The Rubicon Portal

React or Respond

It is undeniable, from a long term perspective, that there are pinnacle milestones in history when eras end or new eras begin. Crossing the Rubicon, John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, VE Day, JFK shot dead in Dallas, the assassination of RFK and Martin Luther King within the same year, the Romanians disposing Nicolae Ceaușescu by storming his residence, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and many other "poignant" events are indicators of great transition. The event is what we remember, but those are the manifestation of forces long at work. The Fall of Rome was a long, slow decay that few of Romans recognized. Roman society just broke down while bread and circuses for the masses kept people’s attention. People cope and their normalcy bias acts as that coping mechanism, instilling the hope disguised as an assertion that everything will return to normal. We tell ourselves that the pendulum swing is inevitable.

And I think we can all identify moments in our own lives when we experienced a shift of the Overton Window on a deep personal level during passage of greater events. We become a small piece of the tapestry when “we were never the same”. It’s the Rubicon Portal, a transition to a different era for society and for our own thinking, but the groundwork for the shift has been in place far longer than we are comfortable realizing. Crossing the Rubicon is considered the moment in history when there is no turning back. The Rubicon Portal is the mind projecting that the other final show will drop yet not knowing that the process has already transpired. The event is up ahead, something we are destined to pass through.

For example, the bizarre moment when I was offered the mRNA vaccine, to be put ahead of the line because of the connections our company had. And the person who offered it did so out of concern for my health and other team members at the start up. This individual was not a resentful leftist type. He had genuine concern, but that was being used against me at that moment as he offered me the mRNA vaccine for me and my family.

It was the Covid cult sacrament that I refused.

I can picture the office to this day, a surrealistic scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers moment where I felt that I had woken up in an insane world where cult-like behavior was the norm. The pressure to join the cult was undeniable. And of course running through my mind were all of the nightmares I had dismissed decades earlier about collectivism and fascism, deep fears I pushed aside in order to “grow up” and be a “productive adult”. They all came back at that moment when I was asked why I wanted to wait before taking advantage of the opportunity for the vax.

A month later after I drove to the hospital to witness crowds that the local media anticipated gathering with the resurge of Covid, I passed through another portal so to speak when I found that I was right, the local media was lying. There were no crowds. I didn’t want to be one of the isolated few who knew the truth, because it meant something far more horrible was at work that was manipulating people’s perceptions. I’ve always taken interest in alternative views, and had been reading David Ickes, Dave McGown and Joseph Farrell for years. I sought out alternate media sources such as Red Ice Radio and others before I learned of Alex Jones. Yet I kept telling myself that the possibility of communitarian nightmare and dictatorship were remote. Covid proved me wrong.

That was a Rubicon Portal for me. But in my heart I recognized that it was decades in the making. And in my mind I couldn’t help but think of a family member who had run afoul of the medical industry that proved to be so symptomatic of what our society experienced during the Pandemic. So in reality many facets were already in place, and the world was the way it was and I stopped ignoring the signs.

There are patterns that reach your subconscious, they lay down a deep impression and remain. They get locked away. Your daily life, your routines and entertainment, your job and your family snag your attention for good reason. Or the pull of social media can overrun your instincts as well. We’re wired in ways we can struggle to understand and control.

So we had a Rubicon Portal moment earlier this evening with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. A man who debated respectfully, yet would not accept the left’s version of the truth, who hoped to bring others to a better understanding about the shortcomings of their ideology, and who was repaid with the ultimate violence. On the heels of the tragic murder of Iryna Zarutska, there are patterns that many have felt yet have been ignored that have culminated in crossing the Rubicon. But some of those patterns mean that the Rubicon was crossed earlier and we are just catching on now.

Is Charlie Kirk “our Martin Luther King”? I don’t know. Is this the Harper’s Ferry that sparks the Civil War that so many have predicted for how long, 10 years now? How many times have you seen friends react with “this has been building, I feel it, bring it, I’m ready.” We have been in that phase for a while, and in some cases anticipating the spark for Civil War 2.0. Some I know are very capable of surviving whatever violent conflicts the left hopes to bring. I don’t deny the left dreams of violent conflagration, they have been chanting to their members of the Hive-Mind for years. Bush-Hitler, etc. Or go back further to the likes of the Weatherman or Angela Davis. And the Antifa campaign volunteers who were ready for violence, and allowed to remain active during recent state and presidential elections. Masked protesters wearing backpacks, headsets, masks and hefty flagpoles paraded around, undisturbed by police during a protest in my town in support of a bookstore which wanted to host Tranny reading hour. All while our city commission carried their own signs in support of the bookstore conducting such sessions. The desire to bring violence and physical conflict is there.

React or Respond

But is it better to react, or to respond? Yes, it is vital that we be aware of what is coming, but that is responding. The anger we feel is an instinct that is crucial for us. But we are more than just that instinct.

As I hear many for whom I care process their righteous anger, I do want to say that there are other patterns that we have put into motions, years ago, that do come into effect today, that even if we have collectively passed through a Rubicon Portal we haven’t jettisoned the healthy foundations that we have constructed years ago. Life still has those connections for us that are so vital to nurture, particularly if we have entered a new phase. Perhaps the son or daughter that you have devoted your life to is one of the next leaders who takes the proverbial baton from Charlie Kirk and carries forward a message that brings an end to this violence. Maybe you have a son or a daughter who will come to the aid of someone dying. That comes from you. That is derived from how you have fostered and tended to your garden of relationships.

