Thoughts on the Presidential Election

If you don't have pictures, it didn't happen. So here's my call on this fall's election.

Clinton wins more than 300 electoral votes, but will have no mandate due to the Wikileaks treasure trove of questionable decisions she's made. She'll present and have confirmed very anti-Second Amendment judges, yet doesn't understand the "Deplorables" that live in Rural areas will no more disarm peaceably than their great grandfathers stopped drinking/manufacturing/selling moonshine during Prohibition. If all Deplorables are to be made criminals they'll begin to act as such and treat law enforcement as the enemy.

I think the House stays firmly in Republican hands, while the Senate is a toss up, but anything less than 60 Senators for either side can be kept in gridlock. Drug prohibition will be knocked down in California which will finally mark the beginning of the end of the War on Drugs. Where will all that energy have to be turned to keep law enforcement employed and engaged? My guess is a War on Guns, that will not have the effects that D.C. planned.

Seeing the "Ferguson Effect" on policing, that has been only exacerbated by the murders in Dallas and Baton Rouge, I can only imagine what would happen if the Deplorables feel attacked and marginalized in the same manner as their poor brethren in the inner cities have been for so long, I hope I'm wrong.

To paraphrase my guy Jack Spirko about Self-Reliance, it's for making a better life, if times get tough or even if they don't. Regardless of who is living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January 2017 our plan for the farm won't change much. We'll continue to our quest to be debt free and more self reliant each year.

The Impotence of Government

Yes, this too could be your Driver's License Photo

I worked as a CDL examiner for about a year in Oregon. It was an education on how oppressive Government, at any level can be. I saw rules followed simply to irritate or give a sense of power to the person behind the counter, versus taking care of the person who paid my salary. Don't get me wrong, I worked with really decent, good people in my office, but they were human.

It was most apparent in my training class in Salem. The instructor there told us if the final score on the test was within 5 points of passing, to deduct another 5 points just to make sure the test taker didn't push back on the score. Having a hatred of bad referees, and an overly active sense of fair play, I pushed back and told the instructor there was no way I was going to do this.

She told me I would, or that there'd be consequences for me. My time at the VA left me jaded to ominous threats, so I responded where in the regulations this directive was to be found, and that unless it was codified, the score the test taker earned was the score they'd be given. She left arrogantly, telling me that she'd get it in writing and insinuating that I could tow the line or be let go during the training if I didn't acquiesce. Having been looking for a job when I found that one, I resigned myself to my fate. She returned after lunch and without looking at anyone said that we were all free to give any score the test taker earned to them.

So why spend all this time relating this story under the picture of a lady with a colander on her head? I'm glad you asked. I have a good friend that recommended I read Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" and after reading it I realized how good the Left has become at forcing everyone else to play by the Rules, even when it seems ridiculous, case in point, after granting religious exemption to head garb in DMV photos, the Pastafarians sued for legal standing to do the same thing.

More and more folks on the right/libertarian/liberty factions are beginning to embrace this rebellion through rule following. I don't think my friends on the left understand what they've started in binding up multiple arenas of government. You're seeing the fruit of this with police officers who understand they can't be fired for writing reports, but can be fired for interacting with minorities, so to feed their families they're getting more and more content to use the rules to protect themselves, even as cities burn.

Combine the hamstringing of police (versus the call for a demilitarization, they're two very different things) with shrinking budgets do to growing costs and fading revenues and I think we're going to see more and more disparity in police outcomes (ie crime stats) in SJW cities (New York New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago, etc), versus traditionally strong law and order cities (think Red South, mid-West, and intermountain West). This will lead to a hastening of productive citizens from those cities, decreased tax base, more crime, until you have more and more Detroit like failures of those cities.

Anytime you see your city, county, municipality, or even the Feds doing something silly, don't get mad, make them get into the weeds doing what their regulations say...

I'm an Pragmatic Optimist...

Too many folks think this way.

Often in the survivalist world/prepper space I get the impression that folks are looking forward to a solar flare, Iranian EMP, societal collapse, financial system collapse, etc. I always wonder what those folks are smoking. Anything that sets the clock back to medieval technology promises a return to a life that is nasty brutish and short. Folks over 40 didn't fare well then, and we wouldn't should those conditions return.

Thankfully those odds remain slim, what I'm about to lay out now is my view of where things are headed. America is a dying Empire, as all empires must when they cease conquering and taxing new lands. Where will we be in 25 years? Here's my guess...

Barring any of the worst case scenarios mentioned above, we'll do what most Empires do as they wane, devalue our money, tax foolishly, see a greater and greater grey/black market, see localities exert more and more control, finally a Balkanization.

