The Other Hills to Die On

Woke ideology is the train. Total monitoring and control over money and energy is the destination.

Few on the American Right are unaware of Anheuser-Busch’s recent foray into woke politics. Taking their regular customers for granted, the once-great American company “partnered” with a transsexual person to become a new product spokesperson for Bud Light.

The imbroglio that followed is just one of the latest installments of the culture war over woke ideology, now working through its “trans” iteration, which is keeping the lights on in political consultancies across the nation and consuming huge percentages of conservative mind-share.

The encroachment of woke ideology threatens the American way of life. How it is resolved will define our national character and values for generations to come. But conservatives must recognize that the issues that either define woke ideology or fall under its umbrella—race, gender, and even abortion—are not the only battles in the war. Even if the Right defines what victory looks like on these issues, and somehow manages to win these battles, it will not matter if they lose the war.

As conservative troops and resources flood the zone to resist the woke agenda, bigger threats are neglected. Woke ideology is both a distraction from and a fraudulent justification for pushing toward the ultimate objective: gaining absolute, centralized control over the American economy. The method to accomplish this takeover is via two mutually reinforcing policy shifts that are already happening: the move to a central bank digital currency and enforcing increasingly restrictive rules governing energy.

One of the most fundamental expressions of freedom Americans take for granted is the ability to conduct transactions using cash. The fact that ordinary Americans can settle debts and sell goods using cash may not be fully appreciated until cash is taken away.

The privacy afforded by cash is irreplaceable. Bitcoin and other digital currencies may be difficult to track, but undisclosed Bitcoin accounts are already illegal, and it isn’t hard for authorities to identify who is using virtual servers and other methods of concealment.

The case for cash, however, isn’t that we want to encourage an underground economy. It’s that the existence of cash can at least prevent the arm of government from coming down to even the most petty transactions. Did you use cash to pay your gardener or an occasional babysitter or a handyman? If so, you might decide not to give them a 1099. Did you sell some old utensils, books, CDs, and furniture at a garage sale, and collect cash? If so, you might decide not to get a resale permit to collect sales tax. Once cash is eliminated, those choices will be made for you. Wasn’t that de minimis? It won’t matter.

The anonymity of cash offers some safeguard as well against a growing and even more serious problem, the ability of corporations and government agencies to stifle transactions by people deemed a “threat to democracy.” Confined at the moment to intemperate bloggers and other supposedly seditious conspiracy theorists, and restricted so far to canceled online financial services and frozen bank accounts, imagine what could be accomplished with central bank digital currency. Here’s JH Investments explaining the “risks” of CBDCs:

CBDCs may pose a threat to privacy. The central authority that will be responsible for collecting and distributing identification and transaction data will have access to all monetary transactions. In addition to the threat of central banks disallowing or curbing transactions between citizens, the data could be vulnerable to hacks or misuse, if leaked.

There’s the understatement of the century. If CBDC replaces cash, it will be possible to precisely target and control what and how much every individual is permitted to buy or sell. Not only government agencies but major corporations will have this control.

The implications are sickening. It will be possible to vary how much someone has to pay for goods based not only on their social credit score but also on their income. It will be possible to ration individual consumption of any commodity that might be deemed to endanger the planet. It will be possible to control movement by putting geographic restrictions on where any individual can...

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