Vic: "Give Thanks Happily. Happy Thanksgiving!" (opens in separate window)

the war on men is a war on truth

friday, november 28th, 2025

There is a strange trend in the modern West: telling the truth has become an act of defiance. Truth has not changed—but society’s tolerance for it has. At the core of this decline is the erosion of masculinity, the force that once stood guard over truth.

What once anchored civilization became something that polite society treats as a provocation. Truth confronts feelings, narratives, and institutions that depend on fragile illusions. Yet truth has never survived by accident—it survives only through courage. And historically, that courage fell especially to men. The responsibility to defend truth has never belonged to men alone—but throughout history, masculine courage has often carried that burden when it mattered most.

A leftist fanatic is someone who can't change their mind, and who won't change the subject.

History is full of men who exposed corruption—not because it was safe, but because it was right. From military officers who reported failures that endangered soldiers, to scientists who challenged the official COVID-19 narrative, to men who resisted communist regimes, truth was defended at personal cost. Their names were rarely honored—but their courage preserved sanity and reality.

Today, speaking truth carries a new kind of risk—not only legal or political, but professional and social. A telling example occurred in 2021, when Coca-Cola held a DEI training instructing employees to “try to be less white.” Questioning the premise risked social or professional consequences. Across corporate America, the pattern is the same: once certain narratives become mandatory, honesty becomes hazardous.

Masculinity, in its healthiest form, is a stabilizing force for truth, clarity, responsibility, and protection. It built the West, defended it, and preserved its freedoms. But today, the characteristics that once stabilized society are being recast as threats to it. Masculinity is no longer honored as a stabilizing force. Instead, it is often portrayed as something to be softened, tamed, or “retrained.” Men are encouraged to suppress their nature in favor of emotional conformity. They are told to trade integrity for approval.

Masculinity is not at war with emotion—it rejects emotional absolutism, the idea that feelings should outrank facts and determine reality. This re-engineering of masculine character is not accidental. It serves a purpose.

As I explore further in the book The War on Men: How the New Gender Politics Is Undermining Western Civilization, once strength is redefined as danger and clarity as intolerance, society begins to drift away from reality.

A society built on narrative control must first make courage seem unacceptable. It especially targets the men most likely to speak plainly. A world dependent on emotional compliance cannot tolerate the courage that questions official narratives and asks, “What is real—and what is not?” That is why truth today requires masculine courage more than ever.

Truth Liberates — But It Also Demands

Ancient wisdom teaches that truth sets us free, but only when we accept the responsibility and sacrifice it demands. Today, many accept narratives; not because they believe them, but because disagreeing has become socially risky.

This is how deception spreads: not primarily through force, but through fear of exclusion.

A childhood friend recently admitted he followed certain policies during the Covid “pandemic” that he privately questioned simply so he and his wife could “go for a coffee in a coffee-house.” That single line reveals what soft tyranny looks like: the transformation of ordinary conveniences into levers of compliance. When courage fades, even trivial discomfort is enough to silence truth.

The Cultural Project: Emotional Obedience

The modern redefinition of masculinity revolves around a single goal: to replace steadiness with emotional obedience. Men who are steady, principled, and difficult to manipulate are inconvenient to systems that prize conformity.

The culture now encourages a softer man—sensitive, easily guided, emotionally pliable, and eager for approval, comfort, and validation rather than truth.

But emotional obedience is the opposite of mature masculinity.

Authentic masculine energy creates stability out of chaos. It draws boundaries. It names reality. It resists manipulation. It protects what is worth protecting. It does not bend simply because bending is easier.

When men suppress this nature, society pays a price. Confusion grows. Boundaries dissolve. Institutions drift. Narratives replace facts. Emotional intensity replaces reason. The world becomes unmoored from reality.

You Don’t Fight Delusion With Violence — The Truth Itself Is the Blade

One of the most important insights of traditional wisdom is that delusion is not defeated through force. You do not need an axe or a sword. You need clarity.

