Trust me, you guys do NOT want to be caught in the Portland death spiral. Everything is terrible but still getting worse, and the 'leaders' know nothing but progressive psychobabble. Sane people who can leave (who are generally net taxpayers) do, and the spiral tightens.
It's a terrible place to be and I don't see light at the end of the tunnel - the state is 100% vote by mail and hasn't had a Republican governor since it did. (Same with Washington....weird, right?)
In 2013 I visited Portland, and I really liked it. I started making plans to move there, but found it too difficult to find a software engineering job there.
Portland's rot began in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina "survivors" were resettled there. The survivors were hard-core third world con artists who started a crime spree in Portland. They were some of the earliest homeless pioneers in the city. Portland (unlike New Orleans) had no immune system to deal with them and they precipitated the decline you detected. By 2014 you could hear jungle drums being played on the streets at night and the city's fate was sealed. Guilt-ridden white liberals and their criminally insane political leadership finished the deal.
I was there and in 1998 and almost took a job there with Intel. I thought it was a beautiful place. I actually stayed downtown and walked everywhere. I was looking at condos right on the river. Boy, did I dodge a bullet.
Numerous small hints of decline. Business hours are truncated due to the high cost of labor, forced by minimum wage laws and high cost of living. There was a time when the move was for all grocery stores to be open 24 hours a day. Now they lock one of the doors after the late rush is over so fewer employees are needed to mind the store. Fast food franchises are run by skeleton crews of mostly middle-aged immigrants for similar reasons - they are willing and able to do the work and show up every day. The average skilled tradesman is 55 years old. This is unsustainable!
You’d be definitely wrong. But you missed the point. Think how many of our elites have sold their souls for many many moons now for the CCP money and other unmentionables. Start with Biden, or Pelosi, or Feinstein or or or …
This country does not care about you. Never forget about the Covid tyranny. Them are facts. Even Soviet Russia did not have that much tyranny as in America 2020 to 2022. This country is lost. Don’t lie to yourselves.
One could not leave Soviet Russia. It was an outdoor prison and even having the prohibited literature could land one in prison.
Despite lockdowns my family and I witnessed US lunacy by driving cross country, some states worse than others but not quite at the level of 1970s or 80s communist hell.
I spent 20 years in Wasington, followed by 5 in the Rogue Valley of SW Oregon, and my final year sheltering from COVID madness waaaaay out in SE Oregon, Malheur County, before I couldn't take the madness and insanity that has totally consumed the West Coast. Came home after nearly 30 years to a tiny town on the Gulf Coast here in North Florida.
The PNW is the most beautiful place I've ever been on Earth, but the politics destroyed it and made it impossible for me to live there any more. I'll take cockroaches and hurricanes over I-5 gypsy thugs and drug runners with pit bulls any day. Damned shame, but there it is.
Same. Lived in both Seattle and Portland and now my family resides in South Carolina. The Smoky Mountains are no match for the Cascades and we've traded lake life for saltwater, but the culture is based and my kids aren't growing up in craziness. Worthwhile.
I would prefer to think of your construct as the 4th world, but I don’t want to quibble; your ideas and projections are spot on, your analysis is brilliant, and scary. So much of what has happened the past few years appears to be inexplicable. In the second half of the 20th century, we in America were so right in so many way; sure we had problems, but we were working on them. But then, it’s like we became, in our naivety, over-confident, too open and too trusting - and we let ourselves get sucker-punched by DEI, ESG, LGBT~, open borders, Covid, and all of the other woke nonsense. Now, we need to man-up, and figure out how to take the drastic measures necessary to put this ship back on course, without letting it sink or run aground. We need to get serious and take action. What would Patton do?
The common denominator of these 2nd world areas is progressivism/socialism in governance. Free market societies with minimal or miniarchist governments simply don't create such widespread "commons-like" dysfunction....
I lived 15 miles from where I was born (Tacoma) for 70 years. The inertia of decline is unstoppable. With enough money you can evade the worst of it, but the price of staying exceeded the value for me.
My daughter hd to leave Seattle when the drugged up homeless was right outside the locked gate for the apartment complex, laid a big poop on the grass, and passed out
J. Edgar Hoover: When morals decline and good men do nothing, evil flourishes. A society unwilling to learn from past is doomed. We must never forget our history.
Doesn't exclude them. But Biblical Christianity blossomed then exploded through the Protestant Reformation, and has since progressed both economically and, most recently, technologically through those countries where Protestants pored the foundation. History has favored the more biblically-sound areas where God's Grace is more abundant than his Law. Freedom > constraint.
Not a Christian but will admit humankind suffers without personal responsibility for all citizens and that doesn’t seem to happen without specific and documented rules.
There are other times when the best way to help someone is to let them walk into folly. You can warn them, tell them about the danger, but in the end they should have the right to "step in it." You can also be right there waiting for when they ask for help outside of the hole.
But yes, there is a line between helping and enabling their folly.
I "ask" this as an Evangelical Christian that already gives of what I’ve been blessed; BUT
I have come to the point where my giving is tightly/rightly controlled/directed.
I do not give to where my giving will facilitate some headlong plunge to perdition
I do not give where The Gospel is 💩 💩’d
I use to give (produce, money) to the local food bank until they started hyping BLM (but no reference to ANYTHING Christian
The policies of my local government has had the effect of attracting multitudes of those with their hands out instead of hands open to work - as a result more&more tax payer funds are allocated to taking care of these layabouts while crime, of all sorts, increases; needles are found in playgrounds, stream beds and common areas; my taxes go up, up, and up.
I give to local charities that do not undermine my beliefs and to my home church’s benevolence fund as they have better tools for discernment of needs.
Much of my "wealth" is invested locally but I no longer really recognize my community.
It is a fairly obvious moral rule and is recognized across the world. It also exists in Buddhism and Hinduism. It is not unique to Christianity or the older Judeo-Christian roots.
Saying that is kinda stupid. Catholicism is totally second world. Most of the other main schisms ditto. On the other hand the Amish... First world without the fangles.
Clearly, you have no idea what the definition 🙄 of Christianity is, using Catholicism and the Amish as your examples. Next time, get your facts straight first.
Hey everyone news flash- religion/christianity does not equal morality! I mean really? Our totally unreligious and immoral President just posted a picture of himself as the Pope! You all are just kidding right?
Clutch your pearls a little tighter, dude. I'm just outraged that the orange man posted a picture of himself as the pope. Doesn't he know you can't mock Catholics!! Oops, that's Mohamed!! Carry on.
Don’t much care about what Trump does. Just saying dont equate religion with morality. Know plenty of amoral people that consider themselves religious.
You stated how you felt, and I stated how I felt. Please tell me how it's my fault that people shout past each other. Is it because we disagree? Or was my tone too harsh?
I was going to quibble with your etymology surrounding "third world" (it's actually a NATO artifact), but your thesis is spot on. Nothing to argue with and absolutely a great set of observations.
A "First World" society wouldn't tolerate the BS we tolerate today. If we had a functioning society, the druggies in the streets would be thrown in jail and then hauled off to a camp in the country and the guy wasting all the lobster would be arrested and sentenced by a no-nonsense judge to a week of hard labor for theft. Roads would be repaired rapidly, we wouldn't waste time with nonsense like the coastal commission, and the government would tell people wanting to import Somalis that they were crazy.
The problem is the ordinary people. They have been conditioned that the bureaucratic state and its byzantine lethargy are "normal" and "functioning" and it's always forever wrong to be anything but "nice" therefore it's unreasonable to expect anything other than what we have today.
I have had a lot of insufferably liberal friends go on vacation in Japan, and when they come back, they all say exactly the same thing
"WOW it's so amazing being in a society where stuff actually works. Can you imagine that? Their trains are clean and safe. Why can't we have things like that in America?"
I've always wanted to respond "well, why do _you_ think that?". I know they'll crimestop themselves from saying the real reason, but at some level deep down inside, every American knows exactly why.
Because in civilized countries, if you murder, or steal, or even so much as litter on the subway, either everyone around you will shame and bully you into stopping, or your ass goes to jail. In the US, we don't do this.
I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to prax out why we don't do this.
I recently read somewhere that due to its population decline, Japan was going to be loosening its immigration policies. Wonder how many things will "just work" in 20 years?
Last night we happened upon an amazing series on YouTube: Border Control Australia. We binged on four episodes, impressed with all the ways and places that control is exercised, from visas to imports. A reality show, it had very entertaining and informative episodes. The young Malaysian who had been deported with a three year exclusion after overstaying his previous visa attempted to return under a changed name. Whoops! Another three year exclusion. A very innocent looking young woman arrived on a cruise ship with a suitcase full of gifts, one of which was tested on the spot—ostensibly a lava lamp, its lava was a solution of cocaine.
Just for TV. Immigrants are plentiful in Australia.
International students are big business, more than 200,000 a year. Doesn't seem a lot but in a population of 29million, it makes a mark. Their wealthy parents buy property which pushes up prices. Average rent has increased 4x in the past 5 years. Many Australians are now homeless because of this.
Foreign ownership of our farm land is huge.
Nearly all nursing home staff are from developing countries.
