My newsfeed this week was a mixture of Laken Riley’s murder, Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation outside of the Israeli embassy, and Dr. Phil becoming increasingly “red-pilled”—or, at least, attuned to the fact that the left and the mainstream media world (but I repeat myself) in which he works were completely wrong and even insane on topics like COVID restrictions and school closures, the southern border, and promoting the “trans youth movement.” No wonder ever more people want to drop off the grid. The sad thing is that we know the modern American government won’t allow that.

Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was murdered in Georgia for jogging alone (as the Associated Press insinuated) or by an “Athens Man” (according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)—anything other than the realities of her alleged murderer Jose Antonio “Athens Man” Ibarra being an illegal migrant from Venezuela, arrested and released once already since his arrival in September 2022.

Meanwhile, Bushnell, an active duty member of the United States Air Force, streamed his suicide outside the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. to protest the war Israel is waging against Hamas. According to Bushnell, in a video he posted online of the horrific and extreme act, he did so because “I will no longer be complicit in genocide.”

It’s crazy—maddening even—to witness the day-to-day live streaming of America’s self-sabotage and destruction.

Somewhere, I can hear Peter Finch’s iconic “I want you to get mad” speech from the Network, which is now more timely than ever:

I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street, and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. [snip] We sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad; worse than bad, they’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy.

Crazy has become our norm.

Seeing what’s happening will drive you mad—pointing out we have collectively lost our minds might cost you your job. So, the easiest thing to do is what many Americans do—ignore it, “check out,” and hope this wacky drunken vessel miraculously corrects course.

But how do you escape it? Where would you go?

There is an “Off Grid Living and Survival” group on Facebook that I follow. It’s adding about 30,000 followers a week because, I am convinced, the dream of the average American is increasingly to get away from the insanity and to live like an 18th- or 19th-century pioneer—without all of our modern niceties, processed foods, or HOA Presidents. And, of course, to live beyond the long, ever-meddling, gender-neutral arm of the United States government.

The group’s conversations center around firewood/woodstoves, solar panels, generators, growing/canning your own food, and how much acreage one needs simply to live in peace and be left alone. How much land is enough? An acre, 10 acres, 50? “As much as you can afford” is generally the answer.

As a kid, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gary Paulsen’s survivalist novel Hatchet—but if you had told my younger self that one day living a similar lifestyle would sound remotely appealing, I would not have believed you.

The group boasts 1.1 million members. Some members allegedly pooled their money, purchased a large plot of land, and started a community.

A recent post celebrated 19 black households that purchased 97 acres in Georgia to build their own town. These families want to be around people who look like them and share their culture and values. This is a normal impulse unless you are Christian and white, in which case today’s media would label you as racist or dangerous.

Of course, if these groups or individual homesteaders succeed in becoming self-sufficient, it’s only a matter of time before Uncle Sam stops by to collect property tax via gunpoint to get the government’s share of what these men and women created with their bare hands. I’m certain that, if humans ever successfully colonize Mars, the US Government will show up to “save freedom and democracy,” collect taxes, and ensure the Martian children are adequately non-binary and sufficiently trans.

Here, if numerous people suddenly began going Amish to avoid Social Security taxes, we would be receiving lectures on the nightly news of how the Amish must be stopped because they mistreat or subjugate their women, fail to follow child labor laws and pose an existential threat to democracy. Anthony Blinken might even call for a ground invasion of the heart of Amish Country.

Those would all be sham excuses. The real reason would be that the neo-Amish escaped oversight and stopped owing taxes. You cannot fund two foreign wars, print billions of dollars out of thin air, or house and feed millions of immigrants without someone else ultimately paying the toll.

So we pay our taxes to finance a new roundabout, a new war, a $10,000 reloadable debit card for migrants, and the trans youth agenda here and in Pakistan. We also wonder why our dollar is increasingly worthless and our Constitution increasingly meaningless.

And if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that this isn’t just because of Democrats. Our entire political class, both Democrat and Republican, ignores ordinary citizens’ interests when passing legislation or pushing an agenda. We are their tax cattle in an increasingly authoritarian police state—one slowly abandoning the illusion of freedom.

We’re beginning to see that our American empire, metaphorically speaking, has no clothes. The substance of a constitutional democratic republic is gone, and the costume behind which its destroyers hid themselves is gone, too. Instead, we live in just another totalitarian nation, one in which, no matter the citizens’ longing for freedom, the government will never let go.

Image of an angry Uncle Sam in a pastoral land by Andrea Widburg using AI.