The American Mistake

“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.”

― George Bernard Shaw

I want to open this episode up by asking you a few questions and when I ask you these questions I want you to take a few moments to ponder on them and keep your answers in mind as you read and/or listen along to this episode.

When you were growing up, were there people in your life that were often regarded as being the smart kids, or people most likely to succeed, that have proven to be absolute morons as you were able to observe their online behavior here in the past four years?

Of these people, how many of them are currently a part of a big corporate system and how many actually went out and blazed their own trail in life by starting their own business?

Of those people that actually did start their own business, how many of them built a business off their own capital without having to lean on some government subsidy in order to operate their venture?

Take a moment and really think about these questions as you remember those people who were praised in your communities and in your schools, but proved to be completely clueless about the world, history, philosophy, and geopolitics in the last four years.

The reason I’m asking you to do this is to relay a very important point to you and that point is that the mistake of misplacing hype and misplacing credit to people that don’t deserve it has been a huge mistake that our American culture has been completely guilty of repeating over and over and over again for far too long now.

This mistake has been prevalent everywhere and it’s been something that I’ve been aware of my entire life, but haven’t really thought about it as deeply as I have until the last four years. Of course, given the course of both society and the world in these last four years it’s been quite stunning to me as to just how clueless many of these so-called “smart folks” really are and have been when observing their behavior in the last few years.

If you’ve been paying attention to the world since Biden took office then you can see where meritocracy has been something that has taken a backseat to identity politics and a culture that has been persistent in pushing a belief system that you aren’t capable of solving your own problems. This victimhood mindset is bad enough, but because of it as a society we have managed to create an entire ecosystem around the absurd illusion of embracing that victimhood as a badge of honor.

Even more absurd than that is the reality that the corrupt and useless systems in which we have managed to create have laid the foundational narrative that the victimhood mindset is the norm in our modern day Zeitgeist.

This has happened due to the fact that those people I mentioned earlier regarding the so-called smart people were merely mouthpieces that were groomed for the system that was built on this current societal victimhood foundation. These sorts of people are what I’d refer to as being system operatives which are merely people that work within a system to perpetuate the system that was built for them to operate.

The idea is that these people can work well within the system that they are in, but if you’re able to pull them out of said system their ability to adapt and overcome a new environment would prove to be very difficult for them. These people aren’t Mavericks that are used to blazing their own trail, but rather system operatives that are comfortable and effective working within the fake environment that was built for them to maintain and prop up.

This environment of a woke Corporate America has steadily been moved away from meritocracy and has instead managed to morph into a modern day version of ancient Japanese feudalism that has been combined with technology to give rise to what is known as Technofeudalism.

If you haven’t listened or read my episode on Technofeudalism then make sure you scroll down the article here on this episode and click the link here to listen and/or read that one. The history and details of that episode will blow your mind.

The Joe Montana Effect

So I began this episode by talking about the common mistake of our country falling into the trap of giving credit to people that I’m sure you’ve been familiar with your entire life who are held up by society as being the brains within the community, or sector of the population, that you’ve been a part of for either a good portion, or for all of your life.

However, to your surprise you’ve probably noticed many of these old friends, colleagues, or coworkers demonstrating just how ignorant and stupid they are in regards to their lack of knowledge on how the world actually works, particularly in the face of all the chaos of the last four years.

I’m sure their idiotic behavior in caving in to the narrative of wearing masks, or being quick to obey walking in a newly specified direction down the aisle of the grocery store during the pandemic managed to leave you scratching your head about these people. If you’re a critical thinker I’m sure it left you wondering how they were able to gain such credibility by your peers as being intelligent people for so long.

This is because these people are most likely system operatives and are comfortable living in a matrix that they have built their lives around in order to live in an illusion of comfort. They’re so comfortable that they never even bothered learning history, philosophy, finance, or the basics of human health.

Instead they have managed to fall victim to the culture of the Zeitgeist that they have always known without even possessing the ability to question it. They never even thought deeply enough about the fragility of this illusion, let alone wanting to embrace a much desperate change that is needed to escape this matrix that can best be described as something that is basically the same thing as Plato's Cave.

Because of this lack of recognizing the illusion that they are living in they, like many, lack a fundamental understanding of what true intelligence really is which simply involves one possessing the ability to observe reality and improvise when necessary by exercising a willingness to adapt and overcome an unforeseen scenario when it arises. Instead these people fall victim to the established environment and resist fighting against the authoritarian establishment due to the oppressive emotion of fear.

