Category: Politics

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PARDON YE

This is a passion piece. No links. No sources. No pics. Just you, me, and what I believe.

I believe in speaking truth to power. I believe in freedom of expression. I believe in the innate goodness of the universe and human beings. I believe that everyone alive is pro-life for that very fact and that life itself is sacred. I believe that whatever the question, more freedom is the answer.

I believe that the greatest men and women in history have bled and died in service to these principles and that rescuing our future from its dark trajectory now rests on our ability to follow suit.

I believe that Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) is both a mirror and a looking glass, reflecting and projecting our darkest tendencies and greatest potential as a single race of living beings.

Historically, such visionaries have been crucified by the masses at the behest of the ruling classes in service to the status quo – Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. And, although 3000 years of recorded tradition is yet to teach us this lesson, beauty, truth, and love cannot be killed by murdering the messenger.

But enough abstractions, let’s get specific.

Despite what you choose to believe, Ye is not a racist. He is not trying to start a second Holocaust. He is not crazy, off his meds, or dumb.

Ye is a 45-year-old black man born in Atlanta, raised by a single mom on the south side of Chicago who rose to the top of the creative world in several industries. Under Ye’s belt lies 22 Grammys, 10 consecutive #1 albums, a presidential run, Yeezy brand apparel which has rescued two companies from financial and cultural obscurity, the accomplishments of becoming the wealthiest black man-wealthiest recording artist-wealthiest designer-in history, his own academy with sports teams, and on and on. All this without selling out or compromising his vision. Not once.

No one in the music industry believed in his vision to be the best-dressed rapper in the game, that his beats and lyrical ability could wrestle the culture from the death grip of gangsta rap. Ye did that.

No one believed that he could survive putting on the red hat, that his vision of freeing African Americans from the democratic plantation of block-voting which has delivered decade after decade of diminishing returns would alienate him from his base. It didn’t. Rather he gained a new one, empowering the likes of Candace Owens and others to elevate their voices in the fight for family. Ye did that.

No one believed that a prominent rapper could sell a gospel album. Jesus is King hit #1 on the Billboard top 200, and in over 100 countries worldwide, creating an entire Sunday Service church choir in the process. Ye did that.

No one believes that his current commentary on the evil embedded within the entertainment industry will lift a finger in the direction of freedom. We would rather nitpick his language, his approach, his tone, and his timing in order to cheer on the ruling class as they collude to crucify him and everyone he loves. We say he deserves it. He says he can take it. Ye does that.

We are witnessing a Dark Knight moment in history where we get the hero we need, not the one we deserve. The hero we need, of course, is the one willing to address the pain of the present, rather than hide behind the pain of the past.

Even if we choose to believe that Ye is an anti-semite, that his comments were inspired by hate and not love, and that he should be punished for saying them in order to protect the collective from another Holocaust, even from this perspective, we still have to ask ourselves, what cultural conditions caused the Holocaust? Slavery?

For if, in order to preserve the present, we have to employ the worst tactics of the past, what future do we deserve?

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Teetering on a Precipice: Soar into the Golden Age or Slip into Darkness?

Image Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sLVqc7DfR4

In their book, ‘The Fourth Turning,’ William Strauss and Neil Howe outline a predictive framework for the United States which is well summarized by the Michael Hopf quote:

‘Strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, bad times create strong men’

G. Michael Hopf
Vote on the poll to see where you stand relative to the rest of the OSM community

Unpacking the idea we learn that every 20 – 25 years, as a new generation comes of age (referred to as a ‘Turning’ by the authors), there is a predictable shift in the national zeitgeist. Each Turning has identifiable characteristics rendering the theory ripe for extrapolation. The book, written in the mid-’90s, estimated that we would enter our next Fourth Turning (bad times) around 2008, the previous Fourth Turning kicking off with WWI, roughly 100 years ago. Strauss & Howe go on to describe, in general terms, a large-scale disaster that sets off a dramatic series of events, effectively pushing our society into a generation-long era of significant, irreversible change. To see us through, a ‘grey champion’ emerges as an unlikely and largely unsung hero.

