the anti-soma

The governor of Missouri has declared school done for the year.  So, admitting that a full quarter is useless in terms of information taught. 

The kids' private school has gone along with the public school order. 

I am...less than pleased.  I'm also trying to figure things out. 

I was hopeful that the kids were going to go back to school at the end of the month, for four weeks.  I really was.  Not totally for my sake, either.  For theirs.  They desperately miss their friends, and they miss their teachers. 

This is horribly unfair to them, especially given that we don't live in a hot spot. 

It's unfair to us, as a family, because some portion of a full quarter's tuition has not been, and will not be, used.  And I have heard nothing about it being credited toward next year's tuition. 

And, given the way the government keeps moving the goalposts, I'm dubious of the value of paying next year's tuition in the first place.  Where's the guarantee that school will start back up in August?  Or won't cut the last however long the twats in charge feel is "necessary for the good of all?"

It's really bad for my imp.  My imp who does not do well without an externally-applied routine.  He's been all over the place...with the help of his meds.  He misses his friends, he misses his teacher, he misses...well, everything except the school work. 

The pixie...well, she's not a whole lot better, but has a much better handle on controlling herself and her reactions to her disappointment and misery. 

I'm contemplating what should be done, and what can be done.  And how is best to do it.  Because while the murder of the nation's economy has pissed me off something fierce, my kids are far more important.  I need to figure out how to get them through this mess with their knowledge base as well-supported as I can manage, and their emotional needs as well-met as I can manage.  I need to figure out how best to set a routine on them to help them settle into adapting to the sudden knowledge that a government large enough to give people things is also large enough to successfully take almost everything away. 

And I'm worrying about their physical and emotional well-being for the short, medium, and long term. 

No grounds.

The Democrats have no grounds to impeach President Trump.  The Republicans that hate his fucking guts know that.  They also know that he's a vindictive son of a bitch, and did not vote in favor when the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives decided to dive face-first into the manure pile for a mud-wrestling* session.

Abuse of power?  Obama did that.  Bush II did that.  Clinton did that.  Bush I did that.  I don't remember Regan, considering I was a pre-teen when he left office, so I can't say one way or the other.  If simple "abuse of power" was an impeachable offense, every president for the last 200 years (with very few exceptions) should have been impeached.

This opens up #10 cans of worms the Democrats really don't want opened, in ways they really don't want those cans opened.

I do not like President Trump.  I do, however, respect the fuck out of him, and I do respect the job he's taken on, trying to clean out the Aegean Stables.  He's making decent progress, too.

Hence, this stupidity.

Dear God, they know not what they have wrought.  


*Mark Twain comes to mind.  Also pigeons and chess. 

So, I was talking to Mom on the phone, and pointing out that she's a door mat: people whine a little bit, and take advantage.  I also pointed out that she's far too prone to taking people at their word, and too sympathetic, and too ready to suggest that maybe the government "ought to do something to help people." 

Her response? 

"Well, maybe I'm too soft.  But you're too hard.  You have no compassion for people who are down on their luck."

Well. 

Fuck you very much, Mom. 

She's right, in a way.  When people are "down on their luck" through a string of bad decision after bad choice after stupid action, then no, I don't have compassion. 

In 2011, Joplin faced one of the biggest tornadoes that this area of the country has ever seen.  There was a path of destruction six miles long, and varying between 3/4 and 1 mile wide.  Many people lost homes all the way down to the slab. 

We weren't home.  Thank God, our home wasn't touched.  That evening, I gathered up all of the unopened diapers, deodorant, soap, outgrown baby clothes, wipes, and anything else I could think of getting together.  Including canned food for the shelters feeding volunteers and newly-made homeless. 

Because losing everything to a massive tornado?  That's down on your luck.  One spouse out of two losing their job (and the other getting wages garnished to pay child support on their unemployed spouse's children)?  That's down on your luck. 

Choosing to buy a car that's a little more than what you need (or honestly can afford)?  That's stupid.  Active stupid.  Paying the stupid tax every month stupid. 

