Plenty to be grateful for every year

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for November 27, 2019)

How can Thanksgiving Day be here again? Has it really been a year?

Yes, it has, and this means it's time again to remind myself of the things I'm grateful for on this Gratitude Day.

You'd probably expect me to say I'm grateful for the scattered bits and pieces of liberty left in America; those fragments which haven't yet been regulated out of existence, and I am.

I'm also grateful for my family, especially because in the past year my son has moved within visiting distance.

I'm grateful to have the chance to share my thoughts here, and this means I'm grateful for The Eastern New Mexico News and also for the subscribers and advertisers who keep this newspaper going, and I'm grateful for all my readers.

I'm grateful for the smiles and hellos from strangers I pass. It's nice that strangers can be potential friends instead of seeming like automatic dangers.

I'm grateful for the local businesses who are happy for my trade, however little I might spend. I appreciate those who make it their mission to meet needs and serve their customers. They are true heroes.

I'm grateful for modern conveniences. As much as I enjoy practicing primitive wilderness survival skills, I am grateful to have a solid house to shelter me. I may feel guilty when I use a butane lighter rather than a more primitive method to start the fire in my fireplace, but I'm grateful to have the option. I'm also grateful I can have heat without lighting a fire, and that I can have air conditioning in hot weather. You don't realize how nice those things are unless you've done without.

I know how good I have it compared to most humans throughout history and over most of the world. Medicine, sanitation, clean water, civility, and many other things society has provided, in spite of the parasitism of the political element all around us. I'll even ignore that this political element wants me to confuse it with the society which provides the good stuff. Let it have its delusions. I'm grateful I don't fall for the trick.

There are things I'm grateful for which can't be put into words; things I feel but can't properly describe.

Last but not least, I am also grateful to know things can always be even better. None of us has arrived. Each individual can be better, and one person at a time, society gets better. Happy Thanksgiving!

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-- Private to my blog readers: This is the fourth Thanksgiving since my daughter Cheyenne was killed. I have a really hard time not hating Thanksgiving now. But I give it my best shot. Fake it 'til you make it, they say. I'm sincerely trying.

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Your lonely intersection

Collective condemnation based on trivial things which weren't chosen and can't make a difference to whether you violate others-- "race", sex, age, IQ, etc.-- is dumb. As is collective coddling based on those same sorts of things.
Collective condemnation based on things voluntarily chosen-- beliefs and behaviors-- can be legitimate.

That's why Statism is a legitimate thing to condemn, collectively. If someone has chosen to believe that governing others is a legitimate human endeavor, and they act on that belief, that's on them. That matters.

It's like any other religion. If you follow it, you chose it-- even if you originally just followed your family's or culture's beliefs without thinking-- and you bear the responsibility. For good or bad.

Many people try to find victims and villains. They use nonsense notions like "intersectionality" to make sure certain people are considered to be as thoroughly victimized as possible. At some point, add enough "intersections" (and they add more every day) and you would single out each person as an individual. Which is what Left-Statists seem to hate the most. Strange how their perverted strategy would lead back to that, but it does.

For example: I am a heterosexual Caucasian male of a specific age, born and living in Occupied America, who is taller than average, not attractive, with a big nose, bad eyesight, and long hair (my choice). All those things have an "individually specific" value and no one has my exact combination.

There's more.
I have an aversion to clothing styles that most people require to be adopted for acceptance into their clique (my choice, again). I have no knack for making money and feel strongly that I am out of place and stuck in the wrong time period (which is ridiculous, I know. It couldn't be other than it is.) There are many other similar "roads" coming together at this particular intersection which defines me that I can't even think of at this moment, but which affect me just as much or more.

That's a lot of roads which intersect right at me. Some "privileged"; some not so much. Some are choices and some are quirks of fate. There is no other human being at the exact same intersection I find myself occupying... which is the same situation every other human on the planet is in. Each intersection only fits one individual. That's just how it goes. It doesn't make you a victim.

You are not a victim except when someone is currently archating against you. And in that case, you have the right to fight back, and no one has the right to forbid your self-defensive acts.

Using the State is never legitimate defense, just because there's no way to aim it precisely enough to avoid harming the innocent. To choose to use the State and its legislation against others, just because you imagine they got a better deal than you, puts you into the category of people who are choosing to join a collective which is-- by definition-- made of the worst people out there. But then I guess you can whine when you reap the consequences of your choices and can feel like a victim all over again.

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Writing to promote liberty is my job.
I hope I add something you find valuable enough to support. If so...
YOU get to decide if I get paid.