patrick.net

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/22/politics/dallas-mayor-eric-johnson-republican/index.html

Patrick says

Dallas mayor announces he's becoming Republican because "Democratic policies have exacerbated crime and homelessness”

I'm no more than 10% surprised as he has always been about low taxes, pro business and support the police

He campaigned on trying to make Dallas a very competitive city to attract new businesses

TBH I don't remember ever hearing about him before.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/09/22/gavin-newsom-andrew-tate-joe-rogan-jordan-peterson-ai/

I just read-read the original post and again think it is really excellent.

I think the left, at this point, exists solely as a primal reflex, an "enemy" nerve, that makes everything about the other side seem repulsive.

One key to enlightenment is to trigger the same feelings about the left that people on the right have every day. Feelings are important.

So the busses of illegals from Texas to NYC are good, because now leftists in NYC feel threatened with the flood of illegals the same way that people in Texas do.

What else?

Men who reach enlightenment about the biologically programmed motives of women, which evolved that way because they work.

Getting mugged, or getting your carburetor sawed off your car.

Inflation.

Knowing that there are a lot of true things you are simply not allowed to say. This is probably the biggest one. Just ask leftists what true statements would get them ostracized from their fellow leftists.

detested trump. but had to pay a fee for not being able to afford healthcare under obama, and 2 years into trump I got a govt supported health plan. then came biden and i lost my healthcare again, and now on SS. Yes SS like in nazis ! they harassed me several times a week and sometimes up to 3 calls a day till I blocked them from email and phone, and now they send me snail mail twice a month or so. Considering giving up on this SS.
And yes, these last 3 years have made me move to the opposite camp too. I have been watchign what the dems do, and found out that I agree with the reps more often. Not that many stood up, but I can see how they vote for the things I want. Greene is considered and extremist, but she is very often right (although her wording is not always too well chosen) and Rep Allen stands behind withdrawing from the WHO, which I think is a terrorist org.

Patrick says

Getting mugged, or getting your carburetor sawed off your car.

?? Did you mean catalytic converter sawed off?

@16f74cb186970f994fc6bf8ee2ba2c52 Thanks for your comment! Not sure why it got into moderation.

You can change your default user name at https://patrick.net/edit_profile

HeadSet says

?? Did you mean catalytic converter sawed off?

Yes, I did.

My mistake.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/labs-of-liberalism-monday-september

Tucker Carlson gave an interview to Switzerland’s Weltwoche this weekend. Topics ranged from his sudden and unexpected departure from Fox News to things like Biden’s mental incompetence, Ashley Biden’s diary alleging Joe’s molestation, and Larry Sinclair. Out of all of it, I thought you’d enjoy this final, optimistic bit the most:

Weltwoche: In general, what gives you hope in a rather worrisome time, looking into the future?

Carlson: “That the stakes have suddenly gotten so high that smart people are rethinking their assumptions. I see it all around me. I see people all around me asking themselves, “I used to believe this. Is it still true? Was it ever true? What is the truth?” People are focused on questions of truth and falsehood, I think, much more deeply than they ever have been, and that's a good thing.

I also see an awakening of spiritual awareness and religious faith in the United States that I think is great. Not everyone is reaching the same conclusions that I'm reaching, but that's okay. It's better than thinking that Amazon's going to make you happy, because Amazon is not going to make you happy, actually. That's not true. That's a lie. And more and more people seem to be concluding that it's a lie, and I think that's a great thing.

There's this idea that somehow the main threat to our happiness is from religious people. That's absurd. The main threat to our happiness is from people who think they're God. They're the dangerous ones. I'm much more comfortable around religious people. I'm a Christian, but they don't have to share my views.”

Tucker unleashed!

