Kim du Toit – Page 274 – Splendid Isolation

It’s a little sad. I’ve always wanted to be, or at least stay in the middle class. Screw the Commies and their lickspittles who sneer at the “bourgeoisie” and their “bourgeois values”; I’m proud to espouse those values, if they mean things like hard work, a modest lifestyle, good education and aspirations to, well, just live comfortably.

But it seems that recently — thank you, Joe fucking Biden and your lickspittles — I’m no longer in that class. Instead, I’m now working class. And the realization thereof came to me as I was reading this article:

If things are hard for you and your family right now, please understand that you are not alone. Most of the country is in the exact same boat.

No kidding. We are managing — but only just — to keep our heads above water; but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

In a desperate attempt to maintain their middle class lifestyles, millions upon millions of Americans have been taking on debt like never before, and as a result we are now facing an unprecedented consumer debt bubble.

We haven’t had to resort to that, with some very small exceptions, simply because we’ve cut back hugely on anything we consider non-essentials. But as costs of everything, especially essentials, have rocketed upwards, what that means is that we can’t pay down our small credit card debt to the extent we want, to where we can pay them off altogether. (The last time we had a zero balance was sometime pre-Covid, pre-flood destruction.)

Hell, I hardly ever go to the range anymore, not because of the range fees (I have a soon-to-expire annual membership, thanks to an extremely generous Reader), but because I can’t afford the ammo anymore — and this despite having shall we say a well-stocked ammo locker. I just want to keep my ammo stocks high, because you never know, right?

…and I can’t just shoot .22 LR forever.

Forget travel — and I mean local, forget international travel completely — not just because of the cost of accommodation on the road, but because I can’t afford a $60 charge at the gas pump every few hours.

Food… well, let’s just say it’s hamburger, rice ‘n beans, and not all at the same time, either.

Don’t get me started on other essential costs like electricity; I’ve already talked about those price increases (around 50%, in case anyone’s forgotten).

In short, my standard of living is around that of a European bank teller, but without the state financial assistance that the Euros can fall back on. Unlike many as discussed in the article, I refuse to “maintain” my middle-class standard of living by using credit cards because I know that at the end of that lies misery and ruin. Been there, done that, won’t go there again.

I’m not telling you all this because I want money from y’all; the annual appeal is only due in May next year.

No, I’m telling you because I am not the only one going through this. I can’t help feeling that there’s an air of desperation in the air, because if I’m feeling it, there are probably thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people in similar circumstances to mine.

And I don’t see an end to it, either. Even a Red Wave [snort] in November 2024 isn’t going to help — hell, a lottery win is more likely than that.

That One Book

November 29, 2023 Kim du Toit Literature

Onetime political prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe tells how one particular book kept her hopes up during her imprisonment in Teheran:

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has revealed how a copy of the novel The Handmaid’s Tale among other books allowed her to feel liberated while she was locked up in Iran’s notorious Evin prison.

Well, okay. Considering how said dystopian novel is all about how a tyrannical government oppresses womyns, I guess that’s fair play (even though the actual Iranian Muslim government is far worse than Atwood’s).

But it does lead me to ask the question: if you were to be imprisoned for six years and could have only one smuggled book to keep you going, which one would you choose to have?

Right off the bat, I’m going to exclude religious works like the Bible, because that’s too obvious (and easy) a choice, especially for my religious Readers, bless ’em. But I will allow stuff like Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica because they are essentially philosophical works.

My own choice is a simple one, as much for its volume as for its complexity and erudition:

From Dawn To Decadence (Jacques Barzun)

List your choice (and remember, you get one and only one) in Comments, with reasons if possible.

Wasting Time

November 29, 2023 Kim du Toit Elections

Whenever I read a headline like this one, it brings back memories:

What memories, you ask?

Back in the 90s, James Baker III (PBUH) was told that one of George H. Bush’s policies or campaign speeches (I forget which) was going to alienate a large number of East Coast Jews.

His immortal response?

“Fuck ’em; they’re not going to vote for us anyway.”

And I can’t help but think that the Tories are in similar situation with young Brit voters — unless there is a “silent” bloc of Conservative youth who will vote for them and not the godless Commies of the Socialist Labour Party.

If such a bloc exists, they’re really silent, or else a tiny minority. More likely, today’s yoot Over There can probably be written off completely, because they’re going to vote for the same foul socialism of their grandfathers of the post-WWII years.

I don’t wanna think about our young Murkin voters, although I’m fairly sure that our Red states may harbor a far larger number of right-thinking (in both senses of the word) young people.

I’m not convinced, however, that there are enough of them to overcome the many thousands of fraudulent socialist ballots that will no doubt play a huge part in the next, and future elections.

Looking Backside

November 28, 2023 Kim du Toit Sports, Wokism

Now that the 2023 Formula 1 season has ended, Max Verstappen has been crowned King Of All Drivers, etc., some questions still remain.

Asks Onetime Drummer Knob:

Simple answer: Liberty fucking Media.

Long answer: Liberty fucking Media, a bunch of woketard American businessmen who bought into the trope that grid girls were “exploiting” womyns and glorifying “unnaturally beautiful” women because of the race organizers’ consistent refusal to make grid girls “more representative” of womyns by adding Lizzo-style fatties to the mix.

Imagine introducing this:

…to this:

…and I think you’ll see where I’m going, here.

So Liberty fucking Media just banned the whole institution from F1, the wokist assholes. Which worked everywhere except Monaco, where the race organizers told them to take a hike.

Expect to see Monaco dropped from the F1 circuit at some point soon. Oh there’ll be Reasons, e.g. “the Monaco streets are too narrow to race the new F1 cars*”, but it’s going to happen.

*The streets aren’t too narrow; it’s the cars that have got fat and bloated.