We often we hear the phrase “this isn’t a hill to die on”, or “this is not a hill I wish to die on”. Let us consider the curious nature of this phrase. It is most often uttered by people who are presently in comfort, and politically, out of fear or inconvenience, do not wish to confront an enemy at this particular time – as though they fully intend to confront the enemy at some later indeterminate time.
This promised confrontation is a time that is always in the future because the future is a time that is always safe. In this way they maintain their moral stance without any immediate confrontation. And not only have they maintained their moral stance, but they also consider themselves prudent in being able to “fight another day” in the future, and also for demonstrating kindness and “understanding” to their enemy. Oh yes, and we shouldn’t call them “enemy”, they are merely our opponent, for surely we are all good people.
The result? An opponent that continues a slow encroachment that is soon accepted as a new normal. Those who chose to give up the hill simply retreat back compliantly to the next hill behind them which is almost the same as the hill they just gave up – just a little farther backwards – but they feel that is okay because they have escaped death another day. And death is so final.
What is not remembered is that they have been dying a slow and gradual death for years. In the same way that a frog can be slowly boiled to death by simply increasing the temperature in the pot 1 degree at a time. If the frog is thrown in the water that is already hot, the frog jumps out realizing “this is a hill I’m going to die on!”. But every small degree of temperature increase is never a good enough reason to jump out of the pot. “Certainly we can stand one more degree of heat?” “It’s not that bad.” “Surely they don’t mean to cook us but merely to make us more comfortable?” “Aren’t we all good people.”
Almost no one gets to choose the hill they die on, and even if they were able to choose, they would still choose not to die on it. Because no one wishes to die, ever. There are no good hills to die on and death is final whether it is on a hill, in a valley, at sea, on land, high on a mountaintop or deep in a trench. None of the 8000 Marines who died on the volcanic island of Iwo Jima planned on dying there or wished to die there. And the same is true for countless other battles and skirmishes in every corner of the world where people are dying on hills they did not choose. Consider all the seemingly pointless slaughter of World War I, back and forth across no-man’s land, charge after charge being mowed down by the enemy, dying in the mud. They didn’t even get a hill to die on. Was this a patch of ground worth dying on? What about the jungles of Vietnam? The sands of Africa? The valley of death where road the 600? I’ll let the reader take a moment to fill in the infinite number of blanks as examples.
Where is this noble hill that we are willing to die on? It does not exist except in movies where we can watch our hero die again and again their glorious death shouting “freedom” or some other heroic utterance of the martyr. We should all respect the all-too-true statement of Nathan Hale’s purported final quote; “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country”– a sad but heroic statement. We all have but one life and death is so very final. But it is the collective deaths of many, all insignificant in the course of human history, while being all too significant to the individual and the very few that knew or loved the one who died, that can sometimes affect change in the world.
Even Jesus Christ did not get to choose the hill that He was to die on. Jesus pleaded with God the Father in the garden of Gethsemane that if there was another way “let Me not die on this hill” (paraphrased). No one, including Christ Himself, ever wants to die, except the insane or the suicidal. In truth, most of the hills that people make this statement concerning are not hills of death but merely hills of struggle, of inconvenience, of confrontation. We have become a weak people that fears all confrontation and lives based on feelings rather than by principles. Thankfully, Jesus went to the cross, despising the shame, despising the feelings, and by faith completed the work that he was sent to this world to accomplish.
And what about the great patriots upon whose struggle this country was founded? Was Bunker Hill (or Breeds Hill) a hill that was considered as one worth dying on? But it was done for far less offenses by King George than we suffer right now. A tea tax? A sugar tax? A stamp act? – Are you kidding me? Were these hills worth dying on? Apparently they were by the brave patriots, but where is bravery today? If Christians and Republicans could courageously stand together we would hold every hill and take back many that we’ve lost. But instead we are led by cowards who caution that these hills are not worth dying on.
A culture of wimps is afraid of a virus that is little more deadly than the yearly flu and less deadly than others. We have lost our collective mind as we are herded around in fear by a monotone agenda-driven cultural voice. This virus has been more hyped than any other disease in human history, all without the number of deaths to support the panic. And then we have those, many supposed conservatives, who make the pathetic argument “well you haven’t seen people who have died of coronavirus” or “that’s only because it hasn’t happened to you”. But this is an emotional argument made by those without reason, because, the same thing can be said about any disease. All disease is bad, some are worse than others, and there are many that are worse than Corona in terms of their mortality rate and horrific way in which they kill. Would you prefer to die by smallpox? Or maybe in a plane crash? Or would you prefer pneumonia? Or by dysentery in a trench in World War I? What about cancer, malaria, or plague? Do you fear these diseases? Apparently all these non-hyped, nonpolitical diseases are not worthy diseases in the light of coronavirus hysteria. Pretty soon all death will be attributed to coronavirus (as many deaths have been fraudulently pronounced). If you are walking around behind a mask fearing coronavirus, you are watching too much TV news.
We behold the actual shuttering of churches by the our government, in violation of the separation of church and state and the First Amendment., and yet this still was not a hill that Christians were willing to die on. Instead they consider themselves virtuous to be in servile compliance with their government’s mandates; and courageous in their continuing to gallantly forge ahead with absurd Zoom calls and regulated parking lot church meetings. It seems to never cross the minds of the church leadership that the humanistic left hates the church and hates the God of the Christians; that they need to be fought against and resisted rather than complied with and appeased. There seems to be no amount of government tyranny which will move the church to action because they consider it piety to be in a state of continual virtual martyrdom. This is preferable to being courageous, standing firm on a hill and confront their enemy – an enemy they do not even recognize and inadvertently end up supporting. “Look at us we’re Doormats for God” but neither the world nor God is impressed. This is evidence of how the church leadership fears man more than it fears God.
