Concerning Freedom Of Speech

     When the wheel turns under your hand, you must watch your words. – Ursula Le Guin

     This is a piece I feel obligated to write. I don’t want to write it. It comes near to being an insult to my readers’ intelligence. It’s mandatory even so. The yammerers of the Left have made it so.

     Here’s the text of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:

     Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

     It’s noteworthy that of all the rights mentioned in the original Constitution, or any of the Amendments, only the First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law.” The other Amendments speak of rights without mentioning any particular possible abridger or infringer. Even when Civics was a routine part of American education, insufficient attention was drawn to that difference. Few lecturers dared to speak of the reason for it.

     The reason is simple: The Bill of Rights was a compromise document. Its drafters urgently desired that all thirteen colonies sign onto it. For that reason, they had to make room for certain practices that existed in those colonies at that time. Just as several of the colonies legislatively protected slavery, several had laws that did infringe upon the freedom of speech and religion. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire had an established church: the Congregational Church. Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia had established the Church of England. Several colonies had laws against public vulgarity and blasphemy as well.

     When the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment federalizes all the rights mentioned in the Constitution, such that no state government could pass laws abridging or infringing them, those established churches and laws infringing on freedom of expression were history, de facto if not de jure. It was a landmark in judicial practice, as never before had the Court deliberately ignored the plain language of the First Amendment, nor the care with which the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment had averted any talk of rights. For comparison, here’s the complete Fourteenth Amendment:

     1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

     2: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

     3: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

     4: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

     5: The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

     Read it closely. You won’t find the word rights anywhere in it. Moreover, note that the original ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights don’t say anywhere that “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” That too was deliberate. The whole point of those Amendments was to keep Congress from legislating about the rights mentioned there.

     There’s a whole education in those differences... and damned near no one even thinks to mention them today.

---

     The above is my gesture at providing some real and important information, something worth saying that my readers might not know. The rest of this piece will be of a different color.

     Various Leftist figures, many of them in the media, have felt their positions shaken because of viciously intemperate remarks they’ve made in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The most recent is Jimmy Kimmel. ABC announced that it has suspended Kimmel “indefinitely” for his statements, and has pulled his late-night show from its schedule “for the foreseeable future.”

     Other Left-aligned figures have called such actions on the part of media organs offenses against freedom of speech. They’ve striven to equate those things with Biden Administration strong-arming of various organs into muting conservative voices of note. There is some justice to those claims, as the Federal Communications Commission has been involved:

     FCC chairman Brendan Carr has threatened to take action against ABC after Jimmy Kimmel said in a monologue that “the MAGA gang” was attempting to portray Charlie Kirk‘s assassin as “anything other than one of them.”
     Appearing on Benny Johnson’s podcast on Wednesday, Carr suggested that the FCC has “remedies we can look at.”
     “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

     I can’t approve of that, but it’s just one more example of the perniciousness of licensing. Whoever’s in power decides what will and what won’t be considered licit under a license; note the etymology. Just as they have with tax law, left-wing Administrations have used licensure to suppress voices contrary to their preferences before this. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.

     All that having been said, when governments are not involved in a pressure campaign to punish intemperate remarks, “freedom of speech” as guaranteed by the federalized First Amendment is not an issue. Media barons are fully within their rights to hire, fire, and discipline their employees on whatever basis those barons find appropriate. If well-known media giant Octopus Corp. should decide that some fire-breathing conservative is hurting its bottom line, terminating his employment is merely one more corporate decision. We in the Right might not like it, but it would have nothing to do with “freedom of speech.”

     Both Left and Right have been inconsistent about this. Newspapers – say, remember newspapers? I do – have routinely selected and dismissed commentators on the basis of what their readerships tell them they want to read. That’s not a freedom-of-speech issue. Neither is it when a broadcaster or cablecaster does the same. Even so, the partisans of dismissed commentators will try to make it one. This only confuses the issue of freedom of speech still further.

     Similarly, when a business loses customers and patronage because one of its owners or employees has said or done something customers find repugnant, no freedom-of-speech issue exists. Indeed, the customers are exercising their freedom of speech: i.e., their right to disapprove and to take their business elsewhere. It’s moderately distressing that anyone should need to say this, but such are the times we live in.

     What’s strangely humorous is that many on the Left, having been chastised for belittling Charlie Kirk’s murder or attempting to gloss over its horror, are asserting something akin to a right to be free from criticism. I cannot imagine where or how such a notion originated. It certainly wasn’t honored on the Left when the Bidenites were in power. But people who stung by the popular lash will say anything.

