Another update and more scripts (Patreon)

Hi, patrons! I'm trying to do more regular updates these days. I have good news. The next soft reboot of Renegade Cut is coming before the end of the month. The new intro and first thumbnail can be found below.

Intro: https://twitter.com/renegadecut/status/1635722793714155522

Thumbnail: https://twitter.com/renegadecut/status/1636085428326477825

For now, here are some more scripts. I'll get up to date on these yet!

COPS ARE LIARS

AUDIO 1

Imagine being arrested. A man you do not know and certainly do not trust asks you to step out of the car, or knocks at your front door with three heavy “thumps” reserved only for police officers. Your day of running errands, visiting friends and cooking dinner is over, your sense of normalcy pulled violently from you like an aggressive purse-snatcher. You are put through humiliating procedures in the company of strangers, and try not to instinctively smile when they take your picture, ignoring years of muscle memory. Finally, after they have allowed you to panic long enough for the discomfort to become actual pain, they sit you down in a cold room with a metal chair. These men have all the power, all the guns and the key to the door. You're not going anywhere. One man looks away from you, studying some papers but not actually reading them, and says “We just want to ask you a few questions,” as if you have been brought here not for a police interrogation but a quiz show that you watch on network television. “Oh, thank God,” you think. “Only here for a few questions. This is all some mistake, of course. Yeah, that's it! I bet my name matches the name of some criminal, and this is all a simple misunderstanding. Why, they should go arrest him. I bet he's a bad man.” But before you can imagine this other man, this individual whose place you have accidentally taken, the police begin telling you things about yourself and about the victim of an alleged crime, and some of it simply cannot be true.

But you don't notice, because you're too busy with your silent prayer, that if you can just get out of this, you will stay on the straight and narrow for the rest of your life. “If I tell them what they want to hear,” you tell yourself, “they will let me go home and finish cooking my dinner.” They're lying to you, and you don't even realize it, and worst of all, they started lying to you long before you sat down in the chair. [Cops Are Liars] The insinuation that the police, particularly in the United States, are liars, should not be a controversial opinion. Even those who support the police wholeheartedly, applaud their efforts, and defend them from the slightest criticism must be aware that police officers are often dishonest with their suspects. From the perspective of those defending the police, our “boys in blue” are dishonest only in order to outwit criminals and to protect society, and that a certain amount of slack should be given to them. From the perspective of anyone else, the dishonesty of the police is an exercise of control, a disproportionate amount of power that creates an insurmountable imbalance in the dynamic between police and civilian, an imbalance that does not serve justice. In practice, there are two varieties of lies and dishonest actions by the police: those which are questionable but perfectly to legal, and those which are illegal but are done all the time anyway.

AUDIO 2

In the case of the former, laws that allow “reasonable deception” by the police have been codified both locally and by the Supreme Court in landmark cases that have granted more and more leeway to the police over time. In the case of the latter, the police are protected internally by other police officers and by unions such as the Fraternal Order of Police or the ironically named Police Benevolent Association of New York. In rare cases, a police officer will be charged for violating the law while on duty, but generally only under these circumstances: when the police department is under tremendous public pressure, and when the officer is caught red-handed, when the crime will result in protests and riots that will cause the city enormous property damage, and when the crime is so egregious that not charging the officer would be worse for the image of the state than the alternative. However, in cases of mere unlawful dishonesty, those incredible circumstances generally do not exist. Therefore, if police know there are few, if any, consequences for what theyconsider minor infractions, they will continue these infractions unabated and may even be encouraged to do so. Police dishonesty may seem less consequential than the more sensational ways that police abuse their power, but these legal and illegal deceptions are actually quite serious for those on the receiving end and are often the deciding factor in whether not a suspect – innocent or guilty – will see their entire life ruined.

Both legal and illegal dishonest policing will be discussed here. [Furtive Movements] You are driving along, stop at a traffic light, and pass something to your friend in the backseat. A police officer sees this, and believes it is suspicious movement – what the law commonly calls a “furtive movement.” Before an interaction between a suspect and a police officer has even begun, the officer can conclude that this interaction is justified through the flimsiest of excuses. A common excuse to question, pull over, frisk or otherwise harass a suspect is this mysterious “furtive movement” – an action, motion or behavior that the police officer has determined is suspicious. These allegedly suspicious movements encapsulate nearly any behavior, including but not limited to looking over their shoulder. The claim of a furtive movement can initiate the interaction or be used as justification for escalating an existing interaction. As an example of the former, a police officer can claim that a man on the sidewalk who merely looks from side to side might be waiting for criminal co-conspirators. As an example of the latter, a police officer can claim that a man who has already been pulled over but reaches for something in his car might be reaching for a weapon instead of their license, insurance, and registration, as they were asked. In this case, the escalation is often a “protective search” of the vehicle, a search presumably for the officer's own safety.

AUDIO 3

Sometimes there is reasonable suspicion, and sometimes police are using the vague, subjective nature of the “furtive movement” to conduct random searches, to escalate an interaction with a suspect if it is not producing anything, to retaliate against a suspect who is not being properly respectful to the officer, and most infamously to perform a racially-motivated stop-and-frisk. There is a tremendous amount of data suggesting that police disproportionately stop and frisk people of color, and the excuse of “furtive movements” is often used in place of the actual motivation: racial bias.  In the case of Floyd v. City of New York, police officers described furtive movements as “changing direction” and “looking back and forth” and “getting a little nervous.” In response, Judge Shira Schneidlin remarked “If officers believe that the behavior described above constitutes furtive movement that justifies a stop, then it is no surprise that stops so rarely produce evidence of criminal activity.” There is little uniformity is what does and does not consist of a furtive movement, and police officers can take advantage of this. Sometimes a judge concludes that no probable cause existed for a search, and evidence found in that search is suppressed. However, police officers almost never actually get themselves in trouble for their claims of furtive movements, incentivizing them to continue. [Body Cameras] After the officer has pulled you over for this flimsy excuse, an argument ensues. After all, you didn't do anything wrong, and even if you had, it was probably small enough to not be worth arresting someone.

You are concerned, and you forgot to record your interaction with your phone, as you always should. Then, you are briefly comforted by the fact that the officer himself is recording this interaction, and if something goes wrong, there will be evidence...right? In recent years, police departments have been equipping their officers with body cameras. While on duty, police record their interactions with suspects, with the stated goal being public transparency. If an officer does something underhanded or illegal, he can be caught red-handed. If a suspect is dishonest about his interaction with the officer, he can be exposed. A level playing field with no unequal dynamics. That is how body cameras are supposed to work, how they are supposed ensure public trust, and how they are supposed to minimize police misconduct. Unfortunately, according to the most extensive research on the subject by George Mason University, police body cameras “...have not produced dramatic changes in police behavior, for better or worse. Although early findings indicated BWCs reduce the use of force by officers, more recent findings have been mixed...” Why is this? Why did police body cameras initially had some mild, positive results for public safety but no longer do? Because police learned the ins and outs of the cameras, how to utilize them for their own benefit, and how to manipulate them to protect themselves – not the suspects.

