Why the Left is my punching bag.

I tend to rip on the Left a lot these days. Some might be wondering what the hell my problem with them is. Or wondering if I'm just some angry conservative. I'm keeping this out of my Triggered series, since this isn't meant to be satire, though it is meant to be social commentary.

Well my reasoning is this, generally speaking I strongly believe in individual rights, in individual rights and in minding your own goddamned business. Generally speaking, in terms of society, I take the Classical Liberal view of protecting individual liberties. I don't fuck with you, in exchange, you don't fuck with me. I try to be as consistent to this as possible, so whether the Left or my Right is my punching bag, wholly depends on which way society's pendulum is swinging. Let people walk their road in life, and over come their own obstacles. Back in college in the early years of the '00s, aside from firearms, I was actually quite liberal, but the left kept on moving since my college days, past the point of still being liberals, while I had stayed largely put in my social and political views. In other words, the left, left me behind, and that is certainly not a bad thing.

Simple enough, but there are always groups of people that, for one reason or anything, they think they know better than everyone else, and that we should listen and do what they tell us. If this was, say, 2004, then I would be ripping a whole lot on the Right, specifically the Religious Right. The thing is, today the Right is the group that's socially "out of power" so to speak. They lost their social influence when the Republicans fell out of power in the 2006 midterms. Ten years later we're in a position where the pendulum has swung the other way, and rather than Right-wing social totalitarians we have Left-wing social totalitarians.

Totalitarian - exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others; authoritarian; autocratic.

I refer to these groups as "social totalitarians" because they don't actually have political power. Sure they can influence public policy to some regard, but they're not bestowed legal state powers the way members of the Nazi party or the Chinese Communist Party are. Rather than exercising control over the freedom, will or thought of others though organs and institutions of the state, these people use social pressure and various forms and levels of shaming to impose their control over people.

Lets take a look at the right first.

In 2000, George W Bush won/was awarded the White House, and with him came this ideology referred to as "Compassionate Conservatism", characterized by:

Compassionate conservatism suggest that social issues such as health care or immigration are best solved though private companies, charities and faith-based organizations, rather than large government -funded programs. 

That bit there, "faith-based organizations" brought along with it a wave of religious conservatives like John Ashcroft. During this time, things like their "Faith-based initiative" were passed (basically giving federal money to private religious schools), gay rights were curtailed, and multiple restrictions on abortion were passed. Their religious doctrine even creeped into public schools in the form of prayers and to more serious extent in the form of teaching abstinence-only sex "education", which predictably was an abysmal failure that resulted in a spike in teen pregnancies. More or less we had these religious moral busy-bodies with nothing else better to do with their time, telling people what to think (basically telling people they need to be religious Christians). It got to the point where we had someone like Ann Coulter saying we needed to bomb the Mid East and convert everyone to Christianity. Basically to the extent that these Right-wing social totalitarians wanted to launch another Crusade.

Needless to say, they didn't give two shits for individual rights beyond what it did for their particular brand of social ideology. With things like bigotry being cloaked in "freedom of religion". They wanted to lock the thoughts of others within the box of their form of socially conservative Protestant Christianity.

The Religious Right demonstrably wanted to exercise control over the freedom, will, and thought of others. They wanted to control what a woman could do and couldn't do with her own body. They wanted to dictate to people what they should want and what they should think. That people should want and embrace their brand of missionary Protestant Christianity. That people's thoughts should be in accordance with their brand of Protestant Christian doctrine.

But enough of that, that was all 8 years ago. Now on to the Left.

Fast forward to 2015 or so, past Barack Obama's decisive 2008 victory. We now have the Left in the position of Thought Police. Where in 2005 it was the Religious Right trying to tell people what to think, we have the Progressive Left (I say "left" rather than "liberal" because the Progressive Left are not liberals) trying to tell people what to think. After the Right was decisively crushed in 2008, the Left found themselves as the wing of society in power, and just like the Right did, it wanted to impose it's own vision of society on people rather than simply letting it be.

The point I would single out where the whole thing exploded and snowballed out of control into full totalitarianism was when the whole "Gamergate" controversy broke. Prior to this most of the focus was on legalizing gay marriage and to a lesser extent rolling back restrictions on abortion.

Distilled down, Gamergate was basically a consumer revolt after information got out that game developer Zoe Quinn had slept with Kotaku writer Nathan Greyson in exchange for exposure for her game Depression Quest on the Kotaku page.

Normally something like this would have been simply swept under the rug and Greyson quietly disciplined, but instead the video game "journalist" (they're essentially just glorified bloggers really) circled the wagons and painted these angry consumers as "sexist" and crafted this narrative about how they didn't want women invading their hobby. The narrative stuck, blew up on social media and caused this massive chain reaction that lead us to the point where we are now. The point where "everything is sexist, everything is racist and you have to point it all out."

So now we're in a position where the Left demands that individual liberties be subordinated for the sake of "diversity" and "equality". Sounds great on the surface, I mean who doesn't want diversity and equality? Only for the social totalitarian Progressive Left, diversity and equality are subordinate to all other considerations. Where as the Right draped the cloak of "poor moral character" over opposing thought, the Left drapes the cloak of "bigotry", "racism", and "sexism" over opposing thought. Not automatically and blindly agreeing with women and feminism is "misogyny". Rejecting the idea that there are 2000 genders is "bigotry", as is being weary of fundamentalist Islam. Refusing to support Black Lives Matter because of the more radical elements of the movement is "racism" regardless of whether or not you think that Black lives are just as important as any other.

