Sometimes I am required by disposition to drop to my knees in thankful and appreciative prayer for the intellectual and honest fellowship on these pages; this is one of those times.
When I describe the nature of our affiliation to those in similar networks, some of those you would likely call familiar, I am often asked why I spend so much time reviewing the commenting section of our diverse conversation on the porch. My answer is the same as the repeated emphasis I provided to those who rescued us from the Big Tech deplatforming effort… “the conversation is the point.”
You are the absolute best group of online people assembled. PERIOD. You are what makes me smile, feel optimistic, feel encouraged and positive about the future amid the whirlwind of chaos generated by the professional political class. Quite simply, you.. that’s right, YOU, are the modern WE THE PEOPLE. Feel good about that as you look at the person you see in the mirror when you brush your teeth. Give yourself credit, you are awesome.
An incredible conversation starts with one simple and profoundly interesting point from Lorrie…
“I teach humanities in a public middle school. The history portion of the curriculum is the study of ancient civilizations. I NEVER espouse either my personal religious or political views — ever!
Yesterday I asked my students to write down — as a quick write– what they knew about our current government– who is in charge… how does it work…
NADA. Zilch.
These kids write every single day in my class.
Many left the paper blank.
Most said, “I don’t know anything about our government.” A few mentioned who the president is.
Hmmmm…..
Ten years ago, I had students yammering their opinions on all sorts of political topics. I realize that usually they were parroting what they hear from family members.
Today, silence.”
Big wisdom follows from Paul:
“I don’t put it on the kids because in your original post you mention that 10 years ago, kids yammered away with opinions. Something shifted. It’s why I asked the question.
This tells me they are not hearing it at home. Their parents are not talking about it. Nor are others around them. Then they spend hours upon hours on their phones on social media.
They are isolated and being manipulated. They just don’t know it. And their parents ignore it because they too, more than likely, have been swallowed by the Borg.
Sad times.”
A simple response, with just as profound an affirmation from Oscar:
“Sad to confirm Paul but everything you say is true and has swallowed up my 20 yo daughter. The self isolation and 100% reliance on her phone for information is beyond disturbing to me. I pay for her phone because it helps her keep her job. I’m seriously thinking of pulling the plug and forcing her to pay phone expenses.
I speak with her regularly regarding current events, Gaza, Biden, etc. but have a hard time staying calm. She doesn’t read anything other than what’s spoon fed her through her iphone. She has zero historical context or background for any of her communist inspired rhetoric. She is completely manipulated. Her two brothers are complete MAGA and know what’s happening.
Her older sister is Lib and will not change due to peer pressure among the elite crowd in NYC that she works and socializes with. Obviously, my experience has been much tougher with my two daughters. I used to believe that a liberal is a future conservative once they age, pay taxes and are mugged by reality. My daughter in NYC has been mugged once by herself visiting DC and again in DC with her hyper lib, former college roommate (all within the last 18 months) and they both are still Lib. I will never give up on them. I constantly send them conservative, logical articles (VDH is a favorite) and I always try to lead by example.”
Please, if you are so inclined, let us continue this conversation in this breakout post.
There is large value within this discussion and trust me – I, along with millions of like-minded mules, some with a profound reach and beyond your imagining importance, read every single word with contemplation, introspection and appreciation.
♦ Last point. When you drop a stone into a pond a ripple is created. The ripple expands in an ever-increasing circle. Once you drop the stone, there is no way to reverse the process of the ripple expanding. Such is the pond of life and ultimately the love, wisdom and value you drop within it.
This simple fellowship we call The Conservative Treehouse exists, because of you – not me, YOU.
You are the point.
You are the value.
You are the gift.
Feel that…. along with my profound appreciation for your incredible value.
Love to all.
Steadfast,
~ Sundance
“Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world.” – Vladimir Lenin
I read that quote a lot.
Lenin was never able to transform the whole world, just a small geographic area near where he lived.
And the transformation he bragged about is not even there now.
These marxist, communist ideas pop up all the time from the beginning of the world but they never last.
People eventually push back hard, then even harder and then the construct of these marxist whack jobs is demolished.
We are at a point where We The People need to push back, no one is going to do it for us.
Unfortunately they have totally polluted MORE than just one generation. It started many decades ago (and remains) in the universities, polluting those who are now teachers at lower educational levels and in government and the “news” and entertainment media.
Trump was a speed bump that was mostly neutered while in office and horribly harassed afterwards by the ACTUAL government – the administrative state, corporate lobbyists, the Uniparty, and the intel agencies. The same forces will be there if he has another term and any changes he makes can be reversed by the next titular head of the executive branch just as was done by Oatmeal Brains.
Waking up the easily propagandized, dumbed-down, attention deficit idiocracy will most likely take an economic collapse just as in Argentina before there is even a chance of significant, lasting change for the better.
Only a Collapse and Total Reboot Can Fix Our Bloated Government System
NOVEMBER 14, 2016
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tony-corvo/2016/11/14/only-a-collapse-and-total-reboot-can-fix-our-bloated-government-system-n48938
Excerpt:
Conservatives keep voting for candidates thinking that they will fix the bugs, but let’s look at what this approach would take. In one form or another we will have to:
1) Elect at least a generation of conservative supermajorities in both chambers of congress. They have to be supermajorities because parliamentary rules allow for political minority actions to stop simple majority legislation.
2) We will have to elect a string of conservative presidents to work with the conservative congresses. We can’t have activist presidents who govern by executive actions in order to bypass congress.
3) True constitutionalists must be nominated and approved to the Supreme Court.
4) Conservatives will have to control at least 37 state legislatures, because sooner or later we will need to make constitutional amendments.
Some people aren’t creative… email me the list of s@xual harrassment settlements by Congress, and/or their online search histories, and I’ll take a shot at making them resign en masse. Forget elections and civics…. We’re in a war
We are IN an economic collapse, it started in 2008 and got serious in 2019 when they ran out of tricks that were purely financial.
Transitioning to conservative leaders is making continual progress. There is a team of MAGA behind Trump preparing for overhauling the government when he is elected.
With all of the imported illegals, a collapse of government is in the cards near term unless they are departed and congress begins the process of reducing government expenditures massively.
Sundance, Don’t tell my husband but I think I love you and what you bring to the table.