The devaluation has been under way since the Nixon administration, and continues to accelerate with each successive administration. There is no way to cater to special interests without continuing to spend like drunken sailors on their last night of shore leave in the PI. What's going to be interesting is to see who wins the next election. My money is on a Rubio vs. Clinton race, though my inner comic would be much more entertained by a Trump vs. Sanders circus. Who knows, I really don't care, other than having a couple of Supreme Court justices to either uphold the 2nd Amendment or strike it down.

The R's will spend on the military industrial complex if elected. The D's will continue to expand the entitlement industrial complex. Realistically it's 6 of one, half dozen of the other. I have zero faith in either party to rein in spending. Sometime in the next ten years, barring any black swan events the Federal Debt and Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid/ACA will start to dominate our budgets, by the time we start to talk about them in a serious manner it'll be to late to fix them.

So back to consequences. I think we'll see a Value Added Tax, sold as the only way to pay down the debt. As with all taxes on consumption it will only serve to slow down tax revenue. Continued Quantitative Easing schemes will be tried by the Federal Reserve to somehow prime the economy while only resulting in increasing the burden on the average American. 

The War on Drugs will come to an end, not due to it being horrible policy, but simply because we're broke. The trickle down here will be in police departments around the country losing 25 percent of cops on the beat, free gear, and the revenue that came from drug convictions, incarceration, and the probation/parole industry. There will be an uptick in violent crime, but also in shakedowns in the form of traffic tickets, code violations, etc. Look no further than Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, Argentina, and Venezuela to see how cops supplement their income, in official ways, part time contract security work, and through simple bribes,

Speaking of Mexico, we have a failed state on our southern border. Should drugs go legal here the cartels will move to kidnapping, prostitution, and intellectual property theft (think stolen movies) as they continue to thrive. Further straining border states that already feel forgotten by DC. 

Migration within the US will also be an issue. As states that went full retard with spending (California, Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, Taxachusetts, and Conecticut) on Union Contracts/Retirement plans, and other entitlements will see more and more skilled individuals leave, and companies fleeing to more reasonable locales. The animosity that was held towards "Okies" in California will be intensified this time around.

Puerto Rico right now is bankrupt, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. the states named above are 10 years at most behind being in the same condition. It's one thing when the folks see Congress unable to balance their check book, but when you start telling Texans they're going to pay for California's pension fund I think you'll see folks go to guns. I hope it's not a shooting war, but I don't see any other way this ends than with divorce. 

The states on both coasts are so fundamentally different than flyover country that I don't know how the Republic, the idea that is America, can survive. The inter-mountain west might fall under the benevolent rule of the competent administrators that the Mormons can be, but I wouldn't bet any of my money on it. Eastern Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming are poor, but fiercely independent. The mid-West is anyone's guess. Texas will go its own way, but I think Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi ally with in one form or another. Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, the Carolinas, and West Virginia could go either way. Florida would be a hot mess. From Northern Virginia north it'll be a shit show. 

Again this is best case scenario, any form of a shooting war makes the remnants of Europe at the end of World War II look like a school carnival. 

What can I do to change any of this? Not a damn thing. The folks have figured out they can vote themselves a check from the Treasury, so eventually we'll be completely broke. All I can do is get out of debt, know how to live like my grandfather lived in a world without credit cards or fast food. Love my children and my wife with all my heart, and live a life of honor, duty, and service.

I can't thank Jack Spirko over at thesurvivalpodcast.com enough for his show and willingness to share the skills to be able to live a better life, if times get tough, or even if they don't.

It's Different This Time - Free College and Government Cheese

It's Different This Time

Oregon State University from above.

Senator Bernie Sanders is talking about free college for everyone today, and the evil's of student loan debt. It is terrifying that someone as old as he is has no idea how economics work. When the Federal Government backstops a loan, meaning the taxpayers pay the loan when a student defaults, the institutions themselves have no skin in the game. Tuition goes up, based on rising Pell Grants and student loan amounts.

If you want to solve this problem it's pretty simple. Make the universities backstop at least half of these loans. College will be forced to look at which students can repay loans based on aptitude, prior grades, and demand from employers of each department. Pretty sure the Gender Studies department would cease to exist on most campuses within a year. There is no reason for any college, for profit or non-profit, to turn any student away right now, regardless of whether or not they'll ever be able to use their "education" to get a job. 

You also need to give students the ability to declare bankruptcy on student debt, with the institutions being on the hook for half of the tuition. If you're not preparing a young person to be responsible, to work, and to repay debt as an institution of higher learning you should cease to exist.

