Hint: posting stupid shit on "X" makes it fair game for mockery.
1) There was a statement on X from Matt Croyle via his own Oil Valley Film Festival on his supposed doxxing. Which is what happens when you jump up and down on live land mines.
(Nota bene: He wasn't doxxed. Posting wild criminal shit from your own name and having it land right in your own ass isn't "doxxing" you, it's flagging you. Nobody posted his home address. They just tied a tin can to his tail, and called the local, state, and federal authorities.)
So I guess Crazy Mattie didn't realize that the "Follow" tab could be clicked by real cops.
But that account, any personal account, and the reply are gone, as if they never existed. Pisser, Mattie-poo.
But the internet is forever - just like death threats against a former and future POTUS, and all his supporters - so someone on X saved it: allegedly Croyle's self-serving gaslight reply
As the person said at the site where I found the capture:
"Oops, his bad.
He didn't mean it.
He's the real victim here.
Blah blah blah.
We've seen this so many times, someone horrible says something horrible and then pretends it's not their fault for posting it because Trump bad.
Yawn.
When someone shows you who they really are, believe them."
Amen.
The replies he got to his Bart Simpsonesque "I-didn't-do-it" reply were great:
Marked Private on Facecrack, but Google finds the summary just fine. Sounds like somebody's about to have a terrible, not good, very bad month. Boo frickin' hoo.
3) Our humble effort, somewhat late to the game, didn't even make the first two pages of Croyle's comeuppance only this week, but we hope a few more phone calls and e-mails to the appropriate agencies it generated helps "Constable" Croyle fully appreciate the position he's put himself in.
It couldn't happen to a more deserving whackadoodle communist pig.
Further updates may follow, as they become known.
Right back at ya, commie bitch. EVERYONE has your number now. Maybe do society a favor, and go suck-start your pistol.
Emperor Poopypants may be just the senile @$$clown to kick off a shooting civil war.
We live in hope.
His moronic incompetence has been his defining personal characteristic, even before he lost what was left of his tiny mind. Then again, he could just waffle until a suitable "Look, squirrel!" moment, and slink away from direct confrontation over one small and insignificant stretch along a 2000-mile border as porous as chicken wire.
The bigger issue in the Texas kerfluffle is that Poopypants and FedGov can waffle on the piddling park concertina slapfight, because at the end of the day, it just forces illegals to walk through the official border crossing gates, which are already welded open, and where federal minions welcome all comers with no background check and open parole.
If Abbott and Texas' next move isn't to throw razor wire up around the official border checkpoints and the CBP holding pens everywhere in Texas as well, and keep it there 24/7/forever, they still manage to pull defeat out of the jaws of victory on this.
Letting the feckless Feds march de facto amnestied illegals right into America anyways gives TPTB their Little Rock schoolhouse moment, and they'll dunk on it, rub everyone's noses in it, and dance on Abbott's lap afterwards, laughing their asses off the whole time, and rightfully so.
Somebody in the [R] Powers-That-Be better address that 800-pound gorilla in about a minute, or the current thing is all just a fart in a hurricane.
If the GOPe plan is just to have everyone watch the hand the magician is waving, we all get fooled again.
Angus has undertaken to give historical background to the Ukrainian artillery tactics we described last week.
I am sure his artillery history per se is excruciatingly correct, and beyond dispute, and you are unhesitatingly recommended to read the exposition given.
The problem, however, is that his explanation of how this current thing is not new, basically did a face plant.
Multiple guns in multiple batteries fire all their tubes at different times (based on flight time) such that all the rounds land on that single target nearly simultaneously, or at least, close enough as makes no difference. Infantry mortars and even air-to-ground munitions can be added, just for grins. Any way you do it, at any size, it's Hell, in a very small space.
TIME ON TARGET: Each battery of 6-8 guns fires their rounds the indicated number of seconds prior to the planned TOT. Think "Whump...Whump......Whump.....Whump...Whump....." Then all 30-40 of those shells impact within 1-2 seconds. "FOOM!FOOM!FOOM!FOOM!FOOMFOOMFOOM!!!" The only thing more awe-inspiring would be God's own thunder from a lightning strike (or 40 of them in a second or two, at one spot), but the devastation is near identical for anything at that address.
Having participated in everything up to a regimental TOT, where every tube in the 10th or 11th Marines (90+ tubes, from 16 batteries with 6-8 towed and SP pieces each, at the time) dropped their shells from 105s, 155s, and 203s all on one specific given point within 1-2 seconds of each other, I will allow that they are properly glorious for everyone involved, other than anyone inhabiting said target. Which is rather the point.
They do that because artillery per each is inherently inaccurate, and thus an area weapon, fired like a shotgun. A TOT is like firing all the rounds in a single shotgun at once, at whatever poor SOBs are in that impact area.
That is NOT what Herr Oberst Reisner was describing in the linked video.
The Ukrainians spread those 6-8 gun batteries down to 1 or 2 tube sub-units, all linked on StarLink, and all using the GIS ARTA targeting program, (neither of which anyone had before) and each one picks an identified target, and shoots at it as soon as they're ready. Then they look at the update, and see what hasn't been waxed, and shoot at that, until there's nothing left to shoot at. Each sub-unit shoots when it wants, and then the guys (as we covered in an earlier ITC video) scamper in the rare case of counter-battery return fire, while other sub-units pick up the fight from a different position until there are no more Russians to shoot up, either from their destruction in smoking heaps, or their hasty retreat. Usually a couple of minutes either way.
Counter-battery fire is somewhere between pointless to impossible, both because Vlad's artillery counter-battery assets work as well as the rest of his Potemkin military to date, and because hitting 10, 20, 50 or more different single-tube targets would take hours, and require more artillery than there is in the entire Russian Army, and metric fucktons of ammo to splatter-fire an entire grid square just to take out one single tube, and 3-6 guys, plus a couple of dozen unfired rounds. If Vlad wants to try and use 500 rounds to kill one gun, even the Ukes (hell, even Ewok log and rock catapults) can play that game all week long, and twice on Sundays, from here to the next millenium, and come out ahead.
