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Live not by lies

By Steve Woodward

The famed dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn urged brave souls living under Soviet tyranny to “live not by lies” before he was sent into exile in 1974.

Tyrannical movements demand the opposite. Accept and embellish the lies. Socialism. Communism. Marxism. Totalitarianism. These faded into oblivion in Eastern Europe and within a crumbled Soviet Union after 1989. But their advocates never became extinct like a species can. The lies never were buried, dead and gone.

Like a gene that mutates, the gospel according to Socialism never evaporated. It lurked like a virus. In 2020, it has been revived in ways its old guard might never have imagined. Socialism is more virulent, even more difficult to contain, than Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Wuhan “virus”.

Under Fauci, and the legions of governors and mayors who have embraced his rhetoric, the lies have become the only way to live. If you deny them, you die. Probably. Maybe. At a rate of .1 percent.

I write from the Florida Keys where, tonight, I watched arriving guests taking in a glorious sunset, masked, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. They are willing to spend thousands of dollars to be pampered in a resort, yet they do not, will not, push back on the absurdity of the mask. A spa employee had no comeback when I noted that she demanded a mask be worn, by me, during a massage but only when I was face up. “I should have requested a facial instead,” I said. She laughed. Did the hypocrisy actually register within her hijacked brain?

It would encourage me to warn that Socialism is at our doorstep in the United States. But I can’t in good faith say that. Socialism is deep inside, in the church pew, in the school board meeting, in the board of elections, in the examination room where you meet privately with your physician. It is more widespread than than the Chinese Virus.

If you doubt the severity of the moment, read “Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents” by Rod Dreher (2020, Sentinel Books).

Excerpts:

“Communists justified the imprisonment, ruin, and even the execution of people who stood in the way of Progress as necessary to achieve historical justice over alleged exploiters of privilege. A softer, bloodless form of the same logic is at work in American institutions.”

“The social justice cultists of our day (the mask wearers) are pale imitations of Lenin and his fiery disciples. Aside from the ruthless Antifa faction, they restrict their violence to words and bullying within bourgeois institutional contexts. They prefer to push around college administrators, professors, and white-collar (today, soft-collar) professionals. … Social Justice Warriors get their way not by shedding blood (like Bolsheviks) but by shedding tears.”

“(Karl) Marx likened religion to a drug because it bunted the pain of life for the masses, and in his view, took away from them the consciousness that they had the power to overturn the social order that immigrated them. … This why Christians today must understand that, fundamentally, they aren’t resisting a different politics but rather what is effectively a rival religion.”

The Biden voters did not vote for a man, for a platform, or for “change”. They voted, and their corrupt enablers helped them, “vote” for the religion of social justice. Thus, we must not back down from overturning this hijacked election. Socialism is here, beyond the doorstep. Lock your doors. Open your minds.

Proactive patriots

By Steve Woodward

It is understandable that millions of Americans do not know that the Middle East’s sovereign nation of the United Arab Emirates in August established diplomatic, “normalized” relations with Israel. Bahrain followed earlier this month. Saudi Arabia’s royal family is debating a similar decision.

The United States is leading the discussions and brokering the historic breakthroughs. The New York Times, believe it or not, acknowledges that the Bahrain-Israel pact “leaves open the possibility that more Arab states will follow.”

For Americans who’ve followed closely the game changing achievements domestically and abroad during the Trump administration since 2017, re-electing President Donald Trump this November is a no-brainer.

But as the countdown to early voting dwindles to a matter of days (beginning Oct. 15) there is much to talk about beyond the realm of U.S. foreign policy and America’s fast recovering economy in the era of Wuhan Virus hysteria.

When we look over the two-page sample ballot now in circulation there are 31 other choices to make beyond President and Vice President. A ballot really is much more than a roster of names and multiple choices. It is a series of questions: How much does a strong economy matter to you? Do you demand choices in matters of health care, education for our children and energy consumption? Or, are you OK with higher taxes to punish capitalists, fewer thriving charter schools and severe environmental restrictions impacting daily life?

With the radical Left now firmly in control of a 21st Century Democrat party, these questions do not exaggerate the choices before us as Americans in Moore County, N.C. And the radical left is deeply embedded in our state. They came here for the quality of life, the moderate climate and the business friendly environment. But when the welcome mat was rolled up, they set about to transform and “re-imagine”, and here we are. Living in the American South but occupied by the Left.

