"Speaker 1 (00:00:08): This is the tactical redneck podcast, real gear, real life, and being ready for whatever shows up. We don't deal in hype and we don't pretend. We just dish out, honest talk about skills, mindset, and taking care of your own. Welcome to the Tactical Redneck Podcast. Speaker 2 (00:00:34): Alright guys, I am Ron Lyons, the tactical redneck, and boy do I have an awful lot Toback today on the show, uh, as you probably have seen countless, countless times, there's an awful lot of what I call societal fragmentation taking place today. That means we've got neighbors pitted against neighbors, communities broken. You've got the liberal left and the conservative right, and you've got the extremes in both. And then you've got people just stuck in the middle that are kind of like opportunist and troublemakers, people who want to go out and loot and destroy, and a whole, whole lot of people who are very uneducated on everything that's going on and all of the dynamics, and they get caught up in all of it. You've got the ice agents out enforcing the immigration laws, and you've got the anti-ice protestors out now. Like Minneapolis is absolutely just in a bad, bad state of chaos right now. And there's a lot of people out there right now who are claiming that we are really primed right now for another civil war. And so I want to talk a little bit about that today, but not, not in the sense of if we're gonna have a civil war, and you know, how the country's gonna be divided because we are no longer like a north and a south now, it's more ideologies. And it could be that, you know, one household prescribes to one particular ideology, and then the next door neighbor literally Speaker 2 (00:02:27): Shares a different ideology. And so it, it's, it's not like in the old days, like in the original Civil War, so to speak, when boundaries were very obvious Speaker 2 (00:02:40): And you had a very clear line of one side against the other. So we're not getting off into all of that right now. We are working on an episode where we'll talk more about that, and I'd love to get your preliminary thoughts about that. So if you're listening to us or watching this in a place where you can leave a comment, I'd love to get your early thoughts on whether or not you think we are actually headed for another civil war. And if so, how do those boundaries shape up? Because right now it's just, it's not super clear like it was in the first civil war. And, and I pray that we're not headed for anything like that. I pray that all of this stuff we have going on right now, this societal fragmentation is something that we can overcome. But as of right now, we are very, very, very fragmented. Speaker 2 (00:03:41): And it seems to be getting worse. Maybe it will get worse before it ever gets better, but what I wanna talk about today is a little different. What I wanna do is talk about this. If you're a prepper, if you're a survivalist, if you have a tactical mindset, perhaps you have been or are in law enforcement, then every single day we're exposed to all of this social media and all of these online fights, back and forth and arguments and stuff like that. Very, very polarizing stuff. And so what I'd like for you to do is to give some thought to self preservation in this really, really horribly fragmenting society that we're in today. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that. I guess I'm gonna call it the fragmentation mindset, maintaining your own peace, your own sense of balance, how to survive all of this stuff online. Speaker 2 (00:04:50): And I'm not gonna give you step-by-step. We're not gonna talk about like, well, you should really turn off Facebook every once in a while, although that may be an important step. It's more like, how do you train" "your mind? What steps do you take to be sure that you don't fall in either side, get drawn into something and become one of these people that we see out there on social media right now that are just out there fighting it out and just being really, really ugly to each other in this modern day and age? We don't want that. We don't need that. And that's kinda what we're gonna talk about today is how we can avoid that. So I've got some steps, I've got a little outline, and I'm gonna post those up. So if you are watching on YouTube or something like that, the little outline that I'm following today, I, I'll post that so that you can kind of see that and think about it, give it some thought maybe long after this podcast is over. Speaker 2 (00:05:55): But the first thing that I have on my little outline is recognizing the pervasive sense of societal division without getting lost in the headlines. And that's, that's pretty obvious. We are in the state that we're in in so many ways as a society, as a country right now, but worldwide, but specifically in the United States because that's the one I care the most about, probably the most, the one you care the most about. We are in the state we're in right now because the media literally hooks us and drags us around by our nose. And yes, it happens on both sides, but I think in my opinion, it happens more on the left than on the right. And just for clarity and just for transparency, not that you need it, but I am more of a conservative by far than I am liberal. Now, that doesn't motivate what I'm saying today. Speaker 2 (00:06:57): I'm trying very, very hard to walk right down the middle of this. But my own views and perspectives are very conservative. I disagree very, very much with the modern day liberal perspectives and mo the way that they handle things and do things. I can't align with that. But that being said, both sides, both sides get drug around by our nose, by the media. They put that little hook out there, that headline out there, and then they just drag you to whatever perspective they want you to take up. And I guess if you've got kind of a little more of a simplistic mind, then that's why that stuff works. You have to go back just a little bit, and you have to think about where did we start this big downfall where we kind of get pushed around a lot by the media and told what to think and told how to think. Speaker 2 (00:07:57): Well just go back to the days of Jerry Springer. Go back to the National Enquirer. You know, that that kind of newspaper thing that used to talk about UFOs and how Ronald Reagan was the antichrist and all this other kinda stuff. The National Enquirer, remember when Jerry Springer started doing things like sensationalizing really, really, really bad, the dredges of society, and everybody was excited about it, and everybody supported it, and it just, it, it grew like a, like a bacterial infection. And I believe that that combined with an awful lot of liberal logic, a lot of, if there is such a thing, I say lib, liberal logic, the liberal way of thinking, not logic, has combined to create the modern day liberal left that conservatives haven't always been perfect by far. As a matter of fact, a lot of