Spectrum vs. Binary: a Discussion on Conflict with Ideas and Not Sex, by GuerrillaLogistician

Reference – 17C

By GuerrillaLogistician

@glogistician on X.com

Dominic was raring to go as he joined up with the other partisans. Months before he joined up with the local contras, his sincere liberal brother had been snatched up in raids and branded a traitor to the community. Jose was no traitor at all to the cause of these people. He had even supported them even to the point of ignoring complete falsities. Everyone on the left knew that there was a spectrum of conflict and to respect other people’s practices when it came to fighting the fascist coalition that sucked America’s soul away.  According to Jose, he didn’t endorse violence, but he would support human rights in any way possible within the confines of what he thought was just.   He had told Dominic this many times as they argued politics over the years, and Dominic pointed out how awful some of the extremists on the left were.  Jose would always counter with, he was not endorseing violence, but he would stand against the evil these people were fighting.  They were always just a little too over the top for Jose, though, and he made it clear he wasn’t a man of violence, even if some were.  Jose would say it was just a small group even when Jose went to the same protests early in the day, and by the evening, violence and “ACAB” was being yelled as bricks flew.  By then, Jose was home and would read the Bible with his family, and while he didn’t support the police, he didn’t think they were all bad.

Dominic and Jose ultimately thought they were both good Catholics, although Jose had been attending a Methodist Church for several years. While Dominic was in the army, he would regularly clash with his brother’s political beliefs when he came home on leave.  Eventually though the arguments got to a point, Dominic decided not to come home as much and save for a small area of land away from the city he grew up in. Everything from comments like systemic racism to gender-affirming care caused a conflict that Dominic could never understand.  Things changed for both of them over the last year, with violence increasing and Dominic leaving the army for a higher-paying job and less political nonsense. He had no real reason to go home anymore, especially after his parents had passed away. His parents had left the small family home to Jose, Which, honestly, Dominic didn’t mind because he didn’t see Jose really pulling out of his rut in life and acquiring his own home. Not that it was easy for Dominic to get a home either, but he figured with his savings and forward-thinking, he’d be in a better position over the years. Even though he ideologically opposed his brother, he still loved him very much and understood his brother would take care of the family home they both cherished.

As the social structures broke down, though, Dominic knew what side of the conflict he would end up on and moved to a more rural town.  The better-paying job didn’t hurt in deciding to move away from the city he called home. In fact, the location suited Dominic, and the smaller town meant he really knew and became friends with his neighbors.  He was far more comfortable with the community and the church he was going to now. Although not Catholic, it was nondenominational, and he felt they had a better pulse on the world than his former Catholic upbringing. He felt like the degeneracy of the United States was about to blow up in their face, even though his brother thought it was fascism that was going to destroy it. Jose protested and marched, and Dominic was pretty sure that if you weren’t a true believer in God, no matter how messed up his beliefs may be, he would have fallen into a much more aggressive group, possibly Antifa. Jose was never one to engage in violence, but Dominic didn’t know his brother as much anymore.

So it became quite a shock to get a call from his neighbor saying that his brother had been snatched up and the house had been sacked along with other Christian houses in his subdivision.  The neighbor, a childhood friend, had wanted to move away like Dominic but hadn’t gotten a break in life and still lived with his parents. News broadcasts had begun to push out the narrative that locals were fed up with fascist sympathizers after a trans child was found dead in a home near where Dominic and Jose lived as children. Their parents had put up a fairly large cross outside their house when the two were kids, and it had only been taken down after both their father and mother had passed. Even though the sun-bleached paint left the echo of the cross on the building’s front wall, Jose hadn’t wanted to be known primarily for his faith and routinely flew the new flavor of pride flag on the family home. Come to find out from the neighbor, the child in question had committed suicide after being bullied, apparently. The narrative, however, was that Christians had murdered this child.

Dominic had gone through several steps to meet up with the local resistance population after the faithful phone call, realizing he had waited too long to really get involved and push against the madness.  He should have stood up to this years before and been less combative with his brother, helping to guide him from where he had strayed. Even though he was two hours away from where his brother lived, the political apparatchik of the significant city had been funneling people into confinement.  Turning them into busy little laborers working on community improvement projects. Many of these people hadn’t been agitators in any of the conflicts, but they had been swept up, and their families pushed out of their homes. The politicians of the cities regarded them as little more than labor for the improvement of the communities around them. They were subjected to meager amounts of food and brutally hard labor, much of which could have been done by machines that were in disrepair at the moment.

