The Burning Bed

 

“It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation.” — Richard Fernandez

“The violence of the jealous man is not always occasioned by his lover’s supposed interest in another man…On the contrary, it serves a prophylactic function and helps keep the woman utterly in thrall to him until the day she decides to leave him: for the whole focus of her life is the avoidance of his rage. Avoidance is impossible, however, since it is the very arbitrariness of his violence that keeps her in thrall to him. Thus, when I hear from a female patient that the man with whom she lives has beaten her severely for a trivial reason – for having served roast potatoes when he wanted boiled, for example, or for having failed to dust the top of the television – I know at once that the man is obsessively jealous: for the jealous man wants to occupy his lover’s every thought, and there is no more effective method of achieving this than his arbitrary terrorism.” — Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom

In 1980, the late actress Farrah Fawcett starred in a critically acclaimed made-for-TV movie called The Burning BedThe movie recounted events in the life of Francine Hughes, a battered and abused wife who reached a breaking point after years of abusive treatment by her husband. She put a stop to her abuse by pouring gasoline over her drunken, abusive husband as he lay passed out in their bed, and then setting the bed on fire.

At her subsequent trial for the murder of her husband, the jury returned a not-guilty verdict on the basis of temporary insanity.

It becomes increasingly clear to me that the volatile dynamics of our cultural and political climate are similar in distressing ways to the dynamics found in abusive relationships. The progressive left has transformed itself into an abusive attention whore, not unlike the jealous man described in Theodore Dalrymple’s remarks above. The election of Donald Trump in 2016, which could be interpreted as an effort to push back against progressive abuse, had the effect of enraging progressives. The “deniable intimidation” coming from the left — to use Richard Fernandez’s characterization — had grown to the point where enough Republicans not only recognized it, but also recognized that the effete, gentlemanly legacy Republicans were not going to do anything about it.

In any bullying situation, the available reactions range from debasing subservience to confrontation. Early in an abusive relationship, I think the hope is very strong that the abuse is an aberration and not the norm. But at some point, it becomes apparent that the abuse is not an aberration but has become the essential thing that characterizes the relationship.  At some point, a victim’s life depends upon her willingness to fight back against her abuser.

Trump represented an effort, by a critical mass of Republican victims of progressive abuse, to defend themselves from their abusers. And, in classic abuser fashion, the progressives ratcheted up their rage and it has continued to this day.

The election day riots in 2016, the weaponization of the FBI, the Russiagate conspiracy, the politicization of Covid, the George Floyd riots, Antifa, the unprosecuted vandalism of pregnancy centers, the lawless picketing and intimidation of judges, defund the police, the legal harassment of pro-life activists, etc., etc., ad nauseam.  All of these events are indications of a progressive abuser who was enraged to come home after the election to find an unexpectedly assertive victim.

The question a lot of people are asking is, “At what point do things become desperate enough that I am willing to set the bed on fire?”  The question doesn’t, of course, take exactly that form.  But there is a growing conversation, no longer in the background, placing odds on the possibility of civil war and, at a minimum, raising the idea of “a national divorce.”  The abuse victims are reaching the point of desperation.

One of the symptoms of abuse is the sense that victims develop that they must live with a complicated and dangerous set of behavioral guidelines, which they must remember and obey, in order to forestall the abuser’s anger.  Abusers upset the mental equilibrium in their victims by rapidly changing the behavioral guidelines for avoiding abuse so that the victim is continually off-balance, always in fear of violating the ever-changing criteria for avoiding violence and rage.  It turns the abuser into the focus of the victim’s entire thought life.

The language and thought police of the progressive left are the vanguard of the effort to create this kind of psychological imbalance in the victims of progressives. The rapid and continuous changes in speech requirements regarding marriage, sex, pronouns, gender, pandemics, etc., reflect something even more sinister than evolving moral standards on those respective issues. They create a minefield of social and, even, economic risk for anyone who doesn’t give careful and sustained attention to the changing requirements for speech which are necessary to avoid abuse. An unguarded comment, an honest observation, a genuine objection – all of these can result in having the world, and sometimes the law enforcement apparatus itself, come crashing down on the victim’s head.

Thus, the effect of continuously changing speech requirements is that progressives are, to a very great degree, able to control the thought lives of millions. The language we use not only reflects what we think but informs what we think. (The dual facets of our own pronouncements, both reflecting and informing our beliefs, shed light on why confession is so important within the Christian tradition.)