In short, these people have created their own mousetrap, or more specifically their own human trap, and that’s just as much of a mistake as giving these people the credit for being the lead intellectuals of society. The craziness is that they’ve managed to do this while all along they’re merely just a bunch of overhyped system operatives that are comfortable playing inside their little matrix living out an illusion of comfort while being showered with fake accolades.

So you may be thinking Brandon, what other kind of example can you give to demonstrate how someone might be given credit that actually may deserve to go to someone else?

I’m going to answer that by using a pop culture example here when examining the careers of two NFL quarterbacks that I’m sure many sports talk shows have spent countless hours debating about over many years now.

However, given the context of the discussion here on this episode I’ve taken the time to dive into the mistake of society overhyping individuals within the system, or matrix, that we have come to identify as our society. On that point, I want to take a look at a couple of guys that have had quite impressive careers during their time in the NFL.

I want to begin by saying that I don’t watch the NFL anymore, nor am I a fan. There was a time when I did, but nowadays if I see any part of a game it’s only in passing and is not something that I have any interest in anymore.

With that being said when looking at the careers of Joe Montana and Tom Brady there are a lot of similarities regarding the success of both men when looking at their time in the NFL. However, just as there are similarities there are a lot of stark differences between these two quarterbacks and it’s these differences that I want to focus on today to illustrate the point of my discussion.

However, before I dive into that I want to draw some stark differences in the game of football itself during the time periods of which each man played the game.

For starters, back in 2002 the NFL made it illegal to hit a quarterback helmet to helmet after a change of possession. According to the NFL, contests marred by dangerous, or unprofessional behavior somehow manages to take away from the greatness of the game and put players at risk of injury.

The NFL’s modern day virtue signaling goes on to say that making sure players and staff conduct themselves in a manner that honors the game and safeguards its reputation for future generations is a priority. It’s really funny that the NFL says this as it's a known fact that youth enrollment in football now has been declining at a rapid rate for many years now with many participants citing safety concerns as one of the main reasons for the decline of youth participation. I suppose the future generations that the NFL is referring to is a pool of young people that keeps shrinking rather than growing due to the advocacy of their policy.

According to Refrsports defenders nowadays are not allowed to even make contact with the head or neck area of the quarterback under any circumstances. Using the concussion narrative this rule has been instituted to reduce, or prevent concussions and other injuries in quarterbacks.

However, despite all the virtue signaling on safety and the rule changes in trying to decrease concussions according to Ohio Today the NFL saw an increase in concussions from 213 in 2022 to 219 in 2023.

Granted the NFL certainly has extended the season of play in this modern era with teams having to endure longer seasons, but many would also argue that much of the concerns against player safety regarding that has been offset by better equipment these days to prevent injury.

Now look, let's not make this complicated. The reality is that the game of professional football is an incredibly physical and dangerous sport that can certainly cause severe injuries in players. However, that understanding should be a given when talking about the game of football itself.

Furthermore, the NFL has drastically changed the rules on safety in what they would describe as an attempt to preserve the reputation of the game, along with making their players safer and in a lot of ways the complete opposite has occurred, perhaps with the exception being at the quarterback position.

When I was a young teenager I would argue that the NFL was considerably more popular and influential in the culture than it is today. Well, maybe I’m wrong. After all, the league did have a huge impact on spreading the woke culture more than anything I’ve seen in my lifetime for the last few years now, but I digress.

The point is that when I was a young teenager the personalities and the violence of the game was the central focus of the marketing of the NFL to its audience, whereas today the focus is entirely on woke culture, safety, and corporate image. This is purely my subjective opinion, but if you ask me the latter has made the NFL a total snoozefest.

Now to make this even worse just this week I’ve been noticing a lot of posts online where people have been questioning the validity of the game itself. In fact this past week Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports shared a video clip from the game where he was being critical of the officiating during the AFC Championship game between the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Portnoy shared the clip which involved a fourth-and-1 call in the fourth quarter where the Bills were stopped short. As Portnoy played the video he passionately ranted about the spot of the ball on both third and fourth down with what he believed were egregious errors by the referees.

As he fumed over the calls Portnoy vowed to quit watching the NFL and took aim at the commissioner Roger Goodell saying that what he saw was “blatant cheating.” (Source: Yahoo Sports) The bottom line is that the times sure have changed with the NFL since I was a young kid and even though I don’t watch the NFL anymore as an adult it seems like these criticisms over the validity of the games is something I’ve been hearing more and more every year.