Vote the ballot, all the way, from back to front. Or front to back. Please finish the ballot. In order to do this, you just might need to become a proactive patriot. You will need to “read up” on the candidates who, if elected, will protect North Carolina from a silent coup. We have a web site and a link therein that will introduce you to all of the fine men and women running to be re-elected or elected for the first time. Here it is: moore.nc.gop.

Silent coup? Marxist militants aligned with Black Lives Matter are not silent. In fact, they’re quite the opposite. But while their terrorism fills up our new cycles, their enablers quietly, silently, funnel millions of dollars into races for North Carolina Governor, U.S. House of Representatives, state Supreme Court, N.C. Secretary of State and Superintendent of Public Education. And they sit back and count on us to block out the “noise” of election ads, complain about yard signs and, worst of all, to fail to flip the ballot over and vote to the end.

Countless American patriots have risen to the challenges of their times. They’ve risked everything. They’ve sacrificed. They’ve taken up arms to oppose tyranny. They’ve died on desolate battlefields. Today, we are asked only to read, to be informed, to comprehend the magnitude of the choices before us. At the worst, this effort might subject you to a paper cut. Take that chance.

Let’s surprise these arrogant manipulators. Let’s make their heads explode on November 4, the morning after Election Day. Let’s not give them the ability to declare the races are “too close to call”.

Let’s celebrate as the virulent Left tears away its masks to scream to the heavens as defeat courses through its veins, at last. And, in that moment, the virus will disappear from our daily discourse.

Heroes

By Steve Woodward

A powerful message was delivered from the pulpit of The Village Chapel on Sunday last by Rev. John Jacobs. Citizens of a nation founded and thriving under God should contemplate what is expected of us.

“We’re on a journey of faith; a hero’s quest. Because, regardless of our own inadequacies, I believe God really sees us as heroes. And that’s what this world needs — real heroes. Real heroes like (those) we’ve been witnessing as first responders to the storms in Louisiana, the fires in California, and those responding to the anarchy unleashed in the streets of our cities. Real heroes, willing to step outside of their comfortable and safe sanctuaries. Real heroes with the courage to hope and overcome, not ignoring reality but imagining a better reality. Heroes for Christ, who may be ignored and ridiculed by this world but exalted in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

With our nation at a crossroads as consequential as any to which we have arrived in our past, efforts less than heroic, untethered to courage, will find us falling short and losing our country to the radical Left and to a once unimaginable tide of Marxism.

The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board advises that defiant Americans should stand down in the cities where anarchy has been unleashed, and Rev. Jacobs describes it accurately by using that word. This is not organic upheaval, or run of the mill “unrest”. These are armies unleashing fury with no regard for collateral damage such as a sitting U.S. Senator and his wife.

It is patriotic to form watercraft parades on lakes, rivers and coastal waterways, and these gatherings of banner waving Americans are inspiring. But this is not heroism. It is on the other hand heroic to assemble on the streets of Chicago, Kenosha, Wis., Oakland, Philadelphia and Portland, Ore., to resist the Black Lives Matter anarchists, paid soldiers led by invisible commanders.  It is heroism, not vigilantism, that will cause ordinary Americans to rise up in support of overwhelmed police officers and to protect business owners, churches and sacred monuments. Heroes contemplate victory, never failure.

The furious mobs have demonstrated in a few places that they soon might turn their wrath on suburban neighborhoods, where the people the mobs despise most tend to live. The heroes in these places, like the couple defending their private property in suburban St. Louis (Patricia and Mark McCloskey), will confront the unruly anarchists and stand their ground, at any cost. We know intuitively that unionized cops are soft targets compared to rural, everyday folks who carry two forms of ID at all times, a drivers license and a gun permit.

It is heroism that compels teachers to return to classrooms to fulfill their obligations and to spare children far reaching psychological damage caused by unconstitutional lockdowns imposed by politically motivated Democrat governors, mayors and city council members. It is heroism that will inspire parents to demand that students are in class five days a week, knowing that hysterical, fear mongering friends and neighbors may rebuke them, may actually accuse them of not taking seriously enough the Wuhan Virus.

