Think Forward.

America is falling apart 2167

Brad Ovitt, 1 y.
2 min read.
Over the past two decades, America has transformed from a functional republic to a klepocratic republic fueled by information censorship and deep-state interests. The level of political polarization is at an intensity only paralleled by the civil-war era of the 1860s. It is so bad, if I were unfamiliar with the situation, I wouldn't believe me. 8 years ago it was completely different. I understand there are other nations under far greater distress, but America is in a unique kind of decline, not seen anywhere else, serving as a warning to other liberal democracies in the 21st century. In Seattle, Washington, the streets are littered with homeless drug abusers with tents propped up in EVERY park and EVERY street. The democracy is dysfunctional. Take a look at this video of a city meeting in Seattle: https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?feature=shared&t=240. Citizen 1 to council members: "Will you manage these camps? Will you enforce the law?" Council Member: "If property damage or violence is committed you need to call 911." Citizen 2 to council members: "You've lost all credibility when you say ... you said two words, you said call 911. Do you understand that the police have told us to vote you all out so they can do their jobs, and you're telling us to call 911. You're smiling! You think this is funny, you think it's funny the way we're living?" People cheer with their signs that say "**LISTEN TO US**." It's been 5 years and the problem has only worsened. Policy decisions seem conspiratorially designed to destroy the nation. Petty crimes are almost entirely unenforced. Political violence has been normalized. The Department of Justice has become weaponized for political purposes. Substance abuse has never been worse. National security is in crisis. The majority of Americans don't trust the elections. The school systems are failing. "Our K-12 public education system is not designed to be effective in student learning, educator performance, or the effective utilization of money. Devoid of accountability, it will never effectively educate our children. It would be more accurate to describe our public education system as our country’s largest adult employment program." - Donald Nielsen, Senior Fellow and Chairman, American Center for Transforming Education The scope and speed of America's unraveling is unprecedented and difficult to emphasize enough. If I wanted to destroy the country I would do everything that politicians are doing. I've linked a document at the bottom from a Republican House Judiciary Committee outlining constitutional violations and censorship of true information from the existing presidential administration. The document is almost 900 pages long, but to summarize: it's a horrible situation. **LOOMING THREAT OF CIVIL WAR** Donald Trump is the first president in American history trying to defend his innocence in court. He's also running for re-election. He lost the last election, criticized it's integrity, and mobilized his supporters to break into the US capitol, killing four people. In a recent interview he said he hasn't ruled out the possibility of political violence if he loses again (cnn.com/2024/04/30/politics/trump-political-violence-2024-time-interview/index.html). America is also facing what I consider to be the worst migrant crisis in her history. The borders are completely open, which the FBI director called a major national security threat. For 4 years the president has been complicit with an open-border policy, repeating the lie that he doesn't have the presidential authority to fix the problem. It's not that I'm advocating an anti-immigration stance, but it's believed that tens of thousands of foreign military nationals have crossed the border, in what some have labeled a "planned invasion." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/26/texas-border-dispute-breeds-loose-talk-civil-war-resistance-right/ Also, the worst substance abuse and homelessness crisis in American history. Streets of major cities are overrun with tent encampments and drugged out "zombies," as people call them, because they roam incoherently with necrosis of their flesh from a drug called xylazine, also known as Tranq. There are widespread reports of mentally-ill homeless people attacking pedestrians in major cities. This movie was made depicting an American civil war in 2024 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17279496/ According to Gallup News, the approval rating for Congress is 18%. I haven't talked to a single person who's told me they think a civil war in 2024 is implausible. **CONCLUSION** There is A LOT that I haven't gone over, but America is in freefall. The system has been hijacked by a kleptocracy and cultural subversion. For many Americans, the 2024 election is their last hope to see the system work. Most people plan to vote not for their preference, but against who they're afraid of being in power. I don't know how to explain to it to myself, it seems surreal.
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Brad Ovitt

Brad Ovitt

Accelerating Team Human


1500

67.0

THE ENCHIRIDION - I 1956

Bluwr X Commons: Epictetus, 2 y.
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1 min read.
There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs. Now the things within our power are by nature free, unrestricted, unhindered; but those beyond our power are weak, dependent, restricted, alien. Remember, then, that if you attribute freedom to things by nature dependent and take what belongs to others for your own, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you take for your own only that which is your own and view what belongs to others just as it really is, then no one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you; you will find fault with no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing against your will; no one will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will you suffer any harm. Aiming, therefore, at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself any inclination, however slight, toward the attainment of the others; but that you must entirely quit some of them, and for the present postpone the rest. But if you would have these, and possess power and wealth likewise, you may miss the latter in seeking the former; and you will certainly fail of that by which alone happiness and freedom are procured. Seek at once, therefore, to be able to say to every unpleasing semblance, “You are but a semblance and by no means the real thing.” And then examine it by those rules which you have; and first and chiefly by this: whether it concerns the things which are within our own power or those which are not; and if it concerns anything beyond our power, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER - PREFACE 2058

Bluwr X Commons: Mark Twain, 2 y.
1 min read.
Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture. The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago. Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in. THE AUTHOR. HARTFORD, 1876.

