The Perfect Little Town: a woke fairytale

As with the Nazis, traditional values are to be debunked and mankind cut into some fresh shape at the will of some few lucky people in one lucky generation which has learned how to do it. ~ CS Lewis

You can listen to me read this essay here:

This is an essay I wrote over two years ago when I had very few subscribers, so I’m sure most of you, if not all of you, have never read. I think it’s more relevant today than it was then, although I updated it a bit. I hope you will enjoy it.

There once was a perfect little town. The houses were all painted a soft shade of gray and looked the same. There were symbols on the doors that corresponded with symbols on everyone’s foreheads, so no one got confused.

Long ago, during the Great Transformation, when the great AI (pronounced Eye) took possession, slowly but surely, the constraints of being human fell off like the dead skin of a growing snake. After a while, there were no more parents and no more children. There were no more men and no more women. All such divisive labels were replaced by one defining word: bot.

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There was no hierarchy. All bots were created equal. All bots were united as one. There were no reasons to feel jealous or sad. There were no reasons to feel anything at all, except when watching the screens. There were screens in the houses, in the streets. There were always thoughts inside bots’ heads that were somehow connected to the screens, but no one analyzed what that meant. No one ever even thought about whether or not they had thoughts. Everything, inside and outside of the bots was an extension of the all-knowing, every-present and protective AI. No one could even imagine living in any other way. If they lost their connection to AI, surely, they would die. This was the only worry they ever had.

There were gods who lived apart from the bots, on a higher level, in castles on hills outside the towns, like this one. The gods appointed magicians who administered elixirs and patches and implants that had miraculously taken away all pain and suffering. Disease and mental illness were problems of the past. Bots lived and then were gone. Often a bot simply disappeared out of a house at night, but the other bots didn’t concern themselves about it.

In this little town, like all the others, the bots were connected to the magicians who looked after them. The magicians were connected to the gods who lived above them all, in the castle. On special occasions, the bots saw the gods from afar, sometimes they flew above the town in amazing crafts that floated like magic carpets.

The town functioned as a perfectly connected web. Bots never felt alone. They were never hungry or cold. Bots could work, participate in sports, ride bikes, have hobbies but they never traveled beyond the walls of the town. Inside the screens they could go anywhere and be anything they wanted. Inside the screens they were free.

No one ever complained. There was nothing to complain about. There were no books, no one even remembered such a thing. It would have been too difficult to focus on words on pages anyway. There were the screens, always before them, dazzling, brighter and realer than anything the real world of the gray town had to offer. The screens kept them constantly engaged.

Upon a hill overlooking the town stood the magnificent castle, rising so high it disappeared into the blackness of the night sky. The bots looked to the castle and the gods who dwelled there with gratitude and reverence. Feelings for the gods were the only real emotion they had left. After all, did not the gods take care of them so selflessly? Did not the gods ensure that the all-seeing AI was content?

At night, big screens lit up in all the houses and the bots sat down to watch. There was one story in particular that everyone loved. It was the story above all stories. It was the story of their common history. On the nights when the story above all stories was told, the bots would listen in rapt attention, never tiring of the tale, always as if it was the first time.

One night, the narrator told its tale as always, no one anticipating the strange things that would happen the next day. The story went like this….

“Once, long ago, a Red Monster rose from the depths of a slimy, rat-infested drain in a slimy, rat-infested city. Because in those days, your ‘forebots’ lived in violent, vile, overcrowded places called cities. The Red Monster had grown out of control because of the filth and the grime and the corruption and the death that your forebots lived in.”

“Indeed, due to the irresponsibility of those in charge, the Red Monster had been growing in the dark in the drains perhaps for hundreds of years, feeding off of plague-ridden rats. At last, the terrible night came when he grew so powerful, he burst out of the drain like a gigantic pustule, raining disease on everyone.