The left has truly gone mad in the last 3 1/2 years, and insanely, foaming at the mouth mad in the last 4 months. Trump derangement syndrome is far more deadly than coronavirus. This has provided a perfect opportunity for sane Republicans to be a voice of reason and stand in opposition against this madness. But this too is a hill that many henpecked Republicans are unwilling to die on, even though they far out number their opponents in manpower and equipment. (The same was true for Republicans during the Civil War, whom Lincoln spent 2 1/2 years searching for a general with the courage and fortitude to attack the Democrat Confederates). This could be a decisive and easily won victory. Instead the establishment Republicans dutifully donned the masks, thereby validating the nonsensical narrative presented by corrupt health organizations, false prophets with their models (all of them wrong), corrupt politically motivated doctors, and willing apparatchiks in the media – lies upon lies.
The masks are a lie. They do nothing to help slow the spread of the virus. There is no correlation between the wearing of masks and the number of cases of coronavirus. And by the way, why do we care about the number of cases when the actual death rate of this “killer disease” is less than 0.25 percent? The mask wearing is demanded for no medical reason but only to make people feel safe, that their government is protecting them, and to demonstrate the herd’s obedience to their rulers. The masks are used as tools to maintain a state of fear in society, galvanizing the collective and causing people to stay tuned in to the latest news maintaining a continuous drip of poisonous misinformation from the authorities and medical “experts”. Genuine medical experts, not on the government payroll, not those getting kickbacks from some insider deal on medical equipment, have stated that the masks are ineffectual.
And yet even now, as the mask mandates are lifted, with the virus in retreat, the one-mind collective of people clings to the masks like Linus clings to his blanket. They are well trained children, brown-shirts on a mission, afraid of the mature adults who wish to be free, calling them out as “uncaring”. But this tiny hill, the slight inconvenience of finding those stores that allow you to shop without a mask while refusing those stores that don’t, is still not a hill that most people are willing to even climb.
Politically speaking, the masks are a root to short-term gains and long-term losses which establishment Republicans are always eager to accept. They concede a hill in order to buy themselves time. But the hill they fall back to will be no different than the one they just conceded. Very soon they will have to make the same choice of whether they want to hold this hill or once again fall backwards. But the next hill will be the same. The left has advanced this way for more than 100 years. From the social gospel of the late 1800s to the Wilson administration, through FDR, LBJ up to the present they have continued to surrender hill after hill never finding that particular hill that was worth dying on.
We should be standing in opposition to the left, in opposition to insanity, confident in and clearly stating our positions, using reason to refute the lies of these overhyped crises and left wing tirades. But instead, in order to the demonstrate “compassionate conservatism”, churches and Republican politicians stand in solidarity with their opponents handing out free food to those who don’t really need free food in order to buy votes and virtue signal. This has been the primary tactic of Democrat politicians since the 1960s and prior but Republicans seemingly cannot wait to demonstrate how they can do this too, though never as well. This does not get more votes because what people really want is not free food; but rather leadership. They really want government to stop helping them, get out of the way, open up the economy, secure liberty and enforce law and order, not benefits. But liberty is no longer a hill worth dying on. (Currently, the only thing that matters is making it through the next election cycle alive).
Instead of offering confident leadership, demonstrating courage by taking off their masks, gathering together in rallies, and refusing to abide unjust and unconstitutional laws issued by tyrannical governors and mayors, they blame China, who undoubtedly is a bad actor, but is not the present enemy that must be defeated. The true and present enemy is the Socialist left, antifa and black lives matter anarchists, the deep state, the lying one-world media, and the Trump deranged Democrats. Republicans have been given a golden opportunity to show reasoned opposition but they seem to want to move backward with no real agenda, no real message and no hope and little energy. Once again, liberty minded Republican voters are going to have to help them not to lose. Somehow we have to keep them from abandoning the hill they don’t want to die on. Yippee!
This is what God commanded the children of Israel to do; to advance into Canaan land and “take the land”. They sent spies out into the land and they came back and reported (as does the media reports today) that there are giants in the land and they instilled fear in the people’s hearts. And the children of Israel grumbled against God and against Moses. God was extremely displeased because they did not believe that He was able to give them victory over the people and take the land. So God cursed them to wonder about in the wilderness for 40 years until every one of that disbelieving generation had died. It is the same in this generation when we are unwilling to stand on a hill and claim it for God.
So what are you going to do Republicans? What are you going to do church of God? Are you once again going to cower in fear listening to the media reports of how there are giants in the land, invisible viruses that are going to kill you or imagined sins that you are to eternally repent for as you bow down to your worldly Masters? Or are you this time going to pick up your sword and fight, march up and take a stand on the hill and refuse to give ground to the enemies of liberty and enemies of God? Some may pay the ultimate sacrifice, as is the case in war, but most will live and claim a great victory, advancing the cause of liberty as you develop courage to not only hold this hill but go on offense and take back the endless numbers of hills previously conceded.
-Bill Ward