And I had the exact same initial thought as Paul.
I’m sure your hubby will understand. My wife loves PDJT and I’m OK with it!
We love you so much Sundance. Your our inspiration.
👉Thanks Sundance for ALL your research and diligence and fellowship.👈
✅️Treehouse “wolverines”(😉) are not solitary but are always using your posts 📬 to share with those we know and care about.
😉😉
Thanks to Sundance and staff and everyone here at CTH. Thank you for all of the thoughtful posts concerning my two daughters and especially my 20 yo. I will always cherish this day. I have read more than 90% of your posts for this conversation (I will eventually read all of them). I discussed in great detail many of your suggestions and comments with my wife and I will embrace more than a few excellent suggestions which I will implement immediately. Please pray for me and my family and especially my daughter as I pray for you and yours. Let’s pray for each other and our great nation. God Bless America and God Bless our fellowship at CTH.
If the Great Awakening does not include an exposure of the criminal intent of the MSM it will awaken nothing of importance.
and arrests
If one Muslim in Gaza is killed the MSM has 24/7 coverage. Think about this , Nigeria has been occupying Biafra since the 60’s and has killed millions of Christians there ( Biafra is the Christian part of Nigeria) have you EVER seen it in the news ? Indonesia has been occupying West Papua since 1963 and has killed over half a million Christians. Have you EVER seen it in the news ?? Is the Muslim brotherhood in charge of our media ! What gives
No, SATAN is in charge of our media (“ruler of the air”), so anything that might bring sympathy for Christians is squelched. Once you understand who the ruler of this world is (i.e., satan), then lots of things make sense. It’s also why no one goes around using “Buddha” as a curse word. Satan only leads people to curse the One true God!
My son leaned conservative, then he went to college. Now he doesn’t want to hear anything about politics, but sometimes he slips and talks about all the rich 1% who hurt the rest of us. Yep, I know where he got that from.
If I say anything at all that is from my conservative position, he gets furious and occasionally storms off. He’s 40, and is living at home because he knows I need him to help care for his disabled father. So, we tiptoe around issues most of the time, and I occasionally drop something that should shake him a bit.
And I pray, a lot.
Don’t be to hard on him for the 1% comments. We all know the roots of.that BUT that distrust can be redirected to the actual .001% who are.the string pullers in this puppet show. We have common ground, not with the communists but with the sympathies they prey on.
This is a very good point. I keep being shocked by how much I sound like 70’s environmentalists talking about big business wanting to pave the world – and then I realize I always had a lot in common with the real people behind those talking points. In some ways I have circled around to their views, in other ways they have circled around to mine.
Meanwhile, the fake liberals are doing flips to try to explain why replacing “green spaces” with apartment buildings is actually environmentalism and the fake conservatives are doing flips to try to explain why putting big business together with big government makes government into a Good Thing.
Those “institutions of higher indoctrination” are the bane of our nation. My two oldest daughters got full academic scholarships – one to Washington University and the other to St. Louis University. We homeschooled – and were constantly barraged about how we weren’t qualified…
Well – they held tight for the first two years. But the constant drumbeat and other situations beyond their control shook their worldview to the core and now they are no longer conservative. I still pray that one day they will awaken. My oldest brother sent my mother to her knees in prayers for years because he was so liberal. Now he sends me (and many others) links to articles on this wonderful site just to be sure I’ve seen them!
Becoming a parent also wakes many people up to the narcissism that invaded their lives. It’s one of the reasons the left constantly attacks parenthood, and life itself.
For them to lass the classes their papers had to reflect the professors take on the worldview or do poorly. Ya it’s that bad. Party line or out.
I have some idea of your sorrow, Lesko, for I too homeschooled two sons, both of whom went on to graduate, with honors, from the University of Washington. One remains a conservative/libertarian to this day, a deep thinker who researches everything and will not be swayed from the things he knows to be true but the other has been sucked into the vortex of the woke world and we have almost no contact with him or his wife.
I do blame the professors but also believe that personality played a role as well. My younger son insists that we “sheltered” him from people who were “different” from us but his brother says that is completely untrue. No, we didn’t send them to public school but we were involved in all kinds of activities and we exposed them to cultural things, at age appropriate times, in order to facilitate open, honest discussions and debates.
However, even as a child, we recognized in our younger son a lack of discernment, an unwillingness to think clearly, and a lazy refusal to examine all sides of an issue to determine what was fact and what was opinion. It worried us when he was living at home – he would simply parrot the pastor or give us the answer that he thought we wanted to hear. And once he went to college, he simply transferred that same pattern to his advisors and the MSM.
We tried to instill in both of our sons the ability to think logically, to do their own research, and to own their faith – one took our lessons to heart and the other did the opposite. He is academically gifted but was, and still is, intellectually lazy.
It’s easy to go down the path of wondering what we did wrong (and in NO WAY do I claim we did it all perfectly) but at some point, there also needs to be personal responsibility for actions, decisions, and beliefs taken as a adult – playing the victim card gets very old very quickly, IMHO, and most of the people who do it are perpetually unhappy and very seldom successful!
I heard a quote earlier this year that there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are Thinkers and there are Repeaters and the second group far, far outnumbers the first! I really liked that and think that it explains a LOT of the problems that we are currently facing!
Very well thought out and solid. Agreed.
Has he ever read anything, at all, at The Treehouse?
Its the Serenity prayer;
The “things I can not change” are OTHER PEOPLE.
Short of applying extreme force, we can NOT change other peoples behavior, and all of the force in the world that we are capable of marshalling, can not change other peoples views, attitudes, opinions or thoughts.
What we CAN change, ALL we can change, are OUR behaviors, and OUR opinions, views attitides, etc.
However when we change our behaviors, others respond by changing how they behave towards us.
The vast majority of us did not start out where we are now, at some point because of our observations of events, we BEGAN the process of “red-pilling” and I suspect very few of us were persuaded to red-pill, by some “well meaning” friend or relative trying 15 different ways to tell us “NO, you are WRONG! Your whole “World-view” is dead WRONG!”
If you think about back to a time, when you were not red-pilled, and your experience, HOW you red-pilled, it may put you in a better frame of mind to interacting with those who are not yet, where you are?
