Saturday is the 4^th of July. Many of us will celebrate by honoring those that have served our country, remembering the heroes of times past, respecting and saluting our flag and thanking God that we live in this country.

A small minority of others will spend the day trashing our country, burning buildings, stealing from honest people, tearing down statues of heroes and disrespecting our flag. Some call them liberals, I call them idiots.

They will be praised by the liberal media, supported by spineless politicians and glorified by Hollywood. They will be in the streets although they should be in jail. They will tell you how awful our country is although none of them want to go anywhere else.

Many of them are graduates of our government colleges. They believe they have all the answers when in fact they are stupid and pathetic. I often wonder how many of the protesting liberal media, loony liberal politicians, Hollywood half-wits and academia have ever served this country.

Most leftist have never served our country but are quick to slander it. The media calls them protestors. I call them terrorists (among other words.)

I have great respect for our police and armed forces. I have zero respect for those that offer nothing but slogan and demands.

And yes, I am 100% pro-Trump. There is a battle going in this country for its heart and soul. There will be no unity. Either the terrorists and hate groups will win or the Patriots will. I stand with the Patriots and I do not now and will not in the future make any apology for my beliefs.

I am a proud patriot, a God-fearing American and love this country. I also have more respect for one statue that the terrorists have torn down than I do for all the terrorists put together.

People Who Have Nothing to Live for Destroy Everything for the Rest of Us

Despite our civilization’s wealth and technological prowess, many among us have been dispossessed of what matters most.

Ants recently invaded my kitchen. I responded with genocide. I cleared the area of food, laid out bait stations, and soon had my own little formic Jonestown as ants hauled poison back to share with the rest of the colony. The bait was the first thing available for the ants, rather than real food, and it exploited their social nature. A few days later, the ants were gone.

This might be a metaphor for our age. Aspects of a healthy, nourishing culture have been cleared away and replaced with toxic substitutes that poison lives and relationships. Despite our civilization’s wealth and technological prowess, many among us have been dispossessed of what matters most. Man does not live on bread alone, even with air conditioning, an iPhone, and other wonders of scientific achievement.

We are materially rich compared to the past, but many of us are spiritually and relationally impoverished, even poisoned. True sources of order, identity, and meaning have been deconstructed and dismissed. Our culture provides poor answers, or none at all, to essential questions about who we are and how we are to live. From the rioters and vandals burning, looting, and defacing to the ostensible authorities and elites allowing and approving the destruction, the absence of right understanding of human flourishing is obvious.

The good life is rooted in relationships of love, respect, and justice. It is found when one is at peace with God and man, living justly and working honestly. It stems from having a loving family and a place in the community. One could add more to this list — intellectual and artistic achievement, honorable service to one’s country, etc. — but it is the foundation of human well-being. A healthy culture would direct us toward these ends; ours rarely does.

We Don’t Understand Ourselves

This failure to understand human flourishing also inhibits our ability to understand the problem of evil. The moral disorder of this world is among the most basic human experiences, and we demand an explanation for it. But the profound accounts of evil that Western religion and philosophy provided have been set aside for pop psychology and the half-baked Marxist leftovers of critical theory. Instead of being led to grapple with and understand the capacity for sin in each of us and in society, we are offered the shoddy substitutes of collective guilt and banal aphorisms.

This makes it difficult to understand how we are to repent, atone, reconcile, and forgive. Merciless mob vengeance and cancel culture are mockeries of justice, and the half-liturgical prostrations that have become popular parts of protests are far from genuine repentance for sin. A bit of theatrical self-abasement while confessing the sins of others, and maybe a few personal sins of omission, is worth little. It does not rectify wrongs, provide forgiveness, or prevent us from returning to actively indulging sins such as greed, envy, lust, and malice.

Just as our culture muddles our self-understanding as moral and spiritual agents, it confuses our knowledge of our being as embodied persons. Existence demands we consider how we should live as men and women, but instead of guiding us toward fulfillment in accord with our biological natures, our culture offers us the same advice it does with regard to religion and philosophy: We are to make it up as we go along, with our only prejudice being against tradition.

We are told this is liberating and that we should rejoice in opportunities for self-creation as we are unbound from faith, tradition, and even biology. In practice, this is individually immiserating and socially destabilizing. Fewer marriages, children, and congregants mean less recognition, support, and respect, especially for ordinary people. Previously, even a poor man of modest ability might aspire to be a good husband and father, and even a saint. Now such sources of identity and respect are dissipating as families shrink and dissolve, and churches decline.

Americans are increasingly isolated from each other, as well as our history and our future. Instead of honoring our forebears, we learn to hate them as unenlightened villains. We also learn to view children as a crime against the planet, and to fear having them unless they have been meticulously planned for.

See the Poison for What It Is

Our cultural leaders want to cut us off from traditional sources of identity, purpose, and fulfillment. We are instructed to create our own creeds, regard our embodied nature as optional, sever our connections to the past and future, and retreat from community and family in the present. Social media cannot fill the void this leaves, and in many ways makes it worse. For instead of seeking respect from those who are important in our lives, it encourages us to chase clicks from acquaintances and strangers.

We are being isolated, which makes for easy marks for corporations eager to sell us prepackaged identities and distractions, and for politicians and ideologues who want recruits for a cause. Many people are effectively dropping out of life, with men in particular being sedated by porn, pot, and PlayStations.

Even the current violence has an unseriousness to it. As the philosopher John Gray notes, “Woke activists … have no vision of the future. … [T]hey are infantile leftists, acting out a revolutionary performance with no strategy or plan for what they would do in power. … Rather than aiming for a better future, woke militants seek a cathartic present.” Abolishing the police is not much of a reform plan, and looting, smashing statues, and getting people fired are indulgences of destruction and cruelty for their own sake.

