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BEST OF THE FORUM

tothepoint-forumsLast Monday (3/27), Joel Wade wrote his temporarily last Keeping Your Sanity column for us, as he focuses on completing his next book, Mastering The Emotional Side of Money.  I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Joel for his words of wisdom for the recent years now, as coping with them has not been easy and he has helping so many of us do so.

Thanks so much, Joel!  And keep us posted on your book’s progress – hopefully you can post excerpts on TTP?

Meanwhile, to take Joel’s place, I thought what could be better than to share what your fellow TTPers are giving us on the Forum?  You know I’ve always thought the Forum was one of the most valuable parts of TTP given TTPers’ extraordinary knowledge and insight.

So here are two examples of the Best of the Forum – not the best to imply others are less so, but certainly examples of what your fellow TTPers can contribute  to the TTP membership.  Here are Mark Deuce and Mellie responding on the HFR 03/24/23 Forum.  Thanks to you both!  Blue skies… Jack

 

Mark Deuce:

I’ve been at this life thing a little while myself and I used to be one of those guys who thought, “if we elect these people… if we pass these laws… if we could just– we would Fix This Mess.”

But I have learned some things about The Mess.  The Mess did not get here overnight and is the end game of a long march through our nation, our popular culture, and our institutions by many forces.

We have completely delegitimized the concept of punishing criminals for crimes.  We are putting people in prison for… some reason, and then arguing it doesn’t help them or they should come out better, or spend every moment they are in prison imagining they are deprived of some right or comfort and this must be fixed.

We started lethal injection all because people thought the electric chair was too gross, which was instituted because all of the bungled hangings which were too gross.  So now we can’t track lethal injection drugs down for some reason and because of this we can’t execute murderers in some states.  And of course, lethal injection is now too inhumane as well.

A cop jerks someone resisting arrest out of a car, and that’s brutality.  The cop has a body camera on, which was going to solve all of those questions about whether the cop acted properly, but… people see the video and because they don’t like what they see it “means something different” to them.  A bunch of people watch the same video and everyone, regardless of what they see physically happening on the tape, insist the cop is right, wrong, or whatever.

Even if you do arrest the perp, good luck on getting a woke jury or judge to send them to the above prison, where we have the previous issues.  At the end of the day, people say they want standards, but rebel against them every time they are personally inconvenienced in some way by them or have a bad hair day.

The kids go to school, where they get lessons that are not quite the strong meat that were in the schools a few generations ago, given Ritalin, given rubber stamp management science training, are not punished when they act up (that again).  All of the filth trends that are making more liberals pile into the young minds no matter where they are… Detroit, Seattle, St. Louis, or even a small town in the Texas panhandle.  Plenty of girls showing up to proms with other girls even there.

The parents are afraid to judge.  Everyone is afraid to judge.  Because in this culture you just don’t do that, not even if your country’s life depends on it.

I can tell you even in Texas we are riddled up and down with wokeisms and liberals and the same symptoms, although they are not as bad down here– mostly– not  yet– as they are in most other states.  But you have riots by entitled, POS kids on Texas university campuses and CRT being taught in Texas schools.  The efforts by our enemies are global and reach to Texas as effectively as they do Toronto or Paris or Berlin.  The enemy played chess while lots of people were playing checkers.

 

In America our culture is being changed systemically by the death of a thousand cuts ranging from how our court systems work to what we are watching on TV.  What we are letting our kids watch on cell phones.  What we are buying in the store.. most of that money you spend is going to woke corporations that are doing this stuff to us.  Most parents don’t have the ability to home school.  And even if they did, can you compete with the liberal influences coming through the TV and the cell phones and the movie screens and the radio 24/7?

I used to think the guns we all had would be that last great line of defense against the Sassenach invading our country or whatever.  Well, you can pile gun steel around people until it all falls over and buries them in it, but if people are too cowardly to pull the trigger you might as well recycle it all.

If people are too fearful to discipline their kids or tell the school board to straighten out, and can’t be bothered to vote– and are weak minded enough to vote for liberals when they do, what will they do at Lexington and Concord 2.0?  Against people with FLIR and air support and soon, probably, drone swarms?  With lethal capability?  No, I think we need to rethink this one too.  Have you ever seen the sniper patch, “The Decision is Mine”?  That’s the whole problem!  Everyone if afraid to make a decision!

This leaves aside the fact that lawyers and bureaucrats are deferred to in solving or defining everything now.  Not one business or institution or agency can survive and function without the blessings of the legal functionaries who mostly exist to perpetuate their own power and are almost always reliable liberals.

They are dug in to the American system like Alabama ticks and it may require violence to get them out of the way, because them and the people that they take care of aren’t going quietly.  They infest both parties, as we know, and if anyone has a way to remove them I am not seeing it.  Consider the Donald Trump lesson.  If a billionaire, with all of his resources and contacts, cannot turn this mess around and is going to get the treatment we have observed given him for years now, just who in the Hell else is going to be able to do it?

