Best Times and Worst Times to Be

How many decades have people been saying that this country is going to hell in a hand basket while others have claimed that everyone has thought that of their society even back in the days of Socrates? Both are right. That's because civilizations decline and there is always someone around to point to that fact.

Sometimes I think I was born too late or too soon. That is because I would have liked to have been part of the American revolution, or its ascendance, yet I have been riding the crest of its demise. That is the way of the baby boomers. They were a quantum jump in the progressively idiotic generations. There are things which clouded the whole adventure, but it is still the best effort toward freedom ever.

Now it is accelerating in another direction. Under the guise of dealing with yet another crisis--immigration---lunatics Schumer and Graham want to force biometric IDs on the regular citizens of the country. For our own protection. Things like that are just blocks in the wall. The eventual result is a citizenry under extreme control. We once again become serfs in a medieval nightmare; a high tech version of the one we fled, and whose ills fired up the minds of those who structured this place.

Once that heavy handed insanity has a firm enough grip, people will begin to think, and eventually find ways to loosen the hold. That's the case that makes me feel like I was born too soon. I'd love to be there when the next true effort to be free takes hold. I expect it won't happen for maybe seventy five or a hundred years, at the soonest. No way this ball will unravel as the result of switching from democrats controlling things to republican. It's like Russian roulette with only two cylinders and two bullets. Not a good game.

It may take another twenty five for minding one's own business to become really difficult in some cases, such as my case. It may take less. Only four until the insurance scam becomes a huge tool for keeping people under the thumb. Those who scoff at that notion are either painfully optimistic, have a vested interest in the thing, or are simply misguided, maybe imbeciles. The same people who saw nothing wrong with rights given up under the war on drugs, and later under the war on terror, and now the war on obesity and what?--insurance companies, bad health? Always rights go.

Does it not concern anyone to know that the USA has a larger portion of the population in jail than anywhere else? Granted, some places just shoot you, but it is not logical for a free country to have such a prison population, and a system which is well known as a haven for perverted punks to rule supreme over the less vile inmates. Sick, very sick.

Anyway, I think the best times to live are when things are on the upswing--like when flight was just being mastered---or when the iron is hot enough to strike and the chains are cast off. Now is not really either case. It is the time of people being stupid enough to fasten the shackles on themselves. Many who appear to oppose these things are all for other forms of tyranny. It is a matter of taste. They won't resist the temptation to make others do as they like, just like those who support the current trends have no issue about forcing people to do what they see fit, and no problem deciding what you should give and to whom.

It is not bad to have been able to see little hints of some of the climb. Of course there were cultural factors which had not caught up with the technology. So now all that is used to control your lives, not really enhance them. At least that is the growing trend, all the rage these days.

The problem of people disregarding the rights of others is really the root of most evil. The number one vehicle which ensures this behavior is government. Didn't start out so much that way, but that is how it has played out. That would be disputed by Castro, Chavez, and Obama. Probably by Bush, McCain and any other number of career politicians and would be despots. No matter. I stand by the statement.

Never before have I heard so much direct discussion of freedom issues, and never before have I seen free speech under such a cloud. Interesting. You just never know. Five years ago I had absolutely no desire to camp or sleep in a tent. Now I picture that as the main way to spend the night when I consider future road trips. I did it on the way here.

The effect of repeated phrases and propaganda on thinking is pretty strong. I wonder how long it will really take before those not constitutionally capable of going along with the state's agenda just drop off the map altogether. Lots of people disagree, but few find it more painful to go along than to resist or drop out. they are the lucky ones--not dumb enough to be willing contributors to the mess, and not crazy enough to let it make them self destruct or sacrifice unnecessarily.

Of course many bright people encourage all this control. That is because they somehow envision themselves as part of the elite who are above the run of the mill chump. They expect to be part of the brain trust. Many are in fantasyland because they are not even well connected and brains are not truly valued by those who want control.

Still it makes them feel better to chuckle in that ivy league way as lesser humans attempt to voice their concerns over loss of rights and property. One day it will bite them too. Already the oppression has bit them, but they are slow to see it. Some are so worried about getting lumped in with anti abortion bombers or religious fanatics that they ignore reality. They buy into the lie that you must be either left or right as defined by someone like Chris Matthews. God forbid you fall into a camp that earns a sneer from Jon Stewart. So, you get smart people who basically bargain their rights for some sense of peer view security. They can be cool, and appear real smart.

