5,000 Years

Atop the Stoa this night I scrub the paint off the column and sweep the glass from the steps.  Culture, like history, does not so much repeat as jog on a hamster wheel.

For more than 5,000 years Mankind has been evolving itself uphill slowly and painfully.  There have been set backs and triumphs.  There have been Dark Ages and Golden Ages in different parts of the world at different times.  As a global people we have been able to claw a bit farther along after each setback.  Judaeo-Christian morals and Greek Philosophy led eventually to the Enlightenment movement and the eventual grand experiment known as the United States Constitution, the longest running Representative Republic ever.  

Now, the Progressives want to burn it all down.  They want to burn down 5,000 years of progress...and for what?  Do they have a replacement lined up that moves us all a little farther down the line?  Certainly not.  The default mode of Humanity has typically been that of authoritarianism.  All Pharaoh by any name.  Though capable of producing the Great Pyramids, the various Egyptian cultures stagnated and failed to endure.  The Greeks treated them like the spoils of Alexander's wars and then the Romans simply reached out and scooped their degenerate remains into their growing Mediterranean Empire.  Will Western Civilization become degenerate and simply get swept into a growing Chinese Hegemony?  

Do "they" know what they are doing?  Why do the George Soros of the world do what they do?  Do they really know what they leave for their grand children?  Does he honestly believe that he is improving the human condition?  Does it matter to him?

I hate to make another trip around the hamster wheel.  We must protect Western Civilization.  We must remember what made it great.  Are we without Sin?  Of course not.  However, one can not burn down the good with the bad.  We have learned so much over the last 60 years.  The United States has improved immensely over that time.  We've gone from lynch mobs to sending a mixed race man to the very Presidency itself...all within my life-time.  That is Progress.  

Don't burn down 5,000 years of real progress.  Don't burn it.

Live well.

Zavost

Tribalism and the death of Reason

Tonight upon the Stoa I watch the the fires flicker in the night.  I watch in silence and deep contemplation.  

The chaos engulfing my country is not about the death of a black man at the hands of a white police man.  Those that claim this as their cause are being used as useful idiots by those organizing the arson and the violence.  There are many among the "protesters" who have come to this same conclusion and it has, I believe, given them pause.  Those running this black theater have waited for just this event to provide the cover they need to nudge this country towards authoritarianism.  Though President Trump is in the White House, they know that the day will come when he will leave.  If "their" person is able to assume the office down the road, then whatever powers they are able to get in place now can be used to stay in power forever.  Please remember that last sentence.  Please remember.

The vast majority of the citizens of this country do not think the way the these insurgents do. "They" know that a very small minority can seize control from the majority if they do it right.  Communists made up a very small percentage of the population of the U.S.S.R.   There were very few true NAZI Party members in Germany.  Even the massive police state called China must have fewer than 5% of the population as true Communists.  

These people have spent decades preparing the ground that is being fought upon at this time.  Democrat and Progressive, Conservative and Republican...what does all this mean today.  What does it all boil down to?  When a lefty says that they will vote for Joe Biden even if he were to violently rape a woman on camera, then there is something seriously wrong with them.  I know with certainty that if President Trump raped a woman on camera I'd be calling for his immediate arrest, not granting him another 4 years in the White House.  This seems logical...right?  Why would you vote for a man who would do that?

Tribalism is the only explanation.  Like the chant American Patriots made during the Vietnam War, "My Country Right or Wrong".  To me, that is a flawed reasoning, for obvious reasons to any who have sat upon the steps of my Stoa.  Though I must admit, there ARE those that have sat upon my steps and shown clear signs of Tribalism.  It saddens me that even those that have rigorously trained themselves to be logical and virtuous can be tainted by tribal affiliations.  It almost angers me that those I have spoken with and worked with over a period of years can slide so totally back within the comforts of GroupThink.  

All are welcome at my Stoa, even those who seem to show a willing ignorance.  It is my burden to help them remove the chains that they themselves have forged.  You don't argue, you talk.  You don't yell, you reason.  Discussions that become trapped in Logic Boxes need to be analysed and either incorporated into a new understanding of the facts, or discarded as illogical assumption.  It is easy, though time consuming.  It is also utterly enjoyable.  It is disappointing when one of my "students" absolutely refuses to accept that which is logically presented to them as "truth".  They must re-evaluate their thoughts on certain subjects.  But like stubborn horses that refuse to drink the water they have been led to, my charges refuse to accept a truth that they themselves have arrived at.  I have never "won" an argument in my life.  One never really does.  Truths must be arrived at by individuals and then accepted or rejected.  Growth or stagnation...

