The House Is On Fire

In the meantime, you wonder if there’s going to be anything left to preserve and build upon in the end.

We all know it’s not, but we’ll pretend it is until we can’t.

So… how’s everyone? What’s been going on? A lot, apparently.

Despite being on my super-secret assignment overseas (as I’m Super-Secret Agent Max Remington, for all you newbies), I still received daily intelligence briefings alerting me to the state of affairs back home. It’s quite something to bear witness to the slow-burn emergency America is currently undergoing on a daily basis as a constituent of this country, but it takes on a whole different significance when you’re overseas and you see it happening. It’s like watching your home burn and all you can do is watch, waiting for the fire to be extinguished. In the meantime, you wonder if there’s going to be anything left to preserve and build upon in the end.

As much as I’d love to jump right back into the thick of it, mentally, I’m not in a place to do that at the moment. To ease back into the swing of things, I’m going to instead talk about some of the events which occurred in my absence to re-orient myself, get some thoughts off my chest, and set the stage for a return to doing my patented deep-dives.

Let’s get back to business.

Outside Looking In

One thing I want to discuss right off the bat is how disorderly America appears when I return from overseas, even in comparison to Second World countries (I’ve never been to the Third World, thankfully). From the outside looking in, America appears a country embroiled in constant turmoil. Perceptions are deceiving, but they’re also reality to a large extent. If you constantly heard screaming and shouting from the residence next door, would you think it to be a peaceful household? Sure, it may be that they’re just loud people, but people who can’t keep quiet aren’t exactly the tranquil type.

During my time overseas, I met people who are appalled and confused by the level of gun violence in America. Obviously, we have a violence problem in general, but I can also understand why the gun aspect of it stands out to non-Americans. I had to explain to someone who was well-meaning that most gun violence in the United States is criminal violence; normal people aren’t just lighting each other up because they happen to own firearms. Some of that definitely occurs, yes, but normal people kill each other all over the world, too. They just don’t use guns.

I’ve never been one to worry about what foreigners think of my country, but I can also find their perceptions useful, as long as they keep an open-mind and are critiquing the U.S. in good faith. The fact is, the way they see America is a reflection of what we are, the same way our perceptions of a country like Mexico are in large part rooted in fact. I met another person who visited a large American city and was shocked by the level of homelessness and overall state of the city. They may be a foreigner, but how they felt about the city is exactly how I felt about it. There are worse places in the world, but remember: America is supposed to the be the apex of human civilization. If we were, those days are surely behind us now.

You live long enough in one place, everything just becomes background noise. It’s one reason why it’s worth it to leave the country and see the world once in a while. You come to better appreciate what you have, that you have a country to call your own, but you’re also made aware again of the things that make your home different from other places. Coming back to America, I see not only a lot more cars, but also more reckless driving, pedestrians who seem to have death wishes, and lots more homeless. There’s a sense of chaos which exists in the U.S. that I don’t see anywhere else. Even Europe, currently caught in an inescapable death spiral and increasingly overrun with Third World migrants, still doesn’t have that feeling.

America isn’t a peaceful country, but it’s not some shooting gallery, either. It’s real problem isn’t crime rates - not yet - but instead disorder. Increasingly, little of our way of life makes sense anymore. When the rules are broken, the authorities, who are supposed to punish violators in order to maintain a consistent, safe society, don’t do so. Instead, they wait for the situation to spiral out of control and for someone to die (as you’ll see later, often times not) before taking action.

America may be First World in terms of living standards (which is why so many still want to live here), but socially, it’s Third World. The only reason it hasn’t turned into full-blown anarchy is because the majority of Americans are willing to follow the rules not only because it allows them to enjoy the benefits of civil society, but because if they didn’t follow the rules, the Regime would crack down hard on them, while never doing a thing about the perpetual rule-breakers, except wait for them to try to kill someone. We live in a two-tier system, where those who contribute and have a vested interest in orderly existence are also seen as the greatest threat to the (dis)order.

How did America get to this point? Maybe someday, someone will write a book about it. Perhaps it’s who we’ve always been. As an X mutual points out, the perception of Americans as an orderly peoples is fairly new; I personally don’t think it’s something that ever fully caught on:

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My short take is that our country wasn’t only built off competition, we built an entire social order around it. Today, we’re living in the logical consequence of that arrangement. Everything’s a competition today - men compete with women, the races and ethnicities compete with each other, motorists compete with one another, property owners compete with one another, the list goes on and on. Competition can bring out the best in us, but it can also bring out the worst. Either way, you cannot build a cohesive society out of people fighting one another for slices of the pie or for the sake of their egos. It seems, compared to long-established civilizations like in Europe and Asia, the U.S. is still very much the Wild West, a land to be conquered. It’s just that there are hundreds of millions of people of all different cultures trying to conquer it, or at least carve out a space within it for themselves.

