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26 Comments

  1. Thank you John for one of the most simple, direct, informative and hopeful articles I’ve read in a long time. “WE” the people are the engine running this nation and to start the local community cranking is exactly what’s needed.
    Few (spark) is always enough when most (fuel) support the ideas of freedom (air).
    Crank brother

  2. Asking folks to do something and/or extra isn’t going to happen under the current circumstances. CHANGE REQUIRES DISCOMFORT.
    It almost got uncomfortable but then along came .gov with free. I know 6 people making more money while unemployed. I know 2 businesses who can’t get folks to come back to work. This on top of employers who still paid even while closed or worked from home. 1 guy I know tried to refuse to go back to the office and stay working from home. Then came the stimulated money and all the sudden those who had income could get the car fixed, new mattress, new dishwasher or even in this preparedness community the new rifle, case of ammo or the generator alluding them.
    It was a perfectly timed move. Nothing uncomfortable bout that for sure.
    Join a militia, get on a list, yell at politicians and be active in the community all sounds exhausting to most. In fact IT sounds uncomfortable and would require change from sitting in front of the tv, drinking and smoking “medical” dope, in the climate control, looking in the drive at the super duddy XP5000 waiting for the climate controlled indoor range to reopen to shoot that new XPZ78A toy while stroking the beard and tattoo shopping while slurping down a giant drive thru soda in flip flops.
    Folks stay comfortable and they don’t care bout what anyone else does or some old engine. It’s gonna take more than an article or a speech and when they do move it might not be the direction you think it will be. They will move to get back to comfort at any expense. You need to know your opposition.

        1. That’s nice but it really doesn’t help. Instead of writing a quite long response to why what the author said won’t work. Which it may not. Maybe put some thoughts into what you think may help. Writing something like a John wrote takes guts; putting himself out there. It’s easy to disagree without coming up with a solution of your own for others to contemplate.
          I’m sorry if this goes against Survivalblog standards. If it does please delete and I apologize in advance.

          1. Roadkill I didn’t say it wouldn’t work. I said know the opposition. You can’t change it if you don’t know why it broke nor what it’s going to take to make that change. It’s no different than being the boss or raising kids. You must know how to motivate them to do what you want. I’ve been in countries that enacted change and everyone of them were extremely uncomfortable. Even myself am comfortable in sitting in my recliner and won’t move till I’m uncomfortable and need to pee.
            Change requires discomfort

    2. Yep, As Matt says, CHANGE RQUIRES DISCOMFORT. Yikes.

      So, John, I am intrigued by what you propose: ” So we return to the Founders’ wisdom, enforcement of our Law must be ours. We have to grow up, and get used to that.”

      You go on to suggest education of public servants. YES.

      Please give us some examples of what you propose in practice. Where/when have you witnessed this in any institutions of business, education, church, government, or…?

      Stories of successful (or unsuccessful) action would give us all models for doing what what you suggest.

      Carry on in grace

  3. Interesting concepts. Their website is interesting.

    Don’t now about a Constitutional Convention. It could go very good or very bad. Many of our current amendments are pretty poor. It is hard to say if we could get the correct ones through.

    I do think this country is at a crossroads and the events of this year and a few following will be quite important for generations to come. Citizens are rising up in many states that have the most tyrannical lockdowns and who knows where that will lead.

    Interesting times. We will see.

    1. TACTICAL CIVICS™ has always strenuously OPPOSED a ConCon, and we have written against it in no uncertain terms, quoting luminaries from James Madison to Antonin Scalia.

      If you refer to Our First Right, that is an OPEN, unfinished Article V proposal passed by Congress in 1789 and ratified by 11 states in 1789-91, and needing just 27 more yes votes. NO constitutional convention!

  4. You have to know that the first thing to go in a constitutional convention would be the 2nd amendment. We need to prevent a constitutional convention at all costs.

    1. I concur, wholeheartedly! The risks of a runaway Constitutional Convention far outweigh the potential rewards. Once the convention begins, then EVERY PART of the Constitution is up to the whims of the delegates, because they can re-shape the fundamental terms, scope, and limitations.