AUDIO 4

When the police want to do something without the camera seeing, they have options. They can turn it off, they can turn off the audio only, and if there are technical limitations or safeguards that would make that difficult, they can simply cover the camera with their hand. According to research by the public Defenders Association of Philadelphia, “The officers fail to activate their cameras to capture the beginning of the pedestrian stop. In only six of the sixty investigations did BWC video capture the incident before the officers placed people in handcuffs.” Even if there is more than one officer on the scene, police will protect one another with regards to their body camera footage. Here is an example from the same research: “Officer Lombardi stomped on this male in the alley after the cornered male was laying on the ground. Officer Lombardi never turned his camera on. One of his fellow bike officers saw Officer Lombardi stomping on the male when he came around from the other side of the alley where a locked gate cornered the male. His video captured Officer Lombardi stomping the male but the officer whose camera was recording backed away, went back around the corner and turned off his camera.” In many instances, police are even allowed to do this. Earlier this year, only a few minutes after police shot and killed thirteen year old Adam Toledo, they turned off their body cameras. When questioned after this, police spokesman Don Terry said:

“They didn’t do anything wrong. An incident happens, after the incident is under control, turn off your body cameras...” Police response is always, well, now that the police have shot someone, what more is there to record? What Mr. Terry and other police officers are not telling us is that this is when the police gather to get their story straight. This is when police discuss how to cover their tracks and clear themselves of any wrongdoing. In short, during an active crime scene, police are not allowed to turn off or cover their cameras but often do anyway. Then, after a crime is committed or after the police themselves commit the crime, they are allowed to turn them off. Worse still, gaining access to the body camera footage is challenging due to laws put in place that intentionally slow down requests for the footage to be released to the public. Laws vary from state to state, but where I live, Pennsylvania, the law that limits access to police body camera footage is called Act 22. Paula Knudsen Burke, an attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said of this, “It doesn’t work. You’re at the mercy of the police department.” The police drag their heels when an officer is involved in a shooting, hoping that even if the footage is eventually released, the public will have lost interest. Police do not use body cameras to make themselves accountable. They use body cameras to increase surveillance of civilian population, and misuse them to protect themselves from being recorded themselves.

AUDIO 5

The statistics back this up. From the same study from George Mason University, 93 percent of responding prosecutors’ offices in jurisdictions that use police body cameras use them primarily to prosecute citizens. That explains why 80 percent of responding prosecutors support police body cameras, and 63 percent believe these cameras assist prosecutors more than suspects. Only about 8 percent of respondents in jurisdictions that use police body cameras had ever – even once – used body camera footage to prosecute a police officer. Body cameras were supposed to keep the police honest, but they have not had that effect. If a police officer is planning to do something dishonest or secretive at a crime scene, there is no reason for them not to go one step further and do something else dishonest – cover their body camera or turn it off. Police body cameras only work when they want them to work. [Evidence and Interrogation] You try to walk back your argument with the police officer, but he feels disrespected and decides to retaliate because he knows he has all the power. With his body camera off, he tosses something into the back seat of your car. It's drugs – and he will claim to have discovered this in open view. There are two unfortunate facts about the police and planted evidence. First, the rash of recorded incidents in recent years – both from officers foolish enough to forget to turn off their body camera and suspects who turn on the cameras in their phones – suggest that police plant evidence all the time and that we are only now able to prove this because of the proliferation of smartphones.

Second, there is no way to truly calculate how often this happens. It is done serepticiously and is therefore unknown to everyone but the officer, and police departments do not even keep databases of accusations of evidence planting. Why would they? Now. The police have pulled you over, covered their body camera, planted evidence, arrested you, and now you are handcuffed and trapped with in a room with poor lighting. You have seen enough movies to know that you are about to be interrogated. What you may not realize is that the police are about to lie to you – over and over – to trick you into confessing. They want you to confess to something that you either did not do, or confess to something small that you did do while telling you that there will be few, if any, consequences. The police have so many lies they can tell, and the courts almost always back them up. The police are allowed to lie about fingerprints and DNA. This is in service of obtaining a speedy confession before a lawyer can advise the suspect. This is also in service of tricking the suspect into volunteering a DNA sample. Maryland v. King says that the police are allowed to lie simply to obtain your DNA. People v. Mays and People v. Smith both say that the police can lie to you about polygraph tests. People v. Dominick says the police can lie to you about having witnesses. People v. Sims says the police can lie about recording conversations.

AUDIO 6

For example, they can say they are turning the recording device off to have an allegedly “off the record” discussion but keep the recording device on anyway. Outside of the interrogation room, police at your door can lie about how quickly they can obtain a search warrant. If you ask for a warrant, the police can tell you that they can have one in minutes, so you may as well open up now. In reality, if they had enough already, they would not have come without a warrant, and a warrant takes more than “a few minutes.” People v. Steger says the police can lie to you about what will happen to your friends if you don't confess. Frazier v. Cupp says the police can lie about someone else confessing to the suspect's involvement in a crime. These tactics sometimes creates false confessions, especially considering People v. Gurule says that the police can pretend that they have enough evidence to put that suspect away for a long time and that confessing is their best way to avoid a lengthier jail sentence. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 27 percent of exonerated prisoners who were wrongfully convicted of homicide gave false confessions. Police lie about how much evidence they have against a homicide suspect, then claim that the only way to avoid life in prison or the death penalty is to sign a confession. Later, when that suspect discovers the police have no such evidence, their false confession alone is often enough to persuade the jury.

[Conclusion] So, what should you do if you are being arrested by a police officer? The following advice comes from legal experts, including but not limited to the American Civil Liberties Union – not my amateur opinion. Many states require the suspect to give their name, but they are not obligated to provide any further information. This includes but is not limited to your address, where you are going, what you are doing, where you were born, or your citizenship. You do not have to consent to a search. The police may feel they have probable cause to do so, but your objection should be noted in case their search did not have probable cause. If you did not consent to the search, and it is found that the search was illegal, that may be helpful in suppression of evidence and defense in general at your potential trial. Remain silent, except to request a lawyer. When requesting a lawyer, never make the request ambiguous. Do not say “I think I should speak to a lawyer.” or “Shouldn't I have a lawyer present?” or anything similar. Say “I want a lawyer.” Any ambiguity allows police officers to claim that your request was unclear, even when it is obvious they know exactly what you are asking. Any claim from the officer that you are not in trouble and they only want to talk is a lie. If you have been arrested and are in an interrogation room, trouble has found you. The officer is only trying to make you put down your guard. Never speak to the police during interrogation or sign anything without a lawyer present.

AUDIO 7

Do not sign the Miranda rights waiver. The police may continue asking you questions even after you have requested a lawyer. This is a common tactic. You are under no obligation to answer their questions alone. Don't be fooled into speaking to a police without a lawyer. They are hoping you will slip up and say something incriminating or make a false confessions. The only thing you should say is your request for a lawyer, repeated the exact same way each time so that they know you are stonewalling them and that there is no hope in interrogating you before the lawyer arrives. Police are hoping that the wait between arrest and the arrival of your lawyer will be enough to make you crack. Do not speak to them. Wait for your lawyer. If you call someone besides a lawyer, the police can listen to your conversation. If you call a lawyer, they cannot. Do not say anything incriminating to a friend over the phone. Write down officers' badge numbers and names. Document everything. The police might claim that officers are generally trained in what should and should not be considered a furtive movement, the laws about body cameras, the laws against planting evidence and other rules and regulations with regards their behavior and their honesty. The police might claim that there is case law that bars them from claiming certain actions create probable cause for a search, frisk, or some other escalation, and because of this, the police are kept honest.

First, none of this includes all the completely legal ways in which police are allowed to be dishonest.

Second, and more importantly, it's critical to understand that the guidelines that police officers are meant to follow, on paper, are obviously not always followed in practice. For example, suppressing evidence based on an illegal search enacted by a furtive movement requires more than citing case law to the arresting officer on the spot. Have you ever tried to argue with a police officer that what he is doing is unconstitutional? I assure you, it will not go well. Defending yourself from an illegal search, or illegally planted evidence, or discovering evidence that the police purposefully covered their body camera, is something that happens after the fact. It requires the financial means to mount a proper defense instead of relying on an overworked, underfunded public defender. According to research by the Constitutional Project, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Brennan Center, public defenders are purposefully underfunded compared to prosecutors. State prosecutors are given far greater resources and a much lighter workload due to how many prosecutors are hired compared to their public defender counterparts. Nationwide funding for prosecution is nearly three times as much as that of public defenders. In fact, according to this report, judges and prosecutors work together to delay proceedings in hopes of forcing the defendant to plead guilty.

