Jesus vs. the Narcissists: When Compassion For ‘Others’ is the Ultimate Offense

Q: How do you enrage a narcissist?

A: Tell them they’re not the most important person in the world.

There’s this mess of entitlement, of eternal victimhood, self-admiration and severe lack of empathy we call narcissism. And it does seem to be everywhere, most especially in a situation where someone is able to escape normal pushback for their overinflated self-image and sense of importance. But this is not something new or merely a product of modern life—it is as old as the Bible.

What Jesus confronted most severely in the religious elites of his day was a narcissistic attitude. Indeed, he was not killed as threat to Rome. The Roman authority, despite the facilitation of the mob, did not buy into their reasoning and declared him to be innocent. The real issue is that Jesus offended an ideological cult of ethno-supremacists, those who believed a book (or rather their own errant and self-serving interpretation of the text) made them a cut above all other people.

They believed that they were God’s favorites and yet Jesus said even the rocks could accomplish the mission. He did not need their permission to speak and insulted them at every turn. How did he insult? Well, mostly by reminding them that God loved all people and not just their own tribe. In defiance of their narcissistic self-belief, he held up the good examples of Samaritans, Canaanites, Syrians and Romans—presenting the foreigner as a righteous contrast to them. And they could not argue with him, he knew their Scripture better than they did, so they killed him.

Here’s six examples of where Jesus took on the ethno-nationalist pride and narcissism of religious peers:

1. The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)

In response to a lawyer asking about who is our neighbor, Jesus tells a parable where a Samaritan (despised as ethnic outsiders by Jews) acts heroically with mercy, while a Jewish priest and Levite ignore a wounded man. This framing of an answer intentionally swerves off the beaten path to offend his ethno-supremacist audience by portraying their loathed ‘enemy’ favorably and implying that true neighborliness is something that transcends ethnic boundaries:

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. […] “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Imagine that, this smug religious expert, who thought he was self-justified, getting shown up rhetorically by the outsider.

2. The Faith of the Roman Centurion (Matthew 8:5-13)

A Roman centurion (a Gentile military occupier) approaches Jesus to heal his servant. Jesus not only heals but praises the centurion’s faith as surpassing anything being found “in Israel,” and implicitly rebuking the Pharisees’ assumption of Jewish spiritual superiority. This favorable portrayal of this Gentile outsider was extremely offensive to these ethno-supremacists:

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” […] When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

He’s stomping on their entitlement at the end, literally saying that they’ll be thrown out and then replaced by Gentiles in God’s kingdom!

3. The Faith of the Canaanite Woman (Matthew 15:21-28)

Jesus initially tests a Canaanite woman (a Gentile outsider) seeking healing for her daughter but he ultimately commends her persistent faith and grants the request. This interaction challenges Pharisaic purity laws and ethnocentrism by showing a non-Jew’s faith as exemplary, even using the language which highlights ethnic barriers only to overcome them:

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

This passage illustrates the ethnic-supremacist attitudes of even the disciples of Jesus. Whereas today, in the West, you can barely say people are different in ability without it being controversial, nobody cared that this woman was referred to as a dog in this audience. But his actions of love and compassion spoke louder than his words and this woman’s lack of narcissism was a stark contrast to the prideful racist disciples Her prayer was answered because she was humble.

4. The Healing of the Ten Lepers (Luke 17:11-19)

Jesus heals ten lepers, but only one—a Samaritan (an ethnic outsider)—returns to thank him. Jesus highlights this Samaritan’s faith, questioning where the other nine (presumably Jews) are, thus favoring the outsider and critiquing ingratitude among insiders:

As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” […] One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

The entitled can’t show gratitude. Perhaps, as the self-declared chosen, the others who never came back felt they deserved this healing—that it was their birth right? But Jesus was unimpressed by them and highlighted the foreigner who was thankful instead.

5. The Samaritan Woman at the Well (John 4:1-42)

Below Jesus initiates a conversation with a lowly Samaritan woman (an outcast on multiple fronts: Samaritan and female), he reveals himself as the Messiah, and leads to many Samaritans believing in him. This breaches ethnic and social barriers, totally offending Pharisaic norms of separation, as the Jews typically avoided Samaritans:

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” […] The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) […] Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

This was Jesus deliberately breaking down a barrier. The Jews of this time weren’t just racist, but sexist as well, and would see this entire encounter as an egregious violation. Here Jesus was humanizing the Samaritan enemy and—even more scandalously—he was talking directly to a woman! While rebuking his own ethnic and religious tribe he hung out with the impure!

He’s practically as evil as Tucker Carlson…

6. Jesus’ Sermon in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30)

In his hometown synagogue, Jesus reads from Isaiah and then references the Old Testament prophets helping Gentiles (a widow in Sidon and Naaman the Syrian) instead of Israelites during times of need. This enrages the crowd, who try to kill him right there and then, as it directly challenges their ethno-supremacist expectations that God’s favor is exclusive to Jews:

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

The passages all illustrate Jesus’ pattern of associating with and elevating of outsiders, which offended the Pharisees’ ethnocentric pride and their self-righteous “we’re chosen people” claims by his stubborn inclusion of sinners, tax collectors, and Gentiles.

Had it not been for a miracle Jesus may be remembered as being thrown off a cliff for praising the foreigners in front of a Jewish audience. He was hitting them directly in their Hindenburg sized egos. They had the most severe case our own [excrement] don’t stink that’s possible.

Ms. Rachel is an ‘anti-Semite’ for loving all children?

A Zionist organization, StopAntisemitism, has named Rachel Griffin Accurso, a very popular children’s content creator, a finalist for their “Antisemite of the Year” and for a very specific offense: Ms. Rachel dared to treat the suffering of Palestinian children as equal to that of Jewish people! How dare she humanize the child of an enemy! Those in this Zionist cult love themselves only and make a strict dichotomy between their own and the dogs. The spirit that Jesus rebuked is maintained in this perverse tradition.

I didn’t know much about Ms. Rachel prior to the birth of my daughter, but she’s not a Hamas apologist or sympathizer and has expressed similar sentiments about Israeli and African children. Only the arrogant Zio-bots used her concern as a cause for their vicious accusations and vile labels. They can be the only victims and treating Gaza’s children with the same love as their own is a terrible offense in their supremacist eyes—only their suffering can matter.

He didn’t say Hamas. He said Palestinians.

Ms Rachel committed their most grievous sin of believing children are not terrorists because of where they are born and now—as another enemy—she must be destroyed.

That is the narcissistic attitude of Zionism. You must choose between them and others, they cannot share your concern with those who are inferior beings. It’s an insult, as if they have been made equal to a dog, which is what they think of us Gentiles. Listen to what they say, they believe that they should be treated like gods—in the words of Jewish supremacist and the former chief Rabbi of Israel, Ovadia-Yosef:

“Goyim (gentiles, non-Jews) were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,” he said, according to the Jerusalem Post. “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, in his own words

Treated as our lords. That is the nature of Zionism. It is about their narcissistic view that they deserve to be our masters and to do with us as they please—as they may an ox that plows their fields. Which is what is so disturbing about an Israel-Firster, Ben Shapiro, proclaiming that retirement is stupid and that Americans should work until they drop. Says a guy who sits around and talks as an occupation. This, of course, does not represent all Jews or Israeli citizens, but it is written in the Talmud and lines up with the Likud party leadership of Israel.

Zionists don’t just want to rule over the current territory of Israel or the Holy Lands. No, they want Jerusalem to be the hub of their Greater Israel and later one world government where their own version of a Messiah cleanses the world of all who defy them. They rule because you’re too stupid to live free.

Judas wanted an Israel like this. A worldly kingdom where he would be served. Jesus, by sharp contrast, taught a kingdom not of this world—where the greatest would serve rather than be served. He corrected heresy that made the blessing of Abraham only about a genetic inheritance rather than a matter of sharing the patriarch’s sincere and simple faith. It was the very opposite of what they believed they were owed as the self-declared special people. Jesus offended by telling them they weren’t special and calling the children of the Devil rather than of Abraham. Ethnic supremacy and self-righteous pride is the basis of Zionism, Christianity heralds repentance as the foundation of true faith in God, as John the Baptist declared:

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
(Matthew 3:7-10 NIV)

Water is wet. The sky is blue. You can’t be a Christian and a Zionist too. We must pick one or the other. There is no union between light and darkness, no yoking of believer to unbeliever, we either believe what we’re told in the Gospel about a “synagogue of Satan” (Rev 3:9) and who Jesus himself declared to be children of their father the Devil (John 8:44) or we deny that Christ is King. It’s just astounding to see so many who either never read the New Testament or had eyes glazed over in those sections where Jesus rebuked those who thought their Jewish supremacy and genetic ties to Abraham would save them.

The unrepentant narcissist will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Pride was the sin of Satan who thought he could rival God and it is also the sin of those who rejected Jesus for his acceptance of all and not caring about their ethnic pedigree. They hated him for exposing them as religious frauds. And the campaign they waged against him was very similar to that being used currently to try to silence critics of Israel. The role of a good Goy is to simply believe whatever they say and allow them to be the gods they believe they are—to kill or rape as they please.

Motte-and-bailey Fallacy and a Better Defense of Jewish People

The US House passed a resolution which decried a rise in anti-semitism and declared in the text that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” Which is to say any criticism of this form of blood and soil nationalism can be misconstrued as a hatred of Jewish people. If you think that the displacement of the indigenous people living in the West Bank by settlers coming from New Jersey is immoral and wrong? Well, congratulations, because you are now an anti-Semite!

It’s an absolute absurdity.

But it is also part of a general strategy of using Jewish people, as a whole, as a human shield for a supremacist ideology that many Jews entirely reject. And, furthermore, this conflating Jewish identity with the Zionist state is contributing to a rise in actual anti-Jewish sentiment around the world. It is very disturbing to see a vile ideology trying to avoid the rebuke that it most certainly deserves by wearing Jewish identity as a mask for what it truly is.

Zionism is just blood and soil nationalism using ancient history as a cover story no different than those who called themselves the third Rome.

Zionism is not the same thing as Judiasm and thus taking an anti-Zionist position is not hatred of Jews. Just like we can both be opposed to a political party and still not be unAmerican, we can oppose a Zionist state of Israel in favor of a country where all people of all faiths have the same rights—where indigenous people are not harassed or killed so settlers can steal their land. It is okay to hate a regime of rape, theft, murder and collective punishment. It is also okay to hold those accountable who perpetrate war crimes calling it defense.

What this conflating is is the Motte-and-bailey fallacy (also a strategy) where you pair a position that is defensible with one that is not. In other words, you say something like “Israel has a right to defend itself,” which everyone will generally agree with, and then use this statement to defend the IDF knowingly bombing children in Gaza. The two things are not the same. Defense and killing babies are two vastly different things. If a neighbor, from an apartment complex near me, assaulted me, and then I go burn down his whole building in response, nobody will accept that this is a defensive action—it is just murder.

This strategy of hiding Zionism behind the Jewish ethnicity and faith comes 100% at the expense of innocent Jews who have no connection to the modern state of Israel. Merging Jewish identity with Zionism and Zionist atrocities only serves to feed anti-Jewish sentiment. Decoupling the two words is separating a hostage from a hijacker and focuses our critique on the bad actors who falsely claim to speak for all Jews. The best way to protect from riding anti-Jewish sentiment is to hold Zionists to account rather than allow them to hide behind Jewish suffering.

Four Ways To Fight Anti-Semitism:

1) Apply opposition to anti-semitism to all Semitic people. The word Semite is derived from the language people use. Specifically Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic. The rights of all people, indigenous Muslim or Christian, as well as Jews, should be protected. It is anti-semitic to argue Palestinian lives and the lives of Arab neighbors, are worth less than that of European settlers. The Zionists have not only hijacked Judiasm and the land, but the word Semitic as well—we need the term to be returned to original use.