Was the 2008 mortgage crisis and resulting Great Recession the event that kicked off a 25-year national rebuilding phase? Are we behind schedule and perhaps it is the COVID19 global pandemic? Will history recount Donald Trump or Joe Biden as the grey champion of our time much as Woodrow Wilson was in his? We can’t know for sure at present, but it would certainly be hard to argue that, as a people, we are experiencing anything other than a significant and rapidly changing cultural-political moment.

Tensions flare in the wake of 2020 US Elections amidst allegations of voter fraud

But let’s walk through the argument together to make sure we are on the same page, starting with the understanding that civilized society is held together by its shared culture, defined as:

The arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, and other products of human work and thought considered as a unit, especially with regard to a particular time or social group.

American Heritage Dictionary of English Language, 5th Edition

Borrowing a biblical allegory, if culture is the language we use to describe and navigate in the direction of our shared future, we are at the Tower of Babel, confused and dispersing. The more fractious the culture, the more prime the society for decay, revolt, and/or takeover. Or as historian Luke Kemp puts it in his 2019 BBC article:

Collapse can be defined as a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity, and socio-economic complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence.

Luke Kemp

And if scrolling thru twitter comments or tuning into any political commentary isn’t enough to convince you of the eroding culture, take a look at the current state of two of the most influential cultural players in the US, Government and News Media.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/04/11/public-trust-in-government-1958-2019/#chart
Image Credit: https://medium.com/trust-media-and-democracy/10-reasons-why-americans-dont-trust-the-media-d0630c125b9e

And while this moment of cultural decay isn’t entirely unique in history, the wealth, technology, sheer population density, and diversity sure are. Translation: the spectrum of possible outcomes, both constructive and destructive, is measurably wider than in the past. Therefore, we have both more to gain and more to lose than ever before; one might say we are teetering on a precipice of epic proportions.

Image Credit: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/fulcrum-810×420.jpg

Staring over the edge and down into the abyss, we can imagine a darkening future where the worst elements of the current moment, enhanced by the greatest weapons, communications, and transportations technologies mankind has ever known, erupt on the scene and swallow us up, ushering in a modern-day dark age. I really don’t like delving into these types of doomsday scenarios as so many other outlets do, but do want to point out that it would not be the situation itself, rather our inability to communicate, compromise, and come together that would ultimately doom us to destruction.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. We could step back from the precipice, turn, and open the gates to the greatest Golden Age that mankind has ever known, fueled by all the same drivers. But what is a Golden Age?

The idea of a Golden Age first appeared in the Five Ages of Man, an 8th-century BCE creation myth composed by the Greek Hesiod, an epic poet the likes of Homer. Hesiod’s vision of the Golden Age – supposedly imparted to him by the Nine Muses while he tended sheep – describes a time when Man was indistinguishable from the Gods. In this age of peace and plenty, there was no suffering, no toil, no death.

Image Credit: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.CLBULDqUbfM_lWbigI_gjgHaDE%26pid%3DApi&f=1

I’m not talking about immortality, omnipotence, or any other supernatural phenomenon, but I did grow up hearing that I could achieve anything I put my mind to and I can’t help but wonder what would happen if enough people did that collectively.

So how do we get there from the mess we are in now? Stay tuned for the next article but I’ll leave you with a hint: as you likely have figured out by now, I’m a strong advocate for the Jordan Peterson school of thought, ‘fix yourself, fix the world.’ Put another way, we can’t sit back and expect broken people to fix us, or blind people to lead the way.

Time to lace up our shoes, open our eyes, and get to work on our own Golden Age.