When a socially totalitarian Progressive Leftist encounters thoughts and ideas that are outside or in direct opposition to the orthodox Progressive narrative, it is met with hostility. The speakers of the "wrong think" are shamed to the point that there are demands to their employer to fire them. Espousers of the wrong think are not allowed to speak in public and are shouted down, with the Progressive Leftist, in some cases trespassing into their speaking engagements with the intent to disrupt the event to the point that the speaker is not able to speak.

In their quest for diversity and equality at all costs, the Progressive Leftist demands all sorts of accommodations and concessions for even the most bizarre and made-up conditions. Then when they're denied they throw tantrums and act the victim like a child that was never told no. Additionally Progressive orthodoxy is enforced though the same social totalitarian engines of shame and internet harassment, as well as creating echo chambers euphemistically called "safe spaces", where the Progressives are shielded from any wrong think that might challenge them or worse yet, cause them to question Progressive orthodoxy.

This wouldn't really be a problem if their social totalitarianism stayed localized to their own circles, but they want to spread their totalitarianism as far as they can go with it. Instead they go and try to infest as much of society as they can with it. Most notably being university campuses, where things like pushing "safe spaces", race segregated student housing, and bullying those opposed to Progressive orthodoxy. They've also taken to social media with both their bizarre messages, that while varied still fall in line within Progressive orthodoxy, and the enforcement of their Progressive orthodoxy. 

How is this all totalitarian? Though various social engines, namely some form of shaming/harassment, they seek to exercise control over the freedom, will, and thoughts of others. If you say or think this, we will dog pile you on the internet, and blow up your boss's phone in an attempt to get you fired. By labeling things as "offensive" they seek to control people's freedom of speech. You can't say this or that because it hurts people's feelings.Though their shaming and harassment they try to control what words are acceptable and which aren't. As Orwell demonstrated, you can control thought, by controlling the words that conceptualize thought. They seek to control people's will and thought though various ways out side of the shaming/harassment, many (certainly not all) university professors are "tolerant, progressive, liberals" and pass on their Progressive orthodox thought to their students, teaching them the things that they are supposed to think. In complete and total opposition to the purpose of college, opposing views are attacked and students are shielded from it.

For someone who is in support individual rights, the Progressive Left is a natural social enemy. Progressive orthodoxy couches social issues in terms of identity, society is broken up into identity groups and from the perceived oppression of each group. As opposed to looking at particular circumstances around an individual, or smaller sub-group's life Progressive orthodoxy is essentially a collectivist view of society. There are no individuals, only groups, and the more each group is perceived to be oppressed the louder of a voice/the more valid the things they have to say are. In enforcing Progressive orthodoxy, the Progressive Left is in fact, the most racist, most sexist and most bigoted of all.

Under Progressive orthodoxy, women are seen as an oppressed social class as are minorities, racial and others. Progressive logic being, that if women are oppressed, then men must be privileged. For the Progressive, equality is brought about though removing the privileges men have. Naturally this all falls apart and looks like blatant misandry when the premise that women are an oppressed social class is rejected. Progressive orthodoxy does not look beyond the on the surface appearance nor does it look into things along a case by case basis. The best example is the supposed "wage gap". On the surface it looks like women make less than men, however when taken a deeper look, you'll find that the discrepancy is in the types of jobs men and women tend to gravitate to, and to the average number of hours men and women tend to work.

Of course That isn't to say that in some non-western societies, like Saudi Arabia, aren't oppressed. However the Progressive Leftist, isn't rallying and protesting these countries. You won't find a large scale feminist protest in front of the Saudi embassy.

Progressive orthodoxy is essentially the same way in terms of race. Under Progressive orthodoxy all non-White races are oppressed, due to Slavery and the era of Imperialism that occurred in the early 1900s. While I won't say that racism doesn't exist, on the same token as mentioned earlier Progressive Leftists do not look beyond surface appearances. Racism is something that needs to be looked into on an individual level. Since the Civil Rights movement, and Jim Crow laws going the way of the dinosaur, racism has by and large been purged from the frame work of the legal system and jurisprudence. Where the Progressive Leftist's failure to look into things deeper causes issues, is that they don't differentiate an individual state actor's (like a cop) racist behavior from the larger legal system. Laws have already been passed that ban discrimination based upon race. Example, I go to the DMV and a person is rude to me and tells me to "take my chink ass the fuck out of there" that's not racism on the part of the DMV, that's racism on the part of that particular DMV employee.

The incarceration rates are often pointed to, so lets look at that. 37.8% of the prison population are Blacks, while Blacks make up about 13% of the overall US population. So just looking at those two numbers itself, makes it look as if the system is racist. But when we look deeper we'll notice a few other things. One of those things is that about 50% of violent crimes are committed by Blacks. Does that mean Blacks are more violent, or is something else going on here? If I was like a Progressive Leftist, I would stop there and just say "look, the numbers show that Blacks are more violent! The African-American poverty rate is about 24.1% (10 million people). There are 71,904 Black prison inmates. Given that crime is generally more prevalent in poverty stricken areas, and that a quarter of the US's Black population lives in poverty, is the incarceration rates for Blacks a question of race or a question of poverty? How many Blacks in prison are in the same economic class as, say, Michael Jordan, vs how many Blacks in prison are in the same economic class as pre-NWA, pre-Death Row Records, Dr. Dre?

