I don’t listen to the radio anymore, the only TV I have is Netflix, and I don’t read newspapers anymore except when linked to from some blog, so I’m fairly disconnected from the standard news. This weekend I was on a cart trip with some friends and we were listening to the CBC (the state-run broadcaster) and I realized exactly how deep the red pill has sunk into my thinking. Three particular items stood out.

The first was some news story about the protests in Turkey. The CBC was very much in favour of the protestors. The story was all about how oppressed the environmentalists, gays, and democrats protesting the regime were and how controlling the regime was for oppressing the greens and gays. They never got the side of the government or the majority of Turks who supported the government. Rather than supporting the protestors, I remarked how one-sided and biased the story was to my friends and found myself supporting the regime, simply based on how biased the CBC was on the issue. A few years ago I would hardly have noticed.

A little later a “debate” occurred concerning women’s declining fertility with age and when women should get married. One guest was against women marrying young so they could experience the world and be happy, the other was for women marrying young so they could find somebody and be happy. My friend remarked, ‘see, they cover both sides’. Then, red pill knowledge firmly in place, I told him how it didn’t both were the same liberal side concerned with happiness being the sole goal of marriage. Not a person addressed duty to family, God, or the nation, no one even mentioned are below-replacement reproductive rates, no one mentioned the health of the family or the country, no one mentioned the religious or societal foundations of marriage. Both women had the exact same argument: women should marry to be happy and no one should judge them for that, the only difference was at what age marriage would be the happiest. My friend then told me, they were never going to have that kind of debate on the radio; I told him that was exactly my point about the one-sidedness of it all.

Finally, a story about Nelson Mandela’s failing health came on. I was amazed by the almost painful cognitive dissonance of it. The whole story was about two things: 1) Nelson Mandela has been a foundational symbol of post-apartheid South Africa and his loss will greatly hurt the country, and 2) South Africa is in horrible shape, corruption is out of control, and it has been continually getting worse with people agitating to undo land reforms, etc., which is why the nation needs the symbolism of Mandela to hold itself together. The fact that this continual decline was a result of the regime Mandela helped put into place was enver even remarked on, even thought the entire story screamed this fact between the lines.

A few years ago, I wouldn’t have noticed any of this. The red pill is a strong drug.