Philosophy and Sanity - George D

The calling of a pastor is to preach the Gospel for eternal life, not to organize and run a political movement. We need to get away from this.

Dear Red States, Make your state as openly hostile to woke progressivism as you can. Anything less and you will be wondering how your state turned into a leftist cesspool overnight. They treat us like the enemy. So stop acting like we’re not.

Perhaps there was a time when Burke’s “responsibility, moderation, and restraint” were prudent watchwords for the conservative cause — but we are no longer in that time.

Yep. This is absurd and deeply disappointing. As a Virginia resident, I'm pissed off. I also recognize the full picture of WHY this is happening. This is direct retaliation in the mid-decade redistricting war that started last year. Prior to 2025, the last time a state just willy nilly decided to redraw congressional maps outside the normal 10-year census cycle was 2003. For decades, this was a widely accepted norm: you don't do mid-cycle redistricting. It was frowned upon by both parties because everyone understood what it was — a partisan power grab designed to rig upcoming elections. That norm was completely obliterated when Donald Trump publicly pressured red states to redraw their maps mid-decade, claiming he was "entitled" to more seats because he "won big" in those states. Again: this was 100% unprecedented and was absurd. Texas complied, enacting a map explicitly designed to flip five seats from blue to red. This is the move that lit the fuse. California then responded by passing Proposition 50 in November — an "emergency" measure to implement its own partisan maps temporarily to counter those gains. This MESS should have ended there. But it didn't. The pressure from the highest levels of our government continued. States like North Carolina & Missouri also decided to redraw their maps with ZERO new census data, purely to influence the midterms. Now Virginia — despite currently having some of the fairest maps in the country — is jumping into the mud too. The VA General Assembly just fast-tracked a constitutional amendment to allow mid-decade redistricting here. Virginians will now be asked to vote on it. I will be voting NO, on principle. Not because I’m naïve about the political consequences, but because this is exactly what it is: breaking the rules once fairness becomes inconvenient. Don’t get me wrong — I'm very angry that we're sacrificing a fair & stable process. But I'm also looking at the bigger picture. We are watching a national arms race where fairness itself is being treated as a liability. People need to stop viewing this (and everything else) through a purely partisan lens and recognize the precedent being set. It's corrosive, it's destabilizing, and it's a disaster for everyone.

The end point of gerrymandering is just winner-take-all congressional delegations—the way 48 states give all presidential electors to the state’s popular vote winner.