That looks like this:
Ukrainian artillery bushwhack ca. 2022 AKA: How To Erase An Enemy Regimental Task Force, In 5 Minutes Or Less
The Ukes DGAF when rounds land on the multiple targets, nor are they synchronizing any attacks (which is the entire point of doing a TOT), nor are they having all tubes/weapons impact the same rough patch of real estate. Their only concern is that all visible targets get serviced as rapidly as possible. The whole point is to get first- or second-round direct hits.(Word To Your Mother: Until very recently, artillery doesn't GET first-round direct hits. Period.) They're inviting, via that GIS ARTA app, every single weapon system that can be brought to bear to hit anything and everything within their own range fan, which targets are also dispersed, and which is something nobody did with arty before now, including us, because now arty can drop a shell with accuracy rivalling that of tank cannon in direct fire, so that instead of shooting up a vehicle from a couple thousand yards, they're dropping heavy arty on a target from a dozen or more grid squares away. (Our preference to date is to do that with LGBs from aircraft.)
It is exactly the company of long range snipers I described in the OP, rather than the historical artillery idea of a mob of musketeers doing a group mugging, which ain't nobody been able to do before now, and you can't "invent" that if you can't do it. This is why Edison gets credit for inventing the light bulb, and the Wright Brothers with inventing the airplane, because their versions worked, and which is why we don't give the credit to some nameless fantasizers who thought "Wouldn't it be great to light the room with electricity instead of fire?" or "Wouldn't it be cool to fly a heavier-than-air craft wherever you wanted?"
The Ukes are thus not doing anything like a TOT. So thanks for playing, but we know whereof we speak, from firsthand experience, and we know the difference between this, and a TOT. The two are worlds apart.
They didn't invent all the components, but they synthesized those other things together into a coherent whole like no one has ever done with artillery, and when they do it well, they're erasing Russian units up to regimental level (1000-2000 guys, and all their equipment larger than a Toyota) in a few minutes.
We don't even do this now. (Nor, AFAIK, does anyone else. YET.) We drop a round, adjust, drop another round, adjust, and so on, and then fire for effect (i.e. drop a shit-ton of rounds on the last spot) once we're on the bullseye. If we had this level of artillery accuracy (which two words, to this point in history, were generally understood to be an oxymoron on the level of jumbo shrimp, government help, or military intelligence) in Iraq/A-stan, we would have deployed all our available arty assets in firebases, along with Predator drones to spot, and simply erased the Taliban and Iraqi insurgencies one shell at a time, with virtually zero risk, unless they tried to mob attack a FSB, and walked into interlocking fields of fire from miniguns.
Traditionally, artillery is a shotgun, fired by a blind man, and coached by someone nearby; the Uke concept of operation is using it as a sniper rifle, and it's kicking the shit out of Vlad's minions, over and over again. The observable secondary explosions after arty impacts on video after video are the proof of the pudding. Welcome to the Big League, rookies.
Anybody who still thinks this current employment is a TOT, or has been done before as-is, is free to specify who made it work like this, and explain why it isn't therefore the universal artillery tactical rule, instead of the exception, being some mythical number of decades old, for all artillery since whatever mythical invention date so specified, and how come it's become so devastating to the Russians, who should have known better, being formerly thought of as the world Subject Matter Experts on artillery usage in combat up until 1945, or even 1985.
This is like explaining that Moses and the Israelites really only escaped through a marsh a few inches deep, and then having to explain how that water level drowned all of Pharoah's pursuing army and charioteers.
Sorry, but that's how it works. It's theoretically possible that I got it all wrong, along with the Austrian Army's head of R and D, and that despite his PhD, and everything he used to illustrate the point, he's historically ignorant about his entire profession.
But that's not where I'd put my chips if the wheel was spinning.
Russia is bringing T-62 tanks out of mothballs to replace the loss of T-72s and T-80s, which indicates that
1) The Russians aren't "winning" for any value of that word other than either "Pyrhhic" or "Mariupolic", and
2) They're now being forced to rely on vehicles that the Israelis were bitch-slapping around the Middle East 50 years ago, because modern AT missiles ate their lunch. Which things were what made those T-62s obsolete in the first place.
They're more advanced than lawn tractors, but if you couldn't win with top-tier gear, you aren't going to get it done against the same Javelins and NLAWS that kicked your ass earlier by using machinery that was obsolete almost before Vlad was born.
This is annoying for the Ukrainian forces, but mainly only if they run out of Western-supplied AT missiles before Russia runs out of mothballed crap from the 1970s to throw at them.
If Russia gets down to pulling T-34s from WWII out of museum displays, dollars to donuts they'll be using them for advancing on the Kremlin, not the Donbas.
But if Russian troops keep attacking, and can sop up enough AT missiles faster than they can be replaced, they might start to outlast the Uke resistance, and start to get some traction. It's unlikely given their past performance, but the law of averages says they can't stay incompetent forever.
Their attack is going to become a scorched-earth offense, which is going to tear the hell out of all the formerly Russia-friendly areas they hold now, which is where the war is being fought to a slogging standstill.
Remember please that Russia has no stomach for this endless slog; only Putin does. Putin's gamble is that he can maintain his tenuous grip on power long enough to eke out something like a win (which bus left the depot on about February 26th of this year). His victory conditions are not Ukraine's, and they only have to continue to exist. If/when Putin gets whacked or dies, the Ukes have an excellent shot at evicting what's left of the Russian incompetent and unmotivated hordes out of Crimea and the eastern districts forever, and based on current performance, the blood feud is going to make de-Russification of the entire Ukraine a territorial imperative they'll pursue with gusto.
And then join NATO, just for spite, making Putin's failure absolute.
And for those that need this explained in explicit detail:
This means Ukraine's continued existence is now at the whim of the West, not Putin.
Putin hasn't been able to overcome them in three months of trying.
The West, OTOH, could make Ukraine's candle wink out with the snap of a finger.
Now you know the answer to "Who run Bartertown?"
And you also now know why Gondor didn't want to ask Rohan for help against Mordor.