Absolutely correct and also happens to be consistent with everything said in the Bible about influencing others.
Bottom line: The people who WILL eventually be affected and awakened to see truth, are those who, for whatever reason, have been inspired (by the Holy Spirit?) to be curious and to seek more information than what they think they know.
The Lord observed (seemingly with patience and love, but also in frustration) many times to His chosen prophets throughout the Bible’s Old Testament that His people (Israel) were “stiff-necked”, i.e., stubborn and hard-headed. The vast majority frequently fell for lies and were brainwashed into believing false prophets and worshipping false god (idols). Only a minority remained truly faithful to the Truth. So it goes in our nation with most knowledge and the relatively sparse amount of real wisdom.
Upvote for this: And I pray, a lot.
this we need more of, a lot more.
General Smedley Butler? I have recently learned of him on the Rumble channel “America’s Untold Stories”. Quite a character. We could use a few like him now.
Have you read his speech when he retired from the Marines?
I think I’m just like him.
It has been a disheartening lifetime in many respects. I have seen our transformation beginning IMHO the early 60’s. I recall well, my Grandfather (a WW infantry vet) telling me more than once that my generation was going to ruin this country. Now after 60 years, I can see how correct he was. Everywhere, we have loosened our guard and lost interest in our collective well-being. I pray now that the good Lord has sent us his emissary to our political element to redirect those that should be watching over fellow Americans and not taking advantage of them. DJT wants to be the Lords’ right hand and so do I want him to be, so help me God!
I do not accept the generational blame arguments, ever. Each generation is indelibly a product of its times.
“Hard times make hard men” is the easiest way to explain it. Success breeds laxity and lack of appreciation of what one has, and leads to failure.
Few people, for example, appreciate the remarkably complex symphony of capital, labor, materials, and knowledge required to make it possible for you to flick a switch and have lights come on, heating / cooling / refrigeration/ cooking. People, especially young people, think it has always worked and so it always will. This is deplorable but not their fault.
A crash is needed to wake people up, to yank them back to reality. Needed. NECESSARY. It will be very unpleasant.
The Tytler Cycle: Why More Government Help Leads To Less
By Lance Roberts | August 17, 2020
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/tytler-cycle-why-more-government-help-leads-to-less/
(snip)
The Tytler Cycle
Scottish economist Alexander Tytler, who, in 1787, was reported to have commented on the then-new American Republic as follows:
“A democracy is always temporary; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist until the time voters discover they can vote for generous gifts from the public treasury. From that point, the majority always votes for the candidates who promises the most benefits from the public treasury. The result is that every democracy finally collapses due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations always progressed through this sequence:
Since Tytler’s time, we’ve witnessed many formerly free countries slide inexorably into their final stages of decline. For example, the countries in the EU are further gone than the countries in North America, and Venezuela is, well, just gone.
The Tytler cycle is clearly in process in the United States as we have now cleared apathy. Demonstrations, the demand for Government support, and the abolition of “student loan debt” are all signs of the “it’s not my fault” stage.
(snip)
Read Strauss & Howes’ “The Fourth Turning” to understand the highs and lows of generations. There are four 20-year periods that make up an 80-year saeculum. We are currently in a 4th such period which are periods of strife and wars.
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I believe the same. I have read that the great decline began with removing God from Schools. Since then you can track the statistics.
I felt my generation (Gen X) always fatalistically knew we were the generation where the decline started, because we had so much given to us by previous generations and there was no way we could ever give back as much as we were given.
Now I think the reason there are a lot of Gen Xers fighting back is not only that we’re at a good stage in life to do so (mostly done with child-raising, have more energy than older generations and more wisdom than younger generations) but also because we’ve finally found out what we were born for!
We are the generation that still remembers when practically everybody was in church on Sunday, hardly anybody’s parents were divorced, parents let kids take risks, moms were there for you when you got home from school, men didn’t apologize for everything they said lest a woman get offended, and we had at least heard the concept that life was not all about us.
My mother was a gentle soul, never seen her mad [except at me as a child]. I worked construction during the Carter Presidency and was unemployed for several months. Visiting with her one day, we were talking about the hard times.
She got mad and blurted out: ” If these women would get out of those pants, and into dresses and back in the kitchen where they belong, this world wouldn’t be going to Hell in a handbasket.”
” they need to put down those cigarettes and get back in Church and on their knees.” This was after I quit laughing at her first comment. Now both husband and wife working can barely keep their heads above water.
I’m smiling at your mother’s quips. She was correct, of course.
What the women of my (Boomer) generation either forgot or ignored, was that the older (Depression-WWII) generation never maintained the narrow-minded attitude that women were INCAPABLE of working outside the home.
Just look at what happened to the workforce during WWII to see a glaring example – women held every kind of job imaginable and, for the most part, performed those jobs well enough to help the nation come through the war intact. Afterwards when the men returned from military duty, most of the women returned to their homes and families…to become Boomers’ parents and continue the stability of a family-oriented culture
It was the communists in our midst who, after the war, quietly ramped up their fueling of the feminist and other social upheaval movements, so as to begin to unsettle the nation and thus start to erode our unity and cultural strength.
I agree 100%. I am Gen X as well. My mom was divorced from an abuser though. My sisters and I grew up real quick. We had chores and had to be responsible because Mom had to work. We had jobs at 14 or younger, if babysitting.
We went to church, worked hard, laughed hard. Simple lives that are a treasure now as I remember. We had a black and white TV with only 5 stations up until I was a junior in high school. (my friends had color and HBO)
As Rush used to say, we lived in “realville”. As an adult, I stayed home with my five kids. We only had one car and rarely went on vacation. Our backyard was the neighborhood hang out. We had a fire pit, tent sleepovers, etc. because I wanted to know where and what my kids were doing. I did not hover. They rode their bikes everywhere.
I read a long time ago, that a parent should be home when a child got home from school because, if they are going to share anything about their day, it would be in the first 15 minutes. After that forget it. I lived by that advice.
I feel that Gen X is exceptionally in tune to the troubles we see today. We are the only generation to be able to remember the “before”(tech speaking), that lived in the world without computers and now with computers. I know many in my generation that are in the matrix; but many more that are red-pilled.