Dominic hadn’t seen any of this coming six months ago, and in such a short time, things had become revolutionary in both the scope of fighting and just how the world worked in many places. He didn’t realize the spectrum of fighting going on from minor scuffles or someone with a conservative sign being broken into to larger, truly peaceful protests.  The left, and especially the far left, had been relentless in recruiting, organizing, and training for years, hand-selecting people who were of no religious connection to pioneer a new future for the city.  Many people Dominic knew had said the left couldn’t fight, but Jose going to protests allowed Dominic enough insight to know that wasn’t true.  Still, though, he really hadn’t thought of them as an actual threat, and between the time he was away in the military and his moving to the smaller city, it really hadn’t concerned him much.

From law enforcement just doing their job rounding up the new undesirables for reeducation to sheriffs in neighboring townships being attacked in the middle of the night, things had gone from firey but peaceful protests to a now all-out revolution in the city. Those sheriffs were killed only to be replaced by more politically palatable individuals; things had changed brutally and quickly. All the while, much of the rest of the US sat peacefully, and it seemed like his old city was the only place burning in his world, even though other cities were going through the same revolutionary designs. Dominic had finally been fed up to the point of no return and knew that he would have to take his skills and capabilities and drive back what he now realized had been slowly working its way into the tapestry of social norms for decades.

Unfortunately, he realized too late what was going on, and he had his quote that he had said to many people. “They came for abortion, but I was not a woman. Then they came for marriage but I was not married. Next, they came for the children, but I was no longer a child, nor did I have children. Then they came for the fascist, but I certainly wasn’t a fascist. Finally, they came for the Christian, and there was no one left to save me.”  Then it struck a chord with one of his contacts in the resistance and they knew he was the right man and not some crazy plant trying to infiltrate. Dominic wasn’t always good at figuring out who was a good guy and a bad guy, and maybe that’s why he’d let his brother sync so far into sin and not push back. He hadn’t seen the perversions and the distortion of his beliefs until it was far too late and there was no way to turn his brother back from that without something drastic happening. Now, however, Dominic was going out on an operation to help free the prisoners from one of the small camps, hoping against hope that his brother would be there and wouldn’t be so indoctrinated as to not see where he had gone wrong.

When he arrived at the rally point, he was kitted out with military camouflage, his trusty AR15 with several mags, a pistol, night vision, and even thermals. His leader, Mitchell, looked at him with a confused expression. The other operations Dominic had been on were snap events with almost no prior planning. A quick call at 2:00 AM, where he was picked up at a specific location and drove out to do a small ambush on a convoy. Another time, just before dark, he was tasked to go with several other men, one specializing in signals intelligence, and hunt down someone transmitting in the nearby forest. With almost no time to spare, he had little time other than to grab his rifle, a few mags, and a small bag of supplies that he’d been told to keep with him at all times.  Having no time to change, he ran to do that little op, having been called after he had gotten off work. That said, at the time, Mitchell had told him that he would only be security for the signals intelligence guy and didn’t need much; they just needed some sharp eyes and a cool head, and they were hoping to capture, not kill, these people.

Mitchell walked over to Dominic and looked at him. “Brother, I like the enthusiasm, but what the fuck are you doing?” Mitchell asked incredulously.

“Well, I didn’t have time to get my gear beforehand, so I figured I’d be prepared for this operation”, Dominic replied in haste, feeling uneasy now as if he had done something wrong but not understanding. It wasn’t like Dominic was doing anything wrong. He would need his gear, and he didn’t understand why the other guys hadn’t been in similar camouflage and up-armored with plates and all the accessories. They didn’t plan to experience much of a conflict in general. Still, they were operating in concert with other small bands to hit the prison quickly and possibly subdue the minimal amount of forces holding the political prisoners. “I mean, I just thought that we would be going in hard and trying to get out as fast as possible”, he added, questioning Mitchell with his eyes.

“If we get wrapped up in an extended E&E, how will you get away with all that gear, Brother? This isn’t a full-out war yet”, Mitchell replied with a soft voice, a hearty pat on Dominick’s shoulder, and a big grin at the young man’s enthusiasm. “Let’s cachet some of your gear that you won’t need, and I’ll get you a spare change of clothes so you don’t stick out like a bag full of sore assholes, brother,” Mitchell said in a fatherly tone to Dominic, walking him over towards the tiny house.

HAVOC 2-1 on X

I love the posts from Havoc 2-1 @HavocTwoOne on X. He is clearly informed and well thought out.  Nothing compares to a man who knows what he is talking about, and rarely do the doers get it wrong; sometimes, bias and bad experiences jade these people from time to time. However, their dislike may often come off more strongly than intended in articles, posts on X, and podcasts.  That is one of the reasons why I make sure we have a disclaimer on the Common Off The Shelf (COTS) podcast.  We are just men full of failures and issues; then there is context, etc.  So I don’t know Havoc 2-1 from most of you readers.  If we walk by each other, I might catch a gun bulge, style of clothing, or your walk and might know you are prior military.  You could be a Navy Seal or a cook, but without getting to know you, I have no idea.  So, he might be out of my league of knowledge, and frankly, I bet he is.  So why am I not posting links saying everything is gravy and telling you to follow him?  I am, but with a discussion to point out something and give context to why I disagree with him in limited ways and on specific topics with lots of context.  That said short form on X.com makes things difficult at the best of the times.  We both may agree when discussing his world view of how things my go down, and he might agree with me.  Then again, we could be at odds in a minor way, so let me begin with the context of how some real civil discussions can better our understanding of things.