you'll, you'll notice that I, I don't say Republican, I say conservative because ever since the contract with, or the contract on America, the 1990s when the Republicans really gained a lot of momentum and could have done a lot of things and didn't, I got very disenfranchised with the Republican party. Speaker 2 (00:09:22): So I hold true to conservative values, and I'm definitely a constitutionalist. I'm definitely America first. But all of that being said, I think that you have to have a balance. I think you have to have other perspectives and another viewpoint, and there's a place for there to be a Democrat party, a liberal mindset, something that's maybe a little more socially inclined than say the conservative perspective there. There's a place for all of that, but it's very toxic right now. The the liberal mindset, the liberal logic, as I said, is so, so, so top toxic right now that it's, it's just not balanced anymore. It's out of balance. And so, so recognizing the pervasive sense of societal, societal, that's one of those big words. Societal, societal," " division, without getting lost in the headlines, you've gotta, you've gotta put your guard up in so many things in life, in relationships with, you know, bad, some of your vices and habits, things like that. Speaker 2 (00:10:40): You've gotta set boundaries. And one of the first boundaries that you can do to protect your mind as this societal fragmentation is taking place, is not allowing yourself to get lost in all of these headlines. Understand that every media outlet, it doesn't matter if it's Fox, CNN, CNBC, or whomever else, whatever they call themselves today, the only way that they get you and keep you is by having these headlines. And even if it's a television show, even if it's, if it's something on social media, if it's newspaper, article magazine, an op-ed, whatever it is, they've gotta hook you. That's just good writing, that's just good production. They've gotta hook you and then they've gotta keep you, and they need to build an audience and they need to sell advertising. Well, that's just kinda how that works. So it's very easy for you to take that bait, see that headline, and to start leaning in that direction. Speaker 2 (00:11:41): If they can kind of bend your mind a little bit and persuade you into their way of thinking where they need you or want you to go, then that is what happens. If you're gonna be a survivalist, if you're gonna be a tactically minded person, then you need to be able to see that there is a, this side, there's a, that side, there's some people who are in the middle. There's a lot of troublemakers out here who are just opportunist. And then there's me looking out for myself, my family, and my community, and all the way on up the chain to my country ultimately. But of course, your, your biggest sphere of influence is your immediacy, you, your family, the people that you love in your community. So you've gotta be able to step back from the headlines, don't get drug in by the headlines and identify who all of the, the big names and big actors are. Speaker 2 (00:12:46): Take the big groups, the left, the right, the Republicans, the Democrats, the extremes of both the MAGA movement. And I'm not saying that's extreme at all, but I'm just saying you've got the extremes of each, you've got all of these groups within each side, and you need to know who all the players are. And just for the record, I I said that just now, I said Magan, it made it sound like I was saying MAGA was an extremist group. That's not at all it, I'm a very avid Trump supporter. So, so that's not at all what I was trying to say. I'm just saying there's these groups, you need to identify the players. You need to understand that the media's throwing headlines out there and trying very, very hard to categorize you and make you feel like you belong to one of these groups or the other. Speaker 2 (00:13:34): It's not like it used to be when the news just came out and reported the news, the days of Walter Cronkite, and even he was biased in some waves. But even those days are so far gone now, it's no longer just the news. Now it's, we have a narrative, we have a need, we have a desire to get you into a category or group because then we can market to you better. We can advertise to you and we can make more money. And of course, each of the parties, the big parties really, really, really thrive on this because that means that they're building a voter base. So you kinda see, you kind of understand. But step number one, understand the headlines, know the players and be able to identify both sides, especially the bigger names, and then realize the motivation behind them doing these, these really, really crazy headlines in what their purpose is, where they're trying to pull you, et cetera. Speaker 2 (00:14:40): And be very vigilant about not getting drawn in by the sensational headlines that all sides tend to put out. You're gonna align more with one or the other. And I'm not telling you, you should be left, you should be" "right, you should be whatever. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that you need to be able to identify that so that you know where these things are coming from, what their genesis is, and what their intent and purpose is. The next thing on my little outline that I've got here is understanding that this isn't about choosing sides, but acknowledging this shifting landscape. It's exactly what I just said. It's not about saying, oh, well, okay, those headlines over there, those are wrong. These headlines are better. That may be how you feel inside. But as a survivalist, as a person with a tactical mindset, you've gotta step back from that just a little bit and say, I understand there is a right, and I understand they do have a purpose and an intent, and there's a left, and there's this group in this group, in this group. Speaker 2 (00:15:43): Like you have to just survey the ecosphere and understand who's at play and what their purposes are. It's exactly the way that you have to do it as a person with this kind of mindset. In other words, don't be a part of the societal fragmentation. Be an observer with a mission. And that mission is to protect yourself, protect your family, protect your society, your, your, your community, your local community. And ultimately, like I said, all the way up to keeping America what our founding fathers intended for it to be. Not letting it divulge or fall into some sort of a country that it was never, ever designed to be. Okay. Now the next thing on my little list is identifying the internal signs of being overwhelmed by external discord. It's like whenever I was in law enforcement, you develop over time this thick skin to seeing all of the worst of society. Speaker 2 (00:16:50): You get called out to all of the worst things you see things that most people don't ever want to see. And, and thank God, don't ever have to see. You see the worst of the worst, the worst accidents, the worst abuse