Does the West Have a Future?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/25/21

            Christmas is here and we should experience it with gusto. Who but the most hard-hearted doesn’t take joy from seeing children made happy or from sensing the general spirit of joy that clings in the air? Such joyous spirit, however, doesn’t last throughout the year. It eventually succumbs to forgetfulness as our thoughts turn to a new year and to hope for a better one.

            The last two years have been challenging for Americans. The coronavirus has been no more disruptive than the nation’s political and cultural divide, a reality that is sometimes necessary. For two years cities have been plundered and the plunderers ignored. Language such as “transforming America” indicates that many citizens simply don’t like America. The right to bear arms is seriously questioned. Science has been politicized. Scientists, formerly objective searchers and researchers for the truth, have become bureaucratic whisperers into the ears of the king. We are tasting tyranny. Thankfully, the discontent of the American worker poses a challenge to the ruling class of both political parties.

            Yes, it’s 1776 all over again. The Tea Party isn’t dead. It’s very alive, infiltrating the body politic under different names. But back up beyond that. It’s 1215 when the very king of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta. Even before then, everywhere man yearned to be free, as in ancient Rome where Cicero passionately defended the rights of free men under law. Alas, back before Rome, the stalwart Greek, Pericles (a Trump-like figure in that he was a man of wealth who energized the working class) advanced democracy and the participation of commoners.

            The Greeks were the first westerners. One would have found no glimmers of self-rule in ancient Babylon, or China, or Russia. What America’s founders gave us was the full flower from a root, a stalk, and a bud that grew in Greece, Rome, and Britain. Its soil and nutrition was the Judeo-Christian ethic.

            We call it western civilization, one quite unlike that of the lands east of the Mediterranean.  Most American students study it for the first time in 10^th grade World History. College students study it under the simple title, “Western Civilization.” Fundamentally the values of western civilization have been representative democracy, the worth of the individual, liberty, equality, freedom of thought, capitalism, private ownership, and freedom of religion. One doesn’t typically associate these values with China, Russia, tribal Africa, or the small Southeast Asia nations.

            How do these values fare today?  “Western Civilization” was once a required course in virtually every American university. This requirement ended by 2010 when it became voluntary or was replaced with a course called “World Civilization.” And what was wrong with teaching the history and values held by western nations? According to Jesse Jackson what was wrong was the “Euro-centric, white male-domination” which these values led to. In 1988 at Stanford University, Jackson led a demonstration around the campus with students yelling, “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s gotta go.” Caving to Jackson, Stanford opted for “multiculturalism,” catapulting the term to prominence and replacing “Western Civilization” with “Culture, Ideas, and Values.” Call it the birth of cancel culture.

            The Twentieth Century was the American Century. America led the world economically and militarily. Her confidence was wrought of victory in two world wars and an ever growing economy. However, since 2010, the Trumpian interlude notwithstanding, that confidence and leadership have waned. How could it not when political and corporate leaders defend every crazy notion that comes along (cultural Marxism, “equity,” transgenderism, guaranteed income, unabated globalism)? How could it not when America’s military is chased from Afghanistan by ruffians?  How can universities yield knowledgeable, productive citizens while yielding to students’ demands for a warm, mothering environment?

            Western civilization’s greatest achievement has not been art, philosophy, or even scientific advancement. The marvel of the West, particularly America, has been the preservation of individual liberty and respect for the common man. The deplorable common man knows something is wrong when a guy says he is a girl, or when parents become the target of the FBI for speaking out about what their children are being taught.

            Cicero wrote, “Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever.”  The Bible states, “For lack of knowledge the people perish.” If western civilization dies, America dies. But there’s hope. Over half of the nation’s governors are conservative Republicans, most of whom are speaking out boldly for localism and common sense. The 2022 election is looking better every day for conservatives.

 It wasn’t debt forgiveness, guaranteed incomes or one nation under therapy that our founders sought. It was freedom wrung from bold risk, ruggedness, and common sense, qualities that must be reclaimed and reclaimed fast.

 

Roger Hines

12/23/21

           

           

           

 

                                A Tale of Two Christmases

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/18/21

            On Christmas morning of 1965 my father, my younger brother and I followed my mother’s casket out of a small, rural church in Mississippi. The crisp Christmas Day air was a welcome relief to our tear-streaked hot cheeks. The sunshine as well was a Godsend.

            I was 21, my brother Carlton, 18. Our mother was 65. We thought she was so old. Actually, age 65 truly was older then than it is now, especially for a country woman aged by Southern summer suns and over 45 years of childbearing and childrearing. It wasn’t children and hard work that did her in, however. It was kidney stones.

            For years kidney stones had plagued her. Several times a year Dr. Baker Austin would come from town with his gawky medical bag to administer a shot to ease the pain from the stones.

            Our mother’s death had not been sudden. Shortly after Thanksgiving the urologist at St. Dominic’s Hospital in Jackson had told us that her kidneys were embedded with stones and that the resulting uremia was quite advanced. The closer we got to Christmas, the more hopeless her condition became. It was one of those long good-byes.

I arrived home from college to be with her at the hospital the week before Christmas. All of my older 15 brothers and sisters had families of their own, but those living nearby had taken care of her.  

