{"id":3200,"date":"2017-01-26T09:32:50","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T14:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/?p=3200"},"modified":"2017-01-26T09:32:50","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T14:32:50","slug":"thursday-26-january-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/2017\/01\/26\/thursday-26-january-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, 26 January 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

09:32 –<\/span> It was 46.4F (8C) when I took Colin out this morning. That will probably be our high for the next five days or so. We’re to have highs around freezing and lows in the low 20’s (-5C) for the next five days, with snow starting Saturday evening and continuing through Monday.<\/p>\n

Barbara leaves this morning for Winston, to attend the funeral of family friend Gilbert Sloan, who died Tuesday evening. She’s staying with Frances and Al tonight and heading back up to Sparta tomorrow afternoon.<\/p>\n

Not everyone thinks like us. I got an interesting email overnight from a guy I’ll call Dan.<\/p>\n

Hello!<\/p>\n

I’ve been reading your blog since the “build your own PC” days. I strongly disagree with most of your political beliefs and don’t share your view that the US is nearer to a societal collapse than at any other time in recent history. I am a progressive liberal. I voted for Bernie Sanders and think the super rich should be taxed heavily to subsidize the live of those with fewer means. I think our gun laws should be much stronger and automatic weapons should be banned without exception. I’m a vegetarian.<\/p>\n

But, I like to hear arguments from those with a different point of view because being a critical thinker means being open to changing my opinion if a convincing argument is made by someone with a different view. In that vein, I thought it was interesting that the New Yorker (a “liberal rag” if there ever was one) published an long article about super-rich preppers.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2017\/01\/30\/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich<\/p>\n

I still think prepping because one fears a societal breakdown is an overly dramatic and incorrect interpretation of modern human nature. I don’t think society would devolve that quickly – I don’t think the threads that hold societies together are that thin. But I have never lived in a major metropolitan area and have never been the victim of random violence from another human. Even though it may be naive, I think positive and caring members of society would rally and far outweigh and out number those looking to take advantage of the chaos. I think, by and large, we would survive because of our compassion.<\/p>\n

Anyway, thanks for your blog. I have learned a lot and always value hearing and understanding beliefs far different from my own.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

And my response:<\/p>\n

Hi, Dan<\/p>\n

I hope you’re right, but I fear you’re wrong.<\/p>\n

As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t expect a societal collapse unless there’s a trigger event such as the power grid going down or a lethal pandemic or widespread terrorist attacks on our infrastructure. If something like that happens, and it’s a very real possibility, all bets are off.<\/p>\n

As it happens, I have seen a society collapse. I was in Rhodesia briefly during its final days, and it was not pretty. Nor was the aftermath, when Mugabe’s thugs turned what had been the wealthiest country in Africa into a third-world hellhole over the space of a few months. If you read history, one of the lessons is that societies do collapse, they collapse very suddenly, and it comes as a shock to their citizens.<\/p>\n

US society has been under attack for most of a century by the progressives, embodied by the Frankfurt School and the Alinsky-ites. They’ve pretty much destroyed our society, our schools, and everything else that matters. And the non-progressives, what I call Normals, have finally had enough. We’re a pretty easygoing group, but decades of constant attacks on our lifestyle has finally driven us over the edge.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, I don’t fit in with either group. A lot of people would consider me to be a progressive. I support things like gay marriage, legalization of drugs, dramatic reductions in military budgets, and so on, which puts me in opposition to most Normals. I’m also an atheist, which is very unusual amongst Normals. But I’m forced to choose between two very large groups: Progressives or Normals. Given that choice, I’ll side every time with the Normals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

09:32 – It was 46.4F (8C) when I took Colin out this morning. That will probably be our high for the next five days or so. We’re to have highs around freezing and lows in the low 20’s (-5C) for the next five days, with snow starting Saturday evening and continuing through Monday.<\/p>\n

Barbara leaves this morning for Winston, to attend the funeral of family friend Gilbert Sloan, who died Tuesday evening. She’s staying with Frances and Al tonight and heading back up to Sparta tomorrow afternoon.<\/p>\n

 » Read more about: Thursday, 26 January 2017  »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}