THE MEDITATIONS - Book I.[1/3] 2103

Bluwr X Commons: Marcus Aurelius, 2 y.
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4 min read.
1. I learned from my grandfather, Verus, to use good manners, and to put restraint on anger. 2. In the famous memory of my father I had a pattern of modesty and manliness. 3. Of my mother I learned to be pious and generous; to keep myself not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and to live with a simplicity which is far from customary among the rich. 4. I owe it to my great-grandfather that I did not attend public lectures and discussions, but had good and able teachers at home; and I owe him also the knowledge that for things of this nature a man should count no expense too great. 5. My tutor taught me not to favour either green or blue at the chariot races, nor, in the contests of gladiators, to be a supporter either of light or heavy armed. He taught me also to endure labour; not to need many things; to serve myself without troubling others; not to intermeddle in the affairs of others, and not easily to listen to slanders against them. 6. Of Diognetus I had the lesson not to busy myself about vain things; not to credit the great professions of such as pretend to work wonders, or of sorcerers about their charms, and their expelling of Demons and the like; not to keep quails (for fighting or divination), nor to run after such things; to suffer freedom of speech in others, and to apply myself heartily to philosophy. Him also I must thank for my hearing first Bacchius, then Tandasis and Marcianus; that I wrote dialogues in my youth, and took a liking to the philosopher’s pallet and skins, and to the other things which, by the Grecian discipline, belong to that profession. 7. To Rusticus I owe my first apprehensions that my nature needed reform and cure; and that I did not fall into the ambition of the common Sophists, either by composing speculative writings or by declaiming harangues of exhortation in public; further, that I never strove to be admired by ostentation of great patience in an ascetic life, or by display of activity and application; that I gave over the study of rhetoric, poetry, and the graces of language; and that I did not pace my house in my senatorial robes, or practise any similar affectation. I observed also the simplicity of style in his letters, particularly in that which he wrote to my mother from Sinuessa. I learned from him to be easily appeased, and to be readily reconciled with those who had displeased me or given cause of offence, so soon as they inclined to make their peace; to read with care; not to rest satisfied with a slight and superficial knowledge; nor quickly to assent to great talkers. I have him to thank that I met with the discourses of Epictetus, which he furnished me from his own library. 8. From Apollonius I learned true liberty, and tenacity of purpose; to regard nothing else, even in the smallest degree, but reason always; and always to remain unaltered in the agonies of pain, in the losses of children, or in long diseases. He afforded me a living example of how the same man can, upon occasion, be most yielding and most inflexible. He was patient in exposition; and, as might well be seen, esteemed his fine skill and ability in teaching others the principles of philosophy as the least of his endowments. It was from him that I learned how to receive from friends what are thought favours without seeming humbled by the giver or insensible to the gift. 9. Sextus was my pattern of a benign temper, and his family the model of a household governed by true paternal affection, and a steadfast purpose of living according to nature. Here I could learn to be grave without affectation, to observe sagaciously the several dispositions and inclinations of my friends, to tolerate the ignorant and those who follow current opinions without examination. His conversation showed how a man may accommodate himself to all men and to all companies; for though companionship with him was sweeter and more pleasing than any sort of flattery, yet he was at the same time highly respected and reverenced. No man was ever more happy than he in comprehending, finding out, and arranging in exact order the great maxims necessary for the conduct of life. His example taught me to suppress even the least appearance of anger or any other passion; but still, with all this perfect tranquillity, to possess the tenderest and most affectionate heart; to be apt to approve others yet without noise; to have much learning and little ostentation. 10. I learned from Alexander the Grammarian to avoid censuring others, to refrain from flouting them for a barbarism, solecism, or any false pronunciation. Rather was I dexterously to pronounce the words rightly in my answer, confining approval or objection to the matter itself, and avoiding discussion of the expression, or to use some other form of courteous suggestion. 11. Fronto made me sensible how much of envy, deceit and hypocrisy surrounds princes; and that generally those whom we account nobly born have somehow less natural affection. 12. I learned from Alexander the Platonist not often nor without great necessity to say, or write to any man in a letter, that I am not at leisure; nor thus, under pretext of urgent affairs, to make a practice of excusing myself from the duties which, according to our various ties, we owe to those with whom we live. 13. Of Catulus I learned not to condemn any friend’s expostulation even though it were unjust, but to try to recall him to his former disposition; to stint no praise in speaking of my masters, as is recounted of Domitius and Athenodorus; and to love my children with true affection. 14. Of Severus, my brother, I learned to love my kinsmen, to love truth, to love justice. Through him I came to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, and Brutus. He gave me my first conception of a Commonwealth founded upon equitable laws and administered with equality of right; and of a Monarchy whose chief concern is the freedom of its subjects. Of him I learned likewise a constant and harmonious devotion to Philosophy; to be ready to do good, to be generous with all my heart. He taught me to be of good hope and trustful of the affection of my friends. I observed in him candour in declaring what he condemned in the conduct of others; and so frank and open was his behaviour, that his friends might easily see without the trouble of conjecture what he liked or disliked.