One Standard for All: Consent, Risk, and the Cornell Fraternity Case

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They love to claim the mantle of common sense, decency and American values, they accuse the ‘other side’ of being corrupting, full of a spirit of bitterness and destructive of civilization. But the reality is they’re just partisans with a lens, who judge everything by the assumed identity of those involved, and this recent Cornell sexual assault case no exception.

First of all, the incident at Chi Phi fraternity house, on October 19–20, 2024, is murkier than a rape case where an totally unwilling person is preyed upon in the street. There were drugs and alcohol involved—and maybe some consent as well. (Update: Details remain disputed) Initially the young woman seemed in denial, after one participant had sent a text apologizing, admitting she was “super clouded” and distinguishing “I really liked being with you and Matt” while saying they should have left out the other men. So, under the New York law (which is very likely to soon change) voluntary intoxication has meant a higher burden of proof—and is why local prosecutors decided (correctly) not to press charges. Something can be immoral, evil even, but not illegal.

Second, it is clear she didn’t consent to all that happened and what happened beyond what she consented to was an assault. Her initial comments suggested it and the later confirm it: “My reputation is destroyed and I’m utterly ashamed. All I do is sleep and cry all day.” That is her distress and realization, once out of the stupor of the day after, and a result of something less than consensual—where she was incapacitated.

Risky Behavior and Impulse Control

Living in a college town it is not unusual for the music to thump at the fraternities and off campus party houses. Getting wasted on the weekends is tradition—as bad as it may be—and I am certain these events are full of regrettable choices. When I see how these young women dress, putting feminine sexuality on full display, clearly intoxicated, and then surrounded by young men full of hormones and desire? This is a match on tinder type of situation. As much as it has been preached in the orientation process, that expressed consent is non-negotiable, the lack of impulse control of youth with a boatload of alcohol on top of that—means bad choices will be made.

What’s funny, however, is when the cultural conservatives, who see deterrence as a way to stop everything from terrorism to theft—do not want to discourage this kind of rape the same as we DUI. They try to argue her responsibility and yet deny that young men have any responsibility whatsoever. This is not the perspective of those seeking justice for all people. This is a reaction of ugly and entitled people who believe ‘liberal’ women deserve to be raped—for rejecting them (in the case of incel men) or for their being free in ways these prudes disapprove.

It’s the same spirit of those in the ‘woke’ left claiming Charlie Kirk being shot was karma because of his pro-2nd Amendment stance: “Oh, he got what was coming to him for his promotion of hate!”

Civilization was not built by those who will decide who is or is not the victim based on tribal alignments. Both right and left, at the extreme, only ever see the criminal justice system as being another means to punish ideological enemies. Equal treatment and protection of all vulnerable gives way to a scorekeeping based on gender, religion and race. We don’t need to deter the young men from ‘gang banging’ a young woman unable to consent because she probably votes for Kamala Harris. The same right that which tells us about racial minorities who lack the impulse control will say “boys will be boys” if they believe it’s one of their own.

Justice is about having one standard for all people. It does not excuse behavior based on circumstances. Are we going to say that shoplifting isn’t a crime because merchants who do not keep their items for sale behind a locked case are asking for it? If a display is an invitation, considered implied consent, then maybe we should decriminalize theft in cases where items weren’t properly secured—requiring proof of the cut chain before we consider a bike to be stolen? Or we could simply be consistent and say that violators (all, not some) should have controlled their urges and prosecute according to the law rather than our biased feelings.

Pornification of Sex

What’s more disturbing is the hidden sexual culture undercurrents of this Cornell case—the obvious of two men with one woman is bad enough. But this idea that she wanted the large group of random men to take their turn on her? This is an attitude that is built on the pornography consumption rather the accurate understanding of average female desires or physiology. I’m sorry—while this is a trope of adult content—normal women don’t consent to seven hours of sex. Paid sex workers do this sort of thing because it is a job. However, this seems to have built an expectation with the consumers.

Pornification of sex is widespread. No pun intended. Where we see everything through the lens of our own pleasure rather than in a context of procreation. She’s a commodity, a consumable, rather than a commitment to love or cherish for life. We have normalized deviance, acts degrading of women, and it’s why we’re now indifferent to sexual assault—we have been desensitized by an industry which exploits our vulnerability and fosters carnal appetites. Women are objectified in this media and young men programmed to only think of themselves. And it is why we want to treat a group of intelligent college age males as being incapable—because we have debased ourselves in private.

One way to remove their shame is to blame-shift. Even (or especially) conservative men refuse to take personal responsibility. They believe they would be completely pure if not for exposure to this constant temptation or if the women of their fantasies simply made themselves available—they feel entitled and angry towards women. This is, incidentally, why they see pink haired feminists as being full of contempt for attractive women. That is projection. It is them mere externalizing their own inner condition and thinking this ability to see the sins of others means they are superior when it’s just a distraction or a lack of self-awareness.

Rebuilding a Culture of Respect

As the father of a 14-year-old boy I’ve now realized that respect for others, women in particular, is something that must be taught—taught by parents. Yes, some might be a bit more empathetic and able to put on the shoes of someone else. Male aggression is something that must be tempered, passion channeled in positive directions, or else you have idle hands doing that Devil’s work.

As the father of a toddler daughter, knowing her teenage years and young adulthood will be here faster than I’m ready for, I want her to be her own first layer of protection. She needs to understand that many men are not well-trained or good. Modesty is a form of self-respect. Keeping ourselves out of risky circumstances can spare us a world of pain and shame. She needs to understand that not all men are gentlemen who will protect her—many men are have an entitled attitude and seething, deeply resentful of women for their standards that excluded them, and will use intoxication to excuse evil.

Truly conservative men, in the West, should follow the self-sacrificial example of Christ who showed compassion for the weak and not judgment. If a man wants respect, as a deserving person, then he doesn’t make any excuses. He asks for her permission rather than just take what he wants. He protects himself from risk by not putting temptation in front of himself and avoids the potential rape allegation. He protects all women simply as a manifestation of his good character without expecting anything in return.

Nice-guy syndrome, or those who will bend over backwards to please a women hoping for sexual favors in return, is a lacking self-respect. The manosphere is just the male version of grievance culture, men who lack impulse control and want to live as animals doing whatever their hormones tell them to do, while then also lamenting the collapse of civilization because women don’t simply respect them for their merely existing. They do not believe they need consent because in their twisted mind every woman is just a whore. It’s male vice dressed as a strength—men who do not value themselves or can’t fill a protective role of a truly good man and, therefore, they’re resentful.

A gentleman does not decide who deserves respect or not based on appearance. They are the self-controlled agents of civilization in all circumstances. He’s self-governed, he is concerned about morality and ethics, not just the legal limits or what he can possibly get away with. He’s not entitled. Not petty or lacking compassion. He will not touch a woman without a marriage license. It does not matter to him what the ‘other side’ has done, he is consistently what he is without making any excuses. If there was one man like this who existed in that Cornell frat he would have protected the young woman.

Ignorance is Not an Excuse

If a group of brown skinned men assaulted a young woman for wearing a short skirt we would make the correct moral judgement. A woman who is basically unconscious is not able to give consent. It doesn’t matter what you think about her style of dress nor if she voluntarily consumed intoxicants or not. If consent laws don’t currently cover this then they most certainly should be updated. My own daughter won’t be ignorant of risks and yet my son will likewise understand that he is responsible, being a civilized man, for his own actions.

If it’s wrong to take a bike because it’s out unchained then it’s wrong to see her spread legs as permission. That said, there should be a different statute applied to such cases of two intoxicated parties. Yes, it is rape, it is rape and requires punishment so a young man thinks about this as the consequences if he takes substance that supercharges his already lacking impulse control. However I don’t think we should say it is the same as a case where everyone is sober. But the true conservative doesn’t exploit the vulnerable in any circumstance. Barbarians don’t need to have consent. Good men do not let their circumstances dictate their response.

The Insidious ‘Good Men Must Do Bad Things’ Myth

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A Few Good Men has memorable lines. The courtroom drama is about a pair of Marines charged in the hazing death of an unpopular recruit. One of the accused refuses to take a plea deal, standing on principle, believing they did nothing wrong—claiming they were just following orders. It all culminates with a verbal battle between the defense lawyer, Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and sneering Col. Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson) the superior officer who was behind a deadly hazing incident. Col Jessup, when finally pressed for the truth, exclaims “You can’t handle the truth!” and then he goes on a diatribe:

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know; that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said “thank you” and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

What is brilliant about this rant is it comes off as what it is: A justification from an arrogant man who sincerely believes that he is standing for good even when he’s clearly in the wrong.

