Imagine an Iranian warship minding its own business in the Indian Ocean, when, out of nowhere, a mean and abusive American submarine appears and starts launching torpedoes for no reason except sheer cruelty. At least, that’s how one professor I recently encountered retold the story. In his telling, the United States isn’t merely mistaken or imprudent. It’s the villain in a cartoon morality play, cast forever as the bully.

Others insist that President Trump’s actions toward Iran can only be explained by domestic political distraction — specifically, an alleged effort to divert attention from the Epstein files. Their reasoning runs like this: Trump once speculated that Barack Obama might attack Iran for political reasons. Therefore — through a piece of logic that would embarrass a first-year philosophy student — Trump must now be doing precisely that himself.

We believe — correctly — that free speech requires tolerating ideas that are foolish, offensive, or absurd. But the First Amendment does not require taxpayers to finance those ideas.

The pattern keeps repeating. In January, a handful of progressive philosophers of religion flooded social media to denounce ICE based on fake reports. American Christians, they declared, must allow unrestricted immigration as a requirement of loving their neighbor. Point out that the passages they cite presuppose conversion to the faith, and the conversation pivots quickly from political lecturing to hostility toward Christian scripture itself.

My own social media was full of posts by progressive philosophers repeating Democrat talking points. One notable example is philosopher Eleonore Stump, who reposted fake stories about Liam Ramos, fake images of ICE shootings, and emotional pleas disconnected from reality and rooted in what is now called suicidal empathy.

It would make a perfectly acceptable comedy routine if it weren’t so serious — and so sad.

Why professors hate America

Why are so many American professors so anti-American?

They live in a country that pays them well to teach their particular flavors of Marxist progressivism. They enjoy robust constitutional protections for speech and inquiry. They’re free to invent theories so eccentric that they wouldn’t survive a staff meeting at a moderately sensible insurance company.

And yet they hate America.

The late philosopher Roger Scruton coined a useful word for this condition: oikophobia — the fear or hatred of one’s own home.

Spend 10 minutes browsing faculty social media — especially in the humanities — and you’ll meet it. In their telling, virtually any other country can do no wrong, while the United States can do nothing right.

RELATED: Do they hate Trump — or do they just hate America?

Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images

The logic of learned helplessness

They lament how the “benevolent” ruler of Venezuela was removed by the bullying United States. If they concede he was a tyrant, they pivot to a different objection: Are we supposed to go around removing every tyrant in the world?

Consider the move. Because a nation cannot eliminate all evil everywhere, it must refrain from opposing evil anywhere.

It’s a curious moral theory — and it tends to apply only when America, or a conservative administration, acts. In their personal lives and domestic politics, these same professors preach incrementalism. Don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Progress, they assure us, comes in steps.

But when Donald Trump — or conservative America generally — is behind an action, oikophobia kicks in and the reasoning faculty abruptly shuts down.

TDS as a virtue

Recently, James Carville, a sometime professor of political science at Tulane University and a political consultant to various governments abroad, publicly took the Lord’s name in vain by asking God not for national unity or wisdom but for more Trump derangement syndrome. He cheerfully admitted he hates Trump and wants to hate him more.

That’s more than just political spite. It’s a descent into madness, wrapped in a violation of the third commandment.

This posture has become standard in fields such as political science and the humanities. It feels less like argument than a kind of intellectual surrender — what the apostle Paul describes in Romans 1 as being given over to a “debased mind.”

When intellectuals lose the capacity for judgment, the results don’t stay confined to faculty lounges. They spill into institutions, into students, into culture — and into policy.

Why are we paying for this?

The strangest feature of this situation is that we keep employing these people — often with public funds.

Professors at private universities are one thing. Private institutions can hire whomever they please. But many of the loudest performances come from state universities, where salaries are paid by taxpayers.

Americans have tolerated this out of respect for the First Amendment. We believe — correctly — that free speech requires tolerating ideas that are foolish, offensive, or absurd.

But the First Amendment does not require taxpayers to finance those ideas.

Allowing someone to speak differs from obligating the public to underwrite his lectures.

From oikophobia to self-hatred

Oikophobia rarely appears in isolation. It grows out of something deeper — what you might call autophobia: a kind of self-hatred.

