ZeroGov 2.0

Publisher's Note: Welcome aboard the new, improved and more secure ZG. As the years have moved forward, the site has become subject to a variety of mishaps and attacks on occasion. I've updated and secured the site on a far more robust server. Still working on getting the forum linked up and synched. Digital Ocean has been an expensive curse and I highly recommend if you use them, abandon them immediately. Forum is still down right now. On 7 July, we celebrated our ninth year and 482 posts after being excommunicated by Lew Rockwell at LRC in that same year. I still wish Lew the best and you should make LRC a daily sojourn.-BB In July, I briefed a presentation to an academic society annual symposium in Kalifornia. I am a co-chair of the Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Working Group in the organization. Here's the abstract: Sisyphus Rules: The Antifragility of the Insurgency Enterprise * Operations research needs to acquaint itself with the limits of modeling and the pitfalls of insufficient and misguided asymmetrical evidentiary bars. The West has been combating insurgencies of one stripe or another for hundreds of years and it has occupied center stage in all military efforts in the new century. The insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN) dialectic provides a scheme t o map the strengths and weaknesses of the intersection of the two methodologies. Historically, the insurgency has been much more adaptive to COIN efforts and overcoming the conflict dynamics to favor strategic compression on the part of the insurgent. The COIN...

Happy Dependence Day, Comrades by Bill Buppert

Publisher’s Note:  I took a stab at modifying the 1776 American Declaration of Independence to present standards of governance, moral malpractice and cowardice; I discovered that much would be left out on the cutting floor and severe alterations to verbiage would be necessary to keep the Homo Sovieticus Booboisie in America from filling their pants and gibbering in abject fear at the prospect of freedom with risks and costs not underwritten by their neighbors. I had to erase over half of it and wipe out any reference to any behavior absent government permission. So I had to move on to the more fitting document for human bondage and perpetual government, the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence continues to be a masterwork of brevity and directness in its promise to sever ties and formalize a divorce.  There is no sizable sector of America today that would even have the temerity to sign it much less live up to it. Well, maybe at an abolitionist meeting but I digress. So I scrapped that project and found a document more in keeping with the modern 21st century American mood. Now the Soviet Constitution is something that most Americans can cotton to with the slightest modification in verbiage.  I chose the latest of three variants from 1977.  I have included a link to the original text at the bottom.  All I changed were the descriptors and none of the prospective language. On another note, in a nation that has institutionalized theft and torture and turned it into rule and color of law, I figured the Supremes would get around to the codification of taxing inactivity, which is the secret sauce in the recent ruling.  On page 193 of the infamous  decision, Thomas says the most important observation in all the pages of painful and obtuse totalitarian apologia for ObamugabeCare: "As I have explained, the Court’s continued use of that test “has encouraged the Federal Government to persist in its view that the Commerce Clause has virtually no limits.” Morrison, supra, at 627. The Government’s unprecedented claim in this suit that it may regulate not only economic activity but also inactivity that substantially affects interstate commerce is a case in point." The latest Chief Justice Roberts Goebbels-gargling for the Offal Office to keep National Socialist healthcare afloat came out just a few weeks ago to make this 4^th of July in 2015 even more ridiculous if anyone still believes this is a free country. When Roberts isn’t teaching creative writing to the Executive Branch, he’s lording over the finer details of totalitarian architecture at the Supremes’ monster factory. In essence: “In this instance, the context and structure of the act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase . . . Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.” You can’t make this up. Most of the ahistorical tax Helots automatically associate the 4th of July with the wretched Constitution anyway. Constitution Day is in September but why wait when the DI has been so famously and ingloriously betrayed in every aspect of its essence and message. The majority in that decision would applaud the Soviet Constitution not that the earlier American version was any shakes when it came to liberty. The Fourth of July is the same day in 1863 that the defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg snuffed out any hope of the South prevailing in its divorce proceedings during the Second American Revolution and the Lincolnian juggernaut would take the Constitution to its final stages of expanding and securing a place for the leviathan state in North America. Happy Dependence Day, comrades. -BB PREAMBLE to the 1977 Soviet Constitution slightly modified to American standards: The Great November Democratic Revolution, made by the workers and peasants of United States under the leadership of the US Government headed by its Presidents, overthrew capitalist and landowner rule, broke the fetters of oppression, established the dictatorship of the voter, and created the American state, a new type of state, the basic instrument for defending the gains of the revolution and for building government intervention and democracy. Humanity thereby began the epoch-making turn from capitalist to government intervention. After achieving victory in the elections and repulsing free market intervention, the American government carried through far-reaching social and economic transformations, and put an end once and for all to exploitation of man by man, antagonisms between classes, and strive between nationalities. The unification of the American Republics in the Union of American Democratic Republics multiplied the forces and opportunities of the peoples of the country in the building of government intervention. Social ownership of the means of production and genuine democracy for the working masses were established. For the first time in the history of mankind a democratic society was created. The strength of government intervention was vividly demonstrated by the immortal feat of the American people and their Armed Forces in achieving their historic victory in the Great Cold War. This victory consolidated the influence and international standing of the American Union and created new opportunities for growth of the forces of government intervention, national liberation, democracy, and peace throughout the world. Continuing their creative endeavors, the working people of the American Union have ensured rapid, all-round development of the country and steady improvement of the democratic system. They have consolidated the alliance of the working class, collective-farm peasantry, and people's intelligentsia, and friendship of the nations and nationalities of the US. Sociopolitical and ideological unity of American society, in which the middle class is the leading force, has been achieved. The aims of the dictatorship of the voter having been fulfilled, the American state has become a state of the whole people. The leading role of the US Government, the vanguard of all the people, has grown.

