The 2020 Thanksgiving Column

Your author will be the first to admit that 2020 has been one of the strangest and possibly the most alarming years in memory. And, this is coming from a man who has seen some doozies this past decade or so.

By way of a little recap, we’ve had, just since January:

• • A surprise beating courtesy of Iran;
  • A long-brewing financial and economic collapse;
  • A fiat-fueled stock market rodeo roller coaster;
  • The implementation of a long-planned civil lockdown and police state;
  • The beginnings of a civil war, started by, of all things, a junkie’s overdose;
  • The most peacefullest protests that ever ruined a series of cities;
  • The essential ban on Amerikans visiting civilized nations;
  • A presidential shitshow election like some lifetime pièce de résistance from Carlin;
  • Halloween ALL DAMNED YEAR, doctors and bank robbers being the only costumes;
  • The end of “live” sports and the Masters in November(!);
  • Another predictable and predicted UGA “next year” season;
  • Cumulative behaviors to vindicate the hardest-core preppers; and
  • There was some sort of rumor about a cold bug coming out of a bat sandwich or something.

Yeah, so it’s been a little rough. And … Yours truly is happy about and thankful for all of it!

First, the shining independent, ordinary moments. I concluded, early, early this winter, my great experiment in public “school” education. I succeeded as they failed, confirmation of my grand theories. HOMESCHOOL!!! Then, almost out of the blue, Freedom Prepper returned with a vengeance. What started as old-school site work soon transformed into a budding media empire. I didn’t know it to start, but I have a video and podcast show, which now allows me direct interaction with the real American heroes out there. We also sell one hell of a coffee bean. TPC marches along, a bit slower than it did, but relentlessly. There’s a new project. Times being what they are, I keep writing fiction, lately venturing into the rewarding and imaginative world of the non-polemical. And, I have a new reason to love (South) Eastern Europe.

Now, here’s why I find satisfaction in the more tedious developments of this plague of an annum. Around twenty-five years ago, I suspected that things in my nation were going astray. I naturally figured this was some still-to-come distant unfolding, perhaps akin to something out of a dystopian novel. While I was a good two decades ahead of the curve – and many still don’t or can’t see a certain writing on a certain wall – I was a bit late in my realization. It wasn’t entirely my fault, as the America I thought I knew had essentially ceased to exist even before I was born. In life, such things happen. Fast-forwarding to more recent years, I began to notice serious structural problems here and there, more than a few trends, and I began to formulate theories (laughingly, I surmise escape plans might have been a better calculation, though there’s yet time for that – and, now, a destination). Bit by bit, I eased my way out of the mainstream and the popular (how it’s popular, I do not know) culture. After becoming what amounts to an extraverted hermit, I was given to second-guessing, as people sometimes are. 2020 cured that.

This was the first time, the first year that I called a new hoax in real-time. Others, to their great credit, have done the same. However, the great majority have done what great majorities are wont to do – falling hard and fully for whatever they’ve been told. Had everyone rejected the new lies from the same, usual lying sources, the past ten or eleven months would have been far smoother. “Smooth,” we know, does not necessarily equal “good.” But, instead, they followed the commands of their mid-witted-at-best and satanically-evil-at-worse leaders and betters and influencers (whatever the hell those are) and led us down the COVIDian path to the present. 

I have made the right calls! Knowing my road lies apart from the bulk and that I will never sink to their worldview or fearful reactionary existence has freed me in a wonderful, gratifying manner. While I love (many of) them, I have almost nothing in common with the preponderance of the people. And while I really and truly wish them well, as well as their ways will allow them to accomplish, I see no need to continue a pointless association. We’re parting ways, with or without any real separation, and we will all be the better and the happier for it. At least, I will. Hell, I already am! And, for this great confirmation, I owe much to the year of the lord of this earth, Corona 2019+1. Never did the words of Saint Paul the Apostle ring truer: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (KJV). In all things, especially those things that might appear harsher or more difficult, give thanks. 

And so I do!

In advance, I’m already giving thanks for what comes next year and in those soon to follow. As America, my home, was upended and diluted, so too will be the United States polity. The process, already in progress, will be challenging, but the longer and more arduous the walk, the better the scenery, right? As many lives become more complicated, I’d like mine to simplify even further. As dystopia unfolds, let new novels be written. As the more lies are told, so let the search for truth continue. And, for what it’s worth, I’m most happy to know who’s been behind the tumult and who’s abetted him and them. 

We, meaning me, you the heritage Westerns, and all the rest, have our work, differing or similar, cut out for us. Let’s meet it head-on. Let’s start by being as thankful as once were the sons and daughters of England in the New World. May Peace be upon you.