Professors who despise their country often despise the civilization that produced it — and, eventually, even themselves. You can see the self-contempt in the ideas they teach: young people urged to reject their own bodies, treat biological reality as an inconvenience, and even mutilate themselves in pursuit of identities constructed from will alone.

Civilizations that teach their children to hate themselves don’t flourish for long.

RELATED: My court fight over DEI at Arizona State isn’t culture-war noise

Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images

The post-Christian academy

Another pattern shows up if you spend enough time around these professors: Many were raised in some form of Christianity and later rejected it.

Occasionally they will speak of Jesus as one teacher among many. More often they reject him outright. That rejection isn’t incidental. It’s seed corn. It grows into the rest of the hostility.

The America they prefer is an America stripped of its Christian foundations — an America dissolved into a global moral neutrality where Western civilization stays perpetually on trial and every other tradition receives the presumption of innocence.

In their view, just as America can do nothing right, Christians can do nothing right either.

Meanwhile, almost any spiritual alternative — no matter how strange or historically troubling — earns enthusiastic approval. “Who are you to judge?” becomes the only commandment they reliably enforce.

I recall one professor raised in a conservative Baptist home who later converted to what she proudly called “hedonic atheism.” She recounted — with real excitement — paying to sit on the dirt floor of a shaman’s tent and ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms to “open the doors of perception to other dimensions.”

Christianity: rejected. Mushrooms with a witch doctor: enlightenment.

The simple solution

Future historians may look back at this era with bewilderment. They’ll ask how a prosperous civilization came to subsidize an entire class of intellectuals devoted to explaining why that civilization was uniquely wicked.

Has anything like it happened before?

Perhaps.

But most civilizations eventually discovered a simple solution. They stopped paying for it.

​State schools, Trump, Tds, Roger scruton, Oikophobia, Patriotism, Democrats, Public universities, Opinion & analysis 

Leaving trash in your car might seem like a personal problem.

In Hilton Head, South Carolina, it can now bring fines of up to $500 — or even 30 days in jail.

Governments routinely regulate safety equipment, emissions standards, and parking behavior. Regulating how clean the inside of a car must be moves into far less settled territory.

A new local ordinance allows authorities to penalize situations where garbage inside a vehicle could provide food or shelter for rats. What might sound like an odd local rule has sparked a broader question about government authority, vague enforcement standards, and whether similar laws could eventually spread to larger cities already struggling with rodent infestations.

Rat’s nest

The ordinance took effect February 1 as part of the town’s effort to control a growing rat problem. Hilton Head’s municipal code places vehicles under the same sanitation rules that apply to buildings, treating them as potential environments where rodents could find food or shelter.

The rule appears in a section addressing “conditions affording food or harborage for rats.” Under the ordinance, it is unlawful to allow garbage or rubbish to accumulate in any building, vehicle, or surrounding area if it could provide food or shelter for rodents.

For drivers, the penalties are significant. Violations can bring fines of up to $500, jail time of up to 30 days, or both. Each day the violation continues can count as a separate offense, meaning penalties could quickly multiply.

The ordinance is framed as a public health measure. Garbage accumulation can attract rodents, and Hilton Head’s code treats vehicles the same way it treats buildings if trash creates conditions that could support infestations.

The challenge is how broadly that standard could be applied.

RELATED: Per-mile driving taxes: The latest way to punish those who drive the most?

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

A little litter?

The law does not define how much trash qualifies as “accumulating garbage,” nor does it spell out how enforcement officers should determine whether a vehicle could realistically attract rodents. A few empty coffee cups or fast-food wrappers might look harmless to one person but like a sanitation problem to another.

In practice, enforcement would likely occur in situations where trash is visible from outside the vehicle or discovered during other routine enforcement actions, such as parking violations or abandoned-vehicle inspections. The ordinance itself provides little guidance on how those decisions should be made.

Pest control

That ambiguity raises a broader question.

If a local government can regulate the interior condition of a private vehicle in the name of pest control, how far does that authority extend?

Cities like New York and Los Angeles already struggle with well-documented rat infestations. New York City alone spends tens of millions of dollars annually on rodent mitigation, expanding sanitation enforcement and imposing stricter trash-handling rules.

In cities under pressure to show results, the temptation to expand enforcement tools is real. If Hilton Head’s ordinance survives legal scrutiny, other municipalities dealing with rodent problems could see it as a model.

Test case

That possibility raises an uncomfortable policy question.