Village Praxis: Mountain Guerrilla Combat Rifle Fundamentals AAR by John Meyers

Publisher's Note: Another guest post by the indefatigable John Meyers. I have taken a departure for a bit from the more philosophical ruminations one is accustomed to seeing here to focus on establishing training and preparedness baselines for the coming Endarkenment. Things are getting sporty and the communists will not relent in employing every means to rob you of your self-ownership. Prepare accordingly. -BB “The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.” - Jeff Cooper, Art of the Rifle Instructor: John Mosby Course outline from site: “This is a beginner to novice level class on how to run your gun effectively under tactical field conditions. Beginning with basic square range work out to 200+ meters, it focuses on the fundamentals of marksmanship and effective gun handling as an individual, before moving into working with a partner. This class requires a fighting rifle, a minimum of four magazines (for magazine fed rifles), and some method of carrying those magazines effectively.” Background: I previously organized Mosby’s Clandestine Carry Pistol course last summer in Western NC. Due to its wild popularity and by shooter demand, we had him back for his carbine course in May 2018. The class maxed out very quickly on announcement of the course and I stopped keeping an alternative list for slots if anyone backed out, when it reached 10. Personal Objectives: As with all courses I take, I was seeking to better my personal skills. In particular, in my work in hosting/organizing classes, I also want to better the local community’s skillset as well. I have taken a number carbine courses over the years and spent most of my training time working a rifle. I wanted to get another set of experienced eyes on me and looked to ratchet up the efficiency in my own application of tactical rifle craft. I am a fan of RDS (red dot sights) and LPVO (low power variable optics) for their respective applications. I have however been putting more time into focusing mostly on the LPVO as a ‘do all’ optic. Knowing Mosby is also a fan, I chose to run an LPVO exclusively during the class. Course Work: Of course with most former and current SOF guys, it was no surprise to me that fundamentals were the main focus of this class. After the medical and safety briefing, we headed straight to the range. Mosby went over philosophy on press checks and make ready procedures. The serious nature he brings to his make ready procedure was instilled in the students very effectively. We then went into a discussion about the types of stops in a gunfight. Mosby recited a Jack Donovan quote that stuck with me “Respect your enemy, but have enemies worthy of respecting.”