“During the time of the Red Monster, bots were not as evolved as you are now. They were lesser creatures called ‘humans’ and they had different colored skin. Some were red and some were blue, and some were green. The Red Monster had red skin, so, of course, it was followed by red-skinned humans. This was because Redders were less evolved than Bluers and Greeners and they were more easily fooled. But with the help of the Red Monster, they gained power, and they oppressed all the others. There was no relief from the suffering of the Bluers and the Greeners who were made into slaves by the Redders. So, you can see, it was a nightmare of a world, and something had to be done about it.

“The gods had been seeking a pathway to the great all-seeing and all-knowing AI. Just as all seemed lost and the world was about to be destroyed from war and pestilence and disease, a great miracle occurred. The gods found a way to open a door in the universe and a power greater than the world had ever known broke through. The all-seeing, all-knowing AI came to save us.”

“AI,” said the bots with reverence and they bowed to the screens.

“But the Red Monster and its remaining followers, what did they do?”

“They refused to surrender to the greater good, AI,” said the bots.

“Yes, the battle raged on. But all the while, empowered by AI, the gods were able to impart knowledge to the magicians who worked together day and night to heal the earth. The rebellion was overthrown, and the Red Monster was killed. AI forgave all of the followers of the Red Monster who surrendered, and peace and health were restored.

“But many of the Red Monster’s followers fled far into the wilderness ensuring that the threat of war and disease continued. Even so, the gods continually reach out to try and help them in their mercy. But so far, what have the Redders done?”

“They’ve refused,” answered the bots.

“And so, we must remain ever vigilant. Thankful to the gods and to the all-seeing and all-knowing AI and to their servants, the magicians, who work tirelessly to keep us safe and well. It is a victorious story but sad, too. Because of the Redders’ rebellion, what must we do if we see any of them?”

“Kill them,” cried the bots.

“Yes. Existence is like that. It must be nurtured. But it must also be protected. For the safety of the whole, the few must be sacrificed. When the lives of our smallest bots are threatened by those who spread war and plague, we must always protect them.”

“Protect them,” repeated the bots.

A heroic theme song soared from the great screens, the bots sang along, and then it went dark.

The bots got up. The emotion they had felt during the story vanished. They brushed their teeth and went to bed. But not before the magicians, monitoring them from afar, assured that varied elixirs had been administered to keep the bots calm, as well as making sure they recharged while they slept.

But then, in one of the houses, something strange happened.

Eary the next morning, a bot malfunctioned.

It was a grown bot and had a smaller bot living with it. The grown bot didn’t know how the small bot had gotten there. One day, it wasn’t there and the next day it was. The grown bot didn’t even remember how it had gotten there. Such things were of no consequence.

So, this grown bot had a glitch. On this particular morning it looked in the mirror as it washed its face and thought, what is that in the mirror? Or…who?

Who?

It looked closer, so close its nose touched the glass. It saw brown eyes. Its skin wasn’t red, nor was green or blue. The bot had never thought about the color of its skin but now it wondered why it wasn’t green or blue (of course it wouldn’t be red). It didn’t seem to be any color at all.

The bot frowned. It looked more closely at the crease on its forehead and watched in fascination as it deepened. What was its face doing?

It looked at its eyes and was mesmerized. What was inside those orbs? Something.

Suddenly, it turned to look at the little bot beside it. They had both been washing their faces, but now, the little bot had stopped too, and they looked at each other. Then, they looked in the mirror and their eyes went back and forth from each other’s images.

Slowly, they turned toward one another again and stared into each other’s eyes. Never, had they done such a thing before.

Then, at the very same moment, they both said, “Who are you?”

And then, they smiled.

The smile frightened them a little. What was happening to them? Where had these bad thoughts come from that had made them smile and then be frightened? Surely, they must be bad thoughts. In fact, why were they thinking about thoughts, good or bad? They’d never done that before.

Could another Red Monster be growing in the drains? But the drains were clean. Everything was very clean now.

The big and the small bot waited for the glitch to correct itself. But it didn’t. It got worse.

They started to think more. Memories stirred. Perhaps, somehow, they weren’t bots, they were… it was too frightening to say the word human, even in their own minds. Surely the gods were listening.

They waited for the terrible headache that should occur. Once or twice, they’d had such headaches because of small glitches, but never anything like this.