Planned Parenthood or Eugenics are Alive and Well

As soon as people who don't own guns want me to give mine up and Pacifists stop offering opinions on war fighting.

Coach - Mercenary - Farmer Podcast Episode 8

Non-aggression is one of the cornerstones of libertarianism/anarchism, so calling for state intervention in any form is something I do my best to avoid. Abortion, the way I see it anyhow, as a form of birth control is simply barbaric. Freedom of choice does not equate to freedom from responsibility. 

The free market solution would involve private organizations offering cash for injectable Norprolac (for instance) birth control, waiting until a certain age to have your first child, and free/reduced cost permanent (vasectomy) options to give folks options other than abortion. The slippery slope is government involvement, and nefarious actors pursuing less than noble goals.

Do I think the state should be involved in any of this? No, I really don’t. We each have to be accountable for our own decisions and the repercussions of those decisions. Be it unprotected sex, or bacon to excess. A law stating slavery is legal, doesn’t it make it just, nor does a law banning segregation erase racism.

I’m not a religious man in my old age, but what little belief I still have guides me to think that we’ll each have to make an account of our actions. I won’t have to answer for anyone else’s actions (that I couldn’t have directly prevented – think duty to help a jumper on a bridge) and it’s not my place to judge/administer justice others for their past actions. It’s a lot lighter load walking around only trying to live my life, instead of trying to make those around me conform to my will as well.

Do I think the father should have input on the right of the mother to abort? Yes, if for no other reason than to act as counterbalance to offset the male automatically being on the hook for child support if she decides to carry the child to birth regardless of the father’s wishes. No one ever talks about this facet.

I find it morally reprehensible that folks who find abortion morally evil are forced, at the barrel of a gun, to support it in the form of Planned Parenthood. (For the record, I find it just as reprehensible as bureaucrats who won’t issue a piece of paper to a gay couple while citing religion.) I also concede the fact that the mother may really know that bringing a child into the world holds only suffering and misery for that child. All that hot mess said, abortion is currently legal, yet the pro-life crowd is so splintered that they can't craft a coherent message that as birth control you're killing a viable person, here are alternatives...

All of that aside, I find eugenics, and eugenicists for that matter, to be evil incarnate, so in the interest of disclosure it taints my perception of Planned Parenthood. To destroy human life based on ethnicity, gender, or lack of perfection is beyond my comprehension.  When you look at the demographics of who Planned Parenthood serves, it’s hard to make the argument that Planned Parenthood isn’t still trying to limit the number of “undesirables” being born.

Trying to be coldly logical about it there is no difference in aborting a viable fetus at some arbitrary week, than there is in committing infanticide (think Spartans here) for finding a post birth defect or inconvenience of another mouth to feed. Regardless of the reason, the resulting death is the same. Putting a pair of scissors through a brain stem in the first trimester or 40^th trimester (shameless South Park reference) is the same action and result regardless of the individual justification.

I love my Catholic and Mormon friends who look at birth control as murder, but in my old age I think that contraceptive education and communicating to our children the wisdom and reward of waiting until marriage for sex should go hand in hand. I also don’t understand why sex is dirty if you’re not married, but suddenly fantastically awesome if you’re married… I’ve had Mormon dude friends that were orges to their wife talk about the bedroom and just been embarrassed for them versus my hippie friends who’re great partners lacking a piece of paper. I’d much rather my kids have the latter than the former.  I also see a failure of people of faith to offer redemption, love, and care of ladies who have an unplanned pregnancy. The shaming of pregnant unwed mothers in most mainstream churches has to contribute to at least a few abortions each year…

The Great Caliber Debate - What I Rock and Why

Hits a little too close to home...

Coach - Mercenary - Farmer Podcast Episode 7 - Thoughts on the Caliber War

Before my first all expenses paid trip to the Middle East, I didn't own a gun. Seeing a solidly second world country descend into a all out civil war changed my views. In hindsight, my only force projection response to violence would have been my little league baseball bat. Not the best choice in hindsight. 

My first purchase after getting home was a .40 caliber Glock, law enforcement trade in. Solid choice and my thinking at the time was .40 has to be better than 9 mm, it has a heavier bullet and is faster down the pipe (feet per second). After going to a handgun class and shooting from the hip, I realized that the .40 wasn't pleasant to shoot, and started looking at the 9 mm round.

I picked up an 870 shotgun, and a 30-06 Savage rifle. The shotgun was a solid choice, and the Savage was as good a value, but I don't know if I would buy the same rifle again. More on that later.

We'd been loaned to the Army, and sent with battered magazines and shot out range guns, so out of ignorance, I thought all ARs jammed all the time, I had soured on the AR platform. I bought an SKS, and later an AK and they were, and are, fun to shoot.

