Running Out Of Time & Space

It’s this tension which is creating quiet anxiety among Americans - not only are there deep, serious, likely intractable problems with our country, there’s no getting away from it, not anymore.

What if this becomes inescapable? Source

And our time is running out
Our time is running out
You can’t push it underground
You can’t stop it screaming out
How did it come to this?

- “Time Is Running Out”, Muse

Recently, I re-tweeted an X mutual, saying:

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What are Americans trying to escape?

This sort of thing:

NEW: Food fight erupts at a Waffle House in Ohio between staff and multiple women after the group was told to quiet down.

Franklin Police have issued arrest warrants for the women and have released the following footage.

The group was dancing and being obnoxious when staff told them to be quiet which then launched the fight.

A police officer was next door at a gas station and confronted the women. As he was confronting them, they piled into a car and sped off.

“I don't give a f**k about your mother f***ing police. B***h f**k you!” they screamed.

Arrest warrants have been filed for Brittany Appleberry, Andrea Lovett and Duane Hutchinson.

One of the reasons civil conflict remains a low-probability event, despite not being anywhere near as remote as it once was, is because the United States, despite its population, is such a physically large country, there are many places a person can run to and get away from things like what you see in the incident above. We’re not as stuck with one another as we might be in other countries. Living space is such an underrated deterrent against conflict; what are wars often fought over, anyway?

Now it seems America is running out of places to run to, the decline impossible to escape. There may currently still be locations worth escaping to, but sooner or later, the number of nice places in the country will run out. Not only is land a finite resource, there are far too many people in the U.S. who insist on having exactly what others have and are willing to raise hell over it. Not to mention the inevitable friction which arises when you have hundreds of millions of people in even a country as massive as ours. To anyone whipping out the population density figures, I share your love of numbers, but save it - what we’re talking about here isn’t something which can be statistically encapsulated

It’s this tension which is creating quiet anxiety among Americans - not only are there deep, serious, likely intractable problems with our country, there’s no getting away from it, not anymore. We’re increasingly being forced to live with people who share neither our values nor way of life, forced to share spaces with people who seem bent on making life as unbearable as possible. It’s a big part of the reason why I believe America is headed for civil war, what I call the “Great Destabilization.”

The importance of stability is self-explanatory, yet it’s something millions of Americans take for granted. I’m starting to think that makes us the minority in this world. When you visit other countries, including less-developed places, there exists a greater appreciation for orderliness than does here.

Look at this story from The New York Times concerning Japan:

The economy is now in recession after barely growing for decades. The population continues to shrink, with births last year plunging to a nadir. The country’s politics appear frozen as one party holds a virtual lock on power no matter how scandal-tainted and unpopular it becomes.

But not to worry. This is Japan, where all bad news is relative.

Take a look around. There are few signs of the social discord you might expect in a place with trend lines like Japan’s, such as accumulating garbage, potholes, or picket lines. The country remains remarkably stable and cohesive, with little impending sense of doom.

That equanimity reflects a no-need-to-rock-the-boat mind-set: “Shouganai” - “it can’t be helped” - is something of a national refrain.

Compare this to the U.S. Our economy is supposedly rip-roaring like never before. Yet life isn’t only getting more costly, all around us are signs of social discord - littering, potholes, and daily protests. No, America isn’t a Third World country, but it’s undergoing Thirdworldization, a related, yet still-distinct concept. The only reason it hasn’t fallen apart is that still many more of us are committed to the continuity of order, so much so we’re willing to clean up after others.

The only thing America really has going for it at this point is the economy, though I’m not sure how real any of it is anymore. As Japan proves, the health of a society cannot be measured in GDP; like a family, you can make a lot of money, but none of it matters if one’s household affairs aren’t in order.

More from NYT:

“I guess Japan is at peace,” he added. “So the young generation doesn’t feel they need to change this country.”

That lulling sense of calm is heightened by an outside world plagued by wars and social challenges.

“I often have business trips to the U.S. and Europe, and feel that the Japanese society and system are very stable compared to other countries with various problems like immigrants, high crime rates and riots,” said Hisashi Miwa, 65, who works for a chemical manufacturer and was out shopping for toilet paper in Setgaya, also in western Tokyo.