@M1ssundrstood

I wish we never got the vaccine. My spouse went deaf,our daughter developed renal hypertension and kidney problems months later. I couldn’t forgive myself until recently. I shldv trusted my gut! We’re on the right side now. Never going back!

https://robertfkennedyjr.substack.com/p/kennedy-independent-presidential-candidate

As I’ve surrendered my attachment to taking sides, I’ve been able to listen with new ears to people with whom I disagree, and see solutions that would otherwise have been invisible.

I’ll give you an example. Six months ago, I thought that an open border was a humanitarian policy, and that sealing the border meant you were a xenophobe or perhaps even a racist. I was wrong.

How did I learn I was wrong?

It wasn’t just that I listened to the other side. It was when I actually visited the border and listened to the people who weren’t on either side.

My views changed as I spoke to border patrol officers, to local officials, to aid workers, and to the migrants themselves.

Patrick says

I’ll give you an example. Six months ago, I thought that an open border was a humanitarian policy, and that sealing the border meant you were a xenophobe or perhaps even a racist. I was wrong.

This makes him unfit. He is no different than Biden changing his mind only when politically forced to do so. If RFK cannot see why immigration needs to limited to those who use legal channels, then RFK is just more of the same Pollyanna bleeding hearts.

https://slaynews.com/news/billionaire-democrat-admits-wrong-trump-did-lot-really-great-work/

Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya, a prominent Democrat voter, has spoken out to admit that he was wrong about President Donald Trump.

Speaking on his “All-In Podcast” Saturday, Palihapitiya admitted that Trump’s America-first policies have actually helped the country.

He also claimed Democrats with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) have done more harm than good by trying to stop the 45th president.

Palihapitiya, a successful venture capitalist, asserted that Trump did “really great work” on a range of issues.

He noted that Trump’s achievements are especially impressive when measured up against Democrat President Joe Biden.

“I voted for Hillary Clinton,” Palihapitiya said.

“I voted for Joe Biden.

“But this is the honest assessment.

“[Trump] did, for the things that he was supposed to do, a good job.

“And for where every other president found a way to make our situation a little bit worse, specifically around wars, he did not do that.

“And that’s a huge accomplishment that needs to be acknowledged.”

“As a Democrat, who has been left homeless, who is now definitely in the center, but probably leaning increasingly right, I’m left yet again with an appreciation, despite the messenger of the message, of the Trump administration, because what those guys did was pretty incredible in hindsight.”

As reasons to reconsider support for the 45th president, Palihapitiya cited the Trump administration’s foreign policy successes that prevented new regional wars.

original link

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-day-the-delusions-died

From the above:

Call it a realignment, call it a political awakening, call it a vibe shift. Something has changed since the attacks on Israel.

Here’s an example of what we mean: a friend, appalled at the equivocation and apologia in the West after the brutal Hamas killings, told one of us that he used to consider himself a “conscientious objector” in the culture wars. “Not anymore,” he said. October 7 changed that.

Liberal friends were suddenly talking about buying guns. Progressive friends were texting about topics like border security and immigration. In a whisper, one even admitted to watching Fox News.

For a sense of what this real-time political transformation can look like, watch this clip of venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya on the podcast he co-hosts, All In. Palihapitiya, who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, explains that he is rapidly revising his view of Trump’s time in office: “As a Democrat who has been left homeless, who is now definitely in the center but probably leaning increasingly right, I am left yet again with an appreciation, despite the messenger, of the message of the Trump administration because what those guys did was pretty incredible in hindsight.”

Chamath continued:

So much of the work that happened in that administration turns out to have been right. And that’s what is so frustrating for me. The work on the border wall? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. Turned out it was right. Issuing long-term debt to refinance when rates were at zero? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. A structural peace in the Middle East? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. When are we gonna stop shooting ourselves in the foot? And when are we going to actually see and take the time to look past who is saying things and actually listen to them word for word?

If it’s clear that the last two weeks have been a wake-up call, the next question is: Why?

Part of the answer is the sheer depravity of Hamas’s terrorism. That depravity has made the justification and celebration of their acts by those who police pronouns that much starker. The contradictions and moral bankruptcy of a worldview that spends years worrying about microaggressions and tone policing, but can’t decide what side it is on after the beheading of babies, aren’t exactly difficult to spot.

