Archive for June 6, 2022

Report from Louisiana: Growing Frustration

Posted: June 6, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

ARNAUDVILLE LA – We are on the road again this week, down in south Louisiana. As it happens, this dysfunctional economy reaches all points of our nation, including tiny little Arnaudville in St. Landry parish.

Through our years traveling in this area, we’ve always known it to be a conservative stronghold; the more liberal elements of our voting population are over in New Orleans and that’s a whole ‘nother world, as they say. In south central Louisiana you find a lot of strong Catholic families who are of conservative belief in their politics. On top of that, this Cajun culture especially is comprised of hard working, independent people who want to raise their families, earn a living, and in many cases, build their business.

And so when you walk into a bakery, for example, and the proprietor is suffering because she can’t get the products she needs to create the goods she sells, the message hits home.

The frustration among business owners we’ve talked to around this part of the state is clear. One of the major issues right now is the cost of fuel; truckers are paying inflated prices for diesel, which is passed on to the business owner, which is passed on to the consumer. The bakery owner we talked to said she was told that the trucking company she uses is laying off drivers and others are shutting down completely. The smaller, independent companies can’t carry these prices increases much longer.

This is all anecdotal, but the fact is, we all see the higher gas prices. We talked to another business owner who can’t get the spirits and alcohol he uses in his bar business. They’re having to get creative in their mixology and sales. But, he said, in the end, they’re still losing money.

The story remains the same in nearly every shop, restaurant, business, that we’ve visited this week. Frustration is real. More and more people are talking about what I call “doomsday planning” – they’re putting in gardens and stocking up on basic supplies. We talked to one lady dining next to us in a restaurant this week who said she’s storing up cans of tuna, dried beans, water, just as a precaution. “I’ll still be able to eat; I’ll still be able to feed my family,” she said.

And that’s what it comes down to. People want to be able to provide for themselves and their families and pretty much nobody I’ve talked to wants any handouts.

I feel fairly certain this is the case throughout the country, not just in south Louisiana with perhaps the exception of those liberal pockets who want to keep making excuses about it being the fault of the conflict in the Ukraine. People around here scoff at that and are quick to remind that gas prices were rising long before that conflict erupted.

I’m not usually a worrier about things I can’t control, but I suspect all of this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And I also suspect that the midterms are going to be a bloodbath for the Democrats. People don’t like living like this and the only thing we can do about it is vote correctly.

It’s not the Presence of Guns in Schools, it’s the Absence of God

Posted: June 6, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized

One of the problems with the arguments concerning Guns in schools is that there was a time in living memory where guns were common in schools.

There were gun clubs, kids with rifles in the back seats of their cars (my brother used to drive around with his) and more than one teacher, being a vet of World War 2 or Korea would have a gun on him.

Yet during these years none of the problems that have happened this century took place.

Why? The reason is clear, in addition to Guns in the school, there was God.

Children are very impressionable (Which is why the LGBTQ Drag queen crowd are so keen to get to them) and if you are teaching them that:

  1. Everyone is a child of God
  2. You need to love your neighbor and your enemies
  3. It is necessary to forgive people
  4. There is a heaven and a hell
  5. If you commit horrible sins you risk hell
  6. Respect your elders

The vast majority will get it into their heads that shooting up other people is a bad idea.

But once you stop teaching kids this, within a generation or two neither students nor teachers will have this base to draw on.

By an odd coincidence a generation or two after God was taken out of the classroom we saw the advent of the school shooter.

None of this is a surprise because those learned folks who thought this was a good idea got into their heads that a lack of fatal violence was the natural state of things among humans, particularly young human males who are troubled, but the reality is that is the exception brought about by a culture that mitigated such things.

Remove that culture and man reverts to the violent animal he is.

On the plus side while God will always back off if you insist when he does he tends to stay at the very edge of your line of sight, ready to come running when you’re ready to realize you can’t face the world without him.

Perhaps when we reach rock bottom our culture will be wise enough to ask.

Closing thought: I alluded to the LGBTQ drag queen crowd taking advantage of impressionable kids, I’m old enough to appreciate the irony that they are acting exactly as the warning from the 50’s stereotypes said they did that we as a culture had rejected as alarmist.

Unexpectedly of course