I was, and still am, just a dumb kid from Bayside, Queens tbh. I turned 15 the day before 9/11 and went to juvi about a month later and did a 2-year stretch there. I signed up for the Marines when I got out at 17 to go to Afghanistan in 2003 (lol). I ended up doing x3 tours in Iraq as a combat engineer across the years 2005-2008 instead,…
I was, and still am, just a dumb kid from Bayside, Queens tbh. I turned 15 the day before 9/11 and went to juvi about a month later and did a 2-year stretch there. I signed up for the Marines when I got out at 17 to go to Afghanistan in 2003 (lol). I ended up doing x3 tours in Iraq as a combat engineer across the years 2005-2008 instead, assigned to various infantry units to do explosives work and IED hunting for them in the Sunni Triangle. I got out and went back to NY in '08 just in time for the financial crisis to hit. I used the GI Bill at SUNY Maritime while working a security gig at 60 Wall St (where DJT's tax returns were no less) for four years, where I studied environmental science and did ROTC while also seeing the TARP bailout protests and Occupy Wall Street up close at the weekend security gig. I commissioned as a Naval officer and did oceanographic intelligence work for the Navy with respect to anti-submarine warfare from about 2014-2018, earning my MS during that time in geospatial information systems and analysis from Penn State's online program. Did a deployment to South America during that time and saw a lot of how fleet operations work. Got out in 2018 and took up work in Colorado as a cartographer, where I also learned how to cultivate cannabis at scale through an internship gig I had on the side. Nowadays I map water for the federal gov and do precision shooting and competitive pistol on the side. I also teach people how to grow cannabis on their own and have been working on a book to help future veterans for about a year now. That's my life/career and talent-set in a nutshell. I've lived in NYC, Charleston, SoCal, Mississippi, N Carolina, and now Denver. I ended up liking the mountains on the weekends.
What an impressive CV... so you have seen a lot and thought a lot. What do you think? Is there any hope that America -- I don't think we can accurately call it the "United" states any longer -- something like an electoral republic of laws not men? If you do -- how does that happen? Or is the question, how does an honorable person live in a dicatatorship?
- this country tends to pendulum back and forth between left/right rule, and that neither tend to stay in power long-term (barring successful J6 repeats) because most of the country doesn't like the full breadth of their policy positions
- while the loudest political nutjobs always make the news, there are 4-5 normies for every political nutjob, and the collective power of normies wins over extremists just about every time
- somebody overseas will eventually do something dumb and attack us, which will give us a national cause for unity
- even Trumpers are too decadent to *really* cut themselves off from that sweet- sweet state capital money (read: big city liberal money) that gets redistributed to the rurals on a state-by-state basis
- if all else fails, the liberal country that emerges from this mess will out-compete the conservative country that emerges in terms of economic productivity and globalized trade, which means you can buy a lot of imports to provide logistics against future domestic insurgencies indefinitely, whereas the insurgency will likely need to survive off of the land--something that can be targeted domestically with things as simple as targeting soil biomes via viruses that attack the soil's bacteria and fungal networks. Then they don't eat. Fire also comes in handy during long-term siege operations--which William T Sherman can tell you all about, especially if you target the local fire-fighting infrastructure first to prevent them from extinguishing the damage. Small towns are more vulnerable to siege works than large cities. Fewer ways in/out via vehicle and their logistical supplies are more vulnerable.
I live in a sort of small town outlying suburb of a University town in Michigan. You probably have heard of it, it’s a football team with an institution of learning and research attached. My sub is moderate conservative upper middle class professional and went for Biden. and I am literally about 500 yards from the surrounding areas which are deep red, Trump flags, people with inflatable Trump lawn figures, and who drive around in pickup trucks decorated with belligerent MAGA signs and flying Trump and Gadsden flags. Not only that— punisher symbols, blue stripe fascist American flag images, and lots of gun imagery—such as the outline of Michigan (which resembles a mitten) holding a firearm.
These people spent a lot of time inT rump parades last election— trucks and boats and motorcycles, driving and sailing around like “wide awake” marchers in the 19th century, or Brownshirt rallies in Deutschland in the 20th.
They are armed. I expect to see them more and more even cruising in my neighborhood, showing their strength in shows of intimidation. If they turn from thus far performative assholery to actually brandishing and then using their weaponry I don’t see where it stops, or how we can turn it around. Because the other side wants the violence, and we just want to be left alone to enjoy our safe, upper decile, professional class nice life and our comfortable high incomes, high value big houses, and good schools and careers.
