Category: Cultural War

Front Cover

Whether we want to admit it or accept it, America and the West have been embroiled in a Cultural War since at least the mid-1960s.   There have been times when traditionalists and conservators did not actively fight the battle and times when radicals, progressives, and destroyers were less vocal, but the battles have raged.

At stake is the very nature of government, freedom and the entire future.  Traditionalists have ceded the “high ground” of compassion and succumbed to the narrative of hate and villainy that progressives and destroyers paint all disagreement with. Allowing radicals to paint any and all with claims of ‘racist’, ‘bigot’ and hateful has silenced many.

The articles below discuss what is at stake in this Cultural War, how it is being waged, what is right and what is wrong and what the future may hold.

If interested, see my book The Philosophy of Commonsense: A Cultural War Primer.

Polygamy, Pedophilia, and Bestiality

In the off chance you think the implications I predict for the cultural war are either far fetched, alarmist, or just not possible in your life-time consider the change to Twitter’s recently updated policy regarding pedophilia:

“Discussions related to child sexual exploitation as a phenomenon or attraction towards minors are permitted, provided they don’t promote or glorify child sexual exploitation in any way,”

Twitter policy

If one follows the line of logic from – “Love is Love” and “all points of view matter and all have equal value” and combine that with the prevailing view that no universal truth exists what do you end up with? If you add in the progressive tendency to call any idea and that disagrees with the above hate and anyone that holds such an unacceptable notion a bigot it seems only natural that all three of the sexual persuasions listed in the title above will soon be legal and accepted.

Think about it, following the LGBT logic it would be impossible to say that a person cannot marry two people, why not three of four even? If the state were to tell them “no” what would be the grounds for saying no? Legally we have already set the precedent that no real truth exists and everyone has the right to define their own happiness. To say “no” to a polygamist would acknowledge some truth exists, meaning maybe it also existed when same-sex-marriage was legalized; saying “no” to a polygamist would open up an uncomfortable can of worms for the left; so they will not say no, polygamy will be championed.

What of pedophiles? We already allow children to go through sex-change operations, we allow teenagers to get abortions, why not allow them to choose to participate with a pedophile in a sexual relationship? Twitter has just said it is ok to discuss this perversion in the public square? On what basis can anyone deny them the “right” to practice their desired sexual tastes? The left’s own logic says it must be allowed.

Bestiality is no different, up until 2014 bestiality brothels were legal in the Netherlands, they were legal in Germany until 2012 and were only closed because of international pressure. It was perhaps a bit too early for those sorts of people to come out loud and proud. But their time will come. Based on the progressive ideology, how can the state tell them “no”.

There are historical precedents for all three perversions being accepted by societies at various times. It is neither far-fetched nor unrealistic to posit that these things will soon enter the public square and the legal system in the United States. It is not unreasonable to suspect they will be accepted in some way.

I present the above as a concluding argument to my position that the cultural war is lost. Politics and politicians cannot and will not fix the ship. Big business is firmly on the side of making money – which means not offending the loud progressives. We are indeed headed for moral dark ages and there is little we can do to stop it. Only a miracle could prevent what has become of us turning ever darker.

Not all is doom and gloom, however. There are things authentic Christians ought to be doing right now to help keep the fire going and to equip our children and their children with truth. The main culture in America and the West is lost to us, and perhaps that is a good thing. Christ never promised that we would rule nor that moral and just societies were our lot in life. Since the 6th century, Christianity has held great influence and a positive effect on society and culture but those days are long gone.

There is no silent moral majority any more but there are enough authentic Christians to make a difference for the future if not for today.

I will not make the argument here again (for a while) that the cultural war is lost. It took me almost six years to accept this truth from the time real evidence was first presented to me. Words alone cannot convince someone that is not yet ready to hear. My latest book, The Philosophy of Commonsense, is about how we got here, my next two are about what we need to do now.

To those that simply say it is ridiculous to assume the bestiality and pedophilia must follow from the ideology of LGBT and perhaps accuse me of making an alarmist slippery-slope argument I ask simply – on what basis would society say “no” to these things. Every possible permutation of “no” relies upon some acknowledgment that there is some greater truth, some principle that says such would not be good. To rely on such would be an outright admission that ultimate truth actually exists. The leftist ideology cannot stand long once ultimate truth is acknowledged – therefore they will never admit such.

To those that say my view that authentic Christians will be viewed with growing disdain and eventual hate is overstated I ask you how two polar opposite visions of truth can exist side-by-side without animosity. To an authentic Christian there exists a metaphysical reality that we can only fully know through God. What we do see and what we can know of the cosmos, is but a part of the greater reality, but it is also reality itself. In such a reality one can no more deny the existence of the Sun and Moon than the existence of gender. Both exist as part of reality, to deny either is false, foolish and misinformed. Authentic Christians cannot deny such and remain real Christians, the Christological understanding of metaphysics is grounded in reality.

There will be those that call themselves Christians that make life much harder for authentic Christianity, social gospel types and those that are really just moralistic deist are at this very moment making great strides to separate themselves from the Christian view of the metaphysical reality and to proclaim to the world and culture that they are just like them, the nice open-minded Christians, not the “bigots”. These sorts have infiltrated the mainline denominations, they exist in many of the pop-church mega-churches, they dominate some seminaries. They will control millions of dollars of church property when it is all said and done, and represent something that resembles Christianity, the religious trappings, but will be nothing close to the real thing.

Real and authentic Christianity will find itself in a precarious, and perhaps dangerous position in the coming years. Other, wiser and smarter men said this long before me. I did not listen, it took a lot of convincing and more evidence. You do not have to believe me now, but you ought to at least consider these words and evaluate the trends for yourself.