The truth itself is the blade.

A man who speaks truth cuts through confusion without harming anyone. His weapon is not aggression but clarity. His force is not violence but responsibility. His courage does not seek to dominate but to liberate.

At the same time, refusing to speak truth is not neutral. It becomes a subtle form of harm—a spiritual harm. When a person sees what is real but remains silent, the conscience begins to rebel.

And worse, silence leaves others trapped in illusions they might have escaped had truth been spoken.

Silence in the face of lies does not preserve peace. It prolongs the harm.

False Compassion: Fear Wearing Morality as a Mask

The culture now encourages silence, and calls it kindness. We are told to avoid “offending” others, “creating discomfort,” and “disrupting harmony.” But much of what passes for compassion today is simply fear wearing a moral mask.

Some claim masculinity is merely adapting to a gentler age. But compassion without courage is not maturity—it is compliance. A culture that demands silence in the name of kindness does not become gentler; it becomes dishonest.

True compassion sometimes requires saying what others do not want to hear. It may be uncomfortable, but it demands clarity, boundaries—and courage.

If a man sees someone drowning in confusion, compassion is not silence. It is speaking truth—calmly, firmly, respectfully—even when it is unwelcome. Courage and compassion are not opposites; they are allies. Courage without compassion becomes harshness. But compassion without courage becomes sentimental weakness.

The union of courage and compassion is the essence of moral strength.

Still, even when truth is spoken clearly, it cannot be imposed. A man may be shown reality, but only he can choose to face it. No one can wake a man who chooses sleep; the decision to confront reality is his alone. Truth can be shown—but it must be chosen.

Truth-Telling Is Sacred Work

Throughout history, the people we admire most are those who told the truth when it carried a cost. The hero is not the one who chases comfort but the one who refuses to bow to fashionable lies.

It is often the quiet acts that matter most—the parent who stands up to a school board pushing ideology over reality, or the soldier who reports failures that could cost lives.

In our own lifetime, speaking truth has once again become risky. After the Patriot Act expanded surveillance, many who raised concerns about its overreach were dismissed as paranoid or unpatriotic—yet years later, their warnings proved justified.

Truth-telling does not require power—only sincerity and courage. As Shakespeare put it, “This above all: to thine own self be true…”

A Man Cannot Lead If He Fears Disapproval

Leadership demands courage. A man who fears social disapproval cannot lead; fear makes him reactive and easily swayed. Many men have outsourced their moral compass to the approval of the crowd—not because they are bad, but because they are afraid.

But fear does not produce freedom. Fear produces conformity. Conformity, when the culture is built on unstable ideas, leads to chaos.

A man must decide whom he serves: public opinion or the truth. Masculinity is not fading—it is waiting. And as courage rises, truth will rise with it.

The World Needs Men Who Refuse the Lie

The West does not need more apologetic men shrinking themselves to fit the mood of the age. It does not need more men drifting with every cultural wave. It does not need more men acting small to avoid criticism.

It needs men who stand firm.

Men who refuse to repeat what they know is false.

Men who choose clarity over comfort.

Men who accept responsibility rather than seeking escape.

Men who refuse emotional obedience.

Men who speak the truth humbly, courageously, and consistently.

To be a man is to refuse the lie—even when the lie is popular.

Masculinity does not need to be reinvented—it needs to be reclaimed. Not with anger, but with honesty. Not with force, but with clarity. Men must once again guard the truth — or the truth will not survive.

A Day In The Life.

Up at 7:30a on Friday, a cold 44°F, cloudy, breezy morning, I upped the heat, made coffee, fired-up the Win-7 Pentium HP Desktop to let 32 million lines of code load, tuned into the "CP Show LIVE" from 9-12, had a couple smokes in the garage and checked the leftover errands list. Just the Staple's delivery scheduled for today. I scanned the weather and news, tuned into the "CP Show LIVE", and relaxed for the morning. Sherry and I rescheduled her visit today, to another day, next week.

