Category: Ayn Rand

Protecting the Supreme Court, Correcting the 14th Amendment’s Ambiguity, and Why President Trump’s Executive Order on Birthright Citizenship Must Stand: A Defense of Sovereignty, History, and the Republic Against Democrat Weaponization.

I have said it repeatedly, and the events of recent years only reinforce my conviction: the stability of the United States rests on strong institutions that resist the short-term, destructive impulses of partisan power grabs. I am a vocal supporter of the Supreme Court. America is far better off because we have this body of nine justices, even when they do not always rule exactly as I or any single citizen might prefer. That independence is its strength. Yet independence does not mean immunity from political pressure or erosion. We must guard the Court fiercely against attempts to pack it—something Democrats have openly discussed and pursued whenever they sense they can regain majorities in Congress and the White House. Court packing would destroy the legitimacy of the judiciary, turning it into just another partisan tool rather than the constitutional anchor it was designed to be. In the future, preventing such packing is issue number one if we want to preserve the Republic as the Founders and the Reconstruction-era Republicans envisioned it.

This brings us directly to the current debate before the Supreme Court in Trump v. Barbara and the related challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. On his first day back in office in January 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 14,160, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The order sought to clarify and limit automatic birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment for children born in the United States to parents who are here illegally or on temporary visas. Trump attended the oral arguments himself on April 1, 2026—the first sitting president to do so in such a historic case—because the stakes could not be higher. He wanted the justices to see him, to understand that this is not abstract legal theory but a direct defense of American sovereignty against deliberate abuse. 

I watched the arguments closely, as did many Americans. The presentations from the White House side were strong, but I believe they could have been plainer in connecting the dots for the broader public and, frankly, for any justice still wrestling with the text. Some justices, including moderates like Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett, seemed focused on the literal wording of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. That is understandable in a chamber built for deep constitutional deliberation. But context, history, and the clear evil intent behind modern exploitation of that language demand more than wooden literalism. The Supreme Court has the opportunity—and I would argue the duty—to rule in favor of the executive order, or at least to rein in lower courts from overstepping while setting a precedent that corrects the ambiguity Democrats have weaponized for decades.

Let’s go back to the text and the moment that produced it. Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 during Reconstruction, reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The key phrase is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” This was not written in a vacuum. The Republican Party was founded explicitly to abolish slavery. The Constitution itself contained mechanisms—free speech, open debate, federalism with sovereign states competing against one another—that allowed moral philosophy to challenge the evil of slavery through open discussion. Slavery was not uniquely American; it was a global human tragedy. The Hebrew enslaved people in Egypt, freed by Moses and God through forty years in the wilderness, remind us that this is not about skin color but about the human experience of bondage. Every ancient culture practiced it. In the antebellum world, it remained economically entrenched because the Industrial Revolution had not yet provided mechanical alternatives to physical labor on plantations.

Democrats of that era were the party of the plantation South, defending slavery as essential to their economic and political power. Republicans, led by figures like Abraham Lincoln, fought to end it. The Civil War nearly destroyed the nation. Think of Gettysburg: the pivotal Union victory where Robert E. Lee overreached, and the Confederacy lost Stonewall Jackson earlier. Had things gone differently, slavery might have persisted longer, and the Democrat vision could have dominated. But Ulysses S. Grant took command after Gettysburg, ground down Lee’s army through superior resources and will, and the Union prevailed. Reconstruction followed, and the 14th Amendment was crafted with strong, deliberate language to protect the children of formerly enslaved people from being undermined by resentful Southern Democrats. It overrode the horrific Dred Scott decision and ensured that those born on American soil to people now under full U.S. jurisdiction would be citizens with equal protection. The strong wording was necessary because the country had almost died; Republicans needed ironclad guarantees against future subversion by the very forces that had supported secession and slavery. 

The amendment was never intended as an open invitation for the entire world to produce “anchor babies” by entering the United States—legally or illegally—and claiming automatic citizenship for their children as a pathway to chain migration and demographic transformation. That perversion creates an administrative nightmare and devalues the priceless gift of American citizenship. Only about 3 million people are born in the U.S. each year with that “lottery ticket.” Opening the borders to everyone dilutes its worth to nothing. You do not see mass “birth tourism” or anchor strategies overwhelming France, Germany, or other European nations in the same way because the U.S. Constitution’s freedoms and opportunities are uniquely attractive. Parents exploit this to give their children benefits they themselves lack, while the broader society bears the cost.

Democrats have exploited this ambiguity with vicious intent. Just as they once defended slavery and later resisted Reconstruction, they now use the 14th Amendment’s language—written to heal a broken nation after a war over bondage—as a Trojan horse for open borders. The strategy is clear: flood the country with illegal immigration, encourage births on U.S. soil, and secure a new voting base that tilts heavily Democrat. They have lain in wait behind the scenes, playing the long game, just as they did during Reconstruction when they sought to undermine enslaved people formerly. If they regain majorities, their plans include court packing to dilute the current conservative-leaning Court, eliminating the filibuster where convenient, and accelerating policies that erode national sovereignty in favor of a “citizens of the world” globalism. They are counting on literal readings that ignore the “subject to the jurisdiction” qualifier and the original context of full allegiance to the United States.

President Trump’s executive order directly corrects this abuse. It does not rewrite the Constitution; it restores the original meaning by directing agencies to interpret “jurisdiction” properly—excluding those whose parents owe primary allegiance elsewhere (illegal entrants or temporary visa holders not fully subject to U.S. authority in the complete sense intended). This aligns with historical exceptions noted even in cases like United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), which involved children of lawful, domiciled residents, not illegal or transient populations. The order prevents the slow erosion that Democrats rely on, where administrative inertia and activist lower courts allow the problem to fester until it becomes irreversible. We do not have decades to wait for a new amendment; the border crisis and demographic shifts are immediate threats. Republicans have often been too nice, playing by rules that Democrats discard when inconvenient. Trump’s presence in the courtroom signaled: this is serious; the people who elected me demand action now.

I cannot understand why any justice would struggle purely on constitutional grounds if they weigh the full history. The 14th Amendment’s strong language protected the most vulnerable—children of formerly enslaved people—from the very Democrats who had championed slavery. Now those same political forces (in evolved form) flip the script, using that protective language to punish America by overwhelming it with migration that collapses social services, wages, and cultural cohesion in under two years if unchecked. It is the same evil at work: resentment, power through numbers, destruction of the Republic’s foundations. Slavery was about controlling labor; today’s open-border policies are about controlling future electorates through imported dependency.

The Supreme Court sits in one of the most magnificent intellectual environments on Earth. The chamber, connected by tunnel to the Library of Congress with its majestic architecture and vast repository of human knowledge, invites precisely the deep consideration this case requires. I suggest to the justices: take a break from arguments, walk that tunnel, sit amid the great books, and reflect on humanity’s trajectory. The Republic pivots on decisions like this. The Library of Congress and Capitol Hill represent the accumulated wisdom that brought us here—from the wilderness with Moses, through the philosophical debates that birthed the Republican Party, through the blood of Gettysburg and the resolve of Grant, to the Reconstruction amendments that stitched the nation back together.

Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett, in particular, have the chance to cement their places in history not as strict literalists who enable modern subversion, but as guardians who adapt to the clear wartime-like conditions at the border without destroying the Court’s integrity. A two-part ruling could work: affirm the executive branch’s authority to interpret and enforce the “jurisdiction” clause against abuse, while cautioning against overreach. Or uphold the order’s core while leaving room for Congress to legislate further clarity. Either way, failing to support it risks handing Democrats the weapon they crave. They will wait out Trump, then pack the Court if given power, bust the filibuster, and accelerate the “citizens of the world” agenda that treats American sovereignty as an outdated obstacle.

This is not abstract. As I have written in my books, including ongoing work like The Politics of Heaven, spiritual and cultural warfare underlies these battles. The same forces that resisted abolition now resist secure borders and a coherent national identity. Slavery was a global curse divorced from humanity through moral debate, protected by American mechanisms. Christianity and Western philosophy advanced the idea of divorce. Today, the blood cults of old may be gone, but new mechanisms—demographic replacement, erosion of citizenship’s value—serve similar ends of control and destruction of God’s ordered creation under sovereign nations.

Trump’s order offers the corrective language the 14th Amendment needed but could not foresee in 1868, when the threat was resurgent Southern Democrats undermining formerly enslaved people, not global migration engineered for partisan gain. The executive order prevents the administrative nightmare of “anchor” policies that reward lawbreaking. It honors the Reconstruction Republicans’ intent to build a stable, sovereign nation where citizenship means full jurisdiction and allegiance, not a loophole for invasion by birth.

I urge the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the order. Do so knowing that Democrats play by no rules when power is at stake. They have shown their hand with past court-packing proposals and threats to undermine safeguards. Republicans must not be “too nice” here. The slow pace of constitutional amendment cannot match the urgency; evil percolates in the interim. Support the executive order, set the precedent, and preserve the Court’s role as a bulwark rather than a casualty of partisan war.

This decision will be judged for centuries. Get it right. Visit the Library of Congress, absorb the weight of history—from the Exodus to Gettysburg to today—and return to chambers ready to defend the Republic. The human intellect that built these institutions demands it. American sovereignty, the value of citizenship, and the stability of our constitutional order hang in the balance. Trump showed up because he cares. The justices must now do their part in history.

Footnotes

1.  Text of the 14th Amendment, Section 1, ratified July 9, 1868.

2.  United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), distinguishing lawful domiciled residents.

3.  Executive Order No. 14,160, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” January 20, 2025.

4.  Historical accounts of Reconstruction and the Joint Committee on Reconstruction’s intent to protect enslaved people’s children formerly.

5.  Debates surrounding Democratic resistance to abolition and Reconstruction policies.

6.  Oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara, April 1, 2026.

7.  References to court-packing proposals by Democrats in recent Congresses.

8.  Civil War context, including the Battle of Gettysburg and Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign.

9.  Biblical parallels to slavery and liberation (Exodus narrative).

10.  My prior writings on sovereignty, spiritual warfare, and cultural mechanisms in The Politics of Heaven and related works.

Bibliography for Further Reading

•  Hoffman, Rich. The Politics of Heaven: Evidence of a Vast Conspiracy Involving Giants, Disembodied Evil Spirits, and the Ancient Book of Enoch (ongoing project).

•  Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business.

•  Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877.

•  United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898).

•  The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (full text and ratification history).

•  Donald J. Trump, Executive Order No. 14,160 (January 20, 2025).

•  SCOTUSblog coverage of Trump v. Barbara oral arguments (April 2026).

•  Senate records on Reconstruction and the 14th Amendment.

•  Battlefields.org and National Park Service resources on Gettysburg, Grant, and Reconstruction.

•  Heritage Foundation analyses of birthright citizenship and the original intent of the 14th Amendment.

•  Jonathan Cahn’s works on recurring spiritual patterns in history (for broader cultural context).

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

The Sex Cults of Artemis: We need to choose a name that sustains not just the body of exploration, but the soul of civilization itself.        

Artemis is going back to the moon, and I’m really not crazy about the name. I didn’t like it when they first came up with it, and I still don’t. It feels like one more concession to a secular worldview that pretends ancient pagan deities are just harmless branding exercises—cool-sounding relics from a long-dead culture that “everybody can agree on.” But history doesn’t work that way. Names carry weight. They carry spiritual baggage. And when NASA reached for a name to replace the glory days of Apollo and send us back to the lunar surface, they chose Artemis, the Greek moon goddess and twin sister of Apollo. On the surface, it sounds clever, a neat mythological bookend. But dig even a little deeper, and you’re wading into the same fertility cults, temple rituals, and appeasement of dark forces that early Christian writers confronted head-on in the Mediterranean world two thousand years ago. I’ve spent years studying this pattern, and it’s the backbone of a book I’m finishing called The Politics of Heaven. What we’re seeing with the Artemis program isn’t just branding. It’s a symptom of a much older struggle between the human spirit and the principalities that have always hungered for our attention, our bodies, and our collective sanity.

Let me start with the obvious. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, a massive marble edifice that dominated the city and the entire region. Built and rebuilt over centuries, it was more than a tourist attraction or a bank (which it also was—temples doubled as secure depositories). It was the epicenter of a cult that blended Greek mythology with older Near Eastern fertility worship. Artemis herself, in her Ephesian form, was often depicted with dozens of breasts or egg-like ornaments, symbols that modern scholars sometimes try to downplay as “not really about sex or fertility.” Yet the ancient world understood her differently. She was the goddess of the hunt and the wilderness, of chastity in some tellings, yet deeply entangled with the cycles of birth and reproduction, and the raw forces of nature. Her temple drew pilgrims, merchants, and locals who participated in festivals filled with processions, music, dancing, and—according to multiple ancient reports—rituals that involved the offering of human vitality, including sexual acts, to appease the divine.

Christian writers of the period didn’t shy away from describing what they saw. In Acts 19, the apostle Paul’s ministry in Ephesus sparks a riot among the silversmiths who made shrines to “the great goddess Diana” (the Roman name for Artemis). The city clerk calms the crowd by reminding them that Ephesus is the “temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the image which fell from Jupiter.” That “image” was likely a meteorite revered as a divine gift, tying the cult directly to celestial forces. But Paul and the early Christians saw something far darker at work. They weren’t just opposing statues or tourism revenue. They were confronting a system of spiritual appeasement that had roots stretching back thousands of years to the fertility cults of Mesopotamia—Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, and their Greek and Roman counterparts. These goddesses demanded sacrifice, often in the form of sexual union performed in or near the temple precincts. Women—sometimes all women in certain cultures—were expected to spend time as temple prostitutes, offering their bodies to strangers for money that went to the temple treasury. It wasn’t “empowerment” or personal choice in our modern sense. It was a collective duty to the gods, a way to ensure fertility for the land, prosperity for the city, and protection from whatever malevolent forces lurked in the spirit realm if the rituals were neglected.

Secular historians and archaeologists today often dismiss these accounts as Christian propaganda or exaggeration. They point out that direct physical evidence—carved reliefs, unambiguous inscriptions—is scarce at Ephesus because the temple was largely destroyed, its stones carted off for other buildings after Christianity became the dominant faith of the empire. Digging seasons in Turkey are short; the site has been layered over by centuries of occupation, and hostile conditions (political, environmental) have limited excavation. But absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, especially when you’re dealing with practices that were deliberately secretive or oral in nature. We have reports from Herodotus, Strabo, and other classical writers describing sacred prostitution in temples dedicated to similar goddesses across the region. In Babylon, for instance, every woman was reportedly required once in her life to sit in the temple of Ishtar (or Mylitta) and have intercourse with a stranger for a fee. Similar customs are attested in Cyprus, Phoenicia, and parts of Asia Minor. The early Church fathers didn’t invent these stories out of thin air; they were reacting to what they witnessed firsthand on the frontiers of the Roman East.

I believe we can trust those Christian reports precisely because the behavior they condemned persists. It just wears different clothes. Look at modern nightclub culture—the so-called “meat markets” that young people, especially women aged eighteen to twenty-four, are actively encouraged to frequent before “settling down.” Bachelorette parties where sexual impropriety is not only tolerated but celebrated. The progressive push for “sexual liberation” and “women’s rights” frames any restraint as patriarchal oppression. We send our daughters—girls who were playing with Legos and dolls just a few years earlier—into environments of throbbing music, flashing lights, alcohol, and physical grinding that would have been right at home in an ancient fertility festival. They dress in scandalously revealing outfits, present their bodies for public consumption, and are told it’s all harmless fun, a phase to “get out of their system.” The money doesn’t go to a temple treasury anymore, but the spiritual transaction is eerily parallel: the sacrifice of personal sanctity, the abandonment of the body to collective debauchery, the implicit agreement that youth and vitality must be offered up so the rest of society can enjoy peace from whatever unseen forces demand their due.

This isn’t hyperbole. It’s pattern recognition. Ephesians 6:12 puts it plainly: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” The apostle Paul, writing to the very church in Ephesus that had just emerged from the shadow of Artemis worship, understood that these weren’t abstract metaphors. The spirit world is real, and it competes for control of human bodies and minds. The body is the vehicle for the soul, but it’s a vulnerable one. When people impair their consciousness—through drunkenness, drugs, or ritual frenzy—they loosen the tether that keeps the conscious self in the driver’s seat. Competing spirits rush in. Personalities split, behaviors turn erratic, sanity fluctuates. Ancient temple prostitutes weren’t just performing an economic or social function; they were opening doorways. The same doorways we open every weekend in clubs across America and Europe. The music changes, the lighting gets fancier, but the appeasement of disembodied entities hungry for human essence remains constant.

My own explorations into these dynamics—through reading, observation, and reflection on how evil operates in human societies—have convinced me that we cannot separate the material world from the spiritual one. We are entangled. Secularism’s great lie is that we can neuter history, strip away the sacred (or the diabolical), and treat ancient gods as cartoon characters for mission patches and rocket fairings. NASA did exactly that with Artemis. After the Obama-era push to highlight “Islamic contributions to science” and diversify the agency with voices from every culture, the name was pitched as inclusive, neutral, non-offensive. Why pick something biblical when you could pick a “cool” pagan goddess that “everybody can agree on”? It’s the same impulse that led the agency’s early rocketry pioneers into occult territory. Jack Parsons, one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), was a brilliant chemist and engineer by day and a devoted Thelemite occultist by night. A disciple of Aleister Crowley, Parsons performed the Babalon Working in 1946 with L. Ron Hubbard—sex magic rituals involving masturbation onto magical tablets, invocations of the goddess Babalon (a Thelemic stand-in for the Scarlet Woman of Revelation), and attempts to incarnate demonic forces into the material plane. He saw no contradiction between rocket science and summoning ancient entities. In fact, he believed his rituals fueled his breakthroughs. NASA loves to celebrate the Apollo era’s clean, heroic image while quietly glossing over the fact that the foundational rocketry work at JPL had deep roots in Parsons’ dual obsessions. The cult origins of NASA aren’t a conspiracy theory; they’re documented in biographies like George Pendle’s Strange Angel. Parsons literally signed letters as “The Antichrist” and conducted black masses in his Pasadena home.