When we run out of land, when we have no more foreign enemies to fight, that competitive, conquering impulse will be turned against ourselves. It probably already has.

Quit Giving Police A Hard Time. You Won’t Gain Anything.

I almost don’t want to talk about this incident, primarily because it’s already faded from coverage, but also because I don’t think it’s really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Still, it needs to be discussed, because dealing with police is a part of being a member of civil society.

On September 8, 2024, American professional football player Tyreek Hill of the Miami Dolphins was arrested by Miami-Dade Police for speeding and reckless driving, the same day of their season opener. The traffic stop deteriorated instantly.

Watch the complete incident from the officer’s perspective here:

As you might imagine, millions of Americans sided with Hill, coming up with any and all excuses for his behavior. Still others criticized Hill, saying he did himself no favors and made the interaction more difficult than it needed to be. His supporters responded by saying it didn’t matter how difficult he made the interaction, the police are supposed to act “professionally” at all times (whatever that’s supposed to mean).

I’m not going to get into the racial implications of this case. There’s not a whole lot use in doing so. You’re not going to convince anyone that race wasn’t a factor here. For me, from a preparedness standpoint, the real issue is how to interact with police. Far too many make it more complicated than it has to be. Yes, nobody likes being told what to do. Yes, a police officer has a unique ability to ruin your day - or end your life - like no other. However, this is all precisely why you ought to behave yourself when dealing with police.

When a police officer initiates a traffic stop, he does it because someone above them ordered them to do so. When the order is to not initiate traffic stops, then they won’t. The police aren’t an extension of the state; they are the state in its most blunt force. Yet far too many Americans behave as though a police officer is someone with nothing better to than to give people, especially Blacks, a hard time. You can tell because who do they look to following every contentious police encounter?

The government.

The police aren’t above the law and I find their behavior unacceptable at times. However, just as bad behavior by a member of the public doesn’t justify police misconduct, neither does police misconduct justify bad behavior by the public. In the case of Tyreek Hill, there was no potential police misconduct until after the arrest was initiated. Hill chose to be uncooperative from the very start. If you didn’t watch the video, Hill initially has his window down, then rolls it up as the officer approaches. As you might imagine, the officer knocks on the window, triggering Hill, who robotically repeats the phrase, “Don’t knock on my window like that” to the officer, not allowing him to get a word in. At one point, Hill yells, “Don’t tell me what to do!”, something you don’t want to tell someone whose job is literally to tell you what to do.

Tell me - how do you de-escalate someone behaving the way Hill was, other than to arrest them? I’ve explained many times before: “de-escalation” isn’t some magic technique that works every time. Most of us are actually quite bad at de-escalation because it’s not only tough dealing with someone whose emotions are are out of control, it’s tough keeping your own emotions under control. Someone behaving the way Hill was acting isn’t being reasonable and only an otherwise reasonable person can be de-escalated.

Anyone who thinks Hill was the victim here needs to consider: if he acted this way towards anyone else, in any other line of work, including within government, would Hill still be regarded a victim? We’re a society that judges people on the basis of how they treat service workers. Many of us don’t consider cops to be service workers, but they are. They do something most of us are unable, unwilling, or not permitted to do, yet it’s critical for the maintenance of civil society.

Here’s an example of the platitude our society lives by today with regards to service workers:

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Don’t abuse people. That seems to be the message here. I think the video clearly shows Hill acting in a way that’d be considered abusive had it been against a cashier, server, or nurse. But since it’s a cop, it’s seen as fine to change the rules, since they can ruin your day or kill you. It’s an obscenely cynical, nihilistic mindset, but people really do think like that. They’re going to arrest or kill you anyway, so you might as well make it difficult for them. If that’s the case, why the shock and outrage over the logical outcome?