Around 11a, my new office chair from yesterday's online Staple's purchase, was delivered, unassembled. in a very large and heavy carton, to the front porch. I'd paid $59.25 for assembly & installation, so I called Staples and they referred me to SPAR Co, to arrange a date/time to get that done. Swell. Assembly/install date will be either December 2-3-4; no sooner. Damn. I had to move the Jeep outside, so I could get the very large carton inside, until I can 'rearrange' things a bit.

After lunch, I did some 'paperwork' on the computer, paid a bill online, and worked on getting email back. Still no luck in restoring it. By 6, I'd made dinner, watched the evening news, and switched to Discovery's "Gold Rush" until 12:30a, and unplugged for the night. The rain arrived continued into the morning.

Awake at 7a on Saturday -- for some reason I thought it was Sunday -- I rolled over and slept until 9:15, made coffee, upped the heat, and scanned the news and weather. Foggy, heavily-overcast, 41° and looking like Winter, I just lounged around all morning, and moved things around in the garage, to get the new office chair crate stowed, so I could get the Jeep back inside. I had to run a couple of errands, mainly to get 3 Rxs waiting for p/u at Weis Pharmacy, made it home by 2p, and had a sweet potato for breakfast/lunch. I needed some food.

I had a large lunch around 3p, checked the start time of today's F-1 Grand Prix race, in Las Vegas: 11pm (8pm local LV time). So I planned to stay up and watch. After dinner, I watched some snippets of news, switched to Discovery's "Expedition Unknown" and a 2hr special on Discovery, "Bigfoot Took Her", until the F1 race at 11. Good 2hr race, and I was asleep by 2a.

Up at 9:30a on Sunday, a cold 39°, so I upped the heat, made coffee, scanned the news and weather and logged on to the F1 race thread on FR, for additional news on the two disqualifications at McLaren Racing. Nit-picking crappola, IMO. I got ready for the day, started a load of laundry, and had some lunch.

I worked on the email problem, with 13 showing, but not visible in the queue, They're THERE, but I can't FIND them.

I spent the afternoon doing a single load of laundry, some condo chores, getting the garbage and recycle bins ready to go out tomorrow, watching History's "American Pickers" and talking to Sherry. I watched the evening news, and went back to "AP" until 11:30. Lights out.

May God Bless America

Awake at 8a on Monday, I went back to sleep until 9, a bright, sunny, breezy 39° morning, upped the heat, made coffee, and had a smoke in the cold garage. I tuned into the "CP Show LIVE", already in progress, and scanned the news and weather headlines. After breakfast, I decide to leave early for my usual 3 errand trip to Red Lion and Dallastown, so I got on the road at 11. Traffic was light and I made great time.

Back home by 12:15, I unloaded, had lunch, checked the news and weather, and did 2 projects waiting in the garage, took a 2hr snooze on th LR couch, watched the evening news, switched to History's "Ancient Aliens" and TWC's ":Weather Gone Viral" until 11, and unplugged. My cleaning lady's in at 8:30a, tomorrow.

Up at 0-DARK-THIRTY on Tuesday, I upped the heat, made coffee -- new bag of Jamaican Blue Mountain -- scanned the weather and news, had breakfast and JoAnne arrived at 8:30, and began her cleaning routine. I just stay out of her way. She left at 11:15, and I left for the Runkles/PennDOT DMV Office in West York. It was nearly empty and I thought I'd get thru it in 15-20mins, but since I'd paid online, I was referred to the real PennDOT DMV Office on Queen St, in South York. It was a nightmare of semi-humanity, when I walked in. 2½hrs later, I walked out with a renewed license, no eye test, and it was getting darker, due to the storm front and rain. I drove straight home, in very heavy traffic, and relaxed.