Rarely have would-be revolutionaries been so open about their nihilistic desire to hurt people and break things. This, as much as anything else, demonstrates the toxicity of their movement. The inability to articulate, even rhetorically, a vision of human flourishing reveals a project that is purely negative and destructive. It is societal poison, and those joining mobs are not the only ones our culture has dispossessed.

Unlike the unfortunate ants who trespassed in my kitchen, we don’t have to take the bait. We can recognize the poison we have been given and seek something better. Although the immediate task before conservatives is to stand up to the mobs, our long-term task is to preserve and build.

We must demonstrate that there is a better way of life, rebuilding and reinforcing the relationships and institutions that give us healthy identities and noble purposes. We must ourselves live that which we would protect and restore.

By Nathanael Blake The Federalist

Toward the end of World War II, a humorous “Indoctrination for Return of Army Soldiers to the U.S.” was fairly widely circulated. Here are excerpts:

SUBJECT: Indoctrination for Return to U.S.

TO: All Units

A. In compliance with current policies for rotation of armed forces overseas it is directed that in order to maintain the high standard of character of the American soldier and to prevent any dishonor to reflect on the uniform, all individuals eligible for return to the U.S. under current directives will undergo an indoctrination course of demilitarization prior to approval of his application for return.

B. The following points will be emphasized in the subject indoctrination course.

1. In America there is a remarkable number of beautiful girls. These young ladies have not been liberated and many are gainfully employed as stenographers, salesgirls, beauty operators, or welders. Contrary to current practice they should not be approached with, “How much?” A proper greeting is, “Isn’t it a lovely day?” or “Have you ever been to Chicago?” Then say, “How much?

2. A guest in a private home is usually awakened in the morning by a light tapping on his door, and an invitation to join the host at breakfast. It is proper to say, “I’ll be there shortly.” DO NOT say, “Blow it out your ---.”

3. A typical American breakfast consists of such strange foods as cantaloupes, fresh eggs, milk, ham, etc. These are highly palatable and, though strange in appearance, extremely tasty. Butter, made from cream, is often served. If you wish for some butter, you turn to the person nearest it and say quietly, “Please pass the butter.” DO NOT say, “Throw me the grease.”

4. Very natural urges are apt to occur when in a crowd. If it is found necessary to defecate, one does NOT grab a shovel in one hand and paper in the other and run for the garden. At least 90 percent of American homes have one room called a “bathroom,” i.e., a room that, in most cases, contains a bathtub, washbasin, medicine cabinet, and a toilet. It is the latter that you will use in this case. (Instructors should make sure that all personnel understand the operation of the toilet, particularly the lever or button arrangement that serves to prepare the device for reuse.)

5. In the event the helmet is retained by the individual, he will refrain from using it as a chair, washbowl, footbath, or bathtub. All these devices are furnished in the average American home. It is not considered good practice to squat Indian fashion in a corner in the event all chairs are occupied. The host usually will provide suitable seats.

6. American dinners, in most cases, consist of several items, each served in a separate dish. The common practice of mixing various items, such as corned beef and pudding, or lima beans and peaches, to make them more palatable will be refrained from. In time the “separate dish” system will become enjoyable.

7. Americans have a strange taste for stimulants. The drinks in common usage on the Continent such as under ripe wine, alcohol and grapefruit juice, or gasoline bitters and water (commonly known by the French as “Cognac”) are not usually acceptable in civilian circles. A suitable use for such drinks is for serving one’s landlord in order to break an undesirable lease.

8. In traveling in the U.S., particularly in a strange city, it is often necessary to spend the night. Hotels are provided for this purpose, and almost any one can give directions to the nearest hotel. Here, for a small sum, you can register and be shown to a room where you can sleep for the night. The present practice of entering the nearest house, throwing the occupants into the yard, and taking over the premises will cease.

9. Whiskey, a common American drink, may be offered to the soldier on social occasions. It is considered a reflection on the uniform to snatch the bottle from the hostess and drain the bottle, cork and all. All individuals are cautioned to exercise extreme control in these circumstances.

10. In motion picture theaters seats are provided. Helmets are not required. It is NOT considered good form to whistle every time a female over eight and under eighty crosses the screen. If vision is impaired by the person in the seat in front, there are plenty of other seats that can be occupied. DO NOT hit him across the back of the head and say, “Move your head, jerk. I can’t see a thing.”

11. Upon retiring one will often find a pair of pajamas laid out on the bed. (Pajamas, it should be explained, are twopiece garments that are donned after all clothing has been removed.) The soldier, confronted by these garments, should assume an air of familiarity and not act as though he were not used to them. A casual remark such as “My, what a delicate shade of blue” will usually suffice. Under NO circumstances say, “How do you expect me to sleep in a getup like that?”

12. Beer is sometimes served in bottles. A cap remover is usually available, and it is not good form to open the bottle by the use of one’s teeth.

13. Always tip your hat before striking a lady.

14. Air raids and enemy patrols are not encountered in America. Therefore, it is not necessary to wear the helmet in church or at social gatherings, or to hold the weapon at ready, loaded and cocked, when talking to civilians in the street.

15. Every American home and all hotels are equipped with bathing facilities. When one desires to take a bath, it is not considered good form to find the nearest pool or stream, strip down, and indulge in a bath. This is particularly true in heavily populated areas.

16. A l l individuals returning to the U.S. will make every effort to conform to the customs and habits of the regions visited, and to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. Any actions that reflect upon the honor of the uniform will be promptly dealt with.