To put it another way: when Black Lives Matter organizations are lionizing Islamist terrorists by posting a paraglider logo, you’d be a fool not to reassess things.

As Konstantin Kisin writes in his powerful essay today in The Free Press: “The events of the last week have shattered the illusion that wokeness is about protecting victims and standing up for persecuted minorities. This ideology is and has always been about the one thing many of us have told you it is about for years: power. And after the last two weeks, there can be no doubt about how these people will use any power they seize: they will seek to destroy, in any way they can, those who disagree.”

The other aspect of it, we think, is the sense of how thin the line is between civilization and barbarism. And how the West, which so many take for granted, is more vulnerable than we ever imagined.

We’re curious: Have you noticed something similar in conversations with friends in recent days? We love the fact that this community of half a million is so politically diverse. And we wonder, has the war in Israel and the reaction to it caused you to change your mind about anything? Or maybe something else has forced you to reconsider your opinions? If so, tell us about it in the comments.

Erstwhile "liberals" are rediscovering why their parents thought and behaved the way they did. I guess it's better late than never. My only concern is it too late to do any good?

https://slaynews.com/news/detroit-jewish-leader-stabbed-death-own-home/

A prominent Jewish leader has been stabbed to death in her Detroit, Michigan home.

40-year-old Samantha Woll was board president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue in Detroit.

Woll, who was also a prominent Democratic Party activist, was murdered on Saturday and was found dead on the doorstep of her home.

In addition to being a Jewish community leader, Woll was a co-founder of the interfaith organization Muslim-Jewish Forum of Greater Detroit.

It was either black violence or Muslim violence. Democrats support both kinds of violence.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/one-year-monday-november-6-2023-c

You’re not going to believe this — I had to read it several times to make sure — the very first personal interest interview in the article was of a never-Trump democrat (“you can’t be worse than Trump”) who now says … he’s planning to vote for Donald J. Trump:

“I actually had high hopes for Biden,” said Jahmerry Henry, a 25-year-old who packages liquor in Albany, Ga. “You can’t be worse than Trump. But then as the years go by, things happen with inflation, the war going on in Ukraine, recently Israel and I guess our borders are not secure at all.”
Now Mr. Henry plans to back Mr. Trump.

Mr. Henry was wrong that nobody could be worse than Trump, but he’s back on track now. The lifelong democrat learned that in fact, someone can be worse than Trump. And that someone is Joseph Robinette Biden. Mr. Henry even had the issues listed right.

Henry wasn’t the only example in the story. Travis Waterman, 33, was quoted saying that other world leaders “don’t respect” Biden. The article also quoted Spencer Weiss, democrat, 53, who now, reluctantly plans to cast his vote for Trump.

“The world is falling apart under Biden,” said Spencer Weiss, a 53-year-old electrical substation specialist in Bloomsburg, Pa., who supported Mr. Biden in 2020 but is now backing Mr. Trump, albeit with some reservations. “I would much rather see somebody that I feel can be a positive role-model leader for the country. But at least I think Trump has his wits about him.”

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/one-year-monday-november-6-2023-c

And so, it begins. Here was CBS’s headline:




I guess democrats should only vote for Trump if they want to stay out of war and have better finances. Thanks, CBS!

Patrick says

Another great moment in the annals of DUHHHHHHH!

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/rising-narratives-wednesday-november

Rising’s November 24th episode was the ‘followup’ interview with Dr. Sachs (probably really just the second part of the original interview), titled, “Jeffrey Sachs on Rising: I Was a Democrat... COVID CHANGED THAT.” ...

As you listen or read the highlights below, consider how significant it is that someone like Dr. Sachs, with so much personal investment in the official narratives, and so much insider knowledge about what really happened, is coming around to our way of thinking.