2) Make the Holy Lands a safe refuge for all good people again. All Abrahamic religions have significant ties to the territory where a modern state of Israel is formed. Christian and Muslim communities which existed for centuries are under threat by the invading settlers. The first Christians were Semites—Jewish coverts—so why are we privileging only one religious group on a land home to Christians and other Semitic people?

3) Stop protecting the bad people simply on the basis of religious identity. This applies just as much to any religion, but especially to a country that regularly shields evil people on the basis of their Jewish-ness and loyalty to the apartheid regime.

Jonathan Pollard, a US Citizen, who stole nuclear secrets and gave them to Israel (who, in turn, sold them to the Soviet Union), was a traitor to the degree that would be hanged for treason in times past. But he got life in prison and was released after thirty years due to the lobbying pressure of the Israeli government. He arrived in Israel, on the private jet of Sheldon Adelson (the late husband of the Trump mega-donor Miriam Adelson) to a hero’s welcome under “right to return.” In fact, Pollard was greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after kissing tarmac in Tel Aviv.

There are also similar stories of corrupt men fleeing to Israel from Ukraine. Pedophiles and rapists, of Jewish identity, are granted this same escape from justice by “right to return” and an Israeli policy of protecting all Jews regardless of if they are good or evil. This undermines the trust in Jewish people worldwide. It contributes to the othering of Jews and breeds resentment and contempt. Sure, two separate standards may be okay for a racial supremacist, but it is totally unacceptable for those who reject all identity politics and tribalism.

I would stand shoulder to shoulder with a good person who happens to be a Jew, Muslim or any other religion over a person who claims to be a Christian and yet does not love their neighbors. To me, those who confuse genetics with goodness or their own tribal identity with innocence are the problem. A truly good person cares about genuinely good character—and not skin color or religious costume.

Jews are safer when Zionists abusers are made accountable. The world is a better place when nobody puts tribe over a commitment to justice for all people. We don’t need the Holy Lands to be a haven for the world’s traitors, pedophiles and identity thieves.

3) Treat AIPAC as a foreign lobby and trim back the Zionist control over our political institutions. If Congress were taking the same amount of money from supporters of any other country in the world that they did from AIPAC they would be in jail. How is it not collusion? However, you’re not going to hear about this scandal on CBS News, after it was bought by Zionist billionaires, with a new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. Nor will the truth be told on TikTok after it was scooped up by the same people—now moderated by a former IDF soldier searching for ‘antisemitic’ content which could be anything that tells the truth about Israel.

Frankly, the US desperately needs a policy of de-Zionization after years of our Middle-East mayhem. When we have US ambassadors to Israel, like Mike Huckabee, meeting with a man convicted of treason, and Presidents unable to act independently from a foreign regime—even when that foreign regime kills more children than it foes true combatants—drastic measures need to be taken. We can’t simply vote this out. When then the candidates for mayor of NYC show fealty to a foreign nation this goes beyond normal corruption. There truly needs to be more prosecutions for actual treason.

A Better Jewish Defense Strategy

The current Zionist strategy—the fusing Jewish identity with an apartheid regime, shielding war criminals and traitors behind the label “Jew,” and branding every critic an anti-Semite—has sadly produced the most dangerous environment for Jews in decades: surging street-level hatred, synagogue shootings, and a global resurgence of real anti-Jewish bigotry fueled by rage at Israel’s actions. The four steps above break that fuse.

When Judaism is decisively decoupled from Zionism, when “Semitic” again and protects Palestinians and Lebanese as fiercely as Israelis, when the Holy Land is a shared home rather than an ethnic fortress, and when Jewish criminals no longer enjoy impunity under “right of return” or AIPAC protection, the primary pretext for hating Jews evaporates. Jews become what most already are: Just ordinary citizens judged by their character, and not scapegoats for a supremacist project most never voted for.

Paradoxically, the safest future for Jewish people is not more tanks, walls, or lobbying billions—it is the complete dismantling of the ideological human shield that today places them in the line of fire.

Built for Scarcity: Why I Won’t Give My Son Everything He Wants

I’ve tried to give my son everything he needs to succeed. But that doesn’t mean I will give him everything he wants. There’s a reality in any pursuit: to be excellent, you’ll need to put in the work or delay gratification to reach your full potential. If a parent gives a child everything they want, there’s no incentive for them to learn and improve.

To a child, everything provided for them is a given, and every task required is an injustice. Why should they have to wash the dishes? The grumbling or attempts to negotiate last longer than the time it would take to finish the chore. And, honestly, the easy route is just to do it ourselves. But that deprives a child of the opportunity to learn all those transferable life skills—at the very least, to get a little practice being helpful rather than entitled.

In the West we already have abundance and the result is atrophied muscles and dull minds.

If we shower children with abundance, they will never appreciate what is given nor ever be satisfied. It seems that no matter what we have, we always want more. If given the moon, we’ll want the other planets and the stars as well—and then we still won’t be happy with that. The greatest satisfaction comes through work and accomplishment. Playing video games all day or scrolling social-media feeds may trip reward centers, but it amounts to empty calories and can’t replace substance.

I’ve watched spontaneous interviews with very wealthy men, and nearly every one of them says that their abundance did not bring happiness. At least one admitted he was suicidal despite millions in assets. Our peak enjoyment in life comes when we invest time, effort, and resources and eventually reap the fruit of our labor. Sure, going to the gym may be difficult, but the endorphins are addicting and the muscles are a reward.

Built for Scarcity—Not Utopia

I watched a video about the problems with utopia, and the framing of capitalism as a system built for scarcity was correct. We would need a radically different way of ordering ourselves if the things we wanted just grew on trees. If you could have whatever you wanted without effort, why would you pay for anything or even care who owns it? My property rights only matter because it costs something to acquire or replace the things I own. If everything we wanted was free and completely abundant, we wouldn’t need to value it at all.

The presenter, who seemed intelligent enough, made a critical flaw while talking about providers of generative AI. He claimed that those charging for the service were creating artificial scarcity “because the code is open-source or whatever.” But this totally ignores the immense computing power that’s required—the powerful microchips, massive amounts of energy, and the staff needed to keep it all running. So no, that isn’t an example of abundance.

I’m used to naïve takes coming from the religious side, but it’s fascinating to see secular thinkers stumble over the very same things. Yet it touches directly on the human condition. We are not wired for abundance. Ultimately, even if we could reduce human labor to zero, our brains were created for scarcity, and when faced with unnatural abundance we don’t actually do very well.

Wall-E is probably the best depiction of a world of abundance that goes well. It could go in many directions, unhealthy ease the better of the many scenarios.

Material wealth, to start with, is never a cure for boredom or lust. If anything, those who have all their physical needs met are often left with a void of purpose. Their abundance never creates fulfillment or a reason to be in the world. And some appetites are basically insatiable: a man can have all the sex he wants and still desire the one he cannot have. It is often the ultra-wealthy—those who have everything we imagine would make us happy—who are also the most perverse and dissatisfied.

It reminds me how young-earth creationist (YEC) types often portray entropy as purely negative when it is as necessary for life as order. Fertile soil, for example, contains organic compounds that come from dead plants and animals. This is part of a cycle—neither good nor bad—like the weather. The same forces that bring a spring shower can also leave behind a swath of destruction. Creativity itself often lives at the edge of order and disorder. You may not enjoy a messy room that needs cleaning, but without it your life would probably feel pointless.

Furthermore, social hierarchy would be the only game left if we completely removed the need for productivity and occupation. If AI replaced all jobs, the result might be material abundance, but not utopia. As the saying goes, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” and some people with nothing to do will create drama. Boredom is good when it provokes us to create something new, but bad when the “new thing” is us causing trouble for others for lack of something else to do. It is better when we need to do something productive to survive, because we’re primed for it.

Consider how an overly sterile environment can trigger autoimmune disorders; similar problems would arise in a world where struggle was fully removed. It wouldn’t solve our environmental or energy problems—there would still have to be limits and rationing to keep from stripping the planet bare. Some people will never be content with the base level of property and possessions. There will still be scarcity even if human labor is no longer a cost. Advantages will still exist. At that point a new hierarchy will form—perhaps one based solely on beauty or charisma—where many have no path to “level up.”

In capitalism, while there’s an advantage to those who go first, there are multiple paths to success. Sure, there is cost-cutting at the expense of quality (see the Campbell’s Soup controversy), but there is also genuine efficiency and a system where nothing need go to waste. Bad actors create opportunities for others. If Enzo Ferrari hadn’t been a pompous jerk, we wouldn’t have Ford’s GT40 legacy or Lamborghini. Ferrari’s rude remarks were the provocation that pushed others to build cars capable of beating his. In a free market there is a profit motive to share rather than hoard. In a post-labor AI world where elites no longer need human workers or customers, would they have any incentive to distribute limited resources?

Abundance, Unearned, Robs Good Character

The video is correct that abundance won’t lead to utopia—yet it misses the deeper reason why. It isn’t just that we’d get bored or turn to status games (true as that is). The real problem is that abundance without cost quietly deletes the only proven mechanism we have for turning a human being into a person worth becoming.

When everything is given for free, nothing is cherished. When nothing is earned, nobody is grateful. When no one is grateful, no one is generous. When no one is generous, society stops being a community and it becomes a zoo with really nice cages: no material need unmet, the trough always full, and yet we are no different from a lion removed from its natural habitat.

That’s why I won’t hand my son the life he thinks he wants. I’ll give him everything he truly needs: enough security to take risks, enough scarcity to make victories sweet, enough resistance to grow muscle around his soul. I’ll let him wash the dishes, wait for the game he saved up to buy, lose the race he didn’t train hard enough for, feel the sting of “not yet” and the glory of “I finally did it”.

That feeling of a hard fought win cannot be artificially produced. In a world where AI leads the way can there be human thriving?

Because the cruelest thing a parent can do isn’t to let a child struggle. The cruelest thing is to raise him in a world so padded, so instantly gratifying, so artificially abundant that he never discovers the one truth every happy adult eventually learns: The joy was never in finally getting the thing. The joy was in finally becoming the kind of person who could get it—and still know it wasn’t the point.

Scarcity isn’t the enemy of human flourishing. It’s the narrow gate we have to squeeze through to find out who we actually are. And I want my son on the other side of that gate—tired, scarred, proud, alive, and deeply, durably grateful—not because he was given the universe, but because he earned his small, yet irreplaceable and fully human corner of it.

Israel-First Doesn’t Choose Our Future – We Do

If you create a vacuum you don’t always get to decide who fills it. Charlie Kirk was killed while speaking on a college tour to promote a brand of conservativism. Whether you do or do not believe the official narrative about who killed him and why, his death has left a void in the public square. Yes, certainly the Turning Point USA organization has grown as a result and buzz about “the next Charlie Kirk” started right after the assassination—even too soon. But there’s one winner and it is not on the list of approved candidates to be his heir.

The first time I heard the term “Groyperism” was from the mouth of Ben Shapiro. I’m not sure if this was before or after Shapiro and other ‘conservative’ Zio-bots had started to target Tucker Carlson for elimination or not, but it is really weird to see these so-called conservatives run a very coordinated smear campaign to silence critics of Israeli policy with charges of “white nationalism” or “neo-Nazi”—and sounding just like the woke left. What ever happened to the marketplace of ideas, debating bad ideas with better ideas, or carrying on the legacy of Charlie Kirk who would engage in discussion rather than try to deplatform those who disagree?

Whatever the case, Mark Levin and the rest of these Zionist mouthpieces come off as shrill and unhinged. What we’re seeing is a Streisand effect. The more they screech in their protest and try to brand with their labels, as the left does, the more people have begun to question. I have never had a reason to listen to Fuentes before. But much of what he says sounds perfectly reasonable and is at least not as bad as turning a blind eye to the bombing of babies. I mean, let’s just put things into perspective.

