My Intellectual Conservative essays: Chronicling America’s dark descent, 2020–2022
As a freelance writer, what do I do when a client assigns me a project with a certain subject matter—say, climate change—on which we might have conflicting views? This is an important question for me, because I am (to use common, though very imprecise and inaccurate, terminology) a “conservative” working in the overwhelmingly “liberal” business of publishing.
When I write (or edit) for clients, I have to write (or edit) from whatever perspective that they request, regardless of whether my personal views differ from theirs. If my views on certain issues differ from theirs, I must suppress my views. That could be a challenging task, because EVERYTHING is infused with politics these days—often politics with which I disagree. But if I were to write or edit only for those clients whose views reflected my own, I would probably have zero clients. Such is the nature of this business that I’m in, and that has been the case for the more than 30 years I’ve been in the business— though in recent years, the intensity and intolerance of the politics has become much more pronounced. Modern-day “liberals” are actually the exact opposite of liberal; they are very intolerant of any thinking that goes against their dogma. But whatever the case, I have to try to disregard the politics and follow the clients’ instructions. That is my duty to them as a professional freelance writer or editor for hire.
However, whenever I write for myself, in my own time and for my own purposes, I can naturally write from my own personal perspective. And my personal perspective tends to be quite unique and contentious, I do admit—even among conservatives. In terms of politics, I am not conventionally Right or conventionally Left. I am not a typical conservative or a typical liberal. I think for myself, and I am my own man. A genuine individual. Usually going against the flow. That can stir things up in a world where the vast majority of people simply go along with the prevailing current. It makes things difficult for me, but I have to be true to myself as much as I can.
Left or Right?
My personal political views are a mix of traditional Left and traditional Right. Like an old-fashioned Left-winger (say, a hippie from the 1960s), I am opposed to American imperialism and intervention in foreign wars, I am suspicious of police, I hate big corporations, I am suspicious of all organized religions, I think that mindless flag-waving is dumb, I want wildlife and natural habitats protected from human exploitation, I kind of like the idea of nature worship, and I am pretty damn close to being a sexual libertine. But like a typical Right-winger, I hate big government and its rules and regulations, I want maximum individual liberty, I believe that the U.S. Constitution is the greatest and most exceptional set of guidelines ever written for government, I recognize the value of basic Judeo-Christian ethics, I don’t like nontraditional gender/sexual lifestyles being forced down peoples’ throats, and I often bemoan the perversion and decadence of modern American culture. Furthermore, my inherent tendency to resist change in most things (such as technology) makes me naturally conservative.
Needless to say, I realize that there are probably some contradictions within my views. Perhaps I have not yet thought out every detail thoroughly. Or perhaps it is possible for two seemingly contradictory positions to both hold elements of truth. It may be appropriate to apply my favorite line from Kris Kristofferson to myself, “He’s a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.”
Anyway, there do not seem to be many old-fashioned or traditional Leftists (liberals) or Rightists (conservatives) still around today. Where have all the “all we are saying is give peace a chance” anti-war Democrats gone? Where are the Republicans who steadfastly defend the principles of the U.S. Constitution? Both sides have morphed into a single political entity—the Uniparty. Democrats and Republicans are now both merrily doing the bidding of giant corporations, Deep State bureaucrats, the military-industrial complex war machine, and the elitist globalist authoritarians (like Klaus Schwab). Both parties are stomping on the U.S. Constitution on a daily basis, stamping out free speech, and crushing individual liberties. Both political parties—and their allies in big business, academia, and other Establishment institutions—are constantly using the mass media, social media, and other forms of influence and coercion to spread lies and propaganda and to demand obedience and compliance.
Lost patriotism
I used to consider myself to be a sufficiently patriotic American. I’ve always studied American history and admired such inspirational leaders as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. The U.S. Constitution is as great as it is, because it is the only document in history that specifically limits the power of government.
Since early 2020, however, too many crazy things have happened in this country for me to maintain that patriotism. I’ve lost my trust in the U.S. government and most other American Establishment institutions, and I feel like the real America is now as extinct as the dinosaurs. This extinction has become grossly apparent to me during the past couple years (though the concept was banging around in my head several years before that). The government, collaborating with its various Establishment allies, used the COVID pandemic as an excuse to grow its power and control beyond all precedent, to crush freedom and liberty, to stifle free speech, and to completely corrupt the election system. In other words, to subvert the U.S. Constitution. And the American people—demonstrating a shocking degree of compliance and passivity, like sheep—let them get away with it. So, the powers-that-be now know that they can continue their steady march toward Orwell’s 1984 without any meaningful resistance. That is extremely disappointing and disheartening to me. I had thought Americans had more spirit and grit than that! Man, was I wrong!
The realization of how far and how quickly America had fallen really hit home hard for me when I lost my most important freelance client (a university) because I refused to comply with Biden’s vaccine mandate. The university fired me for not getting the experimental, insufficiently studied, potentially dangerous, and prophylactically useless vaccine (which isn’t even a real vaccine), even though the job was 100-percent work from home. And even though they said I was doing an excellent job for them. They told me the government mandate forced them to do it. I considered this to be a gross and outrageous injustice! Not to mention ludicrously illogical! I was seriously punished and personally persecuted for exercising my natural and Constitutional rights to think for myself and to choose not to put some dangerous and unnecessary chemical concoction into my body. This made me so damn angry that I can’t even begin to describe my feelings properly! That was when I knew that my America was gone.
