Today, we will talk about how people are pushing back in big and small ways against the cultural mind controls that are being instilled on us and if this pushing back works?

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Main topic: Does Pushing Back Work?

I’m not Givin away my SHOT!

In many ways, they are glorifying the violence that it took to make the American Revolution happen. A country born of violence. Furthered by violence in the civil war under the auspices of ending slavery – an institution that was dying even as the civil war started.

More violence. Pushback.

And today, we are seeing violence. Violence and the call for the opposite of freedom under the auspices of being against that fascist orange guy and FOR FREEDOM. Because apparently no leader who has come before him was furthering fascism. Just the orange man.

And the right screams socialism. And the left fascism. Never caring that both are two sides of the same authoritarian coin.

14 years I dedicated to working in the Liberty movement. FOURTEEN wasted years in many cases desperately trying to get people to just PLEASE TRY to communicate about liberty in a way that grounds the morality of protecting the individual in the why not the what, in the emotional reasons not the data.

In a way that explains why protecting individual rights over collective opinions is the basis for lifting more people out of poverty, finding the means for caring for our sick, and growing both intellectually and spiritually. And the sharpest resistance to this idea, this approach were the most intelligent among the liberty thinkers. Voices were raised. Efforts were undermined. Some really smart people rose like stars in the movement, loved by others who already agree with them.

But the whole time, the targets were wrong.

Convincing people who already agree with you is not how to create enduring liberty. Creating a society that values people and their individual rights doesn’t just happen without an ongoing barrage from those who either want power over others, who are scared to be in control of their destiny, or who simply don’t want to think, they just want to live.

And most people fall into the last category. They just want to live.

Hell - I fall into that category -- I want to live the way I want and for people who disapprove to leave me alone. I am not hurting anyone am I?

Yet for fourteen years, I did not give up. I pushed. I fought. I scrapped. I politicked. And at the end, I was so tired. SO beat.

I had found some great allies. I had found some folks who were better at furthering my marketing mission than I was. And I saw a coming tidal wave. One I wrote about in the 90s. I missed the deadline. Did not stop the swell and now the wave is peaking.

In Hamilton, people run around the stage excited that they are making history. So much change! A world where an orphan immigrant can become part of the leadership. And he’s not giving away his SHOT!

But do you really want to be a part of history? The American Revolution spurred lots of suffering.

And now our country has people fighting on the streets. Assassinations. An industrial media complex that falls in line with whatever narrative is needed to keep the masses divided.

A rising generation cultivated to put the opinions of the masses above the rights of the individual.

Did you see the shift? It started with code complaint calls to the city inspectors. As if someone else’s tall grass is an attack on the whole neighborhood. The tattle culture.

Moralizing of small indiscretions making the disciplinary action for it way out of sale of the perceived transgression. Where pointing your finger like it is a gun can get you expelled. Where CEOs get fired from companies they founded for unpopular opinions. Where people allow themselves to be locked inside their homes well beyond the duration of the perceived threat because authority has said so. Where science only matters if it fits the narrative.

The only reason this shift is happening is because we allow it. So how do we push back now? The reality ahead is a really messy election and more violence. Possibly a fundamental shift in governmental structure. Seems like we live in a time when history is being made, doesn’t it?

Far from being invigorating, I wish it were not so. But that wish is wasted, I suppose.

So then, does pushing back on this reality do anything? That is the real question. Right now, there is not a clear enemy other than an idea – the idea that the collective matters more than the person in it. And when the collective matters more than the person in it, it becomes pretty easy to use the person in it as a slave, or to imprison them, or to kill them – does it not?

Collectivism is spun as a way to care for all, yet it disregards the needs of the individual to do this. Somewhere in there is a flaw. Somewhere in there you end up with a collective that fails most as it grows.

But back to the question – does pushing back work?

In many ways no.

One person not wearing a mask while outside changes nothing – even that lady with the viral video. It only served to support the this or that narrative of masks = the only lifeline there is vs masks are bullshit. And furthering that divide makes it even harder to stop the tidal wave of tyranny.
One person standing on the street corner yelling Jesus Died For Your Sins is also not an effective way to grow a church, is it?
One person standing against an angry mass of collectivists rising up against the structural systems they hate will get consumed and tossed away like trash – which is what they are in the eyes of the collectivists – and they will be forgotten in no time.

It is no different than how we interact one on one is it? The first reaction when someone tells you no or argues with you is to dig in, stand your ground and refuse to hear beyond your established opinion. It is hard to reprogram yourself to consider the other side - and I mean really consider it. It takes work. Most people don’t like to work.

Yet pushing for something rather than against something is what we need to ride this tide. You CAN push back. You can stand up if you BUILD something rather than against it.

And it may or may not work.

Think of the famous Tank Man of Tiananmen square and the people massacred by their own government. And the subsequent failure liberalization in China until a few years later -- and the current back-stepping of the progress enacted in the late 90 and early aughts.

Tank man pushed back, pushed for something. And perhaps the international reaction helped put pressure as the soviet union and Berlin wall fell.

Pushing for something -- or building it -- rather than just against it seems to be the best way to see change for the better. And individuals working around bad systems to replace them, as ueber did for example, seem to get that spark going.

And individuals working together to help each other can create quite the pushback. Think of the underground railroad or the many who helped Jews escape death camps. They pushed back - but they did so in a way that pushed for something.

Punching a nazi or a commie doesnt get you anywhere in this game So why do it?

Arguing with people who drink the kool aid changes nothing but the amount of time you have left to do something productive.

But pushing for something just might -- so think about that next time you are looking at how things are changing. Creating pathways around the dysfunction -- to build your own way and help those around you do the same is the only pathway I can see.

So are you going to give away your shot to make some momentary noise, or spend it on something that can endure?

Make it a great week!

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Vernor Vinge: We Can Surpass the Wildest Dreams of Optimism