I finally found my way into the Maryland version of Obamacare!

I hate to use vulgar language online (I use enough of it offline), but holy shit! I just got off the phone with someone from, I'm not sure what, about purchasing healthcare insurance via Healthcare.com. Yep, I went looking again and SHAZAM! there was a place to buy insurance where it wasn't yesterday.

So I give the site some info anyone can find about me in a Google search and finally get a page that lists the various options I have here in the great communist state of O'Malleyland (sometimes called Maryland, but seldom the Free State it once was, if it ever was.)

A list of plans from the most affordable to the least pops up and I'm busy trying to get my jaw to rehinge as the phone rings. Like magic someone connected to the healthcare site is calling to offer me a red or blue pill. Or was it red or green? Maybe it was a tour of Fantasyland?

I tell the nice female that I’m only curious as to what all this stuff is about and I’m not ready to buy anything. Hell, I am still struggling with the cost of the cheapest plan when I'm turned over to another polite female who will assist me in making my purchase. Before I can explain why I visited the website we’re off on the hard sell. After all, everyone wants health insurance don’t they? It takes me a few minutes to convince this woman I’m not going to buy anything.

“But sir, you have to have insurance. It’s the law.”

I allow I have been outside the law a number of times throughout my life and I guess I will be once more. She begins her spiel again as if I haven’t said a word, trying to convince me I need to buy something! I finally manage to get her to understand that the cheapest- $10,000 deductible (I nearly laughed out loud, I'm not sure I make $10K in a year) and $135 a month for the premium is beyond my ability. (I didn’t tell her DW would be on any policy. No sense in getting into all that when I’m already trying to turn around and get out of wherever the hell I’ve gone.)

Uhh, says I. If I go with the cheapest plan that means I have to eat out of dumpsters at least one week each month as the premium is more than I spend on groceries and gas to fetch them home each week. (I didn’t tell her I have a farmer friend who will let me pick out bread and such from the piles of outdated foodstuffs he gets from stores and food banks to feed to his pigs. I gathered she was as confused as I am.)

“Well sir” she begins, “you probably qualify for tax funded assistance then.”

I stopped her. “Now why would I look to the taxpayers to pay for something I can’t afford and don’t want? The last thing I want to do is add to the burden they are already forced to carry.”

“But the law requires everyone be insured.”

I told her I’d pay the fine, tax, or whatever the hell the IRS will hit me with. Well, I’d pay it if I had the money to do so. They might squeeze blood out of me, but dollars will be a bit more difficult. I think I upset her just a bit. Evidently she hasn’t had to deal with many people from the north part of the county, let alone Emmitsburg’s Idiot of record.

She tried to give me a contact number if I changed my mind. I declined and thanked her for her time and apologized for wasting so much of it. (I assume she works on commission?)

Obama said he’d reward his friends and punish his enemies. Send your goons coward. You’ve made another enemy.

Day 1 of the government shutdown, or I listened to NPR this morning

(I do a lot of paraphrasing here)

I go to work this morning determined to come home in a better mood by not listening to Talk Radio. I mean what’s the point? I’ve already changed political parties. I vote for the best people running in the primary and vote the party line in the general elections… I don’t need convincing the other party is my enemy. The President already told me I am his enemy and he is currently punishing me as he promised he would.

So, I tune in an NPR station to listen to classical music. After all, it’s the music once claimed to sooth the savage’s breast. I’m getting into whoever they are playing, Handel, Schubert, Beethoven, Mengele?… I don’t know these people but I do recognize some of the tunes. I suppose that’s why they’re classics? I know I heard them on Saturday morning cartoon shows when I was a li’le one more’n 50 years ago.

And then the news comes on…. I take a deep breath and recall what my leftist and big government friends keep telling me. “You need to stop listening to those liars on Fox (I’ve never watched or listened to Fox) and those horrible liars Beck and Limbaugh. Try NPR if you must listen to radio.” So I listen to NPR news. After all, this is real news for the country’s informed elite! (I feel so privileged that I’m about to be enlightened.)

First thing I hear is Obama talking about how affordable Obamacare is and how people like me can now get (at the taxpayers’ expense) the great health care the rest of the population is getting. My head didn’t explode, but I think I may have popped a blood vessel, though obviously a nonessential one. I find myself snarling at the radio.

