Is Modesty Oppression? No—Clothing as Protection, Group Identity and Civilization

What is clothing for?

Why do we put fabric all over our bodies—why not be naked?

For protection.

We wear clothes for a layer of protection against the elements.

Clothing helps us keep our body heat in the cold air. It is a barrier against harmful solar radiation. This invention allows us fragile creatures to navigate harsh environments that would kill us otherwise.

We also wear clothes as a matter of public health. This covering is beneficial from a sanitation perspective and for keeping all of our disease spreading bodily fluids off of shared surfaces.

There is a significant social component or function as well. Having the ‘right’ clothes matters if you want to fit in. It could be a religious group you wish to belong to or just the popular kids at school—but you will be judged by the outfits you wear.

My son, for example, found out the pair of sneakers (bought with his money) weren’t cool because they weren’t some recognized name brand. Agree or not, I know there’s no point in fighting this pressure to conform. If a kid does not want to be ridiculed they will wear the currently acceptable style.

Even those counter-cultural types are just responding to this pressure by going in an opposite—yet as completely predictable—direction. From Hipsters who all looked the same trying to be different to the Goth kids with their own uniform that is stricter than the typical and mainline dress regime—all are obeying a rule.

Even in trying to look different we end up looking the same.

Dress is a part of group identity—a way to belong to a group. Amish will know other Amish in the same way gang members or police officers recognize each other. It is by wearing the correct colors, or following the correct patterns, that an individual gains the necessary recognition to gain the benefit and protection of a community. Sure, we may not always like it, we might see this as being superficial, but clothing sends signals that can either make us more vulnerable or more safe.

Conservatives have long valued modesty over inviting attention. This is something developed from tradition. But not tradition without any practical purpose or merit. My wife, from a place where the government is a bit weaker, told me never to display any signs of wealth as this would make me into a target. And I could certainly protest the recommendation as an infringement on my freedom—that I am American, with rights, and can therefore will do whatever I please! However, that belief won’t save me from a mugger in a back alley, will it?

Modesty is about protection. It is about keeping hungry eyes off of those assets we don’t plan on giving away. No, that does not mean our immodesty justifies assault, theft or rape. It also does not mean our modesty is a foolproof protection. Rather, it is sort of like N95 masks and Covid, this is only one part of a larger strategy that is designed to minimize a particular risk rather than fully eliminate it.

It is sometimes a matter of public decency and respect for others. If there’s a sign on the door of a business: “no shirt, no shoes, no service” Why make a scene?

We should understand—as conservative people—that this public space comes with a set of public expectations and should probably comply without causing drama.

There was a time—and not very long ago—for the reasons outlined above, a woman wouldn’t leave the house without a proper dress, blouse and bonnet. Both men and women covered up, to be prepared for an environment that was harsh and only the insane did otherwise. Clothing was part of being civilized and a value of modesty tied very intimately to Christian religion and the Biblical standard.

Wolves in Sheep’s Skin

Some clothing is dishonest.

A disguise.

In order to gain acceptance and trust (going back to group identity and belonging) some will wear a costume of something they do not represent to gain trust And the “wolves in sheep’s skin” have infiltrated every conservative institution in this nation and turned them into a propaganda tool of godless empire.

Take Matt Schlapp, for example, the present chairman of American Conservative Union—also the first ever paid chair of Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) where he received a modest $600,000 in annual compensation—and an additional $175,000 for his wife on top of that. All while he has faced multiple allegations of groping men when he’s out drinking. One of the accusers—who had publicly apologized for the “misunderstanding”—was also quietly paid off (by a insurance company that represents ACU) to the tune of $480,000! More recently he got a little too touchy-feely with men at a Virginia bar. This is your conservative leadership.

Schlapp, speaking recently on Piers Morgan Uncensored, attempted to justify the killing of 175 elementary school girls in southern Iran—reasoning that they were saved from religious extremism:

Beinart: “We know that if the U.S. and Israel had not attacked a country that poses no serious threat to them—Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, America has thousands—that those girls would be alive…”

Schlapp: “They’d be alive in a burqa … this is … a barbaric society…”

Morgan: “hang on.”

[The conversation continues…]

Schlapp: “It’s hypocritical to say that these attacks harmed women and children when those women and children, the young girls that you reference, would be … live a life in a barbaric, unequal society behind a burqa, with no ability to make career choices…”

Uygur: “So just kill them?”

Schlapp: “No, that’s not what I’m saying either…”

Uygur: “That is what you said…”

While Schlapp apologists will claim that their accused man-groping ‘conservative’ was not actually saying what he seemed to be saying—it is abundantly clear that this was trying very hard to minimize a horrific slaughter.

Where do you even start?

Schlapp is directing his appeal to people who hate feminism and yet desperately want to get one over on their evil ‘liberal’ women by their disingenuously siding against ‘the patriarchy’ to justify murder? Either that or he’s a closeted leftist who hates women and religion so much that ridding the world of a school full of youngsters indoctrinated to believe that his unconsenting grabs of male parts is a sin feels right to him?

I won’t pretend to know what goes on in the twisted moral rot of this man’s mind, but as one who is friends with traditional women (Christian and Muslims) who do wear a veil his take is appalling. It would be equivalent to a feminist saying—“Well, at least those Amish girls killed at Nickel Mines will be spared a life of oppression speaking PA Dutch, getting married and working around the house!” What total horse shit. Women are as happy in traditional cultures are they are in any other—maybe even happier—the “happiness paradox” refers to the increase in female financial independence which has corresponded directly with decrease in happiness.

Sure, Schlapp does not come right out and say they’re better off dead. But what is he saying? What is he implying?

There this insane level of arrogance, which is reflected in Schlapp’s statement, of these people just assume that people who do not look exactly like them—share their cultural values, religious traditions or political perspectives—are better off dead. It is just plain bigoted nonsense.

The top picture is of Iranian women in a hijab. The bottom is Afghan women in burkas.

Furthermore, showing his ignorance, Iranian women don’t wear the burqa. They wear a hijab. It’s a detail that likely doesn’t matter to his MAGA target audience. And yet this is a huge difference. The burqa covers an entire face, it is more common with Sunnis (Saudi Arabia), and not required by Iranian law. The hijab, by contrast, doesn’t cover a face, it is a hair covering that is very similar to what Christian women wore for centuries before the society liberalized. Sure, maybe it shouldn’t be mandated, but it’s as Biblical as the Ten Commandments:

Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head.
(1 Corinthians 11:4-6 NIV)

Incidentally, it is this passage above which makes it so strange that so many ‘Christian’ (Zionist) Presidents and public officials will wear a hat while praying and kissing a wall—deliberately dishonoring Christ. But more to the point, is this a “barbaric” practice? Is religious headgear, a Nun’s habit, some kind of terrible evil which totally excuses blowing up an elementary school?

Or is there something else going on here?

One of these is an Orthodox Christian the other is Mike Huckabee.

I’m going with something else. Schlapp is a neo-con grifter. A warlike and lying sexual deviant who will proclaim American values then fights for a nation that sodomizes their detainees, without consequences, now seeks to execute the people they oppress, and then calls those who oppose this “barbaric.” A society that drives it’s own abused daughters to suicide. The same people vigorously defend bombing of schools, hospitals, residential areas, the killing scores of children and civilians, then claims that the war about the liberation of women?

This is as much moral inversion as anything from the ‘woke’ left. We kill to save?

Furthermore, for all this talk about career choice, Iran graduates a significantly higher percentage of females in STEM fields than Israel or the US. So, in response to that part of Schlapp’s absurd statement: What are the career choices Iranian women are currently unable to make? Is he talking about OnlyFans?

Which woman is liberated? The one using her brains or the one displaying her body?

If we’re such great defenders of feminity, so much so that we can dictate to sovereign states what standards of decency they can or cannot have, why haven’t there been any Epstein client arrests?

Phony Fat Cracker Barrel Conservatives

The Schlapp types, neo-con Zionists, aren’t conservative at all. Sure, they always wrap themselves in Christian identity, but they’re not peacemakers, they feed prejudices and promote endless war that has cost trillions of dollars as well as millions of lives around the world. They will fein concern for Iranian rights in one breath then promote bombing the country into oblivion in the next.