cases. You see it all. If it's negative and you're in law enforcement, guess what? You're gonna be exposed to it. Same thing is happening today with all of us in social media. When you scroll doom scroll, you get on Facebook, Instagram, whatever your flavor is, whatever it is that you like, you're exposed over and over and over to all of this toxic, toxic stuff that has very strong intent behind it. And it will absolutely overwhelm you internally, mentally. So it's external discord. It's the arguing back and forth, the battling it out on social media. The headlines tugging and pulling you one way than the other. Speaker 2 (00:17:55): It's all of that stuff, and you just absorb it, and you just consume it and consume it and consume it. And it's damaging. It's very, very damaging to you internally. So what are the signs? Well, the first sign is exactly what I think God instilled in all of us. And that's just, you've, you've got this, you've got like this thi sixth sense of right and wrong. And when you sit there and you doom scroll the stuff, and you're kind of getting that internally negative feeling and you're, it's kind of making you not, not happy, certainly not giving you joy, it's not making, it's not providing something good for you, then you can understand this is a negative, this is not good for me. I'm not feeling good as I'm taking this in. You go out and watch a sunset, or you see a rainbow or you, you know, see, you know, animals like I've got horses. Speaker 2 (00:18:53): And when you see them run across that pasture, it just does something so good for your soul. That's what I'm talking about. There is your internal mechanism that lets you know what's good for you and what's not good for you. Now, you have to be exposed to some of this negativity, but there's a point at which it's overwhelming. It's too much. You go out there and eat a piece of cake if you want to. Don't do it. If you're diabetic or something like that, don't do it if it's gonna cause other problems. But if, if you're otherwise healthy and you want a piece of cake, go get a piece of cake. It may bring some joy to you, but you can't eat the whole cake because there's a point along that process of you can consuming too much of that cake where you start to feel bad." "Speaker 2 (00:19:41): There's a mechanism in your body that says, ah, this is too much. You start feeling a little more miserable on the inside. And that's how the mental consumption of all of this negativity works. It's not okay for you to sit there and over consume the negativity. So be aware of the signs. What are the signs? The biggest and boldest sign you have is exactly however you feel inside. If you realize this is not leading me to a good place, I don't feel good right now. This is bringing me down, it's changing my mood, it's changing my, you know, my, my feelings. It's making me act different towards other people. It's doing all of these things. Then guess what? Time for a boundary, my friend, time for a boundary. That's whenever you stop the doom scrolling and you go find that balance that I'm talking about. Speaker 2 (00:20:31): Go find the thing that actually does bring you joy. Go find something really, really good, find something awesome to look at, to consume. It could be music, it could be, you know, written word, it could be a movie. It could be so many different things. It could just be stepping completely away from the social media and going for a walk or something like that. There's literally nothing wrong with that at all. As a matter of fact, I think you become a more well-rounded person when you can consume these things to the extent that you need to, to be aware, to be mindful that you can identify each of the different players in the modern society and all of, with all of the fragmentation going on, like who's at play today? What's going on? But then limit yourself. Pull yourself back before you overconsume and get overwhelmed by that. Speaker 2 (00:21:28): Now the next thing that I have is it has to do with like building yourself up on the inside. And I, I love talking about mindset. I think mindset is literally everything. It's so critically important. It was critically important to me in law enforcement. It's critically important to me today in business, and it's critically important in so many aspects of life. And so building your inner fortress would be the next part of this. And cultivating what I call stoic principle that focuses on what you can control and releasing what you can't. Okay? So if you don't know anything about stoicism, that's something to get into and to learn a lot about. I'm not exactly the greatest advocate for stoicism, but I did have to have a sense of that in law enforcement, because you've gotta be able to stand there in the middle of some sort of a hot garbage. Speaker 2 (00:22:17): I'm gonna watch my language here, some bad situation, and basically be unmoved. You've gotta be very stoic many times. And so in society today that stoicism can actually serve you very well. You have to understand when and where to apply that. You don't want to be some, you know, stoic hard in your relationship with your wife. But being stoic when you know your wife's going a little bit, you know, off the edge because you didn't take out the garbage or came home too late or whatever, that can help a little bit. So you've gotta know when and where to apply it. Certainly with a tactical mindset, stoicism can really, really help. But you've got to cultivate some of the stoic principles, the principles of being stoic, of being unmovable, non-emotional, even whenever it comes to some of this stuff. And, and the biggest part of that is just realizing that there's stuff out there in the world that you can control and things that you cannot control. Speaker 2 (00:23:27): And what a lot of these, I'm just gonna be nice and say weaker minded people. People who've never had the kind of training that you're getting right now, people who've never been in law enforcement, who've never been in the military, never been in any sort of a structured, hardcore environment where they've got to engage mentally and physically. A lot of those people get hit with one of these headlines or one of these, like I call nose dragging situations that come up on social media and they let themselves go because" "they have an emotional response to it. And if I can get you to respond emotionally to me, then I own you. If I can't get you emotionally, then I do not own you, and that means that I'm gonna have to work my off in order to get you to move in some direction. Speaker 2 (00:24:21): So these headlines come out, these stories come out, these social media posts come out sometimes with imagery videos, sometimes not articles, op-eds, et cetera, and they are sensationalized and they count on a large portion of the public to respond emotionally. And what I'm telling you is that in order to build that inner fortress, to protect yourself, guard yourself against this, you