Mob Violence as a Tool of the Left

Mob violence, the threat of violence and intimidation of individuals by large groups is a core operational tactic of the radical left in the Cultural War. If you are like me, it is difficult to imagine that the activities in the videos and stories below really occur.  If you are aware of them, you assume, as I did for a long time that these are small isolated activities.  Surely, this cannot represent the nature and the character of an entire movement - yet it actually does. The mainstream media does not cover this in much detail, if at all.  When they do cover it they portray is as counter-protests to right-wing hate.

Three facts are important to understand.

First - there just does not exists a large and organized right-wing equivalent to these left-wing groups.  Yes, there are young groups on the Alt-Right that seem willing to take to the streets and get directly into the face of groups like ANTIFA, but they are small when compared to the left.

Second, the organization of the left is enormous.  The so-called ad hoc gatherings of students at campuses around the country to harass, assault and intimidate those that dare have ideas different than what their ideology holds dear are not nearly as random as the news media that covers these events would lead you to believe.  The left employs paid organizers and paid protestors to coordinate and facilitate these events and pass along best practices to ensure maximum success.

Third, and most important.  The radical left is proving through direct action that they have no respect for persons, property, liberty nor even life - the core principles that have made Western Civilization great.  In the videos below you will see individuals punched, spit upon, cursed at, property taken and destroyed and all manner of other things, all in the name of silencing people that disagree and denying others the right to speech free movement and peaceful assembly.

You will notice, these radical progressives perform these actions in the safety of a crowd, often punching and kicking people when their backs are turned.  They apparently believe in the power and justice of the crowd over that of the individual.  I imagine the same sort of attitudes prevailed during the French Revolution as people were denounced, "tried" and guillotined. This is the same sort of behavior that occurred during Chinas Cultural Revolution with Struggle Sessions and executions.   We have in existence the same sort of mob mentality, the same sort of ideological hate and the same level of individual cowardices that existed in France in the early 18th-century and China in the 20th.  Millions of people have been killed in the past because of mob violence.

When I write about the very real dangers the radical progressives pose, these are not theoretical or hypothetical arguments - these things are happening, and the brazenness of the mob is growing.

The videos below contain violence and crude language - but you need to see them to fully understand the gravity of this growing mob mentality.

I am posting the first video again. After having seen the videos above just imagine if the young lady in the video below was your daughter, just trying to attend a campus event and hear a speaker.

Cowards you say?  The videos bear this out. I suspect few if any of these people in black hoodies and masks would all alone get in the face of most regular Americans.  That is not their modus operandi, they are only emboldened by a large group, often attacking their victims from behind or from the side.  This does not make them less dangerous, perhaps more so.  Weak, feckless and confused people that feel powerless to act on their own, are conditioned to groupthink and feel the power in the mob are apt to perform collective acts that in history have proven to be murderous.

The notion that there is a moral superiority within the mob itself, a superiority that debases the humanity of individuals that disagree with the mob is a significant problem.  These people are learning the wrong lessons, lessons they will apply to politics and the public square for years to come.

The Implications of the “Cowtow” – 1984

Most of us naively assume that when Chick-Fil-A announced on 18 November 2019 that they would no longer donate to charities that the radical progressive minority deem “hateful” that this was just one more small thing. Nothing particularly special in the big picture. Not as significant as Roe v. Wade, not the same as many modifications to immigration over the years. Not as earth-shattering as other major losses in the Cultural War. In one sense, that is a correct assessment – it is after all just a chicken sandwich store, right. So what if Chick-Fil-A kowtows to the crazies of the world you might say, most other companies already have?

Taking such a view misses what has actually occurred. Such a view does not accept how this changes the world going forward.

Consider the facts.

  • Depending upon what measurement criteria are used, in 2019 Chick-Fil-A was between the #3 and #5 largest fast-food chain in America, increasing in almost all measurable categories since 2018.
  • Chick-Fil-A is privately held, therefore immune to vast stockholder pressure.
  • In both 2018 and 2019, Chick-Fil-A was subjected to an organized and viral campaign of lies, boycott, protest and corporate character assassination by the radical progressive left – yet they still grew in size and profits.

Despite apparently successfully shrugging off the efforts of the radical left Chick-Fil-A was thriving. They are privately held and have a board that is answerable to a smaller group of people. It appeared they were standing by their values, and winning at the game of capitalism simultaneously. Then in November of 2019, they just quit.

Sure, soon after they opened their first store in the United Kingdom the company announced in October 2019 it would close that location at the end of the six-month lease. Local LGBTQ groups had protested the location and the company since it opened. Perhaps this meant Chick-Fil-A was not going to be able to penetrate the European market. They are still a privately held company with $10Billion in sales annually – not bad. British and European citizens must find their own way to fight the Cultural War. They have gotten so much more wrong than America. If they cannot get their own houses in order, and they do not get to each Chick-Fil-A sandwiches as a result, so be it. After all, consider what the British have allowed Caroline Farrow to endure. To Britain I say, no waffle fries for you mate, cheers.

We cannot know why Chick-Fil-A caved. They were certainly making enough money and if sticking to one’s values meant staying out of Europe and the oppressive laws of the EU, so be it. But they did cave.

Image result for 1984

Implications

This, of course, means as Rod Dreher pointed out ” if even Chick-fil-A capitulates to the illiberal demands of LGBT activists, then what chance do you have in professional life, you and your religion, despised by power elites?

