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
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