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My Night Sky – A Devotional on Kanye’s Jesus is King Album

Image Credit: http://en.es-static.us/upl/2017/10/minnesota-northern-lights-e1506729594708.jpg

I am alone in the woods in McGregor, MN. It’s late, maybe 11:00p, and I am yelling up at the star-filled sky, ‘Why won’t you talk to me? What is wrong with me?’ The glow from the worship hall at Covenant Pines Bible Camp visible up the path from the clearing where my 9 year old self is lamenting. Seemingly everyone except me is full of the Holy Spirit, singing God’s praises with arms upraised, and I can’t tell if they are faking it or if something is wrong with me. Hence, under the guise of using the restroom, I make my way to a quieter place in search of an answer from above.

25 years later I would first hear the lyrics;

‘Yeah, you’re lookin’ at the church in the night sky; Wonderin’ whether God’s gonna say hi,’

Kanye West, Saint Pablo

The chorus bringing me to tears as I reflected on all that had transpired since that fateful night in my youth. It was only a few years before Saint Pablo, at age 30, that I had all but given up the search for God, taking the position that if He wanted me He could reveal himself, but I was no longer going out of my way to look for Him. I was, by all intensive purposes, an atheist. And yet, at 34, Kanye brought a tear to my eye and stirred a longing long buried, but not yet at rest.

Now at 37, Kanye has released his first gospel album, Jesus is King, and this unlikely disciple is again rustling my spirit against my will.

Album cover image credit: https://exclaim.ca/images/kanye-jesus-is-king.jpeg

See, back in the woods at age 9, I decided it was me. I decided I wasn’t doing it right and that God would reveal himself in His time. I hiked back up the trail, rejoined my peers and counselors in the pews, and resumed worshiping, intent to walk in the light until I found the Way. But, as I journeyed in the years that followed, my light dimmed and, try as I did to remain faithful, time and time again I wandered astray. My valley of the shadow of death was full of struggle, loss, heartache, bitterness and pain.

Not sensing the presence of a higher power to guide me through, I learned to believe in my own strength as well to draw from others immersed in the struggle. I leaned on the philosophy of Stefan Molyneux, the savvy of Mike Cernovich, the stories of Ayn Rand, the industriousness of Elon Musk, and the fearlessness of Kanye West. None of them saints, they all share at least two things in common:

  • an unrelenting pursuit of greatness
  • an uncompromising search for truth

Like me, my role models refuse to take short cuts or water down their reality. In short, we find freedom in the fight.

Image Credit: https://d2gg9evh47fn9z.cloudfront.net/800px_COLOURBOX1580110.jpg

Back when I was still in the church, it was these same attributes which I admired in Jesus. I was drawn to the story of His battle with Satan in the desert and His persecution from the powers that be much more than His resurrection. I dismissed the miracles and mysticism as pure parable, knowing that life didn’t really work that way. I was more interested in the practical wisdom, in continual search for some sort of pragmatic balm to soothe my perpetually wounded soul.

Yet, in my encounters with the purveyors of Christianity, I found a strong tendency to fixate on the salvation story and the riches offered from a faithful life. It felt like the theology of some great cosmic transaction, where the journey could be skirted and the destination was the reward. What I kept hearing was something like, ‘Just hang in there and it’ll get better,’ or worse, ‘It’s you, get your shit together.’ I didn’t find either message useful and both came off as dismissive. I continued to attend service, but at an increasing distance.

While the pastors would proclaim the power of the pending glory and sing hymns of redemption, I would search out the stoics and the story of Job. When I read of the redemptive joy espoused by St. Francis, it was as the result of traveling the long hard path, not the reason for taking it in the first place. As I left the church at age 30, I took with me the spirituality of Dr. Gerald May and Father Richard Rohr, who understand the dark underbelly of humanity, openly explore it and, like my secular heroes above, refuse to whitewash it. Bound and determined to find my own path, I committed to journeying for journeying’s sake and not for promise of future reward.