AUDIO 8

The caseloads of public defenders also contribute to these delays. In combination, defendants who rely on public defenders often plead guilty to minor offenses simply in order to go home, but once there, their lives are forever changed due to the conviction of their record. The police can generally break the rules as much as they please, because the opportunity to prove that the arresting officer violated the suspect's rights might be out of their reach. The poor effectively have no recourse against police wrongdoing, and since the police focus a tremendous amount of their manpower on controlling poor neighborhoods, a massive amount of wrongdoing can be accomplished with no significant means to fight back in court. Thus, any defense of “Well, police aren't supposed to do that.” is not particularly relevant if the police do that anyway and traditionally get away with it. Police believe they are “under fire” – not from criminals but from the media and judges – and that there is nobody to trust but themselves. In reality, there is still an enormous amount of news media and popular media that worships police officers, and judicial system tends to grant more and more power to the police every year. And the public? With several high-profile cases of police wrongdoing in the United States in 2020, there was a real shift in public opinion – that is, until the public was deluged with propaganda from conservative media that demonized the protesters and excoriated their proposals.

And from liberals? Not much help there either. The party that was more likely to be at least sympathetic ran away from polling and convinced their voters that significant reforms or meaningful proposals would hurt the Democratic Party in elections. Prospective voters were convinced to side more with the police than their victims, kicking the can down the road to a non-election year when it would be safer to do so. Now it's almost 2022, and the movement is still going but has lost media attention. The moment may have passed us by – for now. There are so many excuses given to police officers, a preposterous amount of leeway and presumption of innocence. So much, in fact, that there is an entire movement of police fetishists and apologists who swallow their lies and ask for more. The accusation that the police are dishonest is met with “Well, I know cops personally, and they have always treated me right,” as if this accusation were individualized and not directly at the system itself. They say “Well, what's the alternative?” as if alternatives have never been proposed, or as if the modern centralized police were an ancient, universal institution instead of what it is: something that emerged in the 19thcentury to protect capital. And so, here we are, still at the mercy of an institution that controls the people through violence, through intimidation, and most commonly, through deception. Cops are liars. Stop falling for their lies.

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS

AUDIO 1

My friends invited me over to watch The Matrix Resurrections last month. I didn't know it was debuting on a Wednesday and ended up canceling. Too much to do that day. We re-scheduled and decided to watch it during Christmas dinner but opted to watch Home Alone instead. It was too late for me to stay any longer and watch another movie. I watched The Matrix Resurrections alone, I think the next day, and in retrospect, I'm glad that I did, because I would have spent the communal experience of seeing it with friends gushing about how beautiful I thought it was, talking over their movie-watching experience, and choking back tears when Neo and Trinity reached for each other. If you don't feel that way, that's fine. Nobody's lack of enjoyment is strong enough to damage my affection for the film. The Matrix Resurrections is so sincere, so hopeful and so kind that it must have come from a genuine place, not solely the product of a studio and its conveyor belt of profitable but middling products. As the film itself tells us, The Matrix has always been about a multitude of topics – capitalism, free will, identity.

In fact, identity became the most fascinating lens in which to view the original trilogy once both Wachowskis came out as transgender. The confirmation by Lilly Wachowski that this interpretation was valid was met with both applause and fascination by the trans community, but skepticism and disbelief by anyone opposed to having their movie be tainted by the dreaded wokeness. Outrage that their favorite martial arts movie was made by trans women and that their identities contributed at least in some way to the films. Denials that rely on the idea that the Wachowskis only retroactively claim their genders had anything to do with the themes of the trilogy. Even if that were true, The Matrix Resurrections cannot be dismissed so easily, as it was directed and co-written by Lana Wachowski many years after transitioning. What makes the film so beautiful to me is how brave and uncompromising it is in what it wishes to say. The Matrix Resurrections, directed solely by Lana this time around, is more autobiographical than any other big budget movie in modern times – an allegorical but unambiguous retelling of the experience of transitioning in public, the struggles that come from that scrutiny, unrelated but still devastating personal tragedies during such a vulnerable time, and the power of denying what the world insists that you are and coming out the other end your true self.

Put more simply, The Matrix Resurrections, even more than the previous films, is a rumination on living authentically. Although this theme can be embraced by all people, it holds a specific meaning for trans people. My experiences online and in the totality of my life are obviously quite different from that of Lana Wachowski or anyone who has similarly transitioned in public, but I hope that my outsider's perspective will not be completely discounted, as the unshakable beauty of this film is something I desperately want to discuss. I strongly recommend watching the film before continuing, but for those who refuse, here is a brief synopsis. Following the events of the original trilogy, Neo and Trinity are reanimated and inserted into a new version of the matrix. The designer of new matrix, The Analyst, believes that the bond between Neo and Trinity was the key component to making his version work, but that they still need to be separated within the artificial world. Neo, with no memory of the events of his real life, is a computer game programmer most famous for creating a game series based on the actual events of his forgotten life. Neo struggles with what he perceives as real and not real, and is in treatment with a computer program posing a therapist – the aforementioned Analyst. During his therapy sessions, the Analyst tells Neo that the events that he remembers are not true. A group of humans from the new city of Io find Neo, tell him the truth, unplug him from the matrix, and work together to free Trinity.

The therapist is revealed to be the designer of the matrix, Neo and Trinity fight him and his minions, and triumph through the power of love. If the first Matrix film had a whisper of meaning to the LGBT community, The Matrix Resurrections is a shout – a far less ambiguous declaration, one that is impossible to ignore. Neo is trapped inside an inauthentic reality. In the first Matrix, the reality is inauthentic, but Neo's life as a hacker is one he chose. In Resurrections, Neo's inauthentic persona is shaped by his authentic self. His life as Neo is made into a fiction within a fiction – a game that he allegedly designed from whole cloth. Neo does not only live in an inauthentic world but has been given an identity that must be torture for himself, to have glimpses of his authentic without being able to form the vocabulary for what it means. In his confusion and fear, he performs this inauthentic identity that the world chose for himself. There is an added layer of falseness, an added dimension of non-reality, of loss of identity. It is not who he really is. Neo cannot remember his past, but it exists somewhere in his mind, a feeling that something is wrong, that something is not real, that this life is not his, that this body is not his. According to Nicholas M. Teich, author of Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue, “Realization that one is trans can take anywhere from a few moments to several decades.

Usually trans people have an inkling early on in their lives that their assigned gender feels out of whack with their bodies. The self-realization process is extremely complicated. The human mind does its best to help us survive, which can translate into triggering intense denial.” Even though trans people have always existed, society is only recently beginning to come to terms with that fact, and there is still a tremendous amount of pushback. Those who are unfamiliar with trans people sometimes dismiss their identities as products of imagination or mental illness. They sometimes treat an individual coming out as trans with hostility or mockery.

The scene that most overtly references coming out as trans centers on Trinity. Trinity has begun to learn who she really is, and tells Neo a heart-wrenching story. Trinity told her husband that the woman in the matrix computer games resembles herself, and in response, he laughed at her. It is a devastating scene, especially for anyone who has ever told someone who they really are, hoping for acceptance, or at least acknowledgment, and receiving mockery instead.

[“He laughed. And I laughed, too. Like it was a joke. How could it not be, right? Made me so angry. I hated myself for laughing.”]

Not only skepticism, not only outright denial, but actual punishment and emotional abuse for even suggesting what that individual knows to be true. It is such a raw scene and clearly comes from a sincere place. Immediately after her revelation about what her husband did to her, Trinity still refuses to come with Neo. She says that it's simply “too late.”

[“I wish I was who you say I am, but look at me. I can't be her. It's too late.”]

Many trans people choose to remain hidden and not transition out of a belief that the best time to transition has passed them by. Trans people in their 30's, 40's or later sometimes internalize their feelings because of a perceived “lateness” in realizing their identity, a fear that the people in their lives are too accustomed to relating to them by the gender they were assigned at birth. A worry that their body may not be as pliable as it once was and that transitioning may not bring them the exact desired effect. However, the longest-running study of the topic – a fifty-year survey – found that only about 2% of trans people ever express regret about gender-affirming surgery. In truth, there is no age limit to transitioning. There is no too late.

[“I hate that name. My name is Trinity, and you better take your hands off me.”]