In the greater context of the Cultural War, this means;

  • Any company or organization that donates, supports or even hints at support of any cause, idea or organization deemed inappropriate can be brought to heel. There are simply no other privately held companies of Chick-Fil-A’s size, $10B in revenue.
  • Individuals, CEOs, professionals, teachers, academics, media personalities are now even easier targets. Those that speak up for traditional values, speak at “forbidden events”, donate to the wrong charities or espouse traditional values in the public square may be placed on a list and “canceled” one by one. Silencing voices and denying employment and income to those that resist. This has, of course, already been occurring, but the Chick-Fil-A capitulation is a watershed, these events will become more common.
  • Common people will come to further believe the narrative. “If the left said Salvation Army and the FAC were spreading hate, and Chick-Fil-A stopped supporting them then maybe they were spreading hate – I just want my sandwich“. The public square will be ceded further.
  • The surrender of Chick-Fil-A will demonstrate to politicians that the will and resolve of the radical left is much stronger than the conviction and dedication of traditionalists. They make noise and cause trouble far in excess of their true numbers. We are silent, allowing them to control the narrative and the public square. Politicians will soon come to realize that making attempts to even appeal to a traditional base is pointless, they can get elected without it, not despite it.
  • Politicians that seek to retain some support for traditional values will be increasingly isolated, ineffective because of shrinking numbers and easier to single out for organized smear and opposition campaigns.
  • With the public square under control, corporate America (and their donation dollars) captured, Congress and the Senate either filled with their candidates minus a few ineffective holdouts; it is over – this stage of the Cultural War is lost.
  • With public opinion either cowed into silence, relegated to a small corner of “radical hate and ignorance, access to corporate dollars secured, and domination of the political process the radical progressive agenda can move forward at a pace hitherto unimagined.

I personally assumed the process of total defeat in this stage of the conflict would take another decade. I see the march of history toward an authoritarian and Godless future, one has to be naive not to acknowledge that reality. I just did not think it possible to occur so quickly.

The 2016 election was an anomaly. As I argue in my latest book, The Philosophy of Commonsense, the election of Donald Trump was a result of him being the only Republican candidate to advocate for any of the issues at play in the Cultural War – Trump promised to fix the immigration problem, traditionalists believed him and elected him, despite his obvious flaws. His election was essential a counter-revolution to the progressive agenda, one last major offensive. The right cannot pull off such an offensive again.

Here is why:

Gen Z, Millennial and Gen X voters edged out older generations in 2016 vote
Older generations, Boomers and Silents, were surpassed in voting numbers in 2016
Gen X voter turnout reached a record high in 2016
Millennial turnout in 2016 was low, compared to 2008. Many more Millenials were eligible to vote but their numbers did not increase. Millennials vote almost 66% for liberal-progressive candidates
Blacks, another demographic that historically votes heavily in favor of Democratic and progressive candidates voted much less in the 2016 election

Despite most of the possible constituency that would possibly vote for anything traditional turning out, and the progressives missing significant numbers the results were less than encouraging: (via Ballotpedia)

DHillary Clinton48.3%65,844,969227
R Donald Trump 46.2% 62,979,984 304

Thank God the founders understood the importance of regions, States, community, and locality and placed the Electoral College in our system – an item the progressives will soon move to “correct”. The map may look red, but all of those red states are ignorant backwaters to the progressive.

Mathematically speaking, it does not matter if the Republicans field a better, less abrasive version of Trump, a candidate that claims to stand by more than one tenant of traditionalism, the numbers are just not there. Older, more conservative voters are dying, young and more progressive voters are increasing. Add to this the fact that Trump is really a major disappointment to many traditionalists, he did and apparently will not fix anything related to immigration and he has not advanced the cause of morality in any way at all. It will be difficult to mobilize a second offensive, believers have been burnt again and will not be motivated in 2020 and going forward.

Perhaps my generation, the slackers and nihilists of Generation X will remember some of what we learned and observed as kids. It is hard to imagine a group of kids that grew up watching Star Wars and reading 1984 not understanding how tyranny can slip into a government by “good intentions”. Generation Xers are already attending church weekly more than any other living generation. But we are a small generation, we cannot alter the landscape alone.

The real hope lies in our children, the Zoomers, as Forbes argued in Why Democrats Should Be Losing Sleep Over Generation Z–

Hello, Generation Z! The fiscally responsible, tattoo hating, Republican-leaning group, touted by conservatives as their best hope for the future, and as the antithesis of Millennials.

Ashley Stahl

But the impact of the Zoomers is several years away. It will be some time before the full force of their voting impact is felt. In the meanwhile, America will be fundamentally changed, and much faster than most could have predicted.

It will only be after America moves very close to authoritarianism in government and the public square, the engine of capitalism is seized up with wealth-hating and redistribution policies and almost all of the remnants of Christian and traditional values are stripped from public life that Zoomers will step in and fix things. How we help prepare them for that awesome task was the entire purpose of my book.

We are in for a long, and ugly ride. We lost this stage of the Cultural War. Our battles and efforts now should be focused on retrenchment*, shoring up institutions, speaking truth so that it does not disappear entirely from dialogue, living in compassion, living our values and preparing our children for their task.

*Retrenchment is a technical term in fortification, where it is applied to a secondary work or series of works constructed in rear of existing defences to bar the further progress of the enemy who succeeds in breaching or storming these.

Christian Chicken and the Cultural War

Mike Church Church over at the Crusader Channel radio has been saying this for years in reference to Chick-Fil-A and the Cultural War.

