Tag: cartels

Aggressive Interdiction and Human Rights: A Legal and Ethical Analysis

The controversy surrounding aggressive U.S. actions against drug cartels, including the destruction of narcotics-laden vessels, has ignited a global debate. Critics frame these measures as violations of human rights, while proponents argue that cartels themselves are the most egregious violators of human dignity.  I would contend that decisive interdiction, even through kinetic means, aligns with international law principles and humanitarian imperatives. To understand this, we must delve into the historical evolution of international law, the staggering scale of the global drug trade, and the human suffering perpetuated by these criminal networks.  But here’s the deal for context: there is no International Law, only American law.  The same people criticizing the Trump administration for blowing up the drug boats in Venezuela are the same kind of Democrats who wanted to defund the police.  And have produced videos promoting seditious actions against America, particularly Mark Kelly.  He should be in jail, not ranting about preserving the rights of drug boats or their cartel occupants.  I’m a big supporter of blowing up drug boats and taking the fight to the cartels’ front door.  There are a lot of flawed characters involved in this drug business, so anyone protesting human rights as a defense for the continued practice is purposely trying to make the world less stable for benefits that are not in our favor. 


International law governing narcotics control did not emerge in a vacuum. Its roots trace back to early 20th-century efforts to regulate opium and morphine, culminating in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. This treaty, alongside the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, sought to harmonize global efforts against drug trafficking. Yet these frameworks were never designed to override national sovereignty. Enforcement remains the prerogative of individual states, a reality that underscores why nations like the United States resort to unilateral action when multilateral mechanisms falter. Scholars emphasize that Article 14 of the 1988 Convention explicitly encourages states to adopt stringent interdiction strategies to suppress trafficking. [1]  It was a good time when most of the world still thought of drugs as dangerous, but too many people have fallen under their seduction and are now part of the problem.  And that is undoubtedly the case of the very socialist body of the United Nations.  Any defense of the drug network, knowing what we do now of the costs, is reprehensible and unforgivable. 


Consider the plight of communities ravaged by cartel violence. In Mexico, entire towns have been depopulated as families flee the terror of organized crime. Mothers bury sons lost to gang wars, while children grow up in landscapes dominated by fear. Since 2006, Mexico has recorded over 460,000 homicides, mainly attributable to cartel-related violence. [3] These are not abstract numbers; they represent shattered lives and broken futures. The global drug economy, valued between $360 and $652 billion annually, rivals the GDP of mid-sized nations. Cocaine production alone reached 2,757 metric tons in 2022, per UNODC data. [2] Each shipment fuels a cycle of addiction, corruption, and death that transcends borders.  This is not an issue that we can turn our backs on.  Ignoring this desperate evil is not responsible; it’s reprehensible.  There is no greater human rights violator on planet earth than these murderous drug cartels.  And no war has ever been fought that was more important than this one.   Here, we have a clear villain.  And if Democrats can’t see and agree to that, well, then they are part of the problem.  Which I would say has always been the case.  Only now do we have context for their actions.  They want to topple the stability of the world.  When you are fighting for the lives of drug dealers, you are fighting the wrong things. 


The fentanyl crisis epitomizes the lethal evolution of narcotics trafficking. Between 2020 and 2023, U.S. overdose deaths linked to synthetic opioids surged by 279%. In 2023 alone, fentanyl claimed 72,776 lives, constituting 69% of all overdose fatalities. [4] Behind these statistics are stories of young lives extinguished in their prime—college students, parents, veterans—victims of a substance so potent that two milligrams can kill. Economically, fentanyl’s profitability is unparalleled: one kilogram, costing $80,000 wholesale, yields $1.6 million on the street. Cartels exploit Chinese precursor suppliers, with investigations identifying 188 companies complicit in this trade. [5] These dynamics illustrate the intersection of organized crime, public health, and international security.  We are talking more lives lost than what the Vietnam War cost Americans.  This isn’t a remote threat; it’s a very personal one where the war has been brought literally into our backyards.  The only difference is that the weapons used are not guns and bombs.  But the destruction of the mind itself.  And this isn’t some market-driven intent.  It’s a sinisterly plotted scheme that starts in places like China to destroy Western civilization itself.  And with a smile on their faces as they watch the death of many innocents. 


Cartels have diversified beyond narcotics into human trafficking, generating $236 billion annually through forced labor and sexual exploitation. [6] Millions of women and children are entrapped in these networks, often under the same criminal syndicates orchestrating narcotics flows. This duality magnifies humanitarian crises, rendering cartels not merely criminal enterprises but systemic violators of fundamental rights. Survivors recount harrowing tales of coercion, violence, and despair—stories that rarely make headlines but define the lived reality of cartel dominance.  There are untold numbers of women and children who are literally destroyed in this process, and they are ruined for life.  There is a cost to this that nobody has yet put their mind around, and it poses the most significant problem of them all in sheer magnitude. 