To be clear, they are not going after Tucker for his interview with a popular social media personality with an off-color Zoomer sense of humor. No, that’s just the excuse. They are going after him because he questioned Israel First policies and why we should go to war with Iran. They can’t assassinate him, that would be too obvious, but they can try to drive a wedge between him and GOP by claiming he’s gone over the edge. But it isn’t Tucker that’s the problem. He’s not at all neo-nazi or anti-semitic—he is just not one of those taking Bibi’s bribes.

Some of us simply notice the IDF bombing children and sodomizing prisoners and do not want our resources used for this. Some of us have noticed that Trump took millions from Miriam Adelson, a prominent Zionist, and that he is more focused on the national interests of Israel than he is our economic future. We’ve noticed how Charlie Kirk was under extreme pressure to censor certain voices, including Tucker, costing millions in contributions to his Turning Point USA, right before his public execution.

That Washington Post runs an article about the Republican’s “neo-Nazi problem” while not saying a word about Sen Lindsay Graham chortling “We’re killing all the right people, and we’re cutting your taxes.” This at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Summit. We have yet to see the media mouthpieces of the political regime condemn vile and disgusting Randy Fine, a Representative out of Florida, who advocates for the complete annihilation of two million people—kill every man, woman and child. But extremists are not a threat to the Republican party?

Christianity teaches to turn the other cheek and love your enemies, but the Talmud says the opposite, it says “If someone comes to kill you, kill them first.” And I’ve seen this teaching being applied to Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of NYC, or that he be given this treatment—that he can be preemptively killed for not backing Israel! And then they wonder why many good people are backing away from the Zionist movement? They’re basically giving themselves a license to kill anyone who speaks against the violence they do—calling it defense.

The Real Debate: Debate or Kill

Yesterday I opened up Facebook and there was paid content from a group that is trying to cancel Ms. Rachel over her opposition to killing babies. They basically accused her of being in league with Hamas. A terrorist. The only proof that they offer is her alleged alignment with Motaz Azaiza, a Palestinian activist who is opposed to Hamas and the armed resistance in Gaza. For Zionists any level of disagreement is equivalent to being a Nazi and eventually a death sentence.

The Levin side believes in things like blood guilt and collective punishment, that guilt is in a challengers DNA, whereas Tucker sees all individuals as redeemable (including the likes of Fuentes and Levin) and attempts to employ reason rather than violence as the means to further his ends. Levin can only cancel or kill. He sees himself as being a part of a superior race—a chosen people—which exempts him from needing to talk to the other side. To him anyone who would dare to disagree is less than an animal and shouldn’t be allowed to live. Tucker, on the other hand, literally invited Levin to join him on a far larger platform so they can discuss their differences.

Tucker represents the Christian worldview and articulates it well if given a chance to speak. Levin, by contrast, reminds me of a a man I sat next to on a flight from NYC. He was going to celebrate Passover in Israel, a very crude man (yet very intelligent) and he made for a very interesting conversation. I was immediately taken aback by his initial “I’m a racist” announcement and enjoyed telling him of my German heritage after, in the course of our conversation, he tells me he hates all Germans. It made me think of the difference in religious traditions. There is no “love your enemies” in Judiasm. You kill or conquer.

What Levin and other Zionists truly are is Jewish supremacists. They don’t see the people outside of their group as equals or even necessarily human. You’re like a dog. If you are obedient they’ll let you eat and if you are not they’ll put you down. You don’t have a discussion with lower lifeforms—you don’t need to answer to them or treat them as you would an equal. That’s why Levin is incapable of even understanding the Olive Branch offered to him by Carlson. To him it’s an insult. To him it is an affront to his position as superior.

The entire New Testament is basically an attack on Jewish supremacy. When Jesus highlights the faith of a Roman he’s hitting his audience where it hurts. He tells them point blank that they’re not the children of Abraham, that those who reject the Son do not have the Father and are children of their father the devil:

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 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. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!
(John 8:42-45 NIV)

Now even quoting this could get someone labeled as anti-Semetic. But Jesus is not talking about blood guilt or their ethnicity, he is confronting their rejection of Him and the Gospel of reconciliation he offered to all who believe. St Peter welcomed Gentiles into the church and even relaxed the rules of Jewish identity for converts. St Paul, like Jesus instructing to lend unto Caeser what is Caeser’s, legitimizes Roman authority as a minister of God:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
(Romans 13:1-7 NIV)

The Jews hated Roman authority and they rebelled against it. But St Paul legitimizes it saying that if they enforce a moral standard then it is good. This goes against right or wrong based on what tribe. Zionists cry if there own are harmed, make an appeal to morality, and yet celebrate when a prisoner is raped on camera by an IDF guard. They have two different standards. Sodomy is okay when it is against someone standing up to their domination. But why resistance to their rule makes you a terrorist. However, St Paul says even Pagans authorities need to be obeyed if they do good. This concept goes directly against those who saw their own as good no matter what they did.

Christianity welcomes all. It tells us “there is neither Jew nor Gentile” (Gal 3:28), and abandons divisive identity to embrace the example of Jesus Christ. Zionism is the exact opposite. It says those who are not part of their chosen race have no rights and can either choose servitude or death. When you make the same claim to rights they will kill you. Israel has just passed a law that it is okay to execute Palestinians—but Jews are completely exempted. And this is not an apartheid state? Really?!?

Two Versions of America First

Carlson and Fuentes, while lumped together by the Zio-bots, are two very different ideas of America First. Carlson is a classic liberal or coexist conservative. He believes in a US where “all men are created equal” and there is no superior or inferior race. Fuentes, is a bit more like an Uno Reverse card and does to them what they do to us.

Fuentes is part of the generation tired of being told white men are the problem and fighting fire of identity politics with the fire of his own brand. Carlson, in contrast, is attempting the Christian approach—applying Romans 12:20-21:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Whereas the Talmud advises the exact opposite—which is to eliminate perceived threats through preemptive violence—and the firebrand Fuentes answers the Jewish supremacists with his own parody version of them, the Christian response is more of a love bomb. While identity politics can’t overcome identity politics and those who live by the sword will also die by it, this third way option offers potential to break these cycles of tit-for-tat violence and escalation. Had Israel tried the same approach at any point on the past 77 years there may not have ever been a need for the two-state solution. And, while I don’t blame Fuentes for his reactionary identity politics, there is not much of a way forward in his approach.

This is a crisis point for Western civilization, we either allow ourselves to remain vassals of a Jewish supremacist regime, or we find an American identity that mirrors the same attitude of the Zionists, or we pursue a path of peace by putting the words of Jesus into practice. Yes, turnabout is fairplay—and the Fuentes types have as much right to defend themselves as Israel does. But the project of humanity isn’t served by this, we end up as divided warring factions trying to cancel or kill enough of the other side to win—and everyone ends up a loser. Or we act in faith and choose a path of empathy for all rather than selective love and multiple standards based on identity group.

This is what makes the attacks against the Tucker Carlson types so reprehensible. He is trying to talk to and find common ground with all parties in the conflict. The point is to build bridges not burn them. Fuentes, who has trashed Carlson in the past, was willing to sit down and talk. Levin, by contrast, tried to act as if Carlson (who has a social media following that absolutely dwarfs his own) is a weirdo and somehow trying to gain an audience by hosting him—a total inversion of the truth. There is this very clear pattern that every accusation made by the Zio-bots is a confession.

But I digress. Those who case about Israel should stop alienating the moderate voices that aren’t actually a threat to an Israel that is governed morally and doesn’t show clear partiality based on ethnicity or religion. The people who reject the reasonable voices—or accuse all who dare to question them “Nazis” or “anti-Semites”—they’re a threat to everything built in the time since the Old Testament. It is a regressive position, a return to tribalism, and decidedly anti-Christ.

Fool Me Once, Shame On You

We have a choice. We can choose not to see any of this, plug our ears and pretend Judeo-Christian is not an oxymoron—kiss the wall so to speak. Or we choose the way of Fuentes, fighting Jewish supremacy with our own tribal identity based loyalty and go down that eye for an eye path until we’re all blind. Or we take Tucker’s listen to all sides approach and show our loyalty only to the values of our Sovereign. There is no going back. Charlie Kirk is dead. The era that he represents is over. There can be no union of light and darkness, no yoking of believer and unbeliever, we choose Christ or we are fallen away from truth.

The mask has slipped completely from the faces of Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Randy Fine, and the loudest voices of the Zionist wing of American conservatism—revealing, in the stark words of Isaiah 5:20, 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.” For decades this sleeper cell has cloaked themselves in the familiar language of constitutional liberty, and preached free speech absolutism, promoted so-called Judeo-Christian values—decrying campus cancel culture and leftist deplatforming as the death of the republic. Yet the moment a conservative dares question unconditional aid to Israel—the moment Tucker Carlson hosts a dissident voice—the very same men reach for the same weapons that they once swore to destroy: smears, leaks, boycotts, and ritual excommunication.

Mark Levin, who spent years positioning himself as the fiercest defender of open discourse against Big Tech censorship, now leaks private text messages calling Tucker Carlson a “little bastard” and “modern-day David Duke,” then storms his radio show in November 2025 to declare that anyone who interviews Nick Fuentes has “no place in the conservative movement”—this a purity test delivered with all the sanctimonious fury of a 2019 Berkeley sophomore demanding a speaker be banned. The constitutional scholar who once thundered his version of “the answer to bad speech is more speech” now insists the answer to speech that he dislikes is coordinated ostracism.

Ben Shapiro, the man who built an empire mocking trigger warnings and safe spaces, devotes an entire week of shows in November 2025 to branding Carlson an “intellectual coward” and “Nazi normalizer,” tweeting “No to cowards like Tucker Carlson who normalize their trash,” and urging the right to treat him as radioactive. The same Shapiro who once said “facts don’t care about your feelings” now deals exclusively in guilt-by-association and emotional blackmail, demanding that conservatives choose between loyalty to America First and loyalty to a foreign government’s PR narrative—no debate, no nuance, just shunning.

Randy Fine, the Florida legislator lionized by the GOP establishment, goes further still: in early November he labels Carlson “the most dangerous man in America” and “leader of a modern-day Hitler Youth,” not for violence or lawbreaking, but for the crime of hosting an interview Fine dislikes. This from a man whose own rhetoric in his speeches and on social media has included celebrating the starvation of Gaza civilians and declaring that even Palestinian children are terrorists for being born Palestinian.

The mask is not slipping here; it has been hurled to the ground and stomped on.This is the great revelation of 2025: the loudest “anti-cancel culture warriors” on the right were never opposed to cancel culture itself—only to cancel culture directed at them. When the target is a paleoconservative, a Christian nationalist, or simply an America-First voice that refuses to put Tel Aviv’s interests above Washington’s, the old tools of the far left—deplatforming, blacklisting, public shaming—are suddenly presented as holy instruments of righteousness.

Why this incredible reversal?

It’s truly not a reversal.

It is a revelation.

What we are witnessing is not hypocrisy in the ordinary sense. No, they are wolves in sheep’s skin and this is the final exposure of an Israel-First worldview that is truly in total opposition to conservative in the American grain. Christian conservatism—rooted in the universalism of the Gospel and the natural rights tradition of the Founders, along with a deep suspicion of foreign entanglements—has always held that sin is sin, that mercy is extended even to enemies, and that no man and no nation stands above judgment. The mask that has fallen reveals something older, something tribal: a politics of blood and soil transplanted from the Levant, only dressed for decades in borrowed Reaganite clothing.

