Smashing the Final Sacred Cows
The final part of a series on bad resistance beliefs that you still adhere to.
We’ve been examining conventional wisdom on the topic of resistance and activism, and we’ve reached the last part of the list. These are potentially the most dangerous (although to be fair, everything on the list so far is pretty problematic).
If you haven’t read the first two, you can find them here.
On to the last five…
11. We can’t afford to lose anyone.
Yes, you can. More to the point, you must. Keeping every warm body for the sake of headcount is strategic suicide. Weak links drain morale, leak information, and create decision paralysis. If someone can’t pull their weight, won’t follow security protocols, or chronically destabilizes the group, they gotta go.
You are not running a halfway house or orphanage for the cause, and the “big tent with room for everyone” is not a good model. You’re building a resistance network.
Stop trying to save everyone or even trying to make every member feel good. In fact, I highly suggest you dig into why it is so important to you personally that they get to stay. I guarantee that you’ll find some icky stuff: things like people-pleasing, fear of confrontation, or need for validation. Make sure you handle that within yourself, because it is affecting your decision-making.
12. The bigger the rally, the more successful it was.
This one will sting but here we go.
Numbers are the wrong metric. Rallies are not strategy; they are theater. They don’t measure impact, only crowd turnout. Rallies rarely move the needle unless they’re paired with pressure, disruption, or some form of follow-through. Most rallies become content farms for social media and little else. In fact, the bigger the rally, the more likely it is to attract informants, performative types, and tactical liabilities (we talked about that part in the first article).
Ask yourself: what did it change? Who was disrupted? What leverage was created? If you can’t answer those questions, you didn’t hold a successful action. You held a photo op.
13. We need to be more positive to attract people.
Wrong. You need to be more competent. That’s what people actually respond to.
This idea that messaging must always be inspirational and optimistic is branding logic, not resistance logic. Movements built on positive messages of patriotism or “we are going to take back our country from __________” don’t get anything done, partly because they can’t even speak about what their actual goals are. What’s more, they attract others who see feelings as goals.
You don’t need to sell hope or dopamine hits. You need to project clarity, seriousness, and capability. You need to pursue truth. If that’s not “positive” enough for someone, they’re not built for the long haul.
14. We’ll be ready when things pop off.
No, you won’t. If you’re not mentally ready now, you won’t magically level up under pressure. Thinking you’ll rise to the occasion without consistent prep, drills, and discipline is fiction. Everyone reverts to their lowest level of training.
If your group hasn’t trained together under stress, you don’t know how you’ll perform. Don’t let fantasy readiness substitute for real operational muscle. There’s a reason why long-time preppers will tell you to learn how to eat (and be content with) simple meals like rice and beans now, long before that’s all you have. There’s a reason why storing mass quantities of ammo means nothing if you never train with your firearm. And there’s a reason why groups who think “recruit now, vet later” is a good idea, will always fail.
15. Loyalty to the cause is more important than accountability.
No. That’s how you end up protecting abusers, enabling dysfunction, and excusing mission drift. Loyalty without accountability is cult logic.
If anyone in your group can’t be questioned, corrected, or held to the same standard as everyone else, you’ve created a liability. Real loyalty doesn’t mean silence. It means telling the hard truth when it matters, and protecting the cause, not just the person. If you can’t confront problems because you “owe” someone loyalty, you do not have control of your group OR your mission.
Slay the Sacred Cows.
If we get rid of all of these obsolete and poor beliefs, what do we have left?
Clarity and effective operations.
The foundation of your group must be:
Truth
Accountability
Intentionality
Competence
Discipline
There are no substitutes.