Quick update on WIPs

Last week, I think I may have written the best scene of any story I’ve written so far in my career. Seriously, I was in tears by the end of it, and that never happens. I’d post it here, but that would spoil the book (The Sword Keeper), so you’ll have to wait until it’s published.

Progress on The Sword Keeper is coming along quite well. My goal is to have it finished before the end of next week. There are only two chapters left, and the really hard stuff is already written, so it should be a straight shot to the end.

I started this book nearly four years ago when I was teaching English in Georgia, and can still remember working on it on my tiny eee PC on the second story of the Leladze farmhouse, with the chickens roosting in the tree by the balcony and a marvelous view of the Caucusus Mountains just outside my bedroom window. Then the electricity would go out, and I’d have to wrap things up in order to conserve battery power.

Point is, I’ve been working on The Sword Keeper for far too long. In fact, I think I’ve taken longer to finish the rough draft for this book than any other. The only WIP that’s been kicking around for longer is Edenfall, but that’s only because it’s been on the back burner this whole time. With The Sword Keeper, I’ve been working on it off and on for the past four years.

It will be very, very good to have it finished. After that, it will probably need a major revision to fix a bunch of plot holes and put all the scenes and chapters in the correct order (for some reason, every novel I’ve written has the scenes out of order in the first draft), but that shouldn’t be too hard. Then it’s off to the first readers.

As for Gunslinger to the Stars, I should be hearing back from my first readers soon. I’ll probably do a revision for that one next, which (with luck) will make it ready to be published. If all goes well, I may be able to publish it in time for Christmas this year.

So that’s the plan. I’ve got another story release coming out in a couple of days, plus the free books for September, so if you aren’t already signed up for my email list, be sure to do that soon.

Thanks for reading!

The book is blue, the church is true, and God is a Libertarian.

A few years back, I read some advice on a writing blog that said you should never, ever, ever blog publicly about religion or politics, because that would alienate your potential readership. Well, it’s an election year and I’ve already blogged quite a bit about politics, so I might as well go all the way and throw some religion in there too.

I am a devout Mormon. That means that I attend three hours of church on Sunday, strive to make personal prayer and scriptures study a part of my daily routine, hold a priesthood, and worship at an LDS temple as often as I can (about every week or so). It also means that I don’t smoke, do drugs, or drink alcohol, coffee, or tea, and that I practice strict abstinence before marriage and fidelity within. Without getting too deeply into the doctrine, faith in Jesus Christ is at the center of everything I believe and practice.

So why would I say that God is a Libertarian? Aren’t the Libertarians those crazy political fringe guys who like to smoke weed and get the government out of everything? What does a straight-laced Mormon have in common with any of them?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Libertarians basically believe that individuals should be free to govern themselves with as little interference from the government as possible. All of the different schools of libertarian thought basically revolve around the proper role of government in society and where the line should be drawn, but they all agree that the power of the State should be minimal.

Because actions have consequences, however, the only way we can all be free is for everyone to be responsible for their own actions. For example, if a worker does a poor job, his boss should be free to fire him. If he refuses to work at all, he shouldn’t get a welfare check, because that’s forcing other people to support his lifestyle. If a woman decides to be promiscuous, she should pay for her own birth control, because the only other alternative is to force other people to pay for it, infringing on their freedom.

This is why the flipside of the coin of Liberty is Responsibility. If Liberty is the freedom to act without being acted upon, then Responsibility (or the ability to respond) is an essential part of that.

One of the ways that governments take away our liberty is by enticing us to give up individual responsibility for our own life decisions. Gun control? Don’t take responsibility for your own self-defense, just trust the government to take care of it. Mass surveillance? You’re innocent and don’t have anything to hide, so just let those government agencies police themselves. Socialized health care? No matter your lifestyle decisions, health care is a right (never mind that everyone else is going to have to pay for it)!

