If They Mean to Have a War..
26 Comments..it will begin with something like “Cancel Culture”
Why am I performing “Give Me Liberty” for ten people tonight? Read on..
Economic warfare is just that — warfare
Individually, or collectively, when you boycott, when you make a decision against your own economic interest, and penalize a merchant because you don’t like his politics, you are foreshadowing a far darker reality. You are preparing the field for battle. You are setting the stage for what Benjamin Franklin eventually endured when he wrote dramatic words to an old friend in 1775..
Mr. Strahan, You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction. You have begun to burn our Towns and murder our People. — Look upon your hands! They are stained with the Blood of your Relations! — You and I were long Friends:— You are now my Enemy, — and I am Yours. –B. Franklin
Here’s how it works. Before villages are burned by naval artillery, before farmers are murdered for securing their firearms, someone will propose measured warfare: “let’s starve them out.” The American colonists tried this in 1768 with a non-importation agreement. After a series of wholly illegal revenue acts by the British ministry, (commodity taxes on things like glass, lead, oil, paint, paper, and tea), the Americans simply determined not to trade with Britain.
This was the right measure at the right time. King George, and his pension-bought members of parliament, thought the Americans could be used as revenue slaves. The economic warfare began–the first blood was drawn–by British ministers who thought they could balance the ledger by taxing the Americans without their consent. (Need money? Tax the colonists. They are not represented in parliament. You don’t even need a whip to count votes.)
The colonists met political warfare with economic warfare. They orchestrated a measured response, and a collective one. It wasn’t some informal, social media “boycott Target Stores” campaign, proposed one day and forgotten the next. It had the high seriousness of covenant theology: trade with Britain and you are no longer one of us. “You are shunned. You are my enemy. I place the pointed-finger sign above your shop.”
My contention here is just this: it’s war. If you enter a man’s home and take away his family’s meal, night after night, you may not be putting the barrel of a gun to his head, but you are endangering their lives nonetheless.
If you are the victim of cancel culture, if you have lost your job because of political expression, if you can no longer trade with government agencies because you object to a pervert-story-hour for children, or you have some nagging doubts about election integrity, or you are one of the best character actors in the world and Hollywood won’t hire you, then consider this: you are one of the first soldiers to be wounded on the field of battle.
Tonight I perform Patrick Henry’s “‘Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death” speech for an audience of ten, when normally our venue would host 40 to 130 guests.
Why?
Can you guess?
A charter school that has been visiting us for decades fell victim to a social justice warrior who didn’t like my making fun of a black genocidal racist and a porn-star opportunist. I was engaged in wrong-think. You can read the whole history of our story here, but do it later. I need you to concentrate for a minute.
Typically, “conservatives” are polite, generous, and great believers in a reasonable discussion. Unfortunately, our enemies use these virtues against us. In our case, we believe a single misfit parent set the greater population of their charter school on warning: “Go to Riley’s Farm and be considered a racist, homophobic, woman-hating bigot.” The average parent, on hearing this, thinks, “look, I’m late on my utility and insurance payments. I don’t have time for this. I think this social justice weirdo is a hag, but I have to put my head down and make a living.”
In our case, this week, a few of the perpetually aggrieved complained. A few truth-seekers, the people on our side, objected strenuously, and the vast majority just didn’t want to offend anyone. It’s this vast, polite center we need to pull in our direction, with a tractor and chain if necessary. Think about it: the shrill, Antifa brick-thrower has a micro-constituency. No one likes the wicked witch, but she melts if you throw water on her. Stop playing it safe. Ten people in our tavern tonight refused to play the game. They participated, with their children, in a living history event–even if a few of their fellow parents were scandalized by their failure to embrace false-think.
Be like a Riley’s Farm guest!
You need to consider a very real danger on the horizon, and I’ll do it by way of example. When Matt Walsh clearly told Dylan Mulvaney his attempt at womanhood was a ridiculous farce, the real danger wasn’t Dylan Mulvaney, or even his kind. The real danger was the vast majority of well-meaning conservatives who thought Matt was being mean. When a family is harboring a dangerous psychotic, or a shameless groomer, there’s a danger greater than the threat itself: people who think you can ignore the problem and make it go away. It won’t go away. You need to shout it down.
Rules for warriors..
- Don’t let the social justice warrior take the offensive. Let it be known, if you want to bring the kids to, say, a symphony, and someone describes that as “too western” or “too white,” don’t be afraid to call this sort of objection moronic.