The state of policing is going to change quit a bit during the Fourth Turning. They’re going to become less effective at their jobs, through a combination of political and societal influence, and simply becoming overwhelmed by the workload. However, American cops are still among the best you’ll ever see. Even in Europe, the police aren’t anywhere near as assertive as they are in the U.S. I hear it all the time from people who come even from places safer than ours about how ineffective police in their countries can be compared to American police. I unfortunately also believe police will not only become less reliable, but also a part of the problem going forward. Still, giving police a difficult time isn’t wise. Keeping a low profile is a survival strategy. If you draw the attention of people with guns, provoking them is a bad call, even if the police ought to always be on their best behavior.

Which brings us to the key point: if Tyreek Hill’s supporters think its okay to behave badly around cops, they certainly don’t think its okay to behave badly around criminals, same as how service workers in all other industries must be treated with the utmost kindness and respect. When it comes to criminals, suddenly, the rules are: cooperate, don’t provoke, and comply. If anything, the victims are blamed for not making life easier for the criminals. Not out of any real concern for victims, but out of moral concern - it’s wrong, in their minds, to use violence against criminals, who might be doing wrong as well, but are ultimately the real victims of an unjust society. It’s up to us to not make things harder on them by fighting back, plus it’d be hazardous to our health if we did.

Against police? Not only is resistance justifiable, the police have a responsibility to make it safe for you to resist. It’s a totally absurd position to take, but making sense has never been the point. But we can’t do anything about this, infuriating as it may be. We can only control our actions and influence those of the people closest to us. What are we to do? I wrote an essay once where I discussed just that, but it never hurts to have a refresher.

First, remember: police are humans. They can have bad days. We can say all day long this doesn’t justify misconduct or mistakes. But they’re going to have bad days. Making life difficult for them ensures those bad days turn into disasters. The same goes for any other service worker - waiters, house helpers, taxi drivers, nurses. Give any of them a hard time while they’re having a bad day, they’re not going to make things nice for you. Obviously, it doesn’t make it okay for them to harm you, but that’s also not the point. If the threat of violence isn’t enough to encourage better behavior, what would? Violence underpins civilization, along with all social interactions in general. Don’t like it? Fine. So ask yourself: what would influence a person to behave themselves?

Second, you can screech “F**k Da Poh-Leece!” all you’d like, but they’re the extension of the government so many Americans surrender their dignity, even their own family, to. If you ever find yourself in a struggle with the police, the government says they have to win. Full-stop. When the police stop you, they, not you, control the situation. Any attempt to change the rules will end badly. Like Tyreek Hill found out, telling the police “Don’t tell me what to do!” isn’t going to accomplish anything useful. If arguing with a customer service representative, waiter, or nurse is futile and unbecoming, it’s hazardous to your health when you do it to a cop.

Third, if nothing else, do it for yourself. Nobody likes having to deal with police. Even in a completely benign interaction, it can be nerve-wracking. Which, again, is why you want to keep things as professional, if not cordial, as possible. Anything you do to make the officer’s job more difficult will only prolong the interaction and make things more troublesome for you. Record a video of the interaction if you please, but understand that camera works both ways. You might find lots of people who sympathize with you, but you’ll also find many who don’t. Either way, unless you become a George Floyd-esque martryr, they can’t help you. Only your lawyer can. You can afford one, yes?

In closing, it’s worth noting Tyreek Hill has a history of criminal behavior and violence, including of the domestic variety. Again, it doesn’t justify police misconduct, but it does contextualize Hill’s behavior during that traffic stop. People who behave badly towards police aren’t the peaceful, law-abiding type. It’s past time we dispense with this notion that those who have a hard time interacting with police are just decent, normal people who had a bad day and didn’t receive a fair shake from the cops. They’re not. They’re just donkeys who need to be given the hard hand.

The Insanity Of Being Too Insane

Remember the story of Bionca Ellis, the woman who stabbed and murdered three-year-old Julian Wood and injured his mother in a Cleveland supermarket parking lot in June of this year? It seems we have a resolution in the case and it’s not a good one:

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So, what’s next for Ellis? She escapes punishment for now, but she could face the music later.

From ABC News 5 Cleveland:

According to Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas records, Ellis was undergoing a 20-day evaluation when the doctor treating her stated: “that the defendant is incompetent to stand trial, but that there is a substantial probability of restoration to competency within the statutory time frame if provided with a course of treatment.”

Ellis has been ordered to undergo treatment at North Coast Behavioral Health. Once treatment has been completed, she will be placed back into the custody of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office.

How long does the state have to bring Ellis to trial?