Progressive resistance to free speech is entirely because free speech represents the antithesis of thought control. Creating social pressure to conform speech as a means of avoiding abuse has the effect of altering the way victims think about the world. If a person is abused for saying what she really thinks, it becomes far easier for her to change what she thinks than to maintain an ongoing fictional existence — one in which, to protect herself from abuse, she must constantly utter words she does not believe.

The words we choose to utter inevitably alter the very way we perceive the world. It is not possible to be against free speech unless you also deny that other human beings are entitled to their own thoughts. If you are against free speech, you are necessarily against the very humanity of your neighbors. Denying the humanity of others — withholding from them the respect due to those who bear God’s image — is a common characteristic of abusers everywhere. It is in this context that any type of compelled speech (e.g., regarding pronouns) must be understood, not as an innocuous matter of social agreeableness, but as the imposition of something deeply and morally sinister.

“If a man claims to be a woman, which he can never be, and demands to be addressed as such, he is not merely asking for right etiquette. He is demanding that we enter his delusion, or his lie. It is not true. He is demanding that believers in God fall in worship of an idol. Some idols are hideous, like Moloch, and some are beautiful, like Dionysus. The Hebrew prophets did not care. They did not condemn the idols for their style. They condemned them for being false. We have names for people who accustom themselves to speaking what they know to be untrue. We call them scoundrels, or cowards.” — Anthony Esolen, Sex and the Unreal City

Even now, there is little uniformity of opinion, among the victims of progressivism, regarding how to respond to their abusers. My own sympathies lie with those who eschew euphemism and ambiguity and fight back by speaking the truth bluntly, and without disguise.

Everyone needs to re-watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The plot bears on the question of what, exactly, makes possible the thin veneer of civilization we all enjoy. At the end of the day, the writer concludes, it is the willingness actually to fight for it that makes it possible.  But here’s the catch: notwithstanding being the very beneficiaries of someone willing to fight, we subsequently tell ourselves that fighting is uncivilized. Thus we plant the seed of our own demise.

The Washington Generals NeverTrumpers seemed to oppose Trump mostly because he was gauche and uncouth and didn’t go to their schools. Trump was like a guy who showed up uninvited to the cool kids party, belched loudly during the opening toast, and later stuck his hand in the punch bowl.

But the NeverTrumpers were themselves revealed to be shallow and frivolous thinkers by their appalling gullibility. They rushed to believe every false accusation that dripped from the tongues of their own abusers, even while Trump was almost the only person in town who would conceivably fight back against the abuse. Trump had many warts, to be sure.  But he was at least willing to fight. He seemed to instinctively understand that something rather more was needed to put a stop to the abuse than the NeverTrumpers’ longstanding strategy of harrumphing for the cameras about the “liberal order” just before retiring for the evening to hobnob at dinner parties with the very architects of their own abuse. I’m no Trump fan, but neither am I blind. I may have been born at night, as someone once said, but I wasn’t born last night.

The tension over the question of fighting back persists to this day, and it has gone far beyond the question of Trumpian politics. It has become a central question of the “culture wars.” Some have decided that they aren’t going to live within the speech constraints the abusers are trying to impose. They are no longer willing to minimize the truth or suppress their own thoughts merely to pacify a monster.

Other victims, though, are still at the point where they think we should accept the terms offered by our abuser and do what we can to “behave.”  At least, that is how I interpret events surrounding Matt Walsh’s recent dust-up over his propensity for bluntness regarding the issue of transgenderism. Matt unpacks his reasons in the clip below.  I think you’ll find that he, for one, has determined not to comply with the dictates of his abusers.

This is probably what it looks like when an abuse victim decides to set the bed on fire.

.

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  1. Headedwest Coolidge
    Headedwest
    @Headedwest

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Actually I knew three different guys who were in the 99th-plus percentile. Two were close friends.

    And they all showed poor functionality in their judgements and life choices, were dishonest, and yet oddly egoistical. In short, for all their raw intellect and education, they were all average.

    I was a professor for 30+ years, and I ran across all manner of intellects over time.

    People who were at the top of the heap for some kind of academic ability, like math, were not always capable of functioning well in the real world. 

