I do expect them to speak like adults when they’re talking about other countries.

Praising foreign arrests, declaring elections legitimate by ideology, and cheering regime change isn’t standing for freedom.

It abandons diplomacy, sovereignty, and the rule of law in favor of slogans.

I used to vote Conservative because I believed in restraint.

Restraint meant understanding that words matter.
That sovereignty matters.
That serious countries don’t treat other nations like talking points.

This isn’t restraint.

#ThePorch

I notice something small but oddly persistent in my day-to-day life.

I’ll recognize a person instantly… know exactly who they are, what they’ve done, even why they matter… and yet their name is just… gone.

I know I know it. The moment someone says it, it clicks.

But on demand, it’s unavailable.

I don’t know if that’s memory, attention, or just how my mind retrieves things now.

I’m not worried about it…

I just notice how often it happens.

#ThePorch

Most big failures don’t arrive with sirens.

They don’t announce themselves as disasters.
They show up quietly — as shortcuts, excuses, and phrases that sound reasonable if you don’t stop to examine them.

We like to imagine history as a series of villains and heroes.
In reality, it’s usually something far less dramatic — and far more dangerous.

Overconfidence.
Groupthink.
A growing tolerance for bullshit.

That’s how things actually unravel.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about how humans have repeated the same mistakes for thousands of years. Not because we’re uniquely evil — but because we’re remarkably consistent.

We overestimate our judgment.
We excuse behavior we’d once have questioned.
We confuse confidence with competence.

And we don’t notice the drift until the consequences are unavoidable.

This is why panic is such a bad guide.

Panic skips the important part — noticing how we got here.
It jumps straight to fear, blame, and spectacle.
And spectacle is where bad ideas thrive.

What actually protects ordinary people isn’t outrage or strongman rhetoric.

It’s boring things:

Rules.
Process.
Restraint.

People who know what they’re doing and respect limits.

Those aren’t exciting.
They don’t go viral.
But they’re the difference between stability and chaos.

Here’s the part worth remembering:

When leaders start excusing rule-breaking “just this once,”
when language softens around aggression or abuse of power,
when people stop asking “by what authority?” —

that’s not strength.
That’s the early warning system flashing.

You don’t need to panic when you see that.
You need to pay attention.

This porch exists for that reason.

Not to tell anyone what to think…
but to slow things down enough that we can see what’s actually happening before it’s too late.

— Fred

#ThePorch

I didn’t start here from calm reflection.

I started here from rage.

The kind of rage that hits when you read something that treats your country like inventory instead of a neighbor. The kind that makes you want to type in all caps, hit “post,” and dare anyone to argue.

I’ve felt that rage more than once lately… and I don’t pretend it isn’t justified.

But I’ve also lived long enough to know something else:

Rage may be honest.
It is not a strategy.

And right now, Canada doesn’t need more honest rage.
It needs clarity.

When powerful people in the United States put their thinking in writing — when plans and doctrines start treating Canada as a resource colony instead of a sovereign country — that isn’t theatre. That’s homework.

The U.S. political and economic machine doesn’t benefit from our outrage.
It benefits from something quieter and more dangerous: confusion, division, exhaustion.

A neighbor arguing with itself is easy to manage.
A country that can’t tell venting from preparation is easy to sideline.

So I’m changing my job description.

At 73, I don’t want to be “that Canadian who yells about Trump.”
I want to be the Canadian who keeps pointing us back to who we are — and what we can actually do.

Here’s what that means, for me.

Rage is allowed. Panic is not.

I’m not going to pretend this isn’t dangerous. It is. But I refuse to show up as if Canada is helpless. We are not.

I will treat written plans as serious threats — not as reality television.
When something is documented as doctrine, it stops being a joke. It becomes intent.

I’m done with Canadian circular firing squads.

Provinces, parties, personalities — all of that matters. But not more than the fact that we’re one country being sized up as inventory. If what I write doesn’t make us clearer and more united, it’s not worth publishing.

Less venting. More building.

I’m going to spend more energy talking about what Canada can build for itself — alliances, industries, resilience — instead of just screaming at the neighbor for being a bully.

No more denial dressed up as optimism.

If a plan says “America first, everywhere, including over your resources,” I’m going to believe it and respond accordingly. Naïveté is a luxury we can’t afford.

And I will always separate Americans from the machine.

I have no interest in hating everyday Americans. My issue is with a political and economic system that treats other countries like convenience stores. Those are not the same thing.

From here on out, every post has to answer one question… does this make Canadians clearer and stronger?

If it only scratches my itch to rant, it stays in my drafts.
If it helps us see the game and stand up a little straighter as a country, it goes live.

I’m still the same Geezer who says what’s in his head.

I’m just choosing to point that fire somewhere useful.

Not toward helping anyone turn Canada into a quiet, compliant “51st state in everything but name” —
but toward helping Canadians see what’s happening and remember that we are more than a strip mall for someone else’s empire.

And if you ever see me sliding back into pure rage with no direction?

Call me on it.

That’s part of how we keep each other sharp.

—
Fred Ferguson
GeezerWise

Filed under: #ThePorch