Not Ron DeSantis.  I know he is the flavor of the hour, but I think he will be another reliable Deep Stater when he gets in.  He came out of the Navy.  He is in government.  He is not the stuff modern rebels are made of.  I think he knows to tell us what we want to hear.  Again, our enemies play chess.  Will DeSantis uproot the Deep State?  You kill it or it kills you.  I doubt this very much.

So, if we are going to turn this around it will have to be from the bottom up en masse.  A nationwide revival and turn to God and Christian principles.  A nationwide movement away from the crass materialism and pop culture and shallow thinking that has us in thrall.  Deciding that standards belong– standards in kids listening to Mom and Dad, standards in allowing teachers to teach, standards in insisting school boards work, standards in saying lawyers and bureaucrats don’t run our lives.  Laws are to be obeyed, even when it may seem inconvenient or unfair.

We got here by a billion little choices and every time we did it, we were setting a new standard, and finally got where we are.  A billion different little choices will be required to go back.  As referenced before, though, the entrenched powers that have erected fortresses in our culture will not go quietly.  Given the total inertia of the situation I think it will take a miracle to move the needle back in the right direction and a majority of citizens demonstrating a heretofore unobserved level of determination and consistency.

 

Mellie:

Americans have been so comfortable for so long. Most of our citizens have never known real privation. Covid was our first overt experience of tyranny in 250 years!  And people are acting so irrationally.  I feel like we’re just waiting for the lousy show to finally end so we can throw out our empty popcorn bucket, go to the bathroom, and get back to reality.

Courage isn’t always easy to recognize, especially in ourselves. And it is not actually encouraged much in America — that’s too masculine and, obviously, too, too toxic [sarcasm font on Max]. But throughout history, ordinary people have come to a do-or-die moment and have risen to the task — far beyond what they would ever have believed they could do.  The human spirit is truly splendid.  The difficulty is recognizing the moment for action, and the will to overcome inertia.

 

Decades ago I heard someone (possibly CS Lewis) say, “We don’t change until it hurts more NOT to change than it does to change.”  Inertia seems to me to be the biggest problem.  Also the feeling of being alone and ineffectual.

I’m not sure that bravery is the missing ingredient.  For example, there’s a huge underground movement of preppers who are spoiling for a fight — but their main concern is their family’s wellbeing. They’re waiting for (and some are clearly itching for) some last straw to light the fuse of revolt, but they don’t mean to jump the gun and die alone for nothing. Frankly, I’ve been amazed and humbled by their restraint, especially during the BLM riots.

I think the problem is more, “What can I do? They’re all so rich, so powerful, so big?  I’m just a worker bee, a cog in the wheel.”  After all, we saw how effective it was when Trudeau shut down the bank accounts of the Truckers and their supporters. That was unthinkable then, but we’re thinking about it now. And the J6 sh*tshow, 2 years so far, for misdemeanors.

I know I’m not alone in loving the idea of Galt’s Gulch, but I believe the vision was too small – only a handful of rich folks.  Ordinary, good, thinking people were left out in the dark with the Leftists.  I see a movement of normal Americans finding like-minded folks in their communities to start developing thousands of Gulches of their own — not hidden valleys, but low-profile (secretive even), “tribes” that set about now to meet their future needs right where they are.

The Preppers seem the perfect folks to seed those “secret societies” — they already are collecting lore and expertise, not to mention skills, tools, and food.  They’ve gotten very canny, though, after seeing the panics and hoarding and looting during and since Covid.  The best ones no longer have websites, and don’t tell anyone about their preparations or where they live.  The ones online now are all trying to sell you something.

I’m rambling, but imagine local cooperatives of people, each bringing their own skills to the group, interdependent, bartering, banding together.  Eventually (or sooner) groups will find and interact with other groups.  Agreements will be made, trade will commence, civilization will start all over again, only with more info and understanding.  The government can play with their fiat money all they want (until the mob eats them) but the Gulches understand trade and are self-sufficient. Talk about a thousand points of light!

It’s the feeling of isolation, of being too small to make a difference, that feeds that inertia.  And the Leftists have given us so much to work with (in their usual, idiotish way).  First the tyranny of the lock downs, then the willful dismantling of the rule of law, then the revelations of what the schools have been teaching our children — unintentionally, they’ve gotten all sorts of good Normals to band together into LOTS of active (and indignant) homeschool groups, prepper networks, and neighborhood watch groups.  There’s also militia groups, who are not all just vigilante hotheads.  This is the obvious time to create our own local tribes.  We can start over before the end has come, and save ourselves a whole heap o’ work!  Just my 2 cents.

~ Mellie