Live Not By Lies: The Gulag Lesson America Forgot

“Socialism does not collapse because it runs out of money. It collapses because it runs out of truth. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn understood this better than almost anyone alive. The Soviet Union was not held together by productivity, innovation, or freedom. It was held together by fear and a mountain of compulsory lies. Citizens learned to repeat obvious nonsense simply to survive. Newspapers reported record harvests while shelves sat empty. The state called itself a workers’ paradise while millions disappeared into camps. As the Bible warns in The Bible, Satan is ‘the father of lies,’ and every authoritarian system follows the same blueprint: suppress truth, punish dissent, and force the population to publicly kneel before fiction. The gulag was not the beginning of the process. It was the final invoice.”

Dispatches Del Camino

The albergue looks like a mountain chalet. We are snugly situated deep within the Fonfaraón Mountains, which climb high into the Spanish sky, separating us from an entire civilization below the cloud line.

Here atop the world, the mountain peaks look like incarnations of the Appalachians, with a fuzzy, green carpet-like texture, rounded edges, and swooping valleys that gather pools of fog like a white lake.

We will be hiking this today.

Love That Goes the Distance | Audio Reading | Our Daily Bread Devotional | May 3, 2026

In Deuteronomy 11:13-21 we learn how God wants us to teach our children, instructing them in the ways of the Lord at all times. God is faithful in return, making it so our physical lives on this earth are sustained. When we eat we will be satisfied. 

The Blind Coonhound

My granddaddy said you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat a dog. Someone who treats a dog badly, is a bad person. A person who treats a dog with regard and deference is a good egg.

Right now, my wife is holding our blind coonhound, Marigold. She holds our rescue adoptee like a baby. Not like a dog.

Betwixt and Between

America is betwixt and between more things than you can shake a stick at.  The conflict with Iran is on the front burner.  Every election cycle at every level is another contest worth winning.  Every institution – Government, Business, Education, Media, Arts and Entertainment, Religion, and Family is caught in the crossfire of a No Mans Lands in the Great U.S. Culture War.  That’s the struggle against Cultural Marxism and it’s new, best ally – Islamist Totalitarianism.

The Director of the Household: The Sound of Marriage

There is an ancient proverb that says, “The couple that does not record audiobooks together stays together.”

These are wise words. I know this now because recently, I wrote a book with my wife. This past weekend, Jamie and I recorded the audiobook version together, which was a lot of fun. And anyway, now I’m scheduled for dental surgery.

A Continued Path to Glory and Peace

Today, we Americans are marching to a new ‘Path to Glory” for our country much as our founders and ancestors had to do. Today, we must continue to be Americans First citizens and rise above partisan politics and political parties. We must face the future solving our problems and plans looking through a reality prism not a political one and seek to restore this great country, our Republic and the Constitution. The goal ahead is to select common-sense leaders who understand our challenges and have the vision to lead us to a secure America so all can be in the pursuit of happiness and a thankful life.

Three Knots, No Excuses: The Lost Skill That Still Saves Lives

There was a time—not that long ago—when a man who couldn’t tie a knot was considered about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Today, we’ve got people carrying $1,200 smartphones, satellite GPS, and enough titanium gadgets clipped to their belt to look like a walking REI catalog… and they can’t tie a loop that won’t slip under load.

The Progressive Transformation of the Democrat Party, 1956–2024 Robert Conquest’s Second Law was the mechanism

Robert Conquest’s Second Law of Politics states: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.” The corollary logic is that progressive activists, being more ideologically motivated than moderates, systematically infiltrate, outlast, and eventually dominate institutions — whether universities, media organizations, NGOs, professional associations, or political parties.