American exceptionalism - it's not just a song

American exceptionalism - Over the past few generations it has not been politically correct to take note of this but it is still true. Americans are literally a breed apart. Whether arriving on foot or by boat, for the first 350 years the fearful and the weak did not set out for America, once here the foolhardy and the the lame did not survive. Only those who could work together and were very tough set out for the interior and only those who could work as a team survived. It is this cohesion that gave us the tradition of overthrowing tyrants and becoming the land of the free—it's not just a song—and the home of the brave.

SHTF, Collapse, Hyperinflation…

When I Googled the title of this post I found the video linked here, the Watching the World Blog. An interesting video, I agree with what is said but I want to know more…

There are more questions than answers and there are more wrong answers than right answers so I am going to begin collecting links, questions and answers about how the collapse is going to happen, how will it unfold, what should we do, who we should listen to and who we shouldn't…

Watch this space. I will begin a page on my website soon where I will publish a summary of what I've found.

For now, I'll be studying and commenting on these two links:

Brooke Hoerr

Hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic in 1923 Germany

Beyond This Horizon, Robert A. Heinlein

I just finished reading Beyond This Horizon for the first time as an adult. I read it as a young teen and now realize that much of it went over my head then. It is Robert A. Heinlein's first successful novel, a rewrite of 'For Us, the Living,' (1938) which was first published posthumously in 2003. I have downloaded that to my Kindle and will begin reading it next.

The theme of this novel is eugenics. Written in the late 1930's and early 40s this was a favored topic on the left before it was discredited by the Nazi experiments revealed after WWII. The treatment of the topic is interesting and exposes considerable insight into Heinlein's thinking on the subject and his politics in general. While definitely a socialist during this period he was very anti-communist, even during the '30s.

As a 'novel of the future' written in the late '30s there are many small 'anachronisms.' Set far into the future there are flying cars which have phones and faxes but there are no personal phones, the protagonist must look for a phone booth. Data is stored on punch cards though handling of data seems more sophisticated than would be possible with that medium.

Something akin to the internet seems to exist and Heinlein's handling of video images is quite good considering how rare they were at the time. The treatment of genetics is also good when you take into account that it was written more than a decade before the discovery of DNA.

The vernacular and social conventions of the 1930's are of course present but as an educated "armed, and polite" society of the distant future I think Heinlein's dialog is way ahead of it's time. His skill as a storyteller is unmatched for any time in my opinion, even in this earliest novel.

Filth as art.

Art intended to shock your sensibility is art in service to victimhood, the artist is not a success unless victimized by your outrage. Their place in history would be secured if only we killed them. It is art too stupid to recognize its own stupidity, it is a celebration of our failure to suppress filth.

But more than anything else it is consistent with the Marxist design to corrupt and destroy our civilization—perpetrated by useful idiots who have been taught that this will win them recognition from the Marxist academy (who claim as part of this design not to be Marxists).

From Twitter to Facebook…

I have been living on Twitter for almost two years now and had found it to be a satisfying means of expression. Some introspection is due if I consider what I say important enough to record for all time because these two years of tweets are all but gone (to me at least). In most cases that is fine but often I wish I had recorded some of these thoughts more permanently for my own reference; something like the difference between one's unrecorded actual life and one's personal diary. If you don't put it in your diary it is only a memory, and my memory fades and distorts.

New Twitter, the recent upgrade, is much less satisfying to me than the old Twitter. Refining one's input with lists is better but as a means of expression I find it worse, mostly because I get less feed back—but also because of the so-called "hourly usage limit" which only occasionally works and when it does often it is totally unfair. So I've decided that when that happens I will switch to Facebook.

On Facebook I've begun a few longer dialogs, commenting on various things. I'm still a beginner and am slow to add new friends, afraid I will be overwhelmed. I've realized that some of these longer comments are worth saving and rewriting on this blog. So I'm going to rewrite some comments that I made on my quest for the nature of God and post them here next.

FAQs, Protocols, Presentations for Converts

This has developed out of my effort to recruit and encourage minority participation in the Tea Party. That, I think is still a brilliant idea and I am going to continue in earnest. Most of the responses I've been getting have been snarky Obot trolls attacking me, but I have gotten a few sincere inquiries about the advantages of being on the right. I'm reasonably good at handling such inquiries but it occurred to me that there will be a flood of such requests as Obama's appeal wanes.

Having FAQs, especially for minorities or other special cases, would be very valuable. If one is actually soliciting participation as I am it will be most efficient to have these materials handy or committed to memory .

I will be adding to this post on a regular basis, so if you too are trying to cope with many new converts it will pay to stop back or subscribe to the feed.

I will be collecting and collating these FAQs, Protocols, Presentations and will post or link them here. — Contact Andi

The Survival of Western Civilization

The title of this post is the title of Robert Ringer's essay sent to me by my Twitter friend @SteveBayrd today. He asked me to comment and no comment worthy of this piece would fit in a tweet or three. As a libertarian I agree with Ringer completely, we may differ only in prioritizing the various threats but are in total agreement that these threats could bring down our civilization. I am also in agreement with his conclusion that practical conservatism must partner with libertarianism though I do need some elaboration on practical conservatism. He makes many important points that I have not listed here, please read the whole thing.

Ringer's arguments:

1. For political systems reality trumps theory.
2. Real communism, enforced by dictatorship, never becomes what theory predicts.
3. Theoretical libertarianism cannot exist in reality.
4. Libertarianism by its nature cannot be enforced.
5. Our civilization is under attack from within and without.
6. Libertarianism alone cannot stand against these attacks.
7. Practical conservatism must partner with libertarianism as junior partner.