International students have had a big impact in American higher education too, if you have seen what turmoil our most elite universities have been in the last couple years. I would imagine that there are some whose parents purchase real estate—we hear more about the effects of inflation and private equity, which is buying huge swathes of homes throughout the country for rental properties. Here in Atlanta the private equity landlords are far away and unresponsive to their tenants, who pay exorbitant rents.
It isn't "immigrants" that stops police from arresting criminals on the subway in the US, trust me.
Well, I suppose they were immigrants, in a strict technical sense, but usually when we say 'immigrants' we mean people who actually _wanted_ to come here.
Yeah, so was I. But I'm too doxxable to put what I'm saying in explicit words, so instead I will just provide this cropped meme to illustrate my point.
Why is it that US subway systems suck and Japan's are functional? The same reason that the Canadian subway systems are functional compared to the US.: https://files.catbox.moe/3krac5.webp it's that simple.
Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
Well, there's hope. Berenson just wrote about a poll showing that 18-21 yr. olds are turning towards Republicans with a vengeance. Caption it "when Mom and Dad sold you down the river for social acceptance and you learned you gotta save yourself."
Let's pray they'll become constituents of people like JD Vance and not like Cassidy and Cornyn and all the other morons like them who're just hoping to ride out the next two years and are praying to become a minority party again.
My kids are slightly older (23 to 25). They and literally all of their friends are Trump supporters. We live in Puget Sound. The whole ‘woke your way to dysfunction and unaffordable everything’ has turned them off completely.
Its almost anathema to me and I am not fond of the prospect, but I am aware the only way I can 'primary' our useless D's here (rep and both senators in office before 911. They had people arrested for coming to their offices to petition against the Iraq war) is by voting R and removing the party completely. I'm wondering if I need to go look at their local roster and help them choose a MAGA person in primary and not the same RINO guys they've been running and losing since forever.
It's like skating on the cliff edge hiking trail. Getting a JD Vance--good chance of survival. Getting a Marjorie Taylor Greene--good chance of getting yer bones smashed.
I had to gird up my loins with a vengeance to have voted the straight Republican ticket I did in November. But we've seen both parties so reshaped out of what they started out being that we can certainly hope to reshape at least one of them again, going forward.
An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand It is my thought that the Jacobins have usurped the title Democrat. Those that are referred to as "RINOS" are actually the republicans. J. D. Vance and that crew are Populists.
Well, that's all fine with me. I've been praying that Trump Redux would prove the death of both parties and the seeding of something restorative of our foundational values.
The Somalis in MN are such a great example of this problem. They have no concept of High Trust. They are tribal and come from a part of the world where the dominant tribe exploits the weak tribes. Throw in a heaping dollop of Islam and the weaker tribes know just how badly they will turn the tables if they ever could some day.
Drop those tribal Islamists into a naive, High Trust people group with bureaucratic systems and you have a powder keg of crumbling society being exploited by warlords.
50 years from now there will be movies written about MN.
The question begs - Who wins from this forced decline of western civilization? Who is profiting from the destruction of our society from 1st to 2nd world? This is being done to us intentionally and the lack of curiosity regarding who and why is stunning. I’d really like for some gato wisdom on this point.
We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years......It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.
For the first time in its history, Western Civilization is in danger of being destroyed internally by a corrupt, criminal ruling cabal which is centered around the Rockefeller interests, which include elements from the Morgan, Brown, Rothschild, Du Pont, Harriman, Kuhn-Loeb, and other groupings as well. This junta took control of the political, financial, and cultural life of America in the first two decades of the twentieth century.
But this would likely involve criticism of the captured & compromised “King of Israel” & “Father of the Vaccine” and his motley crue of manipulative, blackmailing Zionists.
Priorities would need to be discussed and grievances aired involving the creation of the Greater Israel Project… at the expense of embroiling American soldiers in yet another conflict (this time with Iran) waged by the U.S. military at the behest of our “greatest ally in the Middle East”.
Apparently many thousands of American lives lost in order to achieve new off-shore oil and gas developments in the Mediterranean, pipelines across what used to be Gaza, the new Ben Gurion canal to rival Suez and flashy new casino hotels on the redeveloped Gazan beachfront (Jared & Ivanka are salivating at the prospect) have been deemed A PRICE WORTH PAYING‼️😡
This is too much truth for most MAGA supporters to handle…despite its being the polar opposite of America First.
The realization that we were lied to & mercilessly deceived before, we’re being lied to & mercilessly deceived still and regardless of how many times we vote for what we thought was a conservative-leaning candidate, there really is no one on the side of much-abused, beleaguered Americans…is an extremely bitter pill to swallow.
It’s up to us to speak the unvarnished truth as loudly as is necessary.
We must save ourselves from the hundreds of thousands of traitors within who have wormed their way into positions of responsibility, influence and power with the express intention of destroying our Constitutional Republic from the inside.
I don't think the actual aim of second-worlding society is profit per se, but any they can collect on the way down is certainly welcome. The desired end state is neo-feudalism. The rich in the West all have royalty envy, because in a functional republican democracy they have some advantages, but actual power is heavily constrained by the law. They're willing to trade wealth for power.
Only Meghan Markle has been gauche enough to try and become a royal within the current system. Soros/Gates/Schwab and friends all want to destroy the current system to get to the one they want. They recruit useful idiots and fill their heads with dreams of communism that actually works, except the rug pull has already been staged should they succeed.
This - “The desired end state is neo-feudalism. The rich in the West all have royalty envy, because in a functional republican democracy they have some advantages, but actual power is heavily constrained by the law.”
Literally millions of white slaves were kidnapped from Europe and taken to North Africa, in the 1800s. But nobody knows or cares about them. Do you know why?
Because the Moroccans had the sense to castrate their slaves, so there wouldn't be millions of new people in their society with an instinctive ancestral hatred for every fiber of their being.
90% of the world was slaves (or 'serfs', or 'indentured servants', both of which are essentially slavery) in the 1800s. Blacks aren't special, they're just the assholes that bitch the loudest.
EDIT: for that matter, I can think of no better word than 'slavery' to describe the drafting of hundreds of thousands of Americans to send them off to die in foreign countries we shouldn't give a fuck about. As far as I'm concerned, white people, black people, all people in the US were _literally enslaved_ in 1942. But everyone always gives a pass to that kind of stuff.
Hell, most of them believe that we sailed our slave ships to Africa and stole their ancestors to pick our cotton. They can't accept that their ancestors from the motherland sold them.
I know a lady (from Portland) who is worth millions. She brags about buying her husband shirts from a well know catalog company because when he wears them out she can exchange them with some phony excuse for a new one. What happened to morals?
Here’s why the fix is so difficult: It’s not just sleazy individuals gaming companies, it’s sleazy companies screwing customers.
Example… I have a cell phone provider that stopped taking credit cards for payment and demanded customers use a debit card. This was after they had a well publicized hack of their customer’s payment data a couple of years prior. Because who doesn’t want to hand over a linked checking account to companies with crappy security? So word got around on Reddit amongst angry customers to change from email bills to paper bills, so as to cause said cell provider to have to pay for postage every month. This resulted in costs to the company of $6/year in postage as a “FAFO with your customers” learning experience. Retribution. A few years later the company raised prices on the plans they marketed as “we promise to never raise your prices” by $10/month.
When the entire system is based on grift, why be surprised when it engenders a broad scale low trust system?
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retributions.
That was my reaction to this statement in the article:
"they buy products with warrantees and mark the warranty expiration on their calendars so they can return the goods for new ones a week before the warranty expires. it’s a game to them, an obvious way to come out ahead. it’s third world morals in a first world system."
If everything we buy now wasn't such shit that we have to buy the warranty on top, this probably wouldn't be an issue. I can't deny thinking about doing this exact thing--I'm just not going to stay on top of it to do so haha. I used to never buy extended warranties, they were a rip off--now I feel like I have to because nothing lasts--even the expensive stuff.
A retired army ammunition plant employee works at my lowes and we had this conversation. He told me that one of the manufacturers there--some kind of security equipment like night vision--not many years ago had a quality control policy of 90% but now it's something like 50%--so they know half of their products are crappy and don't care. Some companies do this and charge big prices but actually replace things--many don't--better buy the warranty!
I do not understand the attitudes that allow scummy people to game the system. Tiny example from many years ago in San Francisco: a queue is waiting for the bus. As we start to get on , Asian immigrants by the door shove in front. People don’t stop them. I’m next, and when another one tries to shove in, I grab the bar by the steps, block the person, and tell him he needs to get in line. To me, this is normal behavior. You stop people doing wrong and inform them how to do it right. At a certain point, this doesn’t work any more because violence becomes the norm. But why don’t people do it earlier, when they can?
> all your safety nets get wrapped around your neck and drowns you.
I have some close family who are, or at least were, fairly heavily involved in administration of the Canadian healthcare system. In 2023, one of them privately expressed to me that he believes the Canadian healthcare system will become insolvent and fully collapse within ten years. Take that as you will
Point of order: there are actually ten provincial health care systems in Canada, but they're ten different shades of the same vanilla ice cream, since they're all subject to a federal law that broadly dictates their form. Not a single province has dared to say, "Screw this," to said federal law and break the glass. Outside-of-box thinking is severely frowned upon up here.
