Are We There Yet?
Is this the precipice of a dystopian world?
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This is a time for introspection, not assertion. Many of us are searching our souls during these uncertain times as we approach the November presidential election this year.
Over the years, I have discovered that I understand myself better through deep conversations with others or by reflecting in my journals. I have accumulated many notebooks and diaries over time. While I don't recommend using social media as a diary, I believe that the things that are most personal or private to us are also the most relatable to others. After all, we are all created in the image of God.
In 2020, like you, I was enduring the scamdemic and the government’s overreach, as if I were enduring bad weather. Government tyranny, unlike the weather, has self-awareness and a plan. It is as normal and natural as the change of seasons that governments will get out of the banks and wash us away if we don’t build safeguards. More people have been killed by governments than by war. It is only a blip in time that people ever have true freedom. Dominating the people of nations has been the norm throughout history. The USA was pleasantly unusual for most people within the borders for a few years.
What is manifesting as soft tyranny right now has not been a constant physical threat for most…yet.
Don’t think that my current disposition makes me docile or that I will go quietly into the night with velvet chains. Just because I want peace and tranquility doesn’t make me a slave. Like bad weather, this growing overreach keeps me in the house because I don’t want to get rained on. I still hope and perhaps naively believe the sun will come out; a semblance of freedom will dawn upon us again.
But is that not a problem, that I/we think freedom is natural, that freedom will just happen on its own, again? Freedom is a garden that must be tended, walled off, and protected from natural chaos that tyranny utilizes to dominate and offer false order with tyrannical regiments. The price of liberty is vigilance, not control. Freedom is not free, but it can be enjoyed behind protective walls. That’s our world's condition since Adam and Eve's fall. So, is my hope a fairytale? I don’t know. I was not willing to die on the COVID-19 hill. I saw the government’s reaction as overreach on steroids, but my premonition was it was a test run, that something worse was on the way, that something more wicked this way comes.
Like my mom’s flower garden, which needs tending, her flowers still bloom. She is long gone from her garden, but I am reminded of her every day when I see her flowers still blooming. So, I sit in a garden that I did not tend to or protect very well, but her flowers still bloom like freedom. Freedom, as life, is powerful. And I sit here in this nation and relish the fruition and beauty of someone else’s sacrifice and work. I enjoy the sacrifice of George Washington’s valiant soldiers on that frigid night on the Delaware River, who were but a minority in a nation striving to be fully born.
But I can’t be too self-critical. I have fought in my own way in these contemporary times. They say the pen is mightier than the sword. I have, at times, tirelessly fought intellectually here and in other places with my “pen.” I’ve been a keyboard warrior on social media for 20-plus years. I have conclusively defeated many freedom-haters, useful idiots, and those coming in sheep’s clothing of liberalism in online debates, and I have rung the liberty bell with their intellectual noggins many times.
The planned demic of 2020 showed in real life what extremes my government would go to. They stretched the boundaries exponentially and radically moved the Overton Window.
I lost sleep while pondering things like not being allowed to gather at a church building on Easter Sunday and that authorities in Kentucky were recording license plates in church parking lots. People were quarantined for 14 days. Drones in NYC are on loudspeakers telling people to “social distance.” Drones were monitoring hikers in the UK. People are being locked up for not practicing social distancing. They’re being thrown off subways for not wearing a mask.
I’ve been studying my Bible a lot lately. I’m still paying attention to the news, but the rampant ignorance and stupidity drain me. I need that verse: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). I’m not the least bit happy-go-lucky or Pollyanna about it, nor am I a Chicken Little. I won’t keep sounding the alarm for every speculative thought stream that courses through my mind like the boy who cried wolf.
I don’t want to waste my firepower. I’m mostly keeping my powder dry right now. But my intellectual guns are up. I hope that’s all we need right now. Because if I climb the roof of the town square and raise the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag and stand my ground, the first thing I think is I will lose everything: my job, my income …I won’t be able to pay my bills or my property tax. My life won’t change a little bit, as it is now when I debate online, but I’ll be in jail if I’m that “radical” now. I’ll be called crazy. I don’t want to pull that metaphorical trigger yet. Is that the last resort? Or is that the second to the last resort …civil disobedience?
We are on a new road. The side road detours to Liberty are narrow and bumpy. They say this “new” road is the same old wide, smooth road to tyranny – it’s for the common (collective) good. I’m not sure if there is a point before the horizon where we will need to hit the ditch at a roadblock, whip out our scary black rifles against the New Order, and physically fight. Or are our “AR-15” minds still firing intellectual bullets at this point? They don’t seem to be hitting the targets.
Are we there yet? Are we close? Is this the precipice of a dystopian world? Will we dodge the next rocket aimed at our freedom? If we do nothing, will it near-miss us like a mile-wide comet streaks by the Earth? Will this be the final warning?
I admit that I don’t want my life interrupted. I want to go to work, cycle on the bike trail, and walk my dog. I want to write books and read. I want to learn and bestow what little wisdom I’ve gleaned from my years. But is a semblance of freedom now a fading dream gone into the mist of memory? Or is it on hold?
At this point, are we willing to say, “We Mutually Pledge To Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes, And Our Sacred Honor”?
What’s coming will shock us and make entertainment and all frivolous activity a fruitless sideshow. Get ready for the plunge. The Devil is very creative. We will all be caught with our pants down. It’s a matter of how fast you can pull them up.
Thank you for reading my Substack. And remember…
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1 ESV