On November 19, 2020 I announced here on Truth In Focus the beginning of my first Substack account, E.K.R. Report:
My how things have grown! The E.K.R. Report expands exponentially in content and audience. As of 2021, I have written eight posts, but the content is intended to be more in-depth and less sporadic while remaining more personal in my analysis on art, food, culture, and the political madness playing out in front of us. Of this year, I believe my most prophetic and accurate article is from the title: Inauguration D-Day: The New Kids On The Block Of Destruction, Power, and Romance. Here is a glimpse:
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Amazon, and Apple are easy targets these days as they shutdown the President, Parlor, and anyone they consider radical. This week Facebook Ugandan pro-Museveni accounts ahead of election and in response Uganda blocked Facebook. Tensions such as these will continue for the foreseen future as the global elite solidify their great reset. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was recorded saying as much. Big Tech is an oversimplification however as multinational corporations connected to environment, health, safety and sustainability (EHS&S) have their hands and funds in superpowers around the world in nearly every field. However, Big Tech does describe their endless scope which has obliterated privacy. Data is no longer simply a commodity, but a source of knowledge that filters through the veins of corporate and state; an intoxicating line of tubes, lines, ports, and catheters the system of our world is too interconnected to breakaway without a system malfunction or worse, a breakdown. Whatever the United States once was—a republic or a democracy —is now an administrative state of technocrats who know no boundaries between private or public lines in either the corporate and state or the freedom of speech and the rights of parents. Those days are now over, yet few realize it.
Corporatism was once a dirty word amongst progressives who now sit on the boards of Fortunes 500 companies. We are beyond the Industrial-Military complex, this is the beast of an entirely different nature. Our political ecology has evolved before our eyes with the belief that a three branch government and a few old documents could hold the tides of tyranny and change. That myth too is over. A national security state or the surveillance state is the new normal—totalitarianism is here to stay. To be fair this is the result of success and failures of modernity as humanity enters uncharted territory of climate change, limited resources, animal and planet extinction, higher exposure to viruses and sickness, and environmental elements that knocked man back to reality.
Our world is always passing away. Decay is the natural state and to that natural state we have returned. Elites are concerned about the future no matter their political persuasion. Take Elon Musk as an example of a man who like Stephen Hawking believes our only true hope is to find a new planet.
Corporate billionaires run our planet and our universe or so they think. Secular at heart these men look to the stars as means to be conquered. But fair warning, space travel is a humanist pipe dream; an illusion that will end in disaster. There are no planets in our galaxy nor near our galaxy that will house the next earthlings. Earth—Eden—is our birthplace and our tomb. Our only hope is to save the planet or risk losing it all. And perhaps that is and always has been part of God’s final plan. Ironic that humanity will be the sealers of their fate.
Here at Substack the purpose is to be more personal and maybe even a slight bit more careless, not in reason or emotion, but taking risks in discussing issues that are raw. Yes, a few articles even used language. I used those for merely aesthetic reasons, lessons learned from some of my favorite writers including Christians. And I was being apropos to both Rod Dreher and another time directly referencing the actual words of the Apostle Paul. Nevertheless, being careful with my words in times such as these are important.
I can only hope that my readers can take to heart that these ideas of mine are always open to discussion and critique. And I am very well. Just choosing to go through life publicly at a time when more and more choose to be quiet or private. But in fairness, the political discussions are ending today. No more for a time being anyways.
What does that mean for the various writings? For one, Truth In Focus will continue to be a philosophical and theological grounding point of thought and analysis. Granted, the topics at hand need to remain practical i.e. about present events, therefore I will be working on to improve the practical side of it, while also making it simple. Simple is not a bad word, in fact, it is being used here to mean in the utmost positive. In our age, many issues are complex. Issues such as living wages, abortion, C19, gun rights, corruption, etc. Matters, if ones that I believe only have one answer, are still complex in their planning and application. They require a greater simplicity, not sophistry and unhelpful rhetoric. At TIF I want to provide a much more thoughtful application events and issues. And to study ideas and their consequences. To make principles, not politics.
As my personal Substack continues to evolve and develop I proud to announce the second Substack with my friend Thomas Doane titled: Philosophosaurus Rex:
Taking the helm of three sites can be a bit daunting let alone the content I am trying to put together on Youtube (All Things Veritas), Facebook (Truth In Focus), and Instagram page (Merebeautyintruth). My mind is constantly running through the various ways in which I can connect these together into a single network. Philosophosaurus Rex is beginning to pick up steam this month as seen from my article on February 5 2021, In the Beginning Was Philosophy and The Earth Was Material:
Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
— Genesis 2:7
Every story has a starting place. Our starting place with philosophy will begin with the early greeks and pre-socratics. My systematic study will evolve overtime as books and essays are included in the study I am about to present. At the moment, this is the literature review:
Literature Used (updated as I go)
A History of Philosophy Vol. 1 Pre-socratics to Plotinus, Frederick Copleston S.J. Ref (Copleston, V1)
Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle, GER Lloyd. Ref (Lloyd, EGS)
There will be instances of going back and forth as additional sources are added for the sake of context. The way I intend to develop this study is to use the following approach:
Historical Oriented
Ideas/Concepts, Cultures, and Individuals
Subject Specific
A book and/or paper on Idea, Culture, Person(s)
Philosophically Focused
A philosophically focused/directed book and or paper on the Ideas and Persons
Historical context is the central theme of study and through it we can then engage with specifics both the subject matter and the philosophical nature of that subject. Please bare with me as I am sure I will need to explain that more at another time.