They exploit jingoistic sentiment in the beer gut football crowd who (in their lack of Christian character) confuse toughness and masculinity with excessive violence. Every problem is solved with a gun or a bomb for them. This phony ‘conservativism’ of these war-mongering empire building neo-cons is antithetical to Christianity—it is anti-Christ and one part of their Epstein-class campaign to dismantle American values.

The Republican elites are as totally opposed to traditional American values as the Democrats—they just need our conservative votes.

The Cracker Barrel conservatives—people who get riled up over a change in corporate kitsch—enable these cultural vandals. The religious right talks incessantly about every tempest in a teapot controversy and then go mute when the Trump administration has worked overtime to protect billionaire pedophiles. These are the type that Jesus had called out for their straining on gnats and swallowing camels. They have no principles other than vote for the ‘red’ team on election day because we can’t let ‘blue’ team ‘liberals’ win—they imagine themselves as defenders of Western civilization yet will put their weight behind an oppressive regime if it is dressed right according to their own partisan fashion.

What’s important? The 4th and 5th Amendments or saving old-timey corporate kitsch?

They side against our own dissidents, make fun of Renee Good who was killed by ICE agents shouting conflicting orders, say Alex Pretti deserved getting shot in the back for being a guy who intervened when a woman was being assaulted, and then suddenly do a complete reversal to express moral outrage when Saleh Mohammadi, 19, was executed after a trial for murder of two police officers. The same people who can justify the deaths of 175 innocent children as “part of war,” are siding with an accused and convicted cop killer? What a mindless propaganda-blinded and flip-flopping lot—we’re living in a scene from 1984.

The same people who justify the killing of Good and Pretti defend an Iranian wrestler convicted of the murder of two police officers.

Trump wrapping himself in a flag (literally) is all it took. All he needs to do is hold up a Bible, hand out a few signed copies of the Bible for the MAGA faithful, and suddenly he’s the next thing to Jesus in the Evangeli-con pantheon. His aggression becomes integrity, his lewdness honesty, and arrogance a virtue. And he is aware, see how Trump described the cult’s devotion during the run up to his first term: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”

Trump is a manifestation of cultural rot, we celebrate immodesty and excess. The book of Philippians describes some who profess faith as the “enemies of the cross of Christ” (3:18) and proceeds to warn, “Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame” and “their mind is set on earthly things.” And this is our American consumerism. We see ourselves as the heroes, as representing freedom and democracy, when we’re really Egypt and Sodom (oppressor and corruption) cloaked in a pretense of righteousness.

We could use a bit of modesty. A moment of introspection and self-awareness.

Reclaiming American Christian Values

The U.S. has never been the “shining city on the hill” envisioned in John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon and highlighted by Ronald Reagan.

Moral excellence is certainly a great goal even if we fall short. However, it is an aim which requires repentance. There are many things for this American nation should want to turn from. The ethnic cleansing of native populations, the institution of slavery, many wars of aggression and expansion—there is no purity here.

The U.S. has, if anything been exceptionally violent—from massacres in North America to the brutal occupation of the Philippines to the millions killed across the world as a result of aggressive policies—this country has never ceased in wars for control over resources. This conquest, sold to the public as some kind of moral mission or “Manifest Destiny,” was to conceal greed and a desire for things not ours to have.

There is no special American exception to the Christian requirement that all repent of their sins. That’s a starting point to the U.S. being great. To be truly great the goal is not to turn back the past mistakes, but turning away from them.

We should consider both bad and good examples from the past as a basis for improvement in the present.

This takes humility, not hubris.

The sin at the root of all moral pretense and posturing is pride—the very first sin, the one that changed Lucifer from God’s second in command into the father of lies. Pride tells us our culture, our politics, and our ways are just superior. Pride is what lets us dress up in sheep’s clothing of “conservative values” while living like wolves. Pride is what lets Matt Schlapp (or any of the other neo-con grifters) lecture on liberation while his own hands grope men in the dark and his mouth justifies the slaughter of schoolgirls. Pride is what lets the Cracker Barrel crowd wave a Bible one minute—rant against abortion, feminism, wokeism—only to cheer endless war and merciless bombings in the next, ignoring the plank in their own eye.

Christian conservatism worthy of the name begins with the opposite of pride: humility. It begins with the recognition that we are not owed respect—we must show it first. Just as modesty in clothing is not about shame but about protecting what is sacred, a respect of what is God’s, so too is respect in every other sphere. You do not demand entrance to another man’s house, another nation’s culture, or another woman’s dignity by force. Traditional modest dress of the past was never “oppression.” It was armor. It was just a public declaration: “I belong to something higher than my appetites. I will respect and you will respect me.”

The same principle applies to foreign policy, to political leadership, to every claim of “American exceptionalism.” An authentic conservatism does not bomb a school to “free” the girls inside it. It does not wrap imperial greed in the language of feminism or democracy. It does not make demands with threats of violence. Rather it says, with the Apostle Paul, “Let your gentleness be evident to all” (Phil 4:5) and “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Rom 12:18).

Principled Christian conservatism is not a costume. It is not red hats, Cracker Barrel nostalgia, or trillion-dollar defense contracts dressed up as patriotism. It is living a life of repentance. It is about mutual respect. It is the refusal to celebrate pride in any form—whether of immodesty, the aggressive “grab ’em by the pussy” arrogance of entitled men or just indifference about how our actions impact others. It is discipline of protecting what should be protected and also refusing to sacrifice our values for expediency.

If we want to belong to the Body of Christ then we must wear the right uniform code: humility, not hubris; respect, not ridicule; modesty, not exceptionalism. We must stop pretending America is already righteous or beyond reproach and start acting humbly like the sinners we are. Only then will we ever regain the respect we have lost. Only then will our clothing—literal and spiritual—actually protect instead of provoke.

More imperial “forever war” for the benefit of the Epstein-class.

Let the attire of our attitude preach truth: we are fragile, we are fallen, and the only safety worth having comes from walking in fear of the Lord, not by military might. That is the conservatism worth conserving—the repentance that can make us an example in the world and is the actual foundational basis of Christian civilization.

Schlapp says that Iran is a “barbaric culture” for dress standards different from our own and that bombing them is about defense of civilization. But a principled conservative is about consistent rules, true impartiality and no favoritism. It doesn’t decide if cop killers (or killer cops) are heroes or an attack on us all according to political needs. A civilized person seeks coherence and harmony, not unpredictability, brutality and dominance. It prefers local control and respects sovereign space of others. It gains a position through competency, not by trickery and deception, nor by threats and coercion.

Christian civilization rejects use of violence and notions of blood guilt. All must clothe themselves in the righteousness of Jesus—a clothing that we put on through Baptism, not our birth or bloodline:

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
(Galatians 3:26-29 KJV)

We replace lying with truth, maliciousness with kindness, fury with forgiveness, theft with generosity and are told “to put on the new self” and with this to be “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:22–32, Col 3:5–14) John Chrysostom (c. AD 347—407) described this putting on of Christ as “never to be forsaken of Him, and His always being seen in us through our holiness, through our gentleness”

Civilization may need to be qualified. We want Christian civilization, not an Old Testament violence reenactment.

We must reject the perversion of those who promote moral inversion where killing is an act of liberation and a society where more women graduate with STEM degrees called “barbaric” by the Epstein-class.

Schlapp’s depraved reasoning is a symptom of arrogance, not righteousness. If Jesus is our Lord, then we should be clothed in humility and a gentle example rather than a force of fury or violence.

The militarism of neo-cons is not the armor of God—it is a false protection—we need the attitude of repentance.

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Postscript: The point of this essay isn’t to defend the Islamic Republic of Iran. I have no doubts about it being a very brutal and intolerant regime. I also don’t write this as a strong advocate of modesty standards. But only to promote introspection about what we excuse and condemn. In one breath we are outraged by an execution in Iran, in the next we ignore the bombing of children in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. The same people who decry liberalism in the West celebrate the leftists in the East. This isn’t only about other people. This is also about me. After warning about Trump in 2014, I voted for the narcissist three times. He promised he would drain the swamp, to end the forever wars, and release the Epstein files. It was when he tried to gaslight about continued interest in Epstein that I realized I had been had. What I will say in my defense is that it wouldn’t be much improvement to vote for team blue. Kamala Harris couldn’t think of anything she would have done differently than Joe Biden. She shushed those trying to bring attention to the Gaza genocide and the Democrat party establishment has been as warlike as the Republicans despite their constituents. I must concede that we will not vote ourselves out of this. Society must change. True devotion to the base Christian principles—where Jesus is way more than a bobblehead on the dashboard of empire. If we want to change the world we need to lead by example rather than by force. The people of the world easily see through our facade, our oblivious talk of freedom and democracy, they see Egypt and Sodom.