As I got more into shooting, I learned what worked for me, versus what other folks told me was best. I went to a range and rented a 9mm Springfield XD, a Glock 17, and a Taurus 1911 in .45. I went in thinking the XD would be the gun for me. It just didn't point well for me. The 1911 pointed (think hit where I was pointing) extremely well, but held only 8 rounds if you carry one in the pipe. The Glock was the sweet spot in between for me. Nothing sexy about it, it's a Volkswagen bug, 

I bought a Ruger 10/22 along the way, but have since gone to the Smith & Wesson 15/22. It's about double the cost of a Ruger, but the muscle memory advantages of running a .22 platform set up identical to all of my ARs. When .22 ammo was plentiful I was buying a box of 500 every payday. Not a bad investment. When .22 ammo disappeared I just transitioned to 12 gauge, 5.56, and 9 mm. Someday, it'll be readily available again on the shelves, right? Right?

Here's where I'm at, I've standardized to 12 gauge in the shotgun platform, 9 mm Glock model 17 (soon to add a 23 for concealed carry), a Kel Tec Sub 2000 carbine that uses my existing Glock mags, my AR platforms are all set up with the B.A.D. Lever from Magpul and BCM Gunfighter Charging Handle these two items allow you to take out two steps out of the manual of arms for clearing misfeeds and malfunctions. It took a few hundred rounds to get the muscle memory changed, but I can't imagine going back now.

The Aught Six is still my deer rifle, but a long range precision rifle is probably going to be in my future, in the .260 flavor, along with a suppressor in .30 cal that can be used on multiple platforms.

Thanks again for reading and listening. As always your comments are welcome.  

Thoughts on Islam

Saudi Arabian Bikini Team

Coach - Mercenary - Farmer Podcast Episode 6 - Thoughts on Islam

So this podcast was recorded about a month before the attacks in Paris, but I don't think it would have changed my thoughts much. 

Islam is simply incompatible with Western Civilization. Do most Muslims in the West live Islam as prescribed in the Koran? No, or course not, but we need look no further than our ally in Saudi Arabia, the heart of Islam, to see how "true" Islam is to be lived. The problem with Islam is that there's no "Reforming" as we have with Christianity and Judaism, due to specific guidance left by Muhammad in the Koran. Anyone who tells you different is either ignorant or lying. Here's a great article from The Atlantic magazine for further reading: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

I love women, and our society, i.e. Western Civilization, is greater when we allow women to compete in and enrich the market. Islam deems all women property, either of their father or their husband. Chasity is great, but worthless if forced through servitude. Education in our country is more and more a female priority, as shown by most college campuses in America are now majority female.

For my friends on the Left, if you want to talk about the "War on Women" or  "Rape Culture" just remember any woman out in public that is raped is the cause of the rape in Islamic culture. Her options for justice are to either marry her rapist, be stoned by the righteous in her community, or suffer an honor killing at the hands of her family. Religion of Peace indeed.

Sharia Law and the Constitution that governs our Republic are incompatible, and one or the other must be recognized as supreme. For Muslims, to choose any form of government over Sharia is blasphemous. The thing we've had going for us for a long time is that most folks want similar things, be they Jewish, Agnostic, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim etc. is that they want to make a living, raise their families, and die a peaceful death in their old age. 

Sadly, until the West comes to understand that Islam is at war with it, we won't be able to adequately face the threat it poses.

Mission Statement Blog and Podcast

Coach - Mercenary - Farmer Podcast Episode 1 Mission Statement

Hey thanks for stopping by. This blog is going to be about my thoughts on things that interest me. Permaculture, politics, the national debt, raising Belted Galloway cattle, homesteading, preparedness, American Culture, and guns just to name a few.

I hope to have some intelligent thought provoking conversation. Feel free to comment, tell me where you agree and where you think I'm wrong (and why).

I'm a soon to be 40 year old man, married to the most beautiful girl from the Payette High School class of 1994. Proud parent to her two red headed daughters. We own a little 11 acre homestead in North Central Texas that we're trying to improve using Holistic Management, Permaculture, and common sense. I spent 8 seasons as a college basketball coach, and just shy of 14 years on Uncle Sugar's payroll, and hope the third part of my life after retirement will be that of a content hippie, thus the name of the Podcast. Coach - Mercenary - Hippie.

If you choose to follow this blog/podcast you'll see my opinions on life and the lessons learned here on the homestead. The first 40 to 100 or so episodes will be kind of rough on the audio, since they're recorded in my car. If I ever get enough listeners I'll invest in a better recording set-up.

Thanks for stopping by.