The fear of "strings attached".
In the real world, "help" always comes with strings. Of steel.
TANSTAAFL
UPDATE II: Color me shocked!, Angus is butthurt that his sup-par mis-explanation of what the Ukrainians are doing got taken to task in painstaking detail. I laid out the substance a successful counter-argument would need to provide, above. With the whole internet to drop a link to, if any such existed. But no. Instead, we get a pigeon playing chess: knock the pieces over, shit on the board, and pretend you won. Well-played.
The Ukrainians aren't doing a TOT, nor anything like it.
They aren't using tactics from 75-100 years ago that nobody could ever make work.
They're doing something in combat that hasn't been seen before, because they can, and making it work, like no one else has done, for the first time in military history. Having a metaphorical sword at one's throat makes people do things like that.
(And no, Angus, I let the nonsense slide, but we didn't widely disperse individual tubes; not in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or any other place you could name. We don't do it now, either {Yet.}. And yet we have computers and GPS that would supposedly "make it easy". So why not? Because it would take 6-8 times as long just to lay the battery, and then you'd have to register each individual gun, just to know WTF you're hitting. But you don't know that, because you never had to lay a battery, or register a gun, and don't know what you don't know. And a TOT was and is multiple batteries, which were already dispersed, firing at a single target. Not single dispersed tubes from the same battery. It wasn't done to avoid counter-battery fire, it was done to provide a devastating effect on a single target, before people could dive for cover, so that instead of the first round, they got 30-50, or more, all at once, which is exactly NOT what the Ukrainians are doing in any way, shape, or form.
They also aren't doing "shoot-and-scoot", which we did practice {it was SOP in the 1980s}. They're doing "shoot and take shelter in place while waiting to see if Ivan can even do counter-battery fire". Which lesson has been overwhelmingly, "No, he can't do that, and he can't even find his own ass with both hands and a map."} Not knowing any of this is why you should have stayed in your lane, or at least watched the Austrian Army video and learned a thing or two. You didn't set a clever trap; you simply don't know what you're taking about, but worse than that, you don't know what you don't know.)
And rather than shrug off the mistake, some people aren't happy until they aren't happy. Okay. Whatever floats your boat, chief, but you're still wrong, and now just being deliberately ignorant when corrected. This is what happens when apes read philosophy: they don't understand it. Best wishes with that plan going forward.
Per latest reports, Satan's Army, having been caught Going Woke™, is now in full retreat after stepping on their own dick with sharpened cleats, trying to lie their way out of their colossal miscalculation, and now rapidly watching contributions shrivel away just at the height of their former fundraising season. Get Woke? Meet Go Broke.
Dulce et decorum est.
Boo frickin' hoo.
Sideways, with a rusty chainsaw, Leftards.
Fire the two open communists who promulgated that screed of anti-white racism, then name and fire everyone in their chain of command who green-lighted it (armies are convenient in tracking blame that way), then confess the monstrous chain of errors leading to publishing it the first place most profusely, beg obsequiously, unanimously, concertedly, and unceasingly for forgiveness, and maybe in five or ten years, we'll think about contributing again.
Purging the offending materials from their site comes too late.
(BTW, we saved archive copies of both manuals in our own files for just such an eventuality. Nice try, commie pigs. The internet is forever.)
Unconditional Surrender: Burn the lies (and the liars) out with fire, and then we can talk.
Not before.
And in the meantime, anything we can do to starve those racist communist bastards any further funding is barely enough, but absolutely doing God's work.
Not another penny, bitchez, until you repent unconditionally.
"What a coincidence! I'll just be following orders when I pull the lever and watch your necks snap. History is funny like that."
Saw senior management today for a totally unrelated issue. As meeting wrapped up, they noted they had no record on file of my COVID vaccination status.
Me: Decline to answer, thanks anyhow.
Them: This is what we're getting as guidelines from the Califrutopia Department of Public Health.
That was their killshot. They really think they can tell employees to jump off a cliff, and then point to the state and say "They made us tell you." Um, ...sideways with a dull rusty chainsaw, bucko.
Me: This company hasn't done anything stupid with regard to COVID from last year until now. You really don't want to start doing stupid things now just because the state recommends them. You're going to get a lot of pushback, including from me, of a kind you don't want.
Them: We've already gotten a lot of pushback.
Me: My second call, if you follow through on this, will be refusal on all grounds, and a telephone call to someone with "Esq." after their name. I won't be tortured, and I won't be singled out, on capricious and arbitrary grounds, nor tolerate a hostile workplace environment. The state may be pushing this, but management and employees here are where the rubber is going to meet the road, and you'll end up paying a heavy price to "go along". Please, pass those concerns up the chain.
Them: But...but...but...reasons!
Me: In so many words:
"Don't push it, or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go."
I already told you how serious Kung Flu isn't, midway through Year Two of The Horse-and-Chicken Soup Show*.
B, over at MotR blog, wonders if and if so, how much, of the current increase in Kung Flu cases is due to the hordes of untested, unvaxxed illegals being salted hither and yon, particularly in Red State America, by the current fraudulent regime, seemingly without a COVID care in the world.
It's almost certainly happening, and TPTB will go to any measures necessary to make sure you can never, ever document that causality.
To do so would be to pull the curtain back on the Great And Powerful Oz, than which there is no greater sin.
We seem to recall telling you that the actual effects of Kung Flu would be the LEAST of the problems you'd face from this thing. Maybe we just imagined that. Maybe not. Go back and look...
FWIW, as I noted previously, we've seen a small uptick in cases where I'm at in CA.
We also serve a city with a yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge population of illegals. Since 1851.
And FTR, the CFR (Case Fatality Rate) from COVID in the US averages between 1.5-2%.
In parts of Mexico, particularly those nearest the US border, it's 16%.
That's not a typo. In Mexico, up to 1 person in 6 who gets COVID dies from it, because no insurance, no money, and no healthcare.
Given that reality there, who wouldn't do whatever was necessary to flee that??
I would. You would. Everyone you know would.
The Mexicans are. (I'm explaining, not excusing.)