need to adopt a bit of stoicism. Don't get moved emotionally by the headlines and all of that stuff. That's exactly what you should not do, is respond very emotionally to these things. Now, that takes practice. It takes a little bit of study. Now's not the time for me to teach you all about stoicism, but there's a lot about it out there, and you can learn an awful lot about it. So I'd say your first step in building your inner fortress to guard against all of this nonsense right now is to adopt and foster some of these STO principles into your own life. And let me just boil that down. Don't be emotional. Don't be suckered into following and chasing these headlines and being drug into one side or the other. You've gotta stand in your place. You'll align, like I said, with one side or the other in every single conflict. Rarely are you gonna be right in the middle. Sweden can't even stay in the middle anymore. Speaker 2 (00:25:47): But that being said, you're not drug here or drugged there by either side, including the side that I align more with. You're not drug there by emotional headlines and sensationalism. That's not the case. You've gotta protect yourself, your family, your community, and your country. You have a responsibility to each of those things. And you can't do it if you're gonna be emotional, like all of these other jack wagons running around out there, burning down buildings and doing all that kind of stuff. And the next thing in my little list is developing emotional regulation techniques to avoid reactivity and heated environments. So one of the things that makes you very, very weak as a person is if you can't control your own emotions, I'll just say that a thousand percent right now, straight up very clear, if you cannot control your emotions, you are a weak link period. Speaker 2 (00:26:55): In any organization, in any group, in most situations, you become the weak link. If you have hot buttons and you know those people, oh, you better not say that. Don't cross him, don't cross her, don't, don't him or her off. There'll be hell to pay if you do that. Those people cannot control their emotions. They are not in any form of control. They literally manage situations, whatever it is, workplace situations, societal situations, family situations, they manage with raw emotion, and it usually comes out as yelling and basically temper tantrums. And yes, I mean, adult temper tantrums, et cetera, that's how they manage things because they do not have emotional control. And if you don't have emotional control and somebody else does, and you're both in the same situation, guess who wins every single time. So if you know right now that you're a very emotionally charged person, if you're one of the people that fits into the category I'm talking about, you know, if people commonly say, oh, don't him off, don't her off, don't cross them, or you have to walk on eggshells around this person, if that's you, if that's who they're talking about, then by all means, unf that, unscrew that right now. Speaker 2 (00:28:25): Fix that. Get rid of that nonsense. You've gotta go sit down, get in front of a mirror and have a really big time, come to Jesus meeting with yourself and get that stuff out real quick and say, you know what? I do have this issue. I do have this problem. I do need to change this. I'd say the exact same thing. If you were sitting there and you're like, abusing alcohol, drugs, sugar, caffeine, anything else, any sort of addictive" "thing that you could get connected to, I would say the same thing. You need to sit down in front of a mirror and be very honest with yourself and get that out, get it fixed. And, and that's a good technique for this, if you're an emotional person, especially if you're like a hot head, if you, if people say, oh, that person has anger management issues, or, that person's not a people person, there you go, there's your cue. Speaker 2 (00:29:21): It's time to fix that. Again, it's not within the purview or the scope of this podcast episode right now for me to help you unscrew all of that. But if you can identify the fact that that is a weakness, a very big weakness, if you're an emotionally charged person like that, that that needs to be changed. If you can identify that, then I'd say you're well on the way to getting that fixed. And once that's fixed, so many things change. When you stop hearing, oh, don't cross him, don't cross her, don't. When you stop hearing that, you'll know that you've changed the perspective of you by changing yourself. And that matters. The perspective matters a little less. That's just the mirror, that's just the indicator. It's the you part, it's your way of reacting. It's your emotion response to things that make you either an asset or a liability. Speaker 2 (00:30:19): And if you're emotionally out of control, if you're a hothead, if you have buttons, if you get triggered, then guess what? You're definitely on the liability side, okay? The practicing conscious information consumption to filter out toxic narratives that goes in line with what I was saying while ago. You've gotta be mindful. You're gonna see, you're gonna identify just like you're gonna identify all of the big players. You're going to be able to identify which of these resources out there keeps kicking up. These same types of things. If you find yourself in a fish bowl on whatever side it is that you know, you happen to be swimming in that bowl at the moment, when you can sit there and say, they're not balanced, they're not putting out perspectives across the span of this particular situation right now, they're very, very one sided, then that's kind of where you need to identify and modify. Speaker 2 (00:31:22): Okay? You need as best as possible, if it's at all possible, to find balance in all of these things, you need to know both sides of everything. Certainly you're going to align more with one than the other. I've already told you I align more with the conservatives, with the, the maga, with all of that stuff. That's definitely more me. I'm a big Second Amendment supporter. I'm a constitutionalist, I'm, I'm an America first person. I align with all of that. But at the very, very same time, every single time I'm watching anything Fox News or some of my favorite talking heads, I still take all of that stuff and apply my own sense of logic and understanding to that. I don't just close down my own senses and let them fill my brain with the different ideas and all of that stuff. I don't, I don't let that happen. Speaker 2 (00:32:19): That's 100% totally outta the question. And I think that that's kind of the thing that you have to do as well. Be very, very mindful of the, the content that you constantly get in that particular fish bowl. And if you need to change that, then by all means, change that. So practicing conscious information consumption to filter out toxic narratives, very self-explanatory. Something that you definitely need to focus on. So the next thing on my little list