It is heroism that keeps bar and restaurant owners going in the face of insurmountable odds. Just earlier, the governor of New Jersey finally green lighted the re-opening of restaurants for sit-down dining, but he’s no hero. They will be limited to 25% capacity (compared to 50% in North Carolina and most states), which means for many it will make zero economic sense to re-open at all. But these owners will fight to keep the lights on, to keep their employees from enduring joblessness and to give their communities a glimmer of hope.

“Inevitably,” an August 31 Journal editorial observes, “average citizens will move to defend themselves if elected officials won’t protect them. The proper place to do that is at the ballot box, however, not in the streets with guns.”

This presumes that ballot boxes will be widely available (states such as Oregon are leveraging virus hysteria to remove them). But more curiously the Journal seems to miscalculate the American spirit, which already has been under assault for months by those who believe we must act as sheep to ensure 100% “safety”.

Many average citizens are, indeed, sheep. But there are heroes all around us inspired by the average citizens who founded our nation and risked life and treasure, who ignored warnings to return to their “proper place” as subjects.

Real heroes are imperfect, deeply flawed people most of the time. But God continues to stick with them, cheering them on to be heroic when their time comes. We know this to be a proven phenomenon. We have seen a bombastic, iconoclast New York business mogul, warts and all, forsake comfort and sanctuary to become our President. We know that if all others shrink from their hero’s quest, there will be one still standing in the White House.

 

 

The seduction

By Steve Woodward

She normally might have worn a beaming smile while walking alongside her Mom on their way to the Carolina Hotel parking lot. But a darling little girl, perhaps all of three or four, was instead holding her breath with a hand over her mouth. This was her “mask”. She appeared to be genuinely afraid as I passed by. Mom was wearing an actual mask.

We can assume that there are two schools of thought among young, woke parents about children and masks. One, the Wuhan Virus will kill my child if she is not masked in public. Or, two, wearing a mask signals that you care about others and are obedient and respectful toward authority.

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A Moore County Citizens for Freedom member, July 25.

Snowflake parenting is threatening to impose on our society a future generation so fragile the flakes will not form in the first place. They’ll be as delicate as raindrops.  Maybe it was inevitable but virus hysteria will guarantee it, and it will not end with this crisis. The presumption of absolute safety, revealed to be far more prevalent than we knew, likely will find children wearing masks out of habit, lest a head cold or bout of flu looms.

In a matter of months the Left and its compliant media have cast over our nation a cloud of absolutism. We are absolutely obligated to be fearful of a virus with an overwhelmingly high recovery rate. We are absolutely a nation founded under white supremacy and irredeemable to this day, and absolutely the epicenter of systemic racism worldwide.

Law and order is inherently a racist desire. Tyranny, on the other hand, is salvation. As long as our tyrant mayors and governors adopt separate standards for rioters, looters, vandals and police assassins, of course. What is not absolute are standards of the Left. Their standards are applied only when convenient.

Many of us are asking, how did this happen? How, in a few months’ time, did a health crisis infect core values, courage and decency? How did radical left Marxists so dramatically rise out of the shadows to leverage race to pursue impure outcomes? How did so many elected leaders fail to lead in order to allow deliberate destruction of private property, historically significant monuments and religious symbols? How did we arrive at a place when pastors and priests willingly locked the doors to our houses of worship?

A pastor of a church in White Lake, N.C., Rev. Cameron McGill, addressed many of these questions in a recent sunrise, lakeside video, which you are urged to watch and share (it runs just nine minutes). Click here. Skip ahead to the 1:45 mark to hear the essence of McGill’s message.

He quotes II Timothy 3:13 as the principal explanation for the rapid deterioration of our culture: “But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

McGill explains that Americans ripe for being deceived have been seduced. Throughout history, when evil has prevailed and derailed entire societies, it has done so through seduction. Socialism is seduction in its most glaring form. Seduction is how sin prevails despite the efforts of many to be “good people”.  Seduction explains why socialist dictators easily murdered tens of millions of innocent people in the 20th century alone (Hitler, Stalin, Mao). Marxism is rooted in seduction. How else do we explain throngs of college educated white Americans swarming the streets of cities such as Portland, Ore., where destruction and police baiting has gone on unabated for two months?

Perhaps where seduction is most dangerously imposed is when we set aside common sense because “experts” are telling us to be guided by science and data, regardless of whether the numbers are accurate or reliable. Health experts, empowered by governors, seduced millions into accepting that crushing the economy, putting people out of work, closing churches and schools and turning neighbor against neighbor is all worth it to keep us safe. The promise of safety is perhaps the ultimate seduction.