- Leaders: do NOT allow your school, church, or company to be high-jacked by someone compulsively claiming “racism, homophobia, patriarchy.” When you hear this sort of fundamentalist cult language, shame this person as a kind of scum-sucking parasite and a weirdo fundamentalist.
- Enjoy your life. It might inspire people without a life to seek one.
- Your children and friends might not be on board. Harden yourself to their opposition. Let your loved ones know: “we’re in for a battle. If you want to be in the inheritance, you better start defending the inheritance itself.”
The hard core political left are very few in number, but they show discipline in their battle plan. They walk into a charter school and demand everyone affirm their own irrational hatred for the “enemy.” They have their own version of the rules I’ve outlined above — and they follow those rules with cult-like devotion.
Learn something from these children of the devil, and apply it to building the kingdom of God: start buying goods and services from the people who will stand with you in the coming battle.
Find some local merchant who speaks the truth and start trading with them. We are certainly available, but it’s not about us.
Be that merchant, and that customer, wherever you are. There’s a war on. It’s about time some of you acted like it.
Tags: Blacklisted, Boycotts, Cancel Culture, Non-Importation, Patrick Henry, Shame, Social Justice Warriors
Categorised in: Blacklist, Blacklisted, Dinners, Farm Journal
This post was written by Jim Riley
26 Comments
Thank you for doing what you’ve been doing since day one! I have a field trip coming up next week, can’t wait. Been to your venue before and it’s always a great time. We love the love for history and patriotism we feel being there.
Thank you!
I love you’re beautiful er bow to man mentality my brother. When you stand on the side of Truth. You win, even when others think you’re losing!
Its nice knowing I havent been alone the past few years fighting this evil in this great country!
You aren’t alone. There are more of us than there are of the enemy. It’s just that they have all the fake ballots.
Let it begin here.
This is the truth brave men need to sa out loud. A true patriot you are. Many are behind you sir.
and going to your place for over 40 years. this was an amazing article written by a true patriot. real men speak the truth that needs to be spoken without fear. God bless you sir and keep up the fight, we are all behind you.
Thank you!
Quite frankly, if you loudly make your politics your identity, you’ll have to face the consequences. You’ve chosen to loudly make your politics your personality and those politics do not jive and gel with everyone.
You say people who visit your business and support you are wrongly considered to be homophobes. I guess that begs the question: Do you believe it’s a human right for man to marry and man? Or a woman to marry a woman? If you’re answer is no, then visiting you is supporting a homophobe – by definition.
Do you believe women deserve equal rights, equal pay and equal treatment in society? Do you believe there is a history of significant racism against people of color in this country?
Your answers to these questions will help you understand this fact: You aren’t “cancelled”, you’re just being held accountable to your positions and loudly complaining when people don’t agree with you and choose to not support you.
Leftist aren’t demanding anyone “affirm their own irrational hatred for the ‘enemy'”. Quite the opposite, it’s simply a lack of patience with supporting or tolerating anyone who blanketly throws multiple categories of people into the “other” category as a target of hatred or intolerance (gays, trans, people of color, women) – and that’s traditionally the right wing who’s irationanally hating entire swaths of humanity.
You seem to have conveniently forgotten what makes a pluralistic society possible, as I would suspect from someone who doesn’t respect the First Amendment and a free exchange of ideas.
You could argue that a man being held up at gunpoint has the right to speak his mind and express his opposition to being robbed but he just has to “suffer the consequences” of being shot for his trouble. That’s the logical extension of your sentiment. There really is no freedom of conscience, if expressing your conscience strips you of your job, your home, and the food on your table. It’s a concept called “duress.” Look it up. The Nazis and the Communists were, and are, completely comfortable with that. “You can have any opinion you like, as long as it matches the party’s opinion. Sure you can disagree, but we’ll put you in jail for that.”
Your contention that patronizing a business amounts to endorsement of all the owner’s beliefs would make ordinary commerce impossible. A Democrat could never buy a car from a dealership owned by a Republican, for fear of being thought to endorse this year’s GOP agenda. A Christian could never frequent an atheist’s bakery. This is the sort of divided world you want, I understand, but it prefigures utter chaos.
There was a time, in America, when people of widely different religious and political beliefs, from widely diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, all waxed teary-eyed at the singing of the National Anthem. They didn’t agree on everything, but they held many essentials in common.
Normally, I wouldn’t respond to someone too cowardly to reveal their actual email address, but I’m feeling generous, and I’m willing to educate you if you will open your mind.
Being criminally robbed at gun point versus being held accountable to your social/political views and facing the consequences are not the same thing. The First Amendment is the right to free speech, which is vital, but it doesn’t absolve you of how people will react to that speech.
