Citizen Writers Fighting Censorship by Helping Americans Understand Issues Affecting the Republic.
There’s a lie we like to tell ourselves somewhere between a full fridge and a stable Wi-Fi signal: once things get good enough, we’ll finally calm down. No more chaos. No more fighting. No more drama. Just peace, progress, and maybe a backyard smoker that never runs out of propane.
The now-famous line popularized by G. Michael Hopf—“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times”—isn’t just internet wisdom wrapped in a motivational poster. It’s a stripped-down field manual for understanding why civilizations rise, peak, wobble, and then fall flat on their face.
Those of us who live in this mismanaged, Democrat-ruled dung-show are keenly aware that Gov. “Hair Gel” has already relentlessly trashed the “Golden State.”
I have said for a very long time:
The only two US political battles that currently matter?
Globalist v Nationalist
DC v US
We like to pretend we live in a fierce two-party system. Red vs. blue. Left vs. right. Cable news gladiators screaming like it’s the Super Bowl of righteousness. But step back far enough and the illusion fades. What you actually see is one bird with two wings—and that bird doesn’t care about your values, your vote, or your virtue. It worships one thing: money.
Forget the timeline arguments for a minute. Set aside the academic cage match over dates, carbon curves, and who’s got the better spreadsheet of ancient dust. Start instead with something far more obvious—there was a world before everything went sideways, and there was a world after.
The Democrat Party is no longer a legitimate political party, and it hasn’t been since at least Obama.
Since after the Civil War, or more accurately, the War Between the States, the Democrat Party has slowly evolved into a treasonous opposition. Their ‘dreams’ for the nation had departed from what the founders had in mind.
The roots go back to the late 19th century, when American labor was less “9 to 5” and more “sunup to collapse.” The rallying cry was simple: eight hours for work, eight for rest, eight for life. In 1886, that demand erupted into nationwide strikes, culminating in the infamous Haymarket Affair in Chicago. A bomb, gunfire, dead police, dead civilians, and a trial that still sparks debate today. It was messy, chaotic, and deeply human—exactly the kind of event that leaves a permanent scar on history.
I thought I had seen the last of traitorous Americans cursing our soldiers or calling for them to be killed when the last American combat troops were pulled out of Vietnam following the 1973 Paris Peace Treaty. After the disgusting display by anti-American, pro-Iran thugs in Philadelphia and the perfidious “No Kings” protestors last weekend, it appears I was wrong.
Since Democrat policies are so illogical and destructive, the only way they can get Americans to vote for them is to censor everyone with a contrary thought. This type of censorship has been going on for decades on college campuses, but is relatively new for private venues.
Once an “assisted suicide” system is up and running under Socialized Medicine, it is just a matter of time when people who are not terminally ill, who are not in pain, would be euthanized by their own government. Since Canada’s MAID was legalized in 2016, the program has grown exponentially.
“My son, Jason, is getting married on Friday, and I am responsible for his wedding toast. I’d like some wisdom to pass on, the only problem is, I don’t have any.”
When my church announced that our next Bible study would be based on “Unoffendable” by Brant Hansen, I’ll admit it — I was irritated (slightly offended). The title alone sounded like something designed to sand the edges off men. “Unoffendable” feels like the spiritual equivalent of bubble wrap. And if you’ve spent decades in uniform, leading soldiers, planning operations, and living inside a culture where decisiveness matters and hesitation kills, your instinct is to bristle.
Don’t shoot the messenger. But in America, one third of children have never handwritten a letter. And it’s not just kids. Nearly 40 percent of adult Americans haven’t written a letter in the last five years
It has been said, if you’re a bad person in this lifetime; if you treat your fellow man poorly; if you live by the code of violence; if you are cruel to elders and children and UPS men; when you die you will wake up in economy class, riding in the middle seat.
At 250 years old, the United States has not collapsed. There are no tanks in the streets or dictators on balconies. Instead, America has done what nearly every revolution before it has done: it defeated an obvious form of tyranny and then slowly reconstructed a more efficient, more sophisticated version of it.
Some weekends feel bigger than sports. Some feel bigger than policy. And then there are weekends like this one where leadership, competition, conviction, and country all collide. I was working on this piece with a Deployment Freedom Cigar lit, paired with a very special small-batch pour of MB Roland Dark Fired Kentucky bourbon. Smoke steady. …
I’d say the biggest problem facing this country is typos. Typos are cropping up everywhere. In advertisements, in emails, and even within the very words your reading now. The main reason for this is your phone, which thinks it’s smarter than you.
From Miller’s Creek Fire and Rescue: This morning (Monday, February 16, 2026) just before 10 AM MCFR received a request for assistants in reference to a cow that was down and could not get up. Unit 8 and Squad 8 responded with 3 firefghters trained in large animal rescue and several other firefighters assisted. Crews …
If you get 50% on a test, you fail. In marriage, 50% also equals failure, and not just the failure of one, but the failure of both partners, and then the failure of the marriage itself.