Migration Trains II
It began on a summer day of the season before the violent conflict that would be called simply, “El Paso.” People who chased their Socialist dream in the blue Nation-States began to return to red states after the months of failure that caused shortages of food, fuel, and jobs. The economics of the blue plan took its toll on those who were not at the top of the power triangle in the Socialist states. Their lives had shown many the folly of once again trying to govern everything from a central power. It has never been successful and has in every case been rejected whether through a change of the government or a migration out of the authoritarian place where there was suffering. Somehow the students thought it would be different with different people running things. It wasn’t.
The red states welcomes their return as there was much talent among them and their families, whatever the make-up of family for some that didn’t affect their ability to produce. They would become citizens and given time and opportunity, everyone from doctors, lawyers, computer systems programmers, analysts, carpenters, carpet layers, and all levels of work interests and ability to semi-skilled people could expect to share in the life that begins and ends with liberty. The government in the states had to be kept small but effective to provide public services and defense.
The economy in the south and upward toward Virginia and westward to include Montana, Wyoming, Iowa, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska were chugging along like slow trains but with the real possibility that one day, it would be screaming on those tracks. Liberty does this for people. Freedom assures this for all the people. Peace allows this for people. Faith seals this for those who believe. People can work and produce and provide for their families in the happy, optimistic, and grounded states of the United States of America.
James Francois, a Creole man returned back to his home in red state Louisiana where he left a job as a trucker/delivery driver for heavy construction materials and at times, concrete operations. James was an idealistic independent and rarely saw the GOP have solutions for those in need and his opinion drove him to move to blue Illinois after the Constitutional Convention. He came with his lady, Judith, who loved to work in art and crafts that she would market herself. She was very successful before they joined the migration north where they thought a more compassionate government would help people in need and share the treasure on the blue states fairly and with equity to all. He didn’t expect the decline in the value of the dollars he earned while driving 40 to 60 hours each week once he found work there. He didn’t expect the large influx of people with no work ethic and even less interest. He began to see that he was being taxed to support all kinds of things he didn’t really agree with and Judith felt the same. He and his loving spouse made the decision that they had to return south where at least they could afford housing, power, and food. He returned to the place where his efforts earned him a good living.
The second wave of migrations were even a far more serious change for the people who were coming back to the red states they had left for the false promise of a compassionate way toward all people. At first many were convinced that the red states would mistreat the disabled, poor, and mentally ill and leave them in the lurch of desperate poverty. The charge wasn’t and never has been true as conservatism was in fact the most compassionate method of governance. There were safety nets for all and health care for all. The work requirements were such that the disabled and mentally ill were not expected to work beyond their capability; burdened people were simply expected to live in peace in the communities where they lived, some in treatment hospitals and some in their own homes.
The fewer people coming to the blue States were mostly the doubters and were fearful of the different levels of economic safety nets. In the blue, there was redistribution that seemed to work based on media reports and the anchor’s glowing prejudice against conservatism. Some people believed them as always, but most of the media seemed determined to sell outright lies, exaggerations, and demonstrated disdain for most things red. Drawn by fear, those who thought the propaganda was true were now returning, making the solemn journey home to escape the shortages, lack of work, and strangling inflation that was steadily making blue money worth less and less. It was more of a trail of giving up on utopia promised the same as was historical without exception.
But still there were doubts and reservations in their hearts and minds about giving up relative free expression for expression more controlled by the blue states. There was a tight clamp down on religion and speech. No one would escape scrutiny that could include being incarcerated for offenses of criticizing the state for any action it takes or the tax rate. They could be charged with hate crimes for attending religious services that included disparaging references to issues such as abortion or homosexuality. The penalties for speaking freely were becoming more severe in a number of blue states that made breaking social laws serious felonies. It now seemed that politically the media and people were circling to devour their own. No one could escape being guilty of saying or writing something against others that offended them. Everyone was offended. It was the land of grievance and hate. Many people turned away from the tedious, drudging, horror of it all, and the quashing of speech at every turn, for any reason regardless, and even the criminalization of it. It raised the specter of living in a state of fear over talking at all with anyone outside the immediate family.
The differences became more pronounced as the economies in both Nation-States began to reach a level of maturity as various markets expanded, contracted, and went away. It had been less than a year and already there was growth in the red Nation and a level of shrinkage in the blue Nation. The leaders in the blue states denied they were losing population despite the facts—not unlike the Socialists did prior to the convention when the want of power caused the leaders to lie whenever necessary to sell the poison.
Still, an armed conflict seemed impossible and both Nations knew the federal military would not take a side and stay out of the conflict. There’s was a mission of protecting both Nation-States from foreign invaders only, agreed on and written precisely in the new Constitutions of both following the second Constitutional Convention of States. It would be militias closing on each other should it ever be necessary. ANSWER, Antifa, and other Marxist groups seemed to want it even before the Convention. State sponsored militias in the red Nation were organized and trained while members were hopeful it would never be necessary to actually mobilize. It happens that many were veterans of war and knew what bloody horror such a thing meant. Most militia members in the red states knew war to be nothing good, but worth the cost if needed to defend their country as it always has sadly been. To them, the cost of such a failure was an awful high gut wrenching loss in blood.
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Jasper, Mark, James a new militia member, and I practiced movement and dry fire with our rifles. We were getting older than our capability. James was in the best shape and could handle getting down and up from the ground better than the rest of us. We all had good firing discipline and knew how to avoid hitting anyone in our lines should the time come. We prayed it wouldn’t but a careful watch of what was predictable in the blue states bore down on us all for we knew what their collectivism experiment on American soil could mean. People in the world have to eat to survive.
“I pray we never have to use this,” I said between deep breaths as the landscape to our front was taken by some old men in a horizontal line of attack.
“I heard some things while I was up in Illinois, ya’ll,” James said. “I don’t know about all that but I’m here because I want to be ready.”
“Well, it’s not up to us alone, you know,” Jasper said.
“I heard Antifa was organizing to do something. I don’t know what,” Mark said. “We’d best take it seriously or we could be back in ‘21 when no one could afford to build much of anything and jobs didn’t keep up with prices of everything.”
”So here we are in the mud,” I said and laughed. It was getting harder to train as age was becoming an issue with most of us.
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