Prediction: 2014 will be an amazing year for you and me. To borrow a line from Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson, I predict 2014 will be: “Happy, Happy, Happy.”
We’re less than one week into the New Year, and I can already tell that 2014 has wondrous things in store. For nearly six years, independent and conservatively-minded Americans have endured the grey skies and choppy waters of the Obama administration. Now, I feel like the tide is finally turning. A new sun is rising. The smell of joy is in the air.
In Genesis, when Noah wanted to see whether the floodwaters had abated, he sent out a dove to search for land. Finally, the dove returned to Noah with a sign of hope: an olive leaf. Duck Dynasty’s recent success in weathering a storm of false controversies is the sign that gives me so much hope for 2014; Duck Dynasty’s success is our olive leaf.
Last January, many Americans had never even heard of A&E’s hit family-centered reality show, Duck Dynasty. However, this changed in December of 2013 when the star and founder of the family’s duck call business, Phil Robertson, was temporarily suspended for speaking his mind in support of traditional marriage. At first, the future for the show was murky. Soon, however, everyday Americans who were outraged by A&E’s intolerance for free speech launched peaceful protests. Phil was promptly welcomed back to the show.
A&E did the right thing, but not necessarily for the right reasons. (The network certainly did not want to lose the profit it was pulling from cable’s top-rated reality television program.) However, the monetary and viral success of Duck Dynasty is a ray of hope at a time when the economic and cultural news (think ObamaCare and Miley Cyrus) sounds less than uplifting.
Duck Dynasty’s success and the sell-out of their merchandise in stores before Christmas proves that most Americans still believe in family, faith and free speech; we value entrepreneurs; we’re not politically correct; and, we stick to our guns.
The Robertson family is prospering because, at core, they represent the values that most Americans hold—but have been told to repress. Even as a federal judge recently upheld most provisions of New York’s SAFE Act, which attacks our Second Amendment right to self-defense, Duck Dynasty’s success is a reason for optimism. Guns and love will solve crime—not liberal silliness.
Ironically, while the media has tried to destroy Duck Dynasty and all that it stands for by associating Phil Robertson with vitriolic language, the exact opposite is true. Last year, Robertson told Spectrum TV that A&E was trying to make their show look more obtuse than it really was, and he put a stop to it: "I asked the [editors]: 'What's the point of the fake bleeps?' …[They added bleeps] like someone had used profanity, but no one had used profanity. …If we're not using profanity, why make it look like we're using profanity? What is the point? …So they quit doing that."
By sticking to their guns, both literally and metaphorically, the Robertsons have found success. Even as we speak, they are launching a new gun line and Phil Robertson’s book, “Happy, Happy, Happy” has been flying off the shelves. The family inked a lucrative deal to roll out a new line of guns in 2014—a deal that Forbes calls: “a warning shot to A&E” because the gun line deal excludes A&E from all direct profits and puts the Robertson family in a position of greater financial independence.
So, hang in there my friends. Stick to your guns (both your values and your rifles) like the Duck Dynasty clan and you’ll have a happy and prosperous 2014.
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