On a side note, I myself an Asian-American. I've gone into various different gun shops and not once have I encountered a law that forbade the sale of a gun to me on the basis of my race, nor have I been told by any gun shop staff to GTFO of the store. If there was institutional racism as the Progressive Left claims, then wouldn't only White people be allowed to buy guns? The Progressive Left sees guns as evil tools of mass killers... and yet Whitey has no problem selling one to me...

Then there's the Muslims. As with everything else Progressive orthodox treats Islam as a monolithic group. Yes there are legitimate refugees escaping the violence of the Mid East, yes there are Muslims that don't hold an extremist believe and leave their neighbors alone, but Progressive orthodoxy applies this characteristic to ALL Muslims. The Progressive Leftists makes little to no distinction between different groups of Muslims, it refuses to recognize that some of the Muslim migrants are religious fanatics. They essentially refuse to acknowledge that there are Muslims that refuse to integrate into their new societies, and that these Muslims bring and impose Middle Eastern/North African social norms. Because Progressive orthodoxy eschews individuals and subgroups within a larger group, Progressive Leftists never address issues and concerns related to things like Sharia Patrols in countries that do not have an established religion, or issues involving spikes in sexual harassment/assault of women.

"Not all Muslims!" Is what the Progressive Leftist will say. And that is true, but not everyone is saying "all Muslims" but on the same token you can't deny that something like this had nothing to do with Islam, any more than bombing an abortion clinic, or assassinating a doctor who performs abortions had nothing to do with Christianity.

On the same token, because Christianity is not the minority faith in the US, it is seen as "privileged" by the Progressive Leftist, and in an inverse of the views on Islam, the views of the extremist Christians are applied to the whole.

Each of these all involve some form of minority group. As minority groups they're automatically perceived as "oppressed" where as Whites, specifically White males are automatically perceived as "privileged". The whole ideology, is nothing more than a game of Oppression Olympics. Progressive orthodox thought is stuck in zero-sum mentality.

Though it doesn't just stop there, Progressive orthodoxy groups and categorizes other things as well. As with Muslims, Progressive Liberals have the same monolithic view of gun-owners. Regardless of an individual's race, sex, education level or ideology, the Progressive Leftist simply groups all owners in as White, Conservative, uneducated, Christian, males. This makes it easier for them to "other" these people and demonize them. The same goes for video gamers. Video gamers are probably the most diverse group of people, you'll find that it crosses sexes, it crosses age generations and it crosses cultures and societies. Yes there are little punks and assholes on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network who like to talk a lot of shit online (whether they are genuine sexists and racists or they're just saying things because they know they'll get a rise of people is another issue). But when the whole Gamergate thing broke, the Progressive Leftists in the industry, in their efforts to circle the wagon and protect and maintain the chicanery that goes on being the scenes of their over glorified blogs, applied the characteristics of the worst of these fringe elements to the broad group as a whole.

This collectivist view, coupled with their totalitarian social engineering completely tramples the rights of individuals. It runs completely contrary to this country's founding principals. Individual rights were held to such great importance, that before the USA in it's current form could even exist, 10 Amendments, all protecting individual rights, had to be made to the Constitution before all the delegates were willing to get on board. For the Progressive Leftist "everything is racist, everything is sexist, and that have to point it all out." But not just pointing it all out, they feel the need to rectify it, nothing wrong with wanting to do something about racism, sexism, or bigotry but it's in the way they go about doing it. Progressive orthodox thought places great emphasis on equality, but rather than equality of opportunity, it seeks equality of result. We couple this with the privilege/oppression paradigm and social collectivism we see an ideology that seeks equality of result, not thought lifting up all boats but rather by drilling holes into the hulls of boats that are in their perception floating higher than others. Rather than working to address each individual boat's particular issues (this is the view I take, to teach everyone how to fix their own boat) the Progressive Leftist seeks to affect the entire class of boats.

When looked into at a deeper level there is something insidious within Progressive orthodox thought. Because of it's emphasis and focus on identity and privilege/oppression, a sort of White male savior complex has emerged from this thought. The idea that White males are responsible for much of the ills of the world, also leads to the idea that it is White males that have the power to fix it. If White males have the power to cause these problems, they have the power to fix these problems. We see Progressively aligned groups, demanding that White males do something about these social problems. By doing this, it logically follows that White males must do something about society's problems because minorities are too weak to do anything about the problems that affect us. Progressive orthodox thought is racist in that it assumes that minorities cannot overcome the challenges that we face without the help of Whites. It is also sexist in that it assumes that women of ethnic minorities are unable to overcome the challenges they face without the help of males, specifically White males (tell my mom or her sister that they can't get by because they're minority women and they'll smack you across the room). In fact, due to this, the White male SJW "allies" are actually the most racist and sexist of Progressive Leftists. Before they know the individual, before they get to know a particular individual's life conditions, they automatically assume that they have something to offer and the power to help a minority person or a woman by virtue of being a White male. They assume that someone like me, needs them to be a voice for me, or to help me in some other capacity because I am oppressed.

I've made it known in the past, what my views towards SJW "allies" are. But I'll reiterate it here. "Hit the road you arrogant fuck!" I've been making my way though life in the US as an Asian-American with immigrant parents just fine without your help. I've fought my battles though life, taken my victories and defeats while you college freshmen SJWs were still sipping on that Capri-Sun pouch in the back seat of your mom's SUV/minivan after soccer practice. I sure as shit do not need someone who was still eating kindergarten paste while I was working on my Bachelor's Degree to be a voice for me.