Vehicles are private property, even when parked on public streets. Governments routinely regulate safety equipment, emissions standards, and parking behavior. Regulating how clean the inside of a car must be moves into far less settled territory.

There are also practical questions the ordinance does not answer.

Would a car parked temporarily on a street face the same scrutiny as a vehicle abandoned for weeks? Could a citation be issued immediately, or would drivers first be given an opportunity to correct the problem?

For now, motorists in Hilton Head are the test case.

But drivers elsewhere — especially in cities already battling rat infestations — should pay attention. Regulations often start small, aimed at solving a specific problem in a specific place. Over time, those rules can expand in ways few people originally anticipated.

And when government authority moves into new territory, it rarely retreats on its own.

​Hilton head, Lifestyle, Rats, Law, Messy cars, Privacy, Align cars 

Two Florida teenagers arrested on charges of alleged murder were allegedly caught on video laughing and giggling to each other about their plot from a police cruiser.

Isabelle Valdez, 15, and Lois Lippert, 14, were arrested on Jan. 23 after police received a tip about their alleged plan to resurrect the Sandy Hook elementary school killer by murdering a schoolmate.

‘I thought I was going to get sent to the [expletive] psych ward. That’s why I was so excited about everything.’

The video shows Valdez making jokes and Lippert laughing despite the very serious allegations that were made against them by the Altamonte Springs Police Department.

Valdez identifies as a transgender person and goes by the name “Jimmy,” according to court records.

After police contacted school officials about the tip, Valdez was questioned by the vice principal of Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs. She allegedly admitted to the murder plot and handed over a backpack with a knife, gloves, trash bags, and wipes.

Valdez said that she heard voices in her head telling her to kill the victim in order to resurrect Adam Lanza, who murdered his mother, 20 grade-school students, and others before committing suicide in 2012.

In the police video released to the public, they joke about wearing makeup for a mugshot.

“I was going to do my makeup this morning for the mugshot, but I couldn’t find anything,” Valdez said. “It’s over.”

“Yeah, it’s over. It doesn’t matter if you look good or not,” Lippert replied.

“Why are you touching me with your butt?” Valdez said in another reported interaction.

“This is such a bonding experience! I love it!” Lippert said.

At another part, Valdez said, “I thought I was going to get sent to the [expletive] psych ward. That’s why I was so excited about everything.”

They also talk about the blood pact to bring back Lanza as well as their speculation about who snitched on them. Prosecutors said the teens planned to slit a student’s throat in the bathroom and then drink his blood.

“I don’t feel guilty for my actions,” Valdez said in the recording.

Prosecutors showed the video at a hearing to oppose bail for the pair, and a judge agreed. The two will stay in jail while the case progresses.

RELATED: Activists want food delivery man to be charged with hate crime after lethal shooting over ‘misgendering’ of transgender woman

The mother of the teenager who was allegedly targeted in the murder plot said it has crushed their sense of security.

“I was destroyed, and I still am. It is never going to be the same,” the mother told WFTV-TV. “When you read the report and how planned out it was … it is very hard. I have broken down a lot. I still break down at work. I still have fear.”

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​Trans-identifying murder suspect, Isabelle "jimmy" valdez murder plot, Adam lanza resurrection plot, Crime, Lois lippert murder plot 

The war in Iran has entered its second week, and the Trump administration is fighting on two fronts: the physical battlefield and the narrative one.

Most Americans expected U.S. firepower to dominate, and it has. Seven American service members have died so far, but Iran has suffered far heavier losses in lives and materiel. Even those surprised by the damage Iran managed to inflict on U.S. allies can see the basic reality: Tehran is outmatched. The real question was never whether the United States had superior force. The question was whether the administration could sustain support long enough to translate force into victory.

Trump built a foreign policy around brief, decisive action in America’s interest. He should stick with it — and finish this war — while the window for narrative victory remains open.

That challenge matters more for Trump than for most modern presidents. He was never an isolationist. His second-term foreign policy has relied on limited but highly effective strikes rather than long occupations. He has projected power through single bombing runs and midnight raids, then exited before the mission metastasized into a nation-building project. Skeptics of foreign intervention grumbled, then quieted down when operations stayed brisk, competent, and contained.

That becomes more difficult when “contained” turns into weeks and potentially months.