Merch from Kanye West’s #SundayService at the Fox Theater in Detroit: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFg-rIHXUAY6sNI?format=jpg&name=medium

Fast forward to last Friday, October 25th, 2019 at 2:00p CST. Kanye dropped his first gospel album, Jesus is King, his 9th solo album in his illustrious career as a rapper, in which he has been awarded 21 Grammys to date. He began work on the album in true artistic form with a full spiritual immersion starting in early 2019, as displayed in his Sunday Service performances in Atlanta, Jamaica, Detroit, L.A., Chicago, New York and many others. I was intrigued, something special was happening. The Prodigal Son has returned home to the Father 15 years after dropping Jesus Walks, millions of listeners on his heels with millions others up in arms.

The spirit of the album summed up on track 8:

‘All my idols let em go,

All the demons let em know,

This a mission not a show,

This is my eternal soul’

‘God Is’, Jesus is King

And for Kanye it’s more than the album. He’s giving it all to Christ; his music, his fashion, his business, his life. He tells BigBoyTV at the 27:00 minute mark in this 10/25/19 interview, that he wants to be a, ‘Christian innovator.’ He goes on to describe the journey, completely raw and unfiltered as only Kanye can. Not perfect, not scripted, not linear; both the interview and the album metaphors for a life fully lived, full of passion and the constant renewal of purpose. For me it’s a sermon I can relate to.

And, as I sit here ready to push publish on an article I’ve written and rewritten over a dozen times, I can’t help but think that I might have finally found the answer I’ve been looking for in the night sky. The answer that has always been there for every honest pilgrim, still and silent like the cool moonlight: God Is.

So as I close my eyes tonight, I hope you join me in the Prayer of the Journey:

Credit Deacon Allan Barrow, St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church, Tulsa, OK
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People ARE Policy

Image Credit: https://molacantidubi.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/human-1602493_1280-1024×682.jpg

Ann Coulter recently came out saying she’d support Bernie Sanders For President 2020 if he was strong on immigration.

Here’s my take:

First, let’s be clear: opposing open borders is a position of love.

First and foremost a love of the American Ideal which represents a unique and supreme recognition of both individual sovereignty as well as the sanctity of free dialogue between them. On a metaphysical as well as experiential level these values have manifested the biblical idea of logos into the civilization we know and love today. 

For more on logos and the relationship between the human pursuit of truth and language, see this excellent uncut interview between Dr. Jordan Peterson and Filmmaker Mike Cernovich.

But I digress, back to the topic at hand…

The last 50MM migrants to US overwhelmingly support a collective ideology rooted in pathos, elevating a more emotionally centric group identity over that of the individual.

A pictorial (below) and practical example of this divide is in the differential between migrant and native welfare usage.

The problem is that collective, pathos-centric belief systems pose an existential threat to human existence, as countless historical examples have repeatedly and without exception resulted in escalating power struggles, censorship, violence, totalitarian regimes and mass murder.

We see examples of these same dominos falling around us every day as any comments section will confirm within a moments scrolling.

What I understand – largely due to the influence of great thinkers like Ms. Coulter and others – is that People ARE Policy and, therefore, demographics trump politics.

Simply put, there is no America, no freedom, no future if we won’t protect our borders.

Image credit: https://amac.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/american-flag-1024×683.jpg
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Consequences Create Culture

Stefan Molyneux, in a recent international speaking tour with Lauren Southern in Australia and New Zealand, was de-platformed in NZ and has since decided to offer the content free of charge at the link below:

“The Banned New Zealand Speech They Didn’t Want You to Hear!” Stefan Molyneux, http://www.freedomainradio.com, 8/10/2018

In the talk, Stefan makes a case as for why the speech was banned as well as why the ideas are so threatening to the current ruling class.

He argues that freedom requires equality under the law –  no matter the race/identity/class – and is synonymous with consequences (ie: to be free to win means to be free to loose). Consequences are the incentives which reinforce common morality.  A common morality forms the building blocks for a healthy culture. Healthy culture delivers peace, prosperity and increased freedom.

In contrast, he claims, the US and other western societies have created policies which remove consequences for certain groups based on race/gender/class, thereby inverting incentives/morality, destroying culture and limiting freedom for all.  The end game of this dangerous government experiment is national decay and ruin.