I really don't give a damn who you are, whether or not you think you're doing God's work, or you think you are a tolerant, progressive, liberal, if you're opposed to individual liberties, you will get nothing but open hostility from me.

Triggered: California secession, nothing more than a pro(re)gressive leftist crackpipe dream.

The following contains:
- Brutal social commentary (fine, I make fun of people here)
- Brutal satire
- Political incorrectness
- Liberal use of profanity
- Not a single damn being given for feelings

If these are things that you find to be triggering, please refer to this link to find your nearest safe space.

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First things first I'll reiterate that I make a distinct separation between "liberals" and "leftists". Liberals are in support of individual rights and the rule of law. Leftists on the other hand are group rights supporting totalitarian social engineers. In this case, I'm more or less putting "leftist" and the California Democratic Party in the same basket.

That said.

Ok, so, well looks like butt-hurt has reached a level once again for talk of secession to rear it's ugly head again because the losers want to take their ball and go home. In 2008 it was Texas when Obama was elected, in 2016 it's California when Trump won the election.

And to these people I say... "Shut the fuck up, you ain't doing shit! You ain't going no where!"

This talk is stupid and pointless for a couple reasons. One there's the whole the Union Army to contend with. California is a state that has been dominated by partisan Democratic political ideology. It welcomes illegal immigrants (to the point that Ca Democrats for all intents and purposes want to dissolve the boarder with Mexico, more on that later) and it rams down gun-control on the rest of the state. In short California's urban centers, aside from the criminals, aren't armed to the extent of what you'd find in Texas. Keeping that in mind, there are multiple assets in California that the Federal government isn't just going to waive goodbye to and just let go. One being the major ports and shipping lanes in Long Beach. I believe it's the biggest port on the West Coast. Next there's Vandenburg AFB located in Santa Barbara County. Vandenburg is the largest domestic USAF base (the title of largest base goes to Ramstein AFB in Germany) and an important missile launch facility. We hear a lot about manned launches in Cape Canaveral in Florida, but a lot of unmanned launches are carried out at Vandenburg. In fact the Space Shuttle was going to operate from Vandenburg.

So lets put all these elements together. Most of the people that want California to secede because of Donald Trump are urban dwelling leftists. The majority of these urban dwelling lefitsts are opposed to private gun ownership, they're among the most die hard gun-control supporters you'll find outside of New York City. There are multiple important national assets in California that the Federal government won't just let go. So when the hypothetical "Calexit" happens, the Union Army (yes California secessionists, YOU are the Confederate Army) will be deployed to put down the insurgency. Other than maybe Ca National Guard units and military deserters that join the Ca Confederate Army, how the hell do these leftists expect to fight off the Union Army? What, with safe spaces?! With safety pins?! By crying on social media?! At least Texas can claim to have enough private gun owners to mount an insurgency that'll be on the level of Vietnam and Iraq (their secessionists are just as stupid, but they're not the topic of this particular codex entry) The people that own the guns in California won't want to live under a Ca Democrat one-party regime, they have little to no loyalty to the California Democratic Party and would like to see nothing more than a "March to Sea" by the Union Army with Sacramento as the destination (yes I know Sacramento is inland) so you'll expect no help from them, and I expect a portion of them to actively support the Union Army. I'm not even going to get into the gun-owners and other conservatives who want a "State of Jefferson" seeing a California Secession (come on, lets call it what it is, not this rosy term "Calexit") as their chance to make it happen, somewhat similar to how we got West Virginia when several counties of Virginia wanted to stay with the Union and broke away from the rest of the state. Expect to be run out of those counties. So I'll pose this question to Shervin Pishevar, "So you want to leave the Union? With what fucking army do you plan to do that with?! Your supporters aren't the ones who own all the guns in this state!"

And it might not even be limited to just the counties that would form Jefferson that would potentially break away from the secessionists and remain in the Union. About half the state voted for Trump, so in all likelihood, only half the state will go along with these whiny leftists, like Shervin Pishevar's bitch-ass, on their Quixotic crusade.

The Union Army would roll right in, while the Union Navy would blockade the State's major ports. Again, what do these leftists expect to do against the Union Navy? What, hijack the USS Iowa? I really doubt she can do much without her 16in shells and Tomahawk cruise missiles, and with a crew of safe space needing hippies and their safety pin wearing "allies". What are they going to do? Ask Vladimir Putin for help? Russia can barely keep their medium carrier (note: "carrier" as in singular), Admiral Kuznetsov in service, it wouldn't stand much of a chance against a full USN carrier battle-group centered around something like a Nimitz-class super-carrier.

You can see here the USN's Nimitz-class has a much larger hangar and carries more aircraft than the Admiral Kuznetsov, and the Nimitz-class isn't even the largest carrier class (Note: "class" as in plural) in the fleet anymore. While the Kuznetsov carries anti-ship missiles, that advantage would be off set with the battle group that would be accompanying the US carrier. The design of the Nimitz-class, making use of steam catapults to launch fighters as opposed to the Kuznetsov which uses a "ski-jump" to launch fighters. This means the Su-33s launching from the Kuznetsov need to have reduced payloads or fuel in order to take off, vs the F/A-18Es launching from the Nimitz-class which can be launched by the catapults with full fuel and payload. 