I had dinner, watched the news, and switched to Discovery's "Gold Rush" and History's "Curse of Oak Island" until 12:30a, the heavy rain arrived, and quit for the day.

Up at 8:30a on Wednesday, a cloudy, very foggy, damp, 47° morning. Forecast to be warmer this afternoon, Winter weather arrives, from the cold and blizzards in the Midwest and West, tomorrow. I upped the heat, made coffee, tuned into the "CP Show LIVE" with his usual sub-host, and got things ready for tomorrow's T-Day Dinner with Sis, here. I set the DR table, got the pots and pans out that I'd need, checked the thawing Turkey Roulade, and readied the baking pan for it to roast in. As the fog burned-off and the blue sky appeared, I got ready for the day around noon.

I did a couple local errands, but cut things short due to heavy traffic; tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, the roads will be almost empty. Back home, I watched History's "American Pickers", had lunch and got everything ready for tomorrow's T-Day Lunch. By 6, I'd had dinner, watched the news, and then switched to History's "American Pickers" until midnight. The cold front was moving thru with just heavy downpours, for now. Lights out.

Up at 7a on Thursday, a noticeably colder, cloudy 39° morning, I upped the heat, made coffee, skipped breakfast, and scanned the news and weather headlines. Sis arrived at 11:45, and we drove to Mt Rose Cemetery for a visit, then back to my place to roast the Turkey Roulade, and heat the sweet potatoes, sweet peas and gravy. Yes, it was a good and filling meal. Sis left around 3p, and I headed to the LR couch, but found her SmartyPants iPhone in the kitchen table. (Heh, Sherry did this once.) She came back around 5, got her phone, and I was done with a nap.

I watched the evening news and -- it's a piss-poor night for any TV! -- watched on/off History's "Hazardous History" and MT's "Bitchin' Rides" until 11p, and bagged it for the night.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Tomorrow starts a new week, here in the "Journal", and except for an office chair assembly on Tuesday, and a quick trip to the York County's Sheriff's Office to p?u my renewed-by-mail CCW Permit any day next week, it's a clear week for me. Sherry's had a full plate all this week, so I'm hoping to get 1-2 days with her next week. (((SIGH))).

What unlawful orders?

The Democrats recently trotted out six members of Congress with military or intelligence community experience to encourage soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and intelligence officials to disobey orders. Part of the oath we take is to obey the lawful orders of those appointed over us. These Dems talk about disobeying “unlawful” orders. What orders are they talking about? The military does a good job in training of explaining that if you are in combat and ordered to line up a bunch of civilians and execute them, you have a responsibility to disobey. I am unaware of any recent orders along those lines.

Are the Dems saying the B-2 pilots should have refused to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities? The refuelers should have refused to fly? The Patriot battery should have refused to shoot down Iranian missiles aimed at Israel? Those conducting attacks on drug boats should disobey? CIA analysts who discover the launch of drug boats should conceal their discoveries from superiors?

Actually, there is a historical example that could highlight this issue. During the Vietnam War, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara recommended, and President Lyndon Johnson approved, changing our strategic goal from a win to a tie. The decision occurred on November 5, 1966, and was based on domestic political calculations relating to the 1968 election. The mechanism to achieve the new goal was to stop the open-ended commitment to victory and establish a troop ceiling beyond which we would not go. The administration wished to avoid mobilization or calling up the reserve and set the ceiling accordingly. The American commander in Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, advised that while we would not be defeated with the proposed force, neither would we win, and it would be a prescription for an unreasonably protracted conflict. That was good enough for the Johnson administration.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff protested the decision in a series of bureaucratic exchanges with McNamara over the months required to reach the ceiling. Finally, in August 1967, having adjusted the ceiling slightly, McNamara informed the Joint Chiefs that the discussion was over. But the Johnson administration was being criticized by Republicans for its handling of the war, and Johnson wanted to create the (false) impression that he was doing everything possible to support the commander in the field. In other words, he wanted to create a public narrative that was the exact opposite of the truth.