I also must admit a certain trepidation and fear for the safety of a young man who has taught me much about how the left side of the spectrum thinks and functions.  Mr. Tim Pool.  He has had several videos lately describing in perfect detail a completely logical assessment of what is going on.  Upon my Stoa I would congratulate him, but tonight I fear for him.  At one time in his life he thought he may have been one of them.  He thought he was a common traveler.  He grew, he matured, and he integrated those lessons that life laid out to him.  Today, though, he is outlining the inner workings of how they think and how they operate.  Someone is going to want to silence him.  I pray he has taken precautions.  We share virtually nothing in life except a desire to understand the truth as it exists in reality and not this truth as we wish it to be that is being preached today.

If "they" ever come for me they find nothing but an old man sitting upon some steps, next to a column at the top of a hill.  If they want me I will do nothing but look back at them.  If they come for my family, they will have to deal with an Army veteran who will do what must be done to remove a threat that has been brought to me.  I'm sure my actions will be repeated again and again by citizens that feel they are on their own, as the police are ordered to stand down by both Mayors and Governors.  The Second Amendment is necessary for a functional Republic.  

Live well, Tim and keep up the good work for as long as you are able.

Zavost

 

The 4th Turning

Tonight upon the Stoa, my mask does triple duty.  It protects me from the CCP Virus, the smoke caused by the evil, the sadistic, and the ignorant; and it hides my sorrow.

The disintegration of the 4th Turning is upon us.  If you don't know the reference to which I speak, please look it up and read all of the books, not just the last.  Trust in our institutions has completely eroded.  Faith in our elected officials is nearly gone.  The Culture War has turned into trench warfare and it is hard to tell anymore who is winning.   

I have been in healthcare my entire life, working for various health systems around the country for nearly 30 years.  I have watched while the world went insane over something as harmful as the seasonal flu (yes, I understand the Novel part of it, please relax).  I have seen our trust in the FBI and the Supreme Court rot before my eyes.  To that I think of the day when the Chief Justice pronounced ObamaCare a tax and not compulsion.  I think of the ongoing Coup against our duly elected President and traitors being exposed in the sunlight of discovery day after day.  There is no faith among those I speak with that any justice will come to them.  None at all.  

This unraveling will take years.  It has been going on for years and will take years more.  What we are experiencing now is the spasms and seizures shaking our people and its culture.  Unchecked Progressivism, unrestricted Immigration, and the dumbing-down of the average American has destroyed the post World War II America.  We should emerge from this conflagration within the next decade or so in my humble opinion.

What will emerge from this cycle of destruction may be unrecognizable.  Thomas Jefferson was already growing concerned about the America of 1820, how it had lost its compass headings given to it by their blood and treasure.  Andrew Jackson would not have recognized the America of 1920.  I am certain he'd be very upset that that damn National Bank idea that he killed during his Presidency had returned with a vengeance.  Likewise, the America of 2020 would an alien place to one in their twilight years in 1920.  Our hyper sophisticated automobiles, our supersonic aircraft, humans living in orbit about the planet and the robot probes speeding out towards other stars.  Of course, though, it isn't just about technology.

In 1820, women could not vote and over 4 million black Americans were enslaved.  60 years later over 700,000 Americans perished as our culture turned away from enslavement.  By 1920 women had gained the vote and alcohol was evil, though in 1880 the average American drank more than 3 times what a hard drinker of today would consume.  After WWII, if you were gay or a communist, you were black listed and would not find work anywhere.  Today, unless you are a gay communist, you will find you now part of the Patriarchy, or at the very least, labeled "Problematic".  

Things change.  Culture evolves.  Sometimes change is painful.  

There are forces that have been working to undermine America and its culture for a long time.  Only now, in the winter of our cultural cycle is the moment right for all their labors to bear fruit.  They have stacked dry wood and accelerants all over our culture and showered it with sparks.  Only now are the generational and cultural cycles lining up.  This time the spark may catch and burn the old institutions away.  What will rise in its place is hard to tell from here at this time.  

With the rise of the big tech companies will we turn into a dystopian authoritarian oligarchy like today's Communist China?  Will we continue our slide into Fascism, as the current crowds burning everything down seem to be inadvertently trying to accomplish?  Will the Bill of Rights still exist?  Will the nature of warfare become one of constant cyber disruption of infrastructure and less about nukes?  

America is likely going to continue, even if it runs both a fiscal and cultural debt.  It will be a different America, one in which my Grandmother would have felt the foreigner.  

It is my hope that we learn from all the pain and suffering about to be experienced by this nation and its people.  I hope that the specter of Socialism/Communism/Fascism is finally dispelled forever.  I have no idea what kind of world my son will raise his children in.  I hope, that when I am old and in my winter years, that I still recognize my country.  I hope that I will not feel like a foreigner in my own culture.

I bid you all a good night from the Stoa.  I will return to my solitude and hide my misgivings behind my mask.  I will watch the fires burn in the distance, I will try not to dwell upon all the hard work, dreams, and lives being consumed within the fires of change enveloping my nation.

Live well.

Zavost