In the present circumstances, we hear increasingly from conservative media pundits on the need for everyday patriots to \u201cfight back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some food for thought:<\/p>\n
(1)These same pundits\u2014and you know who they are: talk radio hosts, Fox News personalities, and prominent scribblers of prominent renowned publications\u2014have had, in some instances, literally decades to deploy their immense resources in money, influence, and connections to organize real, meaningful, pushback against the aggressions of the left.<\/p>\n
While they have undoubtedly had some effect in persuading some to turn from the dark side, the bottom line is that the leading voices associated with the conservative movement have done virtually nothing to resist the left\u2019s advances.<\/p>\n
Massive street demonstrations (think of what Glenn Beck alone was able to accomplish with the Tea Party rally in Washington D.C. years ago), including those underscoring the essential importance to liberty of the Second Amendment<\/em>; boycotts of \u201cWoke\u201d corporations; the construction of alternative platforms to those of Big Tech; the construction of entertainment media as an alternative to Hollywood\u2014these are just some of the courses of action where prominent conservatives could\u2019ve led the way.<\/p>\n Outside of Beck\u2019s efforts a decade back, nothing like what I suggest has occurred.<\/p>\n Instead, these same pundits who are now instructing the rest of us to \u201cfight back\u201d are \u201cfighting back\u201d along the same lines that they\u2019ve been \u201cfighting\u201d for a long time: They call attention to the left\u2019s outrages (which by now are all too well known), cry about the left\u2019s double standards (which are also well known), and always, always <\/em>refrain from supplying the millions and millions of Americans in their audiences with any direction, other than \u201cvote Republican,\u201d as to how they can genuinely fight back.<\/p>\n (2)Perhaps my last point needs qualification.\u00a0 There are <\/em>conservative pundits (including many with Youtube channels and blogs who are lesser known) who insist that now is the time for conservatives and patriots to \u201cstand up\u201d and \u201cspeak out\u201d in their everyday lives when in the presence of the unenlightened.<\/p>\n Whether at a family event or any other social gathering, let your voice be heard!<\/p>\n Unequivocally stated as such, this is potentially disastrous advice.<\/p>\n First of all, as Victor Frankl, the German-Jewish psychiatrist who, upon having spent years in concentration camps while losing his family to Nazi predations, spent the remainder of his life helping his patients (and the readers of his work) find meaning in suffering, once said: \u201cWhen we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n What this means for us is that, in most instances, particularly with that arrogant, ignorant leftist relative who we see every so often at family gatherings, we\u2019re delusional to think that anything that we\u2019re going to say is going to change such a person\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n Hell, odds are much greater than not that even those who (despite being ignorant) are not <\/em>arrogant will not be persuaded by anything that one has to say, regardless of how well-armed with facts, logic, and reason one may be.<\/p>\n As Jesus Himself commanded us: Do not throw your pearls before swine.<\/p>\n To Frankl\u2019s point, we can control only ourselves.\u00a0 Yet this is a liberating insight, one that can secure for us tranquility of mind and spirit.<\/p>\n And peace of mind is infinitely more valuable than the time and frustration that promises to be spent upon the unpersuadable.<\/p>\n Secondly, if the mass rioting, looting, and devastation that engulfed cities across the country a couple of weeks back, and the equally massive capitulation on the part of elites to the lawless that ensued as a consequence of it, hasn\u2019t sufficed to prove to conservatives that rational persuasion is not an option when dealing with those who only understand the language of violence, then nothing else will.<\/p>\n Writing as one who daily trains in<\/em> violence for <\/em>violence (under the instruction of Marine combat veterans, including a Lieutenant-Colonel and founder of the combat art of Warrior Flow), I can say without hesitation that violence is morally justified only in order to defend from imminent <\/em>danger innocents, whether yourself, your loved ones, or any other people in your presence.<\/p>\n Yet it is precisely because the violence against those who would make of themselves enemies of the entire human race by jeopardizing innocents needs to be administered with ruthless intent, with \u201ca feeling of constantly crushing the enemy, from first to last,\u201d as the Japanese Samurai warrior Musashi put it, that it is to be avoided otherwise.\u00a0 \u00a0Unlike police officers, who train to subdue criminal suspects, and practitioners of pugilistic sports who train to best competitors in pre-arranged contests, soldiers or warriors train to kill<\/em> the enemy.<\/p>\n As my own masters repeatedly underscore\u2014the entire philosophy of their system is predicated upon this\u2014warriors needn\u2019t have actually fought in war in order to be, or to become, warriors. Warriors are made.\u00a0 And as long as Warrior Flow students are being trained, as students of all World War II Close Quarter Combatives are trained, to think of self-defense in terms of war, <\/em>as \u201cwar in microcosm,\u201d to quote the legendary combat artist Bradley Steiner, they will train to be warriors and to see predators as enemies who they will reduce to prey.<\/p>\n This short exposition on the nature of true violence is critical, for it reinforces the need for the decent to minimize their odds of having to engage in it.\u00a0 In short, because an argument with the wrong idiot, besides robbing you of time that you will never regain, could escalate into a violent confrontation, it is best avoiding altogether.<\/p>\n Situational awareness is key to martial prowess.\u00a0 So too is practical wisdom.\u00a0 Yamamoto Tsunetomo, in Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, <\/em>is relevant here.\u00a0 The 18th<\/sup> century Samurai wrote: \u201cTo give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Nor is deception <\/em>a vice when interacting with those who are potential adversaries. Sun Tzu, quite possibly the most ingenious military strategist of all time, knew that of which he spoke when he wrote 2500 years ago: \u201cAll warfare is based on deception.\u201d<\/p>\n Be subtle. Don\u2019t reveal your intention.<\/p>\n (3)So what are patriots to do at the moment?\u00a0 Until such time as those with the resources (including the resource of strategic and tactical savvy possessed by men like Robert O\u2019Neill, the Navy Seal who dusted Osama bin Laden and who at the outset of the riots in Minneapolis asked his social media followers as to when \u201cwe\u201d were going to \u201cdefend ourselves<\/a>\u201d) are ready to organize a counter-movement to meet the violent head on, the rest of us can take comfort in knowing that we have total control over the protection of ourselves and those close to us.<\/p>\n The world is and has always been dangerous.\u00a0 Train. Train in the use of weaponry, conventional weaponry like guns and knives, yes, but also any number of things within reach of your fingertips at this very moment that can be transformed, under the right circumstances, immediately into lethal weapons.<\/p>\n Most importantly, train your natural weapons, <\/em>your body parts.\u00a0 Man or woman, young or not so young, you can make yourself into a deadly weapon by cultivating your body, mind, and spirit (Check out here<\/a> and here<\/a>, if you\u2019re interested).<\/p>\n Be civil, respectful, unassuming.\u00a0 Be as gentle as doves.\u00a0 However, as Christ was quick to add, we must as well be as wise as serpents, for the good co-exist in a world of wolves.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms\u2014to choose one\u2019s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one\u2019s own way.\u201d<\/em>\u2014Victor Frankl<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the present circumstances, we hear increasingly from conservative media pundits on the need for everyday patriots to \u201cfight back.\u201d Some food for thought: (1)These same pundits\u2014and you know who they are: talk radio hosts, Fox News personalities, and prominent scribblers of prominent renowned publications\u2014have had, in some instances, literally decades to deploy their immense…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n