a burning city in the background

Burning the Country

I’ve been spending the last couple of weeks thinking a lot about voting, and who I’m supporting, and what I’m learning about politics along the way. I’ve never been a fan of Biden, and Harris wasn’t even a speed bump on my highway to hell until Biden fell down the plane stairs that time. I wasn’t a fan of Trump, either, and found him abrasive and rude. Now, Trump continues to be a bit abrasive, and occasionally rude, but I think he’s learned a bit about what it means both to run for the position of President, and to BE President. I can find him annoying to listen to, and still think he’s the better of the two current choices offered.

But Harris? She scares me. She doesn’t scare me the way Hillary did. Hillary was actually a wee bit competent (that’s why no one’s been after her about all the people who “accidentally” died when they crossed her or Bill’s path), and that’s terrifying. Harris seems to be a sock puppet. I could actually be happy with a sock puppet, depending on who’s hand was up inside it. In this case, though, I think Harris doesn’t even realize she’s a sock puppet. She doesn’t have a clue what she’s saying. She regurgitates stuff, sometimes out of order. It’s not that she’s senile like Biden or anything. She just doesn’t have enough brain cells to run at full capacity. I suspect that’s why they aren’t having her answer questions.

Despite all that, I could probably manage to live through a Harris presidency. The economy would tank, and a lot of socialist programs would eat up what little money we have left, and the country would be in shambles… but we’d live through it. The Right would buckle down, make do, and solidify itself over a four year Left presidency. I would probably be unhappy. I know most of my family would be devastated. But none of our lives would be directly threatened.

If Trump comes into the presidency, we have a whole different story. I genuinely believe he’ll fix a lot of the problems we’re currently having. He’s smart enough to listen to advisors, and smart enough to pick decent advisors. He’s not afraid to fire people who do stupid stuff. The economy will likely get better, slowly.

And then the Left will burn the country to the ground, in the name of love, tolerance, and peace.

I can’t believe I’m writing those words, but it’s true. If Trump comes into power, the Left is going to have the largest tantrum on record. They will burn our cities and then move out into the suburban and rural areas. We know what they did in Minnesota over Floyd. That was over a criminal dying during a legal stop. If they lose the election, it’s going to be gloves off.

That led me to thinking about how maybe the right thing to do would be let Harris in. Recovering from the economic mess she’ll leave behind will be easier than repairing the infrastructure bombed by the “tolerant Left” if Trump gets in. And then I got sick to my stomach, because I realized I was giving in to fear.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

— Frank Herbert, Dune

This is what the Left is doing. The words, “It would be easier…” are so damn dangerous. I’m angry because I am being forced to choose between saving the soul of my country, or the body of it. How do you choose that? A soulless body is an animated husk. But a bodiless soul is just air, barely an idea. It’s wrong.

The Left talks all the time about gaslighting. “Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity. Over time, a gaslighter’s manipulations can grow more complex and potent, making it increasingly difficult for the victim to see the truth.” (Psychology Today) When the Left talks about it, they’re referring to Trump and Vance and all the other Right leaning talking heads. I’m sure some of what they talk about may come under the heading of gaslighting, but not nearly so much as what the Left does.

Worse, the Left is doing it to its own people! You and I might be accidental victims in their net, but they purposefully gaslight their own people. I just don’t understand. It’s horrible. I watch it happen to my friends, to people I truly care about, and I just want to cry. They can’t see what’s happening to them, and if I point out illogical things they’re doing or have done, I’m the one attacked and told I’m being brainwashed by “Trumpers.”

Come on, doll, you gonna believe what you see or what I tell you?
— Harry to Miss Baxter, in the movie Chicago

Who ya gonna believe; me, or your lyin’ eyes?
— attributed to Groucho Marx

I don’t know what to make of any of it. There are things I see clearly that seem to be invisible to other friends. I keep getting told that the Right is going to strip me of my rights, force me to live as chattel, abuse my mind and body, and harm me irreparably. Yet those are the very things that the Left is currently doing to me. Might the Right do it? Sure, lots of things might happen. But what’s currently happening trumps what might happen, every time.

