Elaine Benes Was Right

Elaine Benes in Seinfeld

Elaine Benes was right: "Quit telling your stupid story about the stupid desert!" 

In a famous episode of Seinfeld (aren't they all?), Elaine put her job on the line over her intense dislike of the 1996 Oscar-winner, The English Patient. Over the past few weeks, it's been easy to mock how irrelevant the Oscars and Hollywood in general have become, but a look back on the values of this Best Picture winner made in 1996 shows how far removed from old fashioned American values we already were then. 

It doesn't matter that the film was a period piece set in the years leading up to the Second World War until its end, the values of it are decidedly the era of egocentric "end of history" analysis that brainwashed a few generations into thinking that globalization was an inevitable weather pattern, there was nothing we could do about it, and not to worry because it's overwhelmingly good.

1990s America (Hollywood) - maybe the last successful decade we've had, where community and family and the overall trajectory of the country still felt secure - awarded this as its Best Picture of the Year that had the benefit of hindsight while promoting values far removed from the values that won the Second World War. 

Now consider a great film: Casablanca - made at the height of that war, when its outcome was still very much in doubt - is told with a confidence and value-set that almost assumes its victorious outcome. Premiering in late-1942, what makes the film particularly remarkable is that it was considered an ordinary assembly-line Hollywood picture of its day, despite its A-list stars. 

Casablanca (1942)

Rick Blaine is a quintessential American original whereas "The English Patient" (who is Hungarian), László Almásy, is a "citizen of the world." 

One of the film's most memorable lines is: "We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps with the names of powerful men." That is not a line born out of shared sacrifices abroad and Rosie the Riveter and silent, stoic, and resilient children at home. That is the dialogue not of the 1940s values, but of the 1990s where globalization is eternal and final, tech optimism reigned, and we'd probably never have a major war again... or something. 

The romance that is central to both films is told mostly or entirely through backstory, and again settles on radically different conclusions. 

Blaine's individualistic streak is evident throughout the film, yet by the end he arrives at the honorable end that serves the war effort. The culture churned out those ethics, built on community and obligation, which allowed its ordered liberty and individualism to strengthen the civics of a nation, whether through the little platoons of Tocquevillian democracy, or through the cultural ethos that produced so much greatness that it overcame flaws without coming undone. Rick Blaine was admirable because he was selfless in the end.

Rick Blaine was admirable because he was selfless in the end.

Whereas Almásy sells out his country and his friends in pursuit of "love," which is really just an infatuation with a married woman. 

With its glorious shots of the desert and sweeping romantic score, there is no doubt that The English Patient is technically impressive and designed to win you over, not just cinematically, but in its values, too. 

This, too, is another area where Casablanca triumphs, which ends in sacrifice for something greater than yourself for many of its characters, not just the lead. This is what the ethos of globalization infecting the 1996-made period piece gets wrong. It is the people within the countries, the families and communities and nations that make up those boundaries and lines on a map if you're doing it right. It is the social trust and sense of mutual obligation we have to another that counts at history's pivotal moments. And whether we are at one such moment or not, stop telling your stupid story about the stupid desert indeed, and let's get on with rebuilding our social trust and sense of mutual obligation to one another, and eschew the rootless and unmoored society of users, strangers, and libertines.


Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of its Veterans Caucus. He has appeared on CNN, CBS, and OAN. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

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The Power of Intergenerational Connectedness

 

Photo from WBUR website

I often remark that the elderly are like invisible people: We get irritated when they walk too slow, take too much time sorting through their expired coupons at the grocery store check-out, or strain to hear us when we speak to them. 

To many young and middle-aged people, they're nothing more than a burden. Their utility, in other words, is all used up. 

The fact of the matter, though, is that many elderly people are the best of us. 

In Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where I live, I often see old men wearing Vietnam veteran caps. These guys are bad asses, and God knows what they've seen. My dad makes it a habit to offer to buy them breakfast. 

We owe them a debt of gratitude. 

When they are unwell, we should see it as our problem.

According to The University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging from 2024, 33.4% of respondents between the ages of 50-80 reported feeling a lack of companionship "some of the time" or "often."