---

     Other, better known commentators have reframed the matter in the best possible terms: There is freedom of speech, but there is no freedom from consequences. All actions have consequences. Word gets around, as I’ve said far too many times already. People will decide with whom to associate from several criteria, and what a man says to others is one of them. With whom he associates is another... and several persons of relatively moderate disposition have discovered that to their chagrin, as well.

     Yes, your words are protected by the First Amendment. That means that, with the exception of incitement to violence, they are not criminally actionable. But the First Amendment cannot limit the freedom of others to regard you as they see fit, including on the basis of your words.

     Words matter. Watch yours, for others surely will.

The Evidence Is Plentiful And Explicit

     I never would have expected to say this here – or anywhere – but the hour has come for segregation of the black race away from whites.

     Have just one item of evidence:

“You don’t deserve black culture…” pic.twitter.com/QHIeER5Nj7

— Dark Side (@not_rekt_11) September 17, 2025

     Oh all right, have another:

Is this “we’re all the same” thing in the room with us now? pic.twitter.com/3RVtJrY4KB

— Dark Side (@not_rekt_11) September 17, 2025

     There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of such videos. There are videos of blacks trashing supermarkets, outdoor grocers’ stalls, fast-food places, convenience stores, and hairdressers’ salons. There are many videos of blacks attacking a lone white man or woman, sometimes in packs. There are videos of blacks deliberately vandalizing cars. There are many videos of gangs of black women brawling in public. There are videos of blacks challenging white cops to a fistfight, usually getting shot or Tased for it. There are videos of blacks disrupting restaurants, of blacks acting up on mass transit, and of blacks deliberately halting traffic on a busy street. You can find as many of these as you can stomach on X/Twitter.

     There are plenty of videos of black smash-and-grab robberies and strong-arm robberies, if you prefer.

     Many will say “But in a nation of 330 million, surely these are just scattered incidents.” They are not. They’re commonplace and growing more so as you read this. Iryna Zarutska wasn’t a tragic outlier; she was representative of today’s norm.

     Around blacks, whites and our property are not safe.

---

     The “root cause” of racial “disharmony” will remain a matter for dispute. Some will insist it’s cultural. I continue to believe it’s at least partly genetic. But does it really matter? Must civil society continue to suffer while we struggle toward a consensus about it?

     When I wrote this piece, I still had hope. I didn’t think that outcome, or anything like it, was inevitable. After all, I told myself, there are still many intelligent, well-socialized blacks. Perhaps they’ll finally realize that they must take their unruly fellows in hand, discipline them, and bring an end to their disruptions of our society.

     Then I started to think seriously. I asked myself the key questions: Who is teaching the unruly ones to hate whites? Who is encouraging them to victimize us? Who is shielding them from the consequences of their actions?

     It was a long and painful pondering. I sought answers other than the obvious one. I couldn’t find any that were consistent with the available evidence. Then I wrote this piece. No, it doesn't explicitly mention race. Does it need to?

     We cannot have them among us.

---

     I’m old. The old are often cynical. I’ve tried to resist that temptation. But cynicism often comes of a particular phenomenon: a pattern of pieties repeated to rationalize the avoidance of an unpleasant or uncomfortable conclusion. The pious ones keep saying “We can’t go that way” to that conclusion even as their preferred explanations fail and the “solutions” they proffer crash and burn beyond recognition.

     It’s when the pieties are inflicted upon oneself that they become truly intolerable. I’ve had that experience.

     I once had a couple of liberal friends. Liberal in the Sixties sense: tolerant, generous, well-meaning – liberals are always well-meaning; ask them and they’ll tell you so – and certain that America could “solve” its race problem. They ascribed that problem to racism: that is, to white racism toward blacks. It was liberal doctrine; anyone who refused it was “read out of the church.”

     I was politically unaligned back then. I’d begun to question that doctrine. At that time I worked near the border between Nassau County and Queens. I’d been mugged several times, always by blacks. Even then, I was willing to notice a pattern, though I still held back from what it implied.

     So I asked one of them, a woman not much older than myself, what she thought about racial matters. She responded with liberal doctrine: we must understand blacks’ grievances, we must be tolerant and forgiving, we must compensate for the legacy of slavery, we must give them a “hand up” to balance the scales, and so forth. We must, we must, we must.