This brings me back to why naming the lunar return program after Artemis bothers me so much. It’s not just semantics. It’s a continuation of the same appeasement strategy humanity has employed for millennia. In ancient times, societies sacrificed their youth—virginity, vitality, individual dignity—to fertility goddesses in hopes that the “hungry gods” would leave the collective alone. Today we do it with our entertainment, our dating apps, our “hook-up culture,” and our refusal to draw moral lines. We tell young women that their bodies are theirs to offer freely in the nightclub meat market, that restraint is repression, and that any talk of spiritual consequences is outdated superstition. Meanwhile, the principalities and powers—those same competing souls and disembodied spirits that haunted the temples of Artemis, Ishtar, and Astarte—continue their work. They don’t need marble altars anymore; smartphones, social media, and Saturday-night fever vibes do the job just fine. The result is the same: fractured personalities, generational trauma, and a culture that robs itself of sanity in exchange for momentary collective highs.

I’m not suggesting NASA should abandon space exploration—quite the opposite. I love NASA. I want it to succeed. I want humanity to expand beyond Earth, to sustain life across the solar system, perhaps even outlive our home planet. But if we’re going to do that with any long-term credibility and moral foundation, we should draw from the best of our cultural inheritance—not the pagan underbelly that early Christians rightly rebelled against. Western civilization, for all its flaws, is rooted in biblical ideology. Why not name a program after a figure from Scripture that embodies vision, endurance, or divine favor? Something that signals we’ve learned from history rather than repeating its mistakes. The Artemis choice feels like a deliberate step away from that heritage, a nod to the “neutral” secular narrative that pretends spirit doesn’t matter. But spirit does matter. The body is the vehicle for the soul’s journey, and there are always entities eager to hijack the wheel when we let our guard down.

Archaeology may not have uncovered every detail of those ancient sex rituals—not yet, anyway—but the Christian eyewitness accounts from the period fill the gap. Paul’s letters to the Ephesians, the riot in Acts 19, and the writings of the early Church fathers all paint a consistent picture of cultures steeped in fertility worship that demanded human essence as payment. The temples are mostly gone now, reduced to a few pillars and scattered stones at Ephesus, but the underlying spiritual dynamic hasn’t vanished. It’s migrated into our secular rituals: the nightclub as temple, the DJ as high priest, the dance floor as altar. Young women (and men, though the pressure on females has always been more pronounced in these cults) are still expected to “do their tour of duty,” to offer themselves to the collective before committing to marriage and family. We call it empowerment. The ancients called it piety. Both are forms of appeasement.

In The Politics of Heaven, I unpack this at much greater length—how evil works through human institutions, how spirit and matter are inseparable, how competing souls vie for control of our bodies, and why yielding to animalistic impulses under the guise of “freedom” always leads to cultural decline. The book has taken years of research, reflection, and editorial effort, but the core argument is simple: we cannot outrun the spiritual realm by renaming it or pretending it’s mythology. NASA’s decision to invoke Artemis is a small but telling example of a larger societal failure to learn from history. We keep making the same stupid mistakes because we’re afraid of being called intolerant by the secular crowd. We’d rather appease the principalities than confront them.

If we truly want a sustainable future—one that includes permanent human presence on the Moon and beyond—we need to stop revering the old gods, even in name only. The cults of fertility and debauchery didn’t produce enduring civilizations; they produced cycles of excess, collapse, and moral exhaustion. Christianity’s radical break from those practices—its insistence on individual sanctity, monogamous marriage, and spiritual warfare against the powers of darkness—gave the West the moral framework that eventually launched the scientific revolution and the space age itself. Let’s honor that trajectory instead of reaching backward for pagan branding that sounds “cool” to focus groups.

I’ve seen too much evidence, both ancient and contemporary, to believe otherwise. The spirits that demanded appeasement in the temples of Ephesus and Babylon are the same ones whispering through our modern meat markets and cultural expectations. They thrive on impaired minds, abandoned bodies, and the sacrifice of youth. We don’t defeat them by pretending they don’t exist or by giving their old names new rocket programs. We defeat them by calling them what they are, drawing lines in the sand, and choosing names—and behaviors—that reflect the better angels of our nature rather than the demons we’ve never truly escaped. The Moon awaits, but the path we take to get there matters. Artemis might get us there faster on paper, but at what spiritual cost? I’d rather we choose a name that sustains not just the body of exploration, but the soul of civilization itself.        

Footnotes

1.  NASA official statements on the Artemis program naming, 2019 announcement by Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

2.  George Pendle, Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons (2005).

3.  Ephesians 6:12 (KJV).

4.  Acts 19:23-41, especially v. 35.

5.  Herodotus, Histories (on Babylonian customs of Ishtar/Mylitta); Strabo, Geography (references to temple practices in Asia Minor and Corinth).

6.  S.M. Baugh, “Cult Prostitution in New Testament Ephesus,” JETS 42/3 (1999), though I disagree with his dismissal of the broader pattern reported by early Christians.

7.  Stephanie Lynn Budin, The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity (2008)—a secular counter-view that I believe underestimates eyewitness testimony from the period.

8.  Richard Metzger’s accounts of Parsons’ Babalon Working rituals.

9.  N.T. Wright, lectures on Ephesus and the Artemis cult background.

10.  My ongoing research for The Politics of Heaven (forthcoming).

Bibliography for Further Reading

•  Bible (King James Version), especially Acts 19, Ephesians 6, and 1 Timothy 2.

•  Pendle, George. Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005.

•  Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. Penguin Classics.

•  Strabo. Geography. Loeb Classical Library.

•  Baugh, S.M. “Cult Prostitution in New Testament Ephesus.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 42, no. 3 (1999).

•  Budin, Stephanie Lynn. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

•  Kramer, Samuel Noah. The Sacred Marriage Rite. Indiana University Press, 1969 (for the Mesopotamian context).

•  NASA historical documents on Project Apollo and Artemis program origins.

•  Wright, N.T. Paul and the Faithfulness of God (relevant sections on pagan cults in Asia Minor).

•  Additional archaeological reports on Ephesus from the Austrian Archaeological Institute and related publications on the Artemision.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

All Signs Point to Michael Ryan for Butler County Commissioner: Cindy Carpenter has been a mess

The Butler County commissioner race heading into the May 5, 2026 Republican primary has emerged as a clear contest between continuity marked by controversy and a fresh conservative voice promising renewal. Incumbent Commissioner Cindy Carpenter, who has held the seat since 2011, faces challenger Michael Ryan, a former Hamilton City Council member and vice mayor who has garnered strong institutional support within the local Republican Party. Ryan secured the official party endorsement in January 2026 with a decisive 71% vote from the Central Committee, a margin described by party leaders as historic and reflective of a desire for new leadership in a solidly Republican county. 

This endorsement came after Carpenter chose not to seek it, an unusual but telling development given her long tenure. Multiple prominent figures have lined up behind Ryan, including U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno, U.S. Congressman Warren Davidson, Ohio State Senator George Lang, Butler County Auditor Nancy Nix, Butler County Clerk of Courts Mary Swain, and various local elected officials from Hamilton, Trenton, Middletown, and Fairfield. These endorsements signal broad recognition that Ryan represents a “new generation” of pragmatic, fiscally conservative leadership unburdened by the accumulated baggage of past administrations. Ryan’s decision to forgo a third term on Hamilton City Council to pursue the commissioner seat underscores his commitment: he has navigated public scrutiny successfully for nearly eight years in a visible role, building a reputation for steady governance without the public missteps that have plagued others.

The context of this race reveals deeper themes in local politics—voter fatigue with entrenched figures who occasionally blur party lines or exercise poor judgment under pressure, contrasted against calls for accountability, transparency, and unwavering conservative principles. Butler County, long a Republican stronghold in southwest Ohio, has seen incremental Democrat gains in suburban areas in recent cycles, making internal party discipline and candidate quality essential to maintaining dominance. Signs for Ryan dot yards and roadsides across the county, reflecting grassroots enthusiasm. In contrast, scattered Carpenter signs—visible along routes like Ohio 747 near Middletown—raise questions about whether supporters are fully informed of her record or simply defaulting to name recognition from years of incumbency.

Carpenter’s tenure has included moments of effective service, but it has also been punctuated by incidents that highlight lapses in judgment, particularly in how public officials wield authority and maintain partisan fidelity. One high-profile episode occurred in late 2025 involving her granddaughter’s housing dispute at Level 27, an apartment complex near Miami University in Oxford. Carpenter visited the property amid an eviction threat, leading to a heated confrontation with staff. Video footage captured her making an obscene gesture—extending her middle finger—and mouthing words consistent with profanity toward the apartment manager. The manager accused Carpenter of using racist language, attempting to leverage her official position as a county commissioner (including presenting a Butler County business card), and intimidating staff to influence the outcome of the private dispute. Complaints followed, prompting an investigation by Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser. 

Prosecutor Gmoser ultimately cleared Carpenter of criminal misconduct, concluding that her behavior did not rise to the level of prosecutable abuse of power or other charges. However, clearance on narrow legal grounds does not equate to exoneration in the court of public opinion or fitness for high office. The incident illustrated a fundamental principle of public service: elected officials must maintain impeccable decorum, especially when personal matters intersect with their authority. Even if motivated by familial loyalty, inserting one’s official title into a private landlord-tenant disagreement risks perceptions of entitlement and coercion. High-ranking positions demand giving others the benefit of the doubt and avoiding actions that could be construed as throwing institutional weight around. In an era of ubiquitous cameras and rapid information spread, such moments erode trust. Carpenter’s defenders framed it as a frustrated grandmother protecting family; critics saw it as emblematic of a pattern where personal security in office breeds cockiness. The prosecutor’s office received complaints not only about this event but also related to fire department interactions and other conduct issues, further straining her public image. 

This was not an isolated lapse. Carpenter has faced criticism for appearing to cross partisan aisles in ways that alienate core Republican supporters. Reports emerged of her involvement in Middletown politics, including campaigning or publicly supporting Democrat candidates at events such as those at local bowling alleys during mayoral races. In a county where Republican fundraising and volunteer energy rely on the promise of countering Democrat policies on taxes, regulation, and local governance, such actions create dissonance. Party loyalists expect representatives to prioritize Republican infrastructure and values rather than “reaching across the aisle” in ways that aid opponents’ electoral prospects. Carpenter’s history includes accusations of being a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only), with detractors pointing to policy positions perceived as insufficiently conservative and a willingness to collaborate that sometimes veered into overt support for Democrats. These perceptions contributed directly to the party’s decision to withhold endorsement and back Ryan instead. Longtime observers note that while cordial relationships across party lines can be civil, active campaigning for Democrats in visible settings crosses a threshold that damages the brand voters expect from endorsed Republicans.

Roger Reynolds, the former Butler County Auditor, briefly entered the conversation around the commissioner race but ultimately did not file petitions to challenge for the seat in 2026. Reynolds’ own trajectory offers a cautionary tale about the perils of political entanglement and judgment. He faced felony charges in 2022 related to unlawful interest in a public contract, leading to a conviction that disqualified him from office under Ohio law (R.C. 2961.01). The conviction was later overturned on appeal in 2024, resulting in an acquittal, and Reynolds has described the case as “lawfare” involving disputes with local figures like Sheriff Richard Jones and Attorney General Dave Yost. While some viewed the prosecution as politically motivated, the episode highlighted a broader point: effective leaders in high-stakes roles must possess the savvy to avoid circumstances that invite intense scrutiny, regardless of ultimate legal outcomes. Power can corrupt or at least create optics of self-dealing, and voters in Butler County have shown wariness toward figures with such histories. Reynolds’ absence from the final ballot simplified the primary dynamics but underscored why fresh faces without such controversies appeal to the electorate. 

In contrast, Michael Ryan’s background positions him as a low-drama, high-integrity alternative. A lifelong Butler County resident, Ryan served two terms on Hamilton City Council, including multiple stints as vice mayor. Hamilton, the county seat, presents complex challenges involving economic development, fiscal management, public safety, and infrastructure—issues that scale up at the county level. Ryan earned a reputation for fiscal conservatism, job creation efforts, and collaborative yet principled leadership. He chose not to seek re-election to council in order to campaign full-time for commissioner, demonstrating strategic focus rather than careerism. His campaign has emphasized bold conservative principles: fighting over-taxation, promoting economic growth, ensuring transparency, and delivering accountable government without the “garbage in the background” that has dogged incumbents.

Ryan’s endorsements reflect confidence from seasoned conservatives who see him as ready to advance policies that strengthen Butler County’s position in a competitive regional economy. Supporters highlight his clean record—no prosecutorial investigations, no viral incidents of poor decorum, no partisan fence-straddling. In public service, especially at the commissioner level where decisions affect budgeting, zoning, development, and intergovernmental relations, judgment under pressure matters profoundly. Ryan has operated in a fishbowl environment for years without self-inflicted wounds, suggesting he possesses the temperament and discipline required for countywide leadership. His campaign literature and public statements stress renewal: turning the page on dysfunction and delivering results aligned with the values that drive Republican majorities in the county.

The persistence of a few Carpenter yard signs, particularly in visible spots, baffles many political watchers. Name recognition from over a decade in office undoubtedly plays a role, as does inertia—voters who met her once years ago or recall early positive interactions may not have followed recent controversies. In local races, personal relationships and low-information voting can sustain support even when broader patterns suggest otherwise. Some may genuinely disagree with characterizations of her record or prioritize continuity over change. Yet the accumulation of issues—the apartment incident (despite legal clearance), partisan crossovers, and reports of interpersonal friction—has created a perception of embattlement. When an official’s actions force prosecutors to investigate complaints from constituents, it signals a breakdown in the expected standard of conduct. Public office is not a personal hammer for resolving family or private disputes; it demands restraint precisely because the title carries weight.

This dynamic reflects larger truths about democratic accountability. Voters ultimately decide, and primaries serve as the mechanism for parties to refresh their benches. Butler County’s Republican voters have signaled through the endorsement process and visible yard sign momentum that they favor a “clean face” unencumbered by past drama. Ryan’s path appears strong: defeating any Democrat opposition in the general election should be straightforward in this county, provided primary turnout favors the endorsed candidate. Yet campaigns must remain vigilant against unexpected developments, as local politics can feature surprises.

Critics of the status quo argue that prolonged incumbency sometimes breeds a sense of entitlement, where officials grow comfortable exercising authority in ways average citizens cannot. The apartment episode, whatever the full context, crystallized this for many: a commissioner using her position visibly in a personal matter, followed by a gesture of defiance captured on camera. While not criminal, it failed the “optics test” that voters apply to leaders. Effective representation requires not just policy alignment but personal discipline—resisting the impulse to “flip off” critics or leverage office for private ends. Trump-era political gestures might rally bases in national contexts when framed as defiance against elites, but local governance demands different standards of professionalism.

Carpenter’s supporters might counter that she has delivered tangible results over her tenure, raising family in the county and approaching service as personal mission. Her campaign website emphasizes community roots and dedication. However, the party’s clear preference for Ryan, coupled with enthusiastic cross-endorsements, suggests institutional memory of friction points outweighs those positives for many activists and donors. Fundraising and volunteer energy flow toward candidates who unify rather than divide the base.

Looking ahead, a Ryan victory would inject new energy into the Board of Commissioners. With colleagues like those already serving, it could foster a more cohesive, forward-looking approach to issues such as economic development, infrastructure, public safety funding, and controlling spending amid statewide pressures. Ryan’s Hamilton experience equips him to bridge urban-suburban-rural divides within the county. His clean campaign—focused on vision rather than attacks—models the tone many hope to see in governance.

For voters still displaying Carpenter signs, the suggestion from observers is straightforward: research the full record. Yard signs signal public affiliation; when they back candidates with documented lapses, they can appear as uninformed loyalty or nostalgia. Switching to Ryan signs would align with the party’s direction and avoid association with past embarrassments. In politics, as in life, judgment calls compound—supporting figures who repeatedly walk into controversy risks signaling tolerance for traits undesirable in leadership.

The May 2026 primary offers Butler County Republicans a straightforward choice: reward longevity despite controversies or embrace renewal with a proven, uncontroversial conservative. Early indicators—endorsements, sign visibility, party unity—point toward Michael Ryan as the frontrunner and the kind of representative poised for long-term contributions. He embodies the “new generation” of leadership: experienced enough to govern competently, fresh enough to avoid entrenched pitfalls. Voters ready for a commissioner free of baggage, focused on conservative priorities, and capable of earning broad respect will find Ryan an easy and enthusiastic vote.

This race transcends personalities. It concerns the character of local government in a growing Ohio county. Will it prioritize savvy navigation of power without abuse, or tolerate repeated poor judgment? History shows that parties and voters who refresh their leadership tend to sustain vitality. Michael Ryan represents that opportunity. His campaign’s momentum suggests many residents already see the difference and are ready to vote for Michael Ryan for Butler County commissioner. 