They don't know it but I do. They are not really as smart as I am. And they certainly have far less soul.

Like A New Car

It must be how big heavy people feel when they lose fifty pounds or so on a healthy diet. You forget how much extra baggage you are carrying around. That was the way of my car.

I had to empty it because the two, plus, stacks of boxes which were stored in a friend's garage had to go. They are moving from A to B, again. These have not been opened since I moved from Memphis. They were part of the batch that was shipped on pallets. I'm sure something good is there; maybe my humanitarian award. Whenever I question if I have a heart, I refer to that as proof. Got the idea from the Wizard. He gave the Tin Man something along those lines to prove to him that he had a heart.

Anyway, once my car was emptied, which took well over an hour, the back sat up higher and it feels about 500 pounds lighter. That's several kilo's worth. Mostly I had tools, bits of wood, and unidentified things I couldn't live without.

Just to offset things, I've been putting on more weight. I doubt I'd be accused of being radically obese, but it comforts me to rebel against a busy body government which has become involved in whether you are a fatso or not. It is especially annoying because most of the feds who want to promote the fat police are chubby, jowly slugs, and/or they are addicted to botox and plastic surgery. That is their right, but really, when did people become so docile and idiotic that they would pay others to police their diet and health at gunpoint?

OK. No one has decided what you can carry in your car, as long as it isn't guns, drugs, or opposition to despotism. In CA maybe marijuana will be voted legal. These clowns will figure out how to turn a cash cow like that into something that costs yet more money. In theory it should make money. It is highly doubtful it will increase long term use or make it more available to kids. I'd decriminalize poppies and whatever you want to grow for your own use or even for sale in small quantities to adults. The war on drugs is a WAR For Control of drugs. It is a war to guarantee the inner city and in places like Memphis, the outer city, become and remain cesspools of violence, hatred and ignorance.

Just like terrorists, if drug traffickers were really targeted by our government then they would not have jailed border patrol agents who inconvenienced them, and they'd treat things differently. First Bush, and those before him, and now Obama plays the border game, finding excuses to harass citizens while facilitating the drug traffic and gang activity

They even try to raid legal medical marijuana places in CA. A case where the feds and the state are dispute about who has jurisdiction. Figures that California would only fight for freedom along that front while protecting people from themselves with so many other nanny laws I can't keep up. It is one are in which no government ought be involved.

So, light as my car now is, I will not be hauling kilos of pot across any border; not with Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, etc. I am itching to fill it up with long trip goods and take off for a month or two. Maybe I can make it as far as Maine this time. Isn't that the state which has OK to carry gun laws? Always in search of freedom, and people who can handle it.

So, my new business is solving disputes and dispensing advice. I will offer these services until I save enough for my road trip. $5 for simple cases which can be resolved in one page, $20 for more complex problems and issues that involve unreasonable panicky neurotics. Pay me the $20 and I won't actually call you a "drama prone twit" or "insanely ignorant scumbag", even if you are. That's because I am a professional of the highest standards. Just send a message and we'll arrange treatment and payment, not necessarily in that order. You'll be glad you did. I'm great at solving everyone's issues except my own. And I have relatively few, so what the hay.

Even though my car is 20% lighter now, people still tend to taIlgate given the chance. That is the one most annoying thing about many parts of the west. They will tailgate, even if they don't want to pass or go faster. The implications are not fun to contemplate. Large pickups are the number one offenders, followed closely by young chicks in compact cars like Honda Civic. It is not just me, I've confirmed the trends with others. If you are in search of a woman between 20 and 35 in CA, better bring some bear spray with you. An angry group. Or I should say, a group which contains a large number of very angry units. Many are sweethearts, I think. Even so, the road doesn't lie. But the highway patrol has been known to spin a yarn or two.

I have to wonder, as I look out on this pretty country on a typical sunny, perfect temperature day, why people in this country engage in violence and stupid pushy efforts to control others. As nice as it is here, people ought to be free of all but the most essential of control. Got live free written all over it.

Never mind, you probably wouldn't understand anyway.