     Must we? I asked myself silently. My interlocutor lived in a lily-white district and worked as a high-ranking bureaucrat at a prestigious university. She might never have brushed against racial hatred personally. I forbore to ask her about that, of course; it would have been “insulting.” So I asked her something else.

     “Suppose my neighborhood,” I said, “were about to find itself home to a couple of black families? Knowing what usually results from that, what would you say I should do?”

     She reacted indignantly. Indignation is common among liberals when they’re challenged on one of their dogmas, even indirectly. She insisted stridently that I would have a moral obligation to remain where I am, not to sell my home and move.

     Why would I be under such an obligation? She never got there. But she was adamant. That obligation, she insisted, was absolute. It superseded my responsibility for my own well-being.

     You might try my query on a liberal of your acquaintance. I can’t recommend it, mind you; the consequences occasionally go beyond simple disagreement. But give it some thought when you’re not otherwise engaged.

---

     I know some highly intelligent persons. More than one of them has echoed that old Sixties-liberal racial doctrine at me. As I once did, they resist the conclusion that the black race cannot mingle peacefully with America’s other races. They want to keep trying. They maintain, sometimes explicitly, that racial separation is simply unacceptable. They insist that there “must be another way” – and that whites are morally obligated to keep trying until we find it.

     I no longer feel any such obligation. The obligation I feel is to defend myself, my loved ones, my neighbors, and American civil society. That’s where I have planted my flag.

     Your conclusions are your own.

A Declaration Of War Part 2

     Though I strive for clarity, the associated virtue of concision often eludes me. I know the reasons, but my efforts to overcome those weaknesses have had only indifferent success. That’s a great part of why I admire writers and commentators who succeed at concision... when they do so.

     A fellow who describes himself as a “Dem strategist” posted this to X:

In the middle of Kirk’s memorial yesterday, Donald Trump held a press conference and called Democrats scum. I am not going to be lectured by the modern-day Republican Party about rhetoric.

— Mike Nellis (@MikeNellis) September 15, 2025

     I didn’t see that press conference. Let’s stipulate that President Trump actually did call the Democrats “scum.” He has earned my regard, so I’m inclined to think well of him, especially in his dealings with the increasingly vulpine press. If he said it, he had his reasons. At any rate, by my lights various Democrats in public office have behaved “scummily” in recent months.

     The redoubtable Kurt Schlichter responded to the above with brilliant concision and penetration:

See there’s your mistake. No one’s lecturing you. We’re not interested in convincing you of anything. When your side lies about obvious truths, there’s no point in argument. We’re just going to use our legitimate power to prevent your friends from murdering us. If that makes you sad, that’s a fringe benefit. https://t.co/HIyz3uz49t

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) September 15, 2025

     Kurt has gone to the heart of the thing. The Left is at war with us. Its public figures wield language as a weapon rather than as a means of conveying information or opinion. That includes the deliberate denial of objective truths, as if observers were incapable of seeing the reality.

     Argument has been taken off the table. What remains is combat.

     Rhetorical combat can be as vicious as any other kind. While words alone cannot do damage to others, they can induce some persons to use actual weapons with which to do so. The recent murder of Charlie Kirk is only the most recent demonstration.

     Rhetoric can also be used in defense. The Left’s numerous attempts to defame Charlie as a fascist, racist, misogynist, et cetera ad nauseam infinitam are desperate attempts to blunt the impact of his assassination. The intent behind them is perfectly clear: “He deserved it.”

     But let’s not stray from the core of the thing: Argument with the Left is impossible. The Left has made it so. If there was a time when Leftists were willing to debate rather than defame, it’s come and gone. The implications for us in the Right, if I may use a disfavored word for its dictionary meaning for once, are obvious.

     But if argument is impossible, what remains? Reciprocal defamations? Fisticuffs? Counter-assassinations?

     None of the above. While the Right must acknowledge the reality, it’s enough that we take an active stance. There’s no longer any point in William F. Buckley’s approach of inviting the adversary to sit down and reason with us. He tried it; he had some successes; but that era is over. The hour for an all-out attack on Leftists’ deceits, distortions, deflections, and defamations is upon us.

     Make them appear like what they are... what they have become.

     In combat of any kind, a tactic that succeeds will be reused. The reuses will continue until its enemy discovers a counter-tactic that defeats it. In other words, success breeds failure. When you hear someone deride military planners for “fighting the last war over again,” that’s what they’re saying.

     The tactic that defeats lies is truth: the presentation of unadorned facts and their immediate implications, including the plain import of the deceits being proffered in their place.