The choice cannot be clearer. We cannot remain neutral. We believe that everyone still breathing is redeemable, like the Apostle Paul, or we revert to belief in blood guilt—and that even babies can be branded as terrorists and brutally killed. We can believe that a Jew named Jesus is the seed of Abraham that saves the world or we side with those who say he was a false prophet boiling in feces. We believe in the kingdom that is built on supernatural love or one that which is a product of weapons of war and fights (in various forms of disguise) for the destruction of every Christian value we claim to hold dear.

It may only be a coincidence that Charlie Kirk was killed shortly after enraging his Israel First donors by refusing to disassociate with Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens. Maybe it did not matter to them that he felt a need to abandon the pro-Israel cause? But I know Kirk wouldn’t join these Zio-bot zealots in their campaign to cancel Carlson for talking to everyone.

“You’re Thirty Years Old Living In Milton”

The quote in title, an unintentionally honest comment from a pious young woman, will continue to ring in my ears for decades to come. Scripture describes the word of God being “sharper than any two-edged sword,” but her romantic rejection came more like a hammer blow to my Mennonite worldview where spiritual was supposed to outweigh physical gain. I had patterned my life, up to that point, around a sort of practicality over flash and suddenly realized what I thought was an asset was actually liability.

I was reminded of these words again as my wife’s glowing approval of the monstrosity in my driveway, a Ford Explorer ST, still feels out of place for me. I mean, granted, I was not keen on transitioning to family life with a pedestrian option like a minivan or boring SUV. But I didn’t expect my always frugal—cost conscious—female counterpart to go along with it 100%. She was supposed to pump the brakes and did not. I’ve realized, in this, that every woman is happy with the nice things and won’t say no if you provide it for them. We’ve both agreed to blame the baby for our reckless financial decision.

So, back to Milton, a place I’ve since moved on from and to the higher cost town across the river. Up until the words from the mouth of this wholesome girl, I had thought having a little house completely paid off would be worth something—even attractive. After all she claimed to be interested in missionary service and what better place to get a start, right? From what I had believed, there are needs anywhere there are people and where better to start than a deteriorating industrial town? Milton is an example of the rust belt, a place of declining opportunities and costs of outsourcing production.

The phrase “you’re thirty years old living in Milton” was simply accurate conveyance of her underlying priorities. There’s always the difference between what we say we are and the actual truth. Even in the secular culture there’s a romanticization of the love of two impoverished people who stand together in desperate circumstances. And those raised in an environment where Christian mission is supposed to be first, living as one poor as a church mouse amongst common people would seem the ideal.

But it is not. No, this young woman, like the one who had rejected me for not pursuing a title of “missionary” or “pastor” years prior, was clearly after status. They will not say it outright, probably are not even aware, but it is a kind of glamour they seek in service. A call to some exotic location to impress their religious peers. Sure, a Bentley may not be status in a conservative Anabaptist church, but the ability to jet around the world (often on someone else’s dime) is thrilling where it is considered sacrifice. It is currency, a way to gain status in a community of faith or be seen as righteous.

Resources are showered on the ministry or mission. Sure, it comes with stress, my 9-5 does as well, but the payoff is proportional. And not talking about “treasures in heaven” or God’s favor. A pastor has access to the community resources. It is social power as much as it is a position of responsibility and there are always those who want to curry a little favor. Again, it also comes with more scrutiny as well, but most tend to minimize the costs when they set off in a particular direction. Besides that, for the Mennonite woman, this is for the broad shoulders of her husband to bear, right?

The high expectations of my wife have been a little surprising to me. To her credit, she has been putting up with a partly finished remodel of old house since marrying and moving in. But yet, despite coming from the Philippines, her standards are now close to that of an American woman. We comment about our son’s demands for what the other kids have, but often fail the test ourselves. I mean, is it at all coincidence that I decide to finally pull the trigger on a new vehicle after a Mennonite workmate showed up with his new truck? Probably not.

And that’s the bottom line here. We are all after power in different forms. Be it money, be it land, access to resources or just status in our peer group. What I’ve found is that a religiously trained (or ‘spiritual’) person is no different. No, all they do is give a righteous cover to their personal ambition. They live in a delusion. Materialism is bad, they will say, but they are fine with your donation of money so they can buy a bigger missionary compound in Southeast Asia. And, under the fluff of my own pursuit of love was the same sexual motivation of all men.

I hated when a physiatrist summarized my obsession with the impossibility as being a “sexual attraction” and dismissed it initially as a woman who knew nothing of my heart as a man of God. But now I realized this is undoubtedly the correct assessment. Men want sexually attractive women and women want high status men. This is an essential part of our nature—a matter of survival for our genes—a young healthy woman is able to bear children and a wealthy or connected man can give them much more than a thirty year old living in Milton.

I’ve moved on from Milton, but cannot move on from the reality I have encountered head on, we’re sexual creatures living in material reality and can’t escape this by denial. I had been better to learn this decades ago rather than cling to a naive notion of love where it ends like a storybook. But I am now living the best life available to me and hope that my wife is happy with her decision. She’s won my heart asking for the “simple and happy life” and now I want to give her that and everything else wonderful this world offers. The best thing we gained was the child born almost a year ago now…

It’s never too late to live the life that you should—which is more about perspective than what you possess—even if you were denied love for being thirty years old and living in Milton.

Dismantling of the Penn State Colossus

Growing up, college sports, or even sports in general, were not part of my world. My father didn’t toss a football with me in the backyard or gather us around the TV for games—work was his recreation, and that was our normal. I had no reason to care. But something shifted later in high school, culminating in my going out for football my senior year, and I found myself very drawn to Penn State, captivated by the legacy of Joe Paterno and the blue-and-white pride that defined it.

In the years just prior to my tuned in, Penn State had soared to new heights, claiming two national championships and cementing its place as a powerhouse. For that fleeting moment, the Nittany Lions were the best in the gane. State College, just to the west of me, was the heart of this empire—a house that Paterno, a son of Italian immigrants from Brooklyn, had built. He was not just a coach; he was a living legend, embodying the loyalty, community, and tradition that made Penn State more than a football team—it was a shining symbol of our American values at their finest.

I didn’t love Paterno because he won every game. In fact, other than a Rose Bowl win, the program had definitely taken a half step back from the prominence of the 1980s. It was their “success with honor” mantra and Paterno’s commitment to the “kids” as part of his “Grand Experiment” philosophy that had attracted me. Paterno’s stated mission was not only to win on Saturday, but to build men through the game. At least according the brand, the win at all costs attitude was anathema. We are Penn State meant being at a higher standard on and off the field.

The Scandalous End of an Era

There are many good things that Paterno is rightfully remembered for. But history is not kind to those not true to their values and the legacy of “success with honor” is not what any of us wanted as fans from a distance. The man who lived in a very modest house adjacent to the campus—and had donated $4.2 million to the university library—was embroiled in a situation completely at odds with the character of his program. This, of course, being the horrific revelations about Jerry Sandusky—a former Paterno assistant—who was found guilty of sexual abuse of children and was for years according to the allegations.

Shock and denial are a natural response as a defense mechanism. Penn State fandom was more part of our identity where the “We are” was supposed to be a call to a certain moral code and standard. It was supposed to be about more W’s on Saturday and thus it was unthinkable that there was a sexual predator potentially being protected by the program. Those of us who accepted that it happened still wanted to minimize and keep it separate from the man who had preached excellence on and off the field. To this day this is something to be wrestled with—what did he really know and when?

My current stance is that Paterno prioritized the program over everything else. Similar to how religious institutions (like CAM or the Catholic church) too often try to deal with embarrassing issues internally—as a way to minimize fallout—there’s always the desire to save the ‘mission’ by undermining pursuit of the full truth or actual justice. In the end this little leaven of a moral compromise for sake will leaven the whole lump. However, expediency often trumps principles and the putting of reputation first started with Todd Hodne, in the 1970s, when the rapes of the prized Long Island football recruit began to be known. Paterno wanted to deal quietly with these kinds of ‘problems’ and it would blow up in his face at the end.

Hodne was a violent and vile predator. Initially the rape allegations were hushed.

In my conversations with a cousin, who is a generation younger than me and far less of an idealist, my being completely appalled at fan behavior in the wake of coach Franklin’s collapse is silliness. He says the toxicity is everywhere and, basically, that I should not expect the Penn State football community to be exceptional. Even in response to my own posts on social media some of my friends believe that it is okay to make their vicious attacks against players and future prospects—because apparently sportsmanship is not a goal in the era of NIL money? To me there has been something we have lost in our dignity and self-respect when we pile on young athletes and those who have invested far more than most in the bleachers ever did.

It feels like the culture has been hollowed out. An ethos has been lost. And my own disappointment with the sudden realization of the total absence of anything that actually distinguishes Penn State today, other than a few symbols and slogans, the final dismantling of the Paterno legacy that I’ve protected so long is complete. Why pretend? Integrity was neglected. And the thin veneer of The Grand Experiment philosophy has long ago worn away, we are not what we’ve claimed to be, we’re just another sports ball brand—class and character a mere facade.

Penn State peaked in the 1980s and has been in a ‘wilderness’ of ten win seasons since.

Demystifying is the first step in dismantling the Colossus. With the transfer portal and NIL the era of loyalty and commitment to a higher ideal is over. But this shifting is one that goes beyond the football field or Penn State fan base. This is just a microcosm of the failure of the United States of being this “city on a hill” that was imagined by Puritan preacher John Winthrop. The “We are” is a localized flavor of American exceptionalism or the declaration of our unique quality and superiority over others. It is delusion.

It is also decay…

Reclaiming Lost American Values

The erosion of American values, particularly those intangible qualities that once defined community, loyalty, and collective spirit, is vividly reflected in the current state of college football, the influence of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals, and the broader societal shift toward prioritizing money over meaning. These three threads—Penn State’s football struggles, the commodification of college athletics, and the personal lesson of a child fixated on monetary rewards—converge to reveal a deeper cultural loss that is harder to pinpoint but profoundly felt.

At Penn State, the football program’s collapse mirrors a broader unraveling of shared purpose. The team’s 3-3 record in 2025, with losses to Northwestern, UCLA, and Oregon, has extinguished playoff hopes, compounded by the season-ending injury to quarterback Drew Allar. The program, once ranked #2, has been plagued by self-inflicted wounds—stupid penalties, turnovers, and a lack of team chemistry despite returning key players. The toxic “fire Franklin” narrative, fueled by fans and possibly amplified by wealthy alumni, has created a vicious cycle of negativity. This environment, where success is taken for granted and loyalty to coach James Franklin is eroded, reflects a loss of the communal spirit that once defined college football.

The fans’ inability to appreciate last year’s achievements, coupled with the pressure of high expectations, has turned a storied program into a cautionary tale of how a community’s values—patience, unity, and resilience—can erode under the weight of entitlement and short-term thinking. The prospect of rebuilding under new leadership may spark a recruiting bounce or an influx of NIL funds, but it also risks perpetuating a cycle where only wins and money matter, leaving little room for the intangible pride that once fueled rivalries like the one against Ohio State.

The field at Beaver Stadium is now “West Shore Home Field” after a large donation. How long before Penn State’s no-name jerseys are replaced with corporate sponsors?

This shift is starkly evident in the rise of NIL, which has transformed college football from a bastion of amateurism into a billionaire’s playground. The purity of the sport, where loyalty to a program and the concept of the student-athlete once held sway, has been supplanted by a system where, as Mark Cuban’s “big number” donation to Indiana University athletics illustrates, wealth dictates outcomes. Fans no longer celebrate players who stay an extra year out of commitment; instead, they view them as paid mercenaries, unworthy of respect or admiration unless they deliver victories.