This is inexcusable. 

One group, though, is taking it upon themselves, not only to help ameliorate loneliness in the elderly, but to do it by engaging young people, many of whom also report feeling exceedingly isolated.  

Matter Neuroscience, a health and wellness company founded in 2019, has taken some innovative steps towards bridging the gap between lonely boomers and zoomers. 

As reported by CNN, "a team from Matter Neuroscience has refurbished two old payphones and set one up at a coffee shop near Boston University, and the other at a retirement community in Nevada. The signs read, 'call a boomer,' and 'call a zoomer,' and they automatically ring to the other side when you pick them up."

This is called intergenerational connectedness. The elderly need not be constrained to the company in their retirement communities. Using twenty-first century technology, they can easily be connected with a young person 3,000 miles away. 

Marilyn Onkka, a 70-year-old caller that CNN interviewed, said that "you can end up talking with somebody that - in our short lives, with the time we have left - can become a long-time friend." 

Here's a little bit from a WBUR article about the payphones:
When Marcantonio picked up the phone on BU’s campus, it rang a few times, then 73-year-old Maria Jaynes answered. Jaynes lives in Reno, Nevada, at a Volunteers of America senior affordable housing community. The payphone inside the senior center looks similar to the one in Boston, but instead, it reads “call a zoomer.”

Marcantonio and Jaynes talk about the weather, comparing the 20-degree chill in Boston to the 80-degree-and-sunny forecast in Reno. Marcantonio asks Jaynes what activities the senior center has planned for the week, and Jaynes tells him she likes playing bingo, doing puzzles and watching movies.
I hope more inventive projects like this catch on. There's no reason for anyone - whether they be boomers or zoomers - to be devoid of social connection. 

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Sorry, Piers, but Dave Rubin Is Right

 


Welp, it looks like Dave Rubin and Piers Morgan are beefing on X...

Earlier this month, Rubin posted the following clip:

Rubin rightly remarked that Morgan's provocative show is only "adding fuel to the fire." In other words, in a political climate where tensions are already high and debate is rife with invective and ad hominem attacks, Morgan's show - which is really nothing more than dumb caricatures of liberals and conservatives screaming at each other for an hour - is the last thing America needs. 

During the conversation, Morgan didn't really rebut Rubin's assertion, calling it a "pretty fair criticism" and saying that other critics of his show have called him "the Jerry Springer of political debate."

Shortly after the clip was posted, however, Morgan wrote on X that Rubin "won’t ever be doing my show again, in any capacity."

Whatever Dave's politics, I completely agree with him here. 

In fact, I've written about the toxic nature of Morgan's show before. Below is an article I wrote in October of 2024. I had it sitting in my drafts, and figured it was timely:

We are 35 days away from choosing our next president. Crazy how fast time flies, eh?

I don't need to harp on our societal scourge of hyper-polarization; we all see it. This is not Reagan v. Mondale; according to the legacy media, this is about safeguarding democracy. 

When people carelessly say ridiculous things like, "democracy is hanging by a thread," it gives us the impression that things are way worse and way more severe than they actually are. Democracy is, in fact, not hanging in the balance. While there is certainly a lot at stake in November, we'll be fine either way. 

Thankfully, we have smart, reasonable people, like the State Policy Network's Erin Norman and Lura Forcum, providing us with thoughtful research. Their 2024 study, Beyond Polarization, is instructive. When I interviewed Erin for a National Review article back in July, she reiterated to me that ideological pluralism is part of our National DNA. "America," she remarked, "is a very large nation that, from the very beginning, was made up of lots of separate communities that had their own traditions and their own ways of doing things.” 

If you were to just look on X or other social media, however, you would not see a healthy sort of pluralism. Rather, you would see a people on the brink of civil war. Piers Morgan's YouTube channel is particularly awful. Just look at the thumbnails he chooses for his videos. They capture the most combative points of his program. Often, the thumbnail displays two people on opposing sides of a debate angrily gesticulating at each other and making faces. What's more, many of the guests he chooses to bring on are nothing more than pseudo-intellectual political provocateurs, that are not debating in good faith. 