here is strategic disengagement and re-engagement. Now, this is where you're gonna save yourself an awful lot, and I guess keep yourself in a place where you can keep coming back to and reengaging these things without being overwhelmed. So identifying moments where stepping back from online debates or news cycles is crucial for mental health. That's just a statement, that's a fact. Identifying moments where stepping back from online debates or news cycles is crucial for mental health. Speaker 2 (00:33:24):" "That's what I was saying earlier. Sometimes you've just gotta walk away from it for a little bit and go find that peace, go find whatever it is that's actually gonna bring you that balance. And so how do you identify those moments where stepping back is necessary? It's the same thing. You feel yourself getting a little edgy, you start getting a little angry. You're, you're seeing this stuff, you're watching the videos, and you're getting that kind of, just that ugly, dirty inner feeling. There's where self preservation needs to kick in. That's where you need to sit there and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. And let me give you a kind of, a little bit of a snare, a little bit of a trap where you may think that this is what I'm saying, and it may seem logical, but it's absolutely not what I'm saying. Speaker 2 (00:34:11): And here's what I mean. Let's just say that you're on the conservative side and you're watching, you know, um, Kathy, what's her name? The redheaded, you know, comedian, and she's, she's going on and doing her typically thing, typical thing. And she's just bashing conservatives. And you know, they're calling Trump supporters like trumpets. And they're, she's doing all of that stuff. And I hate to say, I don't even remember her last name, Kathy something, but she's, she's kind of famous for, you know, attacking the whole MAGA thing. Let's say that you're in that fish bowl and you're getting that, you're seeing that you're, you're getting exposed to all of that. What I'm saying is when it starts to feel overwhelming, that's whenever you unplug from it. Not just that you don't switch then over to the more conservative stuff and start grabbing you some of that in order to balance the, the toxic stuff that you just got. Speaker 2 (00:35:07): I'm saying you disengage from it completely, period. So we're not advocating, I'm not advocating playing this little balancing act between perspectives and views on that micro level. I'm saying that whenever you find yourself in a toxic situation like that, and it's starting to give you those feelings, and you've got this, this need to take this stuff in to be exposed to it for whatever reason, you're, you're there, but it, it starts to build up and you're getting, you're getting a little more angry, and you're getting a little more frustrated. You're not feeling good on the inside, don't go find your nearest conservative whatever, and start watching that. I mean, you could, but all in all, then those two things will combine to be overwhelming for you. And that's what we want to avoid. So what I'm saying is identify those moments where stepping back from those online debates, you're having it out with someone, you're making, you know, spicy comments, they're making 'em back. Speaker 2 (00:36:09): And a lot of times those things get very, very ugly. And don't get me wrong, I've engaged in a lot of those debates and things, but you've gotta know when to step back. You've gotta know when to say, okay, enough's enough, and not hop to the other side of the same boat, but get out of the boat altogether. Get back up on land and come back to that boat later. When you come back, you may wanna hop on the other, other end of the boat. You may wanna get back into that conservative stuff or vice versa, whatever. But what I'm saying is identify those moments where you need to step back and then execute. Do that step back. Don't stay in it. They want to hook you. They want to keep you, they want you engaged, they want you, as long as they can keep you, don't do that. Speaker 2 (00:36:54): Go find something else. Go watch a camping video. Go, go watch a, a, a video about, you know, building a small block Chevy and dropping it in a 68 Camaro or something. Go, go find something else. Go spend some time with your kids. Go outside and just go for a walk. Go outside and just listen to birds. Do whatever you gotta do, but disengage for self-preservation. Now, the next thing on my list is learning to reengage with purpose, contributing constructively, constructively without becoming a casualty of digital warfare. Now, that's a lot. So learning to reengage with purpose. So, like I said a second ago, you may" "wanna come back and get on the other end of that boat. You may want to come back and get back into whatever that conversation was. You may want to come back and consume more of Kathy, whatever her name is, watching her videos and leave comments below, et cetera. Speaker 2 (00:37:49): You may want to do that. But learning to reengage with purpose. So at first you were a bit of a liability, maybe because it was starting to make you emotional. You realized that you disengaged from it. You went, you clear your mind. You, you, you balance yourself back out. Now you come back, guess what? Now you're a little different person. When you come back into that and reengage. Now all of a sudden now you can come back and actually have a more, I guess, uh, a more sensical approach. You're no longer being driven emotionally. Now you can come back and probably have a greater sense of purpose and be more effective. Speaker 2 (00:38:40): So that's, that's essentially what I'm talking about here, is learning how to reengage with purpose. I can't teach that right now on this side. We don't have the time or the place. If I, if I tried to go deep on any of these particular things, that's all we would talk about. And we can certainly talk about it again down the road. So if you wanna, if you're like, Hey, I really like that part where you're talking about like stepping back and then reengaging with purpose, but we didn't really get into that in that podcast. We'll, you know what, make a comment. Send me an email, ron@tacticalredneck.com or leave a comment if you can do that. And, and I tend to watch all of this stuff. Like this is my community and I very, very, very much try to engage and communicate with you guys, even the people who hate whatever I'm saying. Speaker 2 (00:39:28): And there's, yeah, there's a handful of those people out there. Thankfully a whole lot of you guys come to the rescue. When somebody gets out there and starts doing everything that I'm talking about right now, they get emotional, they're a liability, and they're trying to, you know, beat me down verbally in the social media arena and all this stuff. A lot of you guys pop in and, you know, a few clown emojis and stuff like that, and they tend to kind of go away. But it's critical that you let me know