Jessup is not a mustache twirling caricature of a villain.  He is someone with moral reasoning that many can relate to or even may side with. He’s arguing that those who put him on the stand are insulated from the truly life and death decisions he must make and should simply accept his role of protector—not question his judgment.

This fictional statement is a variation on the idea “…people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” 

The quote above, often misattributed to George Orwell who actually said this: “Men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to stand guard and feed them.”

Orwell himself paraphrasing Rudyard Kipling who wrote of the “thin red line” and rebuked the people making a mockery of “uniforms that guard you while you sleep” in his 1890 poem “Tommy” written from the perspective of a British infantryman.

This rejection of pacifism is common. It’s a part of the jingoistic fervor and cult thinking of those who demand we fall into line when our political establishment beats those war drums.

Don’t you know they are protecting you?

We should be grateful, they say, or we would be speaking German, be Communist, or forced to convert to Islam!

We’re now at a stage of preemptive war, which directly violates our U.S. Constitution, claiming it is necessary to “defend freedom and democracy” from the uncivilized.

There’s certainly no end to the violence that these self-assured ‘defenders’ will do on behalf of us—and would do to us to save us from ourselves.

Good Men Must Do Bad Things

This blog is a response to a request:

After reading that piece on dogma, I’m curious. Should you be willing to create a similar criticism of the “sometimes, good men must do bad things” mantra, I’d be very interested in your take.

That quote might be a paraphrase of Suits—a television legal drama—where a character uses this reasoning as their excuse to bend or break rules. The full quote from the series: “Sometimes good guys gotta do bad things to make the bad guys pay.” And the show popular Yellowstone also has a line similar, “Sometimes good men have to do real bad things.”

I don’t know enough about those shows to know if this is intended as ironic. But it has a strong resemblance to the evil is competence and thus good statement by Peter Thiel, the co-founder and board chairman of Palantir. 

This idea of exemption to do evil for sake of good is something both the far right and left agree on—whether “punch a Nazi” memes by Antifa or it is Trumpanyau saying we may need to nuke Iran to prevent Iran from having nukes. Basically, it is an idea we can be good while we do bad things and yet the other side can never be forgiven.

“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”

What this looks like is fundamental attribution error crossbred with moral relativism. I declare someone evil and list off the evil things they’ve done. And then justify things often many times worse in response and it’s all good because I’ve designated them as being evil. Unfortunately, as convenient as this circular thinking is for the dogmatic partisan, it is about as reliable as our ability to accurately assess our own driving skills—where 73% to 93% of people believe that they are an above average driver. We classify our bad as being a result of circumstances and then assess the failure of others as being something inborn or a character flaw.

The moral relativism accompanying this is how we judge an action by who is doing the action rather than apply the same standard to all. From the perspective of the Imperial Japanese, being economically and militarily strangled by the U.S. oil embargo, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a necessary evil. They had a better reason to surprise attack when and where they did than the U.S. has had in wars since then and yet our infamy must be always forgotten. During the Vietnam War the CIA “neutralized” (kidnapped, tortured or killed) tens of thousands who were accused of collaborating with the North—no trials or proof needed. Did you know that?

In 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 souls, by a U.S. Navy destroyer. The crew and commanding officer of that ship got medals. In the 1991 Gulf War the U.S. killed 408 Iraqi civilians in a single strike against the Amiriyah shelter—which we knew was being used by civilians during the Iran-Iraq War. And even after the bombs stopped dropping the brutal economic sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The Vietnamese people, even to this day, suffer unusually high rates of rare birth defects due to the widespread use of Agent Orange and other chemical defoliant decades ago—to just dismiss this all as ‘collateral damage’ is not very pro-life.

But aren’t you glad we tried to save you from the Commies?!?

It is just so strange to see the same people who justify total obliteration of two cities in Japan being so upset when U.S. economic and military interests are targeted by those who have been subjected to far worse.

The point being, people always come up with justifications for their own evil.  Even the total psychopath can often defend heinous acts with a moral reasoning: “He looked at me wrong so—acting 100% in self-defense—I bashed his face in with a hammer.”  If we name a date, and ignore the context of all that happened prior, we can claim we’re fighting for justice—when, in reality, the other side has as much justification as we do or more.

It’s a world where all violent people believe they are the good guy forced to do bad things.

Tired Analogies and Immoral Math

On a religious forum, mostly pacifists, there was always a ‘sheepdog’ guy or that one person who self-designated themselves as a protector of the herd.

You see, he was not an unsuspecting sheep like everyone else.

No, not at all!

He was an exception, the ever protective guard of  decency and goodness—who only every so often took an accidental bite out of a sheep.

What’s interesting is you’ll never find a sheepdog metaphor anywhere in Biblical texts, it is simply something invented, a cover story.  What you do find is a division between sheep and goats.  The goats are those unruly, stubborn or independent animals—used in Scripture as a metaphor for the cruel and exploitative leaders or those who bully the sheep. They will be sorted out of the faithful flock at the final judgment.

And the other animal mentioned? 

The wolf in sheep’s skin.

These are actual predators who wrap themselves up in an innocent appearance—to divide and devour the sheep. It sounds a bit like those sheepdogs, right?

In my own experience this sheepdog schtick was often just an excuse for their aggression against voices defying their self-asserted authority in all things. Nobody had elected them to the role. It was all their own personal judgement.

Unfortunately, few seem able to see through the phony knights in shining armor—who turn rivals into a dragon to slay rather than an equal to treat with the respect they demand for themselves.

The real issue is when we make exceptions for ourselves that we don’t accept if turned on us. For example, collateral damage. We say that the death of innocents is simply a part of war and unavoidable. But if it were our own child burned alive would we be okay with it—as just a part of war?

True morality values all people and their rights like our own. It never justifies killing of innocents or the treatment of some lives as expendable.

Good people do good to all people and not only a chosen few.

All lives matter or none do.

If you make exceptions for yourself to violate the rule eventually it boomerangs back—those who live by the sword die by the sword.

Using the ends to justify the means, playing God with Trolley problem math, choosing which lives matter—rather than treat all people with dignity and respect—is a moral logic 100% anti-Christ.

The ‘miracle’ is escaping the false dichotomy of those who aren’t good problem solvers.

Jesus, in his response to the condemning attitude of the Pharisees against sinners, told the Parable of the Lost Sheep.  In the story he reasoned that a good shepherd leaves their ninety-nine sheep to find the one lost.  In his morality saving 99% was not good enough.  And, like Abraham, he was not okay with close enough or even one person being harmed when it could be avoided.

If one sinner isn’t expendable in the eyes of God—then what is the worth of an innocent child’s life?

When you’re okay with killing one person for the sake of some imaginary “greater good” you’ll justify a million. That is the genocidal math, the cold calculation behind nearly all industrial scale mass murder campaigns—trying to kill their way to peace. They claim it is a binary choice, either us or them, save more lives by switching the track and killing one instead.

This is the kind of justification or rationalization that allowed men like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Truman and Netanyahu today. One might be completely fine with the slaughter of innocents when they’re ideologically aligned with those who are doing the killing, yet agreement doesn’t make it any less evil—and silence is to be complicit in the murder.

You’re Not Exceptional…

So maybe one suffers from main character syndrome, their own grandiosity delusions and narcissism—they understand good and evil only in terms of what serves them as an individual or a tribal identity group? Or they just think they have a special clarity of mind to make “hard decisions” on who should be sacrificed or saved? But this arrogance will only lead to hell. Those who claim to do evil for goodness sake are almost always just doing evil—dressing it up in the language of necessity so they never have to look in the mirror and be honest with themselves.

Every parent with a child understands that one evil doesn’t justify another.

Col. Jessep, while violating military ethics and the law, positioned himself as being a protector of civilization. Likewise many in the world make excuses for their own lack of civility—the “they started it” or “ist” labeling exemptions. The whole “violence is the only language they understand” rationale by those whom themselves only seem to be restrained from by force. 

Every accusation is a confession?

