours and hours of storybook reading and animal character role-playing that a parent has to invest in a child in order to turn that sperm-egg combination into a decent human being.
Unfortunately, I seem to have picked up some snarky habits from someone (Stucky????) around here and can’t help but wonder who gave that poor teacher/homeroom mom that unfortunate haircut.
Maggie,
It is an unfortunate haircut. Long hair into a french twist
always works. Parenting? Treat the children the way you
would want to be treated/wish you were treated. Children
can be great teachers…home school them and it works
out very well. Mothers might consider staying home rather
than working outside so the family can afford more stuff.
Another story from you HSF, everyone looks forward them.
I can always picture the scene…thanks for the artful writing.
Hard Farmer , haven’t commented on your post for a while but this …no one would voluntarily live like this is pure nonsense… millions volunteer for their own slavery. I have liberals in my own family that are in their 50s and never had a real job .They love to get their government bennies every month.
Look at people who have been on welfare for generations. That’s all they have ever done besides make
More bastards babies.
Look at Muslims , especially Muslims women who spend their whole lives as slaves. I could go on but you get the point.
I have had some wierd dreams. Mostly about dying. In one I was at my own funeral.
bibi, you have a tendency to append an off the wall comment after some reasonable musings, is this intentional or something the cat wants to share?
My only quibble with this is that HSF doesn’t quite cover the scale. I have worked for a while at the corporate ghetto that is Tyson’s Corner where huge corporations spend every second of every day doing nothing but find ways to suck at the public teat. If you want to find volunteers who produce nothing of value in exchange for free stuff, you go there.
And I wholly approve HSF’s contention that individual would volunteer for a life lived like that, but I don’t expect for a moment that BB has started his life as the fatherless child of a fatherless child fed on junk food-like products, pandered to by grifters and poisoners and filled with insane expectations that can never be met.
I notice, however, that BB doesn’t argue about the US being a third world country, being too busy taking potshots at his favourite fish in the barrel and in the process exemplifying exactly what HSF is saying.
Dude, even the Brits admit theirs is a third world country. BB has seen the whole enchilada, he is a truck driver for FEDEX. You imply that he is living off the govt titty, nothing could be further from the truth. He is supporting his mom, his ex-wife, two black families and a few illegals.
HSF,
I have a good friend who lives in the Yukon who is visiting me right now. We were chatting about this last night. The relationship between the farmer and the farmed is symbiotic until it isn’t. The Yukon receives approximately 1 billion in transfer payments from Ottawa each year. It has a population of roughly 35,000 people. That’s right 35,000 people for the entire territory. About 50% of the workforce is employed by the government (federal, provincial, municipal). Much of the rest works through the reserves, contracts etc. It is an entire territory living in one of the harshest environments in North America and it is almost entirely on the take. What would happen if the tap were shut off? I wonder.
At any rate – for one of your shorter pieces it is certainly one of your best. Should be printed elsewhere for others to read outside TBP.
bb
Dreams about dying seldom have any real meaning.
Unless they are prophetic.
Which they usually are.
HSF, your latest allegorical tale was perhaps your finest yet. Hidden beneath the artful phrases were some unadorned TRUTHS that speak to our present state of enslavement. Thank you for your service to those of us who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
Count Chokula, what insights and unadorned truths are those that only you can see?
And please, never, ever use the newspeak phrase ‘speaks to’ – it is ‘addresses’. I guess your one of those liberals that say ‘begs the question’ or ‘boggles the mind’.
Excellent post. I’m going to share it with my like-minded coworkers.
There is nothing allegorical about it. This is the plainest HF has written. Starting at the title, you understand the intent. You fucks have become like HF’s hogs, eagerly anticipating his bucket of allegorical goodies, you can’t even tell when he’s talking to you straight. Hmm, that sounds like George Carlin, people laughed at his rants because they thought he was joking when he was telling the truth.
There’s that pretty language about the moon in the sky. Who has time to look up there or about wonderment? Fat fucks, rich fucks, fucks in control. The rest of us only have eyes for the lunch pail. When your hungry, nothing else matters.
That is HF’s little secret, keep the mobs hungry. Tap the pail and get them salivating. Everywhere you look, there are ads for food. food commercials near dinner time, billboards with luscious burgers beckoning. Eat, eat, eat.