If the #3 fast-food chain, a firm that only sells sandwiches six days a week, can fall and bow a knee to pressure, what chance do smaller firms and mom and pop businesses have?

In Chick-Fil-A’s kowtowing – in this case cowtowing© – to the progressive agenda they have thrown two good charities under the bus, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Salvation Army. Both of these charities are now validated as bastions of hate in the mainstream because of ChickFilA’s submission to authoritarian demands and lies. Unforgivable. The FCA for crying out loud!

The entire narrative has been taken over and controlled by radical progressives. There is no hope to win or even slow down the defeat of traditional American values so long as they control the words. They term disagreement as “hate”, they define principles as “bigotry” and they call faith ignorance. Their ideology is based upon authoritarianism masked as equality and compassion. Their goal is nothing short of the abolition of Christianity and traditional values in America.

I will be the very first to admit, perhaps to the disgust of some conservatives, that Christian Americans got homosexuality wrong. Homosexuality is a sin, no different than adultery, murder, stealing, lying, and hypocrisy – all sins. Hang with me a moment before you click past this page. Allow me to make a point.

Christian America ought to have handled this differently a long time ago.

Homosexual marriage should never have been recognized by the government. Marriage is a social institution that has served humanity well for centuries. However, if two same-sex people created a contract of sorts, that should have been fine – so long as it was not treated as a family, no adoptions and no family status recognized by the State that is supposed to protect the social order.

If homosexuals wanted to serve in the military, that should have been fine for them to enlist. At the same time, the government should have deemed active homosexuality as moral turpitude and denied them commissions and leadership roles – the same as for anyone that has a demonstrated morality problem.

Homosexuals should have been welcomed in all churches – that is where all of us sinners belong. They ought not to be preachers or teachers if they are active in their sin, but sinners ought to be welcomed in church.

Essentially we ought to have treated homosexuals and homosexuality just like any other sin. We recognize it exists, we know you cannot legislate away sin, we simply should have said “be yourself, but these are societies standards” regarding sin and immorality.

I would argue that this was exactly how America behaved until the 1960s or so. Sure individuals and communities might have been unwilling to accept a person that practices homosexuality – that was their liberty to hold an opinion. Sure there were laws on the books prohibiting homosexuality in many places, but there were many other morality laws as well; homosexuality was not singled out. All such laws were good intentioned mistakes.

None of what I propose above would make the LQBTQ+++ crowd happy now. They would term my speech hate for merely suggesting that homosexuality is a sin. Of course, their real agenda is much broader than gay rights.

What changed beginning in the 1960s and accelerating since is the narrative of the progressives. They turned grievances over laws, laws that were similar to morality laws that applied to heterosexuals, into a political cause and then conflated that with an entire anti-values agenda. Instead of merely advocating for equal liberty for all to sin or not on matters of sexuality they created a political ideology and a story- a narrative. This narrative painted anyone that opposed the changes they wanted as hate-filled, it described the religious convictions of the opposition as bigotry.

The conservative traditionalist response to this attack was something natural. It basically took the form of “you are attacking me and everything I believe, you and everything you believe are bad”. The radical progressive began the polarization of America.

None of that history, what should have been, what might have matters now. When the right opposes the LGBTQ+++ agenda they are not opposing gay people as individual children of God. No true Christian hates another person and anyone claiming to be a Christian that does hate another needs some knee-time. The LGBTQ+++ agenda itself is not just about rights for gay people, it is now wrapped up in a much bigger ideological argument. The rainbow flag and the faux arguments over homosexuality are just proxy wars for the bigger issue. Their argument ceased a long time ago to be about gay rights.

The biggest lie the radical progressive tell is that their movement is about rights, equality, and compassion. It is really about control, domination, submission, and hate for Christian values. Yet they wrap their narrative in happy flags and get a pass on their hate.

Conservatives, Christians, and traditionalists are losing the Cultural War for a few reasons. I will just address one here.

“control their language and you control the people”

George Orwell, author of 1984

We have ceded the language and the narrative to the left. They wrap their arguments in inclusion, compassion, and dignity and paint ours as narrow-minded and hateful. Any disagreement with their dogma is termed hate. We simply cannot accept that. Many are afraid to actually speak because others will think poorly of them, leaving the public space for a minority to dominate. We need to speak our convictions, to friends, to family, in social conversation when the topic comes up and in the public square. We need to speak from first principles, with respect to liberty and equality and compassion but also recognizing universal truth. The LGBTQ+++ story is easily dissected from the progressive narrative if one simply discusses the core issues. Christianity is compassion, for the individual, the family, and society. Societal order is a positive good. There is nothing at all hateful by saying something is wrong based upon firmly held convictions and long-established tradition. A thing even Marin Luther King, an icon of the left, thought was wrong and said so publicly. Shall we deem him a hater and remove his name from the streets and a holiday for it?

What is hateful and bigoted is to attack an entire centuries-old faith tradition and the people that hold that faith dear. What is abominable is the desire to control and tell others what to think and how to do business as the radical progressive movement is so apt to do. All three of the world’s major religions consider homosexuality a sin, they have held this view for centuries. Are we to assume a few vocal radicals are smarter than most of the world’s population for most of our history? I think not.

We need to take back the language and speak our convictions with confidence. And, in the case of a company like Chick-Fil-A, we need to vote with our wallets. They did not achieve #3 fast-food staus on those little chicken sandwiches alone, and if you are honest, they were not exceptional items in any event. They were pretty good, but there are equal options out there. They had OUR support because many believed they operated with OUR values. They quit the Cultural War when they did not have to and in doing so made life a lot harder on smaller companies that desire to operate within their conscience. Such a betrayal cannot go unpunished – this is the nature of the Cultural War.