            Death is one thing; dying is another. During the week of her observable dying, my mind raced back repeatedly to my childhood. As a small child I was a big worrier. Knowing my mother was so much older than the mothers of my elementary school classmates (their mothers were the age of my older sisters), I was afraid my mother would die before I grew up. The doctor’s visits to our house reinforced my fear, often driving me to the vast Bienville National Forest behind our house to cry privately.

            Please understand, but at some level I think our mother willed her death. Despite her characteristic strength and joy of life, she expressed no such bravado as “I’m gonna conquer this.” In fact, at the height of one of her worst attacks when Carlton and I were the only children still at home, she looked at us with a forced smile and said quietly,” If God will let me live until my baby boys get grown, I’ll be ready to go.”

            Her “baby boys” were now grown. With my eyes glued to her casket, I began to grieve anew, complaining to God with those oft-raised “why” questions we’ve all felt, heard, or expressed. Within a couple of hours, however, two things not only alleviated but obliterated my grief.

            The first thing was the cool Christmas Day air. As it patted my cheek it seemed to say, “Your mother was strong and you can be too.”  The second thing was the Christmas Day noon meal (“dinner”) our family shared. Our laughter and storytelling, so characteristic of all our gatherings, were not lessened by the loss of our mother. Our joy amidst sorrow was no indication of anyone’s super-spirituality. Rather, it was a testimony to the power of what our parents and pastors had pointed to in the Bible: “Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?”

            On another early Christmas morning, this time in Georgia in 1981, I drove from my home in Kennesaw to Northside Hospital, not because of a death but because of a birth. Our new, second son and last child, Reagan, had been born on Christmas Eve. Driving south on I-75 and atop I-285, I saw only four vehicles. Ah, Christmas does slow us down, I mused.

            A week later Reagan came home in a Northside Hospital Christmas stocking to join his siblings, Christy, Wendy, and Jeff, his countenance as fresh and happy as his grandmother’s was right up to the week of her dying. Reagan made this Christmas a Thanksgiving as well.

            Since even Herod the Great couldn’t suppress Christmas, I pray that no reader of these musings will ever allow life’s setbacks or man’s evil to suppress it either. The Christmas message is still the same: God put on an earth suit. Wherever this message has gone schools, hospitals, and orphanages have followed as have peace and joy to the world.

            As it turned out, my own two favorite Christmases weren’t so different after all. They both ended in peace and joy. Ever wondered, along with Elvis Pressley, “Why can’t every day be like Christmas?” We know that every day should be. The Christmas message says they can be.

            Merry Christmas! And peace to you amid any sorrow.

 

Roger Hines

December 15, 2021

 

                                  The Dying Villager

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/4/21

            In 1976 at the Republican national convention Barry Goldwater said of Gerald Ford’s opponent for the presidency, “Jimmy Carter’s future is Lyndon Johnson’s past.” This past week Stacy Abrams announced her intentions of running against Brian Kemp for governor of Georgia. For the same reasons – policies – that Goldwater was referring to, we can be sure that Stacy Abrams’ future is Joe Biden’s present.

            And what is Biden’s present? It too is Lyndon Johnson’s past. To Biden’s present and Abram’s future, add steroids. Never has our nation moved so swiftly from representative democracy to executive and bureaucratic power, from local government to the administrative state, and from capitalism to giveaway programs as it has in 2021. Hem and haw and call it what you will but what we’re talking about is socialism. What’s “in” is the village; what’s being forgotten is the villager. What’s “in” is diversity; what’s passé is freedom of speech for those who don’t embrace diversity as defined by progressive politicians, the university, Hollywood, the media, and of all things, corporations and the military. Remember General Milley?

            The waltz being performed by diversity troops and socialist true believers is a sad and dangerous one. Both groups of dancers know where their waltz leads. Many villagers apparently do not. When diversity was first mentioned, it generally referred to the effort to hire more minorities. This noble goal was soon overshadowed by the demand that we embrace trillions in giveaways, so-called equity, transgenderism, homosexuality, and critical race theory. Diversity has become tyrannical. “Think as I think,” it yells. Diversity’s claims should remind us of the old saw, “An open mind is like an open mouth. It accepts everything, rejects nothing, and becomes an open sewer.”

            Don’t be close minded. Be inclusive. Or so the progressive argument goes. Diversity today would have us to accept the welfare state and call it “democratic socialism,” an utter contradiction of terms.

            What LBJ, Biden, and Abrams all have in common is their acceptance of big government and socialism. Socialism is legalized theft. Like capitalism it is an economic system, but unlike capitalism it takes by force. It tells producers that they must surrender a particular portion of what they have produced or built so that it reaches the hands of those who have done neither.

            Socialism places the individual beneath the society, that is, the nation, the village. It imbues the village with a power which it denies the villager. To the socialist the village is supreme, thus the cry “It takes a village.” Not a family, understand, but a village. Hillary Clinton’s book of this title is about the role of government, not the strengthening of families.  The village giveth and it taketh away. And of course parents must turn their children over to the village school and then get out of the way. What do parents know?

            It’s ironic that so many socialists are wealthy. One wonders if Bernie Sanders was embarrassed when his recent bestselling book made him a millionaire. Did he give away an amount equal to what he claims we should give in taxes? Why has Congress always opted for humongous ideas like “the Great Society” and “Build Back Better” that leave villagers in the lurch, not really helping the poor, not really advancing anything. LBJ’s Headstart sounded wonderful but somebody please assess where the family stands today and tell us why youths destroyed cities for four solid months last year. How goes the village today?  What good have the billions flowing from village headquarters done?