But now they want to tax your cola. Will we drink water? Hell, no. were addicted to sugar and caffeine.
The image of HF feeding healthy leftovers to hogs while people eat garbage, they substituted the protein in the food long ago, reminds me of the story of the prodigal son, feeding the rich man’s hogs good food while he starved.
HF lets us know that the poor have food to eat. Yes, we can be smug about the fact we have plenty of food and material goods; mostly cheap stuff from China. The rich fucks have the good stuff made in Switzerland.
Yep, they announced there intentions long ago: lower the expectations, decrease family size, break up the family, level incomes around the developed world and bring each country online an in line.
bb, Don’t buy anonymous’ bullshit. Unless your a prophet, your dreams won’t be prophetic.
FR, I liked EC’s comments better.
HSF, as a young farm girl in the 1960s and 1970s, I was fortunate that I had close to zero interaction with the hogs, which were my older brother’s money-making project when he was 14 or so. However, one year, a couple of runts had to be brought inside and raised by bottle as the litter was so large the two were not going to make it. We raised those little pigs almost to Christmas piglet size and pigs, when trained from very young ages, are incredible easy to train and adopt to being domestic pets.
They could sit, speak, beg, roll over… do all the cutesy sort of things you want your pet pigs to do and all you had to do was feed them a couple times a day and let them out to do their “outside” business at least once a day.
When they were large enough and the cold freeze of winter was off the ground, my brother returned them to the hog pen. My sister and I tried to visit them only one time; we discovered that the little piglets we had pampered and washed and powdered and taught all sorts of parlor tricks to entertain friends and family had abandoned all semblance of training and were filthy stinking hogs after all.
There is no moral in that. Unless there is.
HSF… I will be traveling east to visit a young engineering intern in the coming weeks. I may stop by for another gallon or two of syrup on my way to or fro.
Make up my mind, Maggie. Didn’t you say to EC, “piss on you”?
And Stuck said EC had grown tiresome with all the anti-Trump talk.
Now you have full retard staying away from song lyrics and Trump.
I can cower in the corner or let the shit flow, whatever.
Full Retard says: There’s that pretty language about the moon in the sky. Who has time to look up there or about wonderment? Fat fucks, rich fucks, fucks in control. The rest of us only have eyes for the lunch pail. When your hungry, nothing else matters.
I thought you’d understand that the gulf between rich and poor is now so wide that us hogs only have (fake) food on our minds and we settle for cheap trinkets. Meanwhile, the rich buy purses costing as much as our homes for their whores. They can buy and sell you for the price of their Rolex. Citizen Kane is back on top. Yes, Maggie, rosebud was his nickname for her clit.
Did I tell EC “piss on [EC]?” I must have been joking or being sarcastical. And who listens to Stuck when it comes to politics anyway. Good God, didn’t you read his “Aromatic Fecal Matter” article and think about where he’s had his germ-ridden HANDS that you may have touched?
As for song lyrics, I actually wrote a short story for a college class that was composed of verbatim quoted song lyrics except for modifying them a bit with conjunctions and prepositional phrases. Song lyrics are fun. Trump? Who knows?
Cowering in the corner looks a lot like sitting and minding one’s own business, doesn’t it?
Guess what, Maggie? I now have the power to address your stuff directly. I can feel the rush of power. In case jFish comes back, your comments ought to generate quite a kite tail. Oh, and I credit you with inspiring BW. Where is that moran, anyway? Probably got flushed in the TBP remodel. I expect BW will be flummoxed not being able to find the old TBP.
Hardscrabble writes: “Those once magnificent buildings will burn and the swarms that dwelt there will fan out, like flames across the face of the old nation looking to settle the score, imagined or real.”
___________________
In reading the above, my mind drifted randomly as follows:
I used to read Charlotte’s Web my kids. Now I worry about their future. And, when I consider the future, I am reminded of Dante’s admonition to those about to enter the “Inferno”:
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”.
But at least we have still have today and that’s something. And this reminds me of something Charlotte told Wilber when she was on the “web”. I had to look it up. She said:
“If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something – even though it’s just a very little bit of something.”
Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there. Carpe diem.
