We believe, culturally and with cultish fanaticism, that carbon dioxide is such a formidable enemy we should eliminate any possibility of human contribution to its increase. Thus, the push for a carbon-neutral society. Modern convenience can never afford this option, but postulating assuages guilt. The root cause of this hegemony is supposedly protecting life, but its nefarious undertones reek of an irrational fear of death, subjugation, and control.
Never mind the hidden dangers of our deceptively named green energy solutions: birds killed by windmills, whales possibly killed by oceanic windmills or their construction practices, and people enslaved and killed in horrific conditions mining the rare earth minerals necessary to battery production. The defenders of everything green postulate that the number of birds killed by these green energy projects pales compared to other maladies and natural predators and that whale deaths attributed to offshore wind farms are ill-conceived is a grotesque duplicity. The battery industry ignores the slavish conditions that persist in countries like the Congo to mine the rare earth minerals required for production. Imagine for a moment if the oil industry was accused, without evidence, of complicity in any one of these disorders; the outcry would be deafening.
Consider popular culture’s fanaticism with social media influencing and platform-based income. In 2019, a gaming platform that streams people playing video games permanently banned a user with over 300,000 followers because she dared to agree with a comment on her feed that asked her to confirm there are only two genders. The controversial player didn’t even initiate the gender dysphoria conversation; she simply replied to an inquiry and was banned. Conservative commentators have had to scramble for years to overcome demonetization from powerful platforms like YouTube. Remember, in 2018, the conservative site prageru.com sued Google/YouTube for violating its free speech rights by demonetizing and shadow-banning some of their five-minute videos. The judge summarily dismissed it because he ruled private organizations are not bound by the First Amendment, therefore affording autonomy concerning what they deem appropriate material on their platforms.
Will phone companies be allowed to disconnect party-line phone calls or video conferences when the service provider intercepts and perceives the speech to be inconsistent with their values? This is unthinkable, but, with the advent of digital technology, every word spoken through a mobile device is intercepted, recorded, and logged. I have also learned that every keystroke is subversively recorded from any device. Is it farfetched to think this way?
Back to gender dysphoria: one central underlying causation for the anomaly is that people want to be seen, seeking significance. They want their lives to have purpose and meaning and are trying to find a way out of the shadows, the fear of being alone, from obscurity to prominence. Bruce Jenner’s life is a perfect example. Living in the shadow of Kardashian’s fame, he found a way to garner the spotlight, at least for a moment. In his case, the fear of insignificance and loneliness is expressed in the most tragic form: self-mutilation. The fact that men like Mr. Jenner are willing to exert themselves to maintain the lie is astonishing.
Fear of war, economic collapse, social unrest, carjacking, mugging, petty theft, ethnic targeting, viral outbreak, political upheaval, and insignificance is vying for our submission to its paralyzing effect so that we will retreat to inept solitude.
Fear causes governments to overreact and restrict industry and liberty, imposing their overthought regulations to correct any manufactured wrong, breeding distrust and animosity. Fear causes protestors to impede the rights of others to engage their conceived abhorrence to modernity and promote its destruction, usually impeding innocent lives in the process. Fear causes corporate hegemonies to restrict and erase competing ideals. Fear compels ethnic violence and cows its detractors. Fear quells ambition and kills the spirit.
The Proverbs encourage us to “trust in the Lord with all of our heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). The Prophet Isaiah encourages us, “For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you” (Isaiah 41:13).
We are not obligated to acquiesce to fear and must speak up even when it invites negative consequences, especially when our conscience compels us toward action.
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