You Have To Pick A Side

Back in the day, playground games consisted of staged battles. Whether it was Red Rover or kickball or dodgeball, the idea was to win. And to win you had to pick a side or have the skills for a side to choose you. The winners were victorious. Nobody got a trophy. Everyone still traded lunches and shared crayons.

Now we have a society raised on the concept that everyone is entitled to win, even if they don't have the skills. This type of society breeds complacency. If you aren't invested in the outcome, it doesn't matter who wins. The idea that "other people" will make all the political decisions and everything will turn out fine is not proving out as our nation moves through 2020, the Year of Asterisks. You can see this played out in the Jimmy Stewart movie "Shenandoah." It's the story of a many who simply doesn't want to be involved in the Civil War swirling about him. He wants to tend his crops and raise his kids. Then one side takes all his horses and cattle. The other side occupies his house. One son is forcibly conscripted by one army, the other runs away to join the other. It's one of the saddest movies I've ever watched and illustrates clearly every parent's deepest fear when whispers of Civil War 2.0 arise. The bottom line is, you have to pick a side.

Complacency is not apathy. Complacency is a type of laziness. It's a method of pretending that other people know better than you do. As a result many in this country have literally thrown away all intentions of participating to make things better, leaving the most extreme and dangerous people with the voting power to destroy everything. And I do mean EVERYTHING. The people you see in the streets are for the most part young, uneducated and indoctrinated to a limited narrative that leaves out much of the story. Unfortunately they are scary in big numbers. Using those numbers, activist from branded organizations such as BLM and Antifa further dip these nuggets into the poison narrative of the Left. At some point it moves from concern, to hysteria, to groupthink that allows people to equate a Civil War headstone to Dachau. This is where we are at. And still we have those who think if we just give in, things will be better.

There are lots of nice people in the world. Being nice is the path of least resistance. There's an old saying "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." We're seeing a great deal of shock from nice people in blue states who have suddenly realized that all the nice words and kind actions they believed they were supporting are in reality a nanny state that has taken away their basic rights. Unfortunately these same nice people believe if we just give in-give the mobs what they want and just keep spilling out and letting them bully entire groups into silence things will be fine. They have not yet learned the lesson "It Will Never Be Enough."

The Mob is becoming a more demographically driven entity. Most are young, urban and computer savvy. They are also a very desirable commercial demographic to be exploited, which is why you see big name corporations posting black blocks and funding foundations and programs with millions of dollars that will be eaten up by advertising and bureaucracy and give precious little to the targeted issue or groups. This leads other groups to think this is a mainstream belief narrative and because nice people want to be liked, they conform. I deeply fear this need to be loved, this desperate desire to be accepted and not to feel they are "bad" will lead people to vote against their own interests. Who in their right mind would vote for idea that are going to seize massive amounts of your income while limiting your personal freedom? I guess we're going to find out in November. Conservatives had better start talking.

This Cannot Continue

So would anyone tolerate a group called White Lives Matter? Of course not-it would be laughed off as patently racist. So why are we giving a group, and inviting to the White House, DeRay McKesson and Elzie Johnson, two people who created a brand of particularly offensive hate aimed at police in general and white police specifically? I'm not exonerating the role of bad cops, but you cannot exort your franchises in Seattle and St. Louis and New York to chant things like "What do we want...dead cops...when do we want it ...now" and then pretend like it wasn't some sort of fulfillment when two cops were ambushed in New York City and now five in Dallas.

As brand creators, the self proclaimed national leaders of BLM are responsible for the rhetoric and actions that ensue. So when innocent cops (and civilians!) get hurt or killed as the result of the seed they plant via their incindiery and often misleading campaigns, they cannot dodge the blood spatter that it creates. I think the American public needs to know who is funding this "movement" because quite honestly I don't think it's all that pure. It's strange how a self proclaimed "poor grad student" has been able to travel on a last minute ticket to any of the handpicked incidents they choose to exploit. And make no mistake, they do pick and choose cases where they believe they can get the most social media and economic traction.

Perhaps we could make sense of this had Dallas not been working hard to alleviate the very problems BLM lays out. But it is troubling that as we see this parade of grievances marched out, we also see in our communities and our schools, more young people out of control and defiant. I shudder to think what attitudes this school year brings. While nobody wants to see anyone else hurt needlessly, lets not make the mistake of thinking all people are angels. Left to our own devices, people will often take the easy way out. That is why we train and have trusted individuals to keep us on the straight and narrow-even when we don't like it, even when it maeks us mad. So can we please stop hyphenating groups, glorifying BLM and believing that race makes us victims or victors? In reality, ALL LIVES MATTER.