Unwritten – “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” is also the inscription over the main gate of Dartmoor Prison down in Devon, UK.
Did a few weeks there as Locum MO. Princetown is very nice, even in the “cooler months”, but I managed to “escape” before winter set in. They have an unfortunate tendency to get cut off from civilisation, and I’d had enough of that when working in Wales . . . . .
HSF,
Your articles are eloquent and thought-provoking. I thank you for them.
I don’t comment on any articles, save for one of James Howard Kunstler’s blog entries re-posted here last month. But I feel compelled to comment on HSF’s entry, mostly due to the thoughts and feelings I have been experiencing lately.
I don’t recognize the nation I grew up in anymore. I’m one the wrong side of thirty, for those who have heard the old country song with that line, and the changes I have seen in my lifetime are cosmic and far-reaching. The culture which had emerged today makes me feel as though I am a foreigner in my own country.
I’m a police officer; I have been one for around ten years. I work for a large county police department, just outside of the largest city in the Southeastern United States. The depths to which American society has fallen can really only be known when you experience it up close and personal, as I do. Everything HSF said is true: the fact that our government, society and culture are all hopelessly indebted, corrupted and morally adrift, I see endlessly.
Are there good people? Sure, but as you have guessed, I don’t cross paths with them very often. On the other hand, I do cross paths with the dregs of society, true degenerates who are so hopelessly ignorant, it saddens and angers me at the same time. The welfare queens who leach off society and have a haughty hubris you wouldn’t believe, the drug addicts and alcoholics who have condemned themselves to their own personal, chemically-induced prison, the black “youths” who are nothing more than mindless thugs who are uneducated, lacking any skills whatsoever, except to commit petty criminal acts, scams involving credit/debit card fraud and identity theft, drug dealing, shoplifting and burglaries to residences and vehicles. The also tend to engage in generally brutish, belligerent, obnoxious, foul behavior -in public and at home- which can only be described as feral in nature. In short, they have no respect for themselves, which translates to not respecting anyone or anything else, and cause a myriad of issues. But do not dare point this out, because if you do, you are racist and bigoted.
The white people-the ones I deal with again and again (and again not the good ones)- are a sorry lot. There seems to be a serious identity crisis with whites, especially young white males, many of whom have no respect for themselves any longer. Also, the lack of respect for authority is especially prevalent with the high school and college age individuals. It is a direct result, in my opinion, of two things: One, the last fifty years of the education system, which has focused on how unjust these United States- and white males specifically- are, and the coddling of these kids to the point where everything is always someone else fault, or there is always an excuse present which abdicates them of any personal responsibility for their actions.
The manner of dress and appearance is horrendous. Sloppy clothes, some wearing their pajamas out in public, unwashed hair, baggy clothes etc. It seems well over half have multiple tattoos-some covered in them-which are gut-wrenching to look at and don’t seem to have any meaning behind them whatsoever. I understand cultures in which tattoos are traditional, but treating your body like a ongoing pictorial narrative is asinine. Fifty years of white guilt, the anti-American indoctrination by the public school system, social justice warrior bullying and political correctness have done the trick. There is no common culture or identity present. This isn’t an accident.
Since this is the case, they are attempting to compensate by either finding some common identity through what can only be considered on-the-go experimentation, or simply joining one of the other “socially approved” cultures-i.e. black or Hispanic culture.
The ravages of drug use (meth, heroin and prescription pain killers are epidemic where I work) and the generations of welfare doles have destroyed many other whites.
All across the board, their level of ignorance never ceases to amaze me. If you have ever watched interviews with Bernie Sanders supporters, well, that pretty much sums up their attitude. Arrogant, condescending, narcissistic, and entitled to whatever they want-regardless of whether they have earned it or not. They have a “right” to everything their little hearts desire, even if it comes at the expense of others.
The specific area I work in has a large (around 35,000 students) college. It used to be a small two-year commuter community college (nothing wrong with that, and there should be a lot more of them teaching practical skills and trades instead of handing out worthless degrees, but I digress), But since the higher education racket ginned up by the government, big banks and universities has shifted into high gear, this college had exploded in size and student population.