If your opinions make you a pariah, maybe it’s time to look inward and ask yourself why. I’ll notice you did not answer my questions regarding gay marriage, equal rights for women and racism. I suspect I don’t need you to answer specifically because I’m sure I already know your opinion.
The simple fact is: I am certain I have done business with folks I disagree with. I am certain I do that every day. The difference is, if I can say with certainty that someone I am doing business with is openly homophobic, racist, bigoted or any other contemptible position that lays judgement and hatred on their fellow man — then I have a choice. Ignore it or simply don’t support them. That’s the moral dilemma you’re seeing the results of.
There are still plenty of people like myself who love this country and want the best for it, and want the best — but for EVERYONE. Whatever bygone time you’re speaking of, I can assure you that there were oppressed people who were caught under the bootheel of this nation. Yearning to be open and free and equal. They still yearn today, in spite of those trying to smash them down even in this modern era.
The simple fact is: You put on an excellent show and service. It’s a damn shame that you won’t stop throwing yourself in the spokes of your own wheels and blaming others for reacting to your attitude and positions.
And thanks for sharing this even without an email. Free speech, yeah?
RE: “The First Amendment is the right to free speech, which is vital, but it doesn’t absolve you of how people will react to that speech.”
Wrong, if you take those reactions to include official government reprisal for that speech. The courts have ruled over again, in the last fifty years and as recently as Dodge V Evergreen, that government agencies do not have the right to engage in First Amendment retaliation. In the most recent affirmation of that legal doctrine, a school teacher was ruled potentially eligible for compensation and punitive damages for being terminated after wearing a MAGA hat to his place of employment.
Stepping down from the government’s obligation to honor the First Amendment, my argument on the personal front is that, between ourselves, we will sow chaos and reap potential violence if we demand that political expression be properly answered by economic boycott or termination of employment. A Hollywood friend of mine told me the story of a director who walked on the set and announced, “if anyone here is not voting for Barack Obama, turn in your timecard. You are done.” Is that really the sort of consequence we should expect for having a difference of opinion?
You shouldn’t dismiss my armed robbery example so quickly. It’s precisely the sort of world you are advocating: “disagree with me and you are liable for just about any consequence I deem appropriate.”
As to racism, homophobia, misogyny and the like, we find ourselves in a semantic cesspool these days. The CRT types believe that all white people are racist by definition, that all men oppress women, that all straight people harbor “phobias” (irrational fear by definition) of any sexual orientation other their own. A Santa Barbara parent recently shared curriculum from her son’s class where the “oppressors” and the “oppressed” were neatly aligned as you would expect from curriculum written by the perpetually aggrieved. Christians were the oppressors and all other religions were oppressed. Whites were inherently racist, men were patriarchal overlords. You win, or lose, in this game completely on the basis of your identity – the very opposite of what Martin Luther King advocated.
Once you start demanding abject penalties for people who don’t match the ever-changing definition of tolerance, you create a world where everyone, at any moment, could be guilty of thought crime. Am I “homophobic” for teaching my children New Testament sexual morality? Do I lose my job for that? Do I face fines? What about next year, when “minor attracted persons” demand sexual relationships with children? Will I be deemed intolerant – and subject to penalty – for seeing that as sick?
Your problem is you have no spiritual anchor, no holy text, no God on the throne. We reject racism because God rejects it. We understand the relationship between men and women because God defines that relationship. “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” We protect, and respect, women because God commands us to. Wives obey their husbands because God commands them to. We obey rulers because God commands us to do so. Kings, governors, and fathers in their homes have an obligation to be “just,” and if they are not, they are disobeyed and sometimes replaced.
You likely reject most of that, and I accept it. Do I have to pay the price for not observing your ever-changing definitions? Am I merely inviting controversy for affirming ancient, and proven, truths?
You are absolutely amazing! I stand with you on this and will fight for it all. My children deserve a world of good and not this woke bs crap.
We love coming to Rileys and won’t ever stop! You will always have our support! Never let the keyboard warriors or woke culture destroy what you have going. We will see you for our tour later this month with a whole group of amazing parents who are fully against what is going on in the world.
Thank you!
I was hunting around for a local nursery and stumbled upon this site and then the blog and WOW, what a find! I totally second Heather’s sentiments, you are awesome! And although I’ve never been to the farm I’ll be sending a donation to the legal battle now. Good luck and God speed; you are fighting for humanities future!
Thank you very much! Remember, the truth always wins in the end.
