See “Operation Wetback” in President Eisenhower, or Panucho Villa in the early 1900’s. The current problems on the US/Mexico border are not new but not the same as in those earlier situations. The US congress and the leftist in that body are more of the problem than most of the people from other countries that come here.

Up until today’s slow motion invasion across our Southern border–we have not had a foreign invasion on our soil since the War of 1812–and that effects how people think–and this absence of the experience and memory of the invasions that have been and are so common elsewhere on the planet has bred a certain naivete and blindness in many of our people’s minds, the idea that “it can’t happen here.”

Had we had the experience and memory of such a recent invasion, I’d imagine that a lot more people would be much more aware and protective of, and appreciate how rare and precious our Heritage, form of government, and Freedoms are, would not be so sanguine about how things stand today, and would be much more alert to the possibility that things could go very badly wrong.

Mimetic and Ideological warfare are also forms of “invasion,” this time by ideas–see, for instance, the “Frankfurt School” and its “Critical Theory,”

Because of course all those values of western civilization are. to the far left, not “sustainable.”

“Unfortunately, many, perhaps most of us, have no idea about just how precious and precarious this thing called “civilization” is; a thing of ideas, language, viewpoint, values, trust, boundaries, custom, law and behavior much more than of machines—and of how quickly things can change, and us plunge back into some species of that “state of nature.”

And it is these elements that comprise and define “civilization”– ideas, language, viewpoint, values, trust, boundaries, custom, law and behavior–which are the things that the far Left is trying to subvert, undermine, destroy, and parasitize; to make over in their own image.

Probably worse than 17th or 18th century technology. I would hazard that the easily accessible ore deposits used in the 17th and 18th centuries (iron, copper, etc., base metals) and fossil fuels (coal and oil) are long gone.

My reading of the histories of different eras and cultures—both ancient and modern–pretty conclusively demonstrated for me that the lot of the vast majority of human beings throughout recorded history and, no doubt, all the unrecorded history before that—the 99.999%–was, for the most part, one of deprivation and misery—certainly a bright spot here and there, for a brief time or so–but, much more often, a “state of nature”–featuring happenstance, circumstance, and unremitting toil, ignorance, poverty, starvation, violence, death, war, domination, accident, illness, the cold, and the damp; in sum, it was not a pretty picture.

The strong dominating and taking from the weak and, the very fortunate few who, by luck, strength, guile, or inheritance ended up ruling from the top of the hierarchy.

Showed me, as well, how through unremitting toil, perseverance, and the rare flash of genius and ingenuity–”two steps forward, one step back”–millennia, by millennia, century by century, civilization and culture by civilization and culture, Philosophy, Religion, idea and invention by Philosophy, Religion, idea and invention—standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, understanding and highly valuing, conserving, then building on what they achieved—many peoples and parts of this world have slowly—to one extent or the other–escaped that wretched “state of nature,” and have risen to the heights we have ascended to today.

Convinced me as well, though, that that attainment—the pinnacle we stand on, here in the West, and especially here in the U.S.–is a far more precarious place to be than one might think, and that that veneer of civilization is fragile, and very thin, indeed.

Unfortunately, many, perhaps most of us, have no idea about just how precious and precarious this thing called “civilization” is; a thing of ideas, language, viewpoint, values, trust, boundaries, custom, law and behavior much more than of machines—and of how quickly things can change, and us plunge back into some species of that “state of nature.”

No idea, either, of just how singular and unique in the history of the world the United States, and the freedom and liberty, the comparative health, wealth, and abundance our people enjoy is; how almost miraculous, but fragile these precious and unique things actually are, and how easily they could revert to the “norm.”

All this in our current highly connected, interdependent, electronic, high technology, computer age—with the confluence of computers, AI, and robots, or some other totally unforeseen “Black Swan” event steering us, perhaps, toward some sort of “Singularity.”

Thus, as I see it, the present is an even more precarious and perilous situation for a people who, increasingly, have no conception of what has gone before, people who, oblivious, are—“walking along singing a song”–people who don’t appreciate how incredibly fortunate they are to have been born into this place and time, here in the West, and especially here in the United States—talk about “winning the lottery”—people who are skating on thin ice, with only a comparative few having any clue that things could rather quickly “go South,” or how to deal with it, if things suddenly fall apart, and we rather quickly revert back to the “norm,” to that “state of nature,” and perhaps, as well, to an 18th or even 17th century technology.

Well, consider me slapped down and put in my place. Just look at this thread to see how divisive we have become. Check out what NRO’s Andrew McCarthy has to say on this very subject. Trump is not a unifier, only plays to his hard core base, and couldn’t sit in front of a chess board for longer than a minute let alone play 3-D chess on it (sorry Neo, but I respectfully disagree). He continues to light fires in dumpsters all over the land because he is so insecure in his own skin. Look at what we conservatives have become.

It is why you will need many friends and land and then the bleak picture gets really bleak because the friends you thought were friends will not be friends – they will turn on a piece of bread instead of thinking for the long term viability of humanity.

That’s my impression too. I was surprised — Drudge never struck me as a country club Republican sipping Arnold Palmers with David Brooks in the clubhouse.

We can hope. 😉