You may say “but all of corporate America has folded, why should I deny myself a rubbery chicken sandwich”. All of corporate America did not take a stand and carry the banner as a leader for traditionalism and values like ChickFilA. All of corporate America has not held itself out to you as a place to spend your money because they shared your values. Chick-Fil-A did that, and then they quit on you and us.

It is a shame, a real shame that the radical progressives have so twisted what should have been simple issues. Homosexuals should have had the same rights as any other sinner to do most of the things all sinners do. That would not have made the act right morally, no more so than any other sin that is legal, but it never had to become part of an agenda to tear down all that is traditional, moral and good about America. We should have dealt with that issue as Americans and skipped all this polarization.

The Philosophy of Commonsense: A Cultural War Primer by [Clark, Barry]

The Cultural War is the very subject of my latest book, The Philosophy of Commonsense: A Cultural War Primer. It addresses questions such as what are the basis of traditional American values, where does ultimate truth come from, why the cultural war matters and what are the ramifications for the future?

In my own personal life, I have known and even been friends with many homosexuals. Like most Christians I treated them just like every other sinner I come across, which is everyone I meet including me. In the Army I had a Soldier come to my First Sergeant and say they wanted to “come out”. This was back during “don’t ask, don’t tell”. I told my First Sergeant to go back to them and tell them I did not want them to tell me anything of the sort – I and everyone already knew anyway, it was no secret. They were a good Soldier. I had porn addicts, prostitute visitors, adulters and brawlers in my company – sinners all. Why would I let this person tell me something I would have to act on. That is the sort of example, not unique to me, that the radical progressives do not want to hear. They would rather call me a hater because I think it is a sin than realize I have treated all people the same, regardless. I am not alone. Yet their brush paints us all as narrow-minded bigots.

They made this a “Us versus Them” fight and Chick-Fil-A just picked the wrong side.

As Rod Dreher wrote in a piece for The American Conservative:

Symbolically, this is a big deal for those who hold to what Christianity, Judaism, and Islam traditionally teach about homosexuality and related phenomena. It sends the signal that resistance is futile. If even Chick-fil-A — the company that takes its Christian values so seriously that it closes on Sunday, and despite that revenue loss, was still able to become the third-biggest fast food franchise in America — if even Chick-fil-A capitulates to the illiberal demands of LGBT activists, then what chance do you have in professional life, you and your religion, despised by power elites?

Passing the Torch

Image result for michelle malkin
Another voice silenced?

I resolved some time ago to avoid domestic politics for the most part. Primarily because none of it matters so long as we are mired in melodrama and lost in the dark without a light to guide us. The fact is there is hardly a principled politician in Washington and as a result little they argue about approaches the issues from a position of truth.

The ongoing cultural war is different. It is tangentially related to domestic politics only insofar as there are issues that still may be fought, the last battlefields the traditionalists and conservers of America might fight to slow the oncoming defeat. Immigration is one of those issues.

There was a time, not so long ago, when I thought immigration was not a significant issue to be fought. After all, America has welcomed immigrants for over two centuries, right? My views changed after reading Who are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity by Samuel Huntington(2004). In 1993 I came to respect and agree with Huntington’s best-known hypothesis, expressed in The Clash of Civilizations as he described what he saw as the future of the geopolitical world order after the Cold War. His theory essentially predicted the emergence of Al Qaeda and ISIS. When Huntington wrote Who in 2004, I read it and considered his ideas.

My initial objections to considering immigration as a major issue were centered on facts such as; most Mexicans are strongly family-oriented, they work hard and most have strong religious beliefs – these facts are mostly true and a lot of Mexicans are indeed better people than a lot of Americans. Having lived in Texas for a few years I saw no issue with a bilingual society.

Huntington points out a few facts that make this wave of immigration a bit different than many in the past. The difference is the type of government we have now, the largesse the government doles out and the ability for progressives to simply buy the loyalty of new immigrants with public policy and social programs. (Huntington, 2004)

The fact is America is embroiled in a Cultural War for the very soul and future of the nation. As Pat Buchanan said in 1992 at the Republican National Convention:

“My friends, this election is about more than who gets what. It is about who we are. It is about what we believe, and what we stand for as Americans. There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as was the Cold War itself, for this war, is for the soul of America.”

To deny that we are in a Cultural War is impossible unless one ignores reality. To not accept that traditionalists and conservers of American foundational values have been losing steadily for several decades is dangerous.

Ann Coulter said in a PBS interview for Frontline in August that Trump was elected solely on the issue of immigration. He was the only Republican candidate that would forcefully campaign on the issue. To many ordinary Americans that want to see something traditional of America retained that was enough. Nobody on any of those debate stages really championed any of the real issues that matter to culture and values. If immigration reform was all they could get they would take Trump – despite his obvious flaws.

Immigration reform and control is an important issue precisely because America is embroiled in this battle for the future. Traditionalists have already been losing and most, if they are honest, know that the losses will be larger still to come. Stemming immigration and a ready pool of voters to support progressive issues is important from that perspective alone. Huntington in Who makes other arguments why it is important, but from a practical approach of simply slowing the loss, immigration reform is important.

I have become so keenly aware of the implications of traditional America losing the Cultural War, I recently completed a work I started some time ago and published a book – The Philosophy of Commonsense: A Cultural War Primer. The conclusion I reach in that book is that we will lose this stage of the Cultural War, America will fundamentally change in ways far faster and more extreme than anything we have seen in the last 60 years. But I contend the anti-wealth, social justice to extremes and attempts to force equality of outcomes will fail, miserably. At some point, I suspect in my children’s generation (Generation Z), people will look around and ask hard questions and seek a better way. If this is correct, we best pass on some of the knowledge and values we received from our parents and grandparents to help them craft better solutions.