America will never be the same, nor will my thoughts and feelings about this country. Something very profound and fundamental has been lost forever. And I have observed that this modern American insanity continues in other areas. . .
The Ukraine war is another example of how fundamentally lost this country has become. The United States’ intentional provoking, waging, and exacerbating of a proxy war with Russia—carelessly risking a nuclear confrontation for absolutely no rational or justifiable reason—is something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. No sane American leaders would have done that. But the “leaders” running the American madhouse did it in 2022. When are their mental conditions going to get evaluated? Is it a form of psychosis? Sociopathy? Dementia? Or what??
Additional evidence of American pathology is on daily display with the cultural and societal decadence that is proliferating like wildfire in this country. Worsening racial division, gender and sexual confusion, criminal violence, drug addiction, technology addiction, mass ignorance and illiteracy, twisting of language, superficiality, artificiality, crass consumerism, and blatant lies and propaganda being promoted by all sorts of Establishment institutions—even, most disappointingly to me, the science and medical professions.
These bewildering irrational things are exploding all around us like dirty bombs, but few people seem to notice or care. I notice and care. But there is little or nothing I can do about it—except write about it.
Real USA: 1770s to 1970s
I love the United States of America as it was founded in 1776 and as it was outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. I do not like what the crooked politicians, greedy corporate barons, media propagandists, and globalist fascists have turned the United States—and other Western countries—into today. From my perspective, the last time the USA was really the real, free USA was during the 1970s. That was when individual freedom peaked in America, in my opinion. At my age of 62 today, I’m old enough to clearly remember that better, freer era. The country has been gradually sliding deeper and deeper into a dark unrecognizable authoritarian post-Constitutional cave ever since. But beginning in early 2020, that dark descent has markedly accelerated. And now we seem to have to constantly fight in the dark against scary slimy creatures that want to kill us, like in the 2005 horror movie The Descent. That is basically what I have observed in the last couple years, and that is what I have tried to chronicle in the political essays I have written over that time.
Of course, I cannot express these out-of-the-mainstream and out-of-polite-society views in the normal freelance writing and editing work that I do for clients. Not if I want to make any kind of halfway decent living. I know that I must draw a line between the professional and the personal. However, this website is both a professional and personal platform for me, and I have chosen to discuss my personal political views here, and to present my published essays on those views here. A man’s observations of the decline and fall of a civilization should be chronicled somewhere, right?
Although some of my views might be considered “extreme” by some, I don’t see why I should try to hide them. They were honestly and thoughtfully arrived at, after much observation, study, and evaluation. And after all, I am a naturally free man and I have a natural right (given to me by Nature or “God” and protected, theoretically, by the original U.S. Constitution) to have my own views and to express them as I wish.
Now, finally, to the main point of this diatribe. . .
As I have indicated, I sometimes write essays featuring my personal views on political, societal, and world events. I have written most of those essays for a website called Intellectual Conservative. As a new year, 2023, is now upon us, I thought I would share several of these essays with you in the links below, documenting my thoughts on the historically deranged period in American history from 2020 to 2022. As I’ve also indicated, you may think that some of these essays are on the extreme side, or maybe you will think they are just stupid and idiotic. That is your right, of course. Alternatively, if you have that rare mind that has been warped in a similar manner to mine, you may agree with some of the points I make in the essays.
I believe that these essays demonstrate that genuinely independent (and I would say, intelligent and logical) thinking, as well as free and honest expression of personal ideas, is still alive in at least a few Americans today, and it can be found in a few small corners of the Internet. I think that these essays also demonstrate my ability to compartmentalize—that is, to put my personal ideas in one box (Intellectual Conservative) and my professional work in another, separate box (my clients’ projects). For example, although I have long been personally skeptical about the alleged planetary dangers of “human-caused” climate change, I have often written, quite successfully, about those alleged dangers for clients who firmly adhere to those ideas. I authored a book about climate change for school children a few years ago, and I recently edited a college textbook on the subject. Both clients were pleased with my work. And I needed that work. Furthermore, I often have to promote the climate change thing for my main current client. I still need the work!
Does that make me a hypocrite or a prostitute? I don’t know. I’m just one guy trying to make a living in a big world in which I happen to possess minority views. I can’t change the world. I have to live in it as it is. We do what we have to do. I owe freelance clients well-written manuscripts prepared according to their stated requirements, so I must do whatever they ask me to do. (I know I'm not a prostitute, because I don't make nearly enough money!)
I will, however, sometimes let clients know if I believe that they are showing excessive bias regarding certain issues or if they are obviously ignoring other sides of the story. They can then do what they wish with my observations. Some clients do not appreciate such observations from me, and they let me know that. I’ve lost a couple such clients—one that objected to me mentioning scientific doubts about COVID vaccine efficacy and safety, and another that objected to me noting that some people do not believe there is such a thing as “systemic racism.” Those particular clients believed in strict censorship of all perspectives except their own political dogma. That attitude has, unfortunately, become increasingly common in “educational” publishing in recent years. However, other clients do appreciate my suggestions, because they realize that the little “progressive” publishing bubble in which they live and work makes them blind to alternative perspectives, and I may be the only writer/editor out there who has the guts to point that out.