Look at this screenshot of Morgan's YouTube channel. His viewership is high, but at what cost? His channel is, ultimately, a schlocky platform for caustic nonsense. 


Need a palate-cleanser? I would highly recommend Mark Halperin's 2Way program on YouTube. Here, Halperin's motto is "peace, love, and understanding." Another thing Halperin often says is that you should make it a point to give people, especially those whom you disagree, "the presumption of grace." This is a marked difference from Morgan's highly divisive click-bait. 

Now look at this screenshot of Halperin's YouTube channel:


Big difference, right? The problem, however, are the very disparate viewership numbers: outrage sells. 

But high blood pressure sucks. There's no need for it. I fully believe the American body politic to be more than capable of engaging in civil, thoughtful dialectic. 

If you're looking for a dose of humor with your civil debate, I would also check out Robert Wright's Nonzero YouTube channel. His episodes with Mickey Kaus are especially rich.


Enjoy, and do send me your podcast recommendations! 

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Netflix's 'The Singers' Tackles Social Isolation

 

Photo from Oscar-nominated film, The Singers

The Singers captures man's desire for brotherhood and fraternity. 
While scrolling LinkedIn today, I stumbled upon the below post from my friends at the Foundation for Social Connection: 


Aside from the odd documentary, I don't really frequent Netflix much. In fact, most of the content on there seems thoroughly unappealing. 

So, I was surprised when I came across something that actually looked substantive. 

At just 18-minutes long, Sam Davis's The Singers says a lot in a short duration of time. 

Taking place in a dimly lit dive bar - the kind of bar where credit card isn't accepted, the bathroom's paper towel dispenser is always empty, and outsiders are looked at with skepticism - The Singers captures man's desire for brotherhood and fraternity. 

Through song, the men at the pub - many of whom look like they've been through hell - transcend their real-world circumstances, and enter into another realm. 

For them, pain, loneliness, and isolation is quotidian. Music, however, disrupted all of that and ushered in a needed catharsis. 

Suddenly, they weren't all alone anymore. 

The film is spiritual, really. Do yourself a favor: Take 18-minutes out of your day and watch it.

You can thank me later. 

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Some Positive News

 

Photo from X: @NYCMayor

Unfortunately, I haven't time to write much of anything this week, as I'll be traveling. 

I will, however, leave you with this X post from New York City's Mayor, Zohran Mamdani:

I don't care what anyone says: collaboration between the Mayor and President Trump is a good thing. 

On X, pollster Frank Luntz wrote the following: "If Zohran and Trump can work together, the rest of us have no excuse not to do the same."

Hard agree. 

Anyway, see you next week!

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Smoke, Drink, and Be Merry

 

Photo: @PintsO_Guinness on X


There's no escaping the fact that drinking is, indeed, a "social lubricant."

Last month, Dr. Mehmet Oz - formerly known as "America's doctor" during his time on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and now Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - remarked that "alcohol is a social lubricant that brings people together," adding that "there's probably nothing better than having a good time with friends in a safe way."

He said this in the context of the Trump administration's changing of the U.S. dietary guidelines. 

In an article for NBC News, Aria Bendix writes that:
Whereas the previous dietary guidelines said alcohol consumption should be limited to one drink per day for women and two for men, the new ones simply recommend limiting alcohol consumption 'for better overall health.'

This looser, more ambiguous language regarding alcohol consumption is rather surprising considering that President Trump is famously a teetotaler, citing his late brother Fred's alcoholism as the reason he's always abstained from the sauce. 

In a 2024 interview with podcaster and comedian Theo Von, Trump spoke in an uncharacteristically vulnerable way about Fred, saying that he was a "very handsome guy" who succumbed to his addictions. Trump reiterated his oft-repeated line: "No drugs, no drinking, no cigarettes."  

What's more, people forget that at the end of former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's tenure in 2025, he issued the following Advisory: Alcohol and Cancer Risk. In it, the Office links alcohol consumption to "at least seven different types of cancer." Here is Dr. Murthy on Wolf Blitzer's show cautioning against even moderate use. 