             To fully understand socialism is to first understand the socialist. The socialist, whether sincere or a wolf in sheep’s clothing, is always a do-gooder or is playing the role of do-gooder. The insincere ones are desirous of the power socialism brings them. Does anyone think that Castro, Lenin, Mao, Hitler, or Mussolini were not socialists? Do we not remember that the UK was sinking until Lady Thatcher emerged?  Political tyranny doesn’t thrive where capitalism thrives. It thrives where tyrants seized power or where, in a formerly capitalistic country, citizens sell their souls and plop their rear-ends down to wait for checks, thus creating a labor shortage and a far less functional and happy village.

            Death is one thing. Dying is another. Many villagers around us are dying, some socially because they choose to, opting for checks in the mail rather than honorable, invigorating labor. Others are dying economically because their businesses were closed down or because the children of socialism smashed in and destroyed them.

 And that’s why it matters who will be America’s next president and Georgia’s next governor.

 

Roger Hines

12/2/21

           

           

 

           

 

                           Sixteen Reasons for Thanksgiving

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 11/20/21

            In his novel “Anna Karenina” Tolstoy declared, “All happy families resemble each other; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

            A recent visit to my hometown to see a 93-year-old sister brought Tolstoy’s sentence to mind. For an entire year, thanks to Fauci & Company., my childless, frail sister neither saw nor was she seen by any of her siblings. Finally seeing Margurette plus four more of my 16 brothers and sisters reminded me of the deep love all 17 of us have had for each other.

I’ve always placed my beloved siblings in chronological “clumps.” My oldest brother R.C., born in 1917, was a farmer, though not a life-long tenant farmer like our father. R.C. eventually had his own farm and land. Our father worked on the farms of three different “men on the hill,” never owning a handful of dirt. Unlike Paul (1919) and Pete (1921), R.C. remained in Mississippi, relishing hard labor. I admire him immensely.

            Who could blame Paul and Pete for joining the Army in order to escape the cotton fields? They had picked cotton from early boyhood. Many other Southern farm boys took the same path. Paul and Pete loved the military, despite their duty in some of the worst fighting of World War II.  Nobody enjoyed life more than they. How culturally enriched the Hines family became when Paul brought home an Italian bride from Trieste soon after the war ended. Away from her home and its Adriatic breezes, Antonia fought nobly and successfully against Southern heat and grease.

            Ida, Jewel and Authula (just call her Thula) were housewives their entire lives. I wouldn’t be scornful of the word “housewife” in their presence if I were you. Well aware of the changing culture in the late 50s and early 60s, all three of them would tell you quickly what they thought about the increasingly negative influence of Hollywood. Born in 1922, 1924, and 1926, respectively, they, like their mother, loved and served their families sacrificially. These stalwart sisters weren’t too concerned about women’s liberation. Instead of “I am woman, hear me roar,” they were more inclined to say “I am woman by the grace of God.”  

Ida was what Southern folks would often call “a mess.” Overflowing with stories and jokes, she could occasionally be slightly risqué which led our mother to cup her hand over her mouth to abort laughter and then whisper, “Ida!”

 Margurette and Minnie (1928 and 1930) comprise one of the four clumps of two. Margurette was the last sister to be a full time housewife while Minnie, a mother of three, was a Registered Nurse. Minnie married a Yankee. Funny and brilliant, Ramsey took delight in our country ways and loved coffee and laughter as much as we did. Margurette and Minnie’s love for each other always made me think they were twins.

Walter Hines, Jr. (Bub) and Durwood (1931 and 1933) comprise the fourth clump and the second duo. Bub was a businessman and then a pastor; Durwood was a mail carrier. They both told hilarious jokes and always kept up with current events. This latter habit rubbed off on me.

The remaining three clumps are the ones with whom I grew up. The siblings named above had left home and had families by the time I was born. Almedia (1935), Ruby (1937), and Janelle (1938) were as close as three sisters could be. They were smart. Because our mother enjoyed working in the garden and fields with our father, I still picture these precious sisters doing most of the household chores. Almedia became the executive secretary of the state Pardons and Parole Board; Ruby, the secretary for a prominent lawyer who ran for Governor; and Janelle a secretary for Sunbeam Corporation and later Raytheon.

Carolyn and Tressie (1940 and 1942) were only four and two years older than I yet each often seemed like a mother to me. Carolyn married a Marine and traveled the world; Tressie had a family and became a Registered Nurse.

I and Carlton (1944 and 1947) grew up under the gentle reign of Eisenhower (a hero to both Paul and Pete). Carlton graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi and has worked in banking and insurance. We’re close. “Baby brothers” have to stick together.

No day passes without one or more of these siblings parking in my mind. Our poverty was elegant, though real. Rather than turning us into rabid socialists, it steered us to call upon the God our parents loved and served. R.C., Paul, Pete, Ida, Jewell, and Durwood have left us. Their invigorating spirits have not. I’m thankful for all 16 of these incredible people.

 

Roger Hines

November 18, 2021

 

 

 

The Generals Among Us, Part I

 

                                                The Generals Among Us, Part I

                                   Published in Marietta Daily Journal 11/6/21

            In the preface to his account of World War II titled “A Soldier’s Story,” General Omar Bradley writes, “In this book I have tried to achieve one purpose: to explain how war is waged on the field from the field command post. For it is there, midway between the conference table and the foxhole, that strategy is translated into battlefield tactics; there the field commander must calculate the cost of rivers, roads, and hills in terms of guns, tanks, tonnage – and most importantly – in terms of the lives and limbs of his soldiers.”