The LDS church is very opposed to all of this. It teaches that we should all strive to be self-sufficient, or in other words, responsible for ourselves. We believe in charitable giving, but not in the form of handouts. The church welfare system revolves entirely around teaching people how to provide for themselves and, through one-on-one help, bringing them to a point where they can accomplish that.

But the Mormon-Libertarian connection is more than just a practical one: it’s a doctrinal one as well.

According to LDS theology, God is our Father in Heaven, literally. If you call up the Mormon missionaries and start taking the lessons, one of the first things they will teach you is that every human being is a child of God—that God is the father of our spirits, and that therefore we are all spiritually brothers and sisters.

Before we were born, we lived as spirits in the presence of God. As His sons and daughters, He wanted us to grow up to become like Him and inherit everything that He has. But there was a problem. Evil cannot exist in the presence of God, and without experiencing evil, we could never understand or know how to choose the good.

So God proposed a plan. He would create a place called Earth, where we could experience good and evil and learn how to choose between the two. He would make us forget everything from our life in his presence, so we would have to walk by faith. That way, when we did choose good, it would all be on us. We would learn through our own experience.

Inevitably, though, we would make evil choices that would make it impossible for us to return and live with Him. But God promised He would send us a Savior, who would pay the price for our sins and cleanse us of them. This Savior was our elder brother, Jesus Christ. All we had to do was accept His gospel and follow His teachings.

Most of us rejoiced at this plan. It gave all of us an equal chance to learn and grow and become like our Heavenly Father.

But equality of opportunity is not the same thing as equality of outcome. When our brother Lucifer looked at the plan, he saw that those who rejected Jesus Christ would be damned, or unable to return to the presence of Heavenly Father.

So he proposed a different plan: that God would make him the Savior instead, and that he would save everyone. In order to do that, though, he would have to take away our ability to choose between good and evil. Instead, he would make all the choices for us, and we would never be able to learn from our own experience. He would take all the glory.

God rejected Lucifer’s proposal, because He knew that without the freedom to choose between good and evil, we would never be able to learn and grow and become like Him. So Lucifer rebelled against God, and decided that if he couldn’t have the glory, then no one could. He convinced a third of our brothers and sisters to reject Jesus Christ and follow him instead. That is how Lucifer fell and became Satan.

According to Mormon theology, Satan’s downfall was that he tried to create a perfect world by destroying individual liberty. Sound familiar? It should, because the war in heaven never actually ended. When Satan was cast out of heaven, he took his followers down here to Earth. Each one of us faces that war every day.

Satan doesn’t just want to spread evil all over the world. Evil, by itself, does not defeat God’s plan. No matter how horrible our suffering may be in this life, it will all eventually come to an end, and turn to our glory if we are faithful. Satan knows that the way to destroy God’s plan is to destroy our Liberty, and he seeks relentlessly to do just that.

This is why I believe that God is a Libertarian. He wants us to have the freedom to govern ourselves, because that is principle at the very core of His plan—the Plan of Salvation. He wants us to stand fast in that Liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

So does that mean that President Jesus would legalize marijuana? Yes, I think he would. Remember, Jesus spent a lot of time among publicans and sinners. He didn’t condone their stupid decisions, but he didn’t condemn them to prison either. Why should we?

Would President Jesus legalize the death penalty? The man who said “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”? No—not because capital punishment is morally wrong, but because the State shouldn’t have the power to exercise it. After all, just look at the corruption of the Sanhedrin.

Would President Jesus legalize abortion? Here, I’m going to depart from mainstream Libertarianism and argue that He wouldn’t, except in cases that threaten the health (including mental health) of the mother. By legalizing abortion, we have effectively granted the State to arbitrarily define what is and is not human life. Jesus had a profound respect for human life, suffering even the little children to come to him. I cannot believe that this same Jesus would grant the State that power.

(That said, there are cases where the taking of human life is morally justified. That’s why I believe a President Jesus would make exceptions for cases threatening the health (including mental health) of the mother. But for people who use abortion as a birth control method, who think they should have the right just because they made a bad decision and forgot to wear a condom? No.)

