To be honest, I actually lost some sleep over the Mike Gundy video earlier last week. Maybe you've seen it — the video where the Oklahoma State University football coach is seen apologizing for the offense of wearing a shirt bearing the logo of the conservative news company OANN.

It was a disturbing scene with the coach robotically parroting the talking points of the delicate running back who originally took issue with the offending piece of apparel.

It's reminiscent of a hostage video of a captured US soldier. Either that or something out of a cartoon villain's mind control experiment. You can practically see the spirals in his eyes.

Beyond the bizarre visuals, the most disturbing thing about this was the fact that an ostensible adult and leader could be brought to heel by his subordinate — an early adult many years his junior — by something as meaningless and inconsequential as the running back's tender feelings.

It represented yet another example of the plague of institutional failures spreading over our country. It is no longer limited to just classrooms, the media, government, and their globalist corporate overlords.

Today, we are faced with the crumbling of institutions such as the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, the Pentagon, professional sports, and, now apparently, even college sports.

The athletic field is where we instill in our young men the most important lessons of masculine behavior. Play fair, respect your opponent, be gracious in victory and proud in defeat.

If the scene at Oklahoma is anything to go by, the institution of sports has also fallen.

Yet there undoubtedly a silver lining to this terrifying turn of events:

The stakes are now real.

Take it from someone who has volunteered to serve our country: the path of courage is a source of enormous personal satisfaction. I am proud of the fact that when others felt the need but lacked the conviction, I stood to back up my devotion by putting my life on the line. No matter what happens for the rest of my life, no one can take this away from me.

Mike Gundy, on the other hand, will go the rest of his life secure in the knowledge that he is a coward and weakling. His role as a coach and mentor to countless young men means little in the face of his actions. He has no one to blame for his failure than himself.

He is to be pitied. What a cruel fate!

Only real stakes can bring out this stark contrast of outcomes: stand firm and join the victorious suffering or bend the knee and become one of the defeated rabble.

Scan across the battlefield of failed institutions and it becomes clear neither birth nor position of power are reliable predictors of heroic courage. Many is the millionaire, the CEO, and the power broker who chose to timidly cower like children who are afraid of the dark.

On the other hand, the true heroes of our age, those most deserving of our respect, are quickly asserting themselves and rising through the ranks.

These include former Catholic school teacher Timothy Gordon. He was summarily fired from his position as high school teacher by the diocese of Fresno, California for voicing a critical opinion about the terror organization and DNC money laundering operation known as Black Lives Matter.

The decision came at the worst possible time. Gordon's child is in the middle of a series of highly complicated treatments and he needed the diocese's excellent medical coverage to ensure she recovers.

Such was not a guiding concern for the skinless ecclesials of the diocese of Fresno. Caring for one's neighbor evidently means feeding your own sheep to the wolves at the slightest indication of pecuniary harm.

Yet turning out this teacher was a terrible mistake for the diocese. He now represents a threatening new education paradigm that challenges his old school's very raison d'etre.

In order to make ends meet, Gordon is now organizing online classes and the response has been enthusiastic. He is gaining a following as a religious figure and as a teacher.

Thanks to the Covid scare, traditional education was already threatened by a new form homeschooling made possible through the electronic classroom. Now parents are free to enroll their children with highly educated and qualified teachers who will not waste time prattling over white guilt or other bigoted Leftist chestnuts.

Timothy Gordon is young and driven. His project promises to chip away at his former employer's bottom line for the rest of their lives.

By standing up to systemic hatred, he has distinguished himself as a hero in the minds of many. His opponents on the other hand, revealed themselves as faithless pragmatists who care more about the well-being of their pocketbooks over the souls of their charges.

Thanks to democratic socialists' terror tactics, many of us face the opportunity to either stand or cower. Yet like Timothy Gordon, this is also a chance to call the bullies' bluff and turn the tables.

None of this happens in a vacuum. We are being bullied because we let them. When a Gundy or Chik-Fil-A capitulates to the mob, the mob is legitimized and emboldened.

On the other hand, when we stand on our principles we transmit courage throughout the ranks. When you take a stand against their fear tactics, you benefit society. You are pushing back against a pernicious wave of lies and a destructive blood libel leveled against Western civilization.

And like most bullies, the identitarian socialists with their electronic lynch mobs are mere paper tigers.

The reason blocking traffic, rioting, and physically attacking innocent bystanders is the preferred method of "protesting" for these agitators is precisely because it is a way to inflict maximum effect with minimal numbers. It also ensures these actions get plenty of airtime.

The protests of Antifa and BLM are extremely unpopular because their views are so far beyond the pale. Defund the police? Make people pay reparations based on their skin color? Abolish capitalism? Confiscate guns? Close churches? Desecrate holy sites? Punish speech? Establish electronic thought policing? Tear down statues?

These are the ideas of fringe extremists — exactly the type of people you would expect to fill the ranks of a radical terror organization.

The only reason they are at the top of the news feeds is because they were mobilized for the 2020 campaign to frighten conservatives and tear apart our society.

If you are a patriot and a person of principle, now is the hour.

Now is the time to stand tall and declare yourself invulnerable to their threats and intimidation. When they take off their masks, you throw down your gauntlet. When they take your job, you take their industry.

It is our birthright to live as free men in a free land. If all they have is fear to use against us well that's nothing.

We have self-determination in the face of their learned dependency. We have grit to counter cries of victimhood. We have a sacred duty to secure the blessings of liberty for future generations and they can't use their failures to confine our livelihoods.

We have principles. We have agency. We have personal dignity. If they want, they can cling to their delusions of a world filled with hate until the day they die but nothing gives them the right to force us to declare their insanity as reasonable.

Let them wail like demoniacs. Let them cry, hiss, and gurgle sub-lingual curses to the sky.

No amount of heartfelt grievance can stop us from claiming the mantle of hero. This honor, once won, can never be taken away. Not by anger or tears or twitter mobs or libelous fabrications from media liars.

This is the age when all the masks fall. When the time comes, what will your true form reveal? The hero or the coward? The Gordon, or the Gundy?

It is our privilege to claim the better portion.

Image: Jeff Turner via Flickr.