The notes you are about see are in relation to the books mentioned. Some are quotes while others are of my own. Again, this will slowly evolve and grow as I pursue forward with this process.
So, as I begin this path, I would like to share with you in this pilgrimage, from what I have learned and the insights gained, to the joys and pains that will accompany the long road ahead. As I finish my final term in my undergraduate studies, I will share with you the insights gained from a book that one of my professors gifted to me
Studies in Religious Philosophy, by Robert W. Hall. What I hope to accomplish is a primer in the Philosophy of Religion that will prepare me for the more rigorous studies ahead and by doing so, share with you, the reader the historical, philosophical, political, and religious observations that are gained through the chapters I read. I hope this to be a systematic approach of what is a synopsis of some very difficult topics to examine and thus share with you in my education.
Books, principles, ideas, politics, theology, policies… the themes run through all the sites but I promise each piece will be unique on the whole. Continued streams of thought only helps me and the reader as we pursue into the darkness with our lamps shining bright.
So far so good as I can tell. Substack’s newsletters don’t appear to fail as they do here on WordPress. Additionally, the founders of Substack have promised to not censor others over “hate speech” i.e. free speech that people do not concur as truth or real or polite etc. It is difficult to gain traction though that is the internet isn’t? Unless you are already famous enough, these matters take time. Overall the network is friendly, easy to utilize, and accessible.
Once more I have reached my place to bid you farewell until next time take ear to the first half of Proverbs 16:6:
Trumphantism: Donald J. Trump & The Post-Trump World
By: E. Kyle Richey
Earth to America: Crashing til Landed
Marredby 2020 the world braces for impact in 2021. Humanity haswitnessed a paradigm shift, yet the dust still settles as outcomes and consequences remain to be decided. Donald J. Trump, United States 45th President has lost an election which determined the cascading trajectory of the United States of America. Now is the time to understand what we are leaving behind as American’s and the world enter the fragmented universe of 2021.
The irony of collapse is eventually a replacement appears. No power, however impressive, lasts forever per the testimonies of time by empires that long lay in ruin. Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome lay in ruin while continuing to influence the present; they may be in ruin yet their voices speak an eternality of what is to come, “an end and new beginnings,” they whisper.
Transitions from beginning to end are never definite in degree, but shared similarities showcase potential possibilities for historians and political thinkers alike to study and consider.
In 1992 a profound and controversial book was published, The End of History and the Last Man (1992) by Political and Social theorist Francis Fukuyama. Immediately in his introduction Fukuyama premised that liberal democracies are the pinnacle of a free and open society, an end of history, while acknowledging stable nations such as the United States or France would continue to have issues due to an “incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty and equality (p. xi).”1 Within the end of history and fasts-forward to 2018 with the publication of Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, both works acknowledge a demand for universal recognition (an idea from the philosopher Hegel) or dignity according Fukuyama, a place where all are seen heard, and known. Yet the ideal turns toward the ideological as demands of recognition include no forms of discrimination or disrespect felt by oppressed groups giving rise to a new totalitarianism, a “soft totalitarianism”2 whose overarching hand comes largely from corporations whose cooperation with governments make them complicit actors of the state. This is Modernity’s present conflict and a test concerning history’s end due to its irreality and polarizing affect of identity politics:
Being a citizen of a liberal democracy does not mean, moreover, that people will actually be treated with equal respect either by their government or by other citizens. They are judged on the basis of their skin, their gender, their national origin, their looks, their ethnicity, or their sexual orientation. Each person and each group experiences disrespect in different ways, and each seeks its own dignity. Identity politics thus engenders its own dynamic, by which societies divide themselves into smaller and smaller groups by virtue of their particular “lived experience” of victimization (p. 164).3
Specific to the United States of America, a serious conflict is taking place concerning its future in the world as it continues to dim in the night sky. Our nebulae is fading while false promises of return continue from Trump to Biden. The election of 2020 further marks a crisis of culture and legitimacy. Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA, and additional Marxist movements in the areas of culture and political life are merely one revolt competing against another. Attempts in the final weeks of the Trump Presidency to override the Capitol was an extension of a radical right of QAnon conspirators and Alt-right fascism determined to prevent what they believe was an election stolen and an America quickly fading in front of their eyes. As Anne Applebaum from The Atlantic observed, extremists are emboldening one another.4 Events in America today are reminiscent of Germany as Marxist’s caused anarchy in the streets and out of frustration far-right extremist groups -began to take the streets ending in bloodshed and a revolution that brought about Adolf Hitler into power.