This also mirrors a broader societal decline in volunteerism and good sportsmanship—values that once rivaled capitalism in shaping America’s identity. The community spirit that made school sports a unifying force has been replaced by a transactional mindset, where loyalty is bought, not earned. This shift reflects a deeper cultural loss: the unquantifiable sense of duty to others or something greater than oneself, whether a team, a school, or a nation.

As the current system prioritizes individual profit over program or principle, it signals a collapse of the traditions that made college football a symbol of American unity, leaving behind a hollow pursuit of wins at any cost.

Now billionaires and corporations rule college athletics in the age of NIL.

This same erosion of values plays out on a personal level for me, where my tying my son’s chores to cash rewards has instilled a mindset in him that everything must have an immediate reward or monetary payoff. This mirrors the broader societal trend where wealth is the sole measure of success, undermining the concept of family as a unit bound by mutual care rather than financial transactions.

In cultures like the Philippines, where my wife is from, multigenerational support is just a given, but in America, the collapse of family unit and community has fueled reliance on pay based systems like elderly care, which often exploit the most vulnerable and leave little for future generations.

This shift away from communal responsibility toward an extreme individualism and personal profit reflects a loss of the intangible values—selflessness, duty, and shared burden—that once made America redeemable, if not great. And the rise of socialism, decried by conservatives, is less a cause than it is a symptom of this deficiency, as needy people seek external systems to replace the community support that has faded.

These threads—Penn State’s demoralized and debased fanbase, commodification of college sports through NIL in general, and my own struggle as a father of a teenager to instill non-monetary values—point to a broader cultural decay. The current loss of American values like loyalty, community, and tradition is not easily quantified, as they were woven into the fabric of what it meant to be American, and never before required definition or separate designation.

NIL, like the toxic fan culture or a child’s fixation on cash, is a symptom of a deeper disease: a society that prioritizes money and winning over the unmeasurable qualities that once held it together. This shift, felt more than seen, leaves us grappling with a question: if we cannot identify what we’ve lost, how can we hope to reclaim it?

Records Come and Go—Family Is Forever

After the Northwestern game, a third loss this year, Franklin waited until everyone else—including his daughter—had gone through the tunnel before he strode through. This is likely because he knew what awaited him—taunts and trash being hurled.

Father and daughter. Franklin was determined to be a better father than his own.

In comparison to the stupid entitled clowns, Franklin is a class act. He is the father protecting his family. A standard bearer for Paterno (an Italian surname that means father) or at least the commendable part of the late coach’s legacy. I have seen some of the comments online, one claiming Franklin was arrogant because he had only answered one of their emails or something of similar entitled quality—as if he could just sit responding to every moron harassing him. But the players who played for him are unanimous in their support.

In fact, one of the saddest things I’ve seen is the current Penn State roster expressing their guilt over his firing for “not playing well enough” to please the raving lunatics. They didn’t fail Franklin, the fans failed them and the Penn State tradition.

The players taking responsibility is a sign of a relationship with a man who told them his demands of them as players start with love and end with love. In other words, this was a high pressure environment, expectations were high, and yet it was for their good that he challenged them to be better. And, truth be told, Franklin’s teams punch above their weight. He was a player’s coach and that is why Penn State is bleeding top recruits who were coming to State College for something different under his leadership.

The “fire Franklin” types love to talk about how he “couldn’t win the big game” and yet neglect to mention his teams were almost always coming in as the underdog and with less talent and depth than their top ranked rivals. Or, in basic English, he was coaching them up to the level of the elites. And this a testament to his philosophy that had built on the positive part of Paterno’s legacy—he valued the players for more than the wins or losses and they responded with loyalty and inspired football.

Nobody will ever say Franklin was the best game manager or play caller. But then the online critics keep going back to a couple plays a decade ago. A run on 4th and five against Ohio State or kicking a field goal in a 28-0 Michigan game ending the shutout. But ultimately they were one play from the national championship game last year and Franklin was third behind two other coaches from 2022–2024 with a 34-8 overall record during that span—trailing only Kirby Smart (Georgia, 39-5) and Ryan Day (Ohio State, 36-7) for wins. Good luck finding the guy who will top that after we cut the soul out of the program that drew the talent that we did have. Who will come to State College to be nitpicked and unappreciated?

I loved a family man arriving at Penn State and to see it end as it has just makes me think we don’t deserve what we have.

The toxic part of the Penn State fan base is transactional. They believe their watching a game entitles them to perfection execution and results. I mean, imagine that, a howling mass of ingratitude made of mostly grown men who are apparently that unhappy with how their own life went that everything now is a matter of wins on Saturday. Most did not go to The Pennsylvania State University nor do they have any real investment in any tradition of excellence—like that which was upheld by Franklin’s family approach.

Franklin deserved better. He was not a DEI hire. He is certainly not a terrible coach. It is his players—who carry on his legacy—that actually matter. Penn State football should never be about pleasing drunk Uncle Ricos who failed at life, it should continue to be oriented towards success in life. Truly the few Saturdays under the lights are not a measure of a man. Franklin’s tenure should be remembered as a battle against wider societal decay—where the development of moral character and the building of community are too often sacrificed for the fleeting victories or short-term financial gains.

Twelve teams with the most National Championships

Both Nick Saban and Urban Meyer, who are legendary coaches, expressed their support for Franklin. And to think delusional Penn State fans believed that they could replace Franklin with one of these two (already past retirement age) by waving a little money in their faces. No, nobody is coming to State College to be unappreciated for producing one winning season after another. We will be lucky to find any successful coach who is tempted by the job—let alone replace all of those who decommitted or will transfer now that James Franklin is gone.

Values Beyond the Scoreboard

In this blog—Irregular Ideation—my struggle with the disconnect between stated values and the values they truly live out. People claim to believe one thing and yet live something else. I’ve dealt with this in the religious and romantic sphere, the disappointment, this false notion that virtue would always win over mere physical or economic superiority. Mennonites teach that the meek shall inherit the Earth or that the first shall be last—these being Christian concepts about the kingdom of Jesus. But the reality lived is always different from that ideal preached.

The reality is that everyone is in it to win it. Yes, even that sweet and submissive young woman doesn’t date no scrubs. Sure, maybe a pious individual will adjust some language or settle on one rather than playing the field, but ultimately they’re going for the status or strength and attractiveness everyone else in the world pursues. Some overestimate the market value they have, but even in love we are being self-sacrificial or altruistic. We’re motivated by hormones and sexual desires—often things we’re not even totally aware of behind our wall of moral rationalizations and narratives.

With denial of this is the delusion that good things will happen to good people. We tend to confuse physical beauty with virtue as it serves our own carnal desires to see them as one and the same. I mean, who wants to say the quiet part out loud by admitting they picked Joe over Bob because he was taller or had charisma? We may say things about nurturing or character traits but this is code for nice breasts and big biceps. So what I am getting at is that we dress all this stuff up as something it is not and revelation of what is underneath is not debasement—it simply exposes what always existed.

From Paterno trying to bury the truth about Todd Hodne to the firing of Franklin, the true ruthless nature of college football culture is revealed.

Beaver Stadium rises out of the valley floor, an edifice, a temple where sacrifices were made in the name of success.

Beaver Stadium rises up from the farm fields of Happy Valley, a monument to Pennsylvania pride, like the “city on a hill” of American exceptionalism. But success was not built on anything different here as it was anywhere else. What is buried is the reality it is always about aggression, financial gain, and wins. The Grand Experiment failed and Penn State had to be like everyone else if it wanted to reach the top. Furthermore, there is a sense in which every program becomes a sort of family or builds men—Paterno was only unique for highlighting this.

Are there values beyond the scoreboard?

Is it a zero-sum game?

Yes and no. Friedrich Neitzsche describes “slave morality” or a system of ethics that reverses what we naturally value and then says this denial of reality is virtue. Woke is a manifestation of this, where they attempt to turn the world on its head and celebrate obesity, ugliness, criminal behavior or lack of ambition—and create an artificial reality—rather than deal squarely with the world as it is. Body positive isn’t going to spare you health consequences if you’re obese. Fair or not we must at some point deal with the cards we’ve been dealt and rise above our station or accept what we are. Mutilation of yourself to be something you’re not ends as badly as well. There really are no shortcuts to success or Uno Reverse cards to play—it is what it is on the scoreboard that matters to the world in the end.

Ultimately we also have our limits. We need expectations to match our abilities or we’ll end up in a spiral—always chasing what is beyond our reach rather than just building on what we have. I’ve seen it many times, those who leave a consistent and reliable partner, thinking they’ll do better out in the market, only to find out that (yet never will admit) that their discontentment played a trick on them and they had it better before than after. Not everyone can be a National Champion every year—it just isn’t possible—but we can have a family or community that respects all members and seeks only their best rather than tear them down.

So maybe Penn State football does need to be dismantled and rebuilt to be great again?

It could be that, like the children of Israel in the wilderness, we’ll need this generation to pass so our children can enter the promised land?

If the foundation laid has led to this ugly spirit of entitlement then it was flawed. We might need to decide if football is so important we will lose our humanity or the immeasurable qualities not displayed on a scoreboard—for a “big game” win that won’t matter in a year or two. What does it truly matter if we gain the and lost our soul?

A race to the lowest common denominator is the end of civilization. Despite my lament above, I don’t believe life is all about money, sex and power—which ever order they come in. I still believe my elderly grandma had a beauty that was unsurpassed and morality is not just a smokescreen for our failure to be the best. Maybe the impossibility for me is possibility for my children. I cannot stay disillusioned. But, like I did in finally leaving my religious roots, I may need to also bury that delusion of Penn State excellence both on and off the field.

Not the tradition that made Penn State great.

Maybe the failure of The Grand Experiment was all Paterno’s own personal failure? Or maybe the message never went beyond the young men who loved him like players love Franklin today. But the Colossus now lies in ruins making me wonder if it was ever great to begin with. They didn’t just fire Franklin—they pushed over what remained of an ideal for sportsmanship, they’ve fully demolished the mythology that so inspired me. A giant ‘moral’ idol is gone—will something real rise up in its place?

The UCLA Ambush: Penn State’s Upset and the Push to Fire Franklin

Nobody could have known, as Penn State and UCLA warmed up on a sunny California Saturday, that this was going to be an upset for the ages. The boys from State College were coming off a huge disappointment in Happy Valley, traveled the over twenty-five hundred miles, and probably hoped to get up early on a struggling program that had just fired their head coach and started the season with four straight loses.

7-0

On the side lines Drew Allar and company geared up for their opening drive. Eager to answer, not having any doubt whatsoever of eventual outcome. Their defense would start to tighten up and just wait until we get this Penn State offense rolling against an inferior defense.

Neuheisel had different plans. They knew that their opponent wouldn’t stay sleeping for long and football is a huge momentum sport. The wind was at his back, this was the time to roll the dice, employ a little bit of trickery and kick the on-side kick. I’ve seen this before. A local high school coach with a team coming out of a long slump world do this in one or two games just to help his squad get their feet under them. Sure, you don’t recover and give the other team very good field position. But it’s unexpected and totally deflates the opposition if you get the ball back again.

UCLA would easily recover the short kick to the far side and suddenly the score was ten to zip with the favorites trailing.

10-0

James Franklin didn’t need this. But he did not have time to waste either. He felt some pressure, “can’t win the big game” was now screaming in his ears. However, unlike the fair weather fans who have never coached a game in their lives, winning games in real life wasn’t like them hitting the right button combos on their game controller, and they had watched film all week on a team that is now doing things they couldn’t do before. It wasn’t like he hasn’t felt pressure like this in the past. He hoped to get on the board then settle in to a rhythm where eventually talent would takeover.

Allar did engineer a drive, after a scary near fumble about gave the Bruins the ball back one more time, and brought the Lions within three by the end of the first quarter.

