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Timothy Ballard is a former DHS agent who, in 2013, left his role fighting criminal child exploitation and founded Operation Underground Railroad, or OUR. It's a parapolice organization which operates internationally, infiltrating child trafficking rings, identifying ring leaders, working with local law enforcement to arrest the leaders, and providing support to the victims after they are rescued. [1] I have not delved deeply into the history or workings of the group, so their actual effectiveness is a mystery to me, but they boast some impressive sounding results; a blog post from yesterday claims 51 survivors of an international sex ring saved and 22 suspects apprehended in "a joint effort by the Hellenic Police, the Spanish National Police, INTERPOL, O.U.R., A21, and Homeland Security Investigations." [2] It sounds very impressive, uplifting, and even badass. It's the kind of thing Hollywood would love to make a movie about - and they did.
In 2015, director Alejandro Monteverde and a production company approached Ballard to make a movie documenting his exploits. Ballard had been approached many times before by for movie deals but had turned them all down. This time, Monteverde's work was able to impress Ballard (and his wife) enough to convince him to sign on to a movie deal. Ballard was extensively interviewed, a script was written, and filming started in the summer of 2018. Interestingly, Ballard requested that actor Jim Caviezel portray him - Caviezel notably portrayed Jesus (yes that one) in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, though Ballard cited Caviezel's performance in The Count of Monte Cristo as the reason for his request. The film was completed that year and Fox was signed on to distribute the film under the name The Sound of Freedom. [3]
Fox was not around long enough to complete the deal. They were acquired by Disney, who shelved the movie (Disney later claimed they had no knowledge of the movie, which is plausible given the enormity of both Disney and the former Fox). It sat in limbo until earlier this year, when the filmmakers bought back the rights to the movie and approached Angel Studios for distribution. Angel Studios is an interesting company; they are entirely supported by equity crowdfunding, in which small investors provide funding in exchange for securities. As the name might suggest they are heavily Christian focused, with one of their largest previous projects being The Chosen, a dramatic television retelling of the life of Jesus Christ. They implement their crowdfunding model by presenting their investors with several options for new projects and ask them to vote for which ones they would like to see. Reportedly, The Sound of Freedom reached a critical threshold of votes within days, the release was greenlit, and the movie hit theaters on July 4, 2023. It instantly became a hit, and a target for hits.
If you have heard about this movie before now, it was probably in the context of controversy. Lefty media outlets have been dogpiling it, with Rolling Stone calling it "a Superhero Movie for Dads With Brainworms"[5] and a CBC Radio columnist saying it was "a dog whistle for xenophobic Pro-Trump, Pro-Life types".[6] Criticism of the movie itself is weak, with the arguments boiling down to "it's not realistic" and "the plot doesn't always make sense", things that could be leveled at any summer blockbuster. External to the film, they criticize Caviezel and his penchant for QAnon conspiracy theories, but never mention the Mexican native director, whose father and brother were kidnapped and killed by a cartel.[7] What many have been focusing on is these outlets' attempts to seemingly pull the rug out from under the whole movie by downplaying child trafficking as a real world issue, trotting out 'experts' to point out how the depiction is 'dangerous' because it sets 'unrealistic expectations' and generally setting the tone that trafficking isn't really a thing people should be worried about.
This has set them up for the obvious counter from the Right: why are you so mad about a movie where a guy saves children? Child trafficking is bad... right? These commenters point out how outlets like Rolling Stone defended Cuties (the infamous Netflix movie about pubescent girls dancing in modern sexually charged style) and didn't seem to have a problem with Taken, the 2008 movie with an obviously exaggerated human trafficking plot. But that was a decade and a half ago, and we know why this is happening now: it's culture war, pure and simple. While Righties are accusing the Lefties of covering up for their corrupt pedo elites, I theorized this might be legacy media feeling threatened by upstart conservative alternatives, but after researching I don't think there's much more to this than "Red Tribe likes this, so it must be bad". Or perhaps I am not blackpilled enough yet to believe that the slope is so slippery that pedophiles are already being introduced into the pantheon of Letter People.