            Bradley, the clearest of writers, doesn’t present us a biography. The book is not about him but about the big war. If his chapter 4, “With Patton to El Guettar,” doesn’t grip readers, chapter 15, “D Day, Normandy,” will. No literary or military critic should claim that Bradley “sizes up” his fellow generals; he doesn’t. He describes them and does so in reference to their decisions, their handling of crises, and their responses to strategies with which they disagreed.

            The closest to characterizing that Bradley gets is in Chapter 1, “Summons to the Normandy Invasion.” Writing his story only 6 years after the war ended, Bradley informs us that Patton has just “stormed in to breakfast.” He continues, “Patton’s vigor was always infectious, his wit barbed, his conversation a mixture of obscenity and humor. He was at once stimulating and over-bearing. George was a magnificent soldier.”

            Generals have always been a study for many people. My source of interest in them is twofold: 1) two brothers who came home from WWII with changed attitudes about race, as well as with countless stories that revealed their respect for military leaders – they both admired Eisenhower – and 2) the fact that at least three generals are my personal friends.

            What a privilege it was to re-unite and talk recently with one of those friends. Had I known Major General Jere H. Akin in October of 1980, I’m sure I would have clipped from the Marietta Daily Journal the picture of Colonel Akin at his promotion ceremony. Had I known him in 1996 I would have tried to make it to the Fort Rucker National Prayer Breakfast where the General spoke, asserting that “the majority of military leaders who have strong leadership qualities also exhibit openly a strong faith in God.”

            The General and I first met at Burnt Hickory Baptist Church just after his stint as program manager of transportation for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. Planning a network of 2,000 buses that moved close to 140,000 people hither and yon – sponsors, volunteers, athletes and all of their entourages - sounds like a challenge. Fear not. The General was retired at the time but not long enough to forget his role in coordinating and tracking the movement of more than 300,000 U.S. soldiers, their equipment, and food during Operation Desert Storm.

            The abilities that such tasks require should be admired, but there are many other qualities held by those who have reached the title of “General,” and Akin possesses all of them, qualities such as work ethic, vision, and faith. At the prayer breakfast, Akin asserted, “Faith is dreaming your dream, leaping into the unknown, and praying for guidance.”

            General Akin was born in Atlanta. He graduated from West Fulton High School and North Georgia College, now North Georgia University, one of the six senior military colleges in the United States. While there he met his future wife Gwen Payne from Carnesville, Georgia.

            Among many other assignments, Akin was twice assigned to the Pentagon, working with the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War and then the Army Staff during Desert Storm. Having served in four divisions – the 8^th in Germany, the 1^st in Vietnam, the 2^nd in Korea, and the 101^st Air Assault division, the assignments he enjoyed most were “working directly with soldiers assigned to infantry divisions.”

            General Akin has some strong beliefs about the nation’s current military leadership: “The complete harmony of Desert Storm didn’t happen in Afghanistan. I was truly disappointed with President Biden and strongly believe he should be held accountable for this total disaster.” Referring to the Congressional Hearing on Afghanistan, Akin stated, “General Milley was weak. The President and military leaders should have been working together to succeed. This didn’t happen.”

            Veteran’s Day was declared to honor men like Akin, generals or not. Moving one’s family 20 times, as the general did in order to serve his country, is no little sacrifice. Keeping foot soldiers at the fore of your mind is the mark of a true General, the kind of General my brothers and Omar Bradley informed me of.

The Joys of Teaching … or Judging the Judges

 

                                       The Joys of Teaching … or Judging the Judges   

                                       Published in Marietta Daily Journal 10/30/21

If one loves a particular academic subject or a manual skill but doesn’t particularly love and enjoy people, he or she might still find a measure of joy in teaching it. However, if one gets no enjoyment from their learners, it’s doubtful that he or she could bear up for very long in a school or college classroom.

            Here is an example of what helps a teacher bear up and bounce into a classroom day after day, year after year. In Cobb County’s Wheeler High School 1980 yearbook, seniors were asked to write a few things for which their fellow graduates might remember them. Senior Tain Kell wrote, “Likes heck raising, fun, portraits of famous generals … Dislikes 7:00 AM … Plans for the future: huh?” 

            I cannot say when and how the future Cobb County Superior Court Judge raised heck. I can only testify that he definitely raised both the intellectual and fun level in his senior English class. Along with his classmate and friend, Richard Ozment – now Doctor Ozment – the future judge could get us all very quiet one moment with an incisive comment or question, only to crack us up the next moment with a hilarious, though precise, illustration of his point. One day, to the delight of the class, the judge and the medical doctor turned on each other to seriously debate whether or not Cardinal John Henry Newman’s definition of education was accurate. The debate was a draw.

            The Kell-Ozment class was no “Welcome Back, Kotter.”  Its members were all too intellectually astute for that comparison; however, in regard to fun and sheer joy, on a Kotter scale of 1 to 10, the class was a strong 6/7. Let’s just say John Travolta would be proud.