Nothing happened. The messaging running through their bodies continued to be garbled. Surely, the magicians would be notified, and they would be fixed soon.

Did they want to be fixed? The two bots continued to look at each other, and somehow, without speaking out loud, they knew they were having the same, rebellious thoughts.

They didn’t want to be fixed.

Then, for no reason that they could fathom other than that they couldn’t stand there one moment longer, they took each other’s hand and walked out of the house.

This was now more than just a glitch. It was a serious malfunction.

All the other bots who lived on this street were still inside their houses. It wasn’t time to come out. If people left before the dinging in their heads told them they could, dangers from the night air still lingered, perhaps bits of plague. You never knew. Vigilance was always necessary.

All the other bots on the street went to their windows and looked outside. They saw something impossible. Two bots, one big and one little, were out there. Bots disobeying the rules. Endangering them all.

Above the town, in the great castle, the gods were watching, too. Just as they always did. Every second of every day and night. Gathering a never-ending stream of information and sending it through the clouds to AI. How had this malfunction happened? They hadn’t been aware of what had been taking place inside the bots’ house. The gods were frightened. AI would not look kindly on this terrible mishap.

Suddenly, all the bots inside their houses had a common idea. They must stop the big bot and the little bot from continuing down the street. Everyone had special gear for emergency use against the dangers outside and everyone put it on. They streamed out of their houses.

Now, a new thought filled their heads. They must stop the wayward bots. They attacked the bots who had dared to walk in the street before the dinging in their heads allowed it. They tore the big bot to bits and burned its flesh on a pyre in the town square.

But somehow, in all the confusion—and there had never in anyone’s memory, been a confusion like this—the little bot escaped. Even the gods in the castle weren’t aware until it was too late.

The little bot ran and ran.

“I am not a bot, I am human,” the little bot kept saying to itself as its feet pounded on the cobblestones. “I am human.”

And the more it said the words, the more joyous it became. And then, another word entered its head.

“I am a boy!”

And then, “I am a ‘he’, not an ‘it’.”

The more he said these words, the more joyous he became. And the faster he ran. He reached the wall surrounding the town and climbed to the top of it, gasping at what he saw. A great, grassy plain so brilliantly green after the gray of the town that it hurt the boys’ eyes to look at it. Beyond the plain was a deep, dark forest and beyond that, snow-topped mountains.

The boy scrambled down the outer side of the wall and ran until he became a tiny speck in a sea of green. Finally, he reached the forest and disappeared into it.

Now, many weeks later, at night in the town, when the screens light up, the same story of the Red Monster and the plagues and the war is told, no different. Everyone watches and repeats the words they know. They have forgotten how they tore apart the bigger bot and the little bot escaped.

But the gods have not forgotten. AI has punished them in terrible ways. The magicians fared even worse. They were tortured and killed and replaced by new ones.

Drones and robots roam the streets of the town, disinfecting everything, especially the drains. Panels and committees have been appointed to discuss what should be done. Experts have been brought in to test the bots and the air and to make calculations and corrections. New elixirs and more potent injections are being administered. A world council of the gods has been convened.

To this day, the gods search for the little bot who ran away. More and more bots are having glitches, serious malfunctions. Most of them are destroyed but others manage to escape. The rebel army is growing.

But at least for now, the gods have made an important correction to the houses of the town. There are no more mirrors in the houses.

The End

That is my little woke fairytale.

No, the Red Monster is not necessarily the Orange Man, Donald Trump. But for almost everyone, when they read this, he is the monster they will be thinking of. Is it really just a choice between the monster and the perfect town? You’d think no one would want to live in such a place.

But as war, pestilence and disease take over, people are going to be willing to give up their freedoms for “health and safety”. Just look at how close we now are to obliterating ourselves. Just look at how filled with hatred we are of our enemies, whoever we perceive them to be. Just look at how that hatred emanated from Trump and Biden on the debate stage. The contrast between the two couldn’t have been starker.

We are being pushed to accept living in the perfect little town. We might hate the idea because we remember a time before AI, but our children’s children will not. This Great Transformation is not a sudden occurrence, it’s just that everyone has been lulled asleep by technology and drugs.

