Whether you celebrate Christmas, or just enjoy this little extra time we get to spend with family, I hope you all have a fantastic day.
As this time of year can be frought with stress and relational difficulties, I'd like to pass on some Christmas encouragement. There's an idea I've really be working hard to practice for quite a while now, and that idea is to never burn your side of the bridge. In fact, keep a fire a extinguisher on hand to make sure a fire from another person's side never spreads to yours.
What this means practically is actually an extension of something I've talked about for a while now, which is to never affirm stereotypes or caricatures of what a close-minded, hateful person you (supposedly) are.
It's no secret that differences in ideology and political philosophy have been ruining friendships, marriages, and families more and more these days. Not fueling these fires is not an act of acquiescence, but strategy. The Left gets much of their energy from a fictional fight against fascism, hate, etc. etc. Take away the enemy, and you take away the energy to fight, which is the same energy that causes them to turn a blind eye to the insanity on their own side.
Somewhere around two years ago, my oldest friend in the world blocked me on social media because of a post I made commenting on these bearded trans 'women' wondering why they couldn't find dates (a mystery, I know). I was given the usual litany of bogus accusations, and summarily cut from this person's life. Over 30 years of friendship, done.
Instead of responding with my own vitriol about how insane her worldview is, or going the other direction and apologizing profusely, I simply let it be. I knew there would probably be opportunities to defy the caricature. Yes, it hurt to be castigated by my oldest friend. It hurt a lot. But I knew it wouldn't help anything to lash out and respond in kind.
Several months later, I sent her a link to something funny I that reminded me of her. We texted a bit for a minute, then that was it. Another several months later, tragedy hit her family (a family I grew up being pretty close to, also). I reached out to express my sympathy, and let her know I was praying for them. We chatted some more, and she shared a playlist with me from the funeral. I listened to it as we talked.
These infrequent communications continued for about half a year, and then she got engaged. Our communications increased as I congratulated her, and expressed my excitement for the wedding. Then more tragedy hit, as both she and her fiance lost their fathers withing about a month of the wedding. Truly heartbreaking. I reached out again to let her know I was there for her if she needed anything. This culminated in a request for me to officiate her wedding. It was my immense honor to oblige.
At the reception, I noticed that another friend of ours from high school (an extremely Lefty guy) was absent. I asked a classmate about his absence, and my classmate told me that he and the bride had a falling out of some sorts, so he hadn't been invited.
I tell you this story because it's important to note that my friend knows my beliefs have not changed. There's nothing fundamentally different about me now from the time when I was called a horribly hateful bigot and whatnot. The only thing that has changed is her perception of me. In fact, when we were texting earlier this year after the first big death in her family, she said something like "I know we have our disagreements over politics, but you've always been there for me." That meant a lot to me. Moreover, the realization that I had not become some monster conjured by the imagination of The Young Turks meant something to her, too. And all the political solidarity in the world didn't matter between her and our other friend from high school.
You never know what's going to happen with these people. All we can do is live our lives as humbly and uncompromising as possible. Defy the caricature. Never burn your half of the bridge.
While driving yesterday, I had an idea to help facilitate more regular content creation, especially during this time when it is all but impossible to make videos outside of livestreams from my phone. The idea is that of a biweekly post that roughly takes the form of a newsletter, of which this is shall be the first volume. As an aside, evidently a synonym for biweekly is 'fortnightly,' which I'd totally use if it weren't for the association with a game of stupid dances.
My current plan for the format is as follows, though obviously this is likely to change.
-Introduction, brief life updates, and maybe a thought or two I've had lately that I wanted to share with you.
-What books I have been going through, and any excerpts or takeaways I feel are worth sharing.
-Any other noteworthy podcasts or media I've consumed lately.
-What stories I'm paying attention to (if any) and why
-Any questions I might have for you guys
-?
Alright, it's called TL;DR for a reason. Let's jump in.
As I mentioned earlier, we have Covid again. I'm not going to ...
I know it's been quiet here lately. I'll eventually explain what's been going on with my personal life (most of it has been a mixture of our new baby being really, really difficult, and perpetual sickness. For example, last week three our of the four of us had to go to the hospital) but this is what has consumed virtually all free time outside of work and family time.
Please consider helping us bring justice to these bastards. Their indifference and complicity in the harm done to these kids has to stop. Please help us make that happen.
For those who missed it, here's an open letter I wrote to my community last fall after the suicide of a former student, himself a victim of this school district:
https://returntoreason.medium.com/an-open-letter-to-the-citizens-of-albany-county-ca507fa24cd8
Thank you for everything you do. You guys are awesome, and I look forward to filling you in on what's been going on in the near future. See you soon.
ps- I will be...
Salutations! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. Here is my list of top ten the things I learned/conclusions I reached from this past year. Some are directly related to events, others are not. Either way, I tried my best to create a list of useful ideas for you to incorporate into your view of the present moment. I hope you find this list useful, as many of the items on it are lenses I find incredibly important for understanding the world around me. As always, I welcome any feedback you might have!
In Part 2, I use Conquest's Three Laws of Politics to expand on my specific critiques of Peterson's Manifesto, and flush out some of my own axioms that I failed to explain in Part 1. This is where I get into the nuts and bolts of how institutions deviate from their original purpose and begin to generate and pursue their own interests.
What began as a singular episode critiquing one of my intellectual heroes has turned into a multi-part series going after some foundational axioms of mainstream Conservatism.
In this introductions, I discuss Permanent Washington and the concept of accountability, and sew the seeds for what's to come in either trusting or rejecting many mainstream Western institutions.
It's worth mentioning that this recording, along with every other part in this series, has taken almost (in some cases more than) a day to upload. I have no idea why my internet is failing me as hard as it is, but here we are. Hopefully you find these recordings in time to assist you in your vote tomorrow 🤙
I've been wanting to do this for a while. It might have taken me two days to figure out how to get this from my phone to my computer, but I finally got it to work.
On Saturday, I used the voice recorder app on my phone to record a podcast covering Karl Schmitt, his discussions of power, and how we can map this onto our contemporary situation with The Regime that runs our country, and the Bureaucratic State which does its ideological bidding.
After listening to it, I realize there is some more context I need to add to the ending, so I might record another one tomorrow or Wednesday. Either way, it feels good to be recording stuff again. As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback!
"We don't know where this thing isn't."
-Bret Weinstein
@JamesDerian suggested I pin and regularly update a thread of sources I'm compiling to illustrate the total societal takeover of Far-Left Orthodoxy, including their explicit targeting of our kids for indoctrination. Here is that thread.
Compromised entities:
Nickelodeon
Cartoon Network
Kellogg's Cereal
Mattel Toys
Lego
Sesame Street (SESAME STREET 🤦♂️)
PBS
CNN
The New York Times
The Washington Post
NPR
NBC News
Gender/Sexuality
Cartoon Network celebrating transgender children:
https://twitter.com/stage13network/status/1377332951659151360?s=20
More Cartoon Network trans stuff:
https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1377259794294259717?s=20
Cartoon Network on "normalizing gender pronouns"
https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1338539346530537475?s=20
Lego released "rainbow set" for Pride Month:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news/2021/may/everyone-is-awesome/
"Queer up your morning routine" with Kellogg's new cereal featuring edible glitter, ...