Venezuela’s transformation into a narcotics hub exemplifies state complicity. The Cartel de los Soles, allegedly embedded within the Venezuelan military, facilitates cocaine transshipment to global markets. U.S. indictments implicate senior Maduro regime officials in narco-terrorism conspiracies. [7] Geopolitical entanglements with Russia and China furnish economic lifelines, complicating enforcement and underscoring the nexus between organized crime and authoritarian resilience. Remote airstrips launch drug flights under the cover of night, while maritime routes snake through Caribbean waters, evading interdiction. Each shipment represents not just contraband but the erosion of governance and the triumph of criminality over law.


Critics decry kinetic interdiction as extrajudicial, yet proportionality under international humanitarian law permits force when confronting actors whose conduct precipitates mass atrocity. Analogies to anti-piracy operations and counterterrorism frameworks validate such measures. [8] The principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) arguably extends to dismantling cartels, given their role in orchestrating transnational violence and exploitation. To frame interdiction as mere aggression is to ignore the moral calculus of inaction—a calculus measured in lives lost, communities shattered, and futures foreclosed.


Drug cartels epitomize systemic human rights violators, perpetuating cycles of death, addiction, and exploitation. Aggressive interdiction, including the destruction of narcotics vessels, aligns with both legal norms and moral imperatives. Inaction sustains a status quo wherein criminal syndicates eclipse state authority, eroding global security and humanitarian values. History will judge not the audacity of action but the complacency of silence.  And for my part, I say blow up many more drug boats.  And if they want help, call me.  I’d be happy to lend support in the destruction of drug cartels and their evil minions. 

[1] United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988.

[2] UNODC World Drug Report 2023.

[3] Mexico Homicide Data, INEGI, 2023.

[4] CDC Overdose Mortality Statistics, 2023.

[5] U.S. DEA Fentanyl Intelligence Report, 2024.

[6] ILO Global Estimates on Modern Slavery, 2022.

[7] U.S. DOJ Indictments on Venezuelan Officials, 2023.

[8] International Committee of the Red Cross, Principles of Proportionality, 2021.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Drug War’s Turning Point: Why Mexico’s Palace Was Stormed and Venezuela Became Ground Zero

Latin America is boiling over. In Mexico, hundreds of thousands of protesters stormed the National Palace in Mexico City, demanding accountability from President Claudia Sheinbaum after years of cartel-driven violence and corruption. In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro clings to power through brazen election fraud, while his regime funnels billions from narcotics and oil into global networks tied to China, Russia, and Iran.

What triggered this sudden wave of defiance? The assassination of Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo—a rare politician who dared to defy cartel intimidation—was the spark. But the fuel was a psychological shift: the sight of U.S. aircraft carriers off Venezuela’s coast and Trump’s aggressive strikes on cartel-linked vessels in the Caribbean. For millions living under cartel terror, this was a signal: Big Brother is watching—and ready to act.

Section 1: Claudia Sheinbaum’s Crisis of Credibility

Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, entered office in 2024, promising reform. Instead, her administration is mired in scandal. Two former officials accused of running a cartel-linked criminal enterprise remain at large—one even holds a Senate seat. U.S. Treasury sanctions forced Mexican banks to shut down after laundering millions for cartels.

Key Facts:

• Corruption Allegations: Intercam and CIBanco closed after U.S. sanctions for laundering cartel money.

• Public Perception: 60% of Americans view Mexico’s government unfavorably; nearly half say it’s doing a “terrible job” on border security.

• Protests: November 15 saw the largest anti-government rally in decades—120 injured, 20 arrested, and palace gates torn down.

Sheinbaum’s dilemma is apparent: appease cartels or risk destabilization. Her socialist platform, like AMLO’s before her, has created fertile ground for corruption—because authoritarian systems are easy to buy off.

Section 2: The Cartel State—Mexico’s Parallel Government

Cartels are not fringe actors—they are the state behind the state. Their reach extends from rural villages to federal institutions.

Scope of Influence:

• Major Players: Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) dominate, alongside Gulf, Juárez, and splinter groups.

• Revenue: Mexican cartels generate $12.1 billion annually, surpassing Colombia as the world’s top drug-trafficking economy.

• Territorial Control: CJNG operates on every continent except Antarctica, controlling ports, smuggling routes, and even illicit gold mines in Venezuela.