“What? You exempt the government from this great healthcare plan because it’s too onerous and far removed from the truly best care on the planet that they are currently accustomed to? You grant, with a casual wave of your royal hand, a thousand big businesses a yearlong pass because it’s too onerous? But I, by what’s left of the law you keep changing, have to abide by it?” (Thank the gods the savage soothing music started playing again. I made it to the next newsbreak, barely.)

Someone named Sebelius popped up defending Obamacare. I think Sebelius is in charge of some government department? I doubt it’s the one that promotes intelligent reasoning though. Anyhow, she says of course there will be problems with the government signup sites (after 3 years of getting them ready for today) but Apple has trouble with their newest OS and no one is calling for defunding that or kicking Apple out of the market place.

What? Did she just mix Apples and Brown Shirts? Apple isn’t forcing me to buy their toys. Hell, I own nothing Applish and can’t conceive of every needing to. But Obamacare? THAT is being crammed down my throat by an out of control group of Progressives that have usurped my country! (Now I’m cursing into the spray booth and some gray sludge is trickling out of my nose. I don’t think it’s snot.)

It takes several overtures before I even realize the music is playing again. I feel nothing being soothed.

Newsbreak. I hear Harry Reid’s name and head for the rest room. Thank you gods for an enlarged prostate. By the time I got back to the radio the music was playing again.

The next newsbreak featured the One. Yes, the lord god Obama chastising the Tea Party Republicans for doing what their constituents sent them to Congress to do- Stopping Obamacare. Christ on an F'ING cracker! Politicians doing what they were elected to do?

I scrambled back to the workshop desperately seeking a roll of duct tape and earplugs. Beck recommends wrapping one’s head with duct tape so you can find all the pieces after your skull explodes while trying to understand Progressives. I figured the foam ear plugs stuffed up my nose might stop what was left of my brain from trickling out.

Not finding what I needed I retuned the radio to Beck’s program and was greeted with laughter as Beck announced all we can do is laugh at these people. They are in control of our wealth and now our health. All that’s left is our ability to laugh at them.

Thank you Mr. Beck. You brought a smile to my face and eased the pain in my head and heart. For a few moments I'd forgotten my Roman Stoic philosophy.

I’ll continue to listen to NPR music, but when their version of news comes on I think I’d best swallow a quart of moonshine and at least one Quaalude.

Funny Questions Kids Ask

“Coach Jack, who do I have to kill to stop this madness?”

I suppose the question wouldn’t have bothered me so much had it been asked by someone my age. Coming from a teenager (one of several young people to ask me that question of late), it caused me to think before spouting off with my usual “Kill them all.” (I’m such an optimist, thinking someone might actually be able to do that, kill them all.)

“Jack, it’s sad that you are such a misanthrope. Humans are herding animals. Your rejection of the herd means you will die in the coming stampede as the races of Man make war against each other. Mark my words. Your friends, your own family, will turn against you if you try to stand alone.” This from a white Nationalist I used to exchange emails with. (I’ve given a lot of thought to his words and think he’s partly right. Some people I know will move with the herd, but some will stand up, choose to be men and women rather than sheep and cows. I’d sooner stand, and die, with men and women than live as a bleater, or cud chewer.)

 “Jack, you do know the American Experiment is over, don’t you? It failed, just as was its destiny. Humanity is not ready for self-rule. People are stupid cows. They want to be in a herd, told what to do, how to live, what to think. How can you not know this?” The European who asked me these questions has forgotten more history than I’ve bothered to learn. I’ve tried to blow the comment off as typical European arrogance, or socialist propaganda.

Looking to other Europeans I’ve met, all having reached adulthood in communist countries; I realize they too think America is over, The Experiment having predictably failed. Some of them merely shrug. They have their big screen TVs and a car, neither luxury was affordable in the homeland. “Sure America is dying, but it’s still better than where we came from. We will be in our graves before the worst of America’s collapse effects us.”

