By Steven Yates

November 4, 2022

What occasions this article was reading, on the very day my last article appeared, of the physical attack on Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, in California.

The story in a nutshell: David DePape, 42, allegedly broke into the Pelosi home and confronted Paul Pelosi, 82, demanding to know, “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” She wasn’t there, of course. She was in Washington. He was somehow able to get a 911 call out, then leave the line open. An attentive dispatcher named Heather Grives inferred from what she heard at the other end that something was seriously wrong and sent police to the Pelosi residence stat. They found DePape and Pelosi struggling over a hammer which DePape had brought with him and used to break windows to force his way in. On orders from the police to drop the hammer, Pelosi relinquished it, and DePape then used it to savagely attack him. Pelosi sustained arm, hand, and head injuries including a skull fracture, requiring emergency surgery and hospitalization.

As of this writing, Paul Pelosi is expected to make a full recovery.

DePape is facing charges that include first-degree burglary, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and elder abuse.

This is all based on official reportage. One thing bothers me. The Pelosis are rich, obviously. I found myself wondering if their house is in a gated community, like many of the rich in that area. Did they, or the community, not have private security? If so, how was DePape able to get that far without being confronted?

Are there grounds for doubting the veracity of this story? I don’t know….

A lot of people would have to be “in on it,” including the San Francisco police, the dispatcher mentioned above, others.

One thing is for sure: corporate media is having a field day! You see, DePape is said to have espoused many of the same things advocated on sites like this one, and by people such as myself. He is said to have blogged denouncing global elites, accusing them of being behind the plandemic (no indication that he used that word), denouncing anti-white racism, promoting the idea that Election 2020 was stolen, linking to sites maintaining that the covid-19 jabs are deadly.

All very convenient….

He also allegedly wrote about Jews (speaking of the “Holohoax”), about the globalists being “Satan-worshipping pedophiles” (the idea QAnon peddles), about space aliens.

It is unclear how solid his attachment to the political right was. No one has supplied an immediate motive for his attack. Estranged from his family for years, according to the San Francisco Chronicle (article difficult to access because of a paywall) his Internet history showed him to have once been a member of the Green Party. He had been a pro-nudist activist who made jewelry working with quartz crystals.

In short, the guy looks to have been a nut.

Or another patsy. We’ll just have to stay tuned on that one.

Two weeks prior to a major election, corporate media is playing up a connection between an alleged violent attack on the spouse of a sitting member of Congress and “election denial” and other “conspiracy theories.”

Even should this be a false flag somehow, what I have to say applies anyway.

I know of no one here, or on other sites I frequent, who has advocated violence against anyone, especially public figures.

We are nevertheless blamed by the Bidenistas and their media mouthpieces for the toxic and increasingly tense political climate, which has resulted in threats against election workers as well as public officials (and their families).

I believe the organized left is far more to blame for this climate. Why? Because leftists control far more corporate media than do conservatives. Their resources are vastly superior to ours! They control Big Tech and other corporate endeavors (not Twitter anymore, and listen to them howl!). They control Hollywood and entertainment media, academia and public schools, and since January 21, 2021, Congress and the White House.

The left has weaponized language, promoted censorship (dating back at least to Trump’s upset victory in November 2016), staged proven hoaxes (e.g., Russiagate), persecuted and prosecuted political foes, and broadcasted its own messages of hate and derangement surrounded with hypocritical virtue-signaling about “protecting democracy.”

Are we really supposed to trust left-leaning media to report an incident like this truthfully without watching very closely?

But never mind all that.

I think we should repudiate initiating violence against those we disagree with, and we need to do it now!

We need to affirm that violence is justified only in retaliation against its initiation by others, especially leftists. If there is violence, let them start it. Let it be obvious who is starting it.

And never mind what Trump was alleged to have said back in the day — in arenas where leftists were protesting outside, blocking highways, and menacing attendees when they attempted to come and go in peace.

We need to affirm — or perhaps reaffirm — that what we do is rooted in a moral view of the universe, that unlike leftists we have a moral compass.

There are definite rights versus wrongs in this world!

Otherwise, what business do we have condemning what we maintain the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates, George Soros, other globalists, have been up to?

If the frustration becomes too much, we should withdraw instead of engaging “the other side.” I have advocated doing this anyway — as Brandon Smith has recently compellingly argued, “red state” communities are going to have to form alternative economies to protect themselves from the Great Reset.

Alternative economies include: growing vegetables for food, raising chickens and livestock; being able to supply clean water, construct housing, keep the lights on; etc. Those involved should indeed be prepared to defend themselves, and that means preserving gun ownership for defensive use. There will be enough work involved in all this that those doing it will probably not have time to pursue “conspiracy theories.”

Think self-control and love, instead of unfocused rage and vituperation.

Take advice from both the ancient Stoics and Christianity.

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus (50 – 138 A.D.) counseled self-control in the following fashion, writing in his Enchiridion (Manual):

There are the things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own. Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs.

Or in modern parlance, we can control our personal speech and behaviors, our focus and personal goals — all our immediate thoughts, words, actions.

We cannot control the motives or opinions of others, the reactions of others to what we say, or actions taken by others.

Any more than we can control traffic, or the weather.

How much grief do people cause themselves, to the point of damaging their health, trying to control what they cannot control, or griping about what is beyond their control?

We can, of courses, control what we read, allow into our minds, and learn about. We can learn new skills.

(I have written more about the benefits of a Stoic outlook here and here.)

In what spirit do we advance what we can control?

How about love, instead of hate or indifference?

Christianity enters the picture at this point.

For we should love one another, as Jesus Christ loved us (John 13:34; John 15:12). This includes political foes and even enemies (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27f.). Loving our enemies does not mean allowing them to hurt us. It means appealing to God’s grace for help in adopting the right attitude as we respond to them, and defend ourselves if necessary. Physical violence should always be a last resort.

Paul told the Corinthians:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I have become sounding brass and clanging cymbal…. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely; does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.  (1 Cor. 13:1, 4-7, 13).

For my part, I have criticized the Bidenistas and other Democrats plenty. I have described the present administration’s policies as disastrous, or catastrophic. But I cannot find it in me to wish them physical harm, or to wish harm on their family members. That seems deeply and profoundly evil to me.

My counsel, therefore: respond to the Democrats’ disastrous or catastrophic policies by going to the polls on November 8 and voting Republican.

Go in a spirit of desiring what is best for the nation, not simply defeating the other side. What would be best for the nation: energy independence, border security, sound money, sound health/medical science, restored agricultural and manufacturing bases, homeschooling, decentralizing power generally. Those will do for a start.

Add to that election security. Because: yeah, I know, there’s a danger of elections being digitally or otherwise stolen on November 8 (especially in places like Arizona where an articulate “conservative populist” presents an existential threat to the status quo). That is what poll watchers are for, and the most we can do is encourage their vigilance. Vigilance does not mean intimidation, or bullying. It means watchfulness. It means controlling what one can control.

If we do not do these things, in the spirit of control over our emotions, countering lies with truth, and engaging others with the love Christ showed for us — and who suffered far worse than any of us ever will — regardless of what they do, then we risk becoming no better than those we oppose.

© 2022 Steven Yates – All Rights Reserved

E-Mail Steven Yates: freeyourmindinsc@yahoo.com

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Steven Yates’s latest book What Should Philosophy Do? A Theory (2021) is available here and here. His earlier Four Cardinal Errors: Reasons for the Decline of the American Republic (2011) is available here.

While admittedly the real world can be scary enough, he has also written a novel of cosmic horror. The Shadow Over Sarnath will be published soon.

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Thank you, “Joe Biden”!

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