A World…Lost
If you are looking for the normal acerbic philosophical critique of the post-modern hellscape I’ve become known for, this is not that treatise. Rather, my mind began picking at a fragment of a thought last week and would not let it go. While most of you reading this realize the world has changed forever and the turmoil of 2020 is likely to pale in comparison to next year. Personally and professionally this has been a rather stressful year in my life for a variety of reasons, and I suspect it will only continue. However, I also think this has perhaps been one of my most productive years and made me a harder, more resilient man. We lost a significant part of the American experience in 2001, more in 2008 and by all indications 2020 is the year America becomes unrecognizable. In our haste to react to the things being thrown at us from a hundred different directions, we haven’t stopped to notice what has been lost.
There is a terrible intimacy to the mundane, the ‘patterns of life’ as certain people would call it. Think about all the tiny habits you have that make your life…yours. That stop on the way home from work to get roses and peanut M&M’s for the wife because you can. Sharing a meal at your favorite place with loved ones. The knowledge that it is highly unlikely that anyone will attempt to harm you or your loved ones and the thought of a range card for your house never crossing your mind. Being around people who are like you, people with common moral and social norms…a community. Not having to decide between providing for your family and protecting them. Being able to admit your political and religious beliefs and opinions to coworkers, family and the general public. Not looking over your shoulder at the gas pump. A grocery store brimming with choices. Your kids growing up with a sense of innocence and not being considered sexual objects. Traveling outside the state without having to look up where the protests terrorists are burning things down.
Let’s take a step back and consider what we truly had. Not just the conveniences, but a civilization carved out in blood and iron from the savagery of nature and man’s capriciousness. Everyone reading this eats better and has more options than royalty did 100 years ago. Most of you never went hungry as a child. I’m willing to bet your children did not either. Think of your childhood, riding bikes with friends or running around in the woods. Christmases with kith and kin, or the family traditions surrounding holidays or seasons. The summer nights thick with humidity and fireflies piercing the darkness as you tried to catch them. That first time you picked a girl up in the car you begged your dad to borrow. All of those experiences that slowly molded and shaped you, the ones you can close your eyes and still see, smell and taste decades later. Contrast that existence with what someone my age would have experienced growing up in Czechoslovakia. Imagine the hunger, fear, poverty and death that an entire generation grew up on. How much human capital was wasted and whole seasons of life were destroyed. Now imagine it is not some other human being, it’s your daughter, your son, your wife.
When I speak of what is being taken from us, it is more than just codified law, or six types of lemons available year round at the grocery store, or the two cars and McMansion. I can make more money, or rebuild a house. What none of us can do is fix the innocence and civility that will forever be shattered when this goes loud. It will profoundly affect each and every one of us, and the tragedy will be what has been stolen from our most vulnerable. The left did it with the unborn first, and now they have foisted it upon those lucky enough to survive the gulag of convenience and actually make it into the world. I see children today and I cringe thinking of what is normal now and what will be normal in a few short years. They have no idea the descent into madness they are living through.
I write this not to provide a reason for inaction. I write this not to discourage you. Rather, I write this to harden your heart and understand the depth of loss we have all experienced. The world you grew up in is lost, and it’s exceedingly likely no one alive will every see a return to something even vaguely resembling it. The answer is not to bemoan what has already happened but to make it worth the cost. We will all come out of this lesser, damaged and poorer in one way or another. It will require the same commitment your ancestors had, and the price will be paid in rivers of blood yet again, but an alternative to this chaos can be had. It’s time to let future generations worry about judging what we did to get it back…and actually go get it back.
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Amen great post JJ
Always keep that little burning ember of Liberty in your heart, do not let it go out. Kindle and stoke that ember to a roaring flame! American ideals and societal norms can change, but never relinquish your God given rights. Excellent article. – Publius
4.5
Quite frankly it’s sad and is sucks BIG TIME that we are at this place at all. Blame can be placed at the feel of Gramscii, Marx, Mao on one hand; RINO’s, church ‘leadership’ and corporate globalism (formerly corporate America) and the media on the other.
But one key thing ‘they’ have been extremely good at is using our softer instincts against us, they are past-masters of the Art of Corrupting Things. “They’ continually wrap excrement sandwiches in pretty bread and even prettier packages, and we continually eat them.
The other effective strategy is give the young a Holy Cause; contrast “Peace, equality for all, global justice, love (and of course free stuff, unlimited drugs, unabridged sex, as well as absolution from crime and responsibility) with Corporate Widgetship, endless debt, and workaholic servitude.
Having said that, what’s done is done, and though many sheep – those that at least look up – see the wolves inside the pasture they mostly bray and fidget – and nothing else. But the smell of fear certainly permeates the pasture now.
It looks like while most people (and animals) can be ‘helped’ (browbeaten) into a state of learned helplessness (Martin Seligman PhD et al); some percentage CANNOT be made to bend the knee.
