Though we sometimes hold our most powerful fire, in the name of occasional civility, over the worst depredations to constitution and tradition, there are times when even the most even-keeled of conservatives have the urge to unsheathe a blade and raise the standard of righteous retribution against the Left.
This can be done in a variety of ways. One of the most effective —it has indeed been effective against the Right for about fifty years— is through culture. In the instance we focus on today, through music.
Which brings us to Mr. Free.
An odd yet apropos name, Mr. Free is the stage name of Scott Dietz. He is a man who pulls no punches in his hard rock absolute hatred of groups like Antifa, socialism, and the Left. In his music video, full of angry animals and hard-core political and military imagery, Dietz calls the Dems and the socialists to account and urges the Right to rise up and act in defense of liberties under assault.
I had a chance to sit down over drinks with Dietz and also correspond with him. He’s bright and articulate and knows his history. Like a growing number of conservatives he’s reached a tipping point.
Many of us can see in Portland and other locales how the Left increasingly turns to violence to intimidate and attempt to silence not only the Right but also time-honored classic American values and social mores. Mr. Free not only bemoans the plight, he culturally counterattacks.
As the Left controls the main vehicles of popular culture in music, film, television, etc., when a man comes along and challenges that hegemony he is by very definition a rebel. Not a rebel in the sense so many in the arts pretend to be while accepting obsequious accolades from the status quo, but a cultural insurrectionist sounding a call to arms.
While hard rock is not my particular flavor —I’m more of a Dave Brubeck type— there is no discounting the power and the passion of the message and delivery of Mr. Free. He is a modern-day musical Paul Revere telling of the potential coming of the American socialist state.
We would do well to heed his warning.