An example of government removing consequences would be that every man/woman/child on earth is financed to the tune of $30,000 – meaning I haven’t had to face the consequences of at least $30,000 worth of mistakes. Think no-fault divorce, health care policies which don’t screen for pre-existing conditions, quantitative easing, etc.

I’ll leave the rest for you to ponder, worth a listen or two – almost guarantee a perspective you’ve yet to hear.

Is it possible for government to remove negative consequences from everyday life?  Many modern political systems have been working towards this goal for decades with mixed results.
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Millennial Identity

This period in US history will be seen as a coming of age from a national adolescence into into a (hopefully) more mature civilization.

The transition will not be easy and the future is not certain. We as a nation are tasked with bringing only the best forward, shedding the rest and building a better future for our children.

As millennials who have been told what and how to think by government schools and PC dogma, who have been sold the empty hedonism of post-modernism, who have seen their prosperity squandered and culture dismantled, who’s families are broken and institutions are crumbling – we are the ones this country will turn to for its salvation.

It will be upon our virtue, our values, our vision and our resolve that all will depend.

Millennials – we haven’t found our voice, we haven’t come of age as a generation, but the time is coming.

We have been labeled snowflakes and blamed for problems we inherited.

Will we live in to these labels or will we rise up to be more?

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Farmlands – Lauren Southern’s New Documentary on S. Africa’s Grim Prospects

Lauren Southern is an independent Canadian journalist who worked for Rebel Media until March of 2017 and who’s rapid ascent into the limelight was jump started by an altercation at the 2015 Vancouver SlutWalk.

She is Libertarian, conservative or alt-right depending on who you ask and has covered such controversial topics as the wage gap myth, immigration, internet censorship, radical feminism and, most recently the developing crisis in South Africa.

Her Farmlands documentary, released 6/25/18, tells the story of brutal farm murders fueled by growing state support and complicit media coverups in South Africa.

To make things worse the country’s economy is in shambles with food and water shortages worsening by the day.

The history is factual, the interviews are touching, the ramifications are global. I recommend watching the film from two perspectives: that of the S. African people looking for ways to reverse the rising tide of violence as well as that of a US citizen looking for cultural/political parallels here at home.

For more on Lauren see her most excellent twitter feed as website linked below:

https://twitter.com/Lauren_Southern

https://laurensouthern.net/#

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The Future is Yeezy

Kanye West is the FlyBy supplement to my Trump Hangover.

Scott Adams released a vlog describing this moment in US History as the beginning of the golden age. If you prefer a written account, check out Mike Cernovich’s article. Candace Owens predicted it would be Kanye that bought us to the precipice of a cultural revolution.

And so here we are.

It started with 7 words from Yeezy, ‘I like the way Candace Owens thinks.” Then the signed Maga hat went public. Trump joined in and tweeted some Kanye love. Then there was the John Legend rebuttal from Kanye, which was epic for reasons I’ll get into later.

But it gets better, deeper.

The controversy continues to escalate as Kanye released Ye vs. The People on 4/28/2018. Check out the lyric @ 1:05:

‘See that’s the problem with this damn nation, all blacks gotta to be democrats. Man we ain’t made it off the plantation.’

All this from the guy who’s best known political commentary was his decrying of President Bush’s lack of care for black people in the wake of hurricane Katrina.

To add to last week’s first amendment drama, Diamond and Silk found themselves testifying in front of congress regarding cooked up charges of ill-gotten field consulting fees paid to them on behalf of the Trump campaign. Diamond & Silk are two vocal YouTube stars who have been advocating for blacks to abandon the democratic plantation going back several years.

So what has the public response been to strong black voices such as Candace Owens, Diamond & Silk and Kanye West speaking freely?  A combination of silence, ad hominem attacks and raised suspicions around deteriorating mental health.

The message you are supposed to take from this: empowered free thought is only tolerated if you have the right (left) ideas.