In addition to The Matrix Resurrections functioning as a transition allegory, it's also a rebuttal to a common myth about transitioning. The myth is that those who transition generally regret it. According to a comprehensive study by Cornell University, “We conducted a systematic literature review of all peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1991 and June 2017 that assess the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being. We identified 55 studies that consist of primary research on this topic, of which 51 (93%) found that gender transition improves the overall well-being of transgender people, while 4 (7%) report mixed or null findings. We found no studies concluding that gender transition causes overall harm.” Those propagating this myth point to the rare case in which a trans person will choose to “de-transition.” In these extremely rare cases, the reason is almost never that the individual made a mistake or was unhappy with their results. According to Massachusetts General Hospital, the largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, the most common reasons given for de-transitioning were pressure from parents, pressure from society, difficulty finding a job, pressure from medical institutions that do not practice informed consent, and pressure from religious leaders.

Only 2.4% of trans people de-transition because they believe they were mistaken about their gender identity. To put it another way, of the entire world population, less than one percent is transgender. Of that small fraction, only another fraction of that fraction will ever medically transition. Some trans people only socially transition. Of that fraction of a fraction, there is an even smaller fraction within it will ever permanently de-transition, and of that tiniest fraction of a fraction of a fraction, almost nobody de-transitions because it was wrong for themselves but because other people demanded it. In nearly every case, trans people know themselves. The data consistently backs this up.

Neo escaped from the matrix in the first movie. He is not back in the matrix willingly. He is a prisoner. He has de-transitioned back into his inauthentic life, and he is miserable. This myth spreads because it feeds into a larger myth that trans people are actually not who they say they are and that transitioning will not make them happy. Those who spread this myth point to trans people having a higher rate of self-harm than average, but that is not because being trans makes them unhappy – it's transphobia that can make them unhappy. There are easily quantifiable benefits of transitioning, and benefits of proper care. Cypher wanted to de-transition, and look what it got him!

When Neo begins to think of himself differently, he is confronted with more and more opposition, including acts of aggression. A cadre of computer programs designed to keep Thomas Anderson as Thomas Anderson and not Neo. To Neo, this is an act of aggression, but to the Analyst, Neo in and of himself is the aggression. Transphobic people justify their aggression toward trans people, ironically, as self-defense.

According to Prof. Gayle Salamon, author of The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenomenology of Transphobia, “Queer or trans gender becomes a target of homophobic and transphobic aggression through first being read as itself constituting an act of aggression. … First, the supposed aggression is retroactively installed as temporally prior, a 'threat' that can be marked only after the body in question has already been the object of violence. Second, the attribution of aggression then gives the violence leveled at vulnerable subjects the cover story of preemption; that violence is 'self-defense' against an aggression that would presumably have taken place sometime in the future.” To put in more simple terms, those who instigate transphobic violence claim that it is self-defense because simply being transgender is “aggressive” to them. An affront to their sensibilities.

When Neo begins assumes that there must be some other explanation for his feelings, he speaks to the Analyst. [“When we started working together, you had lost your capacity to discern reality from fiction. You came to me after trying to jump off a building. You said you want to fly away.” “Am I crazy?” “We don't use that word in here.” “What word should I use? What word explains what is happening to me?”]

The Analyst tells Neo, in so many words, that this is all in his head. That it is impossible that he is Neo.

Trans people often report that finding a therapist who understands them is strenuous. Even a therapist who is sympathetic might not be fully aware of what it means to transition. Even more challenging is finding a psychiatrist who will provide the necessary confirmation or permission for hormone replacement therapy and surgeries. Not all trans people medically transition, but for those who do, there are obstacles.

Depending on the location, insurance provider, hospital, and medical staff, a trans person seeking to medically transition can sometimes be faced with a gatekeeper – a person or institution that requires a tremendous amount of paperwork and doctor's appointments – essentially a skepticism that prevents some trans people from getting the care that they need. Years ago, I met a trans man who had a hostile psychiatrist that purposefully dragged his feet on giving permission for a surgery. He eventually had to seek his care from someone else, and he ended up wasting a lot of time and money.

Trans people generally favor and seek out doctors and institutions who use the informed consent model, such as Planned Parenthood. An informed consent provider lays out the risks and allows the patient to have autonomy over their own body what should be done with it. While such providers exist, they don't exist everywhere, and finding proper care can still be a challenge. This is particularly difficult for trans youth, who often face even greater skepticism and mistrust from society and specifically from their parents.

According to Irwin Krieger, author of Helping Your Transgender Teen: A Guide for Parents, “Transgender teens often feel completely certain of their gender identity, and have little or no fear about taking hormones or having surgery. Parents have tremendous fears and concerns. Most often, teens are advocating for immediate full authenticity, while parents advocate for caution and safety, putting the two parties at odds.”

Much like my acquaintance who faced a hostile psychiatrist, Neo faces his own gatekeeper. The Analyst will not give Neo the red pill that allows him to transition to his authentic self. He gives him blue pills that keep him as his inauthentic self.

The Matrix Resurrections is wrapped up in the broad idea of being your authentic self and what that means for trans people, but the film also touches upon more highly-specific events in the life of someone transitioning in the public eye. Lana Wachowski revealed she was a trans woman in 2008, perhaps the first openly trans director in Hollywood. It must have been a heartbreaking to watch something you created, something that meant so much to you, appropriated by people who don't believe you should have the same rights and considerations.

Around 2013, the term “red pill” was adopted by the “men's rights movement” – drafting the characters of the Matrix into a war that they would never fight. [“They took your story, something that meant so much to people like me, and turned it into something trivial.”] “Red pill” eventually became the only Matrix reference still frequently used, as the series itself faded out of popularity over time. The legacy of the trilogy became iconography stolen to popularize something else entirely. The red pill eventually became synonymous in conservative circles as representative of right-wing ideology in general.

The virtual environment for this allegory allows for a more seamless introduction of characters representative of being trans online. The Analyst's operatives are called “bots” – imitation people who are individually weak but are dangerous in a swarm. Although real world social media bots are utilized across the political spectrum, they have found their greatest success and greatest numbers among the right wing. The transphobic corner of the internet in particular has found this useful in muddying the conversation and making their movement appear greater than it is.

So. Considering all the heartache and autobiographical references to the struggles of transitioning in public, why is The Matrix Resurrections a beautiful film instead of a miserable film? Popular media about trans people often depicts their lives tragically, and I can only imagine how frustrating that must be. Even sympathetic portrayals often end badly. However, in this film, the avatars of Lana Wachowski's life as a trans woman, break free. Although the film spends a long time on the struggles of coming out, transitioning, and being one's authentic self, it also focuses on the triumph of overcoming these struggles.

Remember that scene when Trinity says it's too late? Mere moments later, she changes her mind and decides that the heartache of remaining this way, remaining inauthentic, is worse than anything she might face living her authentic life. Remember those scenes with the Analyst? Neo and Trinity beat the Analyst, and they don't do it by destroying him – he is still there in the end. Neo and Trinity beat the Analyst by defying him, by ignoring his falsehoods. Neo and Trinity also defeat the entire world that told them they were someone else, told them they were wrong. They took a leap of faith, and held on.

Sure, most movies have a happy ending, but this one feels especially earned. This particular Matrix story and this particular ending to the Matrix feels like the culmination of everything that it had struggled to say in the past, everything that was always in there but the world still wasn't ready for in 1999. I'm not just a happy ending, it's the happiest ending imaginable.

GOD'S NOT DEAD 4

AUDIO 1

What do you believe the phrase “no prayer in school” actually means? If you live in the United States, and you are a Christian, there is a good chance that you believe that the federal government has outlawed praying within public schools. You may believe that students caught praying are generally instructed to stop, that wearing religious apparel is discouraged, and that religion is not permitted on campus. The constitutional mandate of separation of church and state does not actually prohibit religion – or the free expression thereof – for public school students. In fact, students are free to pray as much or as little as they wish. They can say grace to themselves or with their friends before lunch. They can ask God for His grace before a test. Students are also free to wear crosses, yarmulkes, and other religious apparel and regalia. Students can also form faith-based extracurricular activities. Teachers are permitted to wear the same apparel and identify themselves by their faith. Teachers may also reference religion while in class under most circumstances. The Bible, Quran and other religious texts can be referenced as they relate to history, ethics, and cultural comparisons. Furthermore, public schools provide assistance to religious students, such as transportation to private, religious schools at public expense and permission for students to leave to attend religious services.

