Guest post by Steve Witherspoon

From your host: The rioting in LA and other cities going on right now make this unusually emotional post by Steve especially timely. I have been pondering it for several days now. The essay is clearly a head explosion in process, an eruption of anger and frustration with the metaphorical fuse lit by the issues he mentions and others. [I hope Steve forgives me for more extensive editing than usual, prompted by his passion interfering with his characteristic precision]

I sympathize. This is an ethics blog, and part of my job is to keep the discussion focused on ethics, rational analysis, and open-mindedness. There has been so much in the past year particularly that reminded me of a legendary meltdown by a good friend, a lawyer, who suddenly snapped in the back seat of my car years ago and started screaming, “This is FUCK! It’s all FUCK! Everything is FUCK!” True, alcohol was involved. However, the outburst was therapeutic. We all knew what he was ranting about, he was essentially right, and after my friend had relieved himself of his frustrations, he was able to help us solve the problem at hand.

And we did.

Take it, Steve.…and don’t despair.

***

I know exactly what my laser-focused conscious mind is doing in this situation, but what does your subconscious mind ponder when you’re on the road for many hours over 4,800 miles, while you crisscross a big chunk of the middle of the United States of America on vacation?

For hours at a time, when the road seems to vanish into a fine point on the horizon and the visible land meets the sky, the subconscious mind kicks into gear and is actively working behind the scenes… at least mine is. In past years that subconscious would be working on something creative. Maybe a few guitar riffs that I could put into practice at a later date, writing some music, designing a new addition on the house, or putting the final engineering touches on a new product for work, etc. The creative juices get flowing when the subconscious is given the opportunity to ponder for long periods of time as long as it’s relatively uninterrupted. Then when you’re no longer spending all those laser-focused hours on the road and settling back to your regular life, the stored thoughts that your subconscious mind had been working on are suddenly released into the brain. It can cause a bit of an information overload. This has happened to me more times than I can count.

I’ve learned that, at least for me, if you give the subconscious mind a chance to do what it does best, think deeply for long periods of time, it can feed your intellect.

For the last three weeks of May 2025, my wife and I were on an annual vacation. This time we focused on some National and State Parks in the western and southwestern United States that we wanted to see thoroughly. I briefly wrote about it and shared a few select photos in a blog post titled “There’s A Great Big World Out There To See.”

As usual, my subconscious mind was doing what it does best; however, this time the output was different. My mind wasn’t working on creative things like music, product designs or engineering; it appears that it was critically thinking about politically related things. This was particularly surprising because I generally cut myself off from all things political when on vacation and simply enjoy stopping to smell the roses with my wife. In the great scheme of things, life can be short, and I think it’s really important to do things with your spouse, especially after you retire, and not end up with piles of regrets that outweigh finding real peace after the end of life catches up with a spouse.

Again, my subconscious mind seemed to be thinking about politics and more specifically the political division we have. It doesn’t matter one bit how much critical thinking and facts you throw at the absurd things that are coming out of the political Left, the divide keeps getting deeper. It doesn’t seem to matter that life-long Democrats are leaving the party and openly stating that the Democratic Party has fallen over the edge of reality and left them.  It doesn’t seem to matter one bit that politicians like the baldfaced liar Adam Schiff get nailed in one lie after another and that he’s spewing the lies to intentionally mislead the voting public.

I’ve been writing about some of the absurdities coming from the political Left for a few years. What they are trying to force upon the American people is delusional, and undermines the core foundation of values that our country has been built upon.   

It doesn’t seem to matter one bit to the Democratic Party faithful hoards of sheeple that Democratic politicians in Congress and their Pravda-like propaganda media attack dogs lie straight to everyone’s face telling people that President Trump is a fascist, a racist, a misogynist, anti-LGBT, xenophobic, a traitor, a rapist, a Putin puppet, etc, etc. Or that the political left tried to ram DEI down the throats of the American people, openly demonizing anyone that opposes it even when it is clearly illegal discrimination. Then there is the gaslighting that transgender males are really and truly females. The Left has weaponized the legal system with the assistance of activist judges to “Get Trump” at all costs, and now is resorting to short- and long-term judicial road blocks to slow or stop the President’s agenda that he was elected to pursue. It has dumbed down one school system after another by INTENTIONALLY lowering base grading standards so the lowest common denominator students can be considered successful graduates even if they can’t read, write or do basic math.

For years now, political Left have been attacking and undermining much of what the United States Founding Fathers did and thought because of perceived sin based on 21st century standards. 

How do I know my subconscious was thinking about all this? When I read a comment that Jack posted at 12:56pm on June 1st, it caused the tidal wave of vacation subconscious thinking to download into my conscious brain. I had to climb on my motorcycle and cruise around the rural country roads of south central Wisconsin for a couple of hours to gather my thoughts. When I read Jack’s comment I wrote…

“I’m relatively convinced that the core of the political left actually hate the core foundations the United States and they are actively trying to undermine those very core foundations in their efforts to bring down the USA government so they can instill their decades long dreams of an unachievably absurd utopia. These fools are the socialistic/communist/utopian change that Obama called to action in 2008; they have become the enemy of liberty, freedom, and we the people.”

Sure, you can attribute some of the absurd things that the political left has been doing as part of their Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) but you cannot attribute all of what they’re doing to that. Not the illegal discrimination that’s built into Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)…not the delusion that transgender males are actually females…not weaponizing the legal system against political opponents, which had begun before Trump came on the political scene. The Left’s totalitarian views on free speech have been silencing opposition voices for years, well before Trump. Liberals and progressives have been dumbing down the public education system for years, and for years universities have been indoctrinating students into being woke cultists.

The Left has been pushing “cancellations” based on 21st century standards, been changing the names of schools, military bases, streets and more because of perceived unforgivable sins committed nearly three centuries ago. This is not because of Trump, or is the political Left allowing illegal immigrants to invade the United States by the millions. This list could go on and on and none of it is due to Trump rising on the political scene.

So why have so many among the political Left slipped so far off the rails of reality? Why it doubled down on their absurdities since losing widely and deeply in November 2024? You would think they would see the need to moderate a bit to try and win back the political middle, but that’s not what they’re doing.

I am convinced that they didn’t “slip” off the rails. The Left of the 21st Century doesn’t care about winning as long as they can continue to successfully undermine the foundation of values and objectives that the USA was built upon. This is the long game. As I wrote before, it’s very clear to me now that the political left hates the USA and will play the long game until they can destroy it, because their version of utopia cannot come to fruition if the core foundations of the USA are still intact.

Of course no one on the political left will admit what has become obvious to me, and I’m sure some of them will attack the messenger for stating it outright. As far as I’m concerned, all their actions and rhetoric point that way. The political left has become pure anti-American. They have shown with their actions and rhetoric that they don’t give a damn about anyone’s freedoms, liberty, or individual rights if they interfere with what the political left wants to do. I’m genuinely concerned for the future of the United States of America after the huge baby boom generation dies off and becomes a non-voting block by attrition. What will be left after the baby boom generation is gone may be dominated by immature emotional troglodytes, snowflakes, and illiterate morons that have been radically indoctrinated in our education systems to be easily manipulated and confused. They will be woefully unprepared to fight off the political left’s totalitarian social brainwashing engineers. That these will be the future leaders should scare the hell out of anyone with a critically thinking brain who is less than 50 years old. I see the future of the USA as being bleak, but at least I won’t be here to see what these totalitarian morons will do.