It is impossible to quantify everything that Simon has taught me, but I will give it a shot.
I have always been conservative, so knowing Simon hasn’t changed my worldview, but it has caused my philisophical outlook to transform from black and white into color. It is almost as if my worldview was a line drawing before I met Simon, and Simon has filled in the blanks with vivid color. Very few people have the professional or life expereince to be able to do that. No one can do it the way Simon does.
For instance: the military. My Dad was a WWII combat veteran who fought in Peleliu. My Dad was a true hero, and an absolutely brilliant man. I learned at his knee, and I worship the ground that he walked on. However, my Dad was only in the military for four years. It was an unspeakably difficult four years, but he did not and could not have the kind of perspective that comes from a lifetime spent in the military. It might be said that my Dad was the artist who helped draw my worldview, but there was so much that he didn’t know, and couldn’t possibly have known.
My late husband Robin obviously also had a tremendous influence on me. Robin never served in the military, and there was a great deal that he had no first hand knowledge of, but he could sniff a pretentious snob from a million miles a way, and he had zero tolerance for such people. When Simon describes many of the people at the State Department whom he had to deal with over the years, I just know that Robin would have taken one look at them and instantly hated them. But he would have been going on instinct. That may seem unfair, but in all the time I knew him, Robin’s instincts were never wrong. He had an uncanny ability to suss people out without knowing much or anything about them. In the beginning, I thought that he was being unfair to people. Time and experience taught me to respect Robin’s instincts, but they were, still, instincts and gut feelings that turned out to be correct, but not the same as the first hand knowledge and extensive experience of Simon. It might be said Robin’s influence supported my worldview and made me a much bolder person, but as with my Dad, there was so much that he just didn’t know and could not have known.
Simon has filled in the blanks for me. Simon has shown me a world that I had only seen the faintest glimmerings of. It should be stressed here: I know far more about the military and combat veterans than most Americans do. All of my uncles served, several of my cousins have served, and several of the guys I dated when I was younger were combat veterans. I am far more familiar with the military than most Americans are, but there was so much that I didn’t know. I kind of had a vague feeeling that the State Dept types Simon describes were not good people, and Robin knew that for certain, but even Robin couldn’t have understood how bad it really is.
Knowing Simon has brought so much clarity and light into my world. There are so many Americans who are good and decent people, but most of us have very limited life experience. We don’t know what we don’t know, until Simon comes along and helps us to know.
There are precious few men with the kind of life and professional experience that Simon has, and even fewer who are willing and able to write about it. Simon is an indispensible voice. He really is a genius, and I cannot begin to do him justice. Asking me to describe what I have learned from Simon is a little bit like asking someone who was color blind what it is like to see color for the first time. How can you possibly describe it? I don’t think I can. I can try, but my attempts to describe it will always come up far short.
You are a profound force for goodness in this world, Simon. Please keep writing. The world needs desperately to hear what you have to say.
ST UnWoked & UnVaxxed! 
Thank you for stepping up to a task for which I felt and feel wholly inadequate.
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Oh, Hypatia, I hope that I haven’t stepped on your toes 😦 I was up very early on a sleepless morning, and felt inspired. I also feel inadequate for this task, but Simon has given me something to chew on, and there seems to be a hook in my mouth now, so I will be thinking more about this and how to describe it. It’s like trying to describe the difference in thought process between when you couldn’t read, and then when you learned to read. It’s hard, especially considering that at this point, I have known Simon over the internet for around 6 years, I think? I am trying to remember what my thinking and worldview were like before I knew him, and it is kind of like trying to describe in detail what it was like when you were 4 and couldn’t read, vs when you were 7 and could, vs when you were 12 and could read even better, vs the present.
I feel the same way about knowing Simon that I feel about learning to read. I cannot imagine life otherwise. But how do you describe what it is like to learn how to read? It really is very difficult. The fact that all of us are at a loss for words here is an indication of how profound an influence Simon is on us.
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No no no, Judy, you did a great job, far better than I coulda done. Our warrior must be Walkin’ on air!
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Thank you so much, Hypatia 🙂 I hope that he is walking on air. It kind of seemed like he needed a pick me up 🙂
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It really is very frustrating to me, though, that I cannot really put into words how profound an influence Simon has been in my life,. It kills me when Simon becomes despondent and feels as though no one is listening to him. We can never really understand the effect we have on other people and the world around us, at least not in this lifetime. I remember once, along time ago, when I was speaking to a group of pro-lifers who were feeling discouraged. I told them that they would never understand what a force for good they were until they reached the other side, and understood the lives they had saved. I feel exactly the same way about Simon.
We all have a profound effect, for good or bad, through action or inaction, whether we want to or not. Robin used to use the analogy of throwing a rock in a pond. The good things we do are like pebbles skipping across a pond: we only see the initial ripples, and we don’t know what effect we will have. We have to walk in faith. We have to just keep on keeping on, even though we usually cannot see the effects of what we are doing. That is so incredibly difficult to do.
So, again, I say, please keep writing, Simon. You are a profound force for goodness in this world, and God has ut you in this time and in this place for a reason. You may never understand the reason this side of Heaven, but you can be sure that there is one.
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And, it is crucial to remember: less than 10% of those who read what you write will ever comment on what you write. That seems to be the case across the internet. That’s how it was on L1, and according to Elon Musk, over 90% of Twitter users are read only and never comment, so you never know the effect that you are having. It’s frustrating. Robin’s analogy is very apt, I think: we throw pebbles in the pond, maybe see a few ripples, and then nothing. But just because we cannot immediately see the results doesn’t mean that they aren’t any.
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I just, to this day, do not understand why I was banned from L1 and L2.
They coun’t tolerate my pebbles rippling through their pond scum, I suppose.
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P.S. Being banned from Twitter was expected although I was avoiding being too blunt. The Left, without any evidence thereof, label us as “hateful for life” simply for asking the questions that are considered by their gatekeepers to be politically incorrect.
*See Peterson, Dr. Jordan if you don’t believe me.
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The fact that They want to silence you is all the evidence that is needed that you are a force for goodness.
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