by Single Farmer, Survival Blog:
Editor’s Introductory Note: This young man is prayerfully seeking a wife. He is offering an after-marriage gift of up to $50,000 to whoever introduces him to his bride with $18,000 after their marriage and another $16,000 to the individual who provided the introduction after the first two births of healthy children born to him and his wife, for a total potential gift of $50,000. For further details, see this link to his article posted on February 24th, 2025: My Quest For a Wife.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
—
(Continued from Part 1.)
We are not a wealthy society and it is doubtful that we are on the cusp of a golden age. We are a dying republic likely at the stage of “twilight’s last gleaming” before descending into 1,000 years of darkness unless it turns around really quickly. There is still time. When asked, what type of government we had in 1787 at the close of the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin remarked, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Our republic is currently riddled with corruption that it has been recently accused of being a “oligarchy” and this cancer is pervasive as a kleptocrats pilfer the rotting scraps on our nation’s bones. We owe more money than any country in human history. On average, our countrymen have lost much physical vigor compared to their counterparts of the 1960s with the average man being 30 pounds heavier composed of most likely not muscle and are the most medicated our nation has ever been. Morality is dying with a miniscule population of morally upright, virtuous people. Civic virtue is gasping for air: In the Second World War, boys would try to get into war and many succeeded. Within a generation, legions of grown men would dodge their civic duties starting in Vietnam. Even the smallest things reflect our decline: the currency in circulation has very little intrinsic value.
I absolutely hated writing that paragraph, but would you rather someone tell you the truth or feed you propaganda? Since some speculate we are on the verge of a “golden age,” perhaps we should see where we are and then you can decide whether we are and what to do about it. Even if you believe that we are on the verge of a golden age of great prosperity, there will be some hints for you to use as eventually the greatness is squandered or the gilding wears away showing its tarnishing base layer.
There is a meme in which pokes fun at the idea of men thinking of the Roman Empire. Rome provides many lessons for us: We should ask ourselves are we Rome? Will we go the way of the Romans? If you are not a scholar in antiquity, I will provide some brief vignettes of Rome sprinkled throughout this series and you can decide for yourself whether and at what stage we are at.
Rome was maintained for centuries through civic virtue of people dedicating themselves to a system of laws, rules, and responsibilities for the greater good. You can study the decline of Rome in many ways including through its currency which declined in value through devaluations in the precious metal content where Gresham’s Law (of the bad money driving out good money) was first evidenced on a large scale. Societies are founded and maintained on civic virtue which begins with honesty. Everyone will say that they are honest, but so many are not and it is leading to the unraveling of our society where people will unfairly take advantage of others. Honesty is when you do the right thing when no one is watching: it is also giving the cashier back money if she somehow gave you extra or returning a wallet that was dropped. It is also just telling people the truth in relationships and not trying to use people for your own means in an unfair way. W.C. Fields said years ago “You can’t cheat an honest man. He has to have larceny in his heart in the first place.”
A dishonest man equates work with drudgery instead of what God has intended for man and the shirker is always looking for a way around work to get ill-gotten money. Con artists play on the greed of their marks which is why they are so effective as many times the individual being conned thinks he is getting the better of someone else. It is so unfortunate and symptomatic of our collapse as a virtuous society brimming with morality and charity as was so prevalent even in the recent past. Societies full of honest people have little need for locks, security, OPSEC, or anything other precaution as people of virtue. We are no longer in that society across the United States and only isolated pockets usually in rural areas where you are likely to find honest people where a handshake still means something.
The “First Rule of Holes” is to stop digging. It is also usually the first rule of bleeding is to stop the bleeding. Usually stopping something will lead to the slow eventual repair as the body begins to heal. The same can be said with our country. Over the last 4 years, over ten million (officially) and some people have said more than 20 million people have entered this country illegally or been invited in through various “refugee” resettlement programs. While I do understand the plight of people who live in bad circumstances around the world, we simply cannot afford to take on more people when our own citizens need help.
I keep my finger on the economic pulse: most American people who we know are not doing well. They have been suffering under the weight of increasing taxation (a special irony is that in many states if your property goes up in value not because you did some improvement, but because of inflation and then you get a higher property tax bill), regulations, unemployment due to the growth of technology or outsourcing (where you lose your job to a foreigner), inflation, and shrinkflation as manufactures decide to cut back on product sizes just to get you to purchase more often. People are suffering and at least some of the bleeding has stopped as the new Administration has promised to evaluate things that are in our own national best interest. Economically self-interest is actually a good thing because it allows people to concentrate on what is best for them and their own self-interest actually best benefit others when they honestly trade with each other developing greater efficiencies.
Now, that the bleeding has stopped and we have stopped digging holes, is it possible to return to a great past version of America? And what will be the necessary level of reform?
The Titanic: An Extended Analogy
My family has been in the preparedness movement for generations, so we do have a wide variety of experiences to draw from including an ability to put things into easily digestible formats. The “Titanic” has been part of history for over a hundred years, but the story has been seared into public consciousness so almost everyone alive in the world could recognize some basic facts that the “Titanic” was a ship that sunk a long time ago and many people died. Few people could name the captain, but many people could name at least one passenger as her name has become synonymous. There are few things that are vital takeaways from the Titanic for a beginning and seasoned prepper.