To give you an example of how much the culture of the NFL has changed I remember seeing an interview from either the late 1960s, or early 1970s with the L.A. Rams defensive end Deacon Jones when I was a kid. In this interview Deacon Jones was talking about what he had imagined doing to the quarterbacks that he played against. In his own words he had said that he used to imagine putting all the quarterbacks inside of a bag and then he would take a baseball bat to beat the bag.

Now as if this wasn’t shocking enough to hear when I was a teenager, it was also the attitude that existed in those days concerning the Zeitgeist of the sport of football. Now I wanted to tell that story to you in order to tell you the following point.

You know as well as I do if any player in the league said that in an interview today there would be a 24/7 meltdown by the media and that player that made such a statement would be ordered to attend sensitivity training probably for a twelve week period. You also know as well as I do that they would have to do this while donating a significant sum of money to some charity of the league’s choice to maximize the league’s opportunity to virtue signal to the tenth power with the viewing public.

This illusion of creating such a “sanitized” environment for a violent game has only managed to neuter the game in my view while creating a cookie cutter image to where you really can’t differentiate one player from the next. Basically all the players talk the same, look the same, and act the same.

The point is that in the era of Deacon Jones there were literal rivals between teams where one team really wanted to make an example out of the other team and they wouldn’t offer any apologies for doing so. Today the NFL makes the apology and the victimhood status the central tenet that defines the league and everything they do.

Additionally I remember one older retired NFL player talking about these changes once in his commentary where he pointed out that the main difference between yesteryear and today’s NFL is that in the old days there were true rivals, whereas he pointed out that in today’s league everyone is playing against everyone else’s brother in law. I thought that little statement was both truthful and amusing.

So why am telling you all of this?

Well, the point here is that if you ask most any football fan today who is the greatest NFL quarterback to play the game to date most people would be quick to answer that question by naming Tom Brady.

Now don’t get me wrong Tom Brady was a phenomenal quarterback and he has seven Super Bowl championships to prove it. As another honorable mention Tom Brady had also made the Pro Bowl fifteen times in his career which is another impressive feat that has to be acknowledged.

However, given everything that I’ve covered here in this episode regarding the culture and Zeitgeist of the NFL today compared to the days of players like Deacon Jones the biggest distinction was the difference in the culture of the league. The main difference that anyone can point to regarding the history of Tom Brady is that he simply did not play in the most physically brutal era for quarterbacks with the likes of players such as Deacon Jones, but Joe Montana did.

Now before some obnoxious sports personality tries to call me out on Deacon Jones already having been retired prior to the arrival of Joe Montana in 1979 I already know that. If that is your criticism then you have already missed the entire point that I’m trying to make.

The point I’m making is that the era that Montana played in was simply filled with many guys like Deacon Jones that wanted nothing more than to put a bullseye right between the shoulder blades of every quarterback.

There were many players that shared the attitude of Deacon Jones back in the 1970s and 1980s and Joe Montana played during that era which was also an era that had not yet built an entire system around it where the NFL rule book was written for the protection of the quarterback.

Despite the fact that Joe Montana played during one of the most physically and mentally brutal eras for quarterbacks in the NFL he still managed to rack up four Super Bowl Championships himself along with eight Pro Bowl appearances. It is also worth mentioning that both he and Tom Brady came into the league at age 23, but Brady played until he was 45 and Montana played until he was 38. I believe it’s safe to assume that the seven additional years of Brady’s career can be chalked up to the quarterback protections that were put in place inside the NFL rulebook.

Now this is no indictment on Tom Brady, but it is a recognition of Joe Montana being able to demonstrate a high level of skill, ruggedness, and mental toughness that used to be the defining characteristics of the NFL rather than the current day concerns of corporate image, wokism, and the questionable validity of the game itself.

Brady no doubt took advantage of the system and was quite the system operative, while Montana had to navigate a jungle of violence with a bullseye on his back. At the end of the day that’s essentially my point.

Because of these stark differences this is why I believe that there’s a bit of overhype when it comes to Brady’s career if you really compare the system and the culture of the NFL today versus the era of Joe Montana. Because of this I believe this is a cultural example of misplaced credit when it comes down to society’s view of who should be named the best whether that label is given to the best quarterback in NFL history, or to the smartest person in your graduating class.

Confidence In Ability

For many years as a strength coach I’ve had the opportunity to share some wonderful experiences with training many different types of athletes. One of those experiences involved me having had the opportunity to develop the strength and conditioning programs for amateur and professional fighters in the disciplines of Muay Thai and MMA.