Most of these student don’t belong there. At most, perhaps 1/3 of them need to be there. The others needed to have been placed into a pipeline to learn a trade (which would go a long ways towards solving the need for cheap illegal and H1B1 visa workers) through apprenticeships and trade schools. You can only turn out so many engineers, accountants, scientists and those on professional tracks-e.g. future doctors, lawyers, pharmacists etc.
Due to the explosion in college students, all types of bogus departments and degrees have been created, such as this and that “studies”, sociology, and the like. The results we have all seen: kids who graduate behind the eight-ball with six-figure student loan debt and no prospects of landing a job which enables them to pay off these debts and begin the process of saving, investing and building a household.
For me specifically, these students cause a lot of problems. The explosion in student population has caused an explosion in apartment building construction. And these are luxury apartments-they make my college dorm look like a run-down hovel. All types of amenities-pools, huge workout rooms, tanning beds, grills (nice stainless steel ones, at that), computer rooms full of Apple hardware, clubhouses with pool tables, massive flat-screen television and even mini movie theaters. And what do they do? Well, they run the place like a giant frat/ sorority house, that’s what. Loud parties, kids weed smoking everywhere, you name it. And the level of crime is unreal. Constant auto burglaries, fights, street robberies-of course it turns out at times the “students” are behind this, and if they aren’t, its the thugs coming in from other jurisdictions looking for easy pickings.
The residents who own homes in the neighborhoods surrounding the college hate these kids; because as neighbors have died out and investors have bought the homes, they have turned around and rented these homes to students, and even some fraternities who turn the homes into frat houses where they party constantly and as a result they quality of life has dropped dramatically.
I recognize all of this for what it is. It is the Cloward and Piven strategy: overwhelm the system with social unrest, divide people, destroy the common culture and civics, destroy the manufacturing base and dwindle the number of well-paying, middle class jobs, use countless, constant made-up grievances and ills (who cared about-or even gave thought to- transgender bathrooms even two years ago?!) and slowly collapse the economy.
While this is distracting the masses, the other hand is draining the country dry of money and resources, continuing to build a turn-key police/surveillance state, consolidating wealth and political power in the hands of a tiny oligarchy and importing/allowing millions of people from alien cultures, who have no education, skills and (in the case of Hispanics and Mexicans) a proclivity toward socialism. And the Muslims, who bring with them their allegiance to Islam, which they believe is above our Constitution and the rule of law, and if people are honest with themselves is nothing more than a totalitarian political system masking itself under the guise of religion. If you point this out, you are “Islamophobic” and a bigoted racist. Never mind that deceitfulness, lying, and going along to get along (until you gain enough strength to impose your will) are all tenets of Islam. They do this until they build up the numbers needed; then they start to dictate how the rest of the society will live. Look at France, Germany, Holland, Belgium and England as examples of this.
I foresee a slow economic collapse, although I believe a economic catastrophe could befall us as well. Society will continue to spiral downward, because of the reasons HSF mentioned, as well as the fact so many are unwilling to tell it like it is, because as a people will have been cowed. As Mr. Kunstler is fond of saying, anything goes and nothing matters.
As for me? Well, right now I’m I’m saving as much as I can for a good house with a little land to grow a garden and raise chickens. I plan on purchasing a house, and retrofitting it with dual- use wood-burning stoves (heat and cooking) a stand-by generator with a underground propane tank. I also plan to have a system of 55 gallon drums for water storage. Of course long-term food storage is a part of this. Mostly freeze-dried stuff and easily-stored/long lasting foods (such as rice) but that will change once I have a house for some time. And of course the means, ability and will to defend myself and what is mine if it comes down to that.
Sometimes facing reality means you come to realize you can’t stop something, but only prepare for it.
One more vicious tax eating parasite.
Hardscrabble, this one is up on Zerohedge. You are credited correctly. Well done.
Jasonb ,you should comment more often . Good to have the opinion of a Police officer.
T4C,
Thank you for your kind words. I know what a lot of people on here think of cops; doesn’t really bother me due to understanding where they are coming from. Its like I have always said, cops show up when something bad has happened. Emotions are usually high, and sometimes people just want someone to vent to. I get that. Times are tough on people, and bad things are happening more and more to good folks out there. Not all situations call for an arrest; sometimes mediation and separation is what works.