    Long before the Ivy League went totally woke, a lot of people had a rule of thumb that you should never hire a Harvard graduate for a real job. A few were well functioning geniuses, but all of them thought they were geniuses.

    • #31
  2. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
      People were brought to Jesus for almost 1,750 years before there was a First Amendment.  People have been coming to Jesus all over the world, in our lifetime, without the benefit of the First Amendment.

    @arizonapatriot I didn’t mention the 1st Amendment and in most places over those years people were free to think and speak. They may not have done a lot of either simply because of few meaningful opportunities. Now, in our world there are plenty of occasions when this exercise would be valuable and appropriate and yet there are numerous places in the world where it is restricted and we are experiencing that restriction here in private venues but aided and abetted by our government. That’s not confined to the less bright either.

    • #32
  3. HeavyWater Inactive
    HeavyWater
    @HeavyWater

    @arizonapatriot 

    Just to make sure I understand you correctly (you can let me know if I misrepresent the position you are taking).

    When I hear the words “freedom of speech,” what comes to my mind is the idea that a citizen can say something controversial and unpopular and not be put in prison by the government for saying such a thing.

    This doesn’t include making a threat of violence.  So, if someone says, “I am going to kill you mayor So-And-So,” that would be a crime and one could be put in prison for that, in certain contexts.

    However, if someone were to say, “I think we need to put women in prison for having abortions,” that might rub some people in powerful positions the wrong way, but this is protected by what we often call “freedom of speech.”

    Are you in favor of removing freedom of speech from US citizens?  Would this not result in more citizens, who haven’t committed a violent act, being put in prison? 

    I just want to know the practical impact of your political agenda.  You seem to indicate that you don’t like freedom because people use their freedom in non-virtuous ways.  True?

    • #33
  4. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Dunstaple (View Comment):
    My irritability stems from the fact that I think you tend to overvalue intelligence per se, to the detriment of people who do not merit deprecation. My work has brought me in contact with people all across the IQ spectrum; I can honestly say that I have more often seen reason to give respect to those on the lower end more than on the higher.

    Bravo!

    • #34
  5. DrewInWisconsin, Oik Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oik
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Actually I knew three different guys who were in the 99th-plus percentile. Two were close friends.

    And they all showed poor functionality in their judgements and life choices, were dishonest, and yet oddly egoistical.

    Reminds me of a certain “Rhodes Scholar.”

    • #35
  6. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    DrewInWisconsin, Oik (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Actually I knew three different guys who were in the 99th-plus percentile. Two were close friends.

    And they all showed poor functionality in their judgements and life choices, were dishonest, and yet oddly egoistical.

    Reminds me of a certain “Rhodes Scholar.”

    To be serious for a moment, I haven’t investigated this, though it should be fairly easy to do, but my understanding is that people chosen for Rhodes Scholarships tend to be (iirc) bright but morally ambivalent people from fatherless homes, because they are easier to indoctrinate.

    • #36
  7. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Basil Fawlty (View Comment):

    Keith Lowery: But the NeverTrumpers were themselves revealed to be shallow and frivolous thinkers by their appalling gullibility.

    Gullibility had nothing to do with it.

    I think gullibility had much to do with initial NeverTrumpism, especially in its casual form.  The longer the NeverTrumpism persisted, the less likely gullibility had anything to do with it.  At a certain point, it becomes obvious that some people were not simply fooled by the Left, but willing accomplices who essentially agree with Progressives regarding the base.

    • #37
  8. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    Award winner, 8th grade, Project for the Study of Academic Precocity (this was for SAT scores of 500 verbal, 680 math, while in 6th grade)

    Aren’t you in your mid-50s? Time for your grade school accomplishments to drop off the CV. 

    • #38
  9. No Caesar Thatcher
    No Caesar
    @NoCaesar

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Dunstaple (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    I agree with most of what you wrote, Keith. There is one major part with which I disagree.

    Keith Lowery: It is not possible to be against free speech unless you also deny that other human beings are entitled to their own thoughts. If you are against free speech, you are necessarily against the very humanity of your neighbors.

    I don’t think that this is true. I think that it is possible to be against “free speech” if you realize that most people:

    1. Aren’t very bright;
    2. Are easy to mislead;
    3. Are easy to manipulate emotionally; and/or
    4. Often want to be misled, in order to be able to justify doing what they want to do.