One of the big things that pushed me further Right happened a few years ago, just before the pandemic. I was on a historical reenactor forum, and one of the people was talking about pronouns. There was a lively (and to that point, polite) conversation ongoing. The gist was, if someone’s in a dress and is parading around as a girl, call them she/her. If they’re dressed as a boy, call them he/him. That part I was cool with. It’s a place where we all pretend… and a lot of the fun comes from pretending to be something you aren’t. We all use character names and bios, and there are never enough males to fill all the fighting spots, so sticking a few women in there who are pretending to be boys, no big deal.

Then someone else commented that they wanted to be called they/them. Since I was mentioned in the actual post, I said I would do my best to remember that. I went on to explain that they/them was hard for me, in ways that switching gender terms was not. I have grown up in a niche world. The term “they” and “them” is what you use for people you’re persecuting. “They” are the “other,” the “not us.” Again, I’d do my best, but if I fall down, please remind me and I’ll keep working on it.

They spent the next several screens (yes, they filled entire screens) and days telling me I was a TERF, that I was horrible, that I had made it “all about me” and a billion other things. They attacked me on many different levels. I complained privately to the people running the group, and was told they’d “look into it.” I never heard from them again. Several other friends of mine who’d been part of the conversation paged me or called me privately to say words of support. Not one of them would do it on the thread, though. Not one of them would stand up to the bully. I could NOT stand up to the bully, because my ability to respond was shut off. I could read it all, none of my stuff was deleted, I was just relegated to reading without the ability to respond.

I left the group. I mean, I left the online group yes, but I also walked away from the actual living history group. I’ve been to one or two very open, relatively public events they’ve held, but that’s it. I couldn’t do it anymore. The hate was of such magnitude that it made me sick. I didn’t want to feel emotionally battered every time I tried to engage in my hobby. Those people, those bullies… They knew me as pagan, polyamorous, kinky, pansexual, with multiple partners, with queer kids. I don’t know how much more niche I could get. But because I spoke my truth, the truth that I didn’t like to “other” people, I was lambasted and driven out.

What makes it worse is that somehow, the Leftists engaged in this behavior always seem to make it my fault, or the fault of the person who was harmed by their bullshit. Look at the burning of Minnesota after the George Floyd stuff. Whether you agree or disagree with what the cops did, there was no reason to burn the whole damn city (or even parts of it), to cause damage to public spaces, to terrorize the entire area. That misbehavior, that violence, was blamed on the cops. If the cops had just behaved, none of that burning would have been necessary. Or look at the wife who is beaten because her husband’s a deadbeat. If she had just cooked the dinner the way he liked, the beating wouldn’t have been necessary.

Now look what you made me do!
— every abuser to every abused person

Anytime we start a sentence with, “If X had just…”, I believe we’re dealing with abuse, gaslighting, and victim blaming. EVERY time. I don’t care what color you wear, what color your skin is, how round your eyes are, or if your distant ancestors rubbed blue mud into their navels. If you have to justify your behavior by starting off your sentence talking about someone else, I’m done with the conversation.

That’s what the Left does. It blames everyone else. It’s a bully pulpit. And I’m done with it.

None of that stops me from being terrified about the day after Trump wins, if he does. I’m scared that I’ll wake up to violence.

Last week, I watched a movie with the family called Beyond Utopia, available on Hulu for those interested. It’s the story of families attempting to escape North Korea. In it, we follow a couple of families as they cross the border from North Korea into China, then travel to other places where they will be safe (China is decidedly NOT safe, and if they are captured, they get sent back, to be killed or tortured). I won’t go into full detail, but there were a couple of moments in the documentary that really stuck with me.

In one scene, the 80 year old grandmother, who is defecting with her son, his wife, and their two children, is sitting in a safe house. They are in Laos, so not safe, but much safer than China. They ask her, through a translator, what she thinks of “all of this” (referring to the escape, the new world she’s seeing, and pretty much everything). She begins to speak the words she was taught, about the bravery of Kim Jong-un and how he has so much weight to carry now that his father is dead, and how the people of North Korea must be so very stupid for their country to have backslid so badly. She attributed the sad state of North Korea to the people, rather than the administration, because “everyone knows” that Kim and his family are essentially gods. North Korea is wonderful because they have universal health care, everyone has a job, there’s no crime, everyone is given a fair share of food, and so much more. The children talk about much of that, too. They repeat what they’ve been taught. Their eyes are somewhat dead when they do it, too. It’s terrifying.