At the risk of portraying Japan as a utopia, ask yourself: if the purpose of civilization isn’t to achieve what Japan has achieved, then what is? Many Americans might look at Japan and think, “Ugh, how boring!” And what’s the alternative, exactly? Then again, we’re probably whistling past the graveyard asking these questions - with demoralization all but complete, it’s no wonder so many no longer see this country as worth defending and are now intentionally sowing destabilization. The Japanese, by contrast, still prefer order over chaos by a wide margin. Despite years of economic stagnation, they haven’t been demoralized. This is because Japan is something more than a global shopping center. It’s a true nation, a nation state, and whatever problems they have, state and society view themselves are part of a greater whole, sharing a common destiny.

One of the reasons why Tucker Carlson’s commentary on Russia both drew derision and resonated with so many is because it highlighted the extent to which the U.S. has become a disorderly place. If authoritarian countries with far less than us can create public infrastructure and spaces that aren’t dirty and frequented by criminals, drug users, and the like, what’s our malfunction? After all, we’re a democracy and democracy is always better than the alternative, right? These questions are worth asking; anyone who criticizes you for doing so is afraid of what the answers might reveal. No matter what the Regime’s propagandists like Jon Stewart say, failing to maintain a clean, orderly existence is a strike against democracy, even if one regards it as still better than the alternative. Outcomes matter. If democracy leads to bad outcomes such as a lack of “safe places,” we can criticize it. Democracy is a form of government; it’s not sacred.

The lack of any safe places where you and your family can enjoy life is an increasingly common feature of the landscape. Even at amusement parks, places that were reliable refuges from the feral realities of the world, incidents like these are occurring far too frequently:

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This is an assessment, not a prescription, on my part: only violence can fix this. There’s no other way. You can’t ask people to behave themselves; they must be provided inventives for doing so. Initially, those incentives are negative. Once better behavior is ingrained, you can start danging more positive incentives. I often speak of the lies we tell ourselves; among the most egregious is that what you see in the video is something all of us are capable of. In a philosophical sense, yes, that’s true. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once said, “The line between good and evil runs down the middle of every man’s heart.”

But we talk about the real world and in practical terms here in this space. Solzhenitsyn’s saying isn’t intended to be taken literally, anyway. It’s meant to serve as a warning to always check one’s own behavior. Asserting that we’re all capable of behaving as seen in the preceding videos suggests we all need a heavy hand and that none of us should be trusted to use our individual liberty responsibly. The thinking leads to two logical outcomes: either total anarchy or totalitarianism.

Right on cue, look at what’s happening in New York City:

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I can’t be mad at this; we all expect leaders to do something about our problems. Getting the military and state police involved is better than doing nothing and gaslighting the public into thinking crime exists only in their heads.

At the same time, it’s tough not to be cynical - it wasn’t so long ago they were saying things weren’t that bad; what changed? Could it be that 2024 is an election year, a time when politicians are more sensitive to public sentiment? More important, what exactly does this due to address crime, specifically?

“Mike Belcher” on X echoes my point on how the National Guard deployment and random bad searches are a form of collective punishment for the actions of those who court disorder:

“Random” searches by men with rifles in public.

Proceeds accordingly from the Left presupposition that people lack agency, and society itself is responsible for crime due to social reproduction theory.

They can’t blame criminals for their own crime, so they treat everyone else as guilty by presumption.

This is the philosophy of a police state - and precisely how Communism worked in practice.

Again, if criminals lack agency, if we’re all capable of assault, theft, fare-evasion, or even murder, then why should any of us have liberty? What use is “democracy” if we’re all just a bunch of criminals-in-waiting? It doesn’t make sense, but this is the logic the leftist-controlled Regime operates under. The inconvenience these efforts cause to you and I is simply an assertion by the Regime that they have the situation under control. If they really cared about fixing the problem, they’d go after criminals instead of implicating everyone as one and inconveniencing us all. But since criminals are said to lack agency, since we don’t want to “disparately impact” any groups, everyone must suffer.

In the context of the Regime’s incessant trash-talking of Hungary as an “authoritarian” hellscape, Rod Dreher explained what it takes to create a truly safe society and how having cops and troops all over the streets is symptomatic of a much, much, deeper fundamental ill:

Here in Budapest, among conservative expatriates from the US, UK, and western European countries, this kind of hysteria draws big laughs. A British friend who has been here for seven years tells me he still gets calls from his pals back home asking if he feels safe in Budapest. Unlike London, Paris, Washington, New York, Brussels, and elsewhere, street crime is very low in the Hungarian capital — and that’s not because the police are everywhere.

