As I continue to monitor the national discourse, I am encouraged that we are, in some ways, pushing forward, but I continue to be alarmed that our moral and mental gates still don’t have enough security on them.

We need to understand the enemy better.

I will set a start date for the problem around the 1920s, when technocracy—inspired by the Industrial Revolution, really got its start.

Communism and Socialism were informed by it heavily; as both focused on the control of the means of production.

Before too long, the wiles of Man had him realizing that with automation and process came more and more opportunities to control environments and the people in them for his private benefit and interest; whether they were a CEO or a politician or a news reporter.

Interests came together or merged; culminating in New Deals and Great Societies, all brought along by “experts” who told the common man that they weren’t smart or informed enough to see the good in what they were doing to everyone.

But for the most part, their taking of power didn’t occur through force of arms; although it was often coincidental.

The true danger of what I will call the Left—the secular humanists, the Communists and Socialists (Nazi and other), and the technocrats, was their manipulation of information and discourse.

Neither Hitler nor Stalin nor Mao, nor many of the other post-war technocrats and bureaucracy mavens in the CFR or WEF or other, were able to turn whole countries exclusively by force of arms.

They did so by convincing enough of the people that they had their best interests in mind as they seized power—and then ensconced themselves deeply enough with enough barriers to make them very, very hard to hold accountable or get rid of.

They were masters of propaganda and mental and moral manipulation.

The exact same forces are earnestly at work in the world today, and especially in the United States.

They have yet to pick a physical battle with us, because they know we can stop them cold. So, they fight on other fronts. How we react to these is every bit as important as the fact that the forces exist.

Here are some of the important ways we need to have our guards up and avoid falling into these traps as the enemy broadcasts its poison across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

Its spokespeople are starlets, singers, actresses (apparently, a rear end can sell bad ideas), actors, “experts,” sports stars, politicians, and anyone else with a platform.

This includes movie scriptwriters and the executives who produce films in which ninety-pound women beat up two-hundred-pound men. Listen for the message—or look for it. There is always a message.

1. Believing (or arguing from the idea) that the enemy believes their own argument:

People forget that there’s a book out there by Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals,” that lays out much of the global Left’s M.O. It actually points to the Devil, “Lucifer,” of the Bible as the first rebel who won his own kingdom. The same Bible also tells us that the Devil is the “father of lies.” This simple yet powerful paradigm is seen all through the Left. They make arguments they themselves do not believe in. But they expect, or hope, that you will give intellectual assent to their arguments or allow them to stand.

Even if you don’t, your entertainment of their arguments is calculated to frustrate and weaken you—to cause disruption, which has a benefit to them in and of itself. If the first lie doesn’t work, no problem. Regroup, think of another one, and hope it works. The point is simply for them to get their way, truth be damned.

2. Not understanding that the enemy’s “truth” is whatever they want

Getting back to our first point: In the world of the Left, “truth” does not mean the thing you and I think it means—that which is physically and factually accurate. To the Left, it means whatever they want it to mean, whether it’s a bold-faced lie (see Point One again) or partially true, or, by chance, actually true.

For a long time, they didn’t contest the classic definition of “truth” too earnestly and kept up at least a semblance of scientific and factual process in defending their conclusions. No longer. When police officers began to use body-worn cameras, the expectation of the Left was that it would catch the police doing wrong left and right. When that didn’t happen, the argument shifted—to say that the cameras they so championed didn’t tell the whole story, or they would simply disregard what was in everyone’s plain view.

This mind virus has gotten far worse now to the point that “your” truth, they will tell you, isn’t “their” truth. Never mind what they actually believe. The problem is, they aren’t being called on it. Now, we have literally billions of cameras filming crimes, police activity, and other acts every day, and instead of moral clarity we have moral confusion.

 

3. Rejecting feelings

If I could ban a phrase from the English language, it would be “I feel like—” because this phrase is usually the precursor to someone saying that, even though the facts of a matter line up and point to a conclusion, that’s not good enough or relevant, and what’s really relevant is that the speaker’s feelings are assuaged.

Just run police videos of the cops confronting criminals – or better yet, the criminal’s family or momma, and wait for it. “I feel like” will make its debut at some point in the performance. I feel like someone needs to kick them in their arse, and hard.

4. Accepting the enemy’s language

There is a plethora of failures in history to cover this mistake: when the Left redefines a common term or paradigm and uses it without explaining their new meaning, and that name or that paradigm is accepted by people arguing against them without challenge.

One example, which some might see coming with me, is the term “assault weapon,” a corruption of the German term “Sturmgewehr,” to describe a class of rifle with a limited mission profile. This one term was used in earnest by the Left in the 1990s to hijack the argument over the Second Amendment and enabled them to do tremendous damage to it, damage still lingering over thirty years later.

Add also “A woman’s right to choose,” which most recently may have been instrumental in mistrial-ing a woman charged with three counts of murder.

When you hear a term, ask what it means—and if it is loaded, reject it. Tell the other side, resoundingly—No. You do not accept their argument.

5. Trying to reason with the enemy.

How can you reason with someone who is lying, and making arguments in bad faith (see all of the above)? You cannot. And you look like a fool for trying—to the enemy, who concludes correctly that their ways are working and need to be intensified; and to frustrated outside observers, who continue to lose hope that the truth will ever be faithfully discussed.

6. Being on the defensive

The political Right continues to find itself in reaction to the things the Left does, and we need to see more offense on the Right— not just pushback, but the taking of ground. Businesses that push Leftist causes should be boycotted. Movies with conservative messages should be watched; movies about gay unicorns shutting down coal plants should be ignored, no matter how many people say it’s cute or which restaurants sell the action figures.

Restaurants should not be obliged to serve halal food; let those who want that build a restaurant for it and let people be supporting those businesses in line with their values (and watch their merchandising).

Conservative voters and jurors and members of government should be relentlessly forcing the needle in the right direction at every opportunity.

 

7. Working within the enemy’s social systems

I will say this also: if you are letting your personal reality be defined by the Internet or the modern day fifth-generation warfare devices of the smartphone and all of the applications on it, and particularly social media, you are failing. Now of all times, we need to have real conversations with real people and valuing real things—not something made up out of electrons. If someone disagrees with me on something, let them talk to me personally.

And woe to anyone who is trying to find fulfillment, happiness, or completion in that electronic fog in which, I am convinced, more and more of the actors are not real people at all, but are bots made up by AI systems and quantum computers in California or Moscow or Fort Meade or somewhere else.

Remember, the Devil is the father of lies. Random noisemakers in the void should not matter in your life. Conservatives need to build real, accountable communities where real human fellowship and interaction occur.

I would add one more thing here: a lack of authenticity invites attack. I have seen “conservatives” or “gun enthusiasts” show up in conversations who, upon some review, are nothing more than disruption agents. Having those real conversations face to face with real people is a great antidote for excluding these harmful agents.

In 1776 our ancestors had the courage to stand up, raise their flag, and demand separation from the poisonous government entities, agents, and harmful ideas of their day—even to the point of death.

We need to recapture that determination in resetting our discourse, boundaries, and values before it is indeed necessary to go kinetic and spill blood in a hope of recovering what we allowed to be lost.

Mark Deuce has had a life-long career in community law enforcement. He is the author of Deuces Wild for TTP.