Having just told the Joint Chiefs that the debate concerning a troop ceiling was over, McNamara pressed the military to speed up deployments to reach the troop ceiling, without revealing to the public that there was a troop ceiling. The objective was to create the public impression that all was being done to support Westmoreland. In early September 1967, the administration asked the Joint Chiefs (a) what could be done prior to Christmas? and (b) what could be done prior to the March 12, 1968, New Hampshire presidential primary election?

One result was to accelerate the deployment of the 101st Airborne Division. In October it was determined that the division could be deployed by Christmas and, with some additional training, be employed in January. The original plan had been to deploy the division in March 1968.

Here is where I argue that there is potential for an unlawful order. It also would have been impossible for the soldiers receiving the order to know it was unlawful, though the Joint Chiefs should have known. And the administration disrupted the situation for them by coming up with a desire to increase pressure in the Northern Provinces. Let’s take a married Staff Sergeant in the 101st with two children. In the fall of 1967, he expects to go to Vietnam in March of 1968. He makes plans for his family. Where to live, schools, the car, the bank, etc. In October, he discovers he is going to Vietnam before Christmas. Have his plans just been dealt a blow? Yes, but he is an Airborne soldier and is ready because his country needs him. But if we change that to, he is ready , so he can help Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, is the answer the same? Should that have been a lawful order?

Johnson and McNamara were despicable. It was clear that these military decisions were being taken for crass political reasons. The fact that they put the New Hampshire primary reasoning in writing, perhaps would have given cause for formal objection, but even then, it was confounded with the Northern Provinces gambit. Even this disgusting example is difficult, and we only know about it because of the Pentagon Papers.

Encouraging disobedience in the military and intelligence community is a dangerous path to follow. If these six Dems had a specific order in mind, they should have said what it was. They did not, and they have undermined the good order and discipline that is necessary in conflict.

Defining Communism

As much as one-third of the world’s population has lived and died under communism. It accounted for more than 100 million deaths in the last century. Yet this cult remains seductive worldwide. Defenders still argue that real communism has not yet been implemented. The failures documented to date are not intrinsic to the ideology. They persist in believing that cradle-to-grave guarantees will come to pass. New generations of those educated by the fifth columns ensconced in education, the media, and the culture are still prey to an aggressive, imperialistic ideology.

Communism is the political and economic ideology predicated on Marx’s theory of revolutionary socialism. His three-part evolution from feudalism to capitalism to communism claims to be scientifically and economically determined. Dialectical materialism mandates the withering away of the state, but this never occurs as the government consolidates control and replaces the individual with the collective. Communism targets the spirit and soul of each person. It enfolds humanity in the abstract but despises the individual who resists the collective.

Communism requires control of the means of production and all resources, as well as the distribution of goods and services. Despite promises of equality, most experience the equality of poverty, while the elites who control the party and the government and its many institutional and bureaucratic tentacles enjoy the lifestyle of the privileged. Private property is eliminated, and all enterprises are confiscated. What is supposed to become a classless society never does.

To collectivize society, the party and government use purges, a reign of terror, intelligence and military forces, and control of all civic associations from youth groups to labor unions. Deliberate hardships are inflicted to maintain a climate of fear and a culture of complicity and capitulation. Even cannibalism has been permitted to elevate the passionate loyalty of true believers and to punish those who persist in dissenting from the policies and principles of the party and holding on to crops, livestock, or other property to protect their families and communities. In a war against the old —the status quo of stability, traditions, or conventions —the champions of the new continue the duality of oppressor and oppressed to cleave to power.