Even still, the Trump administration has decided to prioritize the adverse effects of social isolation. 

At Healthsperien's "Action for Progress" conference in DC earlier this month, Dr. Oz remarked that "loneliness is a massive problem." 

It's encouraging that the administration is - in a thoughtful way, and while also acknowledging the detriments of too much alcohol use - drawing attention to the benefits of social drinking, something that I've written about before.  

Here's an excerpt from a National Review article I wrote with Joe Pitts in February of last year:

Up and down the ages, taverns, pubs, and dive bars have served as institutions where new friendships, romances, and even political movements have been set into motion. Alcohol is a social lubricant, not to mention that there’s something simply satisfying about drinking a cold glass of beer with friends, new and old.

From my own personal experience, the strongest community I've found here in Brooklyn has been at my local pub, and it's not even close. 

And, while we're at it, I think we ought to entertain a more controversial idea: Cigarette smoking also fosters community, albeit usually short-lived. 

In November of last year, I wrote a short blog post on a cigarette smoker meet-up that took place in Washington Square Park:

After giving the crowd some obligatory admonishments about how smoking is bad for you (blah blah blah), Terry started ripping stogies with a youthful and care-free swagger... Unfortunately, vices like smoking and drinking loosen people up, thus making them more amenable to conversing with each other. 

A TikToker with the username @justpeers articulated the communitarian nature of cigarette smoking well:

"Cigarette smokers," she says "are the only people I've ever interacted with who give with no expectation of receiving anything in return." 

That is, if one smoker sees another without a cigarette in hand, they'll offer them one from their pack with no questions asked, and with no expectation of immediate reciprocity. It's just the right thing to do. They look out for each other.

One comment to the video read: "'Can I buy a cig off you?' absolutely not pls take two."

We'll have to start asking ourselves which is worse: the risks of depriving ourselves of human interaction and the fulfillment that comes with meaningful social connection, or the risks of drinking and smoking?

I am, needless to say, no doctor, and can't advise one way or the other. The question, though, still needs to be asked. 

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Loneliness Is Not Gender-Specific

 



The loneliness epidemic has hit us all hard, regardless of our immutable characteristics: race, gender, ethnicity...

While there has been talk of a "male loneliness epidemic," I've largely - if not completely - steered clear of using the term, for, from what I've read over the years, both men and women have been impacted. 

But, in the Left-wing outlet BuzzFeed - an unserious, clickbait-driven site that I honestly thought was now defunct - staffer Dannica Ramirez documents what the women of Reddit think about male loneliness. 

While some of the responses were thoughtful, drawing attention to the fact that men historically have been hesitant to open up to their friends and be vulnerable - most comments were nasty, saying that the male loneliness epidemic is largely "self-inflicted," with one user writing that "about 85% or more of the men complaining about it do it to themselves."

Another Reddit user wrote that "It's evidence that even men think most other men are not a joy to be around."

One commenter, however, wrote that "loneliness is something we’re all really struggling with, regardless of gender." 

That's exactly my feeling, too. From the data I've consumed - and, trust me, I've read a lot about this issue over the past few years - loneliness is an equal opportunity killer: it does not discriminate based on any single criterion. 

Thus, combating loneliness and social isolation ought to be a gender-inclusive battle, wherein both men and women can take actionable steps to foster community. 

The issue of loneliness need not be another point of division between the sexes; we have politics for that.

Let this be a joint struggle. 

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How Men Lose Themselves in Relationships

 

By Christopher Turturro

Men need the companionship of the fairer sex to go through life, but they also need friends, particularly of the same sex, who function as indispensable support systems. 

My intention here is to address the role that men play in their own downfall when it comes to relationships, and what I've learned from my experience with dating.

Some men, it should be noted, are voluntarily stepping away from dating and marriage altogether due to financial and emotional concerns. They are, of course, free to make their own choices, and I would say the topic of conversation here doesn't much apply to them. Rather, I'm speaking to men who are lonely and looking for love. 