Choosing to buy gormet level food on a fixed income when you REALLY CAN'T taste the difference?  That is, again, active stupid.

Choosing to not just get a tattoo, but finance the fucker?  Active stupid. 

Choosing time spent "protesting" over hours spent working, then complaining that you can't afford a $10/month pack of birth control pills?  Active stupid.

Choosing to try to stay in a minimum wage job* AND buy/rent things that your parents worked their asses off AND pooled their income with roommates for (such as: more than studio apartments)?   Active stupid.

Choosing to buy cigarettes over diapers?  Active, malicious stupid.  

Doing this while your kids are going hungry and whining about how you have no money for food or diapers does not spark compassion in me.  It sparks rage. 

And somehow, that is a "lack of compassion."

*Staying on minimum wage is NOT easy.  Show up on time every shift for sixty to ninty days, you get a raise.  Stay on for another two or three months, you get a raise AND a promotion.  Stick around long enough, and you're getting a decent wage and running one or two (or more) stores.  Staying on minimum wage takes effort.

I've been staring at this blank page, on and off all day, trying to come up with something uplifting...and I just can't.  Our nations is so very, horribly divided, not between the haves and have nots, but between the productive and the parasites (the worst of which are in government on local, state, and federal levels). 

All of my life, I've been so proud of our nation, and our system of government.  Lee Greenwood nailed it in my opinion--or, at least, that used to be the case.

Now?  Now, we have the government on all levels getting so intrusive and vindictive that I no longer say what's on my mind (not even here).  I no longer trust that the government works under constraints set out more than two hundred years ago by men much smarter than any I've ever met today.  I no longer believe I live in a free country.  Why?

PRISM. 

SWAT. 

NSA, DEA, BATFE, DHS, DFS, and all of the other alphabet soup organizations. 

I will admit: we have it nowhere near as bad as places like Egypt, or Somalia, or Cuba or Venezuela or Argentina...yet. 

I pray to God that it never gets to that level.

But, I haven't been able to write an uplifting post over what America means to me, and what it should be to the world. 

Because the America I grew up believing in?  The one I thought existed?  Yeah.  It died.  I'm not sure how, or when, but it's gone.

What's left?

Two hundred thirty-seven years ago today, our nation was born of a ruler's incompetence and tyranny.  The Declaration of Independence was signed by the delegates of the thirteen colonies, directly stating that the king was not a just ruler, and as such, our fledgling nation had the moral right--nay, imperative--to rebel, and set up a more just system of government.

Somewhere around one hundred years ago, the progressive movement was born, and began to aggregate power unto itself, slowly, ratcheting up their agenda on us like the heat under a frog in a pot of cold water. 

Today, many of the items listed in the Declaration hold true for our current batch of  rulers leaders:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. (DHS and NSA anybody?)

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.  (DHS, IRS, SWAT, etc.)

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. (A non-military branch with funding and training equal to the military...which still answers to civilian control)

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: (No need for that now--that's what the NSA's PRISM program is for)

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: (Still haven't seen SWAT prosecuted for the murders of innocent victims)

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: (the Affordable Care Act was rejected by 67% of American voters.  Had it come to a vote of the people, it never would have passed.  And yes, according to the Supreme Court, it was a tax.)

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: (Snowden.  Need I say more?)

The water's nearly boiling, folks.  And there's nowhere left to go.

I miss my country.

This man, a recently deceased veteran of WWII (served at Pearl Harbor, died in 2011), not only nailed it, but knocked it out of the park in a letter to King Putt in 2009. 

At least he passed away before Obamacare came into effect.

Without further ado...

Dear President Obama,

My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor, allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.

One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.. So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can't figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends & enemies despicable lies like: " We're no longer a Christian nation." "America is arrogant" (Your wife even announced to the world," America is mean- spirited. "Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)

I'd say shame on the both of you, but I don't think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

After 9/11 you said," America hasn't lived up to her ideals."

Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.

I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.

Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.

Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don't want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts , who was putting up a fight? You don't mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don't want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the Commander- in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you're thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president. You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle. 