      1. Absolutely. Without the knowledge of the history of English common law; which has at its base the laws of nature and natures God, we would be doomed to the whims of men and their capricious ideas of what they think law should be.

  5. Roadkill, Matt didn’t make a counter-proposal, he said about what I said yesterday. I would add that being prepared as you can for anything to happen is probably a good idea. Keeping an eye out for for what is happening and being ready for a change in which way the wind blows is the idea. I believe this thing is too big, the rot too far gone, the corruption too accepted and emulated. Like the meme about the tectonic plates shifting beneath us, and asking what are we going to do about it. There may be plenty of people still good and willing to reform and change for the better, but there are not enough of them, because they are outnumbered by non-English speaking, non-Christian illegal immigrants bent on looting the place, and corrupt English speaking, non-Christian peers who no longer care about those illegals (they help make the good people a non-issue) or what this country once was. The deck is not only stacked against us, but the rule of law no longer exists, because the leftists in charge make it work only the way they want it to work. And they don’t care about fair, justice, right, or wrong. Think of the US as being run by Eli Wallach and his forty thieves and murderers, and there are no Magnificent Seven in town. Why else do you think Rawles is living in his Redoubt?

    1. Sean, you totally hit the nail on the head in every single point you made.

      Please don’t shoot the messenger, but someone needs to ask all the good patriotic American Judeo-Christians who came up with all kinds of excuses why they didn’t go forth and multiply as their Bible commanded them to do. You can’t blame all the immigrants when you failed to produce enough offspring necessary to make the country grow. Even Ward and June Cleaver back in the 60’s only produced Wally and the Beav and that’s not enough to grow a country or grow an economy so what else can you do other than open the gates and let more immigrants in? Everybody stood up and cheered when we went Full Metal Socialist and started sending out social security checks every month in 1940, but how did you think we were going to support that Ponzi scheme without an increasing amount of new workers entering the system every month? And if the people who founded this country, European Judeo-Christians, didn’t bother to reproduce, I’m very confused today in 2020 about how it is they can be complaining so loudly about all the foreigners who have taken over this country? My first grandchild was born 14 years ago. When my latest one was born recently, he was born a minority. A minority! A baby with 100% British Isles/Scandinavian/German ancestry, who had ancestors on the Mayflower and at Jamestown, was born a minority in the United States of America. THAT’S when I finally realized it’s all over.

      This fine essay by John Leyzorek really got my engine fired up this morning, but I’m just a teenie weenie little minority, like my newest grandson. Demographics say that we’ve turned the country over to people who wear strange headdresses when they’re sitting in Congress. Demographics say we lost the battle a long time ago. Demographics say things are only getting worse. Demographics clearly indicate the ONLY chance this country could possibly have to get back to any semblance of sanity and remotely close to something Thomas Jefferson and George Mason envisioned, would be a total grid-down TEOTWAWKI event lasting long enough to take out 98%+ of city and urban dwellers, leaving rural survivors to start over again. There are no fixes, there is only wiping the slate as clean as possible and starting over, hopefully with some Humans that learned something from this current go around. And if they can’t grasp the simple concept of private property this time, then perhaps extinction is our best option.

  6. Very inspirational message, I will definitely hand you that.

    One slight correction. George Mason was not a signer of the Constitution. Below is a link to the document outlining his reasons why. In his very first paragraph he mentioned the following, “There is no Declaration of Rights; and the Laws of the general Government being paramount to the Laws & Constitution of the several States, the Declarations of Rights in the separate States are no Security.” And for me personally, I take his reasons one further and say the whole Constitution was doomed to failure from the outset because it failed to secure the right of private property.

    https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/docs/MasonsObjections.pdf

    Anyone who has built their own survival retreat or self-reliant homestead from scratch: house, shop, barns, pastures, outbuildings, etc,. without exception realizes five years later they should have done a million things differently. There are 14,913 variables and it’s just impossible to consider them all at the outset. If we could back the clock up after the first five years, we could build it nearly perfectly with what we now know. The same thing happened when the Founding Fathers were trying to figure out how to set up a new government which, for the first time in history, was supposed to be Of the People, By the People, and For the People. There was no way they were going to get it right, or even close. And that was 230+ years ago. The obstacles are much bigger now, We the People are not the same people, and for reasons maybe I’ll outline in another post, there’s no way to “fix” this or even make it any better. As I mused in my own article a week ago on propaganda, there’s no way to reach a critical mass, we’re so far outnumbered, with so many disparate views on what freedom should look like, that even on a blog like SurvivalBlog, we couldn’t reach any sort of a consensus or reach a critical mass, let alone in the general population.