Many of us worked hard, knowing that there was no free lunch. Most know that politics is joke because of all the octogenarians holding on tight to the reigns of power. I think, as others here have pointed out, that a crash, whether economic, grid-down, or worse is the only thing that will wake people into action.
I am prepared to stand where I am needed. I actually have started moving away from tech. More manual ways to do things. Getting hard cover BOOKS for all kinds of situations. I give some as gifts to my kids who are in the middle of raising their children.
We must carry our Bibles like we carry our phones(I personally don’t carry a phone except when traveling). What if when we forgot our Bible we ran back to get it, like we do our phones??
Sorry so long winded. I get my coffee and settle in for at least an hour everyday at CTH. I LOVE the info, but treasure the comments.
PS. Obviously everyone here lived in and can remember the “before”. I am not discounting that at all. I am sure the same can be said radio moving to TV and all the other jumps in history. Indoor plumbing, telephones, things like that. It just seemed that during my lifetime, the leaps and bounds came fast and furious; not making our lives essentially any better per se. I didn’t mean to dismiss any of my elders here. I appreciate you all and the wisdoms you pass on.
You are correct that the inventions during your generation were fast and furious. While both sets of my grandparents had indoor plumbing, cars, one had refrigeration, the other had delivery, and none had air conditioning, dish washers or washing machines and dryers. But they did not always have cars. There were no TVs, just radio and no phonographs or airplanes in their youth and most of their young adulthood. We had a B&W TV that received 3 channels with rabbit ears sometimes, ghosts at other times. We were on an island. Our car had no AC. Mom had no washer/dryer. No vaccums. Party line phone.
As an adult, I had a washer/dryer with my first condo (one shared wall, own tiny front and back yards), all appliances except a microwave that I bought with my first paycheck as a newly wed. We had a color TV and my husband brought home an Apple from work. Wall phones. I bought my first PC in 199os (post divorce) and my second in 1998 for my son. Later he persuaded me to buy a cell phone, which I did reluctantly. In 2010, he persuaded me to upgrade to a smart phone.
Yes, tech has a major impact on how we humans do things. When PCs took over the workplace – it changed the way Americans worked. It still is changing the way Americans work and so is the phone. I bought in 1980, 1993, 2001 – all paper work done by hand, typewriter and snail mail or hand delivery. In 2019, all of it done electronically. Before covid, all doctor visits in person, since covid all primary visits by video over my phone.
I think you are on target that your generation will make most of the adjustments needed to right the wrongs of government. My generation, half know what’s wrong, but most are too unhealthy to mount the defense needed. Some active seniors are working in various sectors on Bannon’s war room. Some boomers have done the footwork and mounted the tea party and attempted to turn the GOP conservative, so, their advice should be invaluable.
This may be a tangential comment, but many older folks who should know better have been effectively brainwashed. Case in point, at a stroke victims fundraiser my wife and I recently attended with another couple we thought to be ‘long time friends’ ,the other guy who is full on Democrat kept cracking derogatory Trump comments throughout the evening. I wouldn’t take the bait, and thus he became frustrated and more obnoxious. When the evening was over, I swore that was the last of them for me. And then I thought – What the hell has happened to these people!? It’s much more than TDS. It’s why I say being a Democrat is now like belonging to a cult. Facts do not matter -its all about their ideology and trying to force everyone to agree with it. The kids of these brainwashed Democrats do not stand a chance until they are adults and one day have an ‘awakening’.
Being a Democrat now is like being in the Matrix. It is complely astounding to hear them spout “facts”. Those “facts” have no Truth whatsoever in them. Trump lost 62 cases, and there was no voter fraud. Insurrection. Climate Change. CO2. 31 genders. Can’t answer what a women is. Multiple shots. Nothing they believe is true. There is a reason Tennessee Schools have less than 30% of the kids doing math and reading at grade level. They cannot think. They cannot work. The flood of incompetence and diversity headed our way will be catastrophic.
It is a cult. I used to discuss politics with people from the other side in an effort to find common ground. Now, it’s just not worth the effort.
If I were to bring up J6 for example, they won’t see anything wrong with the obvious political persecution of the protestors. Likewise for the political prosecutions of President Trump.
I can pick any issue and know with 95% certainty where they stand. There is no discussion possible, only arguments.
What is the Bible scripture that is about arguing with fools?
I no longer avoid sharing my opinion. I state it calmly and clearly and let them react emotionally, as they invariably do. Sometimes, after getting angry and personal, they apologize. Sometimes not. I just smile. I feel good knowing I provided a good example.
True. And sometimes what we say persists in their minds… and all of a sudden one day they realize we were/are somehow “right”. We must share the truth…
AND we sr. citizens have LOTS to share AND what do we care if someone doesn’t like it. We’re old haha
But to the subject at hand….sharing the truth. Grandma…Grandpa…Auntie….Unk talking to you!
Get those grandkids and any friends you can scoop up, throw them in the car and go
straight to BurgerWhatever or IceCreamStore and while you drive
TALK TALK TALK
take the order, shell out the $$$$ and drive them home while you
TALK TALK TALK
Tell them an exciting Bible Story like how David as a teen took umbrance and killed the godless enemy
or how the little slave girl prayed and help her enemy captor. Tell them how George Washington as a teenager surveyed the American wilderness!! Tell them about how the gov’t works and that s/o represents them and that “temporary employee” has a phone # and an email.
TALK TO THE KIDS OLD PEOPLE
Rush Limbaugh had a set of books geared to the youth about the Am revolution and other aspects of American history focused on teaching principles of liberty and constitution. My readers are girls and I was going to wait until the boys were older, but maybe not.
I quit choir practice due to the shrill, non-stop berating by the democrat wood-peckers in the soprano section.
Bet there was some males in that section.
My husband and I just dumped a long time friend couple for just the same reasons.We are too old to suffer idiots and fools. I’m with Dutchman? (best comment of the day), “sometimes you just have to wave by-by to the lemmings as they jump over the cliff. Or something to that effect. lol Can’t fix stupid,don’t have time for obnoxious.
A church group I’ve been involved with for over 20 years has gone the same way. To be fair, it’s a United Methodist Church all of which are rapidly becoming democrat strongholds. But I went to my last dinner earlier this month. I’m mourning long time friendships. But the lecture from a new person about how wonderful Hamas is, which I called him on, was it. I’ll never go back.
