Information overload. You have it. I have it. We all have it. It isn't getting better. It is getting worse. Another shooting? That used to move me. It still does some but these things come so often and the narrative they will try to spin around it is always the same though the perpetrator is almost never actually like the person they describe when pushing their narrative. In fact, they'll try to call them Trump supporters, Republicans, MAGA, Magotts, etc. The truth is that more often than not they are someone from the political leaning opposed to all of those labels. It is like calling a Nazi a Jew in World War 2. Look another Jew rounded people up on trains. Look another Jew bashed a babies head against the wall. If that was the narrative then it would have been a lie. That is also the case with the vast majority of the shooters out there.
There has been an aspect to the shooters that is a VERY common denominator in almost all of them but it puts a protected class at risk if it is mentioned. So instead they will blame it on something else and the shootings accelerate. They don't accelerate due to gun access. They don't accelerate due to not enough gun free zones. In fact, they often occur in gun free zones. No the common denominator is often that the perpetrator is on prescription drugs. A common one is Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors also known as SRIs. If you bother to read the potential side effects of many of these heavily over prescribed drugs you might notice a note that it can "cause psychotic tendencies". So if it has that as a warning, and say it is only even 1 in 100,000 people... They are overprescribing these things so heavily that millions of people are using them. That means we are guaranteed to have people having psychosis due to these things. Most of the shooters are on these pharmaceutical concoctions. Yet the protected class in this case is the Big Pharmaceutical Companies (aka Big Pharma). You know those same people that pay for the vast majority of commercials airing on commercial TV these days? Or those with vast lobbyists (aka bribery agencies) courting our "representatives" in government? They will buy 10,000 copies of that poorly written novel that no one else wants to read. They also will indicate they are willing to pay for the sequel as well as long as your votes go the way they want.
Corruption, and cronyism... it happens whether you think Communism works, Socialism works, or Capitalism works. All of those systems still find ways for those in power to grant favors in exchange for something. It actually is even more effective in Communist and Socialist systems where power is more and more centralized. Centralized power is a fast avenue for cronyism. It happens with Capitalism as well. In fact, when the would be Marxist trashes Capitalism the negative things they throw at the feet of Capitalism are actually not the issue with capitalism. It is an issue caused by cronyism. Socialism offers a swift avenue for this as well. Fascism flourishes under socialism. The joining of corporations and government. I'd argue that is more what the U.S. and many so-called Democracies actually are today. Socialism and Communism both make that transition easier. Centralization of power. Centralization of corporations that support your power. The Nazi's knew this after all Nazi is just a contraction of "National Socialist German Worker's Party". It was National Socialism.
Now the would be socialist will tell you that isn't socialism. They may hold up a shining example of Socialism. They used to do that talking to me about this topic by holding up Venezuela. That of course was before Venezuela went 100% authoritarian/tyranny and impoverished and starved large portions of its population while elevating a few in the new centralization of power. Nah, now they will say "Venezuela is not socialism". Isn't it convenient how when it is working in that brief period when they are draining all of the reserves they say "see socialism works" then when they run out of those reserves they start stealing from their people. EVERY TIME!
Socialism is a bad idea. Communism only works in small communes, or in a family unit. It does not scale effectively as a government. As a government it simply creates the ultimate form of monopoly.
Is capitalism perfect? No. It is subject to cronyism and corruption just like any other idea we've come up with. Yet if we are keeping score it has lifted more people out of poverty than any other idea, it has lead to more innovation and advancement than any other idea. Socialism and Communism have a negative score when we talk about lifting people up.
"Look my government is giving me free everything... they are even giving UBI". Meanwhile your national reserves that were likely built up by capitalism before this switch to socialism start draining lower and lower to pay for these "Free" things. Then when those reserves are gone. They start adding new taxes, printing more money to cover things which leads to inflation (a stealth tax), and if they continue eventually hyperinflation.
So you make $100,000 / year. How does that sound to you when hyper inflation makes a loaf of bread cost $100? It's not as impressive then.
Socialism sucks. It is a failed idea.
Communism by many is referred to as late stage socialism. It sucks as well. Though I admit it does work well at small scales as long as all participants are participating voluntarily. A multi-generational family living in the same house and supporting each other has some images of Communism. Yet it is voluntary. People can leave if they want. They are not forced to participate. It is also very different from demanding your neighbors join in and comply, then your town, then your county, then your state, and then your nation.
It ALWAYS fails badly as it scales.
Capitalism is flawed. Yet of the choices it is provably the best method we have so far. There may be some new ideas that are better. I am certain they exist. I can tell you that Socialism and Communism are not it. We need to quit trying to make flawed experiments out as though they will work THIS TIME. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find better ways. We should. Yet repeating the same mistakes is not the answer.
SCREECH
Man these stream of consciousness writings can take me off in some tangents. I did not plan at all writing about the socialism, communism, capitalism thing when I started this. That is just where I ended up. I'm going to give this a shove and at least talk about what I intended to talk about.
I was thinking about how information is coming at us so quickly that we are becoming numb to some pretty horrible things. Shootings are just one example.
The things done to children keep being reported daily as well and are horrible.
Another politician is caught outright with a crime in some investigation and if they happen to be left leaning we can pretty much assume nothing will happen to them. If they are right leaning they will get the book thrown at them unless they happen to be one of the right leaning people that are actually fixtures in the uniparty. If someone on the right commits a crime and isn't harassed, and taken to court you can pretty much assume they are corrupt and part of the uniparty.
Then we have a massive train derailment that was in the news, and is huge news and horrible. Then there was another one, and another one, and another one. Throw in some other disasters...
Somehow we are supposed to believe these are all coincidental...
Yep...
Just coincidence...
It is more important I guess to stop hate speech, transition (aka sterilize) children, and blame everything on racism, climate change, some phobia, or Trump.
The world is far more messed up than I ever would have imagined it could get.
At this point, I don't know what to do about it. I've been working a bit in my garden each day as I have time. We've been taking care of our pond, are keeping track of fish and stocking it as we can. We are becoming familiar with our community. We are getting reputations as being reliable in our community.
The most important step we did in September, 2021 was to get the hell out of cities, and to get out of blue policy States. That was a very good move and had a noticeable impact on our lives.
If you can only do one thing... get the hell out of those places. Also, DON'T VOTE THE SAME WAY THEY DID THERE when you move somewhere else. Those policies caused the ruination of those places. Don't pretend it wasn't the fault of the policies and vote for the same nonsense. It was that attitude that ruined Colorado. I watched it happen. I'll fight it tooth and nail in my new state.
Decades of seeing a new person move to Colorado saying "We love it here. The people are nice. The community is nice." Then they start voting... the same way they did in California. It all goes to shit after that.
I see Texas and Florida as likely having to fight a lot of the people that are moving to those places and won't admit the policies of the place they left were the problem. They'll say "not my fault" and vote the same damn way.