Some iterations of communism stress nationalism, using socialist realism to have writers self-censor and wars of national liberation to justify warfare and aggressive territorial expansion. Others stress the cosmopolitan promises and global goal of creating a workers’ paradise for the region, hemisphere, or entire planet. Communists revise history. They rely on their ability to rewrite the past to justify the present and plan for the future. With a command economy, centralized quotas on agricultural products, and rapid industrialization, the party promoted corruption and devastating deficiencies. Those tasked with fulfilling quotas had to justify failures to survive or continue to maintain their positions, much less promotions. They either lied about production or blamed others for failure to meet goals. Undue pressure was put on workers and farmers. The exploitation of labor that communism blamed on capitalism applied to their own unrealistic demands. Unions lost all independence and served the interests of the party and state.

Social engineering accompanied the communist cult’s war on religion and on God. They boasted of superior citizens and workers produced by their totalitarian dystopias. Rights, liberties, and freedoms were denied. Conventions were repudiated as bourgeois constructs and counter-revolutionary mechanisms. Purges, eugenics, euthanasia, war on enemies of the revolution, including the nuclear family, were legitimized by an ever-changing and uncontested narrative. Imperial designs were described in glowing terms as measures to protect the fledgling communist countries from colonialist, capitalist regimes. Offensive policies were described as defensive. Mythic conspiracies masked the reality of political power struggles within the ranks of “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Communism promises to provide for each person in accordance with his needs and to extract from each person in accordance with his abilities. It sounded good – the promise of perpetual dependence on the all-knowing party to make the difficult decisions of life with a built-in safety net. Department stores and grocery stores promised to fulfil wish lists. Citizens faced long lines and vanishing inventories. Party apparatchiks, on the other hand, wanted for nothing. They ate well, enjoyed country homes and delicacies, and lived with all the privileges and perks of the elite, while the people struggled to survive. When parades and other measures to promote patriotism failed, the informants and spies were ensconced in all areas of life, and the torture and executions carried out at notorious prisons kept the skeptics in line. There was no rule of law; constitutions, the judiciary, and the dictates emanating from the party established the iron law of orthodoxy.

In communist countries, every aspect of a person’s life was dictated by the state. Where a person or family lived, travel restrictions, job prospects, educational opportunities, job conditions and pay, obligations to the party, state and place of employment, the ability to marry and procreate, access to medical care, the silencing of opposition publications, parties and ideas, show trials, terms of imprisonment and military duties all intruded on the ability of the individual. No autonomy, agency, or free will were permitted. It was not enough to acknowledge that 2 + 2 = 5; the party demanded that you believe it. Final acquiescence to the Orwellian determination of truth did not provide absolution. You were still punished for committing thought crimes.

In the end, useful idiots found neither security nor a decent standard of living. They were subject to the proclivity of communists to eat their own. People lived in fear, from those at the bottom who might be singled out for extermination to those at the top, jealous of prospective opponents who might usurp their positions of power. Despite rich traditional cultures, communist regimes sought either to subject them to the dictates of the party or erase them. Entry into hot or cold wars enabled communists to perpetrate further incursions into the dignity and identity of individuals under their control and to elevate their own lust for power—sadism in the elite ranks, whether tribal, clan-centered, or ideology-inspired, was given free rein. Dissidents sought to escape, to secure underground publications, to satirize communist concepts in artworks, or to revolt against the revolutionaries.

Communism committed far more political murders than Christianity or Judaism it excoriated. Communism murdered far more dreams than it ever encouraged. Mendacious, willing to use any means necessary to secure and maintain power, camouflaged by a mask of hope hiding despair and death, communists are monsters engaged in that eternal, existential battle between good and evil. It refuses to die. It returns each generation to delude fresh recruits from new generations of brainwashing. Interview anyone who lived in a communist state and escaped. Leaders with charisma and a blood lust charmed the naïve with visions of revolutionary retribution against the past and visions of a worker’s paradise for the future. They delivered on the former but never produced the latter. Communism is an ideology that deserves to be deposited in the dustbin of history. The invitation to chaos, redistribution that punishes success and rewards failure, and instability fueled by propaganda and the resort to revolutionary violence continue to attract useful idiots.