“No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” (Abraham Lincoln, 1862)
It’s Day 232 of The First Ohio Shutdown and Day 168 of Leftists Setting Up Tables That Americans Will Turn.
Deb and I are feeling fat, happy and well. We owe the first two (and arguably all three) to last night’s dinner, my signature basil pasta. We have plenty for leftovers tonight.
Check out that header photo. Can you smell the raw garlic?
News broke this morning that Ohio’s governor will deliver a televised address tomorrow. The announcement says that he’ll speak about the state being at a “critical stage” in dealing with WuFlu.
Whether it’s during that speech or the next day, don’t kid yourself, he’ll drop the hammer. It’s only a question of how big the hammer is and how hard he swings it.
Hyper-cautious. Fear monger. Alarmist. Controlling. No one can convince me that DeWine didn’t vote for Daffy.
It looks like a whole bunch of Facebook users, tired of dealing with Zuckerbots, censorship and banishment, plan to move over to Parler this Friday in protest. That’s a good thing, in principle — plant your flag where your values are rewarded (or at least where they’re not punished). It’s very much in-line with the foundation of this blog.
Ubi libertas, ibi patria.
I’m already on Parler myself. So are many friends and followers of this blog. That said, for a variety of reasons I’ll maintain a presence on Facebook as well, at least for the time being.
First, at the moment Parler is hopelessly buggy. Even when it works it’s cumbersome and incredibly limiting.
Second, I’m not a fan of cut-and-run boycotts. They’re rarely effective, beyond making their participants feel like they’re doing something — in other words, most boycotts are symbolic gestures and little else. And when we look at things like scale and numbers, we realize that Zuck is likely to feel more discomfort from Saturday morning’s razor burn than from any “loss of revenue” generated by Friday’s walkout.
And third, I want Ubi Libertas to reach as many eyeballs as possible — even if those eyeballs are stuck in the head of someone who doesn’t share my values. I want this blog not only to gather like minds, but also to have a shot at influencing others. Parler will be a sort of echo chamber for a while, and if all we do is recirculate our own fumes we advance nothing.
Besides, voluntary exile is still exile.
Bottom line: I stand with those who choose to shift their social-media activity entirely to Parler (or elsewhere). I support the movers (and the platform) with an Ubi Libertas presence there. But if, for your own reasons, you’re still on Facebook, you’ll find me there, too.
At the top of today’s post, I decided to reprise a Lincoln quote I invoked on Friday. It’s a lesson and a caution, and in our current predicament we should be mindful of both.
Forget the election feud — seriously, put aside the matter of who won and who lost. Focus instead on what surrounds us and what we can control.
We get to choose how we conduct ourselves in post-election America, home to 76 million fellow citizens who voted against their own country. We decide how to behave in a culture dominated by people who truly hate us, who want to cancel us and silence us. Many of them want us dead.
That isn’t paranoia. They’ve said so.
So what do we do?
Well, we can go along to get along. We can wrap ourselves in our disappointment. We can withdraw, we can isolate — voluntarily exile, that is — and we can be silent.
Or, it seems to me, we can be a People of Principle. We can be the same unapologetic Liberty-loving Americans who attended rallies, proudly flew our flags and planted signs in our yards — and when those tolerant Democrats defaced them, we put them up again.
We can be the People of Principle we were on November 2nd.
We can stand up, speak up and push back. We can teach and we can lead.
As Lincoln reminds us, we choose between honor and dishonor. And it doesn’t matter if we’re a celebrity or a nobody, a billionaire or a clock-punching working slob. Our significance or insignificance — and how we’ll be remembered by future generations of Americans — depends on whether or not we choose honor.
You make your choice. I’ve made mine.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #OhioAgainstDeWine