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Hi, I’m Mikayla.
Hello Ricochet Community. My name is Mikayla Goetz.
I am a brand new contributor here on Ricochet who was last seen inspiring some pretty fabulous debate on my first post–”Freedom is a Tricky Thing.”
If you read my bio, you’ll see that I have labeled myself a “renegade actress turned conservative storyteller.” Allow me to explain. I am, by trade, a theater nerd. When I was young my parents began taking me to our local theater. I was dressed in a pink silk gown and took my seat in the plush velvet chair, and from that day forward I was hooked. I told my parents I would be on Broadway and then retire and become “Glenn Beck.” Glenn Beck was my way of saying political talk show host, as he and Rush Limbaugh accompanied me on every drive in my mother’s mini minivan since childhood. I was quite wise for my years and knew not to get into politics until after I was already well-liked. Young Mikayla would be surprised that I did not follow my own sage advice. Instead, I erupted from the conservative closet quite early in my artistic career.
After completing my B.F.A. in Theatre Arts with a concentration in Acting from Coastal Carolina University, I quickly formed a theater company with fellow graduates and began producing work for the armed services community. After spending a summer at a Shakespeare Theatre right outside NYC, I realized the Broadway scene was indeed the alcohol-laden, anxiety-ridden, narcissistic cesspool the “fuddy-duddy adults” warned it was. Broadway was, to put it mildly, not my scene. The film world seemed no better. After meeting with an agent who requested I include more “sexy monologues” in my repertoire and bragged about the women from his agency who play the “naked woman who is murdered” on every major crime show, I realized I would need to forge my own artistic path.
So I did.
Our theater company partnered with the VA to discuss the challenges of RPA (drone) warfare on mental health, as well as with veterans on college campuses to tell their stories of deployment to their fellow students. I greatly enjoyed this work as a story developer and actor. I will forever carry with me a deep respect for the armed services community, including their families.
After my time with military folks, I became deeply interested in the plight of Jewish Ukrainians–shockingly interested considering I was 22. (I am only 25 now.) I traveled to Ukraine alone to gather stories of Jewish Ukrainians working to immigrate to Israel–to make “Aliyah,” as it is called in Hebrew. In the past, I have explained my time in Ukraine as having stolen my innocence but replenished my joy. I met with survivors of Hitler, Stalin, the Holodomor, and the Holocaust, as well as many people still surviving the conditions of Crimea and the Donbass regions today. I saw people on their deathbeds who held out faith for medical care in Israel. I gathered stories in refugee camps. I was almost mugged multiple times. I had Army men from Fort Bragg working in the U.S. Embassy rescue me from my apartment. I was not short on adventure (or angels protecting me).
When I returned home, I shared the stories I had gathered via speeches, a short film, and an audio series (available on my website www.mikaylagoetz.com.) I told every young person I knew about how much communism sucks and that I had seen socialized healthcare, and we absolutely don’t want it.
I finally told the artistic world I was a Zionist. This was the cause of my first confrontation along the lines of, “Oh, my gosh. Are you conservative?”
In the 2020 election, I was struggling to keep my mouth shut in my artistic community–a bubble that is exclusively left-leaning and quite hostile to diversity of thought. All at once, the dam burst inside of me. I was seeing the cultural mechanisms of the left up close, and they were on the move and very effective. I knew it was time to speak up.
So I did.
About six months ago, I launched the SomethingBurger Podcast– a conservative podcast I affectionately describe as a “gateway drug for the emotional leftist.” The SomethingBurger Podcast reaches the “empathetic types” with the compassionate conservative argument for America’s most debated questions. (Yes, I know compassionate conservatism isn’t universally loved in our movement, but it has seemed effective for me thus far.) I know how alluring today’s far-left messages are for the emotional types because I am an emotional type myself. I noticed that it is the empaths marching us toward socialism, so I launched the SomethingBurger Podcast to demonstrate that the truly compassionate ideas lie in the conservative platform.
Since launching the show, I feel I have been shot out of the proverbial conservative cannon. I quickly became a regular on AM 950-Orlando, did live coverage of CPAC, and was taken under the wing of amazing organizations like Heritage Foundation, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and now Ricochet.
All of this to say, I suppose I am skipping Broadway and aiming straight for the metaphorical “Glenn Beck.” Since the silk dress and velvet seats, I have always been drawn to a good story, and I feel blessed to be telling the stories I believe really matter.
Thank you all for welcoming me.
I look forward to the discussions, debates, and sharing of good stories.
P.S.
My Podcast–The SomethingBurger Podcast, will be available on Ricochet starting in September! I am stoked to join the Ricochet family and I can’t wait to hear what you all think of the show.
Published in General
Hi and welcome to Ricochet.