This ain't rocket science.
The difference is that now, it's no longer US policy to stop anyone.
Which is what will lead those along the border, and elsewhere, to start employing the Three Ss:
Shoot - Shovel - Shut up
Works for wolves near Yellowstone. Works for mountain lions in CA.
And shortly, works for illegals at the border.
In 3, 2, ...
*(In the former Soviet Union, in the hard times after the Great Patriotic War, a curbside vendor was brought before the court with allegations he was selling greatly diluted horse-and-chicken soup, with far more horse to chicken .
The judge asked him "How much horse to how much chicken are you selling?"
The man replied, "It's absolutely even, 50:50, Your Honor!"
"How can you be so sure of that?" asked the judge.
"Oh, that's easy, Your Honor. I put in one horse, and one chicken."
Currently, the chicken is what's actually happening from COVID, and the horse is the amount of all the horsesh*t the government is laddling into the soup. And the ratio is the same as that horse-and-chicken soup.)
As a follow-up to the previous cache guidance, the topic of weapons comes up. And it should.
Firstly, I would never keep everything of any category I owned all in one neat package.
We all know
Two is one, and one is none.
But it's also true that five or ten is really spiffy. And thirty or forty is quite a party, if you have the means.
Anybody with enough Glock pistols and AR rifles, plus a basic load of ammo, to pass out in quantity is going to become the captain of the local pipehitting team in short order, if things go all the way to sporky.
And twenty guys shooting one rifle apiece is waaaaaay better than one guy trying to shoot twenty rifles at once.
But we're not going to rehash or rewrite the book on weapons caching here.
And, obviously, if you can squirrel away a buried 40' conex container with a Ma Deuce, M79s, and full auto weaponry in quantities to arm a battalion task force, without doing hard time in the federal lock-up, by all means do that.
Of rather more concern today is what else you should probably think about squirrelling away in your cache(s).
The Reasons To Cache Weapons
1) Because keeping everything in one place is short-sighted, and potentially fatal.
2) Because you may need them someplace else in the future, and don't have the ones you did formerly.
3) Because you'll be moving from Point A to Point B, because A is overrun or otherwise untenable.
Nota bene: Your Ultimate Survival hidey hole could be either of those two points. IOW, you could be trying to get to it from some Blue Hive hellhole; or you might have been there, and become dislodged. So having pre-planned, pre-surveyed, and pre-stashed supplies along possible entry and exit routes is always a good idea, whenever possible.
Not all weapons go "bang". And while firearms are great, whichever way you're headed when you need a cache, you might need something quiet, rather than a new rifle or pistol. Having the means to take game silently would be highly recommended about then.
Some great choices:
A take-down bow or crossbow.
A fishing rig for the above.
A sling, or slingshot. At about $7@ at WallyMart, more is better.
Ammunition for the above: Bolts, arrows, hunting broadheads, steel balls, BBs, etc.
Spare bowstrings, slingshot rubber and pouches, and any other maintenance supplies.
Snare wire. (Hint: They sell green 20g, 22g, and 24g floral wire, as well as 18g and 16g jewelry wire in spools up to 100' long at Hobby Lobby, Michael's Crafts, and any number of other stores, some reels for as little as $4. For under $40, you could buy enough wire to make the squirrels in the local park, or your back yard, or the jackrabbits in the back forty, extinct. Just saying, not advocating. And remember: you nab the neighbors' poodle or Fluffy the Cat, and nobody's going to thank you for it.)
Rat traps, or actual game traps.
Fishing tackle, like trot lines and automatic reels, along with the obligatory weights, floats, hooks, etc.
Fishing net(s).
Spear points.
One gentleman I read of had made provision for ever getting separated from his shooting irons in Canuckistan while out hunting by stashing snare wire and rat traps, along with little tubes or retort pouches of peanut butter all over his hunting AO and back towards his regular home, planning to trap tree rats (squirrels) and rabbits indefinitely and simply walk home, for as long as it took.
Add a cargo pocket fishing kit to than plan, and it'd likely suffice to get anyone from the Yukon to Yucatan, and put on weight all the way.
Some people plan to, or have already, packed away a small arsenal of boomsticks and ammo. NTTAWWT.
But circumstances might dictate that quiet is better than loud, and healthier in the long run.
So when you're thinking about what to sock away, consider that you too might want to pass through an area well-fed, yet without disturbing anyone, or giving them reason to come find you and see what's going on. Or take away your shiny toys - from your cold, dead hands.
Gear Without Training Or Experience is just "stuff".
If you're likely to do any or all of the things I mentioned, or need to, it would be a good idea to try out your plan now, while you can, in the exact places you may someday pass through, to see what works, and learn how to do it, which can only be done by actually getting out and doing it.
If you've never trapped, skinned, cooked, and eaten something, you aren't going to get the ability to do any of that by osmosis, or magic beans, on the day.
Obey all applicable fish and game regs, but get out there and learn this while your pantry and freezer is full, and you haven't notched your belt any tighter. Don't wait until it's a success-or-death game of You Bet Your Life.
I analyzed (and rejected) an idea on a blog post a couple of posts back, yesterday. I freely and frankly confess I had no idea it was T.L. Davis' blog, but had I known it, I would probably have simply moved on to other business, rather than be caught walking on Clint Eastwood's lawn in Gran Torino. I simply don't need the aggravation, but I withdraw nothing said, then nor now.
However, that said, I have no personal animus towards T.L., then nor now, and wish it noted that it's the idea of secession that was ridiculed, not the man offering it. If, despite that, he feels personally insulted or slighted, I offer my sincere apologies for giving that impression, and I alone am to blame.
Furthermore, without offering examples, rest assured I've had a stupid idea or two in my lifetime, and have the scars, both psychological and physical, to give proof. So please believe me that I can see where anyone, self included, can do or say something which later becomes rather obviously a damned fool undertaking, and would generally prefer neither to repeat those endeavors, not have them recounted on a regular basis. No one is perfect, but wise men don't commit the same foolishness twice. Not least of which, because some mistakes in life you don't get to make twice.