    From the last paragraph of George Mason’s objections to the Constitution: “This Government will commence in a moderate Aristocracy; it is at prese[nt] impossible to foresee whether it will, in it’s operation, produce a Monarchy, or a corrupt oppressive Aristocracy…” While we don’t have exactly what people would define as an aristocracy, I still believe that definition fits most of the time. When you look at the last Democratic primaries, and this year’s, the outsider Bernie Sander’s never had a chance, the Democratic leadership was going to see to that. And seriously, how can an OWG (old white guy) represent your average working class Democrat? Since 1992 we went from Bush to Clinton to another Bush to another Clinton running but lost to Obama. 24 years of Bush/Clinton choices. The Powers that Be decide who’s going to be in the primaries and We the People think we are actively participating in choosing our leaders? Really? We get to choose between this family or that, or this billionaire or that one, and that’s a choice? We are definitely Boobus americanus IMO. George Mason was correct, we have arrived at the kind of aristocracy as defined at Britannica.com:

    From Britannica.com Aristocracy: government by a relatively small privileged class or by a minority consisting of those felt to be best qualified to rule.

  7. Twenty-two States or Territories have a State Guard or Defense Force to act as an organized core around which the Unorganized Militia can coalesce in times of need. Most have between 250-500 members and are organized along the lines of Army units. Most wear Army uniforms with State patches and follow Army Regulations.

    Most State Guard units train for and deploy on Disaster Response missions such as Strategic (HF) Communications, Search and Rescue, Security and Medical Screening.

    Texas, Georgia and California seem to be the most active, with hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires.

    The State Guard Association of the United States (SGAUS) web site has more information and links to the various state units.

  8. Sean, you have been paying attention. Good on ya.

    Back to Matt. CHANGE REQUIRES DISCOMFORT. If any of us wants to be free we must embrace that mantra.

    A great deal of my training fifty years ago was all about CHANGE REQUIRES DISCOMFORT. Our instructors were very clear. To survive the incredible discomfort and challenges of combat you must develop a tolerance for pain now. I think one of them actually said, “Train for pain.”

    The more I press myself to those places inside my being, as well as in the outer world, that I dread the more I expand my comfort zone. The stronger I become.

    I offer a few quotes that call me forward:

    “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” – Thomas Jefferson

    “Instead of looking for hope, look for action” – @GretaThunberg

    “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.” – Thomas Paine

    Voluntary Discomfort is the secret cornerstone of strength. We build our whole lives around increasing comfort and avoiding discomfort, and yet by doing so we are drinking a can of Weakness Tonic with every morning’s breakfast.–anon

    Carry on in grace

    1. Hey Marine, lots of great quotes.

      I’m in full agreement with Matt in Oklahoma. I’ve been trying all day to come up with an example of when Americans actually inconvenienced themselves in my lifetime to make something happen. I can only come up with one and I don’t honestly think most Americans are willing to inconvenience themselves for anything these days. We’ve really become a nation of softies with very few principles.

      The recent Virginia gun rally was just a fun day in the park for the guys, parading around with their guns. Even the big demonstrations in the Sixties were probably more fun than inconvenience.

      The only thing I can come up with were the Montgomery bus boycotts in 1955-56. But that was 65 years ago. They lasted for 55 weeks so that was some major inconvenience but look what they accomplished. That really falls into Matt’s Change Requires Discomfort category.

      1. Thanks for the quote compliment, brother.

        I would include the men in the military who resisted the War in Vietnam from the inside. Many went from gung ho idealists to challenging the war. I would also include whistleblowers like Karen Silkwood and Chelsea Manning. As far as I know, Manning is still incarcerated. And, I know some consider Manning a traitor. We differ on that. Perhaps we can agree that Chelsea Manning has endured some discomfort (being held in solitary confinement without charges) in service to living an ideal.

