Oh, for a 21^st Century Bonhoeffer

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 2/26/22

            Is Atlanta close to leading the nation in crime? We’re all aware of Chicago’s crime rate, but the crime news in our local newspapers and on television became alarming long ago. What is happening?

            What’s happening locally and around the world is the loss of civility. We call it civil-ization, forgetting that civil-ization is based on civility and that when too many people choose not to be civil there can be no civil-ization. Yes, we can have the forms of civilization such as laws, police, commerce, and a governing class and still not have civilization. For instance, forget the normal, evil criminal for a moment. What if those who are being governed have begun to express in no uncertain terms their dissatisfaction with those doing the governing? What if populists – that is, the people – are fed up with the governance they’re being handed and are no longer hesitant to say so? What if, say, typically quiet parents, or truckers, or good folks without college degrees decide it’s time to organize and take action to show the governing class what they’re thinking? What if your next door neighbor who has never raised his voice leaves his house with a sign that reads “Listen to the regular folks,” places it in his car, and drives away? What if next time you join him?

            Today around the world civilization itself is at risk. In practically every nation there is unrest with either a small or a large number of ordinary citizens rising up to speak their piece. These newly aroused citizens are not contributors to incivility; they are rising in opposition to it. How many times have we heard of unrest in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, all English-speaking lands characterized by British pomp and politeness? But there’s unrest there also, all because ordinary citizens are fed up with oppressive government, particularly mandates and the government’s unwillingness to deal with crime.

            The world’s loosening civilization is twofold. Sadly the murderer and the thief we will always have with us. He or she is only one part of the two-headed monster of incivility. The other part is the governing class – mayors, sheriffs, county executives, district attorneys, governors, or bureaucrats - who scornfully disregard the cries of the people they supposedly serve.

            Commentators view the rising incivility differently. Some believe that in America the elections of 2022 and 2024 will settle much of the unrest and that the large numbers showing up at school board meetings will wane because normality has returned. For the rest of the world, pundits are not so sure. The Russian bear is showing his claws and will probably never be intimidated by our current president who is observably asleep at the wheel. As for China, according to most journalists the Chinese people are as far from true political freedom as they have ever been.

            To put it mildly, domestically and internationally nothing is going swimmingly. A fit question would be “What would Dietrich Bonhoeffer do?”

            I know. He’s not in most history books but he should be. For decades evangelical Christians have read this martyr’s books, observed his humility, and admired his absolutism regarding governmental evil and life itself. This German, Lutheran pastor hated tyranny and also believed there were some things worse than death. That’s why he opposed Hitler openly from the pulpit and from the point of his pen. He paid for his stand with his life. He was hanged by the Nazis in 1945 at age 39.

            Anti-vaxxers, traditionalists, and people of faith are not in danger of being hanged in America, but we are blind if we cannot see how Covid became a weapon in the hands of those who believe in strong governmental power. Proof of their purposes and slyness is the fact that so many mayors and governors are backing away from their firm mandates, seeing how political winds are now blowing. That doesn’t mean their views have changed. They will emerge another day with other weapons.

            Bonhoeffer did not believe in the perfectibility of man, as most liberals do, via government largesse and programs. He wrote, “Peace is confused with safety, but peace must be dared. Peace is the opposite of security.”

            If America and the European nations who once honored the Judeo-Christian ethic are to return to the God of that ethic, Bonhoeffer can help them make the return trip. Currently though, we are, as poet Matthew Arnold put it, without “peace and help for pain / And we are here as on a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight / Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

            Bonhoeffer, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

 

Roger Hines

2/16/22

           

 

                       Pronouns, Anyone? Just Help Yourself

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 2/12/22

            For 14 years I studied pronouns and for 50 years I taught them. You could say I’m pro-pronoun. Consider the annoying repetition we would have to endure if there were no pronouns. Read the following sentence and you’ll see: Bill totaled Bill’s car when Bill ran a red light.

            The pronoun issue is too serious a matter, however, to be playful about it. It’s an issue that is confusing children, teens, and young adults alike. Oh, the lengths to which leftists will go to achieve their transformative social, political, and sexual goals. Pronouns were all nailed down until maybe a decade ago. Before then, hardly anyone would have dreamed that something as specific and apolitical as pronouns would become a topic of discussion. Perhaps we weren’t reading or heeding George Orwell, that genuine classical liberal who meant it when he spoke for freedom and wrote about the potential tyranny of language. Strangely, today’s liberals are trying to limit freedom, ignoring everything that Orwell, the 1960s students at Berkley, and even Peter, Paul, and Mary spoke up for.

            Yes, pronouns are now one of the vehicles upon which social transformers are trying to hook a ride. Call it language re-set. Linguistically this is devilishly interesting. Scientifically and socially it is both ignorant and dangerous. I was taught that pronouns are a closed class of words. Unlike nouns, verbs, and adjectives which are always growing in number, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions never grow. “Pronouns are a snooty bunch that never admits new members,” chuckled the beloved Dr. Marice Brown at the University of Southern Mississippi. Dr. Brown, in order to get her doctorate in linguistics, had to endure the radical rantings of her UCLA major professor, Noam Chomsky. Chomsky was the author of the textbook we were using. He is still professing his radicalism today. I’ve no doubt that in his active old age he’s in on the growing of new pronouns.