     No, the truth will not persuade the committed Leftist. He’s sold his soul. But the unaligned political middle of America, the approximately twenty percent of voters who decline to become partisans, are reachable. Moreover, my sense is that they’re growing weary of being lied to.

     It’s our time. Use it for all it’s worth.

     UPDATE: Braden Langley has gone the extra mile for all of us:

     Ponder. And pray.

Any Given Sunday

     [An imagining. Not a prediction. At least, not yet. – FWP]

---

     “Dad!” I shouted over my shoulder. “The groceries are here.”
     “Why tell me?” came the answering shout. “You know what to do.”
     Well, yes, I did. But I didn’t like to do it. All the same, I stepped over to the master console, pressed the toggle that focused the monitor camera, and winced as the driver’s face became visible. It was the same one as last week. He leered at me the same way.
     “Do you have a shipment for Hayes?” I said.
     “I got a medium-size package marked Hayes and a great big one for you, sugar.”
     I forced myself not to react. “Put the package on the conveyor.”
     He took his time about it, but after a couple of minutes he fetched a box marked Hayes in large block letters and tossed it onto the belt. I waited until his whole body was back inside his vehicle, then triggered the belt. It jerked forward. Five seconds later, the package was completely inside the safety box. I slapped the safety that dropped the outer security panel. The driver awarded me a parting sneer and sped off.
     Dad ambled over to peer at the sensor readings. Temperature and vapor emissions were within normal limits. The needle on the radiometer ticked forward once, then settled against the left stop. My heart fluttered.
     “Dirty bomb with a crack in the shielding?” I murmured.
     Dad shook his head. “We’d get a persistent positive reading. Probably an activation glitch. I don’t usually use the radiometer. Why would anyone dirty-bomb a private home?”
     “Well, there was Houston—”
     He nodded. “And then there wasn’t. It looks safe, Leah. Let it in.”
     I pressed the Admit key. The inner security panel rose, the belt groaned as it went through its slow, spiraling descent to our level, and presently the parcel entered our home proper. I slapped the safety to drop the inner security panel. I would have opened the parcel myself, but Dad shooed me back.
     “Let me do this, hon.”
     He did, in his usual painstaking way. Fortunately, the parcel was perfect and innocent. It contained no surprises. The contents were what we’d ordered. Three precious pounds of ground beef, a two-pound loaf of bread, a quart jar of strawberry preserves, and assorted canned beans, vegetables and fruits. The quantities were correct. Every item bore an origination-point seal. It was one of our better days.
     No fresh vegetables or fruit, of course. Those days are over.
     “So we’ll eat for another week,” I muttered.
     “Yeah. Put the perishables in the fridge, Leah?”
     “Sure.” I hefted the box of goods and headed downstairs.
     I returned to the living-room level to find Dad sitting on our sofa, staring at his tablet screen with a look of annoyance.
     “Something up?” I said.
     He scowled. “They’re sending a truck.”
     I peered at him. “They want you to come in on a Sunday?”
     He nodded.
     “Any explanation?”
     “None. Last time, it was some garbage about employee security.”
     “I remember.”
     Dad grunted. “I’d better tog up.” He headed up the stairs to the storage area.
     I couldn’t help but worry. The last time he left the house, his car was attacked on the way out and on the way back. The driver had to spray tear gas to drive off the mobs.
     It hasn’t happened often, but more than once mobs like those have shucked a man out of his vehicle and stomped him to death. Yes, even out of an armed and armored, high-security truck like the ones Dad’s employer sends for him. What do you mean, were they looking to steal something? Get serious. Mobs don’t need a reason. That’s what makes them mobs.
     Dad came down the stairs in his going-to-the-office gear: combat helmet, plate-carrier overshirt and Kevlar pants, steel-toed construction boots, a .45 in an appendix-carry holster, Bowie blade at his side, and a chest rig stocked with loaded mags, Mace, and first-aid items. Only his head was visible, and not all of that. He looked ready for the Manhattan front lines. I had a hard time believing he wouldn’t smother under the weight.
     He saw me inspecting him and chuckled. “What am I missing, hon?”
     “Varmint gun.”
     “Won’t need it this time. Going to the Tarrytown offices. The town was fumigated day before yesterday.”
     “Doesn’t always kill the bigger rats. Think you’ll be back by game time?”
     “Hope so. It’s Bears–Packers at Lambeau Field. Old-time football.”
     “Give me a call if you think you’ll miss the kickoff, okay?”
     “Leah,” he said, “you know I’ll call you as soon as the pow-wow is over. What are you going to do while I’m out?”
     “I think I’ll fix some pilaf.”
     “To go with hamburgers?”
     “I still have a good onion and some garlic. Anyway, we haven’t had beef in a month. Live a little, okay?”
     He grinned. “Okay.” He glanced at the monitor. “Truck’s here. Try not to worry, hon.”
     I nodded. “Yeah.”
     He went upstairs to the exfiltration area. I slid the lever forward that extended the access tube. When I got the mouth to within about a foot of the truck’s security portal, I took manual control, docked it, and waited for the green light. It lit at once.
     I could see Dad’s silhouette as he passed through the umbilical, knocked on the portal, and waited. The driver’s-side gunner gave him a once-over, nodded to the driver, and the driver allowed him into the interior. Seconds later the truck was moving at high speed toward the turret-lined entrance to the Hutchinson River Parkway.
     I closed the umbilical’s security panel, retracted it, and headed downstairs to cook and fret.