The difference is semantics—not substance. The worst offenders believe the sanitized descriptions of their own brutality and atrocities they commit makes them less a “terrorist” than those whom they hate—yet this righteous veneer is stripped away under cross-examination. It is only in their own mind they’re special.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.

Isaiah 5:20-21 NIV

You can’t be good while you are doing evil—good is what it continually does. Certainly we all fall short. We all have bad days and make mistakes. A good person is one who is able to admit wrong doing rather than try to whitewash evil. Giving exemptions for some and harsh penalties for others is just favoritism and a sin. There is one standard for all people and that is to love others (our neighbors) as ourselves. When you start to defend “your people” rather than humanity it leads to a breakdown of morality and ethics that only creates more conflict. The double standard is to make exceptions for evil and a good person does not.

Good morality starts with an idea that we all stand in front of a neutral judge. It applies a consistent standard for all people.

Good morality doesn’t ask who is pulling the trigger—it asks whether a trigger should be pulled at all.

True integrity means abandoning self-serving or tribal math which values our rights more than theirs.  It means accepting that we are not the exception to the rule—and abiding by universal moral principle. Until we drop the self-righteous rationalizations of our own violations and submit ourselves to a single, impartial standard of love and justice, we will remain trapped in an endless cycle of violence of our own making—and prove to the rest of the world that we are precisely what we have accused our enemies of being: Lawless, agents of chaos, and just plain evil no matter how we dressed it.

Nobody thinks they’re evil. No they’re just a good person forced to do bad things. They are victims of circumstances, compelled by the evil of others to neglect common moral decency and do bad things. They may even claim to be on the wall guarding civilization from itself, but the truth is they represent an erosion of morality more than the foreigner beyond they say we should fear: They’re the barbarians and savages! But those who do evil for goodness sake are worse than the uncivilized who do bad in ignorance.

A person who knows what is right and exempts themselves is evil. If you’re good, then you will do good for goodness sake—without exception.

Unmerited Wealth, Righteous Losers

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Most long for a world that conforms to their own idea of fairness and justice.  Shouldn’t a person get what they deserve?  And in the Bible there is a concept of reaping what we sow.  Call it karma.  Cause and effect.  The urge to explain the misfortune of others as their fault or our own fortune as the proof of our righteousness.  We feel punished when things don’t work out—and vindicated when they do.  But what if there is more randomness to outcomes than we imagine?

While the law of sowing and reaping should be applied—where hard work and the fruits of harvest are related—this understanding should also be counterbalanced.  Some get wealth by reaping what they did not sow as an inheritance or through theft.  Those who assign positive moral value to wealth miss this entirely.  This often becomes a excuse for lack of charity or even reason to further disenfranchise the disenfranchised.  Look at the caste system in Hindu India and “health and wealth” preaching of the false Prosperity Gospel.

Faces of those who got rich through exploitation

I’ve seen this in response to the flooding in Nepal, posts by suggesting that it is some kind of Divine punishment for the majority Hindu nation for persecution of Christians, which is strange given that victims are from multiple countries.  Funny how we never got that kind of interpretation of the destruction in Asheville and Swannanoa Valleys due to the rains from hurricane Helene.  We should probably work out some of these details of this before we assume anything, right?

Do good things happen to good people—bad things to bad?  

Is our good or bad fortune a matter of our deserving and merit?

Sometimes there are consequences for our actions—like when an algae bloom caused by your merciless bombing of a neighbor is now threatening your own water supply.  Yet the mistake is believing that every bad thing other people suffer is sowing and reaping—cause and effect.  Some reap what they did not sow, they have meritless wealth and the prosperity built from exploitation.  

First let’s take a look at what we can learn about the suffering of righteous people in Scripture—and then move on to the myth of meritocracy in American culture.

The Righteous Loser

There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.

(Ecclesiastes 8:14 NIV)

The above credited to Solomon, a wise king, who understood the good guys don’t always win.  He reverses the expected order, denies karma, and he tells us that indeed many bad things happen to good people and from our perspective evil wins.  

This same sentiment is captured elsewhere in Scripture, the apparent success of the wicked which nearly caused the faithful to stumble. In Psalms 73:2-12, the psalmist admits, “my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” He describes how “They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong” and remain “free from common human burdens,” while saying “pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.” From callous hearts they scoff and speak with malice, even claiming, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?”—all while they stay “always free of care” and “go on amassing wealth.” Such observations highlight the tension between the alarming prosperity of wicked and our belief that all people should get what they deserve.  The world doesn’t work according to our moral logic or narratives.

And it’s not only the wisdom of the Psalms or Solomon, but something Jesus had tried to explain to a prejudice crowd:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

(John 9:1-3 NIV)

The disciples anticipated a link between a man’s blindness and sin.  However, Jesus answered with “none of the above” before healing the man.  This is clearly refutation of the idea that sin causes misfortune.  It has nothing to do with the righteousness or unrighteousness of the sufferer.  Even the most devoted assumed people simply got what they deserved.  Jesus corrected their errant belief and presented blindness from birth as an opportunity to show God’s glory.  Physical defect is not a punishment for sin, nor is poverty or misfortune, evil men are sometimes rich and powerful—it is only our spiritual blindness that makes us see great wealth or good health as a direct reward for virtue.  Jesus did not.

Here’s another case of Jesus addressing an unfortunate circumstance:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no!  But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

(Luke 13:1-5 NIV)

We all ask questions after tragedy.  Why do some get swept away in the flood waters—while others escape without injury?  These are questions we all must grapple with and one answer is to blame the victims.  Jesus is citing two recent events for his audience.  The euphemism about mixing of blood with sacrifices refers to the pilgrims from Galilee killed by Roman soldiers while at the temple atoning for sin.  The tower in Siloam tragedy was, by contrast, was an engineering failure or natural disaster rather than deliberate.  In both cases Jesus dismisses the idea that it is a form of retributive justice—and instead he gives a reminder that we all die.

The whole Gospel narrative depends on an idea that even the good people suffer (and oftentimes more for being good) because it is exactly what happened to Jesus.  If only good things can ever happen to righteous people then explain the suffering and death of the Christian example.  And this is not a new teaching of the Gospel, there’s a whole book named Job about a man who had one calamity after another because of—and not in spite of—his righteousness.  Job’s friends were rebuked, by God, for trying to fault with him.  They made the same mistake many in the time of Jesus made and assigned moral weight to misfortune.  This idea contradicts the core of the Gospel showing the ultimate example of the righteous man is one who is willing to suffer for the sins of others.

The way of the cross is hated by those who crave worldly power.

The reason why we prefer to blame victims is because it removes our responsibility to care.  We can simply say they got what they deserved and move on.  But that’s the same attitude of Cain—who murdered his brother and then when confronted by God says “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  The example Jesus gave is a polar opposite: Saving those who are completely undeserving—taking the loss on himself rather than demand that people suffer for their sins.  A Christian should only see disaster as an opportunity to help those in need—to show gratitude for grace of God towards us—never as cause for speculation about their hidden sins.  

Myth of American Meritocracy 

The idea that great wealth is a reward for virtue is a pillar of American conservative politics.  This naturally accompanies that notion that people get the suffering which they deserve and is a cornerstone a current economic system we call Capitalism.  The myth of meritocracy is that those at the top gaining their riches through their hard work or wise investments rather than via shady business or exploitation.  If you work hard you’ll do well—that’s a foundational premise of our economic system.

And it is true, having a good work ethic and investing well are keys to success.  Making excuses rather than finding a way will keep you in poverty for life.  However, many do the right things and fail.  While others, born into the wrong circumstances, never have a real opportunity despite trying.  And some people simply lack ability.  Real life—beyond those ideological or theoretical constructs—defies pat answers.  Some are successful only because of the investment of others in them—they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth—others did everything they can do and can’t escape their constraints.

I’ve gone at length taking on the Democrat’s divisive identity politics and their creation of dependency-for-votes strategy—keeping the poor coming back for more while only ever delivering crumbs.  But the Republican myth of American meritocracy isn’t much better—it is an extension of a televangelists “health and wealth” message or: Donate to me and you’ll be blessed sevenfold!”  They basically get rich by gaming the system, while we pay their bills and then get blamed for our own lack of ability to get ahead financially due to inflation their policies created.

