Like steer wrestling, we choose what we can say in certain audiences and what we must keep to ourselves. I suspect my wrestling events are bigger than most. Maybe mine can be like steer wrestling while others thumb wrestle, if they wrestle at all. Quite a bit of what is in my head, much of what drives me, most of what I do for my community is comprehended by only a small percentage of the crowd.
At Neighborhood Posse, Oath Keepers, 912 Group, Tea Party, Idaho Open Carry and to some extent, JBS meetings, I am in good company. I am recognized as a capable speaker who is willing to stand up for principle and what is right. But I don’t particularly stand out. My words add little news to what most of them already know. My character is much like theirs. I hardly have to wrestle at all with what I should say, against what won’t startle or offend.
Everywhere else, I have to measure the audience before I decide what I can say. People can accept very limited quantities of new information that does not fit with the world as they understand it. The human animal has to have patterns and habits for their day-to-day processes. Were everything always new and requiring analysis, one could barely escape the bedroom by the end of a full day of analyzing, categorizing and decision-making. Thus it is by nature that we resist information too far from our habits, prejudices and world view. Some leaps are too far to make in a single bound.
It is with this perspective that I have been participating in Kuna Lions Club meetings twice a month for a year barely mentioning most of what I share with the world here on my blogs. “We are Lions – We serve” is something every community needs, by whatever brand name it wears, be it a service club, church, parent group or neighborhood association. I am happy to socialize and work with people who embody that philosophy. It warms my soul to share time and activities with people who get out of their houses and into the community to make it a better place for all.
However, the storm clouds of an engineered collapse and takeover by a totalitarian state are looming, darkening and finally are so close I can almost taste it coming. A couple of weeks ago, I stood mute with hands at my sides while everyone else pledged allegiance to a flag of one nation “indivisible”. That is NOT how this country was designed. That is NOT what our Constitution says. That is very definitely NOT how we are going to have Liberty and Justice for all. Worse, nearly all of the fascists sell their lies while wrapped in that flag. I simply couldn’t do the chant (created and introduced to our school children by socialists in 1892). Saying it to be sociable while knowing I was lying was not okay with me that evening.
I stood feeling exposed, naked in a room full of clothed people, spotlighted on the darkened stage, as my mind raced through my feelings trying to sort them out. I knew, know, what the pledge means to these people. It is their expression of love and dedication to the land of the free. It is their unified voice of patriotism for a country that is the beacon of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness showing the whole world how that can be had by all. It is them standing together, proud, with the bombs bursting in air, saying “We will fight to the death for our free country.”
But believing all that is living a lie. In stealthy, creeping steps, our free country has been stolen from us. We are now on the verge of the final push. They-who-cannot-be-named, those pulling the strings of The-Puppet-In-Chief and minions below, are ready to push liberty off the cliff so their world of royalty and serfs may take its place. The longer we spend living in the fictional free country our brains maintain for us, the easier it is for the enemy to take us down.
I couldn’t explain that. I didn’t bring it up. Nobody did … at that time. Days later I was chatting with a club stalwart who did bring it up. “I saw what you did. Several people saw it. Some have talked with me about it. As 1st vice president, you WERE in line to be president. Now …. “ and he explained the choices they were facing. A compliant, mainstream, pledge-reciting Ted was certainly the most attractive option.
Hmmm. More wrestling for me to do. “I’ll work on it” was all I could offer. And work on it I did.
At the end of the next meeting I asked for ten minutes to explain something, was granted that, and accelerated to at least 100mph in mind and mouth to condense the following into that time.
I skim-read highlights from the draft of my history of banking, presidential assassinations and other related events.
I held up, one by one these books: The Bilderberg Group
I closed by telling them I simply could no longer recite the entire pledge, but could certainly join them at the point we could together say “with liberty and justice for all.” Though the whole truth is that I know they and I have different things in mind when we say “justice for all”. I had no problem recognizing that particular leap was far too grand, not germane, and in bull-dogging that particular steer to the ground.
The result was predictable. Some liked it and, as my stalwart friend wrote, some did not. I pretty well knew the results of last Monday’s talk a year ago. My stalwart friend pointed out in his e-mail that the Lions is a community service organization and that, though he supports what I am trying to do politically, the Lions club is not a political organization. I really do thank him for that. I do need someone to represent to me the other perspective and keep that dialogue going.
I responded to him:
“I have said nothing of that nature since I began coming to Lions meetings. I will not bring it up again. However, I would have felt awful if I never had. Your sharing with me your concerns about the pledge of allegiance inspired me to explain myself.
Knowing what you know now, what would you have said to friends heavily invested in the stock market in 1929? Would you have spoken up if you had Jewish friends in Germany in 1926? Maybe none of what I see coming will come. But if it does, and I never said anything for fear of giving offense, I would be disgusted with myself.
Perhaps I’m a bit too far out (or ahead) for normal company. I am, however, very definitely not alone in my assessments of where we are and the likelihood of dramatic changes in the very near future. I warn as many as I can, while trying to not give offense as best I can.”
Kermit The Frog sings, “It’s not easy being green”. Being different is not comfortable. Being average is. Pretending to be normal might be a suitable role for many. I can pull it off some of the time, maybe even often. Just not now.
Some of my circles of friends think They-who-cannot-be-named are going to start their all-out war on us in a month or two. That is a very real possibility. “We must have a plan” they say.
Some in my circles of friends are working to organize events and activities six months and a year from now… fund raisers, community celebrations, service projects, etcetera. These are good things to do… or, at least have been for generations. I’m hard-pressed to put my heart into, and encourage the expenditure of time, energy and resources into plans that fit a world no longer in existence.
Maybe I’m not fit for polite company any more … too dirty and sweaty from steer wrestling.