Officials face a simple calculus: profit or perish. This systemic corruption explains why extermination camps—complete with crematoriums—exist in Jalisco and Colima, with authorities complicit in cover-ups.

Section 3: Fentanyl—Mexico’s Deadliest Export

Since 2019, Mexico has replaced China as the primary source of U.S.-bound fentanyl. The scale is staggering:

• Labs: CJNG and Sinaloa run industrial-scale “super labs” producing fentanyl powder and pills using Chinese precursors.

• Lab Dismantling: Under Sheinbaum, authorities dismantled 750 clandestine labs, seized 1.5 tons of fentanyl, and confiscated over 2 million pills in six months.

• Largest Bust: In Sinaloa, forces seized 630,000 pills and 282 lbs of powdered fentanyl—the biggest in history.

• Border Seizures:

    • FY 2023: 27,275 lbs (12,370 kg)

    • FY 2024: 21,489 lbs (9,750 kg)

    • FY 2025 YTD: 5,515 lbs (2,500 kg)

• DEA Estimates: Cartels produce enough fentanyl for billions of lethal doses annually.

Economics:

• A single kilogram yields 500,000–1,000,000 doses, retailing for $20–$30 per pill in the U.S.—a street value exceeding $20 million per kg.

• CJNG and Sinaloa launder $1.4 billion annually through U.S. casinos and shell companies tied to fentanyl proceeds.

This is not just a criminal enterprise—it’s a weapon of mass destruction disguised as commerce.

Section 4: The Assassination That Sparked a Revolt

Carlos Manzo, Uruapan’s mayor, was gunned down on November 1 during Day of the Dead festivities. His crime? Publicly denouncing cartel extortion of avocado growers and demanding federal action.

Aftermath:

• Mastermind Arrested: Jorge Armando “El Licenciado,” linked to CJNG, ordered the hit via encrypted messaging.

• Security Failure: Seven of Manzo’s own bodyguards were arrested for complicity.

• Protests: His murder ignited nationwide outrage, culminating in the storming of the National Palace.

Manzo’s assassination was not isolated—seven mayors have been killed in 2025 alone. For ordinary Mexicans, his death symbolized a truth long whispered: the government serves the cartels, not the people.

Section 5: Venezuela—The Cartel Republic

While Mexico bleeds, Venezuela metastasizes. Maduro’s regime is a narco-state masquerading as a government.

Election Fraud:

• Maduro declared victory in 2024 with 51.2% of votes, but opposition tallies show 67–70% for Edmundo González.

• International observers condemned the process as illegitimate.

Drug Trade Dynamics:

• Venezuela is a key transshipment hub for cocaine and synthetic drugs, generating billions for elites tied to the Cartel of the Suns.

• Chinese chemical suppliers provide precursors; Chinese money-laundering networks move cartel cash globally.

Geopolitical Stakes:

• China relies on Venezuelan oil to fuel its Belt and Road ambitions; Russia and Iran exploit Caracas as a Western Hemisphere foothold.

• U.S. warships and the USS Gerald Ford carrier group now patrol Caribbean waters, signaling a counternarcotics mission—or regime change.

Section 6: The Trump Doctrine—Psychology as Strategy

Trump’s decision to strike cartel-linked vessels in international waters was more than a military maneuver—it was a psychological operation.

Impact:

• 22 vessels destroyed; 83 killed in Caribbean strikes since September.

• For Mexicans and Venezuelans living under cartel terror, these images broadcast hope: The U.S. is here, and the cartels are not invincible.

This perception emboldened protesters to storm Mexico’s palace and fueled whispers of resistance in Venezuela. Military presence, even without boots on the ground, alters the risk calculus for oppressed populations.

Section 7: The Human Cost

• Mexico: Over 460,000 homicides since 2006 in cartel-related violence.

• Border Spillover: Cartels issue bounties up to $50,000 for hits on U.S. law enforcement; ICE and CBP agents face ambushes and drone surveillance.

• Ohio Connection: Even local sheriffs like Butler County’s Richard Jones have been on cartel hit lists for years—a testament to the reach of these networks.

Section 8: Why This Matters

This is not just a regional crisis—it’s a global one. Cartels are the connective tissue between socialist regimes, authoritarian states, and transnational crime. They finance corruption, destabilize democracies, and weaponize narcotics against civil societies.

