If you’ve spent any time at all in the liberty movement and the alternative media, you have probably heard the term “false left/right paradigm” come up in conversation. And, depending on the source, the meaning behind the term was probably misinterpreted. If you walked away thinking that the false left/right paradigm means there is no such thing as “left vs. right” and that it’s all theater, then you have the completely wrong idea.
The false paradigm argument has always been about political leadership and the people at the very top of the pyramid. These elitists and globalists have their own affiliations and agendas, but they pretend to be loyal to one political party or the other. They pretend to stand against each other during elections but in reality, they are working together to ensure that government policy is always written the same way and that outcomes are always controlled.
However, at the bottom of the pyramid among regular people, there is no false left/right paradigm. There are very real divisions and there is a very real political spectrum. These divisions exist regardless of the globalists and regardless of politics and are based on fundamental disagreements between two distinct sides and philosophies.
For years I have heard the argument that conservatives, in particular, would be “just as bad” as the political left when it comes to an authoritarian response to crisis. In other words, we would act pretty much the same way under pressure, and all our principles and values of freedom would go out the window as soon as we are faced with an impending crisis. The past few years have proven beyond a doubt that this is nonsense. Conservatives stick by their principles.
As they say, the proof is in the pudding. For the near entirety of the COVID pandemic response, red states have been free from the mandates while blue states have been enslaved. Not only that, but conservative red states are some of the freest places on the planet right now, while a majority of countries are wallowing in mandate and vax passport hell. The difference is undeniable.
In my home state of Montana, we dealt with an initial lockdown event in early 2020 for two reasons. One, people had no idea how dangerous COVID actually was. We had only heard rumors from the WHO of a 3 percent or higher death rate (which turned out to be utterly false). Secondly, we had a democrat governor (that pretended to be moderate) who took the restrictions way too far. We decided to ignore him and his mandates, and then we booted him and every other democrat out in a landslide in the election that year. After around 2-3 months of lockdowns, we looked at the data and decided the mandates were nonsense and we reopened without anyone’s permission. There was nothing the lefties within the state could do about it.
If you were to travel directly from the streets of Montana or almost any other red state over to a blue state or Canada or almost any other nation, the disconnect would be shocking. Life in the red states is normal and bustling. People who want to wear masks do so, but most don’t bother (the CDC has now admitted that cloth masks are basically useless, which is what conservatives have been arguing for the past two years).
There are no vax passports. In fact, red states blocked Biden’s federal vax mandates before he even introduced them. Why? Because we know how leftists think. Remember when Biden and many others in government were claiming there would be no forced vaccinations? Yeah, conservatives aren’t dumb, and we know that once the government has a crisis in hand they will try to grab as much power as possible. If not for the opposition of so many red states, the Supreme Court may have voted in favor of the Biden mandates. Do not think for a second that the SC is not influenced by the possibility of mass rebellion.
What makes red states so free? The existence of majority conservative populations. If you want to escape medical tyranny the evidence shows that you need to live in a place where conservatives run things. It’s that simple.
Also, by extension, the fact that conservatives are some of the most well-armed people on Earth probably has something to do with the inability of the government to use force to institute policy. They are mostly relegated to manipulation and propaganda through the mainstream media, which most conservatives do not watch or care about.
But what ideals motivate conservatives to fight so effectively against the mandates? Are there not billions of people in other countries that also want freedom? I think we need to define what a true conservative is in order for people to understand why red states in the U.S. are so different.
In many countries, the word “conservative” is treated as a slur, and they have no concept of what ideals we represent. Some would rather equate freedom with “traditional liberal” values, but frankly, traditional liberals don’t exist anymore. Conservatives and libertarians (which lean mostly conservative) have filled the void that traditional liberals left behind. The foundational principles of conservatives are:
Small government, pro free markets (which also means being anti-monopoly), decentralization, the Bill of Rights, the non-aggression principle, sound money, freedom of association, meritocracy, personal autonomy (as long as you are not harming others) and limited democracy instead of rule by the mob (51 percent of people lording over the other 49 percent).
There are probably a few other factors I could add here, but these stand out as the most decisive principles. The political left, on the other hand, has proven to be fully invested in the opposite of everything we stand for and they have shown their true colors by avidly supporting not just COVID tyranny, but any other policies of globalism and centralization.
Leftists are full bore collectivists and believe that mob rule is the only rule. Individual freedom is only a value to them when it suits their narrative, and they erase such freedoms at the drop of a hat when it is to their advantage. They believe in big government, centralization, socialism (in some cases communism), equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity, they only support personal autonomy when it comes to killing babies (abortion, which is not a right of personal autonomy), helicopter money and universal basic income (free goodies at the expense of others and the stability of the currency), winning by any means necessary, the “greater good” and the “ends justify the means.”
These are basically the values of most governments around the world and the leftists here in the U.S. Is it any wonder that the only places that are free from the mandates are red states? If you have no respect for individual freedom, if you have no value for life other than your own and you think that every problem can be solved with more government power and interference, then you are on an inevitable path to authoritarianism.
There are those that will argue that this description only represents a portion of the political left and that most of them are just “useful idiots” being manipulated to follow a destructive agenda. I’m sure some leftists have just been duped or coerced into conformity, but if this is the case then it only reinforces my greater theory on why some people choose to be leftists. They are weaklings. I’m not just talking about physical weakness; I’m talking about emotional and mental weakness.
I can’t count the number of times I had to point out when I thought conservative movements were taking the wrong path, and that often means fighting against other conservatives on certain issues. My criticisms of Trump and his cabinet loaded with banking elites, globalists and Council on Foreign Relations members were not met with resounding applause a few years ago. There are many conservatives that will bring up viewpoints contrary to what the majority believe at any given time, and this is what makes us different at our core from leftists. We are not afraid to speak up against our own side when it’s necessary. They are terrified of such a notion because their side will seek to destroy them if they show any deviation from the agenda.
For the world to be free again there will have to be a vast sea change in the values people hold dear. It is a problem that will likely take many years and an incredible struggle to fix. But what I am hearing from my international readers is the same message over and over again. They are watching the U.S. and the red states to see what happens because what we are doing is proving that there is another way, that there is an alternative to tyranny. Many of their hopes are resting on our shoulders and this is a great responsibility. As a conservative, you are not just fighting for your own liberties here in the U.S., you may also be fighting for the liberties of billions of others across the oceans.
This is why we CAN NOT lose. There is far too much at stake.
Brandon Smith