I do not know Michele Malkin. In my very early blogging days in the mid-2000s, I read her blog, commented on hers and discussed some of what she said on mine.

I do know she is polemic and something of a problem for the radical progressive narrative; her being a brown-skinned woman that speaks some of the hardest truths does not fit, these words are supposed to come from old reactionary white guys, not a first-generation immigrant.

It seems Malkin has been and will further be silenced for a speech she made on 14 November 2019, specifically for the words below:

“Conservative Inkers now have their knives out for me, recycling Media Matters oppo research uncovering things I’ve never covered up in my reporting and advocacy on sovereignty issues over the last quarter-century. They want me to disavow Nick Fuentes and VDARE and Peter Brimelow and Faith Goldy and Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys and Steve King and Laura Loomer and on and on. They want to do to me what they’ve done to brilliant academics who’ve told the truth – Amy Wax at the University of Pennsylvania and Darren Beattie and Jason Richwine and Steve Sailer.

No, I do not agree with every last thing they’ve said or written or published or tweeted or thought with their inside or outside voices. But I will not disavow any of them and I will not join the de-platforming witch hunters who hypocritically call themselves free speech and culture warriors. I disavow violence. I disavow hatred of America. I disavow the systematic bipartisan betrayal of American citizens, students, and families by cynical politicians who promised for 25 years to build a wall, end the diversity visa lottery, end chain migration, and other memorized talking points. I disavow Republicans who told us to hold our noses and vote for open borders sellouts because we support the Second Amendment and are against abortion and we had no other choice.”

The Torch is Being Passed speech

This speech was to a Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) in a college audience with the essential message of, “sorry kids, you must fight this fight”. That is the essential message of the book mentioned above that I just published.

Malkin is likely done at this point on the national stage, major media outlets will likely not have her on. She will be relegated to the “extreme” and become untouchable. This is the way with truth-tellers, particularly one whose ancestry and skin color are such a problem for progressives and wild-eyed radicals as Malkin.

Looking at the situation in retrospect, the title of her speech, The Torch is Being Passed, is ironic.

___________________________

Huntington, S. P. (2004). Who are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?id=6xiYiybkE8kC.

The Way the Word is and is Not

Many people, from common and ordinary observers to those that read and think deeply on the issue, wonder about the very nature of the world we live in.  Nothing makes much sense.  A grandma in Bismarck North Dakota that only sees the world through Facebook and the nightly news and a philosopher schooled in the classics, history and public policy wonder the same thing. Something is ‘off’, things have changed and are changing in a way that does not comport to the standard explanations.

With much amusement, some in the ‘mainstream’ observe that the fringes have begun to accept conspiratorial explanations for the way things are. To be certain, much of what one sees bandied about as facts and justification on the margins left and right is easily attributed to false interpretations of easily explainable events and circumstances. That is perhaps the problem with conspiracy theorist, they see the boogeyman beyond every action, they reach too far.  Also, many sensationalize the phenomenon, and make an industry of creating and perpetuating the conspiracy narrative, Alex Jones comes to mind.

I contend and continue to contend, that the world is as it is at present because of the diffusion and expansion of bad philosophy into bad ideology and then into bad public policy, education, academics, theology and world view. (B. Clark 2019) In the West, we valued the wrong philosophers from the Enlightenment and this led to an abandonment of the Western tradition of common-sense and Christian metaphysical realism. It is easy enough to explain how Postmodernism through bad philosophy, once accepted begat bad ideology and defused into all elements of culture and how this will eventually lead to totalitarianism or authoritarianism.  (B. L. Clark 2019)

Through the lens of the arguments above, combined with a Christian worldview that says human are fallible and imperfect, it is possible to understand the world as it is without further theories or explanations.  Since this is the most obvious, reasonable and sufficient reason it is one I have accepted and continue to accept.

However, there are some things, some coincidences that seem just too strange to be mere coincidence.

For instance, Trump remains an enigma to me.  His election is explained by some as a populist reaction to the changes mentioned above, perhaps something of a last counterattack of the ordinary man. Perhaps.  His behavior in office has been perhaps the most curious thing to me.  I have commented more times than I can now count after he tweets something that most consider outrageous that he is either unhinged, like some claim, or a genius. He either has absolutely no idea what he is doing or he is well aware and doing it as part of a plan.  His communication strategy is just too bizarre when compared to what the ‘experts’ would say he should do, to be anything other than one of those extreme poles. If he is unhinged, then the Democrats would be correct to want to impeach him.  If he is executing a genius strategy of communication that speaks to his base and circumvents his distractors, he is either a masterful demagogue or part of something bigger.

A populist demagogue, that speaks to his base and confounds his enemies and their allies in the mainstream media is not necessarily dangerous, and perhaps what we need in a time of confusion. This would be a reasonable, logical and sufficient explanation, and perhaps the most likely.

Perhaps the most interesting explanation is that Trump is merely part of something bigger.  This is what QAnnon suggests and what the supporters and interpreters of QAnnon ‘drops’ suggest.  Outrageous, right?  Perhaps, maybe even probably.  I am disinclined to see complex conspiracies where simple solutions suffice.