The idea that all wealth is deserved or equal to virtue is wrong.  Money can be gained by many different means, some of them good—some bad.  A decent person creates value with their own work and trades this for what others have produced.  The laborer, the one who is doing the actual work, deserves their wages.  And yet there are many less analog ways exist to gain wealth that don’t involve the sweat of your brow.  Yes, it might all be legal, but gain through a promotion of vice or through exploitation of human weakness is not the same as honest work.

There are many unethical and unscrupulous ways to get rich.  And many who are on the ‘Capitalist’ or ‘conservative’ side seem to be fine with this brutal finders-keepers-losers-weapers death race.  This social darwinism that rewards taking legal loopholes or every deceptive scheme possible, might be called free market but is a predatory system which favors the ruthless rather than those with a conscience.  Money through vice can come quicker because it is a mere transfer and is not produced by an individual but obtained through trickery and exploitation.  Vice and usery, political prostitution, are all examples of unmerited gain even if legal.

Cleverness isn’t a virtue.

We’re not a meritocracy.  Jeff Bezos did not get rich from his own work alone.  And the Republicans do not represent hardworking Americans any more than Democrats—both work for the donor class.  Money we did not gain by the work of our own hands, which is obtained without any moral consideration, it is meritless wealth.  Merit is about qualities such as “good, valuable, or worthy of praise and reward” and, therefore, in a meritocracy we must be concerned with the means with which wealth is obtained.  Economic rents and monopolies, transaction fees, political prostitution, usery, luck and inheritance, are all a means of financial gain which do not require productive efforts.  

The myth of meritocracy is that all those at the top did something to deserve it.  While most certainly did something to gain their wealth, the types who are ruthless and would “sell their own grandma” shouldn’t be praised.  Money has no moral value, or at least other than that people tend to compromise for those who will write that fat check.  And Capitalism is not meritocracy by default—not when there are so many paths to enormous wealth through means of deception or exploitation.  Stepping on others in order to get ahead is depravity, not merit, and a sign of moral bankruptcy rather than being something to be celebrated. 

Measles & Mythology

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The punishment of Sisyphus seems bizarre. This king, in Greek mythology, was condemned for all eternity to the struggle of pushing a massive boulder up a steep hill only to have it roll back down again. What was his crime against the gods?

Sisyphus outsmarted and chained up Thanatos what happened (Death) according to some versions. Whereas in other accounts, they emphasize that he leveraged information to secure the Peirene Spring for the city of Corinth. In both cases it was him cheating death. Fresh water was key for a city up on a hill—with waterborne disease a big problem with stagnant waters.  And keeping Death bound also allowed mortals to live without fear of dying for a period of time.

This myth is the perfect metaphor for human progress. We have been so very successful for a century—or two—that many are ignorant of how life was before the widespread use of antibiotics and vaccines. We still have survivors of polio alive today—people with lifelong disabilities due to their illness—yet a fairly large population remains blissfully unaware of the risk of being unprotected.

A recent reminder of this is the measles outbreak that is currently sweeping through Amish and Mennonite communities. Hundreds of cases are reported (many more likely unreported), almost entirely among the unvaccinated. It’s not too surprising—hearing of their accounts of severe illness—that a local clinic that caters to Old Order Anabaptists has seen a significant spike in demand for MMR vaccines.

True, only a handful of deaths can currently be directly attributed to this disease. And sure, we can argue that a ruptured spleen during birth is more the fault of an unlicensed midwife than it is the organ being inflamed and vulnerable due to the viral infection. It’s technically not the fall that kills; it is the sudden stop at the end when you hit the ground. But let’s not be cute about it: measles comes with health consequences which will often extend beyond the initial sickness.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FEZV9NmLw/

However, this is hubris that cuts both ways. It is not just the “did my own research” type who dooms humanity to a repeat cycle. It can also be the overconfidence of formally educated and designated authorities. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s declarations on MSNBC—“Attacks on me… are attacks on science”—and saying “I represent science” on CBS’s Face the Nation later—border on delusional. Wisdom isn’t derived from the mere accumulation of knowledge—its humility and understanding that our knowledge (dogma) can be a blind spot—even become a hindrance to growth in perspective. Nobody is immune.

A younger Amish co-worker (one of those vaccinated against measles) confided in me that his own doubts arose because of the COVID response. Prior to the pandemic he had faith in the medical profession, and I’ll confess to a similar experience. There’s a backlash that was earned.

The reality is this: in the 1950s we thought we would beat disease. We raised a whole generation who saw progress as linear, humanity finally overcoming disease through hygiene and antibiotics. But another generation has learned that there are consequences to advancements. Nature snaps back; we now have autoimmune disorders and allergies like never before. Antibiotic resistance may eventually erase much of the advantage we have enjoyed. Maybe this modernist notion of a climb into some utopian end is mythological, and the nature of reality is cyclical? Science is not our salvation.

And it’s layers of complexity. Our modern institutions, formed by extraordinary men, had gained our trust through successes. A silent testimony of child graves from only a century ago is the traction Dr. Fauci found for his career. But like our discovering the flaws in our once-infallible parents, and as brilliant innovators are replaced with those who are mere caretakers of an established system, we learn there was no truly sacred substance there. And our doubts cause us to lose grip on the boulder civilization has labored to move. Either by forgetting those lessons that got us to our heights or by our flight too close to the sun (the myth of Icarus), we come crashing down to Earth again.

I suppose both our ignorance and our arrogance could be our downfall. As I see a race towards a potential AI apocalypse, with ‘the science’ unable to contain itself, or observe the loss of sense of those who didn’t experience the plagues of the past firsthand to appreciate the benefit of an imperfect solution, I can’t decide what will lead us to the punishment for our having held back disease and death. I only suspect that the action will produce an equal and opposite reaction. Or maybe we can hand Sisyphus a stick to prop that rock and live indefinitely in a fragile balance?

A myth is a warning about something true and goes beyond mere facts and medical journals. There is a level of human reality that isn’t better explained in their academic pages or technical terms. We’re doomed to repeat history because the failure that leads to our next fall comes in a slightly different form each time. But it seems inevitable: civilization has a life cycle. It appears to be invincible during the rise; conquers heights never previously seen before (in the memory of those ascending) before it loses steam and all that was an asset turns to liabilities. We think we have defeated disease, and yet we have only bought ourselves a reprieve.

The Elephant in the Room

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You know the illustration of a group of blind men describing an elephant?

With one of them holding the leg and describing it as the trunk of a tree, another the tail and thinking it is a rope, etc.?

It is a good analogy for the larger conspiracy nobody can explain.

We all can agree that there’s something wrong with the world, and yet we can never agree on exactly what it is. Those of the Republican rank and file, despite being an easy sell on the biggest of wastes called the Pentagon, have generally seen government as the real problem—along with rules that apply to them and the people who don’t speak English.  And those Democrats—of course. Democrats, on the other hand, will blame those big corporations and billionaires for their woes, the “uneducated,” and unborn babies—which all stand in the way of a life of ease.  And they blame Republicans.  I would say that both are right to a degree. It is actually that natural collusion of the political and economic that they see a different side of—namely, that government has always sent us to die overseas on behalf of bankers and big business. Monetary wealth is transferable—so much more transferable than some amorphous national ideals—and politicians are a class that can be easily bought.

Maybe we all are? 

I am reminded of a local fight against a new data center where the leader of the protest went silent right around the time the buyout cash was being offered.

We will stand on principle—until we don’t.

Money or, rather, the love of it, with the power it represents, is the root of all kinds of evil.

The above would describe half of the conspiracy.

The other half of it is those who never had to be bought to betray us all. From growing up in a conservative Mennonite community—and having been a religious member for most of my life—there’s an attitude that comes with the notion of “not being ‘of the world’” which is probably not what Jesus ever intended. I am talking about a sneering at or contempt for the civil authority. We didn’t say it—even preached the opposite—and yet there is the very strong undercurrent of “what business does some heathen have in telling me how to live my life?” I’m fairly certain—given the admonition of Romans 13—that separation is more about being apart from vices of the world rather than in judgment of those who are given the power of the sword or the civil authorities. This defiance against power is a good and bad thing. It can be good when we are standing on a moral high ground and for truth—not when it is a special exemption from accountability to our neighbors.

So where am I going with all this?

Who doesn’t need to betray us because they never were us?

