2020 has been a fantastic year in so many ways.

It would have been a very different year if it were not for the pages of LRC, its writers, and its audience.

As life circumstances increasingly determined that I would live life under lockdown, I religiously rose at 4 a.m. each day to write and devour LRC, as a method of keeping in touch with my sanity in the midst of the mindless and destructive corona communism I was seeing all around me.

All around me everyone seemed to be on board with everything. In the pages of LRC, it was a different story. The conversations that happened there helped me bring a new kind of courage to the community I lived in and to live life unmasked. Barbie Dreamtopia Rain... Buy New $19.99 (as of 05:51 UTC - Details)

The Best Place To Write 

I’ve written and published for some 15 years in a wide array of publications in the US and around the world, hundreds, from the New York Post to the Manhattan Institute, from the Cleveland Plain Dealer to Pravda (both the Slovak and Russian manifestations). For a writer looking to really dig down unceasingly and express the truth of the individual’s existence in the world, there is no better place to write than LewRockwell.com.

There are many reasons for that. Two of my favorite: 1.) the audience and 2.) the decision not to have a comments section, but to have the “send him mail” invitation in almost each author’s bio. The most revelatory exchanges result, because that is the type of audience attracted to these pages: sages in their own circle.

This community promotes individual freedom and individual advancement. Its proprietor finds the most mind-bending and insightful articles on the planet. There is never a disappointing edition of LRC.

In the acknowledgments section in my latest book, Face Masks in One Lesson , I write:

“This book has been a community effort. The greatest online gathering of writers, readers, free men, and activists takes place each day at LewRockwell.com. For this, I am in debt to Mr. Rockwell, who has housed that bold community and given me a place to write for better than a decade.”

And

“Without Ron Paul, there is no freedom movement as we today know it. On December 7, 2007, he became the grandfather of the Tea Party movement when his supporters from Strasbourg, France to Lake Jackson, Texas organized the first events in the contemporary Tea Party movement. No longer in office, this astute watchdog of government overreach and philosopher, on Tuesday, March 17, 2020, the first day of the San Francisco lockdown penned the syndicated column ‘The Coronavirus Hoax,’ in which he predicts correctly that some will die of corona, so the vulnerable must protect themselves, and that all must remain alert to the authoritarians making Covid an excuse for massive power grabs.” Barbie Fashionistas Ul... Buy New $99.99 (as of 05:51 UTC - Details)

Lives Well Lived Ripple Out To Others, Leaving Immeasurably Large Impact 

With the fraction of insight I have on the work done by these two men in the world, I can see many ripples of impact all around me and virtually every day. Can you imagine how many lives these two must have affected?

I can’t. But I know from speaking to Scandinavian college students starting their own think tanks, to Italian businessmen, to closeted libertarians on the left coast, that the 2008 election changed the trajectory of their lives. That is but one example. The work of these two men does not stop there, but spans decades, and there are others like them. It is in the pages of LRC and its community that these two and many more have so altered 2020 for me. For this I am most grateful.

Being Thankful For The Maskholes 

I’d like to pause and reflect on other aspects of 2020 I am grateful for, just as I do each morning, the maskholes among them.

The maskholes are technocrats, members of the professional class, who were not content to leave discussions on masks in the realm of social conversation, dialogue, debate, and polite encouragement — as is done in a free society. This would have been enough for high compliance. After all, they already dominate the media narrative. They instead crossed a line and invoked the force of law, involving men with guns and badges to enforce their screwy ideas, which they insist be made into orders from governmental organs with touted legal consequences.

These technocrats, these members of the professional class, in their very limited perspectives have behaved so short-sightedly. It has caused such misery in the world through lockdowns and mask mandates and so much more.

It is also a slice of life that I can find gratitude for. For the cause of liberty has long been taken for granted in our prosperous times. The work of the maskholes has had the impact of beginning to awaken and coalesce so many people in my life, who loved liberty, but did not often want to stand for liberty. Barbie Fashionistas Do... Buy New $12.95 (as of 05:51 UTC - Details)

On top of it, the work of the maskholes have drawn so many new people into my life that I didn’t even know existed, and would not have imagined. We were proverbially just two people sitting quietly in the same corner of the same large room, unwilling to talk about the things we most needed to talk about, that we most cared about, until someone lit a fire under us.

Instead, in the name of “go along to get along,” or some other nonsensical risk-averse way of hiding from the joys of life, we sometimes may have found ourselves talking about the most insipid and banal together, forgetting that one impassioned, truthful conversation brings so much more value and connection than a thousand insipid conversations where no one is speaking their truth from their hearts.

To Be Quiet In The Corner Of The Room

To be quiet in the corner of the room, to avoid dialogue about the topics you care most about, is a dishonesty that many are guilty of, me most of all.

When you behave that way, you further encourage a social and professional group around you that cannot imagine how anyone else can think any differently than the group’s consensus. By merely opening your mouth courageously once in a while, your circle will self-select. A fearful person, comfortable in their fear, does not desire to associate with a faithful person, comfortable in their faith.

With your silence — which amount to lies of omission and tacit approval — you do them a disservice and you do yourself a disservice. These minor disservices can have major impacts when summed up.

Being quiet in the corner of the room is no longer a luxury that can be had.

Doing Ourselves The Favor Of Declaring Our Gratitude 

Barbie Dreamplane Tran... Buy New $48.99 (as of 05:51 UTC - Details) More importantly than the maskholes — creatures who are more deserving of pity than fear, people who are more deserving of being laughed at than having contempt for — this Thanksgiving I will be filled with gratitude, as I am each morning, for the community that gathers at LRC. This community has been one of the greatest blessings of 2020. For that, I am most grateful.