Sincerely,
Harold B. Estes

After the kerfluffle in Europe with the government closing the banks and robbing the people, what can we do? 

I sure as hell am not going to be trusting the banks any time soon.  I barely trust them now.  I sure as hell will not trust the government to be constrained by the Constitution--after all, they're already circumventing it to infringe on my right to own a fully-automatic weapon of my choice. 

So, what can we do?

Speaking hypothetically, you can do what the government advises: stock up on food and make sure you have water.  You can figure out a way to keep enough cash on hand to deal with the government deciding to close the banks for a while.  You can figure out a way to keep your liquid assets far below the limit set in Cyprus--maybe buy tangibles when you get to a certain point.  Consider your location.  Do you trust your neighbors not to try to rob you if you have cash and/or food and they don't?  If the answer is no, you might want to consider moving.  A longer commute might be worth it.

I cannot stress this enough: if you have any consumer debt--credit cards, student debt, car, or mortgage--pay it off.  Now.  Because if the banks get shut down, guess who's going to be blamed for the default?  It certainly won't be the banks.  It won't be the government.  

Also, consider this: how are you paid?  Do you get a paper check every month, or direct deposit?  And, if there is a bank shut down, will you get paid?

So, what can you do if you're of limited means?  You can do what Odysseus and I are doing.

We are doing needed maintenance on our home.  Paying cash, so that we don't have a huge debt hanging over us in the event of a shut-down.  We are stocking up on non-perishables.  I'd consider a garden, but I'm not sure our soil is safe, and wouldn't know where to put one, since we're in town and on a fairly small lot.  We are thinking about scenarios, and what we need to be doing with each one, while being grateful that we live in a small town with a small population of government dependents who would riot at the drop of a word.

Personally, I'd love to slap the dog-shit out of the next individual I run into that voted King Putt back in office.  I'd love to slap the dog-shit out of the members of the SWMO Conservatives Association, who helped put more leftists back into our state and federal offices by insisting that social issues were more important than fiscal issues.  I'd love to slap the dog-shit out of anyone who thinks that who's having sex with whom and how, or whether people are taking their genetics out of the breeding population is more important than the possibility of our government pulling a Cyprus on us. 

I'd like to, but I won't.  Yet. 

If we get to the same point Europe is at financially, I may well re-think that.

The skilled rhetoricians of the past seem to be a thing of the past. 

Don't believe me?  Go listen.  Read the transcript.  Then tell me when in the past twenty years we've had someone speak like that. 

I wish Pearl Harbor had lived on in infamy.  But in a nation that's already forgotten September 11, 2001, I doubt that there are many who understand the significance of today's date. 

On the one hand, I love the judge's order that the deadbeat babydaddy stop procreating.

On the other...that's the executive judicial branch of government (thanks, Odysseus) poking its nose into a private individual's life and personal decisions. 

I don't know which I want to support: blocking babymaking by an individual who's proved to be an inferior provider to his children (making us pick up the tab), or the libertarian side that says it's not the government's business.

...if they don't, bullies never grow up to be anything else.  Like this asshole, who's been terrorizing his entire neighborhood to the point that they banded together and sued him.

Honestly?  They should have shot the worthless son of a bitch.

On July, 4, 1776, the thirteen colonies signed a document that listed the colonies' grievances with King George III.  They mostly revolved around unfair taxation, laws, and a lack of representation in the creation and application of those taxes and laws.

Today, two hundred thirty-six years later, we are faced with unfair taxation, laws, and a lack of representation in the creation and application of those laws--yes, we have an elected congress that are supposed to represent us, but they've fallen down on the job so badly that the Declaration penned by Thomas Jefferson might well have been aimed at the congresscritters of Washington, D.C., of 2012, rather than England and George III of 1776.

Scenes from the war that we should have won, were it not for the bastards in congress, the snot-nosed college kids, and traitorous bimbos. 

To each and every veteran who served the country in times of conflict...thank you.  To all that served in Vietnam in particular...thank you.  Have a drink on me.

We owe far more than we can pay.