In the last podcast I had, @liquoredrabbit, my friend and cohost, said, “Don’t get anti-bacterial soap” as a prep because, for the most part, you will kill off bacteria that may keep you healthy, whereas regular soap will do.  My fiancé listened to this, and she disagreed.  They both agree on his premise and his point that regular soap is good for almost every circumstance.  My fiancé said she would recommend having some, AKA 1 bottle, which should last you for about a year if used sparingly.  She made the point that it’s good when you can sterilize things such as cutting knives, etc., and many of us in the military know what a cold camp is so fires might not be possible.  Maybe fires and cooking will present a target, yet you still have to prepare some food, etc, and you don’t want a boiling pot of water to clean in.  Maybe you don’t want to waste limited fuel stocks.  The point is neither person disagreed on the intent and drive. Rabbit dealt with many idiots in the military, and my fiancé dealt with nurses and doctors.  It’s a simple argument but a good one overall, and honestly, over dinner, this wouldn’t cause any conflict at all, but online, we see more vocal people shouting about things they wouldn’t do in person.  Neither my fiancé or Rabbit will disagree on this subject but others online might blow up on such a topic.

One more contextual argument, I promise.  So there is a CIA guy named Andrew Bustamante who runs www.everydayspy.com .  He has some great info but is a little more left-leaning than I like, that said he has been honest with his points of view and said when he was wrong.  Regardless, I grabbed a few of his PDFs a while back, and he had one on prepping, and I massively disagree with his beliefs here.  Mind you, he seems spot on on other subjects and has accurately called out things going on in international politics. Even if he has a liberal slant, he is honest, which is refreshing; so on to Andrews’s point of view about prepping.  Andrew says don’t stockpile anything if it can’t go on your back it isn’t worth having.  I stepped back and was like, how did a person like this, an Air Force Nuclear missile guy, come to this conclusion?  His initial job before the CIA was to sit in a bunker and prepare for doomsday.  Then I realized what I was missing: this guy had transitioned over to the CIA, and it had modified his thinking and way of life.

Contrary to the BS in movies, Operatives recruiting spies don’t just go into a hostile country alone and do James Bond things.  They work with people, and the US government has an escape plan for everyone.  The last thing you want is a spy in custody on international TV.  So, for him and his wife, it was the best option to grab everything and go, not bunker in, build a community, and defend what he had.  The government has his back and will make sure he gets out with no bodies and no evidence if possible, so a go bag for him is key to survival.  Now, is having a go-bag and a bugout plan bad? ABSOLUTELY NOT.  In addition, his recommendations differ little from those of the experts.  So why do I say he is wrong when he is right in other positions?  Because his views and capabilities are different from ours.  This man locks interior doors in his house to slow down a home invasion, and I bet almost none of my readers here do that.  Mind you, it is annoying, and we currently live in a high-trust society, but locking those doors is very smart.  It might be prudent for us in the future when things break down, and most of us wouldn’t have thought of it. In addition, his bug-out bag plan is spot on.

So, back to Havoc 2-1, this isn’t shade. This isn’t disagreement to be contrarian.  I love his articles, and I will post a link to his take on helmets below, but he talks about pistols in gear.  I am not quoting him, but in context to his post, I see him saying you need a helmet for protection and a pistol as a backup.  What is his context?  An armed prepared civilian.  So is mine, but what about location?  What about the permissive and non-permissive environment? How do things change?  The reality is if you were in, say, the Philippines fighting as a guerrilla from a Chinese invasion of communists and we took race out of the picture (IE, you blended in with the locals, maybe you are a local), what would your style of gear look like?  Probably much like that of the ISIS fighters possibly?  ISIS wore civilian clothes and just enough gear to ambush, oftentimes putting a cache in before and then dumping gear on the way out.  Without HUMINT and SIGINT, the foreign invaders and ideological opposites of the locals just blended in with the masses.  Until people snitched, or an intel agency org, be it CIA or DOD, got wind of them, invaders couldn’t figure out who was who.  So most likely in that context, you would most likely dress like a local, which changes depending on the region or even the US.