Students are normally allowed to be absent to observe religious holidays and suffer no academic penalties. In short, religion is not only permitted within the walls of public schools but is given many concessions. So, what does “no prayer in school” actually mean, and what is actually being enforced? Public schools simply do not permit faculty to lead students in prayer or to allot a specific time in class for prayer. In either case, participation in a spiritual practice or organized religion would become mandatory. Even if the teacher allots a specific time in class for prayer but does not lead the prayer, and even if students are allowed to sit quietly and not directly participate, the students' attendance to the class itself is mandatory. The religion is established, made official and at least somewhat compulsory – not optional. If you are mandated to go church but allowed to sit in the back and not pray, you are stillmandated to be there. There are other ways a public school could run afoul of establishing a religion. If the Nativity is positioned by the front entrance of school, religion is established. If a crucifix hangs in the auditorium instead of a church, religion is established. “No prayer in school” is simply the way the argument is often cited. In summary, public schools do permit religion within its walls so long as it does not establish the religion – as long as it is always optional for those enrolled in school. “No prayer in school” does not violate religious freedom.

AUDIO 2

Because if the presence of religion within a government institution is ever mandatory, then that violates religious freedom. Constitutional scholars and lawyers may explain it differently than that, but generally reach the same conclusion. A public school in the United States is a microcosm of the United States, because it encapsulates in miniature the characteristics and qualities of the nation – a secular institution with a predominantly religious population that mandates religion always be optional and never mandatory. With this microcosm in mind, it should come as no surprise that those who wish to institute mandatory religion in public schools also wish to institute mandatory religion throughout the nation. They believe that the United States is fundamentally Christian and that our laws, institutions, and society at large must reflect that. As a political position, this is often called Christian nationalism. As a theological position, this is often called Dominionism – taking its name from a passage from the Holy Bible. The two terms are somewhat different, and their exact meanings are debatable, but they are generally used interchangeably. Anything even resembling the promotion of a theocracy should be recognized as an extremist position. Nevertheless, this Christian nationalism is promoted in the mainstream every time a right-wing politician or socially conservative televangelist calls the United States a “Christian nation” – a common refrain that every citizen has heard countless times before.

Christian nationalism is also the foundational political and theological perspective of the Christian film series God's Not Dead. Each film varies in how strongly it advocates for Christian nationalism, but each film still promotes three related beliefs. The United States and its people are suffering because the nation is becoming more secular and consequently less Christian. Christianity is under direct attack from the non-Christian population of the United States, especially its academic institutions and government. Christians are facing incredible discrimination heretofore unseen in the history of the United States. These related concepts form the overall thesis of the God's Not Dead film series and Christian nationalism – The United States is a Christian nation, and Christians must reclaim this nation. Each film engages with these related beliefs. In the first film, a liberal atheist journalist named Amy interviews a conservative couple in an aggressive manner, and shortly thereafter, she is told that she has cancer. A Christian student named Josh is forced to write “God is dead” in order to advance in a philosophy class taught by an atheist professor. A Muslim named Ayisha wishes to convert to Christianity, but when her father discovers this, he abuses her. In God's Not Dead 2, a teenager named Brooke is depressed following the tragic loss of her brother and finds hope only when she is told to read the Holy Bible.

AUDIO 3

A Christian teacher named Grace answers a question in class about a historical comparison of Martin Luther King to Jesus, and subsequently faces legal action. Under the circumstances mentioned earlier, this would probably not actually violate church-state separation in the real world. A prosecutor uses this as an opportunity to, in his words, “prove once and for all that God is dead.” In the third film, the people are filled with an amorphous hostility that can only be resolved by Reverend David Hill, the only recurring character in every movie. The local college wants to shut down a church and replace it with a student center. A church nearly burns down, and the fire results in the tragic passing of Reverend Jude. Yet, even with these points touched upon in all three films, this Christian nationalism is most prevalent in the fourth film in the series released in 2021 – God's Not Dead: We the People. The most recent film in the GND cinematic universe is yet another story of beleaguered Christians persecuted in the United States. A government official from social services makes an announced visit to a Christian homeschool cooperative. Because this is a God's Not Dead movie, she is appalled that the unlicensed teacher is educating the students about Christianity. A judge grants the Christians one week to prove that their homeschool is as good as or better than public school, or else the children will be forced to attend a dreaded secular institution.

Reverend David Hill leads the homeschool parents to Washington DC to testify before a subcommittee about the efficacy of homeschooling. However, nearly everything the Reverend and parents argue is actually related to the truth of Christianity. Their faith must be defended – not homeschool. This is the trick of every God's Not Dead movie, presenting Christianity as fundamental to the United States but under attack by the United States. [I. A Christian Nation] An important preface: Christian nationalism is not the general position of Christianity, and most Christians in the United States are not Christian nationalists. A Republican is more likely than a Democrat to be Christian, but because there are more Democrats than Republicans in the United States, Christianity is divided somewhat more evenly.

Furthermore, most Democrats are Christians. It is also not unusual for those further to the left of the Democratic Party to be religious or to be distinctively Christian. Liberation theology is popular among the left. No political ideology has exclusive rights to Christianity. The subject of Christianity herein relates to the Christian right and Christian nationalism. Although not every right-wing Christian considers themselves a Christian nationalist, Christian nationalism itself is a far right position. As Michelle Goldberg once wrote in the book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, “Christian nationalism and Christianity are two very different things.”

AUDIO 4

So, why does the Christian right believe the United States is a Christian nation? The declaration that the United States is a “Christian nation” predates the modern rise of the Christian right. The Christian majority of the nation inspected the calculations on their abacus and determined that it was uncontroversial to make this claim. Christian nationalism is not, however, a proclamation of simple majority or mathematics. It is proclamation of faith, a codification of particular values, a flag planted in the soil of the United States in the shape of a cross. Christian nationalists often cite famous quotes on the subject of God by major American politicians. President James Madison once stated “We have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government, far from it. We have staked the whole of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the commandments of God. The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.” To conservative politicians, it is an article of faith that the United States is a Christian nation, and their efforts to shape the laws to this end are well-documented. To liberals politicians, lip service is given to the “Christian nation” term but without any intention of actually changing the laws to favor Christianity.

For liberal politicians who do not believe it, the subject feels too dangerous to broach and catastrophic to contradict. In 2008, when a video surfaced showing Barack Obama remarking in 2006 that the United States is not solely a Christian nation but a nation of many faiths and even non-believers, he was excoriated from the right. The Christian right believes that the United States is a Christian nation, that Christianity is not only the majority religion but should be the official religion and that laws should reflect Christian values. Laws that reflect more secular values or the values of other faiths should not be permitted. The Christian right uses the aforementioned quote and others to justify this position, as though the United States were a plot of land which a religion could claim ownership. God's Not Dead: We the People makes this claim of ownership as well. In one scene, the good reverend states that the first Thanksgiving was a Christian feast, and that the Native Americans being there is irrelevant. He says that people focus too much on the “togetherness” of Thanksgiving between the pilgrims and Native Americans and not enough on the fact that this was a Christian tradition. The Natives, he says, were merely guests at this Christian tradition. Rev. David Hill, God's Not Dead, and the Christian right in general want Americans to think of American traditions as exclusively Christian traditions.

