After my condemnation of our "banana republic" in a previous essay, a clever commenter remarked pithily, "Last patriot turn out the lights."  I laughed.  But the truth is that the light is not dimming; it is getting brighter.  We, all of us together, are in the sunshine business.  And the more sunshine we bring, the more difficult it becomes for the darkness not to light up!

Case in point: After Facebook's Zuckerberg recently confessed to censoring the New York Post's explosive Hunter Biden "laptop from Hell" story (evidencing a compromised and most likely criminally culpable Biden family) before the 2020 election in response to FBI pressure that the social media giant treat real news as "Russian disinformation" (thereby corroborating that the national security Deep State helped rig the presidential election), the FBI superciliously responded with the equivalent of a teenaged shoulder shrug and a haughty "so what?"  According to the FBI, our domestic spy agency regularly encourages censorship and secretive control over the free flow of information.  No big deal!

Except it is a very big deal.  Recent polling shows that nearly 80% of Americans believe that President Trump would have won re-election had voters "known the truth about Hunter Biden's laptop."  In other words, the Deep State stole an election.  This isn't a huge revelation for most readers here, but it is a huge revelation for those who have stubbornly refused to admit how corrupt and rotten the 2020 election was.  Little by little, truth overpowers deceit.  Let there be light!

In the sunshine business, our mission is to speak truth to power over and over again, much like a resolute punisher bringing down the lash against those who wound us with their lies.  None of us alone must harbor the strength to complete the task at hand, for as long as another rises to give timely support and respite to any one weary arm, the lashings of truth will continue.  That is truth's power and purpose: it cannot be bargained away or buried in the darkness for long.  It lives whether its tormentors like it or not, and all we must do is recognize it, protect it, and sing its blessings from one shadow to the next, with courage and conviction, until the brightness it brings becomes glaring.

How do you collapse a corrupt system?  By flooding it with oceans of luminous truth.

This is a war between those who embrace cynicism and those who embrace virtue.  The cynics are so committed to using fabricated "narratives" to obtain and maintain power that they have discarded even the pretense of seeking universal truths.  Whatever aids them in their conquest over others is sufficient justification for defense.  Is man-made climate change real?  Is Donald Trump a Russian spy?  Is America plagued with systemic racism?  Is COVID really the deadliest pathogen to afflict humanity?  To the cynics, the answers do not matter.  Pursuing conclusory "narratives," devoid of supporting evidence though they be, is valuable in itself.  Even the most ugly, monstrous lies are worth protecting if those falsehoods serve their purpose — to comfort the powerful and afflict the powerless.  

For those who believe in pursuing truth and virtue, this "ends justify the means" behavior is maddening.  It is not easy living in a world where so many around us peddle delusions, malice, and lies.  It is not easy to maintain clarity and balance when demonstrable truths are labeled as "misinformation" and outright fantasies are marketed as gospel truth.  When even the loudest of truth-speakers, such as Deep State target President Trump, is tormented relentlessly with criminal persecution and media calumny, it is easy for the more reticent among us to lose hope.  Yet when those with virtue stand fast and firm, those with no virtue screech and squirm.  Resolute defense of truth reveals the cynics' weakness.  The weaker they become, the louder they must be.  When the madness around us is deafening, then you can be certain that the cynics are losing all control.  So stay true.  Don't bend.  Hold the line.

When must a good citizen become a dissident?  Is it when the FBI and other Deep State truth-twisters manufacture crises and manipulate elections?  Is it when free speech comes under attack under the guise of State-labeled "misinformation"?  Perhaps it is when the president-in-name-only reads carefully scripted messages (written by those who control his office from the shadows) attacking half the country's citizens as "fascists."  Or when government and media "elites" falsely frame political protest as "insurrection" in order to justify criminal persecution and imprisonment of opponents of the ruling regime.  Or maybe when the endless declaration of fake "emergencies" is used to justify the steady imposition of extraordinary State power over each citizen's livelihood.  Maybe it's when the Intelligence Community operates a massive domestic surveillance network targeting Americans who have committed no crimes.  Maybe it's when secretly collected information mined from supposedly independent social media conglomerates and too-big-to-fail private banks is used to track and trace unsuspecting citizens.  Maybe it's when the value of the U.S. dollar is intentionally chipped away by central bank authorities enabling tax-and-spend legislators to expand institutional power at current and future Americans' expense.  Perhaps it is when the same federal government that insists on fighting wars all over the world in defense of other nations' borders staunchly refuses to protect America's own borders from invasion.  Maybe it is when politicians openly mock freedom and the Bill of Rights as "selfish" relics of a racist past, while implementing race-based policies trumpeted as "progress."  Perhaps it is when the American government declares itself at war with the American system.  Yeah, that seems like the right time to become a dissident.

America is a great nation.  America's history is rivaled by none.  America's people remain a melting pot of fighters and patriots yearning to be free.  America's government, however, is rancid.  D.C. has become a den of narcissists, liars, and thieves.  A lawless Deep State has made itself the enemy of all virtuous people.  The bureaucracy's failing cult of expertise has given rise to the urgent need for a new common sense conservatism grounded in individual liberty.  Washington's wayward class of inveterate liars requires a resurgence of fearless Americans willing to tell the truth.

What makes a good citizen today?  A tenacious determination to stand in and help spread truth's light.

Image via Pxhere.