Footnotes

1.  Cincinnati Enquirer reporting on Butler County GOP endorsement vote, January 2026.

2.  Journal-News coverage of Ryan’s announcement and petition filing, May 2025.

3.  Ballotpedia entries on Carpenter and Ryan candidacies for 2026.

4.  Local12/WKRC reporting on the Oxford apartment incident and video evidence, December 2025.

5.  Journal-News on Prosecutor Gmoser’s clearance letter, December 2025.

6.  Fox19 and WLWT reporting on Roger Reynolds’ legal history and claims of lawfare, 2024-2025.

7.  Ohio Supreme Court decision in State ex rel. Reynolds v. Nix, 2024.

8.  Ryan for Butler campaign website and Facebook page detailing endorsements.

9.  Additional Journal-News and Cincinnati.com articles on Carpenter’s partisan activities and public perceptions.

10.  Overmanwarrior blog posts reflecting local conservative commentary on the race, 2025-2026.

Bibliography for Further Reading

•  Ballotpedia.org pages for Butler County Commissioner candidates (2026 cycle).

•  Cincinnati.com and Journal-News archives on local Ohio politics, particularly 2025-2026 Butler County coverage.

•  Ohio Revised Code sections on public official qualifications and ethics (R.C. 2921, 2961).

•  RyanForButler.com campaign site.

•  Local television news archives (WKRC, FOX19, WLWT) for incident footage and interviews.

•  Supreme Court of Ohio opinions on related election and office-holding cases.

•  Historical coverage of Butler County elections in Dayton Daily News and Hamilton Journal-News.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

Colorado Loses in the Supreme Court: The terrible intentions of the radical left and the purposeful destruction of young people

The Supreme Court of the United States has long stood as one of the most vital institutions safeguarding the principles that define American liberty, a bulwark against the encroachment of government power on individual thought and expression. Its decisions shape not only legal precedents but the very fabric of how society balances competing rights, particularly when the vulnerable—such as minors navigating the tumultuous waters of adolescence—are at stake. On March 31, 2026, the Court delivered a landmark ruling in Chiles v. Salazar that exemplifies this role, striking a decisive blow for free speech in the context of professional counseling and underscoring the dangers of state attempts to stifle dissenting viewpoints on matters of profound personal and moral significance. In an 8-1 decision authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the justices held that Colorado’s 2019 law banning so-called “conversion therapy” for minors, as applied to the talk therapy practices of licensed counselor Kaley Chiles, unconstitutionally regulates speech based on viewpoint. The ruling requires the lower courts to apply strict scrutiny on remand, a standard that few laws survive when they target expression in this manner. This outcome is not merely a technical victory for one counselor; it is a profound affirmation of the First Amendment’s protection against government orthodoxy, especially where children’s developing minds and futures hang in the balance.  

To fully appreciate the significance of Chiles v. Salazar, one must first understand the origins and contours of the Colorado law at issue. Enacted as House Bill 19-1129 in 2019, the statute prohibits licensed mental health care providers—including physicians specializing in psychiatry and licensed, certified, or registered counselors—from engaging in “conversion therapy” with any patient under the age of eighteen. The law defines conversion therapy broadly as any practice or treatment that attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, encompassing efforts to alter behaviors, gender expressions, or to reduce or eliminate sexual or romantic attractions toward individuals of the same sex. Violations can trigger disciplinary actions by state licensing boards, ranging from fines to probation or outright revocation of a professional license. Proponents framed the measure as a necessary response to a perceived mental health crisis among Colorado’s youth, citing studies linking such practices to increased risks of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and attempts. Yet the statute is not neutral in its application. It explicitly carves out exceptions for “[a]cceptance, support, and understanding for an individual’s identity exploration and development” and for assisting persons “undergoing gender transition.” This asymmetry—banning one set of therapeutic conversations while permitting and even endorsing another—lies at the heart of the constitutional infirmity identified by the Supreme Court. 

Kaley Chiles, the petitioner in the case, is a licensed professional counselor in Colorado holding a master’s degree in clinical mental health. Her practice is rooted in client-directed talk therapy, a non-coercive, non-aversive approach that begins with no predetermined goals. Chiles listens to her clients—adults and minors alike—discuss their aspirations, then collaborates with them to develop methods that respect their fundamental right to self-determination. For some young clients struggling with same-sex attractions, gender dysphoria, or related issues, the goal may be to reduce unwanted feelings, change behaviors, or achieve a sense of harmony with their biological bodies, often informed by religious or personal convictions. Chiles employs only verbal counseling; she prescribes no medications, performs no physical interventions, and imposes no values. Her work, she argues, is simply speech—protected conversations aimed at helping clients achieve their own stated objectives. When Colorado’s law threatened to subject her to professional discipline for engaging in such dialogue with minors, Chiles filed suit in federal court, seeking a preliminary injunction on First Amendment grounds. Lower courts initially viewed the restriction as a permissible regulation of professional conduct with only incidental effects on speech, applying a deferential rational-basis review. The Tenth Circuit upheld this approach, but the Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve conflicts among the circuits on how the First Amendment applies to laws regulating talk therapy. 

The majority opinion in Chiles v. Salazar meticulously dismantles the notion that professional licensing somehow strips speech of constitutional protection. Drawing on longstanding precedents, Justice Gorsuch explained that the First Amendment safeguards the right of all individuals—including licensed professionals—to speak their minds without government-imposed viewpoint discrimination. The Colorado law does not merely regulate conduct; it targets the content of what counselors may say in the counseling room. By forbidding any effort to “change” sexual orientation or gender identity while expressly allowing affirmations of identity exploration or transition, the statute discriminates based on the speaker’s perspective. As the Court noted, this is “egregious” viewpoint discrimination, the most blatant form of content-based regulation presumptively unconstitutional under cases like Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015) and Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995). The law does not incidentally burden speech as part of a broader regulation of medical procedures; talk therapy is speech itself, not conduct like surgery or medication. The opinion explicitly rejected attempts to recast pure verbal expression as regulable “treatment,” citing Cohen v. California (1971) for the principle that speech cannot be stripped of protection merely by labeling it otherwise. 

This reasoning builds directly on the Court’s seminal 2018 decision in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra (NIFLA), which rejected the idea of a separate, diminished category of “professional speech” exempt from ordinary First Amendment scrutiny. In NIFLA, California had attempted to compel crisis pregnancy centers to post notices about abortion services, a content-based mandate that the Court subjected to strict scrutiny. Justice Thomas’s opinion there emphasized that professionals do not forfeit their expressive rights simply by virtue of their licensure; states cannot use licensing regimes as a backdoor to suppress disfavored ideas. Chiles extends this logic to counseling, affirming that even in the therapeutic context, the government may not dictate which viewpoints on sexuality and gender a counselor may articulate. Exceptions for traditional professional regulations—such as requiring factual disclosures in commercial speech under Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel (1985) or incidental burdens tied to conduct like informed consent in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey (1992)—do not apply here. The Colorado law is not about ensuring informed consent or preventing fraud; it is about silencing one side of a debate. As Justice Gorsuch wrote, “The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.” 

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, concurred in the judgment, reinforcing that the law’s selective prohibition on change-oriented speech while permitting affirmation constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination. She left open whether a hypothetical content-based but viewpoint-neutral regulation of counseling might warrant different treatment, but emphasized the “egregious” nature of skewing the marketplace of ideas. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing that the law regulates professional conduct—substandard care deemed harmful by medical consensus—and only incidentally burdens speech. Jackson invoked the state’s traditional police powers to license professions and protect public health, citing historical precedents for regulating medical practice. Yet the majority rightly countered that no historical tradition supports outright bans on specific viewpoints in talk therapy; counselor licensing itself is a relatively modern phenomenon, dating primarily to the mid-twentieth century, and malpractice laws require proof of actual harm rather than preemptively silencing dialogue. 

The ruling’s implications extend far beyond Colorado’s borders. At least two dozen states have enacted similar bans on conversion therapy for minors, many of which could now face renewed constitutional challenges under the strict scrutiny standard. This decision safeguards counselors like Chiles’ ability to provide client-centered support to young people who may seek alternatives to medical transition or affirmation-only approaches. It also highlights the critical role of parental involvement and professional judgment in addressing youth mental health, rather than allowing states to impose ideological uniformity. For families, the stakes could not be higher. Adolescence is a period of profound biological and psychological flux, and the law’s attempt to limit therapeutic options risks leaving vulnerable minors without the full range of perspectives needed to make informed choices.

Central to this debate—and to the broader societal implications of the ruling—is the science of adolescent brain development. Extensive neuroscientific research demonstrates that the human brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive functions such as impulse control, long-term planning, risk assessment, and emotional regulation, does not fully mature until the mid-twenties. Studies using MRI have shown that this region undergoes significant “rewiring” during adolescence and young adulthood, with gray matter volume peaking around puberty, followed by pruning inefficient connections while strengthening others. As one comprehensive review in Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment explains, “The fact that brain development is not complete until near the age of 25 years refers specifically to the development of the prefrontal cortex.” This maturation process explains why society has long recognized age-based restrictions on decision-making: the drinking age of 21, the common law age of majority at 18, and even restrictions on contracts or military service reflect an understanding that younger individuals may lack the full capacity for mature judgment. In the context of gender dysphoria or sexual orientation confusion, this developmental window underscores the prudence of caution. Young people experiencing rapid-onset distress—often exacerbated by social media influences, peer groups, or underlying comorbidities like autism, trauma, or anxiety—may not be equipped to consent to irreversible interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries that carry risks of infertility, bone density loss, cardiovascular complications, and lifelong medical dependency. Talk therapy, by contrast, offers a reversible, exploratory space where counselors can gently probe whether distress stems from transient factors rather than innate identity. Chiles’s approach exemplifies this: helping clients align with their stated goals, whether that means reducing unwanted attractions or simply processing family and social pressures, without coercion.  

The medical and psychological landscape surrounding youth gender dysphoria has evolved dramatically in recent years, revealing deep fissures in the once-dominant “affirmation-only” model. Historical data from the 1970s through the 2000s indicated high rates of natural desistance among children with gender dysphoria—often 60 to 90 percent by adulthood without medical intervention—particularly when comorbidities were addressed through watchful waiting and therapy. More recent studies, however, document a surge in adolescent-onset cases, disproportionately affecting adolescent females, coinciding with the rise of social media and online communities. Researchers like Lisa Littman have described “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” as a potential social contagion phenomenon, where peer influence and online exposure play outsized roles. The 2024 Cass Review in the United Kingdom, an independent analysis commissioned by the National Health Service, concluded that the evidence base for puberty blockers and hormones in minors is “remarkably weak,” plagued by poor study quality, confounding factors, and failure to account for desistance or mental health comorbidities. European nations, including Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the UK, have since restricted or banned these interventions for minors, shifting toward holistic psychological care. In the United States, detransition stories and lawsuits against clinics—such as those involving Keira Bell in the UK or multiple cases here—highlight the potential for regret when hasty affirmation supplants exploratory therapy. The Colorado law, by criminalizing one form of such exploration while mandating another, effectively stacks the deck against caution, prioritizing ideological conformity over individualized care. The Supreme Court’s ruling restores balance, ensuring that counselors can present all options, including those rooted in biological reality, faith-based values, or simple prudence about permanent changes. 

This free speech victory resonates deeply with broader cultural and policy struggles over the meaning of human flourishing. Progressive agendas in recent decades have increasingly framed traditional views on sexuality, family, and procreation as obstacles to progress, often at the expense of empirical realities. Policies promoting unlimited access to abortion, expansive gender ideology in schools without parental notification, and the normalization of lifestyles that do not naturally result in reproduction reflect a worldview that devalues the nuclear family as society’s foundational unit. When combined with energy policies that demonize reliable, high-density sources like nuclear power—Ohio’s nuclear plants, for instance, faced regulatory pressures and subsidy disadvantages in favor of intermittent wind and solar, despite nuclear’s proven record of clean, baseload energy production—the pattern suggests a prioritization of ideological purity over human welfare. Nuclear facilities in northern Ohio represent the future of abundant, affordable power essential for economic mobility, yet similar regulatory zealotry that targeted them mirrors the Colorado law’s assault on dissenting therapeutic perspectives. Both exemplify how certain political forces seek to regulate not just behavior but thought itself, sidelining evidence-based alternatives in favor of narratives that align with anti-natalist or de-growth ideologies. The result? Diminished human potential, whether through energy scarcity or through policies that encourage self-harm under the guise of liberation. The Supreme Court’s intervention in Chiles halts one such incursion, reminding us that logic, parental authority, and open discourse remain essential safeguards.

The decision also illuminates the fragility of our constitutional order and the imperative of preserving institutional integrity. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ideological balance, fortified by appointments prioritizing originalism and textualism, proved decisive here, with even two liberal justices recognizing the viewpoint discrimination at play. Yet the dissent’s reliance on professional deference and medical consensus highlights the risk of judicial abdication to evolving—often politically influenced—orthodoxies. History shows that majorities in the Senate, when unchecked by procedural safeguards like the filibuster, have eyed court-packing or threshold alterations to bend the judiciary to transient electoral winds. During periods of unified Democrat control, such temptations loomed large, restrained only by political calculus and the lingering prospect of electoral accountability. Had those efforts succeeded, rulings like Chiles might never have materialized, leaving counselors muzzled and minors funneled toward one approved narrative. The case thus serves as a stark reminder: safeguarding the Court’s independence is not partisan gamesmanship but a defense of the republic’s commitment to reasoned debate over enforced conformity. As the nation grapples with declining birth rates, family dissolution, and youth mental health crises, policies that isolate children from diverse perspectives—logical counsel included—exacerbate rather than alleviate suffering.

In the end, Chiles v. Salazar reaffirms that free speech is not a luxury but the lifeblood of a free society, particularly in the intimate, high-stakes domain of counseling our nation’s young. It protects the right of a Christian counselor to whisper caution into the ear of a confused adolescent: “Do you really want to make changes you may regret for a lifetime?” It honors the reality of immature brains still wiring for adulthood, the wisdom of parents as primary guardians, and the folly of state-imposed silence on uncomfortable truths. By rejecting Colorado’s attempt to legislate orthodoxy, the Court has not only vindicated Kaley Chiles but has fortified the foundations of liberty against those who would sacrifice children’s futures on the altar of ideology. In a time when debates over energy abundance, family formation, and human dignity rage unabated, this ruling stands as a beacon of sanity—a reminder that the path to human flourishing lies not in censorship but in the open exchange of ideas, guided by evidence, faith, and the unyielding pursuit of truth. The survival of our moral and cultural ecosystem depends on it.

Footnotes

1.  Chiles v. Salazar, 603 U.S. ___ (2026) (Gorsuch, J., majority opinion), slip op. at 1-2.

2.  Colo. Rev. Stat. §12-245-224(1)(t)(V) (2025); §12-245-202(3.5)(a)-(b).

3.  Id. at slip op. 12-13 (describing viewpoint asymmetry).

4.  Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155 (2015).

5.  NIFLA v. Becerra, 585 U.S. 755 (2018).

6.  Arain et al., “Maturation of the Adolescent Brain,” Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 9 (2013): 449-461.

7.  National Institute of Mental Health, “The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know” (2023 update).

8.  Cass Review, “Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People” (UK, 2024).

9.  Littman, “Parent Reports of Adolescents and Young Adults Perceived to Show Signs of a Rapid Onset of Gender Dysphoria,” PLOS ONE (2018).

10.  Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995).

11.  Ohio nuclear subsidy debates, HB6 (2019) context and repeal attempts.

12.  Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) (distinguished).

13.  Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, 471 U.S. 626 (1985).

14.  APA et al., joint statements on conversion therapy (various, 2009-2021) contrasted with Cass findings.

15.  European shifts post-Cass: Sweden, Finland policy changes (2022-2024).

16.  Detransition litigation examples, e.g., UK Bell v. Tavistock (2020).

17.  Historical desistance data: Zucker et al., Archives of Sexual Behavior (various pre-2010 studies).

18.  Gorsuch opinion, slip op. at 14 (quoting First Amendment principles).

19.  Jackson dissent, slip op. at 27 (police powers argument).

20.  Kagan concurrence, slip op. at 1-2.

21.  Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1 (2010).

22.  Brain development citations cross-referenced with Giedd et al., Nature Neuroscience (1999-2014 longitudinal scans).

23.  Colorado legislative history, HB19-1129 floor debates.

24.  SCOTUSblog analysis, March 31, 2026.

25.  Implications for 20+ state laws per Lambda Legal and SCOTUSblog reporting.

26.  Parental rights framework under Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000) (analogous).

27.  Energy policy parallel: Ohio nuclear plants’ role in grid reliability vs. renewable intermittency data from EIA reports.

28.  Filibuster and court-packing historical context, 2021-2025 Senate dynamics.

29.  Broader cultural data: U.S. fertility rates (CDC, 2020s decline).

30.  Supreme Court composition impact per majority joiners.

Bibliography

Chiles v. Salazar, No. 24-539 (U.S. Mar. 31, 2026). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-539_fd9g.pdf.

Arain, Mariam, et al. “Maturation of the Adolescent Brain.” Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 9 (2013): 449–461. PMC3621648.

Cass, Hilary. Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People: Final Report. UK National Health Service, 2024.

Giedd, Jay N. “The Teen Brain: Under the Hood.” Harvard Medical School (2014).

Littman, Lisa. “Parent Reports of Adolescents and Young Adults Perceived to Show Signs of a Rapid Onset of Gender Dysphoria.” PLOS ONE 13, no. 8 (2018).

National Institute of Mental Health. “The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know.” Updated 2023. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know.

National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, 585 U.S. 755 (2018).

Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155 (2015).

Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995).

U.S. Energy Information Administration. Reports on Ohio nuclear capacity and renewable integration (2020-2025).

Zucker, Kenneth J., et al. Various studies on gender dysphoria desistance, Archives of Sexual Behavior (pre-2013).

Colorado General Assembly. HB19-1129, “Prohibit Conversion Therapy for a Minor” (2019). http://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb19-1129.

SCOTUSblog. “Supreme Court Sides with Therapist in Challenge to Colorado’s Ban on Conversion Therapy.” March 31, 2026.