There’s another group of individuals that’s a lot like Mennonites or Amish, and not fully invested in the same civilizational project or greater good.  Where, in theory, Christian separatists are never supposed to screw you over in business and must value all human life, this is not a disposition that is shared universally and by every community of faith or culture.

There are some who believe that people outside of the “tribe” are little more than a resource to exploit. And their religious traditions allows or even encourages this perspective.  If you look at the Biblical Old Testament, and take note of the bloodbath it was before Christ, maybe you would also be shouting, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Jesus was the watershed moment of Jewish tradition—he claimed to be the complete fulfillment of everything promised to them since the time of Abraham. Some embraced his message and became known as Christians and many others rejected his message, choosing their own “chosenness” over a life of repentance, humility, and self-sacrificial love—that “way of the cross” which was embodied by Jesus as an example for all.

There are those who are “Biblical” yet completely incompatible with a Christian worldview.  And a few of their number have worked tirelessly to, this time around, finally defeat Rome. Modern Judaism and, in particular, the Zionist ideology within this sect of those who rejected Christ, is not just aloof like contemporary Anabaptists. No, it has an ax to grind with Western civilization as a whole and the disgusting “blasphemy” of the divine claims of one of their own.

In Talmudic tradition Jesus basically got what he deserved, currently boils in a pot of excrement, and is definitely not an example to follow. The Noahide prescription for saying “Jesus is Lord” is decapitation. This is why adherent Talmudists have zero interest in protecting those Christian communities that have been in the Holy Lands for centuries. They also take personally being defeated by the European pagans two centuries ago.  Jesus was put to death on behalf of the Sanhedrin or Jewish High Council who claimed this was necessary to defend their nation.  Where the mainline of Islam still considers Christians and Jews to simply be “people of the book,” this sentiment of tolerance is not part of Talmudic Judaism.

Furthermore, Christianity, if applied, pushes back against this tribal, primitive, “if you kill one of ours we kill ten of yours” mentality—Old Testament religion does not.

Before I go any further it is important to say that this isn’t a diagnosis of a whole ethnic or identity group. I firmly believe that most Jews—just like most Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists—are good people and should be judged as individuals. What I’m addressing is ideology, not individuals. I see my Jewish elementary school teacher in a far different light from a Benjamin Netanyahu—in the same way I can distinguish between Amish and Lutherans. 

So as a starting point I won’t assume anything—in individuals is the behavioral expression that matters to me.

But that said, there is a kind of tribal dynamic or cultural influence that is at work and with this a few common points of failure. Being taught a moral and ethical system is similar to sharing genetics.  For example, Ashkenazi Jews (much like Amish and Mennonites)—because they are so isolated from the greater gene pool—present a very unique opportunity for studying genetic disorders.

The Supremacist Disease

Sickle cell anemia is an issue for only some Africans—and it isn’t racist or an accusation against all to acknowledge this.

Likewise, it isn’t “anti-Semitic” to call out Zionism and to understand that the “goyim” slur (as it was used in the Jeffrey Epstein emails) reflects the toxic stench of ethno-supremacism—which is incompatible with an “all men are created equal” ethic. If anti-goyism is the trait, then Zionism is the ultimate disease. And this is an ailment that stems from a toxic brew of a theological error mixed with the pre-existing human condition. The end product is a kind of psychopathy and lack of self-awareness unequaled on the planet. Unlike Christianity that it is better to serve than to be served—there are rabbis who say this:

In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person—they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money.“This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew.”“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat… That is why gentiles were created.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

Translation: If you’re not Jewish then you’re no different from cattle or a draft animal. That’s what he was teaching Israelis. Little wonder why Israeli tourists have gained a reputation for being entitled jerks.  It explains why IDF soldiers laugh about the Palestinian children they’ve killed.

Two ethno-supremacists enjoy a moment together.

They are basically the Jewish version of Nazis or the KKK and totally anti-Christ and evil. The best you can be to Jewish supremacists is basically their prized horse. Work is for us, leisure for them, and if you don’t perform to the standard?

Well, what does a farmer do if his cow doesn’t produce?

This idea that an honest day’s work is below the Jew seems reflected in the messages that Epstein and Jewish friends exchanged:

This is the way the Jew make money.. and made a fortune in the past ten years„ selling short the shipping futures‚ let the goyim deal in the real world.

This right here hits on something of my own values. Remember the one time Jesus was especially animated? Him driving out those money changers from the temple courtyard, overturning their tables in a righteous fury—because they were taking advantage of the poor hard-working people. There are those ways of getting rich without ever adding any value. It might not legally be theft, but it does prey on those who earn every dime they got, and is unethical from the perspective of the New Testament writers. Usury, filthy lucre, charging interest and shameful, dishonest, or dishonorable financial gain. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the blue-collar worker and probably as a part of my own cultural upbringing—a culture built off the religion of Christ—the cornerstone that was rejected by those who wanted only to be served.

And then there’s the elitism represented by the publicist Peggy Siegal who asked Jeffrey Epstein if an event at his New York mansion would be a “100% JEW NIGHT,” and to which the pedophile blackmailer answered: “No, goyim in abundance – jpmorgan execs brilliant WASPs.”

To deal with her comment about non-Jews he entices her with: They’re smart and rich.

Favoritism is another one of those things that was condemned by Jewish leaders of the early Christian church:

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

James 2:3-5

Judgment based on appearance is natural, as is the preference for those who might be able to give us something; this is favoritism and corrupts our institutions. The direction of the West has been equality—not in some absolute way—as far as individual rights or similar access to economic opportunities. But those of the Epstein-class have no qualms about elitism; they don’t subscribe to Christian thought—those of the Jewish contingent of this Zionist club are primed for this: It is their chosenness, the divine destiny granted to them by their superior genetics, a narcissistic self-love, and all represents the core of a disease that has overtaken our top tier.

Corruption of Wealthy Widows

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

(Luke 8:1-3 NIV)

Jesus was financially supported by women.  He preached the good news on their dime.  And the anti-Christ, seeking a false Messiah, is supported in a similar way.

To understand why Trump has done Israel’s bidding look no further than the donation of $250,000,000 by Miriam Adelson. My uncle, from Canada, who leans left, warned me of how Trump was owned by billionaires. It is the part he left out, however, that mattered most. Of course big money buys influence—both parties have their wealthy patrons backing them. But the details matter. This woman who bankrolled Trump is the Israel-first widow of Sheldon Adelson—a man who made his billions by peddling vice.

Gambling is addictive and the Adelsons the type who cash in on human weakness. The idea of gaining enormous wealth entices—this is an exploitable bug in our system. The house always wins in this stacked game. When asked about her loyalties it was fairly clear that it wasn’t with the country that created her fortune—it was with an ethno-supremacist colony. So this woman, who became wealthy creating an addiction to a losing proposition, bought the service of Trump using the money of the exploited. This, simply put, is just corruption upon corruption upon corruption—money taken from working poor Americans to use to influence politicians to send their children to die for the Zionist regime. An ill-gotten fortune used to shape a foreign policy that demands that U.S. treasure be spent bombing school girls in the country of Iran—all because Iran’s principled government stands in the way of their ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

We’re not just being deceived; we’re being totally robbed blind by people who have no investment in the American project besides a tax farm and a population to exploit. If you see who sits atop the entertainment or vice system a clear pattern emerges. From pro sports to Hollywood, social media and the adult entertainment industry, there’s a totally disproportionate representation. If you look at Pornhub, for example, it just so happens to be owned by Ethical Capital Partners and Solomon Friedman—an ordained Orthodox Jewish rabbi. OnlyFans was owned (until his death) by Leonid Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-born American who donated millions to the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC. And this list goes on and on. It’s a matter of moral alignment, not religious or ethnic identities. There was a time when vices stayed in Las Vegas and the seedy side of town—now they have put it in our pockets where resistance is about as likely as ceasing to doomscroll.

All of this, like the Federal Reserve system, is a legal exploitation. But it goes against the public good. An ethical businessman or politician is like a good parent or teacher—in that they would never put something bad or financially ruinous and morally corrosive right in front of our most vulnerable people. Oh, I know, if they didn’t do it someone else would, right?

There’s no excuse for this.