Think about it: just this week, the governor of New York ordered the state’s National Guard troops to patrol New York City’s subways to crack down on violent crime there. This never, ever happens in Budapest. Ever. A British friend traveling this week in New York said the scene outside his lodgings in Manhattan is appalling, with scores of African men — illegal aliens who came through Mexico — loitering on the street and urinating in public. That doesn’t happen in Budapest either, because Hungary is a country that controls its borders.

I can concur based on my travels overseas - places with lots of police in public areas were already dangerous to begin with. Either that, or authoritarian states. Meanwhile, in peaceful societies, police were hard to find. They were around, but they weren’t ever-present. The same rule applies in the U.S. When lots of people with guns are standing around, you may feel safer and you should. But understand what would happen if they weren’t there. France, a First World country, wouldn’t have soldiers patrolling its streets if not for the wave of Islamist violence which convulsed the country beginning in the mid-2010s.

You can make the argument that what’s happening in New York is more theatrical than anything else. That’s a fair point. The symbolic significance of such power displays is that it ultimately underscores how out-of-control the situation has become. The military is considered a last resort when it comes to maintaining order, so when they get involved, it’s an indictment against those in power, not a demonstration of competence. It contributes to the growing sense of unease in America, while doing nothing about the actual problem. Making people safe and making them feel are separate, but related concepts. Until you achieve both, you don’t have social order.

Speaking of perception and reality, the perception of the U.S. becoming more dangerous than before is becoming more widespread and a topic of conversation across the world. When you get a chance, I recommend you watch this video produced by the always enjoyable, level-headed YouTube channel VisualPolitik EN. When these guys start talking about it, it’s usually because there’s something substantive to it:

What you see in the NYC Subway is the future - America five to ten years down the road. In a country of hundreds of millions, lacking any social unity, brute force will be the only thing capable of maintaining any semblance of order. That lack of social unity, lack of shared culture and values, will also expose how hollow the nation has become. The belief that a strong, cohesive society could be built out of this will be proven a lie, yet so many still will hold onto the fantasy that if only we set aside our prejudices and break down the barriers between us, we can achieve something which has never been achieved in all of human history.

By then, however, there will be so few barriers left, that if anything, the necessity of barriers will become apparent once more. It’s just a question of whether the barbarians will have made it inside the gates and whether there’s anywhere left to escape to. My guess, as you might’ve figured out by now, is that there won’t be.

The Biden-Floyd-Ibarra Axis

Laken Riley. Source

By now, many of you have heard about the murder of Laken Riley, the 22-year-old University of Georgia student whose killer was an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. Riley has become the face of the immigration debate in the U.S., which has risen to the top on the list of concerns of the 2024 elections.

Now it turns out the killer, Jose Ibarra, has a brother, Diego, who may have been even more of a menace.

From ABC News:

Diego Ibarra was arrested on Feb. 22 for allegedly giving authorities a fake green card after he was stopped by police for matching a description of his brother. Jose Ibarra, 26, has been charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, obstructing an emergency call and concealing the death of another. He allegedly killed Augusta University nursing student Laken Riley when she was jogging on the University of Georgia campus on Feb. 22.

Diego Ibarra was allegedly employed by the University of Georgia food services staff, according to the court documents.

Diego Ibarra first allegedly entered the country illegally on April 3, 2023, and was immediately removed back to Mexico, according to court documents. The Justice Department said 27 days later he reentered and got into a scuffle with Border Patrol, allegedly assaulting and attempting to bite an agent who tried to arrest him.”The other agent attempted to take Ibarra into custody. Ibarra resisted the agent’s efforts and grabbed his CBP issued radio and threw it into a nearby yard. At one point, Ibarra attempted to bite the agent. The agents grappled with Ibarra and [another man] for approximately four minutes before members of the National Guard arrived and assisted the agents in subduing both men,” the DOJ wrote.

In prior postings, I mentioned the notorious Venezuelan Tren de Aragua crime syndicate, whose members have flooded the U.S. There’s evidence Diego Ibarra is a member of this gang.

More:

Diego Ibarra also allegedly has gang ties, prosecutors said.

“Teen [sic] de Aragua (TdA) is a Venezuelan gang, which has been involved in recent violent confrontations with law enforcement and civilian victims in New York and elsewhere throughout the United States,” according to the Justice Department. “TdA was formed in the mid to late 2000s in the Tocorón prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua. Multiple U.S. law enforcement agencies have reported a heavy presence of TdA members in several states, particularly Texas, New York, Illinois, Florida, and Georgia. TdA members often have tattoos signifying their affiliation with the gang. ... Some of Ibarra’s tattoos suggest that he is a member of TdA.”