AUDIO 5

In truth, much of the story of the so-called First Thanksgiving is a myth, as much as the overall “founding myth” told by the Christian right. God's Not Dead: We the People is especially interested in running interference for the Founding Fathers. In this scene, the reverend meets with Congressman Daryl Smith, a Christian ally. Smith defends the Founding Fathers from accusations of racism, noting that while some owned slaves, many did not. Hashtag, not all Presidents. If that were not bad enough, he also defends the practice as a product of its time and absolves slave-owning Founding Fathers of their actions because they were, as he puts it, only “kids.” [“Most of 'em were just kids. Edward Rutledge and Thomas Lynch both were just 26 years old when they signed the Declaration of Independence, and Thomas Jefferson was the ripe old age of 33 when he helped write it.”] Wow, there is a lot of unpack. First, 26 is not a “kid” – not by today's standards and certainly not by the standards of the 18thcentury. A “kid” at 33 is an even more ludicrous statement. Second, the film is using an arbitrary age point – the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Yes, Jefferson was only thirty-three when he signed it, but he owned slaves his entire life afterward and lived to be eighty-three years old. Owning slaves is not a youthful indiscretion like spray painting a wall or stealing a candy bar, and even if it were, Jefferson did not do so strictly in his youth.

To avoid accusations of racism, the filmmakers hired Isaiah Washington to play the slavery apologist. Washington is a conservative Republican best known for repeating right-wing conspiracy theories and getting fired from a television series following accusations of shouting homophobic slurs. Obviously, the film's opinions on slavery do not reflect those of black Americans in general. It is manipulative and duplicitous to cast arguably the only famous black actor who would repeat this opinion. Who is and is not considered a “founding father” is a subject of some debate, but the broadest definition is those who were involved in the early founding documents of the nation, including the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and of course, the United States Constitution. 55 members of the Constitutional Convention, nearly half, owned slaves. 41 out of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence owned slaves. Eight of the first twelve presidents owned slaves. So, why does God's Not Dead care so much about running interference for the Founding Fathers anyway? Christian nationalism demands that the founders of the nation be Christian and above reproach. This is the groundwork to the claim of Christian ownership of the nation – that the United States required the moral guidance of Christians to be made. If the founders were not Christian or not moral, this claim falls apart even under its already spurious logic.

AUDIO 6

Christian nationalism relies on a founding myth, and if the myth is exposed, Christian nationalism makes even less sense. Debating the individual moralities of each founder is challenging, but many of the facts of their respective religious convictions are well-known and decidedly un-Christian. Many founders were influenced by the Enlightenment Era theology of Deism – a philosophical position that observable facts of the natural world are enough to suggest that the universe has a Creator, that miracles are superstition, and that organized religion and religious authorities are not required for said beliefs. According to David L. Holmes, author of The Faiths of the Founding Fathers, “The religious beliefs of the founders seem to have fallen into three categories: Non-Christian Deism, Christian Deism, and orthodox Christianity.” Here are examples of all three.“ Benjamin Franklin was the first prominent American Deist and the most universal American of his time. … Although young Franklin's voracious reading included defenses of the Calvinist tradition in which he had been raised, he found Deistic authors more persuasive.” … “George Washington attended church with some regularity, held organized religion in high regard, and was known to pray privately. But he was never confirmed, and apparently avoided Holy Communion for most or all of his adult life. Although Washington's most common term for God was 'Providence,' he also used such terms as Heaven, the Grand Architect, the Deity, and the Great Ruler of Events.

Both his official and his private correspondence, however, omitted such words as Lord, Savior, and Redeemer, and he rarely referred to Jesus Christ. On the spectrum of early American religion, he would clearly be classified as a Deistic Christian. … [Patrick Henry's] will declared that 'the religion of Christ' would give his family the inheritance 'which will make them rich indeed.' Henry would clearly be classified as an orthodox Christian.” Other deists included Thomas Paine and Ethan Allan, other Christian Deists included John Adams and James Monroe, and other orthodox Christians included John Jay and Samuel Adams. Oh, and God's Not Dead's favorite slave-owning president? He was a committed Deist who was convinced that the twelve apostles invented the claim that Jesus was divine only after his death. Jefferson even used a pen-knife to cut out sections of the Gospels that he believed were superstitious and unreliable. He once called himself a Christian only in the way that he suspected Jesus would have wanted – believing in some of his principles but not the supernatural. Great reference, God's Not Dead. You really nailed that one. The founding fathers were not all Christians, but even if they were, that fact alone would not stake a claim to the United States by Christianity. The religion of the founder of an institution is not automatically conferred upon that institution. John Harvard was a Puritan minister, but that does not make Harvard University an exclusively Christian school.

AUDIO 7

Even Harvard Divinity School is not exclusively Christian. Most importantly of all, the founding fathers' various religious beliefs is only relevant on a supernatural level, not as a matter of law. Although God is mentioned in passing in several important historical documents, God is not written into the law. The Constitution of the United States does not establish an official religion. It opposes the establishment of an official religion – Christianity or otherwise. Remember that James Madison quote at the beginning of this section about the commandments and God? Madison did say that, but he was also fully committed to the separation of church and state. In 1785, Madison wrote a petition called Memorial and Remonstrance, laying out fifteen arguments against government support of churches. Madison, the chief architect of the United States Constitution, was not only in favor of the clause that separates church and state, but his original proposal for the clause was even more descriptive and even more explicit about the United States having no formal religion and no religion above another. Quotes and utterances by famous founding fathers on the subject of God are reflections of their personal beliefs, not legal mandates, and certainly not theocratic proposals.Christianity has certainly influenced the culture of the United States, but there is difference between the culture and the constitution. According to Andrew L. Seidel, author of The Founding Myth:

“Our country’s government and laws are distinct from its society and culture. It is the difference between our constitutional (or legal) identity and our popular (or social, or cultural) identity.” Finally, it needs to be understood that even if the Christian right's claim about the Founding Fathers and the founding of a “Christian nation” were true, it would still not justify transforming the United States into a theocracy. It is simply important to understand that the description of their argument is false on its face even before interrogating their prescription– meaning the recommendations based on the erroneous content of the argument. Their prescription is a Christian nation, effectively a theocracy. The consequences and harm of a theocracy cannot be ignored by stating that it might have been what John Hancock wanted. A tradition is not self-justifying. A tradition must be interrogated in order to determine whether or not it should continue to be followed. Let's do that now. [II. The Supernatural] In God's Not Dead: We the People, Rev. David Hill holds his Bible with personal adoration as well as hostile admonishment, telling the congressional subcommittee that we have lost “the truth” of the world because Christianity has become, in his words, unpopular and politically incorrect. With regards to the former, Christianity is not unpopular. It remains the largest religion in the world. It also has lost little popularity over time, as the percentage of Christians who lived in the year 1900 and percentage of Christians who lived in the year 2000 are nearly identical.

AUDIO 8

While the rate of new Muslims is growing at a slightly higher rate than new Christians, studies show that Christianity is still expected to remain the world's most populous religion in the next few decades. Christianity had a 600 year head-start. There is no reason whatsoever to expect Christianity to lose significant ground or to fade into obscurity this century, next century, or perhaps ever. What Rev. David Hill is actually lamenting is the loss of the absolutism of reverence for God. He is lamenting the loss of a fundamentalist perspective. Modern Biblical scholarship often views the Holy Bible as something to be taken seriously but not literally, that it contains the ideas of a people and its prophets in their contemporaneous settings, and the struggle to understand the vast existential and moral questions of the universe. Fundamentalist scholarship posits, instead, that the books of the Bible are completely literal, and that damnation awaits those who do not see this truth. All of humanity must convert not only to Christianity but to a specific sect of Christianity. People they call True Christians. Because of these consequences, any action, law or society that does not conform to the literal word of the Bible is morally reprehensible, and that opposition to this immorality can take any form deemed necessary. [“And we hold that He does exist, and has spoken.”]  Rev. David's claim that the old ways were better is a variation of a logical fallacy called argumentum ad antiquitatem – more commonly as well as more simply called “the appeal to tradition.”