What about taxes? If the man who admonished us to render unto Caesar Himself became Caesar, would He raise our taxes? Remember, this is also the man who said that His yoke was easy, and His burden light. Would He want any of us to be yoked to the State? Even the wealthiest one-percent? I don’t think He would.

Would President Jesus build a wall and make Mexico pay for it? Well, apparently even Trump isn’t going to do that anymore, so enough said.

But you get the picture. If Jesus Christ reigned in power and glory on this Earth (and as a Mormon, I believe that He will someday), His government would look a hell of a lot more libertarian than the government we have today. In fact, it might even be so libertarian that people wonder if His government even exists, leaving room for the unbelievers well into the Millennium (and that, too, agrees with Mormon theology).

So there you have it. The book is blue, the church is true, and God is a Libertarian (just don’t go one-star all my books, please).

My answer to Worldcon 2016, Sad Puppies, and the Hugo Awards

So Worldcon 2016 and the Hugo Awards happened over the weekend. It went down about how I expected it would: the award for Best Novel went to an outspoken racist, one of the most prominent female editors in the field lost (again) to No Award, and the TruFans and SJWs made the convention Safe for Diversity by silencing or evicting everyone who did not think, act, believe, or look like them.

In other words, it was a complete crapshow, and I’m glad that they didn’t get any of my money. Instead, I’ve decided to follow in the Grand American Capitalist Tradition by offering you an opportunity to give me your money instead.

That’s right: “Welcome to Condescension,” my Sad Puppies short story, is now available on all the major ebookstores. Check it out!

Nothing Found

Cover reveal: Welcome to Condescension

Worldcon 2016 is this week, and in honor of that, I’m releasing a new short story: “Welcome to Condescension!”

Here is the cover:

If you’ve been following the inanities of the Hugo Awards controversies for the past couple of years (and I can’t blame you if you hadn’t, since most SF&F readers don’t follow the Hugo Awards), then the puppy on the cover should make perfect sense. If it doesn’t, don’t worry: you can still enjoy the story anyway. And the puppy!

To be updated on when this story is available, be sure to sign up for my email list!

Next project

So after finishing the rough draft of Gunslinger to the Stars a couple of weeks ago, I took an unofficial summer break to work on other things. But I’m back now, ready to pick up a new WIP. There are quite a few to choose from. Here are the ones I’m leaning towards:

The Sword Keeper — This one has been in progress for quite some time. When I left it off, it was about 3/4ths of the way finished, with a whole bunch of action scenes right up to the very end. I could probably finish it in a couple of weeks.

Edenfall — This is the sequel to Genesis Earth, and it’s been on the back burner for years. There seems to be a lot of growing interest in the first book, though, which makes me wonder if it’s time to finish the trilogy. If this is the book that my readers really want, then that’s the book to write.

Sons of the Starfarers — This series hasn’t really taken off the way I’d hoped it would, which is why I’ve more or less tabled it for now. There are four more books left, and if I’m going to write the next book (Patriots in Retreat), I’m going to finish all the other books as well. This could take a while, though, and I’m not sure now is a good time to pick up that project. If there’s enough demand, though, I’ll see what I can do.

Children of the Starry Sea — This sequel to the Star Wanderers series ties in a bunch of stuff from Sons of the Starfarers that I haven’t written yet, so now is probably not the time to write it.

A Beachhead in Time — This is the first book in a trilogy that I’m cowriting with my friend Scott Bascom. We’ve already started it, so technically it’s already a WIP. Not sure whether to make it my primary project at the current time, though, or to juggle it with a personal WIP.

So those are the options. Personally, I’m leaning a bit toward Edenfall at the moment, but when I’m between projects I tend to vacillate a lot until something really sticks.

Unthinkable truths

If you told the average person that you believed with near 100% certainty that intelligent alien life exists in the universe, they would consider you crazy. Yet the truth is that our universe is so incredibly vast, so full of Earthlike planets, that the odds that intelligent life only emerged here are low enough to be indistinguishable from zero.