Dr. Sachs began the segment with a bold statement that might've been copied and pasted from a Coffee & Covid post:

SACHS: “(There are) many hints (that Covid) could’ve come out of a U.S. lab, or a Chinese lab, or a partnership in the research. The problem with trusting anything is, when we have secretive government that is telling us lies, it just generates a huge amount of distrust about everything.”
Dr. Sachs wasn’t always on board. As he explained to the nodding anchors, he originally bought the official lab-leak explanation. Because science...

At that point Dr. Sachs’ entire worldview began crumbling. He’d spent his life in government and politics. He was used to relying on the government to at least stumble around to doing the right thing, at some point. ...

But then, Dr. Sachs lived through covid. And in his attempt to uncover the truth about what happened, he watched the democrats — his lifelong political party — circle the wagons to protect the government from any critical scrutiny, just when when the government was behaving at its worst:

SACHS: “I began to really see, close up, that there was so much lying coming out of NIH, coming out of Fauci, coming out of, unfortunately, the government — protecting all this. And now, it’s spilling out. But what is true to this moment — weirdly — the democrats don’t wanna look. So where Congress is looking is on the House side, where there’s majority Republicans in the House Oversight Committee, (they) are looking into this. But on the Senate side, with the democratic majority, it is absolutely ‘circle the wagons’ around Fauci — who is not even there! — or around NIH, or around G-d knows what.”
To Dr. Sachs, getting gain-of-function research under control isn’t a partisan issue. It is a life or death issue:

SACHS: “As someone who’s been a lifelong democrat — but I’ve left the party because I don’t want to have anything to do with any of these parties right now — I have to say it’s shocking to me that democratic Senators cannot understand this is not a partisan issue. This is a life and death issue. What kind of research is going on? What kind of laboratory manipulation is going on? What is going on under what we euphemistically probably, or perhaps, call our ‘biodefense industry?’” ...

And to put some icing on the episode cake, here are a few examples from the episode’s comments from folks who — like Jeffrey Sachs — also ditched the democrat party over covid and/or the jabs:




... We are either already in a new phase, or we are rapidly moving into a new phase where the pandemic’s liars have lost the argument.

Patrick says

pandemic’s liars have lost the argument.

Never was an argument, just blunt force, intimidation, and lots and lots of corrupto bucks.

https://www.aussie17.com/p/the-normie-report?publication_id=1242457&post_id=139288713&isFreemail=true&r=6gdz

I couldn’t understand why they would choose to lose their job and career instead of just getting a vaccine that would actually keep them from getting sick and dying from covid. This was how I felt at the time, but my entire perspective changed almost 180 degrees in 2022 when a good friend suddenly dropped dead while riding their pushbike home from work.

Personally, I had no major problems from the covid vaccine, but I sure saw several people at my work getting sick and then when my friend dropped dead, casually riding his bike home, the trauma that caused was just awful. He was married with two kids, super fit and somehow he just had a heart attack. His funeral was hugely traumatic, as his young wife and infant children were just so sad. I will never forget how sad that funeral was. The sounds coming from her body were terrifying and those poor kids had no idea what was going on. A friend at the funeral sort of said to me ‘told you those vaccines were dangerous’ and I have to say, I could have punched him in the face. How dare he say that, there.

The funeral really had an impact on me and I started to read a few things people had emailed me. Things I would have previously just ignored or deleted. An email came through about ‘died suddenly’ and heart attack stuff and that really was a moment I remember reading it and just thinking ‘why isnt this on the news!’. I read more and more of these sorts of things, started listening to podcasts on Joe Rogan I started to think ‘holy shit’ by about Christmas 2022. I guess I started to ‘wake up’ as these people were saying. ...