Would it be hard to believe that both sides of the the quarrel in America today carry legitimacy and illegitimacy? A conundrum for sure but a postmodern reality as conflicting interpretations5 swirl us into further disaster. Internally outcomes mean a warring between a weak versus strong state, however, a much larger powers hover over the once great nation. China, Corporatism, and Globalism each carry a new weight on the shoulders of Uncle Sam.
Socialist Technocrats riding of the back of Capitalism are aiming for a Great Reset in the midst of C-19.6 Spiraling out of control, disillusioned by their grander, they believe they can land a plane already in flames with President Biden and Vice-President Harris at the throttle. In order to comprehend the erosion and decay; to predict the outcomes that are likely to arise in 2021; and to understand the pinnacle of modernity—late modernity, a perpetual state7 of totalitarian incantations8—we must first review President Trump and the American ethos of 2016 that built up to this point. Mob Rule, Mob Rules did not develop overnight but it is rooted in the unsettled nature of mankind whose fears, wants, needs, and desires collide in a world of duality with the Self at the center of an unraveling universe that is the End of History & the Last Man.
America’s Second Postmodern President
Donald J. Trump was an enigma and an archetype representative of the reverberating tensions in the modern world. America’s 45th President was not in the mundane category as he set a new standard for future leadership in the political landscape—an all gloves off approach. His own outrageous behavior polarized the most moderate into unmarked territories while enflaming political baselines. To call the man evil ignores the good he committed himself to doing while President, yet to call the man good evaporates his offensive oddities that perturbed Conservatives and non-Conservatives, Christians and non-Christians alike. The now former President was our first purely postmodern President; a genius capable of fragmenting and uniting in ways not thought possible in modern America.9 He successfully made the ecological landscape appear upside-down and right-side up, greatly due to the fact that American society at present is itself fragmented and united, engaged and disengaged, troubled and relived.
It is my belief that America’s 45th President Donald J. Trump was a complete postmodern President; a manifestation of late modernity’s yearnings for a hero and a villain. Trump just so happened to represent the radical right, the alt-right, but it is questionable if President Trump was indeed a man of the right or a man who took advantage of their woes. Previously I have mentioned that I believed Trump to be the first postmodern president, but I stand corrected as Barack Obama was the first (another topic to be sure). However, in reaction to thematics of Obama, Donald Trump entered center stage to fill a void in the political right, a strong arm who could MAGA his way though Washington. QAnon and the Alt-right are blatant examples of the modern malaise that is postmodernism.
Manifestation being the keyword President Trump embodies the essential postmodern stigma. He is the result of an ecological convergence within late modernity—a billionaire titan hungry for an abundance of power and wealth in order to make a legacy and the presidency was the perfect construct at a point of political strife…
President Trumps election and win in 2016 was understandably a response to the status quo, a push against the vanguard found in the Democratic and Republican parties that elected George W. Bush and Barrack Obama, respectfully, and a reactionary response from the public to the potential presidency of Hillary Rodham Clinton. People have grown weary of globalism, capitalism, socialism, war, and even peace. Citizens are worn.
And the election of Joe Biden is a reaction to Trump and Trumphantism, however, is also a response to the ills that minorities and progressives argue are repressing them. They too are enraged by hate speech, discrimination, low wages, and an expensive bloated healthcare system.
Combined a catalyst has been formed of good versus evil; light versus darkness. The postmodern stage has been set and the audience is watching:
In his book, Simulacra and Simulation, the postmodern thinker Baudrillard argues that within the United States a switch took place between the image relationship of art forms and reality; the image now has ontological priority over the real. Signs and Symbols have become the reality rather than the actual world itself thus resulting in life itself becoming “film-like” as he puts it:
It is not the least of America’s charms that even outside the movie theaters the whole county is cinematic. The desert you pass through is like the set of a Western, the city a screen of signs and formulas.”
Continuing:
A simulacrum is a representation of something or someone. Donald Trump, I am arguing, is a simulacrum due to the sociopolitical economic environment of the United States. He is a superficial force Americans had to contend with as either good or evil; right or wrong. Trump was not one but both. A master of media, Trump knew exactly how to market himself as savior and king as much as antichrist and tyrant. Christian professor and author of the book, Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth In A Distracted Age, Alan Noble describes our media saturated society—what I see as a postmodern product of late modernity the emerged from secularism, technology, and science— Nobles writes that the:
[C]onstant engagement with media also invites us to unreflectively adopt ethical and political positions, creating a hodgepodge worldview. From a film on the treatment of animals in amusement parks we develop a fleeting concern for animal rights. A documentary on modern farming practices makes us see shopping local and organic a moral issue.
Are the events we are witnessing real? Who is telling the truth? What will become of the human estate? Former President Trump offered America one way forward and it was a way that now nearly half of America sought to maintain rather than surrender. So much so that a cabal raided the Capital. While another half, a half fearful of Trump and “his” America, elected Joseph Robinette Biden Jr to repose from a sudden decay in their vision of democracy.
