Today’s weather wasn’t a might, a maybe, or a wait-and-see. It was a sure thing, and Nature delivered the goods.
The sound of rain on the roof overnight was intoxicating. It made for great sleeping.
And today, it makes for great slumping.
I have permission (from myself) to stop. I mean to do absolutely nothing until tomorrow, or maybe Saturday.
Rest. Recover. Recharge.
At the risk of rankling right-thinking friends and readers, I have to get this off my chest:
I’m not on the RFKJr bandwagon.
It’s not that I oppose his nomination to be HHS Secretary — politically, I understand exactly why Trump chose him for the role. His confirmation hearings have been entertaining, a battle of wits he’s sure to win against unarmed progressives like Crazy Bernie, Pocahontas, the lot.
As a Liberty-loving American, however, I have concerns.
He reminds me of a former Ohio governor, a Republican who loudly proclaimed his belief in “the power of government to do good.” And if we judge RFKJr by his stated goal to “Make America Healthy Again,” he exemplifies the well-known Reagan quip,
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.'”
RFKJr talks a lot about banning ingredients and compounds and formulations, eliminating whole classes of foods and drugs. He also traffics in the kind of soft, deflective messaging that gave us the Entitlement State: “It’s not your fault.”
First and fundamentally, I’m not okay with bans. That’s government overreach, albeit this time emerging from a novel Trojan horse. I believe, for example, that cheap, processed foods should remain an option for consumers who choose to eat that way (and yes, feed their children that way). It’s none of the government’s goddamn business.
I see too many of my friends seduced by RFKJr’s MAHA propaganda. They clamor for de-regulation of raw milk and organic farms — which would be great — while cheering the intent to hyper-regulate foods and goods that are (according to social media and junk science) “bad for you.”
That kind of hypocrisy insults both my intelligence and the American Ideal.
I chafe against the notion that “It’s not your fault” because, ultimately, it is. Everything begins with an individual choice. All that sympathetic nonsense only infantilizes the masses.
The reflexive demonizing of “Big Ag” and “Big Pharma,” though it’s an easy sell these days, is intellectually lazy. It’s embarrassing, actually. And it doesn’t make anyone healthier.
Populism doesn’t bother me. Prohibition does.
RFKJr will be confirmed by the Senate. To the extent that his actions as HHS Secretary are consistent with principles of individual Liberty and small government, I’ll be his biggest fan.
Right now, though, he looks to me like just another government-knows-best elite. Time will tell.
While I was preparing to leave the north slope yesterday, I spied a “leaner” that I didn’t take down. It was ten steps from where I’d parked the Ranger, too, convenient as hell, but I left it alone.
I won’t know for sure ’til the leaves come out, but I think that’s a mature sassafras tree.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell if it’s dead or alive. If it’s dead, I’ll fell it and make something cool from the wood. But if it’s alive, I hope it produces new trees nearby.
This’d be only the second sassafras I’ve seen on The Mountain. (The other is at the summit.) There must be more. Dammit, I want some tea.
(Yes, I know that the feds declared safrole a carcinogen and banned sassafras oil 65 years ago. The feds can kiss my ass.)
So if I’m gonna do a blog post when I unplug, this is the sort of blog post you can expect.
I make no apologies.
I snapped today’s header image around 3:30pm. It surprised me to see that the gauge registered less than an inch-and-a-half of rain since yesterday. I hesitate to call bullshit, since that’s our only means of measuring precipitation on The Mountain, but the seat of my pants tells me that we got two inches or more.
It sucked not accomplishing anything today. I hate to be idle. Clearly, though, I needed the break.
Will tomorrow be more of the same? I’ll let you know.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
One thought on “Soaked & slumped”
Comments are closed.