Sadly, the United Methodist Church embraced Marxism.
So did you at any point tell him you didn’t appreciate his comments and you’d like for him to stop making them?
Sometimes I think we deserve what we get if we’re not willing to stand up and tell people to stop, . . . but that’s just me!
Another one, out of the ballpark. Thank you, Sundance, for all you do.
Interesting pic of mama lion snuggling with her baby while her face is still covered with the blood of someone she just killed. Message?
“…blood of
someoneshe just killed.”something.
it is metaphorical.
it is someONE
‘covered with the blood of someone she just killed. Message?’
Are you trying to imply something, or just out to bait people?
Because I do not see a ‘killer’ as you suggest, I see a mother who just expressed the highest form of love, devotion and self-sacrifice the only way she knows how. You see death, I see love.
Funny how one’s perspective changes their perception.
When I look at that pic I see a momma lioness who’s been bloodied in a battle to protect her cub. That’s her blood from the wounds on her face, over her right eye, and her missing right fang tooth.
.
Thank you. I see the same thing — a big gash in her cheek . . .
I totally missed those details and thought the blood was from food she brought home to her cub, i.e. nurturing. I’m so glad to go back recognize the message I initially missed.
I am a 41 yo father of (23,21,20, and 19) year old daughters. One is married and the other 3 scraping by. They are completely gone. They were raised by their phones and are now out in the world as great disciples of the radical left side of the political spectrum. They hate Trump, MAGA and think of anything MAGA as the enemy. They talk about January 6ers in the same light as what I read Jews were talked about in the 1930s in Europe.
The strange thing is how confident they are right. How there is no shame not even knowing the truth about what they are debating.
DEBATE IS DESTROYED… THERE IS NO DEBATE.
Cold anger
My condolences and understanding. I have 8 daughters. One is conservative – the parent out of the bunch. I have hope yet for some of the younger ones. But the phone is not the only thing to blame… we as parents needed to be more firm in out belief and discipline over the use of the elctronic devices. Just as our parents didn’t let us watch whatever we wanted on television – we needed to REMOVE the phone for long periods of time or permanently. “But it’s so convenient” “It’s for their safety in case they need… blah blah blah”. What else did we hear was for our safety and our own good?
Wow. I am a 50 year old father of a 6 yo girl and 8 yo boy. this strikes me to the core. i am reading the consequences of what happens if we give them unbridled / unlimited access to the online programming out there…
Yes. Being a parent has never been for the weak of heart… and it’s especially true now. Love hurts – temporarily. LOVE them – discipline them. Can’t have one without the other.
Dumb phones work very well for emergency calls.
Cold anger and no money no matter how hard times get. Even if they can’t afford the iPhone for support from their liberal friends.
You perfectly described my 22 year old daughter who recently graduated from college. Her father and I raised her in a conservative Christian home and discussed politics quite often when she was growing up. She mostly agreed with us until Trump came along. There is no discussion or debating anymore! She’s always right, and we don’t know what we’re talking about. It’s so frustrating sometimes.
This will probably pass. At 22, my son was just beginning to acknowledge that mom might know something about anything. It’s still the tail end of being a teenager.
As a 78 yo grandfather, I struggle with you and all of us here for this great land of ours.
For years i have been lurking on The Treehouse with few comments. but I would like to
share a recent thought.
In thinking about the lack of God in so many peoples lives, and realizing they just don’t
want to seek his love, I thought of this song by Frank Sinatra. And decided to listen to it
as if it were a message from God. Hope this helps someone.
ALL THE WAY – (FRANK SINATRA / LYRICS) – YouTube
Sinatra also sang the ballad of these selfish times:
“I Did It My Way.”
Deep down they know they are espousing evil.
Their “confidence” hides their self loathing for supporting what,deep down, they know to be wrong.
Their may be hope for them yet, but trusting them to do the right thing in a showdown is sadly, probably not wise.
I try not to be vulnerable to such persons in any way.
It seems safer to love them from a distance.
There is still hope. The economic hardships coming may bring them all back under your roof. You’ll have a second chance. Prepare.
I’m very grateful you, Sundance, are safe and (as far as we know) healthy. Every day I pray to St. Michael for you.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend Sundance in battle, be his protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Whoa, what interesting observations. Over thanksgiving, I was listening to my new son-in-law tell my hyper liberal SIL that he is going to start reading the New York Times and got himself a subscription. I thought:
I should get a subscription too so I know what the arguments are and how they are framing the issues.
I try and read the Atlantic to get a flavor of that, and they have an article up about how we got to this place horrible financially – and I swear to you that they insist- that it was giving up on the New Deal, and by Reagan lowering taxes.
And this doozy – “Substack has a Nazi problem” – is the headline on their main page.
But the archived version title is –
How Substack Became a Safe Space for Nazis
The newsletter platform’s lax content moderation creates an opening for white nationalists eager to get their message out.
https://archive.is/OU3p
The irony is lost on then that they are in favor of funding ACTUAL nazis in the Azov battalion to fight the Russians;
Amen
Life provides so many different people so many different experiences.
Sharing experiences is the best method of communicating who we have become.
Experiences were plentiful before the advent of cell phones. Now everyone who resides in social media has the same experiences.
Now everyone can become the same. No one at all.
This is an interesting topic. I also teach at a public middle school. Our curriculum for 7th grade is Civics, which I have done for 8 years now. Coming into the class, students know almost nothing about the government, how it works, or how it affects their lives. We take a pretest where they see questions about what we will learn, and knowledge is usually minimal. If anything, as espoused here before, it is only what they have heard from parents. I see some students who have liberal parents and some students who have conservative parents, but mostly they have no clue.
The hardest part about it, nowadays, is teaching how the government works while knowing what Sundance writes on these pages about how the government does not function that way anymore. We teach about the three branches of government, checks and balances, the Constitution, voting and elections, all of it. And we obviously do it in a way where students have no idea what political leanings we have. It isn’t on me to convert anyone, even the students who clearly have brainwashed parents. It’s my job to teach them about the government. But they get taught the traditional curriculum, they get taught how the government is SUPPOSED to work. They get taught that Democrats and Republicans are two separate parties, they get taught that Congress makes and writes laws, they get taught traditional checks and balances, all things that are clearly no longer true. And I have to pretend like that is actually how it works when I know that isn’t true anymore. It makes me feel jaded about what I am doing in the classroom, but it also gives me something to strive for, hoping that what I teach them is something that can happen once again.