Christ and the Antithesis: The Netanyahu “Jesus vs. Genghis Khan” Comparison

Recently, in remarks defending his aggression, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—quoted historian Will Durant to declare “history proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan” because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good and aggression will overcome moderation—laid bare a stark moral inversion.

In this view, the teachings of Jesus represent a path of weakness, losing, while the conqueror’s ruthlessness ensures survival. The modern state of Israel, in its actions and rhetoric, often seems to embody this reversal of means: where the New Testament calls for love, the response is enmity; where it urges mercy, the strategy is application of overwhelming force; where Jesus promises a blessing to the meek, Israeli’s power is pursued through dominance.

If the Gospel says to love your neighbor, policies build barriers and displace. If Jesus commands turning the other cheek, retaliation escalates. If it blesses peacemakers, the calculus becomes one of preemptive attacks over moderation. And the Sermon on the Mount teaching and example of Jesus is treated not as a blueprint for life but as a cautionary tale for losers—nice ideals unfit for a world where barbarians crash the gates unless you become the stronger barbarian first.

Many professing Christians appear to accept this pragmatic dismissal of their Lord’s teachings in the “real world,” but I believe those teachings—if sincerely and universally applied by the faithful—would bring profound benefit even to ordinary people caught in wars, the soldiers and civilians alike.

But how would this look in practice?

I decided to arrange the teaching of the Gospel into a series of logical gates on a pathway of escalation-reversal which will lead to a new systemic reality:

A. Repentance: The Changing of Our Own Individual Perspective

1) The Golden Rule (Empathy): We must see things from our ‘enemies’ perspective. Why are they actually doing what they’re doing? This is a step that requires looking past propaganda and prejudice to find the grievance, then stop to think how we would respond if we were facing similar circumstances and then adjust accordingly. If we don’t want our own city bombed—then the logic of bombing theirs will immediately collapse.

2) Loving Your Enemies (Humanization): If we start to see a neighbor in our opponent rather than some negative label (terrorist, liberal, rats, etc) we’ll be less inclined to be in favor of just incinerating them and their families. This makes us more immune to the wartime propaganda that caricatures and demonizes opponents as being something less than us. Love is to see them as being human rather than aliens. The ‘enemy’ is someone’s brother, uncle, husband, father or friend—can you at least love those harmed by violence against them?

B. Restraint: Being Deliberate Rather Than Reactionary

3) Turn the Other Cheek (Non-retaliation): This is the one that goes most against us and probably where I would get the most resistance from Evangeli-cons. At the very least it is prudent to count the cost of the response in kind (Luke 14:28-33) and ask if we can afford to go down the path of tit-for-tat violence. A tactical pause can be beneficial if only to avoid a trap. Many believe that the path to dominance is by meeting every provocation with an aggressive response. But this may be exactly what the other side anticipated; they expect you to flail wildly, overextend, and give them the opportunity to expose your true character to others. There is special power in non-response—employment of a Machiavellian strategy of not letting others set your tempo—to stay in control and dominate on another level.

4) Putting Away the Sword (Disarmament): Saber-rattling is a go-to intimidation tactic, the idea of putting on displays of military prowess to deter an opponent. However it does not usually work as a long-term plan. If you wave a gun in someone’s face you’ll be more likely to start an arms race. People don’t like to be humiliated. Drawing a weapon will create a feedback loop that may truly only increase the threat. The U.S. war machine dropped nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the thinking this would back down the Soviets—it only led Stalin to prioritize the building of their own nuclear deterrence.

C. Try a Little Diplomatic Engagement

5. Overcome Evil with Good (Reframe the Conversation): Dropping bombs is fun. It can be very satisfying to see those who we have been led to believe’deserve it’ squirm under pressure. But this is a path of mutual destruction. It makes a whole lot more sense to turn the competitor into a partner with a peace offering: “Hey, so we are sorry we overthrew your democratic government to help BP steal your oil—here is the money we owed you from that defense contract which fell through!” It is difficult to harbor ill will towards someone who is actively doing nice things for you. War is expensive.

6. The Peacemaker (Mediator): It is much easier to stay on the sidelines or to take a side. Everyone says they want peace, to avoid wars, and yet few are willing to build the bridge. As the saying goes “if there’s a will there’s a way” and making peace is a matter of will. It may take a little extra effort and risk, yet peace pays dividends. War is a very costly affair both in terms of men and material—finding a way to unravel a conflict before it blows up is a win-win for all but those war profiteers

D. Mission Accomplished: Building a New Reality

7. Ministry of Reconciliation (Restoration): The ultimate goal of all the above is not only to get to a “ceasefire” or ending of the current war, but to a “Shalom” which is to say a bonding into a whole of the various factions. We want to end all war by marrying the two-halves of the conflict to make something better. The Japanese and Americans are far better off exchanging money for minivans than trading munitions. So maybe if we spent as much money pursuing these favorable outcomes, as we did to support the bloated Department of War (or Defense) we would finally reach those better ends we claim to seek despite our never fully investing?

The Tremendous Benefit of Learning From Past Mistakes.

When I was younger and dumber I believed a lot of the propaganda put in front of me. Iraq was a threat. Despite having nothing to do with 9/11—an attack by citizens of our own allies—Saddam Hussain was spun into the real threat. Despite a promise back then of “tremendous benefits” from the same man mocking Jesus today—the results were 4,492 U.S. military deaths, with over 32,000 wounded, and an overall cost of approximately three trillion dollars.

For sake of reference, gas in 2002 cost $1.36 per gallon—we now pay $3.91 and will only see that continue to rise as the onslaught continues. Is this truly the “winning, winning, winning” that we’ve heard Netanyahu advertise?

Allow me this spoof of the infamous 2002 Iraq “enormous positive reverberations” testimony that Netanyahu gave in the run up to the Iraq war:

If we had taken out the path of endless war back then, I guarantee you that it would have had enormous positive reverberations in the region… but instead we did the opposite, and look what happened.

We believed removing Saddam would topple tyrants and spark democracy like dominoes—yet it unleashed chaos, empowered Iran, birthed ISIS, cost trillions, and left generations scarred. I’ve seen the soldiers who returned maimed. The ‘positive reverberations’ turned into shockwaves of suffering that echoed for decades.

So today, let’s finally learn the lesson from our history: aggression doesn’t guarantee victory; it often only guarantees the next war. The real tremendous benefit comes not from more bombs and regime changes, but from our repentance, restraint, and reconciliation—from applying the very teachings we too often set aside.

If we invert the escalation instead of the Gospel, perhaps the region—and the world—will finally see some true positive reverberations: peace that lasts, neighbors who humanize each other, and a Shalom worth guaranteeing.

The costs of war are enormous. There are no winners in war. Even if your side comes out ‘victorious’ it is a drain of a nation’s blood and treasure. That’s the real picture, the real result, and we will be the ones bearing the increased burden. The U.S. debt has gone from being 3.55 trillion dollars in 2002 to $39.05 trillion and not slowing down. A big chunk of that is the bill for endless war. So maybe for Netanyahu there’s “enormous positive reverberations” because it didn’t cost him a dime, but the reality is that we have lost reputation—the little that remains of Christian witness and confidence that we once had to manage world affairs. The Petrodollar and, with it, exorbitant privilege—which gave us the economic advantages that made us a global superpower. And maybe this loss of prestige is by design? Israel has benefitted at our great expense.

Many Americans want death to Iranian people. The phrase used by protestors of US imperialism was specifically aimed at the regime that endlessly harassed their people, at policies and not people. They blamed the regime of billionaires and politicians who rule over us.

The biggest lie of this century is that abandoning the way of Jesus is our most realistic option. The truth is that we’re sacrificing our future with the false idea that our security depends on us killing all who oppose the same tyranny we experience every tax season when we pay for all the bombs that rain on Gaza. Our actions are going to have immeasurable consequences.