The job has changed a great deal since I began. Sure, technology has advanced tremendously since I was a new guy out there. Technology isn’t the bad thing; in fact, it helps a lot to have a ton of information at your fingertips when at work. The willingness of those in power to turn this technology against their own is what scares me. What we have witnessed in just a few short years is the emergence of a public/private partnership as far as the emerging police/surveillance state. Edward Snowden (whom I personally believe is a heroic and brave man, and intelligent at that, despite the media lambasting him as a so-called high-school dropout) blew the lid off of this a few years back. It showed all these social media sites and other digital companies as more than willing to sell the American people down the road in an alliance with the government to set up the police/surveillance state. The fact that most heads of these corporations- Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, etc-are huge left wing ideologues has helped this move along more quickly than I expected.
One big issue I see with law enforcement-in the short term-is dealing with the effects of civil asset forfeiture. I understand the purposes behind it-seizing money from drug dealers and using that to fund more enforcement efforts, but it has gotten way out of hand. It has been bastardized to the point where some jurisdictions are using it to fund large portions of their budgets, and therefore must come up with more and more ways to seize money from citizens who have not at all, or there exists no probable cause despite some suspicion, that a crime is or has taken place. It is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, due process and reverses the notion of innocent until proven guilty. What is truly scary is the ability, as the Oklahoma State Police now have the ability to do, of seizing your money in the digital sense with scanners.
My fellow officers are a good bunch. Most just want to come to work, lock bad guys up and call it a day. Most of us have certain things they like to do; some like to chase dope, some like to hump calls, others like to get stolen vehicles. Personally I like to stay busy and handle calls. I’ve never seen much for dope, but if I run across it, its fun to work. I like to catch thieves and people who harm others. I don’t write a lot of traffic tickets, most of mine are off traffic accidents where someone has damaged someone else’s vehicle or injured someone. I have found common sense goes a long ways in the job. Treat people with respect, and they will usually return the favor.
Are there guys that are bad at the job? Of course, like any other job. But most of the guys I work with are family guys, and aren’t in the business of doing stupid things to jeopardize their careers and family security. We have a way of policing our own, and taking corrective action. Mostly that boils down to taking them aside and setting them straight.
My personal thoughts on marijuana are it should be decriminalized; make it like alcoholic beverages. Don’t smoke and drive, don’t smoke it around kids, don’t do it in public. If someone wants to at their own house, OK. If someone wants to frequent an establishment ( like the cafes in Amsterdam) where its smoked, OK. And I’ve never had to fight anyone who was high on weed; drunk people? That’s a different story. Some people just shouldn’t drink.
Hard drugs on the other hand, no way. I’ve seen the destructive effects up close too much. But I also believe the drug issue in this country is heavily connected to the socioeconomic collapse taking place. A lot of people just want to escape it all, and drugs provide a way. Its truly sad to see a person so addicted, they are almost hopeless. Many times I find myself pitying them, because these drugs have such a powerful hold upon them.
The Orlando shooting incident I wanted to touch on. We have received a good bit of active shooter training, and have an exercise every summer. The training boils down to this; when one of these goes out, you get there, and the first and only objective is to get in there and kill the shooter (s) as fast a possible. Which means you go past the wounded, because people are getting killed and that is paramount. But what I usually see in the real events (such as the one I went to) is the shooter is usually already dead, and it becomes a evacuation/clearing/security operation. It takes us minutes to get there, so usually the shooter is going to shoot until the police arrive, and he gets shot or he will just do himself in.
Which brings me to my next point; we need citizens to be armed, and by armed I mean with the same types of weapons I carry. The AR-15 is a fantastic weapon I recommend to all: light, accurate, powerful easy to shoot and it can be adapted t
The major issue I see moving forward is the repercussions of the collapsing sociaeconomic order
jasonB, excellent comments! You are a rare beast here in TBP. I sincerely hope you stick around and post more often. You have insight that very few of us do and I’d love to be able to learn from that.
Cops get a bad rap around here but that is mostly due to actions of relatively few police officers whose heinous actions make the headlines. My own, limited experience with cops has been positive except for a couple of assholes but I still treated them the way I hope to be treated.