The bottom line is that I need to intelligently comply with the wishes of my freelance clients in order to do a professional job. But nobody can tell me what thoughts to have in my own head. So, the political essays that I write in my own time represent my individual freedom to me.
28 essays from 2020 to 2022
So, alas, here they are—28 selected political essays (yeah, I have more) that I have written for Intellectual Conservative over the past couple years, during one of the craziest, sickest, darkest periods in American history. They reflect my own highly unique personal perspective on a number of contentious, controversial issues that were in the news from early 2020 to the end of 2022. Be forewarned that some of the essays contain rather raw, earthy language, which, needless to say, I never use in my regular work for clients.
In addition, I sometimes use exaggeration or satire to make my points more resounding. A good example is my essay on the fictional government agency GMIPP. Not everything in that essay is to be taken literally, as I’m exaggerating to make the point that there are a lot of secret horrible things going on in the government that we know nothing about. Satire is little understood these days, when everybody takes everything too literally, so I guess I need to explain that here.
I’ve listed the 28 essays in reverse chronological order:
New lyrics to Auld Lang Syne for 2023 (December 30, 2022)
China and America: The Wicked Witches of the East and West (November 25, 2022)
50 Lies that Almost All Americans Believe (October 4, 2022)
escape from society (September 8, 2022)
America, the Great Warmonger and War Criminal (August 25, 2022)
A NEW DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN 2022 (August 9, 2022)
IF YOU DON’T LIKE GLOBAL WARMING, GO TO MARS (August 6, 2022)
EXCLUSIVE: “GMIPP” EXPOSED AS POWER BEHIND MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX (May 29, 2022)
An Old Man Alienated from America (May 20, 2022)
With Ukraine, “Conservatives” are Suddenly Champions of Leftist Globalism (March 2, 2022)
SIX BASIC, BOLD TRUTHS ABOUT JANUARY 6, 2021 (January 10, 2022)
Follow the science? It depends on the type of science (December 18, 2021)
You sometimes meet “conservatives” in unexpected places (November 13, 2021)
My Political Interpretation of Rob Zombie’s “King Freak” (October 30, 2021)
1776, 1861, 2021: Time for a Third American Revolution of Independence? (October 24, 2021)
TAKE YOUR MASK AND YOUR VAX AND SHOVE 'EM WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE (October 21, 2021)
Happy Music and Memories of Freer Times from the 1960s and 1970s (April 21, 2021)
Metal Escapism as Mental Strategy in Maddening Times (February 25, 2021)
Signs of the Resistance to Authoritarianism, Even in Illinois (December 21, 2020)
OLD MAN CONSERVATIVE BLUES (November 24, 2020)
Political Blues: I Was Right, but I Was Wrong (November 5, 2020)
Weak, Old, Befuddled Biden is Perfect President for Zombie America (October 20, 2020)
Referendum Proposal for Formally Dividing the United States (September 25, 2020)
Breaking Out of Political Boxes (August 10, 2020)
I Miss the Freedom of the 1970s (May 18, 2020)
Why Scientists Lie (May 12, 2020)
Imagine: How to Take Over the World in an International Socialist Conspiracy (April 26, 2020)
Your Practical, Satirical Guide to the Safest and Silliest Face Masks (April 20, 2020)
Outcast rebel music
Essays are not the only creative outlet I use to share my personal perspective on current events in America and the world. I also use music, writing and performing my own songs. I have compiled a YouTube playlist of some of my original music, titled American Outcast Rebel – Original Music of A.J. Smuskiewicz.
Like my essays, some of my songs have earthy, rough language. I believe such language can convey honesty and passion more effectively than “nice” words. Not all of my music is political in nature. Some of it is purely artistic. All of it is fairly amateurish, because I am by no means a professional musician. Although not a pro, I try to make my own music because music has always been extremely important to me, ever since I was a kid. Music can get deep into your soul and affect your spirit in ways that words alone can never do.
Mutual respect
In conclusion, I have found it possible to be both a professional writer and editor for many diverse mainstream clients and a creative independent-minded individualist for my own non-mainstream projects. It has not been easy, but I have done it sufficiently effectively to make a modest living as a freelance writer for many years.
So, I can offer this pitch: If you would ever like to use my freelance writing or editing services for any purpose, I promise to fully respect your views—even if they differ from my own—and to meet all the requirements of your project. You will get my 30-plus years of experience and professionalism, together with my unparalleled honesty and certain useful insights that you may not find anywhere else. In turn, whenever I write my own stuff with my own views in my own time for my own platforms, I hope you can also respect me and my rights to freely express my perspective on various topics.
Remember, as we used to say back in the ‘70s, “This is still a free country, isn’t it?”
LOL
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NOTE: Additional political essays that I have written, beginning in 2023, can be accessed from my Whatfinger page.