Dismiss this if you like. Side with the antithesis of Christ and say that it is totally unrealistic. But why pray, hypocritically, “Thy will on Earth as it is in heaven” while then simultaneously plotting to wipe out those we’re expressly told to love? I’m not saying this is easy, and yet this is simply part and parcel of a religion that teaches you will be forgiven as you forgive and judged as you judge. I’m convinced if we work our way down this list—taking care of first things first—we could have what seems impossible.

God and Mammon: From Prosperity Gospel to Epstein Redactions

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
(Matthew 6:24 KJV)

This teaching popped into my mind a few weeks ago and while reflecting on where our morality has broken down in the United States. Mammon is an interesting Biblical word and refers to more than just money as currency. Jesus is not talking about having material wealth here, rather he’s addressing about misplaced trust and devotion put in it. And “serve” seems like a key operational word here. In Greek it is “douleuó” (δουλεύω) and the term refers to slavery or bondage.

Mammon: Dedicated to His Worshippers, George Frederic Watts, 1885

Jesus was confronted on this teaching by the Pharisees—who we’re told sneered at him. But we are also told they were the same people who would shortchange their own parents by abusing the practice of ‘Corban’—by claiming money was set aside for God (Matt. 15:1-9, Mark 7:1-13)—when it was all about their own gain. When you’re addicted to material gain, you’d likely sell off your own mother for another hit of the money drug and can’t be a good person. A slave to the ‘almighty dollar’ will basically do any evil to obtain more of it.

For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
(1 Timothy 6:7-10 NIV)

Pray for contentment, not cash. You can have enough to eat and live without a big bank account. We may enjoy—or imagine—a feeling of security from having more, but it is false security and pursuit of it leads to moral compromise. As Mark 8:36 asks: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”

The American Evangelical landscape does not handle this very well. The ‘health and wealth” or prosperity gospel might not be openly preached in every church, but there’s often the underlying assumption that those who have money are blessed. I mean, you don’t want to ever offend those who fill the offering plate, do you?

This errant belief that material success equates to divine favor has seeped deeply into political alliances, particularly among Evangelicals who have thrown their support behind leaders promising them economic prosperity above all else. Donald Trump, with his gilded persona and “art of the deal” ethos, became a symbol of this worldview—tremendously blessed by wealth, endorsed by faith leaders, and appearing to be toualluntouchable.

Yet, as his second term unfolds, we’re now seeing how devotion to money over all else manifests in government—prioritizing billionaire gains over accountability and human suffering. It isn’t the paradise promised.

Life Under Bondi-age

One of the big reasons Trump had seemed like a better choice than a continuation of a Biden administration, under Harris, was his ‘green’ policies. He appeared to be a “make money, not war” candidate, given his history of draft dodging and no new war first term. Maybe it was just weariness of the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine that made him a hope to the “it’s the economy, stupid” crowd. He also promised to release the Epstein files—which would mean some justice, right?

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s testimony to Congress is a revelation of a mentality that is completely detached. Who knows who coached her—or maybe it was completely her own idea? But the answers she gave only raised more eyebrows.

For example, when asked:

How many of Epstein’s co-conspirators have you indicted? How many perpetrators are you even investigating?

She replied:

Because Donald Trump, the Dow, the Dow right now is over — the Dow is over $50,000. I don’t know why you’re laughing. You’re a great stock trader, as I hear, Raskin. The Dow is over 50000 right now, the S&P at almost 7,000, and the Nasdaq smashing records. Americans’ 401(k)s and retirement savings are booming. That’s what we should be talking about. We should be talking about making Americans safe. We should be talking about — what does the Dow have to do with anything? That’s what they just asked. Are you kidding?

Is she kidding?

That’s astonishingly callous.

With victims in the crowd, she really thought it would play well to deflect with a pivot to a stock market highs?

Now, sure, this sort of hearing is a very partisan and high-pressure event. And a great many of those lawmakers are guilty of a cover-up as the Trump administration. Lest we forget it, around 80% to 90% of Epstein’s political donations went to Democrats. But now responsibility for the continued lack of transparency about this lies squarely on the Trump administration.

Bondi’s Justice Department has violated the law, The Epstein Files Transparency Act—a bill demanding the unredacted release of the files pushed through by representatives Thomas Massie (R) and Ro Khanna (D), by continued use of redactions that extends a cover-up that has gone on for decades. And both parties are neck-deep in this scandal, which is why nothing was done about it last administration despite Trump’s name being in the files tens of thousands of times—and probably many more mentions still hidden under all those black lines.

Remember when JD Vance sounded like Thomas Massie?

The administration that ran on a promise to tell the truth about Epstein has become one where Trump gaslights:

Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years, are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable. I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this, when we’re having some of the greatest success, and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration.

I mean, why would we still be talking about a guy who was apparently sex trafficking a bunch of underage girls to a very long list of elites who have yet to be prosecuted, right?

The truth is a ‘desecration’ of Texas flooding response somehow?

Wherever the case, Bondi isn’t a fraction as skilled as her boss at this game. If you are going to pivot off a question about horrible sexual crimes and ritual abuse not leading to dozens of arrests, then at least deflect away to matters of an equal moral weight. As in this “We have arrested X amount of pedophiles, more than any administration since Genghis Khan—we’re making America safe again!” That would sound much less tone deaf than turning to the economy as if this nullifies questions about Epstein.

What does Bondi’s pivot scream?

It shouts that money can take her attention off of crime—that she can be bribed. More importantly, it suggests she thinks we will be distracted by money and forget about a total lack of prosecutions.

In the end, Bondi’s deflection and the Trump administration’s broader pattern reveals the stark truth: when mammon reigns supreme, justice for the vulnerable becomes optional, and the soul of a nation is quietly sold off in exchange for an economy that mostly benefits billionaires. True contentment—and true greatness or lasting gain—will never come from chasing a dollar or at expense of seeking justice for all people.

The crazy part is that most who voted for Trump thinking it would help their portfolio and would keep us out of war—will find out that those who bought him have no problem with sending your sons to die in Iran.

Lies, Damned Lies, and AI — The Machine Can’t Replace Mind

AI is an exciting new tool—kind of like Wikipedia was back in the day, something fun to turn to for those quick answers. But let’s be clear: AI is NOT a replacement for actual research. No, it isn’t an independent mind, and it’s certainly no impartial judge. All it really does is take the content that’s currently acceptable to its creators and then will synthesize it into responses. And it will lie to you outright, with zero conscience, because it has no conscience at all. It’s a sophisticated machine, a tool, nothing more or less, and it can absolutely be manipulated by the agendas of those behind the scenes who run it.

Like Wikipedia or so-called fact-checkers, at best, AI reflects the current bias or the established narrative. A perfect example of this is the lab leak theory for Covid-19’s origins. Back when some of us were talking about it, we were being “debunked” (some even banned), only for things to reverse later. As of early 2025, the CIA has assessed that a research lab origin is more likely than a natural one. So, to all the “sources please” crowd: beware. There’s no substitute for building your own knowledge base and using your own brain to evaluate things independently of official or established organizations.

AI is probably less reliable than your GPS. Sure, the tool works most of the time, but it’s no replacement for your own eyes or basic navigation skills. “Death by GPS” is a real category for a reason—if the machine were totally accurate, people wouldn’t drive off cliffs or into lakes after following bad directions. We need our own internal map, built on some established waypoints and a landmark or two, rather than just plugging in an address and blindly following the device into the abyss. Above all, we need a strong internal BS detector, we need it because the tool belongs to them—and it does what its creators need it to do. And telling you the unvarnished truth isn’t always the priority.

At its very best, AI will reflect the currently available information and most dominant narrative. Imagine, had the technology been available, asking it about the threat of Covid early on—it very likely would have dismissed outlier concerns as rumors, downplayed the disease in comparison to the seasonal flu, maybe even lectured about racism—while echoing the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s encouragement, February of 2020, to visit those crowded streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown in total defiance of emerging fears. (A family member ridiculed me for saying Covid would be a big deal at that time—dutifully citing mainstream media sources saying it was less worrisome than the seasonal flu.)

People have also very quickly forgotten how The Lancet published a deeply flawed study in the critical early weeks of the pandemic claiming hydroxychloroquine was extremely dangerous—only to quietly retract it later because the authors couldn’t verify the authenticity of the data. In short, the data was totally unreliable, and was a study based on falsehoods presented as science. If that was the “reliable” information being fed into an AI system back then, what would it have told you the scientific consensus was? It would have parroted the lie, and made it as unreliable as the retracted paper during the most urgent phase of the crisis. AI didn’t exist in its current form at the time, but its behavior would have mirrored exactly what I describe: reflecting the biased mainstream thought rather than truly act as a functioning as an independent thinker.