Add to that, you might even cache your gear in a position only to pick it up for the fight and then hide it before vanishing back into the sea of people.  Would you want a rifle and a pistol for a quick ambush on Chinese communists, or do you want to run light?  Eventually, I want to do a podcast on his topics because I think he got so much right, and I want everyone to hear his point and also have an alternative view to expand knowledge, not to disagree with him.  Yes, I wrote on the weight of gear, and that is also a reason why I say don’t carry a pistol, but he is strongly leaning on having one.  Add to that, I think people prepping and having a go bag the extra weight isn’t a bad idea. Again, we see context forces changes in beliefs, and things are never Binary.  Not conflict, not revolution, and not fighting.  It is sad the left has such a firm grasp on this, and the right is still playing with the on-off switch, waiting for a specific event or action to take place.

Just remember, people in Texas dress differently than in Florida, Alaska, and Arkansas, from city to boundary areas (the urban/wood areas) to the Appalachian and the Rockies.  Case in point: some of you have heard a comment about the Mossy Oak Militia, which is a fun middle finger to the nutjobs on the left.  Mossy Oak is great in the areas where it works. It is less useful in places like the Oklahoma plains.  Also, as we talk about civilian clothes and cacheing gear, it is sometimes prudent to gear up like the military.  (ignoring the politics) Think of Ukraine as a full-out binary-style conflict.  It is either kinetic or not; there isn’t the question of who the fighters are because they are wearing gear, plates, helmets, and 3A soft plates for the incoming artillery.  Add to that, for most people who don’t read current history or dive into a topic, the war is binary.  Russia invaded a peaceful nation, which, to the common person, is a last resort for a nation.  Well, it is the last resort in a moral and just world written by perfect people and with perfect values.  Honestly, I think the left thought this was the perfect war to unify both the left and right, and in many ways, it did cross party lines, but not as strongly as I think they had hoped.

After the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and then the Revolution of Dignity, I guess people thought they would pull everyone into a war like we had in Iraq.   That said, color revolutions aren’t Binary; Contras didn’t always wear uniforms, and not every Antifa member walks around in all black 24/7; in fact, much of the left likes to blend in, carry little to no weapons, and cache pallets of bricks and guns.  You may ideologically hate these people, but what do people in the past think? Have you read the German Army Guerrilla Warfare manual? How about the Red Army?  Maybe it is time to drop the binary thinking when it comes to conflict, even if sex will always be a biologically Binary thing.  Remember, we need to look at the context and not throw the baby out with the bath water because someone uses the word spectrum or says things aren’t binary.  They may be spot on, or they may make an absurd comment on the sex of a child.  Always take those few seconds to listen instead of reacting to something like so many on the left have done recently.

Just to wrap this up with a little nod to the submarine, which in war is a military tool designed to sink ships and launch missiles. During the Cold War, it became a disturbance, threat, surveillance, and a ride for special operations.  We can’t look at everything as a prepared citizen as binary just because it fits our ideals nicely, and the spectrum of thought makes us recoil because of the idiots online using it in absurd ways.  We need to think like the enemy, understand what they are doing, and either push back or engage in similar practices.  What would have happened if the US during the cold war had said submarines weren’t useful because they didn’t fit our ideal slug fest with battleships and then aircraft carriers?  The conservative and prepared citizens must also, dare I say, become unburdened by what has been.  Yes, gag, choke, and scream in anguish from that statement as you should, then find a better way of saying, “stop looking to the past or focusing on one outcome when the enemy is doing anything and everything to win.”  This doesn’t mean you have to do it like they do, just think outside of the box.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/does-ukraine-already-have-functional-cjadc2-technology

Lastly, though, I want to point out something that I can almost hear coming from NCScout, and you should recognize this if you have gone to any classes by him, Joe Dolio, etc.  Sometimes, the diversity of ideas is just stupid; use your head.  Mesh networks in warfare are so damn bad; ATAK can get you killed because of its constant transmitting nature.  Even Ukraine has developed a program called Delta, which has new software they use instead of using ATAK, probably to kill the signature of ATAK and allow them to be more uniform and control signals, I would assume.  Since ATAK was getting people killed initially in the war, we need not just to try it to diversify, but take steps to be creative without being dumb.  In the future, things might change, and an open-source ATAK will be on a non-connected tablet, but don’t just go for something stupid because it is a diverse idea and posted online.  Hell, question me. I might be wrong, and NCScout might be like, dude, what the hell is this stupid point?   Context is always the key, think about things, and don’t be dumb.  Lastly, check out Havoc 2-1, which has some awesome stuff to check out.

Havoc 2-1 posts to look at.

Helmets

https://x.com/HavocTwoOne/status/1883296241918058877

Pistol in the gear

https://x.com/HavocTwoOne/status/1882223672829591832