About

The Texas Ring is a group of those who share a state of mind and active “membership” is open to anyone who writes us a comment or letter that catches our imaginations.  We think you will benefit from reading what we write so happily, but the Ring is not closed to new talent that shares our views of life; we hope you’ll come play!

Only half of us actually live in Texas; we came together through Agora Financial’s fine investment newsletter, Whiskey & Gunpowder, which discusses gold, commodities, emerging technologies, energy, and similar matters not usually considered revolutionary.  We’re Contrarians, which means that we tend to go in different directions from the herd, or to have different reasons if we mosey along with it.

We range in age from 33 to 72; over half of us have farms or ranches and the rest are hoping to, eventually.  Most, but not all, of us are Christians.  Some have multiple degrees, others have very broad knowledge they acquired on their own.  We’re interesting, knowledgeable, and have have quite a wide variety of excellent sense of humor. 

If you want a title, we’re in favor of Jeffersonian Agrarian small-r republicanism, which means that we want to be self-supporting, self-driven, and as free of government interference as can be managed.  We’re big on character and achievement and think charity begins at home and spreads to churches and neighborhoods.  It is not a purview of government.

We’re pretty much “equal opportunity” loathers of federalism, starting with Bill who would like NO government (not anarchy; there is a vast difference) with me probably next up the road to serfdom.  I have no problem with outsourcing prisons to Mexico, where prisoners would learn salutory lessons, after which they lost their citizenship.  I don’t think the government should even build roads or run the post office, even if it did either well and frugally.  They have no business poisoning wells and wresting what we worked for away from us for the benefit of far from perfect strangers.

Laissez faire, y’all.  Don’t lie, cheat, steal, murder, smite family, friends, or strangers, and “if you broke it, you bought it” works fine for me. 

Mike has reduced his activities to a five-mile circle and walks to the grocery store and puts 4500 miles on his bicycle a year.  Me?  Ah’m from Texas, and walking is something we do between horses and barns and houses and cars, and I don’t even know how to ride a bicycle.  Marc is another bicycle enthusiast, and Gigi neither owns a car nor drives one if that can be avoided.  Personal dislike of the beasts, not a desire to “save the planet.”  Chuckle…as a group, we feel that the planet will do beautifully all by itself and the problem is the statists.

Many of us raise livestock, grow and can our own crops, and accumulate herbal knowledge.  The thrust on the Ring isn’t survivalism, and we aren’t going to try to sell you anything as disgusting and overpriced as an MRE.  We’ll consult cheerfully on what you can do to protect yourself from the coming Greater Depression, but do your homework first.  The web is full of sites that will give you lists.  I have been preparing for three years and am far past beans, bullets, and bandaids.  I hope you are, too.

Many of us make cheese, bake bread, and study old-fashioned technology for the creativity and joy of it, never forgetting that these will be excellent skills if the eighteen-wheelers ever stop rolling.  Among our group we can come up with a pretty reasonable facsimile in any given field.  We’re not retreads from the Mother Earth News or yuppies trying the five acres thing.  We’re interested in life, and we like simplifying it.  That gives us time to keep up with politics, finance, social trends, foreign affairs, and economics, and to write about them.

I got elected Ring Mama (I was hoping for “the Princess of Partially Parallel and Only Slightly Skewed Universes,” but got out-voted.) so, welcome to the Ring.  Please take a moment to comment below any article you read, whether you liked it or not.  We promise not to sell your address to anyone or to bury you in offers to remove your wrinkles or get rich quick through Ponzi schemes.

Regards,

Linda Brady Traynham

Moral:  Start anywhere, so long as you start!