Solutions:

1. Designate Cartels as Terrorist Organizations (already underway for CJNG and Sinaloa).

2. Target Financial Networks—especially Chinese-linked laundering operations.

3. Deploy Persistent Naval Presence to disrupt trafficking routes.

4. Empower Local Resistance through intelligence and logistical support.

5. Expose Ideological Cover—Marxism cloaked in populism.

Closing Thoughts

The storming of Mexico’s palace and the unrest in Venezuela are not isolated events—they are symptoms of a deeper ideological and criminal convergence. Trump’s military strategy has cracked the psychological armor of cartel dominance, giving ordinary people a reason to fight back.  And for anybody who wants to fight back against sex trafficking and the degradation of human intellect, this fight against the cartels, from many directions, is the right thing.  A window has opened for the people of Mexico that they have long been waiting for, and they are starting to take action.  The best way to defeat the cartels is to turn the hunters into the hunted and make the people of Mexico defend themselves, knowing that their big brother is just offshore to help them out at a moment’s notice.  And of course, it’s much more than Mexico; the entire region has been overrun by communist influences for the last century, so attacking the drug boats is about reclaiming territorial security from very hostile, foreign invaders.  And the drug boats are just the start of something really good. 

Rich Hoffman

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

When Government Causes the Problems They Want to Protect You From: Frock Cameras are dangerous

I’ve had many people try to convince me that the upcoming Liberty Township Police Levy, which will be voted for in the March primary election, is something I should support. I have a lot of friends who are in government who really think things like police are essential to the viability of a community, and the more police you have, the better your community. My argument is that I have seen too much abuse from this local group, and I don’t see them with enough to do. When I see the police in my community, they are sitting in their cars because there isn’t much to do on radio calls. My argument is that I can understand a few police officers for a community our size, but that the 30-40 they propose, along with a lot of administrative staff, is too expensive and isn’t worth the money. But that’s not even the worst of it. I have seen enough over these last few years to give me a lot of pause on any government expansion, especially after Covid. When the police say they are there to help and to keep our community safe, we have found that the most dangerous element we deal with is government radicalism. And during Covid, we came close to checkpoints of health enforcement and door-to-door raids for nongovernment compliance. And when you have some loser like Biden in the White House, I’m not too keen to hire the people who would be most likely to harass me. And yes, on Christmas Day this year, I came close to a swatting situation where police had gathered in front of my home, looking like they were preparing for a raid until I went out and engaged them, which was when they drove off. In this political environment, especially, more government workers do not make sense.

The corruption of law enforcement is horrendous

And with the same kind of zeal that communities are always asking for more police, we have had frock cameras imposed upon us, always with good intent. But that’s how it always starts: the need for safety and security. In case you haven’t noticed, and I have, cameras are all over our communities these days, especially in Fairfield, even in West Chester, and areas outside of the I-275 loop around Cincinnati. The cameras we are told are there for our safety, to record the comings and goings of cars in our neighborhoods that can track them in case something happens. And who doesn’t want an always eye in the sky to record a license plate number for a hit and run? The argument for the cameras is that they are always watching and will keep us safe from criminals who roam around at night looking for soft targets to harass. Yet all that sounds good until you realize that all this nonsense is code words for lazy police work and the building of an extensive government network that can track everything you do at all hours of the day. I have been involved in fighting back against these cameras in a couple of different places since about a decade ago when they were first introduced. One argument in Lincoln Heights was in partnership with WLW radio, where police were giving people tickets in the mail for speeding along that corridor of I-75. And again, at the toll bridge in Louisville, Kentucky, toll fines were mailed to people just for driving across the bridge. There were no toll booths to pay; they just took a picture of your license plate and sent you the bill in the mail. It was pretty scandalous then, but it has become common practice over the years. That’s how they do it in Florida, around the Orlando area. I tried to pay the toll at a toll booth, and the stupid cameras still sent me a bill. Technology has been introduced to cover up lazy police work and employee engagement.

It’s a trick being used more and more against political enemies

It always starts with the pitch from some tech firm that has a new technology or a vaccine for a virus that the government hasn’t yet made in a lab in China under the direction of Dr. Fauci and other expert class malcontents. And good-intentioned people like local trustees start nodding their heads yes to the promise of more security for their communities. That is until you realize that many of the dangers in our communities are caused by government, such as the current lousy border policy by the Biden administration, which has allowed criminals and cutthroats of all kinds from drug cartels to roam freely and violate our safety. The government causes problems with terrible political policy, and then they turn to more government intrusion to cover up all their mistakes. We end up paying for all of it and, in the process, lose vast amounts of our freedoms. And they sell it to us by saying, “We would never abuse our power,” and one day, you are getting a bill in the mail for that traffic light you went through as it turned from yellow to red a bit too quickly. The frock cameras give police a chance to enforce the law from some rec room somewhere doing even less because A.I. and these cameras are doing most of the work for them. It always starts with good intentions and ends in more tyranny and abuses of power.