An appeal to tradition is a proposal based on the assumption that a traditional practice must be good, or better than its more recent, modern alternative. An appeal to tradition is a logical fallacy because it exists within a kind of logical circle without a proper thesis or conclusion, because the argument is effectively “We ought to continue this tradition because it is a tradition.” The Christian right does this by claiming that a previous supremacy of Christianity in the United States was inherently good, moral and advantageous for the nation whereas the modern alternative of greater secularism is inherently bad, immoral and disadvantageous. This argument is a fallacy because it's based on historical preference and religious bias, not factual, interrogative evidence. The argument falls apart in two separate ways. First, in order to prove this argument, one would need to present evidence that life prior to a set date, say, the beginning of the 20thcentury, was overall better for the people of the United States than it was after that date. Based on greater life expectancy, increased rights for minorities and women, and a tremendous list of breakthroughs, that would be a challenging, if not possible, argument to make. Arguing that life was overall better for everyone in the 18thand 19thcenturies comes from a position of great, even aristocratic privilege. Second, even if one could make this argument well, one would also have to tie the so-called better life of the past as the byproduct of Christianity specifically.

AUDIO 9

It would be another great challenge to claim that whatever benefits 18thcentury life may have given people were somehow solely the responsibility of a particular religion and not society at large. Conversely, technological advancements of the 20thand 21stcentury are also not the direct byproduct of secularism either. Religious and secular attitudes do help shape society, but there is not always a direct through-line in which one can either credit or blame these attitudes for every facet of society or daily life. The Christian right blames all modern problems on a lack of fundamentalist adherence to the literal word of the Holy Bible. If there is an economic downturn or an increase in unemployment, the right blames this lack of adherence. People have “lost their way,” and if they turn back to God, the economy will somehow sort itself out. The problem cannot be capitalism, especially for the huge portion of the Christian right that believes in prosperity theology, the belief that both affluence and poverty are ordained by God. If there is an increase in crime, they will claim that this is the result of same-sex marriage. If there is a new disease, they will claim that this is the result of the advancement of reproductive rights. The Christian right sometimes blames natural disasters as well as man-made disasters on unrelated aspects of the modern world – often blaming the victims of a tragedy for their tragic circumstances.

Televangelist Pat Robertson has blamed the victims of an earthquake in Haiti for a “pact with the Devil” – his colorful way of condemning the Haitian people for escaping slavery through revolution in the late 18thcentury. In the United States, everything from Hurricane Katrina to terrorism are blamed on the nation becoming marginally more secular and more tolerant. Supernatural speculation posing as a conclusion of causation. The problem with debating this and providing evidence to the contrary is that the Christian right is not measuring the goodness of society or health of society by quantifiable means. They are measuring society based on the harm that they believe it does to an unseen, supernatural plane of existence. When the Christian right brings up modern problems and blames them on secularism, they are only using these instances to provide something that appears measurable, something we can witness. When fact-based evidence is presented, it can be ignored, because they know “the truth” – and the truth is that harm is being done on a supernatural level that we cannot witness. When the Christian right points out observable modern problems, it is not actually wading into fact-based evidence. Instead, it is pointing out occurrences of the supernatural world colliding with the natural world – “signs” of the supernatural world within ours. [III. Christians Under Attack] The God's Not Dead film series is full of “attacks” on Christianity – direct, unambiguous assaults on the faith.

AUDIO 10

There are few, if any, direct attacks on Christianity in the United States. So, why does the Christian right believe otherwise? Because the Christian right views unrelated social progress as infringing on the God-given right to maintain a Christian nation. The social progress is not directly related to Christianity, but the Christian right views everything through the lens of Christianity. Through this lens, they see a topic unrelated to their actual rights, and unrelated to the day-to-day activities of their religion, but claim exclusive ownership of that topic. Then, when the topic is debated, and their exclusive ownership is not acknowledged, Christians claim they are being attacked and discriminated. Here is a modern example. Same-sex couples having equal access to be legally married is a constitutional right, arguably granted to them by the Due Process Clause in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It does not prevent men and women from marrying one another, it certainly does not prevent Christians from marrying one another, and due to the separation of church and state, clergy retain the right to refuse to officiate any wedding. It may be true that a right-wing Christian who works for the government may be involved in issuing a marriage license which they do not personally approve, but the government office itself is a secular institution, and the occupation itself a secular career.

Thus, there is no aspect of same-sex marriage that actually assaults Christianity because the occupation and issuance itself is secular, and the employee's faith, in this case, is immaterial. The change that allowed for same-sex marriage did not change the church. The change only allowed equal access to a secular institution. However, the Christian right claims all marriage as the exclusive domain of their God, and Christian nationalists specifically view marriage as a legal privilege – not a right – one that is to be doled out exclusively by Christians at their discretion. That is why the conflict in the God's Not Dead films does not reflect discrimination against Christians in the real world United States, but instead is viewed through a more hyperbolic lens, the exaggerated perspective of Christian nationalism that does not feel exaggerated in their own minds. In the first film, Josh is ordered to write “God is dead” by an extremely hostile professor, or else he will not advance in his class. This is not something that can happen, and Christians who believe this was inspired by a true event have been suckered into a Christian urban legend propagated on Facebook. And then, they all clapped. Atheist philosophy professors certainly exist, but they do not require you to abandon your faith and become an atheist in the first day of class to get a passing grade. That is absurd. They also generally do not delight in embarrassing their students. But God's Not Dead sure showed Prof. Raddison by killing him with a car at the end. [“What happened tonight is a cause for celebration.”]

AUDIO 11

This does not happen, but Christian nationalists believe that secular academia is immoral, and that it is indoctrinating people into damnation. The truth is exclusively owned by God, and proselytized by Christians. If universities do not teach what Christians believe is the truth, then Christian nationalists believe this is discrimination. In God's Not Dead 2, the teacher's fleeting reference to Jesus in the historical, cultural, and comparative context would probably not land her in any real trouble in the actual United States, but because Christian nationalists believe that mandated prayer in public schools is as harmless as her fleeting reference, this does not feel like an exaggeration to them. The prosecutor becomes practically aroused by the idea of “killing God,” which is not something anyone says. However, Christian nationalists do not see the existence of a secular life as simply an option for how an individual can live, but as the path to damnation. They do not see secular institutions simply as neutral establishments, but as idols to godlessness. So, when they see the prosecutor in rapturous joy at the prospect of disproving God and banishing Him from even being uttered aloud, it feels real to them. In God's Not Dead: We the People, a social worker shuts down a home school for teaching too much Christianity. When they defend themselves during a televised congressional subcommittee, the House representatives are openly hostile to Christianity. That would never happen.

First, the religious composition of the 117thCongress, which includes the House and Senate, is overwhelmingly Christian. It's not even close. Out of more than five hundred members, only one would admit to not being affiliated with any religion. The idea that Congress is hostile to Christianity is laughable. Moreover, the idea that Congress would be openly hostile to Christianity with the cameras on is ridiculous. However, because Christian nationalists believe they have a claim of ownership to the United States, Congress' refusal to grant them this ownership is seen as discrimination. The scrolling court cases at the end of every God's Not Dead movie are far more mundane than anything in the films, and in almost every case, they are not examples of actual discrimination against Christians but cases of Christians discriminating against others – usually same-sex couples. God's Not Dead goes out of its in all four films to not have its characters say against overtly homophobic, but its make-believe discrimination cases are often about that. God's Not Dead: We the People takes aim at the public school system, but not by addressing its actual problems. Remember, the Christian right points out observable modern problems, and draws a supernatural conclusion not based in facts. If public schools are failing, it cannot be the result of lack of funding or anything quantifiable. It must be the result of a lack of God.

AUDIO 12

A public school curriculum in the United States is actually fairly conservative, nationalistic, Amerocentric, and moving even further right these days, especially with new laws in the wake of the anti-critical race theory outrage machine. There are some on the right that even believe that fascism must be taught “impartially” as if it were simply another ideology. God's Not Dead is not criticizing these aspects of the school system – that would be criticizing from the left. Instead, God's Not Dead is criticizing the school system from the right, demanding that schools become even more conservative and demanding an alternative not so that parents have another option but in an effort to replace the current option. The Christian right does not believe that their faith isoptional – and that is the core belief of Christian nationalism. Not religious freedom – but a hierarchy of religion with Christianity established by law as the apex. Mandatory Christianity. Put more simply, if the United States is a Christian nation, and Christianity is “under attack” by the government and the population, then the government and population must change to better suit Christianity. [IV. Liberty and “Liberty”] Now, it must be recognized that while a tremendous amount of Americans adhere to Christian nationalism earnestly, not everyone who bangs this drum is doing so because of their devout, if misguided, faith. Some politicians, for example, see Christian nationalism as an opportunity to manipulate the electorate.