Which brings us to T.L.'s response to my take on his original post.
If you're expecting tit for tat, forget it. After his initial fit of pique in yesterday's comments, T.L. wishes to flesh out a few things, on the merits. Fair enough. Let iron sharpen iron, and see where the sparks fly.
This will be long, and lest I misquote anything (or be accused of it), we'll take on the whole of his post, and see where we agree, and where we part company.
I don't usually respond to comments around the web on the things written in this space. Largely, they are by communists who don't like to be criticized, but something written by a person I have respect for (and I am giving him a lot more credit than he gave me) writes something that while it criticizes the concept of secession, it also raises larger issues in the overall discussion, so I thought that I would break with that tradition.
Aesop in the Raconteur Report posted something highly critical of the idea of secession, without really fleshing out the machinery of secession. Now, this is not an attack on Aesop. As I have said, I have respect for him, but it shows where a lot of people might be misunderstanding the situation and I am using his post as a method of walking through it.
Aesop says, "This is 2021. Not 1861. Not 1776." First of all, how does he know?
Well, I looked at a calendar.
Will future generations look back on 2021 or more likely 2025, and add them into some future post in 2150? The point he makes is that there is not a dividing line, an us vs them or solidification of sentiment as there was in those olden times. Not all secessions begin and end the same way.
History tells us that 1776 was as convoluted and politically charged within households as 2021. There was the British and the Colonists, but not all British felt themselves loyal to the crown and, conversely, many colonists did. Just as not all fedgov feel loyal to Joe Biden, or conservatives to Donald Trump.
Point of order: all the colonists were British. That some of them no longer wished to remain so was rather the whole point of the exercise. That the split was roughly 1/3 Tory (pro-King), 1/3 Patriot (pro independence), and 1/3 Leave Us The Hell Out Of This (pro Leave Us The Hell Out Of This) was not only well attested from primary sources, but noted in every treatment of the Revolution, including such cinematic flag waving efforts as 1776 and The Patriot. Given that both sit on my shelf, and I watch 1776 somewhere north of 2-3 times a year, and refer to it any dozen more times in various contexts, suffice it to say I am well aware that it wasn't all a group of any one thing or another.
I give George Washington as an example, who traded in his commission in the British Army to stand with the colonists at a time when I'm sure he felt that he would lose the war. That the war was unwinnable, but saw it as a means to appeal to the international community, mostly France, to intercede against Britain long enough to establish the new nation. Washington had foresight and didn't charge off to attack the British at their strength. Aesop seems to only want to a fight a battle he is sure to win, or that losing is somehow stupid.
T.L., please. No battle is sure. Losing is a tragedy. But inasmuch as one has a choice, they fight a battle only when the odds are in their favor. Vegas has a name for those who take on long odds: losers. That's not a tragedy. It's a form of mental retardation or insanity; perhaps both, in various measures.
Both options suggest a person who does not act out of principle, but only if assured of success. This suggests a willingness to live on one's knees rather than to die on one's feet.
As to the former, we will let someone else speak for us:
"Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory." - Sun Tzu
I never met Sun Tzu (or T.L. for that matter), but being that Sun Tzu's studied by every serious student of the military arts on every continent, and that I've read that magnificent bastard's book, I'm going to go with the idea that the old guy from China may have a bit more insight into military arts than T.L.
As to the latter aspersion (and let's be clear, that's what it is), I offer the following:
You may have seen that meme. Perhaps here, perhaps on WRSA; perhaps both places. Emiliano Zapata (the lad in that pic) said it, but I made that meme, which is why you've seen it recently. I posted it first here, on January 6th. Some of you maaaaay recall that day, for some reason or other. Read what I wrote that day (or, hell, any day since about five seconds after I started blogging), and tell me I'm a big fan of living on your knees.
Suggesting it is risible on the face, and frankly beyond the pale.
Second, the idea of Texas breaking off from the republic to stand alone as one nation seems ridiculous to Aesop.
Not ridiculous. Just "about as likely as monkeys flying outta my butt." Let's be clear on that.
This shows lack of understanding of secession. Did South Carolina remain alone, just because it was first? If 38 or 40 of the states (Republican legislatures) decided to secede, the question then becomes, are the 10 or 12 left really the formidable force he seems to think it is?
Call me when you get one. Unless I miss my guess, I'm pretty sure even schoolkids in Texas can tell you what happened the last time they tried that, and how it worked out in the long run.
And, at that point who is choosing secession and who is choosing the Union? I suggest it is the one that wants to follow the Constitution that has legitimacy.
Never argued they didn't. So, when SCOTUS told Texas and 19 or so other states to pound sand on suing the states that held unconstitutional elections last November, which ones seceded? I'll wait while you look that one up.
The longer run, political leverage and maneuverings seem lost on him.
As the cold, hard political realities seem lost on you, sir.
Even then, a lot of people have moved to Texas from blue states, because they felt themselves no longer able to take the communist pounding and complicit government actions of those blue governors.
How's that working out for Texas along the border from El Paso to Brownsville? So, is Texas now more conservative, or less , than it was in, say, 1980? Again, I'll wait while you check the tape.
Florida has felt the same surge, for the same reasons. Is this not a form of breaking off? Is there only one line? Only one action?
Florida is dangling by a thread. Another little nudge, and it's blue. And even had Trump been inaugurated this year (he already won, which doesn't seem to have mattered), the day that happened, you would have seen the last Republican president in your lifetime once Florida flips sides.
People moving from one state to another isn't "a form of breaking off". It's called people moving where the jobs and opportunities are. Yet somehow, despite all that relocation, Alzheimer's Nancy and ChuckU Schumer still sit atop the political pyramid, almost like "voting with your feet", or any other election, just doesn't matter. Another form of secession bites the dust. Bummer for the theory.
Yes, we are a purple nation, as Aesop says, in purple states. Does he envision it has ever been anything else?
Since you asked: see if this rings a bell:
That's from waaaay back in...1984. Kindly point out the purple states, at your leisure.
Again, history goes wanting in his analysis. Kentucky straddled that fence of Union and Confederate, taking neither side, Kentuckians from each side volunteering for either the Union or Confederacy.
