Serenity Prayer

Most people do NOT want to know the difference.

“God, grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change...
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference.” ~Reinhold Neibuhr

While this prayer is repeated frequently at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, it should be used in the world at large. I am really sad looking around at people who don’t want to know the difference and vehemently deny the things for which they lack control when you point it out to them.

And several of the issues at hand which you can control, you actually should. I mean to say there are certain responsibilities in this world which people have been brainwashed to believe are not their own. This meme has been going around which perfectly illustrates this distinction between what you cannot control and which you can. But more importantly, it distinguishes that which you have zero power to change and that which you have 100% power AND responsibility to change.

I’m sick of people pretending this is out of their control.

Here’s a comment I copied verbatim which epitomizes how people handle or obfuscate when faced with this poignant illustration of their own hypocrisy. I spared the author a “credit” as I feel it in more ways works against her credit.

“I don’t know that these situations are really comparable…”

No, they aren’t supposed to be comparable. They are supposed to be contrastable. And here’s my response to her.

“I agree. They are not comparable. The first, you have zero control over and is purely virtue signaling. The second you have 100% control over, and unfortunately, people these days don't really like anything that requires responsibility. I say 100% because you can ultimately remove kids from school if the school doesn't respect your needs.”

But, another person in complete denial of objective reality responded to my comment. Again, no credit given as it would in fact be a debit.

“Karen Sovaren, you can’t do anything to help Ukraine?”

Are you also thinking that O.M.G. isn’t a strong enough response to this level of denial?

There are things people believe they are doing to help Ukraine. I see people publicly supporting Ukraine’s reigning dictator with absolutely zero understanding of who he is, how he was installed or what has happened in Donbass as long as he has been in charge. They want the US to get involved by funding one side of this very precarious war. I don’t see how adding more artillery, more bombs, more bullets, etc. to be dropped or shot INDESCRIMINATELY where peaceful people hide or reside (regardless of which “side” you assign those weapons to) is going to work out in the best interest of Ukrainian people.

I see people advocating donations to various agencies alleged to help refugees from the war torn regions of Ukraine. Over the years, I have watched agencies designated to help people in need such as The Red Cross become corrupt and divert funds in very political ways. In Syria, only a few years ago, a fake civil defense group was set up (and highly promoted by Netflix and later Hollywood) which ultimately funded the terrorism in the region that lead to far more casualties. We have to be VERY CAUTIOUS about sending aid to people our news agencies claim are in need or to those organizations our news agencies claim are set up to help innocent people. Historically speaking, nothing is as it seems. Those who refuse to learn history, the real history, are doomed to repeat it. I don’t think people want to sponsor terrorism. However, it’s a fact of the matter that highly politicized events involving wars in foreign nations almost exclusively promote such sponsorship.

To these Ukraine supporter’s chagrin, the best bet is actually thoughts and prayers for the peaceful people of all lands and to stop, immediately stop, showing support for wars anywhere. Stop taking sides. When you understand the rules to the Prisoner’s Dilemma, you understand life. The only way to win if a win-win scenario can’t be reached is to not play the game. The only truly defensive measure is self-defense. That’s not what is happening in any war. Wars are intended to protect regimes, not individuals. When someone or a group of individuals fights for individual sovereignty against a nation state, it’s called “genocide” or “treason” and not “war.”

Many people still believe they are “making a difference” by putting a flag of a government (that kills its own people) as their profile picture on their favorite social media platforms and advocating for their own government’s involvement in a war that can escalate to global annihilation. However, when given a clear choice to support innocent, peace-seeking individuals, rather than the quagmire of governments or other organized groups with highly politicized agendas, these same folks regularly advocate the disarmament of the obedient, free individual in hopes of limiting the danger of disobedient people doing what they would do regardless.

