"No one can seemingly walk and chew gum." -- This is so true. The number of conversations I've had in the last three years with people who obliviously espoused conflicting values and ideologies, sometimes in the same breath, has been stunning.
I'm sure I've been guilty of doing it too (especially when I was younger), because social media culture doesn't exactly encourage critical thinking or self-reflection at any admirable levels. But, getting my ideologies perfectly aligned with my values and principles has been something I've been really working on since the pandemic.
It's not easy to confront the areas where you've been hypocritical, or even just irrational, but it's so necessary to get onto a better path -- otherwise, our society is going to just fall straight off this cliff.
'The Neocons paved the way for the new authoritarianism with their secret courts, lies on WMDs and the Iraq invasion, and the construction of a massive system of surveillance. Corporate liberals enthusiastically jumped on board, expanding the surveillance state and then remodeling the War on Terror to “counter violent extremism”, justifying the micro-policing of the internet to combat hate and “disinformation”. Both approaches were devoid of principles – rather each asked “Which political grouping is most advantageous to me?” and went about weaponizing the tools at their disposal.'
This is why I get impatient with substack commenters who try to blame it all on Dems/liberals/progressives. Both sides are culpable. Somehow, we need to escape the bounds of our tribalism.
Agreed, Tardigrade. I think it’s less about left/right and more about freedom/totalitarianism. The left and the right have elements of both but if individuals hold true to their principles, they’ll likely find themselves unable to align with the party they have traditionally considered themselves to be a part of.
My immediate and extended family are safe and not really in harm's way, thankfully. Sadly I cannot say the same about so many others, both inside and outside the green line.
Andrew thank you 🙏🏼 ♥️🙏🏼♥️🙏🏼♥️I read your other most recent piece on censorship and immediately shared it ... but didn’t get a chance to comment or thank you for your brilliant mind and balanced heart 💜 thank you for using your words to match how I feel but I don’t have the words to express .... deep gratitude....please keep up the good work....freedom of speech and expression are the two most sacred elements of a free life... when they are gone we are slaves again of tyrants and the new globalists who want complete control over the world 🗺 population....WE CAN NOT LET THAT HAPPEN‼️🥵😵💫😫Sooooo THANK YOU 🙏🏼 ‼️🥰🙋🏼♀️
"Never let a crisis go to waste" said Rahm Emanuel when discussing the financial crisis in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020. This country has been under the illusion of constitutional protection for possibly over a century. Governments have been wagging the dog for a long time and finally, there has been an awakening. Thanks for writing this piece. It offers a measured response to the latest threat on our civil liberties without minimizing the crisis at hand - the existential threat to Jews and the Israel. There absolutely are laws written into the constitution protecting against the threat of violence. It is illegal to shout "fire" in a crowded theater or to incite violence. I think it is fair to prosecute those who are guilty of actual incitement. There is a criterion for judging that. What is unfair is censoring the free speech of those with "offensive" views. The uniparty/globalists have a clear agenda to control our speech and are at this moment devising the latest scheme to aggressively remove our access of reach on the internet through "net-neutrality." What was killed under Trump has been revitalized.
Please discuss more the curtailment of civil liberties during the Trump regime. I'd like you to compare those to the covid/fascist hysteria of the Biden regime.
I heard a great piece of advice the other day in relation to the war: If you hear anything that aligns perfectly with the side you personally take (if you do indeed take one side), vet that claim (as you would those that do not align with your side). I believe it was on Breaking Points.
This is eloquent and insightful. Most of us knew this was coming, and many felt it would come through the crucible of the Middle East - a bloody smoke screen - to cloud the agenda BEHIND the smokescreen. Media control is EVERYTHING - narrative control has been fought for more than LAND has been fought for...
And who has narrative control?
The neocons. What have the neocons based their entire ideology upon?
A right wing Zionist ideology.
Look deeper at all the media players, the NGO's - and the agency heads in the U.S.
