I voted in the primaries and I will be voting in November this year. I will not be telling anyone with whom I am not personally close what to do regarding this November vote. What I will be doing is pointing to one personal experience and trying to find a conclusion from it. Please take a look at the voter turnout in Romania after 1989 (the year when Ceausescu, the communist dictator, was arrested and executed). Overtly, these numbers speak of disillusion. Covertly, they speak of lack of mature political thought, manipulation of a fragile, barely recovering from the terrors of a totalitarian regime, country, and, to a degree, of national angst. By the time you begin seeing the rebound in attendance, the ghost of communism, which had continued to lurk in the recesses of society all these years, has put on the new clothes of globalism . . . and "won" again. Almost four decades have passed, and Romania has not seen one generation of principled politicians or proper economic guidance. The country has not had one chance to gain a modicum of sovereignty in this world which has made anathema of any tendency to mind national interests only, and to negotiate relationships with neighbors in good faith, but only inasmuch as there is benefit for one's country. I was still there when the decline of trust and hope was most acute. I know what it is like to feel that it is all futile and to abandon the vote. I see it all now as one of the most painful manifestations of a diseased world, one infested by corrupted femininity—one in which few men remain who understand that abandoning the responsibility to lead the polis is not at all a manly trait. So I, a mere woman who wishes a return to a world where men are godly men, and women are God-fearing women, will be voting this November, as I have been doing for a while, as a most grateful American citizen, because, if our men were to remain silent, the very stones would cry out.

Democrat candidates' ads in S FL: X (insert name of conservative candidate) has made extreme climate worse, increased your mortgage, threatened world peace, kicked you out of your job, and made you poor. (Yes, some of these are my exaggerations; guess which ones are actual, silly, emotional, illogical, phantasmagorical claims made by these campaigns🤪).

America the gorgeous. How can you not love her? Glory be to God for everything!

The choir of married saints stands in testimony regarding the goodness of holy matrimony. Atlantic is evil. Evil lies. Below: an icon of Sts. Peter and Fevronia, two of my favorite married saints. By their prayers, may we know love that never fades.

This is what leftism does; it is not the exception but the rule. It works because, at the beginning, until the claws of dictatorship reach everyone, its siren call appeals to the basest instincts in its followers, who cheer to see how the old laws are disregarded and set aside, just as long as the enemies of the system they want are eliminated. They forget they'll be next, as the system must always find new enemies to eliminate.

*First because you absolutely love what you do, and because the work for the Lord is always so good.

In the 19th century, they went after the nobility. In the 20th, they went after everyone who owned land or a business. In the 21th century, they want to go against the older people, who just happen to also have some wealth (remember, the elderly were the target during covid as well). It's still communism, no matter how you call it. Please read my response below, as well as the post which has provoked this answer—in it, a Frenchman points the finger towards the elderly as being those who hold the majority of wealth in society; like a good little adept of Marxism (change some terms around, speak of capital and labor, and you'll get to the same point), says that new wealth needs wealth as a startup, and clearly suggests a redistribution of wealth from those who have it (the elderly) towards those who want it (the youth). He does not suggest less taxation or a smaller societal safety net, and he admits it may be somewhat unfair to the elderly who have already paid their dues. Instead of that, the reader is left with the ambiguous feeling that we're supposed to feel sorry for him and others like him, and agree to eliminating the problem (only two possible ways, one more criminal than the other). It is so important we see the kind of ideas propagated among the younger generation today; as always, communism appeals to the youth exactly because life is so much more difficult when you begin your life. It has always been so, and that's why revolutions pull at young people's emotions. This is why, although I'm not a boomer, and although I know our own pension system is beyond diseased, I still reject any kind of generic blame against the elderly who are better off than I or you are. This is NOT the Christian way. There are many ways to get out of the pickle; wealth redistribution (or, Less have mercy, euthanasia of the elderly) is not. It is astounding to see that all those enamored with leftist ideas fail to see that the kind of policies they want to implement is exactly the kind of policies that got them to the point where they feel a revolution is needed in order to jumpstart society.

They'll blame the uprise on everything except for the "new" indoctrination.

Read until the end to see the cautionary tale from pre-communist Romania. Of course some of them are not who they claim to be—they never were. I think there are at least two other categories, though: 1) The few who are truly traditional conservatives (i.e. those for whom traditional liberalism is very far from ideal), and who were never really on board with what we, at large, define as "the right" today. 2) The ones who are influenced either by the wolves in sheep's clothing or by the traditional conservatives, but they do not really know why they stand where they stand; they often go for the strongest emotional response. What happened in the inter- and postbellum Romania? The right was fragmented across moderate/center-right parties, nationalists, and extreme nationalists (we would call them today radical, yet many of them were very devout Orthodox Christians who loved their country and did not want to see it destroyed by communism). For a few decades, these forces on the right took turns in fluctuating rivalries, tactical pacts and alliances, or mutual hostility and even violent attacks. This lack of cohesion, combined with foreign pressures, left the non-communist political spectrum vulnerable to the left's populism and political violence. For more than four decades after, Romanians paid the price of that lack of unity. Even after Ceausescu's fall, the country remains broken in more ways than one. I pray we Americans remember that, while only the Lord is absolute goodness, people's work has degrees of goodness or evil (and, oftentimes, a combination thereof).

They keep telling us what they mean to do, but the divided right ignores them. It has, unfortunately, always been this way: the way to losing freedom goes through imaginary, exaggerated, or exploited societal struggles that make the population look the other way, while the country is slowly being stripped of its defenses. The solution to these imaginary struggles will be a totalitarian regime.

My three favorite literary characters: Odysseus Fingolfin, First High King of the Noldor (The Silmarillion) Coltaine, leader of the Wickan Crow Clan and Fist of the Malazan 7th Army (Malazan Book of the Fallen series) Below: some of my favorite fan art representations for these amazing characters.

Indeed. (Click to listen and watch one of the best Shakespeare performances I have ever seen).

Pray. How else will you know yourself, and how else will you know the Lord? "Prayer discovers to us the true state of our soul, for, according to theologians, it is the mirror which shows us our correct portrait."

You have heard on repeat that US is backwards and Europe is leading civilization into the next era (as if man can do anything to time). Like the serpent of evil, France it's eating its own past and its own future. This is the next era, if you allow for it to happen here as well. This is what happens when godly fear, hard work, family and national values, and an understanding of one's sacred calling in life are abandoned or, even worse, destroyed as societal concepts.

Europe has always been one cautionary tale after another.

Elon and America reveal the flying car. Macron:

Ask Elon to build you flying police cars to match. 😬

"'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handy-work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.' [Psalm 18 (19)] This silent but evident declaration of the heavens of their creation by the Almighty has reached even us, and there is no language or dialect in which this declaration is not understood. And now, since the time of the Incarnation of the Son of God, all the glory of God, the glory of His love towards mankind, as well as the glory of creation, is declared unto us by the Gospel and the Holy Church; by the voices of the preachers of the Gospel; by those who celebrate the Sacraments and prayers; that is, the priests, readers, and singers; by the sound of bells, not excluding also the preaching of the heavens with their luminaries. But the preaching of the living voice is more lively, more intelligible and striking. The glory of the Lord is declared by all the earth, and by all earthly beings." (St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ)

Look around at the breathtaking circle of life and know that every second is pregnant with eternity. Glory to God, Who has allowed us chronos, and Who has gifted us kairos!