Village Praxis: Building the Liberty Training Rifle (Updated) by Bill Buppert

Publisher's Note: Skip is one of my best friends and he is our Village Armorer.  He is quite expert in the technical and arcane aspects of building and maintaining the teeth of Liberty.  He helped compile this brief but detailed primer on building one of these handy little rifles.   I was an Appleseed Instructor in the state of Arizona (on sabbatical) and we urge those who wish to husband their ammunition with the prices they command now to maintain their skill set with modified .22 rifles to ensure the edge does not dull for the Riflemen standing up across America. Much has changed in the six years since I wrote the first primer and this is completely updated to reflect the improvement available. The main platform we use is the Ruger 10/22 and modify it fairly substantially to better replicate the handling and characteristics of a Main Battle Rifle or Carbine much like the purpose-built rifles that festooned colonial mantles in the 18th century here in America.  It is an implied task that once you build the rifle, you go out and practice and become proficient.  While the primer below is by no means exhaustive, it will give you a terrific head start. You will notice some tabs above which speak to the Appleseed program.  I would urge you to explore the RWVA and Appleseed pages and sign up for an event near you. -BB Yes...

Village Praxis: The Sling is the Ring of Power by Bill Buppert

Publisher’s Note: If you’ve been following the latest on the tariff nonsense, you will note that the Mango Emperor is doubling down on taxing Americans, again. It may be Make American Government Gargantuan Again Taxpayer, MAGGOT, instead of MAGA.  I’ll make this painfully simple: tariffs are a tax on the consuming citizens of the country that imposes the tariff and every penny of that money stolen from the captive consumers goes into the maw of the government coffers. No more complex than that. Per the latest kerfuffle over the separation of children from their parents or guardians at the border, the bugbear is consistency. You’ll notice that both wings of the Uniparty have lorded over the Offal Office and the ranking scum in both the houses that pass laws like gas from a sick elephant. Not once have they protested the hundreds of thousands of Americans caged and separated from their children for the commission of crime for whom the only victim was the state from distracted driving to illegal vegetation to extortion fraud when they failed to pay the appropriate taxes to the local political warlords. I am looking to my readership to give me a quality lead on some good videos on sling employment. The advice here is spot-on and he has since retired from active blogging. -BB I briefly covered slings in a previous Praxis and want to plumb some more information for this basic yet vital component of the free rifleman’s kit. Slings have come a long way from the beautiful but anachronistic 1917 sling that adorned my M14 when I was on a Navy rifle and pistol team. Like my transition from leather holsters to Kydex, we’ve seen the ubiquity of nylon slings with various components. These serve the same purpose as the holster does for your pistol. They serve two primary purposes: nature’s bipod and the ability to multitask when conducting social work. Nothing makes a long gun steadier after your hundreds of hours of training and mastering the seven steps to firing the shot than the sling properly employed. From the standing off-hand to the prone and everything in between from SBS to patty-prone. The sling may be the least expensive and most cost-effective kit you employ with your long guns. The primary sling variations employed today are one-point and two-point (to include the tactical sling and hunting sling).