This is what I personally believe they should do to give themselves better chances.

Around the age of 30, people start to focus more on meeting a long-term partner and starting a family.

As a man who just recently turned 30, I've noticed many changes around me, especially in my circles. People start to have priority-shifts, different interests, and different goals. Life is no longer solely about careers, friendly get-togethers, and fun. Around the age of 30, people start to focus more on meeting a long-term partner and starting a family.

This is all a part of life. Generally speaking, it's what most people want to do: get married, start families, live happily ever after, etc. This is all fine and good, though I see a major issue with how men change their personality and entire identity when they date. 

Often when men start to date, their entire disposition changes: they neglect their friendships, hobbies fall by the wayside, and they make their whole personality about making their significant other happy. I vehemently disagree with this, and I'll tell you why. When someone meets you and takes an interest in you, they like you for who you are and the hobbies you have in life, whether that be reading, fitness, traveling, or whatever. So often men are completely willing to give it all up to make their wives/girlfriends happy. While doing this may come off as sweet and caring, it also shows that you have no backbone or structure and are willing to bend at any second to appease your partner at the expense of your friends.

Women do not respect that, and most often will find it unattractive (That's been my personal experience, and many others' I've witnessed). As a man, you need to be able to prioritize yourself and your needs in a healthy way, without being selfish. The truth is that there are some things that women will never understand when you try to speak to them about your issues, just as there are some things that us men won't be able to understand when our girlfriends try to speak with us about women-specific issues. This is why maintaining a good, healthy social circle is so beneficial: it provides us with a support system of like-minded individuals. Again, this is something women are phenomenal at, and men lack completely.

If you come to depend entirely on one person, you're in for a rude awakening if things fall through. 

I've also observed that tons of men are very afraid to live their life on their own. They feel the need to have a partner by their side every step of the way. They won't take time off and vacation alone, they won't go out and have a bite to eat alone, or basically explore life while single alone. All these things help you identify who you are, find what makes you happy, and give you stability to not solely lean on your partner as your entire source of happiness. If you come to depend entirely on one person, you're in for a rude awakening if things fall through. 

For whatever reason, tons of men just can't get this through their head, or perhaps they allow their partners to control certain aspects of their lives. Again, as a man, you have to be able to put your foot down and set standards and boundaries for yourself. 

Men, after all, deserve happiness, dignity, and the empowering feeling of independence and self-actualization. 


Christopher Turturro, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, is an HVAC mechanic and 
U.S. Air Force veteran.
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Southern Italy and Amoral Familism

 



Last week, I wrote the following article for RealClear Books & Culture: 


It's a provocative title, for sure, but I doubt many southern Italians would disagree with the thesis.  

In a nutshell: Americans are increasingly distrusting, not only of our institutions, but of each other, and societies that are typified by distrust - there is no better example than southern Italy - are stunted by the constraints of their own ethos. If America continues to abandon its Tocquevillian tradition, it will begin to look and feel more like southern Italy, and that's not a good thing.

From the article:
In our semiquincentennial year, Americans must look to southern Italy as a blueprint for what not to do. That is not to say that southern Italy is not breathtakingly beautiful (just Google images of Roccella Ionica, where my father was born), or that its inhabitants aren’t a good and decent people. It is to say, however, that their lack of institutional and neighborly trust, if adopted here, would further erode our country’s civic fabric.

Give it a read, and let me know what you think.

P.S. My friend, Madison, whom I met through her online series, Can it Third Place?, interviewed me for her Substack. You can read that here. 

Credit for above image: Kaye, George Frederick, 1914-2004. Italian peasant women cook on open fires while transport passes on 5th Army Front, southern Italy, World War II - Photograph taken by George Kaye. New Zealand. Department of Internal Affairs. War History Branch :Photographs relating to World War 1914-1918, World War 1939-1945, occupation of Japan, Korean War, and Malayan Emergency. Ref: DA-05233-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22754865

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Why Cultural Difference Matters

 


By Frank Filocomo

"Culture counts," writes Samuel Huntington in his widely-cited work, The Clash of Civilizations, "and cultural identity is what is most meaningful to most people."