    That sounds awfully, I don’t know, maybe the word is… smug? Are you so sure you truly qualify as one of the “bright” ones, haven’t been emotionally manipulated, and haven’t actually wanted to be misled?

    . . .

    Sorry to have to truncate your comment due to space limitations.

    About the smugness thing — I realize that I am subject to criticisms #2-4.

    I realize that it’s not seemly to toot one’s own horn, but I find it even less seemly when people who aren’t very bright don’t seem to understand their limitations. Here are a few of my reasons for thinking that I’m unusually bright:

    • Award winner, 8th grade, Project for the Study of Academic Precocity (this was for SAT scores of 500 verbal, 680 math, while in 6th grade)
    • National Merit Scholar
    • SAT score (1984 version), 680 verbal, 780 math — above 99.9th percentile
    • University of Arizona President’s Award for Excellence, with a full scholarship, awarded for high school performance (I went elsewhere for undergrad)
    • Graduate, Pomona College, Mathematical Economics, cum laude
    • Phi Beta Kappa
    • GRE (1989 version), 740 verbal, 800 quantitative, 800 analytical — above 99.9th percentile
    • LSAT (1994 version), 178 — above 99.9th percentile
    • Law degree, University of Arizona – 1st in my class

    So I think that I’m brighter than usual. This is not “smugness.” It’s based on objective data and testing.

    This does not mean that I’m always right.

    Congratulations on those credentials.  However, the fact that you can (and did) reel them off like that doesn’t send the message you think it sends.  And the message is not “smugness”…   I suspect most of the Ricochetti are in the top 1 percentile of many different intellectual (an other) measures.   

    • #39
  10. Dunstaple Coolidge
    Dunstaple
    @Dunstaple

    No Caesar (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Dunstaple (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    I agree with most of what you wrote, Keith. There is one major part with which I disagree.

    Keith Lowery: It is not possible to be against free speech unless you also deny that other human beings are entitled to their own thoughts. If you are against free speech, you are necessarily against the very humanity of your neighbors.

    I don’t think that this is true. I think that it is possible to be against “free speech” if you realize that most people:

    1. Aren’t very bright;
    2. Are easy to mislead;
    3. Are easy to manipulate emotionally; and/or
    4. Often want to be misled, in order to be able to justify doing what they want to do.

    That sounds awfully, I don’t know, maybe the word is… smug? Are you so sure you truly qualify as one of the “bright” ones, haven’t been emotionally manipulated, and haven’t actually wanted to be misled?

    . . .

    Sorry to have to truncate your comment due to space limitations.

    About the smugness thing — I realize that I am subject to criticisms #2-4.

    I realize that it’s not seemly to toot one’s own horn, but I find it even less seemly when people who aren’t very bright don’t seem to understand their limitations. Here are a few of my reasons for thinking that I’m unusually bright:

    • Award winner, 8th grade, Project for the Study of Academic Precocity (this was for SAT scores of 500 verbal, 680 math, while in 6th grade)
    • National Merit Scholar
    • SAT score (1984 version), 680 verbal, 780 math — above 99.9th percentile
    • University of Arizona President’s Award for Excellence, with a full scholarship, awarded for high school performance (I went elsewhere for undergrad)
    • Graduate, Pomona College, Mathematical Economics, cum laude
    • Phi Beta Kappa
    • GRE (1989 version), 740 verbal, 800 quantitative, 800 analytical — above 99.9th percentile
    • LSAT (1994 version), 178 — above 99.9th percentile
    • Law degree, University of Arizona – 1st in my class

    So I think that I’m brighter than usual. This is not “smugness.” It’s based on objective data and testing.

    This does not mean that I’m always right.

    Congratulations on those credentials. However, the fact that you can (and did) reel them off like that doesn’t send the message you think it sends. And the message is not “smugness”… I suspect most of the Ricochetti are in the top 1 percentile of many different intellectual (an other) measures.

    True that.

    But let me sincerely say I admire Jerry’s credentials as listed. Not because of some genetically inherited tendency toward intelligence, though – that’s obviously not his fault. Rather, to me it points toward a lifelong cultivation of a number of laudable virtues.

    I actually wish I had more fully embraced those virtues, when I was younger.