Disturbingly there is a serious disconnect between needs and wants for the average American citizen versus the conflicting natures found in Washington. Following that logic, the innumerable hands influencing decisions in the American political system has designed a wide range of conflicts in terms of visions and, as I have termed it, a collision of ideas that relate to the competing visions of the nation and the world for that matter.10
If the controversial terminology Deep State11 means anything it is that there are far too many actors involved in the decision making of the U.S. Government beyond its traditional capacity of the three branches of government and their inability of functional overwatch. Additionally, Deep State as I define is a clear cooperation, not conspiratorial, between the State (i.e. the Federal, State, and local governments including its many agencies) and private entities (i.e. Corporate entities such as Media conglomerates, Banks, and Private Military Companies); a layering of networks that has become the security state entwined with a global economy called neoliberalism. Modernity procured a “Too Big To Fail” attitude because our interconnected global economy is dependent upon its own continual success. Security and prosperity are its goals. Civilization is not post-modernity, its in the thicket of modernity. Postmodernism— philosophically and ideologically—acts a reflective state that mirrors modernity’s crisis. This is the present Market State12 out of which Trump triumphed, at least, momentarily.
Never A One Man Show
Trump became President in the midst of a rise of authoritarian figures, nationalism, and Brexit.13 But he also stood as a bulwark against socialism, critical race theories, and leftist radicalism. Yet he adopted agendas that aligned with alt-right motives.14 A man who was bitter and vial towards those he disliked and quick to dispose all those who showed a lack of Trump style loyalty. Paradoxically, Trump was willing to stand against our greatest enemies in the world including China and rail against the greatest evils such as abortion; the paradox would also have bizarre relations with our greatest enemies—Russia and North Korea—that themselves left many perplexed.
Mob Rule and Mob rules goes both ways. Once a society or group accepts a particular culture to the extent of an unwavering obedience that is when the mere obedient citizen morphs into the crazed devotee.15 In such a state of mind the individual joins a collective consciousness that bestows an ideological framework with its authoritative structures, a tyrannical voice speaks over the disillusioned. Granted that both authority and legitimacy are each necessary means to gaining such societal clout. Without that respect the people protest, rebel, and eventually turn into revolutionaries. Todays status quo can be tomorrows tyranny as the vanguard can be heroes and mob alike. No modern government is unaware of the populist pull.
With the populist shift in the recent decade as seen in the election of President Trump a void continues to grow in the desire of American political stability. As previously written in part 2 of this series:
Donald Trump was not Russia’s (forever) President Vladimir Putin nor North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, however, the current President fit well within mob tactics. Portrayed as a hero who was set on “draining the swamp” it was clear that the Washington outsider brought in his own muck.
Biden is the pendulum swing further to the left. Hardly a stabilizing force considering the policies the President and the democratic party have adopted.
Life’s A Riot
Movements and the groups who fight for their beliefs can quickly be perceived as either just or unjust depending on which side a person stands. The avant-garde of the new or the progressive versus the conservative institutions or the reactionary, these are only a set of varying “stances” a person can be part of. However, where do hate groups, real hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Nation of Islam, or Neo-Volkisch stand in the spectrum of differences between progressives and conservatives? They may share similar accepted norms and mores of general society, but their responses are dehumanizing, threatening, and often violent. Truthfully, they have no justification in relation to either the avant-garde or the establishment considering that these movements of hate are beyond even the fridge of accepted beliefs and are considered fraudulent in their cause. Yet liberalized governments tend to protect even the most hateful. Such a decision hardly premises legitimacy but it begs the question, How do liberal democracies successfully funnel extremist groups within their countries? That question relates to the United State most recent socioeconomic and political trajectories of riots and movements via Black Lives Matter and the Alt-Right. And it is a central topic as the 46th President Biden intend to tackle “white supremacy” after President 45 attempted to address the radical socialist left. It is therefore essential to understand Black Lives Matters, ANTIFA, and the Alt-Right; to see them as archetypical trajectories of what lays ahead in the radicalism that has overtaken the American Dream that is no more.
————
Next Time:Mob Rule, Mob Rules: Part 3, Section 2 Trumphantism: The Alt-Right, Black Lives Matters, ANTIFA, and the Fate of American Liberty
References
1 Dreher, Rod. (2020). Live Not By Lies: A Manual For Christian Dissidents. New York, NY: Sentinel
2 Fukuyama, Francis. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York, NY: The Free Press
3 —. (2018). Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
5 As a point of reference I am using Jean Baudrillard’s usage as he explained this loss of the real in how we interpret events around us. In his example, he used Watergate. This is directly quoted from Simulations (1983) Translated by Phil Beitchman, Paul Foss and Paul Patton, “All hypotheses are possible, although this one is superfluous: the work of the Right is done very well, and spontaneously, by the Left on its own. Besides, it would be naive to see an embittered good conscience at work here. For the Right itself also spontaneously does the work of the Left. All the hypotheses of manipulation are reversible in an endless whirligig. For manipulation is a floating causality where positivity and negativity engender and overlap with one another; where there is no longer any active or passive (p. 30).”
12 A great reference point for understanding the Market State is from Constitutional scholar Philip Bobbitt’s, The Shield of Achilles, including on page 347 where a small set of graphs or “plates” he calls them demonstrate the evolution of the state including a small definition of each entity. The Market State according to Bobbitt “will maximize the opportunity of its citizens.”