This is indisputable. Our culture, whatever it might be, gives us a sense of greater belonging. Without it, we are nothing but a hodgepodge of free-floating, tetherless individuals. 

Thus, when disparate cultures encounter each other, there is often tension and conflict. And tension and conflict do not create fertile soil for civil society. 

In the U.S. and in Europe, unprecedented levels of non-Western immigration have fundamentally changed the cultural character and identity of Western countries. 

In Governing, Alan Ehrenhalt highlights this phenomenon:
There's no doubt that places affected by heavy in-migration are losing a civic culture that once was their leading source of pride. Old-timers walk down their town’s Main Street and hear conversations in languages they can’t understand. They are exposed to culinary customs they had never experienced before and confronted with foods that taste strange to them. There are new and unfamiliar religious practices. All of this is unsettling, to say the least, and for some long-time residents, a source of profound anxiety.
That isn't to say, of course, that there aren't profound benefits to cultural mixing. 

I was recently watching Concert for George, the live tribute to George Harrison from 2002. As a kid, I always loved the rendition of Harrison's The Inner Light, featuring Jeff Lynne of ELO on guitar and vocals, Anoushka Shankar on the sitar, and a traditional Indian ensemble behind them. 

I would describe that as a remarkably successful encounter between the East and West. If you haven't already experienced it, you're missing out.

Not all inter-cultural encounters, however, result in something beautiful. In fact, most don't. 

The reason for this is actually pretty simple: culture - which is defined by a people's norms, behaviors, traditions, and so on - vary from place to place. The West and non-West present us with two very different outlooks on life. 

For instance, Huntington writes that "both Westerners and non-Westerners point to individualism as the central distinguishing mark of the West." Few will actually debate this. "For East Asians," Huntington continues, "success is particularly the result of the East Asian cultural stress on the collectivity rather than the individual."

Such different temperaments, which are so deeply rooted, make coexistence difficult, if not nearly impossible. 

Some in academia have landed themselves in hot water for making such assertions. 

In a December 2021 interview with the great Glenn Loury, University of Pennsylvania Law School Professor Amy Wax asked the following about Asian students in academia: "Does the spirit of liberty beat in their breast?" 

Wax was underlining the cultural difference between Westerners, who have a long tradition of maximizing liberty and individual autonomy, and non-Westerners, who are much more deferential and collectivistic. 

In response to the interview, Theodore Ruger, then the dean of UPenn's law school, called Wax's remarks "xenophobic and white supremacist."

Wax, it should be noted, is Jewish and thus will probably not be welcomed at many so-called "white supremacist" meet-ups.

Amy Wax on The Glenn Show

And YouTuber Nick Shirley, who in December of 2025 shed light on the rampant Somali fraud in Minnesota, hasn't had an easy go of it either. Shirley, who made no racial claims, showed viewers what a non-Western takeover of a great American state looks like. In the video, the Somalis of Minnesota are referred to, by himself and locals, as "close knit." That is, they are insular, hostile to outsiders, and unwilling to assimilate to their host country. 

Shirley, in response to the video - which, to date, has accrued nearly 4 million views on YouTube and likely led to Governor Tim Walz suspending his reelection bid - was called a white supremacist and accused of creating "political propaganda."

The point: cultural difference is real, and calling it out is real dangerous. 

To be clear, both Western and non-Western temperaments have their strengths and weaknesses. This is not a battle of the cultures. That's not something I care to engage in. The bottom-line, though, is that making the distinction and articulating the drawbacks of multiculturalism shouldn't be taboo. 

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Censorship on Reddit

By Christopher Turturro

Reddit is easily one of the worst - if not the worst - sites for free speech.

Over the past few years, we've witnessed the rise of censorship and partisan bias on social media. One of the most authoritarian of these platforms, that makes it their mission to censor any opposing views, is Reddit. Reddit is easily one of the worst - if not the worst - sites for free speech. I typically only use Reddit for advice from others on vehicle and mechanical information, or I'll look into things such as film and classic movies. Nevertheless, Reddit, which is driven by rage bait and partisan hostility, never ceases to recommend me hot-button political content, even if I never searched for it myself. 

