Have you stopped watching the news, or reading traditional media?
A cursory glance across today's BBC headlines exemplifies the worst of it:
'Germany bans travelers from the UK!'
‘CDC advises Americans not to kiss chickens!’ (not a joke)
‘Water so toxic it could burn your eyes!’
'Should all children get the COVID vaccine!'
It is hard to imagine a world more utterly at odds with itself than the one we are living in now. I just took a break from my screen to grab some breakfast and was greeted by this:
Individually wrapped apples.
By the time some poor kitchen staffer wrapped these apples, two meters of plastic wrap have been used unnecessarily and most of these unappetizing things will hit the trash -- without so much as a bite being taken from them.
I wonder: Just who we are saving and from what?
Certainly not ourselves from our own insanity.
But save ourselves we must. We cannot simply resign ourselves to looking the other way, or avoiding all the nonsense we are surrounded by. Our children remind us daily that we have to find a way to endure, and to prevail through this to get to the other side of it and to try and restore some kind of normality or dignity to humanity or the places we want to live.
I have been accused of trivializing the horrors of our present humanity with my comedy. One lady from a church audience in Colorado emailed me to tell me that she was not impressed by me trying to be funny and that she was not prepared to laugh at the terrible state of the world we live in.
And I have no wish to change her mind, I completely understand and accept her point of view. I remember my own father once being chastised for being too jovial at a family funeral. I wonder if it is our way of being awkward around pain, or our genuine wish to cheer other people up.
Regardless, as I have traveled across America for the last three months on the road to lift up our side there are a few things that I like to remind us of:
I am a respectful foreigner and an outsider, and readily acknowledge this. I like to say:
“You chased our British asses out of this fine country once before.”
The other day a tall gentleman with a fine beard leapt to his feet and shouted:
“TWICE! WE CHASED YOUR BRITISH ASSES OUTTA HERE, TWICE!”
This gentleman makes my first point for me. You have the fight within you. Americans are different from Brits because you are built differently, your Constitution is hard-wired into your soul. If I cut you open, somewhere inside you is a visceral understanding that your right to life and liberty and happiness is God-given, and no man has the power to take those rights away.
You are different from us because you still have your Second Amendment, no matter how much it is challenged, or the target of incessant grabs by the Left. I assert that at no time in modern history has there been a greater cache of weapons across America. This nation is home to the greatest citizen militia of all time.
Clearly I am not advocating violence of any kind, nor am I pushing for a time when the American people are pitted against the great America military.
But please take it from this unarmed Brit, who has been told an attack on her family is imminent yet has been left without any way of defending my children: your position is far stronger because of your right to bear arms. And the generation of Americans who bore witness to George W. Bush will never let that be taken away.
Finally, America is not — and never has been — a democracy. You are a Republic — the difference put succinctly by Loren Culp, the long-shot Republican candidate for governor of Washington, who said in a recent interview: “democracy is mob rule” and “famous Chinese leaders like Mao Zedong and Mikhail Gorbachev loved democracy because democracy is a step toward socialism, which is a step towards communism.”
I’d argue that the above point has never been more prescient.
America is not one country in the English sense. As I move across this great Republic, individual states are rising to defend their God-given freedoms and it has been awe-inspiring to watch.
Strong red states are preventing blue mob rule taking over. Florida has been unofficially rebranded to the “Free State of Florida” because of the fight put up by Governor DeSantis. South Dakotans refuse to be cowed. In Texas, there is defiance against tyrannical school boards and in Arizona, the people of Maricopa County refuse to be beaten down.
Red Californians are as blood red as it is possible to be, refusing to leave their state, determined to fight back to make it Red again. Colorado rejects Bolder, just as Texans reject Austin or Minnesotans reject Minneapolis. Just as the stars align on your banner, so too the red states now align to defend your freedoms. The coalition of red states is building.
It makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. America is not done yet, and nor will she be. You have your God-given freedoms. You have your Second Amendment and you belong to a mighty Republic.
I say this as a respectful foreigner and a Brit (a people you have chased out of this country TWICE before): America is and remains the greatest nation on the face of the planet earth.