But yes, as the first of the Boomers reach their 80s next year, I expect Canadian health care systems to rapidly deteriorate. They've deteriorated pretty significantly over the past three decades, so there's no hope at all they'll be able to cope with the tsunami of health care needs coming their way. Add our intentionally broken mass immigration system (that was once considered a model for the world of how to run one) bringing in a lot of those low-trust people that our host has just written about and stir.
Now the truly devious among us would note that Canada's assisted-suicide regime, which I believe is now the most permissive in the world, was only legalized - by judicial orders no less - within the past decade. It's going to end up acting as a pressure relief valve of sorts, but of course precious few will speak that truth aloud.
Canada hasn't reached Puerto Rico levels of dysfunction yet but I strongly suspect it's just a matter of when, not if.
I don't think it's that province's haven't tried. I know that BC lost in the Supreme Court trying to work on a third party Healthcare idea so I think provinces have tried but just very unsuccessfully to get out of the federal trap.
Healthcare is probably THE MOST EXPENSIVE item in anyone’s budget. Personal, government, or employer, and if you are not enrolled somewhere and need it, it will wipe you out.
Well, that makes me feel better. But you're right, yours is an excellent description of the circumstance and exactly why I left Oakland. In SF, voters voted against a new basketball stadium 3 times yet it still got built. By a hospital with limited infrastructure.
And meanwhile, all the people who lost their homes in 2008 were (are) now living under freeways puking their guts out on CIA provided fentanyl. Plus many hundreds of thousands more who did everything right in every community across this never truly great nation. Took out loans for school and mortgages for homes while their taxes go up to pay for services you can't get as a citizen but which are freely given to immigrants without regard to system capacity, empathy or decency.
The calculus of short term thinking describes an arc circling the drain. The high trust/low trust: high self identity/low self identity nexus scares the shit out of me.
Lost my house/business in 2008-10 and didn't turn to fentanyl but I get what you are saying. The events of the last decade, including covid and lockdowns, were meant to achieve this outcome. It has taken me so many years to recover and even now, having seen what happens to you, I have never really returned to what would be considered 'normal' life, now living in an RV etc. I live a high-trust life with my local friends and neighbors (farm stands, etc) but can see how fragile it all is and how continually it continues to degrade with current policies that divide everything into elites who live on islands and behind gates and the underclass that has resorted to stripping houses for copper for drug money.
... the greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled.
It would seem to have been planned this way? "The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."
What part of Oakland? I lived near Piedmont Ave for almost 3 years. I actually really liked it there (well, the half mile circle immediately around my house), but, yeah. The decline was obvious. I got out.
It was nice around Piedmont Ave. I lived in Oakland for 31 years, 1/2 my life. First in a nice apartment right off Lake Merritt, then the 1st house in the lower hills, then the 2nd house further up the hill by a village called Montclair. While in the apartment, I would walk to BART in downtown Oakland every day, jogged around the lake every morning. No problems. By the time we left in 2015, our neighbors had hired a private security guard and we were practically the only ones who identified as non-Democrats. So kept our mouths shut and could see it was hopeless.....it's going on 10 years now and I've never regretted leaving. Just wish we would have gotten out sooner.
It was funny. Every few months, a fiery but mostly peaceful protest would march down Broadway and smash all the business' windows, but they could never, ever, ever be assed to march a quarter mile across the hill between Broadway and Piedmond and mess up my neighbourhood.
I lived there from 2015-2017, and I even thought that downtown Oakland (around the lake) was really nice and safe and I didn't feel in danger at all. The walk between my house and downtown was sketch af after dark, but even then, I never had a crime incident occur to me.
But oh boy, walk a half mile west to MacArthur BART to get to work, and I suddenly found myself wishing concealed carry was legal in California. (I assume it's not).
I hated living in the Bay Area, and wanted to leave for years before I pulled the trigger on it, but the singular incident that told me it was time to leave, I'm sure you've heard of
A mob of "30 to 50 unarmed youths" storms a BART train at the o.co stop, in broad daylight during the evening commute home, beats the shit out of everyone, sends a dozen people to the hospital, and takes all of their stuff"
There were two armed cops there. They did absolutely nothing. One gunshot is all it would have taken to make everyone run away, and they were in fact engaged in the potential murder of passengers.
BART is legally required to report all crimes that happen on their trains, once a week. They failed to report this one. The public didn't know until an investigative reporter wrote about it almost a week later.
BART immediately lied and said that, wow, what a convenient coincidence, every single camera stopped working on that train that day. Weird. Too bad we can't show the public who did these crimes.
Back then I had not fully internalized and understood US racial politics but this event was clear even to me. In this city, not five miles from my house, I could get murdered in broad daylight on my commute home, and the state will actively go out if its way to protect those murderers from consequences.
The state has exactly one legitimate job: leverage a monopoly on violence to enforce civility and peace. Oakland has refused to do that one thing. So I left.
Fun fact (THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE): Texas is the only state in the country where you are allowed to _brandish_ a gun in self defense in response to _non_-lethal force. You're not allowed to shoot unless your life is in danger but, contrary to the law in every other state, brandishing a firearm and pointing it at someone in self defense is not considered a lethal response to nonlethal force.
Strangely, people don't get attacked and robbed on public transit here. What a coincidence!
Yes, I remember that BART attack. One year after we left, the neighborhood security patrol guy tried to stop some guys from tearing down a construction fence so they could take materials from the house being renovated. The security guy wasn't armed. The guys got into a scuffle with him and broke both his hands badly. And right before we left, I was taking a walk and saw 2 guys break into another neighbor's house. 1 year after we left, our old house was broken into at 10am. They punched through a very small window in the basement. Never looked back :)
Arizona Revised Statute 13-421. Justification; defensive display of a firearm; definition
A. The defensive display of a firearm by a person against another is justified when and to the extent a reasonable person would believe that physical force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the use or attempted use of unlawful physical force or deadly physical force.
California was May Issue for a long time, and if you weren't one of the Beautiful People™ you could just forget about qualifying for a carry permit. Sean Penn, with his history of assault? No problem! But law abiding you? Sorry, you're one of the little people.
Depends heavily on the county. The more urban counties were as you describe, but rural counties were almost "shall issue" in their issuance, while suburban counties were somewhere in between.
Thanks for the clarification, you are exactly right. I was just being a little too brief... Of course it does mean the great majority of Californians did live under that restrictive regimen
All over. I spent over 20 years there off and on. North Oakland mostly but in the hood too 63rd and Alcatraz... Down on San Pablo by the bus depot. Up by Lois the Pie Queen off MacArthur too. 56th street. Lived up in the hills for a bit before the fire. That was some serious shit there boy. wooowee.
But those emmer effers at BART. The worst fucking people ever. Shitbags the lot of them.
Piedmont was awesome. Cato's...all the bookstores. lA Boulangerie with the onion rolls. yum! The cemetery was gorgeous. I miss alot of it, but after about 2000 it really started to suck.
Last year, in October, for the first time in my life, I went to Mexico. I went to a music festival in Mexico City, ABGT 600 if that means anything to anyone reading. I had never been to Mexico before, but living in Texas and having mostly conservative friends, I was expecting it to be a sketchy, dangerous, disgusting shithole.
After spending a week in Mexico City, my impression was: this is like San Francisco except everything is clean and there's no crime. Now, granted, I was staying in the nice part of Mexico City, but I had to drive through some pretty sketchy parts to get there from the airport. On the entire almost 90 minute drive (yay rush hour), I did not see a single homeless person. There was substantially less graffiti than in California. Most things looked pretty well maintained, +/- what my Mexican host described as "Mexico-quality construction". Everyone was kind and friendly and open and inviting in public.
Basically, everything good anyone has ever told me about San Francisco appears to be true about Mexico City, and everything bad about Mexico that anyone has ever told me appears to be true about San Francisco. Funny, that
Also funny, given that I was going there for a two day rave festival, and given that many of the attendees didn't want to be thrown in prison by Mexican border security, everyone assumed they could get drugs there. The entire weekend, all of the group chats were just full of "❄️?????" and "favours????". Nobody could find out where to buy drugs.
In San Francisco, walk two blocks, ask twelve people who look like they might know the answer, and you'll find five dealers. But apparently it's impossible to get drugs in Mexico City. Again, funny.
To be clear, I was at Piedmont Avenue, which confusingly is not in Piedmont the city, but is six blocks downhill from it. I don't remember those businesses, but I had a few local haunts. There was a good Thai hole-in-the-wall, this cafe that had three different ambiguously Italian names while I lived there. A boba spot farther north, by the highschool.
My favourite spot was the Oakland Rose Garden. Somehow, smack dab in the middle of, well, Oakland, this pristine garden remained untouched by uncivilized people.
Before Oakland I lived in Berkeley, on whatever the next main through street, parallel to Shattuck but like half a mile south. California Ave, I think, but that might the cross street. It was about equidistant from the three Berkeley BART stations and, perplexingly, was way sketchier than the part of Oakland I spent time in. There was section 8 housing next door and I got to fall asleep to the lovely sounds of domestic abuse. An angry alcoholic hobo lived in the alley between my building and that one, and he'd stare in my window as I slept and throw empty bottles at me when I got home.
But the worst part was that in the 18 months I lived there, three people got murdered within three blocks of my house, all three in broad daylight, and the third one, I heard her screaming in the distance as she died, not realizing what was happening until I read about it on Twitter the next day.