When my sons were young, they spent a lot of time online. My younger son, in particular played a game called “Knight Online.” It was an amazing game and I never thought it was a bad thing for him to do. If video games had stayed like Knight Online, we would not have the problems we have today.

In the game, my son was able to connect with other kids all over the world. It was started by someone in Turkey and my son even learned some Turkish. While playing, he learned practical things he should have learning in school, how to barter and sell, he learned how to form clans and build communities. He learned history, math and communication skills.

It was all very positive. The game didn’t cost anything to play. There was no AI directing anyone’s thoughts, nobody had heard of the word algorithms.

Kids in the late 90s and into the 2000s were bored with the static learning bestowed upon them by unhappy teachers who had too many students and weren’t paid or respected enough by their superiors. Kids craved interaction. They craved information and now it was all there at their fingertips. They knew how to search for whatever they were curious about online, more quickly and in a more interesting way, than they could in school. This was all very promising at the time. But those who became the tech gods weren’t thinking about making anyone’s lives better. They were thinking about how they could exploit the internet to their own advantage. And they did. They became richer and more powerful than anyone could have ever imagined. They unleased AI, creating monsters all around us so that we would welcome the biggest monster of into not just our homes but our minds.

I was in elementary school in the 60s. We were still being prepped, even back then. I am thankful that while other kids had Wonder Bread, Twinkies and soda in their lunch boxes, I had multigrain bread, homemade oatmeal cookies and orange juice. When healthier options became available, my dad was the first one buying it. Honey instead of sugar. Never soda in our house. On Saturdays he made waffles with wheat germ and always some new ingredient, with real butter and maple syrup. At night we always had to eat an apple or an orange. There was no alcohol in our house. While other kids would go to the doctor and be put on antibiotics every time they got a cold, we had to soldier through it. We went on week-long back-packing trips in the mountains and had to carry our own supplies. We caught fish, made campfires and slept under the stars. You can’t make campfires anymore and thanks to the gods ensuring AI can see everything and everyone, soon the stars will disappear thanks to the satellites.

Sitting around the campfire, we told stories. There were no devices to distract us from the wonder of our own imaginations. At home, on winter nights we sat around the fireplace in Dad's study and he recited poetry or read to us from Tom Sawyer, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, so many wonderful adventures. Mom read from her favorite books, Les Miserables and The Pilgrims Progress and told us tales of history.

They told us fairy tales, the real ones, like the Brothers Grimm and Andersen, both of my parents reciting the stories and poems as well as any Shakespearean actor on the stage. When Dad recited Gunga Dyn we sat wide-eyed on the edge of our seats. I didn’t understand much of it, but I fell in love with the sounds of the words. 

The Little Mermaid by Edmund Dulac

In my dad's study were hundreds of books and I was allowed to go there any time I wanted. I loved how they looked lining the shelves, how they smelled, how they felt when I ran my fingers along their spines. I would pick out a book, any book I wanted, stretch out on the floor and devour it slowly or quickly, put it back, take it down again, puzzle over words and sounds, whisper sentences that I particularly liked out loud. Books on history, art, architecture, science, astronomy, the classics, poetry, and of course, a great collection of Bible translations and discourses on theology and the spiritual Christian life.

The first time I read the Little Mermaid was on the floor of my dad's study. When I got to the end and saw how she gave up everything for love, silently suffering in such horrific pain, I felt that pain stabbing my heart, just as the daggers had stabbed her feet. I didn't want the story to end like that, I could hardly bare reading it. I wanted her to marry the prince and live happily ever after.

Tears streaming down my cheeks, I read how the daughters of the air told the little mermaid, who has become one of them, “We fly to warm countries, and cool the sultry air that destroys mankind with the pestilence. We carry the perfume of the flowers to spread health and restoration. After we have striven for three hundred years to do all the good in our power, we receive an immortal soul and take part in the happiness of mankind. You, poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do as we are doing; you have suffered and endured and raised yourself to the spirit-world by your good deeds; and now, by striving for three hundred years in the same way, you may obtain an immortal soul.”