            Surprise, surprise! University administrators and professors are leading the way in the war against our long held “sexist” pronouns. Students are following. At Kent State, the student newspaper announced as far back as 2014 that its writers “would never want to use pronouns that would make certain students feel disenfranchised,” such as “he” and “she.” That’s why “ze” and “zir,” and “fae” and “faer” are acceptable as personal pronouns for those writing to KentWired.com.  But which genders do “ze” and “zir” or “fae” and “faer” refer to? Why, whichever students wish. Freedom to choose one’s own pronouns is the point of it all.

            Please join me in crying “Dear God in Heaven!” not as a profanity but as a plea for divine help in resisting the countless aberrations with which parents of school children must now deal. Just a tad of research will reveal which and how many other prestigious universities are so concerned with pronoun sensitivity and how many are asking students which pronouns they prefer. Gone are the days of asking or being asked, “What’s your sign?” meaning astrological sign. That question is so not coo-ul. Today the question is “What are your pronouns?”

            State legislatures should be railing and stomping on this foolishness. Tax-supported universities are responsible to the public that funds them. Just as state legislatures have rightly addressed the critical race theory issue, so should they inform universities that such biological denial and semantic silliness will affect their funding. If states do so, they should expect the ire of Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign. Planned Parenthood now asserts in its literature that gender identity is “how you feel inside” and that gender is a “social construct.”  The Human Rights Campaign, the well-funded homosexual and transgender lobby group, argues that “gender equality” frees us from “the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity.” Ditching the popular mantra “follow the science,” these two organizations are denying science. Did they skip 10^th grade biology? No, they are simply denying its reality.

            Countless children are being harmed because of such drivel. The Human Rights Campaign, which enjoys the blessing and endorsement of the National Education Association, is active in schools nationwide. National Review columnist Madeleine Kearns recently wrote that “the mainstreaming of youth transgenderism means children as young as five are being taught they may have been born in the wrong body.”

            What are parents to do? Get to the next meeting of their board of education, for one thing. Stay informed of what their children are being taught. And support all board members who haven’t lost their minds.

 

Roger Hines

February 9, 2022

           

           

           

           

           

 

           

 

 

                         A Growing Coalition or a Dying Idea?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 2/5/22

            What do truckers, welders, plumbers, farmers, electricians, mechanics, bricklayers, miners, oil drillers, and cops have in common? For one thing they’re the ones who keep the country running. They’re all essential workers.

            Well, maybe not cops. We must not need cops too badly. If they were essential, Democrat mayors would not have caved to the Defund the Police madness. But those mayors and others who caved are now seeing the error of their ways. With no help from the President and the Attorney General, the citizens of Chicago, Portland, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and many other Democrat-run cities are finally making headway in bringing attention to unparalleled crime. Cops are essential. We should convey our appreciation to them whenever we get the chance, even if they have just handed us a speeding ticket.

            What do Canada and the USA have in common? A few things stand out. They are both representative democracies and they are both currently governed by leftist, progressive leaders. Canada and the USA both have an out-of-power conservative party, the Tories and Republicans, respectively. Interestingly enough, both countries are experiencing the undeniable rise of populism.

            Ah, populism. That dreaded prospect faced by the tyrants or elites of every land. That rising up of common folk who have had enough of kooky ideas, mandates, gender ideology run amok, the war on parents, the notion that whiteness equals racism, neglect of due process, the outlandish claim that one’s sex is an option, social media censorship, cancel culture, and general condescension from those running the show. In America they’re called deplorables. Currently in Canada they’re called truckers. The Canadian truckers who made their way to Ottawa from every corner of the nation weren’t operating from a sudden impulse. Their protest was not birthed by but was fed by a disdain for their national government’s shutdowns brought on by the coronavirus. Our reticent neighbors to the north are no longer reticent.

            Resistance to Covid mandates was preceded by another different reality, a restlessness among the working class that was building among American and Canadian workers. Donald Trump did not create America’s restless army of workers. He recognized it and stepped up to lead it. Call it a peasant’s revolt, an awakening of nationalism, or whatever we wish, the restlessness was real and its restless members were numerous enough to elect their candidate. In large measure the divide that resulted was a divide between urban and rural America, between Peoria and Silicon Valley, between America’s workers and the managerial elite.

Two well-known conservative political writers, Salina Zito and Victor Hanson, foresee the outcome of these developments a bit differently. In her book, “The Great Revolt,” Zito, syndicated columnist for the Washington Examiner, expresses optimism for the populist winners of the 2016 presidential election.  She subtitled her book “Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.” As her subtitle suggests, the political involvement and influence of working Americans, most of whom were energized by Trump, is here to stay primarily because it was always bigger than Trump.  Hanson, professor of classics at California State University, titles his more recent book “The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America.” Hanson foresees defeat of the newly energized working class, arguing that open borders and the concept of “global citizenship” is turning us into non-citizens. “Citizenship,” he asserts, “exists within delineated borders wherein there is allegiance to a particular place.” What was once the Americanization of the globe, Hanson declares, “has ended up as the globalization of America.”

