Spicy Times

Ally is in tears. I’m angry. I haven’t been this angry since somebody tried to take my kids from me 15+ years ago.

We are seeing a breakdown of our societal norms. We are no longer a high-trust society. As the Magic Eight Ball used to say, “All signs point to yes.”

My father used to say that he was made colorblind by an act of Congress. By this he meant that as an officer in the US Navy, he was legally bound to ignore race when interacting with those that reported to him.

In my entire life I believe I’ve only seen one reaction from him or my mother that was race-based.

In 4th grade I asked my parents if my friend from school could come over. They agreed. The parents were in contact with each other, and Mom and I went to pick up my friend.

He climbed into the car, and we had a great playdate. Afterward my parents said something about, “We weren’t expecting a black kid.”

In all my descriptions of my friend, I never mentioned his race.

I feel like I remained colorblind until middle school. In high school I was exposed to N* for the first time. They enjoyed picking on the white kids. They were crass, rude, mean. I hated the bus ride, I hated school, and I hated everything to do with the N*s. But here’s the thing: I use that word today; I didn’t at the time. Those monsters destroyed my opinion of black people. It took years before I recovered.

I did recover. I was able to look beyond race and judge people by their actions. I didn’t see racism until I was at University and was introduced to the term “Oreo” by a friend. He was describing how N*s described him.

Even when I was living with Section 8 people, the people were people. The N*s dealing drugs across the street from me and my family? Not so much.

The other day, an evil monster with black skin was riding the light rail when he decided to murder a young white woman. He took a lockblade from his pocket. He opened it. He then prepared to leave the car at the next stop.

As the train stopped, he stood, took a step to his right, leaned forward, and stabbed Iryna 3 times, murdering her before walking off the train saying, “I got that white girl.”

I have been seeing videos claiming that Iryna deserved it, because she was white. There are images out there of this evil black monster with a crown on his head and red glowing eyes praising his actions.

And I’ve seen videos made by blacks calling the white people that refuse to sit in front of them “racist.”

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being told that I’m evil and uncaring and attempting to silence people who are saying everything they think out loud and in public.

I’m not willing to make a fuss or call them on their hate-filled screeds. It isn’t worth it.

Charlie was willing. Charlie was very good at it.

He would debate anybody who came to talk with him. Ben Shapiro is good at winning debates. He isn’t nearly as good as Charlie was at bringing people to the right.

Ally watched more of Charlie than I ever did. I didn’t watch because I can’t stay that calm in the face of such idiocy.

Today we lost Charlie.

And I’m scared. There are people from the middle that are running from the far left loons as fast as they can. They aren’t conservatives, they are not right leaning, but they sure as hell aren’t with them.

I don’t know who shot Charlie. I’ll wait to find out. I am passing judgment on the reaction of the “left.” I’m passing judgment on the rhetoric of the left, of how they constantly use the language of violence against the right.

I don’t hate them; they are not worth my energy. They say they hate me.

What am I scared of? I’m scared the light switch has been flipped in far too many people.

The left treats violence as a dimmer switch; they turn it up until it starts to look like it might be too much, then they turn it down. They use it to keep things at a low boil without things boiling over.

Unfortunately, the response isn’t on a dimmer switch. It is on a toggle switch to 20,000 volts.

It is the people who are comfortable taking 300 yard shots with Grandpa’s old hunting rifle.  It is the people who walk into a place and understand egress planning as well as sight/shot lines. It is people that respond without thinking to threats as if they had been in dance class together.

These are the people who go silent while they make target lists. These are the people who will spend the time and effort to plan every part of their operation to the final degree.

And that target list is huge. It would include people who wouldn’t dream they would be on someone’s target list.  They are just a talking head on MSNBC or CNN or any of the other outlets that spew hate and lies. It includes all the low-level politicians who aren’t relevant enough to be on a target list.

There is a powerful scene in Unintended Consequences where two hunters are out deer hunting. They look across the river into the backyard of a politician. They decide that they want to become part of the resistance.  So they line up to take the shot, just as if it was a deer. It was an easy 250-yard shot.

They then just walked out of the woods, another pair of hunters.

How many opportunities will present themselves over the coming months to people who have had the switch flipped?

I pray for all of you to do the right thing. Stay strapped; keep your head on a swivel. Stay away from stupid people. Stay away from stupid places. And don’t be there at stupid times.