Check out our latest episode of The Pod Millennial! I talk to Seamus Coughlin — cartoonist, political commentator, and creator of Freedom Toons — about his ambitious new animated series, Twisted Plots. Seamus shares how a successful crowdfunding campaign helped build something conservatives have been missing: quality entertainment that doesn't preach, but still tells the truth. They dive deep into why storytelling matters more than ever, how the left captured culture by shaping the stories people consume, and reveal how to change it. New episodes drop every Tuesday! Listen, rate (5 stars, of course!), and subscribe!
Let's get into it:
When I was a teenager, I read hard things, I familiarized myself with the terrible things that people do to other people in this world, and I thought that made me honest. I thought that a willingness to look at the horrible things humanity is capable of, to face it head-on with my consciousness, made me strong and truthful. I sought to understand difficult realities, war crimes, hatreds, tribalist mentalities, to I guess, in a certain sense, witness the world's atrocities from my perch high above it all in peaceful, middle-class America, standing on a stack of books.
As the years went on, it became clear that no amount of awareness of these horrible things could put an end to them, and that even undertaking activist actions in service to various noble causes would do nothing to stop, say, American entanglement in wars of the Middle East, torture, brutality, modern day slavery, domestic violence, the mistreatment of children, starvation, civil strife, and the list, of course, goes on and on. I wrote about these things, but mostly I wrote about beautiful things, things I found beautiful, things that I believed were the true meaning of life. That all boils down to sharing God's love, in essence, the moments we have to spend together, the real, true friendships, love, sunsets, fireflies, all the really corny things that are corny because they are true.
And now here, daily, for the past several years, I wake up and take in the horrors of the world from my perch in safe, peaceful America. I see clearly how valuable and fleeting that peace is, how beautiful to wake up every morning, to feel the sun on skin, to care for children, to laugh with shared wonder at everything, to drive these roads from state to state to state with no fear. And I see in the kids coming up behind me this interest in confronting, in facing the horrific things, in knowing what they are and that they are. And this feeling they have that if they call it out, if they make sure everyone knows, that would be enough to stop it.
Like, if people knew about these horrible things, surely they would stop them. The idea I had, and that I see others have now, is that no one who knew about these horrible things would allow them to go on. Expose it, and it will stop. But that's not true, it turns out.
It turns out that there are plenty of people out there who are in favor of these horrible things. Two things this week come to mind—and they are not really from this week, but years past. The Rape Gang Inquiry Report from the UK shows the absolute horrific treatment of some 250,000 girls at the hands of Pakistani men who immigrated to the UK, saw these girls as fair game, plied them with drugs, liquor, then raped and tormented them.
Perhaps the most horrific part about this was that it was no secret. Everyone knew that girls were being abused and raped, passed around. "Girls as young as 11 were targeted with gifts, alcohol and drugs, collected in taxis from school gates, care homes and streets and taken to houses, flats, restaurants and hotels and then raped repeatedly by groups of men, passed between perpetrators, trafficked across county lines, and in many cases impregnated or forced into abortions. Most victims endured violence, were filmed for blackmail, or told they were 'white trash' or 'kuffar' who deserved punishment."
Police and authorities knew "and still failed to protect the country's children. The evidence establishes that a national scandal of repeated rape, trafficking, torture, pregnancy, forced Islamic conversion, and lifelong trauma enabled by institutional denial, political calculation, and fear of the accusation of racism took place over decades."
The horrors were known. Those tasked with preventing it furthered it because they were afraid for themselves. Of course, there is no justification for this; they were cowards, all. But there it is—knowing the horror not only doesn't stop it, but doesn't even make people think they should.
I also saw this week's video from the Democratic Socialists of America "Free Palestine" march that took place just two days after the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023. No matter how you feel about Israel, or its right to exist as a nation, the massacre of 1,200 people by Hamas terrorists was absolutely horrific. But according to the DSA, which is the coming face of the Democratic Party with AOC, Mamdani, and the emerging crop of socialist, Muslim candidates across a number of states, it was a good thing.
Just two days after that massacre, while it was still fresh, while the blood of those young people murdered at the Nova Festival had not yet dried, the DSA celebrated their deaths in the streets of New York. They knew about it, they were well aware of the atrocities, and they were happy about it. A man in a hoodie, flanked by men in keffiyehs waving Palestinian flags, said "And as you might have seen there was some sort of rave or desert party where they were having a great time until the resistance came in electrified hang gliders and took at least several dozen hipsters." The crowd cheered. "But I'm sure they're doing very fine, despite what the New York Post says." They said the villages where Israelis were massacred had been "liberated."
We, the people who claim to love freedom, truth, liberty, celebrate atrocity. And there is so much of it. Horror is part of the human condition. But I suppose what I have only just realized is just how many people are in favor of perpetuating and celebrating that horror.
Libby