A Disclaimer
To say the last two-years or more of all our lives has been a whirlwind of “shit-storm” proportions is to state the obvious to anyone whose existence is at least partially still defined by the fact that they think, therefore they are. And by that, I mean still thinking even as the excrement downpour seems to now be on time-release autopilot! So, I guess you could say that’s who I’m writing to at this particular moment. Now for those who took their thinking cap off a long time ago because it’s just too damn exhausting; though I get it, this blog is not for you. This is your hall pass to continue to engage in the myriad of distractions at your technological fingertips to keep you from awakening to the fact that you have been duped and there is a still a giant ass dupe-monster behind you! And please know that I am sympathetic to you, and I am secretly sometimes jealous of your acquired credulity. I really am. But for now, I am about to pass my exit ramp to tell Rene my story at the bar, so pardon my interruption.
Sit Down Rene, The First Drink is On Me
If the last two-and-a-half years wasn’t bad enough, 2022 was a humdinger for this conspiracy theorist. For amidst the overabundance of data coming out about what our new world order always secretly had in store for us, losing my job, and losing the ability to gain a new job due to not signing up for the jab, I was sidetracked to say the least. The only thing I knew instinctively how to do at that moment was to divest myself from any and every encumbrance that would distract me from facing the economic-darwinism nightmare that was incessantly knocking at my front door. So, the first thing that had to go was my allegiance to recent church-obligations due to my continued naivety into believing that I could chew church leadership bubble-gum (a big stinking wad) and concentrate on slaying all the dragons that lined up unwelcome outside of my hobbit hole. It was then that I resigned from my post, took with it the lingering evangelical guilt, and continued to identify each of my dragons by name before seeking “how in the Hell” I could fight more than one at a time. But that’s when the extra good news came. Now to the many who are thinking, or who are at least have experienced some of what happened to me next, this is for you.
We got the news that we needed to exit our rental abode by the sea in three short months. Nonetheless, we had still not yet realized what was going on in the housing world that was about to give us some unwelcome commonality with countless others about to look for a full-time shopping cart and move into the woods. The housing market had gone crazy because of the previous COVID relaxation of rent obligations, which in part now drove owners to charge higher rent prices and also sell to the highest bidder to make up for their own losses during this time, which simultaneously drove others to use it as an opportunity for “gotcha capitalism” at its finest.
As we contemplated what to do about our unexpected housing dilemma, homes for sale also rose in astronomical proportion, and the old-fashioned business of buying a house became “the highest bidder takes all” and “what you see is what you get” when you sign the dotted line for your 30-year bitch slapping! Enough said. You get the picture. By God’s grace and a loving elder son and daughter n law, as my 57-year-old world fell apart, my wife, 20-year-old son and I loaded up and moved into my son’s upstairs bedroom hoping for a mere short hiatus from whatever normalcy is supposed to look like in this American Dream (nightmare) happening to us all. Five and a half months later, after finally finding a job, we were then able to buy a home that was almost worth what they were asking. There were many lessons learned, as well as painful realizations of what things could have looked like for us as we finally entered the door of our new home as those who felt as if they had stumbled upon a holy grail of sorts. Even now as I pinch myself occasionally, it’s hard to see how we survived this storm that any thinking folks now realize is not to be merely chalked up as “market-driven”, but instead a conspiracy theorists’ realization of the reprehensible plans that once naively trusted establishments had been planning while we were all, well, sleeping; and certainly not thinking. But wait, in walks our democrat friend.
The Democrat Comes in and Wants Us to Buy Shim a Drink
As Rene buys the next round for the three of us, I ponder the fact that we are now actually living in Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone world, and that people believe this is a world we should uncritically settle into. Even so, I reminisce to a time that regardless of whether one espoused to Christian beliefs, were proud flag-waving pagans, or somewhere in between, there was a time when there was a bit of camaraderie among us all in this anomaly once called A Republic. The idea not so long ago was that there were truths (that strange now relativistic word) “held to be self-evident” among the rank and file. Though these truths were somewhat broad and not per say meant to be doctrinal for the admitted diversity in these Republic masses, no one can deny that the Christian-Western air was pervasive even among the mixed philosophical bag of those in our collective constitutional room. Fast forward to today, and what we have is liberty’s meaning grossly misconstrued and “unalienable rights” poster child has now become synonymous with someone demanding oneself to be called (insert any litany of personal pronouns) what one wishes to identify with. Or even better, to now forcefully insist that the things once respectfully left in individual closets to become equivalent to a new and improved Leave it to Beaver that we better all damn well watch with smiles and flags to boot! Add to that a carte blanche crusade to remove anything left that even faintly reeks of western import into their new and improved dictionary, and armed with enough Molotov cocktails and twerking to go around the room for everyone who; well, disagrees.
Rene and I Pick Up the Tab
And well, the moral of the story is that Rene Descartes, a conspiracy theorist, and a democrat can’t walk into a bar together anymore anyway, unless you live in Washington, DC of course. Because it is there that all things, especially our swampish representatives, are not at all as they seem to those of us still willing to sit next to Phaedrus. And while we are left buying the damn drinks anyway, we are also left with our now antiquated ability to think with logic and reason, as well as with those nasty self-evident and timeless truths once rudder-like in their ability to keep the West and a 200-year-old Republic ship (warts and all) on some sort of true north. Meanwhile, devoid of a universal anyone can muster up or define for that matter, even in the aftermath of Christians’ braggadocious nirvana over Roe V. Wade’s overturning and their continual orgasmic dreams for Overfell V. Hodges to follow suit, our overall “new-normal” as a Republic should be painstakingly obvious to any of us who are still paying attention, not sleeping, and well; still defiantly participating in that now obsolete art called thinking.
Selah