Here we stand—in 2021—already facing turmoil. That is not a joyous remark by any means, it is only as I feared. I took time away from Truth In Focus and my other writing responsibilities to reflect and regroup. I watched in horror as the Capital was quickly ransacked my QAnon radicals devoted to President Trump all the while radicals of the left scheme their socialist ways forward as they subjugate the House, the Senate, and soon the White House. And I witnessed “Big Tech” eroding free speech under the guise of privatized policies. Failing to see, or accept, that the present public spaces are digital with Twitter, Facebook, Youtube as platforms of speech, economic activity, religious worship, and more. Everything we forewarned in our November Issue (2020) that tyranny is coming in multiple forms all at the service of globalism and the global economy has come. History has witnessed a paradigm shift soon to be completed as the new neoliberal order turns into a monstrous corporatized quasi-socialist beast.
Now that the four horseman 1) Wokism 2) Socialism 3) Corporatism and 4) Globalism have arrived it is only appropriate to speak against them.
TIF has never been political, but rooted in principles. And this year will be no different. Now is the time to begin the process of renewal for generations to come. Imagination will play a fundamental role as we uncover the requirements for rebuilding society after its collapse in values, family, law, faith, and morality. Together we will embark on a journey just as the pre-socratic philosopher Anaximander who mapped the black sea and lead a colony to Apollonia (modern-day Albania). Transverse the lands as the Apostle Paul establishing the truth of the Gospel throughout the eastern and western worlds. And write as Plato in his Seventh Epistle concerning Italy and the political deluge he witnessed that left him with a revelation, “Wherefore the classes of mankind (I said) will have no cessation from evils until either the class of those who are right and true philosophers attains political supremacy, or else the class of those who hold power in the States becomes, by some dispensation of Heaven, really philosophic.”
A true Christians and Conservatives it is clear that nothing perfect exists in the physical world, and even if it should, it will eventually collapse under its own weight. Mankind is left with a constant preparation for a New Eden while upholding the past including the dead who sacrificed to make the future possible. Indeed, no real eden will come from whence it first arose, but to imagine new beginnings is as American as it is human. Whether they are called colonies or city-states their purposes are designed to bring forth light and hope; justice and peace; law and order to a people.
Presently the United States of America no longer represents that land of hope. It is therefore paramount to process present discourses in order to learn from failures and successes. This is not a call to rebellion. Rather the opposite. It is a call to dream again a better homeland for our children and grandchildren. Rarely in human history are the opportunity to recreate such a situation. A paradigm such as we have been witnessing, however, allows us to move beyond circumstances as a necessity to preserving sacred liberties and divine freedoms.
Articles written by me will be focused on specific issues not just people and never on gossip. While there will be political coverage from writers like Kimberly Hagen concerning the Biden Presidency; my focus as the editor in chief is to bring theology and philosophy to the practical world concerning global concerns.
Digital liberty, Corporate Tyranny, Food Politics, Climate Change, Sustainability, Abortion, Religious Freedom, Free Speech are all matters requiring redress. This year, I will personally be bringing forth concerns from around the world in order to build a coalition in the name of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
Virtue is required. Faith in God is a necessity. Truth and justice must be directives for us to obtain liberty. Rediscovering the meaning of education beyond the laptop are as important as defining a true Republic away from broken democracies. Our goal is to accomplish peace, goodness, and morality as means of transcendence for a society desperate for life and purpose; hope and meaning.
Truth In Focus (TIF), All Things Veritas (ATV), MereBeautyInTruth (MBIT), EKR Report, and the newest to the network, Philosophers Rex, will all be receiving much needed care. In doing so I must split up my time wisely and productively. TIF specifically will become a weekly report minus specials that I shall continue such as my monthly Visual Philosophy series. ATV will turn to monthly posting as well with a TIF podcast and Christ the Coffee series returning. Apologies but I am a one man show still. It takes time. Yet, there is much to be done and added. Lastly, the Substack EKR Report will return to some normalcy as continue to share more of my personal life and thoughts with the world outside of TIF and ATV networks. As Philosophsarus Rex (also Substack), I am proudly beginning this journey with Thomas Doane as we enter a philosophy program together. There are still kinks for us to work out, but expect at least weekly posting to begin tonight.
There is no ship too large for this journey. Join us in helping make a better world for the future.
We will remain vigilant as to the direction Target takes toward more books concerning sex and gender. It is no surprise that Target has begun to take an illiberal stance in its corporate beliefs. Back in 2016 Target announced per in message of inclusivity that it would install genderless bathrooms but after some protesting it redirected $20 million dollars to install private, third options restrooms according to CNN.
Back in mid-october our own Kimberly Hagen took these photos of the propaganda that Target pushes now on its audience. Violence, gender confusion, and race baiting:
We are calling this propaganda because target has specifically decided to only push one side of an argument. It no longer is of a free market but it has chosen ideological grounds through means of identity and identity politics. No longer are legitimate views allowed that counter gender, sex or other forms of progressive, postmodern, and critical race theorist forms of identity. Clearly Target stores have abandoned all forms of rationality and intends to enforce its values on the general populace to the extent that it’s willing to ban books. Welcome to Soft-Totalitarianism.