#

     Dad did get back by game time. He said there were no incidents this time, coming or going, other than a little rock throwing. Still, he looked wearier than usual. He went to the bedroom to shed his gear. I scooped modest portions of my not-quite-gourmet concoction into two shallow bowls and toted them to the living room.
     Dad was back just before the coin flip, once more in his usual garb. The clothes he’d taken to calling his fatigues. He wouldn’t explain why. He settled into his chair in front of the transceiver, picked up his bowl, sampled the pilaf, and smiled approval.
     “It’s good, hon,” he said. “Mom would have liked it.”
     I just nodded thanks. He doesn’t often mention Mom. It’s not smart to continue when he does.
     The Packers won the toss and elected to receive.
     It was old-time football, all right. What Dad calls smash-mouth. The Packers stayed on the ground all the way to the Bears’ fifteen, threw an incompletion, and had to settle for a field goal. The kicker must have been angry. The ball bounced off the Lambeau Field dome and back onto the field.
     “That’s the way it’s been going for them,” Dad muttered. “Quarterback’s got no arm.”
     “He’s not that bad,” I said. “It’s got to be hard to throw accurately with that little light.”
     “Power allotment,” he grunted. “The nukes are at their limits. We’re fortunate, Leah. If it weren’t for the geothermal unit, we’d be feeling our way around like moles.”
     Just how different are we from moles, I didn’t say.
     “Why couldn’t they have made the dome out of Lucite?” I said.
     “They wanted to,” Dad said. “The cost was prohibitive. Takes a lot of Lucite to stop a Vulcan round, and the fabrication and installation would have been a bitch, so they went with steel.”
     The Bears took the kickoff all the way back to midfield and played the hurry-up to catch the Packers unready. It worked. The Bears’ wide receiver snagged the ball in the Packers’ endzone. He waited for the ref to signal the score and trotted to the sideline.
     “No touchdown dance,” I murmured.
     “No fans,” Dad said, “so why bother?”
     “There’re fans,” I objected. “There must be ten million people watching them right now.”
     Dad didn’t reply.
     The Packers took the kickoff for a touchback. Their offensive unit returned to the field sluggishly, as if they weren’t sure why they were there.
     “Geez, guys,” I muttered. “Show a little spirit.”
     “Why should they?” Dad said. “No fans cheering wildly in the stands.” He snorted. “No stands.”
     “Why couldn’t they have kept the stands?” I said. “People used to pay a fortune to attend an NFL game.”
     “Cost and security,” he said. “The security dome would have had to be four or five times as large. As it is, the cost nearly broke the Packers. It did break a lot of other teams. There were thirty-two at one time. Now there are eight, and staging games just for those eight is so expensive there’s only one per week. If it weren’t for the federal subsidy, there wouldn’t be any. Besides, can you imagine what it would take to get ten or twenty thousand people into an enclosed stadium without mass bloodshed?”
     I shook my head. “I know. It’s just... oh, forget it. I don’t know why we bother watching.”
     Dad did something he seldom does, these days. He turned to face me squarely and took my hands in his.
     “Leah,” he said, “it’s what we have left. It’s something. We have power and a working transceiver. The wireless signal here is pretty good. The game is on, so we watch. What else would we do on a Sunday afternoon, buried here like a pair of corpses?”
     I started to say something, bit it back.