How many Kentucky Confederates emerged victorious in 1865?
Perhaps the feud of the Hatfields and McCoys slipped the mind. Does he imagine that everyone in South Carolina felt the same?
I needn't, and it's immaterial. South Carolina fielded no Union regiments, it started the war, it lost the war, and it was subjugated in response to its loss.Even had the entirety of the Confederacy been 100% inclined in favor of secession, it wouldn't have changed the final outcome of the war, only perhaps the date of their ultimate defeat, and the final tally of the total dead on both sides.
That no South Carolinian thought the actions of the government were unwise and dangerous?
See above.
What we learn from history is that there are no sides in any civil war that only reside in one household, much less a county or state, solidly among all the people. Never has and never will. Aesop is right about that, but he doesn't see the similarities, I do. I moved to a 90% red area of a red state to put myself more solidly among people who would more likely be on my side in Aesop's "cagematch", whom I could fight with, rather than against.
You've improved your odds locally. So, what will you do about that 10%? Slaughter them? Round them up and exile them? And what if they resist? What are your odds if 10% of any society disagrees with you violently? (Before you answer, consult manuals on guerrilla warfare, and then look up the prison incarceration rate of the U.S., and let me know how bad society would be with 10% solidly violently criminal. Or even 5%.)
I do agree with Aesop in the understanding of the battle as a "cagematch." Yes, I believe it will devolve to that, even if a state like Texas announces the desire to secede, which it already has on a couple of different levels, there is no one people of one mind in Texas. Who knows, Mexicans in Texas might be willing to support it, if for no other reason than to deliver Texas into the hands of Mexico. But, in his zeal to denounce forever some fantasy of a civil war like the Revolutionary War or the Civil War, he fails to recognize that the civil war already rages in the minds of both communists and patriots. The question is: how does it transition from mask wearers and mask deniers to fisticuffs, then stabbings, then shootings?
I don't give a damn how. I'm far more interested in whether, where, and when. If, however, you can muster a whit of evidence to show why how matters, I'm open to hearing it.
Without ridiculing Aesop, as he ridiculed me, personally,
No, T.L.; I ridiculed the idea of secession as a workable model with any chance in the real world. I repeat, if you feel personally slighted, I accept that, and I apologize.
I will lay out my understanding of the coming secession. It begins as it already has, with certain counties instituting Second Amendment sanctuaries.
Cost-free jibber jabber, with no teeth.
With Sheriffs, as we have already seen, promising to arrest federal agents who intend to enforce unconstitutional laws (laws that are in and being passed by Congress right now) within the county, with states like North Dakota refusing to enforce any of the Executive Orders Biden issues.
Call with news the day so much as one fed is arrested for that, anywhere.
The Pandemic they used to cow and terrify the nation has already shown us the direction they intend to drive all of America. States like South Dakota, Georgia and Florida have proven that the communist impulse to shut everything down and lock people away is problematic. Any future lockdowns will be met with stronger resistance, but only in certain states. Gun confiscation will be more successful in those blue states than it will be in red states.
FTR, the compliance with such hogwash, in both Califrutopia, and NYFS, has been, to date, under 2%. 98% of both populations, IOW, have said "BFYTW". Gun confiscation in blue states will go about as well as arresting Dorner in blue states. Except most folks, not being certifiable, won't helpfully mail in a manifesto and self-identify from the get-go; they'll just start racking up a box score, and let TPTB figure things out their ownselves.
Over time, and I don't expect this to kick off in 2021, there is a coalescing of sentiment in certain areas both blue and red. Not anywhere near the 90% Aesop seems to think is necessary for one state to break from the federal government, especially when that declaration is not made.
Feel free to go to my post, and excerpt the quote from which you extracted that wholly imaginary "90%" number you claim I think is necessary. I'll just wait over here with the table salt for your crow. And then, ever so gently, suggest that you respond to what I actually wrote, and not what you imagined I wrote.
Secession is not so much a political act as a determination of one group of people to disassociate from another.
Then kindly title your post "Imaginary Secession", and I'll leave that where it belongs, and trouble you about what you would imagine no further.
Nowhere in the idea of secession that I proffered did it include an official declaration, at least not initially. It arrives rather as resistance to unconstitutional laws, H.R. 1 for example, where the methods of conducting elections nationwide is abhorrent to most of the red states, who will not comply and the initial gunshots are in the form of lawsuits and outright refusal to obey by one political entity or another.
Lawsuits? Like suing over voting irregularities? In federal courts? Or before SCOTUS? A picture would seem to be worth 1000 words here.
I'm sorry, I'm dunking on you, while you were sticking to words and all serious, but c'mon, T.L. If lawsuits were secession, we could have just retained Philadelphia lawyers, and settled the entire Civil War out of court for a 33% fee.
Even in the concept of TEXIT, it is a vote rendering a sentiment and the proponents of it recognize that, if successful, it only starts the negotiation with the federal government.
The federal government doesn't negotiate with terrorists. One either complies, or rebels. Ask George Wallace and Bull Connor (let alone Jeff Davis and Robert E. Lee) what rebelling gets you.
Certain states and legislatures of others will see the successful actions of the few and replicate them.
Right. The successful lawsuits. Refer to the meme above.
It is still a long way from the "cagematch" but the sides are being chosen, at least in the hearts and minds of the people, each becoming more red or more blue. Aesop overlooks the vast unaffiliated middle, who normally avoid politics, who feel themselves being drawn closer to one side or another, despite their reluctance to say so publicly.
Au contraire. But undecideds have only potential value, and they cancel themselves out. They are neutrons in a molecule. They provide mass, but wholly without serious influence.
There is a whole soup of issues swirling about that push these individuals one way or another: abortion; gun rights; election laws; lockdowns; masks; sports viewing; work; loss of job or business, on and on.
Their only value is once they pick a side. Thus the only thing to do with them is to give them a host of reasons in favor of one way, and another set not to go the other way. But until they come down one way or the other, they are as unimportant as green shoots in a field: only when they are obviously wheat or tares can they be sorted and used, or removed and burned.