Do you really want people like this watching your every move, where you go and when, and with whom?

It’s not hypothetical; we saw it happen when an out-of-control government panicked by some global health police decided to shut down our communities and “shelter in place.”  When DeWine did that in Ohio, I ignored him and conducted my life.  Luckily, at that time, I knew the sheriff of my community and knew he was not in agreement with the governor and wasn’t going to enforce the unjust lockdown policies, which came straight from a globalist loser by the name of Richard Hatchett, who started that mess.  A lot of political figures were suckered into enforcing unconstitutional laws.  If such a thing happened again, the cameras that were set up for our security would be there to tell on us every time we left our driveway, making it all too easy for a centralized authority to punish us for violating the mandate of a prominent government governor out of control and power hungry.  What started as good intentions for safety and security has become an ominous tyrant we can never turn off or escape.  Our local law enforcement suddenly isn’t the cops we know in our community but is A.I. in some data bank at the NSA who is plotting our every move and reporting it to our foreign and domestic enemies who are openly trying to overthrow the Constitution of the United States with international law.  And it all starts with more police levies and politicians who get suckered into saying yes to frock cameras.  It all sounds fine until you have to pay for it all, and you lose your freedoms for some greater good, as it’s determined by communists in the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization, which directly created our policies at the CDC and were enforced with authority by the Biden administration.  By putting up the cameras, the loss of local control of your law enforcement goes away, and soon, outside forces are watching your every move from any place on the planet.  And if you violate some policy they come up with on the back of a napkin, they’ll have the evidence that you did so for them to prosecute.  And at that point, you are a slave to their system of vile tyranny.  Yeah, no thanks.  I’m not supporting the Liberty Township Police Levy or their stupid frock cameras.  I think many people will be unfortunately suckered into voting for it.  And I’m sure everyone will regret it later.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Real Tim Ballard: Is it all just a CIA case of misdirection

It is lazy to just mindlessly trust anything, especially authority figures, and I was wondering while watching the new very good movie, The Sound of Freedom, how the real-life Tim Ballard did it, blending in with the cartels to act like one of them so that trust could be earned to break open the pedophile rings of modern slavery that are so much a modern problem.  You’re hanging around drug dealers and the scum of the earth, and you are trying to win them over.  There would be no way to pull it off being straight as an arrow; otherwise, they would never trust you.  You’d have to show an interest in kids and pretend to be attracted to them, which Tim Ballard had to do at the beginning of the film when he was trying to get into the mind of a significant pedophile consumer.  The movie lightly touched on that kind of life and focused excessively on the Christian side of reality.  It purposely made Tim Ballard into a hero and glorified his efforts almost to the point of a John Wayne movie.  I personally enjoyed the results.  I wanted to see a hero.  I wanted to see someone who was so firm in their convictions that it could make the tough subject matter of the movie go down easier.  But I’ll have to admit; I had doubts that Tim Ballard’s life was so heroic.  He’s likely had to see and do many things that are very embarrassing to gain the trust of the world’s scum bags.  And I’m sure those things didn’t feel very heroic to him.  But would we ever catch any of these people if he didn’t do those things? 

I gave Sound of Freedom a great review; I think it was a top-notch movie, and it’s worth seeing, for the subject matter was very serious.  But I’m also proud of many people who have let me know that there is a serious possibility that this entire movie has been a CIA operation to attempt to restore their tarnished brand with the targeted religious right.  And it would be a common trick by those types of intelligence agencies to hide much more serious crimes behind misdirection efforts.  After all, the criminals in Sound of Freedom are nobody, dime-a-dozen scum bags from Columbia and Mexico.  Nobody will miss them if they are arrested and thrown in jail forever or killed in a gun fight upon arrest.  The sex trafficking of children would continue, and life would continue as we know it.  And that was the entire point of the Tim Ballard true story, to show how deep undercover and into the danger zone he was willing to go to save a couple of kids from that terrible life.  But people have been quick to point out that the money trail does trace back to Clinton supporters and that when the CIA asked Tim Ballard to become part of Homeland Security to take on this human trafficking role because he was a person of faith and they felt that would give him a lifeline out, and back to reality without falling apart, its entirely possible this is the kind of chess game they had in mind all along.  That the story Sound of Freedom would give the religious right some red meat and hope it appeases them and makes them go back to sleep.  Because the actual crimes were in the Beltway among the rich and famous.  The Hollywood culture that likes to consume adrenochrome for its pursuits of immortal life, their own Epic of Gilgamesh in Beverly Hills.

