I will die on my feet before I live on my knees.
I did not intend this article to be my next release but when creativity strikes, I take it for all it’s worth. I am working on Pt. 2 of my Utah Ritualistic Abuse coverage. There is a lot of research which I’m doing by myself. I am diligently working to make this series something special. More work is coming soon!
Doubt is one hell of an emotion. People can end up facing this ambivalent state for many reasons. A loss of confidence, uncertainty of a recent decision, distrust in someone - anything really. We've all experienced times of uncertainty in our lives. Most of 2020 & 2021 was that way for a lot of people. What is interesting to me is that this is one of the more dangerous emotions for a person to be in for any extended amount of time. Especially if that person doesn’t have the best emotional intelligence. This emotion is quite powerful if left unchecked or straight hijacked by a nefarious actor. Think about it. How many time’s have you made a decision you were skeptical of making & have if backfire? Or maybe it worked out. The point is this emotional state known as ‘doubt’ is a vulnerable place to be. Because of that, it can be viewed as a opportunity for bad actors & abusers.
Come with me on a journey. It’s a warm, July summer evening. You’ve been out with family & friends all day enjoying your towns summer festival. It’s getting a bit later in the day & you decide to break off from your family to go get a little rowdy with your friend. Now imagine you're out cruising the town with your friend. It was a hot day & the asphalt is still roasting. So the windows are down, wind racing over your face. Both of you have been joking back & forth all day as you normally do. You end up making a joke that made you both laugh so hard that tears start rolling down your cheeks while you desperately gasp for any air to enter your lungs for fear that they could collapse. Suddenly your friend slumps into the steering wheel. The mood has changed. You yell his name while you fiercely grab him by his shirt in the hopes it might startle him awake. He now slumps backward into his seat.
You are now in a very defenseless position. Your stomach is in a knot, your heartrate is up, & your mouth is dry is a matter of seconds. Your in trouble & your body knows it. Survival mode kicks in & your monkey brain takes charge. You have processed something has gone awry but you have not yet processed the situation at hand due to the rational part of your brain struggling to function normally due to stress & adrenaline. At this point you know you are in serious trouble. At the last second, your friend jolts straight up screaming bloody murder, which in turn makes you instinctually mirror his primal reaction. Essentially & involuntarily showing your war face to god himself. Just as quick as it happened, you realize what is occurring. You breath deep, punch your friends shoulder while you call him an "asshole" & he enjoys a thunderous laugh from having pulled one over on you, even if just for a second.
For a moment, while in the thick of the situation you were in this overwhelming mental situation. You are trying to process the situation so you can make an appropriate reaction yet your adrenalin is pumping & your heartrate is elevated. In this stressful state there is plenty of room for error. If the exact wrong set of circumstances fall into place, people could end up seriously injured or worse. The opposite is just as possible. The correct series of events could fall into place & you could end up saving lives. The point is, in this uncertain & stressful situation the opportunity for this to be exploited is fairly common. Sometimes it’s intentional & other times it is caused by incompetence. I of course am talking about moral & mass public hysteria. Legacy news media & social media being the largest offenders today.
The most recent & universal example is the hysteria before, during, & after the Covid-19 government lockdowns. This wasn’t the first health scare in our digital age but it was the most widely sensationalized. Which due to the nature of social media, our 24/7 news cycle & a panic stricken citizenry stuck in this elevated stress level looking for information to help discern the correct course of action; it was a disasterous series of events that led to a lot of incorrect information being shared which lead to emotional shock & panic. Alejandro De La Garza, for TIME Magazine, stated that sites like Facebook & Twitter are “facilitating important conversations about the virus” while also giving us a “healthy dose of fear” by providing the public with an active, 24/7 platform. The best visible examples of panic initiated by the media is the emergence of “panic-buying”.
Covid-19 is just the most recent of these mass hysteria events but it is far from a new occurrence. There have been many mass hysteria events throughout the decades. A few quick examples:
The War on Drugs - One of the most long-standing American moral panics still active today. Starting in the 1970s with major peaks in the late 80s & early 90s. This moral panic was weaponized by churches, schools, & politicians of the time to make an appearance of being “tough on crime.”
The Red Scare - Fear of socialists & communists influencing or taking over culture or politics has been a recurring panic throughout the decades in America. Peaking several times during the Cold War, this panic led to Hollywood blacklists from 1945 – 1960 & the McCarthyism trials of the 1950s.
HIV/AIDS - When HIV was linked to homosexuality in the 1980s, media picked up the idea that gay people were spreading HIV through, what we know today as, absurd notions of viral transmission. A gay folk devil was created through exaggerated & sensational reporting by the media.
War On Terror - After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 & the “anthrax attacks” of the same year, a general cloud of fear fell over America mainly caused by major governmental action & sensational media reports. Islamic extremism largely represented a negligible percentage of the Islamic population in the United States, Muslims more generally faced significant racism.
The Salem Witch Trials of 1962 – 1963 is usually the most well known moral panics. The Witch Trials are widely discussed as the best example of how this concept is not a modern phenomenon. These trials are an example of the potential dangers of socially singling out a minority group.