He is right, it never comes down to lining up on one side or another leveling our AR-15's shouting "Texas Independence or Death!." The big blue areas of Houston, Austin, Dallas, etc., seem to be a big problem in Aesop's mind. There's no need to go in and clean these areas out, door to door. If the red areas surrounding them, all of them, put up resistance to allowing power to flow from distant power generating stations to the cities, interdict the travel of trucks on the highway, trains on the rails, wind turbines in the rural areas, etc, etc, they destroy themselves from want, heat/cold and lack of goods.
Right. Because
a) those cities, and every last person in them, are all 100% evil, and deserve what they get
b) And they'll just sit there and take it, and like it
c) And they have no relatives elsewhere who'll get a vote
d) And no one, including Fedgov, will have a vote in that clever plan
e) And because no one you didn't know was on your side there will decide "BFYTW", and flip sides, because your clever plan forced them to chose the lesser of two evils
f) there aren't any people outside those cities in your non-100% red areas who'll happily pay you back 10-fold for that sort of silliness, right in your own patch, and in the back
I could go on to z), or maybe even zz) but we'll just
cf.: #cuttingoffyournosetospiteyourface, and
#theEnemyalwaysgetsavote
Less Genghis Khan and dummkopf, and more Sun Tzu and Schwarzkopf, if you please.
But thanks a pantload for kicking off exactly the house-to-house and block to block civil war, in 254 Texas counties, you said you were seceding to prevent.
They might want to band up and go out into those rural areas causing their distress and murder those backward hillbillies. I wonder how successful that would be. That is how nasty it can and probably will get. That is Aesop's "cagematch," but it starts somewhere, has some initial impetus. The consideration of secession, not the overt act, is the beginning of drawing more like minds together, in the same towns or counties. It is strategic and determined. Just being a smartass doesn't get us any closer to that coalescence.
And having made that point, you'll understand when I reply that just being a dumbass won't help much either.
Nobody serious is seriously considering secession. It's like talking about winning the next election. They're considering insurgency, revolution, and overthrow. I don't want a piece of what used to be known as the U.S. of A.
For about the tenth time I've said it and posted it here:
I am so enamored of the republic that was, that I'll not willingly part with a square foot of it to the communists. I want the whole damned thing back. Whether any of them survive the transition is a matter to me ranging from complete indifference, to active revulsion at the thought.
That isn't secession. It's cleansing.
I ask him, though, what is the alternative? Roll over and let the communists rule? Are the big red areas not just as big a problem to them as the blue areas would be to us? It could be something as simply put as "in the absence of orders, find something communist and destroy it."
That would be an insurgency, and an underground. Not a secession. France didn't secede from Nazi Germany. America didn't secede from Britain. And no place is seceding from the U.S. They'll either win their independence, again, or roll over, give it all up, and wind up in the gulags featured in every communist state since ever. There's no third option. And there won't be any safe space unless it's called Everything, because the other side has proven beyond all doubt that the one thing of which they are wholly incapable is to leave everyone else alone. Couldn't do it in Korea. Couldn't do it in Vietnam. And only brinksmanship and the threat of global thermonuclear war stopped it in Germany. Communists, like muslims, are the world's original pugnacious busybodies, and the only successful remedy is removal in toto.
If they could have pulled off minding their own business once in the last 60-100 years, we need never have reached the state we're in now, one which is only going to get worse, day after endless day.
To secede is something one does in their own mind first and foremost. I already have.
Good for you. But the rest of the country doesn't live in your mind, they live in the real world. And if they want their freedom and liberties back, they're going to wrap their minds around the idea that to get it, and keep it, they're going to have to slit throats, and shoot m*****f*****s in the face.
Trying to use some Zen mental visualization technique will come in a distant second to going all stabby and shooty on those who would cheerfully enslave them and kill them as soon as swat a fly.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C. S. Lewis
One doesn't "secede" from a metastasizing cancer. Ones carves it out wholesale, burns it, poisons it, and literally nukes it, until no trace of it, not one single cell, remains.
The same is true of tyrannies. We didn't do a 70:30 deal with George the III, nor Jeff Davis.
Anything less than the complete eradication of the problem is a recipe for long, agonizing, and unspeakably painful death. I'll pass.
So please, be in no confusion: The only time I'll be facing that on my knees is when I have one of them firmly astride someone's windpipe until his legs stop thrashing, or I feel a satisfying cervical cracking sound underneath.
There's no substitute for victory, and nothing less will suffice nor avail.
If you can figure out any easier way, give a holler. I'll always entertain the blueprint for a better mousetrap.
As my aunt would remind us, "If you don't finish it all, it just keeps coming back!"
Yesterday was the most important part about looking at how you fared at an individual level: what did you do, what should you do, and what will you do? I hope you take the time to analyze your own situation, and improve your position.
Now I want to consider the broader implications, and complications, of the current, and ongoing situation.
We already talked about wider casualties of this pandemic, and the fact that even if this thing dematerialized (and no, faithful tinfoil-hat fucktards, this wasn't an illusory pandemic, much though you gnash your teeth at that reality) overnight, like it couldn't, things will not, and probably not ever, be "like they usedta be". The 2020 you woke up to on New Year's Day this year is gone forever, and that world will not be seen again, probably not in your lifetime.
Wrap your heads around that, and start behaving appropriately to that information.
There might not have been many Kung Flu cases in North Dakota, or Alabama, or Mississippi, and only localized problems in Texas and Louisiana, but the departure of the oil business for the next several years, particularly the fracking fields, will change economies in all those places for a decade. Those oil boom jobs? Gone with the wind. Oh, btw: oil was one of the few bright spots in places like Venezuela until Chavez and Maduro, and Mexico until this year. Their industries will be hurting perennially for some time too, which merely increases pressures in both countries going forward. The economic refugees normally pouring across our southern border non-stop for a generation will not abate in perpetuity absent a large, high wall.