But being an intermediary who does the things that good people of society would not do doesn’t make you a victim when the connection is pointed out. Bluntly, there are some not invested in our good because they’re truly not one of us and only see us in terms of opportunities for exploitation. Our politicians, and most especially Trump, are owned by a group of wealthy elites invested in us the same way Israel is in Palestinians—in that we are only useful alive to them so long as they are served by us.

For capitalism to work you need the people with capital to be loyal to the country and invest in the betterment of their neighbors. Take a dive into a rabbit hole and see how the Sassoon family got filthy rich by keeping the Chinese supplied with highly addictive opium. They basically ruined a nation for their own profit and used the power of the British military to humiliate the Chinese trying to stop the flow of the drug. Say what you will about China, but they’ve done very well since driving the money changers out. They have made sure the commerce in China serves the people of China and not only this very small group of foreigners and colonial elites.

The Elephant in the Room

“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club.” (George Carlin)

Since the 1970s the top 1% has gone from holding 22% of the nation’s wealth to 31.7% and that is a trend that has only accelerated since the Covid shutdowns of 2020.  Elites said “we’re all in this together” in the height of the pandemic.  But Amazon was having record profits while Mom-and-Pop were not allowed to be open.  As Gavin Newsom and a long list of other politicians had continued to party in private, events like weddings and school graduations were canceled for us.  It is abundantly clear and no matter who they say that they represent; They’re working for themselves, not working for us.

Money and power, concentrated into a few hands, particularly the hands of those with a foreign agenda that does not consider the welfare of the native population, acts like a conspiracy because it practically is one. No, it is not a Jewish conspiracy, it isn’t simply corporate greed or corrupt politicians, and certainly didn’t start with Trump; this is just how corrupt birds of a feather always flock together. Grifters, conmen, an ethnic group taught from little on up that they’re superior and entitled, those who will short an entire economy and are willing to destroy the life work of others for gain, they often do team up. It’s love of money, wealth without work, and people who are not truly invested in the good of the nation they’re in, that’s the big elephant in room.

Many can see parts of the creature—a trunk, the ears, the tail—they blame billionaires, or the migrants, the symptoms, but fail to ever comprehend the marriage of political power and banking, vice and exploitation industry—people all invested in themselves or some foreign interest rather than the whole. This describes the Zionist “AIPAC” lobby—as well as billionaires, like Sam Altman (OpenAI) or Peter Thiel (PayPal and Palantir), who have built their tremendous wealth on our backs and then would bug out and flee to another country rather than make a home stand.  It is a class of those who see themselves as a god to be served rather than as a servant of humanity.  

Gay tech billionaires, Zionist club members, aren’t actually interested in the future of the American middle-class?

Who could’ve known!

That thrice married man, paying high dollar prostitutes, wasn’t actually the champion of family values?  

Must be my TDS speaking, right?

Trump might be part of this elephant’s rear end, but the establishment alternative is not another creature.  It’s about orientation.  It’s about the actual values lived.  Not the ones they state on camera, the ones they live out when not in character.  Erosion of Christian values, despite the lip service paid to them, has led to a much more self-centered, tribal and exploitative present.  Vice industry and debt have bound us.  We need to get back to the universal perspective rather than the tribal.  We must address the delusion of the ‘chosen’ and their systematic violence as a threat to stability and peace.  We must side with those who accepted Christ rather than those who rejected and hate him.

Oh, and don’t forget, Judas didn’t spit on Christ when he betrayed him.  No, he kissed him.  The thirty pieces of silver mattered to him more than loyalty to those who entrusted him with carrying their common purse.  There are many who call themselves Christians today, who may faithfully attend church every Sunday, but are on the side of evil and may be told “depart from me, I never knew you” for their unholy alliances.

The Weight of the Seasons

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Just reflecting on a busy summer and the changes that come with age, maturity, and the realization that you’ve already passed the midpoint. The last four years, since getting married, have been a blur. Watching a child grow up was compressed for me, given that my son was already ten when he arrived at JFK with his mom. Now he’s just entering high school—I’ve already watched him play in his first football scrimmage at that level.

My remaining grandfather, my mom’s dad, is still with us as I write, but he’s declined and isn’t the same man he once was. However, it was my mother’s heart attack just a month or so ago that served as a stark reminder of my own age. She’s doing well, for now, yet time has most certainly slipped by; the days turned into decades. Siblings grew up and left. Those old friendships came and went. And now, my focus and priorities have shifted to another generation—to the toddler daughter who runs with a smile on her face, turning a simple walk outside into a wonderful adventure.

All good things come to an end. The Slifer House was torn down despite my best efforts to rally against this historical vandalism. It is fairly clear that once Grandpa passes, even the family I thought was always so close will go separate ways. It’s just dawned on me how much of what was always there for me is now in the past tense: the farm, the fun times with cousins running around as a band of boys. Those days are over, and now we have our own lives.

I fought hard, following the terminal prognosis of Uriah and as the eldest of the grandsons, to keep us connected. But life is busy. I have changed, they have changed, and there are growing incompatibilities. I cannot trust those who cling to ideologies—despite all evidence—that could potentially put my own family at risk through the policies they support. Why keep clinging to relics of the past when they do nothing for my family’s future? I still go to reunions, for now.

We Can Never Go Home Again

It seems everything follows the same life cycle. With good fortune, you prosper until you’re surrounded by the fruit of success—and then it all fades away. I got myself back on track very late after years of struggle, and it is simply a fact that I’ve entered the latter half of my life. A second act or a decline into oblivion is all a matter of perspective. But I know all the things I cherished eventually slipped away and you can never go back; the future is built on the death of the past.

Even with my parents’ house still standing and my parents still living in it, even with siblings to reminisce with about our childhood, the moment was gone before I even had time to contemplate what it meant. I’m now much closer to the grave than to my early memories, and I have probably reached my full potential in many areas. I’ve had to leave so much behind to get here, and I can’t prepare my children for the time when the home I provide for them exists only as a memory.

As summer comes and goes too quickly for a fourteen-year-old boy—their days of swimming and fishing—the security of the past is forever falling forward into the present mix of change and uncertainty. Like the Garden of Eden, we’re expelled from the realm of our innocence, a place of nurture, our ideals, and an imagined future of endless possibilities, into a world that demands we perform or die. Time moved slowly then, as if it would never end—but now we see the end.

The Truth That Gets You Fired

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Have you noticed those holding a moderate view are often attacked more viciously than those actually pushing a cruel extreme? If you fight back against those who are trying to manufacture consent for their abuse you will be accused of hate.

Transferring Blame

Sophie Cunningham, a WNBA player, is now being harassed by the national sports media for her ‘controversial’ opinion that men don’t belong in women’s sports.

Of course it wasn’t just any man that she is talking about, it’s those crossed-dressing men, who appropriate the feminine traits (albeit very imperfectly) and think “identifies as a woman” is to be taken as a license to invade female spaces. This is obviously in defiance of the established social order that grants females exclusive space as protection from male attention—we also have created special categories of sports given the distinct advantage males have physically over women.

This is what Cunningham said after being asked her of transgender participation in female sports:

I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’ I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.

That is a measured reasonable response—correcting a malicious mischaracterization of her opposition to biological men taking a place reserved for women. Since the girl’s locker room was invented perverted young men have been looking for an opportunity to invade it. There’s a reason why we have a term “peeping Tom” in the first place. But autogynephilia takes this a step further, this is a male becomes sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself being a female, and was diagnosed as transvestic disorder until the powers that be decided we should normalize this behavior.

The truly odd part, however, has been how the corporate media and a ton of bot farm social media content is blame-shifting their obsession with this story onto Cunningham as a sort of accusation. They act as if she is trying to stir the pot for giving an honest answer to a question ESPN asked her. This is a propaganda technique: Make the victim responsible for the negative attention rather than the aggressor. Typically we would see one person against a corporate machine as being weaker. But the people holding the megaphone flipped the script and act as if Cunningham is truly dictating the terms of the conversation.

Burger King Ambush

On August 5, 2026, a young woman named Arianna Hamilton was working her shift at a Burger King in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania. A known Zionist activist, a middle-aged Israeli dual citizen, somehow (details disputed) ended up in a verbal confrontation with Hamilton. How it all started is a he said, she said. She says Feinstein was aggressive. While he claims that she had made him feel unsafe. But we only have what he recorded, where he goads her to repeat phrase said during the course of an unrecorded conversation with disputed details.