Additionally, the only real base the Russian Navy has in the Pacific is all the way in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East near Japan and they lack the logistical capability to conduct independent, long range, long term operations.  Ask Xi Jinping for help? Yeah, China doesn't even has an operations ready carrier which would be mission critical to long range, long term operations that the geography of the Pacific Ocean dictate. The non-operational one they bought off the Russians is used as a training ship. Let alone the logistical capability to conduct operations beyond the South China Sea. Maybe ask Pranab Mukherjee for help? India's in the process of building up it's navy, it's not going to send it into the teeth of the most powerful navy in the world several times over, just to help your hissy fit over Hillary Clinton losing. You think Japan is going to help you with the JMSDF? You think Britain will help you with the Royal Navy? You think France will help you with the Marine Nationale? Yeah, quit hitting the crack pipe, Washington's European and Pacific allies will stay on Washington's side. At most you'd probably get Rodrigo Duterte talking more of his usual shit, on your behalf.

Before anyone tells me the Union Army won't be deployed to crush a California secession, remember, the Federal government doesn't just let States leave the federation. There are 11 States that tried to do that about 150 years ago, and you can go and ask them about how well that all went down, once the Federal government got serious about it (hint: the most they have to show for that is a flag on a bright orange Dodge Charger). When those States tried to leave, Washington sent down the Army (eventually, once Grant took command) and deployed the Navy to blockade it's ports. It was simultaneously beaten down by a numerically and later technologically superior land army while getting strangled to death by the numerically and later technologically superior Navy. Somehow you think that won't happen to you? You really think you're that special and unique that Washington won't drop the hammer on you, because you're "tolerant progressive liberals"?

Oh and good luck getting an amendment passed that'll allow for a legal secession from the Union. Not when the Republicans have majorities in both houses of Congress, and Trump is poised to nominate the next SCOTUS judge.

Then lets take a look at the economic side of it. There's are two ways to look at economics. One, just the economic condition itself, and two economics as a weapon. The leftist secessionists always like to point that California would be just fine leaving the Union since we're the 6th largest economy, even larger than France. California is also $400 billion in the hole. You secessionist leftists like to claim, that California is in the hole because it's been sending so much of it's money to the Union's coffers. Well that's not true, California is $400 billion in the hole because of money owed on pensions. The situation is bad enough the Governor Jerry Brown said "it's so massive it's tempting to ignore it."

What kind of effect would that have on the 6th largest economy?

The costs associated with maintaining debt grow as it grows and remains unpaid. They may further harm the state’s fiscal sustainability by limiting its credit worthiness and ability to borrow. Furthermore, delaying massive debt repayment inherently weakens the state’s long-term financial sustainability because it poses the risk that those debt costs will become prohibitively expensive for future generations to repay.

 Without significant reform, citizens will continue financing rising debt interest, annual retirement benefit, and higher retiree health cost payments. In the long-term, chronically underfunded systems will hit critically low levels (as is currently occurring with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or CalSTRS), meaning they will require ever larger bailouts going forward. Inaction will result in even greater tax burdens on citizens and/or additional cuts to key public services.

Yes California is a top exporter to the nation of computer electronics, second to Texas. Also a top exporter of transportation equipment and other non-electronic machinery. What would happen when California loses those domestic markets? As part of the Union, the Constitution and judicial rulings have placed protections on inter-state commerce. Individual states can't interfere with inter-state commerce. So right now, Nevada can't go and put tariffs on those electronic goods from California. Take that away, and then what? What happens when President Trump takes a more protectionist stance and encourages Texas to pick up the slack in those computer goods? Texas gets to keep it's market and enjoy the protections on inter-state commerce. California will have to negotiate trade deals to keep it's US markets and that's even IF that's on a table. IF Washington doesn't just decide to starve California into submission and have it crawling back into the Union. Of course that's also if Washington doesn't just decide to come in and regime change/annex the country because it got fed up having a 3rd world failed state right on it's boarder. Having a narco state on the boarder is plenty bad enough.

Speaking of exports, California is one of the largest dairy providers in the country. Sounds good for an independent California right? Well, many rural counties voted for Trump, those counties wouldn't go along with the leftist efforts at secession, so what happens if those counties that produce the milk don't secede with the leftists?

Mexico is California's number one export market. In 2013 Mexico also received $51.5 million in foreign aid from the US. You think Trump wouldn't use that as leverage to get Mexico to abide by trade sanctions put on California?

Then you have China, and the EU where California is a top exporter. They more than likely like the status quo. They're not going to want to risk roiling the market with the possibility of having to renegotiate trade deals. More than likely, they're going to back Washington. And even IF, somehow you get your way, you think they won't just negotiates deals much more favorable to them, now that you're not part of the US's economy? Given the huge debt, California is going to need those trade partners a lot, and don't think for a second they're not going to know that and not try to take advantage of the situation. Beijing is not going to give two-shits that you are "tolerant, progressive, liberals" and play nice with you, they're going to deal with you the same as everyone else.

At the time of this writing, the US imposed an embargo on Russia over it's activities in Ukraine. This put on a serious hurt on the Russian economy. You think during your hypothetical war of secession that you wouldn't be pimp slapped across the face with an economic embargo? You wouldn't be able to get or send out goods from our ports, blockaded by the USN. You wouldn't be able to get or send out goods into the other parts of the country, it would be safe bet to assume that the Union Army would have checkpoints at the major highways and roving patrols over the boarder. The Mexican boarder? Oh you can bet the Marines would deploy from 32nd Naval Station, along with the Union Army coming in from Arizona would put that boarder under lock down. 6th largest economy or not, you would be strangled to death if not militarily beaten down to death first.