The decline, death spiral, and/or outright crash into a smoking hole of several other sectors, both short- and long-term, bodes poorly for the overall economic outlook. Entire restaurant chains are announcing, essentially, "F**K it; we quit." in the face of slow-roll-outs for re-opening. They will, quite simply, never be back. Smaller enterprises (we have friends in this boat) have done the math, and won't be re-opening again either. Maybe in five or ten years, but not this one.
That has upstream effects: on bankruptcy filings, commercial rentals, mortgages on them, lenders, financial services, and the DJIA. Which then proceeds to the Fed, the Congress, and ultimately, you and your paycheck and bank account, if you have any of that left.
Meanwhile, only Bitch McConjob and the Republican Senate stand between Nancy Alzheimer's and spending your grandkids' inheritance, not like a drunken sailor on liberty, but like one on acid, meth, and crack. The latest Porkculus III (or IV? Or V? I forget...) attempt to pack Socialism's Wish List into every crisis is D.O.A., but like the penguins of Antarctica, they will simply keep coming, until we can flip the House back to something less insaniac.
If the Senate and/or White House were to be lost this time around, you should be loading magazines and bandoliers, because the next stop will be Weimar at warp speed. (Remember that when someone tells you voting doesn't matter at all). Followed, inevitably, by one of the updated forms of socialism originally begun under the branches labeled National, and International.
"Jaw, jaw, jaw, is better than war, war, war." - Winston Churchill
"There never was a good war or a bad peace." - Benjamin Franklin
Both men knew whereof they spoke, firsthand. Fight, tooth and nail, to avoid open warfare on your continent. But if it comes anyway, despite your best efforts, stop at nothing to win it. The results for those who fail at both end up in an open trench, just beyond the crematoriums.
A farmer in the Alsace Lorraine, Belgium, etc. could have done quite well, in 1914, or 1939, with simply the means to bunker under the south forty for five years, with a sack of Swiss francs and silver for his re-emergence. Just saying.
Work to get out of any debt whatsoever, as quickly as possible. Diversify your savings from just fiat bux. Multiple currencies and precious metals (PMs) would be wise. (And get it the hell off the grid, and out of the system!!! It's too late when your bank folds, or the .GOV seizes all pension funds and 401ks to pay the tax bill, i'n'it? Think they'll "never do that"? See yesterday's essay.) So would tangible assets. Arable land, potable water, renewable food sources. A man with a cow, a bull, a flock of chickens, a feed lot, and a few acres will never want, and a little more than that will always be an income, even if it's barter or black market. You can raise chickens in part of a garage and back yard, btw.
Getting the hell away from large population centers entirely would be a better long-term plan, but as I'm not yet there myself, I understand those without the ability to do so presently. It is nonetheless a goal to work towards, with a will and a purpose. I am.
You have just witnessed a concerning dress rehearsal for worse things, in recent days. And as we've all seen, morons gonna moron, and tyrants gonna tyrant. Plan for both contingencies, widespread and long-term, and be prepared beyond a continuum that only has "Suck it up" and "Open fire" as options. Life is a fader switch, not a light switch. The problem with false dilemmas is that you may never get to the point where "it's time to shoot the bastards", but yet be far worse off than you are now, for weeks, months, or years, nonetheless.
Prices for some things (gasoline, e.g.) will drop. Then the inflation, driven by the Porkulus Spendomania bills, will kick in, and shortages will begin, and they'll rise again, precipitously. (Usually, just after you've taken a pay cut.) Make prudent plans. Expect chaos.
This pandemic is liable to continue, in fits and starts, all the rest of this year. The Second Wave of it may be a robust boom, or a bust, but it's still a likely thing. I think it's going to blossom and wither in a kaleidoscope of places, at varying times, and varying intensities. And I would put a vaccine in the Nice To Have category, but my pessimism about getting one, or its efficacy, runs to between 90-100%, at this point.
And if you think this wimpy little virus was the only pandemic possible, or likely, in the rest of your lifetime, I have a bridge for sale, cheap. Everyone has seen how utterly hapless, helpless, hopeless, and brainless both TPTB, and Joe Average, were for this one. (Not to mention the idjits running healthcare, generally or specifically, anywhere on the planet). We simply aren't prepared for this, and probably never will be. People in any group are comprised of too many Gilligans to get it right anywhere, for very long. Singapore and Korea thought they had a handle on things. Now, not so much. Island dictatorships fare slightly better, but only if they stay completely isolated, with draconian rules and tabs on the populace, indefinitely. Anyone else that looks good now is most likely either lying about numbers, or dancing on the beach ahead of the tsunami. Or both. The common component of every pandemic is hubris. Ask China or NYFC. Human nature in that respect has not changed since Edgar Allan Poe wrote about it fictionally in 1850.
You can't fix that, nor should you worry overmuch about it. Prepare to cope with smart, half-assed, and/or bog-stupid responses, and you'll be fine. You'll also get all three, at different times.
In short, you just had nearly three fat years of boom. I hope you enjoyed them, and made the most of them. You are now looking at lean years of bust, and the buildings aren't done bursting into flames and collapsing yet. Some of them are just getting warmed up, in fact.
Get used to bare spots in grocery aisles. Make sure your masks are comfortable, and plentiful, because they'll be a thing for some weeks to months. Don't be surprised if there are retreats on opening up, as well as advances. And mind the falling casualties, both actual, and metaphorical, they will continue for the next few years. The Titanic sank in a couple of hours. The economy, being somewhat larger than a modest ocean liner, can be expected to drag things out commensurately longer.
But however long it takes, it's always more fun to watch from a lifeboat, than from the deck.
Not counting the news outlets or websites along the full range of accuracy and veracity, I follow multiple actual individuals' handwritten blogs. (Bot news aggregators don't thrill me.) Looking them over, many are current serving or former military and a couple are some variation of high-speed low-drag elite forces ninjas. Or just funny as all. Because life without humor is just despair. So in other words, the same folks I trusted in the military not to wet the bed, sh*t themselves, or otherwise run around like headless Nancys, are the same folks I trust on the interwebz, for demonstrating pretty much the same trustworthiness and circumspectly responsible behavior. Color me shocked.
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