barbarians at the gate

BARBARIANS AT THE GATE
A comment yesterday stated that our import decline in oil was a demand rather than a supply problem. While it would be nice to believe that, since all it would take to solve that problem would be to employ every single unemployed worker as a Statsi informant for any Constitutional thought or speech about freedom ( the Peoples Republic will not stand for guns, peaceful assembly or criticism of banker bailouts ), the problems started at the peak of global oil production in 2005. Since then liquid petroleum has declined and ethanol and shale oil has increased. Even with Canada counting tar sand juice as petroleum ( and Venezuela also reclassifying their production of heavy tars as regular oil ). It is not the Depression dampening demand, it is falling production ushering in the Depression. China might be buying some of the oil we don’t, but we still have petroleum substitution and exporters increasing domestic use to lead to a global decline of available energy for the US. Which brings us to today’s article, the break up of Obammy’s Socialist Paradise.
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Partially because it is a cool boy toy and partially out of great fear that welfare mobs will storm their suburban McMansion and steal the giant screen plasma, those sullying the name of survivalism are hoarding vast quantities of semi-automatic weapons, magazines and ammunition ( nothing wrong with that per se, but if you are serious about surviving you need food, and lots of it-guns don’t feed you, and historically control was always through food ). They fear a dictatorship out of DC and want to repel jack booted thugs from boarding their compounds. Now, I have already stated that a centralization of government is impossible in an energy decline, but that mostly applied to the fear of a One World Government. The good news for the semi gun nuts is that they will soon get their wish, and that they might even be successful. While it is true that long term government won’t be able to centralize, that won’t stop them from trying. And since they need an excess of energy and equipment to fight, it also means that decentralized forces will prevail over them eventually.
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Rome had a huge amount of problems all through its existence. But they weren’t brought down for good until they exhausted the soils of the empire and their overpopulation crashed. We also suffer from imperial overreach and inflation and corruption and a welfare state out of control ( no, no, not you Seniors-since you are “owed” it and since it is only “fair”, somehow you don’t contribute to the problem and somehow the treasury will yield an impossible amount to support you ). But as soon as we don’t have enough petroleum inputs to substitute for our depleted soil, it is game over. Then, the revolution can begin. The barbarians will start to gather at the gates. And the American Empire will crumble. And just as Rome turned into a small village amongst the ruins, unable to support even a fraction of its former inhabitants, NYC and DC and the other Oil Cities will become ghost towns good only for salvage. They will recover, at least partially, as their former pre-oil locations were ideal for trade or manufacture ( of course, we are discounting new cities such as LA, Vegas or Phoenix that need pumped water ).
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Now, I’m not advocating revolution. Regardless of what the Declaration Of Independence or Constitution claim, it is now illegal to fight for limited and just government. Okay, I get that. No need to rendition me to Syria. I’m merely saying that come famine, revolution is going to happen. Not by you or me of course. It would be silly to fight for an old ideal that however noble was based on a continents worth of unexploited resources. I honestly doubt that a resource scarce country can support individual freedom and capitalism. Feudalism is the natural order in a scarcity situation. Enjoy hoeing beets for the new king. There is nothing wrong with fighting to save your family and tribe. In fact, it is expected of you as a male. Rightly so. But it is a whole different kettle of fish going to war to overthrow a tyrant, only to see a more local dictator starve out your family. Why endanger yourself getting rid of a distant king if the one next door is just as bad? The militia weirdo’s will have their fantasies come true, and they can shoot BATF kitten stompers to their hearts delight. Then, we doomers can have our fantasies come true as we fight each other for the last can of pickled pigs scrotum. Fun stuff, just ahead.
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