Anyone who uses Reddit or social media in general knows that all of these platforms are generally Left-leaning. They label most content by "Right-wingers" as misinformation, propaganda, or just completely fake. Reddit, more than any other site I've encountered, has taken this to a completely new level. If you're unfamiliar with Reddit, every category is a "subreddit." For example, Chevrolet is a subreddit (r/Chevrolet), Ford is a subreddit (r/Ford), personal finance is a subreddit (r/personalfinance), and many, many more categories of essentially anything you can think of. To further explain, each of these subreddits has a group of "moderators" who ensure that all the "rules" of the page are being followed. These are people who either created the page, were invited by existing members to moderate, or have applied through "mod recruitment" posts. 

These groups of mods are essentially the police on these subreddits. Some are more laid back than others, but others can take it to a whole new level, especially when it comes to the political subreddits. Buzzwords like Nazi, racist, and bigot fly so freely on Reddit that they have essentially lost their meaning now. Anyone leaning more to the Right is immediately labeled any one of the terms mentioned. This is a blatant effort to censor, silence, and discredit conservative voices on the platform. The problem for Reddit's thought police is that they've overused those words so much they've been trivialized completely. I recently posted about having nationalistic views about America and how we should close our borders, help our own, and lift ourselves up rather than worry about the rest of the world's problems. Want to know what happened? Tons of people called me a Nazi-sympathizer, Hitler-sympathizer, and a racist. You're no longer allowed to apply common sense without being called names. You MUST bend your will to these people, or they will do their best to destroy you as we have seen with the attempted assassination on the President and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

The same people who claim to be "anti-fascist" hate it when anyone with differing views dare speak. 

With one simple search on Reddit's site, you can plainly see how any comments with Right-leaning bias are uniformly downvoted and the users themselves are attacked. In addition to this, the other users with opposing views will report you, which then notifies the mods and they then "silence" you. This can result in a temporary ban that lasts just a few days, or what's known as a "perma-ban," preventing you from engaging with the entire social media platform. The same people who claim to be "anti-fascist" hate it when anyone with differing views dare speak. 

There was recently a video posted on Reddit of the Black Panthers of Philadelphia essentially threatening to kill ICE officers and any federal officers doing their best to enforce the rule of law. The video has since been removed. They were carrying rifles and shotguns in the streets of Philadelphia which, at the end of the day, is their 2A right that I feel very strongly about. But you can't threaten to kill federal officers or an officer enforcing the law. This video was posted in the subreddit "R/videosthatgohard" page. I posted a comment on this video stating that these are real threats and should be treated as such. The same group that hates the 2A and Republicans exercising it is now on the side of the Black Panthers openly talking about killing federal agents. My comment was removed from the page and cited for "harassment," and I was banned from interacting with the page for 4 days. Harassment for pointing out these threats should be taken seriously. But guess what, I'm on the wrong side of the political spectrum on Reddit, so what do they do? Silence me. We all remember when the Biden administration was sending FBI to the homes of people who were posting opposing views to the administration themselves. The videos were all over social media. It's okay to weaponize the government and enforcement agencies so long as it benefits the Left. If it happens on the Right, we see massive protests, riots, civil unrest, and so forth.  

If that was enough to trigger a visit from police to these individuals' homes, shouldn't threatening federal officers' lives be cause for something, too? Nonetheless carrying guns with intent to harm officers enforcing the law? Sounds like major hypocrisy to me because, if I remember correctly, just a few years ago the Left was so against Republicans having guns due to the "insurrection" on January 6th, yet they continue to protest, burn down cities, and threaten to literally start a civil war. If it were up to me, free speech would be free speech and therefore should be protected, and law enforcement should have zero involvement until a crime is committed. Although, this all started with the Biden administration targeting Republicans and calling them "domestic terrorists." So, we must apply the same logic and rules to the other side. 


Christopher Turturro, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, is an HVAC mechanic and 
U.S. Air Force veteran.
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