My thoughts on current affairs. Most of these topics will appear here on Withdrawconsent.org, as well as online and in print at the Idaho State Journal.
Given the consistency with which our idols disappointed us, my brother called 2020 the year of no more heroes and I think that aptly described it. Like pulling the mask off of a superhero and finding out they’re just your nerdy kid neighbor, the luster of celebrity wore off and a culture in decline was exposed for what it was.
It is no secret that recent topics of discussion in popular American culture converge around children. From leftist indoctrination in the schools around revisionist social justice campaigns like The 1619 Project, to Critical Race Theory or Social Emotional Learning curricula, to gender ideology and transgenderism, to Drag Queen Storytime, there is a blatant focus on targeting the youth with perverse and activist ideology.
The natural result of paralyzing fear is an aversion to liberty and an inclination to authoritarianism. This inclination to authoritarianism bleeds into public policy, where government bureaucrats are handed a blank check to solve all life’s problems with the stroke of a pen. Gun control, universal basic income, universal healthcare, and food security programs are all schemes of those incapable of tackling the slightest adversity or unwilling to risk failure. They desire that public safety nets be traded for a ban on ladders. If no man can climb, then no man can fall.
A lack of debate has led to much recent consternation. No good thing comes from stifling debate, and an unquestioned consensus is often the tool of tyrants. Some examples of our recent abandonment of debate include our response to COVID-19, the safety of resulting mRNA vaccines, election integrity, the funding of the Ukraine War, climate alarmism, gender ideology, and more.
In wanting to see the good and the bad of Idaho’s elections, I volunteered as a poll watcher in October and November of 2022. Here’s what I found.
In the history of the world, we have been subject to great leaders and despots alike, whose reigns typically last a few decades at worst, months to years on average. We’ve never been subjugated by earthly rulers for eternity. Chains and bondage have repeatedly been broken.
One of life’s more uncomfortable feelings is arriving at an obligation unprepared. We’ve all been there at one point or another. Life gets in the way. Maybe you overbooked yourself and miss preparing for an important meeting. When we were school children, a common excuse for poor performance was “the dog ate my homework.” In our desire to skirt responsibility for our actions or lack thereof, we formulate predictably bad reasons why our current state isn’t our fault.
In the 1870s, the term “robber baron” was first used to describe an exploitative class of industrialists who utilized their wealth to create monopolies of resources and amass control in the fledgling United States. The name describes an illegitimate aristocracy of unelected plutocrats. John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie; all American industrial royalty whose names line the streets of America and the pages of our history books. One hundred fifty years later, we face a new global class of robber barons.
After being pummeled into submission, a good bloc of the American public feels weary and ready to accept the terms of their torturers. It’s easier to swallow if they are made to believe it was their idea, and they arrived at their conclusions by reason and not abuse. If we can harness the performance without the man, it is a win-win, right? Make no mistake, it is not the man but the performance they cannot tolerate. We’re on a globalist path, and resistance to its implementation will not be tolerated.
A troubling aspect of our national culture is an ever-creeping slide into debasement. In this slide, we traded a cultural soul in pursuit of wholesomeness for a much darker version. There was a time when Elvis gyrating on television was on par with the red light districts of Amsterdam. Today, artists performing ritualistic, occult ceremonies is chalked up to marketing.
Before the arrival of the pilgrims of the Plymouth colony, numerous attempts to establish English settlements along the Eastern seaboard of North America had ended in the settlers’ demise. Settlements like the lost colony of Roanoke or Jamestown, Virginia, had seen most settlers perish due to disease, malnutrition, exposure to the elements, and war with native tribes. The primary difference between these past attempts and that of the Plymouth colony lay in motivation.
While the axiom of voting with our bellies has held for most of our 246-year existence, this axiom never encountered mass mail balloting, a complicit media, and a generation of godless and confused youth like ours. If the exit polling is accurate, we are to believe that abortion was the cornerstone issue of the 2022 midterms and that young women were the determinant voters. I certainly believe this is a part of the issue, in conjunction with illegitimate and insecure voting practices that were codified in the wake of COVID.
The aptly named RINO, or Republican In Name Only, refers to one who claims to agree with the conservative values of the Republican Party but consistently fails to uphold these values in government. Unlike the communal elephant, another mega-fauna species whom RINOS claim as their identity, RINOS are solitary creatures that exist only to further themselves. Much like their ungulate namesake, they’re also full of crap.
Had the Idaho legislature not stepped in and banned the teaching of indoctrination outright, you could be assured that Idaho’s would look like much of the more progressive state-run education institutions in the country. Since the publication of such curricula is banned, your children will instead be subjected to a more subversive form of indoctrination. If the state is unable to shape the minds of the students directly, they’ll instead aim for the minds of the next generation of educators.
The Church, and resultingly the country, is on a dark and unforgiving path because our foundations are eroding and being supplanted by postmodernism. Even non-Christian scholars have noted that Christianity is the only western institution powerful enough to stop the advancement of postmodernism. If we are to escape intact, we must coalesce around He who binds and recommit His word to our hearts.
Whether those they promote are minors, women, ethnic, racial, or religious minorities, the left promotes those of their spectrum that they can use to deflect criticism as a character flaw of the accuser. This is how they avoid actually defending the terrible ideas that they promote. In the case of a student, it is perhaps the most insidious because they can push left-wing ideology, and the student is likely to parrot what they are told without pushback.
In a conversation about MAGA politics, DeSantis is the lone heir apparent of the MAGA movement in rhetoric and airtime. While his good looks, charisma, and forthright temperament make him an attractive choice for the lead role as President of the United States, his résumé takes a backseat to the publicity.
Our political class understands the trojan horse concept well, and they understand that Americans are particularly susceptible to it. Americans are good people at heart, and this leaves the population subject to being taken advantage of. Many proponents of those policies which we most fiercely oppose often believe that the ideas they espouse will lead to a better future, and we all want a better future. We disagree on how it is we arrive there and what a better future looks like, and the political class is all too eager to promote those ideas that best perpetuate their influence.
Strictly defined, MAGA is a loosely affiliated brand of American Nationalism. It comprises all races, religions, political partisans, and sexualities. MAGA espouses the biblical principle found in Matthew 7 of addressing the planks in our own eyes before removing the specks from our brethren’s. Ironically, this is also the leftist’s favorite verse that asks us to decline judgment of their lifestyle choices lest we be judged ourselves.
On each occasion of contacting local elected democrats, it is common to be reminded that I’m not speaking with a democrat but an “Idaho democrat.” I’m sure the response would be the same should I contact any elected democrat in the state. In caveating their allegiance as Idaho democrats, we’re told that these Idaho democrats are different. These aren’t the blue-haired crazies of San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle. These are democrats of a different breed from an older generation. Perhaps more in the mold of John F. Kennedy? To this, I say, nonsense!