And Now, For Something Completely Different

Michael? Back so soon?

Now, rid of the latest attention-whore idiot illustrative of the mouth-breathing class of internet troll, we can assemble the two or three pearls we promised to dig out of the metric buttload of diaper spackle from the previous exercise, and string them together to make some use of them.

Learn the difference between strong sentiment, and Incitement

Thomas Jefferson mused that the Tree of Liberty needs watering from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. No one batted an eye, even with early 1800's sensibilities. That, friends, is "Just saying...".

Spewing that "I'd really like to strangle Federal Judge Shitforbrains!", OTOH, is liable to get you an earnest chat with federal marshals, at the very least.

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball.

The J6 protesters will not be participating in anything going forward, owing to a prior engagement.

Don't be those guys, for at least two reasons.

1) Incitement is illegal. And you've seen, in only the last week, how far the law will be stretched to go after perceived enemies of the state.

2) Nobody is telling anybody to start shooting anybody else. When it is time, you'll be able to figure it out for yourself with little outside input.

Until #1 becomes #2, you ought to heed some wise advice from a seasoned Doctor of Law. Ignoring the magnificence of the cinematic effort, you really should watch that clip, and take it to heart, until you could recite it from memory, and bear it well in mind - until this clip ascends to pre-eminence.

A Civil War Would Be A Disaster - But not the worst disaster, the last disaster, nor the only disaster

Bumbling around in the recesses of poor Michael's mind, along with incoherent psychosis, was the genesis of an actual coherent thought or three, had he the wit to nurture and tend them until they were ripe enough to pluck.

To wit: he confused and conflated Civil War with TEOTWAWKI. If you think they're the same thing, share with the rest of us how, in April of 1861, everyone fled to the countryside, and abandoned all the cities. Go ahead; I'll wait over here at the bar while you work that out.

Then tell us how the same thing happened in England during their Glorious Revolution. How about Paris, circa the Reign Of Terror? Or anywhere else, ever. Spain, 1930s? Cuba, 1950s? Vietnam, 1946-1975? Indonesia? Yemen? Congo? Rhodesia? SAfrica? Korea? Japan? China? Look in vain, because that's not what happens. Life goes on. One or both sides may experience tough times. Some places or all places may see such. But nobody says, "Holy shit! Civil War! Run for the woods, quick!"

I outlined the difference between city and rural in a civil war.

The problem, when (not if, to about 4 decimal places) we have another one, it isn't going to be state versus state, nor city versus country. It's going to be street to street, house to house, and in some people's homes, room to room.

And some people will get careless, or stupid, and a civil war will become the second- or third-most dangerous problem.

The currency could collapse. In fact, probably will. Could happen even if we don't get to a civil war in time. If this is news to you, yet another cinematic benediction comes to mind.

In fact, worst of all, we could have a civil war, and our side could even win that war, and we could still become Weimar/Zimbabwe/Venezuela. 

But wait! There's more!

Someone in any Unpleasantness could get careless with matches, and next thing you know, the power grid goes POOF! Like fog on a July morning. In Death Valley. The cheeriest predictions for a grid-down "problem" are 90% casualties. But what's a paltry 300M dead, between friends, right?

A civil war, in either case, would become the lesser problem in about one pantry. So even if you have both, war isn't the biggest threat to you and yours, and even giving Uncle Government a snappy raised arm salute, and a daily tongue bath, is no guarantee things will be rosy even for the sycophantic Useful Idiots.

Planning For Almost Any Disaster Looks Pretty Much Like Planning For Only One Disaster- Get your Priorities in Order

In all foreseeable problems, some things will be more important than others, but most things will be important Every. Single. Time.

Water. Food. Shelter. Warmth. Medicine. Weapons. Power. Communications. Intelligence. Allies. Trade Goods.

Without them, you can't do anything. In fact, without most of them, you will not be able to do anything, including survive.

With them, you can likely do as much as your means will allow.

Which leads to another brilliant bit of cinematic exposition. (Clever readers may detect a trend here.)

Planning Is Useless; But The Planning Process is Invaluable

That is a direct quote from General of the Armies and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, but all he ever pulled off was D-Day, ending two wars, and the greatest peacetime boom in history, so what does he know?

Because as we noted earlier, plans go to $#!^. And the more elaborate the plan, the greater the number of points of failure, and the higher the odds that it will fail.

But failure to plan is planning to fail. Because the planning process shows you where all those places are where things could suddenly go pear-shaped.

So the important thing isn't to have any plan, let alone a perfect one, it's to have a perfect planning process, so you exhaustively expose ever single point of failure, and come up with - at the least minimum - Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency Courses Of Action.

Peace Is A Nice State To Live In - But It's Rarer Than Hen's Teeth

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

You need People.

You need Priorities.

You need Preparations.

You need a Planning Process.

Do those things, and you have a fighting chance with whatever comes.

Do them not, and other people will be splitting your gear after you're gone.

With 10 or 20 more IQ points, and better social skills, Michael might have dug all that out on his own, instead of wanting someone to hold his hand for him, lead him to it, and then cut it up into chewable bite-sized baby food so he could swallow it.

But some people would rather dig in their diapers than break a sweat, and do hard things.

Either way, you get the rewards you deserve.

You have to do the work to get the prize.