A belief in something larger than yourself is necessary to tame the ego.
Faith is the embarking on a journey to find God through a desire to do God’s will.
For an increase in faith, hope, and charity.
God, in Your goodness, restore our hope.
Where we feel imprisoned, break our chains.
Where we feel discouraged, bring us light.
Where the ground feels dry,
break through with life anew.
Amen.
Reject modernity, return to tradition.
We are now six years past the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Six years past a pandemic with a mortality rate of .04% (per 1,000,000), for which we shut down the country for a year, and we are still recovering from issues related to our global supply chains. However, approximately 18 million Americans took up gardening as a hobby during the pandemic including many millennials. I think that is one positive outcome from the pandemic. More people are realizing just how dependent we all are on external sources of food. Perhaps it’s time for a revival of tradition, a rejection of particular aspects of modernity, and a return to traditional self-sufficiency.
In the words of hip-hop artist Killer Mike:
“We brag on having bread but none of us are bakers. We all talk having greens but none of us own acres. If none of us own acres and none of us grow wheat, then who will feed our people when our people need to eat?”
What are some small, practical steps every American can take to become more selt-suffcient?
I believe any step towards making ourselves more self-sufficient, no matter how small, is a step towards sustainability. It doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of America with ten acres and a chicken coop, or in New York City with a studio apartment and a stockpile of bottled water.
Modern Humans Are Just as Close-minded as Our Ancestors
By Dylan R.N. Crabb
It’s amazing how people will twist their reasoning through a set of mental gymanstics so they do not have to question their ideology. Most of the time they don’t even realize that that’s what they’re doing. It’s as if, once a human mind settles on a particular view of the world, it develops mental blocks to protect itself against people from different tribes with rival viewpoints.
I think so-called “modern” humans are incredibly close-minded in our views of the universe. Principally because of two broad biases: the presentist fallacy (assuming that humans through all time periods think and behave in the same ways that they do today) and the prevalence of materialist philosophies in the wake of the recent decline in spiritual faiths. Today we too often assume that every human across time thought and acted the same way that we do today but that assume that the human mind is inherently logical like a machine. Humans are not inherently logical, we are intuitively rational. Rationality is not the same as logic. The human mind can be compared to a machine in the sense of the complexity of the biological processes and components forming our consciousness, but the human mind cannot be predicted with absolute certainty (regardless of what psychologist would have you believe).
If people prioritized spirituality over matter during the medieval period, I think it’s safe to say we’ve flipped the script (sociologically speaking) in the current-day. This is proven by the fact that there are billions of humans who are technically living in the most secure and most free societies ever created with more material comforts than our ancestors could ever dream of yet we also have the highest rates of negative mental health conditions we’ve ever seen. Humans today are literally living in way that would have been considered luxurious – even royal – hundreds of years ago and we are unhappy and unhealthy.
Material reality is fleeting and temporary yet humans today continue to prioritize the material (jobs, pleasures, living standards, etc.) over spiritual needs (a sense of purpose and/or belonging, family and communal ties, etc.).
Every society in human history has had an element of spirituality woven into its structure. Even in societies that proclaim themselves to be atheist or anti-religion like that of France in the aftermath of the 1792 revolution, they still worshipped something. A society’s ideals reveals what it holds highest or what it worships.
I think too many “modern” humans like to pride themselves on their lack of a religion while failing to understand what exactly a religion or what faith is. Just because one does not believe in a god or a spiritual deity does not mean that that person is mot worshipping something. Perhaps a person who does not realize he is worshipping something is even more dangerous than an openly religious person.
All I’m saying is, I think too many people today are too quick to dismiss ideas regarding spirituality on the assumption that spirituality does not matter. Similarly too many people are too quick to dismiss others who deviate from how they think. Every human being experiences reality through their own personalized perception, which makes communication at broader scales more difficult. It takes more effort the more people one tries to connect with – the more people one opens up to.
Creating order out of chaos is our purpose as humans. Against the chaos of nature, we develop routines and systems to survive. We build structures to keep us warm as well as to focus our minds, then we create routines for self-discipline so we can maintain systems of order across time.
If you are unsure of what to do, think about what you must absolutely accomplish today – that one thing that you cannot ignore any longer – and start there. Then keep building on that momentum. Develop a routine every day and create order out of chaos.
Act with purpose and courage every day.
***
Spring has sprung, warmer days are on the horizon, and life is becoming more visible. We must take advantage of this warmth and this life to project positivity and hope throughout this world.
This world was created with purpose. YOU were born with purpose.
You have to be fast in business.
Entrepreneurship has been on my mind a lot recently so I’ve been diving head first into market research. While I may have lost an opportunity there are still plenty more and entrepreneurs do not make a name out of themselves by giving up easily.
