Knife amnesty about to end soon....in the UK

[MechAg94]

I don't think the "middle way" was ever as big as some seem to think. I think a lot of that was the main stream media making a really big deal about undecided voters. Where I might argue away from that is national politics in the US has moved to the left overall in the last 50 years. What used to be the "middle way" 50 years ago is hard core right wing conservative now. Normal flyover country people in the US didn't shift right, the left just went further and further left.

[MechAg94]

This is also a good example of what happens when you continually try to compromise and please the left. They will keep moving further and further left and taking more and more. There is no stopping point. They derive power through actvisim. If you give in, they will just find more to be active about. They won't stop.

[VMI77]

As I recall it used to be a criminal offense with lethal consequences for a peasant (a serf) to have weaponry. Then after years of fighting for it the citizenry did away with the draconian laws. Now Brits have voluntarily turned themselves back into serfs......that is just sad.

An astute observation, as the west continues to devolve into neo-fuedalism.

My general observation is this: Everything is in the process of becoming polarized. More and more people are turning to established religion or atheism (which is of course a religion of sorts itself), but not remaining in the amorphous middle. Culture is polarizing, as people shift away from traditional morality, the classics, reading, philosophical thought and the exercises of the mind, toward instant gratification, living vicariously through video games and reality shows, and FaceBook memes. Politics is polarizing more and more into statist leftism or statist conservatism, with correspondingly fewer people in the middle. The middle way is a disappearing thing.

The devolution into neo-fuedalism is part of that, but it has its opposite too, and that is libertarian anarchism. The libertarian utopia that Ayn Rand describes toward the end of Atlas Shrugged is basically anarchic. There are no laws there, and anyone is free to choose their means of self-expression.

Like most utopias, it cannot work either because the utopian idea must presume that its members have rights—human rights—and that for rights to have meaning, they must apply to all. If they do not apply to all, then they are dispensations, not rights. The natural extension of this is that everyone has rights—including criminals. The natural extension of that is a body of law, and then the means to enforce it, and then the means to punish its transgressors, etc., etc., etc.

Personally, the one thing I think is often left out of this kind of rumination is the presence and will of an Almighty God. Polarization of our society in all of its components is a runaway train. It cannot be stopped......and there IS an end of the line somewhere down that track. When that train his the end of that line, full speed ahead toward obvlivion, it is going to be catastrophic.

My advice, which people can choose to leave or take.....no skin off my nose either way.....is to prepare yourself and your family in every way—especially including spiritually, but in every other way too—for what is to come. I do not know and cannot predict what event will trigger the ultimate cataclysm, but it is coming. My Bible predicts it. The social trends predict it. The wars and rumors of wars predict it. The rise of the oligarchy and the gradual losses of the individual's personal freedoms predict it. And, human nature being what it is, people will reach a point when they've had enough and simply won't take any more of it.....and that predicts it. The world is changing, and not for the better.

Neo-feudalism is only part of it.....a step along the path to something much bigger and much worse. I sincerely hope that I do not live long enough to see it, but I am nearly certain that my son will see it. Praise God for my son's salvation, and that of his family.

Unfortunately as they say, when you're in the middle of the road you're likely going to be run over. When the worst comes no one is going to have the luxury of being in the middle, and few of being reasonable. We're all going to have to choose a side and all the choices are likely to be unsavory. It's going to be tribal and those who aren't part of a tribe aren't going to last long. Unfortunately tribal also means "racial." Ordinary reasonable people who are not racists will be forced into racism in order to survive. Your race won't matter as much as your numbers relative to other races. If in your particular location you're part of a small minority your odds of survival will decrease dramatically, no matter what race you are.

The one clear message of the Obama administration is that the rule-of-law is dead. It's not going to be revived from the voting booth. They, and their media accomplices have done just about everything in their power to divide the country along racial, ethnic, geographic, and political lines....but especially along racial lines. I understand your desire not to live too see what's coming but we brought our children into the world and I think that if we can, we have an obligation to suffer with them. I don't want to see it either but if my sons are going to have to see it I want to be there fighting with them. But on that other level, yes, I hope the fight takes me before it takes them. I only hope I can be part of a tribe that ignores the divisions those in power have imposed upon us and can retain the values of the tribe of patriots that created the greatest nation on earth.

[mamabearCali]

This is one of those times. It is a slow fall but falling we are. We have been for a long time. I owe it to my little ones to do all I can to resist the fall or mitigate it in any way we can. "Do not go gentle into that good night...rage rage against the dying of the light." Or at least to give them the skills and the protections (physical, mental, and spiritual) that I can to give them the best chance of making it in dim and uncertain times.

[mr surveyor]

As I recall it used to be a criminal offense with lethal consequences for a peasant (a serf) to have weaponry. Then after years of fighting for it the citizenry did away with the draconian laws. Now Brits have voluntarily turned themselves back into serfs......that is just sad.

An astute observation, as the west continues to devolve into neo-fuedalism.

My general observation is this: Everything is in the process of becoming polarized. More and more people are turning to established religion or atheism (which is of course a religion of sorts itself), but not remaining in the amorphous middle. Culture is polarizing, as people shift away from traditional morality, the classics, reading, philosophical thought and the exercises of the mind, toward instant gratification, living vicariously through video games and reality shows, and FaceBook memes. Politics is polarizing more and more into statist leftism or statist conservatism, with correspondingly fewer people in the middle. The middle way is a disappearing thing.

The devolution into neo-fuedalism is part of that, but it has its opposite too, and that is libertarian anarchism. The libertarian utopia that Ayn Rand describes toward the end of Atlas Shrugged is basically anarchic. There are no laws there, and anyone is free to choose their means of self-expression.

Like most utopias, it cannot work either because the utopian idea must presume that its members have rights—human rights—and that for rights to have meaning, they must apply to all. If they do not apply to all, then they are dispensations, not rights. The natural extension of this is that everyone has rights—including criminals. The natural extension of that is a body of law, and then the means to enforce it, and then the means to punish its transgressors, etc., etc., etc.

Personally, the one thing I think is often left out of this kind of rumination is the presence and will of an Almighty God. Polarization of our society in all of its components is a runaway train. It cannot be stopped......and there IS an end of the line somewhere down that track. When that train his the end of that line, full speed ahead toward obvlivion, it is going to be catastrophic.

My advice, which people can choose to leave or take.....no skin off my nose either way.....is to prepare yourself and your family in every way—especially including spiritually, but in every other way too—for what is to come. I do not know and cannot predict what event will trigger the ultimate cataclysm, but it is coming. My Bible predicts it. The social trends predict it. The wars and rumors of wars predict it. The rise of the oligarchy and the gradual losses of the individual's personal freedoms predict it. And, human nature being what it is, people will reach a point when they've had enough and simply won't take any more of it.....and that predicts it. The world is changing, and not for the better.

Neo-feudalism is only part of it.....a step along the path to something much bigger and much worse. I sincerely hope that I do not live long enough to see it, but I am nearly certain that my son will see it. Praise God for my son's salvation, and that of his family.

That is ultimately the best post I've read in a long time. Somewhat frightening in a way, but even more uplifting in the ways that really count.

Thank you, Sir.

jd