     “We can’t go out,” he said. “We can’t go visiting, or shopping, or to a movie, or to a park, or to church. We don’t have the means and even if we did, the risk is too great. The savages are always on the lookout for targets. We have to make do with what we have in this little fortress I built for us. This damned, dark, damp underground fortress.” His voice trembled. “Thank God we got out of the Bronx before... before it got really bad.”
     He wouldn’t say in time. We hadn’t been in time. Not quite.
     “Remember how you used to complain about the apartment? How cramped it was, how there was only one bathroom and practically no closet space?”
     I nodded.
     “If we hadn’t ditched it and moved out here, do you think we’d be alive today?”
     He was plainly on the verge of tears. Part of it was losing Mom to the savages, but another part was the sense of failure. He’d wanted more for me. A regular college education. A social life like the one he’d had. A horde of suitors vying for the hand of his only daughter, marriage and children and a regular family. Those things had receded into the mists.
     I haven’t been out of the house in eleven years. What higher education I could get came from the Internet. I haven’t yet had a paying job. I might never have one. I’m twenty-three and a virgin. I might die a virgin.
     Others have it worse. A lot of others and a lot worse. We’re safe in here. We eat regularly. Dad seldom has to go out and when he does, he gets the best protection Teleoperated Systems can provide. They think a lot of him. They should. There aren’t a lot of waldo operators who can do the nano-etching he does.
     I should have been more thankful and I knew it.
     “Forgive me, Dad,” I said. “I know we’re the lucky ones. I just have... you know, girl stuff to deal with.”
     “I know, hon,” he said. “So did... Mom.”
     We sat in silence for an endless moment. The game continued without our attention.
     A little animation returned to his face. He perked up.
     “There’s a boy at the office...” He hesitated. “I like him. You might like him too.”
     My flags went up. All red. I struggled to control myself.
     “Tell me about him,” I said.
     “Well, he’s... in agriculture,” he said. “Works a combine waldo. He’s good at it, a real natural talent. He’s well-mannered, too. A Christian.”
     “Oh? What denomination?”
     “I never asked,” he said. “He wears a cross pendant, though. You don’t see those much anymore.”
     We don’t see anything much anymore, I didn’t say.
     “Keep going,” I said. “Is he decent-looking?”
     Dad shrugged in that way that says How am I to judge?
     “Leah,” he said. “He’s alone in the world. He lives at the office, in the barracks there. He lost his family in the Trenton riots. Both parents and two younger sisters.”
     “And he wants to start a new one,” I muttered.
     Dad nodded.
     “You haven’t said how old he is,” I said. “Or his race.”
     He grimaced. “Seventeen. He’s white.”
     I forced myself to keep still.
     “Would you like to meet him?” Dad said.
     “Can you arrange for us to chat over the Net?” I replied. “I think it would be a bad idea to bring him here before we’ve had a conversation or two.”
     “I’ll get on it.” His gaze flicked to the transceiver. Halftime had arrived. The Bears were up by seventeen.
     “The Packers don’t have it today,” he said.
     “Or they’re not putting it out,” I said.
     “They looked a lot better back in October,” he said. “Well, that’s the game. On any given Sunday—”
     “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Heard it all before.” I headed to the stairs to fetch a bottle of water from the fridge, stopped. “Dad?”
     “Hm? What, hon?”
     “I miss... Eucharist.”
     He winced. “I don’t know, Leah. I’ll see what I can do.”
     I nodded and continued on.