    • #40
  11. Dunstaple Coolidge
    Dunstaple
    @Dunstaple

    I regret that I have helped lead this thread pretty much off topic. Here’s a link to an article that I think supplements the OP’s thesis:

    First Things: What is the Longhouse?

    quote:

    Thomas Edsall makes a similar case in the New York Times, emphasizing how female approaches to conflict and competition have become normative among the professional class. Edsall quotes evolutionary biologist Joyce Benenson’s summary of those approaches:

    From early childhood onwards, girls compete using strategies that minimize the risk of retaliation and reduce the strength of other girls. Girls’ competitive strategies include avoiding direct interference with another girl’s goals, disguising competition, competing overtly only from a position of high status in the community, enforcing equality within the female community and socially excluding other girls.

    Jonathan Haidt explains that privileging female strategies does not eliminate conflict. Rather it yields “a different kind of conflict. There is a greater emphasis on what someone said which hurt someone else, even if unintentionally. There is a greater tendency to respond to an offense by mobilizing social resources to ostracize the alleged offender.”

    Nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of free speech and the tenor of our public discourse where consensus and the prohibition on “offense” and “harm” take precedence over truth.

    I recommend reading the whole thing.

    • #41
  12. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Dunstaple (View Comment):

    I regret that I have helped lead this thread pretty much off topic. Here’s a link to an article that I think supplements the OP’s thesis:

    First Things: What is the Longhouse?

    quote:

    Thomas Edsall makes a similar case in the New York Times, emphasizing how female approaches to conflict and competition have become normative among the professional class. Edsall quotes evolutionary biologist Joyce Benenson’s summary of those approaches:

    From early childhood onwards, girls compete using strategies that minimize the risk of retaliation and reduce the strength of other girls. Girls’ competitive strategies include avoiding direct interference with another girl’s goals, disguising competition, competing overtly only from a position of high status in the community, enforcing equality within the female community and socially excluding other girls.

    Jonathan Haidt explains that privileging female strategies does not eliminate conflict. Rather it yields “a different kind of conflict. There is a greater emphasis on what someone said which hurt someone else, even if unintentionally. There is a greater tendency to respond to an offense by mobilizing social resources to ostracize the alleged offender.”

    Nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of free speech and the tenor of our public discourse where consensus and the prohibition on “offense” and “harm” take precedence over truth.

    I recommend reading the whole thing.

    This makes it look  like opposing free speech is in effect aiding in the feminization of the society.

    • #42
  13. Chris Hutchinson Coolidge
    Chris Hutchinson
    @chrishutch13

    No Caesar (View Comment):

    About the smugness thing — I realize that I am subject to criticisms #2-4.

    I realize that it’s not seemly to toot one’s own horn, but I find it even less seemly when people who aren’t very bright don’t seem to understand their limitations. Here are a few of my reasons for thinking that I’m unusually bright:

    • Award winner, 8th grade, Project for the Study of Academic Precocity (this was for SAT scores of 500 verbal, 680 math, while in 6th grade)
    • National Merit Scholar
    • SAT score (1984 version), 680 verbal, 780 math — above 99.9th percentile
    • University of Arizona President’s Award for Excellence, with a full scholarship, awarded for high school performance (I went elsewhere for undergrad)
    • Graduate, Pomona College, Mathematical Economics, cum laude
    • Phi Beta Kappa
    • GRE (1989 version), 740 verbal, 800 quantitative, 800 analytical — above 99.9th percentile
    • LSAT (1994 version), 178 — above 99.9th percentile
    • Law degree, University of Arizona – 1st in my class

    So I think that I’m brighter than usual. This is not “smugness.” It’s based on objective data and testing.

    This does not mean that I’m always right.

    Congratulations on those credentials.  However, the fact that you can (and did) reel them off like that doesn’t send the message you think it sends.  And the message is not “smugness”…   I suspect most of the Ricochetti are in the top 1 percentile of many different intellectual (an other) measures.

    I was hesitant to comment because of the personal nature of the emotions this movie stirs but I think I can tie the theme of intelligence in the comments to a couple of themes from the OP.

    That movie was actually in 1984. I mentioned in another thread recently that I moved from Louisiana to Pennsylvania in 1984. I didn’t mention it was in large part to escape my extremely abusive dad. I remember watching the movie with my mom shortly after moving. It was very personal for us. We escaped to another world instead of setting my dad on fire. In this analogy, I suppose “escaping could be viewed as the opposite of fighting back. The opposite of standing up for yourself. I am not so sure in this case.