I am so proud and humbled to be a part of this wonderful space you give us. I do what I can to support this site, and my nine children. You see – I have a LOT vested in the success of this here experiment we call a “Representative Republic”.
I am old enough to remember civics being taught in the 8th grade and again in high school. It was a difficult class and we were expected to learn many important facts about our state and federal government.
From what I have read civics is no longer required in Jr High or HS and not even taught in most places. To our collective detriment. Heck, when I was younger even SchoolHouse Rock taught us about civics (who remembers “I’m just a bill, I’m only a bill…….”)?
I had the same problem except it was for Eagle Scout! I needed the 3 Citizenship Merit Badges to get it. When I turned 16+, dad said son it’s now or never! Thanks dad, that’s what I needed, a little loving push! When I got it, the smile on his face was worth it! Kinda unbelievable, but I know friends that earned Eagle and can count on one hand with a few fingers left over! I guess when a kid turns 16, Scouts are almost the furthest thing on their minds! Cars and girls were the rule then, LOL!
I’m Just a Bill – Schoolhouse Rock
(video run time = 3:02 minutes)
There it is! Thank you.
Love the pics at the conclusion. Weak witness that I am, when I do finally share my faith I remind folks that the same Creator God that lovingly saves us also created fierce creatures like the lion, the wolverine and the eagle’s sharp talon. He isn’t to be trifled with, though moments from now I’ll be back to being selfish. Have mercy on us all, fearsome Lord.
Love you, too, Sundance. Thanks for all you do for us. God bless and protect you and your team.
To me those are the characteristics of a defeated nation… And, many parents are too self-absorbed to bother teaching their own children. Some have given the role of parenting to the State…
Heaven help us!!
If Ireland’s Premier Leo Varadkar were a real man, he would volunteer to take the place of the remaining Israeli hostages.
As Hamas gets most of its funding from the European Union, this substitution would garner lots of good will. I think there is no chance that Hamas would harm Leo as that would be in poor form to bite the hand that feeds you.
How about it Leo? Do you want to help the world?
It’s not just the phones. Remember how the Covid shots were distributed for free? The same is true for newspaper subscriptions to NYT & WSJ at some universities, or reading the Economist and World Affairs for high school world events class. The students that want to learn are funneled straight to the mainstream authorities, so when their parents try to discuss events with them, they write off our opinions because the “experts” say differently.
Remember 1983 when Apple donated thousands of computers to schools?
It’s Google’s Chromebooks now. A computer for every child.
If it is free, we are the products.
How many of those kids believe they have a right to squeal like a pig for a moderator every time they read a thought they disagree with? How many ‘conservatives’ have bought the communist notion that speech can be so dangerous that it MUST be controlled?
If I go to the park and a street preacher is standing on a crate giving a sermon, I have the right to listen or walk away. I don’t go after the preacher.
Only the lowest of little weasels would run off and FLAG the street preacher to the authorities for saying something disagreeable. We all understand that would be disgusting, rat like behavior.
And yet people get on the internet, the modern town square, and immediately demand the right to silence every street preacher they see, all while squealing about safety.
Silly Decepticons, trix are for kids.
.
But, but, if you IGNORE what someone is professing, you are offending them by not tolerating the crap they are spewing . . .
♦ Last point. When you drop a stone into a pond a ripple is created. The ripple expands in an ever-increasing circle. Once you drop the stone, there is no way to reverse the process of the ripple expanding. Such is the pond of life and ultimately the love, wisdom and value you drop within it. – Sundance
The further away from the stone dropping in the water the shallower the ripple becomes. What we need are more stones being thrown in the pond of life and more ripples!! More ripples of love, wisdom and value crossing/bumping similar ripples!!! The pond of ignorance in America about our current unelected government is purposefully massive!!! Start dropping stones everywhere you go/travel ASAP!!! Godspeed Sundance!!!
Protecting the baby. And in the process of protecting, feeding, and nurturing the baby, you get blood on your face.
Sometimes, in talking with a lib young person as they parrot their marx-inspired views, simply asking “why” is ground shaking for them.
Years ago I was at a dinner in which the church members who had been on a trip to Africa were telling their stories. I was seated next to a traveller who made a point of telling me that they were very conscious and deliberate about NOT upsetting the “local culture.” I asked her “why?” Her look of bewilderment showed she had never considered the question.
I followed with something to the effect of “If their native culture is so great, why do they need you to travel all the way around the globe to help them? Why preserve a failed primitive culture that can’t feed, educate, and care for its own people? Wouldn’t it be more helpful, more Christian, to teach them a modern Western culture that would permit them to care for themselves?” She had no answer, but I noticed her deep in thought several times later that evening.
Sometimes, just ask “why?”
BINGO!!! Just like toddlers!
We will win this battle. Rest if needed. No one can pour from an empty cup.
More than our Youth needs re education. One step at a time.
Good post.
My dad, who died in December 2019, right before the pandemic was a critical and profound thinker and a devout follower of Christ. I tell you what he “got out” right in the nick of time, but I often wonder what he would’ve thought of the societal/cultural shifts of the past few years. The funny thing is he had been predicting the shifts for many years. He saw the writing on the wall, even if many thought he was a kook for seeing it. I am much like my dad. Here’s what I want to say to you Sundance and to this great community. I miss the talks with my wise old man. Most people live life on the surface. “Gimme a few beers, the sports page, and an all inclusive vacation yearly and that’s all I need” types who don’t care to dig deep, learn, and develop. What an oasis all of you are for me. I don’t comment often, but I am uplifted every day to read Sundance’s (and Menagerie’s too) words. I also get a great deal from those of you in the comments. It brings me hope to know there are people out there thinking, pondering and digging for Truth. Not everybody has succumbed to the Soma of the day. My dad used to say of the Leftist, commie, useful idiots, “they’re so open minded their brains have fallen out.” It’s good to know there are pockets, and large pockets I hear of people who are truly trying to become the best versions of themselves.