I feel a bit silly for not having seen it immediately when, in Australia, our government started telling me what I could do, like literally communist-like telling me I couldn’t go here, do this, visit my mum in another part of the country. I actually can’t believe I went along with ‘all that’ and knowing what I know now I am ashamed that I mocked people who wouldn’t wear a mask or get the vaccines, for in my mind (today) they are the real heroes who somehow saw through it all.

https://notthebee.com/article/black-chicagoans-are-mad-we-are-done-with-the-democratic-party

Any Republican candidate in the city of Chicago, now is your time! Because we are done with the Democratic Party. Mayor Johnson and Governor Pritzker and President Biden have shown us what they think about the black community all over this country...

We don't have to support the Democratic Party...

It's gonna be a great day in the city of Chicago when the Democratic Convention comes here and then they find out in March that a lot of black folks took Republican ballots. Deal with that!

https://notthebee.com/article/this-business-owner-voted-for-leftists-last-time-around-now-that-hes-been-looted-guess-what-he-says-now

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/chainsawing-monday-december-11-2023

If you still weren’t convinced the conservative counter-revolution is real, prepare to have your mind changed. Yesterday CNN aired a remarkable segment on the weekend’s Global Public Square with Fareed Zakaria. Not only did Fareed spend the entire segment making the case against higher education — and he framed the argument as well as Christopher Rufo might have — but Fareed also shattered a whole glass cabinet of precious lefty sacred cow creamers.




In case you somehow missed it, late last week three woke, sexually-atypical Ivy League presidents at Harvard, U. Penn, and M.I.T., all testified before Congress and were unaccountably unable to adequately explain the apparent contradiction that their students can be expelled for calling a bearded male professor “he” — in a private conversation! — but at the same time it's also perfectly fine under the schools’ Orwellian speech codes to call for genocide against Jewish students using a bullhorn.

I’m still analyzing where the three extra-diverse academics went off the rails, and why the left has completely abandoned them in their time of need. The three ladies’ performances were a perfect storm of failure. But part of the explanation must be how smug and arrogant they were as they linguistically wielded messy bowls of word salad like they were medieval maces.

Grinning nearly to the point of shattering their botoxed cheeks, the three presidents seemed to revel in annoyingly refusing to answer sensible questions from attractive House Representative Elise Stefanik, who was in all ways their exact opposite making for a fascinating study in contrasts.




As evidence for how completely Mrs. Stefanik owned the three academics, not only has one of the three — Penn’s Liz Magill — already resigned, but here was Saturday’s New York Sun headline, starkly suggesting that the hearing may in fact lead to much more significant changes in higher education than just replacing a few woke presidents:




I covered this story more fully in yesterday’s post, but the difficult lesson the three academics are now learning is that while politicians may smugly not-answer questions, college presidents are expected to be sincere and give understandable answers, or evidently pay the price.

But, back to Fareed, and to the Sun’s predicted ‘earthquake in higher education.’ At one point early in his segment, soberly reflecting about how white male applicants might as well pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster as apply for an Ivy League professorship, Fareed flatly identified the actual, real-world problem — without even a little virtue-signaling or using any woke buzzwords — proving that after all, they do know how to speak plain English.

Fareed explained to CNN’s viewers that the universities are failing, badly, by pursuing diversity instead of merit:

“American Universities have been neglecting a core focus on excellence, in order to pursue a variety of agendas, many of them clustered around diversity and inclusion. It started with good intentions … but those good intentions have morphed into a dogmatic ideology, and turned these universities have turned these institutions into places where the pervasive goals are political and social engineering, not academic merit.” ...

There was nothing revolutionary about Fareed’s observations, of course, since conservatives have been ringing this alarm bell and even filing reverse-discrimination lawsuits over this issue for more than a decade. But what was revolutionary in that the segment was that it appeared on CNN at all, and that it was delivered by a “trusted (leftwing) news source” like Fareed Zakaria.

Think about this: What is happening in the culture to cause CNN — not to mention nearly everyone else — to side with conservatives against woke college culture as though it were common sense? Think about pendulums and how they swing back.

IMHO, there were never any "good intentions" behind woke ideology at all. The whole thing is nothing but resentment against people who have in some way proven themselves objectively better than the woke.