    My dad did not have the academic credentials of Jerry. I mean, he had quit school in 8th grade and had spent time in reform school. He was, however, a certified genius. More impressive to me though was how he read almanacs and encyclopedias like they were novels and always knew every question on Tic Tac Dough before the contestants. Oh, and solving the Rubik’s Cube in under a minute. He didn’t have many ways to fully utilize his intelligence being an oilfield hand in Louisiana but he did. He was a Toolpusher at 26 and a Company Man for Amoco before he was 30.

    To be continued… 

    • #43
  14. Chris Hutchinson Coolidge
    Chris Hutchinson
    @chrishutch13

    Chris Hutchinson (View Comment):

    My dad did not have the academic credentials of Jerry. I mean, he had quit school in 8th grade and had spent time in reform school. He was, however, a certified genius. More impressive to me though was how he read almanacs and encyclopedias like they were novels and always knew every question on Tic Tac Dough before the contestants. Oh, and solving the Rubik’s Cube in under a minute. He didn’t have many ways to fully utilize his intelligence being an oilfield hand in Louisiana but he did. He was a Toolpusher at 26 and a Company Man for Amoco before he was 30.

    To be continued…

    As Flicker and Headedwest suggested, he was completely unable to function in the real world. He was addicted to alcohol and drugs to a degree I personally have never seen when home but was a different person on a rig. He worked mostly 7/7 or 14/14 schedules. I never understood why or how he could control himself offshore. It seemed better for us all when he was on a hitch. Anyway, it was more than the alcohol or drugs or abuse, it was how he interacted with people. One second being the most magnetic storyteller you could imagine and the next being something very different.

    Now, the other theme of the current cultural and political climate being similar to an abusive relationship, and more importantly, how should we respond to it. Forgive me, I may be a bit all over the place here as I work through my thoughts about my dad’s abusiveness to both my mom and me. This may not be very coherent. Interesting comparison. For sure, I agree a larger and larger portion of the Left are getting more and more abusive and bullying, and I think manipulative, too. I lost count of the times after a violent episode I sat in my window sill watching my neighbors and wondering why no one came to help. There was one time a little old lady who lived across the street marched right into our house and took a tablemat, rolled it up, and slapped my dad in the face. She said something along the lines of him not being a good and honorable man. That was something! I always felt so guilty I couldn’t do more to help my mom, especially since she never stood by without trying to help me. I guess I couldn’t be too angry with my neighbors.

    To be continued…

    • #44
  15. Chris Hutchinson Coolidge
    Chris Hutchinson
    @chrishutch13

    Chris Hutchinson (View Comment):

    For sure, I agree a larger and larger portion of the Left are getting more and more abusive and bullying, and I think manipulative, too. I lost count of the times after a violent episode I sat in my window sill watching my neighbors and wondering why no one came to help. There was one time a little old lady who lived across the street marched right into our house and took a tablemat, rolled it up, and slapped my dad in the face. She said something along the lines of him not being a good and honorable man. That was something! I always felt so guilty I couldn’t do more to help my mom, especially since she never stood by without trying to help me. I guess I couldn’t be too angry with my neighbors.

    To be continued…

    I was glad my mom was strong enough and brave enough to get us out of that situation. Many women during that time and place didn’t. I was 10 and pretty much resolved to not be so weak and scared. I’d also read G. Gordon Liddy’s autobiography “Will” around this time, which played a big part in that. So, throughout my teenage years I willed myself to be a stronger and more confident person (on the outside at least). Becoming a SOF soldier with an intense sheep dog mentality was all part of my reaction to how my dad treated us. I certainly stood up to him over the years and didn’t take his abuse, mentally or physically without pushing back. On the other hand, I never stopped loving him and continually tried to have as normal a relationship with him as possible. He’s gone now and I often miss him terribly. I don’t really know what that all means for how we should react to abusers of any sort or exactly how we should react to the Left. It’s just some of my experiences that have shaped me. I never asked my mom what she thought about the movie although she was visibly moved but I was horrified by it. Disgusted, actually. I think there’s a place between debasing subservience and burning someone alive. A more appropriate way to fight back. I’m sad many on my side are getting closer and closer to thinking that setting the bed on fire is the way to go. Don’t get me wrong, we need to stand up for ourselves boldly, and I almost always agree with Matt Walsh… but I still think he’s a hateful jerk.

    • #45
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