During this time I myself had extensively trained in the art of Muay Thai to both gain the benefit of knowing the discipline, as well as giving myself an even deeper physical education to make myself a more effective strength coach for training competing fighters.

Now for the purpose of full disclosure I’m not in the same fighting shape as I used to be as I’ve transitioned more of my discipline and focus from practicing the art of fighting in the gym to fighting in this information and culture war here on this Substack platform. Regardless of this new reality the movements and the knowledge of Muay Thai have managed to stay with me even to this day.

Now if you’re not familiar with the art of Muay Thai this martial arts discipline is known as the Art of 8 Limbs. This interesting name fits because this particular discipline encompasses the use of the different limbs of the body for the purpose of striking which involves your punches, elbows, knees, and kicks.

In the beginning phase of training in the art of Muay Thai one thing you will experience is tremendous soreness as your body will have to adapt to the stress of the discipline. During this adaptation phase you will experience going through a body hardening period as the rugged style of training conditions your body for the purpose of both being able to deliver devastating strikes to an opponent while also being able to withstand strikes at the same time.

One of the main areas of your body that must adapt during this body hardening phase involves your shins. You see a good Thai fighter will always have what may seem to his or her opponents as having bullet-proof shins as Thai fighters deliver the hardest kicks in all of martial arts by delivering their strikes by using their shins in order to do so. If you’ve ever experienced this then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

In building up and working on the hardening of the shins Thai fighters will perform thousands of kicks to bags, pads, heavy bags, and even banana trees if they happen to be training in Thailand.

This repetitive act of striking hardens soft tissues in the body and produces an adaptation in the trabeculae of the bones translating into the actual hardening of the bones themselves along with the surrounding muscle and soft tissues during fight training.

It’s through this grind of training that a fighter will adapt and grow more confident in his or her ability to stand in the ring and spar, or eventually go directly into a competitive fight after they experience this mental and physical hardening process of their body.

So why did I take the time to go into the details about the adaptation involved for hardening your body during the process of fight training?

The reason is that our society as a whole is currently experiencing the same thing. As a society we are now finding ourselves in a position where we are having to harden our abilities to navigate, judge, properly criticize, and properly credit people that are involved in the current political and cultural landscape.

The Wrap Up

The reality is that our society has been victimized by communist grafters that have infiltrated our government and media landscape for a very long time resulting in the longstanding abuse of the American citizens.

This steadfast abuse has been carried out for so long now that it’s warped the thinking and judgement of many Americans who have a difficult time discerning between the truth and a lie. Over time this has managed to create a culture where people within society have been softened in their discipline and ability to think deeper before placing blame, or even credit for that matter, onto others when weighing out various social judgements that create the prevailing perception of their own society and those certain people that they form opinions about within their society.

This is exactly why those people (the system operatives) in your social circles I was talking about earlier got praise as being the smart folks in your community that never deserved that label from the start.

We’ve seen these same misjudgments with the likes of Donald Trump for the past decade when people constantly referred to him, and his followers for that matter, as fascists, Nazis, deplorables, etc. all while they believed their own hype that they were the smart folks of society. Fast forward to today and we now unequivocally know that these people had it all totally and completely backwards with their labels, their worldview, and their brain function.

Now looking at our society as a whole we’re now having to right the ship because we’ve allowed the majority of these overhyped people who’ve been the system operatives to steer us towards a very dangerous and disastrous place. Because of this you and I don’t have the room for making any more bad decisions regarding the direction of our society.

Therefore, it’s up to us (the real intellectual leaders) to harden our abilities to make sound judgments and to properly apply both criticisms and praise to those people within our society who deserve it. This ability to harden our judgments and to acquire more sound knowledge to do so will require more discipline and work from us just as it does from the Thai fighter that needs to harden their shins for combat.

We need to dig more and think deeper about decisions and about which people and businesses we want to support in order to shape the society that we want.

If we don’t do this then we will get the disastrous society that we were led towards by those people who were failures that we wrongly credited with being the smart folks.

This is where you and I must study and support the parallel economy, we must share information among our groups, and continue to grow this MAGA coalition to ensure that we never end up on the brink of a thousand years of darkness ever again.

This is the American Mistake that we can never afford to make again.

Have you encountered people in your life that were propped up by the system and exposed during the past four years?

Are you exercising more caution and thinking more deeply about people who get overhyped from the public?

Post up in the comment section below.

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