One of my favorite quotes about this:

"Man would fain be great and sees that he is little; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be
perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of the love and esteem of men, and sees that
his faults merit only their aversion and contempt. The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most
unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and
convinces him of his faults." - Pascal

.

See below. The Economist article this month (December 2023) about how the NY Times has lost its credibility.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"The Times is becoming the publication through which America’s progressive elite talks to itself about an America that does not really exist"

https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-times-lost-its-way

.

.

ad says

.

See below. The Economist article this month (December 2023) about how the NY Times has lost its credibility.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"The Times is becoming the publication through which America’s progressive elite talks to itself about an America that does not really exist"

https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-times-lost-its-way

.

.

As if it ever had any.

Like, The Economist can talk? They are the electrified Globalist cattle prod dildo of the City of London, the Royals, RIIA and MI6. More like an Intel agency brief on who's robbing who successfully in the world.

https://notthebee.com/article/its-been-really-fun-to-watch-billionaire-bill-ackman-take-the-red-pill-over-the-past-week

It's been really fun to watch billionaire Bill Ackman take the red pill over the past week

On December 5, Harvard-grad Bill Ackman, a billionaire Jewish hedge fund manager, was absolutely shocked to hear the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and UPenn refuse to condemn calls for Jewish genocide on their campuses when asked before Congress. ...




Me to Bill:




It boggles me mind to think there are still rich dudes like this who think America is still the same nation as it was in 1990 - the "everybody is welcome," post-civil-rights movement land of cool action flicks and opportunity.

We've been in the "everyone who disagrees with me is a white supremacist" America for at least a decade now (thanks, Obama!), and we're pretty dang close to the "all dissidents go to the gulags" phase.

But I have hope for guys like Bill. He's not a red-blooded conservative...

This guy's Pershing Square Foundation is a MAJOR donor to Planned Parenthood.

He called for shutdowns in 2020.

He is a long-time donor to Democrats, wanting Michael Bloomberg for president in 2016. He is a supporter of Chuck Schumer, Robert Menendez, Richard Blumenthal, and the Democratic National Committee.

BUT he realized this week that the NYT edited Hunter Biden's quote about his dad being involved with his business:







He realized that Facebook's former DEI executive stole $4 million from the company like a good little comrade:




He realized that DEI programs are scams meant to allow the rich to cheat and the ideologues to gain power:







He's celebrating Oklahoma's decision this week to ban DEI programs from its public universities...

He is understanding that corporate media will destroy anyone who doesn't agree with the fake and gay regime...

He's realizing the hypocrisy in the standards of the Left...







I'm not saying Bill is going to become a domestic extremist like all of you fine people overnight, but he's on a path.

It reminds me of another once-liberal billionaire who took his own red-pill journey not so long ago! (photo of Elon here)

He got to be a billionaire by being retarded? Maybe he has just been turned by the Rockefellers, who recently turned toward Trump as the lesser of their various evils going forward (or for amnesty?), and is doing what he is told like all the coined capo billionaires. Picking a lane isn't necessarily enlightenment, it's logistics.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/narrative-crossfire-monday-december

Enjoy wrapping up today’s roundup with this recent clip of one Dr. Zajac, who admitted he used to be an arrogant, know-it-all vaccine bully, but has now come all the way around to refusing to vaccinate his own kids. In other words, he became an anti-vaxxer. In the 17-minute interview clip, Dr. Zajac also discusses the relative health of vaccinated and unvaccinated kids in his practice and the practical economics of vaccines. However much you think pediatric vaccines are worth to a general medical practice or pediatrician, it’s more than you think. Way more.

CLIP: General practice doctor discusses his conversion from pro-jab to anti-vaxx (17:30).

https://twitter.com/catsscareme2021/status/1734658874995560714

Dr. Zajac admits that he used to be a “vaccine bully,” because his clinic needed to achieve certain vaccine rates. But his attitude changed as he had to start making decisions about vaccines for his own children, and his own clinical practice had shown that the rates of vaccine injuries were not what the CDC and drug companies were claiming, such as “one in a million,” but more like one out of 100 were being hospitalized from vaccine injuries.