The truth is, if you want to get rich (rich meaning doing what you want when you want), you have to find ways to generate multiple streams of income for yourself. No one ever got rich by working for someone else. You can either work for someone else and help them to reach their goals, or you can find ways to work for yourself and make your goals. You can either help someone else build their castle, or find a way to build your own castle.
Today, there are plenty of resources available for anyone to start a business either from scratch or by buying an existing business and refurbishing it, so get out there, and just do it.
I’ve always idolized Los Angeles. I spent the first 13 years of my life in Long Beach, CA, a suburb of Los Angeles. To me LA was glamorous, the pinnacle of success. Now that I’m grown, I’ve realized the unrealistic idealism in that childhood ideal.
I lived close enough to that city to see it as a part of the background for my home but I did not live in that city, so I did not see its ugly side. I think I was just fascinated by cities in general. Even today, at 33 years old, I have a fantasy in my mind about my ability to afford a home in LA being a sign that I “made it” in life. It’s not rational, it’s sentimental.
Living in Albuquerque for three years, I saw some of the aspects of city life that I idolized in the concept of Los Angeles as a child but I also saw the ugly side of city life – the atomized individuals with decreased community ties and the culmination of the “hustle & motivate” sub-culture of entrepreneurship (and everyone who falls short of that ideal into poverty).
Every city has an ugly side that tourists do not see.
What sentimental feelings from childhood do you hold?
President Donald Trump selected his running mate for vice-president this week, two days after he survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The United States Secret Service is now under a public microscope for their delayed response in finding Trump’s would-be assassin apparently being notified of the threat 30 minutes prior. If Trump had not turned his head at just right moment, the bullet would have hit its target more precisely, and the former president would likely have been killed. The big question his this: why didn’t the Secret Service secure the adjacent roof where the gunman fired at Trump?
Since the attempt on Trump’s life last weekend, the Trump Campaign has definitely been using the incident to their advantage (and why wouldn’t they?), and Trump supporters have been meme-ing the hell out of the iconic photo of Trump (always the showman) defiantly raising a fist for his supporters moments after a bullet clipped his ear.
That last one is a mash-up two stills from the film, The Mummy (1999).
The announcement of U.S. Senator JD Vance as Trump’s vice-presidential pick did not generate quite the same amount of buzz in news media by comparison. Nevertheless, the selection of this Yale Law alumnus, Iraq War veteran from the rust belt town of Middletown, Ohio, may help Trump’s popularity in some key mid-western battleground states.
Reduce the number of reporters so local news isn’t really covered.
Raise the subscription price to put even digital editions beyond the reach of readers.
Add additional charges to the subscription price (“premium editions”).
Create a stupidly difficult user interface.
Allow popup advertising that blocks readers’ view at random intervals.
Insert advertising that makes page content jump around.
Require 10-12 clicks to get to the local news.
Mix in advertising disguised as news (“sponsored content”).
Break all of the links to customer service.
Email dead links to your customers.
Put paranoia about non-subscribers getting access ahead of functionality.
By Dylan R.N. Crabb
This year has been somewhat transformative for me. Early this year, I wrote two news articles about of my United States Senators, Martin Heinrich, and legislation that he is sponsoring. The legislation, the GOSAFE ACT, would basically give the US government more control over the manufacturing of gas-operated semi-automatic firearms (principally semi-auto rifles) as well as limit ammunition capacities for semi-auto firearms.
READ: U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich Takes Aim at Gas-Operated Semi-Auto Firearms in GOSAFE Act (Dylan R.N. Crabb, Questa del Rio News, 1/2/2024).
My articles mainly collected community feedback to gauge public opinion about Senator Heinrich’s legislation as well as gun legislation more generally. There was some mixed opinions and feelings but it was more negative than positive. Most gun owners are against most gun control.
READ: Survey: Gun Owners Against Most Gun Regulations (Crabb, Questa News, 1/29/2024).
I am now in the demographic of gun owner. I’m also against most gun control.
Ten years ago, I would not have imagined myself buying a gun. I was born in southern California and grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, it was not a “pro-gun” environment to say the least. My first time operating a firearm was this year, at age 33, a part of my extensive research I conducted for my articles.
My first realization upon shooting a firearm was how fun it is, the high of the adrenaline rush, and the masculine bonding experience that generally follows. Not only is it a practical skill to develop for one’s own self-sufficiency but it’s also just a fun hobby around which communities can develop.
My second realization was the justified obsession with safety exhibited by every gun owner interviewed principally in relation to the colloquial rules for gun safety.