Others shake their heads. “I’ll go home if it (America) gets as bad as I think it will. Yes, Europe is in worse shape, but we’ve lived through two world wars and have never been as wealthy, before or after them, as you Americans are now. Yes, I love the luxuries I have here, but living without them? I’m better off going home where I have family.”

Then there are the people who nearly bring me to tears. “Jack, come here to live. We know how to survive. Please bring your family here and let us help you get through the bad times we see coming, especially for America.”

“Jack, you do know the American Experiment is over, don’t you?”

But- but-

An argument begins in my head. “Do you not understand that the current government administration’s dismantling of your country is not the problem, but merely the fruit of the problem? America, the very concept, the essence of it, is a rotting corpse held together by the mycelium of a toxic fungus. The leaders you see are simply the fruiting bodies, the mushrooms visible on the surface. Pick them off if you like; the fungus lives on, interwoven in the corpse.”

I guess I see the truth in all this. Somewhere, in this madhouse I call home, used to be a book, a teacher’s guide, copyrighted in the early part of the 20^th century. The focus of the book was social engineering, an end to The American Experiment. The utopians were certain they could change this country, and the world, via education, or indoctrination, depending on one’s viewpoint. Creating a herd of “planned thinking” automatons was probably in the works before the 1910s, but I haven’t read a book (written by any American with that bent) from earlier than 1914 or ’15.

With so many people telling me “America, as you know it, is finished”, including our current President (a typical utopian; preaching what we should be doing while he does the opposite), coupled with a hundred years of social engineering; via our schools promoting the dismantling of The American Experiment, I’ll admit it’s probably too late to turn things around. (Those who saw the collapsing of Rome’s civilization failed to wake its citizens in time to defeat entropy, which took hundreds of years. Our collapse is happening at the speed of the Internet.)

But- but- what about other peoples, other cultures trying to break free of the madness America is sinking into?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, writes in her book “Infidel”, that her father was infatuated with the American Experiment, enamored with our Constitution and talked of creating a Somalia based on the ideals of America! He infected his daughter with his dreams of a Great Somali Experiment and betrayed her by selling her into a traditional Islamic marriage according to the customs of his tribe. Perhaps the European and American utopians are correct and no amount of idealism can overrule what human nature has dictated? Perhaps humanity will always rise above its base nature only to descend into totalitarian dictatorship? What is utopia but a dictatorship?

So what do I tell the youths who ask, “Who do I have to kill?”

Everyone or no one.

There is no sense in hurling yourself against the wall of humanity as it stands today. Better to adopt a Roman Stoic mindset: endure what you cannot change, but change what you can. At the very least, learn to read and think. Hord “paper” books. (Digital books are too easy to manipulate. Ask George Orwell.) Observe what has happened, learn from my generation’s mistakes. Remember what is right and good, and prepare to survive. Always remember that out of the fall of Rome, America was born, eventually. Something greater than America will rise out of her rotting corpse. You must be the seed waiting for that moment.

Even at the darkest moments of the Soviet empire, people took their children into secret places and taught them the true history of their people to counter the indoctrination of the communist lies (state education).

The American Experiment went farther than any of the European utopians thought it could. The next turn around the Wheel will see an even greater experiment put into practice. Live to be the seeds of that moment.

Or simply enjoy the ride to the bottom. That’s what most people will be doing.

Baaaa...

Mooo…

Cutting to the Bone

( Written when gasoline got over $4 a gallon)

So gasoline is getting beyond our budget, again. I figured it would, for a variety of reasons I’m not able to do anything about, so I don’t dwell on them. Not dwelling on events I can’t actively cause, or change, is a part of practicing my version of Roman Stoic philosophy. Changing things that are within my ability is the major focus of Roman Stoicism as I am attempting to live it. Of course, just changing things doesn’t always bring about the tranquility the Roman Stoics used to pursue, and I’m not sure tranquility is what I want in my life. Still, I need to start somewhere and tranquility isn’t such a bad goal.