It was a fascinating interview. Maybe most fascinating was learning, from his own words, how a smart doctor completed the dangerous journey from being an unwitting accomplice to becoming a freed, independent thinker. Not to mention how he developed humility and faith along the way. Perhaps not all doctors can be saved, but maybe Dr. Zajac’s example offers a possible formula for doctors who could be saved.

https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/why-i-am-no-longer-a-democrat

Why I am No Longer a Democrat
By Jesse “Hi-Rez” Friedman

My cousin was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting. Up until then, the media had trained me to be fearful of guns and to stereotype proponents of the Second Amendment as Southern, redneck racists. I grew up in a household where most of the world’s ills were blamed on Republicans, and my parents voted Democrat down the ballot.

“They are the empathetic ones who care about the little guy,” my mother would say.

However, my cousin’s death stirred up questions inside of me: Why do schools brandish “gun-free zone” signs when government buildings and Hollywood homes are protected with armed guards or security? Why does the media believe ordinary Americans must remain defenseless against unhinged psychopaths who shoot up schools?

These questions led me to a profound realization: the reason America has not been overtaken by a tyrannical government or foreign adversaries is because of our Second Amendment. In the event that we needed one, this country would have the most robust militia in the entire world. But despite having more guns than people in this country, we have not fought a single war on our soil since the Civil War.

In 1911, Turkey established gun control, and between 1915 and 1917, the government rounded up and exterminated 1.5 million Armenians. In 1929, when the Soviet Union implemented strict gun laws, 20 million were slaughtered over the course of the next 24 years. The same fate awaited 20 million Chinese, 100,00 Mayan Indians, one million Cambodians, six million Jews, and 300,000 Christians, immediately after the regimes of China, Guatemala, Cambodia, Germany, and Uganda enacted gun laws in the 20th century, respectively. The biggest mass genocides in history were always perpetrated by governments against the people.

I am currently banned from performing in venues across Germany, due to my political worldview that, according to one booking agent, is “too pro-gun and pro-Trump.” Imagine the irony of a country once responsible for the murder of one out of every three Jews on earth, not allowing me, an orthodox Jew, inside their borders because of my belief in a policy that could have potentially saved my ancestors in 1940s Europe.

I owe it to my grandparents who died in the Holocaust to protect my family. More importantly, as a law-abiding citizen, I owe it to the Americans who died so that I could be free. I would rather assume the risks that come with freedom than risk potential “peaceful” enslavement as a result of a zero-gun policy.

The first time I attended a gun show, I saw how gun culture in America is more diverse than any progressive political gathering I have witnessed. In the last few years, women, and specifically black women, have become the largest purveyors of legal guns in this country. They see how our institutions have emasculated men to the point of destroying the chivalry that once held our great society together.

The problem with guns is not the Second Amendment. It is the video games, music, and movies that glorify gang violence and the use of illegal firearms in virtually any scenario except that of self-defense. It is the agenda-driven media that cares more about white shooters than minority shooters, and white children occasionally killed in the suburbs than black children regularly killed in Chicago.

But these arguments are cultural and not fundamental. The deeper truth is that America’s founding fathers did not instantiate the right and duty of a citizen to defend oneself from the threat of another citizen. They instantiated this duty based on their clear-eyed, experienced understanding that governments have a monopoly on violence. The contradictory activist-push of simultaneously defunding the police and banning guns renders both citizens and law enforcement helpless in the face of a government flush with weapons. Such conditions are a recipe for disaster, as we have learned from history.

In a perfect world, I would be anti-gun. But I live in the real world. As long as any bad guy, whether a despotic dictator or a psychotic mass shooter can legally or illegally get a gun, I should not be denied the right to obtain my own.