10-7

But UCLA’s quarterback, Nico Iamaleava, a proven talent who started his college career at Tennessee where he was 10-3, didn’t plan to make this easy for the visitors and went right back to work answering quickly to put the Lions down two scores again. He was hungry. And that is where the upset really started to pick up pace. Penn State would remain scoreless throughout the second, obviously now back on the ropes, and was discombobulated.

27-7

In the third quarter Penn State finally would wake up, with their offense finally finding a little traction. Drew Allar, shaking off earlier struggles, connected with Khalil Dinkins for a 40-yard touchdown pass, narrowing the gap to 27-14. Moments later, a special teams miscue by UCLA gave Penn State a spark when Liam Clifford returned a punt 6 yards for a touchdown, bringing the score to 27-21. The Nittany Lions’ sideline erupted, sensing a shift in momentum, and the Rose Bowl crowd grew tense as Penn State’s defense started to apply pressure.

Deluca, a walk-on, is good. But Rojas is better.

But UCLA’s young play caller, Neuheisel, kept his composure. Leaning on Nico’s dual-threat ability, the Bruins answered with a 1-yard touchdown run by Iamaleava, restoring a 13-point lead at 34-21. The aggressive nothing to lose playcalling, including a mix of designed runs and quick passes, kept Penn State’s defense (still adjusting to the sudden loss of Tony Rojas during the week) guessing and prevented them from settling into a rhythm.

34-21

In the fourth quarter, Penn State mounted a furious comeback. Kaytron Allen punched in a 2-yard touchdown run, cutting the deficit to 34-28. The Nittany Lions’ defense forced a stop, and Allar led another drive, finding Kyron Hudson for a 15-yard touchdown pass to make it 34-35. With the game within reach, Penn State’s hopes soared. But Iamaleava, showcasing his poise, responded with a 7-yard touchdown run and a successful 2-point conversion pass to Kwazi Gilmer, pushing UCLA’s lead to 42-35 with 6:41 left.In the final minute, Penn State drove deep into UCLA territory, facing a 4th-and-2 with 37 seconds remaining. The Nittany Lions needed a conversion to keep their hopes alive, but UCLA’s Scooter Jackson burst through for a clutch tackle-for-loss on Allar, forcing a turnover on downs. With the game all but sealed, UCLA’s punter, Will Karoll, took an intentional safety on the ensuing punt, making the final score 42-37.

Final Score: 42-37, UCLA

The Rose Bowl erupted as UCLA celebrated their first win of the season and their first victory over a top-10 opponent since 2010. For Penn State, the loss marked a second straight Big Ten defeat, dropping them to 3-2 and raising questions about their playoff aspirations and adding more fuel to the “fire Franklin” fire. And, at this point, his hopes of a playoff run or National Championship this year are on life support. Coming off a 21st “big game” loss a week earlier, where Franklin has continued to lose to the top ten ranked teams—despite usually winning the UCLA-type games—makes it an even more stinging defeat.

So how does this happen?

“Any given Sunday” applies to professional football and is this idea that any NFL team can beat any other on any given matchup. It is, in that case, about league parity and the fact that they strive for a competitive balance. Just because a game isn’t a “big game” according to fan expectations and current rankings doesn’t mean that winning is just a given. And Penn State is one of the teams consistently good enough that every other team is going to come prepared. You know that even in Columbus, despite having success against Franklin, they still mark the big game on the calendar. This is also how the Buckeyes get beat by Michigan annually—the Wolverines come ready for them.

So UCLA was in the perfect position for an underdog ambush. There was no way for the Penn State coaching staff to prepare, a new coach with nothing to lose can pretty much do anything and nobody will question it. If the on-side kick, after their first score, was recovered by the Lions, commentators will shrug, “well, at least he’s trying to give his team an edge against a heavy favorite.” So there’s nothing to lose in the risky play. But Franklin can’t be as freewheeling, there are expectations to win and thus anything special he does will be judged as the reason why they lost—a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario.

The upset comes down to a UCLA getting a big opening lead from playing good football and a little trickery. Then you have a better quarterback in Nico than is indicated by the team’s 0-4 record. After that you have Penn State still trying to find their identity losing a key defensive starter, Tony Rojas, only days before. Adding to the woes Jim Knowles, a proven defensive coordinator, fresh off his national championship, didn’t adjust to the big third down threat of Iamaleava. It is as if he just expected superior talent to get the job done and it didn’t. Apparently he did spy with Dominic DeLuca, replacing Rojos, who just couldn’t make those critical third down stops. Knowles shut down Iamaleava with his Ohio State talent last year. Are we really going to blame coaching?

But the real story here is that football is an emotional sport and Penn State came in to this contest with their butts dragging. They got beat during the White Out despite. That monkey of the “big game” struggles still not off their back. They were on the road a long way from home. Sure, they probably have a slightly more talented group, but UCLA got some momentum early and didn’t get off of the gas as the beleaguered then 7th ranked team finally stated to wake up.

Fire Franklin?

There has been a lot of fans chirping, over the past few years about Franklin’s inability to “win the big game” and what this means is that, despite his winning the games that he is expected to win, he has a twenty-one game losing streak against top ten teams, and this is especially irksome considering Penn State has not beaten rival Ohio State since 2016 (my last game in attendance), and, therefore, according to this group he must suck as a coach, right?

But this is just a total lack of appreciation for the reality of college football. No, while Penn State has always been good, the elite teams were decades ago, in the 1980s and Franklin’s record really isn’t all that different from the legendary Joe Paterno who went 3-12 in his first 15 top-5 games. And then there’s the fact that Penn State went in as the underdog in all but 3 of these 21 top ten match ups. Paterno actually lost more top ten contests as a higher ranked team going in. And so the field has tilted in favor of the winners of the majority of these frequently cited 21 Franklin losses and many of them still ended up being very close games. The recent Oregon Ducks game at home being a prime example, going into double overtime before another painful end.

So why does Penn State lose ‘big’ games?

First of all this whole big game standard is nonsense. Every single game at this level is a big game. Even in those warm up games there is usually enough talent on the other side to pull off the upset. Who can forget how Appalachian State humbled the mighty Wolverines. Second, that said, the outcome of the game often will come down to talent and depth. That is what I believe gives the perennial elites their edge, it is the program itself that draws the talent and whomever is coaching gets the credit. So how have the teams Franklin taken to top ten match ups stacked up? Was there a talent gap?

According to Grok:

Yes, in many cases: A talent gap existed in 15 of 21 losses, particularly against Ohio State (7-0 in these matchups) and Michigan (4-0), where opponents’ rosters were stacked with higher-rated recruits. Ohio State’s average class rank of 2.2 reflects a near-NFL pipeline (e.g., 5-stars like J.T. Tuimoloau in 2021 or Jeremiah Smith in 2024), while Penn State’s ~10–13 range, though top-tier, lacked the same elite depth. Against Oregon (2024, 2025), Oregon’s NIL-fueled classes (No. 3–6) outpaced PSU’s, contributing to losses. These gaps align with probabilities: teams with top-5 classes win ~65–70% of top-10 matchups when facing teams ranked 8–15, per historical betting data.

So Penn State was the underdog and does not draw as well as teams more known to be in the national championship discussion, which means Franklin may even have these teams punching above their weight to keep it close. They’re not head and shoulders above UCLA. And this won’t change with a new coach. Historically the Nittany Lions have been committed to the scholar-athlete concept, Paterno valued academic performance as much as on field success, which does limit the talent pool a little bit. To abandon this is to lose what it means to me Penn State. The win at all costs crowd clearly don’t get this.

Interim UCLA play caller is Jerry Neuheisel had a game plan that his opponents could not possibly know. In his mind this would be an ambush, with slight adjustments here and there he knew he could take advantage of a sleep walking Nittany Lions squad. He won the coin. Perfect. Time to get some of that Bruin confidence back. With just a bit of luck, better execution and efficiency on third downs they clawed their way from the Big Ten basement and drew first blood.

All of that considered, there is still plenty legitimate criticism. Franklin getting too conservative in play-calling contributes—call it “playing not to lose” rather than take the risks necessary to win. But some of this stems from, and is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy or due to pressure from a fan base that never lets the team move on from a loss. Fueled by their very unrealistic expectations, they amplify the failures and aid opponents. Who will want to replace Allar or Franklin after seeing the nastiness online because a team lost some games to better competition? Penn State fans need to realize that they are truly the monkey on the back of the program.

Urban Meyer weighing in on Franklin is worth a Beaver Stadium full of ungrateful idiots:

I think he’s doing a great job. I think you talk, Ryan Day‘s got a Wolverine problem, and Penn State’s got a couple problems; Oregon. Everyone’s just got their little flaws they’ve got to work out. So is criticism right, to answer your question? Yes. Is it time to make a change or even talk about that? Absolutely not.

That’s a voice of experience and expertise.

Players back Franklin, Jason Cabinda on X:

And for those of you all in my DM’s with the Fire Franklin Fire Franklin mantra’s just remember we aren’t talking about some coach who has all the talent in the world but for some reason can only win 4-8 games a year and we’re questioning why. This is someone who consistently…
— Jason Cabinda (@jasoncabinda) October 5, 2025

Those Sunday morning quarterbacks who believe replacing Franklin will just magically make the program elite are sorely mistaken and could end up dooming us like Nebraska after firing one head coach after another in a pursuit of relevance. Nebraska’s spiral began with the 2003 dismissal of Frank Solich, who had a 58-19 record (.753) and a 1999 Big 12 title, but was deemed insufficiently elite after 9-3 and 7-7 seasons. His replacement, Bill Callahan, went 27-22 (.551) with no conference titles, followed by Bo Pelini’s 66-27 (.710) tenure, which was axed despite consistent 9–10-win seasons due to big-game failures (0-4 vs. top-10 teams). Subsequent coaches—Mike Riley (19-19, .500), Scott Frost (16-31, .340), and in the interim Mickey Joseph—plummeted Nebraska to irrelevance, with a combined 35-70 (.333) from 2015–2022, no bowl wins since 2015, and a drop from top-10 recruiting classes to the 20s by 2020, per 247Sports. Fan unrest on social media mirrors Penn State’s “Fire Franklin” cries, but Nebraska’s 22-year title drought and their 4-8 average seasons since 2016 highlight the risks of chasing that mythical “elite” coach—the potential of destabilizing Penn State’s consistent 10-win program under Franklin for a gamble that could yield decades of actual mediocrity.

Huskers blamed the coach and went downhill since.

Alas, this terrible upset, after an emotional loss to a legitimate top ranked team, could be the final blow for Franklin. If he can’t get this veteran and talented group to get over the hump, a win in Columbus or a National Championship, the pressure may finally be at the point where he’ll part ways. However, it will likely be a victory short lived for those demanding his firing. First, it will cost $48.7 million to buy out his contract, draining vital resources. Second, odds are he will be like Andy Reid going from Philly to Kansas City and suddenly all those 50-50 games tilt his way—while Penn State slides as players go elsewhere and coaches come and go.