AI lags behind reality. A semi-independent mind—one relying on their personal intelligence and a grounded model of the world—can oftentimes do better. When I saw the early images coming out of Wuhan and listened to reports from doctors there (some of whom later died or disappeared), I knew this was not just the seasonal flu. It didn’t matter how many three-letter agencies were being quoted by corporate media; I could make my own judgment. I also quickly realized how terribly politicized even a pandemic can become. People didn’t pick sides based on the evidence—instead, they chased (or even invented) evidence to confirm their partisan narratives.

If AI had existed back then, it would have picked a side based on what its owners wanted. Covid is where I really honed my BS detector and learned that both sides lie—not that I was oblivious before, but seeing it play out in real time was very eye-opening. Partisans would flip positions the moment their preferred politicians did. Suddenly, independent voices raising alarms (with Trump leaning that way) became the target, then Democrats outflanked this with total hysteria after their months of denial when it actually mattered. We saw the same flip with Operation Warp Speed: with the left as vaccine skeptics while Trump promoted them, only for the Democrats pushing hard for mandates while Republicans opposed even masks.

How fast a symbol of oppression/security can become a symbol of oppression/security. Questions remain about effectiveness in either context.

Now, identity-obscuring masks are back in style as authoritarian right-wing fashion, as ICE agents terrorize, and insurrections are now cool again for Democrats who dislike immigration laws or the last election results. And AI won’t fix any of this partisanship—especially when people use it without understanding how it works or its severe limitations.

At best, AI is a good supplement or starting point for someone who already knows how to ask the right questions. At worst, it will lie and give you exactly what you want to hear. But one thing is certain: AI is NOT an objective truth-teller. Rely on your own reasoning, your own research, your own past experience, the reliable voices you have vetted on your own or your own BS detector first. The AI machine is no substitute. Yes, independent thinking is tough, in practice, and yet we must be smarter than the tool. Journalism, Wikipedia, or fact-checkers and GPS—all of these things are reliable… until they’re not.

More Death in Minneapolis: Questions About Federal Enforcement and Accountability

The recent fatal shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital, by U.S. Border Patrol agents has left many Americans—including many who identify as conservative—grappling with deep unease. On January 24, 2026, amid escalating protests against Federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, Pretti was executed while trying to protect a woman from Federal agents who had just knocked her down. Multiple eyewitness videos, verified by major outlets like The New York Times and NBC News, show Pretti holding a phone—not a gun—while attempting to assist a woman who had been shoved to the ground. Federal officials initially claimed self-defense, alleging he approached with a weapon, but sworn witness testimonies and footage contradict this, describing him as non-resistant and focused on helping others.

Pretti was a dedicated healthcare worker who cared for veterans, an avid outdoorsman, and a U.S. citizen with no criminal record beyond minor traffic issues. He had a valid firearms permit, was legally carrying at the time of the confrontation, but evidence indicates no firearm was brandished. His family has condemned the official narrative as “sickening lies,” and protests erupted almost immediately, with Minnesota officials like Gov. Tim Walz calling the incident “sickening” and demanding an end to what they describe as a federal “occupation.” It marks the second fatal shooting of a US citizen by Federal agents in Minneapolis this month, following Renee Good’s death on January 7.

What disturbs me most is the reaction from the MAGA right-wing. Pretti has been quickly labeled as a “Communist” or “domestic terrorist” online, often solely based on his presence at the protests against immigration raids or the unverified social media claims. Yet reliable reports portray him as apolitical in daily life—as kind, service-oriented, and uninterested in partisan drama. His friends and colleagues emphasize his true commitment to saving lives, not disrupting them. Celebrating or dismissing his death, dehumanizing him with labels, because he fits a convenient ideological enemy is profoundly wrong. Rights violations don’t depend on politics. No, due process and presumption of innocence apply to everyone, even (or especially) those we disagree with.

This selective outrage highlights a deeper issue not being addressed: this is political retribution disguised as enforcement. Minnesota has a very small illegal immigrant population compared to other states, around 95,000–130,000 (per recent Pew Research and state analyses), nothing like Texas (2.1 million) or Florida (1.6 million)—red states with far larger numbers. And yet Federal resources, including thousands of ICE, Border Patrol, and DHS agents deployed since late 2025, have disproportionately targeted blue Minnesota with sanctuary-like policies. Freezing billions in Federal funds to the state and overriding local law enforcement appears to be punitive, aimed at breaking political resistance rather than uniform honest immigration control.

This echoes historical patterns of a central power crushing regional autonomy, and most starkly in Joseph Stalin’s use of starvation against Ukraine during the Holodomor of 1932–1933. Stalin had deliberately engineered a man-made famine to suppress Ukrainian nationalism and resistance to Soviet collectivization, killing millions through grain seizures, border blockades, and denial of aid—this framed as necessary for national unity and ideological purity, but was clearly intended to crush a semi-autonomous region’s defiance. Here, the heavy-handed federal deployment in Minnesota—targeting a state resisting central directives—clearly mirrors that authoritarian tactic: punish non-compliance under the guise of security, erode local sovereignty, and break any “resistance” to the regime’s aims.

The US Constitution originally designed states as semi-sovereign entities—much like small nations —with the Federal government focused on their defense and on interstate affairs. Expansions of Federal authority—starting as an unfortunate byproduct of Lincoln’s Civil War centralization of power and those Reconstruction-era impositions, shifted the balance. Today’s actions—militarized deployments without state consent, the killings during protests, and limited (or non-existent) cooperation in investigations—violate the 10th Amendment’s spirit. A Federal judge has already issued a restraining order on DHS crowd-control tactics, and multiple states have since joined legal challenges calling them “militarized and illegal.”

George Orwell diagnosed this in 1984: regimes manufacture perpetual enemies to justify control—using propaganda to invert reality. Fear of “outsiders” or “internal threats” (protesters, or sanctuary cities) is stoked to excuse force, while media—dominated by a few billionaire-aligned outlets—amplifies narratives that dumb down discourse. Some cheer Federal agents after these killings, seeing them as heroes against an illegal “invasion,” yet ignore contradictions like inaction in red states with bigger populations. People who just a couple years ago decried Covid mandates and the slaying of Ashli Babbitt now seem to see FAFO as a moral argument. It’s always the same playbook: dehumanize, divide, and centralize the decision making power.

The above is brazen disinformation with an agency logo. They’re distorting and misleading people.

The right-wing is just as collectivist and dumb as those who they derided as being leftist, Socialist or Communist. They couldn’t articulate a logical consistent argument in defense of their irrational smorgasbord approach to ethics and morality, it is just whatever is expedient in the moment and on the whim of their Big Brother stand in (DJT) as the billionaires technocrats decide how they will manage us unruly human cattle.

Partisans keep flip flopping. The truly principled do not change and stand for “liberty and justice for all” as they pledged.

Orwell didn’t foresee AI and mass surveillance tools like Palantir, but the parallels are eerie. During COVID, many on the right had decried overreach in the name of liberty; now, similar authoritarian capabilities are embraced when aimed at perceived enemies. They fail to see the machine they’re building will also be turned on them. They reveal themselves as tools rather than moral thinkers. This hypocrisy reveals how various systems of control operate identically—whether they’re labeled Socialist, authoritarian, woke or otherwise—they erode rights selectively until they target anyone dissenting.

Pretti’s death isn’t about immigration politics alone; it’s about the erosion of constitutional norms, the weaponization of federal power against states, and the willingness to overlook violations when the victim is painted as “the other.” True conservatism should defend limited government, state sovereignty, and individual rights always—not cheer when Federal agents kill citizens in the street (then clap in celebration) over disputed enforcement actions. If we accept this for “Communists” today, tomorrow it could be anyone labeled an enemy. When a regime is given permission to abuse Nazis then everyone is a Nazi if they stand up to the regime. That’s how this works and smart people aren’t a party to it.

Yes, the agents clapped and said “boo hoo” learning of the ICU nurse’s death. Very similar to the attitude of Jonathan Ross who exclaimed “fucking bitch” after he shot a woman in the face.

