Daily Briefing for Sunday, July 22, 2012

Ten Things To Make Us Hopeful For The Future

As your one stop shop for doom and gloom, I take my job of as your preferred purveyor of preparedness populism seriously.  I know I’ve been on a roll lately – debt crises, food riots, growing worries of global recession/depression, and zombie apocalypse – the incompetence of world leaders and general bitchassness of many in society has provided a virtual cornucopia of material to share wit h you.  Even early Friday morning’s tragic theater shooting in Aurora continues to provide good tutorials on the need to be prepared.

If things really are that bad, why bother working towards preparedness and self-sufficiency? 

Because life goes on.  We have kids and family members counting on us.  And eventually, I like to believe, Americans will wake up and insist their leaders right the ship, exercising their own personal responsibility in the process.

I am optimistic by nature.  That may surprise many of you, given the content of some of my previous posts.  I take great comfort in the scripture found in the New Testament and what God has in store for his people and for Earth in the long term.  I see what our great things our nation has accomplished in its relatively young life.  I believe capitalism, if allowed to work, will continue to improve the quality of our lives.

And so today, I will make a rare departure from my usual “run-for-the-hills” post and instead

share with you ten reasons why I am bullish long term on America. 

1.       The tremendous amount of interest young Americans have for an aging Ron Paul.  Despite being the oldest candidate in  the primaries, his popularity among young people is the stuff of legends.  Paul’s message of liberty, personal responsibility, and financial conservatism resonates with this group, who will eventually inherit the mess begun during the Kennedy Administration.  These people will be running businesses and communities when I am well into my retirement years.  I like the fact they reject the traditional left/right paradigm.

2.       The creation of the tea party.  Many of you will no doubt disagree with me on this.  Yet you cannot deny the impact this movement has had on American politics.  Created out of thin air by citizens rallying together in anger over Obamacare, the tea party demonstrated that well-funded, well-entrenched incumbents out of touch with the citizenry can be defeated at the ballot box.  The tsunami of freshmen legislators at the federal and state levels in 2010 has its roots in the rise of the tea party.  Tea party members, as a whole, promote liberty and small government ideals.  Their rise in American politics should hearten those of us who value those things.

3.       Earnest discussion on government finances.  It seems to me that the level of acumen pertaining our country’s finances among the general population is growing at a rapid rate.  I hear more people talking about it, expressing concerns for entitlement funding, deficit spending, Fannie and Freddie, and effective tax policy.  I’m glad to hear people discussing these things more regularly.

4.       Growth in self sufficiency/prepping.  The recent Natural Geographic survey on prepping evidences people are becoming more aware of the need to be prepared. Back when I started blogging ten years ago, there were few preparedness sites or blogs on the internet.  Since then, the number of such sites has grown geometrically.

5.       Earnest discussion on the value of traditional higher education.  The Occupy Wall Street people were on to something here;  of course, they couldn’t articulate it well.  There’s no need for kids to go to school for four years, major in something worthless, and incur a bunch of student loans only to be utterly unemployable.  We are beginning to realize that a four year college education may not be a good investment after all. College is not for everyone.  We need people who can build things.  We’ve got enough people who can write haikus and recite interesting facts on art history.  We should be encouraging more young people to learn trades and occupations rather than going to college to major in creative writing and sociology (and for the record, I was a liberal arts major myself.)

6.       Merger of interests in the green/environmental movement and prepper crowd.  Ten years ago, these two groups had little in common.  Today, we see preppers becoming well versed in alternative energy and organic gardening.  Meanwhile, people in the environmental movement are becoming more concerned about the need to be ready for large scale emergencies.  Both have a growing distrust of government.  These two groups can learn a lot from each other, and it appears they are both willing to do so.

7.       Record levels of gun sales/CHL applications.  November and December 2012 set epic gun sale records.  I fully subscribe to the “more guns equals less crime” theory.  Record sales mean people are taking initiative for their own well being.

8.      Growth of alternative media.  The alternative media continues to grow by leaps and bounds, spurred on by demand for a fresh perspective on current events.  People are beginning to demand a more honest analysis of the news, free from the talking points of the DNC and RNC.

9.       Increased willingness to experiment with our educational system. Kids win when parents have choices.  Communities continue to experiment with charter schools and innovative learning programs.  Home schooling continues to grow in popularity.  We continue to confirm the notion that more spending on schools and centralization of school administration does not result in better results.

10.   Growth in Libertarianism.  I meet more and more people who were die hard Democrats or Republicans ten years ago who now espouse Libertarian values.  I’m one of those former Republicans.  The growth in Libertarian beliefs stems, in my opinion, from the last twelve years of unprecedented growth in the scope of the government, the rapid erosion of civil liberties, the gargantuan creation of debt, the increased entitlement rolls, and the expansion of crony capitalism.  More people believe in limiting government’s influence in the lives of Americans in an effort to grow the economy and improve our way of life.