Lambda Legal. Press release on Chiles v. Salazar (March 31, 2026).

Alliance Defending Freedom. Case summary for Chiles v. Salazar (2024-2026 filings).

U.S. Supreme Court. Syllabus and opinions in related First Amendment cases (NIFLA, Reed, etc.).

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

The Assault on Trump’s Vision for the People’s House: How a Timely New York Times Hit Piece, a Bush-Appointed Judge, and a $3 Billion “No Kings” Network Colluded to Halt America’s Grand Ballroom

I am furious. Absolutely furious. And I’m not the only one. This isn’t just some minor bureaucratic squabble over blueprints and permits. This is a full-scale attack on the will of the American people, on President Donald J. Trump, and on the very idea that the People’s House—the White House—belongs to us, not to some unelected judge, not to legacy media editors, and not to a shadowy network of 500 activist groups flush with $3 billion in manipulative contributions meant to subvert America as a lofty nation.

As I sit here writing this, I’m literally on my way to the White House. I’ve arranged a visit through people who made it happen, and I cannot wait to see the ballroom construction site with my own eyes. I want to see the cranes, the dirt, the progress—the raw, beautiful destruction and rebirth of the East Wing into something magnificent, something worthy of a superpower. I’ve followed every detail since the project was announced in July 2025. I’ve watched the demolition, the site preparation, the months of steady work. And now, because of one judge’s ruling on March 31, 2026—just two days after a vicious New York Times broadside on March 29—it’s all ground to a halt—preliminary injunction. Construction stopped. Trump’s bold vision for a 90,000-square-foot state ballroom, a space big enough for real diplomacy, real grandeur, real American pride, is being strangled in its crib.

This is not the law. This is politics dressed up in robes. And I have read more case law, statutes, and historical precedents than most lawyers ever will—precisely because I refuse to waste my life in their insular, self-important world. Lawyers and judges like to pretend they’re sophisticated guardians of the Constitution. I look down on the legal profession as a whole. Most of them chase billable hours, hide behind jargon, and serve the system rather than the people. They don’t build things. They don’t create. They obstruct. And in this case, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon has proven exactly why I feel that way. He knows the law cold, yet the circumstantial evidence of influence is overwhelming. The timeline screams collusion—the money trail points to coordinated opposition. And the American people deserve to know it.

Let’s start with the facts, because the facts are the smoking gun. On Saturday, March 28, 2026, “No Kings” protests erupted across the country—coordinated rallies backed by a network of roughly 500 activist organizations with an estimated $3 billion in combined annual revenues. Fox News Digital laid it all out: communist and socialist groups openly calling for “revolution,” Indivisible (funded in part by George Soros-linked money) as a lead coordinator, and a web of nonprofits, advocacy outfits, and dark-money flows all pushing the same anti-Trump narrative.   These weren’t spontaneous grassroots gatherings. This was astroturf on steroids—protests designed to paint Trump as a monarch, a king building palaces while the people suffer. The White House ballroom became the perfect symbol: a “palace” addition they could attack.

Then, Sunday, March 29, 2026, the New York Times drops its carefully timed hit piece: “Trump’s Ballroom Design Has Barely Been Scrutinized.” The article rips into the project—design flaws, lack of oversight, rushed process. But here’s the killer line, the one that reads like a direct invitation to activism: “But barring a judge’s intervention, the ballroom is set to move forward this week anyway.”  They even included a caption over a rendering of the new extension: “These are the kind of details that are normally scrutinized in the design of any building so significant—and in the review that public projects face in the nation’s capital. But barring a judge’s intervention, the ballroom is set to move forward this week anyway.” That’s not journalism. That’s a bat signal to every activist lawyer and judge in the D.C. swamp. “Hey, someone stop this!”

Loser

Two days later—Tuesday, March 31, 2026—Judge Richard Leon issues his preliminary injunction. Boom. Construction halted. The opinion is 35 pages of outrage, complete with 19 exclamation points, lecturing that the President is merely a “steward” of the White House, “not the owner!” and that no statute gives Trump the authority to proceed without Congress.   He paused enforcement for 14 days to allow an appeal, but the damage is done. The project that had been rolling since September 2025, privately funded in large part (over $350 million raised from donors, not taxpayers), suddenly sits idle.

Coincidence? Please. I’ve read enough to know better. Judges don’t admit bias on the record. They don’t write “I saw the NYT and decided to act.” But circumstantial evidence is how we prove collusion every day—in court, in business, in life. The proximity is damning. The project had been underway for months. Leon had had the case before him for months. He denied an earlier attempt at an injunction in February 2026.  Yet he pounces two days after the Times piece that literally suggests “a judge’s intervention.” That’s not organic. That’s influence—whether passive (media shaping the narrative) or active (coordination). And given the $3 billion network behind the No Kings protests, the timing of their weekend rallies, and the Times’ own history of anti-Trump activism, the dots connect too neatly to ignore.

I’m no conspiracy theorist mindlessly chasing shadows.  A lot of people say that I am, because they don’t like the line of questions that I bring up. I’m a guy who reads voluminous amounts of law precisely because I respect the Constitution too much to let it be weaponized. I’ve studied presidential modifications to the White House going back to Theodore Roosevelt’s West Wing addition in 1902, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s East Wing rebuild during wartime, Harry Truman’s full interior gutting and reconstruction from 1948 to 1952. Every one of those presidents made dramatic changes—tearing down walls, adding wings, modernizing for the demands of the era—without endless congressional micromanagement. The White House has evolved because presidents reflect the will of the people who elected them. Trump was elected—overwhelmingly—to make America great again, to project strength, to host state dinners and diplomatic events in a space worthy of the world’s leading power. The current East Room holds maybe 200 seated. The new ballroom? Capacity for 650 or more. It’s practical. It’s visionary. It’s Trump.

Yet here we are, with a Bush-appointed judge—yes, the same old-guard Republican establishment that never fully embraced MAGA—stepping in to “rein him in.” Leon has ruled against Trump before, with sharp language and exclamation points. He’s part of that RINO ecosystem that prefers polite decline over bold rebuilding. The Bushes, the Cheneys, the never-Trump crowd—they want controlled, incremental change. Trump builds big. He builds proudly. He builds for the future. And that terrifies them. It terrifies the legacy media. It terrifies the $3 billion activist machine that spent the weekend screaming “No Kings!” while the Times laid the legal groundwork for a judge to play hero.

Let me be crystal clear: this is bigger than a ballroom. This is about who controls the People’s House. Trump’s election was a mandate. The people voted to disrupt the status quo. We voted for a leader who doesn’t ask permission from bureaucrats to make America respected again on the world stage. A grand ballroom isn’t vanity—it’s diplomacy. It’s hosting leaders from around the globe in a setting that says, “America is back, and we do things in a big, beautiful way.” Without it, we look embarrassed. Small. Weak. Exactly what the No Kings crowd wants.

The legal arguments are a smokescreen. Trump’s team has maintained that the project is privately funded, consistent with historical presidential discretion over White House modifications. The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued, but preservationists have opposed every major change since the beginning of time. The real issue is the separation of powers twisted into obstruction. Congress has never required a vote for every renovation. Presidents have always shaped the executive mansion. Truman’s renovation cost millions and displaced the First Family for years—done by executive action. FDR expanded during the war. Why is Trump held to a different standard? Because he’s Trump. Because the establishment hates that the people chose him.

And the money? Follow it. The Fox investigation into the No Kings network is eye-opening: 500 groups, $3 billion in revenue, including socialist and communist-linked organizations explicitly pushing “revolution.”  That money doesn’t just fund signs and marches. It flows into media influence, legal nonprofits, and donor networks. The Times itself has advertisers, readers, and institutional ties within that ecosystem. Judges? They attend conferences, accept speaking fees, and support charities. Trace the donations, the dark-money pipelines, the shared social circles. I guarantee you’ll find connections—direct or indirect. Text messages. Phone records. Lunches where someone says, “Wouldn’t it be great if a judge stepped in?” The Times practically telegraphed the move. Leon delivered.

This is the game they play: stall, litigate, embarrass. Drag it into the midterms, so Democrats and RINOs can campaign on “Trump can’t even build a ballroom without chaos.” Stonewall the appeal. Hope the 14-day pause turns into months. Meanwhile, the construction site sits idle, costs mount, and donors get cold feet. Classic lawfare.

I look down on this legal profession because it enables exactly this. Lawyers don’t solve problems—they prolong them for fees and power. Judges like Leon cloak personal or ideological bias in legalese. “Steward, not owner!” Give me a break. The people own the White House through their elected representative. Trump is executing their will. The Constitution doesn’t require a congressional committee to approve every nail.

But here’s the good news: public pressure works. The court of public opinion is where we win when the legal system is rigged. Expose the timeline. Blast it on every show, every platform, every X thread: No Kings protests March 28. NYT hit piece March 29 with the “judge’s intervention” line. Leon’s injunction on March 31. Two days. Coincidence, my foot. Demand depositions. Demand discovery on communications between the Times staff, the National Trust, and anyone connected to Leon’s circle. Demand financial disclosures. Where did that $3 billion flow? Did any of it—directly or indirectly—touch organizations Leon supports, charities he backs, or networks he moves in?

Trump’s lawyers need to hammer this on appeal. Not just the statutory authority arguments—though those are strong—but the appearance of impropriety. The rushed timing undermines confidence in the judiciary. If this stands, every future president faces the same gauntlet: activist media plants the seed, funded protesters amplify it, and a sympathetic judge delivers. That’s not justice. That’s oligarchy.

I’m heading to the White House right now to see the site anyway—before or after the pause, the vision is already there in the dirt and steel. I’m excited. I’m proud. And I’m more determined than ever. The ballroom will happen. Trump will deliver. The American people demand big, bold, beautiful things. We rejected the Bushes and their cautious decline. We chose Trump to build.

To Judge Leon: the people see you. The timeline exposes you. History will judge whether you acted on law or on the whispers of the $3 billion machine. To the New York Times: your “journalism” isn’t neutral—it’s activism with deadlines. To the No Kings crowd: keep protesting. Every sign you wave only reminds us why we voted for Trump.

This fight isn’t over. It’s just beginning. And when the ballroom rises—glorious, ahead of schedule, under budget, the envy of the world—we’ll remember who tried to stop it and why. The People’s House belongs to the people. Not to judges. Not to editors. Not to billion-dollar protest networks. To us.

Footnotes

¹ Fox News Digital investigation, “500 groups with $3B in revenues are behind the #NoKings protests,” March 28, 2026.

² The New York Times, “Trump’s Ballroom Design Has Barely Been Scrutinized,” March 29, 2026.

³ U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, preliminary injunction opinion, March 31, 2026 (35-page order).

⁴ Reuters, “Judge orders Trump to halt $400 million White House ballroom project,” March 31, 2026.

⁵ Historical precedents drawn from White House Historical Association records on Roosevelt, FDR, and Truman renovations.

Bibliography

•  Fox News Digital. “500 groups with $3B in revenues are behind the #NoKings protests and communist call for ‘revolution.’” March 28, 2026.

•  The New York Times. “Trump’s Ballroom Design Has Barely Been Scrutinized.” March 29, 2026.

•  U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Opinion in National Trust for Historic Preservation v. Trump administration, March 31, 2026.

•  Reuters. “Judge orders Trump to halt $400 million White House ballroom project, for now.” March 31, 2026.

•  White House Historical Association. Records of presidential modifications to the White House (1902–1952).

•  Additional reporting from NPR, AP, and Fox on the No Kings funding network and the ballroom project timeline.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

Unlocking Human Potential: The benefits of fossil fuel energy

The essence of being human lies not in the fragile physical form that houses us, but in the boundless drive of imagination—the spark that turns thought into creation, invention into progress, and survival into flourishing. This creative nature sets humanity apart from every other species on Earth. While animals adapt to their environment through instinct and biological necessity, humans reshape it. We envision possibilities beyond the immediate, craft tools to extend our reach, and build systems that multiply our efforts across generations. This is the image of the Creator reflected in us: not a static likeness, but a dynamic capacity to imagine, design, and realize a better world. Discussions of souls and bodies as vehicles often touch on this everlasting essence. The body is temporary, a biological carrier, but the imaginative drive—the soul’s expression—transcends it, propelling humanity toward ever-greater achievements. In an age of rapid technological change, including the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), some fear a “post-human apocalypse” that disrupts the natural order. Yet this view misses the deeper truth: tools like AI represent the next logical extension of human creativity, not its replacement. They amplify the very qualities that define us, freeing time and energy for more profound acts of creation. 

Alex Epstein’s Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less (2022) provides a powerful framework for understanding this. Epstein argues that cost-effective, reliable energy is the foundation of human flourishing. Fossil fuels deliver this energy at unmatched scale: low-cost, on-demand, versatile, and capable of powering billions. They enable “machine labor” that replaces backbreaking human toil, producing food, shelter, medicine, and comfort in abundance. Without them, billions would still suffer and die from lack of energy for basic needs—like refrigeration to preserve food and medicine, or electricity for incubators saving premature babies. Epstein highlights how the “knowledge system”—experts, media, and policymakers—often ignores these massive benefits while catastrophizing side effects. He flips the script: more fossil fuel use, combined with climate mastery through technology and adaptation, will make the world far better, not worse. 

Consider the historical trajectory. For most of human existence—roughly 95% of our species’ time on Earth—survival consumed nearly every waking hour. Hunter-gatherer societies, as studied among groups like the Ju/’hoansi, spent about 15 hours per week acquiring food and necessities, with the rest devoted to rest, social bonds, and basic leisure. Yet life was precarious: short lifespans, vulnerability to famine, disease, and predators. Agriculture brought some stability but increased labor demands. Pre-industrial workers often toiled 60-70 hours per week or more during peak seasons, with annual hours exceeding 3,000 in many places by the late 19th century. Medieval artisans might average 8-9 hours of work daily, but the year included long stretches of seasonal labor without modern safety nets. Life expectancy hovered around 30-40 years in many eras, limited by malnutrition, infection, and physical exhaustion. 

The fossil fuel revolution changed everything. Beginning in earnest in the late 18th and 19th centuries with coal, then oil and natural gas, energy abundance powered the Industrial Revolution and beyond. Graphs of global life expectancy, population, and GDP per capita show “hockey stick” growth mirroring rising CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels since the late 1800s. Extreme poverty plummeted from about 35% of the world population in 1990 to under 10% today, driven largely by energy-enabled growth in places like China and India, where coal and hydrocarbons fueled industrialization. Life expectancy worldwide rose from around 35 years in ancient times to nearly 72-73 years today. Access to electricity correlates strongly with these gains: it powers clean water pumps, refrigeration, lighting, and medical devices, reducing deaths from indoor air pollution (which still claim millions annually from traditional biomass cooking) and enabling education and economic opportunity. 

Drive through any community at 2 a.m. today, and the evidence surrounds us. Porch lights glow, air conditioners or heaters keep temperatures comfortable, and refrigerators hum with fresh food and cold drinks. A simple flip of a switch banishes darkness; a tap delivers clean water without trekking to a river or well. Sewer systems pump waste away efficiently—these conveniences, all energy-dependent, free humans from the drudgery that defined most of history. Before widespread electricity, fetching water, cooking over open fires, hand-washing clothes, and manual farming consumed vast portions of the day. Fossil fuels (and the electricity they predominantly generate—about 80% of global energy still comes from hydrocarbons) multiplied human productivity exponentially. One barrel of oil contains energy equivalent to roughly 25,000 hours of human labor. Modern societies harness this to produce food surpluses feeding 8 billion people, build durable homes, manufacture medicines, and transport goods globally via Walmart-like supply chains that make essentials affordable.

Epstein emphasizes that these benefits extend far beyond comfort. Energy access enables “upper mobility”—the chance for individuals to rise through effort and ingenuity. It powers tools: power drills, pumps, computers, and factories. Time once spent on mere survival now goes to innovation, family, art, science, and enterprise. This is not mere leisure for idleness; it is liberated human potential. Even if many spend extra time on video games, social media scrolling, or boredom-induced snacking (a real phenomenon in affluent societies where a theoretical 40-hour workweek often compresses into far less productive time), the outliers—the creators, inventors, and entrepreneurs—flourish. A small percentage of highly driven individuals, empowered by abundant energy, produce inventions that benefit billions: vaccines, smartphones, efficient agriculture, and now AI. The cascade effect across generations compounds this: books preserve knowledge, inventions build on prior ones, and energy multiplies output. Humanity’s trajectory—from wheel and spear to calculus and computers—shows this pattern. Fossil fuels, formed from ancient sunlight stored over millions of years, unlocked that stored energy for modern use, bridging primitive existence to an era of unprecedented possibility. 

Critics of fossil fuels often frame nature as a sacred, living essence demanding protection at all costs—an “Earth worshiper” perspective that prioritizes untouched wilderness over human life. This inverts priorities. The environment has always been dynamic; humans have “impacted” it since the use of fire and tools. The real moral standard is human flourishing: longer, healthier, opportunity-rich lives. Fossil fuels have made Earth more livable by enabling climate mastery—better buildings, irrigation, disaster response, and crop yields that reduce weather-related deaths (which have plummeted dramatically). Side effects like emissions are real but “masterable” through technology, adaptation, and continued energy innovation. Opposing abundant energy in the name of nature condemns billions to energy poverty: over 600-700 million still lack electricity access, and 2+ billion rely on polluting cooking fuels, causing millions of premature deaths yearly from indoor smoke. In sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, women and children spend up to 40 hours weekly gathering firewood—time stolen from education, work, and family. Energy abundance lifts all, including ecosystems, which are managed more effectively with technology. 