Yet the near-certainty of intelligent life is, to most people, an unthinkable truth. It’s something that many people, perhaps even our entire society, just cannot accept.

Our world is full of unthinkable truths. Indeed, our society is built upon them. We can find examples of them in our taboos and social mores, or in the unspoken things that everyone “just knows.” In order for civilization to function properly, there are certain things we must all agree on, such as the idea that all men are created equal, or that we all have certain rights. It’s easier and more efficient to just program people not to accept some ideas than it is to encourage them to examine everything, and hope that truth prevails.

For Americans, one of our most unthinkable truths is the idea that our constitutional rights and freedoms are fragile, and can all be taken away. Those of us who were born in this country don’t realize that the United States is, in many ways, an aberration. We take it for granted that the world around us will continue the way it always has, and that our nation will endure. Anything else is unthinkable.

But how many nations have endured? How many republics have survived the crucible of history? Rome barely lasted a thousand years, and the republic was dead long before the empire reached its greatest glory. The Middle East is full of the bones of dead empires, from the Hittites and Babylonians to the British and the French. Even the most powerful dynasties ultimately fall into ruin, and the periods of relative freedom are the exception in history, rather than the rule.

I got into an argument on Facebook (yes, I’m back on Facebook, though I haven’t decided whether to stay back permanently) where the other person said, quite unironically:

We live in an Era in which our rights are secured by the free dissemination of information; not through the ability to send rounds down range… the fact that you can type those words is proof enough that [you don’t need an AR-15].

As a student of history, this argument strikes me as obscenely absurd. There are numerous countries in the world today that have access to “the free dissemination of information” via the internet just as we do, but are horribly repressive even by historical standards. In China, for example, political prisoners are held in concentration camps and harvested for organs. In Syria and Iraq, ISIS burns people in cages and carries off young non-Muslim girls as sex slaves. In Canada and Europe, you can be imprisoned or fined for merely saying things on social media that the government deems “right-wing.”

The mere existence of Liberty does not guarantee its preservation. The only way that any people have ever remained free is by cultivating a culture of self-sufficiency. Without the right to bear arms, self-sufficiency is impossible, because it forces people to depend on the government for their own self-defense and preservation of their Liberty.

I’ve blogged before about why I need a gun. This post is largely a continuation of those thoughts. It’s unthinkable to us here in the United States that our country may one day fall, but if history is our teacher then that fall is inevitable. It may not come for another thousand years, but it may also come within the next ten.

Truth prevails—even the unthinkable truth.

Free SF&F ebooks, all retailers, this weekend only!

Hey guys! I’m doing a book promo this weekend with a bunch of other Science Fiction and Fantasy authors. This promo is not exclusive to Amazon, so if you’ve got a nook or a kobo, be sure to check it out!

More blog posts coming next week. I’ve been taking a bit of a break from things after finishing Gunslinger to the Stars, but I’ll be back in the saddle soon enough. Also, another short story coming out soon!

With apologies to Abraham Lincoln

Four score n’ seven muthafuckin years ago our fathers brought forth on dis continent, a freshly smoked up nation, conceived up in Liberty, n’ all bout tha proposizzle dat all pimps is pimped equal.

Now we is engaged up in a pimped out civil war, testin whether dat nation, or any hood so conceived n’ so dedicated, can long endure. We is kicked it wit on a pimped out battle-field of dat war. Shiiit, dis aint no joke. Our thugged-out asses have come ta dedicate a portion of dat field, as a gangbangin’ final restin place fo’ dem playas whoz ass here gave they lives dat that hood might live. Well shiiiit, it be altogether fittin n’ proper dat we should do this.