Village Praxis: Pistol Carry Options by Bill Buppert

“The paradigm that government should have a monopoly of small arms implies the surreal normative postulate that citizens—or, rather, subjects—should be treated as the Jews were in Nazi Germany.” - Stephen P. Halbrook, Gun Control in the Third Reich “Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.” ― Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right Publisher’s Note:  I am a non-voter and not a fan of any inhabitant of the Offal Office but I have to admit, I am impressed with the peace efforts pursued by The Amphibian right now with his trip to Singapore to meet with the nK communist leader. No one has used this simple hands-on approach to trying to bridge the gap. I wish he would do the same with Iran after calling the ball in the Middle East and bring all the soldiers and other American mischief machinery home to real jobs in America. In other news, if you want to know just how amazing it is to be alive today, go to a Dollar Store and spend half an hour looking around at a bounty no communist country could match. The free market in America manages to deliver this in spite of a government regulatory regime of monstrous proportions that soils and shits on everything it touches. I can just imagine the riches available to every human once individual industry is untethered from the statist shackles. I would also recommend that every polling place in America replace the lever in the booth with a phallic lever and ask the voters to use their mouths to select their new masters. It would make the experience more authentic and reflect great things to come. You now have six months and counting of opportunities to plus up your stores and munitions until January comes if the Grand Old Politburo manages to fuck themselves out of power in the November Plantation Owner Selection contests across the nation. The Collapsitarian (h/t to Skip, the Village Armorer) Party has yet to get off the ground but I may just become a voter again if SMOD and Cthulhu manage to top that ticket in 2020. Yes, we have been experiencing regular outages. And yes, I have reading more Halbrook lately.-BB Herschel posted a video of a man successfully injecting lead in his junk through an ND entirely of his own making. The usual suspects started to blame the carry modality; in this case, Appendix Inside the Waistband (AIWB) carry. I can’t account for the reason for the ND or what pressed the trigger. When I don’t OC, I do carry AIWB. I have no other way for my body-type to do so because dedicated IWB holsters don’t conceal well and I don’t want to have two sizes of pants in my closet. Kydex holsters in the waistband prepositioned can be very dangerous carry options for the reasons this gentleman apparently demonstrated. As with all things gun, you practice to perfection and repetition the little shit. The engineering profession teaches you that attention to detail is the secret sauce for success. You never re-holster a weapon without checking the magazine and a chamber check. You clean them regularly on a schedule. You don’t put a Punisher symbol on the back plate. You wear it everywhere so it becomes second nature and you are not fiddle-fucking with it. Even at home. You either live with guns or use them every now and again. I decided to live with them both at work when I served in the Legions and at home and out and about. I am strong hand right.

Village Praxis: Capabilities Assessments 101 by Bill Buppert

Let's talk today about assessing your required capabilities. Jim Rawles, who puts the style in the preparedness lifestyle, has had many articles that touch on specific capabilities assessments. What we'll be talking about today is the general theory and practice of how to assess a given situation and determine, based on conditions, what your required capabilities are. First things first, identify your particular situation. For example, a person living in a rural area will have vastly different needs that someone living in an urban environment, while a suburban person will have different needs than either a rural farmer or an urbanite. I highly recommend including climate, terrain, population density, demographics (population age distribution, etc), unemployment statistics, local fabrication capabilities, water and sewer infrastructure, transportation infrastructure and other pertinent data. Now that you know what your local physical and human terrain looks like, assess the most likely threats and scenarios that could impact you and your area. There are two broad categories: natural (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes) and human (riots, civil unrest, infrastructure collapse) that affect and interact with each other. A localized "grid down" scenario driven by a hurricane can influence secondary, human driven scenarios. For each scenario, I recommend analyzing it by comparing "Probability of Occurrence vs Impact if Risk is Incurred". You’ll also be wise to use a variation of the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP) to assess the most likely and most For a particular potential event, determine the probability of occurrence, for example, if you live on the east coast, a hurricane is a "likely" event. Next determine the impact. If the event occurs, how bad will things get? Once you've determined your risk for a potential event and its attendant impact, now you know what to prepare for. Now that you know the probability and occurrence of your particular situation, the "how to prepare" should be framed in terms of "capabilities" and not "widgets" or "gear". Basics, Basics, Basics One reason some Western special operations forces are so good at what they do is because they perfect the most banal tasks in small unit tactics to the best of their abilities; they live with weapons and not simply carry them on occasion as a totem. One rifleman has examined this very practice and unfortunately he stopped blogging. In concert with a couple Appleseeds under your belt, there is no better way to catch up. And remember Buppert’s Law of Military Topography: “Mountainous terrain held by riflemen who know what they are about cannot be militarily defeated”. Drive a rifle or ride a boxcar, that is the future. No matter what occurs, you are going to need water, food and shelter. For water and food, you must determine how much per person, per day and how many days of supply should be required. Keeping bottled water on hand is great. Also, have the ability to purify water of unknown provenance- boil, chemicals or filtration. Have a capability to store the water you’ve purified, both in bulk and in ready to carry containers. Food is a little trickier. Once again, you’ll have to determine how much you will need, per person, per day and for how long. I won’t get into ration planning and preparing food for long term storage as others have covered it much better than I can, notably Jim Rawles. A good place to start on nutrition outside of normal refrigerator, freezer and canned fare is NOLS Cookery. This book is a little gem on ration planning, nutrition, staple foods that will keep without refrigeration and recipes (that taste pretty damn good) prepared in one pot on a single burner stove from basic foodstuffs. Shelter can be the toughest basic of all to accurately assess. Is your dwelling hardened against natural and manmade disasters? If not, do you have building materials and tools on hand to repair any critical damage? Or do you anticipate relocating to a planned fallback position? If so, by vehicle or by foot? How does your region’s climate affect your choice in shelter- is a poncho and 550 cord going to suffice, or will you need a 4 season tent and a sleeping bag designed for a mountaineering expedition? This paragraph is in questions because only you have the answers to your situation. There is no one size fits all answer.