Allow me to illustrate this. When these same people were faced with the shooting of kids in a designated firearm-free zone, they have repeatedly advocated for more gun laws, regulations and restrictions that are obviously, painfully obviously, ignored by villains and would be terrorists. A person who shoots children doesn’t give a fuck about laws or going to jail. In fact, it’s those very same regulatory laws many applaud that inhibit behaviors among the peaceful which could have resulted in self-defense and lowering casualties among the peaceful and the good. These people advocate entirely against the notion of true defense, self-defense. Those laws do nothing to suppress the ill intentions of the violent and dangerous. There has never been a law which stopped a law breaker. Case in point, people of the USA live in the most over legislated government in history. If those laws stopped crime, the USA would have the most obedient people in the world, the least crime and the smallest prison population. It does not. While the number of villains (people who do heinous, repugnant and violent actions) is about the same in the US as everywhere, the number of non-violent offenders, people who create zero victims are incarcerated in the US alongside truly violent people. These illegitimate laws are growing the “land of the free” to the largest prison population in the history of the world. As the public becomes more privy to the precarious position in which the laws have placed them, they become proportionally disobedient. Laws that are unenforceable become null and void. Personally, I think that’s a good thing, but we’ll get to that momentarily.

Who needs me personally (or my government by proxy) to give weapons of war or the money to purchase them to Ukraine? That is hard to answer when you don’t know who the “good guys” are in (or out of) Ukraine and when you are misguidedly sponsoring factions rather than individuals. If you believe it’s easy to answer, therein lies the problem. Most guns brought in by and for the use of good people, truly good individuals from around the world, volunteering their lives as soldiers and intending to protect innocent victims in Ukraine have their weapons stolen by self-proclaimed Nazis. Then, these would be soldiers, now disarmed, are thrown to the front lines as human shields for the self-proclaimed Nazis against the Russians. I don’t think that’s who anyone wants to defend. When these would be do-gooders try to flee the conflict, the Nazis refuse to allow them to leave, round up the good volunteers and ship them back to the front lines to be slaughtered. Or, they shoot the volunteers in the back for “deserting” the protection of again self-proclaimed Nazis. I want to just put this notion to bed that the self-proclaimed Nazis are a small fringe minority in Ukraine. The media has been no more honest in this than they have been in the past when suggesting the mass torching of private business establishments in Fergusen and elsewhere were “mostly peaceful protests” or when they declared the terrorists in Syria to be “moderate rebels.” You are being seriously deluded and mislead if you continue to believe them.

But with regard to the venerable volunteers of Ukraine, here’s a video of one such wouldn’t-be hero.

After watching that, do you still think it’s an easy answer?

But as I mentioned before, there are some easy answers. They have to do with what you can do directly, what you should do to enact positive change in the world around you, your world, the world you influence in your day-to-day life. If you can defend yourself or innocent people, particularly those in your care where you are, you should do whatever you can, including breaking laws to do so if need be. Not only can you handle the educational needs and the personal health decisions of your own children, you should. Now, if that brings you to schooling them yourself or fighting the school board, it is up to you. But, you shouldn’t keep telling yourself and everyone else that you don’t have choices when you do. Here’s a fantastic book to help you find resources to make those choices even easier.

There may be even harder choices, though, that put you in the crosshairs of the law which are still yours to make. When faced with a situation in which my son required raw goats milk to help his body metabolize nutrients from other foods as a result of a malabsorption disorder, I retrieved raw milk from farmers who broke the law, crossing state lines. Their transfer of goods was made illegal by so-called “safety” laws passed by politicians working on behalf of corporations who stood to gain financially from ridding the market of the healthier alternatives offered by their competition. I would have broken the law all day long to get my son the nutrition he needed. I would gladly sponsor those law breakers who brought my family health and vitality unavailable in the so-called “free market.”

I can’t tell you what laws are worthy of risking your freedom and safety to defend your family by disregarding. I can’t. I won’t. That’s a personal decision for each person. But, I can say, people who want to defend themselves, their property or their wards should not be put in positions where they must make these kind of decisions based on laws with little to no long term public benefits. Yet, they are. That’s the reality. These decisions of risk are yours to make in the world in which we live. What’s more? You should be making them. I’m not saying what you should ultimately decide. But please stop acting like you don’t have a choice. Please stop acting like your most important choices aren’t yours and don’t even exist. Most of all, please stop diverting your attention to problems that you not only have zero control over but also are not your fucking concern.

There’s what you can control, and there’s what you can do. Everything else is bullshit. I refuse to pretend that it’s not.