But, up in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — dis ground. Y’all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! Da brave men, livin n’ dead, whoz ass struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our skanky juice ta add or detract. Da ghetto will lil note, nor long remember what tha fuck we say here yo, but it can never forget what tha fuck they did here, so peek-a-boo, clear tha way, I be comin’ thru fo’sho. Well shiiiit, it is fo’ our asses tha living, rather, ta be dedicated here ta tha unfinished work which they whoz ass fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. Y’all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! Well shiiiit, it is rather fo’ our asses ta be here all bout tha pimped out task remainin before our asses — dat from these honored dead we take increased devotion ta dat cause fo’ which they gave tha last full measure of devotion — dat our crazy asses here highly resolve dat these dead shall not have took a dirt nap up in vain — dat dis nation, under God, shall gotz a freshly smoked up birth of freedom — n’ dat posse of tha people, by tha people, fo’ tha people, shall not perish from tha earth.

Made with Gizoogle Textilizer. I am so sorry.

The American Insurgency, Part 3: The Roots of the Insurgency

tacticalgadsden1 When the colonies began their war for independence in 1775, they had no formal army, but depended on civilian irregulars or “minutemen.” In a similar way, the American Insurgency was made up of ordinary citizens, self-taught and self-trained, who had prepared themselves for the coming conflict and were ready to take up arms at a minute’s notice.

To truly understand the roots of the insurgency, one must first understand the cultural differences between the coastal regions and the interior. In the early 21st century, the West Coast and the Northeast Corridor were so different from the South, Midwest, and Intermountain West as to almost be separate countries. Profound differences existed not only in politics, but in religiosity, cuisine, hospitality, family ties, the education system, economic organization, and popular culture.

The interior regions tended to be much more religious than the coasts. They tended to place more importance on traditional family structures. While the interior regions possessed many large and important cities, they tended to be more rural and thus more old-fashioned. People tended to vote more conservative than liberal, even in many of the larger cities. People also tended to be more self-reliant, and were much more likely to own guns.

Prior to the military purges of 2025, most of the United States military came from the South. This region had seceded from the union in 1861 during the first civil war, and a deep sense of Confederate pride and heritage continued to exist even 150 years later. Among these, the most independently minded state was Texas, where many people considered themselves Texans as much as Americans.

The Intermountain West, originally colonized by Mormon pioneers, still possessed a strong pioneer heritage and culture. The Mormons had spread throughout the entire country by this time, but the greatest concentrations were found in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. With its strong beliefs in self-reliance, emergency preparedness, and the divinely inspired nature of the American Constitution, the Mormon religious community would play a key role in the coming insurgency.

The Little Collapse of 2008 (or Great Recession as it was called at the time) led to a surge in popular interest for emergency preparedness. This “prepper” subculture especially thrived in the interior regions of the country, which were not as hard-hit as the coasts but were much more independently minded. As a part of this subculture, many people bought firearms and trained in their use, so as to protect themselves and their families.

The Obama years saw a great deal of social upheaval, which the preppers believed to be the beginnings of a general social collapse. This did a lot to fuel the movement. However, it was not the gradual collapse of American society that prompted the greatest alarm, but Obama’s policies.

In 2012, a mentally ill young man named Adam Lanza killed his mother and assaulted a local elementary school with an AR-15 style rifle. This tragedy, known as the Sandy Hook shooting after the name of the school, sparked a national uproar.

The gun control movement at this time was deeply entrenched in both the West Coast and the Northeast Corridor. They immediately exploited the shooting for political purposes, setting a pattern that would be followed in numerous mass shootings to follow. In spite of the fact that Sandy Hook was likely targeted because it was a gun-free zone, calls for “common sense gun legislation,” or in other words a government confiscation of all civilian firearms, began to be openly heard.

Few things polarized the country in the Obama years more than the gun control movement post-Sandy Hook. Fearing a mandatory gun buyback program (which would later be implemented in 2026), Americans bought guns in record numbers. Meanwhile, the gun control movement openly called for a national gun ban, further fueling the counter movement.

“Molon Labe” was the response traditionally issued by the Greeks when the Persians demanded that they surrender their weapons at Thermopylae. Roughly translated at “Come and take them!” this now became the watchword for the pro-gun counter movement. For the first time in modern memory, the prospect of an armed insurrection against Washington was openly discussed.