And now lets get into the whole water situation...

Much of California's water supply is sourced in it's northern counties. Remember that "State of Jefferson" I mentioned that may carve itself out of a seceding California? Remember those counties that voted for Trump? Well, guess which counties much of California's water comes from? That's right, those counties would possibly break away to form their own state and remain in the Union and your hypothetical independent California would lose one of it's main sources of water, and you can bet the US wouldn't just give that water from Jefferson away. Which would leave the Colorado River as the main source.

Well look at that, if we refer to the maps above, the counties that get most of the water, would be counties that would make up Jefferson, or countries that voted for Trump. In other words, counties that likely wouldn't join the leftists secessionist efforts. 

California has been in a drought, especially in Southern California, since 2011. So that only really leaves the various smaller reservoir across the state and the Colorado River, and that's IF the counties that those reservoir are in and the counties with banks on the Colorado don't break away and stay a part of the Union. You can also bet, that those counties will have the Union Army present in them one way or the other, so you can forget about accessing that source of water.

Ok fine, you got a big coast on the Pacific, why not desalination plants like how Israel get's it's water? First off, these facilities are expensive to operate. needing a lot of power. They're also not very good for the environment. So you'd get the double whammy of being expensive to run, in a state that would be $400 billion in the hole, plus be bad for the environment, though I'd like to see what's more important to hippies, their water supply or the environment because to generate the electricity needed, you'd need either a lot of fossil fuel, or a nuclear reactor?

The water situation is bad enough that President Obama signed off on a bill for $558 million in federal founds for California drought relief. Now I'd like to see these leftist secessionists put their conviction where their money is and demand that Governor Brown send that money back.

Lastly I'll touch on the likely immigration policy for a hypothetical independent California, ruled over from Sacramento by the Ca Democratic Party (which I'd guess would change it's name to something like Worker's Party of California, or maybe United Socialist Party of California). There wouldn't be boarders. The California Democratic Party literally wants to turn the entire state into a "sanctuary state" where illegal immigrants would not be pursued and deported. In effect, our hypothetical independent California, under it's pro(re)gressive leftist regime would just get rid of the boarder. Anyone can come and go as they please. If anyone doesn't see why this is a bad idea, then you can tell me how well and open boarder policy is working out for countries in Europe. An independent California will inevitably have issues with large influxes of immigrants and experience similar if not the same levels of lawlessness as countries like Germany. And what do you think that's going to do for that $400 billion debt? How are you going to fix that, sell off California to China? Wait, no, don't answer that question...

Seriously Democrats, you got no where when you tried this secession shit 150 years ago. You got your collective asses federally handed to you via a .56-56 Spencer rimfire shot out of a Spencer Carbine. I know throwing a fit and being a bitch when ever you don't get your way is a part of your Party's heritage, but cut this shit out already. You leftists always like to harp on the rest of us about what year it is, well take your own advice, it's almost 2017, it's not 1861 anymore.

"Dawn of a New Time": Battlefield 1 Review (single player)

Overall Score: 4.2

B

With a lot of effort being put into the game's multiplayer, why am I only focusing on the single player? Well several reasons. As of late, since Star Wars Battlefront at least, there's been more and more demand for better single player experience in FPS games. Doom (2016) is a perfect example of a well done single player that received a lot of critical praise. Since then, single player campaigns have been getting something of a renaissance in the genre. Titanfall 2 did a complete 180 from multiplayer only to including a single player campaign mode, that from what I hear is actually pretty good, more on that one after the holidays at some point. That and given that my old online squadmates no longer play, and I only really enjoy playing multiplayer when I'm with my friends, I don't get online enough these days to do a proper review.


Gameplay: 3
If you've played Bad Company 2, you won't really see anything new in this game. Which is a good and bad thing. Good, in that you can expect an established and solid gameplay experience. Bad in that you really won't see anything new. Back is the replenishing life bar, which personally I would have rather had the first Bad Company's health replenishment system, where your character sticks himself with a needle for full replenishment, but the needle has a reload time. On the same token though, you do take a bit of damage even on normal mode, and the health recharge is slower than what you'd expect in CoD, so you'd still need to be strategic, or you'd just get Swiss cheesed and die. But on the other hand, you now have the ability to bayonet charge when you have a gun equipped with one. You enter into this continuous dash (you don't have to push the stick while you dash, only to initialize the charge and to steer) and when you make contact with the target you go into an insta-kill melee attack. However, overall the gameplay is nothing new. I knocked off half a point for that.

