The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.
That’s Thomas Jefferson writing about the primary news media of his day – newspapers.
Many of us today see the news media as biased and sensationalist. We tend to blame the 24-hour news cycle and social media for this… but Jefferson’s writing shows that it’s a timeless issue.
I bring this up today because something of an insight occurred to me over the weekend.
It came to me as my wife and I were out to our monthly dinner. I’m walking down Main Street of this historic town nearby, and a thought came to me. Everything is mostly normal.
Then I had to stop and think… why does such a thought strike me as insightful? Shouldn’t I expect things to be normal?
That’s when it hit me – there’s been a concerted effort to convince us that America is going to the dogs.
I suspect this agenda has been in play for quite a while now. But it certainly ramped up in 2020.
First we had the Covid hysteria. They told us we had to cover our faces and avoid close contact with other people at all costs.
Then they facilitated and amplified the riots and looting leading into the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Some news outlets portrayed these as “peaceful protests”. They had reporters on the street proclaiming them as such… while fires raged in the background behind them. That’s nothing short of an extreme psychological attack on viewers.
More recently I’ve seen a lot of coverage around shoplifting epidemics in cities like Portland, San Francisco, and others. We’ve also seen violence and homelessness skyrocket in these areas.
This is often portrayed as the same “America is going to the dogs” narrative. But the fact is, it’s all due to those cities decriminalizing shoplifting. Apparently they now refuse to prosecute criminals in those select cities.
These are things I’ve noticed over the years… but I haven’t paid them much mind.
I refuse to spend any energy on things that I cannot control. As such, I didn’t recognize that these were all breadcrumbs that lead to the same manufactured narrative.
It was only when I started using Twitter again – albeit briefly – that I finally put it all together.
Whenever I write one of these posts, I have my email management platform automatically link to it through my Twitter profile. So occasionally I’ll go check and see if anyone actually clicks on my posts. Then I’ll take five or ten minutes to see what a few folks I respect are posting on Twitter as well.
I noticed that there’s a certain account that’s always front and center in my Twitter feed. It’s listed as promotional content. That means somebody is paying big bucks to make sure it’s always showing up.
And this account appears to do nothing but post videos of Americans getting into arguments and sometimes fist fights with each other. That’s it.
It’s stupid. Consuming junk like that is that fastest way to poison our beautiful minds. So I always scroll right past and give it little thought.
That is, until this weekend. It suddenly occurred to me that this is all part of the same overarching narrative. America is going to the dogs.
But here’s the thing – this narrative is manufactured.
Sure, civilized life has declined in those places where they have intentionally incentivized crime. Whatever you enable, you get more of. Incentives are powerful.
But for those of us who live in places that still respect American traditions and the rule of law… everything is mostly normal. Most people are still going about their lives as they always have.
Walking down this historic Main Street over the weekend, I saw young couples out on dates. I saw parents strolling their children. I saw business people enjoying happy hour. And I saw older folks walking around and enjoying the break of Spring in the mountains.
Shopkeepers were tending their shops. The restaurants were bustling. And for the most part, everybody I interacted with was positive, polite, and considerate.
In other words, everything was as it should be.
And that’s when it all came together for me. This country isn’t falling apart. That’s just a manufactured narrative. And I suspect it’s part of a sinister agenda designed to weaken the American spirit.
Let’s not fall for it.
You know, most of the time I conclude these emails with a link related to money, finance, and investing. I’d like to do something different today. I would like to introduce you to my friend Paul Rosenberg.
Paul is one of the most interesting men I’ve ever met.
He was an electrical engineer who helped lay the first fiber optics lines in America. He was directly involved with a group of individuals who were working on a cryptocurrency system more than a decade before Bitcoin was born. That work directly paved the way for Bitcoin to come together. And Paul has one of the most keen minds out there when it comes to spotting big-picture trends before anyone realizes they are happening.
Paul posts weekly entries on his Free-man’s Perspective blog site. And right now Paul is offering a risk-free 90-day trial for his paid newsletter.
This is something I look forward to every month. Paul’s insights and analysis have shaped my own thinking in a myriad of ways.
So I highly recommend that you give Paul’s work a look. You can find it right here: https://freemansperspective.com/our-subscription-newsletter/?wlfrom=%2Fyour_member_homepage%2F#regform-LEYDLVKV