Here is the viral exchange:

Rami Feinstein: “I’m here at Burger King and an employee in Burger King just said ‘Free Palestine’ to me.”

Rami Feinstein: (Turning the camera toward her) “Ariana, what did you say to me? What did you say to me, Arianna?”

Arianna Hamilton: “Sorry, I said ‘Free Palestine’.”

Rami Feinstein: “Okay. Okay, say it again.”

Arianna Hamilton: “Free Palestine!”

Rami Feinstein: “I got you, Ariana.”

Clearly Feinstein is looking to push the issue. If he really felt unsafe he would leave. Instead he is harassing a fast food employee, likely a teenager, and demanded a refund. And all because she had dared to respond to his own announcement of his Israeli citizenship with the phrase, “Free Palestine.”

She was fired from her job.

Not paid enough to compromise her integrity, rewarded for her stand.

To understand encounter a little better let’s consider an exchange with another political symbol. Say a white man walks into Burger King wearing a Confederate flag T-shirt and seeing it a young African-American woman says, “Black Lives Matter.” Then, in his grating and irritating voice the white supremacist ‘rebel’ demands the employee repeats this phrase for his camera and then goes on to claim he is a victim. Wouldn’t that be absurd?

This is what ‘unsafe’ looks like.

It is even more absurd for an Israeli to ever play the victim card with a black teenager, clearly at a disadvantage to him, for saying “free Palestine” in response to the symbol of a country that is commiting an act of genocide as we speak. He, as a white man, can very easily blend in to general American society by not wearing a symbol of a foreign government associated with oppression and hate. But instead he displays it proudly while claiming that he feels unsafe.

The ‘Hate’ Hypocrisy…

Burger King, bowing to pressure, terminated the young woman exercising her freedom of speech. They claim that it is “incitement to hatred” and say it violated a zero-tolerance policy towards discrimination and antisemitism—I see a lawsuit against a corporation. In what sane world is “free [anything]” hateful? It is not and will never be. Yet those currently in control of the narrative need you to believe “freedom is slavery” and standing for those truly being oppressed is hatred.

If Burger King corporation is so concerned with a young employee speaking her mind—why are they okay when their franchises in Israel offer aid and comfort to the IDF as this army commits war crimes?

If you see a man in this picture, you’re hateful!

Zionism is the very same moral inversion of those saying Julie (Julien “Jimmy”) Tétart, an amateur French male basketball player for the ESC Tergnier and other clubs before undergoing his “transition,” is now somehow a victim of hate because of their clear physical advantage in a woman’s league. Hormones and surgery do not change Julie’s 6′-3″ frame from what it was as Jimmy and it’s shameful that the Monaco Basket Association would even put them on their roster. That’s controversial—not Cunningham politely defending her own opinion most people agree with:

I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense, and I think I’ll always believe in that.

The controversy with Burger King and free speech is a little different. Employees for a fast food restaurant are generally expected to not engage in political conversations and yet it’s still insane to frame it as threatening of a grown man. Feinstein was never in real danger. Children in Gaza, Lebanon or West Bank are in real danger. But the corporation is okay with their franchises in Israel giving free food directly to the IDF as this military is terrorizing the region. We cannot get any more ridiculous this. I mean, what’s next, is it going to be considered hate and a fireable offense to wear a Christian cross?

The love of money…

Meanwhile, people can wrap themselves in a banner, wear a symbol of an ongoing genocide then play victim when called out. We’re told it is controversial and asking for trouble when a WNBA player says what we are all thinking when we see a male frame in drag dominating women. Is this just rage bait? A page out of Rules for Radicals? Or maybe it is all of the above and a part of a control regime?

Who Runs the World?

The real point of the culture war is to keep us overwhelmed and distracted. As we are divided on how to define a woman or being told it is anti-semitic to oppose Israel killing the Semitic/Palestinian people, they quietly move pieces to strengthen their control of the world. This ‘they’ being the hands that move pieces on the global chessboard, the billionaire elites, the intelligence agencies, and all of the Epstein-class. These are the people who make money coming and going—stirring the conflict and the profiting from the war.

https://x.com/i/status/2086838463890903385

A name that came up in the Epstein emails, the well-connected pedophile speaking to a guy named Peter Thiel (who happens to be the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Palantir Technologies and a sponsor of JD Vance), with Epstein telling Thiel: “As you probably know, I represent the Rothschilds.” The Rothschild’s a powerful banking family which drew the U.S. into WW1, on behalf of the British, in exchange for Palestine. The Balfour Declaration states it explicitly:

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

This is not conspiracy theory. This is simply a fact. 116,516 American boys died, and as many maimed, fighting in a trench war that did not have any bearing whatsoever on the nation they were from or their future. It’s an early price of Zionism before we even knew what to call it. It started with the sacrifice of American blood and continues unabated a century later in the Holy Lands.

Also Interesting, contrary to the effort under way to erase Palestinian identity, as part of a genocide, it is very clear this location was called Palestine. And the terms of Balfour’s declaration, “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” have now been broken long ago. Now the occupants of this land claim “free Palestine” is hateful of Jews?

The West needs to wake up, the same who were dividing up Gaza long before October 7th became a pretext for ethnic cleansing, have designs to flood the U.S. and Europe with the refugees they create. They want Christians and Muslims killing each other and never united so their own small group of elites has total control (operating behind the chaos) of our government, our property, and our children. These Epstein-class elites already employ immense power over our culture—own both sides of the political divide which is a false choice. They want us to be simply be too confused or preoccupied to ever tell them “no” together.

The Rothchild dynasty, JP Morgan, banksters, responsible for incredible human suffering as a way to secure their wealth.

Have you seen what happened to Spain as they take a moral stand against genocide and decided to be neutral rather than host the U.S. Air Force as we rained missiles at girls’ schools in Iran? It’s not coincidence that recently tens of thousands of military age Moroccans invaded the Spanish territory in North Africa. Not a coincidence either that my social media feed was simultaneously full of Hasbura drawing the false equivalency between Spain having territory outside of Europe and Israel actively slaughtering people in Gaza, Lebanon and West Bank. Refugee crises are not merely leftist social engineering—it is a strategy to leave us fighting each other and helpless against the hand behind it.

This is no different from the strategy of modern missile offensives. The attacker hits the air defenses from all angles with cheap drones and missiles forcing a response. If they do not shoot down the low cost munitions they will do real damage. However, interceptors are expensive and limited in supply, when a defender’s finite capacity is tied down then they start to slip in their big punches. This is what the culture war is about, it is about keeping us fighting each other or distracted on the refugee chaos rather than focus on the strategy and who is behind it. You can’t defend against what you do not see.

Migrants flooding in is no coincidence.

We live in a matrix. One where good Jews are driven into conflict with good Muslims and Christians by those who have a totally different god and want to keep us deceived and blinded by prejudice. There are many who are Jewish and speaking out against those who have hijacked their identity and use it as a human shield against legitimate criticism. Zionism is a man who insists on invading female space, the aggressor who plays victim, and denies the reality of their own hate-fueled against Palestinians.

Good Jews and Muslims can get along.

Zionism is NOT Judaism

You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god—which you made for yourselves.

(Amos 5:26)

Zionists are to Judaism what Nazism is to Christianity. Zionists use Jewish identity as a cloak, they proclaim their “Judeo-Christian values,” yet they do not have Jesus as their king nor do they act justly despite a claim of righteousness. The book of Acts, repeating Amos, has a word “Molek” in place of “king” and “star of Remphan” as part of Stephen’s speech to the corrupt Sanhedrin. He uses the mention of this star to accuse them of idolatry. There is not any mention of a star of David in Scripture. It’s Kabbalahistic. It’s anti-Christ. While more non-Jews say they are Zionists, Christian Zionist is oxymoron and is impossible for the same reason you can’t be a racially inclusive Nazi.

Six is associated with human effort (6th day of creation) and the anti-Christ.

Israel claims to be a democracy while also preventing millions from voting, says that it represents the West when making laws that allow the execution of Palestinians but not Jews, and then calls it “anti-semitic” to call this apartheid or oppose their genocide. It is a state that brutalizes Palestinian Jews—Zionists assassinated Jacob Israël de Haan for opposing their violent ethno-nationalism and trying to secure agreement for peaceful Jewish residence in Palestine in 1924. He was accused of being a traitor and killed by a Zionist terror squad. This was mirrored in 1995 with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. His only offense? He was having success negotiating peace with the Palestinians.

