2025-12-13 I'm going cross-country skiing
I'm once again sitting on the living room floor at the laptop and my wife is sitting on the sofa. Two suitcases are packed, two small rucksacks are packed, the big hiking books stand next to them.
We just talked about *The Decline and Fall of the United States*. Are we ready to write that book? The fall might be long. So many thoughts swirling through the conversations. Allies no longer trusting the USA. Denmark having an official national security strategy that names invasion by the United States into Greenland one of the security risks. Russian and Ukraine continuing to bleed in the East. Right wingers on the rise, everywhere. Apparently, unstoppable.
We talked about Iraq Body Count, the Palestine body count, how the terrible situation in Sudan and and Myanmar are terrible but further away but how the USA and Israel are in our midst, our trading partners, or "allies", investing in our economies, and we in theirs, tying us all to each other. And so, together, we begin to suffer like the rest of the world.
Why?
According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions in large part due to the gradual loss of civic virtue among its citizens. -- Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Wikipedia
That is, "the set of habits, values, and attitudes that promote the general welfare and the effective functioning of a society," according to Wikipedia.
Some of the hits land where it hurts.
Greed by the 1% instead of civic virtue, indeed. And seething anger from below.
Sadly, this is true for Switzerland as well. My wife works for the government and so I get to hear my fair share of why things are falling apart. The elected parliamentarians want to save money because they want to lower taxes and then things no longer get done. And then things don't work and the state is blamed. But the blame rests with the voters who want both lower taxes and a working state. But really, they want lower taxes more. They lack civic virtue and don't understand what is required of them for a working state.
Anyway: Taxes must go up. Taxes must go up progressively. Start with the rich.
But the Swiss rejected a proposal to tax the rich. You heard that right. They rejected it. The tax was supposed to be an inheritance tax. Every inheritance over 50 million was supposed to be taxed 50%. But they didn't want it.
Anyway.
Tomorrow, we're going on a trip. We won't go far: A few hours by train up into the Valais.
Goms is popular for cross-country skiing and offers a network of cross-country skiing trails of around 100 km. -- Goms district
I hope not to think about politics. Perhaps I should leave all the newspapers at home and just take old Perry Rhodan magazines along.