AI emerges as the natural offspring of this energy-driven progress. Computing power, itself born from electricity and fossil-enabled infrastructure, now mimics and multiplies aspects of human thinking. Data centers, increasingly powered by reliable sources (with fossil fuels still critical for baseload), consume growing amounts of electricity—global data center use is projected to double or more by 2030, reaching around 945 TWh, with AI driving much of the surge via accelerated server use. AI processes vast datasets, optimizes designs, accelerates drug discovery, and automates routine tasks in ways no prior tool could. It does not “think” with a soul or original imagination; it pattern-matches at superhuman speed and scale. Yet this serves human creators: an engineer using AI can iterate on prototypes faster, a scientist can model complex systems overnight, and a writer can explore ideas with computational assistance. The soul—the imaginative drive—remains uniquely human. AI lacks consciousness, genuine emotion, moral intuition, or the spark of original vision rooted in lived experience and transcendence. It is a tool, like the abacus, calculator, or computer before it, extending biological limitations without replacing the essence that wields it. 

Fears of a “post-human apocalypse” echo ancient anxieties, like the Tower of Babel—human hubris punished for overreaching. Some posthumanist thinkers speculate that AI could blur boundaries, creating hybrid or superior intelligences that diminish traditional humanity. Yet this misunderstands our nature. Humanity’s purpose, if one draws from the perspective of being made in the divine image, is creative stewardship: to untangle the universe’s potential, spread across it, and perpetuate life through innovation. The universe itself seems tuned for discovery—physical laws allowing complexity, energy gradients enabling work, minds capable of comprehension. Tools cascade: the wheel eased transport, agriculture amplified food, fossil fuels powered industry, computers accelerated calculation, and AI now multiplies cognitive labor. Each step frees time and resources for higher pursuits. Even if 95% of people “waste” liberated time on trivialities, the 5% (or fewer) who channel it into breakthroughs—new medicines, sustainable tech, space exploration, artistic masterpieces—lift everyone. Historical inventions from tiny creative minorities have done exactly that.

The work-leisure duality taught in modern culture is often artificial. Life is an integrated “happy bowl of soup”: family, labor, rest, creation, and reflection blend in a meaningful whole. Energy abundance allows this integration without the constant threat of starvation or exposure. A 40-hour theoretical workweek in energy-rich societies often yields far more output per hour than centuries of toil, yet many feel time-poor due to choices, not necessity. AI promises further compression of drudgery—handling data analysis, logistics, or routine creativity—freeing even more bandwidth for the imaginative core. Faster is frequently better when it means compressing processes without sacrificing quality, enabling broader access and compounding innovation. Energy for AI is substantial, but so was energy for early factories or electrification; the returns in human capability justify it as part of the same virtuous cycle.

Skeptics might ask: Is the purpose of existence endless toil around a campfire, hunting daily for short lives and basic reproduction? Or is it the exercise of imagination to spread life, knowledge, and beauty on a cosmic scale? The latter aligns with humanity’s unique endowment. We walked over fossil fuels for millennia before recognizing their potential—ancient sunlight captured in decayed life, now powering our ascent. That recognition itself was an act of imagination. AI, requiring enormous computing power (with projections showing AI-related electricity demand growing rapidly, potentially accounting for a significant share of data center growth), continues this: it processes while humans dream, experiments tirelessly, and supports creators who still must “prove stuff in life”—build, test, refine, and give meaning through purpose.

Environmental concerns deserve to be addressed, but not through energy denial. Nature worship that seeks to eradicate human impact or pedestalize a static “life force” ignores that humans are part of nature’s creative unfolding. Tools exist to be used responsibly: innovation in cleaner combustion, nuclear (often sidelined in debates), advanced renewables where practical, and adaptation. Epstein’s call for an “energy philosophy” prioritizing human flourishing over anti-impact frameworks remains sound. Fossil fuels launched us; they need not be eternal, but replacing them prematurely with unreliable alternatives risks reversing gains. Sustainable abundance—whatever form it takes—must deliver the same or better reliability and scalability.

This era brims with adventure. The “good old days” of simplicity, wild expansion, and quiet reverence hold romantic appeal, evoking self-reliance and direct connection to the land. Yet humanity was not built solely for that. We adapt biologically and culturally, using the environment as raw material for higher causes. Low-vision challenges or daily rituals pale against the broader canvas: imagination as the daily ritual expanding possibility. Fossil fuels bridged the gap from primitive survival to this magnificent period. AI, as its intellectual extension, accelerates the cascade. The few who seize leisure for creation—whether in business, art, science, or family—perpetuate the chain. Even “wasted” time by the majority indirectly supports the system, enabling outliers.

In the end, defining a human by physical form alone reduces us to biology; the drive to imagine, create, and improve defines the everlasting essence. Souls occupy bodies as vehicles for this purpose. AI augments without supplanting it. Energy abundance, exemplified by fossil fuels’ proven track record, makes the discussion possible. As Epstein demonstrates with data on poverty reduction, health gains, and productivity, more cost-effective energy correlates with flourishing. Billions still need it; denying that in favor of abstract natural orders harms the vulnerable most.

The trajectory inspires optimism. Human history is one of cascading intelligence: from oral traditions to written books, mechanical calculators to digital computers, biological labor to AI-assisted thought. Each generation multiplies prior efforts. Curiosity and imagination, fueled by freed time and power, drive us to untangle universal usefulness—perhaps to spread life beyond Earth. God’s purpose, interpreted through this lens, aligns with creators’ flourishing, even if imperfectly realized by most. The 1-5% producing magnificent inventions offset the expense many times over, benefiting all lifeforms through better management, reduced scarcity, and expanded opportunity.

Embrace this future with the philosophy of past wisdom: reverence for simplicity, where it teaches resilience, but forward momentum where imagination calls. A personal energy policy—understanding benefits, trade-offs, and the moral primacy of human life—equips everyone. Innovation is inherent; free time, energy, and tools amplify it. The near future holds profound positive change: compressed processes, broader abilities, and a more creative existence. Reverence for the wild West or campfire eras coexists with excitement for what lies ahead. Tools like AI, powered ultimately by the same energy principles, serve the soul’s drive. This is no apocalypse threatening order—it is the order unfolding as intended: humans as co-creators, using imagination to make, give, and perpetuate life on scales only dimly foreseen.

The point of existence emerges clearly—not mere survival like other animals, but purposeful expansion of potential. Even in Middletown, Ohio, or anywhere, late-night refrigerator raids or porch lights symbolize victory over drudgery. AI will compound that victory, calculating tirelessly so humans can imagine boldly. The adventure continues. Those choosing to wield leisure imaginatively will shape it. History’s fossils fuel the launch; human essence steers the course. It is a wonderful time to be alive, full of discovery for those who engage it.

Bibliography / Suggested Further Reading:

•  Epstein, Alex. Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less. Portfolio, 2022.

•  Our World in Data reports on energy access, life expectancy, poverty, and time use (ourworldindata.org).

•  International Energy Agency (IEA) reports on energy and AI, data centers, and access statistics.

•  Historical analyses of work hours: e.g., studies on hunter-gatherer societies by anthropologists like James Suzman; pre-industrial labor data from economic historians.

•  Philosophical works on creativity, soul, and human nature: classical texts on imago Dei; modern discussions in posthumanism critiques (for contrast).

•  Additional context from energy innovation reports and productivity studies.

These sources provide empirical grounding and inspire deeper exploration of energy philosophy, human potential, and technological progress.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

Ascending from Plato’s Cave: Don’t suffer from second husband syndrome

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where humanity stands at this pivotal moment. As of late March 2026, NASA is days away from launching Artemis II—the first crewed mission to the Moon since Apollo, targeted for no earlier than April 1, 2026, with astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen aboard Orion for a ten-day lunar flyby.   This isn’t just another flight; it’s NASA finally getting aggressive, the way it always should have been. I support the Artemis program with my whole heart. I want to see timelines compressed, second and third shifts running around the clock, Saturdays and Sundays included—full throttle output. We’ve talked for decades about whether we ever really went to the Moon. I respect people who doubt it; many have been lied to by institutions they once trusted. But I’ve traveled the world, seen the curvature of the Earth with my own eyes, understood time zones through lived experience, and studied how ancient mathematicians calculated that curvature to plot constellations and voyages. Those advances in human culture demand we go to space—not just with drones or robots, but with people living sustainably off-world. That’s the only way we climb out of Plato’s cave, stop staring at shadows, and see reality for what it is.

My perspective is rooted in a deep love for knowledge, ancient history, and the biblical call to dominion. I don’t dismiss fears about transhumanism or the occult origins some attribute to NASA. I get the Tower of Babel parallels—humanity trying to replace God. But I also believe God gave us intellect and drive precisely for exploration. Leaving Earth isn’t rebellion; it’s fulfillment of the creation mandate. And with AI, robotics, and companies like SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace pushing boundaries, we’re on the cusp of a flourishing space economy that will create jobs, not destroy them. I’ll explain all of this below, drawing on the examples and reasoning I’ve shared in conversations, while adding substantial background, historical context, scientific details, and references for further study. This is my view, expressed in the first person because these convictions are personal—forged from years of study, travel, and reflection on what makes civilizations thrive or collapse.

Let’s start with the skepticism that still lingers. I’ve met kind, thoughtful people who defend Flat Earth theory aggressively. I feel for them. Decades of institutional deception—from governments to media—have left many clinging to simplicity as a shield against complexity. Yet the evidence against a flat Earth is overwhelming and ancient. Around 240 BCE, the Greek scholar Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated Earth’s circumference with remarkable accuracy using nothing more than sticks, shadows, and geometry. At noon on the summer solstice in Syene (modern Aswan), the Sun shone directly down a well with no shadow. In Alexandria, 5000 stadia north, a stick cast a 7.2-degree shadow—exactly 1/50th of a circle. Multiplying the distance by 50 gave him roughly 250,000 stadia, or about 40,000 kilometers—within 1% of the modern equatorial value of 40,075 km.   Ancient cultures used this spherical understanding to navigate oceans and align monuments with constellations. Time zones, the Coriolis effect on weather, and lunar eclipses (where Earth’s round shadow falls on the Moon) all confirm it. I’ve seen the horizon curve from high altitudes and across oceans. We don’t need to argue endlessly; we need to move forward.

The same institutional distrust fuels Moon-landing conspiracies. Yet commercial progress is demolishing doubt. In March 2025, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander achieved the first fully successful commercial Moon landing in Mare Crisium, near Mons Latreille. It operated for over 14 days on the surface—346 hours of daylight plus lunar night—delivering NASA payloads and proving robotic precision.  This wasn’t government theater; it was private industry landing hardware right near prior Apollo sites. The best proof, though, will be routine human traffic: Starship ferrying thousands to lunar bases and back. When people vacation on the Moon like they do in Hawaii, the shadows-on-the-wall debate ends.

This brings me to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which I invoke often because it perfectly captures our situation. In Book VII of The Republic, Socrates describes prisoners chained since birth in an underground cavern, facing a blank wall. Behind them burns a fire; between fire and prisoners, puppeteers carry objects whose shadows dance on the wall. The prisoners believe these shadows are ultimate reality; they compete to predict the next shadow, mistaking illusion for truth. One prisoner breaks free. Dragged upward into sunlight, he suffers pain but gradually sees real objects, then the Sun itself—the Form of the Good. Returning to the cave to free others, he is mocked as blind. Plato uses this to illustrate education’s purpose: turning the soul from illusion toward truth.  

I see modern humanity in that cave. We’ve been fed institutional shadows—media narratives, bureaucratic lies, power-maintaining myths. Space exploration is the ascent. Drones and rovers have sent back data, but they’re still shadows. Humans must go—live, work, have children off-world—to grasp the fire and the Sun beyond. Only then do we understand what cast those flickering images on Earth’s wall. My entire worldview, from business to culture to faith, rests on this quest for unfiltered knowledge. I refuse to remain chained, interpreting shadows while interpreters with agendas lie about what they see.

Ancient history reinforces this urgency. I study civilizations full-time because they reveal what builds success: boldness, truth-seeking, and expansion. Many past cultures achieved greatness then lost momentum—collapsed under internal rot or external conquest. I call this “second husband syndrome.” Imagine a second husband tormented by thoughts of his wife’s first husband, especially if children from that marriage remain. Jealousy poisons the new relationship. Likewise, modern elites suppress or dismiss prior cultures’ achievements to claim sole glory. They rewrite history so previous “husbands” (Atlantis legends, megalithic engineering, advanced astronomy) never existed or were primitive. This intellectual jealousy stifles progress. Studying the Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, or Maya shows they grasped Earth’s sphericity, built with precision, and reached for the stars. To build successful cultures today, we must leave the mother’s womb—Earth—and psychologically inhabit other worlds. Labor shortages on Earth are irrelevant; AI and robotics multiply our hours exponentially.

Biblically, this expansion aligns with God’s design, not against it. Genesis 1:28 commands: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Theologians call this the creation or cultural mandate—image-bearers exercising responsible stewardship and creativity across creation.   Some interpret it Earth-only, warning against “playing God.” I counter: God gave intellect, curiosity, and the stars themselves. Exploration within biblical rules—humility before the Creator, ethical stewardship—strengthens faith. Western civilization’s prosperity flows from this worldview: truth-seeking fused with moral order. Space doesn’t dismiss Scripture; it illuminates it. Ancient myths and biblical echoes (Ezekiel’s wheels, chariots of fire) hint at cosmic realities. When we settle the Moon and Mars, we’ll confront those stories with fresh eyes, not fear.

Transhumanism and AI raise valid anxieties. I sympathize with those guarding the “temple of the human body” against occult-tinged experiments that seek to dethrone God. Yet I support robotics and AI enthusiastically. They’re tools, not replacements. Elon Musk’s Optimus robots—demonstrated in recent high-profile events—represent progress, not erasure. The robot Melania Trump walked onstage symbolized partnership: machines handling hostile environments so humans thrive. Blue-collar fears about job loss in trucking or fast food miss the bigger picture. Space will explode opportunities. Lunar mining, orbital manufacturing, tourism, and research will demand millions of roles Earthside and off-world. NASA studies project Artemis driving economic growth through commercial partnerships and a burgeoning lunar marketplace.  PwC forecasts a $127 billion Moon economy by 2050, fueled by energy infrastructure, resources, and services.  I think it will be a lot higher than that.  Far from regression, we gain jobs by the mass. I’m bullish because history shows technology expands human potential when paired with moral vision.

Look at the hardware already proving the path. SpaceX’s Starship must fly aggressively; routine, reusable flights are non-negotiable. Firefly’s success shows commercial lunar access is here. Artemis II tests Orion and SLS for crewed lunar operations, paving the way for Artemis III’s landing (targeted 2027–2028 under current plans) and eventual bases. I want Americans—led by visionaries like President Trump—first on the Moon again, first with permanent colonies (dozens, then hundreds, then thousands). A 10,000-person lunar hub by 2050 isn’t fantasy; it’s engineering plus will. People will live there comfortably: internet, power, hotels. I’ll be among the first tourists with my wife—enthusiastically. Imagine vacationing on the Moon, then returning transformed.

Mars follows. Elon Musk has highlighted the Fermi Paradox’s scariest resolution: we might be alone, or nearly so, in the observable universe—a tiny candle of consciousness in darkness.   That rarity demands we multiply life outward. Different gravities will reshape humanity—taller or shorter frames, new adaptations—yet our core experience evolves. Space archaeology will resolve earthly mythologies: Was Mars once lush? Did prior intelligences leave traces? We boldly go, not in fear, but in faith.

Opposition comes from anti-human forces—regressive ideologies that prefer controlled scarcity on Earth over expansive freedom. Democrats and globalist mindsets sabotage by slowing timelines, inflating costs, or prioritizing Earthbound politics. They fear off-world colonies because independent humans are harder to dominate. I reject that. Human destiny is multi-planetary; it guarantees species survival against asteroids, climate shifts, or self-inflicted woes.

I want answers. I want the space economy flourishing, exploration routine, and humanity confronting the fire behind the shadows. My book The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business outlines principles of decisive action and moral clarity I apply here. Subscribe, engage, study ancient history, support aggressive NASA and SpaceX timelines. Let’s compress Artemis, land Starships weekly, and build hotels on the Moon. The cave is behind us. The stars await. Godspeed.

Footnotes and Further Reference Material

1.  Plato. The Republic, Book VII (514a–520a). Standard translation by Benjamin Jowett or Allan Bloom recommended. For modern analysis: SparkNotes or MasterClass summaries align with my interpretation of enlightenment through ascent. 

2.  Eratosthenes’ method detailed in Cleomedes’ On the Circular Motions of the Heavens and modern reconstructions. See APS News (2006) or Khan Academy for accessible explanations. 

3.  NASA Artemis Program: Official site (nasa.gov/artemis) for timelines; Wikipedia for historical delays. Economic report: “Economic Growth and National Competitiveness Impacts of the Artemis Program” (NASA, 2022). 

4.  Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1: Firefly Aerospace press releases and end-of-mission summary. Confirms March 2, 2025 landing. 

5.  Biblical Creation Mandate: Genesis 1:26–28; extended discussion in Answers in Genesis or Focus on the Family resources. 