==<O>==

Copyright © 2025 Francis W. Porretto. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Bearers And Crosses: A Sunday Rumination

     I haven’t done one of these in quite a while, so please bear with me if need to knock a little rust off.

     Today, September 14, is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It’s not one of the better known feast days. It hearkens back to the fourth century, when the cross on which Christ was crucified was lifted above the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Sine then (if not before), the Cross has been an object of veneration and mystery. A number of miraculous cures have been ascribed to the sufferer having been touched by a fragment of the Cross.

     But the significance of the Cross is far deeper than its healing powers. It was on the cross, when Jesus was flanked by condemned thieves Dismas and Hestas, that He promised eternal life in heaven to the repentant Dismas. The Cross thus speaks to us of Divine forgiveness, which opens the gates of heaven to those who sincerely repent of their sins.

     These days, not a lot of priests talk much about sin. Funny thing, isn’t it? The Church exists specifically to guide men away from sin and toward God. But if we don’t strive to understand sin, how can we learn to steer away from it? Few of us travel with a priest at our elbow, ever ready to counsel us on the hazards we face. Wouldn’t do much good, anyway; sin is an individual matter, not something one can rely on a spiritual guide to avert.

     Inasmuch as the Cross is also the overarching symbol of Mankind’s spiritual burdens and the suffering Jesus had to endure to relieve them, it evokes a question of fundamental import to the sincere Christian. We were told, by Christ Himself, that we must take up our own crosses if we wish to belong to Him. He said it well before He was crucified; the cross – the severest form of capital punishment the First Century knew – was already a symbol of immense gravity.

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     There’s a great deal of variation among Christians’ conceptions of sin. That variation gives weight to Christ’s command that we “Judge not, that ye be not judged. (Matthew 7:1) The Church recognizes this in its proclamation that, after the Ten Commandments and the Two Great Commandments from which they descend, the individual conscience is supreme in such matters. I’ve written about this many times, both here and in my novels, so I’ll resist the urge to expound on it yet again.

     From the contemplation of sin, we come to the subject of temptation.

     Temptation is a real thing. When it comes upon you, you can feel it at work. Quite simply, it’s the urging to disregard your conscience’s evaluation of some possible act. Your conscience, which is the mechanism you’ve been given with which to distinguish right from wrong, speaks softly, in whispers. The counter-whispers that exhort you to ignore your conscience are your temptations.

     Some of our temptations arise from our appetites and our desire to indulge them. Those may be entirely innate to the human animal. But some temptations have nothing to do with such things. They speak to our fallen selves, our incompletely controlled urges to hurt and destroy. Those, I believe, have an external source. Whatever the case, he who feels temptation testing his conscience must recognize the symptoms.

     I believe that when Christ told us to take up our crosses if we wish to follow Him, he was speaking of temptation. For our temporal burdens and sorrows are of this world. Everyone has some; no one gets a free ride. The temptations we face are our individual spiritual burdens – our crosses.

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     Few men are admitted to the knowledge of another man’s conscience or the temptations he faces. Few of us talk about them. I’m unsure whether that’s for the best or whether we who believe should be forthcoming about them. It would certainly be a trial for me.

     Temptation usually aims at our personal weaknesses: unsatisfied currents of yearning and the sense of deprivation. Some key phrases to bear in mind are “I deserve,” “No one has to know,” and “Everybody is doing it.” He who finds himself contemplating one of those is in danger; he must look to his defenses. Whichever of his unfulfilled yearnings or resentments is front and center, he must back away from the urge to slake it. It’s seldom easy; ask Saint Paul.

     Shouldering one’s cross at such times is the spiritual challenge.

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     Before I close, I want to mention one of the most emotionally wringing stories I’ve ever read. It was written by my friend F. James Dagg. It’s titled “The Bearer.” Imagine yourself in the protagonist’s role. Do you think you’d be equal to what was asked of him?

     For in James’s tale there lurked a special kind of temptation: the desire to flee from one’s duty. James’s protagonist didn’t flee, didn’t shirk. He carried his cross, though it took much from him, possibly including many years of his life.

     Each of us has a duty. Only you know yours.

     May God bless and keep you all.

"A Man To My Wounding"

Have a "think" video:

The Shelter Problem

     Yes, yes, I know you’re tired of hearing about Charlie Kirk’s murder and what’s followed. Sorry; it’s on my mind, and I write about what’s on my mind. You see, there are parallels between the situation that produced Charlie’s murderer and the ones that make both black predation and Muslim violence so rampant.

     The explanation starts with an insight from Brigitte Gabriel:

     I think I’ve embedded this video before, but never mind. Gabriel’s explanation of the sheltering character of a population that protects and enables its violent fraction is on point. When Mao Tse-tung wrote that “The people are the sea in which the revolutionary fish swims,” he had the same idea in mind. The larger mass of that population need not be violent. It needs only to provide concealment, protection, and sustenance to its violent members. That greatly increases the willingness of the violent to go forth and slaughter.

     When black or Muslim violence erupts, the rejoinder from the peacefully inclined among us is often “But they’re not all like that. We can’t punish all of them for the deeds of a few!” This response is so common that it’s generated an Internet acronym: NAXALT. And indeed, by American standards of justice that rejoinder is correct.

     But the phenomenon has killed the degree of mutual trust that made America the social, economic, and political envy of the world. When it’s unwise, for the sake of one’s own well-being, to trust in the good will of strangers, trust will disappear. And that is exactly what has happened.

     We cannot trust blacks.
     We cannot trust Muslims.
     Worst of all, we cannot trust those on the Left – and we have no reliable way of distinguishing them from the others around us. Any of them could be an assassin or an enabler of assassins. Any of them might cheer at seeing one of his fellows brutalize or kill us. The culture that shelters them has reduced the risk of those things to them.