To further demonstrate this point, one only needs to contrast the press’ treatment of Joy Reid – who lives safely inside the leftist protected class – in the wake of her unsavory LGBTQ commentary on her now defunct blog. First she claimed to have been hacked – which was not provable – and then she issued a ‘genuine apology’ where she claimed to have no memory of writing such comments.

Apparently, when you’re on the left a sufficient defense is to simply state that you genuinely believe you didn’t do whatever they’re accusing you of. Essentially, Joy is enjoying immunity in the court of public opinion – must be nice.

What we’re left with is the fact that in the US today coming out conservative can cost you your friends and loved ones, career and more.  If you are influential enough you will be censored, demonetized, attacked and labeled every hateful kind of bigot imaginable. It won’t matter if you are a minority, a woman or any other protected class.

The left and their allies in the media now act as the thought police, ruthlessly suppressing ideas they don’t like with vicious attacks on those espousing them.

Ben Garrison summed it up the tension in pictures.

But here’s the thing, no matter what side you’re on, if you cheer on the censorship of people you don’t like today, rest assured the mob will be coming for you tomorrow. Inevitably, the thought police will brand everyone a Nazi worthy of being punched, and worse.

What Kanye is helping millions to understand isn’t which team to join, but rather how to think about what team you’re on, what your values are and where you want to be moving forward.

The best part is he’s doing it in an almost irresistible and loving way – reference his reply to John Legend above. Add in his massive influence and reach both in and outside of the black community, he’s too big to be ignored or taken down quietly in the night.

The conversation will happen.

This conversation represents a push to elavate the collective conscious out of the group think mindset that has dominated most of human existence and towards a more principled approach to human affairs.

Let’s join with Kanye and work together to usher in this long awaited golden age, where truth can be allowed to roam free and we the people stand together against the growing tyranny of the feels.

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#DonaldBush

I remember vividly when my first dream died.

I was in high school and had built my identity and future around being a football player. It wasn’t the pop of the broken metatarsals, the reality of the cast around my right foot, the ticking down of the clock in the last game of my senior year or the letter retracting my scholarship that crashed my dreams.

Nope.

My dream of being a football player died many months later when I no longer had sufficient energy to push aside reality in favor of my dream.

It was an early late January morning in Minneapolis, 4+ months after my injury. I was shoveling the driveway before school when I hit a wall.  I couldn’t lift the shovel even one more time as every ounce of strength had left my body. I sat down on the driveway, looked up at the sky and screamed, ‘f*** you!’ From that point forward I accepted the reality that my dream of becoming a football player had died..

Prior to 4/13/18, I was able to ignore the omnibus spending bill, a complete lack of progress on the wall, DACA waffling, no prosecution of Hillary and other DNC thugs, etc. Despite failing on these campaign promises, I continued to get up every day and publicly fight for Trump because I still believed in the dream and the energy required to fight for it was less than the energy derived from the hope in a better future.

Not anymore.

Launching a missile strike in Syria in the face of zero credible logic or evidence indicating that Assad initiated the chemical attack was the dream killer for me.  Trump, in this move, signaled a complete cave-in to the deep state blood lust that has had our country at war for 93% of it’s existence.

And it gets worse. Trump is now selling the strike as a success, branding the military effort as, ‘mission accomplished.’ How naive. Name a military conflict initiated in the Middle East by the US – or west for that matter – which has ever ended, not to mention successfully?

This is not a winnable war and provokes the nuclear armed Russian into a conflict with no strategically advantageous outcome.  Endless spilt blood and treasure is what we have to look forward to.

I voted for America First – I don’t think America even makes Trump’s top ten. He would rather start World War III.

Still better than Hillary (she would have initiated this conflict day one without the other goodies that Trump has accomplished) but the movement needs a new figurehead. Trump’s compromised.

In other words, the nationalist movement needs a ‘f*** you’ moment.

Who will be there to take the reigns in the mid-terms and thereafter?