"The fact that progressives found it hard to condemn the killing of Jews (orthodox, left, right, liberal alike) or need to “contextualise” a Nazi being applauded in Canada’s parliament, shows us just how crazy things have become."
This is the norm for the past 20+ years. The Western Mainstream has been tilted with a bias against Israel, and for the Poor Brown Palestinians. This is nothing new. What is new is how many voices in the Mainstream now are standing with Israel and implying rhetoric signaling a green light for Israel to kill and/or punish/oppress those Poor Brown Palestinians. And from what I can tell, this is the new norm -- those voices that in varying degrees seem now pro-Palestinian are a rag-tag straggling group of Leftists who still haven't gotten the globalist memo, which is now to stand with Israel "no matter what it takes".
I'm reading what has to be regular janes & joes struggling w aligning their values to both our chaotic circumstances and our desire to speak truly about them. I am sharing in strong & pointed questions about our realities. I'm cannot bring myself to believe this is not a widespread phenomenon. We and the strangers around us are "walking and chewing gum at the same time". But we are doing so in a world that is shifting "Everything Everywhere All at Once". Our speech, your freely shared speech helps all see 👀 the lack of solutions but the plethora of trade offs. I believe in the shared power of "we the people" even if some do not seem to be paying attention.
The Harvard kids losing their job offers was a slap by reality. Colonization may be bad, but to criticize Israel can make you persona non grata in a significant portion of the US.
The beheaded babies story was a lie, a tried and true lie that is used time and again to justify terrific retribution of all sorts. So it goes. Rene Girard’s scapegoating proven right yet again
"No one can seemingly walk and chew gum." -- This is so true. The number of conversations I've had in the last three years with people who obliviously espoused conflicting values and ideologies, sometimes in the same breath, has been stunning.
I'm sure I've been guilty of doing it too (especially when I was younger), because social media culture doesn't exactly encourage critical thinking or self-reflection at any admirable levels. But, getting my ideologies perfectly aligned with my values and principles has been something I've been really working on since the pandemic.
It's not easy to confront the areas where you've been hypocritical, or even just irrational, but it's so necessary to get onto a better path -- otherwise, our society is going to just fall straight off this cliff.
Free speech wins. We got to know many people and groups a bit better this past week. Matthew 7:16 and all. Illuminating.
'The Neocons paved the way for the new authoritarianism with their secret courts, lies on WMDs and the Iraq invasion, and the construction of a massive system of surveillance. Corporate liberals enthusiastically jumped on board, expanding the surveillance state and then remodeling the War on Terror to “counter violent extremism”, justifying the micro-policing of the internet to combat hate and “disinformation”. Both approaches were devoid of principles – rather each asked “Which political grouping is most advantageous to me?” and went about weaponizing the tools at their disposal.'
This is why I get impatient with substack commenters who try to blame it all on Dems/liberals/progressives. Both sides are culpable. Somehow, we need to escape the bounds of our tribalism.
Agreed, Tardigrade. I think it’s less about left/right and more about freedom/totalitarianism. The left and the right have elements of both but if individuals hold true to their principles, they’ll likely find themselves unable to align with the party they have traditionally considered themselves to be a part of.
Great insights, as always. How is your family in Israel?
Thanks Josh. They are as well as can be. I hope you are also doing OK.
My immediate and extended family are safe and not really in harm's way, thankfully. Sadly I cannot say the same about so many others, both inside and outside the green line.
Good stuff!
Andrew thank you 🙏🏼 ♥️🙏🏼♥️🙏🏼♥️I read your other most recent piece on censorship and immediately shared it ... but didn’t get a chance to comment or thank you for your brilliant mind and balanced heart 💜 thank you for using your words to match how I feel but I don’t have the words to express .... deep gratitude....please keep up the good work....freedom of speech and expression are the two most sacred elements of a free life... when they are gone we are slaves again of tyrants and the new globalists who want complete control over the world 🗺 population....WE CAN NOT LET THAT HAPPEN‼️🥵😵💫😫Sooooo THANK YOU 🙏🏼 ‼️🥰🙋🏼♀️
The main pivots predate most of our lives, and three come to mind: JFK assassination, Operation Paper Clip, and The Creature From Jekyll Island.