            As for the “huh?” about his future plans, in a recent delectable confab with Kell and another former student, former GA Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Melton, Judge Kell asserted that he was interested in “The Law” from the first time he conceived that there was such a thing.” Kell revealed that as with so many lawyers, the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” had a profound effect on his desire to be a lawyer. And where lies the joy in being a judge? “I have seen people change their lives for the better” … and “have seen others exercise an almost supernatural forgiveness in unforgivable situations.”  Having taught in men’s and women’s prisons for the last decade, I know what the Judge is describing.

            Harold Melton was a 1984 graduate of Wheeler. The pleasure of knowing and teaching him came about in Melton’s 10^th grade English class. Full disclosure: the faculty lounge is where teachers often “talk about” students, but for positive purposes such as comparing notes and discussing progress or lack thereof of individual students. Perhaps as a stress reliever, teachers spend much time reveling in discussion of students who are exemplary and inspiring. More than once I heard Melton referred to as “a prince of a guy.”           

            That he was. Judge-like even while a 10^th grader, Melton listened intently. Though he stated recently at our confab that he had no interest in a legal career during college, intentionality was still writ large on his 15-year-old face. Melton was the type who, after a time of confusion about a point of grammar or about a poet or story writer’s purpose, would wrap matters up with a single clarifying sentence, the kind of sentence that makes other students utter “Oh, I see.” (All teachers need that kind of help occasionally.)

            His joy of being a Supreme Court Justice? “”It’s enjoying the role of making decisions that shaped Georgia’s legal landscape rather than being an attorney who argued and pleaded for the judges to decide in my favor.” Melton’s father was the first person to suggest he consider law school. Melton did so after obtaining a degree from Auburn University in International Business. Melton says, “Deciding cases is a weighty process. On the Supreme Court, being the final arbiter of the law adds additional pressure to the quest to be right and clear.”

            The effects of teaching are often mysterious. Did you help anyone or not? But students’ effects on teachers are just as mysterious. Most students probably will never know what effect they had on their teachers. These two men brought delight and inspiration to their teachers. I judge them worthy to judge.

            Yes, what most drives teachers from teaching is students, and what most keeps teachers in teaching is students as well.

 

Roger Hines

10/28/21

Et tu, Anglo Nations?

                              

                                                       Et tu, Anglo Nations? 

                                Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 10/2/21

            Have all the English-speaking nations  of the world gone crazy? Before considering that question, hearken back to Shakespeare’s play titled Julius Caesar. In the play a number of senators have grown alarmed by Julius Caesar’s growing power. When their planned assassination of Caesar takes place on the Ides of March, they are joined by one of Caesar’s supporters and friends, Marcus Brutus. In joining the assassins, Brutus declares, “Not that I love Caesar less, but Rome more.”

            While Caesar is being stabbed to death by the senators, he sees Brutus lift his knife to deliver his blow. Caesar stares at Brutus and says “Et tu, Brute?” (“You too, Brutus?”) Their friendship was well known.

            Recall and survey mentally for a moment the rise to prominence of the English-speaking world. Ponder how a small island nation the size of the state of Alabama became a world power as she spread her language around the globe. Ask how in 1588 the tiny ships of England were able to defeat the huge Spanish Armada, determining on that day that North America would speak English, as would many islands, small nations, and a huge continent down under. Ponder why representative democracy has thrived in English-speaking lands.

            England - later dubbed “Greater Britannia” or Great Britain - is graded differently by different historians. Most, however, credit her with generally improving the lives of all the lands wherever her ships harbored. Faulted for imperialism, Britain even so spread her culture and influence. For centuries England cradled and spread the Christian faith. Producing great leaders, thinkers, and communicators became her habit. Eventually Britain would give her empire away, still leaving England as a world power. Could anyone argue that India, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia, to name a few, are not better off for being visited, touched, even shaped by British influence?

            Much if not most of that influence has been colored and characterized by Christianity. Wherever the Christian Gospel has gone, schools, hospitals, and orphanages have followed. Wherever the English language has gone, enlightenment has followed, particularly scientific advancement. The ancient Greeks were the first westerners, but the early modern British were the chief perpetuators of western civilization.

            But how fares western civilization today? How is it different from the governance, the amount of freedom, and the pursuit of happiness in the Middle East or Far East? How should we grade the Islamic countries, Communist China, or expansive Russia? How should we grade America on the holding forth of principles such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and individual liberty?

            To borrow a phrase from fellow columnist Bob Barr, western civilization “crumbles around us.” Barr’s words are fearful, yet they size up precisely what is happening not just in America but in all English-speaking nations. We are driven to ask, “Anglo nations, are you too going the way of totalitarianism and moral relativism?” Today there is evidence we all are, not with armies or bombs but with ideologies that are anything but subtle. England is run by a Prime Minister who is conservative in name only. Canada’s man at the helm is a cool young dude without a traditionalist bone in his body. The head of the Australian government, a Pentecostal with strong religious views, is a center-right leader, yet as with all other Anglo nations, Australia teeters toward bureaucratic tyranny. In America nurses, teachers, and cops are being fired for not getting a booster shot. Don’t tell me that Covid-fear and government checks aren’t being weaponized for political ends. 