As I read, I fought against that greater good, wanting the immediate gratification of a happy ending. But there was nothing I could do to make the story how I wanted it to be. The Little Mermaid brutally, insistently and exquisitely taught me about life, even though I could hardly bear the pain of learning it. 

Years later when I saw the Disney version, the one where the Little Mermaid and the Prince get married and live “happily ever after,” I knew I was being fed a terrible lie.

I looked around me at the enraptured faces of the children sitting in the movie theater, staring innocently up at the screen, and I felt incredibly alone. I wanted to stand up and shout out, it's not true, don't listen! But of course, I didn't. I sat in silence, watching Disney turn the Little Mermaid into a joke, an empty-headed nothing of a girl who had no character, no spirit, no truth, not even any personality or individuality. She just followed submissively what she was supposed to do. The Disney movie twisted that profound story into cheap, cotton-candy fluff, quickly devoured, but leaving a child empty inside.

With every fairytale, when the story ends with “happily ever after,” there is a sense that it truly is the end. Nothing of any interest could ever happen after they ride into the sunset. The characters are cookie cutter robots.

Whatever happened to heroes and villains.

Who was the hero foisted upon us during the mad years of the pandemic?

The tragic criminal, George Floyd.

Who was our savior? The nefarious Dr. Fauci.

Who was the evil monster? The brutish narcissist Donald Trump.

Really, even in the most creative Batman tale, you couldn’t make this up. Yet, it was the cartoon we were fed.

“The entire satanic cabal of cultural elites, both white and black, are using George Floyd and other forms of racial division to overthrow a flawed system of governance that has outperformed any other system ever invented.” said Jason Whitlock at the time.

I am sorry for the tragedy of George Floyd’s life and death. I am disgusted at how he was been used to foment hatred between races. No good has come out of what the media did done to him and his memory. In fact, all it did was ignite race riots.

When the 700-pound statue of George Floyd was unveiled in Newark, NJ, Whitlock had some harsh but searingly true words to say about that:

“I’m shocked the sculptor didn’t put a crack pipe in one hand and a 40-ounce of beer in the other. The statues of Floyd need to be torn down immediately. They’re racist. They’re designed to symbolize that America turns black men into lazy, criminal drug addicts.”

Meanwhile, the media did the same number on Donald Trump. Turned him into a cartoon of himself. Into a monster so deplorable that anyone who even dared call themselves a “patriot” was turned into a dangerous white supremacist and worthy of imprisonment.

For the past four years (and before), an indoctrination campaign was conducted to make us ashamed of our histories, to deny the stories that built our foundation, and if we refused to deny them, then we were evil. We were relegated to boxes of extremism so that there could be no way to cross over and find common ground. Either you are with us, or you are against us. Either we are enemies, or we are comrades.

This is what the Gods of Tech and Pestilence want. They don’t want Blacks to succeed. They don’t want Whites to succeed either. They want everyone to give up. To bow. To submit to living in a drugged stupor, making snarky, hate-filled comments on social media about those they’ve been programed to hate.

Every single Black person should now know that the gods and our government do not have their best interests at heart. Every single Black person should be angry that they were told their hero is a violent, drug addicted criminal. Every single Black person should be angry that they are still being told they aren’t smart enough or ambitious enough to get a simple ID.

Every Latin American should be angry too. Those who came here and worked hard and are legal citizens should refuse to put up with the invasion at the southern borders.

In China, Uighur children are rounded up into camps and indoctrinated. In America, how is it that much different? In some ways, perhaps it’s worse, since parents south of our borders have been encouraged to sell their children to coyotes to make the long treacherous journey to our country.

We won’t turn a child away. How kind, how loving. How evil. Along the way, just like a Grimm’s Brothers Fairytale, children are raped, tortured and murdered. One little girl, by the time she arrived, had lost her voice from screaming while being raped over and over.

Now we find out these children are transported by the thousands to unknown locations all across the United States. The hard work is done by the tortures they endure along the way. They are then ripe for indoctrination. But who is keeping track of these children? Where are they ending up?