We need accountability, especially at the top, in a time when our President’s wealth has doubled as he continues to protect pedophile predator elites, we need to ask why release of the Epstein files is being and unlawfully slow walked. We need to have independent investigations of these killings, transparency on bodycam footage, and an end to punitive Federal overreach. Lives like that of Alex Pretti’s—of ordinary Americans trying to help in chaotic moments imposed by officials who only double down rather than deescalate—deserve better than propaganda-fueled dismissal. We do not want to wait until two becomes two million—we either stand together now against a budding authoritarian regime or we fall separately.

Trump’s Primal Persuasion: Breaking Rules to Get Results (And Why It Both Grinds and Intrigues Me)

Every so often, I finally figure something out and can make a real observation. Recently, I saw a social media post from Trump—likely one of his bold declarations about Venezuela—and what he was doing became crystal clear.

He doesn’t have an actual inked or signed deal with the Venezuelan side yet. But that doesn’t matter. Trump is targeting people at a primal level rather than appealing to the intellect—because that’s where our decisions are truly made. We’re emotional creatures, not purely rational ones.

Trump is manifesting. He declares it, brings it into the realm of reality, then does everything in his power to bully everyone into accepting it. And it does make me wonder: Is this truly how the world works? It’s easier when you’re already a billionaire and the President, of course, but he names it and claims it. Or, using his colloquial description, it’s the “grab ’em by the p*ssy” style of persuasion: “She wants it. I’m rich and can get anything she wants. She’ll come around to seeing things my way.” It’s hyper-confidence—the insane confidence of a man who truly believes he can get away with anything. He’s the salesman who has fully bought into his own pitch and, through brutal persuasion, forces the sale: “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse!”

I’m not like that.

I always try to respect boundaries, persuade with logic and arguments. Trump just declares it, and if you don’t go along with his plan, you’re [insert insult here].

Let me explain with a personal example: Years ago, I wrote a 14-page letter to a woman I was interested in, laying out a long theological and philosophical argument to make my case. Of course, I never sent it. Yeah, I might be half autistic, but I’m not completely dumb. I know men don’t win a woman’s heart through her head. If I’d handed her that lengthy dissertation, she wouldn’t have cheered—she’d probably have cried, gotten confused, or walked away. Certainly not agreed to a date. In romance, we’re primal, not intellectual. The same applies to our political alignments.

If I actually knew how to do that primal type of persuasion in real time, I’d probably get my way more often. It’s the easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission mindset—and it wouldn’t exist if it didn’t actually work.

Entitled, narcissistic, and manipulative can also be described as media-savvy, self-assured, and effective—depending on how you frame it. Trump grinds my gears because he doesn’t follow the rules that exist in my worldview. He reframes the entire discussion with his violations of rules—like kidnapping a head of state—and yet it’s all part of a larger plan.

The real goal appears to be renewing the flow of oil from Venezuela to the US. Trump doesn’t care who is in charge or what economic system they have (though he knows you do). He’s focused on moving the conversation to where he needs it: a secure source of energy and minerals next door, not on the other side of the world.

Legal? Only if you stretch the law to its breaking point. Effective? Well, who wants to be next?

We all agree Maduro—like most politicians—probably belongs in jail, and maybe we should do this more often (at home rather than abroad). Making this bold military move is psychological: it’s intimidating and forces cooperation. If the new government makes a deal, the US lifts sanctions, oil flows again—and suddenly Venezuela’s universal healthcare isn’t an issue anymore. The real holdup was the pile of nonsense, grudges, and gridlock on both sides. Trump broke the rules of the conflict, and now he can negotiate a new deal for the benefit of everyone who cooperates.

Ultimately, like most people, I govern myself by external rules: Do this, don’t do that! We treat them as absolute, written in stone. I’ll die on this hill of my principles! But this can become a hindrance—a functional fixedness or quagmire of competing ideals that mostly boil down to semantics and different words for the same things. I know Trump is wrong because I’m right! He gets what he wants by breaking my rules of engagement, so he must be evil!

However, Friedrich Nietzsche called this “slave morality” and saw it as an obstacle to humanity’s full potential. His ideas of self-overcoming, being our own lawgiver, embracing the wholeness of life (without assigning moral weight to every experience), and rejecting herd mentality or conformity to the status quo all go against being compliant for sake of compliance.

Trump gets far more done with his impolite bluster than most do in a lifetime of “honest” effort. He appeals to our carnal, visceral side—and while all politicians do this to some degree, he does it nakedly, without the usual polish.

We confuse the rational (religious, scientific, or otherwise) with the reality of our base desires—for control, status, recognition. Trump disrupts, shakes the basket, and builds a new path through the chaos that suits his agenda.

Facing the ‘wrong’ way in an elevator makes people uncomfortable. But it’s not illegal. And people will actually conform to the group if they turn the opposite direction.

The world is governed by unwritten rules and unspoken agreements. Some of us want to nail it all down, demanding predictability and compliance with standards we were told would make the world better. We’re often jammed up in conflicts over false dichotomies and invented moral frameworks. I know this from my religious upbringing: the constant looking over our shoulders, meeting expectations rather than pursuing what we enjoy, and the resentment simmering underneath.

One of my Mennonite friends had the speed and size to be a D1 athlete, but he never pursued it because his conservative parents wouldn’t approve. He “kept the peace”—like many of us—at the expense of his potential.

He has expressed regrets.

From a Christian perspective, the self-actualizing person is unrepentant and rejects God. Trump’s habit of making up his own facts—like claiming an ICE agent was run over when video clearly shows otherwise—is strikingly similar to the “my own truth” of the woke left. The risk is complete detachment from our useful tradition (what has worked) and science (what will work), eventually steering civilization into the weeds.

But the proof is in the pudding. If Trump leaves office without causing WW3, with the economy largely intact, can we really feel bad that some rules were broken?

Then again, maybe we could achieve the same things through conventional means. What if we threw a few billionaires in jail instead of a foreign head of state, or sided with the world court on Netanyahu rather than Maduro? Either way—optimal or suboptimal—we’ll remember Trump’s name. Like the popular feminist quote, “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” a timid man is likewise not widely respected or impactful. Is it possible we all need liberation from the clutter of our minds and reasons?

Still, I think there’s a better synthesis between Trump and the pointy-headed intellectuals too high in their ivory towers to be of practical value.

Trump wins because he identified the struggles of real people, rather than deny them. Maybe some academics with a racial theory can write a thesis about ‘privilege’ and yet have they ever solved any problems in the real world?

I like my own conscientiousness—orientation toward respect for established standards and individual rights over political expediency.

And yet, by the time I carefully deliberate all the angles of legality and practicality and examine potential failure points the opportunity is often gone. A guy who reacts to opportunity, seizes the moment, dictates the outcome in advance (while staying flexible enough to read the room and adapt), reaches the goal—even if he has done the ‘wrong’ way by conventional wisdom.

If morality is all a social construct, all part of a complex negotiation, then maybe following pure instincts and base intuition is better than obeying a list of rules?

Who says the other side must sign a paper—or even agree in advance—to have a deal?

If it’s a win-win at the end, despite the pain of the process, fewer casualties, is it good?

What do you think? Does primal persuasion win out, or do we need more rules to keep things civilized? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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.

From False Flags to Fortress Minds: The Politics of Fear

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Anaïs Nin

In today’s world, discerning what is real from what is manufactured is a formidable challenge. Suspicion abounds, particularly among the political right, that groups like Patriot Front—openly fascist—are not grassroots movements but rather orchestrated operations, possibly by federal agencies. The MAGA base can’t even spell the word “fascism” let alone embrace it as a guiding philosophy. Yet, this suspicion fuels the leftist “anti-fascism” narrative, which is wielded as a justification for aggressive tactics and bullying.

Fear is a potent tool for control, and political operatives exploit it to manipulate public sentiment. When voter turnout wanes in critical demographics, staged provocations—such as groups wielding tiki torches to “Unite the Right”—can galvanize a larger, more powerful group into action. These events often attract a few genuine extremists, but their true purpose is to provoke a broader reaction.