What Target and LGBTQ advocates refuse to acknowledge is that there is a legitimate difference between being “anti-gay” and holding the view that homosexuality is a sin, or a person believes that marriage should be between a man or woman, or even consider the scientific gender/sex research that counters transgender arguments. No, these advocates see only ideology.
Glenn Greenwald reported that the ACLU has begun to take a divergent and contradictory stance of its own toward the banning of books in the name of “Hate Speech” specifically advocated by Chase Strangio, the ACLU’s Deputy Director for Transgender Justice of its LGBT & HIV Project. Greenwald writes:
My interview with Strangio was too long ago for me to comfortably summarize it, but suffice to say there was no question that his views on free speech are sharply divergent from those that caused me to regard ACLU lawyers and their free speech absolutism as among my childhood heroes. If you want to hear reasons why the ACLU should be more reluctant to represent the free speech rights of “dangerous” extremists and why free speech should give way to other, more important values — views I vehemently reject — Strangio is about the most thoughtful advocate I’ve heard in defense of that position.
Target is not alone as larger companies like Amazon, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple all push similar agendas. Terrifying when one considers the possibility of censorship compounded by these multinational companies. That is why it is important to speak out against this illiberalism that now threatens freedom and liberty for all.
Here now is our special November Issue for 2020. These are articles written across the country concerning The Four Horsemen of western apocalypse who are trotting forth in the apparitions of: 1) Social Justice, 2) Identity Politics, 3) Socialism, and 4) Corporatism. Ladies and gentlemen what awaits us is totalitarianism from a behemoth of government, corporate, and institutional structures both private and public whose reach goes from west to the east, north to south that have adopted a leftist ideological framework. No one is truly safe from these rabble-rousers. This is dark money, big business and big banks; it is Wall-Street and government agencies. The Real Deep State.
Truth In Focus started as a blog to share ideas, peer into American culture, and establish principles by which to follow in life that look beyond the mere political lines of left versus right but established on Christianity first and Conservatism secondly; a place for faith and principles; theology and philosophy. That commitment not only remains, it is emboldened at a time when the world “does what is right in their own eyes” (Judges 17:6, ESV). Faith has always been important, however, our faith could never be more important at time when political leaders, multinational corporations, billionaire globalists, and radicals of either leftist or right political persuasion who seek to topple goodness and faithfulness and righteousness for their own sake. History does repeat itself and it does so through a single source, human-nature.
Man may proclaim they are above and beyond pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth; however human nature and human history demonstrate an entirely different story. Today injustice and irrationality thrusts the United States of America and the Western World into a spiral, yet based on whose justice and which rationality, as Alasdair MacIntyre titled his 1988 book.
Our Christian Faith
Here at Truth In Focus that answer begins and ends with Scripture by support of the Universal Christian Church and Philosophy as her handmaiden. While there may be no perfect answers to every cause or issue, there are a plethora of sources that Christians and Conservatives can obtain in working towards a better and brighter future with people of all races and backgrounds. A sacred place of common ground. For Christians, such a common ground begins and ends with Jesus Christ alone at the center.
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen
Indeed there are a great many creeds, confessions, and statements that make Christianity and Christian History rich in study and practice. Learning the The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (1571), The Westminster Confession (1646), or the London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) demonstrate our similarities and differences. This is not a weak advocating that all Christian churches are the same because they are not. Simplistically, accounting for great doctrinal differences without deep detail, the Christian faith can be described in one essence as Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Arminian, or Anglican. While these historical differences exist and cannot go ignored, there is a real sense that Christianity must be a faith as Christ intended His Church to always be: a Sacred Body with Christ as the Head, that stands on dogmas and doctrines, working through our differences, proclaiming Christ Alone through His Grace Alone by means of faith and repentance, upholding eternal biblical truths, and critiquing the culture by ultimately pointing to Jesus Christ.
As they relate to each other in coequal First Principles of the Christian Faith: Affirming the death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Jesus Christ; that Christ died for the sins of the world and only through Him can a person be saved through faith/repentance to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; and affirming the truth of the Triunity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Without these affirmations there is no Christianity. Christ is Lord or there is no faith, church, or a foundation to build upon as Christians (1 Corinthians 15: 12-34).
Our Conservative Philosophy
Either there is a philosophy established on truth, reality, and virtue or there is nothing. Anchors therefore are discovered and maintained to build such a structure. Conservatism is that philosophy under the context of what I call Primitive Conservatism:
A form of conservative thought detached from a particular time or place, but rather seeking to incarnate eternal principles discovered throughout all human history. It values the rights of individuals through the understanding that liberty and freedom are not detached from principles that uphold their stability. In order to maintain individual rights there are required responsibilities and encouraged responsibilities laid upon citizens, institutions, and governments alike. No society on earth lacks responsibilities rather fewer societies openly acknowledge the necessity of holding society toward standards choosing instead a lesser form of liberty. Primitive Conservatism seeks to frame and structure responsibilities into laws, norms, and mores. Virtue is its primal source. Liberty is a living structure that requires constant care. Specifically, primitive conservatism is concerned with three areas pertaining to the survival of liberty at large: Morality, Justice, and Dignity.