In that regard, The Sound of Freedom played it very safe.  The bad guys were terrible, and everyone could agree on who they were.  And the entire movie was about chasing down a few of those types of people to the ends of the earth.  But it didn’t deal with John Podesta’s Pizzagate controversy and the high-end user debacles of Epstein Island that are undoubtedly major problems in the news, and to what role the CIA plays in feeding this criminal network, just as they have been caught doing with the illegal drug network.  The cartels have risen to fill a market need.  So why is there a market need?  Sound of Freedom points out the problem in a way that essentially says, “hey, look over there, at those bad people deep in the rebel-held territory of Columbia.  But don’t look at the safe house in Washington D.C. that is feeding these kids to consumers in Chevy Chase, Maryland, while dad sneaks away from the home, telling the family he’s working late.  But what he’s really trying to do is have sex with kids hoping to psychologically turn back the clock before he has made a bunch of unforgivable mistakes in life.”  And then how do intelligence agencies and corporations use such compromised people to gain power in the world through extortion?  Some huge questions in Sound of Freedom are deliberately pushed off to the side for narrative convenience.  If the movie did tackle those topics, it would likely be very depressing, and it would be hard to justify the price of a ticket. 

I personally think the CIA uses people like Tim for just these kinds of purposes.  And the role that Angel Studios plays in the distribution of this movie I think is sincere.  I love The Chosen and think the family who set up that studio are good people trying to do good things for all the right reasons.  But are they all being used to contain the message of child trafficking to acceptable limits determined by the CIA?  Well, probably.  This is a story that props up government efforts against sex trafficking and makes you want to cheer on the good guys punishing the bad guys.  But it’s pretty safe in the stereotypes.  The CIA has no problem throwing a few lowlifes under the bus for their own preservation.  And I’m glad people are talking about the Sound of Freedom in such an “awake” way.  It’s good to be skeptical.  And it’s good to question Tim Ballard’s and his wife’s integrity.  I want to believe there are people like him in the world and that we aren’t all being played for suckers.  But experience says that such people don’t exist.  Either way, The Sound of Freedom is a movie worth telling to an audience that needs to hear it.  But trust in government and government workers in Homeland Security and the CIA is a bridge too far.  There is a lot more evil going on in the world besides the terrible circumstances of this movie.  And when the CIA starts standing for good in the hard cases and busting the rich and famous on moral grounds of right and wrong, we can have a different conversation.  But as of now, we must scrutinize everyone because institutionalism tends to corrupt everything it touches, even the good people who work within it with an “ends justify the means” mentality.  Playing nice with the bad guys usually means doing bad things too.  And that’s not something to celebrate.  It’s something to punish. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

A Review of ‘The Sound of Freedom’: God’s Children are not for sale

Boy, that was a good movie, the Sound of Freedom. I intended to see it on the 4th of July when Angel Studios released it, a bold move considering they were putting a critical box office movie in the middle of summer between the new Indiana Jones film and the latest Mission Impossible project. I like these Angel Studios guys; I’ve worked with independent studios in the past, namely the Atlas group for the Atlas Shrugged films, so I have an appreciation for how difficult it is to make a movie in the first place, especially one with a big message like the Sound of Freedom has. But that’s only half the battle. Getting a movie distributed through the theaters is the biggest hurdle, and it’s been in that way that finance has been able to take over the movie industry. Putting this movie out on the 4th of July was hard because it competed with other big studio films with big marketing budgets. I think we should see this kind of thing more often because people hunger for good movies. And it’s usually not an either-or kind of decision. There’s room for Indiana Jones. And there is room for Sound of Freedom. I honestly didn’t expect much from the Sound of Freedom. I thought the movie would have a good message and was important to support. So when I tried to buy tickets for the film on July 3rd and 4th when my wife and I had some free time to see it, I wasn’t too disappointed that I couldn’t find any theaters that weren’t sold out in my area, or if they did have open seats, that we couldn’t find two together. We weren’t going to go to the movies and not sit together; that was ridiculous. So I waited until the following weekend, and we had the same problem. But we did manage to find two open seats for a Saturday afternoon in the third row, which I usually wouldn’t do because it’s too close to the screen. But we bought the tickets, went to see the movie, and were both blown away by what we saw.