The great divide that Zito and Hanson are addressing is not actually political. It is based on class. At the heart of both their books is the belief that the American worker is being slighted. That belief is defensible. Members of Congress give more heed to the “Super Zips,” (zip codes of the well-to-do) than to working America. Neither of our political parties actual lays claim on the white working class. Under Trump’s leadership the white working class became a Republican constituency, but given the way political winds blow, how long will that last?

As for how Zito and Hansen swing, I’m reminded that Hillary Clinton did poorly with the working class in 2016, particularly in the Midwest. Go back over a half century before that. How surprised Democrats must have been when FDR and Truman’s leadership through a depression and a world war was forgotten and Republican Dwight Eisenhower was given a spectacular victory.

Nothing in politics is permanent, but working class voters best remember these two eternal truths: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” and “Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.”

 

Roger Hines

2/2/22

           

               

             

           

 

 

                              Language, Corporate Politics, and Tyranny

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 1/29/22

            Beware whenever the government, the military, corporations, universities, and school systems start re-naming things. They’re up to something. We’re not talking about branding, updating, or trying to make things more productive, or more appealing. We’re talking weasel words and slippery phrases that hide true meaning or true intent. Examples abound.

            Most of the re-naming going on today is done mainly for political purposes, that is, to sway people one way or the other ideologically. Ostensibly, much of it is said to be for achieving “equity,” a weasel word often used for sneaky purposes. Notice that “equality” is no longer cool. “Equity” is the word of choice.

            Corporate America’s involvement in newspeak and political ideology is a strange occurrence. Corporations used to exist to make money, thereby creating jobs and in most cases improving our lives. No more. Abandoning their duties to shareholders and companies, CEOs have of late been involved in pure politics. Not content with pleasing customers and increasing profits, CEOs have fallen for what is “woke,” another one of those new verbal atrocities which I have used here for my first and last time.

            A case in point: In 2021 Georgia enacted voting reform. SB 202 was a commonsense measure. But it wasn’t good enough for good ole Coca Cola and Delta, not to mention JPMorgan Chase, Apple, American Express, and dozens of other large companies that collectively announced their opposition to the legislation. As every Braves fan knows, Major League Baseball pulled its All-Star game from Georgia because of the voting law. Sports figures and owners are also telling us what we should think and believe.

            In a memo to employees, Delta CEO Ed Bastian wrote that Georgia’s Republican Legislature “used the excuse of voter fraud to make it harder for under-represented voters to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives.” And what is the new name for this corporate practice of our business elites? Oh, it’s “social investing.” National Republicans didn’t wait very long to defend the Georgia legislature. Florida Senator Marco Rubio labeled Delta a “corporate hypocrite,” pointing out that Delta is “business partners with the Chinese Communist Party, raking in billions of dollars in a country that doesn’t even have elections.” 

            The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel asserted that corporations are bending to Nancy Pelosi’s will. “Corporate America is now throwing its lot in with the Democrats. It will be a long time mending fences with Republicans – if that’s even possible.” Time will tell if Strassel is right and if shareholders will fall for “social investing.”

            Re-naming is not limited to the corporate world. Educators everywhere are awash in it. Interestingly enough, educational re-naming began decades ago. One of the first was the mish-mash, catch-all term of “social studies,” a term that included but also diminished history, placing it with subjects far flung from the study of the past. Are history and “Family Living” in any way related? How about history and even sociology? For the 51 years I taught English, the high schools called English “Language Arts.” The colleges I taught in, thank goodness, called it English.

            Another broad and very sneaky term embraced by many school systems in the 70s and 80s was “values clarification.” Many parents objected. But how could parents object to schools helping student clarify their values, the proponents asked. Parents answered by pointing to the book, “Values Clarification,” by Sidney Simon in which Simon writes, “Young people brought up by moralizing adults are not prepared to make their own responsible choices. Values clarification tries to help young people build their own value system.” Wow! What, I ask, are parents for?

            The culture at large is being swamped but hopefully not boondoggled by weasel words and re-defined ones.  We all know what an “undocumented worker” is. It’s doubtful that thinking people would fall for “birthing people,” a supposedly preferable term for the supposedly sexist “pregnant woman.” No longer are we to say “husband” or “wife.” The correct term is “partners,” thanks to the LGBTQ lobby.  The ubiquitous “reproductive rights” is almost laughable. How is “terminating” a baby “reproductive”?  It’s the opposite.

            Tyranny is defined as severe, oppressive power. Those who would mislead or attempt to achieve their goals with deceptive words are linguistic tyrants. Words are powerful. Words are the dress of our thoughts. No wonder Mark Twain said, “Use the right word and not its second cousin.” No wonder Noah Webster, in order to simplify British English for a frontier people and to clarify language for his homeschooled children, wrote our first dictionary.

            Yes, tyranny abounds and the tyrants’ weapons are not always guns. Fitfully, they are often just words.

Roger Hines

1/26/22