So, in a move that will never not be funny to me, I moved to Oakland so I _wouldn't_ have to witness murder regularly.
BTW, MacArthur was on its way to mega gentrification when I was last there (2019). There's like a dozen fancy new apartment buildings. Of course, you're still going to get stabbed with an AIDS needle as soon as you leave your house, but, it's completely different from 2016.
The Bay Area is such a disgusting third world country, and it could be the best place on earth if only they wanted to. But the people there are so numb to it, they don't even care. They think it's normal. I heard so many people there say "this is just the price you pay to pay in a big city", and when I finished laughing at them for thinking San Francisco was a big city, I'd think "uh... have you ever been anywhere else? It's literally not". But the people there have no motivation to fix anything.
You'd think it's because they're all so wealthy that they can isolate themselves from it, but they can't. I know people in the Bay Area who were making base pay of $325,000 a year, a decade ago, and at age 40 they still had 3 roommates (who all made the same; Google is lucrative) because they _couldn't afford_ to live alone. On a total comp of half a million dollars a year.
Even if you are rich, well you still have to go outside. Unless you only ever drive to the suburbs, no matter how rich you are, you're just as stabbable as the next guy.
In a civilized society, there would be actual extremist death squads in California dispensing vigilante justice. But, well, I don't live there, so they can enjoy their self-imposed suffering.
totally. I know the areas you mention well. Broadway and 22nd I believe it was where they were offering a 1920'a home with three units in it for free to anyone who would haul it away so they could build out 2500 units on the old Chevrolet dealership site. Then there's "Brooklyn Basin" which was filled in estuary by Alameda...10k units but no new sewer...go figure.
And yes, the attitude I believe came largely from earnest H1B visa holders who couldn't give two rat farts for anything but their own sense of self importance. We should get some beers and have a bitch session. I know (knew) people killed in Oakland and one kid literally shot in the tallywacker by OPD so they could steal his weed. Sat in our living room bleeding out while the EMTs were en route. he lived though I don't think he really ever got to be appreciative of that fact.
As an aside...this is why I voted for Trump. Not cause I like him, though I do now...but because he is not a fucking Democrat.
Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren’t realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.
Please realize you are quoting a man who was assisting the efforts to erect the global government by being in the American government.
He in this quote is expressing the disdain the elites have for regular humans...of any breed.
He is also expressing his belief in the exceptionalism of the elites who are expecting to rule the humanity they allow to live on their planet and the expected longevity they will attain when they find the fountain of youth through technology.
Yep. There are many apropos quotes available. Marcus Aurelius (per yer later response) is a favorite of mine. My all time favorite person to quote though is Thomas Paine. That guy really gets to the heart of the matter in an astonishing economy of words.
It appears we are brothers in the same lodge! Here's one of my FAVORITES and it seems that el gato malo adheres to it: "It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error."
Thomas Paine Very evident during the Covid Hysteria!
Think of it, though, I think a lot of second world actuality is predicated on second world thinking.
Since when is "stay home/stay safe" a good idea? You think bridges and buildings were built on such thinking? Flattened curves and slow spreads, and avoiding discomfort lead us into bad outcomes. And think of the resentment it dredges for those who do for those who avoid all manner of unpleasantness.
This equates to my personal mantra; if you are not actively moving towards the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, you are moving away from it. This is true for everything; individuals, organizations, your local church, your school, your countries - everything. And there is a built in momentum once halted is easily reversed. It's not just keeping your eye on the ball; it's always moving forward to it; knowing you will never reach it. But it's the actively aware, forward movement towards the Good, the True and the Beautiful that will bring about joy, truth and justice.
That's how it was originally used. The US and its allies were First World, Russia and its allies were Second World, and everybody else was Third World.
Eventually, this sort of morphed to "First World" being modern and "Third World" being poor.
You thought correctly! I don't wish to take away from el gato malo's thesis, but indeed the original context was: the First World is the West, Second World is the Soviet bloc, third world is everybody else.
I independently coined the term Fourth World when I was living in southern Sudan in the 80's, to describe the extreme difference in development, education, and just about everything else between Nairobi and indeed all of Kenya that I saw, and Southern Sudan. Mind you, this is descriptive, not meant as a criticism -- starting as the third world country, maybe, and then being the location of a civil war through most of your country's independent existence... well that kind of harshes the development process.
The first world was NATO and NATO-aligned countries. The second world was Warsaw Pact and their aligned countries. The third world was unaligned countries.
Countries like Switzerland who did not align with NATO or Warsaw Pact were part of the third world, despite being western, wealthy, and developed countries.
Actually accurate. The USSR collapsed, and from the ashes a total reformation. Now Russia thrives (counter to western propaganda) and a safe, golden rule society, not perfect, but civilized.
Trust me, you guys do NOT want to be caught in the Portland death spiral. Everything is terrible but still getting worse, and the 'leaders' know nothing but progressive psychobabble. Sane people who can leave (who are generally net taxpayers) do, and the spiral tightens.
It's a terrible place to be and I don't see light at the end of the tunnel - the state is 100% vote by mail and hasn't had a Republican governor since it did. (Same with Washington....weird, right?)
Here in Canada.
What’s frightening is how quickly it all goes to shit.
'If you let a bully come in and chase you out of your front yard, he'll be on your porch and the next day he'll rape your wife in your own bed.
Lyndon B. Johnson
No one better than LBJ to know that firsthand!
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.
Benjamin Disraeli
slowly at first, then all at once.
The writing was on the wall years ago for you guys, sadly.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/for-a-glimpse-of-the-future-look
Idiocracy....
Idiocracy was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual. Sadly, it has been the latter.
We still gots 'lectrolytes!
Go way, batin
NEVER FORGET: https://files.catbox.moe/d7450t.jpg
You got yerselves a Carny, all right!
I can’t believe the name is lost on so many. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s a liar.
True. Trudeau was a prancing neophyte focused on virtue signaling.
Carney is an adult, friends with the people calling the shots behind the scenes, and quite capable.
Canada is well and truly fkd.
In 2013 I visited Portland, and I really liked it. I started making plans to move there, but found it too difficult to find a software engineering job there.
Thank god.
Likewise about 15 years ago...My wife loved Portland, but I detected that massive rot had already started to set in....
Portland's rot began in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina "survivors" were resettled there. The survivors were hard-core third world con artists who started a crime spree in Portland. They were some of the earliest homeless pioneers in the city. Portland (unlike New Orleans) had no immune system to deal with them and they precipitated the decline you detected. By 2014 you could hear jungle drums being played on the streets at night and the city's fate was sealed. Guilt-ridden white liberals and their criminally insane political leadership finished the deal.
I didn't know that. Makes sense. What I saw there just before covid were legions of drug-addled homeless. Seriously out of their minds.
I was there and in 1998 and almost took a job there with Intel. I thought it was a beautiful place. I actually stayed downtown and walked everywhere. I was looking at condos right on the river. Boy, did I dodge a bullet.
You dodged a bullet.
It's really a shame, because downtown Portland when I visited it in 2013 was pretty cool, +/- like everything closed at 9pm for some reason.
Numerous small hints of decline. Business hours are truncated due to the high cost of labor, forced by minimum wage laws and high cost of living. There was a time when the move was for all grocery stores to be open 24 hours a day. Now they lock one of the doors after the late rush is over so fewer employees are needed to mind the store. Fast food franchises are run by skeleton crews of mostly middle-aged immigrants for similar reasons - they are willing and able to do the work and show up every day. The average skilled tradesman is 55 years old. This is unsustainable!
Eidein— I know, Portland was justly famous for being such a beautiful and livable city.
There are states and cities that no amount of money could induce me to come
That comment definitely needs at least one more preposition. :)
Things are never so bad they can't be made worse.
Humphrey Bogart
The liberal DEM run West coastal states closer…to China🇨🇳 🤔
It was NOT a coincidence that the West Coast was all in on the Gates/WEF/CCP covid strategy.
I’d argue that the US is worse than China.
You’d be definitely wrong. But you missed the point. Think how many of our elites have sold their souls for many many moons now for the CCP money and other unmentionables. Start with Biden, or Pelosi, or Feinstein or or or …
This country does not care about you. Never forget about the Covid tyranny. Them are facts. Even Soviet Russia did not have that much tyranny as in America 2020 to 2022. This country is lost. Don’t lie to yourselves.
One could not leave Soviet Russia. It was an outdoor prison and even having the prohibited literature could land one in prison.
Despite lockdowns my family and I witnessed US lunacy by driving cross country, some states worse than others but not quite at the level of 1970s or 80s communist hell.
Don’t confuse USSR with the Russian Federation. Totally different, Russia has recovered.
Damning with faint praise.
China cares even less about the well being of Chinese.
By now those who are awake know what we went through. I took issue with you saying the USA was worse than China. Surely you jest.
Look at who else Nick....
Dr Peter Navarro Calls Out British Elite’s Kowtowing to CCP …
https://gettr.com/post/p3kn4v0db8d
Gotta throw Swalwell in there
Throw…in a gulag
We had a gulag and it was filled with J6 protestors.