The Sound of Freedom was actually, technically, a great film. It reminded me of Schindler’s List, one of my all-time favorite films. But pacing-wise, it reminded me of the Clint Eastwood-directed American Sniper. The Sound of Freedom was of excellent quality, on the level of those kinds of movies, and at a different time, this would undoubtedly be the Best Picture of the Year for the Academy Awards. The director, Alejandro Monteverde, put a lot of love into this film, and it sure showed. It was more of an action-adventure picture, more like Taken, rather than a documentary on child sex trafficking. To be honest, after seeing lots of clips from Jim Caviezel, I thought this film would be more of an activist movie. It certainly was; this film was made by really good people for good reasons, from top to bottom. But it was a far better movie than what usually comes out of those intentions. The director Alejandro Monteverde made a great movie with Jim Caviezel and the cast based on the real-life exploits of the Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard without knowing how the movie would get to the public. The movie has been done for five years; it was first going to be distributed by Fox, then Disney owned the rights, and they sat on it for a long time. Eventually, this new studio, Angel Studios, came along and picked up the rights. They are the studio behind the very well-done television show, The Chosen. So they picked it up and brought it to movie theaters.

Since most of the film production was Mexican, it brought the life of the cartels into sharp focus in ways that I hadn’t seen before. It was a very gritty movie that put viewers into the world of sex trafficking without being oppressively difficult to deal with. The Sound of Freedom walked that very fine line between being tasteful and hopeful, with Jim Caviezel playing the real-life Tim Ballard with such optimism that it wasn’t hard to fall in love with these people. I say all the time about movies, one of the biggest problems is that the writers of these things often don’t have much life experience. You can see that in big studio pictures where the writers clearly hang out in Santa Monica, and their perspective is from that world. The Sound of Freedom was written and directed by people who know the world’s dark underbelly but have not become hopelessly lost in it. What ended up on the screen is really something stunningly special. A movie everyone can enjoy that is much more optimistic than I thought it would have been. And not to give away spoilers, but I think it’s important to note because I honestly wasn’t fighting too hard to see this movie because they are usually depressing. While you want to know about these problematic subject matters, who wants to experience a depressing story? But I can say this movie has a very happy ending. I will likely see it many more times because it really was inspirational, hopeful, and bold. 

At the end of the movie, Jim Caviezal came on and gave a little speech, which was very appropriate, during the credits. They also put up a QR code which I took a picture of for this blog site. They encouraged people in the audience to buy tickets for people who couldn’t afford to go to the movie with a Pay it Forward campaign, which I thought was pretty clever and smart marketing on behalf of Angel Studios. There is a lot to like about this entire enterprise that will undoubtedly give hope to anybody who goes and sees it. For those who feel pretty hopeless about the world’s condition, I would strongly recommend The Sound of Freedom as soon as you can get to a theater and see it. I would recommend buying tickets and sending them to someone who might be on the fence. Not only for the box office need for a film like this, because this is how these kinds of movies get made. If they do well at the box office, it impacts the rest of the industry, which is precisely what is needed now with the amount of genuinely sinister aspects of culture that are on our nightly news. This movie is a ray of hope and deserves all the credit that can be given to it. I would personally like to see a lot more out of Angel Studios because this project is a real treasure. And the world could use a lot more from them. But it takes money to tell these kinds of stories, and this is a movie that was done on a high level as a kind of leap of faith. And we are lucky to have it. The world is better because of it. And maybe people will become educated enough from this movie to do something about sex trafficking and the amount of it that is destroying the lives of the innocent before they ever have a chance to live life for themselves. 

Rich Hoffman

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The Death Penalty for Drug Dealers and Traffickers is a Great Idea: That includes Big Pharm companies and the governments that shield them from responsibility

President Trump has been talking about the death penalty for drug traffickers and dealers, and I couldn’t be more supportive of the idea. I think it’s the only position and answer for the future. I have a long-standing policy of no drugs, at any time, for any reason, and that includes alcohol. Our level of consciousness makes human beings unique in all the universe, separate from all other lifeforms. And altering that conscious process with drugs to alter it is a crime against the values of the natural order. Getting drunk, stoned, or “smashed” isn’t cute. It is, and always has been, a military-grade attack on social order, and there are no circumstances for it that are justifiable. We may have come to accept drugs socially or medically as part of our lives, but I see them all as a menace to the human soul and reprehensible. I’ve wanted a much more aggressive social position against drugs than anything Nancy Reagan came up with in the 80s with the Just Say No campaign. I didn’t think that was near enough, so this death penalty idea Trump has been talking about is a great start. Drug traffickers and their gangs should all be eliminated from the public scene as they intend to destroy the mind, and we should value intellect much more than we do. And consider it just as serious as a crime as the intent to murder someone else. Because what other purpose is there for the destruction of  a mind than to consider it an attempt at murder?