Meanwhile, crime has plunged in Venezuela, a country that was once among the world’s most violent. I highly doubt this was because it’s president, Nicolás Maduro, adopted the policies of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. It’s more likely crime fell because so many people, among them criminals, left the country due to poor economic conditions. Where do you think all these people went?

Of course, none of that’s any concern to the Regime. Immigration can only be a good thing and if it’s a bad thing, well, it hurts all the right people:

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If you didn’t watch the video, the Regime mouthpieces scorned Virginia voters, who cited immigration as their top concern. Sarcastically, one of them noted, “Virginia does have a border with West Virginia.” Laughter all around. The line in the sand is pretty well-drawn at this point, if you ask me.

Who are the people the Regime are so bent on hurting? In general, it’s those who stand in opposition, but at the top of the list are rural White Americans. Don’t take it from me, they say so themselves.

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These are the authors of a new book titled Rural White Rage. The argument is that rural White Americans pose an existential threat to “democracy,” rhetoric that’s become boilerplate stuff from the Left in the last several years. First it was “right-wing extremists,” “White nationalists,” and we’ve now graduated to “rural White Americans.” At the end of the day, it’s all the same thing, as the common thread is White people who aren’t leftists. It seems as though they’ll keep pushing this argument until they’re proven right. In the meantime, what’s the endgame here? Racial violence? Political persecution? You feel like this is all intended to accomplish something, yet you can’t see what’s coming. Maybe there’s nothing coming. Maybe this is just the ruling class raging against their weaker enemies. Whatever the case may be, this rhetoric is disturbing and wouldn’t be tolerated if it concerned any other demographic.

What we have here is a potent coalition between the Regime - represented by President Joe Biden - the criminal/social predator class - we’ll use George Floyd as the representative of this class (remember: he’s a career criminal), since Biden felt the need to honor his memory the other day - and illegal immigrants, represented by Diego and Jose Ibarra. We’ll call it the “Biden-Floyd-Ibarra axis.” This, not “rural White rage,” is the greatest threat to American life. The fact that Biden not only struggled, but lacked the credibility to utter Laken Riley’s name, despite illegal immigration’s greater urgency, makes it impossible to deny that both criminals and illegal immigrants are constituencies of the Democratic Party, the Left as a whole, and Biden himself.

The Regime is already waging armed conflict against the nation they claim to be in service of. As America loses its standing in the world, as the economy weakens, and as internal tensions rise, their actions and motivations will become more apparent. As with all things today, indifference is no longer a choice: either you think what the Biden-Floyd-Ibarra axis is accomplishing is a good thing or you think it’s a bad thing. I’ll leave it up to you to decide, but don’t think there’s any middle ground here. Eventually, we’ll all get swept up in this conflict, whether we’re partisans or not.

Joe Biden, George Floyd, Jose Ibarra. Together, they form the axis at the heart of the “Great Destabilization.”

Predator Avoidance

Let’s talk preparedness. The future is in many ways already here, so it’s past time to make the necessary lifestyle adjustments to survive and thrive in the new reality. We’re living in an increasingly conflict-ridden society, so we need to be better-ready to deal with problematic people in our lives. Just “talking it out” won’t suffice, not in a society where we share no common culture or morality. Millions of human interactions take place daily without violence, yet the risk of incurring violence during any given human interaction is as high as it’s ever been.

There was an incident recorded on video which went viral recently. I can’t find the backstory to this and I don’t care to at this point; it wouldn’t have any impact on the lessons I intend to get across. Whatever occurred, a confrontation which began inside a restaurant spilled outside, leading to the incident you see here:

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I recommend you watch both videos so you know what really happened (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT AND STRONG LANGUAGE). The fact that an edited version of the video was released is, in my opinion, the real story here, but we’ll table that momentarily.

For now, let’s focus on how to conduct yourself in a situation like this. Simply put, unless you’re a cop or even a security guard, standing in front of a clearly angry person, doing little except acting as an obstruction, is a terrible idea. You’re just asking for a clash at that point. You may be stronger and capable of handling yourself, but what have we said since time immemorial on this blog? When violence strikes, you have no control over anyone’s actions but your own.