Anyway, welcome to the internet equivalent of the Simian Exhibit. You generally need thick skin to survive here but I’m sure yours is tougher than ours by sheer necessity of survival. Please do stick around and comment more often.
BTW, Kunstler is a conservative at heart, he just doesn’t realize it yet.
Jasonb, your comment is a true gem. Factual, succinct, heartfelt and informative. I agree with T4C and bb. Please post more often and admin, shouldn’t this be its own posting?
opps sent that one in early.
to any shooter. Fantastic weapon. Love mine.
There is a reason the left wants a disarmed populace. Disarmed people are much easier to control, that’s why. Without the Second Amendment, the other Amendments won’t be around long. Make no mistake, there are those in power and who desire power who want to establish a totalitarian government, and know an armed populace is the ultimate check on this.
The good news, as it relates to cops, is none of us buys into this crap the left and the media is pushing as far as gun control. My state is an open carry state; I think its great. I will often go up to guys open carrying and start conversations with them, tell them its great they are carrying. I love talking guns, so its a plus when I encounter them. I also encourage concealed carry (what I do off-duty). I know deep down that a lot of guys and gals who carry would help an officer like me out in a gunfight, or step up in a situation where innocents are getting hurt and we (the police) are on the way. We simply can’t be (and who would want us everywhere, all the time, like a third-world banana republic? Not me!) at all places at all times, so you the armed citizen are paramount. I truly believe this is one of the intentions of the Second Amendment as written by our Founding Fathers. Myself, and the cops I work with, aren’t going to disarm people no matter what. These gun grabbers are delusional if they think citizens will go along with this, and especially if they believe rank and file officers will enforce this. I work with a number of former and current military guys, and the military isn’t either. Matt Bracken has an excellent article on the absolute nightmare any gun confiscation scheme would be. He does a much better job than I could of explaining how this liberal pipe dream would go down in flames. As a police officer, I believe citizens have the God-given right as enshrined in the Second Amendment to be armed just the same as I am. After all, the police aren’t some type of special citizens entitled to more as far as bear arms, than non-police citizens.
The major issue I see is the socioeconomic collapse taking place. This is all engineered for a reason; global governance, and the West must be brought to heel for this to take place. The United States is the biggest shining example of the West, traditionally speaking. Our current President is not a stupid man by any means; this is an engineered collapse and his policies have been purposeful in their design to collapse this country through economic, social, civil and cultural unrest and ruin. Cloward and Piven, run amok. He even said it days before his election. Fundamental Change, and he has accomplished it through sheer will and the lack of anyone willing to say no. Fred Reed had an excellent article just the other day on this; I encourage all of you to read it. The end game, in my opinion, is to bring the country to its knees to where most people beg for anything to just make it stop, because of the suffering being so great.
This is one of the prime situations for which the Second Amendment was placed in the Bill of Rights. The Founders knew the heart of man; for in some lies the desire to subjugate their fellow man, and an armed citizenry is the only line of defense.
The more I read from you the more I think you need to be a regular poster around here. Please do stick around!
HF, If I sound bitter it is because I essentially said the same damn thing in a piddling comment that went unnoticed, nobody ever clamored for it to be its own post. It was a beggar of a comment, fatherless and indigent. It had no grace, no redeeming references to rich and poor or comparisons to barn swallows chasing food and hogs waiting for food. There was no intimation of a national twilight with a setting sun and a moon not quite full with a star beneath the crescent.
No, all it said was that welfare was a bribe to keep the blacks from rioting.
Full Retard, you’ve made some of the most insightful comments I’ve ever come across- someone intimated that you’re EC rebooted? Maybe you have been making great comments all along under other names, too. The comment section here is superior to most front page material on 99% of the websites out there.
JasonB, you have my respect and admiration for not only doing the kind of work you do, but maintaining the kind of character and frame of mind despite the encounters with the worst side of the human population. My Uncle served as a LE with the Federal Government and always remained true to his character as well. When he retired the US lost one of it’s finest servants, I’m glad to know that out there others with similar fortitude and intellectual capacities have taken his place- great comments and I agree, they deserve their own post.
HF, I write under the assumed identity, Elpidio Corona, aka El Coyote, Full Retard, et al.