Though I do have to give the game credit, that they did mix up the gameplay styling quite a bit. The Arabia levels are set up somewhat reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid 5. The first level of that scenario has more an emphasis on stealth (even though there is an FT-17 light tank at the edge of the map you can steal and go on a rampage with), the second mission is a large map, with three camps you need to raid, but it's a little bit of a sandbox in that you can raid these camps in what ever manner and what ever order you choose. You want to charge in Lewis machine gun blazing, you can do that. You want to find the scoped suppressed M-1903 and silently pick off Turks at a distance, then just waltz right into your newly made ghost camp, you can do that. You want to steal the FT-17 at one of the camps, you can do that too.  By contrast, a few of the levels in Though Mud and Blood, are pure action, you drive around this steel deathmobile, and you can hop out, grab a Lewis machine gun and spray some Germans. While the following level becomes more stealth based, with the player creeping though forest fog to scout ahead for the tank. Then you have The Runner scenario where it's pure action and urban warfare. Where I did need to knock a point off, was there was a lack of trench warfare levels. There was one level that has you creeping though German trenches and across no-man's land to get back to Allied lines. Trench warfare is something of a hallmark of World War I, and the lack of a level where you go over the top to storm enemy trenches and find out how combat shotguns got the nickname "trenchgun" is a bit disappointing.

Don't know about you, but I really like the moniker "Landship".

Now, given that this is Battlefield, there are vehicles you can control, and here is where I found the most egregious flaws in terms of gameplay. In the scenario Friends in High Places you take the stick of a Bristol Fighter in the service of the Royal Flying Corps, the predecessor to the Royal Air Force. Typically when you control an aircraft in a video game, you have more simplified novice control style where tilting the stick left and right turn the plane, and you have an advanced style where tilting the stick rolls the plane left and right, and turns are accomplished by rolling the plane sideways and pulling up on the stick. The problem here, is for what ever reason, in campaign mode, the air craft controls are stuck to the novice style. Doesn't seem like a big deal at first, but if you're someone like me, who's played nearly every Ace Combat game, and Birds of Steel, the flight controls in BF1's campaign are near unplayable when you've always played with an advanced setting. The other issue with the flight controls that makes things weird and awkward is that the default setting has the RIGHT stick as the flight control stick. In just about every other flight sim game the LEFT stick is the control stick. If you've ever played those NES games where the reversed the usual functions of A and B, then you'll know what this feels like. If you're younger than my crowd, then imagine if the gas and break in your car got flipped. I supposed I should be happy that you're not in a Nieuport or SPAD fighter in service with the Aéronautique Militaire since French fighters have the throttle controls reversed from what British fighters have (British style, what the US uses, has the throttle increase by pushing it forward, French throttles increase when you pull it back). The other gripe I have with the flight segments, is a lack of a cockpit view, instead you're locked into a third person view. Again this doesn't sound like a big deal, but from my flight sim experience, it is much easier to gauge distance from the cockpit view, resulting in more accurate shots and less crashing into the ground when doing low level strafing attacks. For something major like this, I had to knock a full point off. There's just no excuse for the lack of advanced style controls, and if this is fixed in a subsequent patch I will add that point back in.

Bristol Fighter F2B

The other thing I had to take a half point off from was the lack of other single player modes. Killzone had the Bot mode where you play though multiplayer maps filled with bots, which gives you a chance to learn the maps. CoD had some form of hoard mode, with the most well known (and the only reason I still give a crap about that franchise) being the Zombies. This was something of a missed opportunity, where Dice could have made a great hoard mode centered around holding your trench from waves of attacking enemies and getting gassed.

The last thing in gameplay that I have to talk about are the guns. I will say that a lot of the weapons you find in the game, you likely wouldn't see that often, if at all in the actual war. That's actually not a bad thing. Yeah it's bad if you're going for strict realism, but on the other hand these guns did exist and by doing this they get more exposure. How many of you people would know about the Mondragon rifle outside of this game? If you're a firearms or history enthusiast, this game would be the closest a lot of us would come to being able to shoot some of these guns. Sure I've seen and handled a Mauser C-96 pistol at a gun shop, but I've never even seen a C-96 carbine in person, except maybe at the Army Museum in Paris.

Mauser C-96 Carbine. These old guns have an elegance that you just don't see much today. 

If you want to learn more about the guns in the game, check out this video by Total Biscuit. He goes and shoots some of the guns in the game in real life.

Or check out Forgotten Weapons on Youtube.


Graphics and Visuals: 4.5
Graphics and visuals are great, graphic wise, the game looks really nice. The modeling of the weapons and vehicles are crisp, detailed and for the most part pretty accurate. I've actually fired some of these weapons from the era in real life, and the ones that I have handled that were in the game, they look pretty accurate.

I've done a bit of military history research on my own time, quite a bit actually, and the British "Landship" and the fighters in the game look accurate, though I can't speak for the interior of the tank. From the cut scenes it looks a little more roomier than it ought to be.

Though there are some small issues. There are little graphical issues, like if you're crawling around you'll see a plant suddenly pop-in if you get close enough. It isn't just with plants, but other small little detail things like that, you'll have a few instances where a little bit of detailing will pop-in or vanish depending on your distance from the detailing. It's not enough to detract from the game's immersion but it is enough to be noticeable.


Stability: 5
So far, I've yet to run into any crashes or show stoppers such as not coming back from sleep mode. Haven't run into any can't advance glitches either, where a trigger to continue to the next phase of the level won't activate. The game pretty much runs flawlessly.


Plot: 3.5
The plot has it's ups and downs. The approach Dice used was a series of vignettes, in different fronts of the war. We see Laurence of Arabia's Bedouin guerrilla army, we see the British landships rolling over German lines, we have classic aerial dogfights, we see lesser known (well lesser for an American audience) fronts like the failed invasion of Gallipoli, and the Battle of Vittorio Venetto.

Italian victory at Vittorio Venetto.

