I’m an avid reader and used to love visiting the library. Now the library is typically a coffee at one of the local bookstores and the other is the Internet. The Internet exposes me to ideas of others and is often the source of information which causes me to wonder what has happened?
Fall 1959, Minneapolis Minnesota. This is the time when the weather will soon change but summer has given way to a potpourri of fall color. It’s a beautiful day and I walk down the leaf littered sidewalk, graced by an arbor of large elm trees on each side of the street forming natures cathedral with no distractions other than thoughts in my head. One of those thoughts which somehow found refuge was, this is the zenith in America. From now on the United States will slowly decline as one more set of notes in the pages of history.
Perhaps this wouldn’t be a thought foreign to a student or adult today but this was when I was seven years old. Why would I even begin to think that? There wasn’t an Internet, we didn’t have a TV and our only radio wasn’t working. There wasn’t a newspaper being dropped at our door and my mother was not someone caught up in discussing current events.
I didn’t give it much thought over the next few years, I was too happy just being a boy playing with friends and toys. The only serious moments over the next couple of years came when some of the young boys in the neighborhood decided to take tag to a new unacceptable level. It was one of my first fights and not may I say skillfully performed by me. The outcome was extremely important because one of the ‘leaders’ had decided to turn tag into a gang rape of the only girl playing with us. I doubt anyone of us understood what sex was at that age but certainly what they were doing was shocking to my young sensibilities. I may have not faired well in the fight that day but the girl got away.
I was back home from four years in the Marines and went grocery shopping for my mom. I walked into the bakery area of the store and saw an older face but one that I recognized. There she was the little blonde girl had grown up and she came forward and we talked for a few minutes. I didn’t want to bring up that day but she touched my hand and said thank you. I knew instantly what she was saying and that day my soul wept.
A lot has happened in history between that fall walk in 1959 and 2012; I knew the world was never going to be the same for me after November 22, 1963. I think many of us living during that time recall with great detail what we were doing and where we were on that date. There have been a lot of other shocks and history altering events over the past 50 years. Today I read this on the net;
Image via Wikipedia
Wyoming House advances doomsday bill
Friday, February 24, 2012
State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.
House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.
Why is a state in the United States contemplating such extreme measures? Have we digressed this far? Were my childhood thoughts some type of perverse premonition?
Could we be so near an almost complete meltdown of everyday services which we take for granted? Could fuel prices rise to levels which are beyond the average wage earners ability to purchase? Could this make grocery store deliveries irregular? Will the national debt cause those in control to create ever increasing levels of printed money to diminish the debt as it relates to GDP? Does any of this matter or should we just concentrate on who wins the Oscars and sports?
Peter Hitchins has a blog which I read. Having visited the UK several times I’m acutely aware of how their own demise has preceded ours over the decades. Their country seems to be a harbinger of what we can look forward to and here’s a brief excerpt of what he is talking about. Keep in mind this is a country that has surveillance cameras at almost everywhere you turn, and almost no manufacturing.
In January 2007, I wrote this about the arrest of Anthony Blair’s aide Ruth Turner in the pursuit of the supposed ‘cash for honours’ scandal: ‘Still, silly people are rejoicing over the arrest of New Labour’s Ruth Turner.
This is wrong, dangerous and short-sighted. Just because this creepy totalitarian method has been used against someone you don’t like, it doesn’t mean it’s right. What you do to others will eventually be done to you. If you unleash the police as a political weapon, then you have authorised their use against your own side.
‘One day, when you are whimpering amid the wreckage of your ransacked home or having your DNA swabbed and your dabs taken at the behest of your political enemies, you will complain. And they will reply, “Where were you when they did this to Ruth Turner?” And they will be right.’
The job of the police is to patrol on foot, preventing crime and disorder. If they cannot or will not do that, we would be better off without them. Once they attach themselves to political causes – like the current liberal elite campaign against press independence – they are a monstrous engine of tyranny.
Think the idea of police ripping you out of your bed and charging you with crimes against the state are far fetched? Think again because the pendulum is already in motion.
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