A Time for Choosing.

This is a different kind of post.

Because I sense that we are in a crisis.

Of the existential kind.

Of totalitarianism versus freedom.

Of truth versus lies.

Of fact versus fiction.

We are at a time for choosing.

Do we choose facts? Real science? Objective reality? Or do we continue to go down a path of relativism, where up is down and down is up because it fits a narrative that we so desperately want to believe. We've been gaslit over the past few years like no other time in history -- from Covid vaccines to "gender affirming care" to the Biden laptop to January 6th. Both the Left and Right are to blame. We have institutions that are working actively against freedom of speech, that are consumed with partisan games and graft that would make Al Capone blush.

We are fiddling while China arms and Putin kills Ukrainian citizens while threatening the rest of Europe. And now the Islamists are at Israel's gates. Rome is burning and we stand by gazing at our navels.

And now, on college campuses and in major cities across the world, we have seen the obscene reaction to Hamas' deliberate slaughter of innocent men, women and children in Israel. The specter of anti-semitism among polite society and in the salons of our intellectual class is shocking; the idea that Israel "had it coming" or got what it deserved because the Jewish state has the same disdain for human life is a lie of the most pernicious kind. For it undermines the very idea that facts matter.

Civil society cannot function in the face of moral relativism. We must stand for something, and that something MUST be objective truth.

Not your truth or my truth, but the facts.

And don't be confused by the nihilists and relativists around us. Facts do exist! You have to be intellectually honest enough to recognize and admit when you are confronted with truth. You have to be able to live in a reality NOT of your own making, but in a shared setting with others who may not agree with you, and where you sometimes may lose.

We must choose the facts however uncomfortable or distressing. We must have the wisdom to understand that things won't always go our way, and that the ends cannot be used to justify the means -- particularly when those means are being used to destroy the very foundations of our society. In today's world it's admittedly not easy to get to the truth; the media is biased and our government lies with impunity. But we must try. Read multiple publications. Check the sources. Do the work of figuring out the motivations of those who are pushing the narrative you are consuming. You must be your own editor. It takes work, but the alternative is to become a lemming, a stooge for those who wish to use you for their own purposes.

In the end, we must have institutions that function. We must maintain some trust in those who govern us. We must put the health of our Republic ahead of partisan and ideological interests.

And crucially we must be honest with ourselves.

We must be adults. Sober adults who understand that is not the time for childish stunts or tantrums. Everything we hold dear is at risk.

This is a time for choosing.

What will you choose?

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Ken Davenport is the author of The Stoic Transition: A Guide