Now on to the main focus of this article. Doubt, a synonym for fear, uncertainty, & hesitancy. Now imagine someone perpetually in-between their instincts detecting potential threats & their fight or flight response. This is a state of susceptibility for power of suggestion, power of influence, or coercion; as proven with the hysteria surrounding Covid-19 government lockdowns. To a sophisticated enemy this is a perfect position for you to be in. It only takes a elementary level imagination to figure out why. Fear = Control
The enemy must create an illusion for their victim. The enemy creates a potential threat for the victim to react to. All while the enemy tricks the victim into believing the enemy has the solution to trigger their fight or flight response. While in actuality the enemy created the problem & the victim already has the ability to control their own response. Once the enemy takes advantage of this vulnerable state they have circumvented what little control you had left. Keep us doubtful so we never question our realities & never feel as though resisting is an option as the enemy appears as our ally.
Why would an enemy want to gain this level of control over you? It's hard to know for sure without being them. For those familiar with this type of abusive tactic, speculation with a high degree of accuracy is possible. The obvious answer is simply being in control over their intended target. As I see it, the attempt at the total conquering of one's victim make's sense. The ultimate 'hunt', for lack of a better term, could be appealing to those hell bent on world domination.
The end game could be literally any number of things when dealing with an abnormally putrid & diseased mind. Our enemy's intention appears to be to create a technocratic dystopia. All information including your bank account, medical records, criminal records, social media, etc. will all be centralized on one device directly linked to a centralized blockchain based system entirely controlled by one centralized authority. My question from here is, once everyone is all on this technocratic dystopian hellscape system, then what? Is there a world ruler now & it's done? Once they have everything, what's left? Or most disturbing of all, there is no end game. Human suffering for the sake of suffering. A demonic end
Up to this point, I have addressed this faceless nameless enemy as a larger than life government or conglomerate. These are true enemies to us all but there is a more dangerous enemy that this article is about. That enemy being yourself. Yes, you the reader. You can lure yourself into the same trap of doubt, fear, & uncertainty. This is not only doing our enemies work for them, it is self-sabotaging a meaningful resistance.
The last few weeks I've been reflecting on my life, past & present. For context I'm Chairman for my county LP, Mises Caucus state organizer, 2022 Libertarian candidate & liberty based podcast host. Including everything else in life such as being a great husband, son, brother, friend, trying to produce funds to keep things afloat, trying to hit the gym, get a full 8 hours of sleep & squeeze in some reading. It's easy to get distracted & disorganized if I am not careful. The ADHD complicates things in interesting ways, but I digress. It is a lot & sometimes like I am always neglecting something. I took some hard looks at my current state of life & began to feel uncertain.
With a plate full of responsibilities, steady black pills, & general ass kicking's from the liberty movement; I was questioning the significance of my role. Questions about my competency to meet expectations & even my understandings of foundational concepts & how to effectively spread them. I wasn't thinking about quitting but the hypothetical did cross my mind. BOOM! Right there. Doubt had entered the equation & it was letting me know. Deeply held beliefs & thought out decisions were now becoming more unachievable. Things are starting to appear bleak…
With a hefty dose of uncertainty & black pills I had to ask myself a difficult question. If I am uncertain of all this now, was I ever as serious about these ideas as I originally thought? What does my freedom actually mean to me? When I came to my answer, it helped lead me to the conclusion. The few diminishing freedoms we still have & all the freedoms already lost is something I lose sleep over. My freedoms & liberties are the most important values to me. Completely fundamental to who I am as a man today. So why am I suddenly attempting to discredit my own significance?..
DUH! It's obvious now that I say it.
“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Our enemy wants us psychologically defeated so we defeat ourselves & delegitimize any legitimate resistance. Overwhelming doubt, fear, & uncertainty immobilize any significant efforts & can spread like a psychological parasite causing all kinds of damage. This is all introduced to people through the form of "Black Pills." Which have immediate side effects such as sense of hopelessness as things appear significantly worse to an overwhelming degree. This is not to say that things aren't bad. Things are cartoonishly bad & will get worse before it gets better. So what am I saying? I'll summarize.
Fighting to expand liberty up against a machine that is fine tuned to crush every ounce of freedom, stolen from the people it's designed to protect. As dark as things are, the fight for liberty has the something that puts the odds of success in our favor. That thing is truth & righteous. I am not a religious individual but if the existence of anything Godlike exists, it exists in the form of liberty. A free society, without the shackles of force, coercion, or fraud used against innocent people is the only moral option. Any man or institution that stands in the way of this universal truth is an enemy of humanity & should be punished accordingly. This truth should be the focus. Black pills are a weapon of the state. With a dedicated & focused army, good always triumphs evil.
Make sure to ask yourself, how far am I willing to go to fight for & defend the existence of liberty? I won't know your answer but I can tell you mine.
First, I want to clearly state that peaceful solutions are preferred & will continue to be the default, probably longer than warranted. Violence will only ever be used in the defense of one's own life or defense of another innocent life.
With that said, I will do anything & everything necessary to fight for & defend the existence of liberty. If violence ever became a unavoidable reality, I will defend myself & my brothers & sisters who stand beside me.
I will die on my feet before I live on my knees.
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
― Henry David Thoreau