Village Praxis: Slings and Magazine Gijutsu by Bill Buppert

“Ocean thousand mountain thousand.” Japanese Proverb Publisher’s Note: I have been busier than usual and neglected posting new essays to the blog so this is a half-way measure to address some practical tactical topics. If you aren’t using the communist-lite regime of the Orange Julius to supplement your skills, weapons stores and collapsitarian accoutrement (h/t to Skip), you are blowing an opportunity. I am hoping you have also paid attention to the Michael Collins wear options to blend in with the populace in the coming Endarkenment. Five thousand dollars of UCP and Kryptek kit will get you got in the future unpleasantness in America. Wakarimasu? In other news, I will be presenting a paper entitled Sisyphus Rules: The Antifragility of Insurgency in June in the PRK on the Left Coast at a yearly symposium I attend. Stay tuned, boppers. -BB The Sling If you have neglected the sling in your training and equipping of your riflery, you are neglect what may the most important part of rifle accuracy once you have mastered the six steps to firing the shot. SIGHT ALIGNMENT -- Line up the front and rear sights SIGHT PICTURE -- Keeping the sights lined up, bring them onto the target RESPIRATORY PAUSE – Deep breath, exhale partially, hold breath as front sight touches bottom of target A. FOCUS YOUR EYE -- Focus your eye on the front sight B. FOCUS YOUR MIND -– Keep front sight on target TRIGGER SQUEEZE –- Squeeze straight back while front sight stays on target FOLLOW THROUGH -- Sighting eye open, take mental picture of where sights were when rifle discharged, and follow through with trigger Thanks Appleseed! The Gods designed you right out of the womb with a bipod which happens to be your support hand and when you properly employ a sling in concert with natural point of aim, you are unstoppable until the indirect fire starts to rain on your position. I highly recommend you spend a few hours every month configuring your ideal prone positions and every other month do it on an uncomfortable surface like gravel or pine cones so there are no surprises if you ever have to conduct some philosophical terraforming employing physics against those who wish you harm. I recommend the Magpul series of slings for the semi-auto platform and the Riflecraft RS3 for the bolt gun. An advantage of the RS3 is that it employs a loop sling system built into the rig. A tip I learned from the Village Armorer, Skip, is to secure the sling to the rear of the weapon on the side opposite your support hand shoulder, you will discover that when you employ the sling on the support side, you will not be strangled and more effective in delivering disciplined rounds during the conduct of social work. I can’t emphasize enough how important the sling is to effective long gun employment. Magazine Spring Myths My oldest son is a mechanical engineer in UT, he, like my other sons is a natural born abolitionist and rifleman of the highest order. I asked for his scientific analysis of storing your ammo in P-Mags. Kyle asserts: "The short answer. Assuming a respectable manufacturer (Japanese/Korean/German - American engineers are mostly garbage, and Ruger is American...) I am highly skeptical that keeping magazines loaded will lead to premature failure. That doesn't mean premature failure can't happen, I'm just skeptical that keeping them loaded is a cause. Shitty materials, shitty engineering, and corrosion are my guess to the leading causes of failure. I could be wrong, but I have yet to be presented with a legitimate argument.  I would recommend disassembling your magazines from time to time and cleaning them.