I spent 20 years in Wasington, followed by 5 in the Rogue Valley of SW Oregon, and my final year sheltering from COVID madness waaaaay out in SE Oregon, Malheur County, before I couldn't take the madness and insanity that has totally consumed the West Coast. Came home after nearly 30 years to a tiny town on the Gulf Coast here in North Florida.
The PNW is the most beautiful place I've ever been on Earth, but the politics destroyed it and made it impossible for me to live there any more. I'll take cockroaches and hurricanes over I-5 gypsy thugs and drug runners with pit bulls any day. Damned shame, but there it is.
Same. Lived in both Seattle and Portland and now my family resides in South Carolina. The Smoky Mountains are no match for the Cascades and we've traded lake life for saltwater, but the culture is based and my kids aren't growing up in craziness. Worthwhile.
There are still a few of us holdouts here. Why should the commies get to have all the best places???
But how do we take it back? It seems to be all about who counts the votes...
My husband remarked the other day that Portland had decriminalized fentanyl use, and the result was all too predictable.
Even dumb old libertarian-me thinks government should enforce public intoxication laws.....
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/rethinking-how-we-rethink-the-war
I would prefer to think of your construct as the 4th world, but I don’t want to quibble; your ideas and projections are spot on, your analysis is brilliant, and scary. So much of what has happened the past few years appears to be inexplicable. In the second half of the 20th century, we in America were so right in so many way; sure we had problems, but we were working on them. But then, it’s like we became, in our naivety, over-confident, too open and too trusting - and we let ourselves get sucker-punched by DEI, ESG, LGBT~, open borders, Covid, and all of the other woke nonsense. Now, we need to man-up, and figure out how to take the drastic measures necessary to put this ship back on course, without letting it sink or run aground. We need to get serious and take action. What would Patton do?
Patton would run for President and become Donald Trump.
The common denominator of these 2nd world areas is progressivism/socialism in governance. Free market societies with minimal or miniarchist governments simply don't create such widespread "commons-like" dysfunction....
Exactly. I wrote a whole 'Stack on this a few years ago:
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/how-freedom-enriches-us
one of the reasons leftists never look at other countries to see how their policy ideas fared there.
🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
I lived in Portland for a year when it was still awesome, 1999-2000.
Yellow bike program- 1st world trust.
11pm bakery, random baker comes out and hands you a loaf as you walk by.
Police officer gives you and your ball jars of beer a ride to the train station.
Too much beauty everywhere…. No homeless poop on the sidewalk.
As I've always said: the superior Portland is in Maine.
I just read that Seattle has more homeless people than New York. These are the leading citizens of the second world.
California is right there with you, we just spread it out across multiple cities and counties.
I lived 15 miles from where I was born (Tacoma) for 70 years. The inertia of decline is unstoppable. With enough money you can evade the worst of it, but the price of staying exceeded the value for me.
I have seen downtown Portland— and before covid. It was beyond the beyond. Scenes out of a crappy zombie movie.
My daughter hd to leave Seattle when the drugged up homeless was right outside the locked gate for the apartment complex, laid a big poop on the grass, and passed out
Without Christianity in the mix, I say decline is inevitable. 🙏
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
Exactly. And why this scenario of a second world is so frightening. We see it - gato has insights so spare.
J. Edgar Hoover: When morals decline and good men do nothing, evil flourishes. A society unwilling to learn from past is doomed. We must never forget our history.
J. Edgar Hoover
"Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality." Edmund Burke
EXACTLY! The real test of character is how you treat someone who has no possibility of doing you any good.
George Orwell
Doesn't exclude them. But Biblical Christianity blossomed then exploded through the Protestant Reformation, and has since progressed both economically and, most recently, technologically through those countries where Protestants pored the foundation. History has favored the more biblically-sound areas where God's Grace is more abundant than his Law. Freedom > constraint.
Better, Love > law.
We have been too carefully avoiding mentioning God so as not to offend anyone. The world needs Him.
Amen! Too much political correctness at the expense of common sense 🙄
Not a Christian but will admit humankind suffers without personal responsibility for all citizens and that doesn’t seem to happen without specific and documented rules.
🎯 Where did the “Golden Rule” actually come from? ✝️✝️✝️
It’s an active rule, not passive… You have to DO SOMETHING, not just ignore 💩💩💩… That is why you help people, not simply ENABLE their crapoly… 🙏🙏🙏
There are other times when the best way to help someone is to let them walk into folly. You can warn them, tell them about the danger, but in the end they should have the right to "step in it." You can also be right there waiting for when they ask for help outside of the hole.
But yes, there is a line between helping and enabling their folly.
Why?
Why must I/should I help?
I "ask" this as an Evangelical Christian that already gives of what I’ve been blessed; BUT
I have come to the point where my giving is tightly/rightly controlled/directed.
I do not give to where my giving will facilitate some headlong plunge to perdition
I do not give where The Gospel is 💩 💩’d
I use to give (produce, money) to the local food bank until they started hyping BLM (but no reference to ANYTHING Christian
The policies of my local government has had the effect of attracting multitudes of those with their hands out instead of hands open to work - as a result more&more tax payer funds are allocated to taking care of these layabouts while crime, of all sorts, increases; needles are found in playgrounds, stream beds and common areas; my taxes go up, up, and up.
I give to local charities that do not undermine my beliefs and to my home church’s benevolence fund as they have better tools for discernment of needs.
Much of my "wealth" is invested locally but I no longer really recognize my community.
People can be helped when they have decided to be helped, you can’t carry someone else across the finish line.
Confucius, 600 years earlier.
Old Testament / Pentateuch many years earlier.
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12 🙏🏽✝️💖
It is a fairly obvious moral rule and is recognized across the world. It also exists in Buddhism and Hinduism. It is not unique to Christianity or the older Judeo-Christian roots.
Because it was written on all our hearts when we were created in His image.
Well, if you are in a bind and need help, what do most people want?
Exactly 💯
Saying that is kinda stupid. Catholicism is totally second world. Most of the other main schisms ditto. On the other hand the Amish... First world without the fangles.
Clearly, you have no idea what the definition 🙄 of Christianity is, using Catholicism and the Amish as your examples. Next time, get your facts straight first.
I am curious as to what your definition of Christianity is that excludes Catholics and Anabaptists. Could you please elaborate?
It makes no sense to trust the untrustable, and islam is the lowest trust ethos on the planet. Deceit at every level is baked into its being.
Islam is Satan's favorite ideology.
Hey everyone news flash- religion/christianity does not equal morality! I mean really? Our totally unreligious and immoral President just posted a picture of himself as the Pope! You all are just kidding right?
Clutch your pearls a little tighter, dude. I'm just outraged that the orange man posted a picture of himself as the pope. Doesn't he know you can't mock Catholics!! Oops, that's Mohamed!! Carry on.
Don’t much care about what Trump does. Just saying dont equate religion with morality. Know plenty of amoral people that consider themselves religious.
But you do, or you wouldn't have taken up your fainting couch and pearls over a picture.
So much for engaging other points of view. Focus on my prop not my point. You are why everyone just shouts past each other.
You stated how you felt, and I stated how I felt. Please tell me how it's my fault that people shout past each other. Is it because we disagree? Or was my tone too harsh?
news flash, the pope is not special enough for Trump posing as him to even be a THING! (Religion not equalling morality, right?)
I was going to quibble with your etymology surrounding "third world" (it's actually a NATO artifact), but your thesis is spot on. Nothing to argue with and absolutely a great set of observations.
A "First World" society wouldn't tolerate the BS we tolerate today. If we had a functioning society, the druggies in the streets would be thrown in jail and then hauled off to a camp in the country and the guy wasting all the lobster would be arrested and sentenced by a no-nonsense judge to a week of hard labor for theft. Roads would be repaired rapidly, we wouldn't waste time with nonsense like the coastal commission, and the government would tell people wanting to import Somalis that they were crazy.
The problem is the ordinary people. They have been conditioned that the bureaucratic state and its byzantine lethargy are "normal" and "functioning" and it's always forever wrong to be anything but "nice" therefore it's unreasonable to expect anything other than what we have today.
I have had a lot of insufferably liberal friends go on vacation in Japan, and when they come back, they all say exactly the same thing
"WOW it's so amazing being in a society where stuff actually works. Can you imagine that? Their trains are clean and safe. Why can't we have things like that in America?"
I've always wanted to respond "well, why do _you_ think that?". I know they'll crimestop themselves from saying the real reason, but at some level deep down inside, every American knows exactly why.
Because in civilized countries, if you murder, or steal, or even so much as litter on the subway, either everyone around you will shame and bully you into stopping, or your ass goes to jail. In the US, we don't do this.
I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to prax out why we don't do this.
Shame is anathema to so many. Without it, we lose so much morality and integrity.
Yep!
Public spanking with a paddle was a simple and effective deterrence for petty criminals until the advent of the managerial state.
I recently read somewhere that due to its population decline, Japan was going to be loosening its immigration policies. Wonder how many things will "just work" in 20 years?
The Japanese will never relinquish their country to wokism
They’re too prideful of their country and their social mores are amazing
I used to believe the same about the USA.
The last 40 years has shown me to have been wrong in that assumption.
https://x.com/tradingmaxisl/status/1918390148422877202?s=46&t=xhgxU9BMOq1_og9s5SuS2g
Yep. My brother went there and said pretty much the same. I told him “yeah but if you step out of line there they beat you with a cane!”