Update: Things just went from bad to worse for Penn State. This week they have lost to Northwestern, at home, and drop to 3-3 on the season. And the opponents only getting tougher from here on out. Football in a very emotional sport and this team just can’t get it done on the field anymore. The chemistry you would think would be there by returning so many key players just isn’t. There was a ton of very negative pressure being put on the program with the “fire Franklin” and that would rob anyone of their enthusiasm. But at this point, this far into a coaches tenure, seeing this kind of collapse? It really does not matter if it is a self-fulfilling prophecy of the fans themselves. We were very oddly victims of our own success last year, going into the season #2 in the nation just shows how high the expectations had been, but we lost to Oregon in the first real test, then had a disaster against a resurgent UCLA team, and now did not rebound at home against Northwestern. Now even the remote hope of playoffs is off the table, Drew Allar is out for the season with an injury, Oregon lost to Indiana and there’s really nothing positive to say about this team. There are certain the great individual efforts, but they really have not processed (or at least not fast enough) towards being a team and maybe because they’ve all lost faith in each other? It really does not matter the exact cause or who is most at fault (Franklin, the booing fans or just the fates), this is probably the time to go in a different direction at the top. Until now I could hold on to “oh so close” and the probabilities. But I didn’t expect the wheels to come off like this. And Saturday again it was another grinding painful defeat with the promising stop opening series ending with Allar being picked. With stupid penalties giving the Wildcats new life. It was a loss that was self-inflicted. There is no recovery for Franklin now, redemption meant winning out the regular season and now one must wonder if we can win even one conference game. Traveling to Columbus this year will be brutal, I fear, because we probably won’t have that rivalry mojo that at least kept the games respectably close. The program will need to rebuild regardless and better to do that with someone else at the top. That is going to shut up the idiot naysayers for at least a year. It will give a recruiting bounce if we get the right name. And there might even been a surge of NIL money if many of the wealthy Penn State alumni were also on the fire Franklin bandwagon. The biggest disappointment with me, in all of this, is the fact that we got what we deserved. Those who were still yelling “fire Franklin” after last year could not appreciate success—winning was taken for granted. Now they will know rock bottom and there’s a likelihood that the slide won’t stop after Franklin. What coach or player, with a choice to go elsewhere, will want to play in such a toxic environment?

MAGA Betrayed: A Full Court Press to Silence the Free Press

A month or two ago a family member sent me a video of Steven Crowder going on the attack against an Orthodox Christian nun in Palestine. Mother Agapia Stephanopoulos was hosted by Tucker Carlson and talked to him about the violence against indigenous Christians in the occupied West Bank. And very soon after this interview, Crowder, who supposedly represents conservative values, went on the offensive claiming to “debunk” a faithful woman who has dedicated her life to what is remaining of Christian legacy in the Holy Lands.

Crowder, an Evangeli-con social media grifter, being so totally vicious about this woman’s physical appearance in his opening salvo made me wonder about his motives. What is it to him that she was sharing her experience? So I followed the money and found the reason. Crowder has a few notable sponsors, one of them called “Express VPN” and if you dig a little deeper this originates from a developer that goes by Kape Technologies.

Who owns that?

A guy named Teddy Sagi—an Israeli billionaire with an unscrupulous record.

So one has to wonder, is the sponsorship about selling the service or is it a way to buy influence? A bit of both, perhaps?

Either way, Crowder is getting paid to represent a certain perspective and likely got a memo: “We need you to do a hit job on that Orthodox nun, this is your list of talking points about her from our guys in intelligence. We will talk more about our ad budget for next year if you can get 100k clicks.” That’s my own crude caricature, but we know that Sagi is getting something in return for his investment and a VPN makes a nice front company to pay for propaganda. They also make a nice way to access your personal data—a specialty of Israeli-sourced ‘security’ software.

Here’s a brief overview by Grok:

Kape Technologies, a UK-based cybersecurity conglomerate specializing in privacy tools like VPNs, was originally founded in 2011 as Crossrider, a company notorious for developing ad injection software that was frequently bundled with malware, enabling intrusive tracking and data harvesting on users’ devices—a practice that continued plaguing the web as late as 2019. Rebranded to Kape in 2018 amid efforts to pivot toward “ethical” digital security, it aggressively acquired major VPN providers to dominate the market: CyberGhost in 2017 for $10.4 million, Private Internet Access (PIA) in 2019 for $95 million, ZenMate, and notably ExpressVPN in 2021 for $936 million, now controlling about 40% of the top VPN services alongside affiliate review sites that suspiciously rank its own products highest. The company is fully owned by Unikmind Holdings, a shell entity controlled by Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi—a convicted fraudster from a 1990s insider trading scandal, Playtech gambling software founder, and major donor to the Israeli Defense Forces—who bought out remaining shares in 2024, privatizing Kape and reducing transparency by delisting it from the London Stock Exchange, followed by layoffs of around 180 employees (12% of staff) in early 2025 amid whispers of restructuring. This history raises serious potential risks for users seeking true privacy: from backdoors or data-sharing compelled by Israeli intelligence ties (Sagi and co-founder Koby Menachemi hail from elite Unit 8200 spy unit, echoing Pegasus spyware scandals), to conflicts of interest where “privacy” tools could flip to surveillance, especially given Kape’s opaque operations and the irony of a former malware peddler now gatekeeping global internet anonymity.

Things are not what they appear. Look up Pegasus and Paragon. If it says security it is probably about backdoor access to your personal information. But, of course, you’re supposed to be afraid of Chinese ownership of TikTok. Anyhow, as the expression goes—every accusation is a confession. If they say it is about your security it is really only about their ability to maintain control over the flow of information and to manufacture consent for their policies. The fox is now guarding the henhouse.

Weaponization of Social Media

After the assassination of Charlie Kirk there has been a full-court press to ‘weaponize’ social media on behalf of Israel. This isn’t my choice of words. This comes from the mouth of one foreign leader who is always allowed unusual access to US politics and that is Benjamin Netanyahu:

Social media is the most important weapon Israel has at its disposal. […] Now, if we can get those two things [TikTok under U.S. control and X access], we can get a lot, and I can go on about other things, but that’s not the point right now.

Oh, so remember that bipartisan campaign to ban TikTok, supposedly over the concern that the Chinese wanted to spy on our kids, which started right after Israel started their bombing of Gaza and killing of journalists? Well, the real reason for this should now be clear: Hasbara doesn’t work when those not already brainwashed and indoctrinated can see the truth in a thousand images. TikTok bypassed the censorship regime.

And let’s not pretend we do not know what that is. After Covid we all know how there was enormous pressure put on our social media platforms to protect the government narrative. Mark Zuckerberg recently went on Joe Rogan to tell how Facebook was forced to suppress truth, under the Biden administration, he likened the fact-check process to being “something out of 1984.” If you recall, people got banned for saying the virus may have originated in lab in China—when now this is being accepted a plausible theory of the origin.

The same people who would scoff at “China virus” being racist are okay “free Palestine” being labeled as anti-Semetic.

So when TikTok was forced into selling and has hired Erica Mindel, a former IDF soldier, to run their new “Public Policy Manager for Hate Speech” position—do you think she will be there as a neutral arbiter and ban the use of the word “terrorist” describe the children in Gaza? Not a chance. No, it is her job to censor information behalf of the site’s new owners, including the Zionist Trump-backer billionaire Larry Ellison, and their aim being anything on the platform that could hurt the Gaza real estate deal or can be interpreted as pro-Palestinian.

The War Against Free Speech

Why this full-court press? The US is Israel’s most vital resource and is exploited to the tune of billions annually in direct aid. And that’s just the start. Wars in Iraq and Syria, which did not benefit average Americans in any way shape or form, cost us trillions and that is not to mention the young men killed or broken for life—like those two rampaging Marine veterans over the weekend.

With their once reliable Boomer vein dying off and younger generations seeing through their propaganda. The Zionists, to fully tap into our human and industrial resources, must first strip away the resistance. This is not left to chance. No, they buy support of influencers. The dangle incentives in front of young rising stars online, bring them on a trip to Israel and the then will sponsor their content through shell companies. Once you are hooked on their money they own you, all you need to do is sprinkle in a little of their propaganda and the checks keep coming—and if you deviate too far from script?

US influencers partying it up, on a paid trip to Israel, while Palestinians die

Well, Charlie Kirk was doing a lot of talking about this before his untimely death:

I have less ability… to criticize the Israeli government than actual Israelis do. And that’s really, really weird. I’m terrified of stepping on a minefield here, trying to please both my owners [donors] and my audience.
(Charlie Kirk, The Megyn Kelly Show, Episode 832, August 6, 2025)

Yes, Kirk had been a stalwart Zionist, just as many in the Evangeli-con fundamentalist camp are, but recently had begun to openly express his doubts, questioning the October 7th narrative and suggesting that there was a stand down order given that had allowed to happen, and he even started to platform conservatives who see Gaza as a genocide or don’t want our tax dollars used to bomb babies. Kirk was loudly opposed to Trump getting involved in Netanyahu’s war against Iran. And was called on the carpet—by his billionaire owners—for his defiant show of independence.

The Unforgivable Disloyalty

Trump and Kirk have the same billionaires bankrolling them. Miriam Adelson, born in Mandatory Palestine and widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, gave the Trump campaign $100 million dollars. This might be why he is backing up her Maccabee Task Force (MTF) in his crackdown on speech on college campuses. Her MTF doesn’t just counter the criticism of Israel—it obliterates it, slandering pro-Palestinian students and faculty as “Hamas supporters” or as being “Jew haters.” It is basically cancel culture on steroids.

With $100 million in lobbying muscle, MTF deploys doxxing campaigns, and pressures universities to discipline activists, pushes “(re)educational” programs that whitewash Israel’s actions. At Columbia U, Adelson’s MTF helped fuel Trump’s calls to deport student protesters like Mahmoud Khalil. This is not advocacy. No, it us a speech cartel, ensuring that no Gaza encampment or divestment call will threaten the billions funneled to Israel’s war machine. Adelson’s checks don’t just buy Trump’s loyalty—they buy campus silence, turning campuses into censored zones where dissent is punished and truth is the enemy.

Trump marketed MAGA to those weary of war, proclaiming America First as his motto—absolute opposition to foreign aid and DEI favoritism. But, like the scene from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, when the ruling pigs change the egalitarian commandment “All animals are equal” (adding to it “but some animals are more equal than others.”) we’ve found there is always one exception to this and that is on behalf of those who paid for his campaign. With President Trump it is America First—Israel Firster.

Trump’s betrayal goes beyond this directed attack on free speech. It’s also about family gain. Enter Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East “peace” envoy, who had brokered the Abraham Accords, not as a genuine diplomatic win, but as a sweetheart real estate deal for his own firm. Kushner’s Affinity Partners hedge fund scooped up $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund mere months after leaving the White House—blood money that was funneled through UAE backchannels, with zero U.S. oversight. And let’s not forget his now infamous Gaza proposal: turning the rubble-strewn devastated Strip into a “waterfront property” paradise for wealthy Gulf investors, complete with luxury condos atop the mass graves. It’s not policy; it’s a flip: Kushner as the fixer—turning Palestinian suffering into billionaire beachfront.

And none of this is good for the American people who are already footing the bill for the demolition of Gaza.

Property of Israel—Till Death?

Once one truly understands the extent of the influence of this foreign lobby, and how much it has cost us in terms of cash, lives and reputation in the world, there is never a return to politics as usual. Trump has not ended cancel culture, foreign aid, forever war or drained the swamp. No, AIPAC and a slew of billionaires tied to Israel are calling the shots, along with Netanyahu, and—while they plan the next big war on behalf of a few elites and Israel—the shelves are bare for wounded warriors of the last one.

The world leader on cancel culture is waited on by his faithful servant.

Charlie Kirk, like his friend Candice Owens, like Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk, seemed to have increasing awareness of this sordid reality—where we got the same policies no matter who we voted for. Unfortunately he was never given the chance to put together everything that is laid out above. Whether he was killed by a crazed trans leftist or the same big money that made Turning Point a political force on a national level we’ll likely never know, but we do know that he wasn’t just some paid shill reading off a script.

Apparently the desperate Zionist regime is now paying American influencers $7000 for every post the make to help hide the crimes of Gaza. And the deeper you dig the more disturbing it gets. They fear-monger about TikTok somehow being a platform for CCP spying and then hand it over to the control of a foreign country with one scandal after another involving surveillance of unwitting users of their software. This is affront to MAGA and the American values that those on the right-wing claimed to defend during the Covid shutdowns—we must not let the powerful monopolize the conversation.