If, and when, gasoline hits former Vice President Al Gore’s suggested price of $5.00 per gallon (“Earth in the Balance”, if my memory serves) I’ll have long since changed my habits to accommodate a life requiring as little of the substance as is possible. One drastic change came about several years ago after learning of the VP’s target price of $5.00 a gallon. I all but stopped voting for anyone with a “D” after his or her name. While that was a tough decision to make, (I tend to have mostly Democrat acquaintances and enjoy exploring the ideas they have, mostly about food production and religious issues) the change was made easier by the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party when gasoline prices hit $4 a gallon the first time. The Dem leaders started bellowing how unfair it was to the working class. I stopped dead in place when I heard that come over the radio. What? They were all for a fiver a gallon when it would be mostly in taxes!  Wasn’t that going to hurt the working class? Or was that the whole point of getting the price that high? Crush the working class; force them onto government doles to survive? Not that much of what the other party was/is doing seemed sane to me either.

The rest of the changes I’ve since made have been simple reductions in spending by way of behavior modifications. No more running to other towns to buy coffee and sit with friends to discuss everything under the sun, but we also didn’t bother to spend our time and money in Emmitsburg. We still go to Giants in Gettysburg, or Weiss in Thurmont, for groceries and will continue to do so as gas prices continue to rise. We’re simply working things around so we make the trips part shopping/part visiting. As time goes on, with ever-increasing costs, we’ll make the trips monthly, rather than weekly. We’re also beginning to eat what we grow in the gardens rather than give most of it away.

Another gradual change came about partly because of rising prices of gas and food. We now buy half a beef (for the cost of processing the whole animal) and freeze it. Wanda gets to enjoy steaks we pay $1.50 a pound for and see in the markets for as much as $10.00 a pound! I’ve taken to buying large cuts of pork (soon we’ll be buying whole joints of pig) and turning it into sausages we can’t find the equals of in supermarkets, for considerably less than store sausage costs!

We’ve bought canners and a dehydrator for processing the vegetables we grow. We’ve been, and will continue, planting open pollinated varieties of most things we grow so we can save seeds for following seasons. Purchasing hybrid seeds each year is wasteful not only because of their inability to reproduce viable seeds of a known standard for next year’s planting. They are also usually grown on farms dependant on fossil fuels for everything from preparing/fertilizing the soil to shipping seeds around the rock. Their prices reflect that.

As we hear the state wants to raise (as much as double) the price of keeping a vehicle on the road we’ll start taking vehicles off the road, saving on insurance and maintenance fees as well as the tag renewal costs! For every increase in state, county or town fees we’ll find some way of reducing our need for something else, preferably by directly eliminating spending in a given tax area when we can. We already spend much of our disposable income in Pennsylvania. It wouldn’t be so difficult to take all our business across the line if Maryland politicians can’t grasp that increasing taxes and fees often causes the reverse of their stated goals! And if Pennsylvania starts getting equally ridiculous with their sales taxes? Well, we’re already in a “cut to the bone” mode so we’ll simply hunker down to weather the storm until some sane administration regains control of either state. And if that doesn’t happen in my lifetime? Well, I have friends who’ve survived, even thrived in socialist/communist countries. They’re eager to teach me how to be comfortable even in a totalitarian state, which seems to be where we’re heading.

A few years ago I’d have been furious to find myself having to consider these “cuts”. Today, I’m almost eager to start making them deeper, to take ever more of my earned cash from grasping fingers that produce nothing and demand more and more. I can make a game of not spending, of hording, of hiding. Laughing at the tax grabbers, the do-nothings, could easily become a sport for me. Finding ways to be productive, yet giving nothing to the governments is a great way to exercise my inventive genius. (“Genius” is typed with tongue firmly in cheek.)

Another option we’re seriously considering is pooling our resources and joining with people of like minds. Over the last decade we’ve been asked to sell out in Maryland and joining some of the hippie communes that have survived from the late 1960s to this day. Pagan communities have invited us and even “whites only” pagan conclaves have offered sanctuary from the coming chaos they predict. (At first, I was surprised to learn there were pagans so racist, though I quickly realized that pagans are no different in their thinking than any other labeled group.)

Whatever we end up doing spending wise, I will continue to stand on the archery range as coach to the families who manage to attend the IWLA’s youth program. Unlike those in government, who always urge me to “think of the children” (so they can continue to rape the taxpayers), I actually do think of the kids and volunteer my time, equipment and what little expertise I have so the kids have a chance to grow in ways I did not discover until I was an adult.