If we name, recognize, and declare our gratitude, we do ourselves the favor of pausing to feel good about our blessings, and we indicate to ourselves what we value and the high standards in life that we hold, making it all the less likely that we will take those gifts for granted or let them fall into a state of neglect.

You set the direction of your day based on where you put your focus. Some men choose to focus on the negatives. Some men choose to focus on their blessings. If you had previously allowed that focus to lapse, Thanksgiving is a day for resetting that focus on the many blessings of life.

Our Era Is So Amazing 

In an era so amazing in so many ways, I can’t even imagine focusing on the minor miseries of my life:

•from 3D printers to robots that vacuum the floor,

•from greater comfort in all areas of life and the concept of customer service, to such wonderful diverse methods of healthcare and insight into the body,

•from nourishing food in abundant quantities to every kind of educational opportunity imaginable available online free of charge,

•from Bitcoin to electric cars to self-driving cars — very exciting concepts regardless of their sometimes scary drawbacks —

•from affordable supercomputers in the pockets of almost anyone who wants one to the ability to have a conversation with a total stranger on the other side of the world and to really connect over a shared passion. Barbie Chelsea Travel ... Buy New $14.95 (as of 05:51 UTC - Details)

This era offers us social media that stands for free speech like Gab, Parler, MeWe, and Rumble. This week I even spoke to an ad agency that works with libertarians and conservatives exclusively. Yes we can bemoan the tech giants, seemingly so pleased with themselves, for being so easily corruptible with their near absolute power. We can also be so grateful for the free speech pioneers of our day.

These aspects of life are not perfect, but they are wonderful outcomes of the freedoms we enjoy as entrepreneurs seek to identify problems in the world and address them to the satisfaction of consumers in our relatively free market environment.

This is not to even mention washing machines that save 4 or 8 hours of back breaking labor a week, or indoor plumbing unknown to many in the world still and unknown to even more just a century ago, or hot showers in the morning that come at the turn of a knob.

Have you ever risen before the sun, lit a wood burning stove, walked to the well, drawn water, carried it back, warmed it on the stove and sponged yourself off from a basin? Warm showers are deservedly a daily source of gratitude for those who have, myself among them.

There’s a lot to be thankful for in 2020.

The Free Market: A Finer Example Of World Heritage Than Anything With A UNESCO Sign On It 

That free market is a treasure for which all on the planet can be proud to participate in, to help build, and grateful for, one of the greatest aspects of human heritage, far out-rivaling anything with a UNESCO sign on it.

We live in a special time.

Barbie Glam Convertibl... Best Price: $13.01 Buy New $14.14 (as of 05:51 UTC - Details) Even in the face mask mandates — which are awful, and such a dramatic step toward greater tyranny if not opposed in each of our lives individually — even in response to the face mask mandates, we can be grateful and turn to the wisdom of a pope, spoken so truthfully, long before the clergy — who claim to walk in the name of the table-toppling, truth telling, snowflake-triggering Christ — were all such weenies:

“Let us thank God that He makes us live among the present problems. It is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre.”

That pope is demonstrating something here, an attitude. You can say that the miseries of life have to be handled, need to be handled, should be handled, or you can say they get to be handled.

Which of those will you choose? Because the one you choose helps to set the tone for how you will perceive the task.

I am grateful even for corona, for lockdowns, and for formerly sane people who turned on me, along with many other aspects of life that have been so awful in 2020.

Whether You Embrace It Or Not, Reality Is Still Reality — So Why Not Embrace It?

The crucible of the last year has been the hardest in my life and the best. I am twice the man I was, having risen to the occasion of 2020. With that attitude, each year has brought such growth in my life, but 2020 has easily brought a decade of growth.

Reality comes at us hard and fast. That is reality. The events of 2020 are reality. Who am I to call life otherwise? I do not control all reality. What is in my control is how I react to what happens in the world.

The Kind Of Time We Live In

For whatever reason, it is not the comfort and ease of easy years that seems to build me, it is the challenging years and the dedication to meet those challenges with fortitude that builds me. You may have found the same to be true.

2020 has helped build me into a better version of me, and I suspect there is a lot more 2020 left to come, for corona communism looks no closer to winding down.

Yes, a part of me dreads it, but oh do I feel a spirit of joy at being one of the lucky few to be alive at this time and to be able to live through such a great and meaningful epic.

“This story shall the good man teach his son,” wrote Shakespeare into the Band of Brothers speech at Agincourt.

This story shall the good man teach his son.

That is the kind of time we get to live in. This is an era that long-remembered stories are told about, passed down in the oral tradition for ages.

Will you shirk from the challenges of the age? Will you spend your day bemoaning them? Will you rise to the occasion? Will you be one who performs a deed remembered for ages? Will you live a life dedicated to putting more and more of those types of challenges in front of you and successively building yourself up for the next even greater deed?

Let us be grateful for our times. Let us see it for all the good and evil that it is. Let us stand strong against this tyranny and let us rejoice when we reach the other side of this battle, stronger for having engaged in it.

I declare this the most wonderful Thanksgiving of my life. Will you declare yours the same?

A Thanksgiving present to the LRC community, Face Masks in One Lesson by Allan Stevo is available through Thanksgiving Day at a friends and family price of $10 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Lulu, and many other platforms and bookstores. Friday it will increase to $21.99. Please write [email protected] for bulk orders of 10 copies or more. This book, about how to stop wearing a face mask and to end corona communism in your own life, was launched on the day that communism came to an end. 

The Best of Allan Stevo