The first clashes with the federal government occurred in Nevada and Oregon, over a dispute between the Bureau of Land Management and the Bundy family. While most Americans did not support the Bundys, and the standoffs were resolved with relatively little violence, the incidents demonstrated that armed citizens could stand up to federal authorities and force them to compromise or capitulate.

By the time Hillary Clinton was elected president in 2016, a strong pro-gun movement had taken hold in the interior regions of the United States, with an understanding that it might become necessary to defend their rights by force. However, the movement was not formally organized and had no leaders. It was more of a response to the political climate, rather than a movement that actively worked to shape it.

Clinton largely continued most of Obama’s policies, which led to more mass shootings, more homegrown terrorist attacks, more race riots, and more polarization within the gun debate. During this time, leaders began to emerge who would later play a pivotal role in the organization of the American Insurgency.

Among these was a Provo, Utah resident named Scott Bascom. A self-employed contractor and science fiction writer, Scott was one of the first people to foresee the coming civil war. He was remarkably charismatic, even before the war, though by most traditional measures of wealth or status he was completely ordinary.

As the Republican Party disintegrated in the run-up to the 2020 elections, it became increasingly obvious that Clinton would face no serious challenge in her bid for re-election. Her presidency was characterized by the worst corruption since the Gilded Age, with foreign governments openly buying favors. The US Military, sworn to protect the Constitution, began to take steps for a coup.

This ultimately proved unnecessary, as Clinton was impeached shortly after her re-election in 2021. President Kaine was a milquetoast leader who made some concessions to Libertarians and Constitutionalists. However, at the Democratic National Convention of 2024, a dark horse candidate named James Ward seized the nomination in a contested convention and immediately began to consolidate his power.

He uncovered the coup plot and used it as a pretext to sack the military leadership, installing party loyalists in positions of command. He also began to aggressively enforce federal laws that conflicted with state laws, often pitting federal authorities against state authorities. In the memorable Dewey case, he deployed the National Guard to break up a homeschooling ring in Alabama. This led to an armed confrontation, in which the federal troops prevailed.

Perhaps more than any other incident since Sandy Hook, this incited the pro-gun movement to take action and make preparations for war. But there would be very little time to prepare, as in the following year, the Steward vs. California Supreme Court case paved the way for the gun control movement’s endgame. President Ward implemented a mandatory federal gun buyback program at once, hoping to stem the conflict by forcing immediate action.

But the roots of the American Insurgency ran deeper than he’d realized.

The American Insurgency (Index)

Tactical Gadsden Flag taken from The Art of Not Being Governed and published under a CC BY-SA 4.0 License.

The American Insurgency, Part 2: The Constitution Hangs by a Thread

tacticalgadsden1 The sequence of events that made the American Insurgency inevitable had its roots in a political shift that had occured more than a century earlier. It began with the Progressive Era, barely a generation after the first civil war, dovetailed into the New Deal, and culminated with the near complete subversion of the United States.

It is worth taking a moment to review the founding documents and constitutional principles of the United States, to show how far the country had strayed from them in the decades leading up to the American Insurgency.

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence established the philosophical foundation of the US Constitution; namely, the principle of natural rights and the social contract:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This established the principle that rights are not bestowed by the State, but are held in reserve by the people. The purpose of the State is not to bestow favors or priviledges, but to preserve those rights and liberties which the people naturally possess.

The most important of these were enumerated in 1789 by the Bill of Rights, which were:

The right to free speech and freedom of religion.
The right to bear arms.
The right from quartering soldiers.
The right from unreasonable search and seizure.
The right to due process.
The right to a speedy and public trial.
The right to a trial by jury.
The right from cruel and unusual punishment.
The right to retain all other rights not explictly enumerated.
The right to retain all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government.

Together with the Constitution of 1788, these documents established a limited government, charged not with providing for the “common good” but protecting the individual rights and liberties of the people.