what you need more of in this community. So if I touch on one of these topics and you're like, Hey, I'd really like to deep dive that a little bit more, leave a comment. It helps the algorithm, it helps the video, it helps you know, the podcast, it helps, whatever. And it lets me know where I need to go, how I need to steer this thing in order to get you the information and the support and everything else that you want. Speaker 2 (00:40:19): So this, this is our community. I may be the one sitting in this seat right behind this microphone, right on this side of the camera, but this is our community. Don't ever forget that. So let's, let's shape this together and let's take this where we want it to go collectively. Okay? So, so learning to reengage with purpose, you've just, you've gotta step back, clear your mind, and then come back into that conversation or whatever it is. And you're, you're gonna feel better, you're gonna think clearer, and you're gonna be able to verbalize the things that you want to say so much better than whenever you're starting to get angry and just kind of lose that focus and let the emotions start to get to you. So think about that, okay? Setting firm personal boundaries to protect your peace from external provocation. It's everything I've been saying right now. Speaker 2 (00:41:13): It's all about boundaries. You can love this stuff, you can love, like I do. I love debate, I really do. But I also love chocolate cake, like I said a while ago. And there's a point where too much is too much. And so, loving debate, enjoying conflict, being willing to engage, not being, you know, rattled by hardly anything." "Those are things that have been built up in me over time. You can't work out on the side of the road pulling kilos of cocaine out of people's cars that are armed to the teeth out on some dark, deserted highway. Just you against God knows how many drug smugglers, drug runners. You can't do that very much without building up the kind of stuff that I'm talking about here, where you can handle conflict, where debate and things like that. All these cases go to court and you have to go in there and boy, you get trained real quick on debate and all that stuff when you face all these high, high dollar attorneys. Speaker 2 (00:42:21): And so with all of that being said, you literally have to have boundaries for yourself. Even if you enjoy those things, you enjoy debate, you enjoy conflict, you're good with those things, they don't scare you. Ooh, rock, good, good, good, good, that's awesome. But still have personal boundaries. Know where your limits are. Know when to back off. Know how to protect your own inner peace. I've said several times in this podcast that this is about protecting yourself, your family, your community, and ultimately your country. And so that starts down at the bottom with you. You are the basic element of that entire chain. And if you cannot protect yourself, you cannot protect yourself mentally and emotionally from all of this stuff by establishing and setting boundaries, then you're not gonna be able to help the next step up the chain, your family or the one above that, your community or the one above that your country. Speaker 2 (00:43:20): So think about that. Set personal boundaries and protect your personal peace from all of this external provocation. Don't let people get to you. In other words, don't over consume this stuff. Alright, we're getting down here kind of towards the end of the, uh, the, the stuff we're gonna talk about today. And the, one of the things I have is cultivating resilient communities beyond politics, okay? And that's like prioritizing local tangible connections that transcend ideological differences. So ultimately, that just goes back to the old saying, we're all in this together. Life sucks for everybody. It's, it's, it's a broken, broken world. It's been broken since the Garden of Eden, in my opinion. That's exactly how the world is. I am a believer, I am absolutely a believer, and I think that we are living in a broken world, and I think that we have a lot of hard life no matter what the human experience is a challenge. Speaker 2 (00:44:23): It sucks a lot, it sucks a lot. And then you have these moments of intermittent peace and joy and good things that come along. And that's what we long for. That's what we want more of. But you've gotta prioritize local, tangible connections that transcend I ideological differences. That means you need to know other people in your community and in your sphere, in your ecosphere, that don't think exactly like you, they're not like lockstep in the exact same place that you are. Because let me tell you this, no matter what, we're not, all right. It doesn't matter if you think well, that, you know, this is a hundred percent, it's not. Nothing's a hundred percent. There's always gonna be little parts, little points of deviation where you're gonna come along through your own thinking process and say, Hmm, you know what? I, I actually kind of understand that and where those points are gonna be for you personally. Speaker 2 (00:45:24): I have no idea right now. But the way that you keep yourself from being like, locked into a vault of belief and, and unchangeable, inflexible, which means very breakable by the way, and somewhat useless, is by having these local tangible meaning, real not online connections that transcend ideological differences. It's okay to have friends and to know people who don't think exactly like you. And as a matter of fact, I think it's critical. I think that if we had more of that would probably all be in a better place right now. The next thing on here is focusing on shared human experiences and common goals in your immediate sphere. Okay? So focusing on shared human experiences long before Donald Trump became president, long before ice raids were happening long before liberals took to the streets and started, you know, doing these" "protests and stuff long before any of the things that we are dealing with today came along, we were kids playing out in neighborhoods. Speaker 2 (00:46:38): We didn't know each other's politics. We didn't even actually have any, we didn't know our friends', parents' politics. We didn't know who they supported or didn't support, and we didn't care. We were friends, we were good people to each other and all of that kinda stuff for some stupid reason. We allow it to get sacrificed and taken away from us. We allow all of this, uh, ideology of these different, you know, primary movers and shakers and all of this nonsense, and the, the social media and all of the media that uses social media to throw these headlines out there and to create this content that pulls you to one side or the other and says, Hey, you're really in this group and you should really hate that group and you should really be anti that group. And those are almost not even human beings. Those are, those are subhuman people over there. Speaker 2 (00:47:33): Then you start getting terms