On Tuesday, in case you missed it, an Arkansas story bubbled up to make national news. A federal judge issued a permanent injunction against a new state law which barred doctors from providing “gender-affirming healthcare” to minors. The judge, who was appointed by POTUS #44, has legalized the surgical and chemical mutilation of confused children — even in Arkansas, where the overwhelming majority of citizens oppose such atrocities.
The decision will be appealed, certainly.
I’ve read the original bill. While its intent was righteous, it sought to right every wrong on the matter, all at once. For that reason the measure was ripe for liberal judges to strike it down.
Good intentions don’t make good law. And this case is a prime example of how a legal solution generally is a lousy tool for fixing a cultural problem.
The indoctrination contagion infecting American culture is as lethal as it is real. If there’s to be any remedy in law, it’d have to be a thousand cuts with a very sharp scalpel, not a single swing of a club, and individual Liberty must not be infringed in the process.
The real cure has to come by way of cultural restoration. That’ll be a painfully long, hard pull. With progressives calling the tune these days, it’s difficult for true Americans to be enthusiastic about the effort, much less optimistic about the outcome.
But it has to begin. It has to be done. If we give the slightest damn about our children, the perverse alphabet-plus indoctrination agenda must be driven to the margins and banished from our culture.
Few tasks do I enjoy as much as changing engine oil. It’s simple and it’s important, and before too long I’ll get a chance to perform the ritual on the Ranger and the generator. The Silverado, however, needed an oil-and-filter change sooner rather than later, so while in Harrison yesterday we had a small independent shop do the job.
I went with Castrol full-synthetic. The price for the work was about the same as what a Chevy dealer charged last time, definitely more expensive than if I’d done it myself. But the guys were competent and friendly, and under the circumstances we consider it money well spent.
Scout and Dipstick haven’t a clue what’s going on. Their world is about to change — different “house,” different surroundings, different routine. All they know is that every couple of days Deb and I take away boxes full of familiar stuff and return for more.
Both of the older dogs are fine, happy as they’ve ever been. We made an independent decision to back off on the meds Dipstick takes for his Cushing’s, and that (along with his recent haircut) has improved his attitude and appetite. Our girl Scout continues to amaze — despite two blown-out knees, she’s now going down the motorhome steps on her own, and sometimes she feels froggy enough to go back up without help.
They’ve been to the homesite before, of course, but they’ve never seen what we’re preparing for them now. They’re road warriors, however, having seen dozens of temporary “homes” and logging thousands of miles over the last few years. We’re confident that they’ll adapt quickly.
Deb and I sat down with our coffee this morning and had one of those go/no-go conversations — could we make a trip to The Mountain worthwhile today? Or would we be better off gathering and packing more stuff and waiting ’til tomorrow?
We talked through it, cataloguing aloud what we had left to transfer from this life to the next. It feels to us like we’ll have to make three more respectable runs, the last of which would include relocating the dogs. The first would be today.
We’re really gettin’ down to it here.
Part of today’s cargo was most of the motorhome’s outdoor-living gear. For the first time since last August, I stowed the flag, pulled up the mat, took the tarp off our firewood, disassembled the dog pen and folded up a small table. By the time we left, only our zero-gravity recliners sat outside the bus.
At the homesite, before unloading the contents of the truck into the fifth-wheel, I started the generator and Deb turned on the air conditioning in the living space. She tackled the unpacking, while I addressed a couple of things outside.
First I unrolled the patio mat that a couple of hours earlier had been laid out next to Ernie. I set up the dog pen in the center of the mat. Then I unboxed a free-standing canopy Deb had bought to give the dogs (Scout and Dipstick) shelter and shade.
She helped me pull the corners of the frame into shape and drape the canopy. It turned out great.
When that was done, and continuing what I’d begun a week ago, I worked on a few more exterior lights I’d discovered. All were on the rig’s front cap.
The first puzzle I had to solve was locating the switch (or switches) that turn them on and off. A half-hour of Google searches led me to a small rocker switch in, of all places, the wet bay. It activates a pair of dim LED “docking lights” (designed to aid in engaging the hitch), which the previous owners had covered in black electrical tape, and a porch-light-type fixture behind the gooseneck assembly.
I found both of the docking lights, such as they are, in working order — a good thing, since they’re sealed units. The third light had a burned-out #1156 bulb, which I replaced with an amber LED.
So, if you’re keeping score (and I am), of the seven lights on the exterior of the rig, I now have six working. (We chose not to replace the inoperative step-light fixture.) Four lights which had been fitted with incandescent bulbs now are equipped with brighter, energy-efficient LEDs.
Lights are about convenience and security, and it felt good to put everything right. As long as there are fixtures, they oughta work. Now they do.
You know how I feel about urgency, specifically manufactured urgency — it’s not my thing. It’s not our thing. Blind ambition is the enemy of achievement, and a preoccupation with thinking ahead sabotages tasks at hand.
Presence and pace.
And yet we’re fully aware of the world around us. Conditions are deteriorating. Economy, politics and culture are slipping toward unprecedented collapse. We know this. We see it.
Do you?
We’re motivated by the realization that we don’t have much time. Oh, sure, if the shit hit the fan right now we could grab the dogs, drive an hour east and be just fine without hauling the last of our Ozarkansas stuff out of the bus. Fact is, even if we finish this move before SHTF, settle on The Mountain and shut the metaphorical gate behind us, we won’t be as ready as we’d like to be.
But we’ll be ok because we’ve done what I’ve urged readers to do many times — we’ve put our affairs in order. While we’ve been trucking material goods from Harrison to the homesite and nesting in the RV, we’ve been relentlessly focused on the most practical, essential matters — shelter, power, water, food, security, defense.
We’d be doing that regardless of our situation. If we were still on the road, living at Second Chance Ranch or staying longer in this campground, we’d be putting our affairs in order.
Are you?
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB