Summer 2022—Democratic Deception, Patriotism On The Big Screen, And A Pro-Life Miracle

Russia On The Attack

The past four or five months have seen some of the most tremendous and world-shaking events come to pass.

The unjust Russian invasion of Ukraine continues into what I believe will turn out to be a lengthy and tragically destructive stalemate. As I think about the war in Ukraine, and what could’ve been done by the United States to prevent the conflict in the first place, I am reminded that national and even world security are necessities that liberal American presidential administrations consistently fail to protect and uphold. I cannot stop my thoughts from stretching back to not that long ago, when Barack Obama mocked his political opponents for worrying about the geopolitical threat posed by Russia.

For the people of Ukraine and lovers of freedom everywhere, the sad reality is that as long as Americans vote for Democrats, the United States won’t be fielding great leadership anytime soon.

Not A Biologist

At the end of March, our country endured the embarrassment of Joe Biden nominating Kentanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Leading up to that nomination, Biden had been bragging for over a year that he would nominate a black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Kentanji Brown Jackson, in speaking about being Joe Biden's nominee, said she was "humbled and honored to have the opportunity to serve in this capacity and to be the first and only black woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court."

And yet, when asked to define what a woman is, Brown refused to answer on account of not being a biologist.

These are the people who lord over the rest of us. These are the people who control the course of our society. These are the people who demand that we celebrate advances for and by women, while also demanding that we refuse to acknowledge any definition of womanhood itself. If I was the type of person who felt like posting "LET'S GO BRANDON!!!" on my Facebook page, I can guarantee you that even though I too am not a biologist, I at least would know that Brandon is a man...or at least a sorry excuse for one.

Trump-The-Alleged-Buffoon Was A Better Leader Than Today’s Democratic Party

In April, one of my favorite political commentators warned that in the upcoming midterm elections later this year, conservative Republicans cannot afford to be lazy and complacent, foolishly assuming that the Biden administration will dig the Democrats' graves for them.

We all need to be utterly clear about the lessons our country should have learned over the course of this last year. The Democratic agenda as led and enacted by the Joe Biden government is destroying our country. Crime waves now come and go on a regular basis anywhere and everywhere that leftist activists cry for the defunding of police forces. Massive, expensive, intrusive, and out-of-control government is bankrupting our society, both literally and morally. Politically correct suppression of free speech is striking blow after blow against the Bill of Rights. In the most liberal states and cities, ever-higher taxes somehow always seem to lead to ever-deteriorating services and infrastructure. The United States government seems incapable of winning wars or, more importantly, maintaining the martial strength that prevents wars in the first place. And don't even get me started on what leftist racial and sexual agendas are doing to our schools.

American voters must be clear in understanding that each and every one of these failures deserve to be hung around the neck of the Democratic Party. American voters--even the ones who haughtily refused to consider a vote for Donald Trump--need to realize that Trump, for all his imperfections, understood that our country cannot survive in perpetuity while also ignoring an unending deluge of illegal immigration, unfair trade, and winless wars. Michael Anton, who was a senior national security official in the Trump administration, once admitted that "yes, Trump is worse than imperfect. So what? We can lament until we choke the lack of a great statesman to address the fundamental issues of our time—or, more importantly, to connect them. Yet, among recent political figures, only Trump-the-alleged-buffoon not merely saw the issues of immigration, trade, and wars and their essential connectivity, but was able to win on them. The alleged buffoon is thus more prudent—more practically wise—than all of our wise-and-good who so bitterly oppose him. This should embarrass them."

And as far as embarrassment is concerned, I believe that the American people should be embarrassed by what Joe Biden and the Democrats have abandoned, lost, inflicted, and destroyed during this last year of being in power. The Republican Party still offers the Trumpist solutions that our country so desperately needs to return to: upholding citizenship, law and order, and the legal sovereignty of our borders; pursuing and maintaining economic leverage against China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea on matters involving trade and diplomatic posturing; and the good sense to avoid wars when we can and win them when we should.

Make America Great Again!

The Real History Of The Democratic Party

Occasionally, I have friends and family who approach me and ask why, in my expressed political opinions, I seemingly operate on the premise that the Democratic Party in the United States is a thoroughly corrupt organization that is controlled by wicked men and women. In response to such questioning, I am always quick to reinforce that yes, it is true: I do indeed believe the Democratic Party to be thoroughly corrupt and controlled by evil and conspiring individuals. Then, I try to reassure my friends and family (often unsuccessfully, I’ll admit) that I do not believe every single Democrat who now belongs to the party or ever has belonged to the party is a bad person for associating themselves with the organization. I have known many good people who also happen to be Democrats. I have many kind and admirable Democrat friends. I therefore realize how radical and inflammatory it is for someone like me to assert that an entire major American political party is thoroughly corrupt and controlled by wicked people. And yet, I wish to assure others that I do indeed believe that to actually be true, and that I do indeed base that belief upon what I feel is solid historical evidence and personal observation of contemporary cultural, political, and societal trends swirling all around us even now.

To understand how corrupt politicians leading the Democratic Party get into power, the Democratic Party must first be reinterpreted and understood as the morally corrupt organization it has always been from its inception. The American Democratic Party was started in 1828 and is, according to Wikipedia, the world’s oldest active political party. From the very start of their party, the Democrats have branded themselves as the party of the little guy, the party of minorities and women and the working class. Opposed to them, so they say, is a historically racist, sexist, corporate-dominated Republican Party that chooses “fascists” like Donald Trump to lead it, that embraces the heritage of white supremacists who only seek to conserve the privilege of big business elites and white landowners who stole from the Indians, that denies the rights of deserving foreigners to immigrate to America, and that now seeks to maintain the white, heterosexual male’s grip on the reigns of contemporary political power, and all at the expense of women, people of color, the poor, and a host of other perpetually oppressed groups.

This Democratic narrative is simply not true.

More people need to be made familiar with the truth about typical Democratic heroes like the first Democratic president, Andrew Jackson. Modern leftists try to whitewash the history surrounding Andrew Jackson’s land-stealing treatment of Native Americans by blaming “America” or generic “white men” as the villains. But this just isn’t fair or accurate. Early colonial interactions with Native Americans, from Columbus to the Founding Fathers, were a mixed bag of conflict and cooperation. Christopher Columbus did not commit genocide in the actual sense of the word, and American Founders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson believed in fair dealing through treaties with Native American tribes. Andrew Jackson, on the other hand, had no problem cheating the Indians and enriching himself and his cronies as a result of such dishonesty, and it is telling that Jackson, the so-called “man of the people” who started as an orphan with almost nothing to his name, died as one of the richest men in the country. And, of course, his two presidential election wins were some of the biggest landslides in American electoral history up until that point, and were likely due to his mastering the early Democratic formula of stealing Indian land and auctioning it off cheap in exchange for the undying support of voting constituents. Jackson was also known for his harsh treatment and massacres of Indian enemies when he was a militia general, and he was not above cheating his own Indian allies out of their lands as well. Jackson, his cronies, his family members, his friends, and his business associates all benefited from what later became classic Democratic intimidation tactics that eventually stole tens of thousands of acres of Indian land in Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, and other sections of the Deep South. These benefits came in the form of direct real estate prizes for those involved in the schemes, or the electoral clout Jackson was stockpiling for himself as more and more poor whites who moved onto Indian lands became beholden to his thievery.

When Andrew Jackson ran for the presidency in 1828, his opponents actually began collecting evidence of his land-stealing to use against him. Then, in an event that is extremely reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails scandal, the building that housed all of Jackson’s earlier business records mysteriously caught fire and burned to the ground. After officially founding the Democratic Party, and when he won the White House for the first time in 1828, Jackson did so by making paternalistic Indian removal policies one of his primary campaign issues. When he and his fellow Democrats took power in the White House and Congress, they fashioned the now-infamous Indian Removal Act that opponents like Davy Crockett correctly labeled as “wicked” and “unjust.” Most Indian tribes broke under this nationally-powered system of bullying and coercion, but the Cherokee tribe stood firm in its resistance to the law. The Cherokee took the matter up legally with the Supreme Court, and amazingly, the Supreme Court sided with them. Even more amazingly, President Jackson simply chose to ignore the laws of the land. He ignored the Supreme Court and proceeded to do very little to protect the Cherokee of Georgia as white settlers went in and destroyed property and attacked and burned Native American settlements. In the years after his presidency, the Cherokee were forcefully evicted by the army, which brutally expelled the Native Americans in the Trail of Tears tragedy that involved banditry and concentration camps, the likes of which were not seen again until the Democratic internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. Today’s Democratic Party unfairly claims that “America” and “white men” were the perpetrators of the Trail of Tears and a whole host of other atrocities against Native Americans. The truth is that Jackson Democrats were the originators and perpetrators of the worst of these things. Whenever modern Democrats seek to blame the country and white people for the more unfortunate happenings in our shared history, we need to all take second looks at which groups were…and which major political party was…actually guilty of wrongdoing.

More people deserve to know the truth concerning the true Democratic legacy from the Civil War period, and the Democrats’ true relationship with Jim Crow segregation and civil rights abuses against black Americans. Why did non-slaveholding Southerners fight against the Union in the Civil War, and why did these same people embrace white supremacy and later the Democratic Party and the Ku Klux Klan? The answers are actually well-documented in our history even though they are hardly talked about anymore. The idea behind white supremacy was literally to make race the chief characteristic by which people would be kept in social hierarchies, making the poorest white Southerners inherently superior to even the wealthiest blacks…even blacks who owned slaves of their own. The Democrats gained mastery over the South because they upheld a brand of white supremacy that offered tremendously tempting social and psychological benefits to even the poorest whites. After the Civil War, the system of Jim Crow racism kept whites and blacks in line with a kind of caste system envisioned and maintained in intentional perpetuity by the Democratic Party itself. Through the Reconstruction era, the only ally black Southerners could rely upon was, indeed, the Republican Party. The heritage of civil rights in this country actually belongs, almost exclusively, to the Republican Party. Even the civil rights wins of the 1950s and 1960s owe their ideological premises to the first civil rights movement of the 1860s. During this civil rights movement, national pieces of legislation or amendments to the Constitution favoring civil rights for blacks were all almost entirely passed or implemented by Republicans…and uniformly opposed by Democrats. In fact, with the exception of the outlawing of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment, when a few Democrats switched sides to vote with the Republicans, almost ALL major civil rights laws and amendments were passed with 100% Republican support as well as 100% Democrat opposition! Democrat politicians like Andrew Johnson attempted to veto new civil rights laws, and Democrats in the South eventually found ways around national legislation: the infamous black codes that re-enslaved blacks by restricting their activities in the private sector and in their political life. All of this was enforced by the threat of terrorist violence in the form of the Ku Klux Klan. Through all of this, the Republican Party was the black Southerner’s only ally. Through Reconstruction, Republican military governors throughout the South fought both the KKK and the black codes. The federal Freedman’s Bureau tried to enact reparations by giving former Confederates’ properties to blacks. In this, it was stopped by the racist President Johnson, who quickly moved to pardon ex-Confederates, forcing blacks to return plantations to their former masters. The first blacks representing the South were elected to Congress during this period...and all of them were Republicans. By the 1960s, when Martin Luther King, Jr. arrived on the scene, the reformulated civil rights movement would find its work opposed by Democratic mayors, Democratic school boards, Democratic sheriffs, Democratic governors, and Democratic members of Congress.

Another Democratic “hero” more people need to hold accountable is President Franklin D. Roosevelt. I am willing to admit to the political brilliance of Roosevelt and how effective he was at transforming the Democratic Party into a quasi-fascist force in a country like the United States, populated as it was and is by so many people with an entrenched disposition against the centralization of political power. But Roosevelt found most of his success formula in the career of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy. Mussolini was famous as a speech-giver who promised his people all sorts of entitlements that he and the government were never even close to capable of providing. Mussolini’s promises, however, sure made Mussolini look good in the eyes of his people. That’s exactly what Franklin D. Roosevelt got good at: promising the American people that he and the federal government would take care of them in times of desperation and trouble. As president, Roosevelt went about transforming America by denouncing the Founding Fathers in deed if not in actual word. Roosevelt modeled the New Deal, or at least portions of it, on what his “brain trust” advisors found and admired from touring Mussolini’s handiwork in Italy. Even after Mussolini became America’s enemy, Roosevelt continued to use what he had learned from the fascist dictatorship. Roosevelt’s so-called “second bill of rights” was nothing but a long list of entitlements that progressive governments everywhere were allegedly supposed to provide for the people. Never mind that such progressive governments of the future would have to use confiscation and coercion to provide such entitlements; never mind that providing these entitlements always involves violating someone else’s freedom or property. Guaranteed food, guaranteed education, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing, guaranteed health care, guaranteed retirement, and guaranteed safety from even fear itself: none of these things are rights in the sense that the American Founding Fathers understood rights. Rather, they are the false promises of a confiscatory and oppressive government that collectivizes everything under its stewardship and control. With his New Deal programs and mindset, Franklin D. Roosevelt repudiated the American Founding and its understanding that rights are freedoms granted to the people by nature and God as protections AGAINST intrusive government action. Starting with the New Deal, continuing with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, and culminating with the eight years of Obama, the Democrats have sought to change the meaning of rights and entitlements. For Democrats, these things are reasons for the government to use its coercive power on behalf of whatever beneficiaries are politically valuable to the ruling regime. For Democrats, these things are excuses used to gain power over the entrepreneurial sectors of the economy and establish control over the institutions of American wealth and power.

In today’s world, rights and entitlements are inexorably connected with bogus notions of “inequality” and “social justice” that are also used as excuses to implement wealth-confiscation and power-grabbing schemes. Thus, we see that fear, entitlements, and state appropriation of the private sector--three defining features of fascism--continue to inspire progressive Democrats even today. As the conservative author, Dinesh D’Souza, once put it, “This is the vile, shameful tradition that [Democrat politicians] are part of, even as they shamelessly lie about what their movement stands for.” And why do Democrats continue to relentlessly exercise the levers of state power in ways that seem to many of us to be oppressive and exploitative? D’Souza said that “outside agitators have limited access and limited resources. But the agencies of government possess enormous coercive authority, including, ultimately, virtually unlimited military firepower...control of the government includes control of the Justice Department; you get to decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn’t. It includes control of the NSA, where you have access to all kinds of interesting information. Finally, what better instrument of control than the IRS with its terrifying power to audit, confiscate, and prosecute virtually any citizen in the United States? Government is the best instrument of control, intimidation, and large-scale theft that any community organizer could ever wish for.”

I know there are many who believe that the Democratic Party is controlled by a group of community organizer-type personalities who, though prone to making mistakes, are well-meaning public servants whose hearts are in the right place. I invite those people to rethink such an outlook on the American Democratic Party. Take a look at the history. Consider how Democrat leaders like Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson have treated Native Americans and black Southerners. Consider how Democrat presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson have warped the definition of American rights and addicted multiple generations of our people to soul-destroying entitlements. And finally, please consider the legacy of the Democratic Party’s current crop of leaders: people like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and the rest of the gang. Are these people merely flawed do-gooders? Or is something else going on? Now that we know that Barack Obama once spied on news reporters, does he really deserve to head the party that leads the charge in calling Republicans “fascists”? When Nancy Pelosi gets her hair cut without wearing a mask during COVID shutdowns, does she really deserve to lead the party that champions the little guy and the working class? And when Joe Biden warns black voters who don’t support him that they are betraying their own racial identities, does he really deserve bragging rights for standing up for racial minorities?

Anyone familiar with my beliefs and opinions knows my answers to these questions. As we look back on just a single year of Democrat administration of our country at the federal level, I think the wreckage left behind by the party of Joe Biden is proof enough that the Democrats, as a party, are not good for America. The Democratic Party has been hurting America for a very long time.

The Self-Destruction Of Cancel Culture Strikes Again

Knowing the truth about history empowers you to understand the challenges facing our society today. Earlier this year, I learned about a fellow historian and history teacher, a man named Martin Paulsson who passed away in April of 2020. He is pictured down below along with his son, Albert.

In life, Martin had something in common with me: he worked as a high school history teacher. For almost 50 years, Martin Paulsson worked as a history teacher at schools and colleges in the state of New Jersey…until, that is, he was forced to retire in 2018.

He didn’t know it at the time, but the forced end to Martin’s career started in 2017. Here is the story according to Martin’s son, Albert, who also works as a social sciences teacher:

In 2017, Martin had a student in his world history class who was a particularly excellent writer. Her work stood out among other students, and he read one of her papers aloud to his class to highlight the quality of her writing. The pair developed a wonderful relationship as teacher and pupil, Albert said, and they would joke with one another often in good fun. The student “would tease him once in a while and call him ‘a crazy old white guy’ and he would tease her back,” Albert recalled. “It was this endearing sort of teasing, of just having a good time, because it [was] a relationship of trust and they really thought the world of each other,” Albert said. At the end of the semester, the student again wrote an excellent paper. Martin congratulated her and teased: “Not bad for a girl.” The two laughed because “that was their relationship,” Albert said. But sitting a couple seats over was a student majoring in gender studies who did not find the comment funny. This student reported Martin to school administrators. The college didn’t take any disciplinary action, but the incident was noted in Martin’s file.

The following semester, Martin was again teaching a history course; a black student in the class aspired to become a history teacher himself. The student visited Martin on occasion during office hours to talk about teaching. The two developed a good relationship. One day, Martin was teaching the class about groups that form or emerge in society to push back on certain norms. He gave the example of the organization Black Lives Matter and asked the black student if he would share a little bit about his own experience as a young black man in America. The student shared some thoughts and seemed pleased to have the opportunity to do so. But another student in class didn’t find it appropriate for a white teacher to ask a black student to share his experiences. Martin was again reported to administrators. The college gave Martin a choice between resigning or taking a semester off and completing “cultural sensitivity” training, at the end of which he would appear before a panel to be questioned. “My father, at that point, he was just exhausted,” Albert said, as well as “demoralized by it.”

Martin Paulsson chose to end his 50-year teaching career in 2018. He died just a little over a year after he stopped teaching. Martin’s final year of life was hard, Albert said, because he no longer had “that stimulation and that sense of connection, that love and passion he had for teaching, that was taken away from him.”

As a history teacher, I can tell you that in my relatively short career as an educator, I have already had multiple experiences that are eerily similar to those experienced by Martin Paulsson. I can tell you how personally discouraging it feels to have that love and passion for teaching taken away from you by students who claim that you aren’t allowed to engage in certain kinds of speech because of your skin color, that it is impossible for you to experience discrimination or racism because of the allegedly privileged genetic line you were born into. I can tell you about the demoralizing feeling that comes from having to explain your religious beliefs about marriage and family to doubtful bureaucrats who question whether or not you will survive in today’s politically correct school systems. And as a teacher in the leftist state of California, I know what it feels like to go through cultural sensitivity training as a matter of course, let alone as an act of official chastisement.

Albert Paulsson explained it this way: “Because students are now being conditioned to basically look at the world based on their feelings, if something is disagreeable to their emotional well-being, well, then it’s unacceptable and therefore it has to be eliminated or in some way silenced. Teachers and students across the country don’t feel comfortable sharing certain things, certain opinions, certain perspectives. Our education system is deteriorating. What concerns me is how so much of the material that’s given to teachers is really just focused on this sort of postmodern state of society. We must be honest about the past. But then we need to build from that to work together to establish bonds of affection and trust for each other, to recognize our common humanity and the dignity of each individual. And to continue to move toward a more perfect union. Yet, so much that is being pushed is going to erode all of that.  Theories that are being presented as truth serve to divide, polarize, and condition contempt for concepts like merit and historical figures like Abraham Lincoln.”

It was Abraham Lincoln who once said that “all the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”

I agree with President Lincoln, and I agree with Albert Paulsson that we need to start teaching students of history that their emotional well-being is strengthened when they learn to face disagreeable facts, opinions, stories, and perspectives with maturity, tolerance, and an eye towards giving all sides an equal chance in the marketplace of ideas. That is the only way our country will ultimately avoid self-destruction. That is the only way our rising generations will learn to navigate a life filled with confusion, contention, and opposition.

“Perceived” Discrimination Takes Us Down A Dangerous Road

I recently saw a poster published for display in a public school classroom. The poster's message decried discrimination of any kind in a wide range of the usual racial, political, religious, cultural, gender, sexual, and other categories of personal identity and belief. But there was one thing about this poster that caught my eye and bothered me. According to this poster, included in the list of ways that people are apparently not supposed to discriminate against others were "perceived" gender identities, "perceived" racial identities, and "perceived" sexual preferences.

Language is so very important, and unfortunately, language is being weaponized one small step at a time in our society for sinister political purposes.

Here's the thing about discrimination: there are bad, unacceptable kinds of discrimination, and there are good, even necessary forms of discrimination. The most crucial form of discrimination there is is the kind used to tell the differences between a truth and a falsehood, between reality and delusion. People are entitled to whatever perceptions of themselves and their identities they wish, but others are equally entitled, if appropriate, to judge those same perceptions as being inaccurate, wrong, and even harmful to the one holding those perceptions in the first place.

We should never allow our discrimination of that which is true from that which is false to unjustly demonize or persecute those who cling to falsehoods regarding self-identity. But at the same time, we need to be more careful as a society to avoid punishing people for refusing to accept and embrace notions of human nature and individual identity that are false, wrong, inaccurate, and ultimately destructive to our souls. Certainly, we need to do more to keep our public institutions--especially our public education institutions--from continuing down such a dangerous path.

Anthony Kinnett, a curriculum developer and coordinator from Indianapolis, recently complained about this worrisome trend, among others, as it is starting to appear in social studies classrooms. He explained that "starting in the earliest history and social studies lessons, students are taught that prior generations were collectively bigoted, ignorant and often evil. Any traditional idea or belief is considered antiquated and useless. In matters of sex, race, faith, policy and other social frameworks, students are taught that only the most progressive view is moral, righteous and fair. Countless counseling workshops are mandatory, in which students sit through lectures on the virtue of the latest progressive talking points, made to participate in 'privilege walks,' where their inherited statuses and characteristics are painted as a sin to be repented of, and pressured to join 'alliance' groups to show they don’t share the same horrific views as their parents. These alliance groups are built around the 'protection' of racial and sexual stereotypes — popularized as 'identities.' Students are encouraged to engage with their sexual desires, gender norms and racial stereotypes to build what will be their core identity. Teachers are instructed to consider traditional values many American families have, such as dedication, punctuality, citing evidence, individualism, personal responsibility and the nuclear family itself — as characteristics of white supremacy. We expect our teachers to stand in firm opposition to what the public education system considers racist, sexist or homophobic, while in reality these are the rather benign qualities that unify American families regardless of color or nationality. Some schools have gone as far as creating special changing closets for students to change into their perceived identity once they arrive — fostering a Black Mirror-esque idea that students leave their homes and parents to truly live their lives with a new family that 'actually loves them.' When one looks objectively at the nature of how students in the United States are currently taught to think, act and feel — almost always in direct opposition to the home, one must reckon with the same patterns of manipulation found in Nazi Germany, East Germany and Maoist China."

As a teacher who genuinely loves his students, as a member of a church that has taught me since I first learned to talk that "I Am A Child Of God," and as a student of history who knows plenty about the totalitarian nightmares of Nazi Germany, East Germany, and Maoist China, I must emphasize how very, very important it is that we who are responsible and wise enough to tell the differences between perceived realities and identities and the eternal realities of existence are left free to teach, model, and exemplify what is right and true. It is not an act of love to allow someone you care about to persist in a perception that is false, that goes against reality itself. Discriminating truth from delusion is an elevating element of what makes us human, and it separates our fragile and (sadly) fading American republic from the barbarian communist and fascist societies that emerged in the last century.

No More Power To The Racist Hucksters!

I once lost a Facebook friend for calling out the writings and ideas of "anti-racists" like Ibram X. Kendi as being laughably incorrect, morally reprehensible, and disturbingly Marxist in their ideological orientation. Nevertheless, I still decry those political activists who appropriate the rare yet very real acts of racist violence that occasionally do occur in our society for their own false narrative that teaches that America is a hopelessly racist society.

In the wake of violent acts, I have heard so many pundits explaining over the airwaves that the violence recently seen in New York is practically to be expected in a supposedly "white supremacist" country like the United States of America. And yet, I've also been informed that the "anti-racist" activist already mentioned in this post, Ibram X. Kendi, is soon going to be releasing a book entitled How To Raise An Antiracist...a book allegedly inspired by Kendi worrying about his one-year-old daughter taking a liking to a white-skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed toy baby doll.

Kendi was recently quoted as saying that "there’s so many white children who are being indoctrinated into racist ideas and then hurting other people, killing other people, when they come of age as adults – just as you have many children of color who are thinking that there’s something wrong with themselves, or are the victims of those who believe in racist ideas."

I find Kendi's words to be incredibly misleading, divisive, and even craftily convincing in a disgusting sort of way if you see, as I do, how opportunists like Kendi are responsible for overgeneralizing the indoctrinations, stoking the victimizations, and encouraging the very psychologies and social patterns they claim to be opposed to. I do not see, in this country, hosts of white children being raised to hate and hurt black people. But strangely, I hear all the time about black and brown kids being raised to feel badly about themselves...usually by hucksters like Ibram X. Kendi.

You know what I think? I think race-baiters like Ibram X. Kendi who worry about the skin color of toy baby dolls are contributing to the sickening racial psychologies of some people who end up perpetrating mass shootings against targeted populations. I think the deeper our so-called academic and cultural elites drag the rest of us into their racial and racist philosophies and theories, the more unstable and resentful and rage-filled we all become.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we need to stop thinking deeply, pondering regretfully, bemoaning guiltily, and studying for equitability, something as shallow and meaningless as the color of someone's skin.

We need to stop thinking about race. We'll be happier for it...and more importantly, the kooks and the crazies and the hucksters among us will lose the outsized power we are giving them every day that we keep making problems out to be bigger than they really are.

Holding Democrats Accountable For Their Deceptions

Just a short time ago, conservatives like me expressed some restrained hope that sometime in the near future, decisions from the most important court in our country would give some of the states the chance to start restricting the liberal practice of abortion. We rejoiced at this chance to protect the lives of unborn children, and leftists in the Democratic Party responded to that with anger, shaming, intimidation, and rage.

As we've all absorbed the horrible news of mass shootings in places like Uvalde, Texas, Joe Biden and his allies and supporters have been making some really unfair arguments about people who make guns for a living...and they've been doing this in the name of protecting the lives of children. They've intensified their calls, as they always seem to do in the wake of mass shootings of any kind, for legislation making it harder for law-abiding citizens to maintain their Constitutional right to bear arms and protect themselves as necessary and appropriate against evildoers.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his allies are consistently calling for more and more federal spending to ship money...and guns...to the Ukrainians. They do this in the face of the really horrifying triple threat of an oversized national debt, cripplingly high inflation in many of the most crucial sectors of our economy, and out-of-control government spending.

First of all, let me just make it absolutely clear: I favor the death penalty for tried and convicted school shooters no matter their skin color or motivation; I wholeheartedly support almost any responsible effort to support the Ukrainians in their fight against a Russia dominated by Vladimir Putin; I acknowledge those of you who wish in good faith to disagree with me and argue that there is somehow a difference between a life in the womb and a life in a public school classroom; I recognize that Republicans (Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump included) haven't done much of anything to help improve our country's addiction to deficit spending and ignoring of the national debt.

I want all those things to be absolutely clear. But here's my point: the Biden regime rarely, if ever, means what it says. American voters need to hold the Democratic Party accountable for this in the next election.

I think it's really concerning to have one of our country's major political parties expressing such concern over the lives of kids in schools while also seeking to intimidate and silence those of us who'd like to protect kids' lives at every stage, including while they are in the womb. I think it's indefensible for Democrat elitists to spend so much of our nation's treasure on guns for Ukrainians while at the same time making it more difficult for American gun owners like myself to protect ourselves, our families, and our property.

I would absolutely love for someone in the national media to confront Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Beto O'Rourke on this idea of "taking on the gun lobby." I'd really, really like to stoop to the Democrats' logic and argue that guns, in fact, save countless innocent lives each and every day. But I shouldn't do that. Guns don't save lives any more than they take lives. No, what saves lives is good, responsible people using guns as tools. I cannot believe we live in a country where our so-called leaders feel comfortable taking advantage of school shootings to verbally berate gun manufacturers...especially when said school shootings usually end because a good person with a gun eventually got to the scene of the crime being committed.

I've been criticized by some for getting too passionate about topics like this without having an alleged personal stake in the matter. I'd like to tell you all that I actually have a relative who makes guns for his living. I lived with him for an extended period of my life when I was first deciding on whether or not I would continue living in Utah after graduating from BYU. This relative is one of the gentlest, kindest, quietest people I've ever met...and he makes guns for a living. Statistically speaking, the guns produced by my relative help save innocent lives every single day that they are out there in the hands of responsible soldiers, law enforcement officers, and yes, law-abiding citizens Constitutionally protected by the 2nd Amendment.

Once again, the point I am trying to make is that we have grown too accustomed to allowing Joe Biden and the other major Democratic politicians to lecture us whenever they feel a restriction on our freedoms is justified, whenever they feel a cause is worth spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on, whenever they feel a favor should be handed out by government or a life is to be elevated above another. They regularly do all these things without granting their opponents the courtesy of having a different opinion.

Joe Biden's government (and whoever controls the White House teleprompters) is pushing policies that are weakening our country, restructuring our society, destroying our families, and degrading our moral understandings of even the most basic facts of human biology, gender, and sexuality. No matter how loudly the Biden government cries out for all of us to "Build Back Better," people in my part of California continue paying six dollars a gallon at the gas pump. The Joe Biden government began its tenure by openly seeking to subsidize small businesses on the basis of race, and yet somehow gets away with characterizing white people, Trump supporters, conservatives, Republicans, and anyone else it doesn't like as murderous white supremacist extremists. Inflation gets worse, the middle class becomes impoverished, homelessness increases...and yet the Democrats want to talk about how much we need to set individual rights aside in favor of "sustainability" in a "cooperative world economy" that will somehow save the planet from the global warming that by my reasoning should've already killed us all according to Al Gore's doomsday clock. Concepts like free speech, freedom, responsibility, property ownership, the pursuit of happiness, and security on our borders and in our neighborhoods seem to have no place on the leftists' list of priorities.

When I look at Joe Biden and his party's leadership, I see people who say a lot of things that don't make sense. But I think the senselessness of their words is mostly a mask to hide their true intentions: they seek to expand their authority and power within the confines of the federal government and bureaucracy, and they will relentlessly pursue this at the expense of other legitimate realms of sovereignty such as the country, the family, and even the individual citizen. When I look at influential leftist activists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I see people who seem to ignore or even celebrate our weakened economy, the socio-political chaos of open borders, the elimination of domestic oil drilling, the limitations put on domestic natural gas production, the inflamed racial unrest in our major cities, the crime upsurges sweeping through many of our states, and the weakening of our social fabric as more and more of our children are subjected to LGBTQ doctrines that unsettle already fragile personal identities.

If we do not hold Joe Biden and his party accountable in the next election, the United States will increasingly experience diminished sovereignty and economic viability. It will be a country in which individual freedoms mean very little when the elitists among us get to arbitrarily decide our collective fate without regard to the republican systems and institutions that once made this country the envy of the world.

Patriotism Is Back On The Flight Deck

On June 3rd, I came out of a movie theater in Modesto, California a changed man. I had just finished watching Top Gun: Maverick.

It was an unbelievably satisfying movie! The film exceeded every hope and expectation. When movies are this good, I like to publicly praise them and encourage others to go support them in the theatrical run. I am thrilled that as of this writing, the box office returns for Top Gun: Maverick have totaled over $1 billion.

There are a few reasons I loved this film. If you loved the original Top Gun movie, you will be utterly delighted with how well Top Gun: Maverick respects the first film. And I'm not just talking about the stereotypical 80s-ness of the first movie; this new movie tries very hard to treat the story and characters of the first film with lots of care. Top Gun: Maverick has no detectable left-wing Wokeness. None at all. The heroes are heroic, there's no shame in cheering for them, you come away from the movie with a renewed respect and admiration for what our American military pilots do for a living, and you don't have to endure some stupid, underhanded America-hating message or Hollywood agenda. In an age of stupid Star Wars and big, dumb Marvel movies that cram MORE MORE MORE into every new iteration, Top Gun: Maverick is incredibly simple, restrained, and classy. The pacing and buildup are great. The story, though ridiculously simple, is immensely satisfying on an emotional level because the actors actually do the work of making you feel it.

Go see Top Gun: Maverick! Go see it to remind Hollywood that we still like great movies made in this good ol' classic style!

Pro-Abortion Terrorism, Kristallnacht, And The Importance Of Vigorous, Respectful Disagreement

Ever since the possibility of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision being overturned has entered into our contemporary political discourse, there have been those on the left side of the political spectrum who have chosen to indulge in violent and destructive acts that I characterize as political intimidation. Some would even go so far as to label these acts as terroristic.

I've recently learned about a pro-abortion group that calls itself Jane's Revenge. Recently, a pro-life pregnancy center in Buffalo, New York was firebombed and graffitied. The graffiti included the warning that "Jane Was Here," suggesting that this particular pro-life pregnancy center in Buffalo was just the latest target of violence and destruction by Jane's Revenge, which had been linked to similar attacks in recent weeks to pregnancy centers in Wisconsin and Oregon.

What made this attack on the Buffalo pregnancy center especially troubling is that a quick Google search will reveal that pro-abortion groups and individuals have been making threats against this particular site since at least May 16th, when this string of violent attacks by Jane's Revenge first started. Police in the Buffalo and Rochester areas of New York apparently initiated special alerts to protect the Buffalo pregnancy center that was attacked...

...but over the course of the month leading up to the attack, New York's governor had been pushing to allocate many, many millions of state dollars to increase protection and security at abortion clinics. Worse still, the state legislature of New York had passed laws to initiate investigations into pro-life pregnancy centers to "address any negative impact in the state" because of such sites.

Do any of you know what Kristallnacht was? In the English language, we sometimes refer to it as the Night of Broken Glass.

The Night of Broken Glass took place throughout Nazi Germany on the 9th and 10th of November in 1938. All across Germany, Jewish homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, and synagogues were attacked and destroyed by mobs of civilian and paramilitary Nazi Party members while official government and police authorities stood by and refused to intervene, to put a stop to all the violence and destruction. Indeed, as Nazi Germany was a totalitarian, one-party state at that point in time, it is foolish to assume that the Night of Broken Glass occurred without the Nazi regime's consent and encouragement.

What am I trying to say here?

Some people believe it is inappropriate or unnecessarily contentious for people like me to express what I am about to express. Some people would prefer that people like me disengage from political discourse in favor of going along to get along.

Truthfully, I am not deaf to such protests or objections. When gay marriage was officially legalized throughout the United States of America, I posted about my anger and outrage, and I did so with passion and without much moderation about how I was feeling. I lost a lot of friends that day, and even though I have no regrets about what I said or how I said it, I still think about some of the dear friends who parted company with me over what I felt and expressed that day. On another occasion, when violent rioters in the streets of a certain New Mexico city started attacking police officers while flying the Mexican flag, I got on Facebook and said something about Mexico's flag that I ended up regretting, proving that moderating our tone whenever we talk politics is always worth considering before jumping into the heat of the moment.

But...I feel compelled to respectfully inform those who wish to listen: when conservatives like myself moderate our stances or cede the premises of truth itself, precious concepts of value no less than our country's God-fearing culture, our nation's material abundance, our communities' peaceful ways of life, our government's political independence, and our society's respect for individual liberty all become more and more untenable. I do not believe that the United States of America is anywhere near a situation in which something like the Holocaust is going to take place anytime soon. But I do believe that things like the Holocaust are prevented from happening precisely because good people everywhere are brave enough and willing enough to speak up when they see the Kristallnacht-like preludes to Holocausts taking place around them.

On the more specific topic of abortion, I just think it is so, so, so important to recognize how much hatred there is out there in the world against pregnancy, against motherhood, against the unborn lives of children in the womb. Political intimidation and thuggery like we saw in Buffalo, New York must be called out for what it is. It needs to be tied to the violence that has been taking place all over the country ever since American leftists convinced themselves that the Supreme Court was about to strike down Roe vs. Wade.

And thank God: it WAS indeed struck down!

On the more generalized topic of political discourse and political engagement, I hope that something in this post has helped someone out there to understand why people like me cannot ever afford to disengage. Our precious republic was founded upon the right...the need...for responsible people to rise up and make their thoughts and opinions be known.

I was raised by two parents who took me, as a 10-year-old, to a street protest in Modesto, California to stand with fellow conservatives who wanted to let presidential candidate Al Gore know that he needed to stop insisting on more and more recounts in the 2000 Florida election. Now, in 2022, I see parents bragging about taking their 10-year-olds to see drag queens and pride parades. We live in a wonderful country where those parents and mine have the privilege of explaining to each other the error of their ways, and to do so without physical violence.

I sincerely hope the good people of this country haven't lost the bravery or the willingness to boldly and peacefully reengage on so many of these issues that matter so very, very much...and to do so with peaceful respect as the hallmark of our discourse.

When It Comes To Abortion, Laws Get Ignored For Convenience

I guess I should know better by now, but I am appalled at how hateful and violently insistent some people in the United States are becoming when it comes to retaining legal protection for killing unborn children. I have waited and waited for more prominent news media figures and high-profile Democratic politicians and bureaucrats to start making a big deal about the fact that someone tried to assassinate a Supreme Court justice earlier this season. I have waited and waited for federal law enforcement agencies to move against the totally illegal picket protests happening outside of the homes of Supreme Court justices. I just cannot bring myself to totally grasp that such obvious law-breaking is going unpunished, or that some people are that insensitive to the reality of life inside the womb. I suppose I have a lot of mental and emotional work to do to finally come to grips with how bad we as a country are becoming at dismissing or abusing what is right and lawful.

Roe Vs. Wade Is Overturned…And It Is Miraculous

But then again, I guess I have a lot of mental and emotional work to do to finally accept the glorious reality that we conservatives are just beginning to appreciate: that the individual states are now allowed to start restricting abortion! I never thought I would live to see Roe Vs. Wade overturned. And yet...here I am living in this glorious, glorious new pro-life era!

I openly rejoice. I thank God. I will forever remember that the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade wouldn't have been possible if the United States hadn't elected Donald Trump to be president in 2016.

States...it's now up to you! Do the right thing now that you can do it! As for all the churches, pregnancy centers, and police forces all across the country: stay strong, and may the strength and protection of the Lord go with you in the difficult days ahead.

Pro-Lifers Everywhere Should Rejoice

I have too many disagreements and frustrations with Mitch McConnell to count, but today is a day for conservative Republicans everywhere to unite in rejoicing together; for today, I embrace the joy I share with Mitch McConnell, whose statement about the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade is included below:

“The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Dobbs is courageous and correct. This is an historic victory for the Constitution and for the most vulnerable in our society.

“For 50 years, states have been unable to enact even modest protections for unborn children. More than 90% of Europe restricts abortion on demand after 15 weeks, but every state in America has been forced to allow it more than a month past that, after a baby can feel pain, yawn, stretch, and suck his or her thumb. Judicial activists declared that every state had to handle abortion like China and North Korea and no state could handle it like France or Germany.

“Not anymore. Now the American people get their voice back.

"The Court has corrected a terrible legal and moral error, like when Brown v. Board overruled Plessy v. Ferguson. The Justices applied the Constitution. They carefully weighed the complex factors regarding precedent. The Court overturned mistaken rulings that even liberals have long admitted were incoherent, restoring the separation of powers. I commend the Court for its impartiality in the face of attempted intimidation.

“Democrats’ disgraceful attacks on the Court have echoed Democrats’ outrage at Brown v. Board in 1954. Today’s Democrats are jaw-droppingly extreme on abortion. 97% of Washington Democrats support legislation that would effectively require nine months of abortion on demand until the moment of birth. Only 19% of Americans share this radical view but 97% of Democrats in Congress embrace it. They would rather attack our institutions than let the American people enact the reasonable protections they want.

“Millions of Americans have spent half a century praying, marching, and working toward today’s historic victories for the rule of law and for innocent life. I have been proud to stand with them throughout our long journey and I share their joy today."

--Christopher Peterson, July 4th, 2022