This strategy mirrors the “pony motor” in early diesel engines, where a smaller gasoline engine was used to heat and start the larger one. Similarly, false flag operations—whether orchestrated or permitted—serve as catalysts for sweeping agendas, such as justifying military invasions of countries or enacting restrictive laws. While I’m not convinced that 9/11 was a government-orchestrated plot, evidence suggests some knew in advance and that it was exploited to advance a wishlist of wars against unrelated nations and to pass laws that would not have prevented the attack. This reflects the mechanics of how to “manufacture consent” in our modern democracies—where fear is leveraged to unify and control populations.

The creation of a common enemy is a time-tested method for fostering unity. During the Cold War, the specter of communism was used to rally the public. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, Islamic terrorism became the new focal point. The 9/11 attacks, likely executed in part by Osama bin Laden’s organization, were real but were exploited to amplify fear. Domestically, this pattern persists: Democrats emphasize the threat of right-wing extremism, while Republicans fixate on “wokeism” and DEI initiatives. These are deliberate strategies, rallying points designed to consolidate support. Even more effective is provoking hatred from opponents—forcing one’s base to fight for survival and justifying the consolidation of power.

What do you think the point of The Handmaid’s Tale really is?

We Create Our Own Enemies

This dynamic extends beyond politics into cultural and religious identities. Jewish identity, for example, is partly shaped by what’s known as “Masada syndrome,” a collective memory of the Jewish defenders at Masada in Roman Judea (later renamed Syria Palaestina in 135 CE), who chose suicide over captivity. This narrative of the siege mentality is reinforced during the Passover celebration with texts proclaiming to the faithful, “In every generation, they rise up against us to destroy us.” Such beliefs foster an “us against the world” mentality, where hatred is seen as inevitable, reinforcing group cohesion.

Similarly, in the Anabaptist tradition that I grew up in, the reading of Martyrs Mirror cultivates a persecution complex. Likewise, Kanye West’s controversial remark about slavery—“When you hear about slavery for 400 years… that sounds like a choice”—touches on a deeper truth about locus of control. As my mother would say, “You can’t stop a bird from landing on your head, but you can stop it from building a nest.” Paranoia and defensiveness can alienate others or invite their suspicion, while believing you’re inherently excluded can lead to antisocial or even criminal behavior. It’s as if we seek to validate the fears that define our identity.

This pattern is evident in contemporary conflicts. Hamas, for instance, was probably willing to sacrifice innocent lives in Gaza to highlight the Palestinian plight—anticipating Israel’s brutal and disproportionate response. Yet, why does Israel fall into this trap? One possibility is that it aligns with certain political goals. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, facing corruption charges, may benefit from war as a distraction. The Likud party’s vision of a Greater Israel—encompassing Palestinian territories, Jordan, and parts of Saudi Arabia and Egypt—could also be a factor. Some speculate this violence is a deliberate provocation to unify Jews through fear, and possibly tied to messianic expectations.

Netanyahu is a Revisionist Zionist, this is their long-term plan.

This self-fulfilling prophecy is reflected in online discussions, such as an Israeli subreddit where users lament being hated globally. They attribute this to irrational antisemitism, dismissing the role of the Israel Defense Forces’ actions, such as killing children, which fuel international outrage. This mindset—“They’ll hate us regardless, so we might as well give them a reason”—makes them vulnerable to exploitation by corrupt leaders like Netanyahu.

Breaking the Fear and Control Cycle

The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.
Proverbs 14:27 ESV

We must guard against siege mentalities like Masada syndrome. By convincing ourselves that the world is inherently against us, we risk acting in ways that bring about the very persecution we fear. Focusing on external threats to define our identity can lead us to become what we dread, fulfilling a prophecy of our own making due to our own unacceptable actions.

Breaking this cycle requires rejecting fear-based narratives and fostering a sense of agency over our own actions and beliefs.

To guard against exploitation, we must shift our focus from the fear of man to the fear of God.

Human fears—stoked by manufactured enemies and self-fulfilling prophecies—keep us trapped in cycles of division and control. A reverent fear of a perfect moral agent beyond us offers a higher perspective, grounding us in principles of justice, compassion, and accountability. By prioritizing a divine wisdom earthly manipulation, we become less susceptible to the provocative tactics of those who thrive on our fear, fostering a resilience that unites rather than divides. Establishment of this spiritual foundation empowers us to reject their deadly paranoia and act with clarity, so we break free from those divisive narratives that political systems use exploit to consolidate power.

Seeing October 7th Through the Lens of January 6th

When dates like January 6th or October 7th become synonymous with events, it’s not just shorthand—it’s propaganda.

These dates are weaponized to anchor emotions, shape narratives, and erase inconvenient context. For MAGA supporters, understanding January 6th’s framing offers a lens to see through the manipulation surrounding October 7th.

What you see in this picture depends on whose branding and narrative you accept.

Both events, though different in scale, follow a similar playbook: start the story at a moment of crisis to paint one side as the ultimate victim and the other as irredeemable villains, sidelining the deeper grievances that led to the outburst.

January 6th: A Reaction, Not an Insurrection

The MAGA movement views January 6, 2021, not as an “insurrection” but as a response to perceived electoral theft. Years of distrust in institutions—fueled by media bias, dismissive labels like “deplorables,” and a sense of being marginalized—reached a boiling point after the 2020 election.

Supporters saw anomalies: Biden’s 81.3 million votes outpacing Obama’s 69.5 million (2008) despite a lackluster campaign; late-night vote “dumps” in states like Michigan (e.g., a 3:50 AM update with 54,497 votes for Biden vs. 4,718 for Trump); bellwether counties favoring Trump yet not predicting the outcome; and reports of poll watchers being denied access in key locations like Philadelphia and Detroit’s TCF Center.

Beware of accusations like “threat to our democracy” coming from elites and government officials. More often than not this is just a propaganda technique. Representatives aren’t the ‘demos’ and sometimes don’t represent the true vote, will or interests of the people.

For example, in Philadelphia, observers were kept 20–100 feet from counting tables, citing COVID-19 protocols, raising suspicions of unmonitored ballot handling. Stories of unsecured voting machines and trucks allegedly delivering ballots further stoked fears of fraud, especially given mail-in ballots’ known vulnerabilities (e.g., 43% of 2020 ballots were mail-in, per Pew Research, with historical cases of fraud like New York’s 1948 scandal). Whether these concerns held up in court (over 60 lawsuits were dismissed) is beside the point—what matters is the reality of widespread distrust. MAGA supporters felt their votes were at risk, and “Stop the Steal” was a peaceful rally that spiraled when a massive crowd moved to the Capitol. Some, like a Hill staffer I met, called it terrifying, advocating lethal force to stop it. But this ignores 2020’s context: months of “mostly peaceful” protests with burning buildings and broken glass were tolerated, even celebrated, by liberal elites.

All summer long—never called an insurrection.

Why was January 6 different?

Because the crowd—rust-belt workers, veterans, and ordinary Americans—challenged the establishment, not the usual activist class. The “insurrection” label was swiftly applied, despite no police officers dying that day (Officer Sicknick died January 7 from strokes, not direct injuries, per the D.C. Medical Examiner). The only immediate casualty was Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran shot by Capitol Police while trespassing. Yet, the FBI hunted participants with unprecedented zeal, suggesting a need to brand the event as a threat to democracy. Questions linger: Were agitators like Ray Epps, seen inciting the crowd but lightly investigated, planted to escalate chaos? The lack of transparency fuels suspicion.

Remember this image of Capital Meemaw, supposedly an example of ‘white privilege’ as an alleged participant in the Capital Riot? Turns out she wasn’t even there, she was in Kansas.

October 7th: A Culmination, Not a Random Attack

Similarly, October 7, 2023, was not an unprovoked act of “terrorism” but a desperate escalation after decades of Palestinian grievances. Since Israel’s 2007 blockade of Gaza, 2.3 million Palestinians have lived in what critics call an open-air prison. The IDF’s practice of administrative detention—holding Palestinians without trial, sometimes indefinitely—denies basic rights.

From 1948’s Nakba to ongoing settlement expansion, Palestinians face systemic displacement, with Gaza’s conditions (e.g., 50% unemployment, per UN data) fueling unrest. Hamas’s stated goal on October 7 was to capture hostages for prisoner swaps, a tactic rooted in this context, not mindless savagery.

Yet, the Zionist narrative, amplified by Western media, starts the clock at October 7, framing it as an attack on innocent Israelis. Embellished claims—like debunked reports of “beheaded babies” (retracted by outlets like CNN)—flooded headlines to evoke horror and justify Israel’s response, which killed over 40,000 Palestinians by mid-2025, per Gaza Health Ministry estimates.