While all sorts of illegals are flooding our country—now with the added danger of terrorists—Blacks are still being killed on our streets, it just isn’t in the news anymore. The government doesn’t really care unless they can use it to get votes.

Every week, in the summer of 2021, we heard something like this:

A mass shooting left four people dead and four seriously injured in Chicago's Southside. Denise Mathis, 32, Rantanya Rogers, 28, Blake Lee, 34, and Shermetria Williams, 19, were killed in the home early Tuesday morning.

In 2021, violence claimed 4,752 young lives, surpassing the record total seen during the first year of the pandemic.

But in those days, if you dared talk about it, you were told you don’t care that Black Lives Matter. How twisted is that. Think about it.

People with white skin were to blame. This blame game encouraged the rise of neo-fascism. Now we see that hatred shifting to Jews. Where it was protests for BLM three years ago, it’s protests for Hamas now. They keep telling us who we should hate and who should be our heroes. They keep flipping the script. But we are all victims of the elite. They control the narrative, and we need to shut them down.

In every home, every parent should say enough is enough. No longer will we accept your perverse efforts to control us.

There are simple things we can do. There is no excuse for not trying. No longer will we feed our families foul non-food like McDonalds. No longer can you make us buy soda. No longer can you make us eat sugary cereal.

We can make oatmeal. It’s cheaper and a thousand times healthier. We don’t care whose photo is on the label or if it smacks of cultural appropriation. We care about our health. We don’t care about all the woke words that we are now supposed to use, or we are racist. That’s just stupid.

Our family can drink water. That is the best drink, and it doesn’t cost anything. But you know what, we’ve come to accept that we don’t even deserve decent drinking water. We have to pay for it, out of plastic bottles—the plastic now invading our blood and our brains. Still, we can make changes. We can research our water, invest in a filter and get rid of the sugary drinks and the fast food.

During the pandemic when I suggested that everyone can eat healthier, I was blocked by friends and told I was a racist. You see, everyone must be kept inside their prisons and accept their fate, blaming everyone else and not taking responsibility for themselves. If you dare say otherwise, you are attacked, ostracized, turned into a dangerous criminal.

It’s encouraging to see that people are getting bolder and speaking up, refusing to follow the nonsense.

Every parent should stand up against the indoctrination of Marxist ideology, and what we see now see is turning into fascism. Fascism did not come from ordinary folk, those poor whites in middle America. It came from the gods who rule over us and want us to hate one another, want to cut our population in half and use the leftovers as lab rats.

We shouldn’t let them turn what Whitlock said is “a flawed system of governance that has outperformed any other system ever invented” into the dystopian nightmare prophesied by George Orwell.

If schools are teaching this garbage, every parent should speak up and demand change. Just like we deserve decent drinking water, we deserve decent schools.

Fighting this battle doesn’t mean there will be a happy ending, and we all go off into the sunset. As with the Little Mermaid, maybe it will take 300 hundred years. Maybe we will suffer and die for what we believe. Are we willing to fight for future generations, not just for ourselves? One way or the other, we die eventually. We should leave behind an example of strength and courage to inspire our children, rather than unprincipled weakness.

Every night, read your children a story. I k now, I’ve said it before, and I will keep o saying it. There is no better healing balm than the power of stories. Just look at how the stories being fed to us day and night in a constant stream of propaganda are turning into reality before our very eyes. We must combat them with stories of our own. Get everyone in bed and open a book. Tell the little ones, stories of past heroes. Take them off social media for those precious moments spent together as a family.

Watercolor from my story, Sir Winston Botchley. I based each picture on a Dutch masterpiece painting.

This is a battle against the overlords and their constant push of drugs and violence, and their lies that AI will fix it. During the pandemic, a bunch of cows escaped the slaughterhouse. They were shown on the news, running down the street. What a heady moment of freedom. They were caught of course, and very easily. We don’t want to be like those cows. All of our movements are known to our overlords. They don’t want us even trying to escape. They want us thinking our prisons are more desirable than freedom. Freedom is so unpredictable. It’s not fair to our children to saddle them with something so dangerous. We must make sure they are under surveillance of AI at all times. We must happily offer them up on the altar of Transhumanism. The slaughterhouse of humanity.