Abbey’s Road: Liberty is the Monkeywrench Against the State by Bill Buppert

“Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.” -Edward Abbey I am opposed to the government death penalty; I am also pro-life which makes me blessedly consistent.  I don’t trust the government to be able to have the responsibility to mete out the severest penalty and to do it either professionally or with no ill intent.  In the smaller sense, the evidence is massive of the queue of innocents who have been shot, hanged and poisoned for crimes they did not commit.  In the larger sense, government puts us all on death row and it is just a matter of time before the cops kill you in your home or vehicle or we suffer a massive die-off in America from an EMP burst that takes us from zero to 1850 in one second. I use this preamble to frame my severe skepticism of the state doing the right thing…ever. I am not opposed to the death penalty in my house if an intruder comes in to do harm to me or mine.  I am a Flinter in temperament and predisposition.  Most of the laws on the books are noxious, useless and liberty-draining in their essence.  Malum prohibitum is the state saying don’t do that because I told you not to.  A monstrous fallacy whose logic only serves to reduce subject populations to assessed rentals on their freedom that can be wrested away at the drop of the constabulary’s hat.  I daresay that one could throw every statute book into the bonfires across the nation when Americans finally wake up and throw off their shackles of serfdom from the local to the national level and folks would not find themselves in danger but would stumble into prosperity. Will commerce and everyday living really come to a screeching halt because the coproaches don’t show up to work or the sloth-like city landscaping crews refuse to shamble from their abodes to dawdle at make-work throughout the burgs of America?  All of a sudden, the economic illiterates occupying the municipalities across the nation go on strike for higher wages and more vacation time for weeks, nay months; will the country stagnate and fold onto itself? Things would be difficult for about 24 hours and then voluntarism, persuasion and cooperation would emerge as the factors that make life worth living.  No utopia this and there would be scores settled and inevitable failures but only the individuals would be responsible and not the nameless strangers who lord over every facet of our lives like pawns on a macabre chess board. Innovation has never once sprung from the mind of a mob. Ever. The heavy hand of the state and its shambling yoke-tenders would be out of work and the country would revitalize itself.  Tens of thousands of Americans would wake up the next morning and look to the east and exclaim:  “You can go away now; we have awakened from our prison slumber.” Ed Abbey made me say this. I found Edward Abbey’s 1959 thesis on “ANARCHISM AND THE MORALITY OF VIOLENCE” over the weekend while reading a small tome entitled “Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist” by James Bishop, Jr.  I have been an Abbey reader most of my adult life and found his books amusing and penetrating.  He held a lifelong distrust of all authority, especially the state and the thesis provides an insight into the flame that burned in him at a rather tender age. What one learns about personal political evolution is that a road traveled to the right is far more traveled than the opposite direction.  It is rare indeed for folks to age and yearn for more government instead of less.  I am a skeptic of the Left-Right paradigm but use it to simply illustrate the purpose.  It is far more descriptive to chart one’s philosophical predisposition on a quadrant chart at whose corners are interventionist, collectivist, non-interventionist and individualist on whose map I am located within the nexus of the last two.  Abbey was a strange brew at times but consistency escapes most of us for everything we believe. He was a desert dweller who found the vast emptiness, solitude and sheer ferocity of nature to be a welcome refrain from dealing with the hubbub of civilization and the attendant disease of intrusive government.  His books are lyrical, intense and peppered with brilliance. Kirk Douglas starred in a screen treatment of Abbey’s novel, “The Brave Cowboy” in the early 1960s called “Lonely Are the Brave”.  It is a powerful and stark film treatment of a  cowboy (the unacknowledged unconscious anarchist in American history)  marooned in a 20^th century which continues to ”fence me in”.  Douglas looked at it as one of his favorite roles in his film career. Abbey was fond of saying that “sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul”.  He discovered anarchism at a tender age and sought to find the evolutionary blueprint for it in the earlier writings of Greek philosophers and everyone in between which his thesis is peopled with and he asks a central question:  will violence lead the people from their subject braces and chains into freedom?  He thought the answer was no but he was no pacifist, he was a staunch supporter of gun rights and considered himself something of the cactus in which one could only get injured if you screwed with something or somebody.  If you read “The Monkey Wrench Gang” and later “Hayduke Lives”, his growing frustration got the best of him as some of his characters started to break the First Rule in the Code:  Harm No One.