like Nazi and fascist and stuff like that. And then before you know it, it starts turning into protests that lead into violence, and then the whole world just starts going to. And it's all unnecessary. So focusing on shared human experiences and common goals in your immediate sphere hearkens back to those days of our childhood when you just lived and didn't worry about all of this stuff. So I think that finding commonality with people that don't necessarily share your political ideology is really, really, really important. It's critical, actually. And this does relate actually into what would come up later on, like, God forbid that this country ever does drop into another civil war, but if it does, you're gonna be better being the kind of person that knows people from all different walks of life who have all different types of experience and skill sets and things like that than if you only know your little box of dominoes and only you only know the dominoes that have six dots on them. Speaker 2 (00:48:52): That's all it is. You need to know every kind of domino that's in that little box. And so that's part of what focusing on shared human experiences is all about it. It truly is, like I said, cultivating resilient communities beyond politics. In other words, get yourself unplugged from all the bs, disengage from the headlines, and be sure that outside of social media and everything else that you're actually cultivating those relationships. Join groups that do things like go bowling together. Go shoot pool with people and invite friends who aren't in your normal group. Maybe you've got a couple of guys and kinda like me being an ex-co, but there, there is no one that I relate better to than other guys just like me. But what I really, really need to do is invite some guys into my inner circles that are not like me. They're not former cops. Speaker 2 (00:49:49): They don't just talk about guns and kicking and stuff like that. We are a tight community. And, and I'm not saying at all anything that should de diminish that. I'm just saying that sometimes you gotta bring a little bit of difference, different perspective, different experiences and stuff like that into your own personal world, just so you don't lose your humanity just so you don't get locked into a vault of thinking in one particular way and only surround yourself with people who think the exact same way. This should go without saying, but I'm gonna say it to you because I care about you, because I care about us because I want us to grow and I want us to be better people. I want us to be better humans first, and that is part of that process. Okay? So building practical skill sets and mutual aid networks that enhance collective self- reliance. Speaker 2 (00:50:46):" "This just is exactly what I said a minute ago. If everything were to go to hell in a hand basket in this country, you're gonna need to know people who actually know how to do a whole lot more than just the skill sets that you already have. So, you know, I get 12 guys together and we're all really, really good with, you know, specific skills and things like that. And those skills are related to combatives, maybe, you know, weapon systems, maybe, you know, things like that. Command control, all that. We, we understand those things, but man, we don't know. The first thing about, you know, I'm just gonna throw some ideas out there. Gardening, cooking, doing things like that. We don't know anything maybe about building. We don't know anything about anything else besides these little things that we just kind of live our life around. Speaker 2 (00:51:43): We absorb so much of the same stuff because we're all very like-minded people. And then because we only know those skills, we only have those skill sets, then we're, we're kind of useless on our own. We're a set of tires without a car, or we're a car without an engine. You need all of it. You need the, you need the car itself. You need the motor under that hood. You need those tires to hit the pavement. Everything has a job and a function. So building practical skill sets and mutual aid networks that enhance collective self-reliance. Hey, we're all in this together. We don't necessarily all have to agree, but we do need to take care of each other because ultimately the enemy that comes up against us may not be you versus me or me versus you, or left versus right, or whatever it may be that we have a natural disaster, a tornado may hit our community. Speaker 2 (00:52:41): And guess what? We may need to live for a while without electricity. We may need to protect our homes from looters. And guess what? Hey man, I'm, I'm former law enforcement and don't worry about that. I know how to establish a perimeter and nobody's breaking into our stuff and stealing what we have, but man, I don't know how to like, make a whole lot of food and meals and stuff. I can rip open an MRE in about two seconds, but you, my friend, the guy who doesn't know how to disassemble and clean an an ar you know, uh, platform weapon or something like that. You, you know how to do that stuff. Those are your skill sets. That's, that's what you have. Guess what, collectively, because we know each other, we care about each other, we care about our community, we care about our, our collective mutual interest here, guess what? Now we've just created a much better team that's, that's stepping out of that typical low level survival mindset where it's just me, me, me, me, me. And it's a little more into the us us us, us. And that's where I'm saying we need to go. That's next level stuff right there. Okay? So I'm gonna wrap this up with this last little section, the path forward, personal sovereignty in a fragmented world. Speaker 2 (00:54:00): You know, we're not gonna get into, you know, sovereign citizenry and stuff like that. That's not at all what I'm talking about. It sounds like that, but that's not at all what I'm talking about. I I actually do not agree with sovereign citizenry and all that kinda stuff. So if you wanna make some negative comments about that, go ahead. You can imagine from a law enforcement perspective, that whole, you know, I'm a sovereign citizen and all that, that just, that doesn't work real good. So, so we're not gonna go down that rabbit hole, but what I'm talking about is embracing a mindset of continuous personal growth and adaptability regardless of external chaos. So what I'm talking about is basically turning yourself into something that's unfettered, unaffected and unhindered in your personal growth and in your skills and your abilities. You have to look out for you to become a portion of what looks out for your family, which becomes something that looks out for the community, which looks out for our country. Speaker 2 (00:55:04):" "And so embracing a mindset of continuous personal growth. There you go. That's why you're listening. And if you're still here in this podcast nearly one hour in, then I'd say you have a really strong commitment to personal growth and rah and amen that I can stand up for that anytime. 