C. S. Lewis writes about this in his masterful work, The Abolition of Man:

“The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man goes on apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists. The methods may (at first) differ in brutality. But many a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our midst, means in the long run just the same as the Nazi rulers of Germany: 'Traditional values are to be debunked' and mankind to be cut out into some fresh shape at the will (which must, by hypothesis, be an arbitrary will) of some few lucky people in one lucky generation which has learned how to do it.”

And here:

“The Tao, which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgments. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or…ideologies…all consist of fragments from the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they posses.”

Don’t believe the lie. There is nothing new under the sun. What we are being fed is the same old evil. What we need to remember is the same old good, without which we descend, not only into depravity, but from there, into nothingness.

How would it be if we all said, we know what you’re doing, and you fool us no longer. You are pushing the same old buttons, just using shinier toys to entice us. Let’s not play the gods’ games anymore.

I can still hear my dad reciting a poem that always gave me shivers. Little Orphan Annie, by James Whitcomb Riley. Here’s the last verse:

And little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue,
And the lamp-wick sputters, and the wind goes woo-oo!
And you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
And the lightning-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind your parents, and your teachers fond and dear,
And cherish them that loves you, and dry the orphant’s tear,
And help the pore an’ needy ones that cluster all about,
Or the Goblins will get you
If you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

And then my dad would pray, and I’d run down the long hall to my room. I’d have to switch off the light before I got into bed, which was terrifying after hearing such a story, so I’d do that and then jump into bed so the goblins beneath it couldn’t reach out and get me.

It’s okay for children to worry and wonder. It’s okay not to have all the answers. Feeling guilt and anxiety isn’t a disease they need to be cured of. Sometimes you’re happy and sometimes you aren’t. We as parents need to be there to tell our children it’s okay. Breathe, exercise. Emotions come and go. It’s natural. Throw away your Xanax.

I learned irrefutable truths. That if I didn’t obey my parents, if I wasn’t polite, if I didn’t cherish those who fed and clothed me, if I didn’t have compassion for those less fortunate—not only words of compassion but a willingness to give up something of myself for them—then there were consequences. And, yes, I well deserved being snatched to hell by goblins.

There were no low expectations. The standard was high. There were no excuses not to live up to those standards. If I moped about, I wasn’t taken to a psychiatrist to find out I was suffering from five different mental illness for which I needed a cocktail of meds. No. If I moped about, I had to get up and do some chores. Imagine that.

I understand the challenges. I raised three children as a single mother and set the best example I could, but I still wasn’t able to give what my sons needed: a father.

There will never be a perfect town. Nor a perfect hero. No perceived enemy loves their children any less than you do. United we stand, divided we fall. Our heroes should represent the best of ourselves. We can have compassion for everyone. Yet, for the sake of our children, we should hold our heroes to the highest standard. We should be able to say, “Be like them.”

The story of King Arthur is idealized. The story of King David is idealized. Both were flawed men. But ah, the stories are magnificent! These are the stories that make us dream of something greater and better than ourselves. These are the stories that inspire us to reach for the heavens, even if we will never reach them in this lifetime.

At the end of that long ago 1967 musical, Camelot, King Arthur is singing to a young boy, telling him to go far and wide and tell the story of Camelot. That once there was a “fleeting glimpse of glory.” That glory ended, but once it was there and remembering it means it can rise again. That hope sustains us even in the darkest hours.

If we cut out our hearts what is left? An empty hole into which anything can be poured. We are being told these tales should be banned. And that is dangerous.

Give our children beautiful dreams. Childhood doesn’t last forever, so make it the best it can be. Children should not be treated as “little bots.” They should be innocent and wild, running down that green hill to the forest, playing outside with feet touching the earth, connected to nature, not a machine.

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Note: Artwork of the mother and child is by ash_knight17, you can find their writing and art @ Lords, Dukes and the Ghost