"Never let a crisis go to waste" said Rahm Emanuel when discussing the financial crisis in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020. This country has been under the illusion of constitutional protection for possibly over a century. Governments have been wagging the dog for a long time and finally, there has been an awakening. Thanks for writing this piece. It offers a measured response to the latest threat on our civil liberties without minimizing the crisis at hand - the existential threat to Jews and the Israel. There absolutely are laws written into the constitution protecting against the threat of violence. It is illegal to shout "fire" in a crowded theater or to incite violence. I think it is fair to prosecute those who are guilty of actual incitement. There is a criterion for judging that. What is unfair is censoring the free speech of those with "offensive" views. The uniparty/globalists have a clear agenda to control our speech and are at this moment devising the latest scheme to aggressively remove our access of reach on the internet through "net-neutrality." What was killed under Trump has been revitalized.
Please discuss more the curtailment of civil liberties during the Trump regime. I'd like you to compare those to the covid/fascist hysteria of the Biden regime.
I heard a great piece of advice the other day in relation to the war: If you hear anything that aligns perfectly with the side you personally take (if you do indeed take one side), vet that claim (as you would those that do not align with your side). I believe it was on Breaking Points.
There are no coincidences. Everything is planned. Everything.
This is eloquent and insightful. Most of us knew this was coming, and many felt it would come through the crucible of the Middle East - a bloody smoke screen - to cloud the agenda BEHIND the smokescreen. Media control is EVERYTHING - narrative control has been fought for more than LAND has been fought for...
And who has narrative control?
The neocons. What have the neocons based their entire ideology upon?
A right wing Zionist ideology.
Look deeper at all the media players, the NGO's - and the agency heads in the U.S.
They all share that ideology.
Nooo! The Zionists are the GOOD guys now. Where else is Matt gonna get his next meal ticket from? There's nothing on offer from Elon anymore!
"The fact that progressives found it hard to condemn the killing of Jews (orthodox, left, right, liberal alike) or need to “contextualise” a Nazi being applauded in Canada’s parliament, shows us just how crazy things have become."
This is the norm for the past 20+ years. The Western Mainstream has been tilted with a bias against Israel, and for the Poor Brown Palestinians. This is nothing new. What is new is how many voices in the Mainstream now are standing with Israel and implying rhetoric signaling a green light for Israel to kill and/or punish/oppress those Poor Brown Palestinians. And from what I can tell, this is the new norm -- those voices that in varying degrees seem now pro-Palestinian are a rag-tag straggling group of Leftists who still haven't gotten the globalist memo, which is now to stand with Israel "no matter what it takes".
I'm reading what has to be regular janes & joes struggling w aligning their values to both our chaotic circumstances and our desire to speak truly about them. I am sharing in strong & pointed questions about our realities. I'm cannot bring myself to believe this is not a widespread phenomenon. We and the strangers around us are "walking and chewing gum at the same time". But we are doing so in a world that is shifting "Everything Everywhere All at Once". Our speech, your freely shared speech helps all see 👀 the lack of solutions but the plethora of trade offs. I believe in the shared power of "we the people" even if some do not seem to be paying attention.
The Harvard kids losing their job offers was a slap by reality. Colonization may be bad, but to criticize Israel can make you persona non grata in a significant portion of the US.
The beheaded babies story was a lie, a tried and true lie that is used time and again to justify terrific retribution of all sorts. So it goes. Rene Girard’s scapegoating proven right yet again
It’s multiple scapegoats on both sides. It’s expanded Dunbar number all the way down. We don’t need entire paragraphs to explain it
I’m sure bloviating about the obvious helps no one.
Have you seen this? “Second Nuremberg” German lawyer arrested in Mexico.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-10-18-second-nuremberg-lawyer-reiner-fuellmich-arrested-mexico.html