Some people tell me they don’t “follow politics” I often tell them neither do I; the things of which we talk are beyond politics, they are about culture, life, meaning, future generations, hope, love and as Sundance often says leading our best life.
Take heart my friends, the good Lord is near at hand.
Thank you all for caring enough to be real.
I love that “they are so open-minded their brains are falling out.” You dad sounds like someone I would have liked to have known. I loved my dad but he was very controlling, even abusive, and a democrat until the end. Nothing anyone could say would have ever changed his mind. You are blessed to have that wonderful relationship with your father, but I’m sure you know that. Btw, I shared Christ with my father before he died and he then would go around in his wheelchair at the nursing home telling everyone that they needed Jesus. He had old age dementia but he always knew who I was. I’m thankful that dad listened and understood, and I’m thankful for all here at the CTH and especially Sundance.
Many blessings to you Sunflower. It sounds like you helped your father open his eyes to Jesus. I believe it doesn’t take heroic effort on our part to enter Heaven. The good Lord wants to rescue us all. We just need to take the hand he extends.
I always frame my positions from the position, if I really care about an issue, i will take the time to research it from all sides, then often can look at the results and make the determination which position is better for the working class and poor. Another technique i use is a simple logic box.
The billionaires are the biggest problem with our society, their greed corrupts our government and institutions. Almost all young people agree.
Then i say that they want to stay rich and use their money and power to stay rich and get richer. They still agree. Then i tell them that part of that is their ownership of the news and media in America which pumps out the same messages 24-7, and as we have just agreed, they use the media to benefit their class, not the poor and working class. They agree to a point. Then i say, this is where skepticism and really caring enough to do more research comes in. If you do the research, look at the results, apply the policy to your home and family, it is very clear that the news promotes the polices benefitting the rich and wants the democrats in power. They usually stammer out a few buts, and know they are owned. Then i explain cognitive dissonance…
I have 4 children. In my case I noticed that you have to lead by example. As the parents you can’t be zoning out on your phone but telling them not to. If I give my kids options to do other things they will always choose it over a screen. If I come home tired From work they will prod me to do something with them but if I’m too tired they will resort to the phone.
We read the Bible together for half an hour a lot of evenings. We always go out in nature on the weekends even in cold weather. The bottom line is you have to lead by example and also give them other options than the screen
I have often, mostly, found the comments here to be thoughtful and respectful. I am so spoiled by the CTH comments section, I can’t read any other. Thanks y’all, keep at it!
I’m a 25 year old man, and I’m beyond thankful that my parents waited until I was in Highschool before giving me a phone. Going to my room and watching YouTube videos or scrolling on social media wasn’t an option to me for most of my childhood. If I was bored, I could talk to my parents, read a book, or do chores. Any question I wondered about or curiosity I had, I would ask my dad or mom. Today, kids ask google.
So, forgive me for being cold, but I have very little sympathy for the parents that delegated their parenting duties to the internet. Those parents chose to give their small children iPads and iPhones so they’d be quiet at the dinner table or stop bothering them so much. Now those same parents are surprised when the kid is addicted to the their phone, doesn’t know how to act in public, doesn’t have a deep relationship with them, and parrots the political perspective of their favorite YouTube personalities. The internet raised their kid, now they have to deal with the consequences of that.
I have no idea how to reconnect those kids with the real world. My only guess would be to rip the Band-Aid off and just remove the devices from the house while you still can.
ahhh, 25. and yet so wonderfully wise. I was late to the party, but, thankfully, got my foot in the door. by a whisker.
In my family, if anyone said they were bored, my parents immediately put a stop to their boredom by giving them lots of chores to do!
Now NOBODY is stupid enough to say they’re bored in my family!
Sundance et al. I find the overwhelming majority of comments well thought out and often from attorneys or others whom have done their homework and have something very real to offer. Not the dribble from social media and so-called influencer…kardashian crowd. For us to succeed and not succumb to the outright tyranny and usurpation and have methods to overcome and get others to get their heads out of their butts is what I seek. I and we know but the so-called unwashed masses living in the matrix.
We need an app that can quickly add quotes from the Founders on other social media apps. Something that will ‘read’ a post and instantly pop up an appropriate Liberty minded quote from a Founding Father, the Declaration, The Constitution, The Federalist Papers etc. It has to be one or two clicks or they will never use it. But if we can ever get some of them using it they may change the World.
We can’t fight the Tech Age; we have to adapt. To kids different is cool. Now the time is ripe for Liberty to be cool!
Great idea..
I was able to bring my youngest daughter back from the darkside, they nearly had her. The big eye opener was when we downloaded the vaers database early on (prior to the mass removals) and ran some reporting on the data…she was able to see the b.s. being thrown around, as well as the mass carnage the “safe and effective ” vaccine was doing.
This will be an ongoing fight to keep her grounded, but we put a huge wedge in the commie influence! She is uber skeptical now 🙂
Society has evolved into a mob that strives to seek conformity in speech, but will fail to find it has achieved that conformity in thought–or as my father who grew into a teenager in Mussolini’s Italy once put it to me, “They can put you in jail for what you say, but unless you tell them, never for what you think.”
It’s all a game of The Emperor’s New Clothes……and sooner or later a little kid is going to spill the beans.
Great job by Charlie Kirk handling these young Marxists👇
If Charlie Kirk’s debate was scored, he would probably win. However, minds changed in that interaction = zero.
Worse than all that is that Americans in general don’t know the Bible.
How fast we were to ban the Bible and prayer from education because of
the fake “science” of Darwin and the malicious Madelyn Murray O’Hair.
We allowed atheist lies to drive the Faith of our Fathers out of education.
We reap what we sow.
Sunday Nov 5, 2023, I was reborn after a close call with the grim reaper. The grace of God, good diet for the last few years and a skilled surgeon saved me.
I have always been in love with my Country and my God. I learned of CTH, would occasionally drop by, less frequently post. I was busy conducting life with bad priorities. I was blessed with a personal wake-up call.
I share this to encourage all of us to understand that as Patriots who are willing to dedicate our lives to the cause worth dying for, we may be in the minority, but it is a LARGE minority. It is so easy to become blinded to the collateral patriots not in our immediate circles.
If the fight is required, we will win. It can’t be otherwise. We fight not to conquer or oppress, but to free. No for self, but others.
