Vasily Kandinsky: Painting with Green Center (1913)

"Nobody imagines us essential anymore."

I was born into THE 1st World nation. Others would catch up to become almost our peers, but for nearly all of my years, my country held distinct advantages over every other country in this world. In the early years, this advantage encouraged our compassion. Sure, we still exhibited vestigial evidence of a lingering arrogance, but we were most often seen as benefactor and breadbasket, goodwill ambassadors more than vicious competitors, except with the Communists, of course, but we invented our Communists because we needed the appearance of competitors. We could well afford to be egalitarian, and we befriended everyone we could. We agreed to host the United Nations headquarters, and few could question the reason. We were the original democracy, and we were definitely interested in sharing our social technology, even when, unfortunately, it was not of our target's choosing.

We always had a primitive minority who opposed modernity, seeing government programs as reckless intrusions into sacred traditions. They were genuinely offended by attempts to improve health and well-being, seeing these as assaults on personal sovereignty. They thought the civil rights movement was wrong-headed, and fluoridation and vaccinations were seen as infringements upon God-given freedoms. The most extreme even railed against public education as indoctrination, and many insisted that ours was at root a Christian nation and should therefore be ruled as a theocracy rather than a democracy. They elected whack jobs to Congress and funded massive lobbying efforts dedicated to undermining the majority of us.

Now they have succeeded. With the passage of the largest tax increase and upward transfer of wealth in history, they're feeling terribly successful, with special emphasis on the terrible part. With The Muse and I nearing retirement, we realize we might be inhabiting a 3rd World country instead of the 1st World one we cut our teeth on. I feel distinctly unprepared. The markets have turned mercurial, not the sort of material in which one should invest hard-earned savings. A world suddenly safe to trade crypto seems hostile to anyone uninterested in making anything like a killing when investing. Many gentilities that came with 1st World status now seem threatened, and several have already disappeared. Our weary healthcare system was barely holding on without devastating cuts advertised as eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, but which introduced actual wastes, frauds, and abuses previously unknown. 3rdWorld nations are ruled by gangs instead of coalitions, who loot in lieu of allocating. Essential services eliminated, the people revert to their more primitive natures. What else can we do?

They are busily giving away the treasury. It will not be so easily recovered. I remain confident but concerned as we learn the depth of the depravity that fueled this hostile takeover of a once benevolent country. We grieve not for what we've become but for what we used to be, before these primitives began dismantling our sacred democracy. It seems pure irony that the Christian Nationalists rule exclusively through apostasy. They pray in public because they apparently can't pray the old-fashioned way, in private. Theirs is a performance piece, fashioned to encourage titilating headlines. They have no interest in governing except for looting what was never theirs, what was never intended to belong to anyone personally. They exclusively target the public's wealth and lust after owning it themselves.

3rdWorld nations are ruled rather than governed by weak strong men, not women, and most decidedly, never minorities. They promote primitive notions of natural superiority, which remain forever unproven and self-serving speculation. They might assert the natural superiority of their race, for instance, without acknowledging that such assertions always contradict themselves. If they were superior, the proof might have been more self-evident. No amount of public relations can create what was never so, not for long, anyway. Certainly not forever.

3rdWorld nations are inherently unstable. They tend to topple. The will of the people cannot be satisfied by the will of any junta, however temporarily popular. The will of the people is eternal and cannot be long smothered. We might not quickly or ever regain 1st World status. We might have earned time in history's penalty box for violating ourselves, but the unrest will continue long after these clowns have gone to prison for their sins. They will go to prison for their sins. May we find humility in our present degradation. May we gain genuine appreciation for the blessings we've so casually laid to waste. May we find some way to forgive ourselves for all the 1st World sins we committed, especially those we inflicted upon our neediest partners when we withdrew from the rest of the world. Nobody imagines us essential anymore.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FollowingChapters, #PureSchmaltz