These people are skinny. Like, not quite skeletal skinny. In the safe house, the children are given a couple of containers of food to eat, each. They set two containers aside, and share one portion. At one point, someone gives them Ferraro Roche chocolates, and it’s painfully obvious they’ve never had any before. The youngest holds a roll of toilet paper, turning it over and over in her hands with a confused look on her face. She has no idea what it is. The host has to show them how to use the shower; in North Korea, they must work for hours each day to get enough just to drink, and bathing doesn’t sound like it was ever done. They’re absolutely gobsmacked that there’s electricity all over the place. They know about electric lights (it appears they have some in the schools/indoctrination centers), but no homes have electricity.

So why am I talking about this here? Because I’m scared that my children’s children are going to be in that “Utopia.” I know I won’t be, because I’ll die first. Our generation still has fight. But I know most of my kids’ friends are already indoctrinated in many ways. Most of them have never read the founding documents or Constitution, and indeed, are unable to unless it’s rendered into text because they don’t read cursive. They don’t see any point to voting. We’ll bully that generation into doing the right thing, but they’re not going to teach the younger ones. We know, because they’ve told us that! So where does that leave us?

I don’t want our children to be somewhere that “everyone is treated as equal.” We’re not all equal. I’m a fucking fantastic author, and I am considerably better than equal when it comes to writing. AWA is a phenomenal programmer, better than 99% of the rest of the world, so he’s not equal. On the other hand, I can’t even do basic math, and AWA can’t spell his way out of a wet paper bag. Each of us can and should be lauded for the things we’re best at, and work at the things we’re poor at. That’s life. If everyone is treated equal, if the end game is for all to be equal (as Harris has said), then there’s no room for excellence and genius.

So yes, I’m afraid that I’ll wake up to violence if Trump wins. I’m afraid that the Left will burn this whole country down, that we’ll lose precious documents, art, and knowledge. I’m a writer – I still hurt over the burning of the Library at Alexandria… and I don’t want it to happen here.


Comments

18 responses to “Burning the Country”

  1. pkoning Avatar
    pkoning

    I’m trying to remember whether this scenario is something I got from Matthew Bracken, or from an actual politician. It feels like something I heard from an actual politician, perhaps in NY, or maybe it was Hilary.
    The scenario: bringing in UN “peacekeeping” troops to enforce a gun ban.

    When I see sock puppets like Biden and Harris, being handled by far left controllers, that sort of thing is what I worry about. Having them run the country into the ground economically is bad enough, but I know some of them would like to see the sort of scheme I mentioned and having them try is a troubling possibility. Once again Bracken gives us a good way to imagine how things could go, with his short story “What I saw at the Coup” and his trilogy “Enemies Foreign and Domestic” (especially vol. 2) as the good and bad variations.

    BTW, the reason I thought of Hilary in the above is that she openly advocated the Australian approach to gun control (which is, though she avoided saying so, nationwide confiscation).

    1. the un doesn’t have enough people todo this Country wide… and I know it wouldn’t end well for everyone.

    2. I think we’ve got home grown militia groups larger than UN Peacekeeping troop sizes, so I’m not too worried about that. But I hear what you’re saying. The idea of outside forces pushing things onto our country is heinous.

      1. CBMTTek Avatar
        CBMTTek

        Do not think for a second that a Harris administration would not invite the UN forces in for whatever reason.
        That is why we will not survive it. She will place the globalists above US sovereignty.

    3. IIRC, that happened in Bracken’s third “Enemies” book, “Foreign Enemies and Traitors”. It wasn’t to enforce a gun ban, specifically, though they did do that, too; it was to suppress rebellion and hunt down patriots, and let foreign actors profit from controlling parcels of America in return for fulfilling those duties.

      Leftist globalists have suggested having the U.N. send troops to enforce all kinds of unconstitutional mandates. The response from non-Left Americans has always been the same: photos of U.N. blue helmets with holes shot in them. I’m not sure the U.N. would send troops, even if the federal government requested it.

  2. maybe Im wrong, I think if Trump wins and the moonbats start “burning the Country down”, Trump and We the People won’t stand for it. no matter what happens We the People WILL have to be way more engaging than we have been. up to and including “citizens arrest” of criminals. sitting back on our collective ass isn’t going to bring the Country out of the cesspool. get motivated and get involved.