Ohio Revised Code states the statutory time frame to determine if Ellis could be competent for a future trial is one year.

What if Ellis cannot be treated and remains insane after a year?

Suppose Ellis doesn’t reach the competence level needed to go to trial within that time span. In this situation, she could remain at a psychiatric facility for safety measures.

“If the judge at the end of that determines that the defendant is a danger to herself or others, then they can be involuntarily committed to a mental institution at that institution. Of course, they’re going to try to treat them,” said [Jonathan] Witmer-Rich.

How to feel about this? Let’s assume Ellis is truly insane. I’m no mental health specialist, but my understanding has always been that someone who’s insane is going to remain so, aside from temporary spells of insanity. Maybe, with the right treatment and enough time, she can be made into a reasonable person. But within a year? Is that really possible?

Let’s next assume that Ellis isn’t really insane. I don’t know how easy it’d be to put up an act like that, but suspend your disbelief for the sake of argument. If so, if you were Ellis, would you want to be cured of insanity? I suppose it depends on what the respective outcomes would be, which we’ll get into in a second, but just speaking simply, if I were accused of a heinous crime, going to trial sounds like something I’d want to avoid.

The fact that the statute of limitations to bring Ellis to trial is one year is the most important part of the story. That means there’s only one year to hold Ellis accountable for the following charges:

• One count of Aggravated Murder

• Two counts of Murder

• Two counts of Attempted Murder

• Two counts of Felonious Assault

• One count of Endangering Children

• One count of Tampering With Evidence

• One count of Misdemeanor Theft

If my understanding is correct, after a year, if she isn’t determined competent to stand trial, she cannot be brought to trial for any of these charges, ever. Which means she gets away with all of it. Certainly, she can be involuntarily institutionalized, but even that doesn’t sound like a sure bet. Either way, is she going to be paying any price for her crimes?

What does Max think? If someone is too insane to be held responsible for their actions, that calls for their permanent removal from society, not treatment. Maybe involuntary institutionalization serves that purpose, but again, it doesn’t seem like a sure thing that Ellis would actually be institutionalized. Even if she were, they’re going to attempt to treat her, meaning there could be a day she could become a part of civil society again. What was accomplished by doing so? Who really was helped here? Did Julian Wood’s life matter? If so, why is Bionca Ellis still alive? Why is there even a remote possibility she could one day re-join civil society?

A presumption of citizenship is that a person is of reasonable, sound mind. I know there are lots of people, mostly on the Left, who are going to muddy the waters by citing the prevalence of mental illness, so let’s simplify things by saying that a citizen shouldn’t be an insane person. I think we all know what an insane person is and anyone who doesn’t is either lying or lacks the common sense and intellect for civil life themselves. Someone who can not be expected to behave reasonably and responsibly nor held to account for their actions doesn’t deserve any freedom. I don’t think that’s in any way inconsistent with the founding principles, but even if they were, it wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t make sense to have insane people running around murdering three-year-olds.

The Fourth Turning will bring tremendous violence. Unfortunate as it may be, we can only hope that it’ll find a way to permanently correct the problem of all the Bionca Ellises of the world. I really mean that. After all, as Neil Howe says, we’ll come to value order once again.

Losing Touch With Reality Leads To Violence

I don’t have much to say about the latest attempt on President Donald Trump’s life, except to say that it just brings civil war/revolution that much closer.

Take a look at the results of this poll:

Source

It’s still a minority of Democrats who think Trump should’ve been killed. But it’s a significant minority, almost a third. Almost a quarter aren’t sure what to think, which is just as disturbing. I’m not sure what these people think they can expect in the event of Trump’s death. A return to civility? Civility was all out the door before Trump and it’s absolutely not returning when a major party candidate is killed. A return to more sane governance? Governance has been insane whether Trump is president or not. The salvation of democracy? Maybe, if you consider the prevailing anarcho-tyrannical, soft-totalitarian managerial state to be a democracy, which it clearly isn’t.

Most troubling to me is that half of Democrats think Trump may have fabricated his own assassination attempt. Remember: this is coming from the side that’s spent the last eight years condemning the conspiracism of the Right. But the Left has been just as susceptible. Thinking that Trump faked his own attempts on his life is tough to reconcile with the fact so many also think Trump is better off dead. What do they think, Trump tried to kill himself and failed twice? This is mindless, but when you’re consumed by hatred, you’ll believe all sorts of crazy, contradictory thoughts.