I was, and still am, just a dumb kid from Bayside, Queens tbh. I turned 15 the day before 9/11 and went to juvi about a month later and did a 2-year stretch there. I signed up for the Marines when I got out at 17 to go to Afghanistan in 2003 (lol). I ended up doing x3 tours in Iraq as a combat engineer across the years 2005-2008 instead, assigned to various infantry units to do explosives work and IED hunting for them in the Sunni Triangle. I got out and went back to NY in '08 just in time for the financial crisis to hit. I used the GI Bill at SUNY Maritime while working a security gig at 60 Wall St (where DJT's tax returns were no less) for four years, where I studied environmental science and did ROTC while also seeing the TARP bailout protests and Occupy Wall Street up close at the weekend security gig. I commissioned as a Naval officer and did oceanographic intelligence work for the Navy with respect to anti-submarine warfare from about 2014-2018, earning my MS during that time in geospatial information systems and analysis from Penn State's online program. Did a deployment to South America during that time and saw a lot of how fleet operations work. Got out in 2018 and took up work in Colorado as a cartographer, where I also learned how to cultivate cannabis at scale through an internship gig I had on the side. Nowadays I map water for the federal gov and do precision shooting and competitive pistol on the side. I also teach people how to grow cannabis on their own and have been working on a book to help future veterans for about a year now. That's my life/career and talent-set in a nutshell. I've lived in NYC, Charleston, SoCal, Mississippi, N Carolina, and now Denver. I ended up liking the mountains on the weekends.
What an impressive CV... so you have seen a lot and thought a lot. What do you think? Is there any hope that America -- I don't think we can accurately call it the "United" states any longer -- something like an electoral republic of laws not men? If you do -- how does that happen? Or is the question, how does an honorable person live in a dicatatorship?
I tend to rest my hopes on the notions that:
- this country tends to pendulum back and forth between left/right rule, and that neither tend to stay in power long-term (barring successful J6 repeats) because most of the country doesn't like the full breadth of their policy positions
- while the loudest political nutjobs always make the news, there are 4-5 normies for every political nutjob, and the collective power of normies wins over extremists just about every time
- somebody overseas will eventually do something dumb and attack us, which will give us a national cause for unity
- even Trumpers are too decadent to *really* cut themselves off from that sweet- sweet state capital money (read: big city liberal money) that gets redistributed to the rurals on a state-by-state basis
- if all else fails, the liberal country that emerges from this mess will out-compete the conservative country that emerges in terms of economic productivity and globalized trade, which means you can buy a lot of imports to provide logistics against future domestic insurgencies indefinitely, whereas the insurgency will likely need to survive off of the land--something that can be targeted domestically with things as simple as targeting soil biomes via viruses that attack the soil's bacteria and fungal networks. Then they don't eat. Fire also comes in handy during long-term siege operations--which William T Sherman can tell you all about, especially if you target the local fire-fighting infrastructure first to prevent them from extinguishing the damage. Small towns are more vulnerable to siege works than large cities. Fewer ways in/out via vehicle and their logistical supplies are more vulnerable.
I live in a sort of small town outlying suburb of a University town in Michigan. You probably have heard of it, it’s a football team with an institution of learning and research attached. My sub is moderate conservative upper middle class professional and went for Biden. and I am literally about 500 yards from the surrounding areas which are deep red, Trump flags, people with inflatable Trump lawn figures, and who drive around in pickup trucks decorated with belligerent MAGA signs and flying Trump and Gadsden flags. Not only that— punisher symbols, blue stripe fascist American flag images, and lots of gun imagery—such as the outline of Michigan (which resembles a mitten) holding a firearm.
These people spent a lot of time inT rump parades last election— trucks and boats and motorcycles, driving and sailing around like “wide awake” marchers in the 19th century, or Brownshirt rallies in Deutschland in the 20th.
They are armed. I expect to see them more and more even cruising in my neighborhood, showing their strength in shows of intimidation. If they turn from thus far performative assholery to actually brandishing and then using their weaponry I don’t see where it stops, or how we can turn it around. Because the other side wants the violence, and we just want to be left alone to enjoy our safe, upper decile, professional class nice life and our comfortable high incomes, high value big houses, and good schools and careers.