            The crumbling of the west is not only a political event but a religious one as well. Defund the Police, open borders, profligate spending, centralized government, cancel culture, and the steady intrusion of socialism are all dangerous developments, but so is the social/sexual contagion (transgenderism, gender denial, sexual “openness”) that long ago reached our schools.   Our current president is contributing to that contagion. No longer a likeable, pragmatic politician, he is a sad, pitiful puppet of the leftists to whom he surrendered. Consider our abandonment of “one nation under God,” which is to say our religious underpinnings. The loss of a foundation means the fall of a structure,

            Is a turn-around at hand? Can populist electoral uprisings halt western civilization’s plunge? Can normal working folks defeat elitist hypocrisy and the sensate craziness of Hollywood which columnist Barr so aptly described? Will another attack send us to church, at least for two months, as the 9-11 attack did? Will western nations wake up, read history just a bit, and realize what’s happening in the world?

            English-speaking nations, blessed above all others, have always been leaders. It’s time they lead again instead of caving to the lovers of Old World medieval authoritarianism. 

 

Roger Hines

9/30/21    

 

 

            Sour Notes from the Barbershop Harmony Society

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 9/18/21

            Cobb County resident Bob Snelling is a 77-year-old grandfather of six. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Snelling was a career pilot with Delta Airlines, a State Representative in the Georgia House of Representaives, and a long time Presbyterian elder. As though all of that would not keep a man totally occupied, Snelling is a former member of the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) in which he was active for over 30 years.

            Snelling delights in sharing all of his hobbies with his grandsons, including his barbershop harmony singing. When Grandson #6 became 12, Snelling took him to a rehearsal of the local chapter of the BHS, the Big Chicken Chorus (BCC), where he was immediately welcomed. The grandson soon acquired a serious interest in BCC, noting that the rehearsal times were like “walking into a roomful of Grandfathers.”

            Sadly, however, it turned out that one of the BCC members was a sexual predator, a fact that came to light about two years after the grandson began participating in the group. Abused by this predator, the grandson possessed, in Snelling’s words, “the courage to face the abuser in court.” The abuser is currently serving a sentence in the Georgia State Prison System.

            Although the predator was brought to justice, Snelling is on mission telling how his local BHS chapter reacted to his grandson’s charges. On the morning of August 29, 2019 to the complete surprise of Snelling and his family, the perpetrator arrived in the court room accompanied by three members of the local BHS. The purpose of those members appearing was to serve as character witnesses in hopes of getting the perpetrator’s sentence reduced. All three testified. Knowing well the BHS Code of Ethics and its Youth Policy, Snelling concluded that the witnesses had violated both.

            To honor his family and to respond to the blindsiding of the witnesses, Snelling filed an ethics complaint with the BHS Ethics Committee. Of particular concern to Snelling and his family was the fact that one of the three witnesses was a local high school choral music teacher. According to Snelling, the music teacher called his grandson twice during the week of the hearing trying to get him to soften his testimony.

            The BHS Ethics Committee concluded that none of the three witnesses violated BHS policy or ethics. According to Snelling, they reasoned that because the witnesses’ testimony was legal it was therefore ethical. After receiving the Committee’s decision, Snelling filed an appeal with the full Board of Directors and was disregarded a second time.

            Snelling’s take on the series of events is that the BHS enables sexual offenders and that its Code of Ethics and Youth Policy are “eyewash and no more than a paper tiger.” Also, when the abuse occurred his family received no support from anybody inside the BHS either locally or nationally. Any support given by members was for the convicted perpetrator.

            In my conversations with Snelling, a former colleague in the Georgia House of Representatives, he drew my attention to American lawyer and gymnast Rachel Denhollander who was the first to accuse Dr. Larry Nassar of sexual assault when she was 15. Nassar, the former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor, was convicted and sentenced to 175 years for his cumulative crimes. Snelling recalled how Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias denied charges made about his sexual deviancy which his ministry acknowledged soon after his death. Snellings’ point was to indicate how rampant the problem of sexual assault is.

            Snelling asserts that not only was his grandson harmed by the sexual predator; his entire family was as well, given the emotional trauma that accompanies such crimes which can last a lifetime for victims. “The BHS ignored the injuries it caused and rationalized its own lack of responsible action in not enforcing its own policies,” Snelling claims. “They demonstrated to the world that, in disregarding their own Youth Policy and Code of Ethics, the moral fiber of the BHS is not only negligible; it is non-existent.”

            In a letter to churches and businesses that host BHS rehearsals at their facilities, Snelling urged them to reconsider their relationship with the organization and to have a full and open review with the leadership of the local chapters using their facilities.

            Readers desiring more details about Snellings’ story or his complaint against the BHS can find complete documentation at http://www.bobsnelling.com/BHSStory. All of the complaint documents and the full court hearing transcript are available for review.

 

Roger Hines

9/16/21

           

 

                       Stay West, Young Man, and Labor On

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 9/4/21

            Since 1894 Americans have dubbed the first Monday in September as Labor Day. Dubbed, but not necessarily celebrated. For many Americans, Labor Day is merely another day of labor, but at the very least the so-called holiday is an acknowledgement and reminder of the laborers and labor that built and still sustain the greatest nation on earth. Work is what makes things – all things – work.

            In many lands laborers have always been looked down on. When the 300-year reign of the Romanov family ended in Russia in 1917, 93% of the Russian people were peasants. As it turned out, the new communist Soviet system was of no help. As for China, her entire history has included the suppression of the working class.

            Meaningful, joyful work is chiefly a western value. When today’s teens hear the expression, “the West,” they probably think of California or Colorado, certainly not of “western” movies. Their minds probably don’t rush initially to Greece, Rome, modern Europe and America.