It’s difficult to see how this ends any other way besides violence. This goes well beyond mere disagreement. You have two competing visions of reality butting up against one another. Someone who believes Trump faked his own assassination attempts while still thinking he’d be better off dead isn’t just disagreeing with you on tax rates. This is someone who sees themselves living in a world that doesn’t include you in it.

Granted, I too see myself living in a world that doesn’t include most of the Left. The difference is, I haven’t allowed my contempt for the other side to detach me completely from reality. When you become detached from reality, you become more prone to violence because the consequences of grave choices become less real. It’s the same reason why otherwise reasonable people often engage in dangerous behavior when under the influence of drugs or alcohol. You know you might get hurt or killed, but you feel like it wouldn’t matter if you did.

Then again, it could just be that the Democrats are the ones in control and not only would like all political opposition to be permanently eliminated, they also believe they can use their power to will their version of reality into existence. Either way, it’s a window into what they’re willing to do.

Dispossesion Is Cruel, No Matter The Victim

I want to close on something which serves as a segue back to talking more in-depth about current events.

A few weeks ago, a resident of Springfield, Ohio, a focal point in America’s immigration crisis addressed the city council regarding her concerns:

Source

The woman states that she and her husband have been residents in Springfield for 45 years and now feel as though they’re being forced out. The feeling of dispossession is strong among those who reside in places overwhelmed by migration, both legal and illegal. The woman shares her grievances appropriately, but there are millions of Americans out there who look upon her with disdain, as an ignorant, uneducated peasant who doesn’t know what’s good for her.

The fact is, this woman is representative of most people of the world. The cosmopolitan, educated class that loves (or at least professes to) diversity and a constant stream of newcomers is by far the minority. Most people, like this woman, are tied to the land, building their lives in a single location. When they die, they’re buried beneath the soil they walked while they were here in this world. Like this woman, they’re actually quite charitable and open to others, if only protective and wary, as they should be. But they’re not hateful and it’s disingenuous to refer to them as “xenophobic.” They just have a well-defined sense of who they are and what’s theirs, like most peoples of the world.

The thing is, the cosmopolitan, educated class knows this and they’re actually quite enamored by such people, as long as they come from places like Mexico and Thailand. It’s when they come from America, Britain, or any other Western country that the admiration transforms into hostility. We don’t need to get into what animates this oikophobia (fear of one’s own) except to acknowledge its existence. Some people are allowed to have an identity and a place of their own, some aren’t.

The thing if, if you dropped large amounts of migrants in the equivalent of Springfield, Ohio in Mexico or Thailand, the kindness of those wonderful people would be put to the test. Humans aren’t entirely good or evil. So much of it depends on the incentives they’re presented with. If you trigger a people’s defensive instincts, they’re not going to seem as cuddly and kind as they seem today. I think most of us, leftists included, understand this. It’s just that they don’t think it matters when it comes to our own people or, worse, they’re engaging in a form of warfare against the domestic population. They just don’t think Americans will fight back, or are daring them to do so. It’s cruel and genocidal. All throughout history, dramatic demographic shifts have resulted in displacement and violence. Only the American Left seems to think this won’t happen because… well, I’m not sure anymore. It’s certainly not because they think highly of Americans.

Perhaps, the cruelty is the point. Spite is, after all, the strongest of emotions.

What’s Your Sense Of It All?

Before turning it over to you, one last anecdote: during my travels, I encountered a young woman from Europe (not going to say where) who had spent several weeks in the U.S. studying abroad. She was an absolute joy to talk to, yet afterwards, I felt a bit melancholy. So much of what I speak of here in this space can seem abstract, just because it might not be happening to us directly. In speaking to this young woman, however, I struck me: she’s who we’re fighting for.

I doubt she knows about the Fourth Turning. I bet she doesn’t realize the U.S. rests upon a crumbling foundation. Like many young people, she sees a life and a world full of possibilities in front of her. Hopefully, that remains so. But we cannot escape history, either. She was a living reminder there are tangible consequences to this whole thing unraveling and I feel a responsibility to her and those of her generation for it.

Yet if that inescapable history teaches us anything, it’s that sometimes, it has to fall apart. I wish her well and hope she manages to get through the hard times intact, with a greater appreciation for all we’ve been given.

What are your thoughts on anything discussed here? I’ll make this a semi-open forum, as it was a bit of an open forum for myself as well. Feel free to bring anything to the table.

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

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