Last week I wrote of the passing of a friend’s parent, and I am reminded that the crop that our friend’s mother cultivated in her family and ideals resulted in my children and her grandchildren growing up together. As families who wanted to raise our children as we saw fit, we found our own way in home schooling, just as our friend’s mother lived her life, to the beat of her own drum and pulse of her own heart. That was a crop in a sense that she planted the ideals, some of which bloomed in her grandkids and affected my family in many positive ways. That remains after her passing. Death doesn’t destroy that. That is transcendent. It endures, and in ways my son and daughter may not realize yet. It is part of a plan that unfolds. I am going to die, we all are, I just hope I have planted a good crop that survives beyond my presence on this earth.

If we merely react, allowing ourselves to be triggered and ignore these facets that comprise our strength and resilience in this one life, we lose. That is not hesitation, it means you have prepared yourself and those you love, so you can slow time down enough as YOU THINK. You need to think if you want to continue to protect them. Planning is a course of rational preparation to help you in case you have less time than what you had hoped. You still need to think ahead. That is responding rationally.

So if we have crossed the Rubicon, as of now, I am still here, with the lights on. I contend that it was longer ago and we’re catching up, and while things have been rough, the Visigoths haven’t sacked us and we know live in squalid medieval huts. That may change if all goes to shit, who knows, we may be the generation who blows it. But given all the good things I see my loved ones garner due to my sacrifice years ago, I know that responding rationally is the answer. Reacting to panic or misperceptions would have screwed me, screwed my family years ago. Same with my dad - I can recall moments when he weathered things out because he could think, and respond. That’s discipline. That wins.

I am writing this tonight because I am trying to put things in perspective for myself. If you ask me if we vote our way out of this system that seems to be working to bring forth something awful, the clear answer is no, we can’t vote our way out of it. I hope that’s not the case, but there’s hope and then there’s reality. We have to act accordingly. But perhaps this Rubicon Portal awakens in us a need to respond, we reject reacting and being manipulated, and we act strategically and tactically. A catalyst that brings something for the future. Are there patterns in your life that compel you to sacrifice for children, grandchildren, family and friends, or are we transfixed like Doctor Smith from Lost In Space as he wound himself up with cowardly outbursts like “oh no … William … they’re coming for us!!”? I have a lot of what I believe to be righteous anger, but I need to channel that anger so I can do something constructive, and remain in control and keep thinking.

You don’t have to convince me that there are signs that we’ve already come apart as a society - I agree fully. I’ve pointed many of those signs out. But does that undo what you need to do in the days ahead? You need to keep thinking. You need to be in your family’s presence or active in your community. You still need to fix stuff. Like with your hands, old school way. The garden still needs to be cultivated.

I am going to draw a dumb analogy from a movie. But it’s an important point that doesn’t need a stretch of credulity to accept the wisdom of responding over reacting. The sage advice of keeping your head. Of the courage found in taking a breath. In the Outlaw Josey Wales, there is a scene where Wales, portrayed by Clint Eastwood, cannot escape the Union soldiers sent to hunt him down. Wales and his fatally wounded companion, a kid named Jamie, have crossed the Missouri via tow rope ferry, but due to Jamie’s fragile condition, they cannot mount and escape as their pursuers cross. Jaime is too weak. On his own, Wales could escape. Instead of leaving his compatriot to die, Wales sits by a stump on the river bank, pulls his hat over his eyes as he snoozes. He waits as the tow rope ferry slowly crosses the river, unphased.

Despite Jamie’s weakened condition, he becomes panicked and awakens Wales. Wales calmly retrieves his rifle. Does his rifle have the range to strike the posse members on the raft, taking them all out? Very doubtful. Yet Wales calmly sights his target and fires a single shot. The round strikes the tow rope, and the raft starts to drift. The men panic, horses keel over into the cold waters, and they are washed downriver.

One shot. Problem solved. Wales responded, he didn’t react.

I struggle to remind myself of that. That’s why I write this tonight. We have to respond, not react. That may call for decisions and actions that we’re uncomfortable with. So be it. But we have to think. And that also means we can’t dither either. But in panic we will lose - there is a lot set against us. If we take the high road and don’t respond at all, we lose.

We Americans are human, and not exempt from decline like all other civilizations before us. To think we’re immune is to hasten that fall. But we were the first culture to declare and codify Natural Law into a form of government after fighting the largest power on the planet at the time. No one had done that before - slavery was an accepted as a way of life, as was the view that there was a God given order that should be preserved above all, even if the monarch was tyrannical. Yet we didn’t demand our rights, we asserted that we were already free and fought a bloody war to remain free. But what is even more unique is what historian Tocqueville pointed out as a miracle when our forefathers deliberated the formation of the Constitution. He remarked that a people who had so fervently fought for freedom would not resort to violence when their first form of free government under the Articles of Confederation was deemed to be failing was truly unique.

But it is new in the history of society to see a great people turn a calm and scrutinizing eye upon itself when apprised by the legislature that the wheels of it’s government are stopped, to see it carefully examine the extent of the evil, and patiently wait two whole years until a remedy is is discovered, to which it voluntarily submitted without its costing a tear or a drop of blood from mankind.

Tocqueville admired how we were willing to deliberate the new form of government proposed. Our ancestors responded, they didn’t react. They took the time to analyze, to think, and they also voiced great concerns over what they considered usurpations of their rights by the newly proposed Constitution. But they didn’t descend into panic. The first two presidents were convinced that Jefferson and the Antifederalists who opposed central power would bring about another war. When Jefferson took office as the third president, he allayed their fears. You can read his acceptance speech here - it is an attempt to remind his fellow Americans of what was of importance that affected them all equally. Those are the values we must ensure survive.

The groups that cheer for Charlie Kirk’s assassination are not part of that culture that we value. It’s so clear. It’s time to realize that and show resolve to no longer concern ourselves with dissecting ideology of those whose answer to free speech is murder.

We have to discover that facet that bound those who value life and liberty in the times we face. We have to continue to reason. We are lost without it.