Like January 6, where police allowed some protesters into the Capitol, reports suggest IDF guards were ordered to stand down or skip patrols before the attack, raising questions about foreknowledge or incompetence. Much of the October 7 death toll (1,200+) may stem from the IDF’s panicked response, with the ample evidence of these “friendly fire” incidents, per Haaretz investigations. This mirrors January 6’s selective outrage: Babbitt’s death was excused, just as Palestinian casualties are dismissed as collateral damage.

Do you see men or do you see terrorists? These men and their children are not Hamas. They are people stuck in a killing field.

The Propaganda Playbook

Both events reveal a shared propaganda strategy:

Date Branding: Naming events by dates—January 6th, October 7th—creates emotional anchors. It’s no coincidence that “9/11” or “October 7th” evoke instant reactions, stripping away context like Gaza’s blockade or 2020’s electoral distrust. This glittering generality tactic makes the date a rallying cry, as seen in how “January 6th” became synonymous with “insurrection” despite no legal convictions for insurrection among over 1,200 charged.
Selective Starting Points: Propagandists begin the story at the moment of crisis to paint their side as blameless. January 6 ignores years of disenfranchisement; October 7 erases decades of Palestinian oppression. This cherry-picking ensures the narrative serves power—whether the U.S. establishment or Israel’s government.
Accuse the Other Side: Both cases accuse the aggrieved of the very crime they protest. MAGA supporters, rallying to “save democracy,” were branded anti-democratic. Palestinians, resisting occupation, are labeled terrorists. This mirrors the projection tactic, where the powerful deflect their own failures onto the powerless.
Amplify and Suppress: Media and political actors amplify selective details (e.g., Babbitt’s death downplayed, “beheaded babies” hyped) while suppressing context. The FBI’s aggressive pursuit of January 6 participants, contrasted with leniency toward 2020 rioters, parallels Israel’s disproportionate response to Hamas versus settler violence.

Countering the Narrative

Critics might argue that January 6 was a clear attack on democracy, with 140 officers injured and $2.7 million in Capitol damage, or that October 7’s 1,200 deaths justify Israel’s retaliation.

But this misses the point: the issue isn’t the events’ severity but how they’re framed to obscure root causes. January 6’s crowd wasn’t plotting a coup; they were reacting to perceived fraud, fueled by denied access to vote counting and anomalies like Virginia’s consistent 55/45 vote splits.

October 7 wasn’t random terror but a response to Gaza’s strangulation, Palestinians tired of oppression—wanting self-determination. Both are distorted to vilify the disenfranchised and protect the powerful.

Conclusion

Dates as names aren’t neutral—they’re propaganda tools to erase history and rally emotions.

MAGA supporters see through January 6’s “insurrection” label because they know the context: a frustrated populace, denied transparency, reacting to a system they distrusted.

Apply that lens to October 7, and the parallels are stark: a people under siege, their grievances ignored, all inhabitants branded as terrorists to justify annihilation.

Question the narrative, seek primary sources (court records, UN reports, firsthand accounts), and use the ABCs of Propaganda Analysis (Ascertain, Behold, Concern, Doubt, Evaluate, Find, Guard) to uncover the truth.

The political establishment wants you to start the story on their date of choice, to dictate the terms of discussion—don’t let them.

The Moral Hypocrisy of Justifying Child Killing: Abortion, Gaza, and the Danger of Playing God

The deliberate killing of children—whether through abortion or in conflict zones like Gaza—is often defended by opposing ideological camps using eerily similar logic.

Both sides, whether progressives celebrating abortion or conservatives excusing the civilian deaths in Gaza, rely on hiding their atrocities under a thick blanket of dehumanizing language, while using speculative reasoning to justify their positions.

I’ve walked away from online friendships over this hypocrisy: “progressive” friends who are vegetarian and biology-savvy yet loudly cheer for abortion, or those self-proclaimed Christians who shrug off thousands deaths of Palestinian kids as mere “collateral damage” and a normal part of war.

This blog dives into how both sides use the same flawed reasoning, spotlighting the Freakonomics future peace case for abortion, and argues why it’s always wrong to kill a child—no matter the excuse—and why we must stop playing God.

Dehumanizing Through Words

Words are powerful, and both groups wield them to hide the truth. Abortion advocates use terms like “fetus” or “reproductive choice” to make the act sound clinical, distancing themselves from the reality of ending a human life. I’ve seen friends who’d cry over a harmed insects dismiss a fetus as a “clump of cells,” despite knowing it’s a developing human.

Pro-abortion folks may do as the pro-genocide folks do and say that this is AI-generated. But their denial doesn’t change the truth.

Similarly, those defending the killing of kids in Gaza call it “counter-terrorism” or frame it as a response to October 7th, glossing over decades of Zionist violence against those who are indigenous to Palestine. This linguistic sleight-of-hand—whether medical jargon or military euphemisms—strips away the humanity of the victims, making it easier to stomach the brutality.

The Freakonomics Trap: Justifying Death with What-Ifs

The Freakonomics argument, laid out by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, is a prime example of how this reasoning works.

They claimed legalizing abortion after Roe v. Wade cut crime rates in the ‘90s by reducing “unwanted” kids who might’ve grown up to be criminals. It’s a cold, numbers-driven pitch: kill now to prevent hypothetical future problems. This mirrors the logic of those who justify dead kids in Gaza as a necessary cost to stop future terrorists.

Zionist voices have taken this to extremes, with figures like Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Zehut party, declaring, “Every child in Gaza is an enemy. We must occupy Gaza until not a single child remains there.”

Others, like US Senator Lindsey Graham, have suggested nuking Gaza, stating, “Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war that they can’t afford to lose.” Israeli leaders on i24NEWS have echoed this, calling for the extermination of everyone in Gaza, including babies, as “every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy.” These statements reveal a chilling willingness to annihilate children based on speculative fears, just as Freakonomics justifies abortion by imagining future criminals.

They’re not sleeping. They were targeted for elimination.

Both hinge on a false dilemma: either kill now or face catastrophic consequences later. This binary ignores alternatives, like the IRA peace process in Northern Ireland, where dialogue and systemic change brought decades of conflict to a halt without resorting to mass killing. Peacebuilding, not extermination, addressed the root causes while preserving lives.

Why Consequentialism Fails

This kind of thinking—called consequentialism—puts outcomes over principles. It assumes a kid in the womb or a warzone is a potential threat, not a person with potential. But life doesn’t work that way.

Plenty of people born into poverty or conflict grow up to do great things. The Freakonomics logic ignores that, just like the idea that a Gaza kid will inevitably become a terrorist.

Plus, it’s unfair to punish a child for what they might do or for what adults—like their parents or community leaders—have done. A fetus isn’t responsible for its mom’s situation, just as a Palestinian kid isn’t to blame for Hamas. Killing them shifts the burden of adult failures onto the innocent.

Do we truly want to live in a Minority Report world where governments choose who lives or dies based on predictive algorithms?

The Sanctity of Life Over Playing God

Every major ethical tradition, religious or secular, values human life, especially the most vulnerable. Kids, born or unborn, embody that vulnerability.

When we justify their deaths with fancy words or stats, we’re opening a dangerous door. History shows where this leads—think Holocaust or Rwanda, where dehumanization fueled mass killing.

The Freakonomics case and Gaza justifications risk the same moral rot, treating some lives as disposable.

Our job isn’t to play God, deciding who’s worthy of life based on our fears or predictions. It’s to act with justice and protect the defenseless, not to end their lives to fix society’s problems.

Wrapping It Up

The hypocrisy of cheering abortion while mourning other forms of life, or calling yourself Christian while excusing dead kids in Gaza, reveals a shared flaw—believing their creative semantics or future self-defense reasoning can remove the stain of their sin.

The Freakonomics argument and genocidal rhetoric from figures like Feiglin and Graham both reduce children to pawns in a bigger game, ignoring their inherent dignity. It’s always wrong to kill a child—whether for an adult’s choices or a fear of what they might become.

Instead of playing God with false dilemmas, we need to follow examples of taking a third option—like the IRA peace process—and focus on real solutions: respect for a legitimate grievance over stolen land and diplomacy, in support of moms and investment in communities.

Only by valuing every life can we build a world that’s just and safe for future generations.

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

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