6.  Space economy projections: PwC Lunar Market Assessment (2026); NASA’s commercial lunar payload services page. 

7.  Elon Musk on Fermi Paradox and solitude in cosmos: Public statements 2018–2026, including Davos remarks and X posts. 

Additional reading: The Republic (Plato); Pale Blue Dot (Carl Sagan) for perspective (though I differ on some philosophical points); NASA’s Artemis economic studies; The Case for Mars (Robert Zubrin); ancient astronomy texts like Ptolemy or modern histories of Eratosthenes. For AI/robotics ethics: Musk’s own writings and Tesla Optimus updates. Study these, visit NASA facilities as I have with my wife, and join the ascent. The future is ours to seize.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

Give the Vice President a Copy of ‘Birthright’: The best political move that the White House could make would be to talk about Aliens and their relationship to mankind

In the quiet rhythms of a life well-lived in Middletown, Ohio—where the Ohio River Valley whispers stories of ancient mounds and forgotten giants—few pursuits bring deeper satisfaction than the steady arrival of a new issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. For decades, since I was eleven or twelve years old, these pages have anchored a lifelong fascination with the tangible remnants of Scripture: pottery shards from Israelite settlements, inscriptions confirming kings mentioned in the books of Kings and Chronicles, and excavation reports that ground the biblical narrative in real soil and stone rather than abstract myth.  That same reverence for evidence extends naturally to the majestic ESV Archaeology Study Bible from Crossway, a volume packed with hundreds of full-color photographs, detailed maps, timelines, and notes contributed by field-trained archaeologists who have walked the very sites they describe. It doesn’t indulge in wild speculation; instead, it methodically illuminates how discoveries at places like Megiddo, Hazor, Lachish, or the City of David correspond directly to the texts we hold dear, reinforcing that the Bible is not some detached spiritual allegory but a record deeply interwoven with verifiable history, geography, and material culture.   

The more one engages with these resources, the deeper the layers become. Archaeology confirms the plausibility of biblical events and places, but it also leaves space for the “paranormal” or supernatural dimensions that the texts themselves never shy away from—encounters with spiritual forces, hybrid beings, and cosmic rebellions that shape human destiny across millennia. This interplay becomes especially urgent in 2026, as Vice President J.D. Vance has spoken openly about his long-standing obsession with UFO files and his firm conviction that what many call extraterrestrial visitors are not aliens from distant planets in the conventional science-fiction sense. In a recent interview with podcaster Benny Johnson, Vance stated plainly, “I don’t think they’re aliens. I think they’re demons anyway.” He frames the phenomena through a Christian worldview: there is real good and real evil operating in the unseen realm, and entities engaging in “weird things to people”—abductions, genetic interference, or deceptive encounters—align more readily with biblical descriptions of spiritual deception than with benevolent or neutral visitors from another star system. Vance, drawing on his background as a Marine, lawyer, author of Hillbilly Elegy, and now Vice President with access to the highest-level classifications, has vowed that the Trump administration will pursue the genuine disclosure of classified UFO-related materials. His goal appears practical as well as curious: get ahead of cultural shaping moments, such as a potential new Spielberg film that could frame the narrative in purely secular or optimistic “space brothers” terms, much as Close Encounters of the Third Kind did in the late 1970s when it profoundly influenced public perception and even inspired my own fourth-grade report on UFO sightings. His sincerity stands out, especially coming from someone rooted in Midwestern values, family commitments, and a desire to serve effectively without descending into fringe hysteria. Many everyday “normies”—folks who grill hot dogs on weekends, mow lawns on Saturdays, follow the Cincinnati Reds, and focus on practical concerns like gas prices and raising kids—are now paying attention because the topic has shifted from taboo conspiracy to something discussed at the highest levels of government.    

This broad-brush linkage of UFO phenomena to “demons” carries real merit as an initial guardrail. It rightly rejects naive materialism that assumes everything must fit within a purely physical, Darwinian cosmos devoid of spiritual agency. It echoes concerns raised by figures like Tucker Carlson in recent years and acknowledges that evil is not merely a human construct but involves intelligent opposition to God’s order. Yet it also risks painting with strokes that are too wide, potentially collapsing distinct layers of a complex cosmic conflict into a single undifferentiated category. This is precisely where Timothy Alberino’s 2020 book Birthright: The Coming Posthuman Apocalypse and the Usurpation of Adam’s Dominion on Planet Earth stands out as one of the most articulate, Scripture-rooted, and up-to-date bridges available. Alberino, an explorer, filmmaker, and researcher who brings an almost Indiana Jones spirit to biblical scholarship—traveling to remote sites, engaging ancient texts, and connecting dots across disciplines—does not dismiss the demonic dimension. Instead, he refines the categories with precision drawn from Genesis, the Book of Enoch, the Epistle of Jude, Revelation, and the broader ancient Near Eastern context, while integrating modern reports of abductions, hybridization programs, and transhumanist trends.   

Alberino constructs his framework around a pre-Adamic galactic rebellion led by Lucifer, personified as the dragon or morning star, who fell from his exalted position. This insurrection caused widespread devastation across the cosmos, leaving planets and realms in a state of tohu va-bohu—formless and void, as Genesis 1:2 poetically describes the initial condition of Earth before renewal. God then restores the terrestrial realm and appoints Adam as regent, granting humanity the irrevocable birthright of dominion: to rule as image-bearers, sons and daughters of the Most High, exercising authority over creation in partnership with Heaven. Humanity is positioned as the “younger sibling” in a universe already populated by an “elder race”—advanced non-human beings, primarily angelic orders, possessing greater perception, capabilities, and even technology-like means of traversal (what we might today interpret as aerospace phenomena). This elder race includes both loyal servants of God and those who joined the rebellion.  

The critical transgression comes with the Watchers, a group of fallen angels detailed in Genesis 6:1-4 and expanded dramatically in the Book of Enoch (particularly the Book of the Watchers, chapters 1–36). These beings descend to Earth, take human women as wives, and produce hybrid offspring known as the Nephilim—violent giants who fill the earth with bloodshed, corruption, and forbidden knowledge. The Watchers teach humanity sorcery, metallurgy, cosmetics, weapons-making, and other arts that accelerate moral decay and violence. The Flood serves as a divine reset, wiping out the corrupted order, yet the disembodied spirits of the slain Nephilim persist as restless, tormented entities. These become the “demons” or unclean spirits familiar from the New Testament—beings that seek embodiment, oppress, possess, haunt, and torment humanity, craving the physicality they lost when their giant bodies perished. This distinction is crucial and consistent in Alberino’s analysis: demons are specifically the bodiless spirits of the dead Nephilim giants, operating primarily in the invisible spiritual realm.  

In contrast, modern UFO or “alien” phenomena—encounters with Grays, reported abductions, cattle mutilations, hybridization programs, and craft exhibiting advanced propulsion—represent a different but related layer. Alberino argues these are physical, biological entities, not mere disembodied spirits. They may be engineered hybrids, surviving bloodlines from pre-Flood or post-Flood incursions, or tools deployed by the ongoing Luciferian agenda. These beings operate with tangible technology, agendas centered on genetic tampering, and a long-term strategy to push humanity toward transhumanism—the merging of biology with machines, AI, or artificial enhancements that promise god-like power but ultimately corrupt the image of God in man. This echoes the ancient corruption of the human seed but updates it for a technological age. Labeling everything “demons” with a broad brush misses the tangible, fleshly (or bio-engineered) component of the warfare. Both the demonic spirits and the physical alien entities oppose God’s created order and seek to usurp Adam’s birthright, but they function on different fronts: one through invisible oppression and possession, the other through visible incursions, deception, and ideological subversion. The endgame Alberino warns of is a posthuman apocalypse, where humanity trades its divine inheritance for counterfeit upgrades, paving the way for a counterfeit kingdom ruled by an adversary who may even present through advanced aerospace means.  

This nuanced model provides profound ballast for any impending disclosure. If government files reveal physical craft, recovered bodies, or documented interactions, a simplistic “all demons in disguise” approach could leave people spiritually and intellectually unprepared for the fuller biblical cosmology. Alberino’s work equips readers to see the phenomena as part of an ancient, multi-front war rather than random anomalies or friendly visitors. It rejects both materialist reductionism (everything is just advanced human tech or natural phenomena) and unanchored mysticism, always anchoring back to Christ as the ultimate restorer of dominion and the One who reclaims the birthright on behalf of redeemed humanity. Transhumanism, in this light, is not neutral progress but the latest glittering bait—much like Esau trading his birthright for stew—designed to produce a species no longer eligible for the redemption offered through the seed of the woman.

This framework harmonizes beautifully with the hard archaeological and historical evidence that publications like Biblical Archaeology Review and study Bibles like the ESV edition help contextualize, while extending courageously into territories mainstream academia often avoids. Consider the work of Fritz Zimmerman, whose exhaustive compilations—The Encyclopedia of Ancient Giants in North America and related volumes—draw from thousands of 19th- and early 20th-century newspaper accounts, county histories, and pioneer reports. Across the Ohio River Valley and beyond, stories abound of massive human skeletons unearthed during farming, railroad construction, or mound excavations: individuals seven to twelve feet tall, sometimes with double rows of teeth, elongated skulls, or other anomalous features. These finds cluster particularly in Adena and Hopewell cultures, with large conical mounds, geometric earthworks, and burial practices that suggest a distinct ruling or priestly class. Many accounts describe bones that crumbled to dust upon exposure to air, or specimens that mysteriously vanished after being sent to institutions like the Smithsonian. Zimmerman documents hundreds of such cases across dozens of states, with especially dense concentrations in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Native American oral traditions in the region often speak of an earlier race of giants—red-haired, bearded, or technologically advanced—who warred with incoming tribes or were eventually driven out. These accounts align strikingly with biblical and extra-biblical references to post-Flood Rephaim, Anakim, Emim, and other giant clans, including Og of Bashan (whose iron bed measured over thirteen feet) and the family of Goliath. The pattern of suppression or dismissal of these finds mirrors the historical handling of UFO reports: both challenge purely materialist or evolutionary paradigms that prefer gradual human development without anomalous interventions.   

Closer to home here in Ohio, the Great Serpent Mound in Adams County offers another compelling intersection of geology, archaeology, and potential sacred knowledge. The effigy mound itself—an undulating serpent nearly a quarter-mile long, with a coiled tail and open mouth appearing to swallow an egg-like oval—sits precisely on the rim of a confirmed cryptoexplosion or impact structure. Geological surveys confirm this as a complex impact crater roughly eight miles in diameter, formed by an asteroid or comet strike between approximately 252 and 330 million years ago (late Paleozoic era). Evidence includes shatter cones in the bedrock, planar deformation features in quartz grains (indicating extreme shock pressures), breccias, and a central uplift with intensely faulted and folded strata. The structure features a central dome, transition zone, and ring graben. Why would ancient builders—likely Adena or Fort Ancient peoples—choose this precise location for such a monumental earthwork, investing enormous labor to shape the serpent with astronomical precision? The head aligns with the summer solstice sunset, and the overall form may track lunar standstills or equinoxes. Placing a sacred effigy at the edge of a massive ancient scar suggests either extraordinary astronomical observation or guidance from intelligences attuned to celestial and terrestrial energies. Similar patterns appear globally at megalithic sites built on anomalous geological features, hinting at interactions with forces or entities beyond ordinary human capability in the eras traditionally assigned. Erosion over deep time has softened the crater’s expression, but the underlying anomaly remains, inviting questions about why certain “high places” or power centers were repeatedly chosen for temples, mounds, or alignments across cultures.    

Alberino’s analysis gains further depth when paired with the Book of Enoch, preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls and now available in editions with scholarly commentary, including contributions associated with Alberino. This ancient text expands dramatically on the sparse account in Genesis 6, detailing the Watchers’ descent on Mount Hermon, their oath-bound pact, the birth and rampaging violence of the giants, and the forbidden teachings that corrupted pre-Flood civilization. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, is taken up without dying and receives heavenly visions, serving as a scribe and intermediary. The text describes the giants’ spirits, after their bodies are destroyed in the Flood judgment, becoming evil spirits that afflict humanity—precisely the origin story for demons that Alberino and others distinguish from the physical players in the ongoing conflict. The Dead Sea Scrolls’ validation of Enochic material alongside canonical books underscores that these ideas circulated widely in Second Temple Judaism and influenced early Christian thought, even if the book itself was not included in the final Protestant canon. Reading Enoch alongside Genesis, Jude (which quotes it), and 2 Peter provides a richer scaffolding for understanding why paranormal activity persists rather than vanishing after the Flood or the cross: it adapted, going underground behind the distractions of polite society, technology, entertainment, and daily survival. Sports scores, mortgages, careers, and weekend routines occupy mental space, leaving little room for reflection on deeper cosmic narratives—yet the ancient texts insist the battle continues. 

David Flynn’s provocative research in Temple at the Center of Time adds yet another layer, building on Sir Isaac Newton’s extensive (and often private) studies of biblical prophecy, chronology, and sacred measurements. Newton, far from a purely secular scientist, devoted significant energy to deciphering what he saw as a “prisca sapientia”—an ancient pure knowledge embedded in Scripture and architecture. Flynn maps distances and geometries from the Jerusalem Temple Mount using modern tools and finds uncanny correlations with pivotal historical dates, including links to 1948 and the rebirth of Israel. The Temple functions not merely as a religious site but as a prophetic and temporal landmark, with measurements potentially encoding timelines and geographic centers of divine activity. Alberino engages such synchronicities appreciatively but cautiously, always subordinating them to the clear Christocentric gospel: Jesus as the true Temple, the restorer of dominion, and the One who defeats the dragon decisively at the end. This approach avoids numerological excess while honoring the idea that sacred geography and time may reflect deeper divine order amid the chaos of rebellion.  

Broader explorations by researchers like Graham Hancock—focusing on lost advanced civilizations, potential Younger Dryas cataclysms, megalithic sophistication predating conventional timelines, and underwater ruins—find partial integration in Alberino’s biblical axis without abandoning scriptural authority. Pre-Flood or immediately post-Babel influences could reflect lingering effects of rebel factions or their human collaborators, manifesting as pockets of advanced knowledge, monumental construction, or anomalous technology that later cultures remembered as “golden ages” or Atlantean echoes. The Tower of Babel itself, recently re-examined in Biblical Archaeology Review for grammatical nuances suggesting the structure may have been portrayed as completed before divine intervention, represents another rebellion against God’s order: humanity unified in pride, seeking to “make a name” through monumental architecture (likely a ziggurat in the Mesopotamian context) rather than trusting divine provision and scattering as commanded. Archaeological parallels to Mesopotamian ziggurats abound, yet the biblical emphasis remains theological—confusion of languages as judgment on centralized defiance. Recent articles explore whether the tower narrative assumes completion, deepening interpretive questions about human hubris and divine sovereignty. Alberino would see such events as recurring motifs in the usurpation attempt: centralized power, forbidden tech or knowledge, and attempts to breach heavenly boundaries. 

In an era when political necessities may soon force greater openness on classified files—driven by leaks, public pressure, and the need to shape the narrative before Hollywood or adversarial powers do—Birthright offers essential intellectual and spiritual preparation. It reframes UFO discourse away from pure mysticism or sci-fi optimism into a coherent biblical war narrative: not random extraterrestrial tourists, but a multi-front assault on humanity’s God-given role as stewards and image-bearers. Demonic spirits (Nephilim ghosts) handle much of the invisible torment, possession, and oppression; physical or bio-engineered entities advance genetic subversion, ideological erosion (through atheism, Darwinian reductionism, or self-deification), and the transhumanist trajectory toward a posthuman counterfeit. The Antichrist figure, in some interpretations Alberino entertains, could even emerge with aerospace or technological grandeur rather than purely supernatural spectacle. Yet the ultimate message remains one of hope and redemption: the birthright, though contested and partially squandered through deception, was never permanently revoked. Christ, the last Adam, reclaims and restores it for all who trust in Him, culminating in the final battle at Armageddon and the renewal of creation where dominion is exercised rightly under the King of Kings.

For those of us in Ohio, with Patterson Air Force Base lore circulating for generations—stories of reverse-engineered craft, anomalous materials, or even giant remains studied quietly—these discussions feel less abstract. Regional Bigfoot sightings, mound complexes, and persistent UFO reports over the years seem to belong to the same interwoven story when viewed through a biblical lens: remnants or echoes of ancient incursions, spiritual oppressions, and ongoing attempts to challenge humanity’s assigned role. Friends and acquaintances in politics, like State Senator George Lang, have shared late-night conversations about ancient aliens, Easter Island’s buried bodies, or megalithic mysteries with me—moments that transcend partisan lines and touch the deeper adventure of discovery. Even mainstream figures are now engaging topics once confined to podcasts or fringe circles, precisely because evidence from multiple disciplines has accumulated: archaeological anomalies, textual survivals like Enoch, eyewitness consistency in abduction reports, and technological leaps that raise questions about origins and agendas.

Vance’s instinct to categorize the phenomena demonically serves as a healthy initial filter against overly optimistic or materialist interpretations. Alberino’s added nuance—distinguishing layers while maintaining a unified adversarial agenda—prepares believers, seekers, and even policymakers to engage disclosure without panic, deception, or loss of grounding. It encourages deeper engagement with Scripture, cross-referencing using archaeological tools like the ESV Study Bible, insights from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and an honest evaluation of extra-biblical texts. The answers, as so often happens, rarely reside comfortably within the institutional boxes built by academia, government, or the media; they reward those willing to follow the evidence across archaeology, ancient literature, contemporary reports, and cosmic theology. The birthright of dominion remains humanity’s divine inheritance—contested, yes, but ultimately secured through the finished work of Christ.

Those interested in building a firmer foundation would do well to read Birthright multiple times, allowing its dense interconnections to settle. Pair it with Zimmerman’s giant compilations for regional grounding, Flynn for sacred geography explorations (read critically), primary Enoch translations with commentary, ongoing issues of Biblical Archaeology Review for fresh site reports (including recent discussions on Babel’s grammar and implications), and the ESV Archaeology Study Bible for visual and contextual depth. The puzzle’s outer edges have long been visible; the middle is filling rapidly with every honest inquiry. When fuller disclosure arrives—whether driven by political timing, inevitable leaks, or cultural momentum—it will rattle many worldviews. A framework anchored in dominion, rebellion, fall, redemption, and ultimate victory equips us not merely to understand strange phenomena but to stand firm in our created purpose amid the storm.