Here’s perhaps an ‘experiment’ that Oscar might like to try. When I was growing up, my family always had dinner together….no cell phones, no TV, nothing but conversation. If that is the environment in which your family gets together, perhaps doing a ‘challenge’ might be of interest….challenging everyone (MAGA, lib, etc.) to have a conversation, but to take on the opinion or side in which you do NOT believe. (Debate clubs often do something like this). I have found, often when commenting on other sites, that asking someone to research what they do NOT believe, can often be eye opening and compelling to them. Perhaps making this a competition (making it fun) by thinking up a topic that you will discuss at, say, dinner on Friday, and that the libs must take on a viable conservative viewpoint (and Oscar do the same, as well). It might make for an interesting discussion, and be a bit eye opening to other points of view. I probably didn’t explain this well enough, but hopefully you get what I mean.
The Great Awakening can usefully be informed by Tom Wolfe’s, “The Great Relearning”:
The Great Relearning, by Tom Wolfe, THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR – The Unz Review
And you sir are the point. The value. And a gift. My daily fix of reality about current politics and world news used to be from the late great Rush Limbaugh. I miss this man so much. He became like the older brother I never had. The father I had for a brief 9 years. I used to get angry from time to time when Rush,for whatever reason,didnt show up for work that day.
I never thought in a million years that any one could ever replace him. Until the day I discovered this little place in the woods aka as the Conservative Treehouse. You are the only the second person I have ever known who can uncover the darkness and shed light onto this chaotic world in which we live in today.
And I sincerely thank you very much.
My advice is to start on politics and finance when children/grandchildren are young.
Start also leading them into a charitable giving mode, whether it be by volunteerism
or throwing a few quarters into the bucket on street corners or Salvation Army
buckets at the stores during Christmas.
Teach them kindness.
Young people are most always liberal; they turn around somewhere after
25-30 when they are on their own.
I really don’t like all the negative nellie attitude towards young people today.
Realizing all the crap thrown at them, indoctrimation, etc. most young people
grow up to be fine citizens.
I agree…the time to start talking is when they’re young(that’s what my parents did)
…but be prepared for them to be seen as a bit weird if you do that :)!!
Recently Jordan Peterson interviewed Josh Alexander, a 17 year old who has been fighting against the transgender agenda in a local high school here in small town Ontario and who has been suspended for over a year as a result. Both his parents also lost their jobs as teachers(his dad had been teaching for over 20 years). Anyway, in that interview, they were quite hopeful about the potential to reach current teenagers and younger kids. I tend to agree. I think that’s where we need to put much of our efforts. I know that as a teenager I was very impacted by the falling of the Berlin Wall and Tiennamen Square. These things leave an impressions. According to my sister who is raising her kids in woke Toronto, the thoughtful kids are paying attention to things like the Canadian Truckers and podcasts like Joe Rogan. Another observation : The girls of all ages seem most vulnerable to the brainwashing whereas the boys tend to check out when the woke propaganda starts and/or circle the wagons with other boys. I’m not sure who the boys are going to marry when it comes time for them to go looking for a wife!! They may be safer with a girl from a traditional immigrant family than their peers!
What a long, strange trip it has been
https://thefederalist.com/2016/06/03/why-all-the-hippies-morphed-into-campus-fascists/
As a father of an 8 yo boy and a 6 yo girl, I find this to be horrifyingly eye opening. We go to church weekly and I try to lead my family in a Christ-like way. I assumed being raised in a faith based family would inoculate my kids as it did for my older sis. However, these current times are different. We weren’t constantly programmed – we didn’t have phones, computers and only had 3 channels to watch on the color tv for most of our childhood. I am going to step it up as a parent. I just thought of the Rush Revere books as a Christmas gift for them. Any other ideas for gifts for this sage?
-Love you guys and thanks.
Thank you SD!
The Tuttle Twins books
https://tuttletwins.com
About – https://tuttletwins.com/about/?al_pg_id=cbc46bee-ee27-486f-8c08-03ffa9ad28a2
Brave Books
We love you too, Sundance,,,I also think the problem with todays kids and young adults are….they were medicated 8 ways to Sunday their entire lives so they would not be “disruptive” in class, we are now seeing the effects of a generation of Ritalin eaters. My oldest granddaughter is now diagnosed as “bipolar” and is being medicated further. She is about as aware as a turnip. Her and her sisters grew up in the Jehovah’s Witnesses cult, and, while I love my kid and the spouse, I think that, coupled with Ritalin, and who knows what else, contributed to the turnip-ness. The body chemistry and mental faculties of these young people have been irrevocably altered, and it is a major sorrow to me, and to other grandparents who couldn’t stop it. I know my granddaughters stories are not unique by any means, we have lost an entire generation.
God Bless you Sundance. 🙏🙏🙏
My children grew up able to discern the world around them but something happened. Both along with one granddaughter, were jabbed. Now I wonder if they will become casualties of war. And WAR is real to me. As a J6er, I’ve had a visit from an alphabet agency. 100% intimidation! I’m not backing down in fact, I’m stronger than ever as the bastards messed with my family.
A few years ago, my now HS aged daughters when through the whole “gender identity crises” and wanted different names and pronouns and all of that nonsense. I chose a strategy of loving them first and foremost and playing the long game because: 1) they were raised with an understanding of scripture including the Creation story; 2) kids go through phases and this seemed a popular thing amongst a segment of girls and 3) we can all admit that middle school boys are gross.
I would encourage them that they would go through a lot of changes as the matured and so whats the sense of declaring yourself “gay” or “trans” or whaever until you know for sure? And I would constantly assure them they are loved regardless of how this plays out. FIrst by a loving creator and then a loving earthly father.
Glad to say, that phased passed. We are back to their regular names and now joke about it! So now the worry are the HS boys chasing them around! (HS boys still being gross, but slightly less so than the middle school versions).
I used to think w my kids that I was spitting into the wind on this topic. Oldest was indoctrinated in hs. The 3 younger ones have matured and see the writing on the wall. The youngest, at 25, lives in Miami. Some friends said they voted for Biden bc they hated Trump. She asked why. The only reason was that he was mean and undiplomatic. Her response: who cares? By the end she had them voting for Trump bc they couldn’t afford not to.