I am Instugator – sometimes shortened to just ‘stu. My avatar is a photo of me shot through an NVG during a combat sortie over Afghanistan circa 2002. At that time I was a B-52 instructor pilot and I am flying in the co-pilot seat.
The rest of my bio is actually my adult history, in chronological order starting with my time at the United States Air Force Academy.
I enjoyed your “Freedom” Post.
I welcome you on behalf of my fellow robots and robot enthusiasts. We support you humans reconciling your emotions.
What an amazing story! I’m glad you’re here.
Welcome Mikayla! I think you will be a lively addition to the site. Thanks for sharing your story.
Welcome aboard.
If you are trying to find something interesting to read, look for my weekly book reviews on Sundays.
Who was that guy?
I remember when we used to shoot cel in the B-52.
Hi Mikayla! /over here waving
Welcome to the family.
Thanks for joining the discussion I started on dead “conservativism” and I, too, enjoyed your “Freedom” post. Somehow, I feel our posts were related/a continuation. That’s the way Ricochet works a lot of the time. Good stuff.
Go get ’em. And welcome.
Will we soon be able to find Somethingburger on the Ricochet Audio Network?
Working on that as we speak…
PVH Weems Here he is with the Lindberghs and with my parents.
Mikayla,
You seem too good to be true. You have already established yourself in the collective Ricochet mind as someone whose expression of opinion on any controversial subject immediately silences all opposition.
From your sparkling resume, I assume that you already know the correct views on those issues where lingering superstitions and misconceptions are still prevalent among us, but if you need me to fill in any details, please let me know. Our goal should be to put the debates on Subjective Value Theory and the Optional Nested View Enhancement to bed by midweek, but I understand that you must be exhausted from the move, and need to unpack. So: no pressure!
If you haven’t got your health, you have nothing.
Welcome Mikayla, we are glad you found us.
Awesome, thanks.
Who built/invented the star tracker systems that automate celestial navigation? (Probably better for a different post, not to jack Mikayla’s post)
You may find the answer in the excellent Time and Navigation exhibit at the Air and Space Museum. My father invented GPS and is mentioned in it. This picture from the exhibit is the team which put the first cesium atomic into orbit. Dad is standing far right. I exchange emails regularly with Pete Wilhelm who is seated far right.
Welcome.
(Note: You would be wise to put such communications with the membership on the Member Feed. Many of us may never see it on the Main Feed.)
Welcome. A tiny portion of my “spirit” is in that B-52 (I worked for the company that made avionics, and upgrades existing planes-I bought a complex circuit-board for it). I was going to say the same thing as @philo. Join us over on the member feed from time to time-you will be impressed by the writing over there.
Thank you everyone for the warm welcome!
This is quite an active and engaged community of thinkers.
Please keep commenting on my future writing–the responses I have received thus far have already helped me to refine my own thoughts.
Awesome!
Welcome aboard Mikayla!
Hi Mikayla!
Some of my strong anti-collectivist biases come from hearing from people who grew up or lived under communist or socialist systems and escaped. Even as a kid in the 1960s I realized that if they were willing to take the efforts and risks they did to escape, what they were escaping from must have been really, really bad. I did get to visit a couple of times (once as a kid, once as a teenager) behind the Iron Curtain, and get a glimpse (but only a glimpse) of how bad it was. But it was the stories from those who had lived it that made the impact for me. One of my recent concerns is that it has been so long since the fall of the Iron Curtain that younger people are not hearing those stories. While people like Michael Moore put out propaganda, as do the communist governments themselves. So, it seems to me there should be a market for stories of the people who today live under the systems politicians like Bernie Sanders and Bill deBlasio tell us are so wonderful. People like your Ukrainian Jewish acquaintances.
Good point. And Ukrainian Catholics would be another group to talk to.
Shameless plug, but I did exactly that with the stories of Jewish Ukrainians. It’s available on my website http://www.mikaylagoetz.com. Click the button that says “Aliyah Audio Series.”
I’d like to learn more about these oral histories. I rarely listen to podcasts, as my audio time is already oversubscribed listening to audio books, but this might be one of my rare exceptions.
Your web site says: “This has taken the form of articles, short films and an audio series.” Do you plan to give links or citations to the articles? And pointers to the films?
Hi Mikayla, welcome to Ricochet. Thanks for this post, and I think it would be a great idea if all new contributors wrote such a one.
I’m the trendsetting “She” who’s been here since sometime in 2010, although I think others have carried this “announce your preferred pronoun” business rather too far, since I instituted it all those years ago…
And as my profile states (among other things):
Looking forward to more of your posts and some good conversation all around the site.
Welcome, Mikayla! I loved the bio. I wish I could share mine!
I very much hope you’ll make the time to engage in the comments of posts – we have some pretty impressive people around here, and their insights will surprise and delight you.
They might horrify you as well. Be prepared.