Without missing a beat my brother said “You say that like it’s a bad thing…” 😳😂🤷♂️
Last night we happened upon an amazing series on YouTube: Border Control Australia. We binged on four episodes, impressed with all the ways and places that control is exercised, from visas to imports. A reality show, it had very entertaining and informative episodes. The young Malaysian who had been deported with a three year exclusion after overstaying his previous visa attempted to return under a changed name. Whoops! Another three year exclusion. A very innocent looking young woman arrived on a cruise ship with a suitcase full of gifts, one of which was tested on the spot—ostensibly a lava lamp, its lava was a solution of cocaine.
Just for TV. Immigrants are plentiful in Australia.
International students are big business, more than 200,000 a year. Doesn't seem a lot but in a population of 29million, it makes a mark. Their wealthy parents buy property which pushes up prices. Average rent has increased 4x in the past 5 years. Many Australians are now homeless because of this.
Foreign ownership of our farm land is huge.
Nearly all nursing home staff are from developing countries.
International students have had a big impact in American higher education too, if you have seen what turmoil our most elite universities have been in the last couple years. I would imagine that there are some whose parents purchase real estate—we hear more about the effects of inflation and private equity, which is buying huge swathes of homes throughout the country for rental properties. Here in Atlanta the private equity landlords are far away and unresponsive to their tenants, who pay exorbitant rents.
Arn’t they basically homogeneous culturally? There are a very very few immigrants, and they are pressured into assimilating.
It isn't "immigrants" that stops police from arresting criminals on the subway in the US, trust me.
Well, I suppose they were immigrants, in a strict technical sense, but usually when we say 'immigrants' we mean people who actually _wanted_ to come here.
I was talking about why Japan has such a high trust culture…?
Yeah, so was I. But I'm too doxxable to put what I'm saying in explicit words, so instead I will just provide this cropped meme to illustrate my point.
Why is it that US subway systems suck and Japan's are functional? The same reason that the Canadian subway systems are functional compared to the US.: https://files.catbox.moe/3krac5.webp it's that simple.
They always pacify themselves by sticking to the script and
Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
George Carlin
" Byzantine lethargy." You are displaying some very soulful wit there.
Well, there's hope. Berenson just wrote about a poll showing that 18-21 yr. olds are turning towards Republicans with a vengeance. Caption it "when Mom and Dad sold you down the river for social acceptance and you learned you gotta save yourself."
Let's pray they'll become constituents of people like JD Vance and not like Cassidy and Cornyn and all the other morons like them who're just hoping to ride out the next two years and are praying to become a minority party again.
My kids are slightly older (23 to 25). They and literally all of their friends are Trump supporters. We live in Puget Sound. The whole ‘woke your way to dysfunction and unaffordable everything’ has turned them off completely.
We've all paid a brutal cost to get here. I just hope this moment will be a generational turning point, in a healthier direction.
Its almost anathema to me and I am not fond of the prospect, but I am aware the only way I can 'primary' our useless D's here (rep and both senators in office before 911. They had people arrested for coming to their offices to petition against the Iraq war) is by voting R and removing the party completely. I'm wondering if I need to go look at their local roster and help them choose a MAGA person in primary and not the same RINO guys they've been running and losing since forever.
It's like skating on the cliff edge hiking trail. Getting a JD Vance--good chance of survival. Getting a Marjorie Taylor Greene--good chance of getting yer bones smashed.
I had to gird up my loins with a vengeance to have voted the straight Republican ticket I did in November. But we've seen both parties so reshaped out of what they started out being that we can certainly hope to reshape at least one of them again, going forward.
An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand It is my thought that the Jacobins have usurped the title Democrat. Those that are referred to as "RINOS" are actually the republicans. J. D. Vance and that crew are Populists.
Well, that's all fine with me. I've been praying that Trump Redux would prove the death of both parties and the seeding of something restorative of our foundational values.
Echoing a Prayer of long ago: "Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that thou wilt keep the United States in thy holy protection."
George Washington
I have one prayer that suits all circumstances.
I’ve got 4 between 24-29 and they’re more MAGA than me. Which is not possible.
But totally conservative and politically incorrect.
Well, we're a Western Enlightenment sort of family. So it's more about disagreeing on what side trashes that least.
The Somalis in MN are such a great example of this problem. They have no concept of High Trust. They are tribal and come from a part of the world where the dominant tribe exploits the weak tribes. Throw in a heaping dollop of Islam and the weaker tribes know just how badly they will turn the tables if they ever could some day.
Drop those tribal Islamists into a naive, High Trust people group with bureaucratic systems and you have a powder keg of crumbling society being exploited by warlords.
50 years from now there will be movies written about MN.
It’ll be called. Blackhawk Down II
View Europe today!
The question begs - Who wins from this forced decline of western civilization? Who is profiting from the destruction of our society from 1st to 2nd world? This is being done to us intentionally and the lack of curiosity regarding who and why is stunning. I’d really like for some gato wisdom on this point.
We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years......It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.
David Rockefeller
One of many I’m sure.
For the first time in its history, Western Civilization is in danger of being destroyed internally by a corrupt, criminal ruling cabal which is centered around the Rockefeller interests, which include elements from the Morgan, Brown, Rothschild, Du Pont, Harriman, Kuhn-Loeb, and other groupings as well. This junta took control of the political, financial, and cultural life of America in the first two decades of the twentieth century.
Carroll Quigley
It's all in plain sight if we care to look.
AGREED! It is my thought you must always ask: Cui Bono? The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
H. L. Mencken
And if it helps....
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Groucho Marx
As expressed by Alex Krieder.
But this would likely involve criticism of the captured & compromised “King of Israel” & “Father of the Vaccine” and his motley crue of manipulative, blackmailing Zionists.
Priorities would need to be discussed and grievances aired involving the creation of the Greater Israel Project… at the expense of embroiling American soldiers in yet another conflict (this time with Iran) waged by the U.S. military at the behest of our “greatest ally in the Middle East”.
Apparently many thousands of American lives lost in order to achieve new off-shore oil and gas developments in the Mediterranean, pipelines across what used to be Gaza, the new Ben Gurion canal to rival Suez and flashy new casino hotels on the redeveloped Gazan beachfront (Jared & Ivanka are salivating at the prospect) have been deemed A PRICE WORTH PAYING‼️😡
This is too much truth for most MAGA supporters to handle…despite its being the polar opposite of America First.
The realization that we were lied to & mercilessly deceived before, we’re being lied to & mercilessly deceived still and regardless of how many times we vote for what we thought was a conservative-leaning candidate, there really is no one on the side of much-abused, beleaguered Americans…is an extremely bitter pill to swallow.
It’s up to us to speak the unvarnished truth as loudly as is necessary.
We must save ourselves from the hundreds of thousands of traitors within who have wormed their way into positions of responsibility, influence and power with the express intention of destroying our Constitutional Republic from the inside.
That’s the existential dilemma we face.
I don't think the actual aim of second-worlding society is profit per se, but any they can collect on the way down is certainly welcome. The desired end state is neo-feudalism. The rich in the West all have royalty envy, because in a functional republican democracy they have some advantages, but actual power is heavily constrained by the law. They're willing to trade wealth for power.
Only Meghan Markle has been gauche enough to try and become a royal within the current system. Soros/Gates/Schwab and friends all want to destroy the current system to get to the one they want. They recruit useful idiots and fill their heads with dreams of communism that actually works, except the rug pull has already been staged should they succeed.
This - “The desired end state is neo-feudalism. The rich in the West all have royalty envy, because in a functional republican democracy they have some advantages, but actual power is heavily constrained by the law.”
We DO know how to fix it:
Educate society that it’s all about BEHAVIOR, not race, gender, or whatever. MERIT, not DEI.
Plus - duh - ENFORCE the laws, especially the laws that are all about BEHAVIOR.
But this guy needs a break because 200 years ago people who looked like him were slaves!
You know, 200 years ago people who looked like us were slaves, too. Millions of us. The US even fought a war to stop it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Barbary_War
Literally millions of white slaves were kidnapped from Europe and taken to North Africa, in the 1800s. But nobody knows or cares about them. Do you know why?
Because the Moroccans had the sense to castrate their slaves, so there wouldn't be millions of new people in their society with an instinctive ancestral hatred for every fiber of their being.
90% of the world was slaves (or 'serfs', or 'indentured servants', both of which are essentially slavery) in the 1800s. Blacks aren't special, they're just the assholes that bitch the loudest.
EDIT: for that matter, I can think of no better word than 'slavery' to describe the drafting of hundreds of thousands of Americans to send them off to die in foreign countries we shouldn't give a fuck about. As far as I'm concerned, white people, black people, all people in the US were _literally enslaved_ in 1942. But everyone always gives a pass to that kind of stuff.
There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.
Smedley Butler
We’re ALL descended from slaves - it’s just a matter of how far back in time you look.
I suspect the kids these days are not even taught that obvious fact. And that’s been part of the problem.
Hell, most of them believe that we sailed our slave ships to Africa and stole their ancestors to pick our cotton. They can't accept that their ancestors from the motherland sold them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0BcQTIr4c
It's internet law that you can't reference Blazing Saddles without saying the magic words, so I'll say them:
Damn, you couldn't make a movie like that today!