Under no circumstances does philosophy triumph faith rather it assists to construct where Scripture and Theology are silent, unclear, or in need of further structuring . The Christian faith pronounces the underlying determinations of morality, justice, and dignity; it structures virtue versus vices. Nothing can come without God.
More progressive, liberal, and libertarian minded individuals may find themselves conservative under these circumstances once they grasp the value of its philosophical though surely imperfect discourse. Humility is the first of many virtues, nothing good is gained from pride for “[o]nly by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom” (Proverbs 13:10, KJV). Even Warren Buffett quotes the Book of Proverbs in his Buffet reports (annuals and letters). Why? Because Lady Wisdom has a source. Another acknowledgement, there are no “races” but the human race (Acts 17:26), an ideal Darwin himself sought to confirm through Evolution in respect of persons, yet neither Darwin nor Christianity ignore the trials and tribulations of different cultures or ethnicities or races. A Primitive Conservative holds to that same standard of belief. We can reject differences without rejecting the human-being, for example, a person may freely reject all religious beliefs (an Atheist) without necessarily rejecting the entirety of personhood. No one will always believe equally but they can be held to an equal respect as a human life created by God. Granted nothing comes easy from such discourse as it requires hard thinking and real restitution. Hence the value and principles of Justice, Morality, and Dignity. Liberty must be watered by virtue. True philosophy demands thinking hard and faith in Christ requires holiness from imperfect beings. A mystery worthy of embrace.
Tradition, Faith, Imagination, and Reason are pillars of conservative minds yet hardly the only institutions of established belief. Since the time of Plato (and prior but one has to start somewhere) questions concerning justice and morality have been considered essential to a societies livelihood. Over the centuries the question of justice has been centralized or trivialized; Thomas Sowell wrote, The Quest for Cosmic Justice (1996), argues that attempts to achieve justice too often results in injustice. Perplexing and a reminder that no perfect justice can be achieved on this side of heaven. At best humanity can consider the deep complexity of matters at hand while holding firm to proven methods of easing concerns.
Dignity has entered the modern lexicon as a central theme by legal thinkers and political activism at the turn of the 20th century out of reaction to horrific events. Modernity forewarned internal dilemmas of freedom and totalitarianism as Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Communist Russia arose to power threatening the entire globe, clear distinctions now but saviors at their insurrection points. Yet today totalitarian desire remains as Hannah Arendt (Philosopher) analyzed:
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist (The Origins of Totalitarianism 1976, p. 172).
Modern American culture suffers these preset delusions as the lines of reality blur further and further into nonexistence. Distinctions turn extinct at the risk of unraveling all that is human, nature, and God. Technology and science are purported in late modernity as saviors for a Secular Age. Mammon is worshiped at the altar of the global economy served ferociously with hopes of maintaining a decaying decadence while people suffer, reality distorts, and the environment both the natural world and cultures decline. Meaning and purpose are in shambles.
Our Promise, Our Purpose
In light of human events the only right recourse is to build a set of institutions that seek truth over lies, reality instead of irreality, and virtue rather than the unvirtuous life. That is where Truth In Focus (TIR) comes in. A statement of principle that purposes itself on a foundation of truth; a voice for the voiceless and a defense of the defenseless based on the Christian Faith and Conservative philosophical principles. Nothing could be more important at this time.
TIR Stands On Five Pillars:
We are obligated to the truth regardless of the individual or institution in question. Truth stationed in the Christian Faith and Conservative Principles.
We support principles over politics; people over profits; and the practical over the utopian.
Society is at the mercy of Multinational Corporations, Powerful Institutions, Big Pharma, and Big Government who serve at the seat of Crony Capitalism and Woke Socialism; TIR serves neither and seeks to bring the powerful into the light regardless of their political leanings.
Rebuilding the Community is essential but under the understanding of a Republic; a nation and a people who respects a virtueous individualism rooted in God, Family, and Country. TIR supports Federalism (the Rights of States), the Rule of Law, the Constitution, and a Living Liberty ingrained in virtue.
Knowledge, Meaning, Purpose, and Reality are at risk; TIR serves to be a place that inquires facts over emotions to establish real meaning and purpose in the lives of our readers. Presently the globalized world is captured by a hyperreality of biased journalism, deep fakes, unsubstantiated science, and technological sedation. Therefore, we seek to break these trends for the sake of rebuilding the Good Life.
Future articles will be using these principles as guides for our readers; Food Politics, Black America, Rights to Privacy, Constitutional Issues, Corporatism, Christ & Culture; Theology; Women & Society, Men & Society; Indigenous Groups; and The Family are only a few topics that will be Our Focus at Truth In Focus.
So the question is now on you, the reader, will you join us? If so, sign-up to our email list, share TIR, like our articles, and join our groups.