Both camps are committing a fraud, the only difference is that one of them knows it's a fraud. In modern times, in order to maintain a stranglehold on the Christian conservative vote, right-wing politicians – even those not especially devout – spread an irresistible piece of propaganda: Christians are under attack in the United States. Under attack by secularists, by atheists, by Muslims, by feminists, by gays. Vote for me, and I'll fight your culture war for you! Why, haven't you seen all those God's Not Dead movies? They're based on true fake stories, you know! [“God's not dead. God's not dead. God's not dead.”] So, does this all “Christian persecution” propaganda help politicians actually get elected in the United States? Yes, it does. According to Sociology of Religion, a peer-reviewed Oxford academic journal, the single most accurate predictor of whether a person voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election was believing the United States should be a Christian nation. “Why did Americans vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election? Social scientists have proposed a variety of explanations, including economic dissatisfaction, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia.The current study establishes that, independent of these influences,voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage.

AUDIO 13

Data from a national probability sample of Americans surveyed soon after the 2016 election shows that greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for Trump, even after controlling for economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as measures of religion, sociodemographics, and political identity more generally. These findings indicate that Christian nationalist ideology – although correlated with a variety of class-based, sexist, racist, and ethnocentric views – is not synonymous with, reducible to, or strictly epiphenomenal of such views. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America’s distinctively Christian heritage and future.” This data may come as a surprise to some, taking into account that Trump does not come across as a pious Christian. However, Christian nationalism is not concerned with personal piety. It is not concerned with one individual's relationship with God. Christian nationalism is an ideology of action, of mandates for others, even outside the Christian faith. Trump knew this, or at least the people around him knew this, and he made constant and sometimes graphic references to Christianity being under attack while on the campaign trail. [“And we are going to protect Christianity, and I can say that here.

I don't have to be politically correct. We are going to protect it. … But we are going to protect Christianity. And if you look what’s going on throughout the world, you look at Syria where they’re, if you’re Christian, they’re chopping off heads. You look at the different places, and Christianity, it’s under siege. I’m a Protestant. I’m very proud of it. Presbyterian, to be exact. But I’m very proud of it, very, very proud of it. And we’ve gotta protect, because bad things are happening, very bad things are happening, and we don’t – I don’t know what it is. We don’t band together, maybe. Other religions, frankly, they’re banding together and they’re using it. And here we have, if you look at this country, it’s gotta be 70 percent, 75 percent, some people say even more. The power we have, somehow we have to unify. We have to band together. … And our country has to do that around Christianity” (applause).] Trump gave this speech at Liberty University, a conservative Christian college founded by Jerry Falwell. The word “liberty” is generally defined as freedom from oppression. In contrast, when the Christian right defines liberty, their definition is practically the opposite. According to Presbyterian minister Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, “Dominionists and their wealthy, right-wing sponsors speak in terms and phrases that are familiar and comforting to most Americans, but they no longer use words to mean what they meant in the past. …

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'Liberty' is not about freedom, but the 'liberty' found when one accepts Jesus Christ and is liberated from the world to obey Him. … Those in the movement speak of 'liberty,' but they do not speak about the traditional concepts of American liberty – the liberty to express divergent opinions, to respect other ways of believing and being, the liberty of individuals to seek and pursue their own goals and forms of happiness. When used by the Christian Right, the term 'liberty' means the liberty that comes with accepting a very narrowly conceived Christ and the binary world-view that acceptance promotes.” God's Not Dead: We the People uses this version of liberty throughout the film. The Christian characters do not believe in liberty in the traditional sense of the word. They believe “liberty” is what is being denied only them – the right to conform the nation to its rightful Christian identity. [“And ensure the blessings of liberty. Liberty. Liberty.”] This contrarian version of liberty is commonly taught to children in Christian private schools, and more relevant to the subject of this film, Christian home schools. Again from Chris Hedges, “America’s Providential History … is the standard textbook on American history used in many Christian schools. It is also a staple of the home-schooling movement. In this book, authors ... define the term 'liberty' as fealty to 'the Spirit of the Lord.'

The work of 'liberty' is an ongoing process, one mounted by Christians, to free a society from the slavery imposed by 'secular humanists.' This process frees, or eradicates, different moral codes and belief systems, to introduce a single, uniform and unquestioned Christian orientation. Liberty, in a linguistic twist worthy of George Orwell, means theocratic tyranny...” The goal of a uniform Christian morality for the United States is seen in a subplot that resolves the storyline between Ayisha and her father Misrab from the first movie. [crash] [“What happened tonight is a cause for celebration.”] Misrab visits Ayisha in the hospital. Prior to this, they had been estranged from for years because Ayisha converted to Christianity. The film is not content to simply have Misrab and Ayisha reconcile and respect each other's faiths. A fundamentalist view of Christianity does not allow for other faiths. God's Not Dead: We the People has Misrab have an epiphany about the nature of Jesus Christ, presumably leading to another conversion to Christianity. The Christian version of “liberty” – meaning fealty to the Lord – simply does not allow for any other conclusion. During the congressional hearing, a representative brings up the Christian right's connection to homophobia. Rev. Dave says that Christians are not intolerant, and his evidence is an unrelated fact about volunteer work. The Christian right sometimes uses the charity of some Christians to deflect criticism, stating with admittedly some accuracy that an enormous amount of volunteer work across the world is conducted by Christians.

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However, this fact does not support the overall goodness of a potential Christian theocracy nor does it support the overall goodness of homophobia. It only supports the overall goodness of volunteer work. If someone opposes the Christian right's intolerance of gay people, responding with “Christians aren't intolerant. We do charity work.” is a non-sequitur. This is a separate topic. The response reframes the argument. The actual argument is “Being intolerant of gay people is harmful to them individually, and imposing that intolerance through either social enforcement or legal enforcement is harmful to them collectively because it instills an unequal second-class status. A religious conviction, no matter how sincere it may be, cannot justify measurable, quantifiable harm or the enforcement of a coercive social hierarchy.” This argument is reframed by the Christian right as “Christians are bad.” By reframing and reducing the argument, the Christian right can deflect any criticism of either Christianity or social conservatism with an unrelated fact about Christians and the good that they sometimes do. Christian nationalists bristle at the word “tolerance” because their fundamentalist doctrine does not allow for acceptance of anything that they believe is contrary to said doctrine. They counter that we must be tolerant of their intolerance, a “gotcha” that aims to conclude the discourse and continue the goal of Christian nationalism unabated.

Nonetheless, this “gotcha” is not so much an argumentas it is wordplay. This counter simply uses the same word even though “tolerance for intolerance” would be better described as “appeasement” – making concessions to the aggressor or instigator. This gotcha is also clearly made in bad faith, because the Christian nationalist claiming that tolerance must extend to intolerance is not committing to being tolerant. A Christian nationalist does not want tolerance extended to intolerance because that would mean he would also be tolerant of everything up to and including his intolerance, together with gay rights, trans rights, an equality of religion under the law, etc. The Christian nationalist is only demanding whoever is on the other end of the argument commits to being tolerant, and exclusivelytolerant of the intolerance within Christian nationalism. At the end of the film, Rev. David Hill makes an impassioned speech to Congress a la Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And then everyone stood up, and clapped. [“We...the people.”] The God's Not Dead series is not simply four bad movies. The series is a call to action, and in the case of this latest film, the call is given even more directly to the audience. It's recruitment propaganda for Christian nationalism. We can counter this propaganda by doing better about engaging with this threat and debunking common arguments, but that will only do so much. Christian nationalism must be defeated by otherChristians. There has been a movement among Christian groups within the United States to combat this, and there are resources in the description for more information on how you might get involved. There is a lot to overcome, though. The right wing has been beating this drum and recruiting for a long time. The right wants you to be a Christian soldier, to advance the goal of establishing a Christian theocracy in the United States.