A century later, during the Progressive Era, this began to shift dramatically. Unlike the Founding Fathers, the 19th century Progressives saw government as a vehicle for achieving social reform. The concept of social engineering, so anathema to the constitutional principles of limited government, was gradually introduced until it became commonplace. Congress passed numerous laws that overreached their Constitutional mandate, and a Supreme Court dominated by Progressives upheld them. This incremental gutting of the Constitution laid the groundwork for the massive expansion of federal power under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Today, FDR is largely regarded as one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States. In the years leading up to the American Insurgency, however, he was regarded as one of the best. The entitlement programs of FDR and his immediate successors had not yet failed, though the writing was on the wall, and the national debt, while skyrocketing to dangerous heights, had not yet driven the nation to bankruptcy.

It is difficult for us, looking back with the benefit of hindsight, to conceive how the people living at this time could not see the writing on the wall. While some of the more forward looking ones certainly did, the vast majority simply assumed that the broken system would continue to plod along as it always had.

However, it was not only a broken system that brought the country to its knees, but the secret combinations of power that sought to exploit it.

It is impossible to accurately document all of the players who were actively working to subvert the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. We may never know whether it was a monolithic effort by a single global organization, or a loose ideological confederation of various political factions. However, we do know that there was a subversion effort of some kind, because the effects of it are measurable and well documented.

The subversion process, as described by Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov, has four stages:

Demoralization > Destabilization > Crisis > Normalization

During the Cold War, the KGB actively funded or provided support to several left-leaning political groups in order to push the United States through these processes. The Soviet Union collapsed before the subversion was complete, but the process continued well into the 21st century until the crisis which caused the American Insurgency.

The purpose of demoralization is to effect a generational shift in basic moral values, laying the foundation for the disintegration of society. This was achieved through the social upheaval known at the time as the “culture wars.”

In the 1950s, divorce was rare, abortion was unheard of, most children were raised by their biological mother and a father, and religious practice was a major aspect of public life. By the 2010s, none of these were true. A lot of this was due to changes in government, which made divorce and abortion common and easy, incentivized single mothers on welfare to have more children, incentivized young couples to cohabit instead of getting married, and forced religious institutions to either adopt practices that ran contrary to their moral teachings or to retreat from the public sphere. In other areas, such as education, employment, law enforcement, and the media, similar trends can be documented that underscore a massive shift in social values.

The demoralization of the United States was more or less complete by the early 2000s. The destabilization process was already underway, but it accelerated dramatically under President Obama during the 2010s. During this stage, the society being subverted is pushed into violent confrontation with itself in order to foment a crisis. The race riots in Ferguson, Missouri marked a dramatic shift in race relations, ultimately leading to violence against the police. As law and order broke down, crime increased dramatically, especially in minority communities. Violence also became normal at political rallies and university events.

Historians disagree as to whether Hillary Clinton was supposed to merely further the destabilization of the country or bring it though crisis to the final stage of normalization. However, they almost universally agree that she was a major player in the subversion of the United States. Donald Trump, her Republican opponent in the 2016 election (the last year in which the Repulican Party would be a force in national politics), was probably also propelled to power by the secret combinations working to subvert the country, though most historians believe he was merely exploited by them, and not an active conspirator.

It is a testament to the resilience of the American system of government that the country did not collapse under Hillary Clinton’s presidency. However, her far-left policies pushed the United States past the point of no return. Before she was impeached and thrown from office in 2021, the Constitution was largely a figurehead document, exerting little force on the underlying political philosophy of the federal government.

The first and fifth amendments were largely dismantled in the aftermath of the college protest movement in the mid 2010s. The fourth amendment was rendered toothless by mass surveillance by the NSA, upheld by Clinton’s Supreme Court. The ninth and tenth amendments had been ignored for decades, and were effectively buried by Clinton’s sweeping economic policies following the Great Collapse in 2017.

The second amendment was the last thread by which the Constitution hung, and when President Ward attempted to annul it in 2026, the result was war.

The American Insurgency (Index)

Tactical Gadsden Flag taken from The Art of Not Being Governed and published under a CC BY-SA 4.0 License.