Tactics are tools for certain situations in life. In tactics, one tool you'll learn is to identify and deal with your most immediate threats first. In my local community chat/men's group, I wanted to encourage folks to prioritize the top two immediate systemic threats to their own liberty and three things they can do to mitigate those threats. I said I'd do a post on my own too, and here it is.
Watering the front corn and amaranth patches
This year specifically (give you three guesses why...) has been really stressful. I've felt more out of control in the last six months than ever. Powerless, trapped, hopeless. At some point, I had to take some liberty for myself and do things without asking permission. Some of them I won't discuss here, and some I won't even discuss in person, but they're my private liberty totems. But there's plenty I can and do talk about.
Does this look like baby amaranth to you?
My two biggest immediate threats are debt and industrial agriculture.
There's obviously more threats to my liberty in the world, but if we deal with the biggest ones in our individual lives, we'll be making a lot of progress. The cool thing right now is that it's easy as individuals to take big steps against these systemic threats.
My biggest step so far is, of course, the garden. This serves against both threats; decreasing (though far from eliminating) my dependence on industrial good, and saving money on the grocery budget that we can put towards more aggressive debt payment. Right now we're eating from the garden nearly daily. Melissa has an incredible cast iron green bean recipe she's been making that I can't share because I don't know the magic. But it's magic. I'm taking steps now to get meat production back on the homestead as well. More on that to come later. I'm scheming.
To decrease debt, I've been using crypto money from selling off my old Steem and doing a rolling power down on Hive fora total of about $15/week. That feels good to have a non-fiat supplemental income source, regardless of the small size. Soon that'll transition to food production as I get into planning next year's garden. Blog money would easily find the seed budget and I need a new shovel 🤔. Bartering is another awesome tool. I have a good source of plum trees to trade for things, and some skills that are marketable and helpful to some folks. That's how I've gotten most of my ammo here lately.
Anyone that's read my blog for the last two years knows that liberty is a hot button item for me. Recently that wording has shifted to being able to declare my independence. That wording has helped open my eyes to look for things I'm dependent on. The biggest one is my industrial factory job that facilitates my nearly $1900/month mortgage. It pays for my debt and my fuel (which is mostly used for getting to my job) and my food. There are plenty of systems on which I currently depend, but it's easy to see how debt and food affect my liberty a lot. Outside my mortgage, my debts total over a thousand dollars a month, over 25% of my money. Food for myself and my family is over half that as well. So if I decrease that need for income, I can have more room to breathe and not need my current high paying industrial factory job.
There's plenty of other threats outside fiat banking and industrial agriculture, of course. But those two are easy for me to fight and make progress on, and they're easy to function stack. Eventually grow more food than I need and sell some. Build community that way, raise funds, and help others declare their own independence. The debt technique we're using is called the debt snowball. It's by Dave Ramsey of course, if you didn't already know, but my approach to food and liberty is the same. Start small, and compound on the previous progress every season for exponential growth.
It'd be cool to hear some of y'all's opinions as well: what are the two biggest barriers to your own independence, and what can you do to break those barriers?
As for health, yesterday was awesome. Woke up able to get full breaths, and that didn't change til the evening when I spent some time laying on my stomach watching the 3D printer go brrrr.
I got a 3D printer! First thing was to test it out and see how it performs. By that little test, it's pretty damn good. Today we're gonna make some actual things and get into production. The kids want 3D puzzles built, and I bet there's some cool files for army men and baby doll accessories too. We're all excited about it.
Sorry for the late post, I fell asleep while writing last night.
Love from Texas
Nate 💚