Virtue may not seem an obvious topic to discuss in our post-American, post-Christian, post-Liberal, and post-Western state; virtue might even appear meaningless or useless to a people preparing for whatever wave of turmoil comes next or welcoming the awaited changes. But it is my hope to convince readers that virtue is of societal value (legally, politically, and economically) for those who desire goodness and faithfulness; honor and truth; respect and justice; law and peace. Virtue does not provide eternal salvation, only through Christ is that achieved (John 14:4; Romans 10:9; Matthew 28:16-20), but virtue is a valuable means and end for Christians and non-Christians, Conservatives and non-Conservatives alike.
We are entering a new era in which there is not only no social benefit to being Christian, but an actual social cost. In many places, culture is becoming increasingly hostile toward faith, and beliefs in God, truth, sin, and the afterlife are disappearing in more and more people. Now, culture is producing people for whom Christianity is not only offensive, but incomprehensible.
– Keller (2020), How to Reach the West (Again)
As the world turns from material hopes and dreams toward material promises to escape the harshness of the world, the material world increasingly becomes the only means of escape for even the so-called spiritual. Unless pre-modern traditions and institutions of faith from the Monotheistic to the Polytheistic are central to a society, the DNA of its people, overtime societies forgo their “old ways” or their “old gods” for a new set of ways and a new set of gods. The gods never disappear as Christians understand that we are what we worship:
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Luke 16:13).
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things (Rom. 1: 21-23).
It is here where Christian’s receive the term, “Virtuous Pagan,” the claim of moral similarities found between cultures. Aquinas for example understood the distinction between charity for the sake of charity and the Christian distinction to be charitable as Christ was giving and kind and gracious. This is why even Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox can work with entirely different faiths on causes that are set on a common good. Our actions speak of our character, just as our words speak of our heart’s truest desires (Luke 6:45). What then does Modernity (1500-Present) have to say? How has late modernity (1945-Present) particularly spoken of human culture and society?
Judaeo-Christianity “never did defeat paganism,” said feminist scholar Camille Paglia to The Harvard Crimson. Strong words that are completely true. Paganism has never left and is likely the strongest and oldest human root of belief that pervades to this day after the departure from Eden. From God to gods whether pagan or secular, Islam or Hinduism; the faith and beliefs of humanity intertwine between myth and reality in the story of human life including in the moral quest of right and wrong; good and evil; virtuous and unvirtuous.
As I had written once before:
Christians nor Conservatives are strangers to cultural critique including of liberal society (e.g. Capitalism or Free Speech) and upholding standards beyond the relative values of the day. As the conservative thinker Russell Kirk explained, “The pure democrat is the practical atheist; ignoring the divine nature of law and the divine establishment of spiritual hierarchy” (The Conservative Mind, p. 137). A synergy exists between the two over their respect for God and a moral law.
That “synergy” comes together in the form of an understanding that God created the heavens and the earth; establishing a universal natural law, a set of moral laws that all mankind are to follow regardless of belief.
Virtue by Decree means a set of obligations weighted upon and against all institutions that hold power and authority over a people. And it represents a set of values expected from those institutions. Whether a society upholds any values is dependent upon the willing responsibility of that people. Christians and Conservatives understand that humanity is wholly incapable of always doing good and remaining good. Human nature is corrupt and fallible. Even enforced “common good” principles can quickly turn to evil. Nothing lasts forever. Nevertheless we are called to be a people of virtue and must strive for it.
Why then Virtue? Why this topic now?
As the dividing lines between private and public increasingly ceases due to immense political shifts caused by economic, technological and ecological influences, the Christian faith and Conservative institutions are forced again to reconsider what is true, beautiful, and just beyond the present times. This is a good things for us, though it poses serious consequences and sincere fears.
Neo-liberalism, beyond classical liberal theory of private property and free-markets, is a merging of Corporate and Government, Private and Public powers that have blurred the lines of authority and extinguished the human capacity to live beyond what I call, theEconomic Gaze. Now the world worships the god of the Global Economy, a system entirely Too Big To Fail. Make no mistake, companies and governments are turning toward illiberal policies for their own survival. Those beliefs are antithetical to not only Christianity but nearly every conservative thinking or premodern believing faith, ideology, or philosophy; while classical liberalism has morphed beyond its original intent into the present neoliberal order making classical liberal ideology obsolete.
All of the known world is presently in a paradigm shift. From the jungles of the Amazon to the mountains of Nepal. Late Modernity is transforming the world and imprisoning it under an authoritarian mindset. Conflicts rise between countries striving for hegemony as citizens across the seven continents are under the weight of upholding a global economy and the unending, vastly scaling advancement of technology. Planet earth faces ecological consequences of water and food shortages, climate change, disease, and an alarming number of endangered species. Cultures are disappearing at a rapid pace losing whatever identity left. Nation-states are turning into relics as super-national unions continue forward despite setbacks such as Brexit. Although not over, 2020 marks the clear decay on the walls of crony capitalism, broken systems of government, fear politics, fake news, mass conspiracies, dangerous ideologies, and identity politics.
Therefore, I propose that Christendom and Conservative Thinkers must now begin to prepare for a better and brighter future should that future come. To begin a process of structuring what mankind has learned over the centuries, successes and failures, so as to reform or rebuild the crumbling globe before us.
Truth In Focus 