Self-defense attorney Andrew Branca explained better than I could:

I’ll echo his point about not standing up to violent people. This is generally a bad idea and can potentially undermine any subsequent case for self-defense. Remember, even aggressors, like the woman involved in this incident, are entitled to protect themselves. Being an older gentleman, it seems the man is from a time and place where standing up to unruly, even violent, individuals was more of a norm. But we don’t live in that world today.

So I can’t say this gentleman handled this situation appropriately. For one, he’s inside the woman’s “lethal envelope.” Potential threats should always be kept over an arm’s distance away. Branca raised the detail the woman may have posed a threat to the man’s wife, explaining why he was standing in front and obstructing her. That said, distance is your friend: if someone wants to get by you, they will, using violence as needed. While the rules of war dictate that going on the offense is often preferable to being on the defensive, this isn’t war. It’s called “self-defense,” not “self-offense,” after all. Nobody wants to be forced onto their back foot, but the rules simply don’t allow you to go on the attack. If you put distance between yourself and your assailant, you not only can buy yourself time, you also leave little ambiguity as to who the aggressor and who the victim is when it comes time for the case to be judged.

Which leads to my next, most important point - I earlier explained that the real story of this incident is that an edited version of the video, showing the White man striking the Black woman first, was initially released. Though a longer version of the video was later released, proving the Black woman had resorted to violence first, then continued her assault, the narrative had already been established. It’s difficult to correct an existing narrative, in part because the perception has already been planted; few things in life are more difficult to change than a perception. Which is why an altered clip was released to begin with. Clearly, the supply of racism in America cannot fulfill the demand for it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t need to edit these videos so maliciously.

The lesson is this: if it occurs in a public space, it’s a matter of public record. You will be filmed and you will be judged in the court of public opinion before you’re ever brought before a judge and jury. If you internalize the fact that we live in a de facto surveillance state and that a visual record of the incident supporting your side of the story is absolutely necessary to survive the repercussions of your actions, then you suddenly see the necessity of avoidance and assuming a totally defensive posture.

You may bristle at the notion of behaving like a coward in the face of a violation. I get it. But step outside yourself and think: how would this incident appear on camera? The world through your own eyes and the world through a camera lens do not look the same. The shame you feel in the moment from engaging in de-escalatory behavior will be nothing compared to the sheer terror you feel when everyone and their grandmother has an opinion about what you said or did, whether you’re a racist or not, or God forbid, you’re charged with a crime. In a society that exalts victim-hood, your only hope for escaping prosecution in both the legal and social arenas is to leave no doubt.

It’s a terrible place to be in, but we need to engage the world as it is. Remember, people the world over in even developed countries like France or Brazil live in more dangerous societies and manage to survive and thrive daily. We can do it too. It just takes a mindset shift. Personal safety, when you get down to it, is about mentality, not physicality. Make that mindset shift today - it’s going to be a much easier transition now than it’ll be when the really hard times set in.

In the meantime, we can only hope our grandchildren will one day live in a world where they won’t be expected to tolerate abuse, aggression, and disorder from social predators who have no place in society.

Guard Your Own Civilization

In closing, watch this surveillance camera footage of how sheepdogs and barn animals respond to the threat of coyotes in the dead of night:

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Animals have a lot to teach us when it comes to what it takes to defend civilization. Even as they sleep, the sheepdogs are ready to act. When danger strikes, they bolt out of their slumber, leave the safety of their home, and rush out into the cold darkness to confront danger, watching one another’s backs at the same time. Meanwhile, the animals back home, even the baby goats, know exactly what to do and where to go. There’s even a fully-grown sheep watching the entrance. There’s a sense of urgency, yet it’s orderly. The cohesiveness is remarkable.

I find it hard to believe humans can’t manage to do the same. We can, but not with the kind of society we have today. This is why it’s more important than ever before: find your tribe, create the high-trust society we all yearn for, and guard it jealously. There are fewer and fewer places to escape to, so you may end up with no choice but to shelter in place and stand your ground. You can’t stand it alone, however. The sobering truth is, most of the people around you, even those whom you may call “friends” today, may not be standing by your side when SHTF strikes, or as our society continues its long unraveling. You must find those whom you know will stand by you when it all comes crashing down.

How has your civilization-building been coming along? What actions are you taking? Are you finding it difficult to escape the anarchy and disorder? What about social predators? Are you seeing more of them out there? Talk about it in the comments section below.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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