Jeffery Epstein and the curious and odd events surrounding his life and death gave me pause to wonder. The list of people that associated with him, visited his island and other properties are extraordinary, the rich and powerful from politics and industry all there at one or time or another.  The only notable figure to be embroiled in the scandal is a rather dense spare royal heir, Andrew.  The fact that mainstream media killed the Epstein story, to begin with, is troubling. The subsequent murder of Epstein, before his trial, before he had to chance to name names and cut a deal, while in solitary confinement and protective custody - that is beyond curious.

Let’s back up for a moment.  I stated earlier I do not ascribe to conspiracy theories to explain the explainable, but that does not mean I have not found them entertaining and interesting over the years. I have been aware of certain themes and permeations of the prevailing conspiracy theories since the early 1990s.  One theme that has been present in most theories I read as a form of entertainment was the concept that elites colluded not only for power and access but that sex and sexual perversions played a central role in their ideology.  Pedophilia was often mentioned as an element of the conspirators.

Naturally then, when presented with the facts of a man like Epstein, with obscene wealth, a list of social associates that transcend political parties and reach into board rooms, and state and local government and at the center of it is sex, sex trafficking, and underage girls all culminating in a mysterious murder, apparently by the guards, while in protective custody - that is something to ponder. Did all of these conspiracy people have pieces and parts of the story right all along?  Certainly, they went to extremes at times, they reached too far to see the conspiracies hand in too many events, but were they fundamentally right about some of it?

I do not know.  It all seems too fantastic of a story to even consider.  But how else can one explain major media outlets initially killing the Epstein story, his death, his bizarre list of associates and major medias refusal to dig in and question people like Bill Clinton or Bill Richardson or demand access to the 1,000 other sealed names.

The Epstein story intrigued me, so I dug a bit and stumbled upon imagery of his complex at his island. The internet, it seems, was paying a lot of attention to a temple building on the Island. Here is an example of the sorts of stories I initially ran across.

This takes us back to another theme that has been present in the general conspiracy narrative since the 1990s and perhaps long before. The claim is that the conspirators make heavy use of symbology and that their core ideology aligns in some ways to paganism, perhaps mixed with mysticism. Folks across the interwebs have dissected the symbology of the Epstein temple and compared pieces and parts to patterns and symbols in other places, displayed by other public figures. Perhaps just coincidence, perhaps reaching in some cases but the theme has been there from the start, and now we have this provider of pedophile experiences to the rich and famous with a temple - odd. This is not to say the conspiracy folks are right, but they have been saying that this is the reality as long as I have paid any attention to them, for 30 years.

Invariably, my searches brought me to the discovery of QAnnon, a phenomenon I was unaware of until very recently.  I admit I was perhaps slow in the uptake on this.  I spent the last couple of years ignoring social media and the domestic news cycle for the most part. My initial conclusion about this person or group is It is one of the following (in order of most fantastic and difficult to believe to most likely):

  1. It is just what they claim to be.
  2. It is a complex, well-conceived and orchestrated information campaign by Trump and close Trump insiders.
  3. It is a flakey hoax that has leveraged the populism of Trump and combined it with elements of existing conspiracy theories to craft a narrative.
  4. Some combination of all of the above.

Let’s begin with item#3, I have not read any refutations of QAnnon to this point, I do not need to as I can craft enough on my own.  Also, if I want to examine the first two possibilities, I will have to accept the premise that mainstream media outlets would certainly put enormous effort into crafting a false counter-narrative.

A flakey, opportunistic hoax is a reasonable sufficient explanation. However, there are so many odd things that one would have to accept as coincidence, FISA Gate for one, and then of course Epstein. Is it actually possible that the entire current impeachment mess is a result of an attempt to cover up and detract from what was a literal coup attempt by Obama, Clinton and others?  That is a fairly extraordinary proposition, but very little of this entire drama, beginning with fabricated intelligence documents and spying on the Trump campaign make a lot of sense. Those two events are significant, bigger than Watergate ever was.  They represent a sort of desperate departure from the rule of law one expects in a banana republic.

If QAnnon is just a flakey hoax, it has hit on some elements of truth, some facts that should be alarming and some aspect of reality that we are not shown on the nightly news.  This is not to say the person or persons are what they say they are or that the interpretations of the QAnnon drops are correct.  It is to say that, just as I began this piece, something in our world does not make sense.

This leads us to item#2, that QAnnon is part of a trump driven information campaign. The ‘drops’ began in 2017 and by 2018 Q advocates were openly appearing at trump rallies and given interviews at the Whitehouse. One of the elements Q-ers use to validate the ‘drops’ by Q is ‘proofs’ - either first published photos of items close to the President or timestamps that correspond with Trump twitter posts.  These ‘proofs’ indicate to followers that Q has access to the POTUS.

In light of the question, I raised earlier about Trump and his tweets, QAnnon and the theory that it is part of a Trump information campaign make much more sense.  In some ways it is brilliant.  Trump tweets harsh words in plain language, items that frustrated the mainstream and befuddle traditional media. This language and the reaction of his opponents appeals to his base.  QAnnon, in this sense, is the explanatory arm of the campaign.  It provides the meat behind the words, the meta-narrative.

In a world where Trump was never going to get a break from the media, and one where perhaps illegal activity such as FISAGate and fabricated intelligence really exist, it seems rather ingenious to create a platform to work around the entire system. I am not saying it is moral or ethical, I do not know all the facts, but taken for what this theory of the existence of QAnnon says it to be, it is inarguably ingenious.