     That has increased the risk to the rest of us.

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     Retail establishments and restaurants are beginning to sense the dangers. Some have already gone to what I’ve been (mistakenly) calling a “kill box.” Properly, it’s a delayed-admission security entrance. Below is a picture of the sort of thing I’m describing:

     The outer door is unlocked. The would-be entrant steps inside. The inner door remains locked against him until a security guard can decide whether he should be allowed to pass into the establishment. If the answer is no, he can proceed no further; he must leave.

     The “kill zone” where the would-be entrant must wait is of course transparent. It can be made as large as the proprietors think appropriate for their application. The walls are usually made of Lucite. In the future they may be made of armor glass, given how many guns there are in the world. I know of one such retailer, a furrier, who has already imposed such a control on his potential customers. He won’t be alone for long.

     Such controls, openly designed to separate dangerous elements from the rest of us, are a stopgap solution. They can only protect enclosures; they cannot protect public places. With Muslim violence and black “chimp-outs” becoming more frequent and more widespread, the long-term solution can only be a complete, enforced separation of the populations, such as this. Popular sentiment won’t yet support that, but time will tell.

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     Trust in the good will of strangers is a social requirement. The loss of it atomizes us, as it’s doing today. An increasing percentage of Americans are unwilling to leave their homes to shop. They fear what may await them. Many such have ample justification. (Say what you will about Jeff Bezos, but thank God for Amazon.)

     Do you hate the idea? I do. But anyone with a better idea, a better vision for restoring public peace and amity is welcome to present it. In this regard I must hope that there are keener eyes than mine... though I’ve seen no evidence to that effect.

Rearguard Actions

     There may be no creature on Earth lower than Jim Acosta. You may remember his interminable badgering and hectoring of President Trump during his first term. Trump showed more restraint at his antics than I would have expected, far more. He even managed to restrain himself when a court ruled that he could not, on his authority as the president, expel the troublesome tosser from the White House press pool.

     This might have been the supreme example of Acosta’s arrogance and entitled-ness: demanding that Sarah Sanders, then the White House press secretary, contradict her boss in public:

     CNN fired Acosta awhile ago, perhaps out of recognition that he was the opposite of an asset to their viewership and sponsorship. But one of his ilk doesn’t disappear quietly these days. (Cf. Keith Olbermann) He’s sought out alternative channels by which to pump his vitriol into the national discourse. And of course, as there are many today, he’s found one:

Jim Acosta: The real worry is the right’s “exploitation" of Charlie Kirk’s death causing violence.

CNN presented this loathsome, unhinged radical as an “anchor” for years:

“There's exploitation going on of his death and it's happening on the right and it's absolutely… pic.twitter.com/TqCvYIPhgY

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) September 11, 2025

     It would be foolish to expect Acosta to focus on the actual impact of the Charlie Kirk assassination. No, his bent compels him to look for a way to downplay the actual killing in favor of his political allies. So he trumpets that the Right is exploiting the atrocity!

     This is not something to dismiss with a growl. Acosta is something of a standard-bearer for his ilk. He may be the most obnoxious of them, but he represents their attitudes and preferences very well. His approach has already been adopted by other Left-aligned commentators in the mainstream media.

     That’s the Leftist approach to anything terrible their allies precipitate. They don’t reflect on causes and consequences. No, it’s always “Republicans Pounce,” or something to that effect.

     It’s been clear from all the open Leftist jubilation over Charlie Kirk’s death that the killing of an effective conservative activist gladdens their hearts. A few have actually said that they wish it had been their deed, rather than that of an as-yet-unknown assassin. Do we really need any more evidence that they’re at war with us? Real, flying-lead, take-no-prisoners war in which Charlie Kirk’s death is something to celebrate?

     Other conservative activists have been pondering whether they should adjust their schedules, perhaps take additional security measures. May God watch over all of them at every moment. It’s clear that the cream-pie phase of this struggle is over.

     As distasteful as it is, we must keep watch on the mainstream media and their favored mouthpieces. Yes, they’re wounded and falling back, but “a wounded lion is a lion still.” If the Acostan message – i.e., that what matters most about Charlie Kirk’s death is how the GOP can benefit from it – should gain traction, the national discourse will be twisted to their advantage yet again. It wouldn’t be the first time the reptiles of the Left have pulled the rhetorical rug out from under us.