If you find my comments worthwhile, it’s only because like a good pool player can influence a bad pool player (and sometimes vice versa) you give me plenty of great ideas.
It’s as if I have a small angel on one shoulder telling me I ‘write good’ and a small demon on the other shoulder telling me I’m an assclown. I value your words. Thank you.
Other than that, my entire purpose is to write everyday to exercise my feeble mind. If you looked back at the things I wrote initially, I understand why KB said I’d gone Full Bore Stupid. The diabetes impacted my mind and emotional state. Old Stucky and Iska got me back on the Happy Mexican Train. LLPOH and others got me on alert.
Maybe I don’t address Admin directly and certainly not the guy in the shadows, because of my discomfort in the principal’s office, but thank you two too. Heh.
Very nice HSF – thank you.
Yesterday was book club – we have been meeting for over twenty years and since I started the group and was a bit of a lefty back in the day they are all 55 – 65 college educated “mostly” liberal women who have always been middle class. I few are finding it more precarious these days but can’t quite put two and two together.
They mean well, they worry and care about me and if I keep my mouth shut a good time is had by all.
But each year it gets harder and harder to relate so I had to pop out to TBP – get surprised by a new logo and short and concise essay that I wish I had made them read instead of the John Taylor Gatto book that few even bothered to start.
“Of course we need compulsory education – think of all the children that wouldn’t have a chance without it!”
I feel like a different species and the longer they drag this out the longer I’ll be on the outside looking in at a place so very different from what I had originally believed.
Olga, could you describe this whole Book Reading Club, start to finish? I’m a beaner and for that, much of the things people mention here is foreign to me; tea parties, poetry reading, things of that nature that only our beloved crackers practice.
HSF,
Beautiful writing style… it was a pleasure to read.
[It is] entirely possible in the next banking crisis that depositors in giant too-big-to-fail failing banks could have their money confiscated and turned into equity shares. . . .
If your too-big-to-fail (TBTF) bank is failing because they can’t pay off derivative bets they made, and the government refuses to bail them out, under a mandate titled “Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution,” approved on Nov. 16, 2014, by the G20’s Financial Stability Board, they can take your deposited money and turn it into shares of equity capital to try and keep your TBTF bank from failing.
Your deposited cash is an unsecured debt obligation of your bank. It owes you that money back.
If you bank with one of the country’s biggest banks, who collectively have trillions of dollars of derivatives they hold “off balance sheet” (meaning those debts aren’t recorded on banks’ GAAP balance sheets), those debt bets have a superior legal standing to your deposits and get paid back before you get any of your cash.
. . . Big banks got that language inserted into the 2010 Dodd-Frank law meant to rein in dangerous bank behavior.
jasonb: A new voice of reason has joined the cacophony of usual posts here at The Burning Platform and is most welcome. Way back in the ever-swirling mist of time I, too, served as a “peace keeper” on a metropolitan police department and have first-hand knowledge of what you say about your fellow officers being able to ‘set straight’ those who stray beyond accepted behavior …. or, as you put it “We have a way of policing our own, and taking corrective action.”
What was particularly refreshing was your stand on the subject of the effects of civil asset forfeiture, which has become just another way for an increasing number of local governments to fund their law enforcement operations. Back in my day, this would be called exactly what it is: STEALING from the very people who we were sworn to protect and defend.
And equally refreshing were your views on substance abuse and open carry provisions, both of which are Liberal and Conservative hot-button subjects not usually discussed by LE personnel in this day and age. I, personally, look forward with great anticipation to reading more of your thoughts. You elevate the level of intelligent discourse here about. Thank you.
EC, must I send you to your room until you know how to be polite?
CZ, I might take umbrage at that comment if it weren’t for the fact that I’m not sure where I put the umbrage when we moved and I’ve noticed a significant hillbilly twang in my husband’s voice since moving here and am beginning to worry.
None of my comments were intended to hurt anybody. I may have been silly with Count Chokula. Really, how serious should we take a guy who gives himself a meretricious title?
Maggie, when I got back from Hondoland, my family was shocked to hear my new speech inflections, I was embarrassed and corrected it immediately. If I were to hang around with Fabulous for one day, oh dear, look at those precious boots and that purse, girl, I’d kill for it.