“Blazing Saddles” - a classic!
Humor remains the best remedy for racism.
Reckon you've had about enough of them beans.
A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
Ambrose Bierce
I know a lady (from Portland) who is worth millions. She brags about buying her husband shirts from a well know catalog company because when he wears them out she can exchange them with some phony excuse for a new one. What happened to morals?
Here’s why the fix is so difficult: It’s not just sleazy individuals gaming companies, it’s sleazy companies screwing customers.
Example… I have a cell phone provider that stopped taking credit cards for payment and demanded customers use a debit card. This was after they had a well publicized hack of their customer’s payment data a couple of years prior. Because who doesn’t want to hand over a linked checking account to companies with crappy security? So word got around on Reddit amongst angry customers to change from email bills to paper bills, so as to cause said cell provider to have to pay for postage every month. This resulted in costs to the company of $6/year in postage as a “FAFO with your customers” learning experience. Retribution. A few years later the company raised prices on the plans they marketed as “we promise to never raise your prices” by $10/month.
When the entire system is based on grift, why be surprised when it engenders a broad scale low trust system?
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retributions.
Louis D. Brandeis
That was my reaction to this statement in the article:
"they buy products with warrantees and mark the warranty expiration on their calendars so they can return the goods for new ones a week before the warranty expires. it’s a game to them, an obvious way to come out ahead. it’s third world morals in a first world system."
If everything we buy now wasn't such shit that we have to buy the warranty on top, this probably wouldn't be an issue. I can't deny thinking about doing this exact thing--I'm just not going to stay on top of it to do so haha. I used to never buy extended warranties, they were a rip off--now I feel like I have to because nothing lasts--even the expensive stuff.
A retired army ammunition plant employee works at my lowes and we had this conversation. He told me that one of the manufacturers there--some kind of security equipment like night vision--not many years ago had a quality control policy of 90% but now it's something like 50%--so they know half of their products are crappy and don't care. Some companies do this and charge big prices but actually replace things--many don't--better buy the warranty!
There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying
The Stairway to Heaven
that is crazy. completely selfish and ghastly
Morals seem to be negotiable and adjustable! People are just no damn good! Consider the great apes, our near relatives. We may just not be finished!
I do not understand the attitudes that allow scummy people to game the system. Tiny example from many years ago in San Francisco: a queue is waiting for the bus. As we start to get on , Asian immigrants by the door shove in front. People don’t stop them. I’m next, and when another one tries to shove in, I grab the bar by the steps, block the person, and tell him he needs to get in line. To me, this is normal behavior. You stop people doing wrong and inform them how to do it right. At a certain point, this doesn’t work any more because violence becomes the norm. But why don’t people do it earlier, when they can?
They’re either afraid or too polite.
I thought the same thing when I heard of families of immigrants making a meal of the sample platters at Costco.
Why doesn’t anyone just take the platter and say, “One bite, then move on.”
One of the best pieces I have ever read!
💯
I agree, it is a very good piece!
Truly explains these crazy times we're living in. I find it depressing, but there is solace in connecting the dots and making it make sense.
I second that!
> all your safety nets get wrapped around your neck and drowns you.
I have some close family who are, or at least were, fairly heavily involved in administration of the Canadian healthcare system. In 2023, one of them privately expressed to me that he believes the Canadian healthcare system will become insolvent and fully collapse within ten years. Take that as you will
Point of order: there are actually ten provincial health care systems in Canada, but they're ten different shades of the same vanilla ice cream, since they're all subject to a federal law that broadly dictates their form. Not a single province has dared to say, "Screw this," to said federal law and break the glass. Outside-of-box thinking is severely frowned upon up here.
But yes, as the first of the Boomers reach their 80s next year, I expect Canadian health care systems to rapidly deteriorate. They've deteriorated pretty significantly over the past three decades, so there's no hope at all they'll be able to cope with the tsunami of health care needs coming their way. Add our intentionally broken mass immigration system (that was once considered a model for the world of how to run one) bringing in a lot of those low-trust people that our host has just written about and stir.
Now the truly devious among us would note that Canada's assisted-suicide regime, which I believe is now the most permissive in the world, was only legalized - by judicial orders no less - within the past decade. It's going to end up acting as a pressure relief valve of sorts, but of course precious few will speak that truth aloud.
Canada hasn't reached Puerto Rico levels of dysfunction yet but I strongly suspect it's just a matter of when, not if.
I don't think it's that province's haven't tried. I know that BC lost in the Supreme Court trying to work on a third party Healthcare idea so I think provinces have tried but just very unsuccessfully to get out of the federal trap.
Healthcare is probably THE MOST EXPENSIVE item in anyone’s budget. Personal, government, or employer, and if you are not enrolled somewhere and need it, it will wipe you out.
Well, that makes me feel better. But you're right, yours is an excellent description of the circumstance and exactly why I left Oakland. In SF, voters voted against a new basketball stadium 3 times yet it still got built. By a hospital with limited infrastructure.
And meanwhile, all the people who lost their homes in 2008 were (are) now living under freeways puking their guts out on CIA provided fentanyl. Plus many hundreds of thousands more who did everything right in every community across this never truly great nation. Took out loans for school and mortgages for homes while their taxes go up to pay for services you can't get as a citizen but which are freely given to immigrants without regard to system capacity, empathy or decency.
The calculus of short term thinking describes an arc circling the drain. The high trust/low trust: high self identity/low self identity nexus scares the shit out of me.
Lost my house/business in 2008-10 and didn't turn to fentanyl but I get what you are saying. The events of the last decade, including covid and lockdowns, were meant to achieve this outcome. It has taken me so many years to recover and even now, having seen what happens to you, I have never really returned to what would be considered 'normal' life, now living in an RV etc. I live a high-trust life with my local friends and neighbors (farm stands, etc) but can see how fragile it all is and how continually it continues to degrade with current policies that divide everything into elites who live on islands and behind gates and the underclass that has resorted to stripping houses for copper for drug money.
... the greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled.
Aldous Huxley
I can the truth in that statement!
It would seem to have been planned this way? "The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality."
H. L. Mencken
What part of Oakland? I lived near Piedmont Ave for almost 3 years. I actually really liked it there (well, the half mile circle immediately around my house), but, yeah. The decline was obvious. I got out.
It was nice around Piedmont Ave. I lived in Oakland for 31 years, 1/2 my life. First in a nice apartment right off Lake Merritt, then the 1st house in the lower hills, then the 2nd house further up the hill by a village called Montclair. While in the apartment, I would walk to BART in downtown Oakland every day, jogged around the lake every morning. No problems. By the time we left in 2015, our neighbors had hired a private security guard and we were practically the only ones who identified as non-Democrats. So kept our mouths shut and could see it was hopeless.....it's going on 10 years now and I've never regretted leaving. Just wish we would have gotten out sooner.
It was funny. Every few months, a fiery but mostly peaceful protest would march down Broadway and smash all the business' windows, but they could never, ever, ever be assed to march a quarter mile across the hill between Broadway and Piedmond and mess up my neighbourhood.
I lived there from 2015-2017, and I even thought that downtown Oakland (around the lake) was really nice and safe and I didn't feel in danger at all. The walk between my house and downtown was sketch af after dark, but even then, I never had a crime incident occur to me.
But oh boy, walk a half mile west to MacArthur BART to get to work, and I suddenly found myself wishing concealed carry was legal in California. (I assume it's not).
I hated living in the Bay Area, and wanted to leave for years before I pulled the trigger on it, but the singular incident that told me it was time to leave, I'm sure you've heard of
https://sfist.com/2017/04/27/bart_identifies_some_suspects_in_mo/
A mob of "30 to 50 unarmed youths" storms a BART train at the o.co stop, in broad daylight during the evening commute home, beats the shit out of everyone, sends a dozen people to the hospital, and takes all of their stuff"
There were two armed cops there. They did absolutely nothing. One gunshot is all it would have taken to make everyone run away, and they were in fact engaged in the potential murder of passengers.
BART is legally required to report all crimes that happen on their trains, once a week. They failed to report this one. The public didn't know until an investigative reporter wrote about it almost a week later.
BART immediately lied and said that, wow, what a convenient coincidence, every single camera stopped working on that train that day. Weird. Too bad we can't show the public who did these crimes.
Back then I had not fully internalized and understood US racial politics but this event was clear even to me. In this city, not five miles from my house, I could get murdered in broad daylight on my commute home, and the state will actively go out if its way to protect those murderers from consequences.
The state has exactly one legitimate job: leverage a monopoly on violence to enforce civility and peace. Oakland has refused to do that one thing. So I left.
Fun fact (THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE): Texas is the only state in the country where you are allowed to _brandish_ a gun in self defense in response to _non_-lethal force. You're not allowed to shoot unless your life is in danger but, contrary to the law in every other state, brandishing a firearm and pointing it at someone in self defense is not considered a lethal response to nonlethal force.
Strangely, people don't get attacked and robbed on public transit here. What a coincidence!