'cause that's what this is all about. The sheer fact that I'm sitting here right now exhausted after countless hours of work going through ice mageddon right here in North Texas, suffering a, a medical situation myself, losing a dog recently. That was just, you know, when you have those dogs that it's just like your everything. Like that's your everything dog going through that recently. All of these things have stacked up recently. And here I am doing a podcast. I'm not monetized, I'm not making money off of this. I'm doing this because I care about this community. Speaker 2 (00:55:54): I care about you. I care about all of us growing and becoming better. So embracing a mindset of continuous personal growth, keep that up. Keep doing this. Keep doing what you're doing right now and adaptability regardless of external chaos. So learning to adapt and improve and grow. Go next level regardless of all of the noise and the BS and the headlines and the constant tugging and pulling that go on out there, defining your personal values and using them as an unshakeable compass. You need to know who you are. You need to have your values, and I hope that they're established in a very strong faith in God. If they're not, then let me invite you to find that, search for that. Go and see about establishing a relationship with God. It literally changes everything. I'm not here to preach to you. I'm not gonna hit you over the head with a Bible, but I am gonna invite you to that. Speaker 2 (00:56:56): It's worth, if you can sit here and study and research all of these other things, then what's wrong with studying and researching that? Why not give that some personal time? Why not find out if maybe if you've always been anti that, maybe you're an atheist, maybe a non-believer or whatever, maybe you need to open your mind a little bit and say, Hey, you know what? Let me reapproach this and see what there is to this. Maybe I've grown enough that maybe I'll see things a little differently. Maybe I had a hardened heart before and I wouldn't allow God in because he is not gonna kick the door down, but he will come in if you open the door and allow him. So what I'm saying is define your personal values and use them as an unshakeable compass. Let your values, your amazingly good values guide you through all of this just because you're on more this camp or that camp or you align more with these views or those views and somebody comes out and says, oh, this is the way that we're thinking now. Speaker 2 (00:57:59): A new headline just popped out and this is what we've gotta think. We've gotta start calling everybody this name or that name, or whatever the heck it is. Your own personal values say, ah, that's not right. I'm not gonna participate in that. I'm still gonna agree with the values of this group in other ways, but I'm not gonna get down on that level and start name calling. I'm not gonna go out there and start throwing frozen water bottles that people, I don't agree with. None of that stuff. And the last thing, understanding that true strength comes from internal fortitude, not external validation or political alignment. In other words, you create the you that you want to be. And the true strength of yourself comes from what you have inside. You can build external strength through hitting the gym, going for a run, doing pushups every day. Speaker 2 (00:58:56): That's external strength. You can build internal strength the way that I've been talking about doing the things that I'm saying, setting your values, identifying all of players, establishing so much of this stuff and building yourself up, taking yourself next level and, and, and elevating who you are, building those relationships with people and, and finding out that you know, you're a human first and you're, uh, a person who's drug around by your nose somewhere way down, maybe even not on the list. That's kind of" "what I'm talking about. So understanding that true strength comes from internal fortitude, not from external validation. You don't need people, oh yeah, look, identify with this group and look at me. No, none of that. That's, that's not what I'm talking about. Speaker 2 (00:59:53): Or political alignment. You don't need all of that stuff. You build yourself so that you can be a better portion of everything else that relies so much on you, including your family, your community, and your country. So I know I, I told you at the beginning, this is a lot and it is a lot. And, and we're going past an hour, which is insane. And so I'm gonna tell you this no matter what, above all else, thank you, thank you for being a part of this. And, and if you see this, if you're watching this on video tactical redneck ball cap, and I've got my iron sharpens iron t-shirt on, I, you can't see all of that right now, but iron sharpens iron. It's got a, yeah, it's got something going down through the middle right there that we all, that we all enjoy. If you like Second Amendment stuff. Speaker 2 (01:00:43): And all of these things are available@tacticalredneck.com. And so if you would, we don't make a whole lot of money from those things. Certainly not enough to, to call this a job, but it does help us afford things like the camera that's recording this, the computer that's sitting behind the camera, this microphone, it's like a $500 microphone, but you know what, I, I actually sound better with this than a $39 microphone. So we have to buy these things. We have to pay for these things. We have to pay to market all of this stuff so that it reaches more people. Every bit of this costs money. And the only way that we cover that is by our community. People like you reaching out, grabbing a ball cap, grabbing a t-shirt, doing that, making comments on these videos, helping push that algorithm up and, and helping us with building this community even bigger, better, stronger, and helping all of us collectively go to the next level. Speaker 2 (01:01:47): There's, there's a saying out there, it's something like, uh, rising tide lifts all ships. I don't know if I'm saying that just right, but it's true. And that's exactly what I want right here. So guys, if you, uh, if you've got any thoughts, if you've got any comments, make them, let me know, ron@tacticalredneck.com. We'll get you an email straight into my inbox. Comments below. I try and look at everything. If you're on YouTube, I will certainly look at that. I'll try to respond. And uh, guys, like I said, it's a crazy, crazy world out there and everything's getting worse and worse by the day. But you know what? There is hope. There's a lot of hope and I think that we can be a part of helping keep this stuff together and definitely, definitely having that survival and tactical mindset so that we don't get pulled into all of the noise and you know exactly what I'm talking about. So guys, on that note, I'm gonna wrap it up and I'm gonna stay until next time. Stay safe and God bless."