Somehow we need a galvanizing moment which will set the stage for the Never Helpless to lead those who will contribute to their own survival, and that of their offspring.
I’m a fan of your writing, BTW. Keep up the good work.
Great post. We have to go back. A couple years ago my family got into a shouting match around Christmas season. Long story short; the professional and paid Democrats and Republicans kept needling the real Americans about how useless the POTUS is, to which everyone(With a brain and real work experience) replied “You are the ones who are useless; Don’t come back”.
My father and my uncle both independently built construction companies worth several hundreds of thousands a year, and yet, six 40 year old losers who never did anything except college and working for one political party, or the other, have the audacity to lecture us on what it takes to run a company, corporaton, or a country.
Or my female cousins, who will never, ever join the military, lecturing me on what it takes to fight a war, and why homosexual female trannies should hold T/S clearances and be allowed to change their name to something akin to “Reality Winner” without getting their clearance pulled and receiving walking papers to go back home. “Because like, Freedom, or whatever” is their answer.
This is the world we live in now, forever. For no reason at all. Being lectured by useless idiots on how to destroy our country in the name of saving it. Worst of all, these people have half a dozen kids each, and are raising their kids to be exactly like them in every single way. So no lessons are learned and passed on, merely, the status quo is enforced. I feel sorry for their kids. I remember years ago watching “The Lego Movie” with them. And my cousin in law jumped out of his seat and turned the TV off because the “Good Cop” turned out to be a two faced “Bad Cop”. I tried to explain the Serpico situation, and what growing up poor in Baltimore was like, but he wouldn’t have it. “There is no such thing as corrupt cops” he said, followed by “I have family who are police and this is unacceptable”
We really do live in clown world. How many corrupt cops tried to frame Trump and Flynn? 60? at least…. It’s not even realistic to think that “All Cops are Good”. What a terrible way to raise your kids. And he named his first son after George Washington. George Washington ordered men to volley fire their weapons into formations of “cops” who worked for the crown and enforced the crown’s laws.
RIDICULOUS!!! No-one has any critical thinking skills anymore. It’s literally impossible to talk to people.
Johnny,
“We had to burn the village down to save it.”
– Unknown –
4
Mr. James,
A- on your essay. You identified the symptoms, but you failed to identify the disease.
Government is the disease. Massive, out-of-control, self-serving government. A government at every level from the dogcatcher up thru and into the Oval Office, that is drunk on power and corruption. A government that no longer serves “We, the People”. Rather, it has become self-serving. It threatens it’s Citizens at every juncture. Threats against the people, and thus control, through attacks on one’s ability to earn a living. And ultimately, threats of force against Citizens, der Untermenschen, who fail to comply with the diktats of both elected and unelected, appointed bureaucrats. To wit, the latest effort to control the People….the Corona Scamvirus and it’s accompanying tyranny. Tyranny enforced by states governors, mayors and unelected bureaucrats.
The former United States of America has changed. Not for the better. Many of us took an Oath to defend this once, great Nation against enemies “foreign and domestic”. At what point in time do the Veterans and currently serving who took that Oath, identify our enemies as not foreign, but rather as domestic ? Then, with the 2nd Amendment as our arrest warrant, apprehend both the seditious government scum and their media supporters !
Any law not enforced is not a law. Any Constitution not followed, not complied with AS WRITTEN, is dead. Lastly, Any Oath sworn by citizens to protecting the aforementioned Constitution and not acted upon by those Oath takers, is invalid; meaningless….just words one has to say.
The following quote attributed to George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States of America sums up the loyalty and character, or lack thereof of those in our government, to one’s Oath to protect the United States Constitution against enemies foreign and DOMESTIC:
“It’s just a goddamn piece of paper !”
– George Walker Bush –
43rd President of the United States of America
Two things.
1) I do not get ‘graded.’ I allow you and others to read my thoughts, and people are free to agree or disagree. I did my time letting people (often my intellectual subordinates) grade me in high school, college, and law school. Grades imply a teacher-student or superior-subordinate relationship and that is not the case here. While I will err on the side that it was simply a well-intentioned remark, consider it a simple FYI.
2) If government is the disease then you should be rejoicing. Kenosha, Portland, NYFC, and the rest are functional anarchy on the weekends. It’s a wonderful sight to behold, a first world country reduced to screaming barely-sentient humanoids burning things down. Oh, FYI virtually none of those businesses will have any insurance riders covering riotous destruction so they are insolvent. THAT is your paradise of LOLbertarians and the idiosyncratic anarcho-capitalists. The reason we are here is that the US in toto has denied the universal, basic truth of biodiversity. Sixty IQ people exist, 160 IQ people exist and one can competently speak about the Federal Reserve Board’s latest decision and one is busy licking the window. One should have a say who controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and one shouldn’t. Yet here we are with the mentally ill and everyone else voting. We will have government as long as humans are human, it’s as much a part of our natural condition as murder, love and gravity. The issue is not whether smart/ruthless/talented people will rule those who are not, it’s picking which ones and trying to mollify the number of sociopaths that make it in. The idea we can somehow just skip over that ugly reality and into rainbow and unicorn land is as asinine as what the American Maoists are pushing. Neither have a basis and reality, but strangely enough their ideological origins come from the same people. I realize this is not conservative orthodoxy and the natural reflex is to freak out. If the options on the table aren’t working, find new options. Our. Options. Aren’t. Working.