Yes, I remember that BART attack. One year after we left, the neighborhood security patrol guy tried to stop some guys from tearing down a construction fence so they could take materials from the house being renovated. The security guy wasn't armed. The guys got into a scuffle with him and broke both his hands badly. And right before we left, I was taking a walk and saw 2 guys break into another neighbor's house. 1 year after we left, our old house was broken into at 10am. They punched through a very small window in the basement. Never looked back :)
Texas is not the only state that has that.
Arizona Revised Statute 13-421. Justification; defensive display of a firearm; definition
A. The defensive display of a firearm by a person against another is justified when and to the extent a reasonable person would believe that physical force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the use or attempted use of unlawful physical force or deadly physical force.
...
California was May Issue for a long time, and if you weren't one of the Beautiful People™ you could just forget about qualifying for a carry permit. Sean Penn, with his history of assault? No problem! But law abiding you? Sorry, you're one of the little people.
Depends heavily on the county. The more urban counties were as you describe, but rural counties were almost "shall issue" in their issuance, while suburban counties were somewhere in between.
Thanks for the clarification, you are exactly right. I was just being a little too brief... Of course it does mean the great majority of Californians did live under that restrictive regimen
All over. I spent over 20 years there off and on. North Oakland mostly but in the hood too 63rd and Alcatraz... Down on San Pablo by the bus depot. Up by Lois the Pie Queen off MacArthur too. 56th street. Lived up in the hills for a bit before the fire. That was some serious shit there boy. wooowee.
But those emmer effers at BART. The worst fucking people ever. Shitbags the lot of them.
Piedmont was awesome. Cato's...all the bookstores. lA Boulangerie with the onion rolls. yum! The cemetery was gorgeous. I miss alot of it, but after about 2000 it really started to suck.
Actually, another San Francisco anecdote.
Last year, in October, for the first time in my life, I went to Mexico. I went to a music festival in Mexico City, ABGT 600 if that means anything to anyone reading. I had never been to Mexico before, but living in Texas and having mostly conservative friends, I was expecting it to be a sketchy, dangerous, disgusting shithole.
After spending a week in Mexico City, my impression was: this is like San Francisco except everything is clean and there's no crime. Now, granted, I was staying in the nice part of Mexico City, but I had to drive through some pretty sketchy parts to get there from the airport. On the entire almost 90 minute drive (yay rush hour), I did not see a single homeless person. There was substantially less graffiti than in California. Most things looked pretty well maintained, +/- what my Mexican host described as "Mexico-quality construction". Everyone was kind and friendly and open and inviting in public.
Basically, everything good anyone has ever told me about San Francisco appears to be true about Mexico City, and everything bad about Mexico that anyone has ever told me appears to be true about San Francisco. Funny, that
Also funny, given that I was going there for a two day rave festival, and given that many of the attendees didn't want to be thrown in prison by Mexican border security, everyone assumed they could get drugs there. The entire weekend, all of the group chats were just full of "❄️?????" and "favours????". Nobody could find out where to buy drugs.
In San Francisco, walk two blocks, ask twelve people who look like they might know the answer, and you'll find five dealers. But apparently it's impossible to get drugs in Mexico City. Again, funny.
To be clear, I was at Piedmont Avenue, which confusingly is not in Piedmont the city, but is six blocks downhill from it. I don't remember those businesses, but I had a few local haunts. There was a good Thai hole-in-the-wall, this cafe that had three different ambiguously Italian names while I lived there. A boba spot farther north, by the highschool.
My favourite spot was the Oakland Rose Garden. Somehow, smack dab in the middle of, well, Oakland, this pristine garden remained untouched by uncivilized people.
Before Oakland I lived in Berkeley, on whatever the next main through street, parallel to Shattuck but like half a mile south. California Ave, I think, but that might the cross street. It was about equidistant from the three Berkeley BART stations and, perplexingly, was way sketchier than the part of Oakland I spent time in. There was section 8 housing next door and I got to fall asleep to the lovely sounds of domestic abuse. An angry alcoholic hobo lived in the alley between my building and that one, and he'd stare in my window as I slept and throw empty bottles at me when I got home.
But the worst part was that in the 18 months I lived there, three people got murdered within three blocks of my house, all three in broad daylight, and the third one, I heard her screaming in the distance as she died, not realizing what was happening until I read about it on Twitter the next day.
So, in a move that will never not be funny to me, I moved to Oakland so I _wouldn't_ have to witness murder regularly.
BTW, MacArthur was on its way to mega gentrification when I was last there (2019). There's like a dozen fancy new apartment buildings. Of course, you're still going to get stabbed with an AIDS needle as soon as you leave your house, but, it's completely different from 2016.
The Bay Area is such a disgusting third world country, and it could be the best place on earth if only they wanted to. But the people there are so numb to it, they don't even care. They think it's normal. I heard so many people there say "this is just the price you pay to pay in a big city", and when I finished laughing at them for thinking San Francisco was a big city, I'd think "uh... have you ever been anywhere else? It's literally not". But the people there have no motivation to fix anything.
You'd think it's because they're all so wealthy that they can isolate themselves from it, but they can't. I know people in the Bay Area who were making base pay of $325,000 a year, a decade ago, and at age 40 they still had 3 roommates (who all made the same; Google is lucrative) because they _couldn't afford_ to live alone. On a total comp of half a million dollars a year.
Even if you are rich, well you still have to go outside. Unless you only ever drive to the suburbs, no matter how rich you are, you're just as stabbable as the next guy.
In a civilized society, there would be actual extremist death squads in California dispensing vigilante justice. But, well, I don't live there, so they can enjoy their self-imposed suffering.
totally. I know the areas you mention well. Broadway and 22nd I believe it was where they were offering a 1920'a home with three units in it for free to anyone who would haul it away so they could build out 2500 units on the old Chevrolet dealership site. Then there's "Brooklyn Basin" which was filled in estuary by Alameda...10k units but no new sewer...go figure.
And yes, the attitude I believe came largely from earnest H1B visa holders who couldn't give two rat farts for anything but their own sense of self importance. We should get some beers and have a bitch session. I know (knew) people killed in Oakland and one kid literally shot in the tallywacker by OPD so they could steal his weed. Sat in our living room bleeding out while the EMTs were en route. he lived though I don't think he really ever got to be appreciative of that fact.
As an aside...this is why I voted for Trump. Not cause I like him, though I do now...but because he is not a fucking Democrat.
Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren’t realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.
Henry A. Kissinger
Please realize you are quoting a man who was assisting the efforts to erect the global government by being in the American government.
He in this quote is expressing the disdain the elites have for regular humans...of any breed.
He is also expressing his belief in the exceptionalism of the elites who are expecting to rule the humanity they allow to live on their planet and the expected longevity they will attain when they find the fountain of youth through technology.
This quote is Kissinger's pure propaganda.
And The Exception is? "Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too."
Marcus Aurelius
Yep. There are many apropos quotes available. Marcus Aurelius (per yer later response) is a favorite of mine. My all time favorite person to quote though is Thomas Paine. That guy really gets to the heart of the matter in an astonishing economy of words.
It appears we are brothers in the same lodge! Here's one of my FAVORITES and it seems that el gato malo adheres to it: "It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error."
Thomas Paine Very evident during the Covid Hysteria!
Thou shalt not bear false witness. Neither to give nor accept it...
Think of it, though, I think a lot of second world actuality is predicated on second world thinking.
Since when is "stay home/stay safe" a good idea? You think bridges and buildings were built on such thinking? Flattened curves and slow spreads, and avoiding discomfort lead us into bad outcomes. And think of the resentment it dredges for those who do for those who avoid all manner of unpleasantness.
This equates to my personal mantra; if you are not actively moving towards the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, you are moving away from it. This is true for everything; individuals, organizations, your local church, your school, your countries - everything. And there is a built in momentum once halted is easily reversed. It's not just keeping your eye on the ball; it's always moving forward to it; knowing you will never reach it. But it's the actively aware, forward movement towards the Good, the True and the Beautiful that will bring about joy, truth and justice.
Trying to keep Entropy at bay!
I always thought "2nd World" referred to Russia when it was the Soviet Union.
That's how it was originally used. The US and its allies were First World, Russia and its allies were Second World, and everybody else was Third World.
Eventually, this sort of morphed to "First World" being modern and "Third World" being poor.
You thought correctly! I don't wish to take away from el gato malo's thesis, but indeed the original context was: the First World is the West, Second World is the Soviet bloc, third world is everybody else.
I independently coined the term Fourth World when I was living in southern Sudan in the 80's, to describe the extreme difference in development, education, and just about everything else between Nairobi and indeed all of Kenya that I saw, and Southern Sudan. Mind you, this is descriptive, not meant as a criticism -- starting as the third world country, maybe, and then being the location of a civil war through most of your country's independent existence... well that kind of harshes the development process.
The first world was NATO and NATO-aligned countries. The second world was Warsaw Pact and their aligned countries. The third world was unaligned countries.
Countries like Switzerland who did not align with NATO or Warsaw Pact were part of the third world, despite being western, wealthy, and developed countries.
I don’t think there was ever an explicit “second world”. There was the west and the east and everyone who was neither was “third”.
I believe times have changed.
Actually accurate. The USSR collapsed, and from the ashes a total reformation. Now Russia thrives (counter to western propaganda) and a safe, golden rule society, not perfect, but civilized.
Great post El Gato. Second world is already here.