Zionist Israel has routinely exploited (or orchestrated) Jewish suffering their ethno-nationalist gain.

I would venture to say that most Jews, like most Muslims, aren’t bloodthirsty criminals and would rather simply get along with all people. It is the extremist fringe that believe they’re better than all others, want absolute control and can’t coexist with those different from them. Zionists are the equivalent to ISIS in a business suit. They know how to charm a Western audience while secretly harboring a Bronze Age barbaric mentality and celebrating the murder of children. They spend millions to dress up their genocide as protection of the West all the while Netanyahu carries a around a “Jews vs Romans” grudge and quips about needing to “win the next one.”

The blessings of Abraham are distributed to the world through Christ Jesus—a true Jew—and not through the mob who murdered him for speaking out against their corrupted version of Biblical religion. The first Jewish followers of Jesus truly embodied spirit and faith of Abraham rather than being “hostile towards everyone” (1 Thessalonians 2:14) as was the case of those who rejected the Gospel. That is what Zionism boils down to: A rejection of the Christ who said ‘my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36) and taking up the offer of the devil in the wilderness:

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

When Jesus declared “I am the way and the truth and the life,” proclaiming himself to be the only way to God, he’s talking about what he embodies and the real costs of rejecting him. Christianity was a schism in Judaism, one embracing broader humanity with love and the other in a conflict with all in pursuit of dominance. Jesus rejected the sword—warning those who live by it die by it—while the Zionist reframes their violence as being a righteous defense of their inheritance. It only starts in the country called Israel, look who dominates banking, entertainment and politics: There’s no doubt that the rejection of Christ Jesus has a reward.

This isn’t compatible with Christ or Western civilization.  It’s a twisting of Scripture to justify theft of inheritance.

Judaism, in general, is not the issue. We’re all born somewhere and the Old Testament law, like Islam, isn’t a bad starting point. It’s incomplete, from the perspective of the true believers in Jesus, but the books point us in the right direction. But when the rejection of the way of Christ becomes willful, truth is the first casualty and death will follow. Yes, cunning, deception and exploitation are a quick route to worldly wealth, the system of usery is the driver of inequality and anathema to an idea of giving with no expectation of return in the teaching of Jesus. Those who do violence to others may gain the world—but they lose their own soul in the process.

The intense hatred of Christianity, that is the heart of Zionism, stems from an inheritance being taken away and given to another. The “kingdom of God,” meaning the true spiritual inheritance of Abraham, was taken away as a result of wilful disobedience. That’s what the Parable of the Tenants (Matthew 21:33-46) makes abundantly clear. Outside of the way, the path of and letting go of pride or a spirit of entitlement, there is no other way to salvation. You can reject and kill Jesus, go on to gain the world by cunning or violence, even convince many with false prophets or fake miracles—but you can only ever enter the kingdom through Christ.

The real reason why Sophie Cunningham and Arianna Hamilton are treated as a bigger threat than extremists, for moderate and reasonable views, is because they will expose the absurdity of the narratives being pushed if left unmolested. The media and Rami Feinstein understand that the truth is not on their side and thus their only defense is to extinguish the voices that call them out for what they are. Those who seek to erase the children of Gaza and Palestinian identity are of the very same spirit as those who cancel a person for telling the truth about the biological men who invade female spaces. The truth is not in them and the lies they embrace are corrupting the world.

The truth sets us free: The Gospel is for the Jew as much as the Gentile.

So with that I say: Free Palestine from the rule of the Zionists who immediately broke the terms of the Balfour Declaration.  Protect women from the men who appropriate womanhood—invade and occupy spots designated for women.  We should call out those who hide behind co-opted identity and perpetual claims of victimhood as an excuse for their own abuse. 

No Excuse For Ignorance: Hypocrisy, Propaganda and Liberty for All

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And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

Matthew 23:30-32 NIV

History is more cyclical than progressive. I had subscribed to a view that we had finally advanced beyond the atrocities of the past—and at very least we would certainly never allow another Holocaust, right?

But now, as Zionists have started to enact their final solution on West Bank (which had absolutely nothing to do with October 7th if that ever mattered) the American ‘Christian’ response has been either being muted to a point of deafening silence or enthusiastic in support of the land theft and murder. So we testify against ourselves, we reveal the true values of our civilization and its not an ideal of “liberty and justice for all.”

Smacked for not standing during the national anthem of a country that is supposed to be all about personal liberty and freedom of expression.

The irony being those who would be most offended by someone for not reciting the pledge of allegiance (partial quote above) are also most supportive of denying basic human rights to others. It is precisely what Jesus rebuked in the Pharisees: Those very people who believe they’re the guardians of the ideal are destroying it because—as full of themselves and dense as they are—the ideal never penetrated or reached a level of true comprehension.

Harassment backed, literally, by the IDF.

What is happening in the West Bank as we are speaking?

A pogrom, the bands of heavily armed Zionists committing acts of arson at night and are killing Palestinians (and including U.S. citizens) during the day, and the IDF is there to support it. Their goal being, of course, to either drive the disarmed indigenous people off of their own land through harassment or just to slaughter them if they refuse to run into the wilderness with nothing. We called the pogroms of the past evil—we are silent now as history repeats.

We support this evil by our silence. We, the people of the U.S. in particular, have played a supporting role.

The pattern is the same every time and yet we fail to see it. If those being invaded and assaulted don’t do anything they’ll soon be overrun. But if they do resist and fight back this act will be taken totally out of context and portrayed as aggression when it’s truly only self-defense. Imagine that, protecting your own land, your own family, and being labeled as a “terrorist” for it. When Jewish people fought against Nazis in the Warsaw uprising this was used as an excuse for the ethnic cleansing and genocide—likewise the propagandists claim that any resistance by the Palestinians to displacement is hatred of Jews and it’s absurd.

On the morning of July 24, 2026, a group of Israeli settlers, heavily armed, supported by the IDF (the “hikers” as the Hasbarists have called them) and their encroachment led to a confrontation. The Zionist aggressors had opened fire, a farmer, Farouk Ramadan, took a settler’s rifle in the melee and he returned fire. Immediately after shooting the farmer fighting for his land was killed, along with a few of his cousins, on their own Palestinian land. This act of self-defense is, of course, being used as an excuse to double down on the aggression against the West Bank. We are seeing Netanyahu’s “final solution” enacted before our eyes and half of us are okay with it and the other is enabled by silence.

Doing nothing when goodness and morality demands we speak or act makes us a party to the atrocities. There is no excuse. Yes, it is true, we are subjected to the most powerful propaganda campaigns of all time when a farmer can be described as a “mass shooter” and “terrorist” for fighting back against an armed invasion and in defense of his own family and land deeded to his ancestors centuries ago—if you have no clarity on property rights for the indigenous people in West Bank (which isn’t Gaza) then don’t you dare protest people who cross the U.S. border for a better life.

In what universe is it okay for a band of armed men, supported by an occupying army, to cross into the land owned by other people?

If you’re okay with Zionist settlers carrying our pogroms against the people who lived on their land for centuries then you have no business claiming that any immigrants are illegal here. Texas was Mexico at one time, the Spanish got here first, so by the rules of Zionism your claim doesn’t matter. Are we okay with that? Either way want liberty and justice for ALL, as a reciter of the pledge of allegiance or you’re a hypocrite and liar. We are truly no different from those whom were rebuked by Jesus for being complicit in the crimes of their ancestors.

This is what Jesus said directly to the faces of those who claimed to be the children of Abraham and yet did not live according to his faith:

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

John 8:44 NIV

Murderers and thieves. People who hide behind lies. Those who accused Jesus of being demon possessed for his calling out their secret schemes. They believed they were entitled to the promises of Abraham, but Jesus said they would be cut off from the tree, thrown in the fire, and others then grafted in their place. Jesus gave them no excuse based on bloodline. What excuse will we be given as those who heard the Gospel of repentance and the command to follow him, yet absolutely refuse to love people of all nations as he did?

Hans Denck

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“I value the Holy Scriptures above all human treasures, but not as high as the Word of God, which is living, powerful, and free from all elements of this world.”

Not a Biblical fundamentalist.