Saying all that, I do see lots of value in science. Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine should not be prescription drugs; we should be able to buy them over the counter at Walgreens or Wal-Mart. We watched medical authorities enter into a partnership with government to push vaccine distribution for illnesses they built in a lab to create mass panic and gain new controls through pandemics. The solutions were in those drugs, and the government purposely prevented society from those drugs so that they could perpetuate sickness. Ivermectin and other drugs have shown themselves to be effective in fighting cancer. But our medical industry is supported by pharmaceutical companies who want cancer to spread and for a society of sick to pay anything for their products so that they can live the rest of their lives in misery. That is not science, it is deliberate harm to mass populations with government assistance, and it is every bit as bad as what drug cartels impose on our country. You can’t take a hard stance against illegal drug cartels when the big pharma companies also poison our society purposefully. It’s so bad that governments are actually shielding them from harm with protective legislation that keeps them from legal responsibility for their many mishaps, such as Phizer enjoys with this latest Covid vaccine. Many people worry that the vaccine is dangerous, and plenty of evidence indicates that people have been dying or suffering ill effects from the mandatory vaccine. But at the very least, there has been a lot we don’t know about the vaccine because it was rushed to market, and we need time to witness its effects. The fact that we don’t know yet the government has been pushing society into a mass; mandatory vaccinations show deliberate recklessness with an intent to commit harm on a mass scale.

Additionally, I see a lot of value from a religious point of view for using Ayahuasca and other psychedelic drugs. I have come to accept that the effects of these types of widely used mind enhancers common with shamans all over the world are filter removers to our conscious minds allowing us to see more than what we usually would. I’m not so sure that what people see with Ayahuasca is actually the spirit world; I would attribute its effects to seeing a broader spectrum of nonmaterial life forms. Whatever the case, these creatures interact with our conscious reality, and not dealing with them is a severe hindrance to the proper governance of our social order. You can’t deal with a world that is only partially visible to the tools of our senses. At the same time, all these other influences roam free into our thoughts, utterly immune to the laws of our nations and the positive effects of sound philosophy. I would fully support a shaman class of religious leadership who used tools like Ayahuasca to help society navigate the negative influences that hide in the shadows of our senses. Just because our eyes cannot see them and our ears cannot hear doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Our four-dimensional existence requires a lot of details to deal with, so we put filters on our minds at birth to comprehend those needs. But just because we have limits, that doesn’t mean all of existence will cater their desires to those limits. Suppose you want to manage those influences properly. In that case, the human race must grow in intellect, not to expect all of existence in all dimensional planes of reality to respect our limits. Instead, they will do as they have been, exploit our weaknesses for their gain, just like criminal drug cartels do, and nations like China, when they make fentanyl then smuggle it into America through the southern border to poison our entire society, will go unpunished because we did not recognize the threat as it was occurring. Ignorance of what those influences are can be every bit as deadly as the drugs themselves, and it’s a topic that requires a new strategy for the many thousands of years of future that are before us.

So it’s not enough to say that drugs are harmful. My general position is that any kind of mind-altering drugs, including beer, should be severely punishable. It’s not a libertarian thing that often comes up with the push for widespread marijuana use commercially and medically. There is nothing funny about getting “stoned.” Anytime you limit your intellectual ability, you are committing a crime against life itself in my way of seeing things. So fighting for the right to “party,” as the Beastie Boys have always sung the song, is not cute, funny, or cool. It only gives the enemies of the world the fuel of their intentions to destroy rivals so that they might have an easier time at implementing their diabolical plots of doom. China loves to see us poisoning ourselves with fentanyl. That’s why they make it. Europe loves that we are legalizing pot and calling it natural and beneficial. They have been trying to get Americans to take the French weekend for the last century, which is off by Wednesday. Back to work the following Monday while only working 4 hours on Monday and Tuesday. The world is lazy, and they love to hide their lack of ambition behind drug use, which is the cause behind most of it. But the government is not capable of fairness, they pick winners and losers, so they are not the ones who can make a great society. Only we can do that. We can’t prosecute drug cartels in Mexico while ignoring the deaths caused by Phizer or Moderna just because they are in league with the government. Poison is poison; we have to call it all what it is. And we cannot allow government to stand between us and all the other influences impacting the human race as just another class of priesthood that seeks to maintain the limits of the primary religions and thus to control the whole human race with severe limitations on intellect and spiritual comprehension. But putting to death those drug dealers who purposely commit so much harm through the drug trade is a great place to start. I fully support President Trump’s position on this very critical topic, probably the most crucial subject in politics. Because if people were fully aware of what was happening to them with the various drugs they were taking by choice or by force, they would be furious at the deceit that has been placed upon them by governments clearly functioning with criminal intent.

Rich Hoffman

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