If you are caught violating just one of the above rules, you can bet you will be called out for being unsafe. A responsible gun owner worships at an altar of safety so I do not think it’s fair to assume the worst from all gun owners. A casual look into so-called “gun culture” will showcase how cautious a responsible gun owner is with his guns typically double and triple checking a gun’s barrel to make sure that it is empty. This obsession with safety is intuitive for anyone who understands how dangerous guns can be, it just takes practical education to make a person confident enough to operate a gun safely and effectively; which is why education is the key to making guns safer, not government regulations.
There is also the unconstitutional nature of gun controls since gun ownership was written as a constitutional right by a group of rebels who had just fought a revolution against an authoritarian government. Why would America’s founders condition the 2nd Amendment to only apply to government officials when they had just fought a war against a government? That exactly what they were afraid of, an authoritarian government infringing on the personal lives of private citizens. There was even contention over whether or not the fledgling nation should manage a standing military or if the states should be responsible for regional militias. This issue would play a role in the formation of the early American republic’s first political parties: the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists, the former desiring a smaller national government with a limited standing army and the latter desiring a more extensive national government with a large standing army and an intricate navy.
But I digress.
The contemporary debate is often over the scope of the 2nd Amendment in terms of modern weapons technology. I remain unsure about where exactly I stand on that.
The most insidious misconception around guns involves statistics around particular violent crimes often displayed in news media but usually lack context. For example, the statistic explaining how 30,000-40,000 people a year die from gun violence in America. You’ve probably seen that stat on one news station or another. What you probably will not see is a follow-up explaining some context around that stat like the fact that a majority of those gun deaths were suicides. The Pew Research Center divides the data on gun violence into three categories: 54% suicides, 43% murders, and 3% “other” – “other” being accidental, law enforcement-related, and undetermined circumstances. Each other categories has it’s own set of issues. Suicides being mental health-related, murder being crime-related, and accidental being education-related. In other words, blanket gun bans do not solve any root causes of gun violence.
READ: What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S. (John Gramlich, Pew Research, 4/26/2023).
WATCH: The Truth About GUN VIOLENCE by The Numbers (Colion Noir, YouTube, 7/18/2019).
However, activists with anti-gun agenda are quick to profess the same statistic omitting various contexts to push an agenda through news media. Regardless of how well intentioned that agenda may be, it relies on the idea that collective safety is more important than individual liberty which is antithetical to the ideal behind the 2nd Amendment and the concept of self-defense. Personal ownership of weapons is so individuals can protect themselves. If a government takes that right away under a justification of public safety, then it will be on governments to adopt the responsibility of the personal defense of each of its citizens, and that is not feasibly possible without an authoritarian government that stretches into every facet of one’s life which is antithetical to a free county. We cannot have a free country free of any violent crime. We cannot be free and completely safe everywhere we go.
This manipulation of statistics is also not limited to gun violence. Every activist organization manipulates statistic to their own aims.
Most gun violence can be broken down to suicides, gang-related violence, inattentiveness and/or negligence, and a lack of education. All of which relates to issues described of modernity – isolation, wider diaspora of family units, lack of social cohesion within communities, etc. Anti-gun advocates will often claim that more guns simply leads to more crime but there are an estimated 393 million civilian-owned guns in the US. With a total population of 333.3 million (2022), that means that there are more guns in the country than there are people, so why aren’t we leading the world in murders? The US is not even among the top ten countries with the highest murder rates. The top ten countries in the world with the most murders per 100,000 people are Jamaica, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, Saint Lucia, Honduras, the Bahamas, Belize, Ecuador, Mexico, and Columbia (World Population Review, 2022).
The reality about gun control is that under the facade and manipulations it is not actually about public safety, it’s just about controlling populations. When America’s founders wrote “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” it was not about the government. You and your neighbors are supposed to be the militia, the last line of defense from enemies both foreign and domestic.
The problem with that ideal today is that Americans are no longer a virtuous and moral people. We have degenerated into debauchery and nihilism to the point where our divisive politics and declining mental health have led the worst among us to disregard their social contract and play god in the worst ways against their fellow human beings. There was a time still within living memory when high school students would travel to school with shotguns and rifles in their trucks so that, as soon as school let out, they could immediately go out into the bush and hunt. The unfortunate trend “mass shootings” did not start until the 1970’s with a correlation with declining mental health. Now we have gender-confused adolescents proclaiming the need to protected classes of people and and attempting to justify the use of violent acts in retaliation against words.
The solution to injecting virtue back into our collective zeitgeist is going to be a multi-generational affair during which individual Americans reject the bloated bureaucracy of the modern government/society and start to take back their own lives, teaching the next generation to reconnect with the land we live on and the people around us. I believe this strategy is the best way to fight against the victim-hood mentality that is plaguing broader American culture, a nihilistic mentality that praises weakness and attempts to tear down any objective standards of ethics and beauty. Gun ownership is one of the ultimate expressions of self-empowerment and necessary to fostering a strong people and a free society.
Gonzo at The End of The World 