I lived my first 50 years in Sonoma County, California – according to famous botanist Luther Burbank, “The finest place on earth as far as nature is concerned”. As I gained enlightenment, I fit less and less culturally, until I did not fit at all.
Hedonistic socialism is the opposite of dignity and self-respect. My answer was to move to a place where more people understood personal responsibility and liberty. While still surrounded by statists, there are enough of us to form a critical mass.
How many layabouts does it take to conquer the world?
Through it all, I learned to quit arguing with the drones. Thought is a muscle that has atrophied in them. No volume of reason and reference will penetrate their crystallized fog… in the short run. Many, perhaps most, will have to experience their perfect socialist/fascist world to understand it. There is a library full of books that they avoid. Jingoistic generosity makes their world go around. That, and spectator sports.
So I quietly go about setting an example they don’t understand. I offer no overt criticism of their socialist “successes”. I bide my time in our relationships.
Their defensive stance towards me melts away. They no longer have to gird themselves for a painful philosophical discussion whenever in my presence. They don’t have to think any more around me than they do anywhere else.
THEN they begin to wonder openly why certain things don’t work as well as they wished.
NOW is time to be Confuscian; Socratic.
“Why do you work so hard trying to make ignorance or stupidity explain your politicians when evil does it so easily?”
“How can you be surprised that people don’t work when government made it easy to lay about and hard to earn a living?”
“What is surprising about over-use of free medical care by hypochondriacs?”
“You don’t really expect bureaucrats to voluntarily reduce their budget requests, do you? Theirs is The Most Important thing society does.”
“Surely you are not surprised that rulers rule and enforcers enforce?”
This seems to be the year that the fascists are pulling out all the stops. They appear to be confident their final push will gain their precious New World Order. They think the execution of one-world government with them on top and everyone else as groveling peasants is within their grasp. The avalanche of takeover activity is cold water in the face for many of the complacent mass.
“You were right, Ted. All of what you have been saying is true. It is happening.”
Wow, Mom, what brought that on?
Someone they trusted loaned them a movie… a movie they wouldn’t have watched if I had loaned it to them. But because someone they loved, someone who was normal and rational in all other ways, had been living on the other side of the reality barrier, they were open to the message that was in the movie.
Now they are like a rock skipping across a frightening new world view pond. Sinking in too fast is too terrifying to consider, but each dip lasts just a skosh longer, gets them just a bit more acclimated. I won’t rush them, but I will be ready with answers and help them find the resources they need when they are ready. Maybe it will be too little, too late, but giving up is not an option.