Other titbits I want to mention:
[1] https://ourrescue.org/ [2] https://ourrescue.org/blog/51-survivors-of-human-trafficking-freed-in-greece [3] https://www.deseret.com/2018/6/4/20646317/actor-jim-caviezel-set-to-play-second-most-important-role-in-o-u-r-story-the-sound-of-freedom [4] https://variety.com/2023/film/box-office/sound-of-freedom-box-office-success-1235664837/ [5] https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/sound-of-freedom-jim-caviezel-child-trafficking-qanon-movie-1234783837/ [6] https://twitter.com/Harry__Faulkner/status/1679207525495844865 [7] https://people.com/crime/ali-landrys-father-in-law-and-brother-in-law-found-dead-in-mexico/
Directing me to this guy has led me to some truly bizarre works about Mormonism and American history. Ballard wrote three books - The Lincoln Hypothesis, The Washington Hypothesis, and The Pilgrim Hypothesis - arguing that Lincoln was inspired and influenced by the Book of Mormon, that Washington was a pious proto-Mormon setting the stage for the restoration of the saints, and that the Pilgrims were prophetically guided to America in order to create Mormonism. It all seems quite bizarre, and if this positive review is to be believed, he supports British Israelism?
I realise that's not directly relevant to the culture war angle of this film, and he and his charity can have done wonderful things even if he's a fruit loop in terms of historical and theological knowledge, but... wow, this is a reminder to me of how strange the Mormon world can get.
Addendum: I was able to find a copy of the book. Yep, there's very straightforward British Israelism here, complete with nonsense about Saxons meaning 'Saac's sons'.
The first is silly but mostly harmless. The other two (especially the last) are practically Mormon doctrine. The idea is that God organized things so that a country with religious liberty would be created.
Would love to hear more about this. Sounds like he was being literal unfortunately, but just want to confirm he's not being metaphorical? Mormon doctrine believes that everyone on Earth will be "adopted" into one of the tribes of Israel and given a purpose/duty based on which tribe they are adopted into.
He's not being metaphorical.
Chapter two of The Pilgrim Hypothesis is a straightforward introduction to British Israelism. He argues that the lost tribes migrated northwest into Europe where they interbred with Germanic tribes, and the introduction of Hebrew to ancient German caused the first Germanic sound shift.
Specifically, he interprets Genesis 49:22 ("Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall") to mean that Joseph's descendants must have come to America - 'the wall' is the Atlantic Ocean. Therefore he also wants to connect the Pilgrims to the biological descendants of Joseph. A Mormon elder argued this in the 1880s, you see, so now that needs to be justified somehow. It seems like this has been a line in Mormonism for a while? He cites another early pamphlet - it seems of a piece with Mormon pseudohistory about Native Americans. He relies heavily on this piece as well, and dodgy etymological arguments.
At times it gets rather comical. He does rely on nonsensical folk etymologies ('Saxons' as 'Isaac's sons', 'British' as 'berit', covenant, plus 'ish', man, etc.), many of which rely on outright false claims (he claims that 'angle' is Hebrew for bull, which it... isn't). There's also a lot of conspiratorial nonsense about symbols. The Great Seal of the United States has some biblical imagery on it (e.g. the stars above the eagle's head form a Star of David, surrounded by rays of light and clouds, reminiscent of Moses' trip up Sinai), which apparently proves something. British monarchs wear a crown with twelve jewels on it (do they? I can't tell which crown he's talking about, and St. Edward's Crown has a lot more than twelve stones on it) and there were twelve tribes of Israel. He mistakes the portcullis symbol of parliament for a breastplate and then says it's reminiscent of the Urim and Thummin.
It's genuinely that bizarre. I feel I need to prove I'm not just making this up:
Or on the names:
Yes, he appears to have mixed up BC and AD.
It's all like this - a series of coincidences held together with thumbtacks and spit, so that he can declare that the Pilgrims' voyage and the founding of America satisfies some sort of biblical prophecy.
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