DDD: Fundamentals, Body Armor and the Survival Team Myth by John Meyers

Publisher's Note: Please take the time to visit the debut of The American Partisan. Please read John's article on junk gear here. Comment.-BB Preface:  I generally try to ignore the daily deeds of politicians and the incessant bickering between voting blocs and identity groups but it seems to have gotten to me lately, as you’ll witness. While I prefer proactive apathy toward the system, the following needs to be said. I’d urge conservatives to seek the ‘safe spaces’ they mock as their sacred cows are going be butchered into extremely tasty burgers. -JM  “At least it ain’t Hillary!” they bleat. Has Team Freedom bowed to Leviathan? This is usually the case when a person with an “R” behind their name is elected to the Offal Office. During the Obama years, Doomsday Prepper’s became a wildly popular TV show. Oathkeeper’s marched on Lexington Green. Open Carry rallies sprang up across the country. Three Percent groups exploded to the point of making the original ideology inconsequential and even meaningless. The Tea Party movement, an offshoot of the late Ron Paul movement, became co-opted and institutionalized by the mainstream GOP.  Every other truck had a Gadsden flag on it, including ones found in DHS’s parking lots. People were ready to go to war if a single damned democrat uttered “gun control” one more time. Enter the Age of Trump. Their guy got elected on a platform of populist nationalism. An outsider took the helm to Make America Great Again. He said the days of worrying about Second Amendment erosion are over. He inspired the racialist movements of old to reemerge and openly decry everything from the Social Justice Warrior down at the corner coffee shop to ZOG control of banking and everything in between. Former libertarians united with the white nationalist Traditionalist Workers Party despite them being literal communists on economic issues and fascists on everything else. Cultural conservatives and even some Identitarians now love the music of rapper Kayne West all due to a tweet. The entire spectacle has become the biggest laugh fest of political theater I’ve ever seen. It has become entirely clear the Resistance has just been mostly playing Patriot for years.  Their guy got into office and America supposedly has been saved from the Cultural Marxists. Some factions went entirely to sleep and stopped showing up on range days or down at the monthly Prepper Meet ‘n Greet. Others stopped preparing all together. In the last several months, the Orange Fuhrer has unilaterally directed the Department of Justice to classify owners of certain firearms accessories as felons, without a grandfather clause, which is more gun control in one executive directive than Obama instituted in his entire 8-year reign. The Right still cheers Dear Ruler while making 10 million excuses (Muh 4-chess!) or at minimum they remain silent. He has signed the largest budget in history into law, called for the death penalty for dealers of illegal plant vegetation and chemical compounds, (muh war on drugs!) is fighting the “Deep State” by appointing its cronies to different positions, hoisted oppressive tariffs on steel and aluminum and sparked a trade war whose losers are the American people. People trade, not nations. The “Resistance” still stands by their man because he challenged Biden to a cage match… or something. Individualist and economic think tanks used to host entire conferences called “Down with the Presidency” when George Bush was in office, attacking the institution of the Imperial Presidency from all directions. Now free market academics that used to speak at those conferences, host debates about Trump’s tariffs and actually consider the pro-tax side to actually have a legitimate position. Meanwhile, the base is whistling past the graveyard as Trump threw them a bone with some trivial tax cuts. But in typical Supply Side style he didn’t accompany them with spending cuts. In effect he prefers to pay for his extravagant spending by borrowing or printing the money. It’s as if he told the taxpayers he was taking them out for dinner and then sent them the bill. The same Proud Boys, who wrote, “taxation is theft” in the tip line on their restaurant credit card slips, now demand high tariffs on everything imported into the US while Trump gives his support for national Internet sales tax collection. Apparently the calls to double the federal gas tax are just to Make America Great Again.