    1. I hope so, curby. I really do. And I hope it doesn’t get out of control. Again, AWA talks a lot about the pendulum, and so yes I’m afraid the Left will burn the country if Trump wins. But I’m equally worried that the backlash from that will be complete and utter ruin. 🙁

  3. K9 Operator Avatar
    K9 Operator

    If the early colonists had sat in fear of the British burning a city or two we would still be sipping tea and eating crumpets. Do the right thing, fear be damned.

    1. Oh, I will be doing the right thing. But I know there are a lot of people out there in situations that they aren’t free to just vote as they want, or do what they want. Either they’re brainwashed, or terrified, or both.

  4. CBMTTek Avatar
    CBMTTek

    Where do I begin… I agree totally and disagree totally. Frankly, this should be two or three different posts as there are that many different topics covered.

    Disagree:
    Letting Harris win is not the right move. It will not be four years, it will be eight.
    The only way Harris will win is voter fraud on a scale that makes 2020 look like kids playing dress up. I am saying that because all the enthusiasm on the left is manufactured, it is overdone and pretend. You can fake polls, fake headlines, even fake votes, but you cannot fake public support, and Trump has that in spades.
    The left got away with massive voter fraud in 2020 because the establishment refused to investigate any anomalies. They are now emboldened, and will double down if needed in order to win. So, expect eight years of Harris, and likely another eight of Walz.
    Also, do you really think the right will actually coalesce and stop it? That is unlikely. The TEA party movement fizzled out after a few months.

    And, no, the US will not survive eight years of Harris. It will likely be mortally wounded in less than four. The country is already maimed by the damage Biden has caused, and Harris will be worse. (Damage is debt, inflation, unchecked immigration, and incompetent (DEI) hires.)

    Agree:
    Harris, and Biden before her are sock puppets. In fact, 0bama was a sock puppet as well.

    You ask who is the person controlling the puppet? It is Klaus Schwab and the WEF. They may be doing it through 0bama, but in the end, everything this administration has done supports their agenda.

    The indoctrination is already widespread. Too many people think their self esteem is more important to society than their accomplishments. Too many people have zero financial intelligence, and have even less knowledge of US Civics. As the boot stomps on their face, they will be saying how good it is because Trump did not win.

    Let the damn left riot. And let them head out to the ‘burbs and see what happens. I will tell you in no uncertain terms that if the riots are so widespread that it is a de facto civil war, the number of rioters leaving my neighborhood will be a lot lower than those that entered.

    1. Re Harris and 8 years… I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that they’ll be All Done with her after four years. Or earlier. She really just doesn’t have what it takes. Their handlers might be able to hold her up for the first term, but I don’t think there’d be a second.

      I’d like to think Trump has the vote. I really don’t know, though. As I’ve said a few times, I think picking Trump as the candidate was a bad choice. Haley would have been wonderful (and would have brought an end to every one of the arguments the Dems are whining over right now: gender, race, mean tweets, etc). There were a few others as well. Trump is effective, yes, but his ability to piss people off is just so high. It has nothing to do with his policies and everything to do with how he looks. It’d be awesome if people voted on policy, but they don’t. They vote about mean tweets and stupid off hand comments taken out of context. I’d have put Haley up front, and Trump as VP, or Vance as VP. But oh well, we’re stuck with what we’re stuck with. I think he’ll do well, if we can get him in.

      But I’m watching neighbors and acquaintances and listening. They’re all high on Harris right now. That high likely isn’t going to wear off until after the election. That’s BAD. And they have an ace up the sleeve. If the high wears off too early, they can always have Biden step down, thereby cementing the excitement and high of the Left as Harris steps up as “first” of many things… and that might just lead to a sweep of the vote.

      So no, I don’t think it’s a clear win for Trump. And I strongly believe that thinking that way is the path to failure. We cannot sit on our laurels because he’s doing well or she’s doing poorly. Basically all the information we get is manufactured by the media. All of it. We have little to no idea what people are actually thinking.

      I don’t want to see riots. I know how it’ll end. And as I said above, I worry about that pendulum swing.

      1. CBMTTek Avatar
        CBMTTek

        If it was not for all the establishment politicians elbowing everyone out of the way in order to be the first to say “There was no fraud in the 2020 election.” I might be convinced that Trump could win on merits alone.
        The only way Harris does not do eight years is if the Trump supports overwhelm the vote fraud machine.

