We Must Still Have it Pretty Good
Things most people concern themselves with today don't matter when you're hungry
My Great Grandparents immigrated to the United States from Denmark to have a better life. My Grandmother on my Mothers side was literally born in a mud hut on the Great Plains/Badlands of Montana. The incredible struggles they endured are almost impossible to imagine. The Great Plains/Badlands of Montana have very little water, a tree here and there, and some of the worst soil for growing anything but a bit of grass and sagebrush. That part of Montana can see temperatures in the summer that easily soar to over 100 degrees and temperatures plummet in the winter with windchills that can be as low as 60 below zero for weeks on end.
When I visited our ancestral graveyard in the 1990’s I was shocked to see the age of death on most of the gravestones. Most of my ancestors died in their 30’s and 40’s. But they died free. They died with very little material possessions, but they had the land that the government “gave” them.
Oh, how times have changed. The world that was created on the backs of many of our ancestors is incredible. Most people in America don’t realize that just a little over 100 years ago, there were covered wagons still being used right here in the United States. Horses were still the main mode of transportation outside of many of the cities. There were no phones, internet, cars, or campers (except for the covered wagons and sheep huts). In many areas food consisted of what you could grow or hunt for yourself and consisted mostly of venison, rabbit and a few root vegetables like potatoes and onions.
I was fortunate enough to have lived through some of that myself. As a generational Montanan, I had the luxury of living *without* electricity, running water, sewers, and all of that “new” technology for a time in my childhood. I can still remember when we got our first phone that you had to rent from the phone company. I remember when we got electricity at our property. I remember when we got our first 19” black and white TV. I definitely remember when we finally had running water from our own well with an electric pump instead of a hand pump! I remember a lot of things from that time in my life. We owned nothing. But we really were happy because we were free.
We have become incredibly spoiled, arrogant, decadent, and (in many ways) completely immoral in this great country. We have been rich beyond measure in America. Even the so-called “poor” in America can (if they want to) get financial aid of one kind or another. Many of the “poor” in America own cars, cell phones, TV’s and eat better than many of us who work. That is a fact. (Visit a true 3rd world country and see what poor people really look like. I have. And there is a shocking contrast.)
I mentioned everything above because lately I’ve been thinking about the things that seem to matter to a lot of Americans. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that we have the luxury of being able to worry about someone not wearing a diaper on their face. We are privileged enough to have men dressing up like women and screaming at the top of their lungs that they have “rights” (rights they already have so I’m not sure what they even mean!) People in America have the time on their hands to demand that someone take medicine they do not want. Spoiled Americans can protest or burn down a store that can no longer get an item they want. Entitled people can sue a cake company for not baking a cake for them or a restaurant that serves their coffee too hot. The decadent in society have time to demand that little children’s genitals be chopped off. There are hundreds of examples of just how far we have fallen as a people.
I cannot imagine my Great Grandparents (or my Grandparents or Parents for that matter) taking up any “woke” causes because they were already awake to the reality that freedom takes work, personal responsibility, and self-control. They were more concerned with where their next meal was going to come from or whether their children were going to die that winter. I cannot imagine any of my ancestors having time to attend a “pride” parade to watch people having sex on the street in front of them and waving their genitals in the faces of little children. My ancestors would have *never* petitioned the government for more and more “entitlements.” In fact, the mindset of my family for as long as I can remember has *always* been, “if I want something, I’ll figure out a way to make it happen myself or do without.” My ancestors would have *never* told someone they didn’t have the right to say something they disagreed with. They would have walked away.
Yep, we’ve had it too good at times in my opinion. In some ways I am as spoiled as the next person so I’m not pointing fingers. But… a quickening is coming. I’ve been saying it for years. I’ve heard it all my life from my Parents and my Grandparents (I never met my Great Grandparents on either side of my family). I can remember both of my grandmothers (who lived through the great depression) telling me, “don’t be wasteful, always be prepared because hard times will come again!” (And I listened for the most part) Regardless of the outcome of this insane “great reset” the elitist monsters are creating, hell is probably coming. Will I and my ancestors be wrong and everything will be just wonderful? Maybe. But I don’t think so. Everything (and I mean everything) is out of control. Government can’t control itself; schools can’t control themselves, and even places of worship no longer (except for a few) even stand for anything good and right in the world. Historically, when a society becomes what we have become, the bottom falls out.
I say bring it on. I’m not looking forward to it. I’m too old for this crap. But to be honest, as bad as it may get, I’ll be happy to see people more concerned about where their next meal is going to come from. There will be nowhere to hide from this. It is going to affect almost everyone. Even the elitist monsters in their ivory towers and bunkers will not be immune to the quickening. I’m looking forward to the news being, “such and such community has come together to build a mill so they can process their own wheat (actually going back to the way it used to be when most towns had their own mill).” I’ve grown tired of seeing news stories about spoiled people protesting the most pathetic causes that don’t matter at all in the big scheme of things. I’m sick of hearing people bitch about how bad they have it in this country. I’m fed up with people thinking the “government” has its own money it can throw around and not realizing that the government only has money because it has literally made it up (“printed” it) or stolen it from someone to give to whatever cause, entitlement or war it wants to.
Yep, marauding hordes of hungry, immoral, and violent people will be scary for a while. But even many of those groups will mellow out as they start realizing that the only way they survive is by joining the right side. The side that can help them learn how to grow food, how to come together as a community, and how to take up causes that really do matter in life.
No society can continue on the road we’ve been on for too long now and not expect some repercussions. Societies like the one we have allowed to be built here collapse. It’s a fact. Get ready, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. But together (those of us who can see through the madness) we will make it. We’ll find the same spirit as my Ancestors who took a covered wagon and a few sheep across unknown thousands of miles and untested waters to be truly free. They ended up owning nothing. But they truly were… happy.
I love this post. We all (myself included) would be much better served by staying focused on the basics and not getting caught up in the he said / she said drama. Food, water, shelter, electricity, physical strength, and books should be our priorities. If we don’t have those, we can’t hope to rebuild.
Great article Rob. I've thought about this so much, how bored we are in our own comfort and achievement. All the whining and bashing today is so much from people who have zero appreciation or respect for the shoulders that they're standing on that have given them the right to whine and bash. We are literally inventing ways to grieve. I hate to think that the only way the vast minority of the inconsolable will understand that "they don't know what they've got till it's gone" is for a major, cataclysmic event that will etch itself into the consciousness of a generation.