The adventure has always lain just beyond the handrails of “normal” life. For those who dare step out—whether a vice-presidential advisor seeking context, an Ohio resident curious about local mounds and base rumors, or anyone sensing that polite society’s distractions have hidden deeper truths—the rewards include a clearer vision of who we are, why the conflict persists, and how the story ends with restoration rather than extinction or usurpation. In the end, remembering the birthright is not about fear of aliens or demons but about reclaiming our identity as image-bearers destined for glory in a renewed creation. The evidence, both ancient and emerging, continues to point in that direction for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. And for all those reasons, and more, we need to give Vice President Vance a copy of Timothy Alberino’s Birthright, for a context to the White House narrative of Alien Disclosure and the many new questions that will come with it.

Beyond the immediate policy landscape, the issue of disclosure presents a unique cultural and political inflection point. At a time when the public is saturated with economic anxiety—elevated energy prices, trade tensions, contentious Supreme Court cases, and ongoing losses and gridlock in both the House and Senate—voters are increasingly responsive to issues that offer transparency, curiosity, and a sense of shared truth. Gas prices may fluctuate and stabilize over time, but public trust, once eroded, is far more difficult to recover. Disclosure, approached carefully and credibly, speaks directly to that trust deficit.

Historically, disclosure efforts have generated intense public interest but have often failed to deliver substantive clarity. Episodes surrounding the Epstein records or the long-promised JFK disclosures fueled attention, speculation, and media buzz, yet ultimately left many Americans dissatisfied by incrementalism and ambiguity. A future disclosure moment does not necessarily have to follow that pattern. If handled with seriousness, institutional credibility, and clear communication, it could stand apart as a rare instance where public curiosity is met with meaningful acknowledgment rather than prolonged deferral.

Culturally, the subject of disclosure—whether related to unexplained phenomena, advanced technologies, or anomalous encounters—has increasingly found resonance among communities traditionally aligned with progressive or countercultural movements. This has allowed one side of the political spectrum to dominate the narrative space, framing disclosure as an expression of openness, curiosity, and empathy for everyday people who report unusual experiences. That cultural alignment is not inevitable, however. There exists an opportunity for broader engagement that avoids sensationalism while still acknowledging the legitimacy of public interest in these phenomena.

Public-facing engagement does not require endorsement of every claim or abandoning analytical rigor. Rather, it involves meeting voter curiosity with respect—recognizing that unexplained observations and regional folklore often function as entry points into deeper questions about science, government transparency, and institutional credibility. When approached thoughtfully, this engagement can humanize leadership, counter perceptions of detachment, and prevent disclosure-related narratives from being monopolized or caricatured.

From a broader political perspective, disclosure also represents a rare issue capable of temporarily transcending partisan exhaustion. In a midterm environment where voters are seeking tangible “wins” amid legislative stalemate, disclosure—if it produces real information and measurable transparency—could serve as a confidence-building event rather than a distraction. Done well, it has the potential to occupy the public narrative during periods when other contentious issues naturally cool, offering space for recalibration rather than escalation.

For these reasons, disclosure is not merely a speculative subject but a test of institutional seriousness. Its success depends less on timing theatrics and more on whether it delivers clarity, credibility, and follow-through. Managed responsibly, it could become one of the defining public conversations of the coming election cycle—one remembered not for hype, but for substance.

Footnotes

¹ Personal reflection on lifelong subscription to Biblical Archaeology Review since childhood, aligning with its role in correlating finds with biblical texts.

² Crossway, ESV Archaeology Study Bible (2017/2018), with over 2,000 study notes, 400+ photographs, maps, and contributions from field archaeologists.

³ J.D. Vance interview with Benny Johnson (March 2026), where he explicitly states UFOs/aliens are “demons” and expresses an obsession with disclosure files.

⁴ Timothy Alberino, Birthright: The Coming Posthuman Apocalypse and the Usurpation of Adam’s Dominion on Planet Earth (2020). Key arguments include the pre-Adamic rebellion, the birthright of dominion, the distinction between Nephilim demons and physical alien entities, and the transhumanist endgame.

⁵ Genesis 6:1-4; 1 Enoch (Book of the Watchers).

⁶ Jude 6; 1 Enoch 15:8-9 on spirits of giants as evil spirits.

⁷ Alberino interviews and debates (e.g., Nephilim Death Squad, Michael Knowles), clarifying aliens as physical tools vs. disembodied demons.

⁸ Fritz Zimmerman, The Encyclopedia of Ancient Giants in North America (2015), compiling 888+ giant accounts from newspapers and histories, with emphasis on the Ohio Valley.

⁹ Ohio Department of Natural Resources and geological studies on Serpent Mound Impact Structure (8-mile diameter, ~252-330 million years ago).

¹⁰ Archaeological descriptions of Serpent Mound alignments (summer solstice sunset at head).

¹¹ David Flynn, Temple at the Center of Time: Newton’s Bible Codex Finally Deciphered and the Year 2012 (2008).

¹² Alberino-associated editions/commentary on the Book of Enoch.

¹³ Personal and regional observations on Ohio sites, Patterson AFB lore, and mound/giant traditions.

¹⁴ Transhumanism discussions in Birthright as modern usurpation.

¹⁵ Dead Sea Scrolls confirming Enochic texts.

¹⁶ Recent Biblical Archaeology Review (Spring 2026) on Tower of Babel grammar possibly indicating completion.

Bibliography

•  Alberino, Timothy. Birthright: The Coming Posthuman Apocalypse and the Usurpation of Adam’s Dominion on Planet Earth. 2020.

•  Crossway. ESV Archaeology Study Bible. 2017/2018.

•  Flynn, David. Temple at the Center of Time: Newton’s Bible Codex Finally Deciphered and the Year 2012. 2008.

•  The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch), various editions including those with modern commentary.

•  Biblical Archaeology Review, ongoing issues, including Spring 2026 article on Tower of Babel by Richelle and Vanderhooft.

•  Zimmerman, Fritz. The Encyclopedia of Ancient Giants in North America. 2015.

•  Ohio Division of Geological Survey reports on Serpent Mound Impact Structure.

•  Genesis, Jude, Revelation (ESV or standard translations).

•  Vance, J.D. Interview comments reported in Fox News, The Hill, Newsweek (March 2026).

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

Opening Day Chaos in Cincinnati: Soft on Crime, as Sheriff Jones says, doesn’t work

I remember the excitement building every year for Opening Day in Cincinnati—the way the city comes alive with that classic American spirit, the parades, the fireworks, the packed stands at Great American Ball Park, and the hope that this season might finally be the one for the Reds. It’s always been a slice of pure Americana, a festive ritual that draws families, friends, and fans from across the region to celebrate baseball and community. But on March 26, 2026, that celebration turned sour in ways that left the city embarrassed once again. What started as a joyful gathering spilled over into chaos at The Banks, the riverfront development nestled between Paycor Stadium (formerly Paul Brown Stadium for the Bengals) and the ballpark itself. Large, unruly crowds led to fights, pushing and shoving, disorder, and violence that forced police to shut down the entire area early, deploying officers with riot shields, nonlethal shotguns, and pepper spray to disperse the masses.  

Seventeen people were arrested amid reports of altercations not just at The Banks but spreading to nearby spots like Over-the-Rhine, Fountain Square, and Washington Park. Businesses that had planned late-night hours had to close prematurely, their owners cooperating with the Cincinnati Police Department to clear the pedestrian plaza and restore order. Videos circulating online showed crowds swarming officers, people falling over one another amid the chaos, and isolated brawls breaking out even as the game itself unfolded. The Reds lost their opener to the Boston Red Sox, adding to the disappointment, but the real sting came from the streets outside—robberies, beatings, and a general breakdown that turned a family-friendly event into something ugly. It wasn’t isolated to one spot; it rippled through downtown, a stark reminder that large gatherings can expose deeper fractures when control slips away. I watched it unfold through reports and conversations with friends still tied to the area, and it hit hard because I have a personal history with Cincinnati that goes back decades. 

One of the clearest voices cutting through the noise came from my good friend Sheriff Richard K. Jones of Butler County. He’s a no-nonsense lawman whose straightforward style has made him a popular figure far beyond Ohio’s borders—folks tune in to his updates from all over because he doesn’t sugarcoat things. In statements around the time of the incident, he and others highlighted how soft-on-crime approaches can embolden disorder, pointing to patterns of leniency that allow problems to escalate when crowds gather. I’ve known Sheriff Jones long enough to trust his read on these matters—he runs a tight ship in Butler County, where commitment to enforcement means residents can feel safe going about their lives, even late at night at a gas station. That contrast with Hamilton County, where Cincinnati sits, is night and day. There, the approach has leaned too soft for too long, and when crowds gather, as they did on Opening Day, a few sparks turn into mass chaos. 

I’ve seen this pattern up close because Cincinnati isn’t just a place I visit—it’s where I lived for a stretch of my life, including time on the University of Cincinnati campus. Back then, in my younger days, I got to know the downtown scene intimately, rubbing shoulders with mayors, city council members, and commissioners through various projects and conversations. I understood the politics, the backroom deals, and the long game of urban development. In fact, I was part of the team that helped pitch the very Banks project that now stands as that gleaming riverfront gem. This was in my 20s, long before I turned 50, when the idea was still a set of raw sketches on paper and ambitious dreams of reconnecting the city to the Ohio River were still coming together. Paul Brown Stadium wasn’t even built yet—it was still on the drawing board—and the riverfront was a different beast entirely, cut off by highways and underused land. 

Our pitch wasn’t some fly-by-night scheme. It took years—nearly a decade of lining up stakeholders, developers, and the inevitable negotiations with a city council full of Democrats who, in those pre-“woke” days, could still sit down and hammer out compromises when investment dollars were on the table. The vision was straightforward: revitalize the riverfront, build apartments, restaurants, retail, and public spaces to draw people in, create jobs, and foster pride of place. The belief was that if you invested in the physical environment—fixing up the banks, attracting businesses, and creating a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood—people would respond by treating it better. New residents and visitors would benefit, upward mobility would follow, and the whole area would lift itself. We weren’t naive about the challenges; Cincinnati had its history of economic shifts, industrial decline, and the usual urban tensions. But the data and the drawings we presented showed promise: connect the river to downtown, leverage the stadiums, and watch the transformation. 

The roots of this effort trace back to the 1997 Central Riverfront Urban Design Master Plan (building on earlier concepts from the 1990s), which aimed to transform a fragmented riverfront of parking lots and underused land into a cohesive public-private destination. Groundbreaking for The Banks occurred in April 2008, amid the onset of the Great Recession, with Phase I opening in 2011 and featuring apartments and retail. Subsequent phases added more residential units, commercial space, the AC Hotel, and connections to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and riverfront park. It represented a massive public-private partnership involving the City of Cincinnati, Hamilton County, and developers like Carter and The Dawson Company. By the time it matured, The Banks had become a hub of restaurants, businesses, and events—a genuine civic achievement that took patience through bureaucracy and economic headwinds. I remember sitting in city council chambers with the mayor and investors, reviewing renderings that captured exactly what stands there now: a pedestrian-friendly plaza, views of the river, and an energy that makes Opening Day feel special. The developers delivered on the promise, and for a while, it worked. Families strolled, fans gathered, and the riverfront felt reborn.  

Yet here we are in 2026, watching that same space devolve into disorder on what should have been a highlight reel of Americana. The gap between the vision and the reality isn’t about bricks and mortar; it’s about the human element that was underestimated back in those planning sessions. What they didn’t fully anticipate—though some of us sensed the undercurrents—was how certain policy choices and cultural narratives could undermine the very progress we were building. Over the years, Cincinnati’s leadership, often aligned with Democrat priorities at the city level, pursued approaches that emphasized social mechanisms over individual responsibility. Mayors and councils maintained a sometimes-strained relationship with police unions, opting for policies critics describe as soft on crime. This isn’t ancient history; it’s a thread that runs through decades of decisions in Hamilton County, where the city proper sits, including post-2001 riot reforms, collaborative agreements with the community, and ongoing debates over enforcement versus social explanations for crime.  

I’ve watched this play out from my perspective, having stayed connected through old contacts even after moving on. In dense urban settings, people often find comfort in collective energy and group dynamics—the camaraderie of crowds, the ability to blend in as one more face in the throng. This environment can lend itself to advancing ideas through mass momentum rather than individual scrutiny. In contrast, those who prefer more personal space—a fence for privacy, room to breathe, the freedom to drive a short distance without constant proximity—tend to favor different living patterns. These cultural preferences shape how communities form and how policies resonate. In urban cores, political strategies have sometimes involved mobilizing large voting blocs, including minority communities, around shared narratives. When those narratives emphasize perpetual underprivilege or systemic barriers without equally stressing personal agency and upward mobility, they can foster a sense of discontent that persists across generations.

I’ve seen the cycle of victimization through my interactions in the region. It’s not unique to Cincinnati; similar dynamics appear in other Midwest cities where high-crime neighborhoods grapple with the tension between opportunity and grievance. Decades of approaches that prioritize group empowerment through collectivism while downplaying individual responsibility didn’t always build the self-reliance we hoped the Bank’s investment would encourage. Instead of residents fully embracing the new development as a ladder for climbing—earning enough to enjoy those riverfront spots—some carried affiliations and instincts shaped by longer-term patterns. When large crowds form on festive days like Opening Day, with its draw of disenchanted youth alongside older participants, a few instigators can turn the energy into mob behavior: ganging up, beatings, theft. It’s not every person, of course, but enough to derail the night for families and fans who expected safe, wholesome fun. The arrested ranged in age from 14 to 50, illustrating how these issues span generations. 

The last major flare-ups saw leadership respond with statements emphasizing accountability while also noting the challenges of policing large events. Yet critics, including law enforcement voices, argue that consistent leniency—quick releases and an emphasis on social factors over swift consequences—sends mixed signals. In Butler County, Sheriff Jones’s office demonstrates a different model: firm enforcement paired with community presence that deters rather than excuses. Hamilton County’s prosecutor and officers, I’ve known, share that commitment when supported, but city-level dynamics have sometimes constrained them. The difference is palpable: residents in one area can go about their daily lives with greater confidence, while those in the other wrestle with recurring disruptions.

This isn’t about assigning blanket blame; it’s about examining how ideas and policies translate into street-level results. Soft-on-crime stances—reduced emphasis on certain prosecutions, strained relations with police, or framing disorder primarily through external excuses—can create environments where chaos festers, especially when paired with cultural stories that discourage personal accountability. When combined with narratives that keep people anchored in feelings of victimization, crowds become pressure points where group dynamics justify acts that would be unacceptable individually. The 2026 Opening Day chaos, with its fights, resistance to officers, and shutdown of The Banks, exemplified that risk. Businesses and families paid the price for what should have been a celebration. 

Looking back on my time in my 20s, pitching alongside those developers, I remember the optimism. We drew up plans to bridge the river and connect to downtown, making the area a point of pride that would draw high-income earners, families, and tourists alike. The stadiums were anchors, the Freedom Center a cultural draw, and The Banks the connective tissue. It took patience—slow-walking through bureaucracy, aligning public funds with private capital amid economic challenges. But it happened, and for years it delivered that vibrant experience. Opening Day should embody safe fun, community pride, and kids enjoying the day without fear. Instead, the 2026 version left fans disappointed on the field and disrupted off it, with national headlines focusing on the disorder rather than the game or the setting.

Those arrested weren’t random; reports described a mix of ages and backgrounds amid the unruly crowds. Many fit patterns that are shaped by long-term reliance on public systems and narratives that frame individuals as perpetual victims rather than agents of their own mobility. They weren’t typically aligned with policies that emphasized self-reliance, the rule of law, and personal space. The embarrassment runs deep because Cincinnati is a nice town at its core—river views, sports heritage, hardworking people. But when leadership fails to maintain consistent boundaries, when mayors and councils prioritize other considerations over robust partnerships with police, the vulnerabilities show. Sheriff Jones and similar voices are right to call it out—they’ve proven that committed enforcement yields safer communities.

I’ve reflected on this a lot since the incident, drawing from my insider view of the Banks’ origins. That project wasn’t born in a vacuum; it was a deliberate bet on human potential meeting opportunity. The belief was that nicer surroundings would breed better behavior, that economic infusion would break cycles. What we missed—or what later policies and cultural shifts exacerbated—was how certain victimization rhetorics, paired with collectivist approaches, could keep segments of communities anchored below the line of full mobility. It turns festive crowds into pressure cookers where “mass movements” sometimes justify impulsive acts. The result? A once-promising development becomes a stage for the very problems it aimed to solve, embarrassing the city and saddening fans who came for Americana, not chaos.

This isn’t fatalism. Cities can course-correct—through stronger, more consistent partnerships with law enforcement, policies that balance accountability, and investments that pair infrastructure with cultural encouragement of responsibility and mobility. Cincinnati has the bones: a revitalized riverfront that took decades to realize, stadiums that draw millions, and a baseball tradition that’s pure Americana. The shame of Opening Day 2026 should serve as a wake-up call, not just for locals but for anyone observing how enforcement approaches and culture play out in real time. People involved that night owe it to the community to reflect. Excuses about external classes or quick releases only risk perpetuating the cycle. True progress comes when we teach responsibility alongside opportunity, when policies deter harm while supporting those willing to climb.

As someone who helped lay the groundwork for The Banks all those years ago, I feel a personal stake in seeing it thrive without these recurring embarrassments. The developers delivered; the vision held. Now it’s on leadership and broader culture to match that investment with clear expectations of civilized behavior. Sheriff Jones and others calling it out are right to do so—they’ve shown the alternative works. For Cincinnati to reclaim its Opening Day magic, it needs to reject cycles that undermine agency and embrace the ethos that builds sustainable communities: space to grow as individuals, rules that stick, and pride that lifts everyone without excusing harm. That’s the Americana worth celebrating—not the disorder that overshadowed it in 2026.

