Stop Joining the Silent Majority

There is a saying that if you’re not a liberal in your 20s, you don’t have a heart. If you’re not a conservative in your 30s, you don’t have a brain. Well, thankfully, I have both at the age of 24.

As a conservative, it is easy to look around and ask for others to take a stand for your beliefs. You tell yourself that someone else in a position of political authority will take the stage and champion your views. You will vote them into an elected office for this reason. They will take the heat for you because that is what they signed up for. But, what happens when they get overwhelmed?

When they get overwhelmed, you say you know of esteemed scholars, cultural leaders, and athletes who will replace the gaping hole on the front lines of the defense. Surely they will be enough! Then you see them apologizing on TV the next day for daring to oppose the mob mentality view of what is right and wrong. They bend the knee with their head bowed time and time again.

When you see them apologize, you turn to your friends that share your same views online. That will be enough! News flash, it isn’t enough and never will be enough because we are vocally outnumbered. Your friends are called every name in the book. They are smeared, laughed at, isolated, and shamed for daring to hold a different opinion. And if they have become effective at communicating, they are blocked, opinions are overgeneralized, their character gets assassinated, and finally, they are told to check their privilege. These are all attempts to shut down speech, not to challenge the ideas presented. You wonder if it is worth it.

This is the tipping point! You have seen what they can do to politicians. You have seen what they can do to famous figures in society. You have seen what they can do to your friends who live down the street. As a result, you make every excuse in the book to remain silent. The problem with making these excuses, however, is that they all make too much sense.

You may ask yourself:
Who am I?
Does my voice even matter?
Will my voice change anything?
Is it worth losing a job or being mocked?
Will my opinions be mischaracterized?
Should I apologize for holding different ideas that may upset others?

You will decide one of two things; either you cower, compromise, and fold so that you can be viewed as a caring and loving intellectual to your peers or, you will take a stand for truth, risking the possibility of stepping directly into the fire, with the piercing attention of those that oppose it concentrated on your person. If you don’t choose the latter, we will slowly lose all that is sacred.

It is dangerous to be a conservative in this country. It is dangerous to speak out against a mob. It is dangerous to call out good intentions that result in evil outcomes. It is dangerous to hold tight to unpopular moral convictions. It is dangerous.

But this is not a time to cower or bend the knee. We have been silent for too long! Stop joining the ranks of the silent majority. Stop relying on this same group of silent citizens to come in at the edge of defeat to win the day. Why are you silent? Speak up! Bad men succeed when good men fail to speak up in the face of fierce opposition.

With conservatism, we hold the key that empowers and elevates the poorest, hurting, broken, and forgotten people of this country.

I want to encourage everyone to stop apologizing for things you didn’t do. Refuse to bend a knee to appease the mob. Stop compromising on your convictions to appear humble, compassionate, tolerant, or open-minded. Search your heart. Do you care more about pleasing man or pleasing God?

Jesus took a stand against those using the temple for a market. He didn’t tolerate the behavior. He didn’t compromise on truth. He didn’t justify their behavior. He didn’t engage and partake. Instead, He fought it with conviction and truth. I ask that you join me in doing the same before America is lost for good.