“Boots on the ground” has become the clearest public marker of commitment. If the conflict remains primarily air and naval, most voters will still read it as limited engagement. Costs will rise and gas prices will sting, but casualties will likely remain comparatively low. A sharp show of force followed by a clear exit would keep the war from becoming a long-term liability. Whether he intended it or not, Trump has likely gambled the remainder of his term on avoiding that trip wire.

The Iranians know it. So does the administration.

That’s why Tehran keeps daring Washington to deploy ground troops. Iran’s leaders don’t believe they can beat American infantry in a straight fight. They’re betting the war loses support the moment U.S. ground forces start taking steady casualties.

George W. Bush enjoyed a powerful rally-around-the-flag boost after 9/11, and his administration spent months building a public case for war. Trump has no comparable national trauma to unify the country, and his administration did not spend much time laying out the necessity of this war before it began. That means his narrative window of victory is narrower by default — and it can close fast.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth appears to understand the dynamic, but he also understands a basic rule: You don’t win wars by announcing what you will not do. If the administration takes ground troops off the table, it tells Tehran that patience equals victory — that holding out long enough will force America to go home.

So Hegseth keeps the option alive. Practically, that means he keeps getting dragged into briefings where he must say ground deployments remain possible. The media treats that as the headline. Anxiety rises. “Boots on the ground” starts to feel inevitable, even when it remains only a contingency. The administration takes a beating in the public mind with every news cycle.

RELATED: America First can’t survive an Iran quagmire

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Wars have always had a narrative battle, but the pace has changed. News doesn’t arrive weeks later in a paper or even once a night on television. It hits phones all day, in an endless stream of micro-skirmishes designed to create dread and exhaustion.

No one really doubts U.S. military superiority. Iraq and Afghanistan proved that military superiority is not enough. America toppled regimes quickly, then watched “mission accomplished” become a punch line for years of occupation and nation-building.

Trump hinted recently that operations in Iran are nearly complete. If true, that’s the right direction. The old supreme leader is dead, along with many key figures, and the new supreme leader already may have been gravely injured. Iran’s naval and air capacity has been degraded. Tehran has isolated itself further by striking a range of U.S. allies. Trump could declare meaningful victory now and begin drawing down forces, preserving the very pattern that kept his base — skeptical of intervention — largely onside: quick, effective strikes with limited U.S. casualties.

Trump has also said Israel will have a say in when the war ends. It shouldn’t.

The United States is sovereign. It is also the senior partner in a conflict Israel could not possibly execute alone. The administration has already acknowledged that Israel’s decision to strike materially reshaped U.S. war planning. That is a mistake not to repeat. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that long-term regime change is Israel’s goal. If Israel wants that objective, it should secure it on its own terms.

Trump built a foreign policy around brief, decisive action in America’s interest. He should stick with it — and finish this war — while the window for narrative victory remains open.

​Opinion & analysis, Iran, Donald trump, Information warfare, Media bias, Boots on the ground, Air power, Strait of hormuz, Oil, Energy, China, Terrorism, Narrative, Pete hegseth 

Detroit Police, responding to a report of the explosion of a pipe bomb, said they found a person dead by electrocution and another who was injured.

They later determined that the man and woman had been allegedly trying to steal copper wiring from an abandoned school building before the shocking incident.

‘These wires can be live, lot of voltage, thousands of watts going through there, and this is what could very well happen to you.’

Police responded at around 3 p.m. to the report of a bomb explosion at Brainard Street and 3rd Avenue near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

They transported the injured person to a hospital but did not release whether the woman or the man was the deceased person they found.

Authorities are working to notify the family of the two people.

Detroit Police Deputy Chief Franklin Hayes warned about the risks of utility theft from the scene of the death.

“For those that may be thinking about the very, very dangerous decision of utility theft, to steal copper wire, this is what happens,” Hayes said.

“These wires can be live, lot of voltage, thousands of watts going through there, and this is what could very well happen to you if you decide to … make the decision to steal,” he added.

RELATED: Man electrocuted to death after being pushed onto subway tracks in downtown Baltimore, police say: ‘That’s evil, that’s totally evil’

The U.S. Dept. of Energy estimates that copper theft costs U.S. businesses as much as $1 billion per year and is on the rise.

One study found that there were about 32,000 instances of copper theft between 2010 and 2012 alone.

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​Cooper theft death, Detroit electrocution, Utility theft death, Man electrocuted to death, Crime