Footnotes

¹ Cincinnati Enquirer, “Over a dozen arrested in Opening Day ruckus,” March 27, 2026. Details arrests and shutdown of The Banks.

² FOX19, “17 arrested over ‘unruly’ behavior at Cincinnati’s Opening Day,” March 27, 2026. Covers charges including disorderly conduct, assault, and resisting arrest; ages 14–50.

³ WCPO, “Cincinnati police: 17 arrested amid Opening Day ‘disorder and violence,’” March 27, 2026. Reports on crowd behavior and police response with riot gear.

⁴ The Banks Public Partnership, “History of The Banks,” official timeline. Outlines development from the 1997 Master Plan through the phases opening in 2011 and beyond.

⁵ Wikipedia / The Banks, Cincinnati entry. Confirms the mixed-use nature between Paycor Stadium and Great American Ball Park, groundbreaking in 2008.

⁶ Central Riverfront Urban Design Master Plan (2000). Details the public planning process begun in 1996–1997, aimed at reconnecting downtown to the riverfront.

⁷ Riverfront Redevelopment Return on Investment report (2019). Discusses public-private partnerships, infrastructure, and economic context for The Banks.

⁸ New Yorker, “Don’t Shoot” (2009). Provides historical context on Cincinnati’s 2001 riots and subsequent policing reforms/collaborative agreements.

⁹ The Atlantic, “How Cincinnati Fixed Its Broken Police Department” (2015). Analyzes post-riot reforms and their impact on crime and community relations.

¹⁰ Mayor Aftab Pureval statement via FOX19 and LOCAL12, March 27, 2026. Describes the events as “an outrage” and calls for accountability while praising coordinated police response.

¹¹ Interim Chief Adam Hennie’s statements were reported across Enquirer, WCPO, and WLWT. Notes resistance from crowds and difficulty reaching victims.

¹² Butler County Sheriff’s Office communications and related commentary. Sheriff Jones has long emphasized enforcement priorities contrasting with urban approaches.

¹³ Additional context from Governing magazine and other analyses on Cincinnati’s community policing evolution since the early 2000s.

Bibliography

•  Cincinnati Enquirer and WCPO live coverage and articles on the March 26–27, 2026 Opening Day disturbances (multiple reports cited above).

•  The Banks Public Partnership official website: history and timeline sections.

•  Central Riverfront Urban Design Master Plan (Urban Design Associates, 2000).

•  “Riverfront Redevelopment Return on Investment: 1997-2019” (Hamilton County Special Project Counsel report).

•  Historical analyses: The Atlantic (2015), New Yorker (2009), and Governing magazine pieces on Cincinnati policing reforms.

•  FOX19, WLWT, and LOCAL12 are reporting on arrests, the mayor’s response, and police actions.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

The Anti-Human Nature of Democrat Energy Policy: When they want to destroy you, there is nothing to talk about

The book that now sits on shelves and in offices across Ohio, including that of my friend George Lang, the longtime Ohio State Senator and Majority Whip from West Chester, began as a simple conversation about energy policy and the deeper forces shaping our world. George, who serves on the Energy Committee and has been instrumental in pushing legislation like Senate Bill 294 to prioritize truly affordable, reliable, and clean energy sources—defining fossil fuels and nuclear power in those terms while scrutinizing intermittent renewables—handed me a copy of Alex Epstein’s Fossil Future during one of our discussions.   He had been reading it closely, multiple times, as he worked on reforms to counter the distortions in Ohio’s energy markets. I knew the book existed, but it was George’s recommendation that finally prompted me to dive in. What I found was not just a defense of fossil fuels but a philosophical framework that resonated with everything I had observed over years of political involvement, from local battles in Butler County to the broader national fights over regulation, subsidies, and human progress.

That encounter crystallized why I spent nearly a year writing The Politics of Heaven, a roughly 20-chapter manuscript that draws on my proximity to these stories—energy scandals, regulatory overreach, and cultural undercurrents that few dare to name. Publishing a book is no small feat; it demands flushing out ideas across chapters, refining arguments through beach walks where the sand and waves clear the mind, and confronting the hard realities of distribution, branding, and getting the work into readers’ hands. But books endure in ways podcasts or interviews cannot. They invite readers to pause, take notes, and pursue their own research. This one explores the intersection of energy policy, philosophy, and what I term the “non-human” movement—a force older and more lethal than partisan bickering, one that masquerades as environmentalism or compassion but ultimately seeks to curb human flourishing. It ties directly to Ohio’s energy debates, where George and others are fighting to defend fossil fuels and nuclear power against policies that subsidize wind and solar at the expense of reliable baseload sources. And it explains why, despite scandals like the FirstEnergy affair that ensnared some Republicans, the bigger picture reveals a systemic bias against the very energy that powers human advancement.

To understand the stakes in Ohio, one must revisit the FirstEnergy scandal surrounding House Bill 6 in 2019. That legislation provided ratepayer-funded subsidies—ultimately costing consumers around $1.3 billion over time—for two nuclear plants, Perry and Davis-Besse, owned then by a FirstEnergy subsidiary, along with some coal-related support. Federal prosecutors later charged that roughly $60 million in bribes flowed through a dark-money group to influence the bill’s passage and defeat a repeal effort, leading to the arrest of then-House Speaker Larry Householder and associates in 2020. Householder received a 20-year federal prison sentence, one of the most significant political corruption cases in Ohio history. Democrats have rightly highlighted the Republican involvement, using it to paint the entire party as captured by utilities. Yet many who supported HB6, including some who later faced scrutiny, acted out of genuine concern for energy reliability—nuclear power provides carbon-free baseload electricity, avoids millions of tons of emissions annually, and supports high-paying jobs. I feel for those wrapped up in the fallout, even those I disagree with on other issues; the scheme was wrong, but it did not negate the underlying need to protect nuclear assets from market distortions caused by renewable mandates. What the scandal obscured was the broader regulatory environment, shaped by decades of policies that tilted the scales toward intermittent renewables through subsidies, mandates, and penalties on fossil fuels and nuclear power. Ohio’s earlier renewable portfolio standards, set in 2008 at 25 percent by 2025, were scaled back under HB6 to 8.5 percent by 2026, but the damage from prior distortions lingered. As recently as late 2025, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio ordered FirstEnergy utilities to pay roughly $250 million in restitution and forfeitures related to HB6 violations, with additional settlements bringing consumer relief to around $275 million total in some agreements.    George Lang’s recent work on bills like SB 294 seeks to correct this by redefining “clean” and “reliable” energy around true cost accounting—fossil fuels and nuclear emerge as superior on affordability and dispatchability (with high capacity factors), while wind and solar, with their capacity factors often below 35 percent, require massive backups. 

Nuclear energy, in particular, stands as a triumph of human ingenuity. It generates a substantial share of America’s emissions-free electricity, powering communities across dozens of states, avoiding enormous emissions, and supporting thousands of high-paying jobs. Plants like Ohio’s Perry and Davis-Besse employ hundreds of workers each at salaries well above average, injecting billions into local economies. Safety records are exceptional: nuclear results in approximately 0.03 deaths per terawatt-hour (TWh), compared to coal’s roughly 24.6 deaths per TWh (from accidents and air pollution), oil at 18.43, and even natural gas at 2.82. This makes nuclear about 99.8 percent safer than coal on a deaths-per-TWh basis. Wind and solar sit at 0.04 and 0.02 deaths per TWh, respectively, but their system-level challenges (intermittency requiring backups) complicate direct comparisons. Yet Democrat-driven policies have subsidized solar and wind—now cheaper on levelized cost in some projections but unreliable without subsidies or storage—while burdening nuclear with regulatory hurdles that inflate costs. The result? A society paying more for less reliable power, all while fossil fuels remain the backbone of upper mobility.   

Electricity from any source, especially dense, reliable sources like coal, gas, and nuclear power, has transformed human life. Consider medieval Europe, where a king’s luxuries—climate control, preserved food, instant global information—mirror what even modest American households take for granted today. Air conditioning, refrigeration, lighting, and appliances that once defined royalty now enable low-income people to escape drudgery. Strong correlations exist between electricity access and human development metrics: health, education, income, and gender equality improve markedly where power flows consistently. Globally, basic electricity access rose to around 92 percent by 2023, with the number without access falling to roughly 666 million (down from higher figures earlier in the decade), lifting billions from energy poverty—though deeper “energy poverty” (inadequate reliable usage) affects an estimated 1.18 billion people, including many officially “connected” but unable to use power meaningfully due to outages or cost. Without abundant energy, upper mobility stalls; with it, creativity flourishes. Fossil fuels powered the Industrial Revolution, fertilizer production that feeds billions, and the machines that built modern medicine and transport. Opposing them while ignoring these benefits reveals a deeper motive.   

This brings us to the heart of The Politics of Heaven: the non-human movement. Epstein’s Fossil Future articulates this brilliantly, arguing that opposition to fossil fuels cannot stem from genuine concern for the environment or the climate alone, given their overwhelming benefits. He contrasts the “human flourishing framework”—where energy abundance is measured by its capacity to advance life, health, and prosperity—with the dominant “anti-impact” or “delicate nurturer” worldview. In the latter, any human alteration of nature is suspect, and experts systematically ignore benefits while overstating side effects. Epstein notes that “mankind’s use of fossil fuels is supremely virtuous—because human life is the standard of value, and because using fossil fuels transforms our environment to make it much better for human beings.” Those pushing rapid phase-outs, he contends, reveal an anti-human core: they prioritize a pristine Earth over human potential, even if it means regressing to pre-industrial conditions. This is not hyperbole. We saw it during the COVID lockdowns, when many imposed draconian restrictions that shuttered businesses, closed churches, and isolated families, all while claiming public health as the goal. The policies sacrificed economic vitality, mental health, and small-scale enterprise on the altar of control, mirroring a willingness to limit progress if it served certain ends.   

This non-human impulse echoes ancient cults of sacrifice. Across history, from Aztec temples in what is now Mexico City—where priests offered thousands of human hearts to gods like Huitzilopochtli, with archaeological evidence of massive skull racks (tzompantli) holding thousands of skulls and historical accounts of large-scale rituals during temple dedications—to headhunters in New Guinea and child sacrifices to Baal in the ancient Near East, societies have ritualized the destruction of life to appease higher powers or maintain cosmic balance. The Aztecs believed gods had sacrificed themselves to create humanity; humans owed blood in return, a debt repaid through ritual to prevent catastrophe. Mesoamerican cultures saw human sacrifice as essential reciprocity, nourishing deities so the universe endured. Similar practices appear in biblical warnings against Molech worship and in countless pre-modern traditions. Today, this manifests not in literal altars but in policies that treat human beings as expendable for an idealized “nature.” Radical environmentalism, influenced by deep ecology thinkers like Arne Naess, promotes “biocentric egalitarianism”—granting all living things equal moral status, often elevating the biosphere above human needs and rejecting anthropocentrism. Rooted in earlier works and formalized in the 1970s, deep ecology views humans as part of a holistic web rather than exceptional stewards, sometimes framing human impact itself as the core problem. It fuels a modern impulse in which “saving the planet” justifies limiting energy use, population rhetoric, and opposition to technologies that expand human life. Epstein captures this: advocates cling to the “delicate nurturer” assumption to mask anti-human goals, convincing themselves they save humanity from itself while halting the very activities that enable flourishing.    

In politics, this anti-human stance permeates certain energy agendas and cultural positions. Subsidies for renewables—often requiring vast land use, rare-earth mining, and backup power—distort markets while fossil and nuclear provide dense, scalable energy. Nuclear is “very clean vigorously”: low emissions, high capacity factors near 90 percent, and a safety profile unmatched. Yet policies born of environmentalism created barriers, favoring wind and solar despite their intermittency and higher system costs. The result harms the poor most—energy poverty correlates with stalled development, as seen in regions without reliable power where hardships persist. Upper mobility flows from energy: refrigeration prevents spoilage and disease, air conditioning combats heat-related deaths, and digital access opens education and opportunity. Epstein documents how fossil fuels have enabled unprecedented global progress; denying them is anti-human because it denies this reality. We witnessed ruthlessness in policy responses that prioritized control over empowerment. The same mindset underlies positions that treat certain lives as disposable and resist breakthroughs powered by abundant energy. It is an anti-God position, opposing the biblical mandate to “be fruitful and multiply” and steward creation productively. Fallen angels, cultural influences, and worship of anti-divine entities all point to a spiritual war against God’s creation—humans included. No one who values divine commandments should embrace a worldview that sacrifices human potential on abstract altars.

The Politics of Heaven unpacks these layers across its chapters. Early sections examine the non-human nature of radical environmentalism and its hunger to regress society, drawing parallels to historical sacrifices. Later chapters dissect the philosophical roots of energy policy, using Epstein’s stats and my own observations from Ohio battles. I explore how electricity has eradicated the worst forms of poverty, turning “luxuries” into necessities. One chapter details revelations from policy responses that exposed a desire to control rather than empower. Another ties energy to creativity—human ingenuity thrives with power, from medieval kings’ dreams to modern innovators. The book culminates in policy prescriptions: defend fossil fuels and nuclear power as bridges to a future in which renewables mature, but never at the cost of reliability. For Ohio, this means supporting Lang’s initiatives and approaches that prioritize American energy dominance. I am heading to Washington, D.C., to finalize the 20th chapter, perhaps adding an epilogue on emerging developments. The content cohered powerfully because it addresses timeless truths: politics is spiritual at root, a battle between human advancement and forces that would sacrifice us to false gods.

Critics will dismiss this as partisan, but the evidence transcends parties. Some Republicans erred in aspects of HB6, yet the structural biases against reliable energy predate and outlast individual scandals, embedded in frameworks that favor subsidized intermittents over “solid, great suppliers” like fossil fuels and nuclear power. Renewables will improve—costs have dropped—but they remain unready for full grid dominance without massive, expensive storage. Fossil and nuclear are here now, delivering the energy density civilization requires. Opponents who ignore benefits while amplifying costs reveal the non-human core: a lust to limit growth, echoing Malthusian fears or deep ecology’s egalitarianism. As Epstein writes, the knowledge system of experts disguises anti-human goals behind “save the planet” rhetoric. We cannot assume common ground when some outright reject human flourishing. The book implicates this reality without apology, using examples from Ohio’s nuclear plants to global poverty metrics. It defends the human race against oblivion, arguing that good energy policy perpetuates creativity, wealth, and options.

Writing demanded rigor: a year of research, reflection, and revision to articulate the non-human element without descending into conspiracy. It connects energy advocacy to broader cultural fights. George Lang recognized this when he passed the book; his office in Columbus now stocks copies for those seeking clarity on Ohio’s path. Knock on his door, and you might secure one. The arguments align with policies emphasizing energy independence, which Ohio can lead. Fossil fuels remain vital for decades, enabling the transition without regression. Renewables have roles, but not as forced replacements that harm reliability.

Ultimately, The Politics of Heaven exists because books outlast soundbites. They equip readers with receipts—stats on energy deaths (nuclear and renewables at under 0.1 per terawatt-hour versus coal’s ~25), historical sacrifice patterns, and policy outcomes. They invite further study: Epstein’s works; Our World in Data on electricity’s poverty links; IAEA and World Bank reports on nuclear’s role and global access trends; archaeological accounts of Mesoamerican rituals; and philosophical texts on deep ecology. In an era of anti-human aggression—from regressive energy mandates to cultural erosion—the book asserts a counter: human beings are meant to flourish, powered by the energy God’s creation provides. Those supporting anti-fossil stances must confront alignments with older impulses. Republicans, even those scarred by scandals, must defend the ground. Ohio, with its nuclear assets and fossil resources, is pivotal. By prioritizing reliable energy, we secure upper mobility, creativity, and the perpetuation of human potential. This is not mere policy; it is a defense of heaven’s politics against earthly cults that would erase us. The iceberg’s tip is touched here, but the depths reward those who read, research, and act. The book is worth the discussion, the defense, and the fight—because human life, powered and free, is the ultimate good.

Expanded Bibliography / Footnotes for Further Research

1.  Epstein, Alex. Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less. Penguin Random House, 2022. (Core source on anti-impact vs. human flourishing frameworks; see also Epstein’s substack summaries of Chapter 3 on the anti-impact moral goal.)

2.  Ritchie, Hannah. “What Are the Safest and Cleanest Sources of Energy?” Our World in Data, updated analyses (death rates per TWh: nuclear ~0.03, coal ~24.6, etc.). https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

3.  World Bank / Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2025 (global electricity access ~92%, ~666 million without basic access in 2023).

4.  UNDP reports on energy poverty (deeper metrics affecting ~1.18 billion with inadequate, unreliable usage).

5.  Ohio Capital Journal and PUCO records on HB6/FirstEnergy scandal and 2025 settlements (~$250M+ restitution orders).

6.  Ohio Legislature records on Senate Bill 294 (sponsored by Sen. George Lang, focusing on affordability, reliability, and capacity factors for new generation).

7.  Archaeological and historical accounts of Aztec sacrifice (e.g., Science magazine on skull racks at Templo Mayor; estimates of large-scale rituals).

8.  Naess, Arne, and George Sessions. “Basic Principles of Deep Ecology” (1984) – on biocentric egalitarianism and non-anthropocentrism.

9.  U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports on nuclear safety, capacity factors, emissions avoidance, and economic impacts.

10.  Additional context from energy poverty and human development links: UNDP Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2025; studies on electricity’s role in lifting populations from extreme poverty.

Rich Hoffman

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About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.