“It is just a damn piece of paper and neither side is going to keep it once this thing is done. The Constitution is and forever will be a historical curiosity and its adherents looked at as a political cargo cult after this is done.” -Me
Fantastic Essay! Reality pushed into the forefront of my thinking. Growing up with an extended family in Waco, I did not realize how lucky I was until I was older. One Grandfather fighting to take me horseback riding every weekend, with the other on fighting to take me hunting and fishing from age five on. Great Uncle Boots flew 30 missions as a B-17 Heavy Bomber Pilot from the London area in WWII and survived. He knew and flew with LeMay. Your essay made me look back on all I have had and done; and I see it was a fantastic life. Never thought until the last year or so, we would lose this way of living. Like Matt Bracken has been saying too, we have to Harden Our Hearts so we can do what is needed. Thanks. Very well put response to another’s comment also. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Helluva quote.
John Adams stated that the Constitution was only capable of governing a Christian and moral people. Our “leaders” have imported and empowered a mass of humanity from places that cannot and will not be contained by conscience. As well as create division between rival domestic groups. There is no sane way to govern our mob. I suggest we all read and study the Revelation, we are entering a Biblical era. May God help us!
John Adams stated that the Constitution was only capable of governing a Christian and moral people. Our “leaders” have imported and empowered a mass of humanity from places that cannot and will not be contained by conscience. As well as create division between rival domestic groups. There is no sane way to govern our mob. I suggest we all read and study the Revelation, we are entering a Biblical era. May God help us!
I want my children to have a chance at a peaceful life. If that means getting cold, wet, sick, and bloody..so be it.
…and I pray to God that it comes in my time, when I am still angry and strong enough to do what is necessary, so that my children may be spared a horror they aren’t old enough to even name.
5
Your last sentence said it all…
“It’s time to let future generations worry about judging what we did to get it back…and actually go get it back.”
WWGWD?
What would George Washington do?
I think we all know the answer (in fact, it would already have been done).
We need to quite worrying about what they’ll call us, how they’ll label us, or what might happen – and just do it…
Because they are NOT going to let us live in peace…
They are NOT going to quit calling us names (bitter clingers, deplorables, infidels, racists, right-wing extremists)…
They are NOT going to quit intimidating innocents, rioting, burning and destroying cities and local communities….
And they WILL come for us as history has proven, and as they’ve already threatened, once they come to political power.
Let’s not suffer Solzhenitsyn’s agony in the gulag — wondering “what if we would have fought back.”
We actually lost the government the Founders gave us in 1865, when the Marxist Republicans turned our government upside down.
Before Lincolns War to Prevent Southern Independence, we were all citizens of our States, after the WBTS we were all subjects of the central government. States who were independent sovereign entities, were reduced to vassal regions.
With regard to today and the pandemic of Marxism and Anti American values…. “And God gave them the cup of strong delusion to drink, because they preferred to believe the lie”
We see that everywhere, Globull Warming, the COVID Scamdemic, Socialism is Good, gender dysphoria being a virtue, and all the rest.
May God have mercy on us for what we are about to have to do.
Amen.
Outstanding overview. Quick question are WE really going to let THEM, tell us what’s up?. Most seem to expect to be told by the meat puppets how it ends. Your clearly and intellectual, with a clear unbiased understanding of life.
Well done.
Mojo rising!
5
I served 45 years ago. I still talk to shipmates daily. We all agree, and have agreed for some years now, that this is not the same country that we served. Every time I look at my Grandsons I feel a sadness that they will never know the life I experienced growing up. We all see it.
I commented to a friend yesterday that as I drive through neighborhoods I never see any kids outside playing. In fact, I seldom see ANYONE outside any longer! Even on a nice summer day almost every vehicle I pass has its windows rolled up. People leave an enclosed unnatural environment, get in their vehicles in another unnatural closed environment and drive so they can run into another unnatural enclosed environment then back again.
Well, the horse is out of the barn. The train has left the station. However you like to describe it what we knew is gone and it ain’t coming back in out lifetimes…. nor our Grandkid’s lifetimes. In the meantime, enjoy every minute with those you love and the things you love doing. Tme is quickly approaching when we will be forced to make some hard decisions.