Stop playing the victim here. The 1st Amendment protects your free speech. No one is stopping you from saying what you are saying. You have every legal right to do so. What is happening is people are simply choosing not to patronize your business because of what you’ve expressed as your belief. That’s completely fine. I imagine you would do the same.
Let’s say you sent your children to a daycare facility and after a few months of doing so, you found out that the owners of the daycare were openly and unabashedly proclaiming their homosexual love for each other and preaching it’s virtues to anyone who will listen. I mean it’s everywhere…all over their website, their official daycare social media…EVERYWHERE!
Be honest now, would you continue sending your child to that daycare? Continue giving them your money? Or would you choose to simply (and legally) end your support of them and find another daycare?
You suffer by virtue of false equivalents. Making a private decision about where you purchase goods and services is COMPLETELY different form a GOVERNMENT AGENCY deciding certain views qualify for reprisal. The courts are very clear about this, and have been for fifty years.
I hear what you’re saying…but I disagree that this is 1st Amendment reprisal. Let me try again with a more “true” equivalent.
Schools and school districts have a choice of which vendors they use for their educational goods and services. The choice for who they patronize is based on a lot of things…price, location, and yes…the moral and ethical views expressed by those vendors? You don’t think schools consider that as a factor when educating students?
Hypothetical Example: A public school in Florida needs to purchase textbooks, and there were multiple companies offering their books. Company A, who they’ve always purchased from, has recently begun openly publicizing their support of Communism, BLM and the LGBTQ Community. I mean REALLY openly, like all over the company’s official social media and website! Are you telling me that if Florida chose not to purchase books from said vendor this year that it would be a violation of the law? The school should HAVE to purchase from them. And of course…all the parents in that school would be ok with this, right? They’d say “well we can’t stop buying educational supplies from them just because they support BLM and gays!”
Genuine question: did any of these schools/districts have signed contracts for your services? Or did they just choose to visit you in past years and now you’re upset they’ve chosen not to return?
Your legal take on this conflicts with the Ninth Circuit, which held there was a prima facie instance of First Amendment retaliation in our case. Even the Obama appointed district judge held that First Amendment retaliation, as a matter of principle, is not allowed. The districts, in our case, had made the same educational decision for 18 years straight. There was no doubt about the teaching value of our product. Moreover, in your hypothetical, unless the company incorporates their political messaging into the products themselves, and not their policy statements or PR life, the First Amendment rights of the company, and its owners, are off-limits, from the government’s perspective. There are literally dozens of precedents on this issue, because even liberal Jurists thought it was dangerous to make purchasing decisions on the basis of politics. The government is such a large, looming presence, it could officially declare the mandatory group-think, otherwise.
P.S. Yes, most of them actually broke signed contracts.
P.S.S. In Dodge V. Evergreen recently the Ninth held that a school district couldn’t even fire a teacher for wearing a MAGA hat _on the job_. I realize leftists love enforcing group think, but it’s not something we should encourage the government to do for us.
Years ago, I went on a field trip here with my class (from Empresa Elementary, in the Vista district). This is a nice place- beautiful scenery and great reenactments.
The problem I have with this place is the owner himself: Jim Riley, who can’t keep his political stuff in private and uses the Riley’s Farm social media accounts to post political/culture war crap. He denies the results of the 2020 election, when even many Trumpers accept that Biden actually won. He was in attendance at the J6 riots, says there is a “black supremacy” problem, defying mandates and spreads falsehoods about Critical Race Theory. No wonder school districts aren’t doing field trips there anymore.
Jim, it’s your right to free speech, but it’s the rights of school districts to stop doing business with you.
Mitchell,
Thanks for complimenting our programs and the farm. As you well know, our historical programs don’t feature modern political or social commentary.
As an American you have every right to peacefully engage in disagreeing publicly with your fellow Americans. You’ve done so here. Ignoring the long history of voter fraud in America is your right, as it is your right to offer up your version of Critical Race theory. For the record, I participated in no J6 rioting, but, of course it’s your right to object to the political sentiments that were expressed on that day. Likewise, if you don’t think Louis Farrakhan is a black supremacist, contrary to all evidence, you can make that claim as well. When a child is invited to consider himself both an “oppressor” and “privileged” because of his race, religion, or sexual orientation, you have the right to pitch official identity-hatred in school, I suppose–though it looks as though millions of parents, of every conceivable identity, disagree with you.
You have made your political opinions very public, right here, and the courts have held that shouldn’t cost you your economic relationship with a public entity. The rights you reserve for yourself, you would deny to me. I think that much is clear. –Jim Riley
P.S. Public schools keep coming back — even some that were named in our lawsuit.