        Carry on in grace

        1. Hey Marine, I was actually referring to masses of Americans inconveniencing themselves, but when you start talking about individuals, then yes, you’re right, we can come up with a lengthy list.

          I have a problem with the whole idea of “state secrets” since 98% of the time its about hiding the truth from We the People, so when people like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden let us know what Uncle Sam is keeping from us, they’re heroes to me, not traitors.

          Don’t know if you read Snowden’s book or not but it was very entertaining. Nobody talks about it anywhere, pro or con, so I guess nobody can quite decide who he was, or which side he is/was on! lol.

  9. I read Part 1 this morning when it dawned on me it wasn’t about fixing old tractors. HAHA! I really enjoyed this two part article. I wish you good luck. I came to the conclusion myself, that turning the country around must come from each and every individual (who values freedom and wants the Republic to live, roughly more than half the country) to simply “live freedom” every single day. I know that sounds Pollyanish, but really I am calling for civil disobedience en masse. There ARE more of us than them, we were “born free”, and now we need to act like it. Starting with the simple stuff like not being sheep and following the little arrows taped on the floors in grocery stores, etc.

    I read through Revelation this morning. I don’t know how many times I’ve read it. Then, started on Daniel. I’m praying for the safety and protection of my family. I’m asking the Lord to lead me because my gut tells me the American experiment is over and it’s depressing. My hope is in the Lord and shall remain.

  10. Whether the hard work comes before or after the death of a nation isn’t the question. Just like our personal lives, there is no hope without a plan.
    Instituting a framework of ideas and people of common interest is a commendable endeavor ~ whether before, during or after; and better if all of the above takes place.
    In the beginning, the title, “Starting An Old Engine” caught us all by surprise. Deceptively getting our interest with a perfect analogy.
    A country doesn’t die unless you allow it to die. It’s not a living organism with a finite life span.
    Our country is not dying. Our country has been highjacked.
    How many of you out there have taken the broken, tossed out and left for dead trash of others and repaired it to full function? And yet you believe the lie that our freedom and our children’s freedom isn’t worth the effort. Sounds an awful lot like – when this one’s trash, we’ll just buy the new improved, faster, updated model – excuse.
    Shame on you and shame one me.

  11. Let me give you readers a contemporary example of plain old American citizens joining together and backing down evil government forces, at least for a short time. It was called THE BUNDY RANCH episode. There were a lot of patriots that were outraged by the government’s treatment of a Nevada rancher and showed up from all over the country to support him and his family. Many were armed. The government knew that these people meant business and they backed down. They (LE) said they were backing down out of concern that citizens might get hurt. That was BS! They we’re scared of getting shot plain and simple. After that event patriots comprised of militia members from all over stayed on to protect the Bundy family. Cliven Bundy had had threats on his and his family’s life and good everyday working people were there to see to his safety. The spirit of patriotism and unity there was was like a breath of fresh air. There was a feeling of “we can do anything if we stick together”. So I believe that freedom loving patriots can unite again in like manner and implement the plans that John has outlined in his excellent article. I believe in order to put John’s plans in to action it will require patriots in “outstanding numbers” to get the attention of politicians and some LE. And I’m not talking about violence against government officials of any kind, I’m talking about there being an incredible show of people who are in like mind and ready to see a change for the better in this country. If you think John’s idea’s won’t work and that there’s no way you could ever get a lot of people together to stand up against government intrusions in our lives, just ask someone who was there at the Bundy ranch if it can be done. They’ll probably tell you yes.

  12. I always enjoy the “you work for me”. Yeah but can’t that really be said bout everybody? Don’t matter if you’re a stripper or Bill Gates your working for someone one way or the other.

  13. Thanks Roadkill, I’m with you. Only a few of us with any courage left. Let’s show them how it’s done. Those who complain the most are sitting on the couch with a beer and fritos irritated cause the NFL or NBA aren’t on. Check out Tactical Civics. It’s a primer for “gittin it done”.

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