Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

So, who had “Atlantis rises” on their 2020 bingo card?

No, no. Sit. Don’t go scouring news sites. That I know of, it hasn’t happened yet. But would anyone really be surprised? How many of us have gotten used to shaking our heads and going “D*mn it, 2020.”

I mean there have been other years that had certain trends before 2016 was a stone cold killer, probably due to the fact that a lot of celebrities hit their terminus at around the same time. (Even the ones of different ages might have done the same drugs. Who knows?)

But 2020? We just don’t know what to expect next, and certain government agencies proclaiming things like machines originating in other worlds isn’t helping.

However, the truth is that most of us—if we’re honest—saw a lot of 2020 coming. Some of it was like a nightmare—I’ve been having a lot of what I call filthy nightmares (the kind you wake up from asking yourself what possessed you, perhaps literally—where you see the disaster coming, but you can do nothing to stop it.

I mean, we knew this would be an election year, so we knew things were going to go completely pants-on-head insane.

But I doubt many of us saw “entire country put under arrest for months over a virus that ultimately is perhaps as bad as a bad flu.”

The problem is this: We should have seen it coming.

Why should we have seen it coming?

Well, decades of apocalyptic fiction centering around viruses. General lack of science knowledge or understanding. A fetish of safety.

All of them coordinated with the press’s need to destroy the country’s economy in order to win an election for their leftist (and Chinese) masters, to create the perfect storm. The fact that they are convincing people to wear what they’re told, eat what they’re told, and only interact in approved ways is just a bonus (for the left.)

In retrospect, we should have seen it coming, but of course we didn’t because it seemed completely incredible. Last year, you couldn’t have sold a story with this plot. Even the craziest of small presses (and I’ve worked for some of those, off and on) would laugh in your face at such a ridiculous idea.

And yet here we are. And hindsight is 2020, which is why it sucks.

However, we’re not leftists. Leftists suffer from a curious tunnel vision which means they believe whatever they intend to result from something is what will result. Nothing more, nothing less.

We’re not like that. And even though we know looking forward is difficult, there are things we can predict now that we’re here:

Publishing, education, entertainment in general is in trouble.

They were in trouble for decades, to be honest. But this entire insanity has dealt them a much more severe blow than they would otherwise have suffered. I expect those industries to hemorrhage jobs, not over the next decade, but over the next year or two.

As for the news… Well, I’ve been waiting for people to stop believing them for twenty years now. And to some extent it seems to have happened. Otherwise 2016 would not have turned out the way it did.

But have they turned away enough? Well, obviously not, since people think that 10% of Americans have died of Winnie the Flu.

So—

So, I think—believe—this is because people had learned not to pay any attention to the news when it came to politics, or international politics, or any of that. They had learned that the news lied in the service of the left. They simply hadn’t processed that they would lie about something as seemingly non-political as a disease.

They’ve been used for years to, to some extent, believe warnings about the weather, or about flu epidemics in their area. So it was easy to believe in this too.

I think—expect—what happens, as the massive hoax (not the virus but its lethality and the need for drastic measures are definitely hoaxes) is exposed—and it will be, though I expect not fast—the MSM will lose the last shred of its respectability. Whether that’s before or after most of the stations collapse, I won’t venture to guess.

And yeah, most of us know now that a lot of people are simply not going back to offices after this, not even if their job remains more or less intact. One thing this has put paid to is the age old belief that people work better all together and in a regimented environment.

Now, I don’t expect everyone will want to work from home. I know people who are gregarious and prefer offices. And people who have kids and no privacy.

However, I expect that the “default expectation” will flip from “everyone drives to work” to “people work at home, unless…”

The thing that’s bothering me though, is this:

I can see all these changes coming. Most of them, however, amount to things dying. And even if they were leftist dominated, all of them dying at the same time is a heck of a change.

All of them dying before “what comes next” is fully ready.

What comes next, when movies die? What comes next, when colleges die?

My guess is things step in and step up and fast. Because there are embryonic things underway for everything that will collapse in the next couple of years.

And after all, we’re American. The future comes from America for a reason.

BUT that is what REALLY worries me. What’s at the back—I’m sure—of those filthy nightmares:

Are we still Americans? Will we be allowed to be?

The one thing that changed fundamentally in 2020 is our assumption that if you start a business, pour your heart and soul into it, damage your health to work enough to keep it alive, you will—most of the time, and barring freakish occurrences—be allowed to reap any benefits from it. Whether those benefits are making a modicum of money or becoming filthy rich, you have some control over the business.

But in 2020 our government, for no good reason, forced most small businesses in America out of business, and destroyed what, in some cases, took lifetimes to build.

Can we trust they won’t do it again?

How?

As the elections approach, I urge you to consider that. Because without confidence in private property and the freedom to pursue happiness? The destruction will be permanent and nothing will emerge to replace what collapses. We might as well be North Korea, where the whims of the leader make you or break you.

Think about it. Then vote accordingly.

A republic. If you CAN keep it

 

Reprinted from According to Hoyt for >August 12, 2020