        I know… there is no “proof” of fraud in 2020, but there was almost zero investigation either. Additionally, the first bills proposed by both the House and Senate in 2021 were to Federalize the elections, remove ID requirements, allow universal mail in voting, and basically cement every possible fraud avenue into law.

        And, there will be no more United States (as we know it) after a Harris presidency. USA in name only.

        If Trump loses, we do not have another chance to right the ship in 2028. The ship will be fully in control of the globalists, and they are intent on capsizing it.

  5. K9 Operator Avatar
    K9 Operator

    CBMTTek is spot on. ^^^. If they come to burn our little town they will leave in body bags.

  6. I don’t want our children to be somewhere that “everyone is treated as equal.” We’re not all equal. […] Each of us can and should be lauded for the things we’re best at, and work at the things we’re poor at. That’s life. If everyone is treated equal, if the end game is for all to be equal (as Harris has said), then there’s no room for excellence and genius.

    Or as Einstein allegedly (but probably didn’t*) put it, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

    I’ve worked in tech support my whole life, much of it in call centers. And one frequent occurrence is the non-tech-savvy caller who verbally berates him/her self (usually herself, for some reason) for “not knowing these things”.

    My response was always the same: “What do you do for a living?” Answer could be anything: Accountant, teacher, real estate agent, building inspector, lawyer, plumber, etc. And then I’d say something like, “We all have our skill sets. I work in tech and I’m pretty smart, but I have no idea how to do your job, so when I need help with that, I’ll be calling you.” The vast majority seemed to immediately brighten up when I said that.

    But that’s the honest truth. I’m pretty good at keeping technology running, but I don’t have the skill set to find every tax exemption and loophole, or teach history to kids, or negotiate contracts to buy/sell a property, etc., so the person I’m helping today might be the person helping me tomorrow.

    ———
    * – Ironically, if you read the analysis of that “Einstein” quote’s origin, way back in the late-18th/early-19th century educators already understood how bad an idea it is to hold someone back where they excel in order to “shore up” where they struggle. But that has become the standard today; schools will hold a child back from where they excel and make them focus on where they fall short of some arbitrary “grade level”, to the point that when they finish they’re passable at everything (sometimes barely) but not really good at anything. Even the rare polymaths (who are good at everything) get held back from their potential, because “social development”. Bottom line: The modern public schools are designed and determined to suppress individual excellence in favor of uniform mediocrity.

    1. I’m pretty good at keeping technology running, but I don’t have the skill set to find every tax exemption and loophole, or teach history to kids, or negotiate contracts to buy/sell a property, etc., so the person I’m helping today might be the person helping me tomorrow.

      Exactly. I’m good at my wheelhouse. I sometimes learn new tasks, and become good in a new wheelhouse, and that’s okay. But I’m definitely not an expert at everything. Even AWA isn’t an expert at everything, and he’s as close as you get. 😉

      I was one of the kids who skated through school. There were few challenges (I struggled with advanced math in high school but am convinced, at this point, that it was a very bad teacher and not me), but I was essentially a straight A student. I didn’t do homework because I didn’t need to. Half the time I didn’t even read the books we were assigned, because I was busy reading something else. I could skim through and get the general idea, and pick up enough to do better than the rest of the kids who read it all carefully. *shrug* Then I got out in the real world, and failed. And failed. And failed. I failed a LOT. I lived in poverty. I was miserable. I was homeless for a while. I took dead end jobs with low pay. I was on the dole for a while. Took me a long time to figure out what I was actually good at, and start doing that.

  7. Stuck in Pugetopia Avatar
    Stuck in Pugetopia

    “They will burn our cities and then move out into the suburban and rural areas.”

    Cities, yes. Suburban, somewhat, perhaps, depending on the State.

    Rural?

    “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” —Isoroku Yamamoto

    Just make sure you have extra diesel rat holed for the backhoe.

    1. pkoning Avatar
      pkoning

      Matthew Bracken has a lot of good stuff about this in his essay collection “The Bracken Anthology”.
      On Yamamoto, there’s another quote attributed to him that Oleg Volk turned into an excellent photo: “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.” – attributed to Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto

  8. Chuck Avatar

    When they leave the cities, they leave the protection of left wing law enforcement and prosecutors. It will nor end well for them when they run into people that don’t have to worry about spending the rest of their lives in court and prison for defending themselves and their families.