While I think this is a great way to show the war from multiple aspects, again I think there are a few areas where Dice missed an opportunity. For one, none of the stories take place on the Eastern Front, this could have been an opportunity to show the horrors that directly lead to the fall of Czar Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution (which lead to the Soviet Union, which lead to the Cold War that shaped the latter half of the 20th century). Also given that the Central Powers, don't really have the same social stigma as the Axis Powers, I was disappointed to see that all the stories were from the Allies point of view. It would have been great to see both sides of the war, with scenarios centered around a German solider, an Austrian-Hungary solider, and an Ottoman soldier. This was a huge missed opportunity since you wouldn't be able to do this with WWII without kicking up controversy.

I don't think these these soldiers with the Deutsches Heer would have the same cultural/social baggage as soldiers with the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS would. Hey wait, is that guy on the right...?!

The other thing that disappointed me is that we don't see many historical figures in the game. We don't see top French ace Rene Fonck (75 confirmed kills and top scoring Allied ace) or the famed "Red Baron" Manfred von Richtofen (80 confirmed kills). We don't see a young Douglas MacArthur or George Patton, nor do we see a young Erwin Rommel on the other side. Personally I wanted to see a scene where you were chasing a German solider with valuable intel though a trench, but he manages to get away from you and someone remarks "he's going to cause us a lot of trouble...", then in the next scene you see him deliver the intel, and in that scene the solider is revealed to be none other than a young Adolf Hitler. While it was great to see Laurence of Arabia make an appearance, it would have really been nice to see other historical figures as well.

He's more than just the mascot for a brand of frozen pizza. 

The funny thing is, this was a big missed opportunity to integrate an educational aspect, in a fun and interesting way. It's one thing to read about Hitler being in WWI, it's another to chase the bastard down in those trenches, maybe even get gassed with him, and you miss your chance of killing him. It's one thing to read about how bad and horrible the Eastern Front was and how it helped set off the Russian Revolution, it's another thing to be cast into a virtual Eastern Front and see a recreation of it yourself. For the aviation fans, there's a missed opportunity to tell them about some of the original "knights of the sky", it's one thing to read about American ace Eddie Rickenbacker, it's another to fly his wing, and get your ass saved by him.

The other thing was, Dice didn't touch over on several of the major battles of the war. For example you don't find yourself in the boots of a French solider at the Somme or at Verdun.

While the approach was a good one, rather than one monolothic campaign, we can see various aspects of the first modern war. I can see a few missed opportunities to do something that no one has really done before in a war game. For that, I had to knock off a point and a half.


Music and art style: 5
The music is similar to soundtrack of Halo. The overall sound track style is orchestrated music with the sort of rousing/heroic feel. It's certainly good enough to stand on it's own, I don't know if it'd listen to it while driving, but I'd certainly play it in the background while doing other things. Rather than me talk about it though, since you're already here in the internet, just take a listen for yourself.

Now what is there to talk about in terms of art style on a historically based game? Well some of the sights on the rifles, I am a little suspect in terms of whether they actually existed or not. A few of them are essentially red dot sights. Sure there might have been some experimental sights that they were based on, but I'm a bit skeptical. Also some of the weapon configurations and uniforms aren't exactly period accurate. By that I mean some of them didn't come into use in that particular year.

On that note, less an art style and more gaming considerations, are things like reload animations, and a little bit of cheating on the guns like having bayonets when they didn't, to balance them out more. Having actually shot some of these guns and worked in the video game industry as a QA tester, I can see why they did what they did. Here's what I mean, lets take the British Lee Enfield Mk.III rifle that appears in the game.

The Short Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE) Mk.III. A real gem of a rifle, if you find yourself in possession of one, be sure to take good care of it and it'll never let you down. You do your part and she'll do hers. 

The Lee Enfield fires the .303 British (7.7x56mmR). A big beefy round that makes the 5.56x45 out of an AR-15 look like a Tic-Tac.

You see that rim there on the bottom of the casing? If you load the internal magazine incorrectly, you'll jam up the magazine in something called "rim-lock". What I tell people about loading rifles that used a rimmed cartridge like that is "when you load it, the rim always goes in front of the rim on the one you loaded before". What could happen is if the rim of the cartridge you loaded gets behind the rim of the prior cartridge the rim will keep you from loading in the next cartridge and you get "rim-lock" and depending on the rifle, rim-lock can be a pain in the ass to fix. It's one thing to be in a calm gun range while doing this, it's another to be in the heat of battle and trying to reload while taking cover, and if you're loading loose rounds individually, you have more of a chance of getting rim-lock, given that you also need to worry about the Huns not getting you while you're reloading. Now imagine if they made the game super realistic, how pissed would you get if you died because you were in the middle of clearing a rim-lock? I know I'd be pretty heated especially if I had the guy right in my sights and dead to rights, but he's able to bayonet me because I got rim-lock and didn't New York Reload quick enough.

If I was a history buff who didn't play video games, I'd probably take a point or so off for some of these gameplay considerations, but given that I'm a bit of both, I can see why these considerations were made.


Final Verdict: Must Buy... for the history buff
Overall the single player experience for Battlefield 1 is fun and enjoyable. There's a lot of fun to be had so long as you're not expecting some hyper realistic WWI combat simulatior. On the same token though, if this game was some futuristic shooter game about warfare in infinite space or something I probably wouldn't have even given the game a second look. The World War I setting was a big draw for me. But if you're not interested in history, then the single player aspect of this game might not really interest you since the gameplay isn't really anything different from other shooters.