            But they should. The West, meaning western civilization and the locations that birthed and cradled it, isn’t just a vague historical term. It’s an idea and ideal that has been incubating and advancing for barely three centuries. That ideal has been cherished not by China, Russia, and Iran but by Western Europe and North America. It is the belief that we can govern ourselves, that political freedom releases creativity and inventiveness, that a man’s home is his castle, that his field or workshop is his domain, and that unelected monarchs, dukes, imams, (today we must add bureaucrats) are no more favored by God than the rest of us.

            One of the West’s chief intellects was neither too educated nor too literary to work. Samuel Johnson, author of England’s first dictionary and a precursor of the work of Noah Webster, worked as a shoemaker, a book stitcher, and a tutor even while he was writing his famous literary works. As Mark Twain put it, “The western world’s first dictionary maker was never too cute to work.”

            Two recent visits to Samuel Johnson’s beloved London confirmed two of my fears about western civilization. One is the fear that western values, including the work ethic, are imperiled by uncontrolled immigration. Not that immigrants are lazy. Most of them are probably seeking work. But according to many London locals in hotels and stores and at least two newspapers, immigration has increased crime more than it has improved the work force.

            The other fear is that both America and Europe, whose roots are Judeo-Christian, are chopping off their roots. Imbedded in those vast roots is the teaching, “He that will not work shall not eat.” Corporations, especially farming companies, are neither nourishing nor promoting the work ethic when they pay immigrants almost nothing, thereby creating and sustaining an underclass.    

            Western values, including the work ethic, came to America by way of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and Philadelphia, not Mecca, Tehran, Moscow, or Beijing. This assertion is no slight of the Middle East or Asian nations, but a factual observation of the path taken by such values as individual freedom, representative democracy, the elevation of women, freedom of religion, and meaningful, productive labor.

            One could write volumes on the sins of the West, but no one can reasonably argue that the people of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are as free as Americans or as well-fed. As for the economic and religious root-chopping going on in Europe and America, it is being done by progressives, primarily in academia, and irony of ironies, by the corporate world. Universities continue to advance multiculturalism, denying that the culture that built them is exceptional.

            Those who apologize for Western values should read more of Kipling, particularly his “Ballad of East and West.” A lover of India and his native Britain, Kipling believed as did Lincoln in “the mystic chords of memory,” that is, remembering who you are and what brought you to where you are.  “Forget your folks and you forget yourself,” lanky Abe proclaimed.

            When famous newspaper editor Horace Greeley editorialized, “Go west, young man, and grow up along with the country,” he was promoting territorial expansion in America’s geographical west.” God forbid that we allow America-haters, foreign or domestic, to destroy what “the West” means in its philosophical/governmental sense and what it has done for the human race.

            Much labor and new thinking about governance and the value of the individual are what birthed us. The same things will keep Western civilization alive, but only if we truly cherish and defend them. 

 

Roger Hines

September 2, 2021

           

 

 

                           For Everything There is a Season

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 8/21/21

            If Grant and Lee could show deep respect for each other at Appomattox and if the rabid abolitionist Horace Greeley could pay Jefferson Davis’ bail, Americans today should be able to handle their political/social differences peacefully.

            But today is not a season to talk about peace. In fact, it’s time to fight. Since violence has moved to the suburbs, if an evil man with ill intentions enters my house at 3:00 AM, it’s time to fight. On a much broader scale, if domestic forces bent on transforming America continue their onslaught on America’s values and heritage, it’s time to fight those forces as well.

            The war for what America will be like within the next quarter century has been waged. It’s clear that freedom of expression is being limited like never before, thanks to the government, the media, corporations, social media moguls, the university, and now, medical authoritarianism. Regarding the latter, anyone who dares listen to any medical researchers who disagree with Dr. Fauci is considered absolute nuts. Never have Americans been as subservient as now. Never have we allowed ourselves to be so browbeaten and so driven to one perspective without allowing other perspectives voice. Never has rejection of establishment wisdom gotten us fired.

Will America, then, remain the beacon of freedom and the example of prosperity-producing economics to the rest of the world?  Is she allowing her heritage of individual liberty to be aborted by the false gods of safety and unchallenged bureaucratic wisdom? Consider the following areas in which America has slipped, largely because those who don’t like America have chosen to diminish her and blame her for sins which she long ago acknowledged, addressed, and sought to repair.

            Our nation is now being undermined by what writer Irving Kristol called “the adversary culture.” Trading liberty for safety, college students around the country are arguing against freedom of speech, opting instead for “safe speech.” Un-chastised by their stockholders, corporations have become social activists, taking positions on everything from bathrooms to race to sexual identity. We’ve all heard the expression, “Shut up and sing.” Corporations need to shut up and make money. But somehow they have become the arbiters of social justice and “sexual freedom.” You know, the transgender/binary gender/choose your own pronoun foolishness, not to mention all the corporate support given to the riot-loving Black Lives Matter organization.  

The media, abdicating their role of providing news, have become the Commentariat. The medical profession that knows better but won’t say so, yields to the nonsense of asking on its paper work for one’s “sexual identity.” Many schools that should be teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic are delving deeply into ideology, telling children and youth alike what to think, particularly about race. As for the military, what more needs to be said about its departure from its purpose than to quote the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley: “I’d like to learn more about white rage and believe our troops should as well”? 

In sports, team owners allow spoiled 20-something-year-old millionaires to disrespect the flag and put down the country that, for Heaven’s sake, allowed them to get rich in the first place.  In short, craziness abounds.