This leads us to the most disturbing of these theories.  What if QAnnon is what it is presented to be, some group of intelligence insiders in collusion Trump and key Trump insiders.  What if the election of Trump was not just a populist movement, but a populism combined with insiders that worked to thwart efforts of traditional power brokers to retain power by illegal means?  What if there really is a group of folks that have loosely colluded over time, perhaps a long time, to secure power at numerous levels in and out of government, in media and in corporations?  What if this group really does adhere to an ideology that has religious elements, symbolism and perhaps even a propensity toward sexual perversion?

On the face of it that is fairly outrageous, difficult to accept and perhaps even preposterous.

It is preposterous if in thinking about his cabal of conspirators’ you conceptualize something like a controlling, all-powerful, secret organization that exercises power across time and national boundaries. Think here of a legion of doom, James Bond sort of super-villain organization, with secret hideouts etc. That is obviously absurd.  This is perhaps the first thing that comes to mind, and it is dismissed as ridiculous as soon as it appears.

What if it were something else?  Instead of an all-powerful organization with a written creed, a chain of command and a discernable organization it is instead a loose association, a web of association.  Instead of controlling all things in all places it has varying degrees of power and influence in different places at different times.  It influences and manipulates much more than controls.  Instead of a rigid organization with creeds and an organizational chart, it is something more like a group of like-minded folks that share ideology, invite others into the circle of circles over time.   Instead of a centralized mechanism by which people are placed into positions, it is really more of an ad hoc process, people are brought into small circles, organically rather than deliberately.

Such an organization, not really being a real organization at all, could grow, and exercise influence slowly over time.  To be certain, there would be some that are closer to forming a core cohort, the usual suspects that attend the Bilderberg for instance. There would be powerful families that have been part of the cohort for longer periods of time, particularly those that got rich through what Kevin A. Carson calls  “the subsidy of history”. (Richman 2012) There would be individuals with enormous wealth that would be seen as prime actors and supporters of some agenda, think George Soros for instance. And there would be many organizations that would push and advocate pieces and parts of the plan.  However, none of that needs a central organization nor a master plan, and if one existed in the minds of a few not many would need be aware of it.

In fact, many people doing the yeoman’s work of the overall plan would not need to even understand there was anything larger going on, and many would actively deny that such was even possible.

If this cabal of conspirators is a decentralized, loose organization of the nature I just described it would not exercise total control.  A situation like Jeffery Epstein being arrested would occur, there are still many decent people around in positions of power.  A guy like Trump, against all predictions, could win an election against folks one might rightly expect are knee-deep in the middle of the evil side.

Such is the narrative that Q paints.  The cabal in their description is powerful, it has hooks in many places, but it does not control everything.  It simply cannot, not yet, most people still believe in the rule of law and some notion of liberty.  If such a cabal exists, it was still in the process of consolidating power and shifting events in 2016.

If the narrative Q paints were to be true, the most alarming thing would not be that it were true, that groups of people have loosely worked together to shift events toward less freedom and more control.  The most terrifying thing would be that the election of Trump and the assertion by Q that after Trump weathers this impeachment process the virtual hammer will begin to fall on members of the cabal.

Here is the crux.  If Q is on point and telling the truth they claim the ‘good guys’ are winning this whole thing.  They claim that after Trump weathers the last assault, impeachment, indictments and arrests will be widespread of a large number of folks involved in nefarious activity.  This leaves only five possibilities.

  1. Trump is not removed from office and then proceeds to more publicly speak of the cabal and arrests and indictments proceed.
  2. Trump is not removed from office, but nothing but talk, innuendo, investigation and the same old Washington dram ensues (Q was a deception)
  3. Trump, despite the extremely low probability, is removed from office, and it all seems odd. (Perhaps Q was telling the truth and the cabal is more powerful that assumed)
  4. Trump is not removed from office, but is assassinated, never taking any direct action against the cabal Q claims exists (might this mean Q was correct)

Of all those possible outcomes, #2 seems the most likely. If that means that Q was an information operation by some core Trump group, with his knowledge and consent, no matter how brilliant of an operation, I would be disgusted.

If any of the other occurs, we will all have to sit back down and reconsider what we really think is going on in the world. If #3 happened I would really scratch my head, removal from office is such a low probability event at this point. If #4 happened, well I would be convinced, that something dark and nefarious was at work in the world.

Strauss and Howe predicted the chaos of the 2000s, the 2008 financial crisis and the election of Trump.  They predict a transformative change to come soon in their work in The Fourth Turning. (Strauss and Howe 1999) Change is coming, good or bad.  Whether Q was a force of good, a hoax, or disinformation, only time will tell.

I have said all of the above to simply say, the world seems not to make a lot of sense to me right now.  I simply do not understand how we have come to this, this mess, discord, and absurdity.

 

Note to the Government guys:  I have noticed your IP addresses, perhaps because of my 2nd Amendment Post and I will perhaps see more because I said the A word above in the same sentence with POTUS.  Get real fellas, read my words and move on, nothing to see here.  I did not say I wanted to see such happen nor that someone should do such. I was speaking about what this would all look like if some crack-head loser actually did that.  I believe this Q stuff is probably either bunk or disinformation. Spend your time on real problems.  However, since you are here, might I suggest you read A Blessed Life, I am harmless, I still hold to the same oath we both took.

 

Clark, B L. 2019. “From Radical Progressivism to Authoritarianism.” SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3506918.

Clark, Barry. 2019. “Fourth Turning Clash of Inter-Civilization Cultures Thesis.” https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.32977.28008.

Richman, Sheldon. 2012. “How The Rich Rule.” The American Conservative. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-the-rich-rule/.

Strauss, W, and N Howe. 2009. The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. Crown/Archetype. https://books.google.com/books?id=d8bBFGJq79sC.