This is free speech and should not be punished.

The war on free speech—whether through Crowder’s bought-and-paid-for smears, Adelson’s campus crackdowns, or TikTok’s censorship under Ellison’s ex-IDF enforcers—is a desperate bid to shield a grotesque truth: Trump and Kushner’s betrayal of MAGA’s anti-war ethos for a Gaza land grab, funded by Adelson’s millions and Saudi blood money, turns Palestinian suffering into profit. But Gen Z’s unfiltered posts and campus rebellions are cracking the Hasbara facade, exposing the bombs, the condos, and the lies. Reject their tech fronts, defy their censors, and amplify the raw truth—on social media, in the streets, everywhere. America’s soul isn’t for sale; reclaim our Constitutional birthright by speaking out, or let the billionaires’ war on dissent silence us all.

The Pendulum Swings: Charlie Kirk and the Turning Point of a Nation

Watching my son’s football game, it felt as if there was an inflection point. The game got off to a rocky start—their offense stumbled on the first drive, the defense gave up a score, and that was the story of the first half. But in the second half, the game’s momentum changed—the defense sparked a three-and-out, their offense finally got on the board, and it was a whole new game. Even luck tilted in their favor, unlike the first half.

So what happened?

How does a team that gave up eight points rally to score fourteen in a comeback?

An inflection point is a change where it feels as if a giant pendulum has swung, reached a peak in one direction, and shifted to a new or opposite course. The momentum shift may become clear only afterward, but often it’s something detectable in the air—an event or palpable shift in attitude that changes the entire complexion. In the game, it could’ve been a small adjustment by the coaches or simply an opportunity to reflect on mistakes and correct them. It could be that the ball broke in the right direction, a matter of probabilities, with the change mostly an illusion. But football is an emotional sport, and even dumb luck can inspire better play from everyone.

We also witnessed a similar shift during the presidential election. Biden was apparently leading in the polls (if such things are to be believed), and then Butler happened. The event came after the disastrous first presidential debate, where Biden clearly was not as advertised, yet it was the image of defiance—“fight, fight, fight”—that sealed the deal. Elon Musk saw this as reason to put his full weight behind Trump, and with a few McDonald’s drive-through moments and photo ops with garbage trucks, the greatest upset win since 2016 was complete.

Love him or loath him, Butler should have been a warning shot for the left—trying to kill your political opposition only makes them stronger and Trump won with a younger browner vote.

The paragraphs above were written before the murder of Charlie Kirk. Over the past few days, he went from the “prove me wrong” guy debating college kids to the center of a national debate. Since his death, there has been a groundswell of support. As those on the left reveal themselves through celebrations of his death and mockery, Kirk’s Turning Point organization has been flooded with 54,000 requests for new chapters at high schools and colleges. His death is a catalyst, much like the two assassination attempts against Trump, and a potential inflection point in the national conversation.

Before the U.S. Civil War officially began, there was an early attempt to free the slaves. John Brown, an evangelical Christian, believed he was on a mission from God to end slavery in the U.S. and led an insurrection that ended with a raid on a federal armory at Harpers Ferry in October 1859. Even before this, the issue of legal slavery had resulted in violent confrontations. In 1837, the abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was shot while facing down a mob of pro-slavery vandals who were attempting to destroy his printing press. This event sent shockwaves through the U.S. and galvanized John Brown to publicly declare:

“Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.”

John Brown fired the opening shots of civil war, his fierce opposition to slavery inspired by the murder of abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy.

As a writer, I do not create the sentiment of my audience. I merely put into words what other people are thinking or help them organize their thoughts. In other words, if it resonates, it is only because I’ve stated something they’ve already noticed. It also emboldens—when people realize they are not alone in what they see—which is how regimes fall. When people know that others share their understanding and are given a means to articulate it, all it takes is a little push to turn popular sentiment into decisive action.

Synchronicity is one way to describe this. I have often observed many of my friends—likely tuned into similar sources and sharing the same basic assumptions—simultaneously reach an identical conclusion in response to events.

The assassination of Kirk is a moment that galvanizes. It has starkly illustrated how far apart the two partisan sides have become. Some celebrate the murder, spewing vile hatred for a man who was truly a moderate with views similar to those of many Americans. Others are rightly appalled, realizing there is no reasoning or unity with those who believe disagreement deserves a death sentence—that Kirk deserved the bullet.

In a civil society, matters can be debated. If a person says things we don’t like, we still honor their human rights and show respect despite disagreement. But to those on the far left, a statement of fact or an opinion they hate is declared “hate speech,” and saying it out loud constitutes a crime of “spreading hate” that deserves death. This is not an embellishment—a direct quote: “Let this be a lesson to all those conservative freaks, all those weirdos… you’re next in line.” This is a threat we must take seriously when the other side laughs and mocks Kirk’s death—they are not like us.

This is an inflection point, one of those culminating moments where conservatives are independently reaching the same conclusion, and a movement can become galvanized. It will arm Trump to crack down on Antifa and the left-wing in ways he could not have before, with the critical mass of public support he needs.

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean people must associate with you. I’ve never seen the ‘right’ react with such energy before.

In reality, Charlie Kirk wasn’t an extremist leading anything; he represented the quiet majority who are still able to appreciate the difference between men and women and who want laws applied equally for the protection of all Americans—not favoritism or special preferences for some based on identity or political ideology. They are Charlie. He did not radicalize anyone. All he did was try to explain his perspective and articulate what many believe. But he will now be a rallying cry—like the death of Lovejoy that led to John Brown’s vow—that point in a conflict where the tolerance has been exhausted and it is necessary for the sane to make a stand.

Even for me, as someone who attempts to stake out a position independent of both popular sides, I must go with the side least likely to kill me as a default. There’s nothing I share in common with those who are gleeful and cracking jokes about a man deliberately killed in front of his fans, wife, and young daughters. Cheering for domestic terrorism cannot be tolerated. The backlash against those who couldn’t show civility even after a man’s murder will be a turning point, like the momentum shift in a football game—the people are done playing nice with these monsters.

State of Hasbara: Unveiling Opportunism in the Crises of 9/11, Iraq, and October 7th

I’m not a big conspiracy theory guy.

What I mean by that is that I don’t see everything as orchestrated or part of a secret global plot. I believe accidents can happen and that people can do terrible things unaided or completely of their own volition. But, all that said, I also believe that the rule “never let a crisis go to waste” is not an invention of Rahm Emanuel.

Political opportunism is rampant on all sides. And then there’s the just plain letting something bad happen to use for advancing agenda.

What I’m about to detail is all verifiable facts and not conjecture. I’m just going to lay it out then let you reach your own reasonable conclusions. I’ll also prime this topic with a response to 9/11 that has made less sense in retrospect and that is the invasion of Iraq that followed. Saddam Hussain was not at all involved in the attacks. The war cost the US trillions of dollars, 4,419 Americans lost their lives, 31,993 wounded, and that is not to mention the Iraqi losses. We traded that much blood and treasure for claims of there being WMDs—which our government knew were mostly or completely destroyed.

So what was the actual reason for regime change in Iraq?

But, before we answer, let’s get to some of the facts on 9/11. And, again, I’ll stick only to what is verified and not speculate beyond what is very easily corroborated with videos and news articles from the time. This is all things known according to official records, eyewitness accounts, and confessions on foreign television.

While the rest of the country watched 9/11 unfold in horror, five men were seen filming the burning World Trade Center towers from a white van, they were seen high-fiving, and appearing jovially celebratory from the New Jersey side. Their behavior was so totally alarming, and in contrast to what one may expect seeing the US under attack and with people literally being forced to jump to their deaths that a concerned citizen reported it to authorities.

Trump said Muslims were celebrating in Jersey City. Not true. What he should have said is Mossad.

Later in the day the van was stopped by the police and these five men, Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner, and Omer Marmari—dubbed the “Dancing Israelis”—were arrested.

These Israeli men were employed by Urban Moving Systems, a company that was also owned by Israeli national, Dominik Suter, and the men possessed items like $4,700 in cash stuffed in a sock, they carried multiple foreign passports, maps highlighting New York City, and a box cutter like those used in the 9/11 hijackings, further FBI searches of this firm’s Weehawken offices uncovered a fraudulent operation with minimal evidence that it was a legitimate business. Add to it, 16 seized computers, and reports of anti-American sentiment among staff, including boasts about subverting U.S. media. Suter’s abrupt flight to Israel just before a second FBI interview, abandoning the premises with client property and phones left behind, only amplified suspicions.

Perhaps most damningly, in a 2001 Israeli TV interview on LaHadashot, one of the five men, Oded Ellner, chillingly stated they were placed in the U.S. specifically “to document the event,” a strange phrasing implying their prior awareness of the impending attacks. Which the FBI could not conclusively prove or disprove despite the months of detention and polygraphs, such led to the speculation—backed by a 2002 Forward report citing U.S. officials—that at least two of the five Israelis were Mossad operatives using the firm as a front. And officially to keep tabs on Arab extremists. I’ll let you judge if that is just a cover story or the truth.

Why we would ever believe him again, after the Iraq WMD lie…

Enter Benjamin Netanyahu. The day after the attacks, he was quoted in the NY Times as saying “it was very good” before he corrected himself and explained what he meant is that it would “generate immediate sympathy” that would benefit Israel. And it was a year to the day after this that he was pitching a war with Iraq to Congress, calling himself an “expert witness” and warning the legislative body of something that sounds so awfully familiar:

“There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons—no question whatsoever.”

Netanyahu continued his case:

“If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

There was zero evidence found to support Netanyahu’s dire warnings about WMDs. I will let you decide if regime change in Iraq was an amazing success that has only led to peace and prosperity for the region. But 9/11 was used as an excuse to invade Iraq and Netanyahu was cheering this on—much like the Dancing Israelis. None of this says for certain that Mossad had foreknowledge or withheld vital intelligence so the attacks could continue and draw the US into Israel’s conflicts. But we did spend trillions for a war that did absolutely nothing to advance our national security interests.

Many of these men may do it all over again, but would they if they knew what they were actually fighting for?

And then there’s October 7th. Netanyahu has called this Israel’s 9/11 and maybe this an admission. Recently, before his untimely death, Charlie Kirk made an observation in a discussion with Patrick Bet-David about the incredible security perimeter around Gaza and surveillance, expressing disbelief that it could be breeched and openly pondering if an order given to stand down. This, wasn’t just speculation. Israeli intelligence had the Hamas incursion plan a full year before and didn’t act, according to the New York Times, and on the night of the attacks former IDF guards have said they were told not to do their routine patrols.

So was the terrorist attack on 9/11 allowed to happen to generate sympathy to later be exploited to further Netanyahu’s agenda as far as Iraq? And as an order given to stand down on October 7th, likewise, benefits the ultimate aim of Likud which is written in the original 1977 party platform, “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the first Israeli Prime Minister born in what had been called Mandatory Palestine, was assassinated by a radical Zionist settler for seeking a peaceful resolution.

Maybe some see terrorists. I see a mother and a child, their lives as important as any other.

Israel brazenly attacked the USS Liberty for reasons never appropriately explained. The Lavon Affair exposes a level of deception and indifference to civilian casualties that shocked the international community—only surpassed in Gaza now the child amputee capital of the world with bombs paid for by the US taxpayers. Do we really need to speculate—with all of the facts above—if the Netanyahu regime is willing to sacrifice a few American lives in pursuit of their regional or political ambitions? With calculus as cold is there any limiting factor?

The recurring exploitation of crises like 9/11 and October 7th, paired with a history of deceptive hasbara, casts doubt on the credibility of official explanations, urging us to further scrutinize the manipulative tactics of those who may prioritize self-serving agendas over truth.

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"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." Albert Einstein

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