            And that’s why fighting is in order. If a major political party will so agreeably yield to its fringe that calls into question capitalism, free speech, free enterprise, and love of country, the nation’s future is bleak unless that party is denied leadership and unless ordinary citizens do certain things. The Tea Party was successful. America needs another such effort.

            What can be done? There are many things deplorable, God-fearing, America-loving, hardworking, taxpaying citizens can do, and all of them will require not so much time or effort as simply the willingness to disturb our busy lives. Here are some: vote for sure; call or write your elected officials to tell them what you think; warn/teach your children not to follow the crowd and to question their teachers or professors whenever they teach something contrary to what they were taught at home; join and/or give money (small donations add up) to organizations that hold to your beliefs including political parties; speak up more whenever social or political topics are brought up.

            Finally, be inspired by the great poem, “Be Strong,” by Maltbie Davenport Babcock: “Be strong / We are not here to play, to dream, to drift / We have hard work to do and loads to lift / Shun not the struggle, face it / ‘Tis God’s gift. / Say not, ‘The days are evil. Who’s  to blame?’ and fold the hands and acquiesce / Oh shame! / Faint not, fight on / Tomorrow comes the song.”

            Yes, fight we must.

 

Roger Hines

8/19/21

               

 

Roger Hines

8/19/21

 

                       Questions for the First Day of School

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 8/7/21

            Welcome, class, to the course on Contemporary America. You understand that to be educated is to know how things came to be as they are. Not all things, but at least those ideas/theories, people/movements, issues/controversies, and discoveries/events that have most significantly affected us.

            Let’s deal with some questions that all of us should care about. You give me your questions; I’ll give you my short answers which you can either entertain or ignore. Who has questions?

            Question 1: Is a populist revolution really occurring in America? Answer: Yes. Populist means “of the people.” Typically the word refers to the work-based, faith-driven citizens of America. Broadly, it means the middle class but more precisely it is both manual laborers and professionals, blue collars and white collars alike who, in the words of columnist Salena Zeto, have been “hidden in plain sight.” If the “silent majority” doesn’t quite fit them, we can certainly call them constitutionalists, pragmatists, and localists. In other words they want government to be limited, competent, and close to home. They are voters who in 2016 fought successfully for their cherished American ideals and won. Interestingly enough they basically come from the interior states, not the two coasts. Though they lost the 2020 presidential election, they are reshaping American politics by rightly questioning or ignoring the media and by speaking up more on all issues.

            Question 2: What is it about Critical Race Theory that the populists don’t like? Answer: Almost everything. I say almost because CRT does start with the basic truth that in America’s past, slavery and segregation were despicably wicked. But CRT adherents see racism in the heart of every white person. (It doesn’t matter that whites elected and re-elected a black president.) One of its founders, Kimberly Crenshaw, wrote, “CRT aims to revitalize traditional race consciousness.” A la Calvinism, CRT claims all whites are predestined to be racists. CRT, then, is white supremacy in reverse and yes, “the people” are standing firmly against it.

            Question 3:  Why do so many populists either question or totally dismiss all of the talk about climate change? Answer: Populists don’t always agree on this question, but consider this. Remember the term “global warming”? Why do you suppose it has been dropped? I mean, Al Gore received a Nobel Prize in 2007 for his advocacy of global warming. Uh-oh. That same year the International Climate Conference predicted that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. However in 2010 the Conference reported its own errors, asserting that this melting would not happen then.

            On a personal note, my father kept a diary from 1941 to his death in 1979. For every single day of that 38-year period (the Conference’s projection was for a 28-year period) my farmer father recorded the high and low temperature. From the diaries I possess and the others I have checked, summer temperatures were essentially the same throughout those nearly four decades . Also, in 2009 the United States experienced extremely frigid weather in February. So, since the global warming theory is void of scientific validation, let’s just say that its believers have nervously opted for a softer term, one that’s presumably more easily swallowed: “climate change.” Feel the softness.

            Question 4: You said that populists are “faith-driven.” What does that say about populists and the culture wars? Answer: Plenty. Not all populists are people of faith and neither is fake news limited to politics. For instance, consider the myth of the dying church. Check out Glenn Stanton, director of Global Family Formation Studies (global family here refers to the universal Christian church, not to “we are the world” feel good-ism). His 2019 research indicates that “conservative Biblical churches are holding strong while liberal churches are hemorrhaging members” and that “young adult attendance at Biblically faithful churches is at a 50-year high.”

            As for culture broadly, yes, the nation is awash in junk culture. Do I need to mention Hollywood’s moral drivel, ubiquitous erotic fiction (listening, Stacy Abrams?), uninspiring, even filthy music, homeless-looking dress, anti-Americanism, or increasing profanity? Even great patriot Sen. Ted Cruz cannot talk five minutes without saying “Damn” and “What the hell.” Yes, figuratively and sometimes literally (check out the name Rod Dreyer) some populists are pulling out of the culture. I beg you not to.

            Question 5: What’s happened to the Durham Report? Answer: The WHAT? Ohhh … you mean the investigation of the DOJ’s counterintelligence operation against the 2016 Trump campaign. Don’t waste your time waiting for it. There are other hills to die on.

            Oops!  The bell. Let’s pick up there tomorrow. Don’t be discouraged. You’re not alone in the fight, but fight you must.

 

Roger Hines

August 5, 2021