We now know that there are many in our midst who will yield everything to feel safe. Even if it deprives them of a sweet little girl’s smile.

Here we are

By Steve Woodward

In our upside down world, a Pinehurst resident last week unfurled and mounted a “BIDEN President” flag inconspicuously, almost out of view. For a few days it literally was hanging upside down, difficult to decipher, as if Joe Biden himself might have done the job.

Another Pinehurst resident said she admired thematic yard signs your humble author plants in his front yard, conspicuously, in full view of a busy road. They suggest highly controversial ideas. Socialism Distancing. Unmask Tyranny. Dethrone King Cooper. She was offered one but declined, fearing it would provoke property damage. Her words.

4 July.5The most upside down moment came last Saturday after a joyous parade on Independence Day through the heart of the Village of Pinehurst, organized after Mayor John Strickland predictably cancelled the annual parade operated by local government. In its place was the “oh really, just watch us” July 4th parade brought to life by our Moore County Republican Women and their many supporters. There were classic convertibles, red pickups, golf carts, a vintage Jeep, signs, flags, blaring music from car audio systems, and proud marchers armed with copies of the U.S. Constitution, not sledge hammers and bricks. So very right side up.

The parade was brief but exhilarating. It attracted a photographer from The Pilot. A news report and photos were posted later Saturday on The Pilot‘s Facebook page. Reaction was swift. Of the many upside down laments and criticisms aimed at our rogue parade, one man captured the award for best encapsulating the misery that defines today’s Left. He posted a one-word comment about the parade. “Yuck.”

Many of us hear that word in our heads as we open our eyes each morning to face another day of across-the-board hysteria. The Left has mounted an overwhelming campaign, years in the making, to tear apart our nation. The Wuhan Virus was perhaps not expected but easy enough to exploit on a dime to crater a robust Trump-era economy and, as a silver lining, restrict worship and foment government dependency. Quite a trifecta.

So, too, the death under (white) police arrest of a (black) Minneapolis man a couple of months later. Perfect storm. An easily stoked health crisis on a parallel track with an eruption of violence to decry “systemic racism.” And a bonus: If you oppose wearing a mask in crowds, just become an anarchist. Masks not required.

Any denunciation of race-baiting by pointing to systemic freedom, systemic prosperity or systemic innovation, is taboo. Do not even dare to suggest that all lives matter. The latter will earn you a “I’m a Racist” tee shirt.

As expected, corrupt media cheerleaders finally arrived at the moment when every case and every death tied to the Wuhan Virus — which time will tell include false cases and falsely attributed deaths — is blamed on President Donald Trump. (So, to be clear, he colluded with China, not Russia?) Then along came nationwide Marxist-led Black Lives Matter uprisings intersecting with traditional Independence Day celebrations. The media took its cue and echoed the words of Marxism’s highly paid spokesman, Colin Kaepernick. A celebration of American Independence is a celebration of “white supremacy”. Americans must re-think the Fourth of July. While wearing masks and fearing one another’s next sneeze.

But the collapse of our nation is not, and cannot be, inevitable. Because that was the essence of President Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech, the Left predictably denounced it. “Divisive and dark” read the headlines. Let’s hope so. Why would we seek unity with college indoctrinated, white guilt infused zombies who would erase our history, one monument at a time? And they won’t stop with physical destruction. The primary targets are religion, law enforcement and free enterprise. And the Washington Redskins.

Patriotic Americans have quoted adoringly, and for generations, President Ronald Reagan’s characterizations of the United States. “A shining City on a Hill.” “The last, best hope for man on Earth.” In 2020, we will find out if these words are destined to ring hollow, or if individuals are willing to fight to sustain them, not with weapons, not with parades, not with yard signs but with relentless determination to get out the vote and win elections, from Trump-Pence and Congress, to the courts and statehouses.

At the conclusion of Saturday’s parade, a military veteran who resides among us climbed atop a pickup truck to read, word for word, the Declaration of Independence. Dozens gathered around to listen. The final sentence reminds us today what we must be willing to do. “With a firm reliance of the protection on divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Many founders lost their lives and their fortunes, but not one his honor.

Reagan also said that “our’s is a rendezvous with destiny.” Here we are.